2012: The Year On Facebook

The year of 2012 has been an important one for Facebook. Possibly their biggest year to date for notable achievements, this article looks at some of the most notable Facebook moments from 2012.

Facebook redesigned its messaging service, help centre and made changes to friendship pages. It has also incorporated a jobs board and made another effort at giving gifts to friends on the site.



Users

Towards the end of the year, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media platform had reached more than a billion active users. With their being around 7 billion people on the planet, this is definitely a high point for the company.

To commemorate the achievement, Facebook released a commercial which compares the site to chairs, doorbells and planes amongst other things.



Updates

January saw the launch of News Feed ads which are gradually becoming a large source of revenue for the social platform. These were originally limited to Page Post Ads but since then have been introduced to the news feed.

Facebook Pages were changed to the Timeline format in February with personal pages having already been changed.

The launch of the App Centre came in June which showed a dashboard that improved the discovery of apps used on the web and on mobile devices. The App Centre can be accessed via the search bar on the news feed.

Facebook Gifts were created so that users in the U.S. can buy items for their friends and have Facebook send it to them without the sender needing to know the recipient’s address.

Promoted Posts for personal accounts became available in the US in October after they had been introduced to Pages earlier in the year. Users are able to pay money to promote their status and other updates to the top of their friends’ news feeds.

“Global Pages” were released by Facebook as a way for companies and international brands to communicate with all their fans from different countries around the world from one page. The language, photos and tabs, etc will differ by region. Those who visit a global page are automatically redirected to their specific region of the page.

“Friendship Pages” have been redesigned to show the two people in connection’s history in the Timeline format. They can also be updated with cover photos and highlighted posts.

Users of the social platform are now able to edit comments after posting them and can also add certain friends to a “close friends” list which gives you the ability to see what your closest friends are doing on Facebook.

Multiple mobile apps have been added and upgraded to enhance user satisfaction with smart phones and tablets becoming more and more utilised.

Politics

Politics were a major talking point in 2012 and Facebook was one of the main places to discuss views and encourage voters. This became particularly evident during the U.S. presidential election.

Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney used Facebook as a means of encouraging people to vote and to spread their message out to vast numbers.

Facebook helped Americans to find polling stations in order to vote and when the result had come through that Obama had earned four more years in the White House, it produced the most liked photo ever on the site.



The picture of President Obama hugging his wife under the caption “four more years” currently has more than 4 million likes.

Other News

The network once again has proven to be a place for progression for social good and positivity. Users were invited to become organ donors back in May by setting up an organ donor status on the Timeline.

It became a crucial and important source for information to those who had been affected by
Superstorm Sandy in October.

Facebook agreed a deal with Instagram at the start of September to buy the photo sharing application. The deal ended up costing Facebook $730 million in cash and stock.

What do you think has been Facebook’s most important moment in 2012? Do you think more needs to be done this year?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or via Twitter.
 

Daniel Barr

Follow us @SocialMediaF & @DanielAtSMF

www.socialmediafrontiers.com