Facebook: One Social Network to Rule Them All
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 3:04PM The social media community is constantly talking about what's next. Brian Solis wrote earlier this week about FriendFeed becoming the next great conversation platform. There are countless conversations about twitter as a must-have for marketers and businesses, and as Mashable points out, it has seen massive growth in the past year.
You know who else has seen massive growth? Facebook, which now has two times as many unique visitors as MySpace. At this point, I barely know anyone under the age of 35 not on Facebook, and I am regularly being added by friends' parents and relatives I haven't heard from in years.
Facebook still rules as the top conversation platform, and here's why.
People value their friends on Facebook more than on any other social network. And the reason is because it is more personal. Most Facebook users know every single one of the people they are friends with -- from high school, from college, from working together. And in that time they interacted, they shared enough personal interaction that they trust those friends to be in their network.
Facebook, not twitter, is the biggest microblogging platform in the world. It may not be the most active, but the Facebook news feed, then the brilliant addition of comments on that feed, makes every user a microblogger.
Facebook is more interesting. Most people would rather read and watch what their friends are posting on Facebook than digest a heavier conversation happening elsewhere. It's the same reason I read the Google Shared items from my friends before I read any other feeds. I want to know what my friends are up to before delving into the rest of the noise out there.
Almost everyone you know is on Facebook, and only a few of them are on twitter or FriendFeed. Try posting your twitter name in your Facebook status and invite people to follow you. Your friends that are on twitter are already following you, and the rest haven't figured out the point of twitter.
Conversations on Facebook are real and genuine. And it is because the real people-to-marketer ratio is still appropriately intact. The walls that Facebook has put up to protect their users, although often lamented by advocates for an open web, have gone a long way to protect users from the "look at me" marketers on twitter.
So what does this mean? Facebook may not be as sexy as it used to be and it may not be where the early adopters are playing. But it is where the most active and genuine conversations are occurring with people that the users trust most -- their friends. Marketing with social media is about trust and conversation, and Facebook still has the most of both.
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Reader Comments (7)
I agree with virtually every point (except for that most people 'know' everyone on their friends lists).
That being said - depending on your company - the other platforms can provide more returns. Of course, that's thinking from a business perspective....
Absolutely. Audiences each have their niches. Facebook is an ideal platform for consumer marketing. But IT audiences, for example, aren't playing anywhere near Facebook. They are in smaller niche social networks far from Facebook, twitter and FriendFeed.
My overall point is that if you are looking for the most comprehensive impactful social network, it's not where the early adopters are. It is where everyone else is.
comprehensive I agree with - impactful....eh...
For everything you mentioned, it really takes a lot to really "market" on Facebook. For Crocs, I want to evolve Facebook into something of a communal place - like a community center. Through FB, you can then advertise/market your presence in OTHER areas and your community will be attracted to whatever niche they are. Through that - you can offer more direct interaction and conversation that actually SPEAKS to the customer. (sure that's technically marketing - but it's more indirect than most companies try on FB) Of course, we're not there yet - but that's the goal. FB is the community center - a place to put notices up for specific niches that will allow better, more desired interactions....
I concur, I haven't really tried it out, but honestly I don't understand the point of twitter. It's the same as Facebook status updates as far as I'm concerned. Of course, with the presidential election and whatnot, it seems like the media have really attached to it.
As from a business perspective, it's pretty hard to put a business value on any of it. How much is facebook really worth to businesses? What is their profit? If they have this many people spending this much time, how much more popular do they have to get before they'll become popular?
As a generalization, online has managed to kill/is killing most profit-making forms of free/cheap entertainment that can be owned by corporations (OTA TV, Newspapers, etc). It's replacing it with alternatives which, while awesome are marginally profitable or like 90% less profitable. It's not a matter of news moving online - at the same time, the profit is gone.
At the same time, people aren't that sticky. I was thinking given how embedded facebook is what would happen if they started charging. Yeah, it would be a PIA to move your "story", but I think people would just slowly move off.
Great comment, Mark. You raise a lot of good questions.
A lot of people don't understand the point of twitter, and that's the reason that it's not yet a tool that's seen the type of adoption that Facebook has. It's a short blogging and conversation tool. From a business standpoint, the value for organizations is that they can easily engage with people talking about their organization. Not all business are taking the conversation route at this point, but more and more are trying out this approach.
In terms of Facebook's business value, it is tough to say, but that is the existing challenge of any social/conversational media. It is tough to quantify the value of people talking about your organization, but there is value in it. They key is to drive those conversations into measurable action.
Re: your comment on profitability. That's definitely a challenge that even the most successful online destinations are facing: how to be profitable without disrupting your user base. A lot of companies are actively trying to solve this challenge.
Oh, but I am a fan of Sriracha (Red Rooster Hot Sauce). Man, that stuff is awesome. ;-)
btw - good related article...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335678420235003.html