By Carole Hayward
Facebook Trends in 2015
“I still check Facebook as part of my everyday routine, but I hardly ever post anymore.” 25-year-old male friend, on Facebook since 2009
“I am so excited to see what my grandchildren are up to. I like and share a lot every day.” 74-year-old female friend, on Facebook since 2013
These quotes are from separate conversations I’ve had with two of my own Facebook friends in the past week. What struck me is that I am using Facebook to connect with a pretty wide range of people, but do I really know who I am talking to and whether they are listening?
I decided to look at my own particular group of Facebook friends, and I learned quite a few things:
Who They Are:
- 49 of my Facebook friends are family (including 32 cousins)
- 83 are friends I’ve known from all the different phases of my life: childhood, high school, college, marriage, kids, and career
- 61 are work colleagues who have become friends
How Long I’ve Known My Friends:
- 72 Less Than 10 Years
- 37 10-20 Years
- 29 20-30 Years
- 23 30-40 Years
- 11 40-50 Years
- 21 50+ Years
Miscellaneous Facts:
- 15 of my friends are young people
- 22 have been married for 30 or more years
- 148 are women; only 45 are men
- I’ve know 87 of the people for more than 20 years, and 106 for less than 20 years
The explosion of the over-55 crowd joining Facebook has been well documented, but the number of teens leaving Facebook for alternatives, such as Instagram is also significant. For your own personal communications, it might be worthwhile to take a look at your Friends list and see who you are really reaching. Check for the age diversity among your friends, the gender makeup, and the duration and source of your friendship.
Does having a better understanding of your friends on Facebook affect what you post? Should it? We all have a core group of people who like everything we post. Let’s face it—we love them! But who are they? And it’s worth noting that some people never click like. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t engaged, but try varying your content a bit and see if you occasionally get a response. In face-to-face conversations, I’ve learned that people loved my vacation pictures, for example, but you would never know it from their Facebook interactions.
If I post content that is almost exclusively oriented to my family, then my colleague friends are only going to be marginally interested. Similarly, too much work talk will bore the people who just don’t know me in that way. Striking a balance of content will give your friends a good overall impression of who you are and what you are interested in.
I’ve also observed a welcome trend among young people who are entering the workforce. Those who were inclined toward oversharing are curbing those tendencies because it can have a negative effect on their job searches.
I also know people who forget why we became friends in the first place. I like to see pictures of their cute kids or their pets. I do not want to be bombarded about their latest cause du jour. I know they are passionate about the proposed pipeline, gun control, animal abuse, or the upcoming election, but I wish they would remember that using Facebook for their activism or slacktivism can result in my changing their status to acquaintance on Facebook or in desperate cases unfriending them. We all have our causes, but consider carefully whether your efforts are helping your cause or alienating your friends. Creating a Facebook page for your cause and inviting people to join it is a great way to learn who supports your efforts.
For people engaging in Facebook for business purposes, learning who your followers are is trickier because people can like your page, and you don’t know really know who they are. You need to engage with them to learn more about them. You also have to see what content they like and respond to. Here are some great tips. That’s a post for another day.
As we live our busy lives, getting together with friends can be difficult to arrange, but is very worth the effort. Similarly, engaging with our Facebook friends can help us keep in touch, learn more about their lives when we are far apart or can’t get together often. Thinking about who we are engaging with can enrich those interactions, so ask yourself when you post: Who am I talking to? Are they listening?
