Why Brands Win on Facebook with a Community-First Strategy
In 2025, Facebook remains one of the most powerful platforms for brands to connect with audiences, despite ongoing competition from the likes of TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. With over 3 billion monthly active users worldwide (Backlinko, 2025), and an algorithm increasingly designed to surface engaging content from accounts users may not even follow (Stelzner, 2025), Facebook still offers unmatched potential for reach and discovery. Yet the brands that thrive here are not the ones blasting out generic posts or relying heavily on ad spend. Instead, they are those adopting a community-first mindset, building trust, sparking conversation, and offering value that extends beyond the product itself.
This article explores how brands can approach Facebook in 2025, why a community-driven strategy is the real differentiator, and what can be learned from companies excelling on the platform.
Facebook in 2025: The Numbers That Matter
Love it or loathe it, Facebook in 2025 is still impossible to ignore. With more than 3 billion people logging in every month and over 2 billion returning daily (Backlinko, 2025), the platform remains the closest thing the digital world has to a global town square. For brands, that’s not just reach, it’s relevance, and a reminder that Facebook continues to be where audiences spend time, connect and buy.
The demographics tell their own story. According to Jo Dixon (2025), the user base skews male, with 56.8% men compared to 43.2% women. Age-wise, it’s a broad community: Gen X remains Facebook’s most loyal audience, while Baby Boomers and Millennials continue to use it heavily (Beveridge, 2024). But it’s worth noting that younger audiences, particularly Gen Z, are more likely to be found on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube (Barnhart, 2020). So, while Facebook still dominates in scale, its audience mix leans older and often more established, which can be a strategic advantage for brands targeting decision-makers and spenders. Content habits are also shifting. Facebook stories now attract over 500 million daily users, with more than 1 billion Stories shared across Meta’s apps every single day. On the brand side, more than 4 million advertisers are tapping into this short-form, immersive format every month (Facebook for Business, 2025). It’s a clear sign that visual content has lasting power.
And then there’s the social commerce side to the platform. According to Enberg from eMarketer (2024), US adults in 2025 are more likely to make purchases directly on Facebook than on Instagram, but they still trail behind TikTok Shop, which leads at 45.5%. That puts Facebook in a strong, but increasingly contested, middle ground. For brands, the implication is clear: the platform is commercially viable, but competition for shopper attention is fierce.
Where Facebook really sets itself apart is in service and community. Tools such as Messenger, Groups and Events mean it’s not just a broadcast channel, it’s a service hub. In fact, 73% of social users say they’d buy from a competitor if a brand fails to respond on social media (Kenan, 2025). That makes Facebook one of the most important channels for customer care, not just content. Finally, in-platform engagement. The numbers show that album posts generate the best average engagement (0.15%), followed closely by video posts (0.12%) and status updates (0.11%). Link posts, by contrast, are a flop, delivering just 0.04% engagement (Socialinsider, 2025). The takeaway? Facebook’s audience wants storytelling, conversation and visual content, not hard sales and target-driven links.
The Power of Paid Advertisement
Paid ads on Facebook continue to be one of the strongest levers for brands in 2025. Benchmarks show why: the platform delivers an average click-through rate (CTR) of 2.53%, though traffic campaigns sit lower at around 1.57% (Marino, 2023). Crucially, Facebook ads also achieve a high conversion rate of 8.78% across industries (McNamee, 2025), making them far more than an awareness tool. With a relatively low cost-per-click (CPC), averaging just over US$1 globally (Enberg, 2024; Varos, 2025), it’s no surprise that 40% of marketers cite Facebook as one of their top three ROI drivers (Iskiev, 2025).
What sets paid ads apart is the precision they allow. Rather than boosting every post, the most successful brands use ads to amplify content already performing well, retarget warm audiences, and support initiatives like community events or private groups. This approach doesn’t just drive clicks, but also strengthens loyalty and advocacy by meeting audiences where they are already engaged. That said, there are challenges. Rising competition has pushed up impression costs, and ad fatigue can quickly blunt performance if creative isn’t refreshed regularly (Mamta, 2025). Privacy shifts and attribution changes also make tracking trickier, forcing brands to lean into Meta’s tools, first-party data, and consistent testing. Still, when ads are tied to strong organic content and underpinned by storytelling rather than sales-first messaging, performance holds up.
The real power of paid, though, comes when it supports a community-first strategy. Ads can bring new people into groups, events or conversations, but it’s the community that builds trust, repeat engagement and advocacy. In other words, Facebook ads deliver the reach, but community turns that reach into long-term brand equity.
Why Brands Are Falling Short
Despite the vast opportunities Facebook offers, many brands find themselves struggling to make a meaningful impact. The reasons are multifaceted, often stemming from outdated strategies and a lack of adaptation to the platform's evolving dynamics.
1. Content Quality and Relevance
Facebook has transitioned from a friend-based to an interest-based algorithm, meaning that up to 50% of the content users see comes from accounts they don't follow (Stelzner, 2025). This shift underscores the importance of creating content that resonates with users' interests rather than merely pushing promotional messages. Brands that continue to post generic, sales-driven content without fostering genuine engagement often see diminished reach and interaction.
2. Absence of a Defined Strategy
Without a clear strategy, brands risk posting content that lacks direction and purpose. A well-thought-out strategy ensures that content aligns with the brand's objectives, resonates with the target audience, and is posted consistently. Brands without such a strategy often struggle to maintain relevance and fail to build a loyal community (Landicho, 2025).
