Everybody is on Facebook, right? Well, maybe. I don’t think it’s the answer for every business and there’s a fair bit of finesse involved in generating leads and business from this platform. But there is a compelling case to be made for having at least an active, supportive presence on Facebook, and here’s why we recommend that our clients either stay or become active on Facebook:

• Statistics for Facebook change by the moment but as of this writing it is one of the most popular social media sites, acting as a kind of “home base” for people who are active online
• More than 1.1 billion people are registered users of Facebook
• 700 million people are on the platform every day, staying for an average of 20 minutes per visit
• There are more than 2 billion connections between local businesses and people on the site
• 70% of users are connected to and engage with a local business (US statistic)
• 47% of Americans say that FB has a larger impact on their purchasing behaviour than any other SM network
• 67% of B to C marketers have generated leads using FB

(Source: Hubspot)

Again, with so many people using Facebook it stands to reason that some of those people could be members of your target audience or their influencers. Although you might not be maximizing the opportunity to promote your business on Facebook, your competitors could well be doing so. Why leave the field to someone else entirely?

I run into a lot of people who feel resistant to either having a presence on Facebook or being active on that platform. At its heart, Facebook is simply a social networking site that allows people to connect with other people they know and share their news. I remember my oldest daughter trying to explain the concept of Facebook to me some years ago when she was away at university. She told me that she had this wall and people were posting on it. She could tell people about a party she was hosting and people could respond on the wall. To a woman whose university computer experience involved going to a special room where you punched holes in cards, this was way beyond my ken. Where was the wall, I wanted to know.

“Well it’s not a real wall,” she said. “It’s just on the internet.” Huh?

I can’t wait to find out what crazy ideas her children are going to use to befuddle her.

I’ll have a little more to say about Facebook for business in my next blog. In the meantime, if you would like to book a conversation about how my team and I might be able to sort out your Facebook or other social media profile concerns, please contact me at susan@crossmancommunications.com and let’s book a conversation about how we might be able to help.