Day Four: The Good The Bad and the Ugly of Facebook

Depending on who you ask, Facebook has somewhere between 100,000,000 and 400,000,000 users. That's an awful lot of people and a true cross section of the world. This means a wide variety of usage styles and a panoply of posts. We have broken them down in to three basic categories:

The Good



Thanks to our friends at Headhouse Books for sharing their experience using Facebook as a marketing tool. Here is what we learned from them:

FB is an amazing way to communicate with existing customers. It is the utmost in targeted marketing, since all of the "Fans" want information about your business and are interested in your products and services. Considering the costs of direct mail, billboards, and other traditional methods of advertising which are expensive and diffuse, Facebook is far and away the most effective and cost effective mode of customer outreach. It is also instant; if an event is cancelled or a hot new product has arrived customers know immediately. And the potential for overnight exponential growth is absolute. Fans are often willing to pass on your page to others, and this creates tremendous opportunity for expansion and exposure.



The Bad





Bad Posts are Boring Posts. I'm not the least bit interested in my own laundry; why would I want to read about yours? Ditto what you had for breakfast, where your dog peed, and whether you are feeling energetic or lethargic at a given moment. Finally, unlike cheese, pasta, and good company, Facebook and wine do not mix. (at least not in excess.) Beware of indiscreet posts; they are admissible in a court of law, not to mention the water cooler corner at work tomorrow.

The Ugly


These are the people who post material about their colon surgery, their marital woes, or their ferret's folliculitis. If you have the misfortune to have "Friended" such a person, we highly recommend a break-up.

And finally, we liked the following, a rather amusing and sardonic assessment of Facebook comments and their translations. Thank you, trueslant.com.


PS We've had a couple of questions about how to follow our blog. See that FOLLOW icon in the upper right margin of the blog next to the video clip? Click it, and proceed as directed. And here's a blogger resource with further details on following.

Posted by: Keri