Facebook Boosting
Facebook is a big beast. With more than 1.4 billion people and 900 million visits per day, it is hard to ignore Facebook’s explosive potential to market your brand. Facebook Insights provide extensive market data about people’s favorite bands, foods and much more ( describing their likes, interests and the groups they belong to ).
There has never been an opportunity to speak directly to your consumers as there is today. The process is actually not that complicated. It’s a marketer’s dream!
When you get it right, the phone rings off the hook. Don’t just throw money at Facebook or any medium without taking the time to identify your target, what your goals are, and your expectations. Analyzing market data is more of a art than science. Identifying trends and market opportunities stems from having an in-depth knowledge of your industry and understanding of how people consume media ( news, entertainment, shop etc.). Before you start “boosting” your Facebook posts, formulate a sound strategy first. Follow these media guidelines to improve your outcomes from the onset.
1. Choose A Specific Target Audience
Defining your target audience: consider who you customers are, where they live, where they shop, if it’s mostly men or women, how old are they, what they like and dis-like?
Every channel is unique, defining your target audience may need to be defined more broadly or narrow based on the goals for your campaign. If you simply target adults your reaching everyone, safe to bet that too broad and is simply too expensive. There is also a good chance that reaching people outside your target may view your message as SPAM.
Invest a modest amount of your budget on fine tuning your target audience. After each test market effort, analyze your Facebook insights. Determine what headers, images and markets move your prospects to action. This is the best way to refine your ad campaign to include or exclude the right people. Facebook saves your demographics, which is useful for future campaigns.
2. Reach and Frequency
Great advertising starts with great content, then the message has to be placed on the right channel, the right device and reach the right people. That’s a good start, advertising generates awareness about your goods and services. Savvy marketers understand that they need to remind you about their products so when you are in need of their services, their company is top of mind. Advertising educates consumers about what company’s offer and reminds them when they have a need or desire.
There is a balance or an effective frequency that must be achieved, too much and you’re annoying your base, too little and they don’t hear your message. When it right your target finds your posts in news feeds and the sales increase dramatically. Don’t forget that marketing must deliver profit, or generate a significant return on investment (ROI).
Above illustrates a $10 Facebook “Boost” that will run for just one day, reaching at most 8,100 people out of a potential 3,800,000 ( defined by the parameters of your target audience representing approximately 1% of your potential audience ). Best to narrow down your target audience further ( by age, income, education, and geography ) and / or increase your budget to remind your target when they are ready to buy. of your spend more money.
Remember a good media plan affords high levels of reach and is balanced with an effective frequency to remind your consumers about your product or service.
Get it Right: Right Message + Right Time + Right Device + Right Place + Right Person
Your “boosted posts” must breakthrough with great content AND must also remind your audience two or three times for your campaign to succeed. The effective frequency is the number of times necessary to move your target to action. That number can range from 1 to 10 or more times.
Savvy marketers place their message where it will be seen by their target and they remind them knowing that they may not be ready to buy at that time. Test, analyze your results, test, refine and constantly look for ways to improve your campaign’s success.
3. Create your own Content
Great content is an art, great campaigns go viral for many reasons. Take the time to create killer content, original content. Homemade is always best, take the time to write great copy that illuminates, educates and excites your base. You’ll know right away when you get it right!
If you are having trouble finding material to write, take a look at what your competitors are saying. Make it your own, write your own story, relate your content to current events for extra engagement. Marketing is about metrics as much as it is about media, constantly analyze your Facebook Insights to identify trends or now markets that are most engaged with your content. Focus your efforts there and continue to evaluate the data. It’s an on-going process.
Likes, comments, shares all good. We want to increase sales, so let’s make sure to add in a call to action in our posts.
4. Include a Call-to-Action
The only true metric is sales. Close the deal with a compelling call-to-action. You can have thousands of followers but if you don’t give them a reason to buy, they bounce out to another site. Every social channel is different, target Facebook followers who are loyal, repeat users of your products or services.
If you have other social media sites, like Twitter, YouTube or Pinterest, link them into your status so you can get your followers onto different platforms. Link whatever makes more sense for your company, but remember all this should lead back to one main site.
A great way to get people to engage may be to offer sales or discounts for your product or service as a way for them to click through and read more. Never employ tactics such as “click-bait”, don’t give your followers a reason to un-follow you by tricking them into viewing your site. Great content wins every time.
http://www.johnhaydon.com/facebook-boosted-posts/
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Keep in mind that Facebook has Advertising Policies for what can and can’t be boosted. Once your ad has been vetted by Facebook, you are good to go. Start boosting your post. Here are the three most common reasons why ads don’t pass Facebook’s review are:
- Using text in your Image/video – Having faced this issue before, it can be tricky. Basically, an ad with an image should not have text that covers more than 20% of that image’s area. This policy actually works in your favor because an image with less text is more engaging.
- Mentioning Facebook in your Ads – Facebook wants to make sure its name is being used correctly if it’s included in your boosted post.
- Age-Restricted Material – Ads should be appropriate for the ages you’re trying to reach. A post on alcohol cannot be targeted towards teens, for example.
For more information on Facebook’s Advertising Policies, visit their policy page here.
Now Go Boost
Using a combination of these four methods will surely bring you results. Let’s quickly summarize the key points:
- Find the most specific audience for your posts.
- Do some test marketing first, find the right person, right message, right channel, right device, right time and right frequency.
- Take the time to carefully put out a consistent stream of interesting, original content. Then evaluate your results, research, refine and constantly listen, learn and create more great content.
- Make sure there is a way for the reader to get to your site, follow, or share your content. Add a compelling call to action.
Integrate your marketing across all channels, including print, television and direct mail. Now go give it a shot and happy boosting!
To learn more about Boosting you Facebook posts and how to apply it to your business, visit http://www.hudsonvalleymedia.com or give us a call at 845.202.7087.
Special to Hudson Valley Public Relations, Dan Agudelo Content Marketing Manager HVPR
Sources: https:// www.facebook.com/business/products/ads/
Photo cred: http://sharerocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/facebook_juice.png
