On today’s episode of the Engaging Marketeer, I have to, once again, talk about social media and how businesses seem to promote themselves via social media. I am continually having the same discussion, I am continually having the same argument, I’m continually giving the same advice and it is just completely falling on deaf ears.
I’m specifically talking about those businesses that go on to Facebook, for example, and they go into local Facebook groups and they promote their business in all these groups, sharing the exact same post over and over again in these different groups. They think that’s how you get business, they think that’s how you promote yourself, they think that’s how social media marketing works and they tend to be insistent that this is a good use of their time.
I run a lot of Facebook groups, with tens of thousands of members across different groups. I can see the actual number of people who see each of these posts that gets posted in the groups. When you just share a post from your Facebook page showing the latest project that you’ve done or the same post that you put out every day, nobody is really interested in seeing it, so nobody engages with it, nobody comments on it, nobody likes it, nobody clicks on it and nobody reacts to it. Because it gets no engagement, Facebook doesn’t want to show posts to people that they don’t want to see. Facebook’s funny like that; it wants to give people posts that they’re going to be interested in, that they’re going to comment on, that they’re going to interact with because it wants to keep people on the platform and because Facebook makes an absolute shitload of money from advertising. If people are on Facebook looking at posts for a fraction of a second, and then going away and going off to Google or to, heaven forbid, Twitter or LinkedIn, then Facebook’s not going to make a shitload of money.
Let’s clear that up. Facebook wants to make a ton of money, and it does that by keeping people on the platform for longer. Hold that thought. So if people are looking at posts they’re not interested in and they bugger off somewhere else, it means Facebook’s not making any money, so Facebook is not going to highlight the posts that nobody wants to see. We all know what these posts are, we’ve all seen them before. Quite often they’ll have the phrase “I thought the group would be interested in this” attached to them because that’s what Facebook automatically applies if you can’t be bothered to even write a comment when you share a post from your page. The reach is really low, often in single figures. The more you make these posts that nobody sees, the more Facebook knows that nobody wants to see this crap, so it’s not going to put it in people’s feeds.
Nobody goes into a group anymore to say “Oh, I wonder what’s going on in this group”. They don’t do that, the posts from the group get put into their organic feed. So when they’re scrolling on Facebook, they’ll see the odd post crop up from a group that they’re in, but only if it’s a group that they’ve engaged with or a post from somebody in the group that they’ve engaged with. If your post isn’t one of those, it’s not going to show up. So when you’re going into these groups and sharing the same crap again and again, nobody is seeing it because, let’s be honest, if you went onto Facebook and all you saw was “I thought the group would be interested in this, here’s a picture of some joinery I’ve done” and “I thought the group would be interested in this”, who gives a s**t? Nobody. Facebook knows nobody wants to see it, which is why it doesn’t show it to you. Then why, for the love of all that’s good and holy, do you go into Facebook groups and share this crap?
I am sick and tired of having the same discussion about this with people who just will not listen and insist that it’s where their business comes from. How many people sit and watch Coronation Street then watch the ads all the way through? When’s the last time you actually paid attention to a TV ad and thought “Oh, I’m gonna have me some of that”? You don’t. Nobody wants to see constant crappy ads like this. Facebook ads don’t work like that, because if people were actually paying money for this and it got the crap results that you’re getting with this stuff, they’d stop paying for it or they’d go bust. Yet people still think this is how social media works. It isn’t. Please stop going into groups and lazily sharing posts from your page thinking that people want to see it.
So, what is the way to get business through a Facebook group? Well, here’s a wild, far out there thought: why don’t you actually put into groups and put on social media the kind of things people actually want to see? The kind of things people will see and go “Oh, that’s interesting, I didn’t know that” and then when they need what you do, they’ll remember you because you’re the genius that’s told them this thing. Now you’re like “What can I possibly put on like that?” Well, it’s your business. What kind of questions have your clients asked you? What kind of questions have your customers asked you? What things have you been asked over the years? I’m sure you’ve got a whole list of questions that people keep asking because it’s something they don’t know, but you do because it’s your business.
There’s your starting point. There’s what you should be putting on social media because those are the things people want to know in the first place, not ad after ad after ad of lazy share from your page that nobody ever wants to see. Think what people want to know. What questions have they asked you? What thing do you have to keep saying over and over again? For me, it’s this – it’s stop posting the same [ __ ] in groups that nobody wants to see.
Sorry, this was a little bit ranty, but I’m in a little bit of a mood right now so I’m probably going to go off and have another argument on social media, but thank you for listening to this episode of the Engaging Marketeer. If you liked what you heard, or even if you didn’t, I don’t really care, why not leave me a review. Say nice things about me, say nasty things if you like, I don’t really mind that. Well, I do, please don’t say nasty things, say nice things about me, leave me a five star rating, I’d really appreciate it. Subscribe to me on YouTube if you can and I will look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Engaging Marketeer.