This is something that has bothered me for quite some time. I see businesses and contracted marketers promoting, buying into and implementing “social media marketing” strategies that go something like this…

  1. Post article links that you think are relevant to your business and audience
  2. See that nobody engages in the post and that your reach is almost non-existent
  3. Rinse and repeat…

Why is this insanity so prevalent? Why does this continue to happen? Why are business owners investing their marketing dollars into these activities? Why are marketers/agencies SELLING this?

The real problem here is that we (marketers) have bastardized the idea of “sharing valuable content” with their “audiences”. How about this: post something meaningful or don’t waste your time.

Forget about posting x times per week and, for the love of God, let’s stop sharing article links as desperate attempts to make our followers care that we exist. If you haven’t noticed, it’s not working.

Wouldn’t we be better off posting only when we have something important to say? A new product/service announcement, an important business update, an original piece of content that is truly of interest to our followers — anything other than disingenuous, shallow and desperate attempts at provoking interactions. And when we do post something honest and meaningful, let’s scrape together at least $5-10 to make sure our message gets to the right people (read more about boosting posts here if you’re unfamiliar).

I think to be successful with Facebook, you have to be honest with what your audience and followers want and expect from your business/brand.

What do YOU think?