If you’re running a business, you want to get in front of people, right? You want to get in front of your target demographic, right? Social media has been a great asset to businesses, small and large. They help you get in front of your customers. However, lately, you’re not getting in front of as many of your followers as you were a couple years ago, right? The algorithm has changed. Facebook is trying to clean up all the junk and clickbait pages. Which is bittersweet. Now we gotta work a little harder to stretch that dollar. But with a little strategy and a few dollars, we can have a better return.

One of the first questions I get when talking to a prospect about Facebook Ads is, “We post to our page every now and then, why should I run Facebook Ads?”

This is an easy one, organic posts on your page are only seen by your followers, aka unpaid traffic. With Facebook Ads, you can target anyone who’s on Facebook, not just your followers. Want to target 30 year old males, in Mobile, AL, who are married, like to fish and like the movie Die Hard? You can. This helps you reach a new audience. Your ideal customer.

Get this, are you sitting down? With organic posts, only about 10% of your followers are seeing your posts!
And that percentage gets smaller with the more followers have! 

When I was running social media campaigns at Frito-Lay, we had just over 2 million followers. Guess how many consumers saw our organic posts? Roughly 6,000. Yeah, that’s only 0.3%. Less than 1%. Blew my mind. And that’s where Facebook Ads come in.

But before I talk about Facebook Ads, let’s discuss boosted posts:

Me:  “What kind of Facebook Advertising have you done?”
Biz Owner:  “We boost some posts here and there,”
Me:  “Cool, how’d they do?”
Biz Owner:  “Ok”
Me:  “What value did you give?”
Me:  “What did you offer?”
Me:  “What was the call-to-action?”
Me:  “Where did you send the user?”
Biz Owner: “…”

The only times you really want to boost a post is if it’s getting good engagement (so more people can see it) or if you don’t have many followers, this will get you in front of more people. But it needs to be good content. How do you know if it’s good content? The users will tell you by engagement.

Good engagement, in other words, when people are liking (reactions too), commenting and sharing, you should boost it. If it’s not doing well without a paid push, it probably won’t do well with. Facebook made post boosting a little sneaky. They make it super easy to do, but my clients are often discouraged because $20 behind a post doesn’t tend to do much. That’s because there’s probably not a clear call-to-action for the user. Boosted posts can be good, and are good for brand awareness, meaning it gets your business in front of people. But again, the content needs to be good.

Save those monies for a strategic Facebook Ad Campaign.

Now on to the big dog, Facebook Ads. You can target your ideal customer, not just your followers. Need to market to males, 30-35, in a 10 mile radius of Plano, TX, who make over 100,000 a year and likes dogs? Boom! Need to market to females in Burleson, TX, 20-25, who are Republican, who were recently engaged. Bam!

But, BUT (big but) a lot goes into a successful Facebook Ad. They have to be planned and have to be ready to be tweaked. Rarely does a winning Facebook Ad come out of the gates blazing hot. What works in one part of the country, might not work as well in another.

You’ll want to focus on:
— Target Audience (ideal customer)
— A Great Offer
— Great Image Graphic
— Good copy writing (telling a story or speaking to a pain point)

Lastly, is ReTargeting Ads. Have you ever been to a website and then later on seen an ad from that business while on Facebook? Yep, you’ve been re-targeted. These are a great addition to your digital marketing strategy, but I’ll talk about those in another post as they require a bit more work. These are HUGE because they re-engage a user that has ALREADY shown interest in your brand/business.

FINAL THOUGHT on Facebook posts and ads:  They are all good assets to your digital marketing strategy, but you’ve got to have a strategy in place or else you’re kind of all over the place. Go find one of your favorite brands on Facebook and see how they’re posting. Keep an eye out for their ads and inspect it from top to bottom. I bet they have something awesome and send you to a specific page on their website. I also bet that after you come back to Facebook you see another ad from them. That’s a good strategy.

Comment below or Holler at me if you have a question. Or click on the Facebook messenger on the right.

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