An introduction to Facebook Adverts
Chris Hogan, 17th April 2018, Business
Think Facebook advertising is only for the big boys? Think again - if anything the precise targeting makes it even better for small business and self-employed people.
You don't need much to start advertising on Facebook, just a Facebook business page, although a website would help. It depends on what you're trying to achieve, and there are a number of options:
- Raising awareness of your brand, what you do and where you do it.
- Selling more of your product or service.
- Driving traffic to your website.
- Increasing likes and followers to your Facebook page.
Think about your goals before you go any further or the project will not deliver good results.
Why Facebook ads?
Up until a few years ago it was possible to build a good audience and sell products through Facebook just by being active, posting good content and interacting with people. This is known as building an audience organically.
But increasingly Facebook has changed the way it works and won't show people your content as readily as it used to. Of course this is to persuade you to take out ads instead. That's pretty annoying, but then we all have to make money somehow.
Facebook as a search engine
Although Facebook search is a bit rubbish compared to Google, Facebook is beginning to become an electronic version of word of mouth. So people are increasingly asking for recommendations for products or services, either in group pages or from individuals.
For example, if someone needs a plumber in a hurry they might ask on one of the 'Items for Sale' groups in their area. Even though they aren't looking to buy or sell anything, most admins will allow that sort of post. Or they might ask in a group that focuses on a particular location.
Your Facebook ads could help to establish you as the person people think of when someone needs, for example, a plumber in your area.
Precise targeting
The big bonus is that you can really drill down into the type of people your ads will be shown to, in far more detail than with Google Adwords.
As Facebook knows a lot about its members you can choose to show your ads only to people who live in particular areas, between certain ages and be specific about gender too.
You can also choose to display adverts to people who have shown an interest in particular hobbies, pastimes, sports or other activities.
Start low, measure results
While Facebook ads are simple in concept, there are many different types of ads that are offered. They can be different sizes and appear in different places. They can have different content, like a video ad, a single image one, a carousel ad that shows a selection of images.
There are lead generation ads where people give you their email addresses and they're stored against your Facebook ads account, meaning you can then communicate directly with them.
Where to start?
If this is beginning to sound a bit complex, try starting with a simple boosted post. You will have seen this when you submit a post from your business page - Facebook will often offer to 'boost' it for you.
This is perhaps the simplest type of Facebook ad. But as you go through the process you'll see many of the choices that are common to the other ad types - sex, gender, location, interest etc., etc.
You can boost a post for a few pounds but don't expect to get much of a return on it - treat it as a learning exercise. From there you can go on to tune your audience selection tactics and learn more about the other types of ad.
Get more information
There are plenty of consultants and businesses who will help you with Facebook ads but as a starting point there's a huge amount of information on Facebook itself.
Start at the Facebook ads help pages and take it from there.
Many self-employed people and small business are now using Facebook as their sole lead-generating avenue - shouldn't you be one of them?
