That’s a really good question that I get asked from time to time. With the new algorithm changes to both Twitter and FB (especially the latter), reach has dropped. For example on Facebook if you put out a post on your page you will be lucky if 1 in 100 people see it. Facebook quote bigger figures – but that is including new people of course. But in terms of your page likers – maybe 1 or 2 at most in 100. So if you have 1000 followers, 10-20 will see the post.

Hardly seems worth the effort?

Of course, despite the protestations of FB that they want the app to be more social, that is not the true reason. Of course, they want to grow users and frequency of usage, because if there are no users, then the advertisers won’t have anyone to advertise to. Because make no mistake, the algorithm is set up to encourage advertising.

So why not just advertise then?

Well, unfortunately that won’t work on its own. If all you ever do on Facebook is ask people to buy your stuff, that will turn them off quicker than you can hit a remote-control button.

The point of organic social media is 3-fold.

Firstly, you kind of have to have it. A social media presence that is. 15 years ago if you asked someone what their website was and they said “I don’t have one”, you’d have wondered if they were a real business or not. Well, sadly some would say, we are there now with social media and especially Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Insta.

It’s not about – have a Facebook page and they will come. More about – don’t have a FB page/Twitter handle etc and they WON’T come.

I chose my last car repair man like this:-

1. Have dent in car. Need to get it fixed.
2. Go to Google and see who is local.
3. Look at their pages to see if they have FB and Twitter accounts.
4. 1 did – 3 did not. Choose the one that did.
5. Reason 1 – if they can‘t be bothered with social media, perhaps they aren’t very good/up to date etc.
6. Reason 2 – if anything goes wrong, I can tweet them and am more likely to get a response.

And that is exactly what happened.

The chap came and fixed the dint and repainted it. I was on a call as he left so my husband waved him off. As soon as I came out to look I could see it was the wrong shade of black. My husband’s response was “well black is just black isn’t it?”. Note to self – don’t leave anything involving colour matching to my husband.

I then rang the guys mobile number several times, which went straight to answerphone. After 10 minutes of not hearing anything back I tweeted his head office. Within minutes I had a reply and 15 minutes after that the guy turned back up and fixed the problem.

Second reason, if you want to do the aforementioned advertising on Facebook, you need a page. You can’t (yet) advertise from a personal page or a group. This also applies to Twitter, LI and Insta

Thirdly, social media is the top of the funnel. Here is where you get people to know, like and hopefully trust you. Your initial advertising at least should also be about that and not directly about sales. You want a group of raving fans and the best place from which to build a group is a page. And that is all about giving massive value. You have to give value. And build those relationships.

Despite the ‘get rich quick’ guru’s out there telling you that you can grow a million followers in a day and a half, I’m sorry to tell you that you can’t. The only way to build a fan base that is worth anything is to give them value and interact with them before trying to sell them something. The strategy for that on each channel is a little different, but the principle is the same.

Give, give and give some more. And if you are giving great value, then people will ask for more, and your ‘sales’ strategy will be much easier. So – if you are not already following us – go here to our FB Page, or follow us on Twitter on @StrategySMedia