Is Facebook Bad for Business?

Written by: Gary Horsman

Is Facebook Bad for Business?

If you use facebook to marketing your business be careful. It may be a way to gain some exposure, however, you need to define your objectives and measure performance to these objectives to determine the business value of your facebook marketing.

Be careful, watchful and wary of how you market on facebook.

Here is something that just came to my attention yesterday. Copyblogger decided to delete their facebook account this week. They explained their decision. They explained that they believe that they are doing everything right but have concluded that their “presence on facebook has not been beneficial for its brand or it audience”.

Why Copyblogger Is Killing Its Facebook Page (read the full article)

I started this blog post with the question “Is facebook bad for business?” but the question perhaps should be is facebook marketing good for your business. If you decide to use facebook as one of your marketing channels then you have to define:

• How much time will you allot to facebook?
• What will your objectives will be?
• How will you measure to determine if it is worth it?

A Key Question

How will you promote your content on facebook? To gain more exposure facebook suggests to promote your facebook post to “the people who matter to you”. This means that you pay facebook to promote your post. It means that you are the content creator for content on facebook – you are, in effect, creating content for facebook.

To have other people create content for you and then to have them pay you to promote it is a beautiful model if you can get it to work. Facebook gets it to work as many people fall into the facebook trap. The “trap” means that it works for facebook (puts money in their bank account) but not for the content creator.

Remember, people do not primarily go to facebook to shop. They do not primarily go to facebook to research products or services. They primarily go to connect with friends and family.

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The promoted posts business model is the way facebook monetizes its rather large user base. Is a promoted post worth the investment?

Below is a must-view video on facebook marketing (promoted posts) and how it is very doubtful that a promoted post can provide any real value to a content creator.

The folks at Copyblogger know what they are doing and have decided to not use their time and present their content resources on facebook. We may want to take a lesson from them.

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Check out this video – it is well done and will be shocking if you are a facebook marketer.

by Derek Muller of @veritasium

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So is facebook bad for your business? You need to think about this carefully. You need to have a plan that has goals and that has measurements to determine if your marketing on facebook is working or not.

My advice:

My advice is to spend most of your time and creative energy building assets that support your center of content.

There are three assets you should be building today and every day. These assets should be your core focus for the lifetime of your business:

• A well-designed website & blog with your own hosting account
• An opt-in email list, with a high-quality autoresponder
• A reputation for providing impeccable value

Your Website

Have a website design that is modern, easy to use and that has delightful content. Make sure that it is responsive. Host it in a top level and secure environment and one where your hosting provider keeps the security up-to-date. If your site is hacked then you can repair it but it is more trouble to fix it than to keep your site updated and secure.

Also, make sure your website has a high-performance search engine optimization capability. Your content need to be optimized for it to be found and an important part of SEO is what happens on-site and on-page.

Your E-Mail List

Your e-mail list is made up of people that have opted-into your list. The want (indeed expect) to receive high-quality content from you. Set yourself up with a good e-mail marketing system and then focus some of your marketing attention on building your list.

Your Reputation

Make sure that you are always thinking about how to add value to your clients, subscribers and your potential clients. If you write a blog then do your research and write high-quality posts that shows your commitment and your expertise. If you display products on your website then have product photos that will help to create engagement and let people know that your reputation stands for quality.

Know who you want to be and project this. This is part of your reputation.

To develop these three assets builds long-term value. These are your assets and you need not place them on facebook. On facebook you are creating the content and then paying facebook to promote it. Is this a good model for you?

Perhaps you could use facebook for some of your marketing but use it to drive people to your center of content.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into the creation of your content. Place it at your center of content and then market it to drive people to your center.

You also need to be willing to “pull the plug” on something. If you define a plan and set objectives and then find that the objectives were met but the business value was not worth it then make a proper business decision and market somewhere else. This needs to be the case with facebook.

Don’t fall into the trap where you feel you must market on facebook. It may be misplaced.