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Facebook Pages have been a popular marketing strategy for many businesses over the past few years. With over 24 million people in the UK using the site every day, it’s an obvious choice for a consumer-facing business to speak to its customers and hopefully attract some new ones using the platform.
However, over recent months the sheer volume of businesses using the platform has meant that it’s difficult for smaller businesses to get seen in the Facebook newsfeed - the home page where a user scrolls through the recent activity from their friends and Pages they like. Facebook says this is down to “more competition, driven by more sharing”.
Some critics claim that now Facebook is a public company it is pushing businesses towards its advertising platform. Whatever your views, if you want your posts seen by a highly relevant audience, Facebook adverts are the way to achieve this.
You can use Facebook advertising to achieve a number of business objectives;
- to increase website traffic,
- to encourage onsite conversions,
- to increase Facebook Page likes,
- or just engagement on a particular post.
The most effective Facebook adverts are ones that appear as usual posts within the newsfeed. You have probably seen these in your own newsfeed, as they are indicated by a subtle label saying ‘Sponsored’. These can be bought if you own a business Facebook Page and can either direct an audience to your Page or to an external website of your choice.
What makes Facebook a really interesting advertising platform is that it allows you to target the audience of your adverts via very specific criteria that they have included in their Facebook profiles.
You can target by quite obvious options such as age, gender, location and school attended or current workplace. You can also get really specific by targeting through interests, information about family and relationship status and even those who have upcoming birthdays or are getting married.
We’ve worked on campaigns where we've targeted females over 40, living in Shrewsbury and Telford (or within a 10 miles radius) and who are interested in certain brands like Waitrose and John Lewis. There are 5,800 on Facebook that fall into this category alone.
Facebook adverts can contain a headline, advert copy of up to 90 characters, and an image of your choice. This means you can get quite creative with your adverts and can use bright engaging images of your products to attract new customers.
The adverts are bought on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis so that you only pay when a user clicks on your advert. The cost of the adverts range depending on who you are targeting, but a general average is around £0.50 per click. We would advise starting with a budget of £100 or so and testing different audience targeting options. This way you’ll know which audience segments work for the future – whether its males or females, or what interests they have.
Facebook advertising can be a great way to give your campaign a boost, publicise an upcoming event or just to get your business name out there to a wider audience. If you are interested in running a Facebook advertising campaign, we can set it up and manage it on your behalf. Give us ring on 01743 272609 or email studio@vibecreative.co.uk if you’d like to chat further.
Categories: Social Media
