by Roger McManus, MBA (who has held several positions as Director of Strategic Relationships). Fouth in a 5-part series.
Part 4 in a 5-part series.
While it is a bad idea to try to slip a hard sell into your social content, make no mistake, Facebook is all about selling. The good news is that Facebook advertising is not like any medium that has ever existed in the history of marketing. Never before could you define almost exactly to whom you want to send a message and target that precise audience.
Think of it like a television program where your programming is customized for different subsets of your audience which will react most like you want them to. The program is not even delivered to people who are less likely to be interested – and you only pay for those to whom you really want to reach.
To further that analogy, you know that you will occasionally see product placements in the content part of a television program, which becomes clear when there is a commercial break. Both are acceptable to the audience because everyone understands the rules but a television program that comes off as an infomercial generates a much more cynical response. To make such vehicles acceptable, they are clearly labeled as paid advertising. The audience will accept it if you do not insult their intelligence.
So how do you get a “product placement” in Facebook? The term Facebook uses is “Boosted Post.” If you find that a post you have written is performing particularly well, you can purchase a boosted post and get Facebook to push it a bit further to a broader audience of people who match the demographics of your current participants. It appears higher up in their news feeds. It is a much cheaper form of advertising but, like product placement, more subtle. The cost depends on how many people you want the post to reach.
When you want to run a commercial, Facebook does a great job of that, too but your audience knows it is a commercial and accepts it as such. Combined with the social impression you have made already, they are far more likely to react to your paid commercial more favorably. With digital advertising, you can reach people you care about at the exact moment they are ready to listen. It all works together.
You no longer have to rely on the right people driving by your billboard, seeing your 30-second TV spot or subscribing to the magazine with your local ads tucked away in the pages. Perhaps most importantly, you do not have to worry about as many disinterested people seeing your ads.
How it works
Facebook allows you to set a budget and they will tightly control your exposure to match that budget. The objective of a Facebook ad is to make it possible for you to run ads depending on who your target is and what interests him or her about you. It is a great opportunity for you to reach people you know are interested in your business. Facebook assumes, however, that other businesses may be interested in the same targets. To avoid cluttering Facebook with too much advertising, exposures are tightly controlled to limit the number of ads any individual might see in a given session.
Essentially, you write your copy, establish your budget and determine how long you want the ad to run. Facebook will then optimize the placement of your advertising to make it seen by those most likely to take action. The ad runs until your budget goes to zero or the time limit for your ad is reached. Either of these factors are completely adjustable by you. If your ad is doing well you may expand your budget or extend your time. If it is not doing what you expect you can put the ad on pause to adjust your copy.
In the interest of full disclosure, this would be a good time to tell you that the content service Roger is describing is one of the new offerings from Rowan Consulting Services, the publisher of Home Care Technology Report. Learn the details at RowanReputationResources.com.
Facebook determines who sees your ad through a complex algorithm that takes into account the information a Facebook member shares including the pages he or she “likes.” Other information they use comes from the participant’s Facebook account (e.g. age, gender, location) plus the online activity on websites and apps outside of Facebook.
Precisely how to create, place and budget a Facebook ad campaign is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say, that digital advertising is a dramatic shift in advertising strategy and, for those who learn it early, will provide a significant advantage over local competitors who have not picked up on it yet.
It is best, of course, to place advertising within the context of your position as a member of the interested community. This means non-sales messages preceding an advertising blitz. To accomplish this, you need only to produce posts that play to the interests of an audience that likely has older parents approaching the time when they may need in-home help. You can write these yourself, re-post items written by others on Facebook or subscribe to a program that produces and personalizes home care specific content on a daily basis.
©2016 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com
