The past year has seen some major changes in how Facebook works. Organic reach has plummeted, giving way to paid ads and boosted posts, which has caused many marketers to take off and look for greener grass. Is Facebook still a valid marketing platform, though? Can you actually make it work without spending a small fortune on lead generation?
The short answer is yes, but it does take a bit more work than it did before.
The longer answer is that Facebook has changed quite a bit, but it still has 1.45 billion active users that log in every single day. If you completely discount the site, you’re missing out on a lot of curious eyes. It’s definitely still worth marketing on the platform, but how you do that has certainly changed.
Lead Generation via Facebook Marketing in 2018
Online marketing has changed drastically over the years, and it’s reasonable to expect it to continue in the same vein. That means marketers have to be adaptable and readjust their methods from time to time so they can ensure they get the best ROI possible.
While Facebook is focused on getting you to pay more for visibility, there are some things you can do to increase reach without paying large amounts of money. Let’s take a look:
- Stay active on Facebook. As a social network, Facebook basically requires you to stay active on your pages and groups. Don’t abandon everything for a few days or weeks if you can’t think of what to post. Even adding a meme or a quick status update will help keep you in people’s newsfeeds.
- Ask people to share your posts. The simplest way to expand reach is to just ask those who see your post to share it on Facebook if they like it. This lets Facebook know that your content is popular and it will be shown more often to your fans.
- Use FB Live. Video is an area that the company is really focusing on, thanks to the popularity of video. In fact, videos hosted on Facebook are more likely to be shown to your audience than videos from another platform like YouTube. When you do a live, it ensures that the video is exactly where the social platform wants it.
- Use fan-generated content. Let people know that you’d love to share their stories, images, and videos of your product in use and then make sure you publish those on your page. Not only does this offer social proof, it’s also a time-saver when it comes to generating content, since your fans are doing it for you.
- Interact frequently with your fans. When fans see a company responding to questions and paying attention to the people on its page, they tend to be more loyal. It doesn’t even require a lot of time to keep up with the comments. A little acknowledgement can go quite far.
Should You Invest in Facebook Ads?
Boosting posts is a regular thing on the social network now, but that doesn’t make it too popular. In most cases, boosted posts aren’t going to be seen by anyone new, so it may make more sense to focus on FB ads instead.
Since you can set your ad spend, as well as target a very specific audience, Facebook ads can be a good investment. Consider learning how to target properly and to create your ads before starting, to increase your ROI.
Facebook marketing is certainly not dead. It is, however, very different from even a year ago. If you plan to use the social media platform as a lead generation tool, make sure you are doing everything possible to get your posts noticed.
