Is Facebook Still A Valuable Tool For Small Businesses?
Updated: Jul 25
Is Facebook still an effective tool for small businesses? If you ask many small business owners, you’ll likely get a resounding yes in response. Facebook marketing statistics show that over 40% of small businesses use the platform to promote their business, so it’s clearly valuable to them and the millions of customers who check out their pages each day. However, Facebook marketing trends change on a regular basis, so it can be hard to determine whether or not the platform is still worth your time and effort as a business owner.
Why Small Businesses Use Facebook
Before we answer that question, let’s be clear on what we mean by small businesses. We’re not talking about huge multi-national corporations here; those enterprises have their own specific marketing challenges, and Facebook isn’t very useful for them. Rather, what we mean are local businesses with a physical location in your town or region. So if you have a restaurant or specialty retail shop nearby, chances are you can market to your customers through Facebook.
The Pros of Using Facebook
1. It’s everywhere, and it’s free : You can access Facebook from literally anywhere using your smartphone, tablet or computer, making it a huge time-saver for busy small business owners. The biggest social media platform in history is also free to use (with some exceptions), allowing you to focus your marketing budget on other aspects of your business. 2. Easy content sharing: If you already have a website, you can easily share content across multiple channels by simply adding a share button to your posts; just make sure it links back to wherever people should be going after they like or comment on something. 3.
How to Get Started With Facebook Marketing
Strategies for a Successful Facebook Marketing Campaign As you probably know, when it comes to social media, there are many different platforms to choose from. However, one that can still be considered up-and-coming is Facebook marketing. Though most people have a basic idea of what they need to do if they plan on using Facebook for business purposes, getting started and keeping things going can still be difficult.
What Works Now on Facebook
The landscape of Facebook marketing continues to change, and many once effective strategies are now less useful. What doesn’t change are tried-and-true best practices that give any business a solid shot at success on Facebook: targeting and ads, content creation, community engagement and more. Ultimately, these principles will be how your brand grows online—not what’s new and cool in social media. So is Facebook still a valuable tool for small businesses? Yes—but it comes with some caveats. Here’s what you need to know if you want to make sure your small business marketing on Facebook is successful.
The Cons of Facebook Marketing
While Facebook may still be a valuable marketing tool for small businesses, it also has its drawbacks. The primary disadvantage of using social media for business is that there are so many different options! How are you supposed to decide which platform to put your resources into if you can’t look at them all simultaneously? Unless your goal is to limit your customer base (which makes no sense from a financial standpoint), doing everything can actually be a hindrance. You might end up sending out conflicting messages, or run out of time and money before being able to do anything well. To make sure that doesn’t happen, pick two or three platforms and become a master of them rather than spreading yourself too thin across several.
Alternatives to Facebook
In a marketing environment dominated by social media behemoths like Facebook, it can be difficult for smaller companies to get their voices heard. In fact, you could easily make an argument that big brands have an easier time finding success on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter because they're able to outspend smaller companies on advertising. Luckily for marketers working in small businesses, there are plenty of ways to grow your company's social footprint without giving away your bank account details. Here are a few options