Anyone not into the whole "social thing" feel like they are missing out?

If you are a marketer and you aren't trying to use Facebook in some way, you're like a professional athlete not spending any time in the gym.

C'mon, that's not true. Would you say the same about AdWords or any number of other marketing channels? There are tons of business models that don't rely on and/or would benefit very minimally from Facebook.

I'm the first to admit these social sites present a lot of opportunity (as I did in my OP) but they certainly aren't needed or important in a lot of cases and I'm surprised by your blanket statement about Facebook.

Without all of these social sites you are hoping and praying that the SEs bring you free traffic. These are new ways to bring free traffic in.

Not sure if serious here. Surely you aren't suggesting that social sites and search engines are the only ways to get traffic LOL. I get hundreds of thousands of visitors a day to my sites and don't use either.

Free traffic? Free traffic is nice and all, but most serious businesses have advertising budgets and don't rely on free traffic. It's great that things can "go viral" a lot easier these days with all the social sites, but I know dozens of people who have made millions online and only 1 of them did it with "free traffic" (and this was a few years ago before the social site craze).
 


Anyone who calls organic search traffic "free traffic" doesn't have a fucking clue about organic search traffic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: iPwnNoobs
Many of my real friends and family are spread around the world so Facebook is a really great way to keep in touch. I won't write emails, send messages or call them but I'm still interested what they are up to. Facebook let's me follow them in a kind of passive way. And then when we meet once a year or so it's easier to quickly pick up the subjects to talk about.

That and the whole marketing aspect that's been talked about above.
 
The most annoying thing about social media is the rise of these "Social Media Experts" who think since they spend like 8 hours a day on Facebook and Twitter that they know how to do anything. This is especially laughable for all of us that actually advertise on Facebook and make money to see these charlatans running around claiming they know something.
 
Many of my real friends and family are spread around the world so Facebook is a really great way to keep in touch. I won't write emails, send messages or call them but I'm still interested what they are up to. Facebook let's me follow them in a kind of passive way. And then when we meet once a year or so it's easier to quickly pick up the subjects to talk about.
This thread is really going off in all directions now but I just had to comment on this lol

You won't "write emails, send messages or call" your "real friends and family", but you follow them on Facebook? No offense but dude that's fucking sad and pathetic. And unfortunately very common.

Ultimately it's not Facebook's fault ... but it's a sad state of affairs ...

The capitalist pig in me wants to capitalize on this stuff, but on the other hand I just don't know if I want anything to do with it. You youngin's might think it's all fun and games but as lukep said, if this shit continues the future is bleak ... the sheeple are all turning into anti-social zombie robots.
 
You won't "write emails, send messages or call" your "real friends and family", but you follow them on Facebook? No offense but dude that's fucking sad and pathetic. And unfortunately very common.

lol, I knew somebody would pick up on this. Nothing sad about keeping in touch with people one way or another. Some people writes emails, some pick up the phone, I prefer to communicate via Facebook. Cool?
 
It's "cool" if you want to live that way, but overall no it's not cool. It's actually really really bad. Only people of your generation might think it's cool.

Devolving is the right word lukep ...
 
C'mon, that's not true. Would you say the same about AdWords or any number of other marketing channels? There are tons of business models that don't rely on and/or would benefit very minimally from Facebook.

I'm the first to admit these social sites present a lot of opportunity (as I did in my OP) but they certainly aren't needed or important in a lot of cases and I'm surprised by your blanket statement about Facebook.

I'm not saying you can't do marketing without using Facebook in some way, what I'm saying is that it puts you at a disadvantage to not try and market to some of their 500 million users. I'm not even a Facebook proponent saying this - I hate Facebook, but the reality is they have the largest marketing platform in the world.

I'm also not talking about using a personal Facebook account to post affiliate links to your friends - I'm talking about the countless other ways to use the platform or their technology to market to people. Also, not to sound like a broken record, but do some research on their Open Graph and what that will mean for the future landscape of the Internet and marketing in general.
 
I'm only on Facebook, although I don't go on it often. It can be useful, from finding weed, to finding people to go with to a festival, to meeting up with someone you haven't in a while. (wow that sounded like a sales pitch)
 
It's "cool" if you want to live that way, but overall no it's not cool. It's actually really really bad. Only people of your generation might think it's cool.

Devolving is the right word lukep ...

Man, you are taking it too seriously. Facebook is just another tool, one of many means to keep in touch with people you care about. If you don't like it, don't use it, it's as easy as that.

