Social media and the hyper-connected world it has facilitated have made advertising opportunities more abundant and powerful than ever before. People are paying more attention to their social feeds than ever before, and the result is that advertisements are more prevalent than ever. Arguably the most powerful of these social platforms for the sake of advertising is Facebook. With over 2.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook has capitalized on the attention, as well as the plethora of information they have on their users, to build a world-class advertising platform that is, arguably, the most powerful to ever exist.
Are you looking to grow your business or project by harnessing the power of Facebook advertising, but don’t know where to start? Here are the basics to get you started in the right direction and have you running effective ads in no time.
Identify Your Goals
Facebook advertising allows you to accomplish a wide variety of business goals. Are you looking to build awareness of your product or brand? Perhaps you are looking to drive traffic of interested leads to your website with the hopes that some of them will buy what you are selling? Regardless of your primary purpose for running the ads, Facebook likely has an efficient way to accomplish it. Reflect on what exactly you are hoping to achieve first, and you will most effectively spend your ad dollars from the start.
Identify Your Ideal Customer
One of the most incredible features of the Facebook ad platform is the unparalleled ability to target the audience you want to see your ad. Consider the not too distant past when you would see ads for an elderly male medication, even if you were a young female. This is no longer the case, as you can target your ads to only show to very specific, niche groups of people. Who is most likely to be interested in what you are advertising? Get granular and be amazed at the strength of your results.
Create Attractive Offer
One of the not-so-secret facts about advertising is that you have to bait your audience in to some degree. Catching the attention of someone seeing your ad often comes at the result of some discount or special offer, a cost that can easily be made up if you structure the deal correctly. The wormless hook catches no fish, and so too, your ad will fall on deaf ears if you haven’t sweetened the deal in one way or another.
Budget And Test
The icing on the Facebook ad cake is that you can split test an almost unlimited number of times. First, consider your budget and decide how much you are willing to spend testing for the ideal ad campaigns. Then, split that money up into running many variations of the same ad, except for one main difference. Keep the ad that performs better for you and continue testing different aspects of that ad. Eventually, the testing will boil down your effort into a campaign of tested and proven ad creative that will give you the best returns on your investment.
Facebook advertising is leading the charge into a new age for advertisements. The social platform, and others like it, have revolutionized how effective ads can be by allowing you to target your ideal audience for pennies on the dollar compared to more traditional mediums. Hop on and start a few campaigns, you will be amazed at the depths of this marketing gold mine.
