MBA2497 Why You Should Be Using Facebook Right Now

0:08Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, business strategies you can implement right away. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's lesson, you will learn why you should be using Facebook right now. I know when I just said Facebook, you probably thought, Facebook, isn't that the oldest social media ever? Maybe, but jumping on Facebook right now, whether you're posting organic content and doing content marketing or running ads or using their e-commerce features, it's a brilliant time to start using it or using it more. So many people are posting and running ads on Instagram, on TikTok, even LinkedIn.

0:48And this is making it very hard to stand out and be seen. This is making it very expensive to run advertisements and have a decent cost per acquisition for your business. Often, people flock to the new shiny thing, the thing that maybe is a little bit more appealing in the moment, giving you the opportunity to get a lot of value out of something like Facebook right now. Now, the window of this is actually going to close very quickly because people are going to realize this very soon. And this is why I wanted to let you know why I'm very bullish on Facebook in the next 12 to 18 months. And we'll be spending a lot of time investing in it, as well as a lot of money in advertising through Facebook.

1:29Let me convince you in today's episode why you should do this, how you should do this, and how to get started today. Let's get into it. let's get down to business. The other social media platforms, Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, they're all valuable. They all have their place. I'm not saying don't post on those or use their advertising networks. But what I am saying is that Facebook is probably going to get you the most value in terms of your time, money, and effort at the moment. And I'm going to explain why. We're going to start with just purely organic content posting. I'm not talking about ads at the start, but I will talk about it in a moment because it's really interesting.

2:07But let's just start with the basics when it comes to organic content posting. Facebook has diverse content formats. Unlike the other platforms, Facebook supports a wider range of content types, including text, posts, images, videos, live videos, events, polls, links, and long-form articles. One of the most annoying things about Instagram is that you can't post links on organic content In order for you to have a link, you're going to have to boost it and make it an ad. The only exception to this when it comes to Instagram is Instagram stories, and you need 10 ,000 Instagram followers to be able to do that, swipe up and have a link.

2:46But even outside of that, there's so many different formats that you can post content with on Facebook. So even if you have one piece of content, let's say, for example, you have a reel, you have some sort of short form video, you can turn that into a text post on Facebook. You could turn that into an image post. You can actually create a pull out of the content. You can post it as a video, of course. You can post it as a story. There's so many ways you can post content with Facebook and give you a chance to have more diverse content. Facebook also allows you to have long-form content, unlike Instagram, which is primarily visual.

3:22And if your first comment or your description is long in Instagram, most people don't read it. But Facebook allows for long-form posts, making it easier to share more detailed information, stories or updates, or even like publishing a blog post on your Facebook page. What else when it comes to organic content? Well, Facebook's got some really good groups and communities. Facebook groups enables businesses like yours to create communities around their brand, their business, their product, their offering. And this fosters deeper relationships with your customers. It allows you to interact with your users.

3:54It also is a great way for you to turn leads into sales. This is a very common technique that a lot of business coaches use where they have a free community on Facebook to answer questions and post content and videos. And then when people have questions, they can DM them and have a sales conversation because when they're in your group, you can direct message them. A lot of this is automated even with some chatbots. Facebook also has events, allowing businesses is to create and promote and manage events, in-person and online events. So this is a great way to get people to show up to your sales webinars, your coaching calls, your launches, whatever it might be.

4:30What about content deliverability? Why is Facebook a little bit interesting as a player versus other social media platforms? Facebook really has a robust search functionality, which makes it easier for your customers, your users to discover your content. I can't tell you how frustrating search is when it comes to Instagram or LinkedIn and TikTok. X is a little bit better than the rest of them, but Facebook is still king when it comes to making it easy for people to find your posts. And many research have shown that the newsfeed algorithm in Facebook prioritizes posts that generally are meaningful to your users.

5:08And if you have more interaction on Facebook, likes, comments, you have a higher potential at getting more engagement and more views in the newsfeed of the people that would be interested in your content. Now, you might be saying, Omar, this sounds great and all, but Facebook, are you kidding me? There must be a bigger audience in Instagram. Well, here's the facts. Facebook has 2.9 billion monthly active users compared to Instagram's 2 billion users, so nearly a billion difference. Now, Facebook's user base is more diverse, encompassing a broad range of age groups, including older demographics, so people who have money.

5:46If you want to look more into these statistics, search social media dashboard. They did a great study. Remember I told you that Facebook has a better organic reach algorithm? Well, it actually gets better. You know, a lot of us, we feel like, oh, organic reach is not what it used to be. I used to get more likes and shares. That organic reach is declining. Well, actually, Facebook has seen an increase of organic reach with an average reach rate improving from 4.32 % to 5.9 % in 2024. On the other hand, Instagram has seen an average reach rate decline to 7.6 % from a higher rate in a previous year.

