Facebook is no longer the newest, shiniest site out there. Originally launched in 2004, it took off in 2006 when it allowed anyone, not just college kids, to join. Since then, it has become one of the largest and most influential social media networks in the world. Most importantly for advertisers, Facebook continues to be a very powerful presence in terms of marketing and advertising, and we’ll go over why.

Facebook Is Still The Most Popular Social Media Site

Facebook gets more traffic and has more users than any of its closest competitors, meaning there are simply a lot more people on Facebook than elsewhere to see and respond to your ads and content. Facebook has an estimated 1.86 billion monthly users, which makes it bigger than Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

The Opportunity For Your Posts To Be Shared

Facebook works well as a marketing tool because anything your business posts has the potential to be shared and viewed by people who are not your followers.

For example, you share information about a promotional giveaway, which everyone who likes your page and follows your feed sees. But then people start sharing the giveaway so their friends can see it, and then their friends might share it, and so on and so forth. That’s a lot of potential customers who might not have had any idea you existed otherwise.

Facebook Ads Are Cheap And Targeted

Facebook ads are not only quite reasonably priced, but the targeting features they offer are extensive. You can choose to display your ads based on geographical location, age range and interests to get your ads in front of the targeted groups you think will be most likely to buy your product or service. This alone makes it an invaluable tool for marketing, because you can pick and choose who will see your ads.

Facebook Drives Traffic Elsewhere

Even if you would rather have users interact with your content outside of Facebook, marketing via Facebook can still drive traffic to your website. You can do this either by running an ad campaign that’s designed by Facebook’s algorithms to draw visitors to your site or post interesting, relevant content with links back to your site or blog.

You Can Advertise On Your Own Page

Facebook not too long ago introduced another advertising tool on your own Facebook page – the cover photo. Facebook cover photos, which are easy to create and design, allow you to put important information front and center on your page to draw in and engage visitors. It’s also very easy to change out your cover photo when you come out with a new release or an event is coming up you want people to know about. Consider using a Facebook banner maker to make a customized graphic that completes your brand image.

So even though Facebook has been around for a while, it is still a very effective tool to use for your marketing, whether you buy out ad space or not. Due to the fact that it can be used for many different purposes, and any advertisements or posts will reach the maximum amount of people, Facebook is far from obsolete.

Digital marketing has reached a new maturity stage. Businesses are now more than ever focused on qualified traffic that drives in revenue, compared to the good ole days where it was all about traffic. Social media has been questioned by many professional marketers and businesses because of the lack of revenue websites see from the traffic.

The truth is sometimes in marketing things aren’t working because of the following:

The way of tracking or measuring results is off.
The strategy being implemented is not being executed correctly.
It’s just not the right fit.

Examples of Bad Measurement with Facebook

Many times what will happen is a business page on Facebook will promote a blog article that they created. They might execute a ‘sponsored post’ and dump a few hundred dollars into getting that post to reach a few hundred thousand people. Many will click on the post, and many will even share, but no one will buy. The reality of the situation is you’re asking people to read an article, not buy your product.

This then leads to a business owner looking over the analytics and recognizing that they had a large quantity of Facebook visitors, but no conversions. They start to believe that Facebook is pointless to their marketing strategy.

The Right Fit?

For some companies they might be offering a product that’s just not in the price range of their Facebook audience. For example, the Galvanic Body Spa is sold anywhere between $360 and $450 depending on the package. The truth is when people login to their Facebook they aren’t ready to spend that type of money. Even people that have the money available.

Now a good example, would be a local Pizza company like The Pie in Salt Lake City, who has a handful of locations in Utah. They don’t have a national audience like the big Pizza brands. They have a local audience that loves their Pizza who follow them on Facebook. Now if The Pie posted a coupon, or a sell for their Pizzas on Facebook they would gain revenue from their Facebook presence.

National Businesses vs. Local for Facebook Ads

The honest truth is it varies from product to product again. For the most part though local businesses will do better revenue-wise, compared to national chains. People naturally like to go local before national for many good reasons. National businesses should mainly use Facebook to heavily promote impulse items, or their content. Promoting content can help with the organic side of search engine marketing – which can lead to sells from Google.

With Facebook having more than 1.19 billion monthly active users, the site is more ubiquitous and popular than ever and national and local business can capitalize on it. You don’t see brands like Coca-Cola or Nike running away from Facebook. They mainly use it to promote content. The local can benefit the most from this pool of active users.

Own a Local Business? Buy Facebook Ads

Now, larger businesses still don’t have too much trouble reaching their audiences organically. Their brands are so well-known that people often seek them out on social media. Local businesses don’t have that luxury, though, which is why it’s crucial to take matters into your own hands. The best way to level the playing field in order to compete with larger companies is by engaging in paid advertising on Facebook.

Some of the top advantages of buying Facebook ads as a small business include:

Cost-Effective – While you can buy ads for as little as one cent per click, the average cost-per-click is around 75 cents. That’s still wildly affordable when compared to Google AdWords.
Set a Budget – Like AdWords, you can set daily and “lifetime” budgets, so there’s no risk of spending more than you want.
Target Your Audience – With so many active users, Facebook has developed vast amounts of data about them. Advertisers can tap into this data to enjoy amazing insights about their audiences. More than anything, the ability to target very specific audiences is among the biggest perks of advertising on Facebook.

Getting Started

The first thing to understand about advertising on Facebook is it’s not like advertising on other mediums. You don’t want to aggressively push for sales. Rather, it’s best to promote “softer” offers, like special coupons, giveaways, contests and the like.

With that in mind, the first step to creating an ad campaign on Facebook is defining your objectives. For example, do you want to drive more traffic to your website, have people engage with your posts more, generate more likes for your page or have something else in mind? The ad wizard walks you through the process. You can either “boost” an existing post or create a new ad from scratch, which gives you a lot more control. Your ad can either appear in the newsfeed, where it will show on mobile and desktop, or on the right column, which is only for desktop. From there, you can use the targeting tools to ensure your ads are seen by the right people. Finally, use the Ad Insights tool every day to optimize your campaign.

Build a Strong Facebook Presence

With or without ads, it’s crucial for any local business to build a strong Facebook presence. Tillamook Cheese is a prime example of a small business using Facebook effectively. The company cleverly uses fun apps to promote their brand, and the page has a distinct “voice” that further enhances brand identity. There’s no reason you can do the same with your small business’s Facebook page. By doing so in conjunction with a well-designed ad campaign, you can soar to new heights of online visibility and success.

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