We’re back with the latest edition of our series, @Me Next Time, where we invite Team Sprout and some of our favorite social experts to share what they really think about the latest industry trends and discourse.
Let’s just say: Facebook is still a relevant and important network for brands. Even after twenty years, Facebook remains steadfast despite the flood of new networks and the dramatic evolution of the social media landscape in general. According to The 2025 Impact of Social Report, 70% of marketing leaders agree that Facebook is the social network with the biggest impact on their business – the most for any network.
Facebook reached more than 3 billion active users by 2024 and is the third most visited website in the world. Just because the platform has an Oscar-winning biopic about its creation doesn’t mean it stops making history.
We spoke with Jodi Lawrence, social media director at Lodge Cast Iron, and Sarah Swainson, strategist and social listening analyst at Social Media. They explained why Lodge continues to bet on Facebook as more than just an existing network, and what it takes to sustain a community of 800,000 followers and 40,000 group members. As Lawrence said, “We realized that Lodge’s legacy users are active on Facebook. That’s a group of people we don’t want to leave behind.”
How target groups use Facebook today
Speaking of The social network, A lot has changed since the inception of Facebook. Once a place where university students connected, the network now connects the world. Despite its huge active user base, WHO uses the network – and How they use it – remains a mystery to many marketers.
Swainson shared an anecdote that illustrates this: “Many people assume that Facebook’s user base is an older audience. But 90% of the people who viewed our recent post (which received over 2 million views) were between the ages of 25 and 35.”
We used data from Sprout’s research and from the platform itself to find out the truth.
Generational usage trends
According to Sprout’s Pulse Survey Q4 2025, 80% of global consumers have profiles on Facebook, and that includes approximately 83% of Millennials, 86% of Generation X and 82% of Baby Boomers.
According to the Social Media Content Strategy Report 2024, Facebook users are most likely to interact with text posts published by brand accounts, followed by static images and short videos (<15 seconds).
Lodge presents some early evidence that they may be changing as Reels become a bigger part of the platform experience, which we’ll explore below.
Facebook’s role in customer service
Facebook is the top channel consumers turn to when it comes to customer service, especially for millennials, Gen X and baby boomers, according to The Content Strategy Report.
The network provides these users with accessible, real-time, and personalized support through DMs, comments, and posts. In return, brands can benefit from valuable feedback that helps them refine their content strategy and inform their product.
“On Facebook, we can identify problems incredibly quickly and prevent them from getting worse. Our audience on the network is made up of superfans, so if something goes wrong, they’re the first to let us know,” Swainson explains.
Enrich community with Facebook groups
More than 1.8 billion people use Facebook groups every month Researching the Facebook community. Groups remain popular on the platform because they give users a sense of community built around niche interests, fandoms, local events, shared culture, and more. Think about the Facebook groups you belong to and the important role they play in maintaining connections and hobbies.
Maybe you even belong to a group for brand superfans, like the one Lodge founded. As Swainson explains, “There were so many other groups around cast iron on Facebook, and a lot of great conversations were happening about our products. But it was really difficult to monitor all the talk about topics that weren’t related to our brand. I wanted to form a group so we could take the existing conversation into a space where we could monitor, participate in, and track product feedback. It took off quickly with very little promotion, and in just over two years we have almost 40,000 members and hundreds of messages. per month.”
Four ways to maximize Facebook’s impact on your brand
It’s clear that many brands are untapping the potential on Facebook because they don’t know how to maximize the network. What should you post? How can you find your company’s target group? What will it take to improve your return on your network investment?
To answer these questions, the Lodge team gave us an inside look at their strategy. Be inspired by their best practices to cultivate your own.
Experiment to keep up with the Facebook algorithm
Like all platforms, Facebook’s algorithm is constantly being reinvented and refined, which means your content strategy must change too. When we spoke to the Lodge team, they talked about the many evolutions of their content, which at one point included posting links and even full recipes. Recently, their continued experimentation has led them to embrace video.
