Is Facebook Spam?

In my opinion it depends on what you use it for.  Some use this social utility for the simple purpose of keeping in contact with friends from a far.  A large percentage of facebook uses it for networking and promoting their business.  I’ve recently conducted some different polls with my groups and pages.  I compared these results with the same poll I took about a year and a half ago.

Here are my results.

Out of 3 groups that I messaged and requested and reply saying (yes) just to confirm the read. My response rate was 14% yes in 2008.  This same test with the same groups yielded a 3% yes this year in 2009.  What does this say?  This says that people are really getting tired of the overwhelming amount of crap in their inbox is what this says.  Like me I imagine most people look at the heading, see if they recognize the person, and if they don’t they just check the box and delete the message.

We also have 2 fan pages on Facebook.  In 2008 we had a 6% read rate conducting the same test (updates were not and never have been read like group messages). This year in 2009 our read rate was less than 1% on updates (this stat is only known from those that responded yes). Now we are doing exactly what our fan page says we will do.  We are saying that we will send out good information about marketing and design for people if they want to become a fan.  But for some reason I’ve found unless your famous it’s very hard to get good interaction with a fan page. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one.  Our fan page receives around 60 or more hits everyday just from link placement, curiosity, and being found on facebook search for pages. So it is very good to have a fan page and also renders good traffic to the website.

Here’s What I’m Tired Of!!!

Cause invitations that make no sense, mob stuff, this, that, whatever, gifts, drinks, chips, etc, etc, etc, etc….  That’s what I have to say about all the useless stuff that is on my home page when I’m on facebook everyday. I get so much useless stuff from people I don’t even know.  I think what’s happened is people think they can use any possible tactic to get traffic so they do all the different stuff.

If You Want To Be Successful on Facebook ‘Do This’

It’s simple, connect with people, have one on one interaction.  Make sure you’re interested in their profession and that they are interested in yours (this is if you don’t know them at first contact of course).  Then see if there is anything between the two business’s that has plausibility or can help.  Exchange some messages and let each other know about the groups and fan pages that each other have.  Do this one person at a time and you will slowly build a ‘good’ network’. People will actually read your messages and show interest about your business.  They will share your business with others that can benefit.  If there’s a way to work out an affiliate that is co-beneficial then do it.

So to answer my own question, yes, facebook is turning into spam.  But if people would network correctly then it wouldn’t.

I’m very interested to hear feedback from others about this subject so please comment and I will get back to your shortly.  My name is Larry Sowell and I’m the Marketing Director at Get2Marketing.com

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