Is It Worth It for Your Business or Nonprofit to Be on Facebook?

Since I started doing digital marketing in late 2009, business owners, marketers, and anyone whose job is to help their business or organization grow have stated, “everyone says I should be on Facebook!” For years, I would eagerly agree, and not just because it was my job to convince people that my services mattered.

I genuinely believed that all businesses should be on Facebook.

But in fourteen years, the Internet has changed, Facebook has changed, people’s behavior has changed, and, well, I’ve changed.

I no longer believe every business should be on Facebook. In fact, unless you have lots of money and time, Facebook probably won’t help you meet your business goals, and even with money and time, it’s no guarantee.

In each section below, you’ll find some questions you need to answer before deciding to spend time on Facebook. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure blog post. You can either read the whole thing or skip to the sections that are relevant to you.

[If you read the whole blog, you’ll notice that I repeat myself verbatim in different sections for efficiency’s sake. While each business is unique, there is overlap in what is relevant.]

No matter what adventure you choose, this blog will never end with you falling off a cliff or being held captive by an angry yacht captain. Isn’t that what happens if you choose incorrectly in the Choose Your Own Adventure books?

What Kind of Business or Organization Are You?

I Sell Services to Individuals / Households

If you are a local business, meaning you provide services locally in people’s homes or in your office/workspace, then you should, at the very least, have a Facebook local business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local business listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your business, and hopefully, a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

Now, in terms of whether or not it makes sense for you to be on Facebook regularly, there are a few things you’ll want to consider.

• Are your competitors active on Facebook, and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, lots of reviews, etc.)?
• Are people already reviewing you on Facebook?
• Do you have photos or videos of your services, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial or emotional, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• Is your staff on Facebook, and if so, are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Is your staff willing to react to, comment on, and share the content your business posts?

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move on to the next section [Social Media Goals] because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.

If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple of photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s a review you need to respond to.

I Sell Services to Businesses

If you are a local business, meaning you provide services locally in people’s offices or in your office, then you should, at the very least, have a Facebook local business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local business listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your business, and hopefully, a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

When most businesses are looking for a service, we all know that they start with their contacts and ask for referrals. Referrals are the number one source of new customers for the majority of service-based businesses that serve other businesses.

Google is probably number two, LinkedIn might be number three (I’m just guessing here), and I imagine Facebook is not at the top of any list.

It may be easy to write off Facebook, and you wouldn’t be wrong to do so. However, it’s important to remember that human beings give referrals based on things they experience all over the place. This includes real-life experiences, hearsay, referral chains (“my mom’s neighbor’s son-in-law really loved working with this amazing business coach, you might like her too!”), and random stuff they see online.

You could be that random stuff they see online, especially if you have something interesting to say or show.

Here are a few questions you’ll want to answer to decide if being active on Facebook makes sense:

• Are your competitors active on Facebook, and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, lots of reviews, etc.)?
• Are people already reviewing you on Facebook?
• Do you have photos or videos of your services, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial or emotional, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• Is your staff on Facebook, and if so, are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Is your staff willing to react to, comment on, and share your business posts?

If you answered yes to at least two of the questions above, then move on to the next section [Social Media Goals] because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.

If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple of photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s a review you need to respond to.

I Sell Goods to Individuals / Households

Are you a local business that sells goods in a brick-and-mortar store? If so, at the very least, you should have a local Facebook business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local business listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your business, and hopefully, a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

If you’re an online-only business, you don’t need a local Facebook page with your address, but there’s a chance you may still want to be on Facebook.

When most businesses are looking to purchase something, they start with their contacts and ask for recommendations.

After asking for recommendations, they search on Google or Amazon or head to Office Max or whatever local business supply store they’ve driven by or heard of. I imagine Facebook is not at the top of any list.

It may be easy to write off Facebook, and you wouldn’t be wrong to do so. However, it’s important to remember that human beings give recommendations based on things they experience all over the place. This includes real-life experiences, hearsay, and random stuff they see online.

You could be that random stuff they see online, especially if you have something interesting to say or show.

The following questions apply to both types of businesses:

• Are your competitors active on Facebook, and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, etc.)?
• Do you have photos or videos of your products, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial or emotional, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• If relevant, is your staff on Facebook, and if so, are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your staff, family, or friends willing to react to, comment on, and share your business posts?
• Do your customers send or post photos of themselves using your products?

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move on to the next section because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.

If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple of photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s anything you need to respond to.

I Sell Goods to Businesses

If you are local business that sells goods locally, you should at the very least have a Facebook local business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local business listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your business, and hopefully a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

If you’re an online-only business, you don’t need a local Facebook page with your address, but there’s a chance you may still want to be on Facebook.

The following questions apply to both types of businesses, brick-and-mortar and online:

• Are your competitors active on Facebook and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, etc.)?
• Do you have photos or videos of your products, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• If relevant, is your staff on Facebook and if so are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your staff, family, or friends willing to react to, comment on, and share your business posts?
• Do your customers send or post photos of themselves using your products?

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move onto the next section because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s anything you need to respond to.

I’m a Business or Nonprofit that Puts on Regular Events or Classes

If you put on regular events, then I almost always recommend you have a Facebook page. Why? Because that’s the kind of content people actually want to see from businesses and organizations they follow. Facebook’s event feature allows businesses and nonprofits to create a special type of post for their event, and you can share control of that with other organizations, businesses, entertainers, etc. that are performing at, participating in, or cohosting your event.

Bare minimum: you have a Facebook business page and then create a Facebook Event for each real event that you have.

