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Comment by em3rgent0rdr | Hacker News Reader

Facebook can be an essential promotional tool for many. If you're rich or an already successful company, then you can handle the loss by not being on Facebook. But if you're poor or just starting up a new venture, then it is harder to afford not being on Facebook.

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I'm poor and starting a new venture. I don't have FB. If my success depends on me/my company having FB presence, then my business sucks. How this idea of FB being the "place to be" got so much traction is beyond me.

Yep. LinkedIn as well. Still without one, and starting strong. Very much realize I must put my data where my mouth is.

Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their resume.

> Similarly, I'll be far less likely to hire one who has Facebook on their resume.

Could you explain why? I don’t see an obvious reason to avoid ex-Facebook employees

From my personal interactions, and with my personal perspective of how Facebook has publicly conducted itself over the years, having worked at Facebook would immediately raise red flags in my mind about the philosophical perspective of the potential employee for having worked 'at will' at the company. Context certainly matters, but it would be become a point of conversation. Not all that different from a health-professional being wary of hiring someone who used to work for a tobacco company.

To me it would indicate the possibility that the person might not want to understand the wider implications of their work, might understand those implications but not care about them so long as they are personally or socially enriched, or might just agree with the duplicitous nature of the company. There are of course circumstances to account for, and everyone's reasons are different - but the above rationalizations would raise red flags for me - especially in my industry where thinking about wider implications of our work is absolutely critical.

I am not the GP but I totally agree and the same goes for NSA employees. They have proven they are okay with violating the privacy rights of a billion people.

LinkedIn is rather more important. It's still the largest professional database we have and a kind of rolodex.

Having worked for and still working part-time for a major, as in top 5, vc firm, investors will definitely look for you on LinkedIn early on to ensure that you're a legit person with a good job history and a network.

This is even more important, when they are hiring for themselves.

There are so many grifters in tech, that investors and people hiring for leadership positions in startups feel the need to be able to draw a connection between your network and theirs.

Moreover, if investors are interested in your venture, they'll want you to create a profile and assembles a network. It's part of having visibility for your venture and a certain amount of legitimacy in the community. A company is people, and their leaders need an online presence outside of Github and fora.

I'm sure people will jump in with all kinds of anecdotal counter-examples, but this is what I've seen in a few years working for Sand Hill.

I honestly would decline funding from investors that expected me to waste time on LinkedIn. Unless you are selling to HR, it's a pointless circle jerk.

LinkedIn is great for their intended use case of documenting and presenting your professional relationships for potential job offers. But LinkedIn doesn't connect you with potential customers.

>If my success depends on me/my company having FB presence, then my business sucks.

And then...

>How this idea of FB being the "place to be" got so much traction is beyond me.

If FB is "the place to be" as you say it is, then it is a valuable marketing resource and your first comment doesn't follow. I don't see how it's any different than advertising on TV in the early days. All of a sudden a new medium for reaching an even larger number of people popped onto the scene, so people used it heavily.

You may not like FB, but you can't dispute the fact that you are able to reach a lot of people for little to no cost using it. You can't then go on to say that a business "sucks" because it relies on FB for marketing.

>but you can't dispute the fact that you are able to reach a lot of people

They are a website!!!!!

The internet is larger than FB. Listen, I'm not denying how popular FB is, all I'm saying is that you can figure it out how to do business without depending on their platform. That's all.

Ninja Edit: I'm not saying "it's the place to be" I'm saying that other folks believe that. I disagree.

Imagine you're a small coffeeshop that just needs to list your hours and location on the internet and maybe make some announcements. What are your options?

- Google Maps

- Facebook Page

- Yelp Page

- Instagram (maaaybe)

You most likely already have a Facebook account, so setting up a Facebook page would be the easiest.

This is a good point. Thank you.

One could argue that having hours and location online is so important for businesses that you do not necessarily have to chose the tool that is the easiest to setup.

But why wouldn't small business owner who has other things to work on not choose the easiet route?

If you travel abroad, you'll notice that Google Maps/Facebook/Foursquare are all the internet presence a lot of cafes and restaurants have.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the Google Maps info was created by a patron and not the owner themself.

Facebook owns Instagram, so that's no good either, if you're trying to avoid it. There's surprisingly little backlash against Facebook-owned entities.

It's pretty easy to claim your location on Google/Google maps, which is usually where I find business hours and contact information.

-A wordpress blog.

-A self-hosted site or a VPS.

But there is the genuine problem of discovery. Better hope your blog appears at the top of google search. Anyway, the vast majority of people for which facebook is basically their homepage of the internet won't know your site exists.

Sorry for this dumb question, I never used facebook, but what is the difference between your own webpage and a page on facebook? How do those facebook users automatically know that you exist when you are on facebook. They still would have to find you somehow?

Facebook's discovery is enhanced because they have more information about you, and so can correlate you and your friends information with information about the page to more effectively match you to that particular page.

For example, you are likely to like an event/business/venue your friends already liked, so facebook can suggest that business to you. Or you see in your feed that your friends checked into a certain event/business/venue, resulting in you being exposed to that.

All this happens without you even performing a search. And if you do perform a search, the top search result will most likely be correct, because it used you and your friends' information.

Hard to comment without being anecdotal, but I exclusively look for business hours on Google maps or Yelp. If I'm searching for a type of business ("hm, is there a bakery near me that's alf-decent?") then I use Yelp. "How busy is <restaurant x> right now?" then I'd use Google Maps. Yelp and Google both link to a businesses' website meaning I don't ever expect to log onto Facebook to check for basic business info. Facebook definitely does have some benefits for businesses such as notifying of promotions and such, but I honestly don't think I've ever thought of FB as the first stop to get business info. It's like a last resort to check for a FB page for me.

