A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Marketing

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Marketing

If you’re just getting started with social media marketing—or even with Internet marketing in general—then you may be feeling a little overwhelmed.

There are so many marketing channels and social media platforms to consider, after all. It can all be a tad bit daunting. Yeah, we’ve been there ourselves.

To get a handle on everything, you first need to take a long, deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Now repeat.

Feel better?

Ok. Let’s get started then.

After taking a deep breath, the second thing you need to do is accept the inevitability that you need to develop a solid Facebook marketing strategy for your business. Depending on your particular view of this social media platform, that may be an easy pill to swallow. Or, it might be one of those huge horse pills that get caught in your throat every single time. No matter. Either way, you’ve gotta get it down and digested because Facebook is where it’s at for social media marketing.

Not convinced? Let’s take a peek at some stats:

First of all, there’s over 1.5 billion active users on Facebook every day. Yes, BILLION. And if that’s not proof enough that your company needs an active Facebook presence, get this: Nearly 2.5 billion users log on to Facebook each month.

These stats are from Facebook’s own website:

More Important Stats on FB Marketing

According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of adults in the United States use Facebook (as of February, 2019):

Of that 69% of adults who are on Facebook, nearly three-quarters of them report logging onto this social media platform at least once a day. That’s significantly more than similar usage stats for other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, for instance.

Both Women and Men Are on Facebook

And for the most part, Facebook knows no gender. Men and women alike are using Facebook in droves, but you’ll reach slightly more women than men via this social media network. According to the Pew Research Center, “Three-quarters of women in the U.S. use the platform, compared with 63% of men.”

3 Surprising Statistics About Facebook Usage

You might think you know who’s on Facebook (everyone, right?), but recent studies have unveiled some trends you may find surprising. Take a look:

• College-educated Americans use Facebook the most.

The Facebook crowd tends to be an educated bunch. The Pew Research Center found that 74% of Americans with a college degree use Facebook while just 63% of those with a high school diploma or less log in to the social media site.

• Older Americans are on Facebook too.

And no one’s too old for the social media giant. Almost half of senior citizens in the U.S. report using Facebook. That’s more than double the reported percentage in 2012, so this demographic is growing.

• Many Americans use Facebook for news.

Whether you think it’s a good idea or not is irrelevant. The fact is that a lot of people turn to Facebook for their headlines. Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they consider Facebook a news source.

The bottom line? Facebook is the biggest social media network in the world with plenty of opportunities for businesses. So you need to be on it. Now.

No matter what your niche or industry is, we’d be willing to bet our own marketing budget that your target customers are on Facebook. If you’re neglecting this part of your social media strategy, then you’re really missing out. Let’s not wait any longer.

Myths About Facebook Marketing (And Why Some Businesses Still Aren’t on Facebook)

The overwhelming majority of businesses now have an active Facebook presence. A recent study showed that over 93% of businesses now use Facebook as part of their overall marketing strategy. But if the social media platform is as effective for advertising as everyone says it is, then why aren’t all businesses on it? And why aren’t many companies as active as they could be?

There are some myths about Facebook that deter some businesses and keep others from interacting on the social media site as much as maybe they should be. Let’s dispel these myths right away so you’ll feel confident in moving forward with your social media marketing strategy and including Facebook in those efforts.

Myth #1: Facebook Ads Don’t Work

You may have the preconceived notion that Facebook isn’t for businesses. After all, it was created on a college campus and definitely didn’t start out as a marketing tool. Plus, you use Facebook primarily to keep up with your long-distance relatives and post cute pictures of your kids. None of that has anything to do with advertising. So it makes sense that you may not realize the powerful marketing tool that’s staring you right in the face on the daily.

FB Connects You to Friends, Family, and (Yes!) Businesses

But first, let’s get something straight right out of the gate—Facebook may still be a way for you to get in touch with your former BFF from high school, but it’s also an extremely sophisticated advertising platform for businesses.

Don’t believe us? Think of a brand. Any brand. From your preferred toilet paper to the model of car you drive. Got one in mind? Now, look it up on Facebook. Does that brand have a Facebook business page? We’re betting the answer is yes. Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s because Facebook advertising does work!

Myth #2: Facebook Advertising Is Too Expensive

In marketing (as with anything else), it’s all about the money. If you want to know why a company does or doesn’t do something, just follow the money, and you’ll eventually find the answer.

It should come as no surprise then that the businesses who aren’t leveraging Facebook advertising use expenses as one of their excuses. They think Facebook marketing is just too costly for their bottom line.

However, the idea that Facebook advertising is too expensive or that FB ads aren’t worth it is a myth and nothing more. In fact, Facebook is one of the most cost-effective social media marketing platforms available, especially when you consider the potential return on investment (ROI).

The Real Cost of Facebook Ads

The truth is that Facebook advertising costs vary based on a number of factors, including the industry you’re in. According to WordStream, the average cost per click (CPC) across industries is a reasonable $1.72. Check out the chart below to find out if your real cost will be more or less than this on average:

Reality Check: You Control the Cost of Your Facebook Advertising

Plus, you set your own budget when you create Facebook ads, so you can make it as economical or as expensive as you want it to be. Facebook will always respect your maximum spend limits, so you don’t have to worry about things adding up and getting away from you.

Myth #3—Facebook Is Dying

It seems like no matter what the topic of conversation is, there will always be the naysayers. Facebook is no exception. Ever since Facebook has exploded in popularity, people have been predicting its impending demise.

Naysayers Are Gonna Naysay

Some of these naysayers cite users who have deactivated their accounts because of privacy concerns. Others reference the fact that members of the younger generation prefer sites like Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook.

