Oh Facebook, you're making me facepalm! Recently in the news, Facebook disclosed more privacy breaches, so I'm here to walk you through ways to protect your data and information along with some marketing tips.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room .. should you ditch Facebook personally and as a business?
People ask me all the time, "Is Facebook going away?" Not at all. A recent report stated that users were very active in groups, their timeline and user growth is being seen with Facebook Stories (the equivalent of Instagram Stories). Social media is BARELY a teenager, and you want to bet radio, print, and TV experienced growing pains and roadblocks.
As a business, here are some things to think about when using Facebook for your Business and marketing in general:
1) Advertise on Facebook ... it's inexpensive, but I've seen prices creeping up over the past year. This all reminded me of 2001 when Google Ads were dirt cheap, and no one was taking advantage of it. Organic reach on business accounts is down. If you want to be seen and heard, amplify it.
2) Send posts to Facebook Stories (even if it's from Instagram Stories). See the above regarding growth in FB Stories.
3) Interact and become an authority in Facebook groups.
4) Evaluate where your customer is spending their time and shift if you need to.
5) Don't forget about traditional marketing tactics like direct mail or getting away from the computer and networking with real people. The internet should not replace good old fashion handshakes and business card exchanges.
6) Your website is your most important marketing tool. Spend a little more time adding valuable content there.
7) Email marketing is still useful. List build. Send out regular emails with the valuable content from your website.
Protecting your data on Facebook:
1) Remove applications installed on Facebook. This is where the data breaches are happening. Review and deactivate by going under your settings. On a desktop this is Settings >> "Apps and Websites." On mobile, hit the three lines (often called hamburger dropdowns) lower-right corner of the screen. Scroll down, tap Settings >> Account Settings >> Apps. You can disable all third-party apps with one click.
2) Review your privacy settings periodically. Under Settings, click Privacy Shortcuts and look through them to see if they are where you’d like them to be.
3) Consider setting up two-factor identification and login alerts. You do this by going to Settings >> Account Settings >> Security and Login >> then scroll down to Use Two-Factor Authentication. Click Edit >> choose the method you want to use. You can either chose "Text Message" or "Authentication App." I also suggest doing this on Instagram as well.
If you have any questions or concerns, please comment below, and I'll see how I can help.