Why Buying Facebook ‘Likes’ is a Bad Move
You might have come across some services that offer to provide you with hundreds or even thousands of Facebook ‘Likes’, and for anyone new to Facebook with just a handful of fans, this can seem like a very tempting offer.
Firstly though, you need to stop and ask yourself – why do you want to buy likes? Sure, it’s nice to look popular, but what good will looking popular really achieve? The truth is, nothing at all.
The real value of Facebook comes from genuine fans. These are the people that will be past/existing customers and people who largely, have an actual interest in your brand and what you have to say. They are effectively, receptive sales leads and as such, it is generally worthwhile investing your time into engaging with them as they are far more likely to convert into customers or purchase from you again.
Only genuine fans have a real intrinsic value to your business
The low down is, buy likes and your fans won’t have any genuine interest in your brand and certainty won’t be receptive to anything you do; in which case they are of little or no real value to you. It makes much more sense to build communities organically which is always our preferred approach. Sure, this takes a little longer to achieve, but it will result in a much higher quality of fan who will have real intrinsic value for your business.
Why buying Facebook fans is a bad move
- Your new ‘fans’ will have no interest in your business or your messages – why spend your time marketing yourself to none-prospects?
- Buying fans is often very obvious – a competitor or customer can easily spot a sudden explosion in the size of your community and could very publicly question this, stripping you off the trust you will have inspired in your real fans.
- Buying a community is often a question of ethics and trust and won’t do your reputation any favours.
- Growing a community of fake fans will do little for your business; it’s all about engagement and fake fans won’t engage with you.
- Buying fans will make you look like an amateur, signalling to the competition that you don’t know what you are doing.
If you come across a service selling you Facebook likes or an agency promising you a ready made community or a guaranteed number of fans, you should be on your guard and be aware that organic growth is the only approach guaranteed to provide you with real, sustainable benefits.
I’ve found few examples of businesses that have bought likes and actually benefited; for example, sometimes ‘getting the ball rolling’ on a new community may be helped by the number of fans you have, the thinking being that a busy community is more appealing than a small one; I disagree however. If your Facebook wall is full of interesting content and lots of interaction, then regardless of that community consisting of 100 or 10,000 people, it’s going to be appealing and will grow.
My advice? Focus on growing your community organically by publishing great content and being generally engaging. Not only will you enjoy steady and sustained growth, but you’ll have a community of actual fans who do care about what you have to say and most importantly, are willing to listen.
Are they insane?! Companies step away from providing customer service via social
I’ve just read an article from marketingpilgrim.com that you can see in full here, The article discusses the fact that some US companies are moving away from providing customer service via social media. An excerpt from the article is reads:
The biggest problem with social media for customer service is that there’s really only one response to a problem – “we’ll look into it.”
Companies can’t do much more than that in public. They can’t solve your outage, refund your money or track a missing package unless the consumer forwards more information through a private channel.
Isn’t a direct response from a company saying “we’ll look into it” better than no response at all? Why do companies have to limit themselves to such a bland platitude? Even if you have very clearly defined customer service channels, customers will still contact you via social media! That’s the beauty of social, you can hold real-time conversations with your customers, obtaining real-time insights into what is working and what isn’t working. Ignoring a customer who Tweets about a missed delivery, service outage or order discrepancy, or a post on Facebook asking for pre-sales advice, just doesn’t make sense.
Always respond to customers no matter what, even if it’s just to apologise and explain you can’t deal with the issue and give them further advice on what to do or how to get the information they need to resolve whatever issue they might have – being helpful, understanding and courteous really isn’t difficult to do.
Simply responding positively to a customer and pointing them in the direction of your official support forum or whatever you might have, is often all it takes to nurture a good customer experience.
It’s true, it may not be possible to resolve Issues there and then, but the difference between good customer service and bad, is that you allow your customers to contact you in a way that suits them. If you aren’t equipped to deal directly with customer service issues via social, it doesn’t matter! Simply responding positively to a customer and pointing them in the direction of your official support forum or whatever you might have, is often all it takes to nurture a good customer experience.
As i’ve previously stated in the article Keep track to avoid social media fail, the key lies in monitoring your social media channels. Get into the habit of checking once in the morning, at lunch time, in the afternoon and in the evening. It takes just a few seconds to check your Facebook wall or you Twitter feed and can mean the difference between a happy customer and an unhappy customer.
Many businesses are scared that customers contacting them to resolve issues via social is a bad reflection of their brand – rubbish! Resolving customer service problems publicly is a very smart move indeed and something I explore in detail in my article Real-time responses via social media are worth the investment!.
Not only do you have the chance to turn a negative experience around for the individual concerned, but you are actively demonstrating to all of your followers/fans that you provide high levels of customer service, which will amplify and drive trust in a way that far exceeds the narrow reach of your usual customer service channels.
Don’t make the mistake of turning your back on providing customer service via social, if anything it’s an area you should be investing in and when putting your social team together, don’t just have someone from marketing do it all, you need someone trained in customer service as part of the team too.
Stop your social media activity now!
Ok, stopping all of your activity right away may not be entirely necessary, but my point is that you shouldn’t be actively involved in any social media activities for your business, unless you know why you are investing in it, or before you fully understand what you want to achieve from it.
Start by looking at a social network you use and consider the question “What am I doing here?”, if you aren’t quite sure or only have vague notions, take a look at the checklist below. Considering these 6 questions will help you lay the foundations of using social media effectively.
1) Have you defined your objectives?
