How to Advertise on Facebook

There are over a billion people using
Facebook, and Facebook lets you put up ads
to reach just about any group of people you
can imagine. Some people prefer to advertise
on Google, where you can find more active
buyers. Yet, Facebook allows you to reach any segment of people, anywhere, with a very
short setup time. Anyone can create a
Facebook ad, whether it’s for a Facebook
Page, Event, App, other destination on
Facebook, or your own website. Read the
article below to find out how. Edit Method One of Three: Setting Up Your Ads 1 Register as a user on Facebook, if you don't
already have an account. While your event or business does not need to have a
Facebook presence, you do need to be a
registered Facebook user in order to
advertise on Facebook. You may want to create a new login ID,
and not use your personal account. In
particular, if you have someone who you
need to submit receipts to, it is much
better to set up a new Facebook
account so that you don't have to share passwords. 2 Choose a category and a page name to
represent your company or service. A page is a profile for your business. You don't
need a Page in order to advertise of
Facebook, but most — if not all — big
businesses have an established Page. On
your Page, you can promote items or
services, interact with established customers, and create opportunities to
reach new customers.. 3 Upload a logo or picture that you want to
associate with your business. Often, this is the logo that people associate with your
brand. 4 Upload a cover photo. This is the first thing that people will see when they view your
business's Page. Your cover photo spans
nearly the entire width of your Page and,
again, should be something that customers
might associate with your business. For example, you're making a page for
your business, Barbara's Catered
Cupcakes. You might want to showcase
a close-up of cupcakes, or perhaps a
picture of Barbara working behind the
scenes, baking her wares. 5 Create a sentence about what your
business does.This can also be a slogan of
your choice.This goes right beneath the
company logo and category. Customers who come to your Page should be able to glean
right away what services or products you
offer based on this sentence. 6 Set a web address for your Page. Choose an available web address in order to use on
other promotional material. 7 Begin reaching out to your customers with
posts. Posts can be anything ranging from a notice of a summer sale to the
announcement of a new product line. Your
posts can be in the form of updates, photos,
or videos. People who like your product will
sometimes see your post show up in their
news feed. 8 Optimize your post. Advertisers have realized that not all posts are created
equal. If you want more business driven by
Facebook posts, and you want that
business to grow in the right direction, be
sure to keep the following tips in mind when
posting: Keep it short and sweet. According to
Facebook, posts that are on the shorter
side — between 100 and 250
characters — get about 60% more likes, comments and shares.[1] That's a big difference. Appeal to the visual sense. Not
everyone processes information better
through words. In fact, a lot of people
learn by seeing, tapping their visual
sense. Photo albums, pictures, and
videos drive engagement on Facebook Pages. Use Page Insights to help you learn.
Page Insights is a function that allows
you mine your analytics so that you can
better reach out to customers. Advertisement Edit Method Two of Three: Targeting Your Ads 1 Make sure you have all the information you
need for creating your Facebook ad. Depending on what you plan on advertising,
this can include a website URL; event
times, dates or places, such as the details
of a special performance at a nightclub; or a
photo or logo to include with the ad. 2 Go to your Facebook home page and on the
right-hand sidebar, look for the section
marked “Sponsored,” where ads appear. Next to the word “Sponsored” is a link that
reads, “Create an Ad.” Click on that button. 3 Design your ad. Note that for each choice you make when creating your ad, Facebook
automatically generates a preview at the
bottom of the page so you can see instantly
what your ad will look like before
proceeding. Destination: Choose between an
external URL (website) or a Facebook
page you have created. For pictures you choose to use in your
ads, be careful they are not owned by
someone else. You want to either use
your own pictures, or pictures in the public domain. For an external URL, you’ll need to
include the URL in the proper field.
Then enter the title of your ad, the
body of your ad copy and an image or
logo. For a Facebook page you can choose
between Sponsored Stories, which
includes either a story about the
viewer's friends or a story about your
Facebook Page posts, or Facebook
Ads, which includes a specific message and call to action written by
you. For a Sponsored Story, you’ll need to
choose between a Page Like Story
and a Page Post Story. A Page Like
Story will show the user a friend who
likes your page, with the call to
action being a “Like” button. A Page Post Story shows the user an
excerpt and image from your last
post on Facebook; here, the call to
action includes a comment button, a
“Like” button and a Share button. For a Facebook Ad, you will need to
choose the Destination Tab or which
tab of your Facebook page the link in
your ad will direct the user. Then you
can include the body of your ad copy
and an image or logo. 4 Choose your goal. Facebook ads offer the company or service provider a lot of
versatility. What do you hope to accomplish
with your ads? Get More Page Likes. People who like
your page will be likelier to see posts
that you create on your Page. The more
likes you have, the larger your
audience becomes when you create a
post. Advertising for likes is controversial.
