Facebook feels like a Garden Center’s best friend. Your page is overflowing with gorgeous flower pictures and your audience adores your posts. But is it making you money? This week, I look at why we shouldn’t put too many hopes on our Facebook page.
“You can’t put Likes in the bank.“
– Me
I love Facebook. It reminds me what my friends are up to and catches me up on the latest Star Wars gossip.
I use Facebook to advertise. A lot. If used right, it has the best targeting and ROI of any digital platform. But that’s not what this article is about.
This article is myth-busting, pure and simple. A lot of you won’t like what I’m about to say, but it’s important. We need to be realistic about what our Facebook page can do for our Garden Centers.
Full disclosure that my Garden Center has a thriving Facebook page that I’m very proud of (https://www.facebook.com/SalisburyGreenhouse/ ). But I don’t expect nearly as much from it as I do my email audience.
Here’s why:
Myth #1 – That your Audience Cares:
In digital marketing, audience is king. Without a quality audience it doesn’t matter how good your message is, because no one is listening.
Facebook audiences are the easiest to build. Create a few cool posts and drop a few bucks into advertising and the Likes will come. Watching them accumulate is a great ego boost.
Unfortunately, that audience isn’t worth very much. They’ve shown interest in your post, not your business. Their attention is conditional on how much you entertain them; as soon as you start to talk promotions, they’ll bolt.
The fickleness of your Facebook audience makes them among the least valuable audiences in marketing. Especially when compared to an email audience, which is harder to make and easier to monetize.
People are on Facebook to watch videos of kittens playing the piano, not to read your posts.
Myth #2 – That it Makes you Money:
The process of digital marketing is simple: to convince our audience to take actions that will move them from stranger to subscriber to customer to advocate. You can’t put Likes, Retweets, or Sign-Ups in the bank. The people who Like you on Facebook need to take further actions, and that’s the problem.
It’s very hard to get a Facebook audience to take actions towards being a customer. They aren’t on Facebook for you. They’re there for Star Wars and Trump and kittens playing the piano. You’re asking them to play ball while they’re getting cozy on the sidelines.
What makes matters worse is that the vast majority of your audience doesn’t see your posts. A few years ago businesses averaged 16% organic reach (so 1,600 of your 10,000 followers would see you). Now that’s plunged to 2% as Facebook tries that get you to spend more on paid advertising. That’s a paltry 200 views from a 10,000 strong audience.
Myth #3 – That you’re in Control:
Now it’s gonna get real. We spend countless hours posting, building, and investing in our business pages. We accumulate audiences of 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 people. And tomorrow we could wake up and find it gone.
Joe Pulizzi summed it up best when he said that investing in Facebook pages is, “building your home on rented land.” We don’t own the page. We can’t access the audience. Facebook is constantly changing rules without our feedback or consent.
Postscript:
You need a Facebook. They’re the center of online activity for your Garden Center. As a tool, they can spread awareness, build brand, and create buzz around events and engaging products. But I caution you against putting too much emphasis on it as a money-making digital asset.