There may well be over a billion active monthly users on Facebook1, but the social networking giant is going through a phase of change that’ll affect how businesses conduct their social media marketing efforts on the platform in the future.
What’s Changed?
No longer is Facebook a parent-free haven for raving teens and 20-somethings. It’s no longer a place where the young go to hang out, have fun, get drunk and share embarrassing photos. Nope, Facebook has matured and is now brimming with these teen’s, moms and dads, and even grandparents.
We all know that kids enjoy hanging around with their parents as much as an insomniac enjoys the sight of the clock striking 3 a.m., and having your outraged mother commenting on your picture of a phallus-shaped turnip with a “stop being so rude and take this off!”, doesn’t do much for your street cred. So the teens and 20-somethings are heading to cooler, trendier, parent-free places2 like like Instagram (hence why Facebook bought Instagram), Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter3, leaving Facebook to mature. So what does that mean for the future of marketing on the network?
The Facebook Marketing Future
Well, this will depend on your business, your products, services and your target market. Those looking to sell cool, innovative and fashionable novelties to the younger generation will see their Facebook efforts begin to falter, especially if Facebook keep shoehorning those brands into paying for ads, which those of the younger generation that are left on Facebook, are hard-wired to ignore.
However, those that market products and services to a more mature clientele could see Facebook marketing pay-off for them today and more so in the future. The older generation of baby boomers and the fleeing teen’s parents that are beginning to find their mortgage-free homes empty of once-needy children, have plenty of spare cash floating around the bank and plenty of free time to spend on the network. All that time, attention and money may well be up for grabs for the right business.
Back to Basics
The Facebook marketing game is certainly changing and, as the network begins to reach maturity, it’ll be less about being cool, ‘going viral’ and being innovative and more about keeping it simple, doing the basics well and reaching the right people with the right product at the right time. Isn’t that what marketing has always been about?
Some things never change.
References
1 http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/01/29/facebook-passes-1-23-billion-monthly-active-users-945-million-mobile-users-757-million-daily-users/
2 http://business.time.com/2014/01/15/more-than-11-million-young-people-have-fled-facebook-since-2011/
3 http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-where-the-fleeing-facebook-teens-are-going-2014-1