by Johnny Whitfield, co-founder of Electric Growth
Contrarian, I know, and counter-intuitive at this point, however I think you can do better with your time.
It will take a lot of time and effort to grow a following from scratch to tens or hundreds of thousands of followers. And it costs money… lots of money.
Growing your Facebook page is not worth the effort. The rewards just aren’t high enough.
There are much better ways to grow your business. Spending money and time manufacturing a Facebook audience is not the way to maximize return for your investment.
Here are the main four reasons why you shouldn’t bother growing your Facebook page:
1 – You don’t control the platform.
Being platform dependent is scary. Platforms are great tools, but they can be unreliable.
FB could change its algorithm, like it recently did, and bury you. FB could decide they don’t like your content and bury you.
Albeit unlikely to happen soon, everyone could leave the platform.
There are many variables outside your control.
You can control an email list. People check emails. Email isn’t going anywhere.
An email list goes with you wherever your content goes.
2 – You shouldn’t have to spend money to be seen by your own audience.
Facebook posts by businesses organically reach less than 10% of their audience, often under 5%.
Why spend so much time trying to grow your audience to 20,000 fans if your posts will only be seen by 1,000?
Grow an email list! You get to send emails to your audience whenever you want (of course, if you get spammy, they will unsubscribe – but the same could be said about all platforms).
You will likely have to pay for a premium mailing service for automation, but that’s totally worth it. It’s also cheaper than paying to reach 20,000 people on Facebook with each of your posts.
3 – You could spend that money and time better.
Instead of trying to grow an audience on Facebook, use the platform as a customer service tool.
Everyone is on Facebook, so it’s a great way to offer cost-effective customer support.
No need for your inbox to get clogged – let people message your business where they already spend time! Easier for them and you can keep your inbox clear(er).
Rather than spending gobs of money on a social media agency, hire a growth team to find creative ways to grow your email list, help you test marketing strategies and ultimately grow revenue.
That’s one example of a better investment. There are many more.
By being creative, you might end up with a large following on Facebook anyway. You can achieve that by focusing on producing and sharing great content.
Just be cool. Don’t try so hard to get likes.
It doesn’t work in real life. It doesn’t work on social media either.
4 – Likes don’t pay bills.
Doesn’t matter how many likes your posts get. The number of fans on your Facebook page doesn’t matter either.
What matters for your business’s success? Sales. Revenue.
Likes aren’t sales. Likes don’t put cash in your bank account.
And if you paid for those likes, you spent money to not make money. How does that make sense?
If your ad takes the viewer to a landing page that sells them your product, then the ad is worth a shot.
Notice: that isn’t about growing your audience on FB. It is about making sales on FB.
You should absolutely try to make sales on FB.
Everyone is there. Sell them where they are.
You get to keep sales. You don’t get to keep “fans” if they abandon the platform or you.
Conclusion.
If you’re worried you don’t have enough fans or you don’t know how to grow your Facebook page, you can breathe easier now.
Facebook pages don’t matter as much as some would like you to think. Focus on revenue.
Sales drive your business, so you can keep succeeding and growing.
That is the goal, right?
P.S.: Please don’t like my company’s page on Facebook.
Johnny Whitfield is Co-Founder of Electric Growth, a growth marketing agency focused on search engine optimized content creation, digital strategy, and advertising. Johnny, based in Nashville, TN, also designs and builds websites. He’s especially looking to help environmentally sustainable companies grow their brands. You can download his free ebook on Marketing Strategy here.
