Facebook wakes up to advertising potential of SMEs

More than 2,000 people start a new business in Ireland each month. Most of these do so on a shoestring, with very little money to pay for advertising campaigns online or otherwise. For them, setting up a Facebook page can be a quick and cheap way to target potential customers and promote their product or service. However, for the most part they have been largely ignored by the social network.

When it came to advertising, Facebook focused on big businesses such as Unilever and Coca-Cola. It sought their advice and opinions on marketing tools and ad offerings.

Only now is the social network going after the remaining 95 per cent. That figure represents a long list of advertisers from dentists to developers, restaurants to retailers, who don’t have the resources to have dedicated social media managers and were left to figure out Facebook advertising for themselves.

The social network has launched a “SMB client council” for these enterprises, which is a platform to connect small and medium-sized businesses in Ireland with Facebook, so it can garner feedback on what products they like and what they need. Effectively, it’s a way for Facebook to improve its offering to SMEs.

The structure of the SMB client council is reminiscent of one the social network formed for bigger companies, one that includes the chief marketing people from Procter & Gamble, Walmart and Unilever among its members.

Considering, Facebook’s mantra since day one has been about connecting people and making communication easier, it’s about time it looked at SMEs.