So, should you do more than that? The following questions (same as in the above sections) might help you determine if your Facebook tactics should extend beyond event posting:

• Are your competitors active on Facebook and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, etc.)?
• Do you have photos or videos of your events, performers, products, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• Are your staff, performers, co-hosts, etc. on Facebook, and if so are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your staff, family, or friends willing to react to, comment on, and share your posts?
• Do your customers send or post photos of themselves at your events?

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move onto the next section because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence. If you answered no to all of those (which is HIGHLY unlikely), then just create your page and events, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s anything you need to respond to.

I’m a Nonprofit that Offers Services or Membership

If you are a local nonprofit, meaning you provide services locally in people’s homes, in your office space, or out in the community, then you should at the very least have a Facebook local business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local business listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your nonprofit, and hopefully a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

Now, in terms of whether or not it makes sense for you to be on Facebook regularly, there are a few things you’ll want to consider.

• Are other similar nonprofits active on Facebook and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, lots of reviews, etc.)?
• Do you have photos or videos of your services, staff, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial or emotional, inspirational, or cute?
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• Are your volunteers and/or staff on Facebook and if so are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your volunteers and/or staff willing to react to, comment on, and share the content your Facebook posts?
• Do you host regular events like classes, meetups, food banks, trainings, actions – anything that is scheduled or can go on a calendar or requires an announcement? [if yes read Events section above]

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move onto the next section because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.

If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s a review you need to respond to.

I’m a Nonprofit that Fundraises for a Cause

If you are a nonprofit that fundraises for a local cause, then you should at the very least have a Facebook local business page. This is good for SEO and good for your online presence generally. Your local listing will include your address, phone number, website URL, a description of your nonprofit, and hopefully a few relevant photos.

Even if you never post to Facebook, at the bare minimum, create a page.

If you fundraise for a cause that’s beyond local, then creating a Facebook page is optional (though I do recommend it just to have it).

Now, in terms of whether or not it makes sense for you to be on Facebook regularly, there are a few things you’ll want to consider.

• Are other, similar nonprofits active on Facebook and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement)?
• Do you have photos or videos of your staff, cause, or community that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial or emotional, inspirational, or cute?
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them?
• Are your volunteers and/or staff on Facebook and if so are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your volunteers and/or staff willing to react to, comment on, and share the content your Facebook posts?
• Do you host in-person or online fundraising events ? [if yes read Events section above]

If you answered yes to at least one of the questions above, then move onto the next section because you’re one step closer to benefitting from a Facebook presence.

If you answered no to all of those, then just create your page with your address and a couple photos, and check in every once in a while to see if there’s a review you need to respond to.

What Are Your Social Media Goals?

Directly Sell My Products

If you want to use Facebook to directly sell your products, either through Facebook’s store option or by sending people from Facebook to a website (your website, Amazon, Etsy, etc.), then think carefully about how much product you want or expect to sell this way, and then think long and hard about your budget.

Selling a product on Facebook isn’t easy. Facebook doesn’t want to send traffic away from Facebook, so getting people to go to your website to make a purchase is going to be tricky, especially if you’re planning on doing this organically by simply posting links to your products.

In fact, if you’re hoping that once you start posting your products to Facebook that you’ll begin to grow an audience and sell products, then you’re very very likely to be sorely disappointed. This isn’t to say that it never happens, but you’d be more likely to buy a winning lottery ticket than to make a living by selling stuff on Facebook through organic (non-paid) posts.

If you’re willing to create ads and spend money on Facebook advertising, you stand more of a chance of selling your products.

Facebook has gone through several transformations, from being a medium that you use to connect with your college friends, to a news site, and now to an entertainment platform. While it’s dabbled in e-commerce, that has never been its strong suit nor its intention.

Whether Facebook has socially engineered us to come to it for entertainment, or we have forced Facebook to change to become that, people use Facebook more and more to be entertained, and less to find out about what their favorite brand is selling (unless it’s entertaining).

Before deciding if it makes sense to sell products through Facebook, answer the following questions:

• How much money am I willing to spend on Facebook ads (see budget section below)?
• How much money do I expect to make selling my products on Facebook?
• Who will be monitoring my account regularly for customer questions and complaints?
• Is my target customer even on Facebook (see audience section below)?
• How will I determine if it’s working or not? i.e. what budget or time threshold will I reach before I call it quits or dig in further?

I don’t recommend that you rely on Facebook for the majority of your purchases. At all. A wise business coach once told me that we should have at least ten potential lead streams, and this goes for products too. What else are you doing to sell your products outside of Facebook? Never rely on one platform, especially not Facebook. More on why Facebook isn’t dependable below.

Directly Sell Tickets to Events or Sell Classes

If you want to use Facebook to directly sell tickets to your event, either through Facebook’s Marketplace (note: you must use Eventbrite for this) or by sending people from Facebook to a website (your website, your ticketing platform, etc.), then think carefully about how many tickets you want or expect to sell this way, and then think long and hard about your budget.

Selling on Facebook isn’t easy. Facebook doesn’t want to send traffic away from Facebook, so getting people to go to your website to make a purchase is going to be tricky, especially if you’re planning on doing this organically by simply posting links to your events.

In fact, if you’re hoping that once you start posting your events to Facebook that you’ll begin to grow an audience and sell more tickets without paying Facebook advertising dollars, then you’re very very likely to be sorely disappointed.

If you’re willing to create ads and spend money on Facebook advertising, you stand more of a chance of selling event tickets.

Before deciding if it makes sense to sell tickets through Facebook, answer the following questions:

• How much money am I willing to spend on Facebook ads (see budget section below)?
• How much money do I expect to make selling tickets on Facebook?
• Who will be monitoring my account regularly for customer questions and complaints?
• Is my target customer even on Facebook (see audience section below)?
• How will I determine if it’s working or not? i.e. what budget or time threshold will I reach before I call it quits or dig in further?

