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From eMarketer For the most part, Facebook users haven't stopped using the social platform following the Cambridge Analytica revelations. In fact, in its Q1 2018 earnings report, the social media giant showed no sign of users—or advertisers—abandoning its platform. And according to a recent survey by Thomson Reuters, nearly half of US Facebook users said they haven't changed how much they use it. Interestingly, over a quarter of respondents said they use it more, while fewer report using it less (18%) and only 1% said they deleted their account. Still, there are some who are concerned about their personal data and how it will be used. When asked why they're sharing less content with friends and followers on social media, 47% of Facebook users said it was because they have privacy concerns.

From Facebook Newsroom : Facebook Community Boost is a new program to help US small businesses grow and to equip more people with the digital skills they need to compete in the new economy.  Facebook Community Boost will visit 30 US cities in 2018, including Houston, St. Louis, Albuquerque, Des Moines and Greenville, SC. Facebook will work with local organizations to provide digital skills and training for people in need of work, to advise entrepreneurs how to get started and to help existing local businesses and nonprofits get the most out of the internet.  According to new research by Morning Consult in partnership with the US Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center and Facebook, small businesses’ use of digital translates into new jobs and opportunities for communities across the country. Small businesses provide opportunities for millions of people (they create an estimated four out of every five new jobs in the US), offer useful products and services, and of...

From eMarketer : An April 2017 survey by Campaigner, an email marketing platform, explored consumer interactions with brands. More than half of US digital buyers said they followed a brand on Facebook, which was significantly higher compared with any other social platform. It was even more common among millennials: Fully 65% of this cohort said they followed a brand on Facebook. But social networks are not necessarily the top choice for interacting with brands. As a whole, only a quarter (24%) of digital buyers in the survey said they preferred “to interact with their favorite brands” via social media. Instead, in-store and in-person communication was the most commonly cited channel (65%), followed by company websites (58%) and email (44%). Respondents could site multiple choices.

The Internet has gone visual. With the world moving at the speed of a tweet, getting your message out there can be tough—especially if you're only using words. Studies show that our brains are more efficient at processing images than words. Some 75% of Americans have used emoji to communicate to others. Virtual corkboard site Pinterest has 53 million unique monthly users. Even Facebook is leaning hard into the image game, as evidenced by its recent $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, which has 300 million users itself. Images overlaid with text—often called Internet memes—are a popular way for brands to reach their audiences. Ride that popularity wave by creating your own marketing images for distribution. As your followers and fans share the images, your products, your logo, and your brand spread to people you may not have reached otherwise. Read more from Marketing Profs

Some 84% of Millennials say they like companies on Facebook as a way to show their support for the brand, according to recent research conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, PhD, and Ava Lescault, MBA, at The Center for Marketing Research, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Other common reasons for liking brands on Facebook include wanting to receive updates (83% of respondents) and a desire to get coupons/discounts (66%). Read more from MarketingProfs

Large and small businesses alike have spent the better part of the past half-decade trying to best leverage the marketing potential of Facebook – and rightly so. Facebook reports 1.23 billion active users worldwide, and an increase of 92 percent when it comes to shared content since 2012. People like Facebook – a lot – but it seems that just as marketers think they have the social network all figured out, the rules change. Some of the most recent modifications to Facebook have made it more difficult for marketers to get their messages across, at least in the ways they are accustomed to reaching their audiences on the social network... Critics say it is just a money-making move to get desperate marketers to spend more on promoting and boosting Facebook content, instead of relying on free organic visibility. At any rate, the reach of page posts appears to be narrowing on Facebook, and marketers will need to adjust. At the same time, Twitter is unveiling some pretty stellar new option...

What is the most-debated question in social media today? One candidate is, “Should my company have a Facebook page?” The tension comes from several angles. It could be due to: •The company is not culturally-ready to deal with comments from real people. •The company has whacked-out expectations about how sales will increase once they have a Facebook page. •Their social media guru, Timmy from Accounting, has set their marketing strategy. •They are doing it because their kids told them it would be cool. So how do you decide if a Facebook page should be a priority for your company? More from SmallBusinessNewz

On a section of our Facebook page, we had higher engagement figures than reach, meaning more people were said to have clicked on or interacted with the content than Facebook said viewed it. In searching for a possible answer, we found this article: Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads . Essentially, Facebook is saying that the fewer people are seeing free posts from pages, and that you’re going to have to pay to promote your content if you want it seen. Kind of depressing, but our numbers seem to reflect this change. Somewhere or other - can't seem to find it presently - I saw a video about how the Facebook model of having to pay to have them see you seems backward, compared to the YouTube model, where the people who drive traffic to the site actually can benefit from their cleverness.

Last June, Facebook released a tracking pixel, a snippet of code that allows advertisers to track customers who come to their websites from Facebook ads. For Amy Norman, co-chief executive officer of Little Passports, the pixel was a game-changer. Ms. Norman, whose San Francisco company sends children a monthly package to introduce them to geography and history, began testing ads on Facebook to see which ones brought in more customers. In June, Little Passports spent about $30,000 on Facebook ads and the company’s revenue for the month was about $130,000. By the end of the year, the company’s monthly advertising spending on Facebook had grown to as much as $150,000 and its revenue for December was $700,000. Ms. Norman acknowledged that $150,000 was a huge amount of money to spend on advertising in a month for a company with annual revenue of just under $2 million, but she said “we also tripled our customer base in six months.” More from the New York Times .

