Royal Bank of Scotland:World’s First Bank to Use Facebook at Work

[Corey Dutton]

There are companies that actually want their employees to use Facebook at work. Facebook’s newest reach for another stream of revenue, cleverly named “Facebook at Work,” is a business version of its social media site that is essentially a workforce communication tool. So why would a bank want to experiment with a business version of Facebook?

RBS hopes to leverage its employee’s familiarity with Facebook in a secure, closed medium. According to the Financial Times, the goal of RBS with Facebook at Work is to improve overall communications among the company’s approximately 100,000 employees. During its pilot testing phase with Facebook at Work, the bank saw increased efficiency among teams, faster response times in its customer service, and many other positive results.

And what is the business model behind Facebook at Work? Currently Facebook at Work is free, but paid subscriptions are available that integrate with other business tools. Instead of an ad-based revenue model, Facebook at Work is based on service subscription revenue. Look at the success of so many other SaaS companies that are offering monthly or annual subscriptions for their services and have billion dollar valuations. It’s no wonder Facebook so badly wants to get in the service subscription business.