Facebook advertising - is it your nemesis or your saviour?
“If you keep doing things the same way, you will get the same results.”
This is a quote that has always interested me, partly because my career has been in advertising and marketing, but also the psychology behind why some people are so resistant to change. We live in a world that is constantly changing around us, so to me, it makes sense to grow and learn on the journey of life, whether it be from a personal perspective or a business approach.
Facebook as a company has changed dramatically from the moment Mark Zuckerberg decided to try and bag himself a girlfriend at College by creating the platform, to where it is now.
Let’s go back to 2007 as Facebook launched pages and the ability for businesses to post classifieds to promote themselves. It was a brand-new application for Facebook and by the end of 2007 over 100,000 companies had signed up and Facebook launched Pages for Businesses to support this. Then they started making plans to build on existing ad revenue to make advertising on the platform accessible to even the smallest of businesses. Of course, this was a great money spinner to begin with because it wasn’t seen as a profitable way to advertise, companies were still spending on traditional marketing. Any business that took the risk to advertise on the platform at that point in time, basically had a spotlight on their business, due to the lack of demand…but the audience was there. It was like being the only Plumber in the plumbing section in the Yellow Pages. Facebook was seen as a gimmick.
Ten years later, everyone is advertising their business on Facebook, competition is fierce, they can only serve organic posts to so many people and this is where the problem is. In 2021, the competition is not only an issue for organic growth for businesses on the platform, but paid advertising is suffering hence the latest price hike. Not only that but, Facebook has to manage fake news, advertising laws and some how control all of the data without their users dropping off, which would result in advertisers moving away from Facebook and spending their money on another platform. It’s a very complex web, that needs constant, daily, weekly, monthly changes to avoid the platform imploding on itself.
In short – Facebook changes daily, yet business users continue to believe it is the answer to their prayers. Without a doubt, the illusion that Facebook marketing is the answer, isn’t an accident. In the same way a gambler has a few wins, they then believe it will happen again, this is precisely why Facebook is as successful as it is. New advertisers will have a fantastic result on their advertising campaigns to begin with and then the return gradually drops off, which encourages more spend for the same result. To anyone who runs a business, this should be no surprise and makes complete financial sense, yet somehow there is a misguided trust towards Facebook and businesses blindly keep pumping money into their campaigns.
When it comes to digital marketing, Facebook is important for a business to be seen on and it does play a part in how search engines rank a websites domain authority and vice versa. The more platforms your business is on, the more successful your digital marketing efforts will be. Facebook also makes a huge amount of money from small businesses that dabble with adverts and don’t use a marketing strategy, therefore no real way of benchmarking their efforts or return. The main emphasis of this article is that a business needs to embrace change and move with it, don’t stand still, measure your marketing efforts and implement changes that need to be made. If something has worked for the company in the past – that’s great, but algorithms change on a daily basis. The world changed in a matter of weeks due to the pandemic.
Things change and some factors that affect our businesses cannot be managed, but we can prepare for change and adjust our strategy and tactics accordingly.
If you would like help or advice with your marketing and advertising, please get in touch with us for a audit.