Blogs > The Facebook Five
October 9, 2013 Michael Bickerton
I’m likely the first marketer that will tell you that we really don’t understand “Facebook Ads”. I mean, we get it (Facebook), we understand the process, we love the opportunity, we love the engagement etc. etc.
Fact is, from a reach perspective nobody does it better than Facebook. I’ve been known to say a billion users can’t be wrong (I think it’s 1.4 billion accounts now worldwide). They speak about reach, they speak about targeting, they speak about spreading the word BUT we don’t speak about conversions.
We’ve done enough work in the social space to know that we can gather LIKES and FOLLOWERS, we can expand our reach, we can deliver our messages, but we’ve yet to see one example of how Facebook Ads convert into actual business – sales that is. In fact, (they’ll hate me for this) but we are putting more and more focus on email and for our B2B clients on LinkedIn.
It’s clear we can’t ignore Facebook (especially B2C), your business must have a page, your business must do some posting, and we’d suggest your business run some ads that continue to build your LIKES. My reasoning is quite simple, we really don’t know where this is going, and we don’t know what kind of changes that may impact the changing the landscape. As such, the team at Raven5 say get your Facebook on.
Here are five reasons to try Facebook Ads:
1) Targeting of your ads
2) Budget of all sizes, small and large
3) Business pages are FREE
4) Social sharing and social currency are FREE
5) Conversion, you may find it works
In researching this, I came across a blog post at Digisecrets (www.digisecrets.com) and here are their Top Five reasons to try Facebook Advertising:
1) Infinite Reach
2) Simplicity in Marketing
3) Brand Building
4) Optimized goals
5) Advertiser-Friendly Format
Digisecrets says, “Whether it’s brand recognition or increased sales, Facebook ads can help you reach any goal”. As I noted above, that’s not may take, so be careful and watch carefully. You can read the full blog post here.
There’s no doubt your customers are on and using Facebook, but we’ve yet to see much evidence that Facebook actually converts sales or builds sales. It’s strong on branding, it’s strong on sharing and building your digital community is a must, as such, Facebook can’t be ignored. So, take five and give Facebook Ads a try.
Michael Bickerton, Raven5 Ltd, Oakville, Ontario October 2013