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Are you another business that believes Facebook is the beginning and ending to all your marketing needs? The illusion that Facebook Fan Pages present to small businesses is a mirage that will leave your precious time and money unknowingly disappear.
In my attempts to educate many small business owners in marketing their business, they all seem to have one thing that is a constant motivation.
How do I get more likes on my Facebook Fan Page? If its more likes you want you can simply run the unethical and immoral short cut of purchasing likes through sites like Fiverr for $5.
But what about the companies that want real likes, real people, and real interactions? Well you can spend your valuable time creating great content in the hopes that people find your fan page among the millions that are out there.
Or even worse, spending your money on Facebook campaigns for ads and their option to send out your message to a larger audience, for a fee of course.
So you think you're 5000 fans are getting your message? Think again.
In an article written by Elan Dekel, "Facebook Pages Are a Bad Investment for Small Businesses" Elan directly points out how your posts will actually only be found on 1%-5% of your fans base walls where their friends may see it as well.
You may have even seen this with your own friends, that when they post something on their wall, you don't see it on yours.
Don't believe that each post your create is seen on all your friends wall, and that goes for fans of your Facebook Fan Page as well.
So why does Facebook do this? Simple, Facebook has been working hard to monetize their social network, so if your looking for true visibility you will have to pay up.
As Elan states in his article "After some experimentation I was able to create several ads that successfully generated likes on our page at costs that averaged from $0.
27 to $0.
57 per like.
" If you average out his cost at .
42 (.
27+.
57/2) for every 1000 people to like their page it cost them $420.
WOW! Doesn't seem so cheap to buy friends anymore.
But remember this is simple likes, not purchases or even guaranteed future sales.
Elan goes on to show how Facebook now gives you an option to promote your next post so more users will see your content.
Here he quotes"Next to each post is a small "Promote" button which innocently suggests that for the mere sum of anywhere from $5 to $300, you can have your post reach from 500 to 50,000 people.
This is equivalent to paying from $6 to $10 CPM".
Essentially, Facebook wants to charge your for building your fanbase, then charge you again for advertising to them.
I was very pleased to see this article "Facebook Pages Are a Bad Investment for Small Businesses" by Elan Dekel.
It's imperative that small business owners begin to truly understand the power, or lack of power, that you believe your Facebook Fan Page might provide as an organically free marketing tool.
My advice, find ways to connect directly to your customers in a forum that you control.
With many social networks, your ability to promote your business is confined by their requirements.
These requirement are constantly changing forces businesses to adapt and seemingly pay more to be able to communicate to their audience.
When you deliver your own custom mobile app, you are able to define the forum, content, and frequency customized to your business.
So the next time you want to be liked, understand the true cost of being popular on Facebook.
To Read the article written by Elan Dekel please click here.
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