But this thread is about using FB for marketing purposes. So to answer your original question, yes, if you don't use FB to market your stuff you are most likely missing out.

It's a great place to find out how people spend their time on the internet. For instance I had no idea so many people would act upon an article on a technology blog which reports about a new virus spreading on the interwebs. The author tells them to install better anti-virus (with aff. link, of course) and spread the message among their friends. Pure win.

Why not just start using FB, follow what people do and use this information to design an application for them (or whatever it is you do).
 
I like Facebook OK, it's good for keeping in touch with long distance friends/acquaintances. But Twitter, I do not like, even though I do have an account. I can't keep up. Tweets come and go faster than a speeding bullet! If you read something and leave your computer for a nano-second....it's a mile down the line and you'll never find it again when you return!
 
I don't do the whole "I'm taking a shit right now" kind of updates. In fact, I rarely even post anything, especially to Facebook. I have those "friends" that are super annoying and think that they need post what they had for breakfast that day. Most of them are hidden in my news feed because it is annoying. The worst is people who hate their lives and feel the need to tell all their Facebook friends about their drama for that day.

The best thing I did was just go through my friends list and delete people I don't really talk to much. You know, the people you might see at a bar and will say "hi" to and maybe have a couple minute conversation with. It keeps the noise down and limited to people you actually care to know about what they are doing in life. If you don't add everyone who friend requests you I think you can keep it manageable.

The only thing I really use Facebook for is a core group of close friends from high school. We have a group message we all share to talk about when were going to get together and to coordinate and keep up with shit. It is way easier then calling, texting, or emailing because everyone sees the message at once.
 
Man, you are taking it too seriously. Facebook is just another tool, one of many means to keep in touch with people you care about. If you don't like it, don't use it, it's as easy as that.
Of course that's what you'd think... A very shallow opinion that reeks of inexperience. For your information; those of us that realize where the future is going simply DO NOT use it. We don't like that future.

But this thread is about using FB for marketing purposes. So to answer your original question, yes, if you don't use FB to market your stuff you are most likely missing out.
I am still not ruling out using facebook Ads (and the open graph) and would certainly not scold any marketers using facebook for that purpose. To make money you gotta sell to the biggest herd.

But crap man, this job just went to hell... Because the herd used to be something AROUND you, and these days it's way, way beneath you and you can only smell the manure from this altitude.


It's a great place to find out how people spend their time on the internet...spread the message among their friends. Pure win.
I see you're still down at that altitude though; so while you can still stand the smell down there I applaud you for taking advantage of it from within. Use that edge as long as you can.


What I said earlier about Facebook (and all social media, really) being the biggest step to date in our devolution was not drama, nor overkill. There may be bigger steps later, but nothing in our history has put so many people in such a position of total mindlessness before. Not even close. -Video games were the last step, TV was an even bigger step before that.

Unless you get hit by a bus you will see exactly what I mean in your lifetime.

The techno-zombies are coming; and they are all WaFo users at best.
 
I use facebook less than most of my friends. I enjoy working online but I like living normal life offline more than most. With all the time I spend on my computer, I really enjoy going out and living 'real life'.
 
I go on Facebook maybe once a week if I'm drunk/bored. I got rid of twitter after like a couple weeks. I have a linkedin profile I never log into.

I'm not too big into the social media stuff either.
 
One of the things I did this xmas break was delete almost all my 'friends' on facebook. I'm down to about 15 now mostly family.

I started just blocking updates from a lot of people but this is much better. Last nite I deleted all the queued up event and app requests that I've ignored for months.

Agreed that almost every status update on FB is either bragging or complaining. I don't know if FB has uncovered faults in human nature or just encouraged this kind of stuff but it was depressing to see even what I would consider friends post the kind of banal stuff they did.
 
i like to act conceited on facebook, but i'm also conceited in real life, so that makes it ok i guess.
 
finspin said:
Man, you are taking it too seriously. Facebook is just another tool, one of many means to keep in touch with people you care about. If you don't like it, don't use it, it's as easy as that.

Of course that's what you'd think... A very shallow opinion that reeks of inexperience.

Yeah man, he's so shallow for using facebook to keep in touch with people he cares about, what a shallow tool. /s

lukep said:
There may be bigger steps later, but nothing in our history has put so many people in such a position of total mindlessness before. Not even close. -Video games were the last step, TV was an even bigger step before that.

Unabomber.jpg