A friend at work passed along an article that made me so furious- I almost couldn’t believe it was allowed to be published. The article was on MSN, entitled “Is Facebook Past Its Prime?” Now before, I go on- this blog post isn’t intended to be a rant on how horrific the article is. Instead, I want to rationalize some concepts I believe are easy to forget.

The article, makes some very definitive points that seem to be written as facts and NOT as opinion:

• “This may mark the beginning of the end of Facebook’s enormous popularity.”
• “After that 25 things note, there’s not much left to say.”
• “People who actually have lives don’t use Facebook.”

Wrong, wrong and wrong. I couldn’t disagree more with each of these points. The author of this article (Hillary Rhodes) is failing to recognize a broader construct. Great technology takes different forms and has different life cycles of use for any given person. Just because Hillary (the author) has found herself finding Facebook less relevant- doesn’t mean the masses out there are graduating from it (after all, 250 million still use it frequently). I’ve always said, the value of Facebook and Twitter is dependent upon the people you follow (or are friends with). If you follow or are friends with people that suck- your experience with either of these websites will suck. It’s as simple as that. The websites themselves are dependent upon sharing and creating content- so it’s a direct correlation. YOUR participation and your friends participation is what makes it valuable. If you logged into either Twitter or Facebook and no one updated or did anything- there wouldn’t be anything there. It would just be a blank page. Your friends in these networks defines what you experience with Twitter or Facebook.

Facebook is a networking tool. It’s a tool that connects real people. Twitter is a tool that also connects real people. Both of these tools can be worthless if you aren’t able to augment existing relationships or create real interactions with people of like interests. Real interactions with real people who contribute in these networks is the real value in using Facebook or Twitter.

That said, in my opinion, it’s important to understand two things when it comes to the usage of social media:

1.) People’s experience with social media tools is unique to each individual.
There are so many variables that contribute to how your experience using social media tools (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) will play out. For example, things like; are you an influencer already?, does your social network already exist in the network, do you frequently update, do you interact or just sit and troll on the website, are your expectations to use the network for business or personal expectations- or mixed. These factors all contribute to your experience with any given social media tool.

2.) Understanding HOW to get the most out of a social media tools and WHEN to use it is also important.
Similar to knowing the right time to send a text message vs. picking up the phone to call someone is important- the same is true for social media tools.

Facebook and Twitter are both great social media technologies that facilitate social networking. Neither of these communication tools are going to be extinct anytime soon. Bottom line, understand your experience with Facebook and Twitter are unique to you and it is not going to be the same for everyone else. Something Hillary Rhodes should of thought about before concluding that the “end” Facebook is near. It might be for her- but not for the other 249,999,999 of us.
–