Hi David

I agree with you. I don't really buy stuff after seeing it on Facebook , neither do I ask for recommendation on Facebook but I have used twitter for it. ( multiple times )

Also with the info-graphics any idea  what is the source of that information ? I had a quick look at it and could not find anything on it

PS :  congrats on your first post as a SEOMoz guy :)

Great article. I believe it starts with setting goals and expectations. I have sat down with many businesses owners who say they want to hire us because "they need to be using Social Media". It doesn't work like that...

Without a goal there is nothing to work towards and business owners often get frustrated with the "ROI" of their Social Media efforts.

Thanks for sharing this!

Social media is use to influence instead of direct sale. People often need recommendations and they use FB/Twitter to get some help from their friends and families. It does not provide direct sales but we can’t deny its importance in customer Decision making phase.  

Hi David,

Yes, I completely agree with the above discussed points. It is a healthy discussion here for learners.

Agreed, never bought anything through/on facebook!

We use social media mainly to promote our brand awareness and our content.

I saw the other day that PayPal offer some kind of app in their merchant area to help with purchases on facebook pages, didn't look into it though, so I wouldn't be suprised if this changed in the future, I mean it's all still relatively new.

Peoples mind set might change is what I am trying to say.

Facebook shops perhaps! haha, like amazon + facebook or something - I dunno :)

As long as it was easy to use, had a better search function and they paid tax then I would use it. You could more easily see if the reviews were genuine too.

I just find the whole embeded webpage/shop in facebook really horrible, perhaps that's just me.

I like the graphic by the way! :)

Hi David 

I've said this for a long time; when you go anywhere to be social you don't buy outside of that experience. If you were in a restaurant you'd buy food and related items. If someone sat at your table and tried to sell you a car, even if you needed on you would be offended. Marketing anywhere is about the right place at the right time and the prospect in the right frame of mind. Facebook is the wrong place for 99% of businesses out there.

This is bang on -- in general.

But there may be an exception: passion-driven niches, such as fitness.

Take a look at the Facebook Page of The Personal Trainer Development Center, by my friend and client Jon Goodman.

There is a ton of useful content for a well-defined audience: personal trainers.
And there are also occasional -- very occasional -- product plugs that do well. You have to page down all the way to December 12 to see one. 

But I do agree with the general thrust of the article: too many people put too much faith in FaceBook, to the exclusion of other tactics.

Great discussion starter David! I also think that for smbs that do not naturally produce a lot of strong visuals in their every day work - sales via Facebook, Google+ and so on don't really work (yet). However if you are - let's say - an independent travel agency that can show off some amazing pictures and links to travel reports to their offered trips, I think that might work. I have also seen Facebook work as a sales channel with restaurants here in Berlin (CoCo Banh mi Deli), camera stores in NYC (Adorama) or Surfer Travel Outfits in the Philippines (Surfista Travel). So, really, I think one can not generalize it. 
Cheers 
- Alex. 

Great post David. I too would love to see the sources from the infographic. While all of the bars seem pretty correct the one item I think is skewed a bit is email marketing. IMO - it's way more of a sales and customer retention tool than a brand building tool. While I think you could make an argument for "it depends on your niche or what your selling, etc etc". But If someone is on your email marketing list they are already well aware of your brand and using email marketing as a form of brand building is silly.

The challenge now is teaching SMB owners the importance of the sort of brand affinity social networks like Facebook are capable of generating. Too many SMBs seem to conclude that if Facebook is no good for sales, it's not worth their time. 

I can honestly say though, I have never purchased anything due to a public recommendation on facebook but I may have ended up liking a few pages which may, in turn, lead to more awareness and a purchase over time. 

As primarily inbound marketers, Facebook is almost a more outbound or interruption based platform. Sure, the smarter adverts are well targeted but if someone is on Facebook, they are there to socialise or look for some content to read from their feed or some such, they are not there to buy X even though they may have expressed an interest in it somehow. 

I have historically clicked on a few adverts primarily related to SEO services some health and fitness information but as that is not what I am actively doing, and the ads are primarily trying to drive some kind of sale, then, I am not in that place, so it's unlikely I would see out that action.

For me, this illustrates the need for Facebook to be treated like any other inbound activity and there needs to be some thinking with regards to funnels and lead generation so if that person does click and visit your site, try to do something with them in an instant so you can hit them up again and try to slowly drag them (kicking and screaming?) towards whatever it is you want them to do. 

