Facebook CFO David Ebersman recently admitted that the social network 'did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens.' But given Facebook's performance in the third quarter of the year, who really cares?
Sure, Facebook and its investors might care. After all, Facebook generates a substantial portion of its revenue from advertisers trying to attract customers online. But if there was a decline, it had little if any negative impact on the company's Q3 2013 impressive financial results.
Facebook's Q3 revenue grew 60 percent to $2.02 billion, with profits of $425 million. The daily active user (DAU) count grew to 728 million. And the DAU count for users accessing Facebook from a mobile device was a mind-boggling 507 million. Even Ebersman commented that the data regarding teen users is 'of questionable statistical significance.'
Whatever the situation with teen Facebook users, here's what most of us actually do care about - making full use of social media and networking technologies that are here to stay. According to McKinsey & Company, it took 13 years for commercial television to reach 50 million households and 3 years for Internet service providers to sign their 50 millionth subscriber. Facebook hit the 50-million user mark in just a year and Twitter in nine months. It's clear that social technologies support the real-time communications we all seek. To use a cliché, they bring the world closer.
With Facebook's captive audience of over a billion people, businesses will continue to flock to that social network to market their wares, just like they did with newspaper advertising, television and even web advertising. And as Twitter, Snapchat and other social applications emerge as the next hot platforms, businesses will flock to advertise there, too.
Social is good for business
Social technologies are not just good for building communities where people share their personal lives and advertisers target them. Social technologies may also be the biggest productivity enhancements for businesses since the mobile phone. Sure, businesses are incorporating Facebook and Twitter into their marketing strategies, but now businesses are also asking how they can use these technologies to make their businesses better.
By nature, social technologies are real time. As such, they can increase the speed of business and increase business productivity, which are key metrics to growing any business.
Step aside email
Email has been great for business. Asynchronous communication via email lets workers ask questions, provide information and communicate efficiently. Email has basically replaced the phone as the preferred mode of communication for business.
But now, real-time social private networks are poised to displace email as the leading mode of business communications. There are many inherent benefits to social networks for business including the ability to tap the collective knowledge of the organization. Even more, the 'time line' created within a business social network is a database of knowledge that can be searched well into the future. Try doing that with email that is locked in somebody's inbox.
No more waiting on hold
Unlike a phone call, email frees you from waiting on hold to communicate with another person or group. You can initiate a discussion even when the other participants are unavailable. Emails are like detailed messages that can be read and responded to whenever the recipient is free.
In the context of customer service, social networks have all the benefits of email and then some. Today, when a customer has a problem, she can simply tweet to the business's handle or hashtag and sit back and wait for what should be a near-immediate response. Not only will a progressive, customer service-minded company have somebody monitoring social media for customer inquiries, other customers following the company on social media will often jump in to help. The net result is faster, better customer service - without risk of being put 'on hold.'
Social decision making and problem solving
By getting the right people working together, good collaboration can reduce project completion times and deliver better finished products. And businesses consistently highlight better decision making and problem solving as a top priority. Social technologies support these collaborative, well-informed decisions by enabling multiple people to look at information at the same time and to interject comments and ideas that can be immediately seen by all collaborators.
Facebook may or may not have a problem with teens fleeing its platform. Whatever the case, it is not because the medium has run its course. Quite the contrary, social platforms are still in their infancy. The billions of users tweeting, liking and snapping will be joined by billions of others who are flocking to socialize with friends, family and even strangers. And businesses will continue to find new ways to deploy social technologies to grow revenue, keep customers happy and become more efficient.
So Mr. Zuckerberg doesn't need to worry, at least about the future of social networking. Will Facebook have a role in that future? Now, that point might be worth worrying about.
Raj Sabhlok is the president of Zoho Corp., which is the parent company of Zoho.com and ManageEngine. Follow him @rajsabhlok.
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