NZ Ag: Stop Your Facebook Addiction

Facebook is designed by the best psychologists and anthropologists in the business.

And if you've watched The Social Dilemma you now know this for sure.

Sadly, it's an addiction for many rural marketers too.

None of us never know how many of our company Facebook page followers are real people. We do know with Twitter most followers are bots.

Forrester research found engagement amongst a brand’s Facebook fans is 7 in 10,000; for Twitter it is 3 in 10,000. That's 0.0007% and 0.0003% engagement...Wow.

Many businesses were hit hard when Google changed its search engine algorithm. For those that had put all their money on Google Adwords and PPC search and SEO literally found out overnight their one source of leads gone.

When Facebook-owned Instagram recently removed the number of followers from view, many of those so-called 'influencers' lost all leverage. All those years and money building their following was gone in a puff of smoke.

Now, when you post with Facebook organically you only reach 7% of your followers. You have to pay to boost your post to get to more of them (Zuckerberg is very good at making money).

Companies seem to forget they don't own those leads, followers or connections due to endowment effect.

They think they are theirs. They aren't.

The platform owns them and they can shut down your account anytime they want.

This leaves you very exposed because you only have one leg to your stool. This means your lead generating activity can fall over anytime.

It's like you investing all your money in one finance company trying to chase a higher yield. Look how well that worked out for the likes of Hanover and South Canterbury Finance.

You have to diversify your risk with different asset classes so you are less exposed.

COVID has taught us that we need to have many points of contact into our customers so we could communicate with them directly, whenever we want to.

This is why we always teach and train our rural clients to have a 3 or 5 legged stool to reduce this risk:

The only way to truly earn your leads is by publishing content so bloody good that people are willing to give you their email. It's called permission-based marketing and because of that it works so much better.

Email marketing is always seen as old-school, whereas social media is seen as more sexy, but when you remember 70% of all B2B communications still occur via email, you need to on it and in their inbox.

Email is 40 times more effective at reaching new customers than social media giants, combined. — McKinsey

Blogs work well too because the more you publish the more Google sees your website as an authority site which improves your domain score. Any website that sit still and static without any new content being added get penalised and lose their page ranking.

Your website needs to be lead optimisation marketing machine, washing its own face and earning its keep. Boring brochureware sites get the bounce rates they deserve.

Social media plays a part but it's a support act, not the main event. Use social media strategically.

Webinars are great whether live or automated. Like podcasts, you use your unique ideas and insights to grow your authority and specialisation. You give them "news they can use."

You research and write your copy so well that your prospect thinks you've written is just for them, that you understand their world and you have a solution like this example:

And remember, content is king but consistency is king.

You have to keep publishing great content that is valued and anticipated by your followers or they will fall off.

A study from the second quarter of 2020 on Adblocker usage in the United States, found that 45 percent of respondents aged 15 to 25 said that they used an Adblocker. The same was true for 42 percent of respondents between the ages of 26 and 33 as well 46 and 55 years

You Build Houses On Rocks, Not Sand

Facebook is a house built on sand. Your leads can disappear in an instant.

Don't be that dumb. Don't have all your eggs in the one basket.

You are smarter and better to let that happen to you and your rural business.

I suggest you get onto setting up your 3 or 5 legged stool super fast. You'll be glad you did.

It's the insurance policy and back up you need to keep your rural sales pipeline pumping.

PS. If you want to learn more about content marketing and the fatal mistakes most make with social media, I did a podcast with my mate Mike Morgan who was New Zealand's first Google accredited content agency. You can listen to it here

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