There are many people who are doubtful of advertising and marketing strategies and wonder, ‘does Facebook advertising work?’ This is typical thinking of people because Facebook was non-existent a few years ago. How can a new medium be so powerful suddenly? Facebook Fan Marketing deals with many people who have the same quandary, and helps them understand the relevance of Facebook and its importance in today’s business. It is also important to increase fans on Facebook.

This chart here shows how important Facebook marketing has become.

Let’s see how does Facebook advertising work. Facebook ads work almost like Google Adwords. People who wish to advertise create the advertisement content and select some targeting options. Then they select their budget, payment, and scheduling preferences. The working is quite the same but targeting is different.

The most famous Adwords targeting is by using keyword (which is placed in content). But in Facebook, the basic targeting option is by demographic. This demographic can be customized from birthday and gender to marital status. They also have a keyword filter that looks for certain keywords present on people’s profiles. This again is different from Google keyword targeting, but it is very useful if you are looking for highly targeted demographic (for example, fans of a certain singer). It is like self service, and there is a powerful help page linked to the main ad page.

It’s really easy to setup Facebook ads. But our question was different: does Facebook advertising work? Well it depends upon your objectives.

There is no doubt that a lot of people will see your ad on Facebook. According to stats, there are billions of people on Facebook. Yes the numbers are not really absolute, but you get the drift. These stats fascinate everyone, and businessmen often make the mistake of thinking that Facebook is like broadcasting medium. That is where they fail. Facebook is actually a way to micro-target your ads. Have you created a business Facebook page yet?

Log on to Facebook and check out the ads that are being displayed on you page. If you are a guy, you will definitely not see makeup ads. And if you are single, there might be ads for dating sites. Do you see what they did there? They targeted YOU and designed ads for YOUR needs. That’s how micro-targeting works. Your ads are displayed only to people who can find them relevant. You don’t broadcast it to just anyone. If you are 80 years old, you don’t need to join those kickboxing classes, so martial arts school ads will not display on your page. As simple as that.

Ok, so far so good. Ads are displayed on relevant people and users take notice. But do they actually click on them? CTRs are not really high anywhere. Some marketing gurus say that 0.01% to 0.05% is the average CTR going. But that can be improved by strategy.

And what are the other advantages of targeting? Well, if you are running a campaign to generate leads, Facebook advertising will give you extremely targeted leads. Remember, few high quality leads are more important than lots of low quality leads.

Your message is also equally important. You need to make sure you grab attention of people in the fewest words possible. Do you think Facebook advertising will work for your services or products? It is really easy to apply for Facebook ads. And you get to choose your daily budget as well, so you can be sure that at any time, your costs will not exceed your budget.

Are you willing to present your ad to a highly targeted demographic? Or do you still have questions and doubts? Share them here via comments and we will answer your questions.

Are you using Facebook timeline? Here is how you can use it for your Facebook brand page.

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