When it comes to online advertising, brands and local businesses seem spoiled for choice. From advertising networks to social platforms with millions of users, picking the ideal option to promote your offer can seem a daunting task. However, finding the right channel where to be noticed, become top-of-mind and engage with the target audience should be a key goal for every business – big or small. The benefits of meeting your audience in the environment where they are active daily are hard to oversee. In this sense, there are probably very few platforms which offer a more seamless experience than Facebook in terms of bringing together people and brands.
Why should your business consider advertising on Facebook?
Creating a business Facebook page is a bare necessity for any company wishing to be present online where its audience is. Identifying your target, inviting them to like your page and engaging them with the attention-grabbing content are great ways to mark your online presence and increase your visibility in an environment where they are present daily.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential reach and tremendous opportunities, which await those willing to dive deeper into Facebook’s offering. Only a fraction of your posts are going to reach your page fans due to the News Feed filtering algorithms. Therefore, the most efficient way to overcome this setback is by promoting your business to the people most likely to be interested in your offer- through advertising and remarketing.
Reach your objectives
Whatever your marketing objective, Facebook advertising is able to support it. Whether you aim at raising brand awareness, acquiring more customers, increasing sales from a specific segment or are simply looking to engage more with your fans, all can be achieved by setting up advertising campaigns on the platform.
Rich targeting capabilities
The targeting capabilities you’ll find here are truly unique in the digital landscape. Not only is it the largest social network, but it keeps a record of its users’ demographic information, broad categories and particular interests. It is an extraordinary tool that can help you promote your brand to the right people, matching their individual characteristics to your ideal customer profile.
Advanced features
In addition to this great variety of targeting options, you also have the possibility to use Facebook to contact people you already have a business relationship outside the platform. Reaching them through Facebook advertising would add another touch point and could confirm your top-of-mind positioning. Also, you can find ‘lookalike’ audiences, so you target people whose profiles resemble your customers’. Another advantage you could gain by running ads on this social platform is attracting new customers by remarketing your offer to users who have already expressed an interest in your products or services.
Strong mobile presence
Aside from the network’s dominance on desktop being common knowledge, Facebook is unrivalled in terms of mobile reach. In its press release for Q1 2014 they announced an important milestone in their 10 year history – surpassing the 1 billion mobile monthly active users worldwide, a 34% increase from the same period of 2013.
While this is an impressive number on its own, it also signals a fast-narrowing gap between mobile and desktop monthly active users who now make up to 1.28 billion. It is important to note that these figures don’t include Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp or Instagram users. One of the most note-worthy highlights of the 2014’s F8 conference was the launch of their mobile ad network – Facebook Audience Network, that allows advertisers to target on third party websites making use of demographic, interest-based and retargeting options provided by the social platform.
Facebook Advertising Features
Below are some of the most powerful features in more detail to help you see at a glance and make the most of our Facebook Advertising Tips.
Engaging ad formats
As you begin setting up your campaign, you’ll have the opportunity to choose from a variety of engaging ad formats – text, image and video. Make use of attractive artwork, catchy copy and well-chosen calls to action to stand out from your competitors and convey your message across to your audience. Depending on your campaign’s goal, your ads will appear in the mobile and desktop News Feed or the Right Column. If you are promoting premium ads, these will also be displayed on the home and logout pages.
Targeting options
With every ad you set up, Facebook can help you reach out to over 800 million people worldwide. As you narrow down to identifying your specific audience with their particular characteristics, you have access to a variety of targeting options:
- age, gender, location
- likes and interests
- behaviour
- relationship status
- education and workplace
- connection status to your page
Power editor
Power Editor is an advanced tool that can facilitate your efforts when creating, managing and optimising a large number of ads and campaigns at the same time. Not only does it encompass all of Facebook’s individual ad settings but it’s a great instrument for bulk edits – saving you time and effort. Bidding, placements and targeting changes or bulk ad creation can all be addressed with Power Editor.
Custom audience
Custom audiences give advertisers the option to promote their ads to people with whom they have had previous interactions on Facebook or off the platform. By indicating their email addresses, phone number, Facebook UIDs or other unique identifiers, businesses can add people to their audience set.
Remarketing
Facebook Exchange is a valuable retargeting tool businesses can employ to reach Facebook users based on actions they have taken online such as browsing for a particular product on a website. This will obviously increase the quality of your reach and the relevance of your ads through a narrowed targeting according to past behaviour. For example, if you are promoting a summer apparel, your ad will be more efficient if displayed to someone who has been looking for swimming suits and beach hats in the past days.
Online store integration
If your business has an online shop or is planning on developing one, then there’s even more good news for you. Facebook has taken a step further from the ‘storefronts’ where e-tailers could only display and promote their products, and is also supporting e-commerce transactions. You have the option to set up a socially integrated outlet directly onto your business page. This translates into an undivided, improved experience for your visitors who can view products, add them to the cart, proceed to checkout and complete the entire purchasing process without ever having to exit the Facebook environment.
So where do you start?
Having set up your Facebook business page, the next step in promoting your business/ brand is rolling out advertising campaigns. It’s beneficial to have multiple campaigns, each focusing on specific audience segments and making use of the advanced targeting options offered by the network. Next, personalise your ad creative – text, titles, images – so they are designed to appeal to each segment, depending on their preferences and characteristics. Measure and adjust your campaign setting as you go along to boost the results and don’t be afraid to try out different strategies to increase ad attractiveness.
Until you become proficient in Facebook advertising, you might find trial and error learning rather helpful. Another option would be to contract an agency to run the campaign on your behalf. As long as you make sure you have chosen the right digital agency to promote your business or brand, you can trust your social advertising efforts on their expert hands. They should be able to advise and recommend the best solutions for reaching your objectives, bring proficient knowledge to the equation and save you the time required to master Facebook advertising.
Main takeaways about Facebook advertising:
- Great platform to help you reach your advertising objectives
- Unmatched targeting capabilities
- Advanced advertising features
- Ad format variety
- Vast mobile and desktop reach
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