Facebook is still the world’s largest social media platform, with over two and a half billion users, as at the end of June 2019 and by maximising your efforts with these tips, when it comes to advertising campaigns you should see increased engagement.
Facebook advertising is a cost-effective way to promote your Facebook page or drive traffic to your website.
To get the results you want, these top tips will definitely help:
1. Set realistic expectations
Facebook advertising is good, however don’t expect it to be a miracle worker. There is always going to be a difference between what you want to achieve, what you should expect and what you end up getting.
Always be realistic in your objectives and expectations.
2. Set your budget
Facebook advertising should always be thought of as an investment, rather than an expense, even though you’re spending money.
Budgets, however, are always important, and it is very easy indeed to spend a fortune on Facebook adverts without realising it.
It’s always a difficult thing to get right as well. Just remember that when setting your Facebook advert budget that the cost depends on your goals and the type of advert you want.
So, you need to set your budget for your advert, and stick to it.
3. What is the objective of your advert?
What are you trying to accomplish with your advert? Get more likes on your Facebook page, increase engagement, ask for donations, increase newsletter sign-ups or something else.
Creating adverts with your objective in mind is easy with Facebook. They have different in-built ‘ad objectives’ so it’s easy for you to choose the closest match to your aims.
The Facebook advertising algorithm is very sophisticated and, based on the objective you choose that determines how Facebook runs your campaign.
4. Test your idea before spending money
The easiest way to avoid wasting money on a Facebook advertising campaign that doesn’t actually get any engagement, is simply to test the idea out first.
Create your advert as a regular Facebook post, turn it into short video and post it or use a poll to get people’s thoughts. If you can get engagement this way, you know that it’s a good enough idea to turn into an actual advert.
5. Audiences
The great thing about Facebook advertising is that you can choose who you want to be able to see you advert.
However, the one mistake that many advertisers make, especially if they are new to Facebook advertising is to try and reach as many people as possible. By doing this you are lowering your chances of finding the right people and making your advert campaign successful.
Facebook allows you to build a custom audience based on interests, demographics and/or behaviours that align with your core values. This narrows down the reach of the advert, but will enable you to reach the right people.
6. Video
Video content is the best way to get your message across on Facebook.
The appetite for video content has increased year on year, and each day Facebook alone gets approximately eight billion video views.
With video you have just three seconds to make an impact, so make grabbing attention the priority. Keep the video short, simple, engaging and use it as a chance to tell the story you want to tell.
Remember though to add captions to cater for silent viewing, not everyone has the volume turned up all the time.
7. Images
If video is king when it comes to content, images are the queen, as visual content is more likely to be remembered than text alone.
When it comes to your Facebook advert you need to pay attention to the images you choose:
1) Make sure your image is the right size. Currently, Facebook’s recommended image dimensions is 1200 x 628 pixels.
2) Your image should be clear and crisp and relevant to your advert’s headline and text.
8. Emojis
Emojis help grab people’s attention. Fact.
And getting noticed is the object of the advert, right?
Using emojis can help improve the performance of your ad and make it look more fun and engaging, without affecting your professionalism.
9. Use Testimonials
Using testimonials, either text or video, is another form of social proof you can utilise for your Facebook advert.
And you don’t have to limit yourself to the one testimonial per ad, create a collection to use and create one ad from them all.
10. Call to action
You’ve already agreed the objective of the ad, but you need to tell your audience what they need to do.
Whether it’s a simple ‘Click here’ or ‘Sign up now’, calls to action are integral to the success of your Facebook ad.
11. Ad placements
When you advertise on Facebook you can choose to run them on a number of platforms; Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger.
You are given the option to choose between automatic placements, where your ad will appear everywhere, or you can edit your placements and choose what’s right for you.
If you are new to Facebook advertising, the automatic placement option can give you a chance to run your ad and then identify where future ads will work better, as you have used up all available placements.
12. Don’t give up too quickly
Do not make the mistake that because the first Facebook ad campaign didn’t work, Facebook advertising itself doesn’t work. After all five million advertisers, and growing, can’t all be wrong.
Getting to grips with Facebook advertising is a skill, and just like other skills you need to practice to get it right.
Conclusion
The beauty with Facebook advertising is that you can spend as little as you want, and you can tweak adverts to see what works best for you and what doesn’t.
The other thing to note though, is it will take time and effort to see a breakthrough and eventually see results.
Now, I want to hear from you.
What have your experiences been with Facebook advertising?
This list isn’t an exhaustive list of tips, is there anything that you would add to improve the return on investment on any ads?
Let me know, right now in the comments below.
Kook Content is a digital content agency helping brands and businesses with their copywriting and social media management needs. Contact us on 0800 488 0854 or email info@kookcontent.co.uk
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