“So few people actually see posts from top brands on Facebook and Twitter that focusing heavily on those networks can be a waste of time, money and resources.” This quote is from vice president and principal analyst Nate Elliott of Forrester Research in a new research report.
He goes on to say that their research showed, “It’s clear that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave, yet most brands still use these sites as the centerpiece of their social efforts — thereby wasting significant financial, technological, and human resources on social networks that don’t deliver value.”
Their findings aren’t surprising. Another study by advertising agency Ogilvy found that brands’ Facebook posts only reached 2% of their fans. Given that Facebook has announced that they are further diminishing promotional posts starting this month, that figure is likely to go even lower.
So we now know that organic reach is close to zero – what about engagement? That’s still good, right? Nope. Engagement is even worse. Forrester’s research found only .07% of top brands’ Facebook fans interact with each of their posts on average; for Twitter the average is .03%.
What SHOULD a company do? Well digital advertising is one way to get your message heard. But also, the Forrester report says instead of spending a lot of time and resources on building your Facebook and Twitter following, focus on building up your own website’s engagement. Their research showed U.S. adults were three times as likely to visit a business’ site as to engage with its Facebook page.
Companies should be looking at their websites and determining how they can better reach and engage interested consumers – that means better Search Engine Optimization, blogs, communities, comments, reviews, offers, instant chats, and so forth. In other words, stop building traffic for Facebook and Twitter, and focus on building your own traffic.