But Facebook Is Here to Stay

While there may be a smidgen of validity to their arguments, the numbers speak for themselves. And based on the current stats, one thing is for sure: Facebook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Your Guide to FB Marketing

No one said marketing on Facebook was easy, though. (Well except for Facebook 😉). Lucky for you, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to Facebook marketing with beginners like you in mind. We’ve done all the leg work already, and we’re going to make it super simple for you to start leveraging this extremely powerful social channel in your favor. You’re welcome!

Step One: Set Up A Facebook Page

We told you we were going to start with the basics, remember?. So if you don’t already have a Facebook page for your business, you’ve come to the right place.

As the social media giant itself points out, it takes mere minutes to set up a Facebook Page for your company. Promoting and advertising that page? Well, that’s a different story. But first things, first.

Once you click on “Create a Page,” you’ll be asked to specify that you want to create a page for a business or brand as opposed to a page for a community or public figure.

Naming and Categorizing Your Business

Then, you’ll just fill in your page name (usually the name of your business) and category. This is how you tell Facebook who you are and what kind of business you’re in.

The page name section is self-explanatory. Just enter the name of your company. For the category section, you’ll be prompted to type in a word or two about your business, and then Facebook will suggest some relevant categories for you to choose from. For instance, if your business is a bike shop, you may get suggestions like “Bicycle Repair Service,” “Bicycle Shop,” or “Motorcycle Repair Shop.” Simply, pick the suggestion that best matches the type of business you own.

Categorizing your business will help Facebook know which users to show it to.

Adding A Profile Picture

After you’ve named and categorized your business and filled in some small details like your company address and phone number, Facebook will prompt you to add a profile picture to your page. This is a very important step and should not be neglected! Facebook is a highly visual platform, so you must have a picture. If you have a company logo, that’s the perfect image to use here.

You’ll also be asked to add a cover photo. This adds even more visuals to your page, and it’s a great spot for a storefront pic or a featured product image.

Optimizing Your Facebook Page

Creating a Facebook Page for your business is a good first step. So if you’ve gotten this far, congrats!

But don’t stop there. You want to get the most mileage you can out of your business page, so let’s optimize it. Optimizing your page will help you get the most exposure for your brand and the highest number of conversions.

Create a Username/Customized URL

You can start optimizing your page for marketing purposes by creating a username for your page, which will in turn, customize the URL for your Facebook business page.

Once you’ve successfully created a username for your page, you’ll get a message like this:

Note that your page is now easier for users to find using Facebook’s search feature. Score!

Create a Button

Another way to optimize your company’s Facebook Page is to create buttons. You can do this easily using FB’s simple tool.

Facebook offers different call-to-action—or CTA— buttons based on what you want your page visitors to do once they arrive on your page. The CTA button you choose will become the main button on your page.

Depending on the CTA button you choose, you can have your visitors call your place of business, email you, or send you a message over Facebook, for instance. Think about how you usually like to communicate with your leads and customers when creating your call to action. Of course, you’ll also want to consider the medium of communication preferred by your fanbase.

Once you choose your desired button, you may need to configure it by adding information such as your website URL or phone number, for instance.

Once your button is configured, it will show up prominently underneath your cover photo on the right-hand side of the page.

Fill in the About Section

Up next—the “About” section. The “About” section of your Facebook page is an important section as it helps visitors learn more about your company. As you’re filling in your information for this section, remember that the more your visitors know about your business, the more likely it is that they’ll interact with you via social media. So don’t be shy— type away!

Tell Your Brand Story in the About Section

Facebook gives you a fair amount of creative license in the Story sub-section. Here, you can add photos, a title, and tell people about your company. Be sure to take full advantage of this opportunity to share information about your brand with Facebook users. It will be worth its weight in gold later on!

About Us Section Example

Here’s a super awesome example of a Facebook Page “About” section 😉:

Add Details About Your Business

From Settings, you can Edit Info about your page, and that includes adding additional information for your followers. This includes your business’s location, operating hours, prices, and more.

Add Your Location to Your Facebook Business Page

It’s important that your fans on Facebook know where to find you, especially if you have a brick and mortar storefront.

When you enter your street address, Facebook will add a map of your location to your page.

If you’re located inside of a building or if you offer parking, be sure to include this information for customers as well.

Include Your Operating Hours

If your business has specific operating hours, you can also specify those on your Facebook business page. Under Settings-Edit Your Details, just click on More and check the boxes beside the days your business is open for customers. Then, enter the operating hours for each business day.

Other Details

In this same section, you can add additional details to your page, including your price range, products, and founding date.

Choose A Template (Optional)

To help you develop your business page quickly, Facebook offers some optional templates for you to choose from. These templates include relevant tabs and buttons that will help you promote your page. As of this writing, FB marketers have the following types of templates to choose from:

• Movies
• Business
• Venues
• Non-Profit
• Politicians
• Services
• Restaurants & Cafes
• Shopping
• Video Page
• Standard

To access a template for your business page, just click on the Settings tab and then select Templates and Tabs to get started.

Then, click on the Edit button beside your current template.

Keep in mind that this is an optional step. You are not required to choose a template for your business page. If you want more control over your page and its settings, then you may want to skip this step and create your own page design instead.

On the other hand, if you’re just getting started with Facebook Pages and you want a helping hand, choosing a pre-designed template can save you some time in getting your page up and running.

Warning: Note that when you apply a template to your page, any tabs and buttons that you created prior to this application will be replaced.

