Building a Small Biz Audience Using Facebook Ads Posted on November 23, 2015June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk There are 900 million people signing into Facebook every single day. And those people are discussing trending topics, sharing content with each other, and even looking to build their own business. You won’t have the time or the money to boil the ocean and reach every single persona on Facebook but you can carve out your own slice of the pie and reach the people that will be most likely to share and engage with your content. To help create a map that points you in the right direction of how to use Facebook for marketing success, consider some of the most popular ads on the site, how they work, and most importantly, why they work. So what is going to make them click your ad? Get Eyes on Your Ads The Facebook flow might be familiar to you… the blur of scrolling past political arguments, baby pictures, complainers, positive thinkers, on and on. And you want your brand to stand out amongst all that noise. Visual ads grab the attention of the individual and stop them from scrolling right past it. Even with the most intriguing content, if your ad isn’t attractive, no one will respond. So what can you do to get your ads seen? Use high-quality images Use the recommended dimensions: 1200 x 628 pixels Use images of people, especially your real customers. Avoid stock photography that’s too generic or cheesy. Your logo alone isn’t going to cut it unless your company is well known – plus, often your logo is in your profile picture already. Use bright, warm colors to help ads to stand out. Buyer personas come in handy here because you need to have a good idea of what will capture the attention of the audience you are trying to create. The more you know your ideal customers, the more relevant and targeting your ads will become. Test Different Audiences So there are 900 million people on Facebook and you want to create an audience for them. You’ve created a buyer persona and you have your creative ads ready to go. Always run ‘Page Like’ Ads to promote your page. With these ads, you can test your buyer persona and start to determine what makes your ideal customer tick. Show a little creativity; what are your ideal customers doing outside of the buying process? What interests can you use to tap into their emotions and get them to click to learn more? I like running these tests because they don’t have to take up a lot of your budget and you can play around with all the different targeting options Facebook provides. Mix and match your audience, creating many layers for a hyper-targeted segment. Track and compare all these tests next to each other so you can drill down to what’s working and what didn’t. Video: The Darling of Facebook Ads You’re likely hearing a great deal about new formats for advertising and the value of interactive advertising. There’s good reason for this. It’s engaging and less promotional. It helps to draw in customers and get the click. Facebook video ads are becoming an increasingly valuable investment for businesses as a result. These appear in the news feed. About 50% of all people who visit Facebook will watch at least one video during that visit. Brands are finding videos incredibly helpful in getting people to sites and to build their brand. To get more engagement, create a video that can be understood with or without sound. Show Off Your Products Often times, we hear about Facebook ads being all about brand building. However, you can and should use your ads to showcase products. Multi-product ads are very effective, for example. You can use the Power Editor feature from Facebook to create these. They allow you to promote more than one product (or service, or blog post, etc) in a single ad. You’ll get more bang for your buck this way. In addition to these types of Facebook ads, you’ll also find some outstanding success with local ads, promotional offers, and event ads. The key here is to be versatile and flexible. You’ll get the most attention from your ads if you invest in a variety of formats and put the time into creating a campaign that maps out a clear path to conversion for that treasure trove of leads. Drive Engagement Once you have built a good audience, you can start driving more engagement. In the beginning, I felt like I was talking to an empty room on social media. But once I found my audience, engagement soared and the chatter was ignited. Targeting your Facebook audience with your Facebook Ads make your ads more relevant so they are favored by the algorithms, sparking better conversations on social. You’ll notice with this approach that your relevancy scores will be through the roof because this is your audience that your are targeting. If you’ve been ramping up your content strategy, this is a great tool to start building some traction around it. Using Facebook advertising effectively can increase your audience and engagement without putting a gaping hole in your marketing budget. Want to see more ways I’m managing social media at Hatchbuck? Like our Facebook page!