One of the most important (and most painful) findings of companies active in the social media is the constant decline in organic reach. The ongoing changes Facebook is making to its algorithm are causing companies’ news to get lost in their potential customers’ feeds. This much is certain: 2017 will be the year of Paid Media, a good reason to deal with paid social media advertising.
As a social media manager, you should know how to effectively integrate Facebook ads into your marketing strategy. Advertising on Facebook gives you the opportunity to increase your company’s social media reach without overburdening your budget.
What is Facebook advertising?
Companies can advertise on Facebook with specially designed ads or content for a specific target audience. The cost depends on the reach and interactions associated with each ad. Facebook ads can appear in the news feed or the right Facebook column of your target audience.
When you advertise on Facebook, you gain important insights about existing and potential customers. With the data you get from Facebook ads, you can optimize your targeted advertising to create a more efficient and effective advertising experience.
3 Best Practices for Facebook Advertising
Before you get started, remember the following three best practices for Facebook advertising:
Always set your goals before starting a campaign
You should define the purpose of your Facebook ads before creating your advertising budget. Keep track of whether you want the ad to increase brand awareness, conversions, or video views. Every action your target audience takes based on your ad costs you money, so you should set your goals before making that investment.
Ensure maximum targeting accuracy
There are millions, if not billions, of data points on Facebook. So take the time to narrow down your audience as accurately as possible to make sure your ad is where the people you want it to see are.
Change your ads regularly
To avoid advertising fatigue, you should change your Facebook ads regularly. “Advertising fatigue” occurs when people see your ad too often, get bored and stop clicking on it. Unfortunately, Facebook punishes you if your click rate decreases by increasing the cost per click (CPC). This makes “Like” information, comments and website clicks more expensive. This applies to both customer acquisition and interaction campaigns.
How to advertise on Facebook ?
The following seven steps will show you how to set your advertising goals, reach a specific audience, set your budget and place your ad.
Step 1: Set up a Facebook company page.
When creating a Facebook page, it is very important to specify the category of that page. Choose the appropriate category that best describes your business and makes it easier for users to find your page. The category name appears on your page, so it’s one of the first things visitors to your brand see on Facebook.
Step 2: Set goals for your Facebook ads.
When you create a strategy for your Facebook ads, try to work with a SMART goal: Specific. Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Based. With SMART targets for your Facebook ads, you can achieve a better return on investment.
Step 3: Define an objective for your campaign.
Once you have created your own Facebook company page and set goals for your Facebook ads, switch to the Facebook Ad Manager and select a goal for your ad.
Facebook Advertising Goal
If your goal is to lure as many people as possible into your shop for an upcoming action, then you should choose “visits to the shop” as your advertising goal. If you want to attract more people to your blog, then choose the “Visits” target.
Step 4: Determine your target group and your advertising budget.
Customize your audience.
This step is critical if you want your Facebook ad to succeed. You can narrow your audience by location, age, gender, language, interests, and behavior. Further customization is possible by creating custom audiences to reach people who already know your business, or to exclude them from the target audience for the ad in question, to target only new Facebook users. These customized target groups can be created with the help of customer lists, website traffic or app activities.
Facebook Advertisements
Once you have selected your target audience, you are faced with deciding how much money you want to spend on your ad. The ad budget you set is the maximum amount you are willing to invest. If you choose a daily budget, the sum you enter is the maximum for each day. If you choose a runtime budget, the sum you enter is the maximum amount you want to spend during the entire lifetime of an ad.
Facebook Advertisements Budget
Select the desired result
First you decide on a desired result: clicks or impressions. By this decision you determine how you will pay and who will see your ad. For example, if you opt for the “like your site” optimization, you will only pay if your ad is shown to users who tend to mark your site with “like”.
Such a timetable for your ad ensures that you spend your advertising budget as sensibly as possible – because the ad can only be seen when your target group is most likely to be on Facebook. For example, if you want to reach residents in a particular region, your ad should appear when those people are awake. This way you can ensure that your ad is seen by the users you’ve chosen as your target audience.
Step 5: Specify how you want your ad to look.
Now’s the fun part: Creating an ad on Facebook is fun. Choose images, title bar, scrolling text and the placement of the ad. You can include up to five images in your ad, but the title line must not be longer than 25 characters.
Facebook Advertising
Keep it in mind: Since the title line is short, you need an exciting running text that gives readers a real incentive to click on it. In addition to the title line, there is also an accompanying text to the post, which should not exceed 90 characters in length. This means that your text should be as clear and concise as possible – like a really good tweet.
Finally, you decide where to place your Facebook ad. The choices: Desktop News Feed, Mobile News Feed, right column and Audience Network.
