Does your Facebook strategy involve telling your unique story? Helping, and not hard selling, your unique audience? Posting often, but not too often? Does it provide a mix of media types?
I’m here to tell you, that’s probably not enough.
If you think you can handle the truth about what it means to have a well-rounded Facebook strategy in 2017, keep reading.
Organic Isn’t All That “Healthy” On Facebook
Organic tactics on Facebook include things like:
- Publishing posts using links, text-only content, photos and/or videos (with no advertising behind them)
- Sharing the posts of others
- Engaging; liking, commenting and thinking conversation (our fave!)
Though we put a huge emphasis on these things, they often don’t provide a return on investment (ROI) or even produce qualified leads.
Ready for the truth?
Organic Reach on Facebook has been in a tailspin since about 2012. In fact, the average Organic Reach for businesses on Facebook is a mere 2%.
To put that in perspective, if you have 1,000 Facebook Fans on your business page, on average, only 20 of them are seeing your organic posts.
Ouch.
Why Your Organic-Only Facebook Strategy Is Dying
There are several reasons why Facebook has made it harder and harder for organic-only posts to get seen, with the biggest reason being they’ve got shareholders to answer to now!
Other reasons actually do involve making Facebook a better experience for consumers, like:
- News Feed FYI: More Articles You Want to Spend Time Viewing (April 2016)
- News Feed FYI: Helping Make Sure You Don’t Miss Stories from Friends (June 2016)
- News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News (December 2016)
TL;DR. With 86% of Facebook marketers combining organic and paid approaches on Facebook, there are just too many messages out there to effectively have an organic-only engagement strategy on Facebook.
The truth: If you’re looking for your Facebook strategy to garner results and ROI, you’ve got to pay to play.
And as this Clutch survey shows, Facebook is probably the best place to invest your social media advertising dollars …
If you want to see results, look to paid social media; it’s believed to be more effective than organic for nearly 60% of social media marketers.
Getting Started With A Paid Facebook Strategy
First and foremost, know that you’re not alone — 86% of social marketers regularly use Facebook ads.
Then, use these five steps to get going with Facebooks ads:
- Choose a budget (we like to decide on a monthly budget)
- Figure out what you need your ads to accomplish:
- Increase traffic to my website (from Facebook)
- Get attendees to my event
- Generate new leads
- Increase Reach on our Facebook posts
- Boost engagement on our Facebook Page
- Determine targeting parameters using demographics and psychographics of your ideal audience
- Get familiar with — and use — the Power Editor to create and manage your ads
- Measure your ROI and results with reporting
Needless to say, you’re going to need to have a little patience, be ready to do some testing, and sometimes throw caution to the wind.
For Winning Results, Combine Organic And Paid Efforts
Can you have organic Facebook tactics without paid advertising or paid ads on Facebook without organic posts? Sure.
However, the best outcomes usually appear when you apply both.
Organic efforts show off your personality and style and help your would-be consumers get to know you, while paid advertising helps bring those would-be customers to your Facebook Page or website.
The truth: They work best in tandem.
As Scott Rogerson from Community Elf so eloquently states it:
“If a company runs a paid social media campaign, the first thing that may happen is someone will click on the company’s profile. If the company doesn’t have organic content on its Facebook page, then the customer can’t learn anything about the company’s character. They most likely won’t click through to the company’s website or download its content.”
And here’s my truth when it comes to a Facebook strategy: If you can’t invest in some sort of paid strategy on Facebook, don’t bother. You’re going to put too much time into creating those organic tactics and with zero investment in paid ads, it’s an ineffective use of your time and talents.
Do you agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments section below!