Facebook Users Interact with FB Page Content More Than Ads
Is Facebook helping your business or is it a time sink? Call IX Brand SEO Services Company at 281-343-3284 for help with your Facebook Page marketing and social media optimization. IX Brand SEO provides professional SEO services for small businesses in the Houston area and around the US from offices in Sugar Land and Wharton, TX.
In a new survey and article, eMarketer describes how Facebook users worldwide interact with businesses on Facebook. These findings are especially interesting given Facebook’s recent IPO and questions about its stock market valuation and advertising value to businesses.
This chart from eMarketer.com shows that only about 13% of Internet users worldwide regularly or often click on Facebook ads. It’s impossible to tell from the survey if that percentage is higher or lower for your likely customers, but it’s probable that the percentage is low for most prospective customers for most businesses. That means that if you’re counting on Facebook to bring in lots of traffic to your website or to your brick and mortar store, you’ll probably be disappointed. And if you spend lots of money on Facebook advertising, that expense may not be justified by the results you’ll see.
At IX Brand SEO, we recommend that some clients try Facebook advertising if they can target Facebook users who are likely to convert. For example, if your business is family law, it could be difficult to target a Facebook audience thinking of getting a divorce. That personal information is usually not shared on Facebook. However, if you own a childcare center, it might be possible to target Facebook users of a certain age range, in the area of your business, who have children. It doesn’t cost anything to check the availability of Facebook user demographic factors useful in identifying your customer audience. IX Brand SEO Services can help you do that.
Some clients, and that includes IX Brand SEO Services, don’t have many Facebook fans. We’ve found that there are some types of businesses that draw and audience on Facebook and many that do not. Web design, service contractors, attorneys, accountants, and many other businesses rarely have many Likes. Other businesses like quilting, scrapbooking, big game hunting ranches, and childcare pick up Likes much more easily. The eMarketer survey found that worldwide, only 35% of Internet users regularly or often Like business pages on Facebook. In our experience that percentage is much lower for many types of businesses. If you have a business that doesn’t attract Facebook Likes, it’s still a good idea to create and maintain a Facebook business page presence, but it may not be worth your while to stage contests and promotions to build the number of Likes you have for your Facebook business page. Those Likes probably don’t represent real customer involvement in your brand anyway.
However, 35% of Internet users who Like Facebook business pages and interact with business page content is still better than the 13% of Internet users who click on Facebook ads. If your business is one that generates a significant number of Likes, it might be worthwhile to focus on improving your Facebook page content that spending money on Facebook advertising.
As we mentioned in a previous article about Facebook and an eMarketer.com study, your business Facebook posts aren’t reaching many of your fans. Facebook says that only 16% of a company’s fans will see a Facebook page post in their news feed or on the right side of the page. To boost that percentage to 50%, Facebook has just launched a Reach Generator feature that allows businesses to pay for wider distribution. If the eMarketer.com survey data is accurate, paying for wider distribution of your business Facebook posts might be a better investment than paying for Facebook ads.
Confused by social media and needing help in getting it working for your business? Call IX Brand SEO Services at 281-343-3284.
Is Facebook working for your business or has it been a waste of time so far?
Related articles
- Facebook Promoted Posts: A Step-By-Step Guide (mashable.com)
- Why GM And Others Fail With Facebook Ads (businessweek.com)