6:22Now you might be thinking, well, that's still more reach. Yes, but the trend is going down instead of up. This is why I'm bullish on Facebook. Now, while Instagram generally has a higher engagement rates, Facebook engagement rates for certain types of content, such as videos and images, remains very strong. Facebook Stories, for instance, are used by over 500 million people daily. If you want to dig into some of these statistics, check out the Social Insider and Sprout Social. They've done some really good research on this topic. So even if you're just posting organic content on a regular basis, not doing any ads, Facebook is something you don't want to sleep on.

6:55It's a really golden hour right now where you can get in and get more reach, get more followers, and really get more out of your efforts. So let's talk about ads. Let's talk about if you're going to put some money behind your brand, your business, and start running ads on Facebook versus other platforms. One of the things I love about Facebook is that it has advanced targeting options. This allows you to reach specific segments of your audience based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and a lot more. It's pretty crazy how you can really pinpoint certain niches, which allows you to get more results, higher conversions, and allows you to personalize your marketing messages.

7:34When it comes to the tools you have to run ads, Facebook is still king. What about costs? Well, Facebook is still very cost effective compared to other platforms. Now, Facebook and Instagram, as you know, is owned by the same company, Meta. But because there is so much competition on Instagram and people are sleeping on Facebook, you can get more for your ad dollar with Facebook. Now, of course, I'm sure you heard it all depends where your audience is, but there's a good chance that a segment of your audience is on Facebook and you should target that segment and get your money's worth with their advertising and their lower cost per acquisition.

8:10One of my favorite things about Facebook ads is the variety of ad formats, including images, carousels, video ads, slideshow ads. This variety allows you to choose the best formats for your marketing goals and the creative assets that you're creating. One of my favorite high converting ads that I've used for years on Facebook is lead ads. This allows people to put their name and email right inside of Facebook. They never leave Facebook, making it super high converting and you get real critical data because you don't have to worry about, is it tracking the conversion on whatever site I'm collecting the name and email address?

8:46Is their device blocking that traffic or that tracking of traffic? This is a very unique feature that is available on Facebook that really makes your ads highly effective very high conversions. One of the things a lot of people sleep on when it comes to Facebook is their great analytics and insights. They have one of the most comprehensive analytics tools available online when it comes to ad performance. But one of the things that people don't talk about is they really give you a lot of insights on the audience's behavior and their engagement with your ads. This allows you to improve your ads, to reiterate, and make a stronger, compelling ad to convert higher.

9:25Now, there's a couple points I just touched on before, but I want to give it a little special attention. And that's Facebook is actually very good when it comes to e-commerce. If you sell physical goods online, Facebook shops are a great option. Now, this is a feature that's available in Instagram. It's also available on TikTok. But Facebook shops are more integrated and provide a seamless shopping experience directly within the platform. They made it super simple for people to buy things on Facebook now. And they were very early in the game when it comes to e-commerce. So they had enough time to really refine this and make sure it actually works for you, the business owner.

10:01A lot of business owners are finding it more cost effective to sell the products through Facebook shop rather than running ads to their own shop on their own site, whether it's on Shopify or whatever. So if you're in e-commerce, you should really look at Facebook shops as a way to market and sell your products. The other point that I want to talk about a little bit more in detail is Facebook's multi-generational reach. Now, while Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, even X might be more popular among younger users, Facebook has a significant number of older users, making it a better platform for business targeting older demographics or B2B businesses.

10:39When we say older, we're talking about maybe 35 and above. Now, when people think of 35 and above, some think, oh, these people are older, they're not hip. They're not fun. I think, yes, please. When I ran businesses that targeted younger people, this is a very difficult business to run, very difficult audience to serve because they're fickle. What they like today is not what they like tomorrow. Also, people in their 20s generally don't have a lot of disposable income. Or at the very best, when they do buy something, that money is really valuable to them. And therefore, if it doesn't exceed their expectations with whatever they're buying, they're disappointed.

11:13Older generations with a little bit more disposable income, they buy something and it's decent, meets their needs, they're happy. It's not the end of the world for them if it doesn't change their whole life. And there's one thing I learned in being in business for 20 years is you should try as much as possible to sell to people who have money. It doesn't mean you need to sell expensive products or high ticket items. It just means targeting people that actually have no problems parting with some cash and are not going to deliberate every purchase, whether it's$100 or$1 ,000 for days and days and days.

11:48I have found that generally older customers complain less or a lot easier to impress and are a lot more decisive when it comes to buying products and services. This is why I really love advertising on Facebook. And this is why I'm reinvesting in Facebook the next 12 to 18 months. And I encourage you to do the same. While everybody's geeking out on a more fun and hip and happening platform, you're going to the old tried and true and getting more bang for your effort and money. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, make sure you hit that subscribe button, that follow button, whatever it says on that platform that you're using, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts, follow the show.

12:25It means so much to us. It's the best way for you to support us because when you follow the show, you help us reach more people. It sends a signal to the algorithm that, hey, this show's all right. It gets us in front of more and more business owners like you. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the things I like about going with a Facebook or anything that's tried and true is that it's proven. It's been around for a while. And the longer something's been around, the higher likelihood it will continue to be around. So your investment in it is not going to go to waste. Thanks so much for listening.

12:55And I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

13:12Thank you.