Why Facebook's Recent Changes For Advertisers Is A Great Thing IF You Care About Your Customers
Before you freak out about Facebook's recent changes and start reading all of the articles online that say that Facebook is hurting businesses, ruining brands, and causing people to leave the platform, let me challenge you with this one question: Does traditional direct response marketing without relationship work on social media as an effective form of marketing?
The answer is NO. An emphatic NO!
Here's Facebook's latest update…. read it… then keep reading my article. (IF you want to make more money in your small business and don't want to be deceived by the media!)
People on social media have changed the way we do marketing. Actually, it's changed the way we SHOULD be doing marketing. As someone who has been involved in direct response marketing and content marketing for over 18 years online, I will say this- the change to our society, the way we communicate and the way brands will get our attention has drastically changed on the social platforms.
Why is this change so critical for you to understand as a small business owner? Because people are SICK of being pimped, promoted and pushed by all the advertising and marketing that is floating all over the internet! They're sick of being told to 'download an app' and 'watch this TV show' and 'enter to win my sweepstakes' and 'you could win' crap out there! No one wants to be told what to do and they don't want to be prostituted with products and services while they are talking to their friends!
So, Facebook, one of, if not the largest marketing firm in the world, listened. They answered the customer. They paid attention to the outcry of 'stop pitching us!' and created a platform where CULTURE happens everyday. Mark Z created a platform that people can't live without, is now built into our operating systems and has become a part of our everyday life. YOU should pay attention to that. Carefully.
Is this a bad thing for advertisers? YES if you don't care about people, just want to pimp and are only concerned with getting the sale. BUT… if they do care, and will take time to have relationship, it's an answer to profits lost, marketing that doesn't work and cash flow issues!
The better question we all should be asking is this: Will marketers raise their ROI with relationship or not? Will they take the time to truly love their customers, listen to them, talk BACK to them on social media and will they do it daily? Relationship is the issue, not Facebook's changes.
Article after article screams that Facebook is destroying the opportunity for marketers to succeed on the platform when in reality, they are making it EASIER for those of us who care about our customers and are interested in the LONGEST MARKETING TAIL POSSIBLE: relationship, to get ahead.
If you will simply take the time to have relationship with your clients, you'll be amazed by how much money you can make as a brand and how EASY it gets to not only sell your products, but to have repeat customers buying your products over and over again.
When you realize that relationship is KING in this new economy of social media influence, and CONTENT can NOT be outpaced by relationship, you will not only welcome the changes Facebook created, but you'll celebrate them! What this means for you as a marketer is this:
- Market what is relevant to your targeted page- they'll listen
- Have relationship with your clients on a daily basis, which grows engagement
- Talk back to people on a daily basis, which in turn increases likes, comments and shares
- Present your product 10-15% of the time but don't hook and bait people, don't tell them to enter contests, don't be unbelievable, boring or hypey and you'll WIN every time.
We've tested this model in our own multi-million dollar brand that currently has a Facebook Ad Value of over $2 million dollars per week. That means that if YOU wanted to place an ad on MY page, you'd have to pay ME a handsome fee to get me to promote your product because my targeted audience is SO engaged they are valued at over $2 million dollars per week! Don't confuse this with meaning we spend $2 million per week on ads. We don't. Just $400 per day. We started at $50 a day and so can you (or even $10 per day)! It means our value is this much and anyone who puts a product on this page will score big time! We also have engagement that is higher than brands with MILLIONS of clients. Why the difference? Because we're not pimping, pitching or promoting on every post. We care, we talk back and we truly do love our customers.
What would YOUR Facebook page ad value be if you truly cared?
Culture means doing LIFE with your customers. This is what people did many many years ago when merchants knew all about the families who came into their store and life was done together in a small town community. Well, Facebook is the new world and your BUSINESS PAGE is your new small town. Act like it and stop pitching people with your crap all day and complaining that your engagement is going down because the truth is, no one wants your crap!
Loving your customers works in a social media world and I applaud Facebook for getting rid of the direct response marketing pimps who don't care. I am equally so excited that I'm seeing big brands that do nothing but deliver content by email and promotions all day long leaving the Facebook platform because that just proves to me they only want to market, they don't want to have relationship.
Pay attention! Facebook has more people during 24 hours on their platform than any other platform in the world. It is DRIVEN by relationship. If you can't care, you won't succeed.
To learn HOW to build your Facebook platform in a way that revolves around relationship with the client, get familiar with our classes, my free trainings and even my free TV show episodes, where I talk about it over and over again. OR…. you could enroll in my upcoming VIP consulting program and let me write your ads, create your marketing plan and take the reins for a year with you! (send email to holly at a real change dot com for application!)
Facebook isn't going anywhere and they are the single greatest platform for any small business owner to succeed on without having to have a big ad budget. YOUR small Facebook page can outpace a big brand, and we're living proof!
You can see below in a comparison chart that the more you interact with people, the more posts you do, the more you build CULTURE, the more engagement you'll get AND the more money you'll make! NOTE: Look at the TOTAL page likes, the POSTS per week and the ENGAGEMENT. Relationship works and it sells!
#BEMORE in your marketing!
Sandi Krakowski