Facebook will alert you to any changes that will be made to your page when you initiate the template, though, and you’ll have the opportunity to abort mission if necessary.

Strategic Tab Placement With Facebook Templates

When you apply a template to your page, Facebook will strategically alter the placement of your tabs to boost your page performance.

And if that’s not nifty enough, Facebook will also make adjustments to this placement from time to time in order to enhance your page’s performance. Sweet!

Post to Your Page

To keep your page relevant and get the most exposure out of it, you’ll want to publish posts regularly. Note that this doesn’t mean flooding your followers’ feeds with useless information just to gain their attention. It also doesn’t mean self-promoting in every post. There’s a balance to be struck here, just as there is with all types of marketing.

In the age of content marketing (aka now), it’s important to engage your readers with information they’ll find useful. You can even throw in a funny meme from time to time. Use some emojis if you want. It’s Facebook, after all.

When posting on Facebook, think of your persona as business casual. You want to remain professional enough to represent your brand in a positive light, but you also want to be relatable. The more relatable you are, the more comfortable your followers will be interacting with your business on social media.

More Things to Post on Your Facebook Business Page

When it comes to posting on Facebook, the sky is the limit. Here are some other ideas for Facebook posts on your company page:

• Blog posts (from your own blog and from industry experts, partners, etc.)
• Interesting infographics
• Notice of sales and discounts, coupons, promotions, etc.
• Contests and events
• New product announcements and other types of company updates
• Customer testimonials
• Requests for feedback on new products and services

These are just ideas. Don’t feel like you have to use all of them, and don’t be limited by this list. There’s certainly a lot of room for creativity with your Facebook business page posts, so feel free to “do you,” so to speak. Just make sure your posts are in line with your brand image.

Bonus Tips for Posting on Facebook

Vary Types of Posts

Vary your posts. Don’t post about the same topic every time, and use different types of media whenever possible. The more varied your posts, the more engaged your audience will be. Keep them guessing, and give them something to talk about!

Engage Your Followers

Remember, you want to engage your followers with your posts. Ask them questions, post about trending topics, use popular quotes—anything to get fans liking, commenting, and sharing your posts!

Scheduling Posts on Facebook

Facebook gives you the option to schedule posts to be published at a later time. This can be helpful if you have a content calendar to fill, or if you just want to safeguard against procrastination. Remember, it’s a good idea to post to your Page on a fairly regular basis to keep your fans engaged and maximize exposure.

How to Schedule Posts on Facebook

To schedule a post on Facebook, write your post and then click the down arrow beside the Share Now button. Then click on Schedule.

You’ll then see this screen:

Here, you can select the date and time you want the post to be published. Note that you can also select a time when your post will stop showing up in your fans’ newsfeeds, but this is optional.

Assigning Page Roles

Facebook allows you to assign different roles to the different team members who will be accessing and managing your business page. This is a life-saver for large businesses who have multiple eyes on their social media efforts.

The social media giant also allows you to assign different permissions to these different roles, so that business partners and employees only have access to the parts of your business page that they need in order to do their jobs. This protects any confidential information and prevents a “too many cooks” situation from sabotaging your social media strategy.

How to Assign Page Roles for Your FB Business Page

To assign page roles, just click on Settings from your page and select Page Roles.

Then, enter a name or email for each page role you wish to assign.

Before you can continue, you’ll be asked to enter your password just to confirm it’s actually you assigning the new page role.

Admin

Once you create a business page on Facebook, you’re automatically assigned the Admin role. You can add additional admins to the page as well if you desire, though. Just keep in mind that this other admin will share all of the same rights and privileges as you. So make sure it’s someone you trust.

Facebook Page Admins have the following permissions:

• Send messages
• Publish posts
• Manage comments (i.e., responding and deleting)
• Create advertisements and promotions
• View insights
• Assign page roles

Editor

Editors have almost as many privileges as admins on a Facebook business page. They can:

• Send messages
• Publish posts
• Create advertisements and promotions
• Manage comments (i.e., respond and delete)
• View insights

The only thing editors can’t do is assign page roles. Only admins can do this.

Moderator

A moderator’s primary role is to manage the page’s comments and send messages. However, they can also create ads and promotions and view page insights. Note that moderators cannot publish posts to a page.

Advertisers and Analysts

Advertisers and analysts have significantly less privileges than some of the other page roles on Facebook. They cannot post or respond to comments, for instance. They can, however, create advertisements and promotions and view page insights.

As the Admin, you can change page roles on your business page at any time.

Managing Tabs

Facebook also allows you to manage the tabs on your business page. This is another great option for optimization.

Note that Facebook will set default tabs for you, but if you want to step things up a notch (and you do!), then you can customize your tabs to better align them with your marketing goals.

How to Manage Tabs on Your Facebook Business Page

To manage your tabs, just go to Settings, and select Tabs and Templates.

Then, scroll down to the Tabs section to manage your tabs. Here, you can click to drag and reorder how the tabs appear on your page. You can also click settings for each tab to further customize the tab.

In addition, you can add additional tabs to your page. This is where things can get really interesting.

Custom tabs allow you to advertise events, showcase products, highlight services, offer promotions, and more.

Managing Messages from Your Followers

Another great feature of Facebook business pages is that it allows you to interact with your individual followers directly via Messenger. Depending on the size of your fanbase, managing your direct messages can be challenging, though. If you miss a message or fail to respond to it in a timely manner, this misstep can have a negative impact on your brand image.

Thankfully, Facebook has developed some tools to help you out with managing your messages, even if you own a large company or have lots of followers.

