Is Your Facebook Page Dead?

Today we discuss the status of your Facebook page: if the 50000 likes it has actually does you any good, how many people really see your organic content and whether it’s worth having a page in the first place.

The Pages of the Past

Back in 2007, when Facebook released the “pages” option, your Facebook business page was an incredibly powerful tool that enabled you to create and share content worldwide for free.

Companies who were early-adopters and put out quality content benefitted from the free advertising and managed to snag a great deal of fans who “liked” their page and shared their posts (again, more free advertising for them). Their content was distributed widely and played a massive role in successfully branding many companies in the digital space.

But fast forward a decade and the game has changed considerably. Current estimates are that organic reach is sitting at a dismal <2%, so all your hard work creating quality content might very well be for nothing, because the sad reality is that virtually no one will ever see it.

What Caused The Drop In Organic Reach?

The reason for the precipitous decline in organic reach is really simple: newsfeed congestion.

When you consider the millions of active daily users creating and sharing content 24/7, not to mention the billions of dollars being spent on paid advertising on the platform, it makes sense that something has to be cut to make some extra room.

Despite Zuckerberg’s January 2018 announcement of changes to the algorithm (which you can read here) Facebook is first and foremost a business, so they certainly won’t cut down on the number of adverts.

The easiest way for them to keep revenue up but traffic jams down, was to slash the organic reach to the low single digits.

But What About All My Likes?

Popular businesses certainly have an advantage over obscure, little-known companies that have no social proof. But the days of relying on your community to share your content and provide feedback to your posts are pretty much over.

If you are relying solely on “Likes”, organic content and your community engagement to drive sales and conversions, you might want to to rethink your strategy before you are completely drowned out. You need to seriously consider paid advertising (if you aren’t doing it already), which is something we will discuss in a future blog.

So Why Do You Need A Facebook Page?

The answer to the question: “Is my Facebook Page dead?” Is actually yes and no. We like to think of it like a zombie: neither dead nor alive.

We advocate that all businesses should have a Facebook page, because even though organic reach is sitting in the afterlife, not all is lost and there is still a lot you can do with a thriving Facebook business page.

Compelling Reasons to Maintain Your Page

In case you are starting to feel like it’s pointless to have a Facebook page and even more pointless to post content on it, here are a few important reasons to keep your Facebook Business page up and running:

1. Your page is a representation of your company to the online community (in conjunction with your website)
2. It’s good practice to use your business page and business account to place paid Facebook ads (we don’t recommend using your personal Facebook profile for this purpose).
3. You can create audiences based on the interaction on your page. This means that you can show ads specifically to people who have “liked” your page (people who already know, like and trust you) or alternatively, you can show ads to everyone except the people who have “liked” your page (so that your ads reach people who might not know about your company yet).
4. This is still a place for you to communicate with and engage with your community
5. Don’t forget about the power of the Facebook Messenger option! This is a really easy way for customers to send you queries and receive a quick response from your customer service team.
6. The Facebook Page is still VERY important from a Facebook algorithm perspective because they want to see active pages that have new content being posted on a regular basis, and who actively generate quality conversation and engagement.

Even though Facebook will gladly take your money from paid advertising, Facebook wants the overall community to gain value from spending time on the platform. So it’s a big no-no if they only see paid ads from your account and little else of value.

Remember Zuckerberg’s insistence on meaningful conversations? This means that you still need to put out high-quality, organic content on your page. Yes, even if very few people will actually see it, but the above reasons prove that you should still keep posting.

The Takeaway

Your page might not reach as many people as before, but it is still a key part of your online profile and can still serve your business in many ways. Plus, it’s FOR FREE, so don’t even think of giving up on it!

Keep engaging with your community and check the comments regularly, irrespective of whether people are posting under your organic content or paid adverts. Look out for haters and trolls who post crap on your feed (do not be scared to delete or block these miscreants), deal quickly and efficiently with queries, and continually thank your fans if they share your posts.

Facebook will appreciate it if you regularly interact with your community, and it’s an easy way to foster trust in your audience.

Always ask yourself what value you can be adding to your community with your posts and responses to comments, because Facebook wants businesses to contribute to making the platform worthwhile place to spend time on.

Your page might be more like The Walking Dead than Little Miss Sunshine, but it is not entirely dead, and actually offers some great benefits for your business. The bottom line: don’t stop posting.