Is Facebook right for your business?

You’ve heard it all before; “social media is the new frontier for marketing”, “what, you don’t have Facebook for your business?”, “a business can’t survive in the modern world without a social media presence.” But is that all true?

A one-size-fits-all approach to marketing is never a good idea, because there’s never a blanket rule that applies across every type of business. So how can we say with absolute confidence that every company needs to start creating Facebook profiles if they want to survive?

Short answer: we can’t. What we can say, though, is that certain types of businesses are more likely to flourish from the use of social media. More specifically, there are a set of criteria that can help you determine whether Facebook marketing is your best bet, or whether you should be sticking to other digital marketing strategies.

How to tell if your business will benefit from Facebook marketing

1. Is time on your side?
The fact is, generating an online social media presence eats up a lot of resource. We’re talking your time as a business owner or the time of your staff, which means money.
A Facebook page isn’t something you set up and forget about, it’s a long term commitment. You need to be able to provide regular updates for your subscribers/fans, be actively seeking a wider audience of followers, and interacting with comments posted to your wall, just for starters.

Sound like a lot of work? It definitely can be. And that’s where a lot of businesses stumble; they get caught in the “do or die” sales pitch that they have to set up social media marketing, but inadvertently do more damage to their branding by not following through due to lack of time/resources.

Of course, if you do believe Facebook marketing will benefit you but your only issue is time, that’s not to say another solution, like hiring social media marketing experts, won’t suffice.

2. What would you like to say?
There’s no point in going to all this effort to give a voice to your business if there’s nothing worthwhile for you to say. Don’t misinterpret that – every company should have some sort of message to communicate. However, the real question is whether what you’re trying to communicate is suited to the specific style of communication that Facebook marketing generates.

Social media isn’t made to just target your customers; it has the potential to reach anyone with Internet access right around the world. As such, you need to make sure your message has universality, while still being tailored enough to improve the sales/credibility/online presence of your business.

For some, creating a newsletter to be sent out to subscribers, keeping a blog, or something similar might be a better route.

3. Does it really suit your business?
At the end of the day, ignoring all hype about Facebook marketing, is this avenue actually suited to your business? It’s a question only you can answer, but you should be able to get there by analysing factors like:

• Do you target only a specific, localised region?
• Are your clients typically those that engage on social media?
• Will creating a community with your customers provide benefits for your business?

If you’re still in doubt about whether Facebook marketing is for you, why not talk to the team at Traffic. Our team of experienced online and social marketing team will be able to make things clearer for you.