Facebook: The Next Generation Marketing Tool

For the first time, Facebook is the leading publisher of display ads in the United States in terms of impressions. After blowing past the previous display ad leader Yahoo, Facebook has become the hottest social network around and its popularity has grown massively since it was founded in 2004.

Here are some interesting statistics about the people on Facebook, their activities, its global reach, the platform and the devices used to access the social network.

• Facebook currently has more than 400,000 million users.
• 50% of users log on to Facebook every single day.
• The average user has 130 friends.
• People all over the world spend more than 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• There are over 160 million pages, groups and events that people interact with.
• The average Facebook user creates 70 pieces of content each month
• More than 25 billion web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums etc are shared each month.
• More than 70 translations are available on Facebook.
• There are currently more than 550,000 applications on the Facebook platform.
• More than 250,000 websites have already engaged with Facebook.
• There are more than 100 million users currently accessing Facebook via their mobile devices.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India.

From a marketer’s point of view, I believe that Facebook should be integrated into every marketing strategy as a means of brand awareness, building customer relationships and trust. My first experience on the site was as a user, enabling me to see the potential in using Facebook from a user’s point of view.

What are Facebook Social Ads?

Facebook social ads emerged in November 2007 and have since developed. Thanks to a more ad friendly redesign and a steady increase in traffic, Facebook ads really took off in 2009. Facebook social ads are a way of quickly connecting real customers to your business on the social network that everyone loves.

You can create clear, targeted image or text based ads, driving traffic to either your own website or something on Facebook such as a page or event. Using concise text will speak directly to your targeted audience. Since Facebook is the largest photo sharing website in the world, its users are very image driven.  An attractive appropriate image will capture people’s line of sight when they see your ad on the right hand side of their homepage or profile.

Facebook’s wide range of targeting options is what makes this method of advertising so appealing. You can target audiences by location, age, gender, keywords, education, workplace, relationship status, interests and language. This allows us to refine who sees our ad and ensure that it is as relevant as possible.

If you don’t know who your target audience is, you can identify this through Facebook, targeting the people who are more likely to take advantage of your ads.

Facebook social ads are very similar to Adwords PPC ads. You create your ad based on what you are offering and bid on keywords to get your ad shown in a higher position and more often. You can choose the either pay per click or per 1000 impressions (CPM). The CPC option is very appealing to Facebook advertisers, allowing them to take control of their spend and ensure that their budget is being used only when people have shown an interest and clicked on their ad.

The Benefits of Facebook Social Ads

Facebook is an easy way to make connections between people and their interests. Through displaying your ads at the right time to the people that are already interested in your product, your Facebook social ads will perform much better than on other advertising networks where this level of targetting is not available. Ads that are more relevant and meaningful to a user will not only attract more clicks but will convert more effectively as well.

Not only can Facebook expand a brand’s current online presence, it can also help brands that truly offer something remarkable rise to the surface faster. Instead of random messages from advertisers, social ads are tailored to users and their interests, making it all the more appealing and intriguing. Facebook even goes as far to claim the ads can “enhance a user’s experience, making the platform more bespoke to their interests and what matters to them”. Whilst this may be a claim not supported by users views and personally I dont think ads ever enhance anyones experience, I will settle for the way facebook works by not showing my adverts totally unrelated to my interests and demographic.

As an internet user, engaging with businesses and buying things online are a part of my everyday life. I often find that advertising where I am not expecting it can be overpowering, irrelevant and annoying. On Facebook, providing that ads are highly targeted and used wisely, advertising doesn’t have to interrupt what you are already doing.

Unlike other forms of advertising, the consumer has the power with Facebook. In theory an ad will only be shown if a user has raised their hand to an interest or if they have become a fan of a related page or group.

Potential problems with social ads

The question has been raised as to whether Facebook users are aware of the results of their “social actions”. When you become a fan of a page, nothing tells the user what that means or that Facebook could potentially show you advertisements based on your actions.

For them, this could either be a positive or a negative.  Many users will welcome ads that help them get what they want faster.  But others will see it as a privacy violation; it’s a fine line to walk for advertisers.

The bottom line though is Facebook is a business, whilst it is a great service for most of its users, the company is there to make money. Without using targetting advertising or some other way of bringing in revenue, Facebook would not exist in the long term. Given the choice between no Facebook or seeing ads, personally I cant see many people turning down Facebook.

Managing Facebook Ads

In terms of running an ad campaign with Facebook, the whole process is easy. Not only are social ads very simple to set up, Facebook also has one of the most customer friendly interfaces on a social network. It has a clean, clutter free design that is easy to navigate and understand. Unlike other social networks such as Bebo, Netlog and Myspace, the age range of Facebook users varies greatly, meaning that it is likely you will find your target market on there, however niche they are. The targetting options allow you to get to these people without annoying other users with your ads, saving you time and money.

Once your ad is set up and running, Facebook provides you to access complete demographic data, ad performance, trends and click reports. From this you can learn exactly how to adjust your copy to ensure that you only show what works well based on clicks.

You should optimise your ads for maximum performance.  Enhance your ad with an attractive image that will make people want to click on your ad to find out more – your visual graphic could make or break your ad so choose carefully.  If you use Facebook insights to analyse your performance, you can track and tweak your campaign based on these results.  Narrowing or broadening your targets allows you to refine your campaign.  You can even track activity that happens on your website as a result of someone on Facebook seeing or clicking on your Facebook ad.

These tips will get you well on the way to running a successful Facebook ad campaign.

From an advertiser’s perspective

Overtime, I suspect that facebook users will grow to appreciate the social ads, realising that they are not annoying and irrelevant but instead rather suited to their interests and activities.  I honestly believe most users will find Facebook SocialAds far less invasive than the annoying pop-ups and take-overs for  products that dominated websites in the late 1990’s and 2000′s.

Personally, I liked that Facebook gave me insight into the minds of facebook users, and from this I was able to put together effective marketing strategies.  Since many online businesses seek a quick return for their advertising spend, targeted pay per click programs are ideal.

Facebook ads’ approach to digital advertising represents a good first step towards making online ads in social media useful to the consumer and advertisers.  They are built on friendship, community, and relationships, facilitating connections between ordinary people and products, brands, businesses, and celebrities.

If you aren’t using Facebook ads to their full potential but you’d like to, contact us and we’ll help you out.

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