Facebook dying? Only if you’re a sleezy marketeer..
So apparently ‘people’ are getting bored of facebook, reverting to simply using twitter, or giving up on social media altogether. Who are these people and why are they not enjoying facebook?
Facebook is not built for marketeers
Sorry guys, facebook wasn’t built for you. It was built for people to socially interact with their friends. I don’t market myself or my brand on facebook I just chat with my friends, colleagues, family etc.
It’s like an answer phone for instant messaging!
Using facebook for marketing is a bit like blogging on a topic your not interested in, purely for profit, it’s not interesting and more often than not you get bored and give up pretty quickly.
Should marketeers use facebook regardless of who it was built for?
I strongly believe that for any marketeer it would be a mistake to ignore facebook. Firstly, there are a few groups where marketeers/SEOs/webmasters etc. hang out and discuss things. Facebook Whores for SEO, SMO and SEM Awareness where you can chat to and build up relationships with other like-minded individuals if you’re so inclined.
Another reason to embrace facebook is if you work with clients who either already have a brand name or are trying to build one up. Strategic use of facebook as a medium for brands to talk to consumers is clearly going to be beneficial for both parties. One of the ways this can be done is through facebook pages. These are essentially sponsored profiles on facebook that allow a brand to reach out to fans (or haters) and interact with them.
There are also many unofficial groups centred around brands that marketeers should be aware of. They can paint a positive or negative picture of your brand depending on the nature of the group. It is important to keep tabs on these as you should be of the web in general as part of your reputation monitoring strategy.
For marketeers who don’t work for big brands there is also facebook flyers/advertising/whatever it is officially called now. Essentially, you can advertise down the sidebar:
Or you can advertise in the news feed or users:
These adverts can be target to specific categories of users but I’m not entirely sure of the exact specifics
There did seem to be a lot of talk of the facebook ads performing really poorly. I assume it varies on a campaign by campaign basis but I’d say it’s worth checking out, at least some people are having success.
Facebook is much more suited for people interested in social interaction
While facebook is certainly going to be more interesting for people who use it for what it was meant for, keeping in touch with your friends, it’s still a service you cannot ignore as an internet marketeer. There are so many ways it can be used, from brand building and reputation management, to advertising/affiliate marketing, to simply building relationships with other industry contacts.
Don’t ignore facebook, it’s not going away any time soon!
P.S - Don’t worry I don’t actually think you guys are sleezy marketeers ;]
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January 21st, 2008 at 2:20 am
Nice to see similar blogs appearing from students in and around making money online.
Will keep an eye on this one
January 21st, 2008 at 2:25 am
Cheers, yours looks quite interesting too.
January 21st, 2008 at 2:29 am
Heh. Maybe it wasn’t built for marketers, but it’s damn good at making money if you know how to manipulate it properly.
People who give up just aren’t thinking enough.
I’ve had to take breaks on occasion, but ya can always find something new.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Nice to see, thanks!
I`m bee back 2 this blog!
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:14 am
[…] What! The end of Facebook? Yes. Facebook is going to bite the big one. Contrary to what Adam Taylor says, Facebook IS dying. […]
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
@SlightlyShadySEO: I’m sure there are creative ways of raking some serious cash through facebook but I guess the more traditional marketeers aren’t aware of the tactics, don’t really have any ‘real’ friends on facebook and so just give up on it.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Social networking sites are being bombarded by marketeers practicing SMO gone wrong. I think such sites as Facebook are great places to build relationships, but only if, like you said, you do it by finding like-minded people and posting interesting stuff.
*sigh* I just got started on Twitter last month and I am already regretting it because of marketeers who have not taken your advice and attempt to bombard their tweets with posts every minute of the day! Argh!
March 17th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
People are also realising that social networking should really be named ‘anti-social networking’, i.e. that it is not high quality social interaction (hopefully this is obvious, e.g. no tone of voice, or body language - and emoticon’s can hardly represent the full range of human emotions).
I got obsessed with FB for a while, but in the last couple of months I have reverted back to just using my phone. People seem more excited to hear from each other with a phone call than a dead social medium such as email or FB.
My social life has improved so much such ditching ‘anti-social network’ sites.
Also FB has become polluted with annoying app’s. Fun at first sure, but eventually VERY tiring and boring. FB is a fad, it will die. The user interface changes have also irritated a lot of people.
The user interface is clearly polluted with junk, also there are too many types of communications, wall, super-wall, notes, links, blah blah blah. A lot of information is lost in it’s counter-intuitive and foggy user interface. FB will be dead in two years (my prediction).