Advertising on Facebook can be a beneficial way to target relevant, specific users, and achieve a variety of marketing goals. We have a handy downloadable Facebook Advertising 101 PDF on our website, for a full rundown of how the system works, but here are a few quick tips to help you get started:

• Establish your goals and objectives before you start. What is it you want to do? Increase traffic, strengthen your brand, raise awareness of a promotion or new product? Have this in mind when creating and targeting your ads.

• Brainstorm keywords. One of the aspects of the targeting system is related to groups and pages users belong to – think carefully about the types of keywords that will be relevant to your audience and find appropriate targeting areas.

• Find your audience. Do your research – who is your demographic, what do they like, what sites do they visit? More importantly, why should they want to click your ad?

• Choose the right landing page. Go back to your aims. Where do you want to send your ‘clickers’ and why? To boost your Facebook page numbers? To increase traffic to your website or a specific page? What will be most beneficial for your campaign?

• Split test. Much of PPC is trial and error. Experiment with alternative wording, images and landing pages to see which combination yields the best results. You can pause ads at any time so you needn’t be throwing your money away – find out what works and cull the others.

• Know what you’re doing. Um, obvious? Apparently not. Many businesses, lulled by the ease of setting up a Facebook campaign, charge right in and sink their cash into unsuccessful ads. Find out about the ins and outs of PPC (pay-per-click advertising), or hire an internet marketing company to help you out. (Wink wink!)

• Create eyecatching design. “But it’s only a teeny little ad,” you might think. All the more reason for it to grab the viewer. Use an image with impact, write an engaging headline, call the user to action, give them a reason to click and a reward for visiting. Keep your copy succinct and make it count.

• Be consistent. Use familiar branding, colour, design and phrasing so customers trust the similarity between your ad and your landing page. Sending them to a site that has no apparent correlation to the advert is disconcerting.

• Tweak until you get it right. Monitor your ad’s progress on Facebook Insights, check your CTR (click-through-rate) and your stats, and work out what works and what doesn’t. Adjust, adapt and improve!

• Don’t expect a quick fix. Treat Facebook advertising as an investment, just like any aspect of internet marketing. One of the best benefits of Facebook ads is to build brand strength – to be visible to the right people so that you are first in their mind when they think of a related product or service. Social media is about trust. If you’re looking for fast direct sales and a hard sell, then you’d better be a whizz with your copy.

• Use narrow targeting. It’s tempting to see a big number with lots of zeros and think: “Wow, my ad’s going to be seen my X-hundred-thousand people!” when really you’d be better off narrowing down your target audience. Be specific. Use relevant location, age, gender and keywords to increase your ROI.

• Connect and interact. Make your presence on Facebook before you start. Give your audience somewhere to find out more about you to increase trust and familiarity. Follow up with information, engagement, conversation so you’re not just a faceless advertiser.

• Give them a reason to ‘like’ you. If you’re using your Facebook profile/page as your landing page, it’s a good idea to add a custom welcome page enticing users to ‘like’ you. This is a great place to offer some sort of hook: a voucher, a free download, unmissable content etc. The same can be done on a website landing page, to help get traffic onto the site.

• Test performance. Along with split testing and adjusting your ad content, see how well your ads perform at different times of the day, different days of the week. Though you cannot automate this, you can switch your ads on and off manually, to save money if your target audience is not generally online during the weekend, for example.

For more information, visit How to Advertise on Facebook at Ikroh.com for our free Facebook Advertising 101 download, and professional internet marketing advice.

Using Facebook Ad creates an advert to appear in a small box in the right sidebar of Facebook pages, displaying information, promotions, an image and a link to your chosen destination.

Setting up a Facebook Ad is quick and simple to do, working on either a Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) basis by bidding on keywords. Using the personal preferences most Facebook users have provided when setting up an account, advertisers can choose from a range of options to target their ads specifically to as direct or broad audience as they like.

These ads are run daily, according to the model you have chosen, and are set within a maximum daily budget – so you will never overspend accidentally. Facebook is used by a staggering 500 million people worldwide, so the audience potential in this medium is pretty high, whatever your targeted demographic.

Ads are comprised of a destination URL (which can be your Facebook page itself, your website or blog, or any landing page you choose), a title (25 characters max), the ad’s body text (135 characters max) and an image. Facebook make it as easy as possibly by making suggestions for content and images via the link provided.

You are then able to configure your targeted area and audience, by location (country/city), age (you are even able to target people on their birthdays), gender, marital status/sexuality, language, likes and interests, education and work information, and by existing contacts and friends on Facebook. You are given a running total of the reach of your ad, depending on your chosen demographic.

Your ‘Campaigns and Pricing’ options include currency, country and time zone, campaign name, maximum daily budget, specific date scheduling or continuous distribution, and a choice between CPM or CPC, including your maximum bid. Facebook also make suggestions for budgets and costs, and give an example of estimated impressions or clicks per day for each price. Organise and manage this aspect according to your budget, aims and analysis of your marketing campaign. An SEO company like Ikroh can be invaluable in helping with this if you are unsure what you are doing.

You are able to review your ad at this point, and ensure that all links, images and information are fully working and correct. Advertisements must comply with the Facebook ad guidelines.

Payment options are via Visa or Mastercard credit/debit card or PayPal and billing is daily. You have access to conversion tracking and analytics of your ads. “Facebook Insights”allows you to see the actual results of your campaign, as opposed to just your targeted audience. You can use this to analyse and adapt your ads to make them most effective. Facebook ads can also be tracked with Google Analytics.

Adverts can be used in a variety of ways:

• To drive traffic to your Facebook page and increase the amount of ‘fans’ or ‘likes’ for that page (a ‘like’ button is included in the ad for ease of use, and the user’s actions are documented on their profile wall for doing so).
• To drive traffic to your website or a targeted landing page.
• To publicise a promotion, new product or service (i.e. a temporary campaign as opposed to a long-running one)
• To increase awareness of a brand or service.
• To hold a competition or poll.

The social nature of Facebook means that it is most useful for strengthening brand reputation and awareness, building a steady, loyal group of fans and customers around your page or profile, which in turn will increase your authority and presence. Hard-sell ads are not necessarily the way to go – the basis of social media is the exchange of information and is not consumer-driven. Providing interesting information, fun competitions, games and promotions is a better way to generate interest in your Facebook page – and in turn, your company. Users of Facebook groups and fan pages want to be part of something that engages and amuses them, and the most successful business pages on Facebook do just that. Facebook’s own case studies can be found here.

ROI is variable, dependent on the targeted audience and nature of the product or business and ad itself. The formula relies on testing and adapting accordingly, making changes as you see results to optimise the success of this type of advertising. Ikroh can help with all aspects of online marketing, also provide management in advertising on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as Blog Marketing, SEO and PPC.

Check the Ikroh blog for more Advertising 101 posts, including Spotify and Twitter in the following weeks…..