Kim Jordan Have you ever posted something on your company’s Facebook page to later realize that it barely got any engagement?
Facebook has lowered organic reach of all posts published by business pages. Now, their algorithm shows your post to about 2% of your followers.
If you don’t know already, Facebook has lowered organic reach of all posts published by business pages. Now, their algorithm shows your post to about 2% of your followers. Yes, you read that right—only 2%! That means, if you have 2,000 followers, only about 40 of those people have the potential to see your post.
Over the years, social media has become a pay-to-play world. Not all is lost, though! If you have a portion of your marketing budget that you’re not sure what to do with, consider allocating it toward growing your Facebook and Instagram channels. You want to be where your customers are—and they’re on social media!
You may be thinking social media advertising is “too vague” or “my customers aren’t on Facebook.” Simply put—you’re wrong!
A big advantage to advertising on Facebook and Instagram (as opposed to some of the other social media networks out there) is that you have the ability to target very specific groups of people.
When creating your company’s first campaign, however, Facebook’s Business Ad Manager can seem very daunting. Building the right target audience can provide the most bang-for-your-buck, but where do you even begin when it comes to the multitude of targeting options that are offered?
Let’s break down the basics of constructing a Facebook ad for your HVAC brand:
When first entering Facebook’s ad creation tool, you’ll be faced with some basic demographic options to begin building a new target audience. One of the major fundamentals of Facebook targeting begins with one option: location.
Location targeting allows you to reach customers sorted by country, state, city or zip code. It also enables you to exclude locations and include a mile-radius around specific cities.
Additionally, Facebook offers the option to sort users by age, gender and language. You can even target by job title, education level and household income. This feature can be powerful for businesses that are attempting to reach potential customers in a specific demographic, such as those who recently purchased a home or for businesses looking to hire new HVAC technicians in the area.
The interests section of Facebook’s targeting options is by far the most powerful tool in its array of selections.
Interest targeting lets you define the ideal audience by their interests and pages that they already follow on Facebook. Facebook gathers interests through the information a user posts on their own page, the targeting of ads they’ve previously clicked on or interacted with and the keywords used to define pages they like.
As you begin typing potential keywords in the interests section of Facebook’s ad creation tool, you’ll be prompted with suggested interests related to the keywords you’ve already selected. As new keywords are selected, the potential number of people that your audience can reach increases or decreases. In general, Facebook recommends defining an audience of 5,000 people or more. So, don’t be afraid to get creative! Think about some characteristics of your current customers and build off of that.
Now that we covered the basics of targeting, you’re probably wondering what type of budget should be allocated toward these ads. This part is entirely up to you!
If the ad’s target audience is strong, you’ll see results regardless of your budget. Our suggestion would be to test out a budget you are comfortable with at first, then increase it as you get more comfortable with proper targeting techniques. The more you invest (while targeting correctly) the greater results you’ll see.
When determining Facebook advertising spend, you can designate a “lifetime” or “daily budget.” Just keep in mind that you have to spend a minimum of $1-$5 per a day—depending, of course, on the goal for your ad. If you are more concerned about impressions, Facebook will allow you to spend as little as $1 per day—but if you are more focused on clicks, Facebook will force the minimum budget to be at least $5 per day.
To help determine the spend of the ad, decide how long the ad should run first. Then take the total budget you are comfortable spending and divide it by the number of days you want the ad to run. This will establish your daily budget. Next, determine how Facebook should optimize that ad: for post engagement (comments and likes) or for link clicks. If it is more important that your potential customers follow the link in the ad to a website, choose to optimize for clicks. If the goal is to raise brand awareness and increase engagement on your page, choose to optimize for post engagement.
Now for the fun part! Don’t forget to upload an image that fits within the confines of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels (minimum 600 x 600 pixels) and begin crafting clever copy for the ad.
While creating an advertisement, keep in mind where this ad will land for your potential clients. You can choose where you want visitors to see your ad, such as on your business’s page, on their messenger app, on the side bar of their Facebook page when they’re on their desktop or just on their mobile device. All of these placements should be previewed before the ad gets published to ensure that your ad looks cohesive and legible across the board. Pro Tip: Keep your ad’s headline under 25 characters so that it won’t get cut off on certain layouts.
Raise your hand if you remember that pesky 20 percent text rule Facebook put into place. Well, we have both good and not so good news.
The good: Facebook has gotten rid of this “rule.” You can now have over 20 percent text in your ad images. However, there’s a catch, of course. The not so good: Facebook still recommends that you keep your ad text to a minimum. So, while they will allow you to publish an ad image that has text in it, ads with less than 20 percent text tend to perform better. Here’s how you can keep text in your ad image to a minimum:
Proper Facebook targeting can help your HVAC company in so many ways. You’ll be able to find the right customers for your business and deliver relevant messages to people who are interested in what you have to offer. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different targeted audiences, multiple ad images and creative ad copy.
When you need help KickCharging your social media channels (and online presence), turn to our digital marketing experts. You can request a quote right online or give us a call at 908.835.9000.
