I’ve mostly enjoyed marketing on Facebook over the past decade. With ZEN Garage (est. 2011) we’ve had high highs and low lows but right now, we’re at our lowest low.
When Facebook added us to their “recommended” lists, they showed us that we could reach millions of potential customers each week through this medium, but like many ‘too good to be true’ things, it all went pear shaped pretty damn quickly; the boosting came to an abrupt end which then forced us to pay to reach the larger audience we had acquired.
Transparency as a theme for life is still very much in motion for me. Lately I’ve been posting on the ZEN Garage business page in a more personal manner; as me, one person, and not as a brand, company or whatever entity that some people might expect us to be.
Some of our recent shared posts have reached over 40k people, our own original content is getting anywhere from 2,000–15,000 and the engagement percentages are high. It’s amazing how much feedback I’ve gotten from the diverse posts made. Considering we left Facebook for a year and have only just come back on in the past month shows that the medium still helps you to reach a lot of people.
Ideally I’d like to run ZEN in the same way I run my Facebook profile. To run ZEN more personal than business. What would happen if I shut the ZEN Garage Facebook Page and instead ran ZEN from my own personal Facebook profile? All of this got me thinking about how Facebook could actually be hurting my business in the following ways:
– Facebook takes traffic away from blogs and hosted sites.
– Facebook requires that you cater to your audience, rather than allowing you to shape your audience.
– Facebook has too much control over content and marketing.
– You’re building an empire on someone else’s land
– Facebook connects you/your business with people you don’t actually want to market to.
– Facebook fans consist of people who actually aren’t customers anyway.
– Facebook can create a negative brand image of you from people posting negative crap on your page.
OK, so the negative points above are pretty damn depressing, but in reality it depends on how you look at it and how you choose to make it work for yourself. Right now we’re gaining in traffic. People are liking, commenting, and visiting. We’re getting traction and that’s a good thing.
Also; I enjoy Facebook, so really, wearing my marketing hat whilst on Facebook isn’t so hard, especially since I’m not trying to be anything but myself!
In conclusion: So should we delete our Business Facebook Page?
Probably not.
