Facebook: Business and Sales Lead Generation …
Ahh, Facebook. The main topic of talk, when it comes to social networking. Still bigger than Twitter. MySpace slayer. A significant threat to Google for future advertising revenues, if this article is to be believed.
Two headlines this week revolved around FB and its apparent woes. One may seem like bad news on the surface, but may actually be good news for business looking to acquire leads and prospects. The other is decent in a “kinda, sorta” way for smaller businesses, and not so good for larger companies and brands.
Headline #1 digs into Facebook usage figures:
Facebook Lost Users in May – Report
Lots of stories, including this one, trumpeted a new report that shows seven million users in the U.S. are no longer signing into FB, and more than 1.5 million Canadians are no longer logging in. The U.S. churn figure is small, as there are still almost 150 million users. But Canada’s drop-off is more significant, as it comes from just 16.6 million users.
It’s also important to point out that this study shows FB is still growing worldwide, but its growth has been slower in the past two months. The United Kingdom, Norway and Russia all posted losses of more than 100,000 in May. Countries showing significant growth in the month—more than 7% to just over 10%—included Brazil, Mexico and Thailand.
By the way … FB denies it’s losing users. And the whole notion of “Facebook fatigue” hasn’t been proven.
If the AllFacebook study turns out to be correct, it is actually good news for U.S. companies. Think of it as separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff: People who are not interested in FB certainly won’t be interested in connecting with your company or brand. If this trend continues—no one’s saying that it will or won’t—the resulting Facebook audience will be more loyal and focused on using the service.
When your company is getting “likes” from a smaller, yet more loyal audience, it means you’ll have an audience that will more likely engage with your company … and become leads and prospects in the process. And Facebook isn’t going to turn into the (relatively speaking) wasteland that MySpace has become anytime soon, so don’t let this (disputed) news turn you away from Facebook.
Unfortunately, engagement is what Headline #2 is all about:
Facebook’s Dirty Little Secret: It’s Broken for Business
This story, from Datamation, didn’t get as much attention as the “sky is falling” headlines about Facebook shedding some users. If you couldn’t tell by the headline, though, it’s hugely important for businesses. Here’s the main point of the article:
If your company has a Facebook business page, formerly known as a “fan” page, I’ve got some bad news for you. Nobody is seeing your updates. Well, almost nobody, according to a new report.
For the most popular businesses on Facebook, those with more than a million “fans,” fewer than 3 percent of those fans are seeing the companies’ daily updates. That’s low enough to be a rounding error.
The picture improves for smaller companies. For those with between one thousand and ten thousand “fans,” the percentage is just under 10 percent.
The report found a general reverse correlation between number of fans and percentage of fans seeing updates every day.
There’s good news here for smaller companies. Check out the specific statistics from PageLever:
PageLever (via AllFacebook)
Smaller businesses tend to have smaller fan bases. While the daily impressions and unique pageviews aren’t great, the percentage of fans seeing a small company’s posts is pretty decent.
Take this news as an excuse to build your engagement with your fan base, and acquire new fans as well. How? Here’s the top three actions you can take to grow your FB presence:
Plan to engage your fans. As in, have one. Who’s going to post updates? What’s the content going to be? From where are you getting the content? How often will posts show up on your wall? Do you have a tool to schedule posts to be published over longer periods of time?
Likes and comments are your true friends. Your posts should be of enough interest that your fans want to share them with their friends. That’s how you gain visibility in FB. A 1% feedback rate is good.
Target fans who are good potential buyers for your company. This is where “buyer personas” come in. We’ll have a blog post soon on how to develop them. In the meantime, a great way to target such fans is through Facebook Advertising. What’s nice about Facebook Advertising is the tools it uses to really focus on the potential fans you want and need. A plus: You can limit your ad spend on a daily basis. Only want to spend $50 a day? You can!
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Why Facebook Pages Will Not Replace Websites
Evaluating a Social-Media Campaign (Part I)
Evaluating a Social-Media Campaign (Part II)
Social Media and Being a DJ
Your Online Persona
Facebook – A Higher Bar?
