Facebook marketing has revolutionized the way digital marketing is done, in many ways possible. What used to be just banner ads on the internet can now be done in many forms, especially in this vast social media platform. Here are some of the types of Facebook ads you need to know:
Creating a public page
You can always start with the conventional type of Facebook Marketing, which is setting up a public page for free. All you need to do is to maintain posts and update the page regularly. It comes with all the necessary tools and self-service interface that is easy to use, even for beginners. This is cost-effective, and very easy to manage.
Sponsored Ads: Domain Ads
Domain ads are the most common type of paid ads that you would often see, and when you click, would take you to an external site. These ads are normally done to increase site traffic and improve customer interaction. Domain ads can also illustrate social context like for instance, a certain friend “likes this page/site.” For this to take place, Facebook should be able to go with the target URL of your domain ad with a relevant Facebook public page.
Event Ads
Event ads are very helpful if you need total exposure for the publicity of your events. It is also shown on the right hand side of the desktop, with a maximum of 90 character description.
Mobile app ad
As the name suggests, this kind of ad only shows up when a user is on mobile view. Once the ad is clicked, the ad directly leads the user to AppStore or Google Play to install the mobile app. The effectiveness of the ad is measure by the number of downloads, while being integrated with Facebook.
Page post ads
The easiest and widely used type of ad is the page post ad, in which your Facebook page can be posted as ‘sponsored’ or ‘promoted’. Once the user clicks on the link, Facebook will direct it to the public page.
Offer ads
Offer ads are useful and enticing, especially when written well. The key to a successful offer ad is to include the important details, the number of people who previously accepted the offer and the expiration date. The photo should also speak a lot, because it’s what the users would notice at first glance.
Sponsored Stories
Besides the usual ads, sponsored stories can also be purchased through Facebook Marketing. These are frequently the most interactive type of ads. They are, in reality, support and endorsement made by the user’s friends, and thus tend to get higher click-through and rates of engagement.
Once a person likes a certain page, it becomes an ad that appears onto other user’s new feed. This is more effective in some cases because the credibility of a recommendation from friends is likely to be higher.
There are certain types of stories ad. Some include page or place ad, which was mentioned earlier, the app story, game played or even event RSVP sponsored story. All of which work similarly, by showing who among your friends list are using the same app or going to the same event.
Achieve Facebook Marketing Success by Taking One Step at a Time
In all businesses, the game plan is always the key to success. To come up with a solid game plan and strategy in Facebook marketing, do not forget this 5 easy steps:
1.) When putting up a business, it is important to have a clear mission and vision. A lot of brands’ success stories came from these two objectives. These two points must explain the purpose of the company and why it exists.
In starting his Apple Company, Steve Jobs was motivated by supporting people’s creativity, not by selling computers. Before becoming the largest florist shop, Jim McCann’s 1-800-Flowers.com was motivated to help people express their feelings to others.
Therefore, before planning to do some social media marketing strategies, a person should:
- First, exactly know the type of business he will engage himself into, and
- Second, fulfill other people’s desires and solve their problems.
2.) Take the six Vitamin C’s of Facebook every day. In order to come up with a successful marketing campaign, keep all these 6 C’s in mind:
- Content: post stories that will gain a lot of shares, likes and comments. In short, it should be interesting.
- Clarity: clearly show what the fan page is all about and what it has to offer. Update the “About” section of the page and add taglines on the cover photo if necessary.
- Campaign: maximize the use of Facebook’s promotional tools in order to support a particular campaign.
- Connection: build and grow the page’s network.
- Culture: make the fan page as an extension of the company’s culture or a particular brand. The same look and feel of the fan page should not be used all over again. This will depend on proper page management which includes: the type of content shared, response time, way of response, humour and etc.
- Conversion: convert fans and followers into a network of paying customers.
3.) Post shareable contents. Consider these basic rules on creating shareable contents:
- Make it short. (a content with 80 characters will gain more shares)
- Vary the contents by using photos, videos, audios and links.
- Reply to people who shared the content by liking their shares.
- Interact by asking questions
- Visit other pages to know what people like
- Determine when is the best time of the day and week to interact with the fans.
4.) Consider experimenting and testing then, track the results. It is important to learn what Facebook marketing strategy is working and what’s not. Try variating the post frequency, contents and time zones.
5.) Learn from the success of other Facebook fan pages. Oreo, Disney, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Skittles are some of the popular consumer brands that are doing well in this social media platform. Monitor their Facebook pages and view other fan pages in order to see what particular types of content could gain significant amount of shares. Examine everything on their fan page starting from updates up to the promotional campaigns used.
To become good at Facebook marketing, it takes time and patience. By following the above-mentioned steps and seeking the help of people who are knowledgeable in this field, success will be on its way!
