Social media platforms have become the next frontiers of marketing, creating an ecosystem with billions of users to market products for. Facebook, being the leading social media platform on the internet, with over 2.7 billion users and 1.82 billion active daily users automatically becomes one of the most sought after platforms by brands, marketing agencies, businesses and companies looking to reach their potential customers. However, not many know the ins and outs of Facebook marketing and what is needed to get started with Facebook marketing.
A deep dive into Facebook marketing
Facebook measures the success of a marketing campaign through post reach, which is the estimated number of people that saw any of your posts at least once.
Post reach can be achieved either through the organic method, which involves Facebook users being able to see your unpaid post or through paid reach, which involves promoting your post through paid advertisement, which helps spread the post to your potential clients.
Organic traffic
This is the cheapest way of getting traffic to your site and can be broken down into viral and non-viral organic reach:-
- Viral reach: This involves the interaction of content by Facebook users who are not part of your community. People who come into contact with your content do so through proxies such as their friends sharing the content, following the page and engaging with the content of the page, which in turn is displayed in other users’ Facebook feeds. Extremely viral posts, videos, photos are a great way of reaching a wider audience with your content and can lead to valuable traffic to your Facebook page or website.
- Non-viral reach: This includes the interaction of content from a page directly, without needing intervention from other Facebook users. Non-viral reach does not include content reach that is as a result of a friend or a page that users follow sharing their content. It has to be a direct interaction of content by the clients.
Trends showing a decline in organic traffic
The past few years have seen significant changes in the way Facebook curates newsfeed, which has resulted in a significant decline in organic traffic for sites and companies that primarily relied on such traffic. As the Facebook platform continues to grow, a decline in interaction with users’ content is becoming evident for marketers, business owners and brand managers. This has been contributed by two main reasons.
The first reason is due to a sharp increase in the number of content being shared. As the user base of the platform continues to grow, more content is being shared now than at any time in its history. The result is that the platform has become competitive for your content to be among those displayed in your followers’ newsfeed. This has significantly contributed to a decline in traffic.
The second factor that has contributed to a decline in organic traffic is the changes in the newsfeed. In the past, Facebook strived to display every possible content to clients. However, recent changes in algorithms that are able to factor in thousands of factors and determine which stories among the shared 1,500 will be displayed to a certain user. They have personalized the newsfeed to ensure that only high-quality content or content they believe is relevant to a certain user will be displayed to them. This has also resulted in a sharp decline in organic traffic.
Therefore, exclusive marketing through organic Facebook traffic is not always dependable and does not have the ability to reach the intended audience that can become clients. Therefore, it is recommended to combine organic traffic with paid advertisements.;
Facebook paid advertisements
Facebook paid advertisements is a great way of reaching intended clients by marketers. The traffic generated through this method requires money to run. It provides the fastest way to connect to your potential client on the largest social media platform.
One of the advantages of running Facebook paid ads is the ability to micro-target your audience without being interrupted by the ever-changing Facebook algorithms. This means that your message is able to get to people who are most likely to want your product or services.
The conversion rate for paid Facebook ads is also high compared to organic traffic because you only pay to reach your likely potential customers. This is great for your budget and ensures that you are able to run your advertisement in a format that has a high return on your investment. You are also able to take control of your budget, and Facebook is able to estimate the number of potential clients that are likely to be reached depending on the amount of money you are willing to spend.
The most important thing to understand before diving into Facebook marketing is your target audience, the types of Facebook ads you will be running and different micro-targeting tips that can help you narrow your potential clients.
Types of Facebook paid advertisements
Marketers can run any of these types of advertisements for their sites.
- Image ads: This involves boosting an existing post or creating a new post with an image related to your business. These images must have a context in order for them to be effective.
- Video ads: this involves running videos about the products or services you are offering. Videos are a great way to engage with clients and keep them interested in your content, which can result in clients clicking the ads and going to your site.
- Video poll ads: This is a creative advertisement method that involves collecting data about the ad you are running.
- Slideshow ads: These ads are run from a collection of still photos that users can peruse. It is most effective for mobile device users.
- Carousel ads: You can attack more than 10 images or videos on your ads and users will be able to see these photos. It is a great way of creating visual advertisements that capture your potential clients.
- Dynamic ads: These are ads that are run and target users who are more likely to buy your products or services. A good example of these ads is when a user visits a webpage that is selling laptops, and these laptops are displayed as ads during the next Facebook session.
- Messenger ads: These ads are run through the Facebook messaging app. It gives advertisers the ability to tap into a market with over 1.3 million Facebook Messenger users.
Facebook advertisement micro-targeting
Facebook ads also allow you to micro-target your potential clients and only display ads based on the data given.
As an advertiser, you are able to choose your ads’ audience based on location such as whether it should run in cities, communities, or which countries the ads should run. You are also able to choose based on the purchasing behavior of clients.
Advertisers can also use demographic data such as age, gender, educaiton and job titles to advertise products based on that. Also, you can use users’ interests to determine whether you want to advertise to them.
Advertisers are also able to advertise on only people who have liked their page, or those who have liked your page and their Facebook friends. You can also exclude audiences that are already members of your page and target new potential clients.
