What? You mean Facebook isn’t just a place for friends, stupid memes, and political arguments? Nope….you can actually grow your business with the help of Facebook advertising. Now, keep in mind, these are the basics. So don’t think you’re going to run right out, run ads and profit millions by tomorrow. That’s not quite how it works. There’s actually a lot of trial, error, and testing involved when it comes to running paid ads on any social media platform. The secret is getting it dialed in perfectly. When that happens, you can really see large returns on your initial investment.
Know Your Market
Frequently called your “target audience” or “demographic”, determining just who that is, is not quite as easy as it sounds. There are tools at your disposal to drill down your niche or target market.
Build out a Business Community of Your Own
Building communities within Facebook is a great way to lump together all your prospects, potential clients and customers. When you do this some of your members will actually invite others to join as well. Remember to keep the content fresh and flowing. Broadcast live, holding discussions and virtual events are also great ways to keep that audience engaged. The last thing you want to do is gather people together and provide them nothing. Also remember, the majority of people are on Facebook to form relationships and reconnect with old friends, not necessarily to buy anything. So create that relationship, make friends and provide value to people. Then when presented with something to purchase, depending on their needs, they usually will.
Resources on Facebook Advertising
You can find various tools and guidelines for advertising on Facebook. Take a look at https://www.facebook.com/ads on recommendations from Facebook on advertising with them, if you choose to do so. You can then develop and create your ad(s) there also. You can start by just keeping it simple by creating an image with a brief description or tagline. Then your ad(s) will appear in the right column of the Facebook pages you targeted.
Using Keywords
Since you’re ‘Probably’ using keywords in other marketing methods, it’s a good idea to integrate them into your Facebook ads as well. Much like any other marketing strategy, you would use keywords in your ad copy to customize it for your particular demographic. You could even do something as simple as looking at peoples profiles to get an idea on particular keywords. This will also give you help in filtering out who’s in your target audience, and who isn’t
Setting Your Advertising Budget
When you set a daily ad budget, this will help you to not lose your shirt when first getting started on paid ads. Each campaign you create should have a set daily budget amount, with your daily goals clearly set with it. Basically, in the ad creating process, you’re letting Facebook know what you are expecting from them for your advertising costs.
Check Out Other Ads on Facebook
This will come in especially handy when you’re new with running paid ads. If the ad is in the main feed on Facebook, you will see 3 dots. Click that and at the bottom of the little window that opens, you’ll see an option for “Why am I seeing this ad?”. If the ad is in the right column, when you hover over the ad, a little downward arrow will appear. Then when you click that, you will see the “Why am I seeing this ad?” option. When you go into this menu, you can see how the advertiser targeted YOU. This will give you great insight when creating your own ad. Also, take notice to the ads that actually appeal to you. What ads do you keep seeing over and over? This indicates they are definitely onto something.