I don’t recommend that you rely on non-paid Facebook for the majority of your ticket sales. At all. Where else are you promoting your events? Google Ads? Using SEO? Instagram? TikTok? Twitter? Events websites?

Never rely on one platform, especially not Facebook. More on why Facebook isn’t dependable below.

Get Leads to Sell My Services or Products

In almost all cases, Facebook is not the best platform for direct lead generation. If you’re a B2B business, LinkedIn is typically more worthwhile. If you’re B2C, then you might do better on Google Business, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Angie’s List, and so on.

However, there are some exceptions.

I recently took an informal poll of businesses and nonprofits who are active on Facebook to see who had gotten direct leads from Facebook. No B2B companies or organizations got a lead from Facebook. A few B2C organizations had, and here’s the interesting part.

The majority of people who had received a direct lead from Facebook got those leads by participating in and posting in Facebook groups, not from the organic content they posted on their own page.

With that in mind, answer the following questions before moving onto the next relevant section:

• How much money am I willing to spend on Facebook ads (see budget section below)?
• How many leads a month do I expect to get from Facebook?
• Who will be monitoring my account regularly for customer questions and complaints?
• Is my target customer even on Facebook (see audience section below)?
• How will I determine if it’s working or not? i.e. what budget or time threshold will I reach before I call it quits or dig in further?
• Am I willing to participate in Facebook Groups and to engage in ways beyond just posting to my own page?

Build Brand Awareness and Recall

Ah, good old brand awareness. Billboards, television ads, magazine ads, event sponsorships, speaking engagements, expo tables, and on and on.

Brand awareness is absolutely necessary, and yet it’s painful.

Why is brand awareness painful? Because it is incredibly difficult to track the return on investment of brand awareness, especially for industries with an unavoidably slow sales cycle.

However, with Facebook we can sort of actually track brand awareness in a way that we can only guess at with a billboard or a TV ad. In this respect, Facebook is good for brand awareness because of the data available to us; Facebook Insights will show a business page admin how many people a post reached. However, Facebook isn’t great for brand awareness if your goal is to have lots of new people become aware of you and/or remind people of your existence, especially if you don’t want to pay for it.

I’ve seen marketing agencies who sell questionable influencer marketing misrepresent social media reach by saying that the number of followers someone has is the actual number of people who will see a post. They would argue that if someone has 10 million followers, then the reach of a post is 10 million. But that’s both incorrect and wrong.

Here’s an example: we have a client who has a relatively large Facebook audience, primarily because Facebook is the platform of choice for their demographic (see audience section below), and they’ve been working on building their Facebook following for years.

They post custom-created fun, educational videos almost daily – prime Facebook content. On average, their posts reach about 40% of the number of followers they have. More than 60% of their followers do not see this content, which means that more than 60% of their followers don’t get the brand awareness / recall infusion that we’re hoping for.

However, even though the number of people reached is less than 40% of their followers, these posts will often reach people who don’t follow them. The business page’s dedicated followers will share their content, and then the friends of those people who shared will see that content.  From a brand awareness perspective, this is exactly what we want. We want someone to hear about our brand from someone they trust; when someone they trust shares your content on Facebook? BOOM. Brand awareness + trust is built.

Facebook CAN be good for brand awareness if people are sharing your content. But look at the number of followers you have or think you can get. I can tell you that a 40% reach is actually pretty high, and the reason this particular client reaches 40% is because on a daily basis they create the exact type of content Facebook wants you to – highly shareable content that’s visually pleasing, educational, very useful, and fun.

If you’re like many businesses and nonprofits who haven’t spent much time on Facebook, and you have a Facebook following of around 500, each of your posts is likely to reach between 100 and 400 people, probably fewer, especially if you haven’t posted much in a while.

Let’s return to some of the initial questions I asked. If you’re reading this section, you answered yes to one of the questions below. However, if you want to have a shot at Facebook helping your brand awareness, you need to answer yes to every single one of the bolded questions below. The bolded questions are all about likable content and potential reach.

• Are your competitors active on Facebook and do they seem to be doing well (lots of engagement, etc.)?
• Do you have photos or videos that fit into the following categories: visually pleasing, educational, funny, controversial, or cute? [note: I did not say promotional]
• If you don’t have photos or videos that fit into the categories above, are you willing to take the time to create them or create more of them?
• If relevant, is your staff on Facebook, and if so are they okay with photos or videos of them being posted and tagged on your Facebook?
• Are your staff, family, or friends willing to react to, comment on, and share your business posts?
• Do your customers send or post photos of themselves using your products?

If you answered a hearty yes to each of these bolded questions, then you’re more likely to have a chance at increasing your brand awareness on Facebook. More likely, but not guaranteed. But if you’re willing to spend some money, then you can definitely increase your brand awareness using Facebook.

If you answered yes to the bolded questions, then move on to the next relevant section.If you answered no, then come back to this blog when you get to yes.

Show People that My Business Is Real

This goal might seem strange, but it’s perfectly valid. The idea is that when someone is checking out your business, they want to see what you’re doing across the internet. Where people look for you will definitely vary depending on your industry and company or nonprofit, but Facebook might be one of the places they’ll look for you.

If someone is looking for you on Facebook and either you haven’t posted anything in a long time or you don’t have a page at all, they may have a slightly more negative opinion of your organization. This isn’t a hard rule. Some people won’t care. Others will. However, no one will think of you negatively if you DO have a Facebook page that you update regularly.

I’ll make this section short. If your goal is show people that your business is real, then you don’t need to worry too much about reach, engagement, etc. If you can commit to posting on Facebook once every week or two, then your adventure continues. Read the next relevant section!

