As of February 2011, Facebook hosted 630 million total users. More than 150 million are in the United States, with nearly 700,000 in NH. Half of the active users on Facebook log in every day, many multiple times. The average user has 130 friends, is connected to 80 community pages, groups, and events, and creates 90 pieces of content every month. This game-changing network of friends, ideas, brands, and banter is the most-trafficked Web site on earth and radically affects the results Google and other search engines deliver.
Advertising on Facebook, when done right, can significantly boost the visibility, community, connection, and profitability of your brand, business or organization.
Design Basics
All Facebook ads have a click-through destination of your choosing. The destination is either on Facebook (your page, an event, group, app, or place), or outside of Facebook (a landing page on your own Web site). Where you send them depends on your marketing goals. However, there are three perks to advertising a Facebook-based destination:
If you're using a Facebook ad to increase the number of Likers of a page, the ad itself automatically gives viewers the option to like your page directly from the ad and displays how many likes you have.
Let's say I'm friends with Jane Doe on Facebook, and Jane likes The Common Man's Page. If the Common Man runs a Facebook ad for its page, the ad tells me Jane likes that page. This creates social proof to induce people to become fans as they are more likely to Like a page someone they know also likes.
If you're advertising an event on Facebook, viewers of the ad can RSVP to the event directly from the ad and can see names of their Facebook friends who will be attending.
The social proof component cannot be overstated. Seeing friends endorse businesses, products, services, and events not only nudges our psyche about the ad, but also provides a quick, visceral impression about the friend who Likes it. Thus, we learn to align ourselves with the recommendations of some friends over others. Ideally, these connections become your ads' best evangelists.
Smart Targeting
On the Facebook platform, the level of targeting you can achieve is remarkable. You can limit your advertising to appear only on people's birthdays. You can specifically reach 25-year-old males within 10 miles of Berlin.
You can focus on self-reported interests. To a limited degree, you can even advertise based on their friendships, event attendance, or Page Likes. As you select different targeting options, a box on the right side of the page updates you on how many people your ad will reach. Keep in mind the numbers are an estimate-Facebook watchers generally agree stats run about one month behind.
Experiment to Succeed
With millions of users and many avenues to interact with them, the best way to decide how to turn them into customers is to split test, a version of testing the odds by combining different images, titles, copy and targeting aims to see what works best. Due to Facebook's versatility and pricing, this costs as little as a $1 a day per ad.
There are three design areas you can play with: the title, the image and the body copy. (One notable exception: If you choose the Advertise something I have on Facebook option, you must use the name of your page, event, app or place as the ad title.)
Once you've gone through the whole process to create an ad, you can use the Create a Similar Ad feature to try one with a different image. Or keep the same image, but test a different call to action in your body copy.
Split testing extends to user targeting, too. With all the personal information users share (their relationship status, education level, job, hobbies and interests), Facebook is by far the world's most robust marketing database. Take advantage of this. Show the same ad to people with different interests, in different demographic groups, of different genders. Switch out copy and images. You'll get near instant feedback that leads to optimization, knowledge, and ultimately, mastery.
Setting a Budget
Facebook advertisers have many options when it comes to designing ad campaigns. You can choose how long an ad runs, how you pay for your ad (either per click or per 1,000 impressions, meaning views) and whether ad costs are determined for an individual ad or a group of ads as a campaign.
During the ad setup, Facebook allows you to group individual ads into campaigns, so when it's time to review ad performance, you can see and compare multiple related ads at a glance. Spending limits can also be set for individual ads, or for a campaign. Once the ads are grouped, you can pay either cost-per-click (CPC) or cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM). Each has its benefits. CPC focuses on driving action, and you only pay for the clicks you incur. Meanwhile, CPM is best for raising visibility and awareness, and you pay the same no matter how many clicks you get.
The next step is determining campaign length. Ads can run continuously, or have specific start and end dates and times. A good rule of thumb is to change things up every two weeks. By that point, regardless of how you are faring, the average ad has become stale and performance diminishes significantly.
Finally, you must determine the ad price through a bidding system. Facebook suggests a bid price range based on the targeting selections you've chosen. You can accept their suggestion, or choose your own bid. Either way, this won't be the actual price you pay.
If your ad performs better in Facebook's system compared to other similarly targeted ads, you'll pay less per click or impression than those other advertisers-possibly even lower than your original bid. Facebook makes its money on volume, so it would rather show better performing ads more often.
If your ad performs worse than others, Facebook will ask you to bid higher in order to keep showing the ad. But at that point, your money is better spent crafting a new ad.
Tracking Your Success
On the Facebook Ad Manager's home screen, you see high-level campaign information, including status (active, complete, paused, deleted), scheduling, budget and spending. But the real value comes in seeing who viewed your ad and what they did with it.
Each campaign has a clickable link. Look at performance data for all the ads within a campaign, including impressions, clicks and click-through rates. Facebook's Online Sales Manager Sarah Smith says if your ad click-through rate (CTR) falls to 0.05 percent or below, it's time to review or replace the ad.
Facebook also offers two unique metrics to consider. First, social data. When the names of your Facebook friends appear in ads for pages and events, the social percentage reveals how often your ad was shown with a friend's name attached. Second, when ad viewers Like a page or RSVP to an event via the ad, Facebook calls these actions and tallies them.
Facebook compiles demographic and user-interest data on ad viewers that can be exported into Excel. Also useful for targeting are Responder Profile Reports, which show your ad performance compared to the interests Facebook users listed in their profiles. Facebook even offers conversion tracking, to see activity on your own Web site as a result of Facebook ad clicks or impressions.
It all comes down to this: experiment, test, tweak, and have fun finding the right voice, tone, and style that works best for you and your advertising goals. Even with as little as a few dollars a day, it's extremely cost-effective for you to find and advertise to the right audience on Facebook-a place where they're spending more time than ever before. To learn more about Facebook advertising, visit www.facebook.com/adsmarketing/.
Lani and Allen Voivod co-own Epiphanies Inc., a social marketing and success strategies firm based in Laconia. Visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AhaYourself.
Current Issue - May 2024