Facebook advertising (or social advertising) is a new platform for Ppc advertising, similar to the Google Ppc ads. While Fb advertising costs are generally much lower than Google ads, you need to be careful. social Advertising can verily cost you a lot more of burned money, if you aren't using them right. I want to give you a few pointers on launching a thriving social advertising campaign.
The dissimilarity between Facebook Advertising, and Google Advertising
Facebook.com
Modeling after Google, I notion that I could plainly copy and paste ad campaigns to advertise to people whatever I wanted. I used affiliate websites to try and grow referral sites, and launched identical campaigns on Google and Facebook. My two social ad campaigns returned verily no results, while my Google campaign tripled my investment. I notion that social advertising costs were supposed to be Lower than Google's. So what gives?
Simply, people who are on social networks are there to be social. They are there to interact and share things with their friends, not to purchase a product. My mistake with the affiliate marketing test was that I was using this ad campaign to advertise something away from Facebook (the sales letter to the affiliate site). people became disinterested when they were brought to this sales letter, and clicked off right away.
Social ads should be used to advertise something that is happening on Facebook. Meaning, you want to advertise your fan page, group, application, etc. Much like all social networking endeavors, these ads are not for direct sales. social ads are a way to grow the community around your idea (business) on this social networking website. My ad campaigns that were directing people to a Fb page (even if it was a page that was linked to a product) had a much better success rate than the ones that were directed to other websites.
Is Your firm Ready for social Advertising?
Knowing now that social ads are designed to advertise your social endeavors (like your firm page) you need to make sure that your firm page is something that people would verily want to be a part of!
The first step to a thriving ad campaign is manufacture sure your page is a place that people can interact and grow with your company. If your fan page looks abandoned with only a link to your website and no updates or postings, people aren't going to be interested in connecting with you. Further, if your fan page is only full of sales-like links and advertisements, people won't want to associate with you either!
You need to focus on setting your fan page as a community, and then trying to grow that community with social ads. It's foremost to remember, we're not advertising a direct sale here. What we're advertising is a place where people can get together on your niche and then purchase from you. Not the other way around. The best ad in the world won't make people associate with a page that isn't ready for interactions. After you've started to grow a community around your page, you can take to social advertising.
The Two Keys to Facebook Advertising: The Ad and The Opt-In
The actual ad should have a good photograph and a note in the text that asks you to "like" whatever you're promoting. When you're advertising something on Facebook, the supreme "like" button appears below your ad, giving people the chance to like it from there. I have had a much higher conversation rate on my ads when I've asked people to like the page in my Ad. For example, I did an advertising campaign for video guitar lessons. The ad read. "Take your guitar playing to the next level, hit 'like' below for free guitar guidance geared to guitarists of all level." Not only were people prompted to like the page directly from the ad, but it also let people know what they could expect from the page.
The second foremost part of your ad is the picture. There's tons of different guidance on this, but I take the easy route. I like to use Photoshop to generate a easy image of text that will catch people's attention. So, for example, on the guitar lessons ad I put "Video Guitar Lessons" stacked on top of each other, and used orange font with a blue background. This caught people's eyes, but wasn't an overboard picture. It directed concentration to the ad.
The final thing that will give you a higher conversation is a landing page. Don't ever send users to your page's wall! Instead, use the Fbml application to generate a landing page that invites people to join your fan page. The opt-in page should not only tell people what you can do for them, but invite them to like your page as well. These landing pages are a someone else topic all together, so I'll have to leave it at that for now.
Targeting Your Campaign
Targeting your ad campaign can be kind of tricky, as it is so different for every niche, and even business. I very advise beginning out with a very small budget (5-10 dollars a day) to see what kind of clicks you get. Take each ad down after a day, and play around with different key words and targeting until you find one that fits. It's also a good idea to use Google's Keyword research Tool (go to Google.com, and type in AdWord Keyword research Tool) to strengthen your options.
Think out the box too. I heard of a photography firm that gained a lot of wedding customers by targeting women, who are listed as "engaged," in their local area. This could not verily be done with Google Ads, and ideas like this are what give an edge to Facebook advertisements.
In Closing...
These are just the basics of social advertising, and verily only scratch the surface. The real Facebook advertising costs that people fail to see is the fact that it is used to gain fans not necessarily customers. The most foremost thing to realize is that you are using ads to grow your community, not to make the sale. Also remember, unlike Google ads, these ads aren't targeting people that are actively searching for your niche, they target based on keywords in people's biographies, age, interests, etc. Just because they have it written down doesn't mean they're all the time reasoning about it. Finally, do small test runs on your ads before trying to activate a huge ad campaign. It's better to lose 5 dollars on an ad that doesn't work, than 50 dollars. Start small, and grow as you see the success of your advertisement.
- Jerry Nihen
Facebook Advertising Costs: How Facebook Ads Can Make or Break Your Advertising Campaign
