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Does Facebook Marketing Really Work? Debunking Myths for Small Business Owners

Are you wondering: Will Facebook Marketing benefit MY business?

The answer: It depends.

Everyone is saying you have to be on social, but the truth is, you can’t just show up on Facebook, wing it and hope for the best, because chances are, it won’t work.

It’s similar to running an ad in the newspaper, if you don’t research or have any idea of what to say, or where to put it, the ad won’t work.

But if you’ve carefully worded your ad, chosen the best page to be featured on, and understand what your potential customer wants, you’ll hit it out of the park.

You have to know what you are doing. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the benefits of using Facebook, the truth behind each of them, and then how you can assure your business will flourish, if you choose to use it.

Myths Behind Facebook Marketing

Access to 1 Billion Users

This is one of the main draws for Facebook, but it’s important to know, you won’t actually get to market to 1 billion people. If you choose to run a fanpage, it will be seen by the people you can already market to, in email, forums, etc.

You have to get people to come to your fanpage and like it, Facebook doesn’t do this for you, and they don’t help you do it either. They do offer advertising, where you can choose people to advertise to based on age, location, and a few other specifics, but this does cost money, as much as a couple of dollars per new like.

[message type=”success”]“Just like a website, people expect you to be on Facebook”[/message]

The real benefit here- up to a billion users are often using Facebook and as a fanpage you get space on the popular website for their users to see your information (as long as they’ve liked you) along with all of the other information they want to see.

Again, the newspaper analogy, in the NY Times you have access to millions of subscribers, if they read the section you’ve chosen to advertise in, you will advertise to them.

Status: Busted

Your Customers Expect It

This isn’t so much a benefit of using Facebook, but more of a reason to use it. Because Facebook is so big and popular, brands with any kind of popularity are expected to be there.

A good analogy is expecting your favorite stores to be at the local mall, so you can shop there. Or just like someone expects you to have a website, so they can purchase online, or at least easily learn more about your company.

[message type=”success”]“You don’t get to market to 1 Billion people!”[/message]

On the other side of this, if you are a popular brand, your customers are already going to be talking about you, and mentioning you in social.

If you have a fanpage or other profile (for example Twitter) you can answer the people who are talking about you, give them a place to post their comments and concerns, and benefit by being able to market to them once they like you.

Think of it as a place for customer service, and you need an outlet for that, as more people are moving from the phone to the internet to take care of issues.

Status: Confirmed

Increased Traffic, Revenue, Sales, Conversions…

One of the biggest draws to social media is the opportunity to grow.

Get more website visitors, get more sales of your product, get sign ups for your webinar or email newsletter. Does it work? Yes, actively marketing on Facebook can get you all of these things, and increase your revenue, but it isn’t that easy.

[message type=”success”]“In order to succeed you need a strategy”[/message]

To be successful with using Facebook for your business, and to see the results of anything increasing, you need a strategy. It isn’t as simple as posting your promotional links and getting several people to come to your website and pay for your services or products.

Here are some things you need to work on your social media strategy:

A daily plan to follow
An idea of what to post each day
An understanding of building relationships via Facebook

Status: Busted

You Need to Hire A Social Media Expert to be Successful

As much as I like having clients, not everyone needs one, and it is possible to be successful without experts.

It isn’t easy though, you’ll need to do a lot of reading and put in a lot of time working on your fanpage. What you’ll see here is the average time or money investment. You can spend the time or the money to get what you want, choose the one that works best for you.

“Facebook success takes resources; time or money”

I will be writing a post about how to be successful without a social media manager soon, sign up to the newsletter on the right to get our new posts by email, and you’ll be the first to get it.

If you are interested in working with a social media expert, please contact us to see what we can do for you.

Status: Busted

So, will your business benefit?

Our opinion is: marketing on Facebook has been immensely popular, but isn’t right for every business. By taking a look at these myths behind using Facebook for business, you can make an informed decision about whether it is worth your time and money.

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