I recently got asked a great question which tends to pop up almost every day in our line of business. The question was,
“Is Facebook a good platform ti market my business?”
What I like to share with clients when they ask that question in understanding that Facebook is just another tactic along with all the other marketing tactics out there and understanding if Facebook is the right platform to marketing your business. Understanding your audience and understanding exactly how they behave when they’re on Facebook is critical to evaluating whether Facebook is a good medium to market your business on.
I’ve seen way too much money get wasted on Facebook ads that go nowhere. I’m sure we all keep seeing ads that are irrelevant to us or are not targeted properly. I think we’ve all had enough of that and so hopefully this video will help set that straight when making an evaluation as to whether you should market your business in Facebook or not.
First Things First
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that Facebook is a disruptive medium. People are not actively searching on Facebook for a solution. They don’t want to know how much car insurance is. They’re not look out an Airbnb or for a hotel. They’re not actively looking for an answer.
When they’re on social, they are doing 3 things – they’re looking to be educated in some form; they’re looking to be engaged both to and from, some form of engagement; and, they’re looking to be entertained.
They’re typically there for a combination or an experience of the combination of things. Their education, engagement, and entertainment – it’s typically what they are there for. When you keep that in mind of the people, your perfect customer, of how your perfect customer might behave, you might want to think about that and think about how relevant what you’re giving to them on Facebook is when you disrupt them in their feed for being educated, engaged, and entertained.
What I tend to talk about is:
- how can you help add value if you’re going to advertise?
- How can you provide some value from the onset?
- Can you give them something?
- Is this timely?
- Is it relevant to them?
- Is this something they will find valuable in some way?
- Does this entertain them enough to make them want to take the next action?
Often, what tends to happen is, people go straight for the jugular when advertising on Facebook.
They’re asking, before they give anything. It’s like asking somebody to come home with you before buying them a drink and taking them to dinner. It’s that kind of analogy where you’re trying to sell immediately without knowing whether what you have to sell is actually relevant to your target audience.
That’s one of the things that we’re really big on – being really clear on what that process might be if they see you on Facebook, how do you add value from the first interaction and then, once they engage with our first interaction, how do you then send them a second message that gives them a bit more of the clearer picture about what you do and what might be more relevant for them.
The ultimate goal is to get them to behave in a way you want them to behave, but they do it because they feel like they are aligned with you, it’s become relevant to them, and the process has been seamless in there. They’re not being disruptive in a way that basically annoys them. That’s what you want to keep in mind when considering Facebook as a platform to market your business.
