Facebook: the biggest robbery for brands as ever created
Let me explain to you why Facebook is the biggest robbery ever created to take money from brands.
You (as a brand) set up a Facebook page… because everyone else is doing it and it is free! You know as well that there are a lot of people going to Facebook, which could be one more convincing reason to avoid any real thought on your brand strategy.
It does not always end there, does it? You realize that you need to talk to people on your page, like you would do on your website or your blog. Of course, this is because the Facebook page would be useless if nobody is coming there. The solution? Paid media! (stamp ads, sponsored stories, etc. on Facebook). Well, it means you have to pay to get some fans.
Great! Now you have fans. Not forgetting that you have also heard that you need to engage your fans. People also told you that you must have the highest engagement on your page. So you post as often as possible (sometimes more than twice a day) to be sure of good engagement.
Unfortunately you realize that even if you have a good fan base in numbers, your reach is only 16 % maximum within your fan bases. Very frustrating indeed! This is because of Edge Rank, a Facebook Algorithm which shows only relevant content in a user’s newsfeed. One solution, in that case, is that you can promote your post, use reach generator to increase your reach! But one more time you will have to pay….
If I sum up, you paid to acquire your fans, and then you pay one more time to reach them correctly. But do you really think all your fans are really interested in your brand?
People are going on Facebook to interact with their friends. Which means chatting, sharing some pictures and videos, commenting on other friends’ posts, staring at other people’s lives and tease potential sex partners.
NOT to interact with your brand! Don’t try to interrupt people to sell your products and enhance the goodwill of your brand. That is not social media that is just traditional old school marketing copy and paste on a social network!
The bad news is some brands are relevant on Facebook but some are not. Do not try to interact if the brand is not aspirational or at least a little engaging with his customers.
The take away here is obvious: Facebook is just a tool and platform where lots of your customers and prospects can be. Use your brain before deciding to use it or not! Work hard on your content strategy and try to create remarkable content otherwise you are losing your time and money!
This article is very cynical on purpose, I have seen to many brands doing this and then realized that Facebook is not magic, neither Social Media! Without clear business objectives and marketing objectives, brand strategy and content strategy, just forget it!
Soon, I will give you tips to succeed on Facebook and some relevant KPIs to use because it can work very well on an integrated campaign if it is done properly and smartly.
