If you think being on Facebook is what all small businesses want, think again. Due to one reason or another, some small business owners decided to delete their Facebook account. But why? Read on to decide whether you will follow suit or not.
Facebook, as we all know it, is THE social networking site. With 1.11 billion accounts as of May 2013, it’s world’s most popular. It’s often advised by experts that when a small business want to get started in social media, it should create an account with Facebook first.
But I’ve seen a ripple in the media that business people – including small businesses – are running away from Facebook. It’s not really a trend, but knowing the reason why can help you decide whether you should join Facebook or not – and if you do decide to create an account, how to maximize the return of your efforts (and resources.)
Facebook might not be for your small business
1. Facebook is not for driving traffic to your website
Whether you like it or not, that’s the way it is – Facebook is not a great tool to deliver traffic to your small business website.
Dave Allen of brand agency North used Facebook for his business purposes, mainly promoting his blog posts to his ‘friends.’ However, he found out that Facebook is not really good driving traffic to his blog posts. “Twitter does a far more admirable job, as does Reddit and LinkedIn,” he said in his blog post. Brunner Nathan, CEO of Technologeek Inc. also recommends for people to flee Facebook for Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram.
2. Facebook privacy issues turn off small business owners
Facebook is allegedly collecting users’ data – often without the users well informed about its activities. So, how much data of you that Facebook collect? Wired magazine reported that it’s 1,200 pages of personal data per person, categorized into 57 categories.
The privacy woes are finally making small business owners fed up and eventually ended up closing their Facebook account.
3. Facebook marketing ROI turns out to be dismal
Early this year, Elan Dekel wrote on Forbes a rather controversial article, claiming that Facebook Pages are a bad investment for small business.
Of course, creating and using a business page is free. But as a small business, you want to promote your brand and products/services. Often, you need to use Facebook advertising service to reach out to potential customers.
From his post, I learn that Facebook is unreasonably expensive for small businesses looking for “page likes” and “link clicks,” costing advertisers from $6 to $20, and in some cases $50.
4. Facebook has become a place for people to share rants and all the negative updates
Facebook has become a pretty depressing place to hang out in. With a mountain of fake user profiles, negative comments, rants and ‘dramas,’ getting found is a taller order today; it’s getting hard for small business owners to offer useful, relevant updates and promote the real value of their brand, products and services.
Due to those issues, not only personal users, business users also run away from Facebook.
So, what’s Facebook good for?
Of course, Facebook is not a bad social media for small business. When you use Facebook business page in the right way, you can reap the benefits of using Facebook.
1. Facebook is great to create brand awareness
Although you might not be getting as many leads from Facebook as you’d expect when spending your marketing budget, Facebook turns out to be a great place for your small business branding purposes.
A recent article published by Max Kalehoff shows that, according to a research conducted by Syncapse, the value of a Facebook fan has increased 28 percent to $174.17, on average. This makes Facebook marketing a good social marketing investment for your brands.
2. Facebook is great for offers, events and contests
Facebook is not for getting people to click links without a catch, it seems; it is for people to click links, likes or shares when they think your offer is good enough. Indeed, Facebook is great for driving interest and sales using “a catch” or reward – typically offers and discounts.
Jeff Bullas shares how 5 companies launched successful Facebook marketing campaign. They are typically using Facebook to offer discounts and special offers to existing and new Facebook fans, and promote the promotion to their contacts, typically via email, other-than-Facebook social media promotion, company blog, Facebook posts and so on. They are getting direct sales/profits, as well as new likes/fans and even email subscribers.
3. Inbound marketing rocks: Facebook is great to talk with friends and family
Initially, Facebook was created as a place to connect with friends and family. Today, it still holds true. Getting your products/services on every Facebook user in your list or to others via Facebook ads is not effective; but making your status updates and offers worth-sharing is the key.
Using inbound marketing principles in creating your Facebook campaigns will not only attract people to your updates, but also attract them to share yours with their friends and family. Suddenly, without spending a dime on Facebook ad, your brand, products and services are traveling through “online words of mouth.”
Takeaway
So, should we use Facebook? The answer is still a resounding ‘yes.’ In fact, using Facebook is somewhat mandatory. It’s where your target audience hangs out, any way… in fact, according to Forbes.com, if you are a job seeker, not having a Facebook will make you viewed by hiring managers as “suspicious.”
So, what’s your take on this? Will you or will you not use Facebook to promote your small business?
Photo credit: Steel Wool via photopin cc
