Facebook usage has swelled since the onset of the Covid-19. 

According to Nielsen, before the current chaos, 62% of Fayetteville area adults used Facebook each month. This was significantly fewer than were reached by local radio or television each week.

According to the New York Times, however, since the start of the Coronavirus, daily Facebook traffic has increased by 27%. This compares to 33% growth in the amount of time consumers spend listening to local radio during a similar period.

Based on the surge in Facebook consumption, North Carolina small business owners might be tempted to purchase advertising on the social media platform to augment their regular, free postings. Here are are few facts these businesses should consider before investing.

For Fayetteville small business owners, marketing and advertising are crucial to surviving any crisis, including Coronavirus. The business literature has an abundance of case studies from depressions, recessions, natural disasters, and, yes, pandemics that affirm this existential conclusion.

Advertising, however, may seem extravagant right now to North Carolina businesses that are struggling to make rent, purchase inventory, and meet payroll. Henry Ford, though, is often quoted as saying, "Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping a clock to save time."

Therefore, as business owners from Lumberton to Dunn (and every point in between) are cinching their belts tighter-than-ever to stay alive, the dollars invested in advertising must be spent in the most effective manner possible.

During periods of uncertainty, advertising works the hardest when placed in within media that consumers trust.  During the time of COVID-19, advertising on Fayetteville radio has earned that trust among local consumers.

Results of new survey* show, in fact, radio is the most trusted medium in America. Decidedly, so. Here is what the survey found:

The Lumbee River Electric Membership Corporation has been advertising on Fayetteville radio non-stop for 16 years.

“Everything we do on the radio has the sole purpose of cementing our place as a good corporate citizen in the communities we serve,” says Walter White, the company’s Vice President of Corporate Communications. “No other local medium allows us the opportunity to communicate with all of our members so effectively and affordably.”