It may come as a surprise to learn that when you post on Facebook, your post reaches just 2.5 – 5% of your followers. And yes, ideally you want followers rather than likes.

Post reach

Facebook uses an algorithm that in simple terms applies a time lag to your post. In time, your post then filters through, based on its popularity and what your audience has seen in the past.

So, for example, if your business has 500 followers, your post is likely to reach between 13 and 25 people.

The average engagement rate for a Facebook post is around 3%. And an engagement is a like, comment or share.  So, depending on how interesting or relevant your post is, then just a handful of those 500 followers will go on to transact from that post.

Facebook also doesn’t like frequent posts. Best practice suggests we should be only posting about three times a week. And you try to match this to when your customers are online. If you do post more frequently, Facebook will decide which ones to push and which ones to ignore. In the same way in which we filter out conversations or information that we don’t really want to hear!

Use the offers section for offers – that’s what it is there for. And it currently bypasses the algorithm that drives how your posts perform.

Foundations

I often hear small business owners say that they don’t need a website because they have Facebook and have plenty of likes. But based on the info earlier in this blog, hopefully, it’s clear that this isn’t a great strategy to rely on. You could go down the route of paid-for advertising which is how Facebook makes its squillions of dollars.

But without a website, your business has little or no organic indexing on search engines. And you won’t have a platform to drive visitors to, to talk about what you do and show what you have to offer.

Your website is your foundation. Build your marketing activities on it and then use social media as part of a wider digital strategy. It isn’t a stand-alone sales channel.

The best tools for the job

Which social media platforms work well for small businesses? For local small business marketing, Facebook delivers the best results. Instagram looks great but is a time munching distraction if your reason for using it is to attract sales. Likewise, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest attract specific audiences or ages. If you are appealing to a young audience, for example, there may be merit in exploring them.

Whatever you decide to use, be aware that social media an iceberg of a task. There’s lots more to it than the post which appears on your page. So spend your time wisely and don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to have lots of social media accounts. You don’t. You just need the ones which are going to make a difference to your business.

Used as part of a wider marketing mix which includes a website, even if it’s really simple, search engine optimisation, email marketing, promotion and measurement, then social media is great. But don’t get caught out thinking that just because you have a presence on social media, that customers will come flocking in…

If you’d like some sensible, no-nonsense advice about websites, search engine optimisation, email marketing or social media do get in touch. And if you’d like an easy way of getting your own webpage without the hassle and expense of building your own website, look at Keeping It Local.