If you’ve ever found yourself aimlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed, if nothing interesting is happening (no drama between that couple you went to high school with?) you’ve probably taken a look at the ads and banners along the side.
Facebook is currently the number two advertising platform in the world—part of that is due to the fact Facebook as more traffic than any other social media site currently on the market. In fact, more people are on Facebook than the combined number of people who watch network television.
So, if you’re looking for a way to increase your businesses reach, Facebook can be a great tool that can help you expand your advertising horizons, and broaden your reach.
Why Facebook
As previously stated, Facebook has a larger audience than any other social media platform, followed by YouTube and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook).
Facebook also allows you to target your ads to the type of consumers you want to reach in a way that no other social media outlet can.
For example, you can target your ad to people based on their interests, location, age, and many other factors. By comparison, when using Google, you can only target consumers through keywords that come up in searches.
How Many Eyes on Your Product?
Another benefit to Facebook is the analytics tool it offers users who purchase advertisements. While many different advertisement platforms offer some sort of analytics, Facebook allows you to see how many people saw the ad, and how many people interacted with it (clicked on the link).
This combined with the ability to target users who might have expressed interest in your product on their Facebook account allows you much more control when it comes to expanding your consumer base.
Risks?
However, while Facebook does provide a wealth of potential consumers to reach, and a great way to see how well your ads are performing, it doesn’t provide any sort of advice on how best to reach your desired consumers.
Essentially, you are forced to just come up with your own ad and hope it works—there’s no advice when it comes to what makes a successful ad or marketing campaign. This means you’ll either need to be familiar with effective marketing strategies yourself, or pay more money for outside marketing advice, or risk paying for a campaign that doesn’t result in consumer engagement.
Setup
When it comes to actually setting up your ad campaign, Facebook’s process is pretty streamlined. You simply follow a series of steps.
You start with selecting your campaign objective—are you trying to get people to visit a location or a website? Depending on what your goal is will determine which objective you should go with.
Next is setting up a name. It seems like an inconsequential step, but it’s important—especially if you’re planning on launching several Facebook campaigns; you’ll want to keep track of how they do, which can be tricky if you don’t differentiate their names.
Lastly, is choosing your target audience. This is where you can cherry-pick what kind of consumers will be exposed to your ads.