Response Assistant

One of these tools is Response Assistant. With Response Assistant, your followers will be greeted with a message as soon as they open a chat with you on Messenger. You can use the default message Facebook has created, or you can change it to virtually anything you want—as long as it’s no more than 160 characters!

We recommend you customize the greeting to reflect your brand voice, even if you keep the general sentiment the same.

You can even personalize the message by adding the person’s name, your address, or your Facebook url. Our advice? Go for it! Anything you can do to make your company’s messaging as unique and individualized as possible is well worth the effort.

Question Prompts

Another messaging tool Facebook offers business owners is Question Prompts. When you enable this feature, you give Facebook permission to show your followers between 2-4 questions designed to encourage interaction with your page.

These questions will appear whether users open the message box organically or if they respond to an ad you’ve created.

You can create more than 4 questions, but if you do, Facebook will select the questions to show users at random.

There’s a lot of room for customization here, so take the time to choose questions most relevant to your business and your followers.

Appointment Messaging

If you’re the owner of a business that accepts appointments for services offered, Facebook has a messaging tool for that as well. You can choose to send automated appointment reminders a day before the scheduled appointment. And if you want to get really crafty, you can have Facebook send a follow-up message after the appointment to encourage future bookings.

The best part of this feature is that it’s totally automated and “hands-off.” You can literally set it and forget it. Facebook will do all of the heavy lifting for you.

Instant Replies and Away Messages

In the digital age, customers expect an instant response when they interact with businesses online. When you have a large customer base, though, this can be difficult if not impossible to manage on your own. Luckily, Facebook has a solution for message overload.

With the Instant Reply tool, you can send a default or custom message to your customers whenever they contact you via Messenger.

Away messages work in the exact same way but are sent when you’re away from your page.

How to Set Up Instant Replies on Facebook Messenger

To set up instant replies, just go to your inbox and click on Automated Responses. Then turn on Instant Reply.

Advanced Messaging Features

Once you learn how to use the basic Facebook messaging features for your business page, you can level up to some of the more advanced features on Messenger.

Subscription Messaging

One of these advanced messaging features is Subscription Messaging.

Want to send information to your fan base on a reoccurring basis? With Subscription Messaging, you can. To access this feature, you will need to undergo a bit of a review process with Facebook, though. This is just to ensure you’re not planning on spamming your followers with annoying promotional messages.

We know you’d never do that anyway, but apparently, FB doesn’t know you as well as we do 😉.

To request Subscription Messaging, just click on the blue Request link. You’ll then need to tell Facebook more about the type of recurrent content you plan on sending users.

Here, Facebook will remind you that the messages you send through Subscription Messaging must be non-promotional in nature. As a failsafe, the social media giant then goes one step further and asks you to confirm exactly what type of content you plan to send (Read: It better not be promotional, okay?). Okay!

And if that weren’t enough reassurance for Facebook that you’re not a serial spammer, you’ll need to describe (in your own words) the kind of messages you’re going to be sending. And bonus question: How often do you plan to send these non-promotional messages? Geesh.

Just when you thought you were done with this step, you’ll be confronted with yet another task. I know, I know. But hang in there—it’s worth it. You’ll swear you’re back in school taking a standardized test, but just go with it. Facebook is going to give you an example of promotional vs. non-promotional content and then ask you to give an example of what kind of content you’ll be sending your subscribers. (Hint: Make it non-promotional!)

Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to confirm one more time for good measure that you won’t be sending out a bunch of spam to your followers on Facebook. Then, you can finally make your request.

Once your submission is complete, you’ll receive a message confirming receipt and letting you know that you can expect an approval or denial within 5 business days.

Once you learn how to use all of Facebook’s messaging tools for business owners, you’ll find Messenger to be a powerful marketing tool in its own right.

Using Facebook Page Insights

Once you start using your FB business page strategically and start to garner more followers, you’ll want to track your gains. Facebook offers a powerful way to do just that through Facebook Insights. The dashboard for this data analytics tool looks like this:

Facebook says that Page Insights is most useful for pages that have at least 100 followers, but you can use the tool no matter how many fans you have. We recommend you start taking a peek at your insights right away to get in the habit of crunching your numbers.

Page Insights gives you access to important metrics for your page, including likes, views, clicks, and more.

Page Insights Best Practices

If you’re new at analyzing marketing data and identifying trends in consumer behavior, then you may find Page Insights to be one of the most challenging parts of executing your Facebook marketing strategy. It’s also one of the most important parts, though, so it’s crucial that you stay the course here.

Page Insights offers a lot of information. The sheer amount of data available to you can be a lot to process. But this is where Facebook shines, remember? The social media platform has all the information you want (and maybe even some you don’t want). Your job is to learn how to sort through all of this info and use the best bits for the good of your company. Here are some best practices for Page Insights to help you get a handle on this aspect of your Facebook advertising effort.

Know Your Fans

Page Insights lets you see demographic information about the fans who are interacting with your content. For example, you can view page clicks by age, gender, location, and device.

You can track these trends to better understand your fanbase over time.

Also, if you notice that a certain group of people are interacting with your page more than others, you can create custom posts and/or ads that target them specifically. This is how you maximize your gains on Facebook.

Track the Good and the Bad

Page Insights doesn’t candy-coat things. Instead, it gives you the scoop on all interactions on your business page—both the good and the bad. You’ll be able to see new likes, shares and clicks, for instance, but you’ll also know when users hide your content or report it as spam. The data is what it is.

