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Facebook Advertising for New Marketers – Should You?

June 18, 2010 – 1:11 pm

You’ve built a website or created a WordPress blog, and packed it with your best content. You’ve done solid market research, carefully optimizing your site for SEO with long-tailed keywords. And now you’re busy networking that site by:

Submitting articles to directories
Including a clear “call-to-action” at the end of every post
Networking on related forums and social media

But there’s one other strategy you might want to consider – one that at first may seem premature for a new blog or website. And that is advertising on Facebook. It’s not for everyone, of course – but if you fit a certain profile, it can be the fastest way to turn your site or blog into an authority site and increase it’s page rank.

You could invest in a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign – if you’re going to pay for advertising at all. But anyone who has tried to find a good keyword with competition that isn’t overwhelming, then register a dot com domain for it, knows all too well that finding that keyword unregistered is akin to winning millions on the lottery.

The Hazards of Keyword Selection

And if you pick a keyword with heavy competition, no one’s going to notice you. Especially if you’re just using that long-tail for SEO purposes, rather than purchasing PPC. (And this is especially true for internet marketers – one group fully aware of and savvy to keyword SEO – unlike, for example, the majority of people in, say, knitting forums, where the main interest is knitting; not marketing.)

If you do have a clear niche, however, and a strong demographic that is narrow and precise, your fastest road to creating a profitable presence could be to invest in a Facebook ad. You can purchase one inexpensively, run it for a set amount of time – and have your site spread via the best route of all: The buzz created among your social network friends (all of whom are sitting there, right in your specific niche demographic).

Remember, this is an experiment. Set your daily allotment low, and track it. (Facebook does allow you to do that.)

Maximizing Your Ad

Make the most of Facebook ads’ graphics ability, and add an appealing photo or image (just look at those Facebook ads down the right-hand side of your profile page, to see examples of visually strong ads).

And Facebook’s ability to target by city, state and country is one of its best ad features. If your website or blog is dependent on location (i.e. “Niagara Falls Orchard Photography”) and you’ve also created a Fan Page on Facebook, you may find you’ve got it made.

One caution, however: Do make sure that you actually do use strong, specific keywords for your niche in your ad headline and body text. Keep the focus narrow to that one single, specific group.

Remember that Facebook’s participants are predominantly (but not exclusively limited to) the female 18-34 range. If you were running a site that wanted to sell to a strong male demographic in a different age range, you’d need to make sure there was a good sprinkling of active Facebook groups and fan pages in that field visibly populated with males, before you went ahead with your ad.

Remember – keep your daily costs low, your target specific – and good luck with your Facebook advertising!

How Apps can Help your Facebook Ad

June 18, 2010 – 1:06 pm

Applications have the ability to go viral – and Facebook is all about viral: But did you ever stop to think how much apps can help increase the effectiveness of your Facebook Ad?

The beauty of Facebook apps – they’re interactive: Something your fans can click on, and get a tiny reward in the form of a result. It can be as minimal as the “Like This” link you click on ads, allowing you to express your preference… or something that provides a more tangible reward. For example, clicking on a flower to “send” it to a friend.

And now that Facebook’s development platform allows anyone who’s interested to concoct their own app, it’s something you may wish to consider as a strategy to enhance your Facebook page – or ad!

In case you’re breaking out in hives at the word “app”, let me ask you a question: Have you ever created a widget? If you’re nodding in relief, and saying, “Oh yes. I’ve created lots of widgets!” you should have no problem. That’s basically what Facebook apps are; or at least, how they operate.

App Examples

If you’re brand new to apps and are just curious what they look like… think of all those little links on your Facebook pages:

Poke
Like
Facebook Wall

And, of course, all those annoying messages your Facebook friends send you: “Give Jane a Virtual Slap”. So you click, and the first thing you see is the message: “Allow Access? Allowing Slap Your Friends will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends’ info, and other content that it requires to work”.

You then either click “Allow”, or the “Leave Application” link. If you click “Allow”, you’ve added the App to your Facebook account… as well as allowing it to access all your information.

Apps that Catch On Quickly

If you want your app to catch on quickly, there are certain attributes you need to make sure it contains. It’s not nuclear physics – just logical common sense:

Migrating users to your website by inserting a link
Incorporating an element of interaction
Utilizing current events (e.g. an app that allows you to vote or input on some element of upcoming “green” events)
Including competition against the computer, or against your user’s “friends”
Creating an unbearably cute app with appealing graphics that hugs, sprinkles fairy dust, gives jewel to or other wise lavishes attention on your lonely Facebook friends

This latter tactic can be especially successful in increasing your app’s popularity because when the element of competition is added, you can virtually count on users promoting the app for you by begging friends to “vote” or click – or whatever way you’ve set up for them to use it.

Making Money with Apps

Yes. You can. But if you are using one to augment your Facebook ad, making money should be a side-effect, rather than your main tunnel-vision focus.

How Do You Actually Make a Facebook App?

If you are familiar with PHP and MySQL, or other coding languages, you can easily create one from the Facebook Developer page, which walks you through the process. If not, you might want to consider visiting a site such as guru.com, and hire a coder to create one for you (search, using the parameter “Facebook applications”).

Whether you regard apps as the most annoying curse of the 21st century or the most exciting thing since “The Pirates of the Caribbean”, it’s a subject you shouldn’t ignore – particularly if you are considering marketing with Facebook Ads.