How to Get Started Advertising on Facebook
It goes without saying that it’s impossible to make a success of a new website or business without a solid online marketing plan in place. However, knowing that planning a killer advertising strategy will play a key role in your future success and actually understanding how to start are two different animals entirely.
The first order of business is to figure out where to start and in today’s online world, there are three critical platforms you’ll need to take into consideration right out of the gate. The first two are Google and Twitter. The third is Facebook. Facebook in particular is becoming more critical each day as the importance of social signals grows in the eyes of the search engines. This makes mastering the world of Facebook advertising an absolute must.
Don’t worry if you’re new to Facebook advertising or even Facebook in general. The general interface is relatively easy to get the hang of. What you need to have an understanding of in advance is what your different options are and how you can benefit from each.
A Look at Facebook’s Four Different Advertising Options
When it comes to Facebook, there are four basic types of ads you’ll have to choose from. Each comes attached to its own unique benefits. Let’s take a quick look at each one.
Marketplace Ads
Facebook marketplace ads are the type of Facebook advertising that you’re probably the most familiar with. They’re the ones lined up in a neat little column on the right hand side of your news feed, each typically consisting of a small, tasteful thumbnail image and a couple of lines of copy. They’re also the usual starting points for most small business owners and website owners.
When you choose to take out a Facebook marketplace ad, you get to choose where interested parties will be sent if they decide to click the link. Marketplace ads also come with the ability to target your marketing strategy to specific demographics, locations, age groups, and so forth.
Page Post Ads
Page post ads are similar to marketplace ads as far as how they work, only they show up right where a viewer’s attention is actually focused – in their news feed along with posts from their friends. Most Facebook users don’t really like ads right there in their newsfeed mixed in with the rest of the posts. However, they are incredibly effective regardless, as they are much harder to ignore.
Sponsored Posts
Sponsored posts are just like page post ads, only they come attached to “recommendations” from the user’s friends. Social media users are far more likely to trust or show interest in a given service or product if they know their friends are into it. Sponsored posts show up in the news feeds of the user that originally interacted with the ad to let them know that this is something their friends are interested in. This type of Facebook advertising is doubly effective, as it gives you the ability to advertise to not only a member of a particular demographic, but also their entire social network.
Promoted Posts
Unlike the options above, promoted posts won’t allow you to advertise to people well outside of your immediate circle. However, they will grant you a guarantee that a particularly important post will be seen by a higher percentage of the people on your list, as well as their friends.
If you decide you’d like to turn a particular post into a promoted post, you do so by paying Facebook a one-time flat fee (as opposed to entering into a pay-per-click agreement) and you’re set. Promoted posts show up in feeds exactly the same way sponsored stories do.
Setting Up Your Facebook Ads
The process of setting up a standard marketplace ad on Facebook is simple. You simply click the “create an ad” button located on Facebook’s advertising options page to get started. Then follow the prompts to upload your image, create your text, and so forth.
During the process, you’ll also be able decide what kind of results you’d like for your ad (Facebook likes, clicks to visit your website, and so forth), what demographic you’d like to target, whether or not you’d like your ad to be sponsored, and what you’d like your budget to be.
Promoted posts can be created by entering the options menu for the post you’d like to promote and selecting that option.
If you are already using Instagram as another marketing platform, it is not that different from FB, especially in getting more likes, followers and shares. To speed things up, you can actually apply some of the principles you know in Instagram to Facebook. After all, they are owned by the same person.
Making Sure Your Facebook Ads Are Effective
Once you’ve set up your ads, you should be prepared to closely monitor their progress. This can be easily done through Facebook’s analytics dashboard. Within a relatively short period of time, it will be easy to see which of your ads are the most successful and which might need a little work. Use what you learn here to fine-tune your social media marketing strategy (on Facebook and elsewhere) in a way that helps it strike a stronger chord with your target demographic.
Using Your Facebook Page to Build Your Brand
Of course, successfully using Facebook to market your products and services isn’t all about paid advertising. The way you manage your company’s overall presence on the social networking giant will have a massive impact on how well your bottom line grows as well.
The goal here is to get people interested in following you and that means filling your page with things that spark people’s interest, as well as inspire them to participate and share. Mix announcements about special deals or new products with humorous updates or internet memes related to your niche. Make posts that inspire people to jump into conversations on your page.
Post frequently, but at timely intervals to avoid flooding people’s news feeds. If necessary, you might want to consider hiring an assistant, freelance writer, or other professional to help you create and publish posts throughout the day. Always interact with people who follow your page. Answer questions, address concerns, and be sure to respond to any direct messages your inbox or your Facebook wall.
At the end of the day, launching and managing a successful marketing strategy that leverages Facebook isn’t rocket science. However, it does require that you maintain a delicate balance between facilitating visibility and forging lasting, mutually enjoyable personal bonds with your client base.
