Jason Harris
The biggest hits on the internet these days are online searches and Facebook.
One major task of all business owners is to funnel traffic to your website. You can do this with campaigns on search engines and hope for the best, or you could target your content on social media to complement existing advertising campaigns.
Facebook and search engines are important tools as they hold all target markets and online ads present an amazing opportunity on a social media platform. Hence, the overall importance of details SEO and social media marketing.
Through Facebook, there are various ways of making sure your content reaches your target audience. Naysayers may argue that Facebook advertising is not successful but the numbers prove them wrong. Over 1 million businesses use Facebook to advertise.
A simple fact is that most businesses invest in one advertisement at a time and when results are not coming, they write it off as a failure. This only proves that they are not effectively using Facebook to advertise and reach their target market. Facebook advertising needs quantity and time. It is simple stats, the more you do it, the more you will learn and the more successful your next campaign.
Here are a few tips to get an amazing Facebook advertising campaign off the ground.
1. Establish interest
First off, Facebook users are inundated with posts vying for the attention and the average attention span on Facebook is very limited. You are competing with newsfeeds from friends and family, as well as competitors. The need to stand out is imperative.
The most successful advertisements on Facebook are visual driven. Users are drawn to pictures. An attention-grabbing formula is 50% image with a description above the image and a sidebar headline.
Some experts will say that the type of image you use will be more effective but that is not true. Your image just needs to be relevant to the content and non-offensive. Just make sure your image stands out from the rest but doing the opposite. Contrast gains attention.
Next, ensure you have an interesting description. After the image, that is where the eye of the reader will fall next. This is also where you place the important part of your content. The description must match the image. A good description will intrigue the reader enough to click through to your landing page or content. Facebook even has a tool to help you create a great description, its called Power Editor.
2. Make sure you invest in quality images
The importance of an image has already been explained and cannot be overstated. If you are going to invest in a Facebook ad campaign, do it properly and invest in original and quality images. The conversion rate alone for a unique image will be the return on investment enough.
There is no “best image” but one that speaks to your target audience, that is different from your competitors, and reflects your content is the best one for that campaign. An image will constantly change depending on your campaign needs.
A simple formula for getting the image right is as follows:
• Get the right size – you do not want to look unprofessional with a stretched image or one that is cut-off. Facebook does offer guidelines regarding the size and placement of an image.
• Use colour – colour images will always win over black and white. It is one way of making sure you grab attention. Using colours and contrast will grab a readers eye while scrolling through newsfeeds.
• Make an offer in the picture – there is no rule that says you can entice the reader with an image. Just keep in mind that the text cannot exceed 20% of the image space. Just keep your offer short and simple.
• Allow sharing–previously, every Like counted but these days you want readers to share your content. That counts way more than ‘Likes’. If you have a great offer, you want that share many times over to increase exposure.
• Be unique – include something unexpected or funny to grab more attention. This will also lead to more shares and comments. Memes have proven very successful recently. Include elements that will make the reader spend more time reading your ad or content.
3. How to target better
Proper targeting determines the success or failure of your ad campaign. Facebook offers some great tools to help you make targetting people easier.
Define your custom audience
You tell Facebook who your target audience is and they do the rest. Facebook has amazing algorithms in place that allow them to pinpoint your target audience exactly.
Define your audience using subscribers
You can upload the email address of your subscribers and Facebook will match email addresses to their users.
Search for people that are your ideal customer
You need to create a custom audience first and Facebook will match the demographics of their entire user base to find people that match your criteria. It is an amazing feature.
Use common interest as a target
Creating a custom audience is great for specifically targeting audiences. However, to widen the scope you can include common interest. These common interest can range from location to activities or even similar newsfeeds.
4. Determine your budget
Facebook advertising is cheap but at the same time, you do not want over-extend yourself on advertising spend and you want a good return on investment. Be sure to start by choosing the correct bidding option. Your budget will determine the option: • Optimized CPM • Cost per click • Cost per mile The rule of thumb is to choose Cost per Click, especially when you are new to Facebook advertising. Also, do not spend hundreds or thousands a day, waiting for the campaign to prove successful before you increase your investment.
On the flipside, when a campaign is not performing well – do not continue with it. Scrap it and go back to the drawing board.
Facebook has one of the biggest user bases on the internet. Not tapping into that resource could be detrimental to your business success. Through a Facebook ad campaign, you can be guaranteed of reaching your target audience in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible. However, if not done correctly, you can lose a lot of time, money and effort. Following these tips will ensure you have an amazing advertising campaign on Facebook.
Jason Harris
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