Facebook’s IPO may go down as a Wall Street disaster, but does that really speak to the value of Facebook?
Maybe to the institutional investors out there, and to the many employees who became instant gazillionaires, their stock price is a daily soap opera. But to our industry, those numbers aren’t really important.
These numbers are: 3,000 images are uploaded to Facebook every second! A little bit of quick math translates that to 10.4 million images uploaded per hour—and around 250 million images every day.
Facebook’s value continues to be their community of addicted picture takers. What was once a gawker’s paradise is now a community of 850 million active users, many of them doing what we’ve wanted them to do all along—take pictures.
At some point, Facebook will become passé, just like everything else you think will never end. In the meantime, if you’re not taking advantage of the photo-enthusiast community of Facebook, then you need to do your marketing homework.
Facebook is a marketer’s dream. It’s akin to gathering all of your customers in one room to talk to them. You don’t have to hope they’re watching Modern Family or listening to Classic Rock to reach them. A good portion of them checks into Facebook at least once every day.
Facebook’s value for the photo industry is incalculable. If you’re not taking advantage of it, rest assured your competition is.
