Facebook is the biggest social network to-date. It was launched in 2004 and since has bridged, created, and strengthened many human relationships through social media. It ranks first among various other social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
With a 2.45 billion active monthly user base as of the 3rd quarter of 2019, Facebook continuously reinvents itself and adds more features for its wide range of users. Due to its ability to connect people and build relationships, Facebook has been a means for people to make themselves and their content popular through Facebook advertising and digital marketing. Nowadays, anyone with Facebook access can become a celebrity or manage a business while growing their market following day by day.
Many small business owners and companies have realized Facebook’s e-commerce potential to grow their business and market their products. Facebook has also seen this potential and created a way for its platform to become more sustainable and suitable for this purpose through Facebook Ads.
Facebook Ads are not rocket science
Any Facebook user can create a Facebook Ads Manager account as long as they have their own Facebook Page. A Facebook Page is usually set up for a business to promote brand awareness and do content marketing for their products or services.
Payment methods are also easy to setup, and you can choose from direct debit, Paypal, or credit cards. Your budget is customizable and you can set it to daily or lifetime. It will even compute your average spending pattern and allocate your budget to what’s working based on the campaigns you’re running. No need to hire additional help for that!
Your ad copies can have your personal touch as you have full control over what they should look like (as long as you abide by Facebook’s Advertising Policies. You can still opt for professional help though, if you don’t feel confident in your own ad-creation skills. Since it can be linked to other social platforms, it will give your business more exposure and can even be beneficial for SEO. You can also direct people to your LinkedIn profile for them to know more about your business. Some people have even reported success in using Facebook ads to promote their Facebook Group.
You can also create blog posts to entice your audience about your products and services and engage them in the comment section of your posts. These can and should be your personalized content.
It’s important to choose a good Facebook ad creator app as well, so that you can easily create eye-catching designs for your ads, which will help you get more clicks and conversions.
Publishing your ad campaign is not rocket science at all. If you need more resources or guides on how to handle your account, resources can be found by using Google, since Facebook advertising is social media marketing made easy.
Reach your intended target audience and avoid being too vague
Facebook Ads has audience targeting options for you to choose from, so that you are sure to reach your intended audience (hopefully many of whom are potential customers).
You can set your ad to target lookalike audiences who are those Facebook users that have similar characteristics as your target audience … fully maximizing your reach! It’s a perfect way to spread brand awareness about your product or service.
You can also reach out to those who have already expressed interest in your products, also known as retargeting, by setting your ad campaign’s audience type to ‘custom audiences’. Now, how neat is that?
Aside from these flexible and powerful options, you can also target specific people based on their known likes, their Facebook search histories, their level of engagement with your Facebook page, and other elements of their demographics such as age, gender, and location. As you can see, it can be as specific and targeted as you want it to be.
No more middlemen with your ad campaigns
You can use Facebook Ads to create advertising copies that correlate with your standards and preferences. Whether your purpose is to drive traffic to your website, boost your Facebook Page’s likes or to increase your conversion rate, you can tailor-fit your Facebook marketing efforts just right.
You can choose from different ad types and ad formats such as video ads, carousel ads, mobile app installation, and many more. You can even choose if you would like your content to be shown on mobile devices and mobile newsfeed only, on Messenger, or on the desktop Facebook news feed.
If your site is mobile-friendly, you can also use mobile advertising to reach Facebook users who mostly browse using their phones.
Facebook Ads is constantly offering you new features
Social media advertising is fast evolving. And Facebook is definitely up to the challenge. There’s new features added to Facebook Ads almost every month. Just recently its reporting tool was upgraded to make it easier for you to determine which among your ad campaigns are producing a positive ROI, and which need updating or replacement.
For example, there’s an appointment booking feature through Messenger. Though this is still in the beta testing stage, once finally rolled out, this will enable businesses to integrate their existing calendar booking software to power booking experiences through Messenger. With this feature, businesses can convert Messenger conversations into in-store traffic, online and phone appointments, and more. This will be a huge benefit and a cost-saving feature for sure!
There are also fundraising tools that let your visitors donate through your ads by clicking the ‘Donate’ button. This is similar to what’s available on Instagram. And how about the lead generation tool that allows businesses to set up automated, chatbot-like experiences to qualify leads quickly and automatically? Awesome, right?
Think it could not get any better? Think again! Facebook is always putting their game face on to stay ahead of the competition.
What are you waiting for? Go ahead and give it a try!
Yes, you might think that you should just stick to conventional eCommerce marketing strategies like email marketing and lead generation by cold calling. I get it, those might be effective so far for your business. It’s always a case-to-case basis. However, with the increasing population of social media platform users, you cannot deny its increasing market potential.
A lot of business owners have tried and many have succeeded with it. Proof would be that Facebook gets their revenue mostly from Facebook Advertising. People wouldn’t be so willing to pour money into advertising on their platform if they weren’t seeing good results, right?
Facebook ads are also highly-customizable and the ad campaigns can be run for a specific period of time, based on your preference. You can create your own copy and get those creative juices flowing. You can define your audience to make sure you’re reaching the most relevant people.
With Facebook evolving, your campaign strategies can never be stale unless you want them to. Another good thing … you don’t have to do too much R&D since the options are presented to you in an intuitive interface.
Knowing whether your ad campaigns are working is also made easy by Facebook through their reporting features. At a glance, you can see how many conversions your ads made, how many clicks visitors had on your landing pages, how many mobile app or desktop app installations were completed, and so on and so forth. You don’t need to hire an analyst to do these reports for you. All you need to do is login and see the results for yourself.
Facebook Ads may be a new thing for you to explore, but hey, don’t be intimidated. You won’t know if it’ll work if you don’t try, right? It’s cost-effective as it lets you set your budget, so no worries about exceeding your marketing expenses.
In fact, there is a very cost effective method of Facebook Advertising known as the Dollar a Day strategy that you can use for, you guessed it, a dollar a day! This is a great way to get your feet wet with Facebook advertising and find content that works for larger budget campaigns down the line.
So, are you ready to get started with Facebook Ads?
What about other aspects of the Facebook ad process? Here’s a free Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that will guide you through everything from creating a new Facebook Business Manager account, to developing powerful ad creatives.
A Step by Step Guide to Setting up Your Facebook Ad Account (& Creating Ads That Convert)
