Facebook Myths

6 Facebook Mythbusters for Direct Sellers

Some direct sellers still cling to old ideas about Facebook. Here are a few myths that need busting.

 

Wonder why your company’s Facebook page isn’t performing as well as it could be? Hard to know. Direct selling companies all have different ideas about what will “work” on Facebook and misconceptions abound. Here are six myths to be aware of:

MYTH 1: “The More Posts the Better!” On Facebook, frequent posting does NOT equal success. The irony is, the more you post, the more your engagement is diluted and the less you’ll be able to reach your audience. Posting too many messages per day can become bothersome to your fans—at best they will tolerate it, and at worst they will unsubscribe. Around here we call it “post fatigue.”

Direct Sellers especially fall in this trap. We often use Facebook because we really want people to know about our company or opportunity. But if you post too much, you’ll lose people. Take a close look at some of the larger direct sellers and you’ll see a moderate amount of posting, even with huge fan bases. Stella & Dot, even with 300,000 likers, still only post once or twice a day and even sometimes (gasp!) skip a weekend.

√ Solution: We recommend — at most — one or two posts per day. Anything more borders on greedy. Reign in the frequency and spend that extra time on being more creative; you’ll create better content, which is more important.

MYTH 2: “Facebook Should Be Treated the Same as Our Website.” It is often found that executives tend to treat social media as they would a website. They craft, hone, polish and agonize over colors, images and pixels. Most are GenX’ers or Boomers who struggle to fully embrace the authentic, fast and “in the stream” nature of social media. Social media does not require perfection! In fact, the more polished it is, the less “real” it may seem. Over-producing social posts not only wastes your time, but the polishing itself also itself leads to less creative and genuine messaging; therefore, less success overall.

√ Solution: It’s social media—just roll with it!

MYTH 3: “Facebook—It’s The New Email!” Because our industry has relied so heavily on email, open rates these days are scary-low. So, the tendency is to push on other channels to get the numbers up. But using Facebook like email will actually work against people ever seeing your message. It’s the way the algorithm works. Purely informational posts get cut out of the news feed, and too many will ding your newsfeed ranking. Facebook itself relieves the user of ever having to see boring posts because it knows what they want to see — and they don’t want to see that 15th post about your next event.

√ Solution: Don’t inform, engage! Save email announcements for email.

Myth 4: “We should name the company, founder, product or event in every post!” Since most of your fans are likely already distributors or customers, it’s probably not necessary to add full names of your execs, founders or company in each post. Since the user is visiting your page, they are probably aware of who is being represented by the page, right? If they want to know more, they will click on “About.”

√ Solution: Keep your posts relevant, concise and interesting. Try to avoid starting out with “Here at (company name) …” or “Our Founder and CEO, (full name) says …”

Myth 5: “Facebook is fine for longer posts.” This is a biggie. Although Facebook posts have no obvious limit like Twitter’s famous 140 characters, there is a practical limit for Facebook posts, about 200 characters. Social media is fast-moving stream and long posts will be rejected more often. Requiring the user to read too much reduces your effective engagement and disrupts the casual reader who, in many cases, is exactly who you’re trying to reach.

√ Solution: It’s easy to know when you’ve hit the limit – if a finished post requires the user to click “See More” — it’s too long.

Myth 6: “There’s no way to know whether posts are good or bad.” Some execs complain that Facebook is “mushy” and hard to quantify. Most aren’t aware that they can immediately assess the effectiveness of their program at any time by reviewing the visitor data.

√ Solution: Data rules! It’s all right there. Look to see what content is working and do more of that. If your content doesn’t get shared or liked, change it!

For a truly successful Facebook campaign, make sure your posts are unique, interesting and engaging. Mix it up! Boost engagement with images and links. Most of all, make it FUN!

To discuss this topic further or to learn how the Momentum Factor team can be of assistance, reach out by clicking here.

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