Facebook Ads: Creepy or Awesome?

A lot of people find Facebook ads creepy, especially when they clearly know more about you than you’ve told them. From a personal point of view, this might be true. Facebook knows where you live, how long you’ve lived there, what kind of car you drive, what you’ve charged on your credit card, the websites you’ve been to, your email address, your phone number, and more.

From a marketing perspective, this is awesome, because Facebook allows you more targeting with your ads than any other platform that has ever existed. In addition to being able to choose who sees your ad, you can choose the type of ad you want to place (photo, video, etc.), and you can choose what you want people to do in response to your ad (call you, visit your website, etc)

Facebook ads can be frustrating, though. A lot of businesses know this. After all, 85% of businesses are investing in advertising on social media, but only 40% of them are seeing a significant return on that investment.

Because people come to Facebook for entertainment, it can be hard to help them make buying decisions there. Therefore, you need to use a strong strategy to make sure you get your message to the people you really want to communicate with, and who need or want you in their lives.

To be most effective when you’re advertising on Facebook, make sure you do the following things:

• Avoid the boost button. This button is great for getting more of your followers to see your posts or if you’re okay with targeting broadly. When you just post to a Facebook business page, only 5-10% of your followers see the post, unless you boost it. However, when you are investing in an ad, instead of simply boosting a post, you should use the ad manager to craft your ad so that you truly reach your target audience.
• Focus on adding value to people’s lives or businesses. This helps them want to follow you or follow you more. The more you add value, the more they realize that you are reliable and generous, and the more likely they are to eventually buy from you.
• Build trust. Show your face, your employees’ faces, your vans, and anything that will personalize you and your business. People buy from people, not from companies, so you want to make sure people are seeing your face and your image.
• Emphasize your brand. This doesn’t necessarily mean highlighting your logo or your tagline. Instead, talk about the values behind what you do, what makes you different, and why you’ve chosen to work in your industry. Help potential customers to see that the values you have are exactly what they are looking for.
• Test your ads. Put a couple different forms of your ad out there and see which one does better. Try different photos, video, and copy to see what people are responding to. This will help you choose an ad for your current campaign, but it will also help you craft your ads in the future.

It takes time and patience to figure out what people are going to respond to, and then to craft ads in the vein. However, your efforts will pay off when people start seeing your ads, showing interest in what you’re offering, and eventually purchasing your products or services.