I’ve tried doing Facebook Marketing, but it DOESN’T WORK

By Syndi on October 24, 2017 in Uncategorized

So you’ve taken a stab at Social Media Marketing for your business and heard promises of money falling from the skies and into your pockets by simply posting on your social media platforms often and taking pictures/videos of your products. 

What gurus or blogs may have told you  is that when you do these activities, people will follow you and share and then you just generate business – just like that, easy as pie! 

It really hurts me inside when I see business owners trying so hard with just a small piece of the puzzle and listen to them as they tell me that social media didn’t work for them to generate more business. I’m not here to give you all of the answers in one blog post – because the truth is that generating business goes way beyond just posting on social media. 

I am here to tell you, however, a few things to take a look at when you’re posting on social media that may be hurting you when you didn’t even know it.

1. Poor Quality Photos

Quality of Photo = Quality of Service = Quality of Experience

At least, this is what any person scrolling past your image thinks and believes, whether they realize it or not. Let’s take, for example, a photo from one of my client’s old feed (low-quality) compared with one that I took from a photo shoot (high-quality):

 When you’re speedily scrolling through your Facebook feed – which one are you going to notice first? Which one gets your mouth watering? Which one put the effort into really showing off their food?

The high quality photos that your competitors are posting are the ones that are getting those followers and money in their pockets. Whether you’re a restaurant, a car dealer, or retail, make sure what you’re selling has a photo that really does it justice. Otherwise, people will see low quality even if it might be really amazing. 

2. The Boost

Boosting is a shortcut to spending way more money on a really crappy return. To keep it simple, all I can tell you is that boosting does NOT give you the option to target as well as you can if you would just use Facebook Ads. 

The Facebook Ad world is very scary for a lot of small business owners and I don’t blame you for boosting a post every now and then. But the real deal is in Facebook Ads and really understanding how to target correctly and where to spend your hard-earned dollars. And if you are boosting something, make sure that the quality is there… which leads me to the last tip.

3. Poor Ad Design

Poor Ad Design is just as bad, if not worse, than a poor quality-photo of your product/service. Like I mentioned before – if a prospective customer or client happens upon your Facebook Ad and sees something that looks like it was lazily done and/or can’t even read it properly, then you’ve possibly just lost that $$ to someone else.

For example, let’s say someone had the great quality photo but was still boosting their post and wanted to tell a little more about their special by putting some text on there:

 There are several things wrong with the Low-Quality Ad design here that I see done by around 90% of small businesses who usually only have one or two locations. 

Misspelled Words – Always double check your spelling on your ads. ALWAYS. Did I say always? When you spend the extra few seconds it takes to make sure that you’re spelling something right on your ad, that shows your customers and prospective customers seeing your ad that you take time for quality. That’s a big deal to many.

Font Issues –  I understand and so do many others that not every business owner understands how to use fonts correctly and what software to use that can get the job done well. We really know that. But that doesn’t change the fact that a competitor has taken the time to either learn the skills or hire someone who can use fonts creatively to convey elegance and quality in your ad. 

Colors Screaming – I can’t hear this video, this Ad is too loud! Again, no one expects every business owner to understand the intricacies of colors and their effects on marketing and viewer behavior. But the quick judgment that people make when they see a low-quality ad with angry colors is that it’s a low-quality business. Yes, it sucks that we have that perception. But as small business owners, we can’t change what other people see or believe… we can only change what we do about our own image. 

So what do I do, then?

Good design can be learned and there are certainly tools to help you get better. Don’t give up on marketing on Facebook. As someone who has used multiple social media outlets to help businesses grow, I can tell you that it really does pay to have someone know what their doing. And by pay I mean, yes, you have to spend money to make money.

In most of my clients’ cases, I keep telling myself that I should rethink my rates because my clients really do see some freakin’ outstanding results. 

But like I said, you can’t just rely on Facebook Ads or social ads/posts, etc. to generate more business for you. There are so many other pieces to the puzzle. Don’t get discouraged, though, there are people here to help you and there are always more things to learn to help make your own skills better if you can’t quite afford a pro to help you out.

Did you know? You can get a free consultation where we take a look at your social feeds and ads to help you understand what you can do better. The advice is priceless and we won’t force sell anything to you. Because I know that sucks and I would never do that to you.