Social media for companies has gotten a bad rap, whether it be difficulty in measuring return on investment, unclear content guidelines, or being overcharged by an unseemly vendor for “Facebook management”. Simply put, dominance at social media is an art form, but there is a lot of forgery going on out there that will cost you money.
At DealerKnows, we see Facebook as being one of the best bangs for your buck when it comes to driving targeted traffic to your site. While the leads generated from the platform are definitely showing to be longer-gestating conquest attempts, Facebook still allows a more granular targeting means to reach in-market shoppers than many other means. However, you will not see success by simply posting interesting (to you) content on your company’s Facebook page. If you are not spending money on the platform by running ads, there is no reason to do it.
Advertising on Facebook is showing to be an art, but you need to be sharing your content through ads, not on your page. I’ve written countless times about social media best practices as well as why people don’t want to “Like” your company (and that was years ago). It takes dedicating dollars to win people over now. Without ad budget, it will rarely yield you any value (short of something extremely rarely going viral). Companies should not be posting with the goal of going viral, though, but creating evergreen content their audience may value (for education or entertainment purposes).
Your content is your artwork. Posting on Facebook without advertising or promoting the content is like filling an art gallery with paintings when the door to the gallery is locked. How often do you yourself visit the page of a “liked” company without their promoted posts finding their way to your wall through sponsored ads? Very rarely, I’m sure.
Facebook Ads allow you to determine your business goal, segment your audience, determine your budget and reach, and control your own artwork. Artlessly posting to your company’s FB page without the dedication of dollars is ensuring your painted canvas has little worth.
In the end, organizations have embraced social media, but few look at it as an art in their advertising. Beauty must go into the content and psychology must be put into the audience segmentation, but without money putting money into celebrating it, no post will ever deliver the return of a masterpiece.