If I recall correctly, research from The Social Habit showed that +70% of the people that typically like a business' page on Facebook do so because they already have a relationship with that brand or product. If we're to take that as true, Facebook is not a particularly great acquisition channel, but at the same time, I think experience (that a lot of us probably have) shows that it can be great from customer cultivation and retention.
If we start to consider people's intentions more when we look at their use of specific channels, I think we get a much better idea about acquisition vs cultivation vs retention vs awareness generation vs everything else opportunities by channel – which I think your graphic does a great job of beginning to illustrate.

I think a lot of small business owners have just enough of an understanding of digital and online marketing to make themselves dangerous...to their own long term success. They get what they are supposed to do but aren't quite sure how to actually go about doing it and might not even be 100% as to why they need it.  This usually leads to mismanaged expectations of how their efforts will play out and then they're not pleased with the results.

It seems like Facebook is best used for coupons, deals and just keeping the name in people's minds. I wouldn't dismiss account acquisition entirely from Facebook though, particularly in the future. I'm basing this off Zuckerberg's statements a few months ago about looking into search. As far as business profile pages go, I think Facebook's are lousy. There is typically information scattered everywhere and is difficult to find anything. 

I agree in regards to buying things on Facebook but depending on your niche it varies. For a majority of services that target passive customers, Facebook is incredibly useful especially when it comes to recruitment related goals.

What are your thoughts on Facebook as a lead generator? Perhaps some (not all) small businesses could create a custom tab that captures information. 

I think this post is very myopic. While the data suggest that Facebook isn't a great channel for customer acquisition, it is a good channel for brand awareness. This means that using Facebook at the top of the funnel is important for small business to build their brand name online and push people down he funnel.
So, every small business owner really needs to sit down and map out their funnel and what tactics should be at each stage, so they can build a database of leads they can continue to market to. What is misleading about this post is the author doesn't really provide how Facebook could help build brand awareness and thereby lead to customer acquisition in the future either directly or indirectly because increase brand awareness means more links and better SEO results.  
Lastly, using a lawyer example is also extremely misleading. Most marketers will tell you that B2B has much more success on LinkedIn rather than Facebook. However, I would still argue that having a presence on Facebook as a lawyer is still important as it is a channel for blogs, tips, local information, etc, but you need to take the time to build an audience.
Again, every business, both large and small needs to take the time to map out tactics for each stage of the funnel so they can grow the audience, website traffic and ultimately revenue. No one tactic is going to magically create revenue, but diluting a comprehensive marketing strategy by removing a powerful brand awareness mechanism will surely cost you down the road.

I have some issues with the bars in this image.
First. The SEO-bar is kind of off. I would have that end a lot more to the right. It should probably end at roughly the same place as search ads.
Second. It's easy to get the misconception that there are channels in this list that is as effective in branding as others are in direct sales, which I hope we all know isn't true. I would have the right side a couple of times longer in general, than the left side.
Last. It wouldn't hurt to have some kind of comparison with other types of marketing. For example, if you were to put in TV advertising in the list, and show how much more that builds your brand than these channels. (Well, I guess that bar would end a long way outside the left end of this graphic though.)

I really enjoyed this post. I personally believe that digital marketing is incredibly important for every business. However, I feel that most businesses do not effectively captivate their audiences. Small business owners often make this mistake. Instead of using Facebook solely as a customer acquiring tool, small business owners need to remember that Facebook and other social media sites can be a valuable brand building and communication tool.

This is really nice post. I am SEO marketer and wanted to know about marketing which gives me lot of benefit. You gave all informative things in graphic way which helped me a lot. I like one thing more in your post is that what things are important for new and existing customer.

Music to my ears, David.  I'm shocked at how many local businesses look to Facebook as a panacea for all of their marketing woes, way too willing to sacrifice efforts against more appropriate tactics in the process.   
BTW, a preposition is a great thing to end a title (or sentence) with!

One pitfall I see happen all too often is two people talking about the same thing but having completely different meanings. When sitting down and discussing social media with business owners, when they say "customer acquisition" do they really mean branding? Or are they truly wanting a customer to find them through Facebook and purchase something. I would sit down and ask them how they see a new customer getting from where they have never heard about the business to finally making the sale. I think once you talk through this process you will get a much better idea of what they mean.

