Even though it is not allowed to display ads for dating offers on Facebook, it was possible to generate traffic for your own website quite easily on the platform for many years. Whether it was through groups, private profiles or even fan pages: whoever was a bit creative, was also rewarded for his efforts. But what will the future look like? For weeks, the reach of postings on Facebook pages continues to fall down and announcements to algorithm changes promises no improvement – but quite the opposite. Is it still worthwhile to continue on Facebook?

There are many industries where Facebook is the ideal platform to reach the desired audience. Actually, this also applies to the dating industry but Facebook is not happy with it. It is not allowed to show ads for dating offers and pictures should not be too revealing, otherwise the site will be blocked. Those who tried it with private profiles instead of pages were probably even more often affected by closures and advertising in foreign groups either a waste of effort or was punished again with the exclusion from the groups. So it has never been so easy.

Meanwhile, it is really difficult to achieve something with Facebook, if you cannot show ads. Even the sites that have a large number of likes complain about the short reach and so the working hours which you put into the maintenance of the Facebook page, often pays off. The idea that Facebook is no longer useful for generating traffic can come in mind. But that is partially thought too short. Of course it is not necessarily easy but again a lot is possible with creativity.

In the future, content from friends and family should be displayed on the individual user’s Facebook timeline. For this reason, many fake profiles are created, with which one then wants to slip back into the timeline. Actually this is a logical step but unfortunately Facebook also knows that this is being tried. Accordingly, many more fake profiles are now blocked and for advertising in groups you are quickly banned for some time – even if you do not actually exaggerate it. So this step does not help.

So how can you still use Facebook in the future? The best way to attract your target audience on other topics, pulls from Facebook itself in newsletters and then advertised there with dating services. For this purpose, you can build Facebook pages with lifestyle topics that match the target group (fashion, music, film, etc.) and then promote them. When the ads are displayed, you can then target on the later dating offer align (eg single, male, between 30 and 50 years old) and thus make a selection. A good mix of interesting content and paid ads will keep the reach up and if you manage to get the fans of the site into a newsletter with a freebie or something similar, you’ve already won!

Admittedly, that is not easy and it also costs time and money – if you have both or can outsource the maintenance of the pages, you will be able to gain good traffic in the future, which otherwise might be difficult to reach.