Is Facebook worth it for businesses in 2018?

In light of the recent Facebook announcements, is Facebook worth it for businesses in 2018?

Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the Facebook News Feed was going to start looking quite a bit different in 2018. He recently elaborated, saying we should expect to “see less public content, including news, video, and posts from brands.”

That doesn’t sound very good for businesses on Facebook.

Since the announcement was made, there has been a rather hyperbolic response. Many have lamented the direction Facebook has taken, while others are giving up Facebook altogether.

So, is Facebook a worthwhile investment for businesses in 2018?

Yes. Yes, it is. But…

Where to Spend Your Time on Facebook

A large part of the frustration businesses have with Facebook is the limited organic reach of posts. Only a fraction of people who Like or Follow a page ever seem to see posts from that page.

But before you go deleting your Facebook page, consider that as of September of last year, Facebook had over 2 billion monthly active users and is the largest social media platform in existence.

Here’s where to spend your time on Facebook…

1. Maintaining your Facebook Page. This means having a professional cover and profile image, information fields filled out completely and accurately, and having shared a post in at least the last week.

People might not spend much time on your Facebook page, but having an updated one makes your business look more reputable.

Having a Facebook page also makes it easier for people to recommend your business and tag you in posts if they share your work. Which in turn makes it easier for prospective clients to follow that page back to your website.

Making sure your Facebook page is up-to-date probably requires about 30-minutes/month. Not a lot of time.

2. Starting a Facebook group. Organic engagement appears to be much higher in Facebook groups than on Facebook pages. This makes sense, since groups can foster conversation and discussion more-so than pages.

Facebook has also rolled out with more tools for people managing communities in the past year. This has made it easier for group admins to connect with members and track engagement.

Don’t be that person that adds people to groups without asking though. That’s annoying.

3. Running Facebook ads. Yes, more people than ever are running ads, and as a result it’s driving up ad costs. However, Facebook ads are still effective.

Still on the fence about running ads? Check out this post about paid traffic.

Don’t Spend Your Time Doing This on Facebook

Don’t worry about Facebook page Likes. It’s a vanity metric and pretty much a waste of time. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. We just haven’t seen a strong correlation between more Likes and revenue.

Even if you don’t feel like your posts are getting a ton of engagement, Facebook is probably still one of the best referrals of traffic.

Wanna check? Try these two things…

1. Take a look at your Google Analytics. You’ll be able to see exactly where much of your traffic is coming from. Any surprises?
2. Next time you post something on Facebook, use a bit.ly link. You’ll be able to quickly see how many people are clicking a post from your bit.ly dashboard.

Maybe this confirms that your Facebook posts are not getting as much (or any?) traffic as you’d like. However, the fact that there are over 2 billion monthly active users is reason to consider troubleshooting how you can improve your post engagement.

The Wake Up Call: If [insert marketing/social channel] disappeared tomorrow, would my business be able to survive?

The takeaway from this announcement is that Facebook should be part of a larger strategy. Putting all your eggs in one basket—especially one that you don’t own—is a mistake.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. are all going to continue to change. And they will probably be replaced by something else one day.

You should always be able to answer this question:

If [insert marketing/social channel] disappeared tomorrow, would my business be able to survive?

Hopefully the answer is yes.

Our marketing strategy includes other things such as building an email list and focusing on SEO.

We’ve said this before, but an email list is really one of the only social assets you can “own.” Different email marketing companies may come and go, but the list of emails is yours.

If our Facebook page got shut down tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter because we could still reach our audience via email.

<<Related: The Super Simple Guide to Building an Email List>>

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something else we focus on because the benefits extend beyond just ranking well in Google. Focusing on SEO results creating quality content, providing a great user experience, and getting people to link back to your website.

<<Related: The Only 3 Things You Need to Know About SEO>>

Are we really surprised by this announcement?

And does it really change anything? Ever since feed algorithms entered the social media world, businesses knew they would have to adjust how their strategy around how they got in front of people.

To me, this announcement doesn’t really change anything. It simply reinforces how important it is to have a well-rounded, holistic marketing strategy.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.