Does Your Business Need an Active Facebook Page?

tells you that you need an active facebook page before finding out what you do, get yourself another marketing strategist.

Not all businesses need everything. Yes, you need to have all your own relaestate claimed (so claim that facebook, twitter and instagram account). But do you need to post on it regularily?

We say – not necessarily. We’re a marketing agency, and we go through phases of posting ourselves. Why? Because our target market is not attracted by pretty posts and engagement. We do lots of that FOR our clients. The ones attracted to it, are likely to already have that handled! They know they need an active facebook page and have it sorted.

I got into what I thought was a really interesting discussion about this  on Linkedin yesterday.

Well I thought it was interesting – the person who initiated it apparently didn’t as she blocked me after I commented 

She had asked whether it was ever a good idea to go with a marketing agency (say like my one :D) who didn’t have outstanding engagement on their own facebook page. For if it wasn’t happening on their page, how could they be trusted to deliver?

I thought it was a super good question (and said so).

Our page doesn’t have hugely great engagement or even super regular posting. Why? Because our target market, the people who pay for our services and work with us, don’t tend to have time to sit there and fully engage with posts on Facebook – if they are going to engage on anything – it’s going to be on Linkedin. Where my posts (and my team members posts DO get great engagement)

It’s What Happens When You Act that Counts

As we tell our clients and re mind ourselves on a regular basis – it isn’t what we DO that counts. It’s what happens with what we do. So our goal for us and for each one of our clients is to find that perfect mix between what they have to do to get sales, and what budget of time and money they have to make that happen

Evaluating a marketing agency’s own performance from the way they’ve curated their own facebook page isn’t always the best way. It’s better to ask them around their ROI rates on the social media advertising and management for their clients. (and themselves)

This is why our business doesn’t need an active facebook page.

For instance – for us – our best ROI comes from our targetted advertising – we use pixels, retargeting, look alike audiences and more to target the people we know are

more likely to use us – and you won’t see that on a page

Our best performing work for our clients also is never seen on their pages. We don’t confuse engagement levels with actual sales – we care first and foremost about what actually counts – does our work and training help the business we are working with gain more profit, and get more back than they spend.

To this end we often discourage clients to use us for engagement related management as that budget can be better spent on other areas (and as we work with micro, small and small-medium businesses we know every dollar counts)

Some do Need an Active Facebook Page.

Of course for some clients, it’s imperative to ensure they do have a beautifully curated and engaged audience – and for those clients we do work really hard to get that reach – using videos, beautiful posts, content stories, and more to make sure the brand is consistent and engaging to their target market.

But if your product is not a visual product (think products, food, eating out) then it’s far less important part of your strategy. And it’s a waste of that hard-won profit you’re reinvesting into the business.

Do we (and other agencies) know how to create beautifully engaged pages?

Yes

Do we want to invest that time for our own business and for our client’s businesses when the time and effort would see a far greater return somewhere else?

No

I am lucky in that I have a team – and yet we all have to stay within a strict budget of time allocated to marketing our own business, as we teach our clients to do the same. We live and breathe that we can attract the right clients for our business without wasting time on activity that is just a vanity bandaid.

For us, the benchmark is not an active Facebook page.

If you want to know if a marketing agency is good – ask them for case studies and stories. Ask them what they’d do for your business. I guess it’s a bit like a builder’s house – our top priority is always going to be our clients (who we love showing off!) and then activity that creates the highest ROI.

Because that is what works

(for the interests of this blog I checked out a pile of other marketing agencies I really love and respect – some far bigger than me and I reckon we’re in good company with many of them in terms of our facebook page :D)

The question I always ask my clients is this (Once I know their budget) – We can use this to do this activity – and it will make you look good, but we can’t promise sales or growth… or we can do this other thing, and it’s going to move people faster to making a sales decision and you’re going to grow your business faster.

Yes – having an active Facebook page is often part of the strategy, but it’s only one small facet – and we take into account time, budget and the type of the business before trying to focus on having a beautifully engaged page. It’s just not necessary for may businesses (even if Facebook is)

It’s a no brainer what they chose.

It’s a no brainer what we choose either.