The Fear of Facebook

I have almost bored myself talking about Facebook at the pub, in client and internal meetings even with my girlfriend about those ex's who I'm 'friends with'. It's a permanent fixture in my life. Way back when I too began with 'Facebook Fever' frantically running home to check my wall or to see which blast from the past has added me today. Avidly exploring friends networks and image galleries. However I now admit I rarely check it. I now officially suffer from 'Facebook Fatigue'. Was it the mass of useless applications. No. Was it the 'sudden' realization that it's, heaven forbid, an AD-SUPPORTED NETWORK (Like 99.9% of everything else on The Web). No. I have just lost interest. I like to socialize once again in the traditional sense.

Now if the media is anything to go on I am a growing WAVE of people dropping off the platform. Like all the other platforms before e.g. Friendster. However this just isn't the case. The general public still love Facebook. They recieve 30.6 million unique users (September 2007) a month with membership growing not declining by the day. It's not just the amount of users that's killer it's the length of time they spend there, an reported 28 minutes a day, with an average of 2.3 visits a day. Making it gold-dust media property and justifying Murdochs move.

It may be true that a small number of early-adopters, those of us who have been using Facebook for a good while now, have moved on. However our type are by our very existence transitory, defined by the fact we are always looking for the next Facebook moving away from 'the popular'. And a group Facebook no longer has a need for its already been discovered and has moved firmly into the pop. Introducing some people into serious usu age of the internet (previously just email checkers and Googlers). Some professionals prefer Linkedin but there is little yet to seriously replace Facebook as far as Joe Public is concerned. My fanatically digital eye is on mobile social networking giving geo-relevance and context to my digital communications and socializing. Currently being pioneered by people like Buddyping here in the UK. But do Facebook care!

My point is whilst I don't use it much a lot of people do. Their new ad system 'Beacon' finally makes use of all that profile stuff and turns it into ads that will finally convert (Previously there was reported ad-blindness with poor conversation rates). Everyone is running around screaming foul-play we gave your our entire identity and expected you to not doing with it!?! Well how about the fact that you have always seen ads they were just never relevant now they are. So shut up and carry on enjoying your free social networking platform.

So I hope by now if you are my client you get that just because I or you might not personally enjoy Facebook you need to be there. So that Beacon thing means now we can just buy media space, like we use to, rather than those sanzy but expensive, $60k minimum spend Sponsored Page's. Well no still people don't really go to look at stuff or buy it. If they want they go to Money Supermarket. They go to Facebook to communicate with other people. So you need to do the scary thing and start a conversation about your offering. Yes I know its scary. What if they something bad. Well yes they might. But if that's the case they are already doing it and you don't know its happening so you can't answer it or better have your advocates answer it for you. If you need the metrics to argue for that sponsored page setup a free Facebook Group or Network and get creative, start the conversation. Get the Comment and Member figures then commit the money and Facebook is here to stay!