10 Jun Facebook Marketing Is Dead – or Is It?
Facebook marketing is dead – kind of. It works in three very select situations, only one of which involves posting directly on your page. (Facebook advertising, on the other hand, is very much alive.)
Long gone are the days when a brand’s post would show up in our news feeds. Instead, old-fashioned organic reach sucks.
Organic Facebook marketing sucks
I’ve seen estimates of organic reach between 1 – 6%, which means one or up to six people might see an un-sponsored post on your Facebook Business page. Based on my experience as a user/consumer, I doubt it’s that high.
This is a very unscientific study, but I just scrolled through my feed. I saw a few sponsored ads and lots of posts from friends. I didn’t see one organic post from a brand. This made me wonder how many brands I follow on Facebook.
The answer is, “I don’t know!” I don’t even know where the brands I follow are listed. I looked in the navigation on the left, in settings and on my actual profile page. (If you know where to find this info, let me know.)
So that goes to show how much Facebook likes brands.
Facebook advertising is booming
They only like a brand if the brand advertises. And boy do brands advertise. For Q1, Facebook reported revenue of $26.17 billion, an increase of 48% compared to Q1 2020. And, their net income grew 94% to $9.5 billion, from $4.9 billion a year prior.
That’s insane.
Facebook ads work, otherwise you wouldn’t see growth of this magnitude. However, if you want to play the game, you’re going to have to open up your wallet. According to this Social Media Examiner article, you’ll want to spend 5 – 12% of your yearly revenue on ads.
Don’t be skimpy with your budget either. The author goes on to say:
“If you don’t spend enough money per month, Facebook will ultimately distribute that budget in such a thin way that you may not even be able to generate a single lead per day. However, if you had just bumped up the budget, you would potentially see amazing results.”
Is it worth it? Well, if your audience is on Facebook (some Millennials and lots of Gen X and Boomers) and you want to invest at least six months into Facebook ads, go for it. It might very well work for you.
With that said, none of our clients use Facebook for marketing right now.
Three Facebook marketing strategies that actually work
Posting video
To improve organic reach, it used to be enough to post photos and videos. Videos still cut through the noise, because:
“Facebook has their eye on the slow migration of television viewers, and by extension, the advertisers who’ll eventually follow those viewers.” It’s all about ad revenue, baby!
Doesn’t matter if the videos are long or short, live or pre-recorded by the way. What does matter is that your video is not from YouTube. YouTube is owned by Google. Google and Facebook are not besties, so yeah. Record it on your phone or use Facebook Live.
Using it for customer service
When I was researching a client’s competitors for a marketing strategy a couple of months ago, I noticed something on their Facebook pages: users were not engaging with company posts, but they were posting complaints or asking for help.
The experience your clients have when they need help is very much a marketing opportunity. Any chance you have to build trust and strengthen a relationship is a marketing opportunity. Seize it.
Respond quickly and be truthful and transparent. Treating them like fellow humans will go a long way to boosting your brand’s reputation.
Take advantage of Groups
I belong to a bunch of Facebook Groups that are business-related, and the ones in which I am most active regularly show up in my newsfeed. If you want to improve organic reach for your brand, this is it. Posting in a Group will be seen by other active users.
However, this is not an invitation to spam people! The same rules that apply to LinkedIn marketing apply to Facebook marketing. Don’t outright solicit business, don’t cold pitch and don’t make it all about you. Depending on the group administrator, you will be warned or you will be kicked out.
Do use Facebook Groups as another outlet for helping others and sharing relevant expertise and insights. You will slowly form genuine connections that could very well lead to paid work.
And remember, at the end of the day, marketing is about building trust and relationships.
If you’re curious about whether Facebook marketing could work for your brand, we’d love to help. We can put together a social media marketing strategy and determine how – or if – to use Facebook and other channels. Drop us a line.
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