Facebook Advertising: The basics

Facebook advertising can be a vital tool for businesses looking to increase their brand awareness and social media presence.

We’ve already discussed how using social media can benefit your brand, but taking it further can make a real difference.

Every time you log into Facebook you will have seen adverts on the right-hand side of the page. More often than not they will have something in common with your interests too.

Whether you are a personal trainer or run a dog walking business, this can be the ideal way to get your product out there and build your customer base.

Why use Facebook Advertising?

The reasons why you should use Facebook advertising is pretty simple. Producing good adverts can prove a real pull for new prospective customers to like your page. The benefit being that even people who haven’t already ‘liked’ your page may see your advert.

Being able to tailor your target audience allows you to pick out people who are within a certain age bracket, enjoy certain things and live in certain areas. This means only the people who your business relates to will see the ad.

Once you’ve set up your advert, there’s not much you need to do. Just choose the total amount of money you want to spend, how long you want your advert to run for and away you go!

facebook-advertising-cost

Things to remember

It can be very easy to fall into the trap of assuming that you don’t need to complement the ads you run. Setting up Facebook advertising should in no way be a substitute for excellent content.

By all means, grab your audience’s attention with an attractive advert, but make sure you keep them there. Ensuring there is good quality content on your page means your advertising efforts are not in vain.

There is a cost to Facebook advertising, but managed well this can be well worth it. You can also set the settings up to spend as much or as little you want. Generally speaking, the more you pay, the more people will see your advert.

The most cost effective way of using Facebook advertising is no doubt by using imagery and videos in your ads.

It’s pretty self-explanatory in that most people would be more drawn to an advert with a bold, enticing image than with a bad image or even worse, not having one at all.

facebook-advertising

Keeping tabs on your ads

It can be easy to just leave a recurring advert to do it’s thing each month without paying much attention. However monitoring it’s success can be a good way of increasing its impact. Within the Facebook advertising dashboard it is easily laid out to show you who is engaging with your content and when.

Take a look at the statistics and then make a business decision on what works and what doesn’t.

facebook-advertising-graph

If you can, run two different ads at the same time using Facebook’s ‘Split Test’ option. This will spread your content out evenly allowing you to interpret which time of advert works well.

Using the data available to you, you can develop your marketing activities to target the right customers in the right way.

Taking your business up a level

Good social media practice and a positive reputation may lay the foundations to marketing your product, but paying out for Facebook advertising can be a beneficial expenditure.

Creating, targeting and managing your ads can draw customers to your site, as well as growing your social media following.

You will be able to see your outlay paying dividends within advertising area of Facebook, with purchases that come through your adverts being tracked.

It’s not a linear process, but with enough management using Facebook advertising can be extremely beneficial to your business.