There’s a future for Facebook still

Talk to anyone under 20 about Facebook and they roll their eyes. It’s not relevant, it’s old hat, it’s not how they communicate – it’s how their mothers communicate. They are only interested in Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp. Their FB accounts are left lingering, gathering dust.

So should we consign it to the bin because the hipsters aren’t interested?

No way. A survey of (American) online adults shows Facebook is still way out front with 71% using it compared to 23-28% for the Twitters etc.

Sure, the growth has slowed but I’m not the only person who finds myself browsing holiday snaps from friends of friends I’ve never met who haven’t tightened up their privacy settings.

The survey also found that more than half of online pensioners are using Facebook. You’ve got to love those silver surfers who have so much more disposable income to spend on holidays – and then are happy to blog about it.

Pew Research also reports that 52% of online adults use multiple social media sites but Facebook remains the most popular with them.

And it’s women who make up the larger proportion – 77% compared to 66% of men. Of course some are just admiring friends’ baby pictures but a lot are using the medium to brag about their holidays and check out where others have been on holiday.

And of course traditionally it’s the women who do the holiday research and make the bookings.

Women are considerably more keen on Pinterest than men too and over 50s are becoming more interested. Its potential for promoting destinations is still to be fully exploited. And considering that visual content is said to generate 94% more views than text based posts it looks like this is still a channel on the way up.