Is Facebook overrated?
I know. I know. There would be many out there who would be aghast at my suggestion. Almost blasphemous, I must admit. I would like to remind everyone that my interest in Facebook is limited to how I can use it to promote my site, promote my product and services. Not to play games or poke others.
Sometimes I feel that Facebook is a juvenile exercise which is fit for teenagers and like. But I am bombarded with information regarding its membership, which is currently hovering around 140 million, and wonder if I am off the mark (by a mile) Still, I have a feeling that the membership figures are exaggerated. I have created at least five profiles on Facebook and use them for different purposes. Maybe not everyone has five profiles but you get the gist of what I am getting at. Moreover, how many profiles are active? This is an important question which seems to get a muted response. Traffic, demographics , clickstreams are some factors by which we can judge a website. To get a refined, or shall I say, a complete picture I turned to Alexa. If you guys have not heard of Alexa , you must do so forthwith. It is my primary tool to analyze big sites like Facebook. So what do I find?
Traffic wise, it stands fourth. Great. This means there are only three other sites with higher traffic. 29% visitors are from the US alone. All this proves that Facebook is a crowd puller. But wait .Things get a bit sticky when we delve a bit deeper: I looked at the bounce rate or percentage of visits to facebook.com that consist of a single page turn. And what do I see: 12.5% simply come to Facebook and leave without clicking to another page. When you consider that 10% of visitors come from Search engines, there is a feeling that around a quarter of visitors is just onlookers and not active participants. Still a great crowd puller.
By this time many would be wondering what I am getting at. I said at the beginning that my interest is in finding customers for my product. For this I had to dive deeper into the statistics. I looked into the demographics and what do I find? The age group from 18-24 is grossly overrepresented at Facebook as compared to the overall internet population. Age group 25-34 is overrepresented and the age group above 34 is underrepresented. The conclusion is obvious. If I am selling to the young generation, Facebook may be the place to look for them. Some may argue that the internet itself is a young generation thingi. Hmmm……..I have nothing to say for that. The demographics also reveal that college graduates are overrepresented and school dropouts don’t find Facebook very interesting.
The best part is the browsing location. Those browsing from office are overrepresented which is something we all know for a fact.
That’s a lot of number crunching, I must admit. Overall I come away feeling that too much time on Facebook may not be as productive as we may imagine. The success rate of attracting customers from Facebook will generally vary from product to product. The population in Facebook is certainly not homogeneous. These are issues we may have to ponder and deliberate upon. As a internet marketing consultant, I would recommend Facebook as a suitable platform on case to case basis. Certainly it is not for everyone.
Social sites like Facebook have changed the way we interact on the net. The owners of such websites have managed to captivate the minds of people albeit the younger lot. Facebook is no longer a website but a brand. It has millions of visitors from diffused demographics. But the hype created has far surpassed the actual utility of such websites. It I like so much water in an ocean but none of it is drinkable. How do I capitalize on its huge membership? Can I figure out my return on investment? I think these questions need to be answered before we can call Facebook a viable platform for selling . The writing on the Facebook wall is still not clear. Till things become clear, I will use Facebook to poke some fun at others.
Can Facebook be used for brand building and public relations? I will look into this in my next post.
Hai,
This is steve and iam new to this seo field. I have a new site and i want to build more traffic for hoe can i do this by using Face book .Plz tell me some tips
I cannot wait to enjoy a book more of this great topic. So much of it Ive never even talked about. You sure did put an innovative twist on something that Ive heard very much about. I dont believe Ive actually read something that does this subject of the same quality justice as you just simply did.