Learning Outcomes
Describe the primary use of Facebook
Started in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. With over two billion subscribers, Facebook has, arguably, every conceivable type of message and audience is within reach. However, it is important to note that younger generations are beginning to move away from Facebook, favoring platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat.
As is the case with all social media, Facebook primarily serves to connect people, which makes social media platforms ideal places for companies to connect with their customers in a way that feels personal.
Pampers
Everybody knows (or has heard) that having a baby is a lot of hard work, full of tough and unpleasant jobs such as changing diapers. However, babies are also pretty darn cute: just check out the social media feeds of any new parent. Instead of focusing on their product (diapers), Pampers instead focuses on the babies.
Figure 1. Pampers Facebook page
In the “About” section of Facebook’s brand pages, Facebook provides stats on how responsive different brands are. You can see that Pampers uses Facebook as a place to engage with their customers and that they typically reply within a day (Figure 1). They also encourage engagement with their posts by inviting parents to share photos of themselves with their babies:
If you scroll through the Pampers Facebook page, you can see parents interacting and sharing stories of their children, which boosts Pampers’s reach without Pampers putting in work beyond that initial post.
Whether you belong to a multi-billion dollar global company or a smaller tech startup, Facebook is clearly useful for a variety of organizations. As you watch the following video, note how vlogger Amy Landino recommends starting a Facebook marketing campaign.
One of Facebook’s greatest tools is its ability to share posts from other social media sites: you can share YouTube videos, you can set up your Instagram account so your posts are automatically cross-posted to Facebook, and you can link to any other site on the internet.
Learn More
Check out this article, 8 companies doing social media right and what marketers can learn from them, on Marketing Land’s website to see, as the title of the articles says, some companies who are doing social media right. In particular, check out the profile on Staples’s use of Facebook.
There are, of course, downsides to using Facebook. As we mentioned earlier, younger individuals tend to skew away from Facebook, so you might not reach them on this platform. Additionally, many people have liked so many pages and have so many friends that your brand’s posts may get lost in their news feed. Perhaps most critically, there have been recent concerns over Facebook’s misuse of data as well as its data security, so it’s possible the platform will make changes or that users may shift away.
Practice Question
When considering Facebook for your business communications, you should consider the above parameters and adjust your approach accordingly. It’s probably worth arguing that your company should be on Facebook to some degree, but depending on your target market, and how you like to communicate, other venues might be better options. Also, as we mentioned, you can integrate other social media, especially YouTube and Twitter, into your Facebook efforts. In this sense, Facebook may be a hub for your social media activity, even if it’s not where most of your customers can be found.
| Table 1. Pros and Cons of Facebook as a Social Media Platform | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
| Massive audience | Concerns over misuse of data |
| Mature ad and messaging options | Younger demographics can find it passé |
| Various features and methods to create and disseminate communications | So much messaging may hide/weaken the uniqueness of your message |
