What Businesses Does A Facebook Presence Work For?

Facebook - is it adding value to your business?

What kinds of businesses does Facebook work for?

I recently made a blog post questioning the effectiveness of Facebook for small business. As I have got more and more into SEO, I have noticed what I would call the social media marketing merry go round. This is where marketers tell you that you need to have Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, Google+ et c, et c, or you’re missing out.

The aim of marketing is to get noticed.

Are you really getting noticed if everybody else is doing the same thing as you? I say no. You’re just one of the crowd. And as I said in my last post, 620 of a 1000 small businesses surveyed in the UK said they believed that social media engagement made no discernible impact in brand awareness or sales.

I posted my last blog post to a few Facebook groups (as you do) and found that it stirred up some controversy. A few comments were made about how you could very effectively use Facebook ads to drive traffic to your site. I was told I was wrong to question whether Facebook works for small business.

I guess what I came up against was the danger of airing unpopular opinions. Some of the people who commented were committed to the idea that Facebook worked for business. Strangely enough, I didn’t say in the blog post whether Facebook, posting, boosting posts and advertising was worthwhile. I just posed the question.

Anyway, this got me thinking. What does Facebook work for? No sooner had I asked the question than an answer appeared to me. That answer was in a page I had liked – Yoga Journal (yes, I’m a new age type of guy). This page links to their website, obviously.

They have a regular posting schedule on Facebook. There are two important points to this. Firstly their page has 1.8 million likes – even if their organic posts only get two percent of their followers viewing them, 36,000 people are going to see their posts. That is without boosting the post.

Secondly, Their posts are informational. The people who like their page are interested in yoga, naturally, and are very likely to want to learn more. They have a very high likelihood of wanting to click on the post and see what it’s all about.

Compare this to a business selling pergolas. Sure you can put up photos of your work, but unless someone is in the market for a pergola, they’re not going to your site. And anyway, you’re not writing articles about stuff.. how many articles can you post about pergolas? It’s just not a very informational topic. People aren’t going to be heading to your site to look up the latest in pergola technology week in week out.

So it’s horses for courses. Like anything, one size doesn’t fit all. That goes for Internet marketing.

Oh and by the way. Organic reach is dying. Facebook wants to make money. The greater the organic reach, the less likely businesses are to pay for Facebook to boost their posts. By shrinking the organic reach, Facebook improves its business, as this graph shows.

Facebook reach compared to share price

Once again, the lesson to take from this is measure results. If you’re posting and posting on Facebook is it eating time that could be put to better use in other areas of your business? The only way you are going to know is if you are measuring your traffic acquisition from various sources including Facebook.

 

What About Facebook Advertising?

Facebook-Ads

I recently pointed out that that Google Adwords was becoming so expensive that it was not cost effective for most small businesses

Of course there are pay per click alternatives to Google. One of those is Facebook. Facebook for those who don’t know (or more likely don’t care – there are people who are not into Facebook), Facebook is the number 2 most popular site in the world behind Google.

The stat is that fully 25% of Australian user’s time on the web is spent on social media sites such as Facebook.

But  – the fundamental difference between Google and Facebook is that people go to Google when they are searching for a specific thing – often a product or a service (97% of consumers use the internet to research purchases).

People go to Facebook to relax and play.

They look at photos their friends have posted and see what they have been up to. They play games. They chat to friends.

Now there is nothing wrong with this. For 50 years television has been a form of entertainment and been supported by advertising. So entertainment and advertising obviously mixes. Same as magazine and newspaper advertisements.

However, a recent consumer survey in the US said 62% of people surveyed said social media such as Facebook had no influence on their purchasing decisions whatsoever.

The effectiveness of Facebook advertising varies, depending on your business. The click through rate (That is how many people actually click on the advert) for health care is very low, but it gets steadily better the more entertainment oriented your business is.

It is something worth trying. But like any advertising you have to measure it and see how it goes. That is the key for any small business advertising. Knowing what advertising is resulting in sales.

Facebook advertising – effective or not?