I’ll say it once, but I’m sure that I’ll say it another 1000 times before the end of the week. Asking people to ‘Like and Share’ is stopping your business being seen on Facebook. This is just a little unknown fact that every small business needs to know.
There is a crucial reason why Facebook devalues pages using phrases such as “Share our page to win” or “Tag a friend” but as well as this, you also run the risk of your business page being shut down if you do this on a regular basis. Within this short blog, I’ll try to explain why.
Facebook is aiming for interactive, true reach. It wants to make a user’s experience on Social Media as enjoyable as possible so with over 1.7 billion users and at least 75% logging in every day – they’re keen to get it right and make everyone happy.
Having done its research, Facebook knows that for people to stay on the platform and continue scrolling down their newsfeed, they have to see engaging and interesting posts from people that they know. Users don’t just want to see sponsored posts and a newsfeed littered with posts that other friends have shared. The changes in algorithms that have been happening since 2012 also mean that all business pages across the platform get less visibility and appear less on a newsfeed. That was step 1.
Step 2 from Facebook was to rank down anything which is seen to be a ‘Promotional Post’. Simply put, this would be posts created for the sole purpose of pushing people to buy a product, push people to enter competitions or promotions and posts that reuse the same content. We also know that the Social Media giant wants you to remain on their platform! So rather than using it as a marketing tool back to your website, Facebook wants to encourage inbound links to pages, shops and events.
Step 3. Content is King! This is SOCIAL media, so get social with it. Asking your audience to tag 3 friends to be in with a chance of winning a holiday, or Like our page to win a meal for 2 – is hugely against Facebook’s regulations and each time you do this, you run the risk of being shut down. These things are monitored and with no warning, your page can be removed. This is in the small print when you created your page. Did you read it?
So, what do you need to do?
Well, it’s a no brainer that getting some digital marketing help from Social Media specialists like Social Progress would be the first thing you do. We have bags of experience which means that we can increase that current organic engagement rate from 2% to around 5% in 6 months. If you include some advertising into the mix you’ll see a much higher rate for very little cost. Facebook has made it a goal for them to be the most cost effective means of marketing there is.
But, for now rather than getting too technical with explaining how advertising can help grow your business, here are 5 handy steps that we’d like to share with you:
- Grow your Audience – Identify who your audience is and find them by appealing to them and their interests
- Get to know them – Grab their attention and demonstrate that you’re the business they’ve been looking for
- Engage with them – Build the relationship and familiarity. 58% of consumers would engage with an Advert at least once before spending money with a small business
- Stay connected – Retain consistency in your communications and keep it relevant. Think about timing and authenticity
- Close the sale – 62% of consumers would use Facebook to learn about businesses and help them make purchasing decisions.
There is a lot to it, so if you want to get your head around this better, speak to a member of the SoPro team.