Why Your Small Business Should Consider Facebook

Are you putting much thought into WHY you are posting to certain social media platforms? Are you posting to the right platforms to find your target audience?

This blog series is here to help you answer those questions! We’re wrapping up our dive into the major social media platforms to help you make better decisions about which ones to use and why you should use them. We’ll even talk about why you might not want to use them.

This week, we’re exploring Facebook! *cough* We mean…Meta.

The Basics About Facebook

Facebook got its start in 2004 as the brainchild of a few ingenious Harvard College students. The most notable among them, Mark Zuckerberg, remains the current chairman and CEO of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.). Here is what you need to know!

What initially started as an Harvard-exclusive platform, expanded rapidly across the country, and then the world. The events of the platform’s launch are the basis of the movie The Social Network (2010).

Back in October of 2021, the overarching parent company known as Facebook, Inc., changed its name to Meta to, “reflect the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media.” However, the social platform itself still retains its original moniker.

Today, despite the widespread userbase of other platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and so on, Facebook remains the largest and most diverse platform out there, boasting an average 2.82 billion daily active users. More than any other social media network.

Why You Should Consider Facebook

When it comes to marketing, your business should definitely have some kind of presence here since Facebook is the place where the majority of potential customers are active. Like most social media platforms, Facebook is FREE to sign-up.

Once you have created your own personal profile, you can create a Business Profile that your account will be linked to. Facebook can serve as a secondary website for your business. Many consumers will venture over to Facebook to learn more about your business and see what kind of presence you have.

Facebook works best for businesses that are B2C and E-Commerce. It also offers the best data on its users, making it easier to gain insights on your audience. This information is invaluable if you decide to run a Facebook Ad campaign in the future.

However, even if you are a B2B business, you’ll still want to have a presence on the platform. The reason? Your customers will most likely still have a personal account and will want to research you. You will also want to build your presence in order to host events, run ads, and accept reviews. Being active on this platform also helps your SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)

💡 Important information to know: Because Facebook is the largest social platform, this means that you are one of many other businesses trying to get noticed on the platform. This equals more competition.

With lots of active accounts competing for the same eyeballs, the Facebook algorithm has made it so that only a small percentage of your content will be seen by your audience. Expect to only get an average engagement rate of 1%-2% with each of your posts.

This doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is still considered good by Facebook standards. That means if your Facebook account has 5,000 Likes, a post may only be seen and engaged with by a hundred or so people. If you want more visibility you will need to pay to play by “promoting” posts or running ads.

Facebook’s Platform Features

For marketers, these are the main terms that you should familiarize yourself with for Facebook:

News Feed – Feed is the constantly updating list of stories in the middle of your home page. Feed includes status updates, photos, videos, links, app activity and likes from people, Pages and groups that you follow on Facebook.
Personal Profile – most users report that they use their personal profiles to stay connected to friends and family, share photos and videos, keep up to date with news and to research products/brands. You will need a personal profile to set up your Business’s page.
Business Page – After you create your personal profile, you are eligible to create a business page. By default, your personal profile will become an admin of the account.
Facebook Stories – add text, emojis, stickers, tags, mentions and much more to images or videos to tell your “story” for the day. Each story segment lasts for 24 hours and can be more than 15 seconds long. You can even cross-post your Instagram stories to Facebook.
Facebook Groups – Groups are a place to communicate about shared interests with certain people. You can create a group for anything — your family reunion, your after-work sports team or your book club.
Facebook Messenger – Now its own separate app on mobile, this feature is free and allows followers to directly message you and get their questions answered (but that is just scratching the surface).
Facebook Events – Is your business putting together a cool event, webinar or class? Create an event for it on your business page. Doing this will alert your followers and allow them to RSVP, share information, and host related discussions.
Facebook Live Video – Broadcast a conversation, performance, Q&A or virtual event. Live videos are authentic and interactive, giving you an opportunity to really connect with your audience and drive the most interactions. Followers who haven’t turned off notifications will receive a message alerting them that you are going live.
Hashtags – While hashtags have been around since Twitter started, hashtags are used on this platform to help users discover additional content and as ways to add branding to your posts. However, we have found at this point in time they don’t add much additional value.
Facebook Ads – Thanks to the ever-changing Facebook algorithm, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to reach target audiences without the help of paid advertising. From boosting posts to launching full-fledged campaigns there are many opportunities to reach your business’s ideal end-user.

Understanding the Algorithm

Search this topic on Google and you’ll discover page after page of articles discussing this very topic. Why? It’s not because it’s difficult to understand, but the simple fact that it’s changing all the time to keep up with user needs. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the information is already obsolete.

In a nutshell, the algorithm is evaluating every post and ranking them in order of “importance” for the user (and remember, there are 2.82 billion of them) every time they refresh their feed. The ultimate goal? Keeping the user on the platform so that they are seeing more ads. Check out these tips for effectively working through the algorithm.

Speaking of ads, if you are loving this article be sure to check out our previous series: Social Media 101 where we discuss the topic of advertising and metrics at length.

Some of the Pitfalls

Like any other social media platform, you have to dedicate the time to it. How much time is a decision you need to figure out. An occasional post once or twice a week likely will not help you gain an audience.
Expect to pay to play. When it comes to maximizing your page/post reach and engagement, you’ll likely need to establish a monthly paid advertising budget to break through the noise. We typically recommend our clients invest at least $100/month to start seeing meaningful results.
Getting good authentic followers is a bit of a challenge and having a good social media strategy is part of the equation. If you don’t have an idea of the direction you want to go, you risk not getting the results you want and need. Ultimately facing an inability to grow your follower base.
Facebook, like many other social media platforms, continues to stress the importance of video. You need a bank of videos to build posts and enhance your content planning efforts moving forward. Be prepared to get in front of the camera more often!