How do you do business if you don’t want to do Facebook?

Over the past couple of weeks, a number of big brands have pulled their ad spend from Facebook. But how can you do business if you don’t want to use Facebook?

Can you think of a business owner who actively likes Facebook? Or what it stands for? Yet most small businesses have a Facebook pixel on their website, use Ads Manager, have an Instagram profile and are likely to be on WhatsApp too.

The platform is so intrinsically linked to business building that it’s pretty impossible to build an audience without coming in contact with the business in one way or another.

Which is why I want to look at whether we should be putting all our independent business nuts into the Facebook basket.

Why are brands removing ad spends from Facebook?

For a number of years, Facebook has been confusing freedom of speech with the right to say whatever you want whether it’s true or not.

Then you have the misuse of data. Facebook doesn’t really sell advertising space — sorry, I mean ‘connecting people’ — no it collects important data that it can then use to sway elections, predict your decision making, influence behaviour and get you to buy things. Big data is the business of Facebook.

If right now you’re thinking that’s not you, that you are too smart for this, then I’m sorry to break it to you but Facebook already knows this and is adapting its content BECAUSE you believe this to be true.

All this nefarious activity is not enough to make big brands pull out big ad spends from the platform. But, giving a platform to the misinformation and racism from Trump and the alt-right during the Black Lives Matter protest is the final straw for some businesses.

And it’s resulted in an ad spend boycott by some organisations.

Ad Spend

For those of small businesses who despair about the long arms of Facebook, and don’t particularly want to give them any of our marketing budgets this is a breath of fresh air. But let’s not get too excited. This is not the great exodus from the platform.

Reading the not-so-small print, these big businesses are only pulling the advertising spend from Facebook. But that’s still quite some shift (and very brave for reasons which I’ll go onto later on).

The brands are not moving their presence off the platform altogether. They are still collecting your data through their pixel, still creating organic content, and are very clear that their web traffic comes from Facebook-owned Instagram.

They are still paying into the machine with their audience data.

In terms of profit, it’s a drop in a very large and deep ocean. But it’s an important drop.

Facebook fingers in the pies of independent business

Let’s get on to why this is a brave decision from the brands.

Facebook Ads and social media marketing, in general, has done something to try level the playing field for independent businesses. Before being able to chuck a tenner at the problem online, you would need to take out an advert in traditional media. And this comes with a hefty price tag.

For independent businesses, this means Facebook gives you the same access to data on your ideal customer as a big brand. You can do ads to your budget and make sure they get in front of the right pair of eyes.

And let’s not forget the networking potential of Facebook groups. Or how they can be used as part of a sales funnel. Plus you have Facebook Messenger bots so you don’t have to even reply to your customers’ every message.

It really is quite an astounding platform for small businesses. But that comes with a cost that isn’t monetary.

Your business ends up being intrinsically tied into Facebook.

But what about the big brands?

Well, if Facebook and all its many arms give small businesses an edge, imagine the machinery involved for big brands. They will have targets driven by the data on how many sales they convert as a result of their Facebook presence and specifically, their adverts.

To rip out the ad spend means to tear up the marketing rule book on what works. It’s a jump off the cliff of analytics into unknown space by pulling planned advertising

It’s a big, brave decision. But it can also work far better than the best ad campaign.

Build your audience, build your list

Now, common content marketing sense is that you attract your audience on social media, using Facebook, and deliver the data to your list.

In fact, when asking on LinkedIn what people thought about not using Facebook for their business, one person has this insight:

“I think solely relying on any platform is a marketing mistake. Which is why list building and email marketing is so imperative. Personally, I dislike Facebook groups and I’m not sure my target audience is there much either. BUT it’s a springboard towards list building so I’m keeping it.”

Which is the right attitude to take — don’t put your efforts into building your audience (and therefore your business), by doing so on a platform that’s owned by someone else.

We can see this in the many businesses built on Etsy. The other year they changed their terms and conditions to take a cut of the postage and packaging as well as the sale of products. And they decided to up their percentage at the same time.

It annoyed many independent makers on the site who had no recourse other than to accept these changes which cut into their profit margins. They had built their business on a platform owned by someone else.

Yet most small businesses are relying on Facebook and the products it owns to drive the traffic to their sites. Small businesses are still very much reliant on Facebook to run our businesses even if they are planting themselves on other platforms.

Value-Driven Marketing

In fact, it’s now assumed that if you have a small business you will also have Facebook bots, groups, pixel, and ads as part of your marketing strategy. And it’s worthing asking if there is a way to grow a successful business without ever using Facebook.

And if Facebook is so good, offers so much, why would you want to move away from the platform in the first place?

It comes down to values

My values are not the same as Facebook’s.

There are business owners who will have a much more pragmatic view on this: it’s just business. Get over it.

But if Facebook’s values are so far removed from a brand’s values, does it not follow that the people that brand is trying to attract are also of the same thinking? And that they too are turned away by Facebook.

How many business owners have said: “I wish I didn’t have to use Facebook.”

Yet brand values are important. They attract the ideal audience and therefore clients.

Which is why doing a Facebook Ad boycott may well work out better than any ad campaign for attracting their audience for these brands.

If customers of these brands are equally turned off the idea of Facebook and its values then they will be more inspired to spend their money with the brands making a stand against it.

Their values are aligned.

What can an indie business do?

Would this work for a smaller business? I’m not so sure. I don’t know any businesses who aren’t working with a Facebook platform in one way or another. Nor do I know any willing to step away from it.

It’s a huge risk. And if you did, there really isn’t an advertising platform on social media that can compare to the value you get from Facebook.

What’s the alternative?

We need to remember that Facebook is not the only platform available on which to do online marketing. Nor are its sister companies like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Sure, advertising on LinkedIn and Twitter might not get the same reach or returns. Google Keywords can help. And there are Pinterest Ads. But you don’t need to do advertising on social platforms.

If you want to consider building traffic on other platforms, then putting your energy into organic traffic may be the best long game.

There are people doing great things using video and audio on non-Facebook platforms that are getting the quality leads. And it is possible to have a business that doesn’t touch the platform at all (including networking).

And while this article has sounded somewhat anti-Facebook, being on Facebook is not necessarily wrong if it’s the right decision for your business. But there does need to be a conversation about it so that your income isn’t reliant upon attracting an audience from the products of one company.

Facebook has set its flag on where it stands on hate speech and false information. This is worrying when half of the people in the UK report getting their news from social media.

Ofcom reports that a whopping 35 per cent of people get their news from Facebook. And this is concerning when that news is not sourced or fact-checked. That the news they see is based on the algorithm designed by intimate personal data and behavioural science.

What is being discussed here is nothing new. But many small businesses are reliant on Facebook and its apps. Whether that’s to drive traffic to their site, run ads or run their business in its entirety.

There are alternatives but they take time and effort. Two things that most small businesses are short of at the best of times. Overall, we need to understand that where we choose to make our stand will reflect on our brand values. And that is worth thinking about.