It seems like more and more lately, people ask me whether or not it’s worth their time and or money to advertise and market on Facebook.
My answer is that it depends on how big their business is, whether they’re trying to produce sales leads, build brand awareness, etc. So here are some circumstances where Facebook marketing can work and doesn’t work.
Small business that advertises on Facebook (pay per click ads) and wants more phone calls (aka sales leads)
Facebook’s pay per click model is no different than other forms of display advertising. Currently, in 2013, it’s statistically ineffective for small businesses. We at Customwave have tried it every which way and there’s not enough calls for all the money spent on clicks for our small business clients to make money. I believe it’s because a lot of clicks come from people accidentally clicking on the ads on their small mobile device screen. If you run a small business and you’re paying for ads on Facebook, you’re wasting your money.
Big business that advertises on Facebook (pay per click ads) and wants more phone calls (aka sales leads)
If you work for a big company that everybody knows of, paying for clicks with Facebook ads will produce more sales leads and customers. So why do Facebook ads work for big business, but not small businesses? Because #1, the big business won’t need as many clicks to produce sales leads because of how familiar consumers already are with the business. So the click to call conversion rate for a big business will be much better than a small business’. Plus, the big business won’t care if they get clicks accidentally because building brand awareness is already their primary strategy.
Small business that socializes and networks with people they know on Facebook and wants more phone calls
This is the one way a small business can market themselves on Facebook and have it work. But it requires knowledge of how Facebook works and lots of time chatting with people. It requires meeting new people, building a relationship with them and then hope that if the time comes when they need your service, they’ll go to you. Very similar to how real life word of mouth business works.
Big business that socializes and networks with people they know on Facebook and wants more phone calls
Most big businesses don’t have to network online to produce calls or sales leads because people already know who they are. Big businesses will usually have people work on their social media accounts just for customer support and general marketing.
Small Business that advertises and pays for clicks on Facebook ads to build brand awareness
If you have the money to burn, this is a long term strategy that can work. But if you’re struggling to make payroll this week, I certainly wouldn’t recommend it. In the long term, making consumers aware of you over the course of a year, 2 years, 3 years, then advertising to them trying to produce sales leads will be even more effective because of how people are familiar with you. Facebook can absolutely help you with that by paying for clicks with their ads. But it’s not going to do too much right now.
Big Business that advertises and pays for clicks on Facebook ads to build brand awareness
And here we get to the main way Facebook is currently able to stay a float right now. Big business loves the vast amount of ad inventory and reach Facebook offers and does it simply to continue to have top of the mind awareness with consumers. And they don’t mind paying for accidental clicks because after all, even if someone clicks on the ad and sees the big business, the big business achieves their goal which is the consumer being reminded of them. It’s the same reason Coke and McDonald’s advertises just their logo in lots of places. All they need to do is remind you of them for their marketing to be successful and Facebook gives them another place to do that.
So there you go. Internet marketing constantly changes and next year Facebook may make major changes where people will start to use their website in different ways, but in 2013, this is how marketing and advertising on Facebook works.