So it wasn’t surprising to read in the Sunday papers that there might be “the first tentative signs that the attractions of Facebook may be peaking”.
But just how tentative are the signs and should we be worried that time spent exploiting the Facebook network for alumni relations might be wasted?
Not very worried at all! Last month 100,000 fewer British users logged on to the site. Not a small number, granted. But at the time of writing there are 29,773,240 UK profiles on Facebook.
Were Facebook scanning the Sunday newspapers over brunch the words of Mark Twain might have been appropriate… “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”.We know how the British media loves to sensationalise and never more so than with a phenomenon like Facebook which is rarely out of the headlines – whether for it’s own misdemeanors (such as recently introducing facial recognition technology in the UK without notifying users) or the misdemeanors of others (such as the pitiful case of the woman juror jailed for eight months for contacting a defendant via the social networking site).
Reports of Facebook's demise are especially premature given that the network has yet to begin exploiting the earning potential of the data it is gathering from the use of the Like button …and what about the likely impact of the investment it will make after raising up to $100 billion in a stock market floatation, rumoured for Spring 2012? (This will follow the success of the LinkedIn floatation last month, when its IPO price doubled).
Facebook remains one of the most ‘sticky’ web experiences online, and is working hard to stay that way. The news feed on the Facebook home page is constantly updating users on news from their friends, family and favourite Facebook Pages, and Facebook’s photograph storage and sharing functionality, perhaps the most popular feature on Facebook, continues to rule supreme over other photo sharing sites.
As reported on Mashable, a record-breaking 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over the 2011 New Year weekend alone. Currently over 6 billion photos are uploaded each month on Facebook and it is estimated that 100 billion photos will have been uploaded to Facebook by mid-Summer (2011), compared to 8 billion on Photobucket, 7 billion on Picasa and 5 billion on Flickr. (To better understand photo usage on Facebook see the helpful graphic at: www.photoweeklyonline.com.) Inevitably 100 billion photographs on Facebook will represent one massive family photo album that most Facebook users will find hard to discard any time soon!Another important factor in the future popularity of social networking and digital communications is the spectacular rise in smartphone sales, providing a much better user experience online, any time. According to Ofcom, smartphone sales now account for at least 64% of all phones sold in the UK and about 75% of the phones Carphone Warehouse sold over the three months to January 2011 were smartphones.
Given these factors, it was surprising to learn that the ‘Industry Insider’ quoted by the UK's Sunday Times (19 June 2011) as having said “Facebook has shot its bolt” doesn’t work for a completely different industry! Apparently he is ‘a partner at (an) online marketing agency’ but we would be astonished if he and his colleagues are not daily recommending Facebook advertising to their clients, as we are.
Facebook's advertising tools are incredibly powerful - how else can you quickly and inexpensively target people by age, sex, location, interests etc anywhere in the UK, or worldwide?! Not forgetting all the cool stuff Facebook will be launching over the next 2 years to help with more effective campaign management and targeting.
That said, Alex Burmaster (European Internet analyst at Neilsen Online) is right to point out that people are gravitating to smaller sites (but in relatively small numbers): “…real growth potential lies in the niche networks – those based on a particular lifestyle or interest, such as travel, music, wealth or business".Whatever the pessimistic forecasts of newspaper headlines and carefully selected ‘Industry Insiders’, the fact that a slight drop in user numbers in one month can prompt a full page article and an Editorial comment in the Sunday Times is amazing, and evidence enough of Facebook’s influence. Even if the number of Facebook users in the UK halved this year it would still represent a considerable resource, and that’s not going to happen!
Meantime user numbers are growing rapidly elsewhere, with nearly 12 million new users in May worldwide, bringing the total number of Facebook users close to 700 million. Facebook is growing especially rapidly in developing countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and Mexico.
User fatigue is inevitable and our enthusiasm for logging in and commenting online will wax and wane, as I have experienced myself with my circle of friends. But inevitably other factors play a role too, such as the time of year, weather, work commitments, exams, holidays etc.
