This is post one of ten in a series focused on getting you familiar with using social media for your business.
Why You Should Use Facebook Ads
If you're looking for a quick and highly effective way to reach your target audience, Facebook advertising is an excellent option.
Here are five of the biggest reasons for this and why you should consider it for your business.
It's PPC
PPC means ‘Pay Per Click'. And it means that you pay when someone clicks on the link. Google AdWords is PayPerClick and many business websites that offer advertising have a PPC program.
The appeal of PPC is that you don't pay anything if your ad isn't effective. You are only paying when someone actually clicks on your link. This means you are getting free exposure for your brand while not paying for the exposure itself. You don't pay a dime if your ad doesn't encourage anyone to actually visit your site.
Here you can see that when I paid to have a post boosted (PPC) I got great exposure for little cost: 1.9K people saw the information and I spent $5. The purpose of the ad/post was to get exposure and test wording as well as selection of target market. I was able to use the resulting metrics to refine my advertising and use it for lead generation.
It Fits Any Budget
Due to the nature of Facebook ads, this means you can always afford them no matter your budget. You set the amount you're willing to pay out each time someone clicks on an ad. There is a drawback to having a low budget, whether it's per day or total and that is your ad won't be shown as often. So this limits your overall exposure and the number of leads you can expect to get from it (lower number of impressions = lower number of people actually interested in what you're offering). Don't let this stop you from using it! Just know that with a larger budget you have more exposure. Even if you only spend a few dollars a week I encourage you to try it out. And, actually, if you've never done PPC before – the best place to learn is on Facebook.
It's Highly Targeted
One advantage that Facebook has over Google is that it lets you target specific demographics. You can choose to show your ad to people who are single, married, above a certain age, female, etc. This level of targeting allows you to avoid wasting money on people who aren't in your target audience. And, while Google AdWords is targeted in a different way (it's focus on people searching for particular subjects) it doesn't provide quite the same control. Facebook also lets you target people by their precise location. Very helpful if you have a region/city specific offering.
Recently, I ran a few campaigns for local live event for business owners of very small businesses (up to 10 employees). I began with testing to see which image would receive the most engagement, then determined which target market was actually seeing it and clicking on it. Then, someone else on the team ran their own image and it worked better. Now we had something to work with and could create an ad that spoke to our target audience. If we had done this with Google AdWords we would have spent about $250…just for testing. But with Facebook, we spent less than $50.
It's Social
Another great advantage of Facebook ads over Google AdWords is that it incorporates the power of Facebook's social aspect. People can like your adverts and share them, or you can use them to direct people directly to your Facebook page to get more Likes there. If social media marketing is a part of your strategy then this is a great place to begin.
It's Easy
Getting started on Facebook is incredibly fast and simple. You can have an ad campaign up and running in less than 15 minutes.
Caution
Generating revenue directly from Facebook can be done, but it truly depends on your offering and your target market.
I recommend that any business, micro or very large, look at Facebook Advertising as a lead generation tool. Get the lead to your offer, then sell them from there.
Also, Facebook works really well if you want to increase the number of fans on your business page (sending them directly to the page to Like) and if you do send them to your website, offer quality content. Use your ads to capture leads with a quality download. Your leads will like you and so will Facebook.
