Why Your Business is Failing on Facebook

Many things truly connect humanity. Television, radio, and newspapers have all made our world smaller and information more accessible. However, none have had the impact of connecting people the way Facebook has.Facebook is a powerful platform in today’s world. Due to its size alone, businesses can’t ignore it.

•One out of every five page views in the United States is on Facebook.
•Facebook has 1.3 billion active users each month.
•Over 1 billion Facebook users are active monthly mobile users

What does this mean for your business?

It means that a business that can harness Facebook will grow sales, increase brand awareness, and most importantly create a loyal customer base.

How should a business use Facebook to meet these goals?

Engagement. Engagement. Engagement.

Engage with your followers and build a relationship. Know who your followers are and what interests them, then deliver it. Avoid constantly selling to them—that can come later.

One of the quickest ways to turn off your Facebook followers is to sell to them with every other post. Businesses should engage their users by creating content that entertains and adds value. Content that does this will be much more likely to create engagement and win more users.

Talk about what your followers are talking about. If you can tie it into your brand or products, even better, but if not, that’s fine. Engagement is more important than staying “on-brand.”

The algorithm Facebook uses to determine what users see has evolved dramatically in the last couple of years. This algorithm is commonly referred to as EdgeRank. It places value in the relationship between the user and the brand (Affinity), type of engagement (Weight – likes, comments, shares) and time decay factor (1/time since action).

A post with a better EdgeRank score will reach a larger percentage of followers. By creating content that engages your followers, you’ll be reaching a larger number of users. You can check your page’s EdgeRank here.

In the last few months Facebook has drastically decreased the average organic reach of a page. A normal post from business pages today sees on average 3-5% of your users while six months ago it would have seen roughly 14-16%. This comes as no surprise, as more businesses continue to adopt Facebook as a marketing platform and Facebook pushes to further monetize their beast of a platform.

When do I use Facebook to drive sales?

You’ve engaged your users so that your business has a high-affinity score and built a solid relationship with your followers. It’s time to put out a “call to action”.

A call to action is something that prompts your followers to take action. This can be as simple as viewing your website or buying a product.

Set goals for your calls to action and make sure they are measurable.

As with a normal post, the call to action needs to be visually appealing and compelling and make the user want to engage. Most Facebook users scroll through their newsfeeds quickly and don’t stop until something catches their eye. Make sure it’s your call to action.

Facebook provides analytical tools to help businesses optimize their content. Use them. Figure out what works and what doesn’t and build off of it.

If a business posts content that engages their followers, then brand recognition, sales, and the loyal customer base will fall into place.

Other quick tips

•Use images and make sure they are the correct sizes
•Share interesting things about your employees and culture, not just your products and/or services
•Don’t use the same posts across all platforms; consider your audience and consider the platform
•Listen and respond
•Think of Facebook as a long-term branding strategy, not an immediate ROI

 

When it comes to Facebook, don’t sell. Engage.