I'm Not A Fan Of Facebook, But I Can't Ignore These Results!

A few days ago, I wrote a post here on Wealthy Affiliate called "Is LinkedIn More Refreshing Than Facebook?" In that post, I explained why I generally prefer LinkedIn and why I sometimes find Facebook rather frustrating. I particularly mentioned the exaggerated success stories, dramatic headlines and repetitive posts that seem to appear regularly in the internet marketing world.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/roybretton/blog/is-linkedin-more-refreshing-than-facebook

Nothing has really changed regarding my opinion. I still find LinkedIn more refreshing in many ways, and I prefer the more business like conversations that often take place there. However, something has happened that has made me look at Facebook from a slightly different angle.

Facebook seems to be getting me some results.

30 Views On YouTube And Around 800 On Facebook

One of my recent videos provides a good example. I uploaded the video separately to YouTube and Facebook rather than simply posting a YouTube link on Facebook. After roughly a week, the YouTube version had received around 30 views, whereas the Facebook version had received approximately 800.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that 800 Facebook views are necessarily worth more than 30 YouTube views. The platforms work differently, people discover the content differently, and the way views are measured isn't necessarily comparable. Even allowing for those differences, though, the gap is large enough to make me take notice.

YouTube remains extremely important to me because videos can potentially continue receiving views through search long after they are published. Facebook content can have a much shorter lifespan, but it appears capable of putting a video in front of considerably more people very quickly. Perhaps the two platforms can complement each other rather than having to compete.

I've Been Making A Conscious Effort With Facebook

Over the past few weeks, I have been making more of an effort to understand Facebook rather than just posting something occasionally and hoping for the best. I've been uploading videos directly, using Reels and experimenting more with Stories. Some of these features are relatively new to me, particularly Stories, so I'm still finding out what works and what doesn't.

I've also started looking more closely at the insights Facebook provides. One figure that particularly caught my attention was the percentage of views coming from non-followers. At the time I checked, around 89.7% were from people who weren't already following my page.

That seems quite encouraging for anyone trying to grow an audience. Having existing followers see our content is obviously important, but growth requires reaching people outside that existing circle. If Facebook is showing my content to people who have never followed my page, it gives me an opportunity to reach an entirely new audience.

I Still Don't Like The Facebook Fluff

This is where my previous Wealthy Affiliate post still stands. I haven't suddenly fallen in love with everything about Facebook simply because I'm seeing more views.

There is still a lot of content that I find difficult to engage with genuinely. We have all seen the massive income claims, carefully staged success stories and posts that make building an online business sound ridiculously easy. Sometimes I wonder what I can possibly say in the comments because I feel as though I've already commented on an almost identical post several times before.

However, perhaps there is a lesson in that too. We don't have to copy that type of content simply because we're using Facebook for business. I'd much rather share something I've genuinely experienced, discovered or learned, even if it doesn't sound quite as exciting as somebody claiming to have made thousands of pounds while they were asleep!

That is also how I approach many of my YouTube videos. Quite often I learn how to do something, realise that someone else may have the same problem, and make a video explaining what I've discovered. There's nothing particularly complicated about that strategy, but at least the content comes from genuine experience.

Maybe We Shouldn't Judge A Platform By Whether We Like It

Perhaps this is the biggest lesson I'm learning from my recent Facebook experiment. There is a difference between enjoying a social media platform and recognising its usefulness for business.

I can prefer LinkedIn conversations while acknowledging that Facebook may currently be giving some of my content considerably more exposure. I can also dislike some of the marketing methods I see on Facebook without deciding that the whole platform has nothing to offer.

In fact, that principle probably applies to many areas of building an online business. It's very easy to develop opinions about a platform, strategy or traffic source before we've given it a proper test. Sometimes our own numbers tell us something different from what we expected.

I'm Not Giving Up On YouTube

I certainly don't want this post to sound as though I'm suggesting people should abandon YouTube and move everything to Facebook. That's definitely not what I'm doing.

For me, YouTube is still a very important part of the bigger picture. A useful video can be discovered through YouTube or Google months and sometimes years after it was uploaded. That long-term potential is something Facebook can't necessarily match in the same way.

What I'm increasingly thinking, though, is why choose between them? If I've already spent the time creating a video, uploading that original video separately to Facebook doesn't require me to create the whole thing again. The content can then have an opportunity to work on both platforms.

The same applies to LinkedIn. I can use LinkedIn for the type of business discussion I enjoy while using Facebook to reach people who may never find me elsewhere. Each platform may simply have a different job to do.

The Numbers Have Made Me Think Again

I'm certainly not claiming to be a Facebook expert. I'm still experimenting with Stories, Reels, videos and different types of posts, and I'm sure there is plenty more for me to learn.

However, when a video receives around 30 views on YouTube and approximately 800 on Facebook within a similar period, I'm not going to ignore that information. When almost 90% of the people seeing my Facebook content are non-followers, I'm interested in finding out whether that continues.

Maybe that's the real takeaway from all of this. We hear an enormous amount about what supposedly works in internet marketing, but our own results are ultimately more useful than somebody else's claims.

I'm still not a great fan of Facebook, and I still find LinkedIn more refreshing.

But Facebook is making it increasingly difficult for me to ignore it!

I'd be interested to hear what other Wealthy Affiliate members are experiencing. Are you getting any worthwhile organic reach from Facebook at the moment, and have you noticed a difference between the results you're getting from Facebook and YouTube?
Feel free to add your opinion and thoughts to the post and join in the conversation.

Thank you for reading.

Roy