Facebook advertising has become a very popular form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in the last few months. While FB advertising costs are generally much lower than Google ads, you need to be careful. Much like Google AdWords, you run the risk of burning a lot of money if you aren’t using this platform correctly.Social Advertising Vs. Search Advertising
Recently, PPC has been divided into two categories: Social and Search. Search advertising is targeting something people are searching for (ie Google AdWords) and displays your ad based on relative keywords to your customer’s search.Social advertising targets demographics of people based on their social network profile. Instead of bidding on search terms, you are bidding on the type of person you are targeting, based on who they are and what they have listed for interests.For example, a local photography company had a lot of success closing sales on wedding packages by setting up Facebook ads. They set up the advertisement to target women in their area who listed their relationship status as “engaged” in their Facebook. Compared to a Google counterpart, this saved them tons of money.Social advertising has a much more targeted look on advertising than search advertising, and should always be viewed as such. If you have a target market that can easily be found just by demographics, then social advertising can prove to be a much more powerful form of advertising. Facebook Advertising Costs: Get the Bang for Your Buck
One thing to keep in mind is that you are not bidding to “top-of-the-mind” candidates like you would in Google Ads. You’re bidding for people who show characteristics of your target market, but aren’t necessarily in the “buying frame” right now. Therefore, you want to capture a lead, rather than trying to do a hard sell.The most successful social advertising campaigns I’ve launched have been targeted to get more fans to my fan page, rather than trying to directly sell the product. Social advertising should be seen as a large scale branding effort, rather than a small time sales tactic. Sell the “like” to your page, and then use that lead to sell whatever your product or service might be.Also, keep in mind that people on Facebook generally want to stay on Facebook. Launching them to landing page on a separate website bothers a lot of people, and can further trigger “spam potential” signals in their brain. Especially the younger crowd who spent a lot of time on MySpace (MySpace was subject to a lot of massive phishing attacks that scared it’s users into being linked to other websites).Social advertising is a great way to build your fan base, and then using that fan base to sell to later. It’s more of a large scale advertising campaign, rather than a small time direct sales method.

You know that old saying about how only fifty percent of your advertising is working… but you never which fifty percent? Well that doesn’t need to be the case… certainly not on Facebook. And yet, many advertisers on Facebook don’t take full advantage of the tools they have available to them on this platform.But if you take the time to understand Facebook’s ad platform, you’ll discover that they make it pretty easy to simply click and load your entire ad campaign. So if you want to avoid wasting a ton of money, then here are 4 tips to help you get started as a successful Facebook advertiser:1. Define the purpose of your ad campaign before you beginWhat, exactly, are you trying to accomplish with you ads? Do you want to develop your brand? Are you trying to generate likes to your fan page? Are you aiming to sell something? Your goal for your campaign will determine how you run your ads. For example, if you are trying to generate sales, then you probability want to select “cost per click” when choosing you bid strategy. If, however, you want to create more brand recognition, then getting your ad seen by more people will be best accomplished through “cost per impression” ad bidding.2. Use the space you have wellYou are allowed a limited number of characters for your title and the body text, and you image size is restricted to certain dimensions as well. This means you’ll need to keep your content tight and your copy needs to be written with purpose. Don’t rush with this part. Make the ad clear enough that people will know what they are supposed to do… and intriguing enough that they’ll want to do it.3. Monitor your ad performanceSurprisingly, even though this is so simple to do in Facebook, so many advertisers neglect this part. Instead, they set up their ads, pay their bill, and move on. But if your ad isn’t performing well, you actually have the ability to fix that in Facebook, thereby saving you from wasting a ton of money. So by utilizing the Facebook Ads Manager and Facebook Reports, you can actually learn how many people have looked at your ads, how many have clicked, your click through rate, and much, much more. This is very powerful information to have as an advertiser, so make use of it.4. Facebook expert adviceThere are tons of bloggers and consultants who have the knowledge and experience to help you make the right decisions in your Facebook advertising. And most of the advice, tips, and tricks can be accessed for free via blog posts or YouTube videos. Be sure to do a bit of research if you have a question… and, if it makes sense, take time to engage a professional’s assistance.So there you have it: four simple tips to get your started increasing your Facebook ad power exponentially!