Facebook has been around for over a decade and is now, well, Facebook—it’s a significant part of our daily lives. If you are looking to grow your business presence, this platform will play an important role. By being one of the cheapest ways to advertise on social media and stay in front of your clients or customers, Facebook’s significance lies within its solutions offered to advertise effectively.
There are multiple platforms to advertise effectively on Facebook suited for B2B or B2C types. In this blog, we will be discussing the benefits of advertising on this popular social media platform through some free tips and insights!
Why Facebook?
Targeting
Targeting is important for growing your audience and being able to reach your customers with your ads. Facebook collects A LOT of proprietary data on its users. The data is information that you will not be able to find or use anywhere else, and it makes targeting the right audience very effective. It’s not fool proof, but it’s about as good as it gets. You can now run ads on Instagram, Facebook, and their Audience Network when advertising through FB Business, but the platform itself is the most effective to advertise on. Depending on your customer base, Instagram might be another platform to advertise on simultaneously. Additionally, the Audience Network is a platform used to bring the power of targeting to run ads across mobile apps. Targeting effectively is a key business solution offered.
A simple way to think about this is:
- Facebook allows you reach people who don’t necessarily know you exist based on their lifestyle. Think impulse-buys in the checkout stand. (Almond Joys get me every time).
- LinkedIn allows you to target people based on their professional lives and credentials who may not know your service exists. Think booth at a trade show.
- Google (and other search engines) allow you to target people that are actively looking for your business or service. Think yellow pages.
Validation
Since Facebook is so ingrained in our daily lives, it proves as a validation from consumers on how well your business is doing in the present moment. For example, if your company can’t be found on Facebook, or has a business page that’s excessively outdated, it drives customers away. Most importantly, it’s very common for a potential customer to ‘scope you out’ on the social media platform before contacting you. That means that even if you didn’t reach them on Facebook initially, they’re still visiting your page there to validate your business. This alone can make the case for having any sort of social media strategy.
Types of Advertising
Facebook has enabled businesses to tailor ads and find solutions for the exact ad you want to pay for. Types of advertising on Facebook include:
- Image Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Collection Ads
These types of ads and the audience that they attract are best suited for B2C businesses. Finding out if your company is the right fit for this platform is the first step in distinguishing what type of advertising you would like to pay for. The type of content you want to advertise with also depends on what type of ad you would like to pay for — do you have more pictures, videos, or want to do a mixture of both? In our experience, single image ads and video ads perform the best.
Ways to Reach Your Audience on Facebook
There are a lot of different ways to interact as a business on Facebook. Here are some basic ones:
- Gain followers: Get likes and followers. This is great because your followers will see your content without you having to run an ad (free advertising).
- Generate Leads through content (pictures and/or videos).
- Increase online sales through content that drives web traffic or through the Facebook ‘shop’.
- Promote your (local) business through ads, boosted content, and more.
Interacting as a business is vital when it comes to advertising so your audience and the people your ads attract can get to know your business better, especially when it comes to Facebook. Gaining likes and followers is the best form of free advertising and helps gain brand recognition online. On Facebook, generating leads, increasing online sales, and promoting your business is the name of the game.
It’s also important to consider the age group of people using the platform. Although there are billions of users daily, Facebook still attracts more an older ‘older’ audience (no offense here — Roger was also taken aback by this). This is something to consider when strategizing how to reach your audience, and how much it’ll cost to get there.
Cost of Advertising on FB
The cost to advertise depends on many variables similar to other social media platforms, which includes: choosing your objectives, selecting your audience, deciding where to run the ad, setting your budget, picking a format, placing your order, and finally, measuring/managing your ad. The cost of advertising on Facebook is cheaper than other social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, but only valuable if you have a goal and strategic plan in the beginning to help fulfill the objectives of the ad campaign.
The biggest benefit to advertising on this platform, besides effective targeting, is being able to run ads and boost your posts at a cheaper cost than LinkedIn and Google. Facebook is ultimately the cheapest way to reach your customer base by attracting new customers and using the solutions offered really helps your business advertise effectively! With that in mind, developing a strategic advertising plan is important when paying for ads, especially on a platform that has so many options and solutions.
Summary
Facebook is a prominent social media platform used by billions of users daily. This platform also collects a lot of proprietary data, so targeting effectively is a key benefit to advertising on Facebook Business. Four types of advertising includes: Image Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads, and Collection Ads. Solutions Facebook has to offer can be categorized by goal or business type, including: Building brand awareness, generating leads, increase online sales, promotion, and more. Interacting as a business on Facebook and posting your own content is a free form of advertising and is the best way to gain likes and followers for your online presence.
If you’re interested in advertising your business on Facebook but don’t know where to start, get in touch with us and schedule a free consultation! We are here to help give that boost your business needs and bring your business to life!
Read about how to advertise on other social media platforms: Instagram and LinkedIn!
