With over 1 billion users Facebook is an essential resource for businesses. However, with the introduction of Facebook ads, all users were instantly converted in to potential advertisers. In order to reach all your friends and family, or all of your business page followers you now have to pay.

Each time you post something on Facebook this is only ever shared with a small percentage of your friends/likers, if no one engages with the post then that is that, no more people will view it. However, if some people engage with a post, it means the post will be shared with more of your followers. Facebook is designed so that the interaction of your followers decreases over time, thus increasing the demand for Facebook ads.

Here are 5 reasons why you should avoid using them:

1. The banner ads have an awful conversion rate

The average CTR is just 0.05%, simply because people don’t head to Facebook to shop. It is a platform for interacting with family and friends, not a shopping platform. Compare this to the average CTR of a Google ad of 2% and it is clear where you should be making the investment.

2. You don’t need them

Facebook has cleverly engineered this false demand. The number of likes you have is certainly important, but as with most things in life quality is better than quantity. Organically grow your number of likes with exciting, shareable content teamed with exclusive offers for your Facebook fans. This will produce a higher ROI.

3. They won’t benefit your business

Promoting a post will guarantee that the number of likes you have will increase. Having said that, the new likes that you acquire are likely to be of low quality and the users are not likely to engage with you/your posts after the initial click. These low quality likes mean that even fewer people who actually care about your business will now see your post. As previously mentioned, if the people who like your page don’t engage with a post, that is the end of the trail; no more people will be able to see your post. Having a large number of low quality likes will definitely reduce your reach.

4. Are the new likes real?

Facebook bans acquiring paid likes from such places as click farms (low-paid workers hired to click on paid advertising links).These farms are typically based in developing countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, India, The Philippines etc. You would also find these likes to be of low quality and there will be little/no engagement with your posts – typically less than 1%. When you create a Facebook ad you can choose which countries you wish to target. However, you may only need to look at the profile of one of your new likers to see something isn’t quite right. They already like 3,000 other pages.

5. Charging you to share content with your friends and family is not acceptable

Enough said.

Do you have any experience with Facebook ads? Let us know how ad campaigns worked for you by commenting or clicking here.