I Don’t Have Goals, I Just Know I Should Do It

I’m gonna stop you right here. If you don’t have a goal for being on Facebook, find one. You can read the sections above and see if that helps. If you still can’t find a goal, then don’t be on Facebook.

Who’s Your Audience?

People of All Ages (13+)

Targeting people of all ages is fine but not necessarily optimal. I mean, it’s rare that you’re selling something that actually appeals to people of all ages, but for the sake of this blog let’s say that you really are trying to reach people of all ages. Maybe you’re a nonprofit that offers free lunches to teens, and you want to reach teens and their parents/caregivers/siblings. That could possibly be a target audience of people of all ages.

While people of all ages are on Facebook, and you can target ads to certain age groups (over the age of 18), some groups are far more represented on Facebook than others.

Getting consistent statistics about the percentage of each age group that is active on Facebook is proving to be elusive. Every company has a slightly different number, but generally they all agree that millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen X (born between 1965 – 1980) make up Facebook’s largest demographics, with more than 70% of people in those generations having an active Facebook presence.

Gen Z (born 1997 – 2012), which includes the age of all teenagers right now, really isn’t into Facebook. Somewhere around 30% of Gen Z is on Facebook, but that percentage is dwindling since Facebook is for boring old people like their parents.

So if you’re using Facebook with the hope of getting teens to come to your free lunches, you have the opportunity to reach a majority of those teens’ parents, but you will reach very few of those actual teens. Knowing that, make sure you’re realistic in setting your goals, and create content that reflects the age demographic that’s on Facebook.

You could create 70% of your content for parents/caregivers and the other 30% for teens, just to reflect the percent of each generation that’s on Facebook. It’s really an arbitrary number, but I would encourage you to post most of the content with parents in mind and save your teen-centric content for TikTok or Instagram.

Now, if you’re also hoping to reach grandparents or other Baby Boomers, then Facebook is the platform to do it. Of Baby Boomers who use social media, between 70-80% of them use Facebook. That doesn’t mean that as many Boomers use social media as the other generations do, so if reaching Boomers is a priority make sure you’re other places (e.g. non-social media places) too.

Gen Z is not into Facebook.

We get it. Parents are cheugy and Facebook is sus. Did I say that right? My Gen Z kid is cringing so hard.

Around 30% of Gen Z has a Facebook page, but they’re not nearly as active or interested in Facebook as their parents or millennial siblings are.

If Gen Z is your primary audience for your product or service, Facebook will not serve you well unless you’re also targeting their parents (see People of All Ages toggle above).

Stop here. Go no further. Stay tuned for our “Should Your Business Be on TikTok” or “Instagram” or “YouTube” posts, but don’t spend time trying to reach Gen Z on Facebook. It won’t be worth it.

Millennials

Yes. Millennials are still on Facebook, but they are slowly leaving. I’ll revisit this post in a year and make some revisions, but as of October 2022, you will still reach most millennials on Facebook.

If they’re your primary audience for your product or service, then I give you the thumbs up. Facebook may be the right choice for your business (depending, of course, on how all the other sections above went for you).

Gen X

Like Millennials, Gen X is pretty active on Facebook. As far as I know, Gen X’s numbers on Facebook are holding steady. While some of us dabble in TikTok, and most are also on Instagram, Facebook remains the preferred network for Gen X.

You’re in the clear. If you’re targeting Gen X, Facebook may be a good place for you to reach them.

Baby Boomers and Beyond

If you’re looking to reach Boomers for B2C, Facebook is the platform to do it. Of Baby Boomers who use social media, between 70-80% of them use Facebook; for comparison, only about 25% use LinkedIn. That doesn’t mean that as many Boomers use social media as the other generations do, so if reaching Boomers is a priority make sure you’re other places (e.g. non-social media places) too.

Research conducted in 2016 showed that Baby Boomers are 19% more likely to share content than people of other generations. Since sharing content increases reach, if you want to reach Boomers through Boomers, Facebook may be a good option for you.

As far as people older than Boomers, 34% of the Silent Generation is on Facebook. That is more than I had expected, even though one of my grandmas is on Facebook. While there are better ways to reach the Silent Generation, many are on Facebook, as are their children and grandchildren.

Other Demographic Factors

Other than age, Facebook sees similar usage in suburban, urban, and rural communities, as well as with people of different races and ethnicities. Gender is also pretty evenly split, though there are slightly more people who identify as men on Facebook than women.

One demographic statistic that may be of interest is that Facebook’s audience is generally better educated than the rest of the country. In the United States, 45% of people over the age of 25 have either a bachelor’s or an associate’s degree, whereas 73% of Facebook users have a college degree.

If you’re looking to specifically target people with a college degree, then Facebook is a good place to do that, as long as all the other factors align.

What’s Your Budget?

Nothing

Nothing is a budget that fits with only one goal: “Show People that My Business Is Real.” If that’s your goal, great. You’ve passed this level.

However, if your goal includes any of the other ones listed above, and you’re not able or willing to spend money to create ads on Facebook, then things will be quite a bit harder. It will take a lot of time, energy, and direct outreach to your friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else who will listen, to make sure they like, follow, and share your content.

You may spend a lot of time creating interesting videos and images only to find that the same three friends or family members interact with your content, and it’s rarely being shared.

Some people get lucky. Sometimes you post something that picks up traction, and your visibility increases, but for most companies and organizations these types of posts are few and far between and won’t help you reach a goal like selling or getting leads.

If your budget is nothing, can that change? Can you commit even just $20 a month to boosting a post or two on Facebook? Even a little bit of money will help expand your reach.

If you really can’t spend anything at all, unless your goal is “Show People that My Business is Real,” then it’s probably not worth it for your business to be on Facebook.

