This is a question I’ve been asked a lot lately.
With the new changes on Facebook, despite its huge audience is it still a good tool for business owners? Let’s take a look…
With the new layout of the fan pages, tabs go away and you cannot land new people on a specific page where you ask them to like your page. The already challenging task of making them engage with a fan page increases here.
When you ask friends to like your page, the request does not show anymore below friend requests. You need to find it under requests on the right side of your feed. Do you remember to check that?
Add that to the fact that now you need to periodically check if there are messages that were qualified as spam on your wall and release them.
Events now have their own button and don’t show anymore below your friend requests. Do you click on events button? One more thing to do every day if you are a networker and if you are not, why click? If you rely on Facebook to fill seats, bring people to meetings, teleseminars etc, it just became more complicated. It was not very good before either because people would just click attend with no intention of really attending but now there is one more hoop to go over.
Even the pay-per-click ads on Facebook generate leads but very few buyers, and we have tested this in several industries.
Don’t forget the fact that you must interact with people on your profile and pages as much as you can because if you don’t your feed will stop showing on their wall. Facebook has an algorithm that checks who you are most likely to be really friends with and selects for you who sees your messages. If you are more of a listener type, you might have about 8 people showing on your feed and vice-versa.
So, is it worth to spend time marketing on Facebook?
If you don’t have a strong presence online, you are just starting a new business, need to have more visibility and create awareness, Facebook can be really good to you. If you figure how to get attention with the visibility you get there and do something different than every one else is doing. When you open your feed you probably see everybody giving tips. What are you going to do that is different?
If you want to brand your company, have a budget to spend on apps, contests etc. Facebook is a good option. You can use it as a broadcast channel to broadcast your voice, podcasts etc. We have deepened relationships with clients and prospects, got quite a few interviews and speaking gigs from Facebook too.
Branding, visibility, awareness are the biggest benefits Facebook can give you when marketing your business there. Don’t expect to build a business just with Facebook but don’t discard it as part of your marketing mix.