Facebook Ads – Austin Social Media Marketing

facebook-ads-austin-socialCompanies of all sizes have embraced Facebook ads in Austin TX. This reflects the burgeoning consumer affinity for social media. And also the robust audience demographics targeting capabilities Facebook provides. Most organizations work with local social media marketing services providers to develop and manage their corporate presences on Facebook-Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter.

According to the American Marketing Association and the Duke Fuqua School of Business, companies are currently spending 7.1% of marketing budgets on social media. And thy plan to increase social marketing expenditures to 10.1% of the budget within the next twelve months. If your business is not currently advertising on Facebook, you may be missing opportunities to create a new kind of business relationship with customers, prospects and business partners. Here are some Facebook advertising recommendations and ideas to consider when developing your B2C or B2B social media marketing plans.

Facebook Advertising Business Opportunities

Well-planned and implemented Facebook ads have several advantages over conventional search ads and display advertising. First is the immense FB audience – 760 million subscribers at the time of this writing. But more importantly, Facebook advertising allows a business to precisely target consumers with a robust variety of demographic, geographic and interest factors. This enables businesses to create online advertising to the most suitable audience segments. The precise targeting increases conversion rates and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

The Facebook ads originally appeared in the right margin of Facebook pages. But people learned to ignore them there. So they now show up in the time line as well. The ads are presented only to people who fit the profile you specify. Your ad includes a title (which serves as anchor text for a target landing page URL you specify), an image (photo, slideshow, or video) and up to 135 characters of copy.

Advantages of Facebook-Instagram Ad Targeting Parameters

Compared to other search and display advertisers Facebook enables you to specify your target audience in great detail. You can elect either ‘Broad Category Targeting’ or your specification of specific factors:

  • Geographic: Country/State/City/Zip Code (and geographic radius)
  • Demographic: Age, Men/Women/Both, Relationship Status, Languages
  • Interests: Select from thousands of categories (i.e., #SEO, #LadyGaga, #Movies, #Cars, #Food, etc.) Facebook users have named as their Interests. This is the single best way to align your Facebook ads with your target audience.
  • Education Level and Employer: In HS/In College/College Grad, business or organization names
  • Connection to your business: Fans/Non-Fans/All, friends of fans (or not)

These options give you much more broad and granular audience definition than most other display ad or search advertising platforms. This capability makes Facebook advertising very appealing – especially for B2C marketing. Although the Interests and Employer specifications can be used for business-to-business advertising, we expect Facebook will offer more business-related targeting parameters in the future.

One drawback of the current Facebook ads model is the lack of Day Parting. Facebook ads run continuously between the Start and End dates. You can not choose specific time intervals. This is severely limiting for advertising to a mobile audience, or prospects whose interest in your product or service is time-sensitive. For example – restaurants and bars, car wash, hair salons, movie theaters, etc. You can manually start and stop a Facebook ad to hit the desired time intervals, but this is a labor-intensive nuisance if you’re managing a large online advertising portfolio.

Business Facebook Ad Tips

  1. Use your SEO keywords in the Facebook ad title and copy.
  2. Link your ad to a landing page that is optimized for those keywords.
  3. Max Bid specification: Based on the ad targeting you specify, Facebook will calculate a Suggested Bid. In our experience this figure is much higher than you need to have a successful campaign; so we recommend setting your Max Bid at half of the Suggested Bid to begin, then adjusting based on the number of clicks and conversions.
  4. CPC vs. CPM: Start with Cost Per Click (CPC) pricing. Over time, look at the Facebook advertising reports to see what the Cost Per Impression (CPM) price would have been.  If CPM would have cost less, switch to CPM.
  5. Pay attention to the relationship between target audience size, specific Interest categories (keywords) and Suggested Bids. As you increase the size of the audience, the cost of your ad will increase. And the likelihood it is displayed will decrease.  So, as in search advertising, it’s better to —
  6. Run multiple ads for different target market segments (keywords). You’ll get a better ROAS by splitting up your campaign into multiple ads. Just like you do with Ad Groups in a paid search campaign. Combining all of your Facebook ads audiences into the same ad dilutes the impact and wastes money. As with search advertising, it’s a good idea to run a short-tail campaign (use the most popular and expensive keywords with a low daily budget). In parallel, run a long-tail campaign (use lower-cost keywords that more precisely characterize your product or service, with a higher daily budget).
  7. Experiment with modifications to the ad titles, photos, copy and landing pages. Choose the ones which produce the best results and repeat.

Austin Social Media Marketing

Semantic Advantage is a Social Media Marketing SMM company in Austin Texas. We specialize in creating and managing business social media sites on Facebook-Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Visit the Semantic Advantage website Social Media page for more information on our social media marketing programs and business Reputation Management services.