Less than $500 per Month

If your budget for Facebook is anywhere from $20 to $500 a month, then you can work toward any of these goals. $20 won’t sell you much product, and it might not get you any leads, but it will help brand awareness if you’re targeting an audience that’s expanded beyond your current followers.

Another way to leverage a small ad spend is to target your existing customers. You can create custom audience lists in Facebook from your own customer data. This can work especially well for ticket sales for events or if you’re offering new products that your existing customers may also be interested in.

To do this you must have customer data (email addresses at a bare minimum), and ideally you will have these customers segmented by the types of events, products, etc. they’ve purchased in the past.

Here’s an example. We work with many music organizations, and we organize their audiences based on the kinds of concerts their customers have bought tickets for in the past. Let’s say you’re a folk music institution. You might have a customer list for Americana, another for Latin American Music, and another for Singer Songwriters. That way when Old Crow Medicine Show comes to town you know to create an ad targeting your Americana list, and when Juana Molina is performing you can target both your Latin American Music list and your Singer Songwriter list.

Be aware, though, that not everyone will match up with the data you have for them even if they are on Facebook. For example, I use an email address for Facebook that I don’t use anywhere else, so I most likely won’t match with anything.

Targeting your existing customers may not work well for a service that your customers have already hired you for. In this case, you may want to pay to boost a Facebook post that targets your followers and their friends. If your followers’ friends see that they “like” you, they may be more likely to trust your content and hire you.

If you have a small budget, give it a shot. You can experiment with different goals, too. You can do an ad to expand brand awareness, then down the line you can create an ad to promote your goods or services. Don’t expect huge results from a small budget, but do measure your results.

Up to $2,500 per Month

If your budget for Facebook is up to $2,500 a month, then you have significantly more options than you did with nothing or a low budget.

For the sake of this section, let’s say your budget is $2,000 per month for Facebook. You can continue to create your own content and put all that money toward Facebook Ads, targeting your existing customers and/or a custom audience that you create based on interests, demographics, etc.

DIY Facebook with a Budget of $2,000

You can create custom audience lists in Facebook from your own customer data. This can work especially well for ticket sales for events or if you’re offering new products that your existing customers may also be interested in.

To do this you must have customer data (email addresses at a bare minimum), and ideally you will have these customers segmented by the types of events, products, etc. they’ve purchased in the past.

Here’s an example. We work with many music organizations, and we organize their audiences based on the kinds of concerts their customers have bought tickets for in the past. Let’s say you’re a folk music institution. You might have a customer list for Americana, another for Latin American Music, and another for Singer Songwriters. That way when Old Crow Medicine Show comes to town you know to create an ad targeting your Americana list, and when Juana Molina is performing you can target both your Latin American Music list and your Singer Songwriter list.

Be aware, though, that not everyone will match up with the data you have for them even if they are on Facebook. For example, I use an email address for Facebook that I don’t use anywhere else, so I most likely won’t match with anything.

Targeting your existing customers may not work well for a service that your customers have already hired you for. In this case, you may want to pay to boost a Facebook post that targets your followers and their friends. If your followers’ friends see that they “like” you, they may be more likely to trust your content and hire you.

You can experiment with different goals, too. You can do an ad to expand brand awareness, then down the line you can create an ad to promote your goods or services. Don’t expect huge results from a small budget, but do measure your results.

Hiring a Social Media Management Company for $2,000 a Month

If you have $2,000 or so a month, you can also hire a social media management company who can create content for you and advertise on your behalf. The advantage here is that you don’t have to teach yourself Facebook Ads or familiarize yourself with Facebook’s post types, Facebook Insights, Facebook Pixel, Facebook Business, and all the other little ins and outs that companies like New Why understand professionally and have for more than a decade.

For example, if you hired New Why to create Facebook content for you for two posts a week and to engage with your customers and potential customers, we’d be able to take $600 of your $2,000 budget and put that directly toward Facebook Ads that we’d also create and manage. You’d be spending $2,000 a month, and while not all of that would go directly toward ads, it would go toward working with professionals who know the algorithms, understands audiences, and are constantly staying up to date on Facebook’s changes and products.

No Limit, If It Works

I get why people say this, but it’s almost as bad as “Nothing” in terms of understanding your expectations and creating a viable structure for social media management and advertising.

Always start with something, not “anything”. If you really do have a large budget and you’re willing to experiment and spend some money, knowing that you probably won’t knock it out of the park on your first pitch, then that’s great.

For the sake of this section, let’s say your budget is $7,000 per month for Facebook. You can continue to create your own content and put all that money toward Facebook Ads, targeting your existing customers and/or a custom audience that you create based on interests, demographics, etc.

DIY Facebook with a Budget of $7,000

You can create custom audience lists in Facebook from your own customer data. This can work especially well for ticket sales for events or if you’re offering new products that your existing customers may also be interested in.

To do this you must have customer data (email addresses at a bare minimum), and ideally you will have these customers segmented by the types of events, products, etc. they’ve purchased in the past.

Here’s an example. We work with many music organizations, and we organize their audiences based on the kinds of concerts their customers have bought tickets for in the past. Let’s say you’re a folk music institution. You might have a customer list for Americana, another for Latin American Music, and another for Singer Songwriters. That way when Old Crow Medicine Show comes to town you know to create an ad targeting your Americana list, and when Juana Molina is performing you can target both your Latin American Music list and your Singer Songwriter list.

Be aware, though, that not everyone will match up with the data you have for them even if they are on Facebook. For example, I use an email address for Facebook that I don’t use anywhere else, so I most likely won’t match with anything.

