Businesses who still use Facebook as their website...

never had a facebook account, just never appealed to me, can still navigate without it, boards is actually the only social media ive ever done, couldnt be arsed with it at all....

If you can perfect a platform that everyone uses you'll be a billionaire.

What is your suggested alternative?

Rubbish removal I would question

3.6m users in Ireland alone for facebook

2.5m for instagram

The cost of creating and running a website is large for a company, especially keeping updates etc. Facebook is a cheaper alternative and has instant chat etc

It's an excellent option, do you have an alternative with the user base as above?

Facebook has its issues it would be better if companies had their own proper websites. But at least you have a better idea of when a business updated its details on Facebook. With a website, the information can be out of date. There is no perfect solution.

Agree. I don't use Facebook either never have.

I think using Facebook looks less professional than using their own website.

If I get the please sign up message I just move on go back the internet search and look for another company

It is a growing trend globally. Businesses and ordinary users also use Linkedin landers for their business rather than going to the trouble of developing their own website. Most retail domain name registrars offer Wordpress as an installable option and it is the main content development system used by businesses. Joomla is also up there. It gets down to ease of use and cost.

Regards...jmcc

Yes, the Internet has a much higher user base. Why exclude half the country from accessing information about your business? Doesn't seem like a very good business decision.

If I'm trying to access a service, that service only having a presence on Facebook immediately rules them out for me. It tells me they are unprofessional. I would rather hire a professional, or at least someone who has the wherewithal to at least pretend to appear professional.

You don't exclude half the country, in reality the majority of people with income will use facebook, so your best return on investment will be on facebook.

I personally would not discount a supplier based on their website.

Whatever about the instagram figures there's no way that 3.6m in Ireland are using Facebook. Practically nobody under 30 uses it, which is probably about a third of the population. Even if you were to be generous and say that half of the rest of the population was using it then you'd only end up at around 1.76m.

I'd love to see whatever accounting tricks someone came up with to get that figure. Must be counting bots or something.

SO you have no idea how they came up with the numbers but you know they are not correct 😂

For most business getting access to 1.7m customers is a massive customer base would you not think?

Facebook is still very relevant, but it has very much transitioned from photos of your kids and dogs and showing off where you went on holidays to effectively become a modern day golden pages.

Its probably 3 years since I posted anything or made a comment, but I used it an hour ago to check for a phone number and get a feeling for a new dog groomer I plan to use. He recent posts, recent photos and reviews mean I'll be giving her a new client.

Yes. I have no idea how they come with their preposterous figure but I know that it is a preposterous figure. That is a perfectly logical.

Never liked Facebook. Any company that randomly changes privacy settings to expose your data is not to be used.

They've allowed to much spam and trolling. Our local neighbour group is mostly unreadable these days. So much spam and scams and advertising. Rarely look at it.

If I were to state that there were 1 million Bangladeshis living in Waterford you wouldn't have to know how I arrived that figure to know that it's a preposterous one. I shouldn't really need to explain that to you but…it seems that I did

That source state that that number came from Facebook's marketing API so it's entirely unverifiable. No doubt they have every incentive to high ball their figures since the share price of the company is driven by those kinds of metrics.

People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group (946 900).

(is this the bit that I use a cry laughing emoji? You'll have to excuse me. I'm not 14 years old)

As I said even the number pulled out of the poster ass of 1.7m is a huge customer base for a company

The question originally was why a company would use facebook and the large customer base is why

You can argue the toss with @Brussels Sprout over which made up number you can come up with no research is the right one

’Facebook - the internet for people who don’t know what the internet is’

If you have a business, either have a decent contacts page or stay off the internet.

A staggering account of all the small businesses I see on social media don't have any contact details, or where they are. Madness.

Facebooks a fossil.

A lot of places only need the equivalent of ITcorp.com. Gets the point across.