We hear a lot of about algorithms and many people view any change as a reason to start proclaiming that Facebook ‘is dead,’ but Facebook isn’t dead – far from it – and many of the people who huff and puff about Facebook stitching them up do miss the point rather.

What’s Facebook?

Most people know what Facebook is and whether you’re on it or not might be a different story. You might be against social media from a personal point of view, but for business, you need to get on board.

Facebook launched in 2004. It started in America, in Harvard to be precise, but quickly gained traction, fans and followers. In the first year, Facebook attracted one million users. Fast forward to today, and according to Facebook’s own online stats, there are now 2.13 billion monthly active users and 1.4 billion of those people use Facebook each day. According to Google, there are 7.4 billion people in the world, hence why Facebook is far from dead; over 25% of the population of the whole world are on it.


See also: An introduction to Twitter


How has Facebook evolved since it launched?

Facebook’s online evolution has been truly staggering to watch, and something that started as a way to connect college students has now morphed into a significant multi-million-pound business.

If you have a look at Facebook’s own press area, you can see the evolution and it’s honestly amazing. In 2006, registration changed so anyone could join, Pages started in 2007, Groups in 2010. More recently, we’ve seen the beginning of Facebook Live and one billion people using Messenger each month, and that’s really just the highlights of the highlights. Facebook also owns Instagram and Whatsapp as well as Oculus. It is an incredible business.

Why do you need to get on board with Facebook?

In simple terms, you’re really missing out if you don’t. Most businesses that understand social media are on Facebook as their cornerstone social media platform. They then sprinkle other social media platforms on the top depending on the demographic or their target market. Usually, Facebook is the one that everyone has.


See also: Which social media platform should your business be on?


And why do so many people use Facebook for business?

In my opinion, it’s because it’s incredible. The platform itself and all the functionality is mindblowing and we get to use it for free with the cost of entry zero.

And if you do decide to advertise on the platform, you can spend a few pounds to get you started. You can use the targeting tools to zero in on exactly the kind of people you want to target based on a list of criteria that you set (or even data you hold) and you can then pay to show your boosted post or specific advert to just those people. The reporting is superb and allows you to track how your ad is doing on so many levels. And the cost to start is as little as £1.


See also: Getting the right tone on different social platforms


Many people moan about Facebook. It changes the algorithm, it does this and that. What people fail to see is that we have at our disposal this incredible tool that links two billion people. And we get to use it for free. It’s not ours – Facebook can do whatever it likes, and the fact it’s been so supportive and cheap is nothing short of a miracle.diversification, diversification ideas, rural business, rural business ideas

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