As the social media landscape continues to change at a dizzying pace, it’s a good idea to regularly assess the effectiveness of each platform you use. Back around 2010, when you set up your brand’s Facebook Group as a crowdsourcing tool or as a way to build community through events and interactive content, it was really the only option. Today, with changes in platform usage and demographic shifts, there are options and it may be time to rethink whether or not it’s still worth your time to keep this space up and running - or move elsewhere.
How to decide? Compare the pros and cons.
PROS:
Facebook Groups can be effective as a way to communicate with your audience and for housing a community for them to connect with each other.
CONS:
While it’s helpful to have a platform for your audience to communicate, people can sometimes feel invincible behind a screen, and act in ways they wouldn’t in person if they ever feel unhappy with your brand. Communication can easily be weaponized through nasty comments and incessant messages.
Even the greatest company with the most efficiently functioning products can’t escape from haters. And in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, haters gonna hate (hate hate hate). The thing about keyboard warriors is they will feed off of each other's fires and create a lot of noise, warranted or not. Their conduct can make their issues seem more extreme than they are in reality and can cause confusion among others which is unnecessary and unproductive.
If you still need a space for your community, make sure Facebook is the right place for this. Is this platform working for you? Is your audience active here? Consider the following factors:
Age:
Facebook groups are good for catering to a broad age range, as Facebook has significant representation across all age groups. Today, a larger proportion of Facebook users are older adults, primarily in the age range of 30-64. While many of the 18-29 demographic are Facebook users, there has been a big shift specifically from this age group towards other social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Gender:
If you’re trying to capture an audience with a relatively balanced gender distribution, Facebook is a good way to go (though women slightly outnumber men in some regions).
Geographic Distribution:
Facebook has a global reach and is a popular social media platform worldwide, with significant user bases in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, in both urban and rural areas.
Income & Education:
Facebook users come from a wide range of income levels with diverse educational backgrounds, from high school graduates to those with advanced degrees. It’s a fairly balanced distribution that doesn’t skew in any particular way.
It’s also important to consider whether or not Facebook’s capabilities meet your requirements. Do the communication and media elements serve your needs? One of the big questions you will need to answer is whether or not your community needs a moderator.
Setting group guidelines is a good start to implementing community standards that foster a positive and inclusive environment, but having a moderator to oversee your group can be more beneficial. Not only can a moderator act as a representative of the brand to answer any questions correctly and in a timely fashion, they can also step in to diffuse any situations or arguments before they get out of hand. A moderator could also be responsible for creating and maintaining a comprehensive FAQ section to facilitate easy access to important information. They could even share engaging content to promote community engagement, such as business updates, quizzes, and fun product photos.
Now that you know a bit more about who uses Facebook, if you don’t feel that it’s the right fit for the audience you’re trying to capture, you may want to consider alternative platforms for your community. Here are some of our suggestions:
Reddit attracts a different user segment than Facebook. As of 2024, Reddit boasts over 500 million users, with a significant increase of 150 million since 2019. This number is projected to surpass 556 million by 2028.
Age:
Reddit has a younger user base compared to Facebook. The platform is particularly popular among young adults, including college students and young professionals, with a significant proportion of users aged 18-29. It also attracts a notable number of teenagers.
Gender:
Reddit has a higher proportion (63.6%) of male users compared to female users. So if your target audience is male-dominated, Reddit might be a good fit for you.
Geographic Distribution:
Though it has users worldwide, Reddit is most popular in the United States and other Western countries, with a higher concentration of users in urban areas compared to rural ones.
Income & Education:
Reddit seems to capture the college student and recent graduate crowd, skewing their users towards higher education levels. The platform also attracts a more tech-savvy audience, particularly those in STEM fields.
Entertainment is the primary reason that people use Reddit, cited by 72% of users, followed by catching up on news and current events at 43%. Other reasons provided included following brands or companies (17%), strengthening professional networks (8%), and keeping in contact with friends and family (5%).
Quora is a space focusing on knowledge sharing. It was designed as a Q&A platform, providing detailed and high-quality answers from experts to specific questions. For this reason, it tends to attract a more professional and highly educated user base. Quora has over 300 million monthly active users as of recent reports.
Age:
A large percentage of Quora users are between 18-34 years old.
The platform also sees significant engagement from users aged 35-54.
Gender:
Quora has a fairly even gender distribution, with male users slightly edging out the female users with an approximately 55%/45% split. Topics related to technology, entrepreneurship and business seem to attract more male users, while topics such as health, education and lifestyle see higher engagement from the female user segment.
Geographic Distribution:
A significant portion of Quora users are from either the United States or India.
Income & Education:
Many Quora users have higher education degrees (including college and advanced degrees), which reflects the platform's professional and knowledgeable user base.
After learning a bit about each platform, think back now to your current Facebook group. It should be a place to foster education, collaboration, shared interests and ultimately a positive community. If it's become mostly a space where people come to bitch and moan, it's no longer serving its intended purpose, and might be time to shut it down, and potentially move to another platform to be resurrected.
