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Why You Shouldn't Be Ignoring Facebook for Your Business

Monday 10 April 2017

8 minute read

By Sarah Burns

Wow, that's a major statement from us isn't it? After three years of experimenting with other platforms our conclusion is that Facebook is still number one.

We have our reasons and explanations but the key thing about your social media marketing is ensuring that you take the advice that's right for you.

Stating that Facebook is #1 is a pretty broad statement and won't be accurate for everyone, however here are three huge reasons to take time on it, whether it's #1 or #3 in your social media platform priority list...

1. Your audience is already on Facebook

It's sometimes a great thing to venture onto new platforms and build a new audience. However, it's so much easier if your audience already exists there.

As a business at any level you may not be active on any social platforms and need to start from scratch - why build a presence on Twitter if your audience isn't particularly active on there but they're on Facebook?

fb-platform-usage-percents.png

(Source: Pew Research Center)

Facebook is also leaps and bounds ahead of all other platforms when it comes to engagement rates. It's a much slicker platform to engage with other users and it seems that because Facebook is so commonplace in our lives, we freely engage much more there than on other platforms.

2. Facebook's trio of tools make it unrivalled

Twelve months ago, we'll hold our hands up and admit that we were the ones saying, 'Facebook? Pah! It's no good for you!' (of course there were a few exceptions).

Unbeknown to us, Facebook was quietly working away in the background building up a selection of apps that ended up forming a strong package that has essentially shut us up, converted us, made us hold our hands up and say, 'We were wrong!'.

Twitter, on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction to pretty much how anyone had anticipated. It's still great at what it does - real time engagement - but as a traffic and lead generation tool, it hasn't developed.

Facebook introduced Messenger as a standalone app and acquired Instagram and integrated it so cleverly into Facebook.

  • Did you know as a business you can advertise on your Instagram profile as you advertise on your business page?
  • Did you know that Facebook is now rolling out a new layout so you can access and respond to all of your Instagram notifications through your Facebook page?

 

It's now clear that using Facebook, Messenger and Instagram is a powerful triple whammy.

3. Powerful, simple-to-use advertising options

In spite of Twitter and LinkedIn's attempts to edge in on Facebook's Advertising platform, neither have managed to do so with such success.

Admittedly, LinkedIn is a slightly different platform with its users having slightly different reasons for advertising - and most likely LinkedIn is a more relevant place for their adverts.

However, have you used LinkedIn Advertising? The Facebook platform is leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of user friendliness and capabilities.

Twitter has recently confirmed it is scaling down its Ads products - the cynic in me says this is because they know they've been beaten by Facebook in this realm. Heck, Twitter's having difficult time of it, full stop lately, if reports are to be believed.

Facebook, on the other hand, makes advertising slick and simplistic, the fact that its audience has been active for probably 10 years, means they've gathered so much data that you can utilise as a business.

So, why aren't you on Facebook yet?

If you have a Facebook page that you're not using, maybe it's time to revert back. As with everything else, fads fade away and although the likes of Snapchat have seen a huge 'boom' period, so did Twitter and look how that is now ebbing away to Facebook? In fact, people are suggesting that Snapchat has a similar growth pattern to Twitter.

However, as we pre-warned you at the start of this blog, just because Facebook is excellent, it doesn't necessarily mean it's 'the one' for you (sob).

You should be active on a mix of social media platforms - however small or large that mix is, is up to you and dependent on various factors.

Final comment? We're sorry we ever doubted you, Facebook!

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