When to Throw in the Facebook Towel

A couple of years ago, having an active Facebook business page was a “must have”. Clients came to me asking for one, stating they “knew they had to do it”, despite their lack of desire to post regularly or to nurture and engage a social audience. The general thought was that if you posted regularly on social media, you would get leads that would get you new business.

Fast forward 6 months to a year, and after spending money to have great content created and shared, there were few or no leads to report. Why is that?

The reality is that Facebook doesn’t show your stuff to anyone unless they show interest. I’m not talking about someone liking your page. Here are two scenarios for how I think it happens:

Scenario One: Someone likes your page. Facebook says “oh good, a new follower!” It shows that person a few of your posts in their newsfeed over the coming days. That follower lets the posts go by without liking, clicking, commenting, or sharing it. FB then says “oh bummer, they aren’t really interested in this page, so I’ll show them something else”. And never again does that person see what you’ve posted.

Scenario Two: Someone likes your page. Facebook says “oh good, a new follower!” It shows that person a few of your posts in their newsfeed over the coming days. This follower DOES click on your posts, likes them, shares them and comments now and then. FB says “hurray! This follower IS really interested in this page – so I’ll show them more.”

So if no one is seeing your posts as in scenario one, you can’t possibly get any new leads for business by posting on Facebook. The results: a disappointing ROI.

In order for you to get anything from Facebook, it is now “pay to play”. That means you will have to factor in some paid advertising budget to get your posts seen. Which is why, starting on July 1, our social media content packages now include a budget for paid Facebook ads, plus our creative team to design and run your ad campaigns.

If you’re not happy about your results and want to change your Facebook strategy, you have several options. You could:

It can be frustrating when you invest in creating and posting Facebook content, whether it’s your time or your money to pay someone to do it. Try our new strategy out and see what results you get. Perhaps the ROI will have you smiling, instead of feeling frustrated.

Check out our new social media packages which now include paid FB ads!