9 WAYS FACEBOOK NEGATIVELY AND POSITIVELY AFFECTS BUSINESSES

How Facebook Negatively and Positively Affects Businesses
By Gerri, Business Pundit, 16 January 2014.

Sometimes it seems like Facebook’s sole use is as a bragging or whining platform. But for many businesses, Facebook has become an important part of an effective marketing plan. Facebook allows businesses to engage with users and develop an on-going relationship with consumers. But as with any tool, Facebook can be misused and those who don’t know how to wield the power of this social media giant can end up wasting money, falling behind in the marketing game, or even garnering a gratuitous amount of reputation damaging negative publicity. Here are some pros and cons to using Facebook as a marketing tool.

1. Pro: Community Building

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Having an interesting, engaging and well-maintained Facebook page is a great way to connect with current and potential customers. As Breakthrough Content puts it: “The messaging you fold into a site like this - your promotions, messages, thoughts, replies, and updates - let you engage your clients on a deeper level than anything else in marketing.” Through posts and comments, companies can converse with customers, building a rapport and earning their loyalty through customer service via social media. Engagement is key, and many successful companies know how to engage Facebook users whether it be with a photo caption contest or a brand of baked goods asking what their fans will be cooking over the weekend. Even small businesses like Brendan’s Irish Pub can successfully build communities by using it as a medium to announce parties and ask for feedback. Brands utilizing Facebook correctly note that it’s not only important to illicit responses from their fans, but to reply to their comments as well, making each individual feel important and like their voice is being heard.

2. Con: Bad Publicity

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Facebook is a powerful tool, so it’s no surprise that yielding this weapon incorrectly can seriously hurt someone; in this case, a brand’s image. Brand posts are sometimes hijacked by unruly fans who intend to rile up others and give the brand bad publicity, like Durex’s condom giveaway campaign that asked users to vote on which city would be receiving free condoms. The winning city was Batman, a conservative Muslim province that was vehemently against birth control.

And then there’s simpler don’ts, like the infamous Amy’s Baking Company and their even more infamous Facebook meltdowns in which they responded to consumer criticisms with spiels of negativity and cuss words. Brands must be careful when using Facebook, both not to upset fans with their campaigns or to get hijacked and become a big joke.

3. Pro: Reaching Large Audiences

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There are over 1 billion active users on Facebook. The average time spent on the site is almost 23 minutes, with social media accounting for an average 18% of all time spent online. There are over 2.5 billion content shares per day on Facebook - are some of those generated from your brand’s posts?

4. Con: Filters

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Changes to Facebook’s site and user interface often stir controversy among users who rail against the new design and pine for “old Facebook.” But these changes also impact how businesses are able to use the site and their strategies for reaching audiences. The Week noted that the ability to filter one’s news feed presented a unique challenge for businesses. Users could create and follow a “friends only” feed, which would essentially eliminate brands posts from their timelines. Where once they were able to count on appearing in front of consumers’ eyes when they logged in, now they had to grapple with how to advertise to them without seeming intrusive or desperate. As The Week put it, “A business could still choose to advertise [in the filtered feed], but it then runs the risk of interrupting what will probably be perceived as a safe, ad-free space. No self-respecting brand wants that.”

5. Pro: Versatility and Discrimination

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Unlike other social media platforms, Facebook allows businesses to create different types of posts, sharing content through different mediums that best suits a variety of messages or circumstances. If you’re introducing a new product or service, perhaps a video is the best way to drum up excitement among customers. Or maybe you want to share a silly shot from around the office to endear your company to fans. Sometimes a straightforward text post is the way to go. Facebook gives you options for how to connect with people, and that’s a very good thing. There are also options to promote a post to certain demographics; businesses can pay a fee to ensure that their posts are appearing in the news feeds of 20-something females, or college students only, or maybe just at a particular time of day (such as during lunch break).

6. Con: Ban on Promotional Materials in Cover Photos

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One would think that the cover photo - the dominant image on a company’s Facebook page - would be a great place to advertise deals or otherwise promote the business. But Facebook mandates that no promotional language appear on the cover photo, in the interest of an “engagement trumps calls-to-action” philosophy,” according to ConvinceandConvert.com. This means businesses must expend more effort to engage users on their page and alert them to deals, promotions, and other company news. While this is certainly vital to their Facebook strategy anyway, the extra time required to boost their status can be a strain on companies with small staffs.

7. Pro: Attracting Website Hits

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Used effectively, a brand’s Facebook page will drive its fans to the brand website. Intrepid Travel’s Facebook integration is a perfect example of this; fans can book trips directly from the Facebook page, which engages the user without forcing them to ever leave the page. And famous crowdsourcing clothing company Threadless is doing the same, encouraging fans to visit their site via links that bring them to a voting page where they can vote on their favourite t-shirt designs.

8. Pro: Engagement Insights

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When you establish a Facebook page, you can track how many people see your posts, and the ways in which people are engaging with them.

Facebook provides in-depth engagement insights which allows brands to see detailed information about the volume of people they’re reaching and how. Page likes, post reach (how many people have seen a particular post), and engagement (comments, shares, etc.) can all be seen in Facebook’s Page Insights. A brand can even decipher what time of day is best for posting by reading the Page Insights correctly. Page Insights regarding likes goes into meticulous detail, telling the brand whether the likes came from the news feed, the brand page, a mobile users, or ‘others.’ Plus, Facebook’s Page Insights even tells a brand where its fans are located in the world, what language they speak, and how their demographic compares to that of the rest of Facebook users.

This can be incredibly useful as you plan your social media marketing strategies and determine the best ways to share content. “Sellers can…immediately amplify the reach of well-performing posts by turning them into a premium ad or a sponsored story,” says Mashable. This allows a brand to drive engagement and interaction on their Facebook page and create for followers an on-going positive association with the brand.

9. Con: Spam

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No one likes the person whose status updates are all about them - their lives, their interests, their puppy or their perfect partner. Same goes for businesses. Sure, people like your page because they want to stay up to date on sales, offers and new products, but the way to establish credibility is to share interesting, humorous or heartfelt content that isn’t always pushing a sale. This endears people to your brand. Entrepreneur Koby Conrad makes his living off Facebook traffic, and advises companies to post often but don’t post spam, and to avoid turning Facebook into a “24/7 infomercial.” Brands who incorrectly use Facebook are likely to drive customers away by bombarding them with uninteresting posts or just too many of them.

[Source: Business Pundit. Edited.]