In 2005, the word Facebook was beginning to buzz throughout college campuses all over the U.S. In 2008, Facebook was becoming a common household name. In 2009, Facebook was just one of the many social platforms that everyone was using. In 2010, Facebook made up for half of the social network usage out there. In 2011, Facebook not only crushed their competition, but other online platforms as well! Facebook, some say, is now even more predominate than Google. What will this mean in for Facebook and the rest of the online world in 2012? While we can’t predict the future, we can give you some facts on where Facebook is today.
The Timeline:
In 2011, with over 800 million users, at 8 years old, Facebook launched it’s most drastic layout change, called Timeline, since Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) released his creation in 2004. (Also pictured is the original Facebook layout compared to the new Facebook Timeline.) This release along with many other smaller ones, have rocked the boat for Facebook in 2012. Keeping everyone on their toes and talking about Facebook.
The Google Vs. Facebook Saga:
“Facebook’s ad network is growing at a rate 125 percent greater than Google’s ad network did. Facebook also own more of the market share in social than Google did for search,” according to Justin Kistner, writing for “The Social Beat”. (Click here to read Kinster’s full article entitled: How Facebook will take over the rest of the world in 2012)
Google tried to rival Facebook in a similar way in 2011, when it launched Google+. Fortunately, for Facebook, although Google+ reached over 10 million users in a mere 16 days, it still could not rival Facebook’s popularity and many forgot about it just as quickly. (Although Google+ is still growing, it still has not hit a very high popularity in the Midwest.) Basically, Facebook has become to the social media world what Google is to the search world. Some say, even greater.
Transformation Marketing and Facebook:
Now, keep in mind that we, at Transformation Marketing, still use and strongly believe in many other social platforms as well. In fact, we stand by our statement that Facebook might not be the best social network option for every client and the best way to get maximum exposure is to utilize many different platforms that fit your business. However, we also know the facts and the fact is, that Facebook is an incredibly important and successful tool for many of our clients.
We continue to follow news from many social platforms. But none seem to be continuously as buzz worthy as Facebook. So, projected to hit their millionth user as well as a $100 billion dollar IPO, one thing is for sure, it will be interesting to see what happens with Facebook in 2012.