Facebook Marketing: 7 Steps to S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
When dealing with a fast paced environment such as the social media, not all businesses fare well. Some may enjoy an exceptionally high growth at first, and end up slipping off at a later date. How do you succeed in Facebook marketing? Read on to find out the recipe towards S.U.C.C.E.S.S.
1. Sponsored stories.
When it comes to Facebook marketing, a lot of people tend to give high regard to their friends’ recommendations. This means that you should invest more in sponsored stories, where the ad appears with a corresponding story. For instance, when promoting an event, a sponsored story would say, “Friend 1 and 10 others are going.” This would spark credibility in the eyes of the user.
If there’s something that is very essential in social media marketing, it’s the constant updates. Fresher contents would make your audience engage more, and will ignite frequent visits to your page. Keeping up with the recent trends is also a must to survive in the online world. Hence, you should always make sure to include updated posts on your page.
2. Curiosity
To further entice your audience on your posts, you can use a cliff hanger statement as your headline to spark curiosity. The posts will act like bait that will lead your customers to the desired page. You can also include interesting thumbnail images that will convey a message without giving out the entire story.
Facebook marketing is all about competition, and to get ahead, you must know your equivalents. You can use the watch page feature of Facebook to consistently watch over certain pages. You can use this to learn more about customer feedback on which works and which does not.
3. Engagement
The key to a healthy and fruitful Facebook page is to engage your customers well on your posts. By engaging them, this means that your page must be conducive to activities, and involves a lot of audience participation. You can add questions, or even start some promos to further invite more people to like your page. Moreover, the more active your page is, the better chance it would be to fare better in SEO. Search engines can easily find their way to pages that are frequently shared by people.
4. Schedule
For a more efficient page management, it is ideal to take advantage of the scheduled post feature. This means you can write type, edit or upload any photo in advance, and post it at a later date. It can be editable and can be cancelled as you like. This is recommended especially when targeting certain day parts.
5. Sustain
Once you have established a group of followers and a strong fan base, you need to maintain a certain level of growth rate, just like in any other business. You need to constantly invite more people, and extend your reach as much as possible.
With over a billion users, Facebook is indeed an excellent ground to promote and extend your network. By keeping in mind the steps to S.U.C.C.E.S.S., you can easily win over your competitors, increase your site traffic and more importantly, translate every click into sales.
Exploring the Benefits of Facebook in Business
Touted as one of the most popular social media platforms today, Facebook has its own unique advantages and benefits. Apart from personally connecting with the members of the family and friends, it can also be used for advertising and promoting a business.
Marketing strategies play a vital role in the success and growth of a business because they are used to draw customers’ attention. This is where a Facebook business page has the advantage over an existing company website. This article will show some advantages of using Facebook marketing:
- Using Facebook for business is a low-cost type of marketing strategy. Signing-up on Facebook for free is ideal especially for small and medium start-up businesses that are on a tight budget. Without going for expensive marketing activities that cost about thousands of dollars, these companies can target millions of audience which can turn into potential paying customers as they go along. Large businesses also take the opportunity to use Facebook for their trial marketing plans and concepts before stepping up on bigger campaigns.
- Business information can be shared. Since Facebook is the right avenue to promote a business, it is important to provide information about the business name, address and its contact details. In order to draw more customers, a business page should also contain brief descriptions on every aspect including its products and services as well as its history and staff listing.
- It is interactive. Apart from posting texts, uploading of photos and videos is also allowed, thus, making Facebook easier to personalize than a company website. There are no technical skills needed in order to maintain, customize and personalize a Facebook business page because it’s pretty much the same as managing a personal Facebook account. Interaction takes place when audiences tag themselves in the photo that is used to advertise and promote a business.
- It allows communication with current and prospective customers through the exchange of messages. Listening to their feedbacks regarding the products and services is essential in Facebook marketing.
- It is easier to provide customer support on Facebook. Questions can be posted directly based on the customers’ experience in using a particular product or service. This is more effective than taking phone calls as customers can already see common queries and responses from other people. As a result, problems and issues can be quickly resolved. In addition, these can increase the satisfaction level of customers.
- Brand awareness can be raised through Facebook likes. Apart from word of mouth, liking the Facebook page will increase the popularity of a business page.
- It can increase website traffic by including Facebook page URLs on posts. Exposing these links to Facebook users can also convert visits into potential business purchases. Maximize this advantage especially when people are motivated to buy products or services as consumers.
- Advertising can be targeted to a particular group of people. Marketers can maximize the creation of Facebook ads for certain people that have listed a particular interest by making these ads appear on the right side of their Facebook pages.
Facebook is the only social media platform that can provide these advantages. Therefore, take the opportunity to use Facebook marketing while Facebook is still not going anywhere.