Yes, that's my personal experience as well. However, I've also contributed to Google Maps (and OpenStreetMaps) for missing locations that weren't entirely new.

I don't have any data, but I would not be surprised if a significant number of Google Map locations were created by patrons of a venue and not its owners/employees. Facebook Pages, on the otherhand, I see being set up and and maintained by an owner.

That's correct, Maps crowd-sources data if no owner enters stuff. You can even see "Is this your business?" sometimes if the owners haven't bothered to do it. Which, I mean, fair enough.

FB is among the last places I'd look, and would not be impressed by that being the only web presence for a small business. Seriously, seeing such induces an involuntary "ugh".

Putting up a website is trivial & cheap, and looks a whole lot more professional than one on FB. As a customer, I'd look for it by a Google search, and go to the "official" site. Put the hours there, and an easy link to a popular mapping site.

Frankly, having followed social media since dialup BBS days, I find Facebook a surprisingly crufty/poorly-made site. A core design has been hacked up to wedge in whatever new features. A new site could easily provide a next-gen UI, better putting common content together, better assembling a feed, saner advertising, and pointedly avoiding "censorship" ... only thing needed is that "tipping point" for migration.

I agree with you, but the reality is that domain registrations lapse, the niece/nephew who set up the initial web site went away to college, passwords are forgotten.

All these responses about setting up your own web site are similar to BrandonM's infamous Dropbox advice in the context of small retail shop owners.

This, in an nutshell.

FB is yet another (large) marketing/engagement channel. Do you get more/better customers from FB? Perhaps/perhaps not.

Do you even know what you are talking about? Here, let me give you an example to open up your mind.

Imagine, you are a kids jacket retailer and have a Shopify store. Yes, these exists and are popular. How do you get users to your store? Yes, you use Facebook. Do you know how you Facebook here? You create a group with VIP members and offer them an exclusive discount over new jackets. This builds loyalty and provides word of mouth marketing. Next you create a page and try to post different images/videos of kids in your exclusive jackets and build followers who will like/share your post and thus get you free organic distribution. Next, you use fb ads and target your specific demographics (say women 25-40 yrs old who are interested in kids) to get users in.

This is a real thing. One of my best friends has a multimillion dollar business a yr on kids jackets and all she uses for marketing is facebook and she swears by it.

Your friend should write a book and sell seminars on how to launch a multi-million dollar shopify store then. That's where the real money is.

Source: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/117-the-worlds-most-ex...

The real money is telling people how to make money. Sounds like a pyramid scheme.

not really. I believe that is real. Telling people how to make money comes with no risk and high profit margin.

Well, if the real money is in teaching people how to make money, then teaching people how to make money involves teaching people how to teach people how to make money, and thus recursed.

This is a pyramid scheme.

Depends on the business. Entertainment venue? Live music/special events/etc? Almost every spot in my town seems to use Facebook to advertise these events, and NOTHING ELSE.

I don't like it... but it's what people do. It's the only reason I have a facebook.

My issue is that a huge percentage of that effort ultimately promotes Facebook.

Who is winning when the restaurant I’m sitting in has a “Zagat Rated” sticker in their window?

Who is winning when a hotel in Phuket has a “TripAdvisor recommended” sign outside in the sidewalk?

I feel like any attempt I’ve made to use Facebook to promote my endeavors ultimately just benefited Facebook.

This is key; Facebook is incredibly important for a small business.

I started a firearms business, and being unable to use Facebook had a huge effect on how I was able to grow my business - making the same decision for political reasons is simply not an option for many small businesses who are just barely getting by.

Are you referring to Facebook like pages? They've been essentially pointless for a while now, since you only get onto your followers feeds if you "boost" a post, money that for a "poor" or "just starting up" new venture is better spent elsewhere.

What they did was genius - encourage everyone to make their Facebook following central to their online marketing strategy, then lock them out unless they cough up.

> since you only get onto your followers feeds if you "boost" a post,

Actually most people and new ventures on Facebook get plenty of buzz without paying a cent. This is done by relying on your friends and getting happy customers to repost stuff from your page, thereby reaching new audiences organically.

I've been told by people who do this sort of thing that an algorithm change in the last 6 mos. or so has made organic buzz much harder to get going on FB without paying.

To a small extent. Yes, they make you pay to "promote" a post higher in a user's timeline who simply liked your page.

But I'm talking more about organic buzz, whereby for instance your friend shares something from a page or talks favorably about it. There is no option to pay to promote those shared posts. The priority of those shared post depends more on how good of a relationship you have with your friend and how much engagement facebook thinks it will get form it.

On the contrary, in my experience when you’re starting up a new venture you should be laser focused on real customers, not engaging the peanut gallery.

> If you're rich or an already successful company

Also easier if you've got a non-consumer or big-ticket product. If I'm selling a new brand of bath soap, I obviously want a Facebook page. If I'm selling rockets, or cars, or laser eye surgery, hopefully it's a less important pathway.

(The Solar City page is gone too, which seems like a bit more of a sacrifice - someone might actually look them up on FB.)

I'm low-middle class and starting a new business, avoiding facebook at all costs. Although I do have a linkedin.

But at the same time if you relied on exactly one platform to build out your business, you are taking a huge risk. The issue you are facing is the platform version of "What if your key employee gets run over by a bus?". On the other hand, if you wouldn't be thrown out of business by the metaphorical bus running over FB, then you have only made your business stronger, so best to start planning now.

You don't need a facebook page. Throw up an HTML page and use Twitter for updates. Get instargram if you want to actively engage followers.

> "Get instagram if you want to actively engage followers"

Just to be clear, Facebook owns instagram.

And Twitter isn't categorically different from Facebook.

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