Brands must advertise on Facebook to be successful

The answer is yes.

This isn’t great news for brands—especially small ones who welcomed Facebook a couple of years ago. At that time, Facebook leveled the playing field. Now, with the advent of Timeline and Facebook’s decision to go public, all that has changed.

What am I talking about?

Recent studies report that as few as one in 10 of your Facebook fans see your posts at any given time. (The real number Facebook shared is 16 percent). You might doubt the stats, but I’ve found this to be pretty close to the truth. For the handful of pages I manage (or help manage) for brands, I only see a small number of likes/comments on organic posts.

For example, one page I help manage currently has 2,200 fans. It’s a small organization. We typically see 10-15 likes and a handful of comments on organic posts. But for one post a week we put $300 of Facebook advertising behind it to spur engagement, and ultimately page likes, too.

The result was more than 700 likes and 50 comments for each post. That’s a sizeable difference.

From a brand perspective, that’s where we’re headed with Facebook. Facebook ads—including sponsored stories and promoted posts—will be the primary way your fans see and engage with your content.