Facebook: Still the Most Popular Social Media Platform
By Jessica Stephens
Facebook has been around for almost 14 years, a time span in which many other social platforms have come and gone. Yet the appeal of this social media giant has lost none of its luster. It has grown into so much more than what Mark Zuckerberg dreamt up in his Harvard dorm room. With over two billion active monthly users, covering the gamut of all age demographics and interests, small businesses simply can’t afford to not be highly active on the most popular social media platform. Especially with the current activity trends pointing to the number of users growing even more in the near future.
The average time a person spends on Facebook is 20 to 35 minutes a day, so it’s important to use your business’s time and presence on Facebook effectively. This is why it makes sense to work with a social media marketing agency, such as Social Identity Marketing, to find the right approach for your business to reach your current and future clients. Facebook is no longer a simple ecosystem where you could learn the basics in an hour and be ready to present your business online. It has so many intricacies and features that change regularly, that it would be prudent to seek out a professional social media marketing agency.
So, what does Facebook have to offer a small business? The benefits are numerous, including access to new customers, building of brand recognition, and establishing your reputation as a customer-focused company. After all, if your customers are on Facebook and you are not, or at least not on it in a meaningful way, what are they to think of how much they matter to you? By reaching your clients, you pave the way for their friends, and friends of friends to view your latest posts about a brand-new product or an upcoming contest. Facebook also allows you to create events and fundraisers, as well as the ability to boost specific posts and target very specific audiences. Which brings us to the pure magic of Facebook ads. According to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Facebook’s U.S. ad revenue is about to surpass the biggest traditional media companies, trailing only behind Google. Not only are their ads cost effective, but they can be significantly customized, allowing businesses to target very specific groups of people.
Facebook ads offer so much more than the standard filtering options such as location, age, and gender. You can target the ads by many other factors, including financial characteristics (such as people who have an estimated household income within a specific range), a huge variety of interests down to the person’s preferences in food and drinks (pretty helpful if your company sells wine, for example, to target the ads only to wine drinkers), and what the people are passionate about (for instance, donating to specific charitable causes, like an animal shelter). These are just a few of the options available, making for some amazing marketing opportunities. This also makes harnessing the potential of the Facebook ads a more intricate affair. Without a well thought out strategy, without turning the dials just right, the effect of your Facebook marketing campaign will diminish greatly.
There are endless opportunities for a small business to grow through the proper use of Facebook. All major social media platforms are proving to be highly effective in reaching customers, from Twitter to Pinterest, but Facebook is the main outlet and being highly active here tends to pay the biggest dividends. With the new year upon us, people are especially active online. This provides the golden opportunity for the savvy business owner to extend their company’s reach, and working with an agency that specializes in this field can make all the difference.