s we have seen in the last couple of years, traditional marketing channels are on a downhill trend in popularity. Long gone are the days when a brand or
organization had at their disposal only traditional marketing options to focus their efforts on.
Today we consider TV advertising, phone calls, brochures, magazines, or even billboards as the “old way” of doing marketing. And when we think about the high budget requirements for these kinds of offline approaches to be successful, it only made sense that a new way of marketing would emerge eventually. This is not to say that the old methods no longer can drive results - but the focus has changed.
For the last hundred years, media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.” – Mark Zuckerberg, 2006
As Facebook’s founder said before disrupting the marketing industry to its core - the new era of social media marketing was going to change the way businesses interact with their customers. We, as marketers and business owners, are interested in reaching out to potential customers, engaging with current ones, and sharing our brand’s story in the most efficient way possible.
And for that reason, the budgets for social media marketing campaigns are seeing a significant increase year by year.
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The global market for social media advertising has passed the threshold of 200 billion dollars annually and Facebook is still found in first place in terms of money allocated. That does not come as a surprise to us since more than 3 billion people have a Facebook profile as of 2023. To put it in perspective, that is almost 40% of the world’s total population. Despite the rise of new platforms, Facebook remains the world's most popular social networking site. Its durability and large user base make it an ideal target for social media marketing initiatives since it provides organizations with excellent reach and interaction options.
But to be honest, Facebook’s growth in popularity, especially among the younger generations, is indeed fading away. We won’t see any more skyrocketing spikes in popularity, but we expect the platform to remain at least constant. And the giant is still offering some of the best social media advertising features and opportunities for companies and organizations.
So, creating a Facebook page for our business should be mandatory to start our marketing efforts.
But the setting up phase can be quite problematic, therefore, an initial insight can come in handy. For that reason, we have to say this - start by creating a Facebook business page and not a Facebook profile! Many people who are just taking their businesses on social media are making the mistake of creating a personal profile on Facebook, but they soon realize that is neither useful nor respecting the company’s policy that says personal profiles should not be used by any kind of business or organization that tries to sell something.
Through a business page, we encounter the realm of many possibilities. For one we get to showcase our brand and share updates on the page while also engaging with our audience. Think of the business page as the home of all our marketing efforts on Facebook. We should therefore pay close attention to what profile and cover photo we use, but also how effectively we set our “About” section where the business information should be found.
Now, social media advertising on Facebook without a target audience in mind is a waste of time.
Before thinking about social media advertising, it’s important to note that every company should have its own voice and identity. Without this, we won’t be able to drive effective social media marketing efforts. So what better way to establish our brand's communication strategy than having our target consumers in mind? Facebook helps us in that direction by retaining and offering a wide range of information about its users. We get to narrow the funnel for our target audience in Facebook Ads by taking into account the age, location, behaviors, and interests of our audience.
For one, users are more likely to see ads that serve their interests and see companies that might resonate with them. But while there are some benefits for the app’s users, the real benefits are being seen by marketers. As advertisers, being exposed to so much information, can help us increase the return on investment (ROI) and decrease the cost per click (CPI) by reducing the waste of money we would otherwise have with targeting unwanted consumers. Think about a car dealership targeting 13-year-olds with their latest offers for leasing a car. It’s not sustainable at all.
However, we also need to generate engaging content on Facebook to sustain our social media advertising efforts. Engaging with our consumers might prove to be a great idea too.
We all like to see brands being genuine and original with their online presence. This gives them the “human” feel that might drive customer loyalty and satisfaction. So for that reason, the Facebook ads algorithm is favoring engaging posts, images, and videos. And that’s not all! Engaging with your customers via comments on your posts, sharing interesting or funny content, and responding to messages and requests quickly can highly impact your social media marketing positively.
So don’t just try to sell your products by forcing them into users’ feeds. Social media marketing is not only about that. While we might undertake such actions during our business’s life on Facebook, the focus should be on creating and sharing relevant content with our followers and trying to be relatable as much as possible. It’s amazing how a well-done social media presence can boost a brand’s sales and in most cases, success comes when creativity and originality intertwine with good practices and consistency.
It’s safe to say that Facebook is not going away from the social media marketing stage in the years to come. With its wide user pool and all the insights it offers for targeting specific audiences, Facebook Ads can help us reach global audiences, communicate our brand’s story, engage with customers, and promote brand loyalty.
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