The internet has already proven itself to be an unprecedented tool for self-empowerment. Now Facebook Ads offer independent businesswomen the opportunity to create successful, highly-targeted adverts without the need to establish a separate marketing team or learn to code. With a monthly reach of 1.59 billion people, you are sure to find an audience on Facebook, and setting up your ad is almost as simple as posting a personal photo or shared link.
Indeed, the toughest part is figuring out how to boost your brand via Facebook in the most effective way. Facebook is a visual medium, where today even text-based posts are made into images. What’s more, Facebook Ads distribute your material to Instagram, where visual impact is everything. If you want users to stop scrolling and start clicking when they see your ad, you need to create artwork that grabs their attention and tells a story.
You can use a single image, a carousel or slideshow of images, or video. Your visuals won’t fly alone, as you can also accompany them with a headline and a description, plus a further line detailing where clicking the image will take the user. And one thing that sets Facebook Ads apart from ‘promoted posts’ is the emphasis they put on a ‘call to action’ button.
This button is the final thing you add to your Facebook Ad, but it should be the first thing you think about – because it represents the precise, proactive response you want to elicit from anyone who views your advertisement. So do you want the button to lead to your online shop, to Like your Page, or to provide directions to your bricks-and-mortar address? It could also direct users to your contact details, to make a booking, or simply to save the ad for closer inspection later.
You also need to define the audience that you want to reach with your ad. Two billion people is a lot of eyes, but it’s no use blowing your budget on consumers who are too far away, too young or old, or are just unlikely to have a cultural interest in your brand.
Thankfully, this is where Facebook excels. By harnessing the power of its collected data, Facebook can help you to narrow down your reach by location, language, Page Likes, general interests and favorite brands. It’s best to be as specific as possible. You can play with your daily or overall budget, and watch the predicted reach of your ad change in the right hand column of your screen as you do so.
It’s as simple as that, which means that you can concentrate on the message and call-to-action of your ad instead of worrying too much about form. This new guide to Facebook Ads for small businesses breaks it down into a step-by-step process, and you’ll find that it’s quite intuitive once you get stuck in, if you have even basic experience of using Facebook or other social media. The whole process takes less than an hour, so the sooner you start thinking about it the sooner you can get your message into your audience’s daily feed.
