We’ve had some interesting discussions recently on the Clearly Conveyed Communications Facebook page. (If you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look and let us know what you think!) One of them this week was, coincidentally, about Facebook.
Is this social platform behemoth living large or dying a slow death? Facebook’s certainly been in the news a lot lately, and I came across an article from our friends at MediaPost entitled, Vine, Instagram: Hit It And Quit It, that made a strong statement.
“Facebook sucks unless you’re over 40.” -Karl Greenberg
That’s a strong statement but is it true? The article goes on to say, “Young people don’t use Facebook anymore. It’s too complicated and takes too long.” That thought is from Bernard Glaser, who heads the marketing operation at Mercedes-Benz U.S.A. While MB has a *few* friends on Facebook (1,766,687 at the time of publication), the company’s actually trying to move more of them to Instagram.
CCC’s Experience: A Case Study
Initially, we really struggled to gain traction on our Facebook page, which is frustrating. It definitely lags behind some of CCC’s other social platform presences (linked at the end of this post). However after much time and effort, we’re starting to increase our Facebook community as well as their engagement. Engaging with other pages (and page owners) is so important as well as posting content that’s intriguing to your specific fan base (oh, at the right time). We’ve really found the new and improved Insights tool to be a big help in determining our strategy going forward.
For all the advice, statistics and studies available, it really comes down to your specific audience(s). For our page, we’ve found that text updates (generally questions or tips) receive the highest reach while pictures pull in the most engagement. Links typically offer the lowest reach and engagement; however, the last link we posted generated much better results in both of these categories.
We’ve also discovered our best times to post throughout the day and have been varying our posting times more to see which types of updates resonate the best with our fans at different times on different days. In a nutshell, popular advice on content and posting times may be a good place to start, but dig deeper into your audience’s specific demographics to really tailor their experience on your Facebook page.
Your Experience
So, is Facebook in your company’s social media plans? Why or why not? Also, who is your target audience(s)?
As a consumer, do you use Facebook? What are your primary reasons for using it?
Despite its current status as the largest social platform (by a wide margin), do you think Facebook will ever become extinct?
Drop your thoughts below to continue this interesting discussion or head over to the discussion on the CCC Facebook page.
You may also be interested in our other Facebook posts.
Photos courtesy of:
Wikimedia Commons (Facebook Like Thumb and Facebook Dislike Thumb)
Mercedes-Benz U.S.A. Facebook page (#CLA Take the Wheel Instagram Contest)
Clearly Conveyed Communications Facebook page (Insights Tool)
A dual Facebook user (for business & pleasure),
Jaime
clearly conveyed communications 
Very much alive. Until someone knocks Facebook of it’s throne, Facebook will continue to dominate for the near future. The demographic on Facebook is getting older, but that is good for my business, and we are getting great results from our use of Facebook, and the ability to only advertise to specific locations and demographics. Google+ has not shown any traction, and Facebook is really the go to place for people to interact with friends and family.
We use Facebook more for branding than anything else. Interaction is welcomed, but it is not our main goal. That may be surprising, but we have found people want to see what we do from the periphery, and Facebook is a great way to do this.
Being able to advertise in the news feeds has been a win for marketers and Facebook as well, especially monetarily.
Will Facebook go extinct? It’s hard to say. They have to stay aggressive, and probably should use their capital to scoop up any competition the pops up. It is their game to lose.
Great read Jaime!
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Love your thoughts, Lance! Facebook is so large at the moment and making moves to stay at the forefront of social media. Whether you agree with some of their recent moves or not, the company’s being active about its future. I love your comment about Facebook skewing older being good for your business. I think that’s true for a lot of us. Besides, just because teens and tweens are into certain things now doesn’t mean they’ll be drawn to the same things when they’re 30. Frankly, I was a little surprised at MB’s rush to lure this market.
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