There’s a shiny side of this coin, though. When you have this kind of information about the content you publish, you can use it to inform future posts. The idea here is to create more of the content your fans engage with and less of the kind they ignore or actively dislike.

Get Familiar With Page Insights

The best advice we can give you here is to take some time to get familiar with Page Insights. Click around and experiment some now before you even create your first Facebook ad. What you learn through this exploration will be priceless later when you’re analyzing your metrics and planning your next big ad campaign.

Advertising on Facebook

There are many different ways to advertise on Facebook, so things can get a bit complicated if you try to take it in all at once. But don’t worry—we’ve got your back. We’ll walk you through how to use different types of Facebook advertising to meet your specific objectives. We’ll discuss best practices, beginner strategies, and pro tips. By the end, you’ll have everything you need not only to get started, but to see some success with your Facebook marketing plans.

But first, a bit of advice to take with you on your journey to becoming a Facebook marketing guru: Start small and work your way up. That way, you’ll build confidence as you go and avoid making any costly mistakes that can come back and bite you later.

Page Promotions

The easiest place to start when marketing your business on Facebook is Page Promotions. If you’ve never used Facebook marketing strategies before, then even this first step may have you feeling a bit queasy already. Relax, though. Facebook has made this process so simple that you almost don’t even need a guide for it.

To get started with Facebook Page Promotions, click on Create Ad from your business page.

Then, click on Promote Your Page.

Selecting the Format for Your Page Promotion

Facebook will then prompt you to choose a format for your promotion.

Note that you have a few different choices here. You can choose a single image, a video, or a slideshow of up to ten images.

Notice also that Facebook has already pulled images from your page to fill in the ad as a default setting. If you’re happy with the image it’s pulled, then you’re one step ahead already.

Changing the Image for Your Page Promotion

If you want to change this image, you have several options for swapping it as well. You can choose images from your account, your page, stock photos, or your Instagram account.

The free stock photos feature is a relatively new feature for Facebook, so be sure to check it out. FB will suggest relevant photos, or you can search their lot of free stock images to find the perfect one for your ad.

Writing the Text for Your Promotion

After you’ve chosen the format and any images for your promotion, the next step is to write the text. Note that you only have 90 characters here, so make them count!

Really all you need for your page promotion text is a brief description of your page and what it offers visitors. No need for anything too fancy.

Here’s some example text for a mountain biking super store:

Easy, right?

Selecting Your Target Audience

One of the best features of Facebook’s Page Promotions is that you can choose who sees your ad. Yep—that’s right. You can create targeted page promotions, and Facebook lets you be as general or specific as you want to be, depending on your marketing goals.

Facebook will default to a specific audience based on your location, but you can edit this audience if you desire. We recommend you strongly consider customizing your audience for best results.

Creating a Highly Targeted Audience

Remember when we told you Facebook will let you get as specific as you want when creating targeted Page Promotions? Well, we weren’t kidding. You can choose your audience based on demographics such as education, finances, life events, and more; interests like what television shows they watch, what they do for exercise, hobbies like art and music, etc.; and behaviors like what operating system they use and whether or not they’ve recently used Facebook Payments, for instance. The options are virtually endless!

You can also choose to exclude people from your Page Promotions audience using these same filters.

Take note that you can choose to target people in your immediate area when creating your Page Promotion. This is particularly helpful if you are a local business owner.

With this feature, you can choose to show your promotion to Facebook users within 1 to 50 miles of your business’s location.

Choosing Your Budget and Duration

The last step to creating your page promotion is selecting your budget and the duration of the ad.

You can choose to run the ad continuously and set a daily budget. Or you can customize the duration of the ad.

When you select your daily budget, Facebook will give you an estimate of how many likes your page will receive as a result of the ad.

That’s it! You can now save your ad and submit it. Keep in mind that when you submit your Facebook Page Promotion, it will have to be reviewed by the folks at Facebook before it becomes active.

Boost A Post

Another way you can promote your business page on Facebook is through the platform’s Boost A Post feature. With this feature, you can transform any post on your page to an add with the click of a button. No, really. You read that right.

Boost A Post is a super easy and effective way to get your business in front of people by surreptitiously popping into their feeds. Using this feature, your “ad” will look like any other post in their feed with one small exception: it will be labeled as “sponsored.”

This is brilliant because the difference between a regular post and a boosted post is barely perceptible. Just take a look. Can you spot the difference?

The difference in exposure? Well that is perceptible! Of course, your results will vary depending on your budget and a host of other factors, including how well you craft the ad.

Why Boost A Post on Facebook?

The most obvious reason to use Boost A Post is to reach more of your fanbase with your posts. This results in greater exposure for your business and a higher percentage of clicks and conversions.

But why pay for exposure on Facebook? Fans are already seeing your content because they’ve already liked your page, right? Not necessarily!

Organic Reach is Declining for Businesses on Facebook

Facebook itself has said that organic reach is declining on the social media platform due to the sheer number of posts in an average user’s newsfeed at any given time. The competition is fierce. Boost A Post is one way you can get out in front.

Facebook’s 2018 Algorithm Change

Facebook has also intentionally made it harder for brands to get exposure organically (read: free) by changing their algorithm.

But why would Facebook do such a thing?

Why the FB Algorithm Change?

The reason for Facebook’s algorithm change is supposedly simple. Basically, people started complaining that Facebook had gotten too commercial, so the social media giant dialed it back a bit to accommodate users. Well, at least that’s the official story.

The Official Story Behind Facebook’s Algorithm Change

Now the algorithm prioritizes user content over business content. Here’s the scoop from Facebook:

“Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.”

