Here are the Top 10 Facebook Advertising Tips. They are not in any particular order of importance but they all are guaranteed to make your Facebook Advertising experience much better. These tips are based on the expert advice on the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 1: Use a Big Facebook Page Image
The image on your Facebook Page does not have to be a boring square. The maximum measurements for the Facebook Page as well as your personal account image are 200 pixels in width and a whopping 600 pixels in height! You could fit in a few nice photos and some other marketing content into the image if you wanted! The important figure here is the 200 pixels width; always remember to make your images to the maximum width allowed. You can vary the height, but something like 300-500 pixels will always look good. You can use any decent image editing software to crop your image to the exact size. The maximum file size allowed for your image is 4 MB which is ridiculously high. You are better off if you will optimize it to be as small as possible without losing too much quality. This way it will load as fast as possible. I would recommend a 250 Kb file size at the most. So, there you have it! Facebook Page image size 200 x 600 pixels and max. 250 Kb file size.
This tip is featured in Chapter 7 of the Facebook Advertising Guide. You will get a free Facebook Profile Picture Template with it.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 2: Apply For a Facebook Vanity URL
Facebook URL’s are unique and therefore it is very important for you to own them for your business. It is much easier to advertise and promote your Facebook Page if it has a custom Facebook URL, such as www.facebook.com/redcross. Facebook URL is like a domain name; once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. If someone has already registered a Facebook URL with a similar name as your business it is very hard to get that name back under your control. Once you have a minimum of 25 fans, or Likes on your Facebook Page you are eligible to apply for a custom Facebook URL. You can do it here: www.facebook.com/username
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 3: Choose Facebook Page Or Group, or both
Facebook offers two professional presence options for business owners: Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Which one should you choose? There are several factors to consider. When Facebook first introduced the Facebook Pages a few years ago their main idea was to offer Facebook users an option to present their businesses on Facebook as well. This was to prevent the use of Personal Profiles for marketing and promotional purposes. So, now you are able create a Facebook Page for your business, brand, restaurant, bank, band, coffee shop or any other commercial entity that you manage in real life. Groups on the other hand can be created by anyone who has a personal account on Facebook. Groups can be created around any topic you can imagine and they are generally intended for a smaller bunch of people who share the same interest. Both Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups can be used effectively for business purposes.
Depending on your business profile and your communication requirements sometimes Groups can work better than Pages, and vice versa. Because it is hard to tell beforehand which format would suit you better, I would recommend that you’d go and create both. Facebook designed the Facebook Pages as the default platform for businesses, so start using your Facebook Page as your primary tool; but at the same time experience with your Group as well. If you notice that your Group works better for you then swap it to be your main Facebook business platform. Please save your Facebook Page though, as you don’t want to lose the ownership of your unique Facebook URL.
This tip is featured in Chapter 9 of the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 4: Test CPC and CPM for you Facebook campaign mode
Which Facebook ad campaign mode is better, CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPM (Cost Per Mille). On CPC mode you pay only for the clicks that your ad receives; on CPM mode you pay for 1,000 views or impressions of your ad regardless of the clicks it might receive. When you are starting with a new advertising campaign on Facebook I would recommend that you would first run your ad on CPM mode for three days. Then, run the exactly same ad for the same duration, but change your campaign type to CPC. Don’t change anything else. If your ad has the call to action visible you may end up paying far less for clicks with your CPM campaign than with your CPC. After all, most ads are run in order to get clicks, so the cheaper you can get them the better.
The easiest way to run a new version of your ad is to click the Create a Similar Ad –button on your Ads Manager screen just below your ad preview. On the Campaign and Pricing option change CPM to CPC and set your maximum bid for clicks in the middle of what Facebook is suggesting. You can run more than three days if you like but remember to set your daily budget to be the same as in your CPM campaign otherwise you will not get comparable results. After you have run these two trial campaigns it is time to have a look at the data and find out which one gave you better results. Continue your Facebook advertising campaign with the campaign mode, CPC or CPM which produced more clicks at a cheaper price.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 5: Pay Close Attention To Your Landing Pages
Creating a Facebook Ad is only one side of the coin. Facebook Ads are usually linked to a target or landing page either somewhere on Facebook or completely outside Facebook on a separate website. Regardless of the situation, the main thing is that your landing page fully satisfies the advertising statement of your ad. You need to make sure that what you advertise on your ad is represented on the landing page as well. It is recommended to use the same or similar headline and the text as well as the image you have on the ad. If the landing page differs significantly from the ad you will only confuse the consumer and chances are that your advertising message does not get through. If you are advertising a Facebook Page, most often it is better to have you Facebook ads land on a custom page or tab and not your Wall. You can do special landing pages for each of you campaigns using iFrame apps such as http://www.facebook.com/iframehost or http://www.facebook.com/staticHTML
This tip is featured in Chapter 6 of the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 6: Target Your Ads Correctly
Setting your Facebook Ads targeting is an important step since if you present your ad to the wrong audience, your message will reach wrong people and you will not get the desired outcome from the campaign no matter how great your offer is. Before you run a Facebook Ad campaign it is a good idea to think about what kind of a consumer profile does your normal customer have. How old are they? Are they men or women? Where do they live?
What do they like? These kinds of questions help you target your ad exactly to the type of audience that will appreciate your ad and eventually your product or service. Your ad is more likely to perform better if it is being presented to an audience which is actually interested in you and your products. Because of this, Facebook recommends targeting your ads to smaller, more specific groups of users at any time. This will also allow you to write ad text which is more specific and personalised making your ad more appealing to the users you are reaching for.
