adaliabooks: It really depends what you want it for.. I find it great for my business, because it's aiming at local audiences and it's really easy to target them and engage with them on Facebook. Most of our (meagre) advertising budget goes on Facebook ads and it definitely works for us as I'd say at least 70% of our customers learn about us there.
But when I've run online ventures with a larger (national or global) reach I've found Facebook mostly useless as you get very little customer conversion even with paid adds. But I'm no expert and I'm sure I don't utilise it as well as I could do.
There isn't really anything like hashtags. Your page might get recommend to others who have similar interests but there is no real organic discovery, you have to pay for people to find your page or post interesting enough posts that others will like or share them so their friends see them.
Yeah, I got to the same conclusion that as Facebook is apparently still modeled around its early "school yearl book" mechanics, the virtual organic discovery for "international strangers" is low, starting local seems to be the key as you can mix it up with some IRL stuff.
morolf: Why do you want to have followers on facebook? For political activism or just for fun?
Personally, I think Facebook is vile and Mark Zuckerberg totally evil (and now he seems to have ambitions to become US president...scary), so I've never joined it. But it's still possible to create a fake account? I thought they required an ID or something of the sort. Hmm, maybe I should create a fake account then...I'm tempted to spy on some people I know from real life.
For personal projects (artistic and business).
And yeah, the ID is not required but as my intent is just to get around the interface, possibilities and strategies and not interacting, I doubt someone would notice my account (as it's meant to be disactivated after a while)
dtgreene: 2. The site expects you to use your "real name" (by which they really mean legal name), and if your account gets reported by enough users for having a fake name, you will be locked out of your account until you send them government-issued ID. This makes the site unusable for anyone who goes by a name other than what is technically their legal name.
mmm, depends of the case because I checked another ex- girlfriend and she uses the nickname she's called IRL rather her real surname. I guess that if people don't have reason to report you (unless they want to do you harm), you're fine.