WTF is Facebook (Part 2)

WTF is Facebook (2)?

Facebook is not about friends

It is about advertizing

Smart Targeting

OK, so say you have a marketing plan (see last week's WTF,) and you're going to focus on growing a particular area of your business. You look at your customers and clients over the years and begin to identify some common threads, for example:

  • they all live in the same zip code
  • they're mostly women
  • they're women in their mid thirties
  • they have a penchant for DIY
  • they just moved to the area
How can you "speak" to these people directly?

Facebook Ads Are Awesome

Where Facebook really wins for businesses is in their ad targeting. Using the above example with a business located in Silver Lake, Los Angeles - how would the market stack?

Of the 151,432,400 possible US targets:
  • 2,920 live in the 90026 zip code
  • 760 are women
  • 740 of them are between 30 and 40 yrs old
  • 40 of these mid 30's women enjoy DIY
  • 20 of them have just moved to the area

Pretty amazing stuff!

There are a million different ways you can slice the market: relationship status, numbers of children, taste in movies, and so on. The point here is - the better you understand your business and your customer, the more targeted your marketing can be.

But Hold On...

Before you go rushing off to set up your first ad there are a load of questions you need to ask yourself:

  • What is my message?
  • What do I want viewers of the ad to do?
  • Where should I send them?
  • What should they do when they get there?
  • Now what am I going to do with them?

Brand awareness is one thing but unless you have a strategic approach that incorporates a Facebook campaign as part of a larger marketing plan, you're throwing money away.

Yes, People Can Still Like You

As outlined in WTF is Facebook (1), getting people to "like" you on Facebook enables your message to appear in their newsfeed and potentially in their friend's newsfeeds, and running an Ad is the fastest way to grow this number. However, unless you're actively "working" Facebook, i.e. investing resource in managing your page, interacting with people who "like" you, adding Facebook only content and nurturing the people who have expressed an interest, they'll probably never see you again unless you run another ad.

If you're not going to invest resource in Facebook, the only reason to run an ad is to get people onto your email newsletter. You do have an email newsletter don't you?

If you would like to develop an ad campaign for Facebook, reply to this email and book a session.

