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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I was wondering, if its safe to entirely drop facebook out of the focus and not bother with it at all.

The company in question is B2B and sells enterprise level software with licenses range 10k - 50k.

Currently there are 120 likes, many of which are the companies employees.

I am aware that some social channels are potentially useful, like linkedin, where people ask us questions about the software. But facebook??

Am I right rating it as 100% useless in our case, not even worth 5min per month?

Im trying to take some unnecessary tasks of the team, so they can be better focused and less stressed, however if there would be a benefit im missing, I would keep updating the facebook page as well.

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5 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Jon's right. Don't write Facebook off.

I work at company that sells B2B software at a much lower price range, but Facebook is one of our primary advertising venues. We find that the majority of our customers are introduced to us through a Facebook click and then come back and purchase days, weeks, or even months down the road. Without a strong Facebook community any Facebook advertising won't be as effective, and it will certainly be more expensive (Clicks to Facebook pages are cheaper).

Even if you're not interested in advertising on Facebook, a strong Facebook page builds reputation and credibility. Post relevant, meaningful content and a lot of pictures. Pictures have the highest engagement by far.

One last note. If you're not going to post frequently and commit to engaging with your customers on Facebook, don't bother. It will have a negative impact on your credibility. And, you'll get dinged by Facebook's Edge Rank Algorithm if you're not frequently posting and engaging your users. You can read about Edge Rank here: http://www.whatisedgerank.com/

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wow never heard about this rank algo. thx for enlighting me! – user1721135 Feb 9 at 8:52
No problem! Facebook's a tough one, but if you're willing to dedicate some time to it every day I think it's worth it. – Jeremiah Prummer Feb 9 at 15:38
can you recommend me something that isnt tough? ;) – user1721135 Feb 10 at 23:20
What's the target market for this software? – Jeremiah Prummer Feb 11 at 3:01
Big Tech Enterprises, serious software developing outsourcers etc – user1721135 Feb 11 at 9:17
up vote 5 down vote

Well, first of all I think you're short-changing the B2B marketing benefits. It's quite common for companies to discount Facebook for their B2B marketing because people don't want to see that kind of content on their walls. But done well, it can generate better results than you'd expect - especially internationally.

But I think another aspect that maybe you could consider is employer branding. Facebook (and social media in general) are playing a much larger role in recruiting and retaining talent. This is especially true in the software industry, where skilled programmers are getting harder to find. Using Facebook to position the company as a great workplace can be an effective way to spread this employer brand.

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thx Jon, I guess Ill keep it up since we are currently trying to do just that, score internationally. – user1721135 Feb 9 at 8:57
up vote 1 down vote

Many people have stated many great things and I would also like to add that by even having a well branded Facebook page also increases search-ability. Plus Facebook is free advertising and you should be acquainted with it even though it can be annoying. Imagine it like this:

Say you have one person that likes your page and has two hundred friends. Not only are they creating a feed with your info on their Facebook page they are advertising your company for free. Causing curiosity to the other two hundred and it may entice them to visit your page and also like it.

Plus get creative with your workers. If you have something you can market do it. I know how tacky it may be but do what I see many out there doing. Advertise a post as "we get X amount of likes we will give one away for free". If you have a well marketable product you will be amazed how in a week you will turn 20 followers to 20,000 followers. Now thats 20,000 more people you have following you on what you are doing. That's 20,000 people that could buy what you're selling!

The whole name to the game in social media is to get out there and get your name out there, right?

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I see what youre saying, but I doubt we will ever reach that many likes. X likes and well do a giveaway wont really work I think, would make us look foolsih. Besides our software is super expensive, so not sure what we would be giving away for free. But interesting angle, this might work in another form or different social network, thx for anwsering. – user1721135 Feb 9 at 9:00
up vote 1 down vote

JonDiPietro said that you can hire more programmers throw facebook. But it is also possible to see all programmers who liked your facebook page. Facebook charge $1 to contact anyone. So anyone (e.g. recruiter) may contact your workers and ask anything. Promote new jobs when competing business is hiring or buy secrets and source code.

So if you do not have direct profit your business in FB page then there is no sense to promote it.

If you will not have FB page then someone else may create it. So it is good to have such page but there is no sense to promote it. I work in software company that develops helpdesk software and we do not have facebook and even twitter.

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up vote 1 down vote

Done well Facebook can be good

HOWEVER

Doing anything well (in this case Facebook marketing) requires a significant time investment by someone who knows what he/she is doing.

A bad Facebook page, especially for a product that isn't a good fit for Facebook (did you ever hear someone say "I was checking what my friends are up to when I found this $10K B2B product") is worthless, maybe even pathetic.

If you are not going to spend your (or your employee's) time to do this right just drop it.

Also, I personally believe that for a big B2B product there other ways to spend your marketing time with a much higher ROI than creating a good Facebook presence - don't forget the opportunity cost here.

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