Social media giant Facebook is now officially operating in Israel and has hired a Tel Aviv based PR firm to attract Israeli investment and software developers.
Facebook recently hired Israeli PR Company Shalom TELAVIV Public Relations Firm to serve as the social network’s media advisor in Israel, with the aim of expanding Facebook’s operations within the Jewish state. According to the company website, “Shalom TELAVIV’s mission is to provide comprehensive communications management targeted to meet our clients’ business and organizational goals, based on a deep understanding of business and marketing strategy together with a strong emphasis on creative thinking.”
Yedioth Achronot reported that Facebook seeks to strengthen their marketing in Israel in order to enhance their status as a favored platform for developers of applications and games. Already, Facebook claims that five out of the social networking sites ten fasted growing games were developed by Israelis. While Facebook has reached out to Israeli developers in the past by hosting conferences in Israel, this marks the first time that Facebook has reached out to Israel in such a public manner, preferring in the past to keep Facebook’s Israel connections lower key. Facebook also seeks to increase the number of Israelis marketing and advertising on Facebook, as well as to maintain the influence of Facebook among the Israeli population.
Two Israeli Facebook employees based in Ireland, Elad Brindt and Nimrod Halevi, are tasked with marketing the company’s ad tools in Israel more aggressively. Both Brindt and Halevi have made a number of trips to Israel, meeting with large Israeli advertisers to convince them to increase their advertising on Facebook’s homepage in Israel. If the marketing efforts succeed, Facebook might expand its Israeli operations and even open up an office in Israel, although that is not on the table at present.
Another aim of Facebook is to maintain its brand names among Israeli users. With over four million Israelis active on Facebook; the influence of the social networking site within Israeli society is expected to further expand following these developments. The decision of Facebook to upgrade the company’s presence in Israel comes in the wake of Facebook’s collaboration with MASA (a joint media platform under Nano10), which exclusively sold ad space on Facebook, ended.
By Rachel Avraham, staff writer for United With Israel
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