Many years ago, Facebook was the ultimate social media platform for businesses. It was a great way to market your business, build brand awareness, engage with your audience and reach new target audience members.
While Facebook still offers that same potential, dwindling attention spans, Gen Z influence and increasing costs has made Facebook appear less relevant for businesses than in years gone by.
Understanding the pay-to-play platform and how your business should be using it.
Newer, more visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok were the fastest growing platforms between 2020 and 2022 for social media users. And while it may have been looked down on in the past, LinkedIn is also seeing a steady growth for businesses to market themselves, with 20 per cent increase in usage in 2023.
As a business owner, you may be asking yourself, is Facebook still relevant for businesses?
Our answer: Facebook is still relevant for businesses…
but it’s time to change the way you use it.
Why you need to change how you’re using Facebook
Just like any trend or fad, Facebook goes through phases , and evolution as users change the way they leverage the platform and the devices they use.
Remember the days when Facebook statuses were written in third person, you could ‘poke’ friends, and uploading an album of 500 photos from a (most likely regrettable) night out with friends was deemed normal.
These trends quickly phased out, but one that has stayed is the presence of businesses through dedicated page profiles.
According to Sprout Social, 59 per cent of Facebook users have reached out to a brand on Facebook. This indicates Facebook is still a trusted and easy platform for users to connect with the brands they like.
However, business pages cannot rely on having a Facebook page and posting ‘every now and then’ to remain active and build a following. As is the case with any social media platform, you need to be posting consistently so you continue to appear in your follower’s news feeds.
But, with a decrease in user adoption of the platform, your marketing needs to be engaging the followers you already have and surprising followers you don’t.
And the best way to do this is through fresh, new content and Facebook advertising.
The ultimate pay-to-play platform
If you use Facebook regularly, you’re likely targeted by businesses with ads relevant to your interests, pages you’ve previously liked and items you are actively looking to consume (it knows you were searching for a nice new laptop case).
These days, with Facebook’s algorithm focusing on relevant material and meaningful interaction, business pages have been given the flick. Unless you are creating quality content regularly, leveraging stories and video content, and providing value-add information, you’ll find it difficult to breakthrough the algorithm’s preference for individual and group content.
The sad truth is businesses only reach 6 per cent of their followers without paid advertising. If your business wants to continue using Facebook, and remain relevant to your customers, it’s time to consider diving into the world of ads.
How to use Facebook to your business’ advantage
Beyond advertising (because we’re not here for just one answer, right?) there are a number of ways you can make the current Facebook algorithm and design work for your business.
- Promote events: In an ideal world, we could automatically add a calendar invite to all guests’ phones, so they don’t forget when your business is holding an upcoming event. Until AI finds a way (we’ll be waiting), Facebook events are still a great way to promote events held by your business. They remind invitees to RSVP, send notifications to remind people of the upcoming event and allow users to add it to their calendar if they wish.
- Creating Facebook Groups: Depending on your business’ industry, Facebook Groups may be ideal to advertise your products or services. Consider creating a group for your clients – but remember it needs to focus on delivering value for it to stick. Joining together like-minded people or those with similar interests is the goal. With everyone together discussing their needs, you are better able to support them and help them to the next stage of the buying process. Alternatively, you could join industry-based groups in your area and contribute to the conversations already happening. It’s also a great way to see what your competitors might be doing!
- Recut your content for many uses, not one: One of our favourite phrases at The Marketing GP is ‘one piece of content, many ways’. We always find ways to use a brilliant piece of content across various platforms, and Facebook should always be a platform you think of for this! Did you post a video to TikTok? Upload it to Facebook too! Did you ask a poll on your Instagram stories? Post it on your Facebook story too! Using different forms of content will help increase engagement with followers and keep your page from going ‘stale’.
So what do you think – is Facebook still relevant to businesses?
So, after all that – do you still believe Facebook is relevant to businesses?
We hope so, because we do!
As with most social media platforms, Facebook will likely continue to remain relevant for many years. However, it may not always be the best platform for your business. It’s critical to remain on top of trends in your market to understand if you should move your attention to other social media platforms, or continue your efforts on Facebook.
Like with any social media platform, it is constantly evolving and changing the way it should be used. This is why it’s more important than ever to keep up-to-date with Facebook’s changes and continue to evolve with the platform.
If you’re a busy business owner wanting to continue using Facebook, but don’t know how to develop and implement a social media strategy that works, get in touch with us!
P.S. If you don’t already – follow us on Facebook!
