Yeah, I had typically the perfect example as yesterday, I checked a job offer in a local bakery which just opened this month in the neighbour village and they already started a lottery which got quite some good following (and being located next to a dancing club is good for attracting the young crowd which is already accustomed to Facebook)

I like facebook about as much as i like steam...

The only reason i made an account was to post some pictures to share with family. Then not touch it for 5 years...

We really noticed a difference when we started doing them, both in terms of page likes on FB and actual customers.

Of course, it depends on what your product is. We're in food, so we can give away freebies without it costing us a lot and a free dinner is a fairly decent prize for most people.
If you're doing something artsy a freebie might take a lot more time and energy (and possibly not be as immediately desirable) so the pay off might not be as great.

As it happens, I am starting to feel the need to create a Facebook account now too, for work and career reasons (e.g. I am supposed to follow certain things in Facebook). Phuck it, I guess I just have to do it even though I have zero other reasons to use it (or Twitter, or Whatsapp, or Snapchat, or or or...). I guess it is ok as long as I use it for "professional use" only, then i don't even mind using my real name in it.

I read earlier that the Android version of Facebook is "buggy" in that it eats your battery a lot, even if you are not really using Facebook actively. Apparently it wants to run and spy in the background all the time, and as a poorly coded piece of code, it uses lots of battery (something that it doesn't necessarily do on iOS).

Is this battery usage still a concern on Android? Can I fully close the Facebook app when I am not using it, and run it only when I want to use it?

Alternatively, if I feel I need to use it only on my PC (for work use), is it still fully usable on PC, ie. you don't really need the mobile app for anything specific? I know Facebook started on computers, but some newer social media apps are apparently mobile-only, there is no Windows version at all AFAIK.

It's worth having it in case a job hunter finds it but it was much better a few years ago, far more professional. Now you get e-mails every other week of reports of the networking your "colleagues" are doing, as if you are supposed to maximize it rather than be selective, just like Facebook..

I read about someone who barely used Facebook following scientific journals. It's also excellent if you want to form sub-groups since a great deal of many people use it in case you want to gather some people for a planned activity. The likes, annoying news or nonsense sharing though is crap.

It sucks

I can't say I've noticed it myself... though smart phone batteries are notoriously poor anyway so Facebook may well be part of the culprit.
I know the messenger (chat) app (yes, they have a separate app for an integral part of the service) got a lot of flack for apparently always recording or something because it was listening for voice commands, but I'm not sure that's still the case.

But the Android FB app is pretty useless. I only use it as a last resort and would definitely advice using the full web version (though not on a mobile, the mobile site is even worse than the app) for anything you do use it for. The web version is more fully featured than the app so you're not missing out on anything by not having it.

Someone explained me that Linkedln profile is like a reverse CV. When you apply for a job, you usually send them your normal CV (a pdf document or whatever)... but Linkedln is your online CV that possible headhunters etc. might check out at some point.
Thanks, I guess I will start from there and don't install it on my phone for now. Good to know Facebook is still fully usable in Windows, ie. it hasn't become something that is starting to require a mobile device.

My wife uses Facebook all the time on her Android phone (interacting with her friends), she hasn't used the Windows version for ages. Actually I think when she once did it, she was completely lost as apparently the user interface is so different from the mobile version.

I quickly googled for it, and here are the Facebook Android battery drain articles from last year:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3143605/android/facebook-app-drains-android-battery-life.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-iphone-battery-life_us_56b8b6c5e4b08069c7a7fc54

I miss my old Nokia phones where apps would normally stay shut until I run them myself, and when I exit the app, it really closes and doesn't pretend to close down (and still runs in the background). I want to have total control, I don't want the apps to decide "what is best for me", like Facebook draining my battery by having it merely installed.

CatPower,
To pretty much reiterate what everyone else has said.

Facebook is to the internet as [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_(magazine)]Chat magazine[/url] is to a library.

As someone that made a career in IT I find Facebook abhorrent. Horrible design, full of vacuous content.

I don't think so; the main reason it went on was because it kept coming out that more senior people had been lying to protect their own sides, and it all ended up getting messy. I'm too young to remember Watergate, but from what I understand it was a far more "exciting" scandal than a complicated, messy and frankly boring argument about whether a politician maybe called a policeman a "pleb".

YES
bit I am not on it.

Facebook doesn't have hashtags (well, it does, but it's an afterthought and poorly implemented). Instead it has trending topics, which are based on its own internal algorithms as to how many people are mentioning relevant keywords (such as celebrity names) and/or sharing links.

What I like about FB is the special interest groups, which give me my daily dose of education, infotainment and humor. I can also better keep in touch with family and friends. What I most dislike is that the site chooses for me which posts come up first on my wall, meaning that there's a real risk of never even seeing something I might've been very interested in.

As far as business use goes, you can buy targeted ads. You can set up a page for your company (or for your public self, if your business is you or something you do or offer) and use it to keep everyone in the loop; announce sales, contests and promotions; and give customers a way to contact you (and interact with each other on the side, if they so choose). One great example is Arby's restaurant, whose geek-oriented social media team has been generating a lot of real world revenue from appreciative customers. Another is author JK Rowling, who uses FB whenever her posts need more than 140 characters to express.

Oh, and Breja?

TL;DR. ;)

I heard they're giving away kittens! Also, I'm pretty sure your favorite movie is also theirs.

"Ernest Goes to Camp"?
"Weekend at Bernies 2"?
"Side Out"?