How to Make the Most of this Powerful Resource
Facebook Advertising has become a highly targeted and very effective marketing tool if done properly. Unlike other forms of advertising, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get bottom line results. Many small business owners do not understand the value and potential of this resource, and not understand how to set up and manage ads. Facebook has made tremendous advances in their algorithms designed to reach highly segmented audiences. The development of the “Ad Manager” feature and the advanced “Power Editor” have made it easy to get your message in front of very specialized audiences based on location, interests, basic demographics, similar email addresses, similar Facebook page likes, etc. With over 1.4 billion people using this space, there is no single platform with as great a reach to the people who are interested in your exact message.
Here are a few tips and instructions about advertising on Facebook:
1. Be clear about the purpose of the ad before you get started. The 3 main options (there are more specific ones once you get going) are:
* Boost a post – choose this if you have a specific offer, event, or announcement
* Boost your page – choose this if you want to grow your audience on Facebook
* Boost your website – choose this if you want to drive more traffic to your website
2. Facebook has gone to a “pay to play” model. This means if you want to get your message to more people than you do when you put up a post, you need to advertise. Facebook’s algorithms changed and the organic reach significantly decreased for all pages. With so much content piling onto the platform, they decided to decrease the number and type of posts people were seeing in their newsfeed.
3. Ads are typically integrated into the newsfeed of your target audience as if it were a post from one of their established connections. Facebook identifies audiences based on very complex factors beyond a user’s profile. The number and type of posts, likes, and shares signals to Facebook the individual’s interests, activities, lifestyle, location, etc.
4. When you create an ad, make sure you include a compelling image and text. An image can have no more than 20% of the space taken up by text.
5. Consider how wide you want to cast your net; refining the search categories decreases the reach of your ad, but also makes your audience more tailored to your business – in other words, quality vs. quantity.
6. You can boost a post for as little as $1/day for as short as 1 day. Your reach is based on the amount of money and number of days, in addition to the above audience selection elements. It is obvious that the more you put into a well design campaign, the better your results.
7. Check out Facebook’s business resource to get more information about advertising.
8. Play around with it; change the variable to test the response. Using the Ads Manager or Power Editor to keep your ads organized and to review their status.
Conducting a Facebook ad campaign is not difficult once you know what to do, but there is a bit of a learning curve, so be prepared for that. Of course, you could always get professional help to make sure it is set up and managed correctly. Let me know if I can be of service.