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John White is a sales and marketing expert, B2B technology and communications consultant, and influential blogger.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion and articles written on LinkedIn about reasons to quit Facebook. Some of these articles have received millions of views and sparked conversations running thousand of comments deep into the thread. It seems to be kind of hip and rebellious to quit Facebook. Some of the authors like to demonize Mark Zuckerberg. In their posts they put up horrible looking pictures of Zuck that are clearly just catching him at his worst possible look. The list of complaints range from those that cannot tolerate Facebook’s privacy policies. To those that are mad because they were forced to download a separate app on their smartphones for FB Messenger. For me, Facebook is a vital tool both personally and professionally.
While I admit, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, and I have come close to canceling my account on a couple of occasions. Especially, when I made the mistake of accepting a random friend request from someone in high school that went horribly wrong. However, even in spite of having a run in with a stalker, I have remained loyal to Facebook. There are several reason why I like Facebook, and will continue to use it going forward.
1) Great tool for those that don’t get out much. If you are really busy like me Facebook can be my only view to the outside world at times.
2) Customizable news feed allows me to stay in touch with what is important to me. My news feed enables me to get updates on breaking news stories, local events, things that are trending, and content from sources I want to see. Yes, I get there are paid adds, etc. Thats’s why they invented scrolling.
3) Facebook is fantastic for sharing pictures and other digital content. I love being able to share pictures easily with my network. Yes, most of the pictures I share are of my two cute daughters ages 1 and 5. It is also great for sharing links with beautiful looking previews.
4) Stay in touch with friends overseas. I remember in the 90’s it took a month or more for my letters to reach my friends in Spain, and forget calling them because that used to cost of fortune!. Now, I can view their pictures, comment on their status, and chat with them in real time and its FREE. There really isn’t much of a better altnernative to Facebook for international messaging. There was WhatsApp. However, we all that Facebook paid a huge sum to acquire them not too long ago.
5) Adding another app is not that big of a deal to me. So, what you had to download another app to do the messenger. Maybe, it was a way to make the platform more stable by offloading the substantial added traffic that their instant messenger creates?
6) Personal group of trusted friends and family can be leveraged for insight. Except for the occasional random from high school turned stalker, I don’t accept friend requests from people outside of my close circle of friends, colleagues, and family.
7) If you are in business you would be crazy to quit Facebook. Facebook has 800 million active users! The target market for your company lies some where within those 800,000,000.
(Viual.ly)
8) I have found memories of the past in high school, college, road trips, concerts, games, hikes, and camping trips. Besides, Throwback Thursday is fun.
9) Easy party invitations. Facebook makes putting out party invitations a breeze.
10) Music! I can easily track the happenings of all my favorite bands in one place. I have a lot of friends who are professional musicians in various areas of the world. Facebook sure does make it easier to hear their stuff when I am 1000’s of miles away.
11) Funny videos. Ok, there are some really lame ones too. However, when I am having a bad day or need a laugh, I know I can rely on a someone posting a funny video on Facebook to lighten my mood.
At the end of the day, for me, the good far outweighs the bad with Facebook. How has your experience been? Are you ready to quit because they “forced you to download an app you didn’t want gosh darn it!” Or do you see the value in the platform like I do? Weigh in here…
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