We’ve seen it many times: A non-profit or business:
- Only has a Facebook page because “Facebook is everywhere and everyone has Facebook”.
- Doesn’t want to send direct emails to customers or subscribers because “everyone will see us on Facebook and we don’t want to bother them.”
- Doesn’t have a business email, because “people can just message us using Facebook.”
That works OK.
Until Facebook goes down worldwide due to poor server management . Until Facebook changes their algorithm – again – and now your page is no longer appearing in Facebook feeds and you don’t have time to understand the changes, much less implement them. Until someone reports your business for an inadvertent violation and your page gets pulled with no warning or a clear way to rectify the mistake.
Then the Facebook-only marketing strategy seems somewhat risky.
Your best strategy: Diversify your web presence.
1. Websites: you control the design and the content
When you have a website, you control every aspect of it. You control the layout, the design, the message, and even the search engine optimization (getting search engines to find you).
With your own website, you have a contract with another entity (a hosting provider) about your servers, so they are required to keep the servers up and be up-to-code with server maintenance and health and procedures. Not happy with your hosting provider? You can move your website to another server for a better deal and your digital address — your domain name — remains the same. If it’s done right, you will have virtually no downtime during such a move.
Want to change your name? You can redirect customers/users to your new name with a few lines of code and keep the search engine ranking that you’ve worked so hard to build. Want to revamp your website so it looks fresh and modern, and gets users to where they need to go? Instead of struggling with Facebook’s latest interface, you control the interface and the timing; a good web designer can make your vision a reality. With a good Content Management System like WordPress, your vision can be implemented quickly and securely.
Social Media platforms are controlled by big corporations whose goal is to make money for themselves off of your content.
Your website is controlled by you.
2. Emails: Send your message direct to your people
People are willing to search for information, but it’s great when someone does that searching for you and hands what you need to you directly.
Have you signed up for emails so that you can get discounts, coupons, and the first news about an upcoming event or tickets (or access to a store’s Wi-Fi)? People want emails, they just don’t want meaningless emails.
If you want someone to attend your event, one email doesn’t cut it — studies show that they need to hear about it around six times before taking action. Don’t be afraid to email your subscribers and customers — they signed up for emails so they are interested in hearing from you. If they decide they don’t want your emails anymore, they can unsubscribe themselves.
If you have a core list of customers or users, sending them emails with interesting and valuable content can keep them engaged with your company or organization.
Bulk mail services provide functionality that isn’t available when sending from a personal email address. Depending on your needs, bulk email provider pricing ranges from completely free to more expensive plans for larger lists and more frequent mailings. And sending an email can be much more cost-effective than sending postal mailers in terms of both time and money.
3. Social Media: Tools that have their uses
“Wait,” you might be saying, “I thought you said to forget social media?”
We didn’t mean that you shouldn’t use it at all. We said diversify using a multitude of marketing options, and social media can provide additional online presence, depending on who you are trying to reach.
- Facebook is good for local businesses. People are always looking for stuff nearby, and when your FB friends like something, the algorithm makes sure you know about it, too.
- Twitter is good when you want to reach a more global audience. We know an author who has had amazing results reaching international audiences with her books using Twitter, more than she could reach with Facebook alone. Twitter is text oriented, so if your organization or business is, too, then Twitter is a great tool.
- Instagram appeals to a demographic that is more visually-oriented and generally younger.
- TikTok is responsible for some of the top hit songs in recent years and offers a “viral”-ness that other platforms do not.
- YouTube offers free and reliable video hosting and you can embed your videos almost anywhere.
Not everyone is on social media, either by choice or because of accessibility issues. Social Media is just one tactic in your plan, but it should not be your only plan.
4. Google and SEO: If you are not there, you don’t exist
We recognize that other search engines exist, but the vast majority of internet traffic uses Google to surf the web. Google knows this and has built their digital infrastructure accordingly.
If you have a brick and mortar location, then having a Google presence is especially important because people need to find you when they do “near by” searches in that Google Stack where they show businesses or organization at a glance (phone, location, website, etc.) and by location. Also, having accurate hours listed there is vital: How often have you decided to not go some place because it was listed as “closed”? And don’t forget to keep your holiday hours up-to-date! Those last-minute shoppers need to know.
If you do not have a brick and mortar location, then showing up on Google is even more important – so that people can find you when they search for you. New customers don’t know your name yet, so they need to find you by searching for your products, your services or your perspective. That’s why having a strong internet presence, anchored with a website, is so important.
What is SEO? It’s Search Engine Optimization. Greatly simplified, SEO is the text content that Google uses to help connect you and the people searching for you. And it’s why having helpful, interesting and up-to-date content on your website is so important. Additionally, making sure that content is easily accessible and secure is really important, too.
Whatever tools you use to have a presence on the internet — whether websites, emails or social media — it needs to be known to (indexed on) Google.
5. Prioritize: You don’t have to do it all
Know your audience, know where they are, and market there, taking into account your budget in terms of money and time to create content and interact online.