One of the most crucial settings of your Facebook Advertising campaign is the Likes & Interests -setting. You must choose the most descriptive keywords as possible for your advertised product or service. Start writing a word in the Likes& Interests -box and Facebook will offer you some choices and additional options from their database. Unlike in Google Adwords where you can use just about any keyword (which can really get you into trouble) on Facebook you can use only the words that are in the Facebook database. This ensures that there is real potential behind the words that you are choosing. Facebook keywords are based on interests, activities, favourite books, TV-shows, movies, job titles etc. that Facebook users have listed in their profiles. They may also come from the names of Facebook Groups or Facebook Pages users belong to. For example, if you are manufacturing Rolling Stones themed t-shirts you would choose to use the keyword ‘Rolling Stones’ and your ad would be displayed to those users who have listed Rolling Stones in their favourite music -section on their profile, or are members of a Rolling Stones Facebook Group or Page. Or Mick Jagger. Rolling Stones have 4.7 million fans on Facebook by the way!
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 7: Go Viral With Your News Feed Ads
Facebook News Feed Ads are content advertisements which are placed into the Wall Posts of users. Studies show that the Click Through Rate of these Wall Post Ads is greater than on the normal Ads which are visible on the right hand side panel in the ad space. Facebook News Feed Ads are a very effective and interactive way to reach your target audience. The main point here is, as well as with the other advertising methods, that you need to write your ad so that it talks to your target audience. If your ad message has a high interest value to your clients (=Facebook Fans) then there is a good chance it will go viral. This means that when people Like or comment on your message all their friends see that action and can also Like or make a comment, and so on. It is said that your News Feed Ad starts spreading virally. Below is a good sample of a News Feed Ad going viral. Seattle based Starbucks has been a very successful Facebook advertiser for years. They have currently over 23 million Facebook Fans worldwide.
Here is a News Feed Ad about their famous Road Trip campaign where they used their YouTube channel as the campaign delivery platform. You can see that their ad has created a total 423 comments from their Facebook fans and over 2000 people have clicked the Like -button.
The great thing about these Facebook News Feed Ads is that they are absolutely free to run. You can post as many of them as you like at no cost what so ever. Also remember to match the ad and the landing page (see tip No. 5) so that your potential clients won’t get confused about the advertising message.
This tip is featured in Chapter 8 of the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 8: Get Your Own Facebook Place
The latest trend in social online behaviour is “checking in” to different places. Facebook Places is the most recent addition to the Facebook Business options. It is very similar to the extremely popular location based social applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla which allow you to check in to different locations using your smart phone (iPhone, Nokia N8, Samsung Galaxy, BlackBerry etc). You don’t have to be a marketing wizard to realize that if you have a business open for public you need to be on Facebook Places. Many business and entertainment locations have already automatically been imported to the Places application by Facebook, but if your business is not yet listed there you can add it manually by following these five easy steps:
1. Access the Facebook application on your smart phone and click that inverted tear drop looking Facebook Places logo.
2. Click the ‘Check In’ –button.
3. If your business is not seen among the places presented make a search for it in the search box.
4. Click the ‘Add’ -button.
5. Enter a name for your business as well as a good description of your services and click the ‘Add’ -button.
After you have added your business go and check in yourself so that you can see if it is working properly. You should see your message on your Wall that you have checked into the Facebook Place you just created. Click the hotlink to your business in the message to see the Facebook Community Page that was created automatically for you. Don’t forget to claim your new Facebook Place –page. Once you have claimed the Place you can update your Place’s details such as address, contact information, business hours, profile picture and more. You can also publish updates to the News Feeds.
If you are taking the Facebook Places seriously in your marketing then consider offering free Wi-Fi to your customers. Many places such as McDonalds and Starbucks have had this for years now. Free localized Wi-Fi makes sure that everyone who comes your place of business can actually log on to the Internet and check in to your Place. There is nothing more irritating than when a business is running a cool Facebook Places campaign and you can’t log on because your 3G network has a bad reception at the location.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 9: Import Your Blog Posts to Your Facebook Page
If you are writing a blog here’s a really cool feature that will save you time and effort. You can import your blog posts to your Facebook Page as Facebook Notes. Yes! Very handy indeed. You can do this by clicking the Edit Import Settings -hotlink while on your Notes page. In the next window you will need to add the Web URL of your blog’s RSS feed. If you are using a WordPress blog for instance you can just add the word ‘feed’ in the end of your blog’s web address. For example the feed URL for this blog is: http://socialmediarevolver.com/feed
Facebook detects your blog and posts a new Note automatically every time you write a new blog post. This is quite handy as now you need to write your message only once and it will be published in two places automatically; your blog and your Facebook Notes. Please make sure that you import your own blog only. If you are a heavy blogger writing several posts per day you could be blocked from writing or importing new Notes. This could result in your account being disabled. But if you write one or two posts a day, then you should be just fine.
This tip is featured in Chapter 12 of the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Facebook Advertising Tip No. 10: Use the Facebook Ads Manager
This tip is featured in Chapter 5 of the Facebook Advertising Guide.
Analyze your Facebook advertising campaigns using the Facebook Ads Manager. You can access your Facebook Ads Manager by clicking the Advertising –link at the very bottom of your Facebook homepage or your profile. You can also use this direct URL: https://secure.facebook.com/ads/manage
Facebook Ads manager is actually more than just for managing your ad campaigns. You can also control all of your Facebook Pages, view your Insights, create reports, manage billing and change your advertising account settings. Regarding your advertising projects though the most useful areas would be Campaigns and Reports. After you have run (and during) your advertising campaign Facebook provides you with a lot of useful information about the results such as your target audience demographic and profile metrics, click costs and click through rates (CTR). Using the Facebook Ads Manager you can analyze your campaign success factors and pin point areas which might be improved for better advertising results.
If you like these tips, please feel free to share them on your favourite social website. If you have tips you’d like to share, please feel free to post them in the comment area below.
