With over 1.32 billion daily active users spending 50 minutes a day on average on Facebook (desktop/mobile), it is no wonder Facebook is the smart place to advertise. The best thing is you can get started with minimal effort, and see results when spending as little as £10.
So, how do you market your business effectively and get the most out of Facebook advertising? Here are 10 tips to get you started.
1. Make your Images BIG
They are the most important element and should be designed to engage people emotionally and prompt action. Motivate with images / videos and copy. Facebook’s recommended image size is 1,200 x 628 pixels to ensure that your image always looks high-quality no matter what platform it is displayed on. Try to stick to that where possible or the Image ratio of 1.9:1.
2. Use a Minimal Amount of Text
Higher amounts of image text will be shown to fewer people. Images with little to no image text tend to cost less and reach more people than ad’s with image text. As a general rule the text to image ratio requirements are 20% or less text.
3. Get more Views, Engagement and Shares with Videos
Videos immediately capture attention and have a massive 135% organic reach compared to images. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a video worth? Text and pictures are great, but video has the highest capacity to show emotion. Aim to catch your audience’s attention within the first 3 seconds, try to keep it and suggest viewers tap for sound. Facebook prefers organic videos, so upload your video directly rather than sharing it from YouTube.
4. Add a Call-To-Action Button
Tell people what you want them to do when they see your advert and ensure the landing page is consistent with the ad’s wording and design
5. Know the Best Times to Post on Facebook
Popular times to post include 1pm for click-through and 3pm for shares but each audience is different and success comes from knowing when your audience is most engaged with your content. You can easily discover this through analytics using your social media management tool.
6. Capitalise on Facebook Live
People spend 3 times longer watching live video versus a pre-recorded one. This generates more engagement from fans and followers. Video suggestions include taking followers behind-the-scenes, hosting live Q&A broadcasts, and reporting breaking news. Followers receive a notification that you’re live and it’s a great way for your audience to connect with you…live and in living colour!
7. Pin posts for greater visibility
This is ideal for content that you want your followers to see every time they land on your page. Not sure how to do this? Go to the post on your Page’s Timeline. Click in the top-right corner. Select Pin to Top of Page. Here are a few ways to use pinned posts for better engagement:
- Capture what people encountering your brand for the very first time need to know on video and pin it.
- Post a FAQ
- Share a sale or promotion
- Highlight a contest winner
- Post urgent information
8. Create and Expand Custom Audiences
In August 2017, Facebook introduced some new ad targeting options so that you get the most value from your advert spend by reaching only the people that matter to you. You can now upload a customer database to Facebook and utilise it for targeting your ad’s. As it’s easier to sell to current customers than to look for new ones you can strengthen your existing connections using Custom Audiences. You can also expand your audience reach using a broader “Lookalike Audience” to target your ad’s to. A Lookalike Audience is a target audience you create from a “source” like your existing customer database. It finds other people on Facebook who are the most similar to your best customers and lets you target those people.
9. Study your Results
You constantly need to test different ad engagement and target audiences. Facebook offers some really great analytics so pay attention to them. If you see a big increase in fans (or decrease), look at what you’ve posted recently and see if you can figure out a reason for the trend. Then, post more of that kind of content (or less, if you’re losing fans).
10. Finally be Clear on your Brand’s Personality
So you can communicate it consistently. It gives a clear picture of how you differentiate from others who offer similar products and services and lets your audience know you are a real brand ran by real people.
Influencers are advising brands to increase their efforts on a select few social media platforms as the social landscape gets increasingly crowded and Facebook remains the leader of the pack. No matter what type of company you run, Facebook has many different marketing options to fit your company, budget, and time constraints.
For more information about what our award winning marketing agency can do for you, why not take a look at the digital marketing services we offer or contact us to tell us more about your business? Offering everything from PPC management to creative social media marketing services, we can help with whatever you need.