By Ben Dahl
Facebook has gone through many evolutions since its origin, growing from just a couple hundred users to over a billion. This college dorm room project has become a dominant social media platform, and where it plans to go in the future could have serious implications on moves your
firm should make.
Facebook offers unique marketing opportunities via its advertising platforms, and optimized pages can provide more relevant exposure to potential clients. To properly understand what the future looks like between Facebook and your firm, we need to understand how it’s changing and what the current trends are.
Within the last five years, platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have surged into the market. They have captured the attention of the younger generations, giving kids a place to escape while their parents have been catching up on this “Facebook thing.” In 2014, a study showed that Facebook’s fasting growing demographic is adults over the age of 55.
These changes in its user base have forced Facebook to adapt its business model for an older, more patient audience. Data shows that users are spending a substantial amount of time on the platform, averaging around 20 minutes per visit and that the majority of these visits are from mobile devices.
Because of this, Facebook has been making moves to be a one-stop-shop for information. It’s slowly but surely becoming a search engine. Facebook wants users to find restaurants, bars, dry cleaners, and, yes, even law firms through their app. It’s becoming increasingly common for people to investigate businesses through Facebook instead of Google. Optimized pages offer information such as reviews, a business description, photos, location, and more all presented in a consistent and user-friendly format. However, without a specific reference, your firm may be difficult to find through search.
As it stands, Facebook’s search algorithm needs some work. Queries like “personal injury lawyer” produce a page of posts in which people mention the exact term “personal injury lawyer” but do not locate any actual firms.
For this reason, you might not get found in search, but setting up a page for your firm has other more immediate and accessible benefits.
The first benefit is the ability to build a relationship with potential clients. They can see that you’reactive, understand who you are, and learn what it is you care about. (approachable) At the end of the day, people hire people, and your page can be the first step in making a good impression.
The second benefit is Facebook’s uniquely customizable advertising platform. It allows you to target ads to distinct groups of people based on age, interests, location, gender, and more. Well-targeted ads are both relevant and efficient, and they can yield a high ROI.
Facebook as a search engine remains far inferior to Google, but there is still plenty that it has to offer. Creating a page for your firm can go a long way in building exposure and can provide you with powerful resources to up your marketing game. Facebook has historically adapted well to an ever-changing market. We expect that it will continue to do so.
Even in the last few weeks, there have been changes to the administrative UI for business pages, indicative of their more business-friendly approach. Investing time in it now can set your firm up for future success.
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