3. Over-reliance on Paid Advertising
While paid advertising can boost visibility, it should complement, not replace, organic efforts. Brands that invest heavily in paid campaigns without a solid organic foundation may find that their reach is fleeting and lacks genuine engagement. A balanced approach that integrates both paid and organic strategies tends to yield more sustainable results.
4. Navigating the 'Pay-to-Play' Model
Facebook's shift towards a 'pay-to-play' model means that organic reach has declined, making it challenging for brands to reach their audience without investing in advertising (Turner, 2025). However, this doesn't mean that organic strategies are obsolete. By focusing on creating valuable content and engaging with users authentically, brands can still achieve meaningful reach without solely relying on paid promotions.
Brands Building Winning Communities
If the last decade taught brands anything, it’s that Facebook isn’t just another noticeboard for product pushes; it’s a space where communities form, conversations thrive, and loyalty is built. The brands that truly succeed on the platform understand this, leaning into personality, shared passions, and dialogue rather than broadcasting sales messages.
Take Netflix, for example. With over 111 million followers, they have mastered the art of turning a Facebook page into an extension of the brand's entertainment experience. Rather than sticking to trailers and promotional posters, Netflix shares behind-the-scenes clips, teases upcoming episodes, and interacts with fans in a witty, playful voice. Its content feels like it comes from the same universe as its shows - quirky, humorous, and in-the-moment. More importantly, the brand is highly reactive, jumping into comment threads and engaging with other accounts. That responsiveness makes fans feel heard, and it turns casual followers into loyal advocates. Then there’s Red Bull, a brand that has been community-first long before it became a marketing buzzword. On Facebook, Red Bull doesn’t centre the product; it centres the lifestyle. By showcasing extreme sports, athletes, and high-energy adventures, the brand has built a world that its followers aspire to be part of. What’s clever here is how Red Bull layers its approach: its music label, Red Bull Records, allows it to post music-driven content without Meta licensing headaches, engaging fans not just visually but also sonically. This multidimensional strategy keeps the community engaged on several fronts, while subtly linking all that passion back to the brand.
Closer to home, smaller brands are proving that community-building doesn’t need blockbuster budgets. Henry James Saddlery is a standout example in the equestrian world, and its approach couldn’t be further from polished perfection. Instead, it leans into personality, posting off-the-cuff text updates, sparking raw conversations, and even sharing hand-drawn sketches from staff as product previews. This style, which might seem “messy” for some, has struck a chord with their audience: the brand averages around 28K likes and over 200 comments per post, a stark difference from a typical equestrian brand page. By leaning into authenticity and creating a dedicated Facebook group for storytelling and connection, Henry James Saddlery has built not just followers, but a genuine community that feels part of the brand’s journey.
What unites Netflix, Red Bull, and Henry James Saddlery is that they don’t treat Facebook as a billboard. Instead, they build spaces where people gather, talk, and connect over shared passions. That’s what transforms audiences into communities, and communities into long-term brand advocates.
Adopting A New Approach
If brands want to win on Facebook in 2025, the old playbook needs rethinking. It’s no longer enough to churn out posts; what works now is creating human-centred content that builds real relationships. That means being authentic and present.
First off, brands should lean hard into Facebook’s varied content formats. Reels are now automatically classifying many types of video uploads, and Facebook is pushing more short-form video content, live streams, stories, and interactive formats (Reuters, 2025; Stelzner, 2025). These formats are rewarded by the algorithm, especially when they are original, relatable, and encourage users to engage. Using only static posts or links kills potential reach since the algorithm now favours content that keeps people inside Facebook’s ecosystem (Garratt, 2025).
Second, timeliness and responsiveness are essential. It’s not enough to post; brands need to engage in conversation. Replying to comments, acknowledging feedback, showing the people behind the brand - these small touches build trust. Also, when audiences see that engagement is timely and authentic, it encourages more interaction, which helps boost content visibility (Eman, 2025). Another part of adopting this new approach is to ensure content aligns with what your audience cares about. Build out personas; test different formats (reels vs lives vs stories); see what sparks conversation, not just eyeballs. Content that tells stories, evokes emotion, or shares something behind the scenes tends to win over time.
Finally, when you pair this genuine, human content with the “discovery engine” side of Facebook (content being shown to users who don’t follow you), you unlock potential for virality and growth. The algorithm increasingly surfaces content to non-followers based on relevance, format, and engagement signals rather than only the size of your following. This means every piece of content has an opportunity to reach new eyes, but only if it’s built to attract attention, evoke emotion, or prompt a reaction (Stelzner, 2025).
Final Thoughts
Facebook in 2025 is far from a relic; it’s a dynamic platform where billions of users log in daily, where stories draw half a billion daily users, and where ads deliver conversion rates as high as 8.78% (Sprout Social, 2025). But statistics alone don’t tell the full story. Success on Facebook today hinges less on the size of a following and more on the ability to create authentic, engaging content that resonates across Facebook’s discovery-driven feed.
As we’ve seen, brands often fall short when they rely too heavily on paid ads, fail to produce content that sparks conversation, or neglect to adapt to Facebook’s shifting algorithm. By contrast, brands like Netflix and Red Bull show the value of blending personality, humour, and lifestyle storytelling to draw people in. The approach moving forward is clear. Brands must create human-centred, story-driven content, make smart use of formats like reels, stories and lives, and treat paid advertising not as a shortcut but as an amplifier for what already works. More importantly, they must use Facebook as a space for genuine interaction, timely customer care, and community building. Because in the end, the brands that win on Facebook are not just those that get seen, they’re the ones that make people feel seen.
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