You can also watch a short clip to better understand this change and why Facebook implemented it:

How to Boost A Post on Facebook

There are several ways you can boost your post on Facebook, and they’re all ridiculously easy.

First off, Facebook gives you the option to boost your post as soon as you create it:

This is probably the quickest and most fool-proof way to boost your post.

However, if you decide later that you want to boost a post you’ve already published, you can do that too. Simply find the post on your page and click the Boost button.

And there’s another way to boost, too. From the backend, you can always click on the Promote button to boost the post as well.

Once you choose to boost your post, you’ll have the option to select your audience, budget, and duration just as with a Page Promotion.

This should all look pretty familiar by now. It’s nice to feel like you’re getting the hang of things, huh?

Time to move on to some of the more advanced tools Facebook offers to marketers and advertisers.

Using Facebook Ads

If you really want to step up your marketing game on Facebook, then you’ll want to look into Facebook Ads. Don’t think you’re quite ready? You’d be surprised. Although advertising on Facebook isn’t exactly easy, it is something that anyone can learn how to do. You don’t need to be a seasoned marketer or have a business degree.

It’s Like Riding a Bike (Sort Of)

The truth is, advertising on Facebook is kind of like riding a bike. Once you get the basics down, it pretty much steers itself. But the question is—what kind of bike rider (or social media marketer) do you want to be? Bear with me here.

Put Your Goals Into Perspective

Do you want to grab a cheap Walmart bike and pedal around the block a time or two? If that’s your goal, then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You’ll see some small gains, and over time, you may even build some leg muscles. But, you won’t be winning any races.

On the other hand, you can drop a few thousand on a killer bike from an actual bike shop and commit to pedaling as hard as you can five times a week. In this scenario, it won’t take long before you see your speed increase dramatically, and your calves will be massive in mere months.

How Much Are You Willing to Invest?

It’s the same with Facebook ads and marketing. Your wins in terms of exposure, clicks, and sales will all depend on how much you’re willing to invest. And we’re not talking about just cash. Effective Facebook marketing—the kind that turns start-ups into multi-million dollar companies seemingly overnight—takes a huge time investment as well.

Be Realistic

Our advice? Be realistic about the kind of time and money you want to invest at the start and then align your goals accordingly. That way, you won’t get discouraged because you’re not seeing the gains you want. Instead, you’ll steadily build confidence (and followers). As your business grows, you can re-evaluate your initial Facebook marketing investment.

How to Create Ads on Facebook

Facebook uses a highly sophisticated advertising model, so the learning curve may be a little steep when you first start out. Don’t worry, though. You’ll get the hang of it quickly, especially with us as your guide! We’ll break the process of ad creation down step by step, so you’ll have a good grasp of how it’s done before you create your own digital advertisements.

Advertising on Facebook Can Be Easy

It’s also important to note here that marketing on Facebook can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. If you’re a beginner, its totally fine to start out small. Once you see some progress, though, we’re betting you’re going to want to move on to deeper waters, so to speak.

According to the social media giant itself, you really only need four things to create your first ad on Facebook:

• a business goal
• a target audience
• a budget
• photos or videos

You’re In Control With Facebook Marketing

Just remember that you’re in the driver’s seat. You can create as many or as few ad campaigns as you like, and you set the budget, so you never spend any more money than you want to.

Facebook Ads Basics

Remember how we said the learning curve was steep with Facebook advertising? Well, there are ways to dampen the incline, so to speak. And one of the best of those ways is to start out with the basics.

Starting out with Facebook marketing is kind of like taking up mountain biking. You don’t want to begin with the black diamond trails. If you do, you’ll likely find yourself on the ground licking your wounds. Instead, you want to get your bearings on the bunny trails and get some miles behind you before leveling up. This helps you gain the skills and confidence you need to tackle more rugged terrain.

Slow Pedal With Facebook Ads Basics

On Facebook Ads’ bunny trail, you may find yourself getting a little bored, and you’re not going to be doing any impressive BMX tricks along the way. You may not even be all that winded after you’re done. But it’s a necessary step, so pedal through with us here. You’ll be on your way to bigger climbs in no time.

Glossary of Terms for Facebook Marketing

Objective- Your advertising objective is what you want to accomplish with a particular campaign or ad. Facebook will ask you to define your objective when you create ads on the platform. Some examples of objectives include brand awareness, increased web traffic, and page views.

Audience- Your audience for an ad is the type of people you hope will see it. Facebook lets you customize different ads for different audiences.

Reach – The reach for an ad is the number of people who view it.

Conversion- A conversion occurs when you’re successful at getting your customer to do what you wanted him or her to do. Conversions are determined by your objectives. If your objective is increased web traffic, for example, then a conversion is a site visit. Other examples of conversions include clicks, video views, downloads, email subscriptions, sales, and more.

Demographics- The term “demographics” refers to the differences among your audience or prospective audience. Demographics could include gender, age, income, interests, and more.

Step One: Choose Your Objective

When you create an ad on Facebook, the first step will be to set your advertising objective. These objectives fall into three basic categories: awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Awareness

Brand awareness is all about getting the word out about your business and your brand. This means letting people know what products and services you offer, of course. But it also means telling them a story about your business and what it stands for.

Brand awareness is important because it increases the number of people who know about your business and its offerings. When more people know about you, more people will talk about you, and over time, your popularity will grow. Facebook offers two types of awareness ads: brand awareness and reach.

• Brand Awareness

When you create a brand awareness campaign, you’re telling Facebook to show your ads to users who will most likely remember them. Facebook uses a sophisticated formula to determine which people will recall your advertising effort and targets them on your behalf.