Some people think its great, others
think its of limited usefulness and will
tell you it's a waste of money. Look at where your likes are coming
from. Some ad campaigns have ended
up getting a business tons of likes
from some 3rd world country where
the business doesn't operate. Promote Page Posts. Promote a specific
post you've created, increasing its
chances of reaching your intended
audience. Get New Users. Target people who are
more likely to download and use your
app. Increase Attendance. Target people
who are more likely to attend one of
your functions. 5 Select the audience you wish to reach. Don't just advertise blindly. Advertise
intelligently. Who you target in your ads
could affect your bottom line. If you're not
targeting the right demographic(s), you're
taking a stab in the dark. Location: Choose a specific city, state/
province or country where your ads will
be seen. Demographics: Choose an age range
and whether you want to target men,
women or both. Likes & Interests: Enter a specific
interest, and Facebook will match your
ad with the home pages of users who
have included that interest in their
profiles. Connections on Facebook: Choose
whom you’d like to target; choices range
from only your friends to people who
are or are not fans of your page, to all of
Facebook. Advanced targeting options include
level of education of the user, whether
to target people on their birthdays,
language and relationship status. 6 When you choose your targeting, Facebook
will tell you how many people you will reach
with that ad. If you choose beer drinkers in Germany,
you may find you are reaching most of
the population. If you choose fans of pesticides in the
north of Portland, Oregon, you may find
you are reaching only a few people.
Reaching this targeted group
(whatever your target may be) is the
best strategy, but if too small, think of ways to expand the target group. Perhaps the people you are trying to
reach are not telling you they like
pesticides, but you might be able to
reach those same people by choosing,
say, landscapers or apple farmers. 7 Select whether you will pay per clicks or
per impressions and set your price. You can choose to either pay per click (CPC) or pay
per impression (CPM). If you don't know
exactly how you're going to budget your
CPM, you should be prepared to pay more
money for CPM than CPC. Campaigns, Pricing and Scheduling:
Here, you can choose the currency you
want to use when paying for your ads,
your daily or entire campaign budget,
and when you’d like your ad to appear. 8 Review your ad. Make sure that all of your information is correct. On this page, you
have the chance to go back and edit any
part of the ad you’ve designed. 9 Place your order. You can pay by credit card or by PayPal. You've officially started
an ad and boosted your chance of seeing a
return on your investment. Advertisement Edit Method Three of Three: Making the Most of Your Ads 1 First, make sure you have a budget cap. So if you want to spend no more than $20 a day
on your Facebook ads, set your cap at $20
daily. Very important! 2 The most important way to maximize the
effectiveness in Facebook ads is to target
narrowly. Examples: If you are selling beer in the state of
Oregon, target your ads to show only to
those people who live in Oregon, who
also like beer (have beer as an interest
in their profile.) Probably, you'd want to
choose age over 21. You might even choose to show your ad to men only! If you are promoting a band, you will find
it very effective to promote to people
who like your band, your band's genre of
music, and similar bands to yours. 3 Facebook shows ads based on how often
they get clicked on. (It's called CTR, or Click Through Rate.) If your ads are showing, but
all of a sudden don't show any more, it is
because your CTR was too low. Try
swapping out the picture in your ad and
trying it again. 4 Pictures are the biggest leverage you
have other than targeting. Its worth trying your ads with different pictures at any
time. 5 Edit ads with mobile and tablet in mind. According to some sources, 60% of users
accessing Facebook do so on their phones
and tablets. In fact, Facebook's mobile ads
earn more than 2.5 times than its desktop
ads, and the market for mobile is growing: In
the first quarter of 2013, mobile-ad sales rose close to 25% from the last quarter.[2] [3] What practical impact does this have? For one, it means no right-hand column,
which is where ads are shown on desktop.
In order to make the most out of your ads,
edit them with this in mind. Use Facebook's Power Editor in order
to select ads that translate to mobile.
You need to have Chrome downloaded
in order to download and use Power
Editor. In order to download Power
Editor: Open a Chrome browser Navigate to the Ads Manager page on Facebook. Go to the Power Editor tab on the left
hand side Install the Power Editor application Once the app is launched, click
"download" and follow the remaining
instructions In the Power Editor, pay attention to
the ad placement. Some people suggest
placing the ad on both desktop and
mobile in the news feed in order to
optimize click-through rate. You can try
different combinations of placements and experiment with how it affects your
bottom line. 6 Create more leads with Offers. So you want to connect with more potential customers
and grow your customer base? You can
create relationships with new customers
by listing an Offer, where you give away
something free. Customers love free stuff,
and enticing them to buy goods and services with free things is a great way to
connect with new users and drive repeat
business. If you're trying to generate leads, set
up a landing page with a space for name
and email. When customers input their
name and email, email them a
redeemable code for or copy of your
Offer. Customers get their free stuff, you get your lead. 7 Save money by customizing your target
audience. If you're able to build up a sizable corps of fans, target ads directly to them.
Customers who are already a fan of your
product or service can be cheaper to
advertise to and have higher click-through
rates. This translates to less money spent
by you and better conversions. 8 Make sure you don't get penalized on ads
that feature images. Facebook recently revised its image policy on ads, stipulating
that text can't take up more than 20% of
the total ad image. In other words,
Facebook is trying to guide ad creators to
make better use of images of ads. Make
sure you follow suit when you create an ad. 9 Consider using videos to generate likes. Facebook allows you to make ads that
target non-fans in the hopes of generating
more likes. These ads are perfect
opportunities for videos. Well-done videos
can communicate excitement, recognition,
and — most importantly — trust, something you need in order to generate more fans. When doing a video, keep it short and
sweet, like picture ads, and know who
your demographic is. At the end of the
video, include a call to action. A good
video can help build trust more than
almost any other media or promotion; use them wisely!