From Marketing Profs : On average, nearly one-half (47%) of social media users say they've taken some type of action offline (e.g., attending an event, meeting someone in person, making a purchase) after interacting with a social networking site, according to a survey from ACTIVE Network. Across the five social networks studied—Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest—Facebook drives the most offline actions overall: 87% of Facebook users have taken some type of action offline as a result of an interaction via the site. Pinterest (70%) ranks second in generating offline actions, followed by LinkedIn (60%), Twitter (56%), and Google+ (37%).

"Are you tweeting in your meetings? Do you complain online about your co-workers’ annoying quirks? If so, your employer probably doesn’t appreciate you sharing proprietary or negative information about their company with the world. But can they do anything about it? Yes, if they have a social media policy. "While employers adore social media for brand promotion and marketing, they don’t like it when an employee opens up a party popper of bad news about the company that can cover the world in seconds." Read more HERE .

Many firms assume that customers can do just one thing of real significance: buy their products and services. It's time to seriously challenge that assumption, as many companies are doing by looking to customers to fuel their growth engines. Facebook, for example, has close to 1 billion customers who don't pay a cent. Yet the company is receiving valuations of $50 billion and more — despite having just 3,000 or so employees — because of the extremely high-potential, non-purchasing value such customers provide. In a phrase, Facebook and other forward-thinking companies look to their customers to grow their businesses. This isn't genius at work. In fact, entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, are simply recognizing — and acting upon — entirely obvious realities about customers and their desires and competencies, choosing to leverage these rather than fight against them, as so many firms do. Here are five examples: Customers know more abou...

Stephen Terrell expected a group of happy users when he updated his company's Facebook profile page to the new Timeline format, allowing his mostly senior-citizen customers to register for a contest to win a trip to Hollywood to meet nonagenarian actor Betty White. Instead, there was an explosion of anger and confusion.   MORE

The Postal Service has taken its case for five-day delivery to the Postal Regulatory Commission, claiming that current volumes do not support six-day service. The USPS is required by law to seek an advisory opinion from this commission any time they propose a nationwide change in service. Read more . Yes, you may have heard about that. But guess who sent the e-mail to me? Pitney Bowes. They send out a regular e-letter about topics that affect their clients. P-B machines are used to print out postage labels, among other things. In the same message P-B talks about small business and social media . You should be using Facebook and Twitter to tell you customers important, and relevant info...such as an impending five-day USPS delivery schedule.

This article (" Social Media Helps Some Small Businesses Endure Bad Economy ") is something you've seen before, but it bears repeating. Use of Facebook, Twitter, et al. requires imagination, just like any marketing campaign would (but at a much better price). This article focuses on the efforts of certain eating establishments. For those clients seeking inspiration, read on.

It’s all well and good to talk about the best business uses of Facebook and the best strategies for creating Facebook Fan Pages. But pictures and examples are worth a thousand words. That’s why this piece from Mashable is particularly helpful: 5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From Some tips: You can have a great looking fan page, but your fans are still going to want to DO something. Good example: Gap’s Baby Gap tab encourages parents to post pictures of their Gap-clad tykes. Remember that fans want to get something useful from your Page. You can customize your landing page to spell out the reasons to become a fan (like prizes!), just like Walgreens. If you’re not sure how to build a custom landing page for your Fan page, just follow the links to this article, How to Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business .

Facebook is not just a virtual community for friends; it has evolved into a networking utility for businesses and professionals. Today, there are over 175 million active users on Facebook with the fastest growing group of users those 30 years and older. College graduates and young professionals, the original target audience of Facebook when it launched in 2004, are now using the site to foster professional growth. Should your business create a Facebook Page and join this growing online community? Below are some thoughts about businesses on Facebook: Ten Reasons to Use Facebook for Business Facebook caters to a diverse audience including professionals and businesses. It is a free online tool to facilitate networking with professionals and businesses. 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook This blog provides a list of the applications available on Facebook and how businesses may be able to use the applications for their business needs. Should your business be on Facebook? “The secret is...

Are you on Facebook, but wondering what it can do for your small business? On June 24 th , Visa unveiled a new Facebook application, the Visa Business Network . While still in beta, the application claims that "Here you can connect with other small business owners, learn ways to manage your business more efficiently, and grow by reaching the millions of potential customers on Facebook." Visa's also partnered with the Wall Street Journal, Google and Entrepreneur to bring small business content and applications to its Facebook presence. Read more about the Visa Business Network in this article from ComputerWorld: Visa, Facebook unveil social network for small businesses

On Monday, I got a notice from an old college friend via Facebook. Yesterday, I received a request from someone to connect to my LinkedIn account. Today, I read an article from Computerworld on which of these sites was better for business. Call it karma. LinkedIn has always been designed as a networking site solely for interaction among those in business. Facebook originated as a networking site amongst those with college or university email addresses. However, it is being adapted more and more by those in the labor force as a means of finding better opportunities, contract employees, and so forth. The article presents six scenarios, and asked separate writers to argue the merits of one versus the other in that situation. Needless to say, the article doesn't provide an answer to the question of "Which is better?" (unless you consider "It depends" as a worthwhile conclusion). I only dabble at both, but I can certainly see why people get hooked on these sites.