Great article, and I agree with most of it.  Where I think I might be seeing facebook differently is in the fact that having strong social signals from sites like Facebook help your local SEO, which in turn helps you gain new customers.  I totally agree that FB is better suited for customer relations and retention, but having people like, share, and comment on your posts should also help your website gain popularity with the search engines.  With this in mind, I see FB as a piece to the puzzle, and wouldn't discourage anyone from using it, but as people have mentioned above, I would clarify expectations on how it might not lead to customer aquisition in a direct sense.

Again, great article, always enjoy reading what you guys have to say about everything digital marketing related.

thanks for the post David very though out I don't really like social media i don't use facebook at all just twitter and LinkedIn I'm missing out? i guess i am by 45% ;)

Nice, any chance you can provide a link to the full size getlisted graphic included in the post?
I noticed a link to the 'Which Digital Marketing Options Best Fit Your Business?' graphic, but not the one you actually included. Thanks!

Great post, David. And the graphic is very useful. I think this would be great to show clients when we are having these conversations, especially if they have trouble understanding all the components of digital marketing.

"42% of small business owners said their top priority for using Facebook was customer acquisition"

This is a huge problem when it comes to setting goals and expectations.  If 42% think it's #1 and another 25% think it's #2 and another 15% think it's #3 most important priority, we have what? 82% (or something) thinking it's very important and probably the main reason they're on Facebook participating.  The reality of the situation is so much different that those 82% can't help but be disappointed.  Simple math says if 20% buy anything off FB, then only about 8 of every 100 small businesses are even getting *any* sales, let alone enough to justify the investment. 

The problem, I think, is businesses saying "will this increase sales??" and marketers want to do social for ALL the positive aspects so they say "yes! It should!"  And businesses only hear the "yes!" and then agree to it.  6 months or a year later, everyone's disappointed and/or fired. Simple expectation management says your answer is "social media isn't all about sales.  It's about these other things - let me explain how they help the bottom line as a whole."  And if they buy in, great.  If not, you won't disappoint them and your reputation for success and integrity stays a lot more intact than if you promise things social can't and doesn't often deliver.  

Hi David, I know this is not 100% related as you are referring to advertisers but we have had a very bad experience with our Facebook page which I thought I'd share with you.  We were using the page to post new projects we were working on or had completed.  One of our competitors joined our page (unbeknown to us) and started contacting/poaching our clients!  We stopped using the Facebook page and I've often wondered if other companies had experienced this?  Could be an interesting topic to research?  

Agreed!! but it depends upon individual to individual and how they rate that medium. although facebook is on top of the mind for several people.

Excellent post David. As a small business owner, it's always good to get info like this to cut through the noise.

Facebook is great for brand awareness. For customer acquisition... not really sure about that.

David: Glad you were able to attend our recent ILM West conference -- and we love it when our research is cited! As the BIA/Kelsey research director, I'd like to provide some additional context on this question and the resulting metrics, one of which is the 42% figure you referenced in your commentary.
This is the actual wording of the question:"What is the primary purpose of the Facebook page for your business? Select the most important one." [list of several options followed]. 
The response "To bring in new customers" was selected by 42% of our "Core" sample (low-spending SMBs), and 43% of our "Plus Spender" sample (high-spending SMBs). 
This question was only shown to participants who had indicated previously in the survey that they have a Facebook page specifically for their business -- which was over one-half of all survey participants. 

I think the key take-away from these findings is that they represent a major shift from this survey a year ago -- when other options dominated, notably "To retain existing customers" and "To build awareness for the business". This says to me that SMBs with Facebook pages are changing the way they think about their Facebook pages. This question is a measure of perception, as much as anything. I doubt that SMBs think they're making specific sales from their Facebook page. Rather, they're probably seeing their page as an entree to a customer relationship over time.
In any case, this is a great discussion, and I hope we'll have some equally interesting results when we run the survey again in Q3 2013.

@ David Personally your research is really amazing. I cant use getlisted.org because it's not available for India. Rand is already told about that it will be available in next upcoming years not Now :(

Hi David

Thanks for such a nice post

Totally agree with you David; I wouldn't purchase anything from a brand on Facebook just from being a fan.
However, i ran into this research from WOMMA that shows huge ROI for brands on Facebook:

..."Companies often ask is: “What is the value of a Facebook Fan?”  WOMMA took the time to figure this out.  On average, Facebook Fans of a brand spend an additional $71.84 because they are 28% more likely to continue using  the brand and 41% more likely to recommend it to a friend."...
Here is a link to this insightful article- http://barnraisersllc.com/2011/05/social-media-free-costs-use-cost/
Any thought about this one?
Best,Yam Regev