experience matters

Lindsay Renwick | Critical Mass Toronto

With Quit Facebook Day nearly a month behind us, I think it’s fairly safe to conclude that the 400 million-strong social network will likely live to see the end of the summer. Some users are still grumbling, but very few of them are actually leaving.

Oh Facebook, what happened to us? We used to be so happy together.

Something changed this year, of that there can be no doubt. Something besides the shifting privacy policies that angered the public and politicians alike. As Facebook’s users moved more of our daily communication onto the platform, our attitudes seemed to change toward it. It was no longer cool and new. It became simply a part of our lives, an expected convenience and a service provider, like the phone company.

Does anyone remember back in 2007, when the little juggernaut that could was still on the cutting edge? Entire cities vied to add the largest number of users in the shortest time. I clearly recall the brief, shining moment when Canada was Facebook’s fastest growing market. How we congratulated ourselves, how we supported the brand and gave our friends and families the ultimatum – join now, or forever lose access to my vacation pictures.

I suppose nothing lasts forever, and social media properties have tended in the past to have the lifespan of fruitflies. It makes sense that with the public’s ardor cooled and after weathering a few controversies, pundits should be anticipating Facebook’s pending demise.

Remember when the mythical issue of high-schooler flight was going to take Facebook down? Fickle youth, disenchanted by friend requests from their grandparents, were slated to disappear in droves and take their cred and the network’s raison d’être with them. Look at MySpace, we were urged, if you want to see what happens to a social network that loses touch with the kids.

Well, MySpace only ever really had the kids, so naturally when most of their 43 million-strong base flocked elsewhere it had little choice but to become “the abandoned amusement park of the internet.” Not so Facebook, whose multigenerational user base skews to the Head of Household segment so beloved by advertisers, and whose massive volume of users can easily handle shifts in the tens of thousands without significantly destabilizing the system.

Also, when the kids fled MySpace, guess where they went? Between September 2008 and September 2009, MySpace’s social network share dropped by 55% while Facebook’s grew by 194%*.

Despite its ups and downs, what Facebook continues to have in its corner are a currently irreplaceable level of functionality and an unparalleled user base. If you want to hang out where everyone else is, there’s really only one place to go. Think about it – if you chose to delete your profile tomorrow, what would you replace it with? Twitter is great for sharing links and jokes, but it has no functionality for creating events and is impractical for sharing photo galleries. Tumblr? Good sharing features, but they compete with traditional blogs and Posterous for users. New entrants like Pip.io or Diaspora? Maybe, if they’re able to convince a critical mass of users that privacy issues are worth overcoming inertia and moving all their info to a new profile.

It will be an interesting issue to watch over the coming months. Will Facebook’s users grow to accept the trade of personal information for the continued free usage of the social network that effectively manages their social lives? Or will they jump ship as soon as a more privacy-friendly competitor rushes out of the gate? My money says, don’t start reorganizing your photo galleries just yet.

_{*Source: eMarketer, Facebook Grabs Soc Net Share, October 28, 2009}

Lindsay is an Influence Marketing Manager in our Toronto office.