Your products and services won’t sell, no matter how exceptional they are, if no one knows they exist. That’s where advertising comes into play. Yet for a small business with a limited budget, an ad placement in traditional media is costly. But thanks to Facebook's online platform, advertising is now more affordable.

Why advertise on Facebook?

Above all else, the cost-effectiveness of Facebook advertising sets it apart from other marketing channels. The starting cost is as low as $1 per day, which is ideal for SMBs that want to test small campaigns before investing more.

Beyond its affordability, Facebook advertising is also extremely effective. With 6 billion monthly active advertisers and the ability to nail down your audience to the most specific details — including their interests and online behavior — it’s no surprise that Facebook advertising has the best return on investment (ROI) compared with other social media platforms.

Before you get started

As with other traditional marketing campaigns, you need to determine your marketing objectives, audience, budget, and how you want your ads to look like. Once you have the answers to all those questions, you’re ready to create your first ad. Follow this step-by-step guide:

1. Choose your marketing objective
From your business profile page, click Ad Center from the top menu. Then, click Create Ad on the page that appears.

Choose your “marketing objective.” This is what you want people to do when they see your ads. You can pick only one from three options: brand awareness, lead generation, or store visits. Then, set up your advert account by selecting your account country, currency, and time zone.

2. Nail down your audience
You can tailor your audience based on location, age, gender, language, interest and behavior, and the kind of relationship they already have with your page, app, or website. It’s best to be as specific as possible when selecting your audience.

3. Set up your budget and posting schedule
Facebook allows you to set up a daily or lifetime budget. The latter is the maximum amount you plan to spend for an entire ad campaign. Then choose the frequency or the start and end dates in which your ads will appear.

4. Design how your ads will look
Choose how your ad posts will look like to your audience, such as whether they will appear as an image carousel, a single image, a video, a slideshow, or a “canvas” (a new format for mobile users that combines video, carousels, images, and text into one interactive ad). Note that your ad will consist of five parts: an image, a headline, a block of text, a link description, and a call to action button such as “Buy now,” “Sign up today,” and the like.

Tips on designing Facebook ads that grab people’s attention

Your ads will appear in people’s newsfeeds, so make sure your content is interesting and succinct enough to grab their attention as they scroll past it. Each component of your ad — the image, headline, link description, and call to action — must stand out when surrounded by vacation photos that rarely receive more than a few seconds of attention.

Creating a Facebook ad is simple, yet the beauty of it is that Facebook also allows for more advanced targeted advertising if you know how to take advantage of what the platform has to offer. Talk to our specialists today; they’ll be happy to share a few pointers on how to achieve the best results from your campaigns.

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Many business owners believe they should be promoting their organization in as many places as possible. Realistically, however, updating social media statuses without proper planning and strategy could do more harm than good. Read on to understand how timing is everything in social media marketing.

Social media has helped businesses not only to cut down on customer service costs, but also to cut corners in their marketing efforts. For you to get the most out of social media, you need to evaluate which tools work best in our industry, how much of your time a social media project is worth, and how to apply common best practices.

1. Choose the right platform

Since the internet offers a buffet of free, easy-to-use platforms, it’s tempting to sign up for all of them. Without due prudence, however, you might find yourself managing more accounts than you have time for.

Ask yourself these questions before choosing which platform to use:

• Who is my target customer and what channels do they use?
• What do I hope to gain by opening a social media account?
• What kind of content do I want to share and create?
• How much time can I devote to social media management?

Investing more time in fewer platforms helps you monitor the more important areas of your business.

2. Know when to update

Are most of your customers online at 8:00 am or 8:00 pm? With a better understanding of your target users’ habits, you can schedule your posts so they create more traffic, increase brand engagement and, eventually, generate new leads and customers.

Although the best time to post content changes based on your industry, location, and other factors, these are the most successful times on average:

• Facebook: 1:00 pm-3:00 pm on Thursday and Friday
• Twitter: 3:00 pm-8:00 pm, Monday to Friday for B2B and Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday for B2C organizations
• YouTube: 12:00 pm-3:00 pm, Thursday to Sunday
• LinkedIn: 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Monday to Friday

3. Use attractive, professional-looking visuals

One of the simplest ways to get followers to share your posts is by uploading high-quality photos, videos, and infographics along with your messages. Studies have shown that Facebook posts with images result in 39% more engagement, while tweets with images or videos create 200% more engagement.

4. Engage with your followers

It’s important for businesses to maintain a healthy back-and-forth on social media. This means beyond sharing useful content, you should also respond to their comments and private messages as quickly as possible. You can build stronger relationships with customers by writing thank you comments to anyone who shared positive experiences with your business and by addressing negative comments with personalized and helpful responses.

5. Pump the brakes on promotional materials

Although social media is a valuable tool, it’s important not to muddy the water with too many promotional posts. A rule of thumb for social media promotions is that 80% of your posts should be shareable and interactive content, while the remaining 20% should be about your business. This will result in more engagement, a more consistent brand image, and a healthier bottom line.

Social media can help your business succeed, but only if it’s used correctly and effectively. If you’re interested in adopting the right social media platform to increase engagement and create a stronger brand reputation, contact us today and we’ll help you get started.

The post Making the most of digital marketing appeared first on Complete Technology Resources, Inc..