I’m constantly looking for ways to help small businesses use social media to get new leads. New leads mean more customers. Social media can be Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Mobile Marketing, Merchant Circle, Angie’s List, Craigslist and the “list” really goes on and on. Traditional marketing still works but its dying out and some small business are starting to realize that. I mean now when you go to purchase some kind of traditional marketing you may notice they will offer you online services as well. If it were me I’d be thinking “yeah they are just trying to get me to spend more money” and while that’s true you still need to be online but you want your online dollars spent effectively and in those places that people are visiting daily, Facebook.

You might already be online and engaging with your friends, family and aquantiences via a Facebook profile. I mean who isn’t on there these days? You’d have to live under a rock not to know about Facebook. But I’m finding more and more than small businesses don’t have a clue how to use Facebook to their advantage. For example, I just joined a business networking group called BNI. The average business owner in that group has no idea how to use Facebook for their business and are afraid to even ask. They are afraid to ask because they know they don’t know what they are doing on there and don’t want to look dumb. Or they have invested with a company that will run ads for them but the ads aren’t working because they don’t test the ads to make sure it works for them. They just slap the ad up and that’s it. I recently met with a Mary Kay Director and she said yeah I’m on Facebook. Mary Kay told us to get on Facebook or we would be missing the boat. So she did, she got on Facebook and created a personal profile. That’s great, in fact, I love those small businesses because they have already been dabbling with it and are ready to take it to the next level.

I’ll get right to the point now. Facebook ads are shown on the side of Facebook and they are extremely profitable for businesses when done right. You can’t just put up one ad and call it done. You have to use several ads running simulanteously with different creative content and see which one is the most effective. According to a recent poll that was taken more people are apt to BUY from an ad if it was attached to a Fanpage with Fans! They are more likely to buy from people who have a Fanpage whose fans interact with them. In the image you can see different types of ads.  You have your sponsored ad at the top.  Sponsored ads allow for a user to “like” your page without visiting your page.  Similarly, they can also click the ad to visit your page.  Either way is perfect because a “like” is distributed across Facebook to that person’s friends and family.  If you “like” a page then its possible that your friends would “like” the same pages as you as well.

It’s about getting the most bang for you buck when you decide to spend money on advertising.  Right now Facebook is the most inexpensive and has the most daily users.  If you are interested in running Facebook Ads please give me a call

888-953-3764