Targeting your existing customers may not work well for a service that your customers have already hired you for. In this case, you may want to pay to boost a Facebook post that targets your followers and their friends. If your followers’ friends see that they “like” you, they may be more likely to trust your content and hire you.

You can experiment with different goals, too. You can do an ad to expand brand awareness, then down the line you can create an ad to promote your goods or services. Always measure your results.

Maybe your goal was to sell products, but you ended up with 5,000 new followers instead. That’s not all bad, even though it didn’t meet your original goal. Is it better to change your goals, then? Maybe brand awareness really is more realistic on Facebook, and you’re okay with spending money on it. Maybe getting new followers can be a goal in and of itself, at least for a while.

Hiring a Social Media Management Company for $7,000 a Month

If you have $7,000 or so a month, you can also hire a social media management company to create content for you and advertise on your behalf. The advantage here is that you don’t have to teach yourself Facebook Ads or familiarize yourself with Facebook’s post types, Facebook Insights, Facebook Pixel, Facebook Business, and all the other little ins and outs that companies like New Why understand professionally and have for more than a decade.

For example, if you hired New Why to create Facebook content for you for five posts a week and to engage with your customers and potential customers, we’d be able to take $2,300 of your $7,000 budget and put that directly toward Facebook Ads that we’d also create and manage. You’d be spending $7,000 a month, and while not all of that would go directly toward ads, it would go toward working with professionals who know the algorithms, understands audiences, and are constantly staying up to date on Facebook’s changes and products.

Problems With Facebook

Hoooo, boy. Problems with Facebook. There are many. Aside from the harmful impacts that social media has on our communities, here are some direct problems that can impact how your business does on Facebook and whether or not it’s worth it for you to be on it.

Facebook Glitches

Like all technology, Facebook has glitches. I’ve experienced too many to count over the past 15 years since I joined, but here’s the one that took me the longest to get resolved, and the one that posed the most risk to the business pages I manage.

Let me preface this by saying several years ago I created a second Facebook profile for myself, one that I only use for business. Facebook doesn’t like this, and if they discovered that there are two of me, they would probably ban or block one or both. However, I’m very glad I had this backup.

This past spring I tried to log into my personal account one day, and I couldn’t. Facebook told me to check the other device I was already logged in on, but I only use my personal Facebook on my laptop, never my phone. So there was no other device. Then Facebook told me to upload a photo of my driver’s license to access my account, which I did. Every day for a month. Each one resulted in an error message.

I tried changing the file format, the lighting, the background, the angle. I tried photographing my passport instead of my license. Nothing.

Then Facebook told me to log into my account to get more information about the problem. FACE PALM.

I was stuck in a Kafkaesque loop* that lasted two months, where I’d chat with Facebook Support, telling them I needed to access my business pages, and them telling me that they couldn’t help me with this issue, or giving me advice that I had already tried. But at no time did they admit it was a glitch. See more about this in the customer service section below.

*Since writing this, I had lunch with a friend who runs Rebel Spirit Radio. He told Facebook support that the nightmare he was going through to try to get access to his business page, of which he was the sole owner, was “Kafkaesque.” Facebook support replied with “I’m sorry, but Kafkaesque is not the admin.” Freaking brilliant.

One day I tried logging in again and it worked. Poof. Like magic. They fixed the glitch without ever admitting it was a glitch.

If I hadn’t created a second Facebook account that I could still log into, then I would have had no way to access all my clients’ ads, messages, and pages. Facebook could have continued to charge me for ads that I would have otherwise deleted or stopped because I had no way to access my account to pause these ads.

The lesson here? Always have a redundancy in place. Make sure your business accounts have several admins that have access to everything, including ads, payment methods, your page, Insights, etc. And while it’s against their terms, maybe create yourself a second Facebook account so that if you get locked out of one, you still have access to the other.

Also, just be aware that sometimes you won’t be able to access your page. Sometimes messages won’t come through, or something will post twice in a row. Things can go wrong with Facebook, and we have no control over that. Don’t ever let your entire business or nonprofit depend on Facebook working for you because at some point, it won’t.

Confusing Business Access

The most popular page on the New Why website is a blog post I wrote years ago about how to add a Facebook admin if you’re having trouble doing it the way Facebook tells you to. We get thousands of visits to this page a month, from Google search alone. I get emails from all over the world, with people begging me for help with this issue.

Why? Because it’s confusing as sh** .

In order to add a full admin to your Facebook page, there are, like, seven steps you have to take, and none of them are intuitive, and they all depend on how your Facebook page is setup in Facebook Business.

You can add someone as an admin through the main navigation on your page, but then they don’t have access to manage other parts of your business. So you can add them to your Facebook Business account, but they’re not really added until you then manually add them to every part of your Business you want them to have access to.

Ugh.

It’s a lot.

The blog I wrote about it was a hack I discovered that worked for me, but I don’t even know if it would work any more. I’ll create another step-by-step blog soon on how to do this.

Getting Banned by Facebook

Honestly, I’m concerned that if I post a link to this blog on Facebook that I will get banned or blocked, since I’m not always playing for Team Facebook on it. I’ve had posts I’ve created taken down by Facebook for violating their elusive Community Standards. Like this one below, where I was complaining about exhaust. I can’t tell what about this post is spam, but Facebook thinks it is.

There have been stories and stories and stories of businesses getting banned on Facebook and losing everything they’ve worked so hard to build for years. Sometimes the ban is something that businesses can fix, other times there are no clear reasons for the ban, and/or it’s impossible to get Facebook to lift the ban because customer support is unresponsive or unaware of how they can help.

While there are some ways to prevent your page from getting banned, including NOT following my advice above about creating a second account, sometimes Facebook makes mistakes that you can’t fix and that Facebook won’t fix.