As previously mentioned, ask yourself what you are doing on Facebook/Twitter/G+ etc. Why are you investing time on any particular network? Understanding the benefits of social media is a good starting point to get you thinking more strategically about what you are doing, so what do you want to achieve?
2) Do you know your target audience and where to find them?
Demographics differ depending on the social network. Just because you have heard lots about Tumbr or Pinterest, it doesn’t mean they are the best place for you to invest your time into. Look at demographics, think about your product, services and customer base and choose the most relevant social networks to invest in. A little bit of initial research will pay dividends and ensure you aren’t focusing your efforts in the wrong direction.
If you aren’t sure, the general rule is to go where the masses are, with over 1 billion people now using Facebook and 500 million Twitter users, these make the safest bets and If you are a B2B company, then you should invest first and foremost in Linkedin.
3) Have you set key performance indicators and can you track them?
Blindly carrying out activities with no understanding of what you want to achieve or the effect they are having is not recommended, but knowing what it is you want to achieve isn’t enough. How will you know you have achieved those things? How do you know you are moving in a positive direction towards your goals?
Likes and followers are obvious choices but don’t reveal the full picture; engagement is important so count comments and shares too so you can look at the reach of your communications. Also make sure you are tracking click throughs to your website, which is after all, a key reason for engaging in social media activity in the first place!
With a little bit of thought you can put metrics in place that can be easily monitored using a combination of freely available tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Insights. By doing this you will be able to see which activities are working successfully and those activities which are not, allowing you to modify things accordingly.
4) Is your page/profile fully branded?
This may sound really obvious, but it is often overlooked by businesses who are too hasty to get their social activities started. A Twitter account with a stock background image and no profile picture or logo is highly unappealing and you’ll instantly lose your chance to attract a follower if they arrive at your page and find it bereft of all personality.
Make your space on a social network yours – if any of your social media profiles or pages don’t contain an informative introduction to your business and a link through to your website, do it now!
5) Are you promoting social media on your website?
This might sound even more obvious, but it’s been missed by clients i’ve worked with in the past! Ensure you are promoting your social media accounts in your email signatures, on your website, blog and in direct email too. Pretty much wherever you are promoting your website address and contact details, you should be providing links through to your various social networks.
6) Do you have a content plan?
Posting updates for your business is entirely different to posting in your personal accounts. Remember the majority of the content that you post or share needs to be relevant and have a goal; this usually involves spreading brand awareness or providing a specific call to action.
Whatever you do, don’t make all of your posts pushy marketing messages; these are fine, but in moderation. Make sure you are posting engaging, informative and relevant content and you won’t go far wrong.
To read more about balancing your posts and planning your social media content, see the article 10 tips to get the most out of social media.
Shell Robshaw-Bryan is a marketing consultant at Surefire Media, the Cheshire based web design, eCommerce and marketing company. Shell specialises in organic search, content strategy and social media engagement for both B2C and B2B companies.
If you’d like to find out how Surefire Media can help your business, get in touch!
Is Linkedin the only viable social media platform for B2B marketing?
With a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2.74% – that’s nearly 3 times higher than Facebook and Twitter (socialmediatoday.com) – it is beyond doubt; Linkedin is absolutely the best social media tool for B2B purposes.
I come from a mainly B2C social marketing background, however, I have done and do use social media for B2B purposes too, just not nearly as much. So the thing i’m currently considering is the fact that B2B marketing efforts are largely confined to Linkedin and if there are viable opportunities that exist on more B2C focused platforms?
When I am on Facebook and I come across a post that is B2B focused, it gets my attention. B2B messages I see on Facebook, don’t have any less of an impact on me because of the platform. To be honest, I tend to purposely filter out and ignore B2C marketing messages (unless they are particularly creative and appeal to me from a professional, non-consumer point of view) as I have no interest in the latest age defying face cream or any of the usual advertising spin; however, I do have an interest in anything relating to my area of professional interest, in finding leads and in the business sector that I work in. So, for me, regardless of what social media i’m using, if messaging has relevancy to me then that is all that counts and i’ll sit up and pay attention.
Sure the conversion rates for Facebook & Twitter are significantly lower, but does that mean they should be ignored by B2B marketers all together? Key decision makers in business are also individuals who will be using other forms of social media and not just Linkedin. For brand awareness purposes at the very least, that’s got to be worth something?
What are your thoughts?
Are B2B marketers missing out on opportunities by limiting themselves to Linkedin? What are the barriers faced when attempting to carry out B2B marketing activities via platforms with a stronger B2C focus?
To find out more about how to get the most out of Linkedin from a B2B perspective, take a look at the socialmediatoday.com article, Be a LinkedIn Rock Star
10 tips to get the most out of social media – An Infographic
10 tips to get the most out of social media – An Infographic
An infographic I designed in December 2012 for Surefire Media that highlights 10 ways in which businesses can make the most of their social media activity.
This infographic provides a number of practical ideas and suggestions that can easily be implemented and will add value to your social marketing activities.
10 tips to getting the most out of social media have been taken from the soon to be published blog article and downloadable eGuide, “20 ways to improve your social media.” I’ll update this article with a direct link through to the full article as soon as it’s published.
Shell Robshaw-Bryan is a marketing consultant at Surefire Media, the Cheshire based web design, eCommerce and marketing company. Shell specialises in organic search, content strategy and social media engagement for both B2C and B2B companies.
If you’d like to find out how Surefire Media can help your business, get in touch!
ubershell
