Does Facebook Advertising Work Anymore?

Facebook advertising has for a while been such a great place to advertise if you are a local small business because you can target your audience so effectively and it is very affordable compared to traditional advertising such as billboards, TV and Newspaper. But of late there has been a lot of unrest from because businesses feel like their Facebook advertising is not working anymore. They use to be able to just stick a sales advert up on Facebook, throw some money at it and.. BAM they could bring in new customers, but this is no longer working for them. It’s not that Facebook advertising doesn’t work anymore but things have changed and we need to learn how to play in the new Facebook Realm. So I’m going to go through 3 things you need to understand before spending money on Facebook advertising

Number 1

You need to understand Facebook’s Ecosystem

When Facebook first started back in 2007, it was a social platform for interacting and sharing with friends and family. But then they brought in the ability to advertise and it has now become a media and advertising platform where we are getting sold something every second post. So Facebook has decided to crack down on sales content and wants to get back to us sharing and interacting with each other, not just because they want us to connect but it means that we are more likely to stay on their platform and keep engaging with people,  then leave and go to another platform such as youtube or twitter.

What does this mean for advertising companies and businesses who are paying for advertising? Well, it means that you can no longer use the old quick sales pitch to get a customer through your door you need to rethink your strategy and start sharing not selling. We need to play by Facebook’s reinvented ecosystem of ‘sharing and caring’, not ‘selling and selling’. Facebook is looking for content that people want to engage with, that is bringing value to their audience and is causing people to stay longer on the Facebook platform.

So when you are thinking about what to use for your advertising content, instead of just creating one sales advert, try sharing something that would be valuable to your customer and that they would engage with. What do I mean by engaging, I mean they comment and interact with you, they might tag a friend to join the conversation. Post this to your facebook page, and once this starts to get some good engagement then you can use this as your facebook advert because Facebook will recognize that it already has good engagement and will more likely show it. People who see the content will also be more likely to contribute to the conversation because it has good social proof. What do I mean by social proof? Social proof is engagement on your post that other users can see, such as likes, comments shares, tagging. It goes into the mentality of FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out mentality. People want to know why everyone is commenting and engaging with this and they want to also have their say and join in. Another thing about social proof is that customer acquisition costs (or how much it costs to get your customer to click or buy) will generally go down and your conversion rate (how many people actually click or buy) will generally go up.

Number 2.

You need to increase your Brand Awareness.

What do I mean by this? You need to understand that people need to know who you are and trust you before they purchase or use your service.  You may of heard of the Rule of 7 in marketing. People need to have had at least 7 interactions (good interactions) with you before they would even consider purchasing or using your service. I want to take it a little further and say this interaction needs to be a two way interaction, it can’t just be you talking at them, it needs to be you listening to them also.

Let me give you an example of what NOT to do with interaction. When I met someone all he wanted to do was to talk about what he could do for me, every time I saw him again and again he would talk about what he could do for me, not once did he stop and ask about me and listen to my challenges I face in my business. This turned me off so badly that there is no way I would want to use his service because he doesn’t understand my problems and challenges I just felt like he didn’t care.

So you need to get your brand in front of people at least 7 times, don’t make just one piece of content for your Facebook Ads but at least 7 pieces of content that is valuable to your customers. Once you have created the content and you share it, make sure you take the time to read the comments from your audience and respond so that you are showing that you truly care and are trying to understand their challenges.  And remember the Social Proof concept, share the content on your Facebook page first to get people engaging and then you can use it for your Facebook ads, so that others are more likely to engage, your click through rate will be higher and your cost per customer will be cheaper. Once someone has engage with the ad, retarget them so they see the next piece of content and repeat, making sure the content is different each time otherwise they get ad fatigue. You know what I’m talking about. They have seen it so many times that just scroll right over it.

Number 3

Understand your Target Customer.

If you know me well, you know how much I go on and on about understanding who your customer is. Why is it so important with Facebook advertising?

There are three reasons.

1. Are your customers even on Facebook? If they’re not then you shouldn’t be advertising there. Maybe they’re hanging out and engaging more on Instagram, Snapchat or Linkedin. By understanding who your customer is you will know where they hang and engage the most on Socials

2. If you don’t know who your customer is then you won’t know who to target with your Facebook ad. When you set up a Facebook Campaign in your Facebook Ad set you need to create an Audience, so if you don’t know who your customers are for example are they male of female, where they live and how old they are, then you won’t be reaching those that are more likely to interact with your content and click through.

3. And the last reason. When you understand your target customer you understand their pain points, problems they are facing and how to talk to them in a way they understand. This helps with what type of content to create whether it be a video or an image, what the video should be about, what the image should have on it, how much copy to write, what to say in the copy, what will draw them in.

Download the Free PDF template to figure out who your Target Customer is.

Remember like anything in life, planning makes it easier, so work out your digital strategy first. Contact me if you need help with your digital strategy.

Leisa