There’s been a lot of innovation and imitation in social media. Facebook has been the leader for a very long time (all things being relative in the world of social media). When new innovations have been brought forward by one network similar features have been mimicked or improvised on other networks. Some say that the imitation game is really a failure to innovate.
Recently Russel Davey penned an open letter to Facebook that was anything but congratulatory. He even suggested that “it’s time to let go”. He has several salient points that really add meat to his suggestions, drawing on legitimate research showing that the trendiness of Facebook has reached it’s high point and that it is decline. The facts are that Facebook is arguably at the market saturation and areas of innovation are being occupied by nimble newcomers like Snapchat. Facebook-owned Instagram, has been another tool used to innovate or imitate new features spread across various upstart networks.
As I see it the real question is not whether or not Facebook should give up to make room for other networks. The question at hand, as I see it, is do we have enough time to devote to multiple networks that give us different ways to engage? Today we bounce between different networks to communicate in different ways. We use Instagram to communicate with simple images in stylized ways…engagement is over simplified which isn’t terribly conducive to conversations. Twitter allows for simple and fast communication but isn’t really effective for deep conversation. Google+ is too conducive for conversation and little else. Most of this information, however, really only applies to individuals and their consumption, not businesses and their communication, which is where my interests lie.
Business users need to be where the people are. That is still unarguably on Facebook. It still captures the greatest number of eyes and interaction even if that lead is diminishing. What cnctNOW does for clients is make sure they are prepared when Facebook inevitably changes dramatically or goes away a la MySpace. Don’t abandon a network until your audience has abandoned it. If you serve youth 13-20 Facebook is useless for you…if you serve anyone above that age group you need to be on Facebook. If you’re looking for a quick audit of your social media efforts or a free consult contact us.
