Using Facebook in your social media marketing strategy

In essence, Facebook is all about keeping in touch with your friends, work colleagues or people or organisations in which you have an interest.

The website started as a way for college students to maintain contact with each other once they had left campus.

Now it is one of the largest social networks in the world.

Key facts about Facebook:

1. It has over 2 billion active users.
2. It is used by 87% of online users aged between 18 and 29.
3. It is used by 56% of online seniors aged 65+.
4. Of all its users, 63% are aged between 50 and 64.
5. More than 40m small businesses have active Facebook Pages.
6. Every 20 minutes, 1m links are shared, 20m friend requests are sent, and 3m messages are sent.

Using Facebook to market a business

An organisation or business which uses Facebook can interact with existing users, visitors, supporters or customers who are also on the platform.

It can also use Facebook to attract new interest in its services.

One disadvantage of Facebook is that users must be signed up (and in) to the website in order to fully interact with an organisation which has a presence there.

On Facebook, organisations have Pages, whereas individual users are considered to have Profiles.

There is a wide range of businesses using Facebook.

They include food and drink companies, clothes retailers, utility firms, car manufacturers and a number of charities.