Facebook and Hashtags

So Facebook have finally caved in and have decided to use hashtags.  For me this was an inevitable move, with the ever growing popularity of Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr and the recent numbers of Facebook users either staying steady or even declining in some areas, it was always going to happen. 

People have been complaining lately that Facebook is becoming too spammy, with unwanted adverts taking up a lot of timeline space and with paid posts gaining popularity over everybody else, a lot of people have jumped ship to Twitter and other social network giants where they don't feel pestered by large companies to buy their products they have no interest in.  Numbers have decreased for activity for Facebook which is of course a major worry so it is of no shock that a change so drastic has come about, not to me anyway.

I wrote in my last post (before any of this came in to effect, I might be psychic, who knows) about why I believe Twitter can be better for small businesses when it comes to gaining a wider reach and hitting a wider audience.  One of the key reasons for this was the brilliant features of the hashtag and the retweet, as these two combined allow you to tap in to conversations with millions of people who aren't following you, and hopefully engage them enough to do so, or at least grab their attention.  It seems that Facebook have finally cottoned on to this fact and implemented the hashtag in order to keep themselves at the top of the game.

Twitter is also widely used as a search engine with a massive 2.1 billion queries being posted in their "search" box every single day, on a personal level I have always thought that the Facebook search feature could be improved by changing it from searching for specific people or pages, which even then can be buggy and faulty, to news pieces or current events. It should be (and will now be) used exactly like this, to find out about news and events like Twitter.  I think this is great because I know that I use Twitter a lot more than I use Google when I'm searching for current events or news stories as it not only gives you the facts, but it gives you the opinions of everybody in society on what's going on, something other news outlets fail to do (which is reason I feel that social media is taking over news websites/papers, but that's another blog post).

I think the hashtag implementation is a good move for Facebook as it keeps them in the running as the top dog of social media, the stats would argue that they are absolutely flying and unstoppable, but with the rise of Twitter I think that Facebook really does have to fight for it's place at the top right and changes like these will make a huge difference.  I also think this is great for users as it increases competition between the sites and therefore (hopefully) increases functionality and benefits to the social media users.  A lot of people are doubting the change and calling it pointless but I have a feeling they will be using the feature as much as anybody else, and I can't help but think that Facebook have put this off long enough, and that Mr Zuckerberg must be kind of annoyed that he didn't come up with it first, I know I would be!

Twitter vs Facebook, which is best for small businesses?

We all know that Facebook has a lot more people on it than Twitter, with the numbers recently going over 1 billion members for Facebook and over 500 million for Twitter, for this reason it makes it very easy to sit and say that Facebook is obviously better because more people are on it, however I don't think this is the case at all.  I think that Facebook is better for personal users as it creates a world of you and your friends in the same place online, where you can have a look at what's going on and everyone you know can see what's going on with you.  However for businesses pages it's hard to get "likes" unless you have a really obviously interesting product, and I feel that Twitter is a more open place where people want to interact.

Hashtags and Retweets

For me, a key reason for Twitter being superior for business is the brilliant hashtags and retweets, you can reach thousands upon thousands of relevant people with the right hashtag and by attracting the right people to retweet your material.  Great examples of hashtags for businesses where I am based (Middlesbrough, UK) are #NorthEastHour #TeesTime and #ClevelandHour, these places can be hashtagged and thousands of businesses and customers can come together to take a look at businesses and people from the area.  This can increase your follower numbers easily and bring together businesses and people who wouldn't have been able to come together anywhere else. It's like a huge networking event where everybody wants to talk to each other.

Following, Followers, the private world of Facebook and annoying adverts

Another great way to gain followers is by following others, with Facebook you give someone a like and you rarely see a return of the favour, with Twitter it's almost common practice to give users a "follow back" meaning that the more you give to Twitter the more you receive.  People still see Twitter as a new thing, so are really happy to network, the thing with Facebook is it's almost become real life for a lot of people, so they feel like it's a personal thing to talk to someone they don't know, Twitter is a brave new world where people are up for talking and are interested in what you have to say!

With Facebook the only people you can really reach without looking spammy and writing on people's walls (which has recently changed so when you do post on someone's wall it doesn't show up on their wall for long it goes in to a small box nobody really looks at)/commenting on people's statuses promoting yourself is the people who take the time to click Like on your page, this, in a time where people are careful about what they are seen to actively "like" means that less and less people are taking the time to bother.

Another thing that bothers me with Facebook is the fact that adverts are becoming so popular, I watched the film "The Social Network" the other night where Mark Zuckerberg says "adverts aren't cool", which is very true! But now we see posts being paid for and being given priority over everybody elses, we see brands buying space on our Facebook home feeds even without us clicking like on them, how are small businesses meant to compete with that? Facebook is a free tool which is brilliant, but the adverts that are creeping in are making it difficult to stand out, heightening the importance of Twitter.

Overall

It's clear that Facebook is a brilliant tool to market your business, it would be stupid to argue that a free (for the most part) place where over 1 billion people congregate is a waste of time, the time we live in is dominated by these social media giants with almost everybody in western civilisation possessing a Facebook page they update regularly.  I do believe that Twitter is on the rise though, and if you are struggling to get Facebook interest in your product or page, give Twitter a try, it could really help your business in a big way and if you get in to it you will definitely feel the benefit.

Facebook Charges

Facebook have recently decided that a good course of action would be to charge people to message others who they aren't "friends" with.  I first saw it advertised with regards to spamming celebrities and I thought this service was exclusive to people with a certain number of friends or who we could consider to be famous, but after someone tried to message my dad and it was going to cost them 72 pence, I realised it applied to everyone.

Now on the one hand it does stop spammy messages which are annoying to everyone, but what does it encourage? From a business perspective it seems a bit of a stupid move by Facebook, if I was to send a message to someone I didn't have on Facebook, odds are I have them on LinkedIn, Google+ or Twitter and I would simply message them on one of those services, direct competitors to Facebook, or who knows even give them a phonecall.  It could also lead to an increase in friends, which sounds like a good on paper but in the world of Facebook, a lot of people would oppose this.  People who want to message you are much more likely to just add you as a friend rather than pay Facebook however much it costs to send you a message and I know a lot of people who like their friendlists and keep them neat and tidy with, you know, people they actually know. 

On the other hand of course some sort of regulation toward Facebook messaging is to be expected, with LinkedIn having certain requirements before being able to contact a person (you have to know them or have to have worked with them at some point), and Twitter having the rule of having to be followed by somebody to be able to private message them, Facebook had nothing like this, well now they do.  Also I think it is worth mentioning that if someobdy has gone through the effort of paying to be able to message you, the recipient is definitely going to read that message, making them more important and a bigger commitment than a Twitter message or LinkedIn one.

While understanding the reasoning behind the move, I feel that it could have been executed better, the idea of handing money over to message people does reinforce the idea that Facebook is it's own world that a huge proportion of the world is a part of. Maybe Facebook are so confident in their power that that doesn't matter to them and they feel they can get away with charging money for messaging people because they are in charge and people will do it regardless?  People take money more seriously than accepting a request on LinkedIn or following a person on Twitter, this to me, is one of many reasons for Facebook's popularity and power.  It is more real and people live their lives in it and now it seems that real life and Facebook life is overlapping even more, and perhaps moulding in to one.