Small businesses need to constantly stay up to date with what content Facebook's newsfeed algorithm favours, or risk having their business page fall into oblivion.
The social network constantly tweaks its algorithm to provide the best possible user experience. However, this places small to medium enterprises (SMEs) at a disadvantage.
Facebook Pages now draws over 60 million businesses across the world to its platform. The service is 'free' if companies want to be held hostage to the whims of Facebook's ever-changing algorithm.
Paying money to the tech giant, however, ensures businesses stay top of their customers' minds, and newsfeeds.
SMEs that do not have a large advertising budget, and choose not to pay, will have to rely on customers seeking out their pages on the platform and sharing it with their friends.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, says while it is possible for a Facebook Page to be successful on the platform without spending money on adverts, many vanish without a trace.
Liron Segev, who runs Socially Matters, an agency that helps businesses get exposure on Facebook using video and other tools, says all SMEs should absolutely have a presence on the social network.
"There are 1.7 billion people on Facebook who can easily be targeted to find the right people for any business."
He says if a business has a large enough audience, SMEs can be successful on the platform without spending money: "But spending very little can get any business of any size direct targeted adverts to the right audience."
Keeping up
There have been a series of updates to users' newsfeeds this year that altered how content is shown on the platform.
Last week, Facebook announced it would start showing users more 'informative' stories. The company said it came to understand which stories are more informative to different people by surveying a select group of users.
In July, the tech giant tweaked its newsfeed to prioritise posts from users' friends and family instead of brands and news outlets. It warned businesses on the social network that they may see a decline in referral traffic due to the update.
In April, the social network said it would start serving content in newsfeeds based on how long users read them. A separate update would reduce how often users see several posts in a row from the same source in their newsfeed.
However, Segev says: "The algorithms are constantly changing and once the 'outrage' dies down on Twitter, it just becomes the new norm."
The positives
Goldstuck points out: "If a small business owner feels [Facebook] is where it can reach its audience, it's a great medium. If it is simply because 'everyone is doing it', it's a very bad idea. No one 'must' have a presence on any platform."
Segev says Facebook is just a tool, like many others available, and SMEs should explore which social network works best for them and their customers.
However, the platform does offer SMEs a comprehensive toolkit they will struggle to find anywhere else, says Dave Duarte, founder of local digital consultancy Treeshake.
He says Facebook should be a given for every SME as it provides a powerful mobile experience and people are increasingly using the company's app on their smartphones to look up businesses.
Last year, Facebook said there were 120 million people on the platform in Africa, with more than 80% using the service on mobile. This is 60% of the Internet population across the continent.
"Facebook can do mobile better than most small businesses can; they get compression, they get user experience and it is naturally responsive," Duarte says.
Some of the other reasons to be on the platform, he says, are search, analytics and social proof.
The tech company's last financial results showed Facebook users are searching across more than 2.5 trillion posts, conducting over two billion searches a day.
Duarte says this shows users are searching more and more for businesses, and Facebook search results give users consistency and ease-of-use.
All business pages on Facebook are formatted the same: contact number, opening hours and address are all in the same place, unlike company Web sites that differ widely in presentation.
The analytic capability the social network gives businesses is the easiest way for them to get data about customers, says Duarte.
Social proof is when a Facebook user can see their friends also like the same Page, while viewing other people's reviews of the business.
"I believe we live in the world where word-of-mouth is the new mass media," says Segev.
"We don't buy anything without reading reviews, blogs, videos and opinions from other people - all of which is available via Facebook. We trust an anonymous user on Facebook over the official marketing from the company."
The drawbacks
With all the benefits Facebook offers, Duarte says: "It does not bode well for net neutrality, having [what people perceive to be the Internet] basically within one service provider."
He explains that if Facebook becomes the go-to place to find SMEs online, businesses that are not on the platform may fall into oblivion. This gives the social network unfair power over the SME Internet presence.
"As we have seen before, Facebook can change their algorithms at any time and make businesses 'disappear'," says Duarte.
Goldstuck advises SMEs not to have all their eggs in the Facebook basket: "A company's online presence needs to be carefully thought out, and it shouldn't be in only one place."
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