The Four Good Reasons to Use Facebook for Social Media Marketing

In our book “Social Media Marketing Workbook 2016”, the author Jason McDonald begins Chapter 2 by listing off four good reasons as to why Facebook is an amazing place to begin social media marketing. I thought for my book blog this week that I would name these reasons and give my personal input on why I agree they make social media marketing easier.

McDonald’s first reason as to why Facebook is a great place to start is that is it “the largest social media platform, with over one billion active users and countless profiles, Pages, and groups.” At first, I was surprised by this number, thinking about how vast the population on Facebook really is compared to other social media sites. However, after a minute I realized that I wasn’t that surprised. From the moment Facebook became a popular site when I was in elementary school, I knew it was going to be huge. Everyone used it—how was it going to be possible for people to function without it? Yes, there are still people that don’t have Facebook, but everyone I know that doesn’t have one still uses it by googling Facebook profiles. It has become such a useful site, it’s easy to see why so many people in the world have an account.

His second reason was “once you understand the dynamics of Facebook…you’ll more easily understand the dynamics of other social media”. When I read this, it really made me think. Facebook had been my first social media account, and I tried to think about if I would’ve understood the other social media accounts I got later in life like Twitter and Instagram if I hadn’t known how to use Facebook so well. I don’t think that I would have, because Facebook taught me the basics, what is and isn’t appropriate to post online, how to instant message people, and how to interact with others through the site. These skills really came in handy when I got a Twitter, because Twitter has a few differences that make it more difficult to understand if you don’t already understand social media.

McDonald’s third reason pointed out the usefulness of the Facebook component Edgerank, which “rewards you for posting items that users interact with (as measured by likes, comments, and shares)”. I have barely gotten a chance to use Edgerank, but after completing the Facebook Analytics assignment for class, I feel like I have a basic understanding of how it works, and I can easily tell how useful it could be to a social media marketer. The more you know the reactions your audience has to certain posts, the better you can plan your best marketing strategies to get the most engagement with your audience.

The final reason that McDonald listed was “Facebook is fun!” and “social media marketing should not be thought of as a chore, but as a way to get closer to your customers and build a community of evangelists around your company, product, or service.” This is a true fact. When I enter the Public Relations field in the future, I want my job to be as fun and enjoyable as possible. If that includes working on fun social media (such as Facebook), I will be a happy girl!