How to Prepare for Facebook's Decline

Photo by Sean MacEntee

If you are a nonprofit or a consistent fundraiser, then it’s time to hedge your bets and start investing in networks other than Facebook.

A recent study shows that the U.S. population is growing weary (note the sampling was only 1300) of the ultimate social network with most Americans expecting to spend less time on the network in the future.

Forbes reported that Facebook saw a 1.1% decline in U.S. users. In addition, of the 23 countries where Facebook’s penetration exceeded 50 percent, only nine expanded their user base over the past three months.

Plus the Like culture has become so pervasive that a Like really doesn’t mean anything anymore.

It does seem like the writing is on the wall for Facebook.

We’re already seeing a fracturing social networking environment with niche networks like Pinterest, Path, Instagram (owned by Facebook), Tumblr and others garnering significant market share.

With Facebook’s decline upon us, it’s time to start investing elsewhere to make sure we move with our communities.

Of course, the question becomes where do you invest your time?

How to Migrate

One of the best ways to determine where to migrate effort is to poll your existing Facebook community. What are their favorite alternate social networks? Go further, too, perhaps even set up a survey and find out what kinds of content they prefer from you. For example, you may find out they want more access to senior leadership, or perhaps more examples of how your field work is coming along.

You can also find out what types of content they prefer, eg. photos, questions, stories, etc. Once you determine the social network or two that serve the largest portions of your community, start investing time and build your presence. Don’t forget to listen and learn the norms of that particular network(s).

Remember, consistency is crucial here. If Facebook remains strong, you simply have a second relatively strong social network. If Facebook weakens, you’ll be able to pivot with your community and not miss a beat.

What do you think? Is Facebook in decline?

5 thoughts on “How to Prepare for Facebook's Decline”

  1. People keep saying that Facebook is going to be over soon but for us, we’ll only seeing increases each month in traffic, action and donation referrials from Facebook — in addition to our community on Facebook continuing to grow. u00a0I’m wondering if anyone has seen concrete stats to reflect disinterest among their Facebook users? u00a0Not to say that we won’t invest in other channels but for now a decline doesn’t seem to be the case.

  2. NP Board Member

    So how do we find and learn about these alternative social networks – there’s a need out there fore someone to provide links and descriptions of the various networks and their targeted audiences.

  3. People are just hating on Mark Zuckerberg because they are not as smart or creative. What’s to hate about it other than that it’s not your idea? nnI like it because as an entrpreneure I find it useful in getting my marketing feet wet.nnAll the networks this writer mentions do not even do what Facebook does.

  4. Facebook may be in a decline, but we’re still a long while out before it becomes irrelevant (if that even happens).u00a0 Facebook has been pretty good at adapting and adding new features that keep people interested.u00a0 It’s a good strategy to seek out other social networks, but Facebook is still the giant and will remain so for quite some time. u00a0

  5. Good post though we cannot control it but we can take some pervasive steps to stop that.. always try to share something which user find useful for him.

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