digital marketing
By Carrie-ann | May 01, 2013 | Social Media

Does Facebook Marketing Work?

People often ask me whether Facebook marketing works or not.  It can of course.  I think a lot of small businesses get their fingers burnt. There’s a rush of enthusiasm within the first couple of months and then they get stuck.  But I need to be honest here. Facebook is better for B2C rather than reaching business customers. So if you’re targeting corporate clients you need go elsewhere or accept Facebook as a tool for improving your online footprint.  For consumer based businesses it’s a different story. Or can be.

Success on Facebook boils down to your ability to know your target audience and tap into their personae.  Put another way, you have to know your target audience  well enough to be able to engage them in social media based conversations. You may even be able to turn them into advocates for your business – as in when people share your posts or recommend you to their friends. Finally, you may even generate some business. Maybe not today, but somewhere further down the line.

Social media tools such as Facebook can certainly get people to use promotion codes, participate in competitions, submit photos and answer questions. You see psychology plays a big part. People need to feel your company is human. That it has a personality.  That’s why your Facebook page must be run by a human and not software. Does your target audience like you? Will they engage with you? Will they share your stuff? A share isn’t quite a recommendation but its close and people will often ‘like’ what their friends share.  ‘Likers’ are loyal (and sometimes lazy..they don’t often edit their likes).But don’t take that as a signal you can bombard people with your posts.

There are different ways to get started on Facebook. Ads can be helpful to build up an audience quickly. Facebook advertising is cheaper than Google Adwords and is good for finding people with demographics and interests that suit your business.  One thing I would pass on to you is that any advertising campaign needs to be carefully monitored. So don’t make the mistake of just throwing ads up.  You’ll find that your ads appear inconsistently – they ebb and flow so daily monitoring is important. Different ads bring different results (image, text, questions, polls) and it will depend on the type of business you run.

Generally speaking location based businesses do well, because communities like to share more. But overwhelmingly businesses that ‘get it’, eventually thrive – even on a small scale.  A word of caution. Facebook won’t help a poorly targeted or branded business. These types of businesses struggle to build their own identity on Facebook as elsewhere.

Contact me to discuss social media marketing for your business!