Facebook (love it or hate it) is where people are.
Facebook continues to be a vital part in (most of) our daily lives.
The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 92% of people using social networking sites maintain a profile on Facebook.
92%!
If you are developing a social media marketing strategy, you can’t ignore that number.
However, just because Facebook is such a behemoth doesn’t mean you get to ignore the rest of the Social Media Court.
The Social Media Court includes Twitter as the Queen, LinkedIn as the Prince and Pinterest as the Princess. (Instagram and Tumblr can be dukes.)
Social networking sites remain vital to people’s online life and behavior. And this behavior is only growing.
In September 2009, a Pew Internet survey found that just 47% of online adults used social networking sites.
Compare that to today, with 69% of online adults — representing more than half of the entire adult population in the United States — actively using an online social network of some kind.
On a typical day nearly half of all adult internet users access a social networking site.
In terms of Facebook, most current users plan on using it the same amount in 2013 that they did in 2012.
However, one in four did say that they plan to cut back on their Facebook usage this year. Most of those respondents were young adults ages 18-29 (38% of Facebook users).
So where are they going to spend their time?
Most likely with the rest of the Court – Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and more.
This is not to say you immediately need to chase after every shiny new object, or that you must dilute your time and your message while spreading yourself too thin on many different sites.
I am saying that you need to pay attention to your target audience and your online community.
They may be happy to stay on Facebook. Or they may be migrating.
The important thing is to pay attention and to follow them where they go.
Don’t ever assume you can get your audience to stay where you think they should be.
Where do you spend most of your social networking time? Which site is your favorite? Please leave your thoughts in the Comments section. Thanks for reading!
photo credit: Durotriges via photopin cc