5 Reasons Why Facebook Should Be Critical To Your Marketing Strategy in 2015

  In today’s always-connected world, consumers call the shots. They decide which brands earn their trust, which brands they will engage with, and more importantly what platforms brands should be participating on. In a recent survey conducted by inbound marketing leader HubSpot on what social platforms consumers expected brands to be on; a majority of respondents chose Facebook. With the over 1.27 Billion users it should go without saying that the social giant needs to be a key component in your marketing strategy.   Here are 5 reasons to help you understand why:

1 in 5 US Page Views Belongs to Facebook

People spend massive amounts of time on Facebook. According to data from Experian Hitwise 1 in 5 US page views belong to Facebook. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest country in the world! With such a diverse mix of users Facebook is a prime platform to consistently engage your audience. With so many users the key to ensuring your content gets exposure is to identify what posts resonate well with your audience, and timing your post times to ensure you are visible when your audience is most likely to respond.  

Facebook’s App is the #2 Local Search App

Only Second to Google Maps

Facebook is leveraging their huge user base to provide information, based on local search queries, on local businesses in the user geographic area. In fact, Facebook has been so successful in getting users to utilize their app for local searches, that they are now the #2 local search app in the world only behind Google Maps (data from comScore/Neustar’s 6^th local search study)! They even outrank Mapquest, Bing, Apple Maps, and Yahoo. – local directories and services that have been around for more than a decade. Ensuring your Facebook page is setup correctly, and optimized for local search, will guarantee higher placement in local search on Facebook generating increased leads and affecting the business’s bottom line.  

Facebook Has 4x More Reviews Than Other Popular Review Sites

In 2013 Facebook rolled out starred reviews to allow users to evaluate the business that they do business with. Since the launch of Facebook reviews, the amount of user reviews have soared, and in some industries the amount of Facebook reviews is 4 times that of other popular review sites! Since consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, encourage your loyal fans to leave reviews to help boost your credibility in the market. Reviews are like a garden, and every once in awhile a weed pops up in the form of a negative review. Use this as a chance to listen and improve your operations. Take the time to address your negative reviews as you have a chance to convert someone that is a detractor to a brand advocate.  

Facebook Search Means Added Exposure For Businesses and Brands

Facebook Search, the latest addition to Facebook’s Graph Search, gives users the ability to perform searches that allow them to connect the dots between people and businesses in their network, their interests, and the content they have shared. With the new Facebook Search a user looking for a restaurant can search “San Francisco Italian restaurant” and find content, connected to them through their network, going back for years. For example, if a friend in San Francisco liked a post from an Italian restaurant (with the keywords in the post) 1 year ago, that will show in the user’s search results. This makes consistent and engaging content critical to, and incredibly powerful for, businesses on Facebook. In addition to posts, Facebook Business Pages are shown in search results by matching keywords queried to elements such as the page name, category, and description. Much like Google, Facebook ranks the results to provide the best experience for its users; ranking factors include profile completeness, page activity, engagement, and reviews.  

High Volume, Measurable Video Content Distribution

To compete with the social video giant YouTube, Facebook has rolled out new video metrics and video page layout. This is designed to help brands provide more engaging video experience and understand what is resonating with their audience. Since consumers are consuming more online video content, and they spend a majority of their time on Facebook it makes sense that the social platform would invest in tools that will allow brands to post video content directly on their platform. With this in place, it is only a matter of time before Facebook starts to give videos shared that are hosted on other platforms a lower priority in newsfeeds. If you already have video content that is published on other video sites, we strongly recommend adding it to Facebook to see if you are able to increase engagement and views – chances are it will become a staple of your video distribution strategy.     SOCi is the next-generation social media management platform. Built for scalable, efficient client management, SOCi focuses on the discovery and distribution of data-proven content for businesses.