I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. In the past, it was a great marketing tool, and if you are prepared to wade through the sea of vague-bookers and the dinner-time status posters, it still is to some extent.
It still surprises me how many small business owners do not use a social network to promote their business. I mean, really, whats not to like about free advertising?! If you still haven’t ventured into the world of Facebook page admin, don’t bother! That ship has sailed! The golden days of the Facebook Page are well and truly over.
Why, you may ask?
Well over the years, the way you build your audience on a Facebook page has dramatically changed. Initially, Facebook users simply added new users to their page, in the same way Facebook Groups now operate. this created instant Facebook Page success! Oh those glory days! However, in 2010, Facebook was floated on the stock market, ensuring that the site must become a profitable entity for it’s share holders. Obviously, it’s users didn’t want a paid subscription service. So in order to keep Facebook free, the site introduced paid ads, promotional sharing, and paid page boosting. In introducing page boosting, Facebook began to limit the content posted by page admins thus hammering the nail into the Facebook coffin.
Social network users are fickle creatures. Mess around with the format too much, and they jump ship. Anyone remember MySpace before beta? Nobody likes to have limits imposed on them. It’s a bit like a bad broadband provider; eventually when the contract is over, you’re going to move on.
At present, only 16% of content posted on a Facebook page is visible to is followers. Facebook have admitted this figure, although as many page admins will tell you the figure is a lot less!
So how do you increase your viewing ratio?
The obvious trick is to post content that people are drawn to; a picture of a kitten or a meme, which is great if your page is called Kitten Memes, but not so good if you’re a non-kitten related business page! Irrelevant page content is a customer turn off. Engage your customers, interact with them, this will improve your stats. But remember not to bombard them with advertising; the 80/20 rule applies to Facebook too. 80% engaging content, 20% adverting. This is the free method, it takes a great deal of effort, and there are no guarantees that it will help your sales conversion rate.
Which brings me to the paid method. Do you want to pay for Facebook advertising? Do you even have to funds for advertising? If you do have to funds to advertise, why would you give it to Facebook when there are better, cheaper, free alternatives out there?
Facebook users tend to be young. This in itself is a contradiction, as reports are showing that most young people are abandoning Facebook. The Stats also demonstrate that when it comes to paid advertising, users show high ad engagement overall, accounting for half of all re-targeted clicks on the Web. Thats great huh? Not really, there is no evidence to suggest that these paid clicks are converting into actual sales, and since this young demographic has the least spending money, It’s doubtful! In summary, Facebook users are drawn to shiny objects. They prefer to “like” and “share”, rather than spend. And that for business owners is the bottom line.
Positive Zest 