This is, yet again, an argument for making sure you have many outlets for marketing. There are so many things about Facebook (and any digital network) that are completely out of our control, that we can lose everything we rely on them for in a heartbeat.

Invest in SEO. Invest in conversion optimization. Invest in building an email list. Invest in Google and Bing ads. Invest your time in networking. Invest in a referral program. But please, please, don’t invest everything, or even mostly everything, in Facebook.

Facebook’s Changing Algorithms

 

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TL;DR: Facebook’s algorithm is designed to keep people on Facebook as long as possible, and it’s constantly changing depending on what it has decided will keep people on Facebook longer. You have to play Facebook’s game or else your posts won’t reach people, even if they follow you.

Ah, the dreaded Algorithm. It’s a word we throw around all the time in digital marketing because it has an enormous impact on our work. Every digital marketing platform (that’s what Google is, that’s what Facebook is) relies on a system that they devise to make the most money possible.

What makes Facebook money? Ads. In 2021, Facebook made approximately $115 billion from ads. For comparison, Coca Cola’s annual revenue in 2021 was about $39 billion. Facebook’s algorithm is designed, then, to funnel as many people as possible into its ad network by doing the following:

1. Tracking what you like and what your interests are, based on what you post and interact with on and off Facebook, to create a profile of you that they can parse out in little bits and pieces to sell anonymized to advertisers as interest targeting for advertising. You’re more likely to click an ad that aligns with who you’ve shown yourself to be to Facebook than something that has nothing to do with who Facebook thinks you are.
2. Keeping people on Facebook so that they click more ads and give Facebook more data to sell to advertisers. Simple. The more time you spend on Facebook, the more likely you are to click on ads, and even if you don’t click on ads, any action you take enters into Facebook’s database and becomes another data point on you that Facebook can sell to advertisers.

Because Facebook needs to get you to stay on Facebook longer, the algorithm — in theory — is designed to do just that. Over time the algorithm has gone through some massive changes, all of which Facebook claims is for our own good.

Some would argue that because the algorithm controls the content we see, rather than we ourselves controlling the content we see, that Facebook is experimenting in a kind of social engineering. We end up using Facebook the way Facebook wants us to use it, and then what we “like” on Facebook becomes our identity IRL, too.

All this to say, Facebook’s algorithm may decide one day that your content isn’t what people want to see, even if your business has spent a lot of time building an audience, getting followers, fostering good conversations, creating meaningful content.

What am I saying, “may decide”? This is what they have decided. But not because people don’t want to see your business page updates. If they didn’t want to see it, they wouldn’t have followed you in the first place.

It’s because Facebook wants businesses to pay to reach people. Again, simple. It’s about money. You want all those followers to see your content? You gotta pay for it. This is why I say you HAVE to have a budget for ads if you want to be successful on Facebook.

Let’s put it in context. Oprah Winfrey has around 20 million followers on Facebook. On average, her posts receive about 4,000 reactions, sometimes a lot less. That’s a .02% engagement rate. We can imagine that since Facebook changed its algorithm to push business pages to pay for reach, she has rarely, if ever, reached anywhere close to 20 million people.

If your business has 2,000 followers on Facebook, and your engagement rate is anything like Oprah’s, you’ll average 1/2 an interaction for every post.

Over the years, Facebook has changed the type of content it thinks people want to see, as Facebook tries to mimic and compete with other platforms that might take our attention. Facebook has rolled out features that mimic Instagram (and then they bought Instagram), YouTube, SnapChat, instant messenger/chat, and TikTok. I’m sure a Be Real feature will be added any second now.

As Facebook rolls out these features that mimic other platforms, its algorithm rewards businesses that use those features. This is why it’s so important to have the time and/or money to hire someone to stay up to date on these features and start using them.

We end up chasing the algorithm because that’s what you have to do to stay relevant and visible on Facebook. There are always good practices that you can implement no matter what, but if you’re creating great images and Facebook wants to see videos to compete with YouTube, then you have to start creating videos.

In conclusion, you have to be willing to spend money to reach people, and you need to be aware of Facebook’s new features as it rolls them out to compete with other platforms for our attention.

Terrible Customer Support

I mentioned this briefly above, but I would argue that this is one of the best arguments for not doing business with Facebook. Even if you’re spending money with them, if something goes wrong their support is typically very unhelpful.

It seems like the only training or information that Facebook’s customer support has is the same help articles that we have access to already. I don’t know if this is true, and I don’t know if Facebook is working on improving its customer service for its paying customers, but I’ve never experienced such awful support.

I try to imagine if I got such bad support for anything else I pay for. There’s no other software that I pay for that has such bad support. Nor is there any tangible product I can think of that has such bad support.

Getting help solving technical issues is nearly impossible. Even getting a clear answer about the true problem is impossible. Most of my Facebook support experiences are multi-hour affairs that end with them telling me what my problem is, after I’ve spent hours telling them what my problem is, with no solution provided.

I’ve been told “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that issue,” and when I ask to be transferred to someone who can help me with that issue, they tell me there’s no one else.

Huh?

As I said above, Kafkaesque.

Honestly, you just have to hope nothing goes wrong, or that if something goes wrong it’s your fault and not Facebook’s. And good luck finding how to even start a chat. They bury it and change it pretty regularly.

Are Facebook’s Problems Reason Not to Use It?

Nope. Even with all these issues mentioned above, Facebook can still be valuable to your business if all the other factors I mention align. I included this section so that you have a realistic idea of what kind of time, energy, endurance, and money it takes to be on Facebook, as well as to bring awareness to the fact that things can and will go wrong, and you need to be prepared for that.

Are Facebook Ads Worth It?

