Do You Really Need A Facebook Page To Grow Your Farm Business

One issue that often comes up regarding Facebook is whether you “have to” have a Facebook Page to grow your farm business. 

My short and sweet answer is yes. But hear me out before you check out. 

Why You Should Have A Facebook Page As A Small Farmer

I have noticed over the years that the rural and farming communities are about 5 years behind that of the modern online world. Small farmers and animal raisers are doing very well with their Facebook pages. 

My rabbitry still does great and has awesome reach with the Facebook page. However, I am very careful not to post too much content that gets lower reach and engagement. Or I make sure to post a lot of content before and after a post that I know won’t do quite as well. Like a post with a link in it. 

Why You Should Not Use Your Own Personal Facebook Page

You have a Facebook account already why should you make a separate page within your account for your farm business? 

The answer is super short and sweet. It’s against Facebook’s terms of service to use your personal profile to market your goods and services other than within the confines of certain marketplaces. But on a Facebook Page, you can sell things right from the page if you want to. They don’t care about selling as long as it’s legal and meets their terms of service. 

(You do have to be careful if you are selling live animals. This is against their terms of service and posting animals for sale and all the info will get you flagged. But if you are selling the right way you will never have to sell like that, to begin with.)

So if you want to run the risk of being shut down you go right ahead and test the waters. Let me know if the piranhas bite.

Top Reasons To Create A Facebook Page For Your Farm Business

Here are some great reasons to create a business page for your farm that you don’t get from posting on your personal account.

Page Insights

Facebook Pages have amazing (and getting better all the time) analytics that will help you get to know your audience better. You can use it to improve the information you provide based on what gets the best results according to real data instead of just basing it on likes and a guess.

Remember how I said my rabbitry page still does well? I can only see how much reach my content gets if I have a Facebook business page. See that yellow bar across the bottom of each post? You only get that info if you have a business Facebook page.

Enables You to Build a Community

With a Facebook Page, you can build an active community of people who are interested in the content you provide. Their friends and family can see them like and comment on your page, which can attract even more people. When you have enough, you can create a group for your community to better facilitate discussion. 

Shows Authority

One key to gaining trust from your customers is having authority or in other words being seen as a professional in your field. Having a business page helps you seem more like a business instead of some backyard breeder or crop raiser. If you appear more authoritative or like “you know your stuff” you will be able to get more for your product.

Improves SEO 

By having a Facebook business page you’re letting the world know that you have a real business. That, along with your website and other social media profiles all provide valuable backlinks to your website and information for your audience. Most people, even if they aren’t too keen on signing up for your email list, they will like your page on Facebook giving you a chance to earn their trust, so they feel safe signing up for your email list.

Facebook and Instagram are both making long strides to become better at search. So if someone searches on the platform for what it is you offer your posts can come up for that item.

Another Way to Get in Front of Customers

It takes from 7 to fourteen times for your audience to recognize your brand, feel as if they know, like, and trust you enough to open their wallets and pay for something. A Facebook page is yet another way to brand yourself and to get in front of your customers where they are.

You Can Schedule Your Posts

Scheduling your post is something you cannot do from a personal Facebook account. but you can schedule out Facebook and Instagram content through your Facebook business manager. If you are like me and you don’t like to spend a whole lot of time on social directly you should be batching your social media content and scheduling it to publish on your page throughout the week or even a month at a time. This is not possible without a Facebook business page. 

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is an essential component of off-page SEO using social media. You’ll get amazing insights into your audience’s demographics that you were only guessing at before, and you can target your audience better with a page and you can also build a more passive business by batching your content.