Is Facebook Still Worth Your Marketing Energy?

For years, bloggers and businesses utilized Facebook as a way to connect with fans and customers.  People put a great deal of energy into growing their Facebook pages, sometimes even relying on social media experts to help them grow and maintain their pages.

Yet recently the number of fans who actually see posts from bloggers and small business has decreased, and, according to a recent article in TIME Magazine, that decrease is likely to continue until as few as 1 or 2% of fans actually see status updates.  Ouch.

Alternatives to Facebook

Thankfully, there are many alternatives to Facebook such as Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest.  Of course, none of the other sites are as popular as Facebook, which now has 1.23 billion users worldwide (The Guardian).  In fact, Twitter's 560 million users, Google+'s 400 million users, and Pinterest's 70 million (Media Bistro) users are dwarfed by Facebook's number of users.

Does the Number of Users Really Matter?

Yet, does the number of users really matter when you're deciding where to spend your marketing time and money? 

Rather than number of users, what may be more important is the number of people you can reach through a particular social media channel.

Depending on the visual nature of your business, Pinterest may be the place to focus most of your energy (followed closely by Instagram).  Why?  Pinterest is a proven revenue creator, and if you're a blogger, Pinterest can bring you serious traffic when even just one pin goes viral.

Should You Forget Facebook?

If you don't want to pay for advertising like Facebook wants you to, you'll need to accept that your status updates probably won't be seen by many.  Still, posting to Facebook is worthwhile because you'll still reach a few of your fans. 

However, perhaps you want to spend more of your time and energy developing a presence on other social media sites that remain friendly to bloggers and small business owners, unlike Facebook.

Do you still market on Facebook, or have you moved on to other social media sites?