Journalists writing sensationalist articles with headlines like ‘Dropping Facebook’ will often begin by introducing someone who is "reluctantly" cancelling their profile… but there are always going to be people leaving Facebook and other social networks for any number of reasons, often because they haven’t learned how to set their privacy settings to ensure the kind of user experience they want - a case of user’s blaming the tools not themselves! (And of course the media rarely report the drift back to Facebook by those who left it so publicly.)Certainly there is an argument for better education of Facebook users in how to adjust their privacy settings and also how to customise the way their Facebook friends access their profile and receive their status updates. If you really don’t want your parents or colleagues reading what you got up to at the weekend then simply customise what they see, rather than abandon Facebook altogether in a desperate attempt to flee the apron strings!
It could be argued that alumni associations could take a role here. If promoting an alumni Facebook Page(s) to alumni it might be helpful (and responsible) to provide some basic guidelines on Facebook privacy etc on a 'social media' webpage which could also promote and explain the alumni association's presence in various social and professional networking sites etc.
Certainly anyone working in alumni relations should ensure they are well versed in how to use Facebook (see our digital alumni relations training seminars!) and Schools, Colleges and Universities could do more to train staff in how to use Facebook appropriately.
As reported in the article “10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media” on Mashable, a number of Institutions are doing this successfully and in turn discovering another way to ‘add value’ for their alumni: “…to help its alumni learn how to use social media tools, MSU’s Alumni Career Services office gives tutorials and presentations about how to use social media for a plethora of purposes. Isbell from MSU said the office has done some 25 presentations, engaging 25,000 people – usually piggybacking at events for alumni groups”.
Facebook will not be joining Friends Reunited, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, MySpace and other fallen social networks in a downward spiral any time soon. Together with Google, Facebook will continue to reign supreme for years to come, not least because there is no alternative on the horizon, not on the same scale or with the same reach to family and friends etc. (Twitter is a different platform with different applications, and user numbers seem to be stabilising at about 5-6 million in the UK, a sixth of Facebook’s user numbers.)
The LinkedIn professional network remains strong too, with rapid growth from the 20 million user numbers I was first quoting in training seminars a few years ago to over 100 million now.LinkedIn holds detailed, current, searchable career information on alumni and group functionality too, enabling easy association and networking between alumni. Following the huge success of the LinkedIn Corp IPO on 19 May 2011, with the share price skyrocketing to twice the $45 IPO price, we can expect considerable further investment in the networking platform.
The Xing professional network has also recently introduced improvements to its platform and also has potential for alumni networking.There is no doubt about the potential for Facebook in alumni relations. Invest the time, effort, energy and resources necessary to exploit Facebook fully and you will be well rewarded now, and you will be better prepared to exploit the next revolution when it does arrive.
Any strategic plan for alumni relations, fundraising and development should have Facebook at its centre, alongside the other key website applications of value, such as Google, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Underpinning all your alumni association's social and professional networking should be its own alumni web presence… as important now as it was 10 years ago …and as important as it will be in 10 years.
You own and control your webpages/website and it should be the foundation for all your online/digital communications activity. Your web presence will still be there when it’s just possible Facebook will have been eclipsed by the next big idea… fluffy bunny avatars in the virtual world 3D Internet anyone?? (Try www.secondlife.com and www.there.com.)
[BOOK NOW: OMTAC provides training in how to fully exploit Facebook, LinkedIn, XING, Twitter and other social and professional networks, micro-blogs, digital channels and platforms, email etc – book your place(s) now at: http://www.omtac.com/go/alumnirelationstraining]
*** PLEASE COMMENT AND/OR EMAIL US WITH YOUR EXPERIENCE, INSIGHTS AND IDEAS - What's your perspective on the use of Facebook and other social and professional networks now and in the future for alumni relations? Did the negative press cause you any concerns or difficulties with sceptical colleagues? ***
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