Facebook is a popular way for businesses to network with other businesses and potential/current customers, but there have been many signs in the last few months that Facebook is becoming less popular.
Sure, Facebook has over a billion accounts, but are they actually being used? It looks like each profile is quickly becoming an online ghost town.
Thankfully, Facebook isn’t the only social gathering place worth visiting.
Facebook’s for Your Mother
Remember how MySpace was the place for young, hip Internet users? Then, everyone and their mother realized how cool it was and joined up. A club is only as cool as its members, and soon, teens and 20-somethings moved on to a more exclusive club that only the cool knew about: Facebook.
Nowadays, everyone has jumped the velvet rope, and the Facebook club is looking more like a family reunion. It’s kind of hard to post pictures of your latest late-night debauchery when your mom is likely to see it. Consequently, GlobalWebIndex reports that teen usage of Facebook is down 35 percent.
But Even Your Mother is Quitting
Mom may have just joined the Facebook party, but it looks like she’s leaving pretty quickly. A survey held by Marie Claire magazine found that 36 percent of their readers had a New Years resolution to delete their Facebook accounts in 2014. Marie Claire is predominantly read by 25 to 49-year-olds. Yep, mom’s out, too.
So Now What Do You Do?
If you use Facebook for marketing, this is bad news. 8thBridge found that users interacting with Facebook brand pages was down 27 percent.
From a marketing point of view, it is best to go where the crowd is going. You aren’t going to get any marketing traction on a site that is losing active users. It’s time to get caught up in the mob and be swept to the newest social media site.
Right now, there is nothing hotter than Instagram, Vine and Pinterest. From a marketing perspective, Pinterest is the hot ticket. It is nipping at Facebook’s gold-plated heels with 70 million users.
With 500,000 business accounts, retailers seem to love it, too. 8thBridge found that 62 percent of retailers used the Pinterest button instead of Facebook’s like button on their site pages. Why? Retailers have found that if you have a great image or graphic, people will pin it and share it like wildfire on Pinterest. Even small businesses have had success with this marketing model.
Also, if you already have a great image, it is simple to pin it to Pinterest and then post it on Instagram. It’s a really easy marketing process when compared to coming up with a clever post to attract people on Facebook and then tailoring another post for another social media site.
Here are some quick tips for using Pinterest:
- Stagger your posts. As with other social media, too many posts at once can aggravate followers.
- Only use bright, clear photos and graphics.
- Make sure you’re not just posting photos of products. A great idea is to get users to post photos of themselves using your product. You can also post images of places where your product can be used.
- Turn on your Twitter and Facebook sharing options so that every Pinterest post shows up on your Facebook and Twitter feeds. No need to neglect them while trying a new social media site.
It may be time to jump off the Facebook party bus before it runs out of gas. Pinterest seems to be the new celebrity that everyone wants to hang out with, so creating a winning account is a great marketing strategy. It will make you do a little happy dance thanks to its simplicity and popularity.