Although Facebook offers small and mid-sized businesses plenty of opportunities for marketing that would otherwise be completely outside their budgets, many owners do not use this resource to their best benefit. Let’s examine some of the ways many small business owners are misusing the opportunities posed by Facebook, so you may avoid these pitfalls.
Example 1: Using Facebook As a Mass Marketing Platform Is No Longer Viable
In the past, Facebook could be used as a vehicle for mass marketing, but today this is no longer the case. Trying to cast a wide net to reach out to an audience is virtually impossible, because of the breadth and intensity of the competition. Additionally, recent changes to the structure of Facebook have made this strategy virtually impossible without having to invest a great deal of money.
The way to market using the modern Facebook model is with a targeted, niche-oriented strategy that establishes and maintains a core audience and uses them for public relations.
Example 2: Using Facebook For a One-Man Show
In order to succeed on Facebook, you need the cooperation of your fan base. First of all, most people do not want to be contacted directly by a business on Facebook. Secondly, Facebook itself has changed its policies to heavily discourage businesses from messaging anyone with whom they do not have a prior offline relationship. This kind of action can result in a business’s privileges being revoked, or get them completely banned from Facebook altogether.
In order to succeed on Facebook, you need the core of your audience to open their social circles for you. You can do this by creating a platform that easily serves as a hub for conversation. People will naturally want to bring their friends into such an environment. In this way, you can gain access to new customers without having to hard-sell them on Facebook.
Example 3: Accumulating Likes On Facebook Is No Longer a Good Strategy
The Facebook like is a much less powerful tool than it was just two years ago. First of all, Facebook limits the amount of distribution a post is allowed unless it is sponsored (meaning that you have paid extra money for it). Currently, your unsponsored posts will reach only 10% of your audience at a time.
Instead of simply accumulating Facebook likes, a company should be much more concerned about the quality of those likes and where they come from. If the likes are coming from a popular page, then they may garner more potential customers and business. Otherwise, they are simply a wasted investment.
Four: Facebook Is No Longer a Resource That Can Be Used On Its Own
Small businesses must accept that using Facebook alone is a marketing strategy that does not work anymore. Unless the owner is looking to spend a great deal of money on sponsored posts, Facebook must be used in tandem with other social networking sites to create an overall impression of the business.
One of the best ways to use Facebook is as a tool to raise search engine rankings. Link your Facebook page to your landing page and insert anchor text that can be used to upgrade the page ranks and the overall ranking of your other websites.
Facebook is trusted by the major search engines, so one-way links from a page on Facebook will go a long way in raising the ranking of your other pages on the major search engines.