• Reach

Whereas a brand awareness ad targets users most likely to recall the ad, the reach objective strives to “reach” as many users as possible. With a reach ad, you’re telling Facebook to show your ad to as many people as possible and maximize the frequency at which these people see your ad.

Consideration

Brand awareness is only the first step in the marketing process. Often, being aware of your business just isn’t enough to get potential customers to become actual customers. This is where the next step of the marketing funnel—consideration—comes in.

When you get people to consider whatever it is that your business is offering, you’re encouraging them to think about your products and services and ask for more info. When creating Facebook Ads, you can choose from several different types of ads with consideration objectives: traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, and messages.

• Traffic

Traffic ads aim to drive traffic to your website, your Facebook Business page, or a Messenger Chat, for instance.

• Engagement

Engagement ads encourage people to engage with your brand by prompting them to follow your page, share your posts, or comment on posts, for example.

• App Installs

App Installs ads aim to get people to download your app by linking to the Apple Store or Google Play.

• Video Views

Video views ads strive to increase the number of people who watch your company’s videos. Facebook will show these ads to people most likely interested in your video content.

• Lead Generation

Lead generation ads encourage people to download or submit forms using their contact information. Once you have this data, you can easily follow up with them to share more information about your product or service.

• Messages

Messages ads prompt users to start conversations with you over Messenger. By speaking one-on-one, you’ll have the opportunity to nurture leads and turn them into customers.

Conversion

The final step in the marketing process—conversion—is about converting leads into customers. This means encouraging people who are aware of your business and who have considered your products and services to make a purchase. Conversion also involves nurturing existing customers and encouraging future purchases. Facebook allows you to create three distinct types of conversion ads: conversion, catalog sales, and store traffic.

• Conversions

A conversion ad prompts your Facebook followers to take some kind of action on your app or website, whether it be registering for an email list, downloading a coupon, or making a purchase, for instance.

• Catalog Sales

Catalog sales ads encourage your followers to make online purchases by showing them relevant products at precisely the right time.

• Store Traffic

Store traffic ads strive to turn your online fans into actual customers who visit your actual store. (In real life.)

Step Two: Choose Your Audience

Audience targeting is one of the best things about Facebook Ads. There’s a lot of room for customization. So much in fact that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Here are some of the factors you’ll be considering when creating audiences for your ads:

• Age

You can choose to target Facebook users from ages 18 to 65+.

• Gender

Cater your ad to men, women, or both.

• Location

Target users by country, state, or region and choose a radius between 1 and 50 miles. Once you’ve defined your location, Facebook will estimate your ad’s potential reach.

• Demographics

Customize your ad’s target audience by demographics like education, finance, work, relationships, and more.

• Interests

Choose your ideal audience members’ interests based on their specified hobbies and page likes.

• Behaviors

Target Facebook users based on behaviors like device usage and purchasing choices.

Note that these are some of the same considerations you made when developing Page Promotions, so the learning curve won’t be as steep here.

Facebook Ads Audience Hacks

With all the choices available to you for customizing your audience, it’s possible to spend a lot of time on this step. Here are a couple of FB audience hacks that may save you some time:

• Use saved audiences.

Facebook allows you to save the custom audiences that you create for specific campaigns and ad sets so that you can use them again at a later date. This hack has the potential to be a real time-saver!

• Create lookalike audiences.

You can increase the likelihood that your Facebook ad will succeed by creating a lookalike audience. A lookalike audience is an audience that closely resembles your best current customers. Facebook will allow you to create up to 500 lookalike audiences!

Step Three: Choose Your Ad Placement

Where you tell Facebook to show your ad could be as important as the ad itself, so take some time to think about strategic ad placement.

Facebook currently gives you six different options for ad placement on the social media platform. These are: Feeds, Instant Articles, In-Stream Video, Right Column, Marketplace, and Stories.

Note that when you create an ad, you have the option of allowing Facebook to place your ads for you. Alternatively, you can opt to choose your own ad placement.

Important Notes About Facebook Ad Placement

• Right-column feeds only show up for PC users. They are not available for mobile.
• Ads for Instant Article placement are available for mobile and Messenger only.

Step Four: Choose Your Budget

When you choose your ad budget, you’ll have two general options: a daily budget or a lifetime budget.

Daily Budget—The amount of money you want to spend on your ad campaign each day.

Lifetime Budget—The amount of money you want to spend on your ad campaign for the life of the campaign.

Important Notes About Facebook Ads Budgets

• Facebook requires minimum budgets for ads. These minimums vary from $1 a day to $40 a day based on the type of ad you run.
• Minimum budgets apply to both daily and lifetime ads.
• Facebook ads can be paused, and you will not be charged during this selected time.
• There are other ways you can control your ad spend on Facebook, including setting campaign spending limits and account spending limits.

Best Practices for Facebook Ads

There are lots of things you can do with Facebook ads. It’s not hard to get overwhelmed by the possibilities. Instead of letting ideas spiral out of control, though, we recommend you adhere to some best practices for your Facebook Ads. Once you get in the habit of using these practices, you can always add enhancements to your advertising strategy. Think of these best practices as the foundation of your marketing effort on Facebook.

Make Your Images Pop

Facebook is a highly visual platform, and as you probably know from using the social media site yourself, the name of the game is scrolling. FB users scroll at lightening speeds, only pausing to look at the things that really catch their attention. That means it’s important that you make your ad images pop. You don’t have to hire a professional photographer to create eye-catching photos, though.

