Since 2004, Facebook has exploded from the brainchild of a college startup to a media titan with an active user base of over 1.44 billion. Even more impressive: GroSocial reported that the average Facebook user spends a total of 8.3 hours a month on the social network!
Chances are, this is where any small business can find its target customers.
Businesses of all shapes and sizes have jumped onto the Facebook bandwagon since it created brand pages in 2007. Overnight, there were marketing success stories, with claims of huge returns on what was, at the time, a free advertising platform. Just as quickly, brands rushed to fit Facebook into their marketing mix—some successfully, but most not so.
To combat the irrelevant marketing noise that occurred as a result, Facebook lowered the organic reach of all posts made by Business Pages earlier this year to 2.6%.
What this means for your business is that unless your post is receiving a high volume of engagement (likes, shares, and comments), only a fraction of your followers will see your content on their timelines. In fact, if your small business brand has 100 Facebook followers, chances are that less than three of them will actually see your brand’s content.
Therefore, if a business is serious about increasing its current brand visibility on Facebook, it will need to invest and advertise on the platform.
Let’s explore five ways to ensure that your Facebook ads are effective:
Facebook has a number of different advertising solutions to help you effectively engage with your audience. But, which of these solutions will best suit your brand? It depends on your goals. Here are the different ad types and their main objectives:
Most Facebook ads are driven by a featured visual element. Brands want to ensure that their ad creative is high quality and will appear beautifully on all devices (mobile phones, desktops and tablets). An important thing to keep in mind when designing a Facebook ad is that the social network only allows 20% of the image to be text. Logos are not an exception to this rule. This is why a visually interesting graphic, bright product photo or engaging video is often a great choice to accompany ad copy on Facebook.
Imagine your most valuable or memorable customers. There is so much more to them than their age, location and the language they speak. Use Facebook’s Targeting options when creating ads to identify these valuable users and deliver ads to them. Facebook’s Category and Interest targeting offer the best results. Consider what types of Pages and brands your customers may already like. What are their hobbies? The larger your audience, the better, as long as that audience is properly targeted.
So your high-quality ad creative has caught someone’s eye. Now what? Don’t assume he or she will jump onto your page and click that “Like” button. Ensure engagement by including a call-to-action in the first 90 characters of ad copy. Depending on the goal of the ad, methods may vary, but ultimately, a call-to-action should always drive a visitor to a desired action. Keep it simple when crafting calls-to-action and be clear about what you want users to do.
Don’t let your target audience be served the same ad twice. This can increase your Cost-Per-Click, due to a lack of interest. It is best practice to upload multiple pieces of creative and various versions of ad copy. Be creative with your choice of visuals and try different tones in your copywriting to test what works best with the target audience. Refresh these ads every one to two weeks for long-term campaigns to keep things fresh.
Standing out amongst the crowd on social media is hard. It’s a pay-to-play game nowadays, and without the proper implementation, your social ads could quickly fall flat. With these five tips, your Facebook ads are guaranteed to create a buzz that will send ROI through the roof.
