Ever wonder what it’s all about? Posting, Engagement, News Feeds, Organic, Facebook, Instagram, Tictoc, LinkedIn.
In business social feeds you need to know what you are paying for.
Disclaimer #1; If your business has a great fan base that you engage with and talk to through social media this article DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU. Continue on with what you are doing.
If you are one of the ones left frozen because you don’t know what to do, read on. This article may help you with your dilemma.
Disclaimer #2; Big Water Ci. is a video marketing service that specializes in paid online advertisements. We do not mange engagement social media news feeds for our clients.
WHAT!!
Stick with me this is not a sales pitch, I run into this daily. I understand the confusion so let me break it down because when hiring a third party (or not) to manage your social feeds. You really need to know what you are paying for.
Likes • Follows • Visits
Do they matter for business accounts?
Social Media was created as a platform for people to connect because we as humans love to connect. How the platforms pay the bills and keep the lights on is selling Ad Space. Marketing 101 Once you have built an audience you can sell that audience anything.
My Space, AOL, and Yahoo were some of the early forerunners then Facebook and Youtube rose to the surface and have been the leaders for the past decade. Now the field is flooded and niche platforms that are all the rage.
So…..
To populate the platform - Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, TicToc, and every other platform makes it fun for people to engage to increase the numbers of users. The product of every platform is its ads space. (remember Marketing 101). Therefore there is value to the platform if you have high engagement and the platform will reward you by pushing you up the ladder of views with their algorithms. This is the free game or organically grown version of social and business. This takes a very special type of business to be successful with this as your only online marketing stream. You do not control who, or when, it just grows organically. And it can fade away organically too. Ask yourself are these followers possible customers? Do they actually purchase? It’s a lot of time and resources building an organic following so you need to know if it’s working.
I believe this is what causes that horrific painful look in business owners' faces when I say they need Social Media. I got your pain until I wrapped my head around the big business end of Social Media.
Paid Ads Space.
Do you follow and why???
As a business ask yourself why anyone would follow your business page and do you want that person as a client?
People check your business feed to see if you have a pulse. Do you follow every business you are thinking of hiring???? Do you really want to know what your roofer is up to the week after your roof is finished? Unless perhaps they did a glorious ad post with a professional photographer of your roof. Or he’s a world-class climber on the side and you love seeing photos of big rock walls.
Is it sinking in? You want to be on the other, the professional side of the social game, the profit side these platforms were built for.
Where does that leave small businesses?
Pretty F%$@*ing good.
Huh?
Remember when a 1/4 page ad in the yellow pages was starting at $1200 a month? And a 3/2 home in Tahoe was $120K. Jeez dating myself. That $1200 now equals $2600 a month for just one ad in just one audience. Maybe 4 people saw it. BWCI’s ad budget for Meta is under $300 per month and we reach 5K + people a week. Social Media and Online Marketing were built for small businesses to be able to compete. The platforms figured out early that there are A LOT of small businesses. The big boys play here too, but the beauty is, depending on your market you can find a niche that even you can dominate.
And what about your Organic News Feed for your small business?
Maintaining a Presence That Represents Your Business.
That may mean weekly, bimonthly, or monthly postings of work you’ve accomplished, tips in your expertise, or answering common questions. You don’t need to talk back or engage. It’s purely for you to show your business is thriving and current. And you don't have to worry about followers or being liked. If your info is shared then you know you hit a topic that is valuable to your clients. Take that to the bank.
So tone it down, relax and schedule out the necessary posts for the month, and be done with it. You can even turn off your comments. Your business does not depend on how many followers you have. It does depend on future paying customers seeing that your business is alive and kicking.
How do you reach the people who want and need your services?
Paid ads.
In our modern world so much has changed, the price of a home, daily life, the internet, the devices we are all connected to, and yet in advertising your business’s paid ads are still the way to go. Only it’s A LOT less expensive to enter the game. The niche market is on fire and your business can find its people and connect online.
The Good News
You can do it yourself. Every platform has an extensive knowledge base to walk you through the process. They spend a ton of time and energy making it easy for the layperson because they figured out a long time ago there are A LOT of small businesses.
If you don’t have the time and your business can afford a third party please think of Big Water Ci. We would love to get your business to the surface of Mobile, desktop, and tablet.
Reach out tgold@bigwaterci.com
Comment below
Or let’s go for a walk and talk.
Trina Gold
Master Creator BWCI