Archive for 09/06/12
The importance of Facebook for Local Businesses
It used to be every small business owner’s dream to get on the top of search engines like Google and nothing else mattered. However, the web has changed dramatically over the years and there are new domains on the internet that are beginning to change the way we interact with each other, and the way businesses market their products. Social networking giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have impacted the world of business and have created a platform where small businesses can reach a larger audience.
Facebook is a wonderful place to start and it is the most cost-effective way to interact with customers and prospects on a larger scale. The beauty of Facebook is that one can reach large groups of people with the click of a button in a matter of seconds. Its importance has shifted the way marketers think and has transformed traditional marketing indefinitely.
When marketing on Facebook, the most important feature is the Like button. The goal of small business owners should be to generate as many Likes as possible on the status updates of their Facebook fan pages. Not all the posts by everyone on your friends list and all the pages you liked are included on your news feed. In order to give your posts the most visibility, you need to be listed as “Top News” on the homepage of your users’ news feeds.
Facebook’s news feeds serve content based on three factors:
- How recently the content occurred or was created
- The strength of your relationship with the person or organization who shared the content
- How many comments and likes the content generates
The number of comments and likes the content generates is the most important of all for marketers as it directly affects whether or not a company’s content will be seen in the users’ new feeds. The more interesting the content is to the users, the more likes it will receive and the more visible it will be in the news feeds.
Facebook has an algorithm to determine the likeability of content and its prominence on News Feeds known as EdgeRank. EdgeRank is to Facebook as PageRank is to Google. It is a formula consisting of specific factors that are used to determine the prominence of content and its position on the News Feeds of Facebook fans. The more interactions the users have with your content, the more Edge it will have.
As a marketer who spends a lot of time on Facebook, I get to experiment and see what gets the best reaction from users. For example, I run a Facebook page promoting my store and I find that I get the most user engagement when I am not specifically speaking about my product. Marketers must be wary of the content they post if they want to reach a wider audience on Facebook.
Here are some things to keep in mind when posting content:
- How long ago was the content posted? You need to determine the best time to post content where your fans will most likely be logged on so that they can see the content and engage with you on Facebook. If you post at a time when your fan base is usually not logged on, there is a greater chance that they will not see your content.
- Does the user interact with you often? If a user liked your page through a Facebook ad but never visited your page and didn’t have friends that interacted with you page either, then chances are that your content will most likely not be seen by the user. If users visit your page from time to time and have liked occasional posts, then the chances of your posts showing up in their News Feeds increase dramatically.
- How much interaction and engagement is generated by your post? This edge is the most important and the one which marketers should focus on the most. Facebook’s algorithm determines the level of interest and relevancy of content based on the number of comments, andlikes it receives. It is more likely to show up in users’ news feeds if it has a greater response from users.
Facebook’s EdgeRank gives small businesses the opportunity to compete with larger corporations for customers and user engagement. This invaluable formula levels the playing field by providing a platform where the business owner can reach more customers directly through social media. Therefore, marketers should be focusing on more than just SEO because social media sites like Facebook are going to change search. They will begin to put more of an emphasis on search and advertise their internal search engine where results are derived from likes and user interaction rather than links. So instead of just link building, marketers need to increase their EdgeRank and focus on Like-building.
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