• DIY Image Editing and Photo Apps

There are some simple techniques you can use that make a big difference in how your photos appear, even if you’re just an amateur. For instance, Facebook recommends cropping images to highlight points of focus and using contrasting colors. You can also use third-party photo-editing apps to make your images stand out.

• Jump On Carousel

With Facebook’s Carousel ad format, you can use up to ten images or videos in a single ad for the same cost as a regular ad. This is a great way to create a visual brand story or to showcase different products in your digital showroom.

The outdoor brand Steep and Cheap uses the carousel ad format to feature their deeply discounted products on social media:

When you use Carousel, be sure to include catchy headlines and calls-to-action just as you would with a single image or video ad. Facebook has provided some other tips for Carousel to increase your chances of success with these types of ads.

Use Text Strategically

Have you ever been told to choose your words carefully? There are many situations in life where this advice is good advice, and this is one of them. Words matter in Facebook ads, so use them to your advantage. Here are some tips:

• Keep It Brief

When Facebook users do take a break from the constant scrolling, it’s not for long. Studies show that users spend between 1.7 and 2.5 seconds with any given piece of content on social media, depending on whether they’re accessing said content from a mobile device or PC. That means they’re not reading lengthy paragraphs; they’re scanning at best.

• Use Clear, Impactful Language

Since you’re keeping things brief, you need to be very selective about the text you do use in your Facebook ads. You don’t want to use just ordinary language here. Instead, choose terms you know will resonate with your target audience. Words that elicit an emotional response can be especially effective in marketing.

• Use Quippy Headlines and Relevant Calls-to-Action

Help your reader quickly understand and navigate your ad by using smart headlines and calls-to-action. Don’t make them work to figure out what your ad is about and what you want them to do next. Customers have less patience today than ever before, so make the process of converting quick and painless for them.

Pro Tips and Strategies for Facebook Marketing

As we mentioned at the start, there’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to marketing your products and services on Facebook. Once you get the basics down though, you’re going to want to advance your game so you can get the most out of this social media tool.

If you’ve been around the FB bunny trail enough to do it blindfolded, then it’s time to try some new avenues for advertising your business via this social media platform. Here’s what to do next.

Install Facebook Pixel

Facebook pixel is a piece of code that links your website to your Facebook business account. With Pixel, you’ll know which of your Facebook ads are working to drive traffic to your website.

You’ll also be able to add these converted customers to your targeted Facebook ads audience, so you can remarket to them in the future. Double whammy!

How to Install Facebook Pixel

If you have access to your website’s code, you can install Pixel yourself. If not, you’ll need to send the code to your developer.

Take Advantage of Audience Network

Audience Network is a Facebook marketing tool that extends your ads across the entire Internet. With Audience Network, people can engage with your business from thousands of other websites and apps on their PCs, mobile devices, and even connected TVs.

Facebook says using Audience Network is eight times more effective at triggering conversions than employing Facebook ads alone.

How to Use Audience Network

It’s easy to set up Audience Network ads from Ads Manager. When creating your ad, just scroll down to Placements and select Edit Placements. Then choose Audience Network as your platform.

Note that Audience Network isn’t available for all ad objectives.

Use Audience Insights

One of the primary reasons Facebook is so valuable to marketers (like you!) is due to the massive amounts of information it collects on users. Studies show that not many Facebook users realize just how much data they’re sharing with the social media giant. But that’s a topic for another blog post!

The point is, you can use all of that consumer data for the benefit of your business. The more you know about your audience, after all, the better equipped you’ll be to create ads and promotions that resonate with them. And the more likely it is you’ll be successful in converting leads into paying customers.

What is Audience Insights?

Audience Insights is a tool that allows you to take a deeper dive into the demographics of Facebook users. This tool can be accessed through Ad Manager.

With Audience Insights, you can experiment with different target audiences and see how those audiences compare to Facebook users in general.

Audiences can be customized by age, gender, relationship status, job titles, life events, and more.

With advanced Facebook marketing strategies like Pixel, Audience Network, and Audience Insight, you should start making real strides with your social media campaigns.

Common Facebook Marketing Mistakes

Even veteran social media marketers are known to make mistakes on Facebook. Knowing some of the most common snafus can help you to avoid them. Let’s take a look at a few of those now:

Creating One-Size-Fits-All Ads

The days of creating a single ad for your entire customer base are long gone. Today’s consumers expect ads to be personalized, so generic advertisements are often ignored.

As we’ve discussed in depth in this guide, Facebook gives you a ton of targeting tools to customize ads for different segments of your audience, so there’s really no excuse not to customize your campaigns.

Publishing Inconsistently

Part of maintaining your Facebook business page is publishing posts regularly. At the same time, you don’t want to post too much or you’ll annoy your followers, and you may get yourself blocked.

So what’s the optimum schedule? Studies say once per day for most companies. Any more or less than that, and engagement numbers tend to drop.

Ignoring Customer Feedback

Posting consisting is only one part of the equation, though. There’s more to page maintenance, including responding to comments from followers, especially the negative comments.

When customers leave you feedback, you can use this as an opportunity to correct the situation and provide good customer service. This lets your followers know that you care and you’re doing your best. On the other hand, if you ignore bad feedback, you’ll seem apathetic, and it will no doubt negatively affect your brand.

Facebook Marketing Demystified

So there you have it—Facebook marketing demystified. If you’ve made it through this guide, you’re at least 75% more prepared to tackle the social media giant head on and take advantage of all of the advertising tools it has to offer. How’s that for social media analytics?