My mums on facebook

Editor's Notes

1. My mums on Facebook.Yep. That’s right. 2011 was the year my mum went social, getting stuck into Facebook in a big way. Who would have thought that my mum, someone who had barely even held a mouse 10 years earlier would now be ‘liking’, commenting and poking her way around the internet.
2. Back when it started in 2004, Facebook was coolest thing to ever hit the web. Now my mums crashed the party. How has her demographic grown over 900% in just one year? And more importantly, what does this mean for the future of Facebook and digital advertising here in Australia?
3. To find out, I first need to look back and see how this situation came to be, and whose fault it is. Come with me as I take you back in time to a period in our lives when social media was nothing more than a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye. Back to my mums first encounter with the computer…
4. Here I am as a small boy, big school beckoning. Its time to get our first family PC to ‘help’ me with my schoolwork. Little did I know though, this grey box was going to offer me so much more than simply copying and pasting Encarta articles into my homework…
5. My new toy supercharged the way I communicated with my friends as I discovered new things; the Internet, the chat room and ‘Instant messenger’. Mum just didn’t get it. She wasn’t interested. All she saw was a big, expensive grey box that stopped me from going to bed on time.
6. 7 years on and university is calling me. Until now, mum had had no reason to jump on to the Internet, or the computer. Now, with me gone, how was she to keep in touch? Slightly nervous she finally fires up that grey box in the corner, and mouse in hand; types her very first email.
7. A revelation! The computer finally has a use! She discovers email is like letters on steroids, without the postage cost. Even if the computer was only used for this one purpose, there was no denying that it had now found a place in her weekly media consumption, alongside Eastenders of course.
8. 8 years on, and with me about to make the move to Sydney, I guess you could now class my mum a mature computer user. She has a laptop, has been amazed by seeing her house on Google maps and even beaten the computer on solitaire. I couldn’t believe it, this was not the mum I once knew.
9. What happens next I blame myself for. While saying our goodbyes as she waves me off at the airport, I turn around and utter the words that will change my mum’s digital world forever: ‘Don’t worry mum, we can keep in touch on Facebook’. (Whoops).
10. So the next day, she jumps straight on and before my plane even, she adds her first friend; me. And she doesn’t stop there. She adds old friends, she starts posting, poking and liking. My updates are no longer safe. Her comments begin appearing on my posts. Facebook had changed forever.
11. Mum even starts trying to speak in digital-lingo. Inappropriately LOL-ing on posts. No mum, LOL doesn’t mean ‘Lots of Love’. The embarrassment begins. Who invited mum to the party? Oh wait, it was me. I had brought this on myself, and had created a social beast that was out of control.
12. OK, so it wasn’t that bad. But Zuckerberg’s movement of Facebook from it’s original demographic to a much wider ‘open to everyone’ game plan has had some serious impacts on the site, and the ways in which people broadcast their thoughts. Mum was now watching.
13. So, how are Facebook going to sort out this mess? Can the new updates, and the introduction of ‘timeline’ lure me away from videos of cats again? Well, I think they’ll help, and it’s at least it’s a recognition from Facebook that things were going wrong. I must admit, I have been on it a little more recently.
14. The truth is, a social network will always live and die on the amount of active people that are on it. With everyone and his dog on Facebook, it’s without a doubt the easiest way to communicate online, even if it isn’t as cool as it once was. Facebook has undeniably found a place in everyone’s lives.
15. Here in Australia, people spend more time online than any other country, most of that on Facebook. My mums demographic are now among some of the most social in this space too, spending over 19 hours online a month. Her need to keep track of her kids has undeniably led to an obsession with Social Media.
16. We cannot deny the success of Facebook. And with revenue of 1.6 billion last year alone, it’s a moneymaking machine that goes from strength to strength. Yes, now my mums there too, but does this really matter? I mean she has a desire to connect with people just like the rest of us.
17. Up until a year ago, despite being ‘on email’, my mum struggled to grasp what the Internet really was. Now Facebook is her Internet. If she wants to find something (like a brand) online, she will probably do it within the confines of Facebook, because she’s already there. It’s easy.
18. In my opinion, for brands trying to reach my mums demographic online, this is like a wet dream. Not only do we know where they are daily, but we also know that she now has an understanding of the notion of being ‘social’. Mark my words, this in no longer a low-engagement age bracket.
19. As me and my peers become increasingly desensitised to Facebook, potentially looking to get their social kicks elsewhere, my mum is having the time of her life. She chats, she shares, she trades virtual cows and more importantly for brands, she now knows what the like button is and she’s not afraid to use it.
20. For the first time, the doors are wide open. As much as I may have my reservations about my mum hanging out with me, as a digital creative I can’t help but get excited about what’s to come in the future as brands begin to explore this new digitally savvy audience.  Kudos to you mum for embracing Facebook, I think you may have just made my job a lot more exciting.