“Facebook is for old people”
I don’t think it is any secret that Facebook has had a bit of a tough stretch lately.
Between lawsuits, congressional hearings, and all sorts of other bad press, they have lost the confidence of a lot of people in their user base across the country. This lack of confidence has also translated over to the world of business where I am starting to hear the question more and more:
“Is Facebook still relevant?”
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a good question. With channels like Instagram and TikTok dominating the attention of a younger demographic, it’s tempting to completely throw Facebook aside and focus your attention elsewhere.
In my opinion, that would be a HUGE mistake.
Reason #1: Facebook users aren’t THAT old… and they have the cash!
Much has been made of the statistics around the aging user base of the Facebook platform. As we sit here today, the largest group of Facebook users is between the ages of 25 and 35 with the 35-44 age bracket not far behind. While yes, these numbers do show that the average Facebook user is much older than the other popular platforms, this is actually an ADVANTAGE for businesses.
With a mature audience comes a mature life-stage, and with a mature life-stage comes something very important for your business. Disposable income.
Cash. Money. Moola. Dough.
That’s right, Facebook users can actually afford your services, they make buying decisions, and most know how to use the platform pretty darn well. All this adds up to an audience that is profitable and technologically advanced enough to purchase right through the app.
Reason #2: Despite all that bad press, the user base is actually GROWING
While Facebook has almost completely reached growth saturation in the United States, it is still keeping pace and growing at a decent rate throughout the world. In fact, Facebook added a million more monthly active users in the US in Q4 of 2018, showing that the platform is still going strong!
Reason #3: Facebook advertising is still a great tool to reach a LOT of people.
Now with all that being said, Facebook does have a little bit of a news feed issue at the moment. Between all your friends and family, companies, events, the marketplace, and all the other features, there is very limited space for you to show up organically. Luckily, Facebook has one of the best advertising platforms that make it easy to reach your audience.
Now this “pay to play” thing is a big negative for some, and I get that, but it really doesn’t take much to get your content seen by a lot more people than just those who like your page.
Now, the cost of Facebook ads has been on the rise recently, so all of this could change pretty drastically in the near future, but as of now, you can reach a lot of people for not a lot of money using their advertising platform.
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So if you are looking for the short answer here, it’s yes. Facebook is still an extremely relevant platform and we recommend that you keep Facebook as a big part of your strategy. While you are going to be tempted to ignore it completely, it can still pay out massive dividends for your business to be active and create the content of Facebook.
Because this old guy says so 😀