“We shifted our Facebook content strategy in 2021 to focus on text-based posts, which was a huge pivot for us. We asked questions, that’s what drove engagement at the time. But you can only ask so many times, ‘What do you like to cook?’ or ‘How do you clean your pan?’ Now we’re up and running again. For a long time it seemed like video had no place on Facebook, but today Reels is generating millions of views – which wasn’t even true 10 months ago. So we’re experimenting with reposting our best-performing lo-fi Reels from Instagram to Facebook, and it’s going really well,” says Lawrence.
But that doesn’t mean the Lodge team is going to ‘set and forget’ their plans. They will continue to test and experiment to stay ahead of the next wave of algorithmic changes.
Lawrence adds: “We’re an incredibly experimental team. We like to throw spaghetti at the wall. For example, we recently published a new post comic strip we originally developed for Instagram, and our audience loved it. We are constantly trying new things.”
Maintain a regular Facebook Live cadence
Facebook Live allows users to broadcast live video directly to their Facebook audience. While some brands shy away from going live for fear of technical issues during the broadcast or negative user interactions, Lodge has found that live videos complement their other community engagement tactics.
“We have a series called Recipe of the Month. It comes to life in different ways through networking. On Facebook we have a monthly cooking challenge that we share in our group, and our members can win a prize if they share a photo with us. Then once a month we go live on Facebook with our in-house chef, Kris, who will cook the same recipe. We have a core group of users who are constantly in the know, and they have really developed a dialogue with Kris. The videos have helped us helped establish him as an authority – someone who guides people on their rock-solid journey,” says Lawrence.
While not all teams have the bandwidth to take advantage of live content, those that do should take cues from Lodge and embed them into their community experience on the network to encourage participation, rather than creating a standalone activation.
Use customer insights from Facebook to refine product development and content strategy
As mentioned, Lodge’s private Facebook group is a core part of their social strategy and the success they’ve seen on the network. It created a space for their most avid fans, but also welcomes those new to their cast iron journey. As written in their community guidelines: “You are welcome here no matter what you cook with.”
In addition to sharing their best cast iron tips, tricks and recipes, group members also share unfiltered product feedback. “The Group has been a great opportunity to learn what our customers like and don’t like. When a new product comes out, we launch it in the Group first to see how it goes. We also post survey links there because we know our members are the people who really care about what’s going to happen at Lodge,” Swainson explains.
Lodge’s Facebook group is a gold mine for constructive feedback. But they also leverage customer insights from their comments section, tagged posts, and more. Swainson adds, “I keep track of everything. I love customer feedback. We have a robust social listening strategy and we routinely share customer input with teams such as product development, creative teams or even sales.”
Sometimes teams discover lessons that they are too close to the product to see. Swainson shares a recent example: “A lot of people said, ‘I have the Rust Eraser, but I have no idea how to use it.’ After speaking with our product and copy teams, we realized that the product did not come with packaging explaining how to use it. Based on the feedback we received from social media, we started shipping the product with specific instructions and a QR code to our website, where customers could learn even more. It also inspired social content with demos on how to use the Rust Eraser.”
Use Facebook for a two-way conversation with your audience
When we asked the Lodge team for their best advice for brands looking to start using Facebook – or improve their existing presence – Lawrence had this to say: “Any brand that’s willing to have a two-way conversation can succeed on Facebook. If you’re okay with opening the floodgates and responding to people in your DMs, comments section and group, you’ve got the ingredients you need. People want to feel seen and heard on Facebook. If you are willing to participate in a meaningful way, and not just sell a product, then you have the ingredients you need. People want to feel seen and heard on Facebook. can grow a true brand community.”
Create a real community on Facebook
Even after more than two decades, Facebook continues to prove its staying power as a community hub, customer service channel, and goldmine of insights for brands. As Lodge Cast Iron’s success demonstrates, the network is a living ecosystem that rewards brands that are willing to evolve with it.
From experimenting with new formats like Reels to cultivating authentic two-way conversations in groups, the possibilities on Facebook are far from exhausted. Marketers who look beyond outdated assumptions and leverage the platform’s strengths will discover lasting impact and deeper connections with their audiences.
Want to learn more about how to maximize each social network? Download the Content Strategy Report and discover what 4,500 consumers say they actually want from brands on social media.
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