Like many small businesses I have made a token effort on Social Media. But it has never really appealed to me and there is always something else to do at work rather than thinking up something to post on Twitter or Facebook. Last month I had the offer to have my business appraised by the government's Growth Accelerator program which prompted me to look at our weaknesses from an outsider's viewpoint. And guess what? One of them is definitely a lack of Social Media presence. This has serious implications for lack of engagement with customers, for the ranking of our websites in Google and for missing out on the chance to interact with a whole new audience of potential customers.
I have been busy reading blogs by such experts as Jon Loomer. and VerticalResponse. There seems to be some kind of Social Media 2.0 emerging where businesses can no longer recruit fans just by posting regularly and will have to be prepared to pay for Facebook Ads.
I actually like the idea of paying for adverts to recruit fans to my page. As a hard-headed businessman I do not believe in the airy-fairy something-for-nothing of a lot of Social Media hype. FB adverts are quantifiable, with very good stats, and once I have people as fans I can try out various offers and promotions. It is very much in Facebook's interest to make the adverts work because they are playing catchup with Google. The underdog must try harder.
I had not realised how precise the targetting of Facebook Ads can be. For example you can say that the ad will only be shown to customers who have first visited your website. (This involves putting a special "pixel" on you site first of course.) And you can select audiences by their likes using Facebook Graph - you could target only fans of Breaking Bad for example. Or fans of my competitor's page.
I can upload my mailing list and Facebook will find my customers' Facebook accounts. Then I can "clone" this audience to build a Lookalike audience of similar people. And when I run the ad I can do further selection, male or female for example.
There is something called Power Editor which you use to fine tune the ads, by creating new "Advert Sets" which could have a different photo or a different audience. Just remember to only use jpeg images, Facebook does not appear to like pngs.
After using Adwords for so long it is a breath of fresh air. Google are always asking me to increase my Adwords budget but mysteriously I do not get many more sales when I do as they say. And if you ever let their "experts" tweak your campaign then be prepared to have a big increase in costs.
With Facebook ads I seem to be ahead of the curve. When there is something I do not understand I go to www.peopleperhour.com and ask a PPH consultant. But there is nobody specialising in Facebook Ads. Many of their consultants will reduce your Adwords spend or improve your SEO but FB ads are apparently untouchable. I will have to teach myself then.
Watch for my next posting when I report back on my results!
I have been busy reading blogs by such experts as Jon Loomer. and VerticalResponse. There seems to be some kind of Social Media 2.0 emerging where businesses can no longer recruit fans just by posting regularly and will have to be prepared to pay for Facebook Ads.
I actually like the idea of paying for adverts to recruit fans to my page. As a hard-headed businessman I do not believe in the airy-fairy something-for-nothing of a lot of Social Media hype. FB adverts are quantifiable, with very good stats, and once I have people as fans I can try out various offers and promotions. It is very much in Facebook's interest to make the adverts work because they are playing catchup with Google. The underdog must try harder.
I had not realised how precise the targetting of Facebook Ads can be. For example you can say that the ad will only be shown to customers who have first visited your website. (This involves putting a special "pixel" on you site first of course.) And you can select audiences by their likes using Facebook Graph - you could target only fans of Breaking Bad for example. Or fans of my competitor's page.
I can upload my mailing list and Facebook will find my customers' Facebook accounts. Then I can "clone" this audience to build a Lookalike audience of similar people. And when I run the ad I can do further selection, male or female for example.
There is something called Power Editor which you use to fine tune the ads, by creating new "Advert Sets" which could have a different photo or a different audience. Just remember to only use jpeg images, Facebook does not appear to like pngs.
After using Adwords for so long it is a breath of fresh air. Google are always asking me to increase my Adwords budget but mysteriously I do not get many more sales when I do as they say. And if you ever let their "experts" tweak your campaign then be prepared to have a big increase in costs.
With Facebook ads I seem to be ahead of the curve. When there is something I do not understand I go to www.peopleperhour.com and ask a PPH consultant. But there is nobody specialising in Facebook Ads. Many of their consultants will reduce your Adwords spend or improve your SEO but FB ads are apparently untouchable. I will have to teach myself then.
Watch for my next posting when I report back on my results!
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