This might be another blog post altogether, but I can tell you that sometimes Facebook Ads are worth it and sometimes not.

With a Facebook ad, we measure how many people your ad reached, how many clicks it got, and how many people followed you on Facebook as a result of your ad. However, ultimately we want to measure how much it costs to get someone to do what you want them to do.

Your immediate goal with an ad may be to have someone fill out a contact form, call you, buy a product, sign up for a class, download something from your website, or any number of things. For someone selling a product, you may not count a newsletter signup as a conversion, but then again, you might.

Let’s Do Some Math

The average cost per click of a Facebook ad is around $1.72. For some industries it’s double that, for other industries it’s half that. The average click through rate is less than 1%. Of the people who click, 9% of those convert.

Again, “convert” can mean a thousand different things, from buying something to filling out a contact form to just spending a couple minutes on your website. A conversion is not necessarily a purchase or a sale or a new client. It’s simply someone taking an action that you want them to take from the ad.

With those numbers in mind, it will cost you an average of $19 for each conversion. Not even for each sale, but for the general, amorphous Conversion. It might be less for you, and it could be more.

Decide how much a conversion is worth to you. If you’re selling t-shirts that cost $15, you’re not even breaking even with that kind of cost per conversion. Happily the cost per conversion tends to be lower for retail than other industries.

But if your average client pays you several thousand dollars, then having someone fill out a contact form might be worth $19 to you. You’ll need to also calculate how many people who fill out a contact form actually end up becoming paying clients. It’s not going to be 100%, but what is it for you?

Let’s say 10% of the people who fill out your contact form end up becoming customers, and 30 people fill out your contact form from a Facebook Ad. Those 30 contact form fillers cost you a total of $570. If 10% of those people end up becoming clients, then it cost you $190 to get a client from a Facebook Ad. Again, your ultimate client acquisition rate may be less than 10%. It could also be more than that. That’s something that you’ll have to calculate on your end.

I will say that since 9% is the average conversion rate, a lot of people included in that average may consider very simple things to be conversions. Like I said, sometimes it’s considered a conversion if someone just clicks on something on your website, even if they don’t fill out a form, purchase, sign up, etc. For contact forms the conversion rate is close to 3-5%.

Let’s do more math. If 4% is the actual conversion rate of a contact form, then you’re paying $43 for each of those contact form fill-outs, for a total of $1,290 for 30 leads. And if you end up closing 10% of those 30 leads, each lead will have cost you $430. You have three new customers for $1,290.

If you’re a realtor, this is probably worth it. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, it could definitely be worth it. If you’re a wedding planner? I don’t know. Maybe? A dog groomer? Probably not. But again, $430 for a new customer for a dog groomer might not be worth it at first, but if they become a loyal customer, at some point they will have surpassed their cost.

Calculate that, too. At what point will you see a positive return on that investment? Maybe it’s instant or maybe it will take a few months or even a year. And maybe the risk is worth it.

Is the Cost Per Conversion Worth It?

If you’re still with me, thanks for coming along for the ride. Whether or not Facebook Ads are worth it depends on your industry (these numbers above are primarily for B2C) and your goals. If your goal is simply brand awareness, then Facebook Ads are definitely worth it. If your goal is to sell something, look at the numbers and decide whether it’s going to be worth it for you.

[Side note: the click through rate of Facebook Ads may be decreasing because people are so inundated with Facebook Ads they don’t even see them any more, let alone click].

Facebook Being Gross + Best Practices

Some fascinating and unsettling research, recently published by researchers from Northeastern University, shows that Facebook will deliver ad content based on race. Meaning, if you show a photo of a Black person in your ad, then that ad is more likely to be served to people that Facebook has determined are Black. It’s typically the same for gender. Almost. And this is where it gets super creepy:

“When you choose to include a picture of a woman versus a man, in general it will go more to women, except images of young women, which go more to older men.”

Blech. NO NO NO.

There’s a chance Facebook will change this type of race- and gender-based targeting (I’m pretty sure it’s not legal), but I think there are some valuable take-aways. When you create a Facebook ad, make sure that if your ads include images of people that you have a diversity of people represented.

Not because Facebook uses that to decide whom to serve an ad to, but because it’s so important to make sure everyone feels welcome and invited to access your services or goods.

This is a best practice to implement for images of people that you create for your business, for any purpose.

So Are Facebook Ads Worth It or Not?

Facebook Ads will help you reach more people, no matter what. But use the information above to help you figure out what kind of cost per conversion you can tolerate, and then see if it’s worth it to you.

Conclusion: Facebook Can Be Worth It, but Not for Everyone

Congratulations. You’ve made it to the end. Either you got here because I told you that Facebook may be good for your business based on how you answered some of the questions above or because you’re really kind and read the whole thing anyway.

Hopefully you’ve gotten a good idea from this blog if Facebook is worth it for your organization. The first and most important question to ask yourself is “how do we define ‘worth it’?” You can use the Goals section above to understand how to define worth it, and once you know that, ask yourself the following:

• Does my organization have the time to post, engage, and deal with any problems that may arise?
• Do we have a budget to put toward ads or toward paying someone else to post and engage for us?
• Can we make the content?
• Is our audience even on Facebook?
• Will our colleagues, friends, family, and community be willing to engage with our content?

You may decide that Facebook is worth it, then you start doing it and you don’t see any return. If that’s the case, then re-evaluate your Facebook goals.

Maybe you need to switch to brand awareness or proving that your business is real, as a goal.

Or maybe those two things won’t make Facebook worth it to you, and you should spend money and time on networking, building your email list, SEO, blogging, Google Ads, and other digital marketing channels.There’s no rule that you have to be on Facebook. May that knowledge free you, or at least help you make a good decision for your business or nonprofit.