Trying to get a handle on using Facebook for your business? Facebook has once again made that a slippery proposition with the changes rolled out this month. The “new” Facebook, if you will, reacts to the increasing awareness that people are not only spending a lot of time on the site daily/weekly/monthly. They’re spending a significant part of their entire lives on Facebook – whole years and (soon) decades. Facebook is now becoming the active recordkeeper of our real-life and virtual personal history.
How Businesses Play in People’s Lives
Consider these three eye-opening Facebook details from Matt Peters of Pandemic Labs, shared at Podcamp Boston 6 last weekend:
- Approximately 5% of all your Likers ever come back to your Facebook Page, Wall, or customs tabs after they officially “Like” it. The other 95%, if they ever see you again, will see you in their News Feeds. But…and this is a BIG but…
- Based on Pandemic’s data, only between 1.5% and 7% of your Likers ever have a given Page update render in their News Feeds. Yes, you read that right. Each update you post is only being rendered in the News Feeds of 1.5% and 7% of your Likers.
- Because of EdgeRank – Facebook’s algorithm for determining what shows up in people’s News Feeds - your business has to be posting compelling content that gets Likers to interact: To Like, Comment, and Share. If your content doesn’t do that, your business is going to essentially disappear on Facebook. Simply put, if you can’t be seen, then you’re invisible.
That said, business still has a play at the party, because Facebook – like Google before it – needs advertising revenue. Advertising, as we all know, is the classic form of interruption marketing, barging its way into the middle of whatever we’re already doing. Facebook advertising is no different, but it provides an opportunity that other forms of interruption marketing don’t.
Interaction Marketing
If getting your audience to take action is key – and really, when has that ever NOT been the case? – then the advertising you do on Facebook must be designed to get people to take a low-risk action. Yes, the click on your ad is that, but I’m talking something more.
A really simple example of this comes from Nick Unsworth, who ran an ad not too long ago that said, “What do you think of my Facebook Page?” Not just driving the click, but also inviting an opinion to be shared – an interaction, which is key to visibility inside Facebook.
He reported it as being 12% more effective than other ads he ran, which is a big difference in the Facebook ad world. Any ad world, for that matter.
This is your key takeaway: Whatever you’re doing on Facebook for your business, do something that drives interaction. In fact, do everything that drives interaction.
What’s your take? What else is working for you on Facebook? Share and share alike in the comments. Thanks!
