Facebook Advertising – Top 5 tips by Weave Marketing

With over 2.07 billion monthly active users¹, of which 71% visit daily², Facebook is too big to ignore.

The social media channel has enjoyed incredible growth over the last decade with a sharp focus on engagement metrics and hungry eyes on advertising pounds. Then came 2017. It was a bruising year in which Facebook suffered from criticism related to fake news, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and research suggesting the platform contributed to depression among its users.

As a result, Facebook has announced this month, a plan to change its News Feed to emphasise more “meaningful” interactions on the platform. It will start to show users more posts from their friends and family in the News Feed, giving this a much higher priority than posts from business, brands and media which they deem to be; ‘crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other’.

Instead of prioritizing posts based on comments and shares, Facebook will now push content to the top of your News Feed that its algorithms predict will spark meaningful “back-and-forth discussion.”

So, what does that mean for businesses and brands:

• Do less, but do it well – understand what resonates with the consumer, what types of content gets them talking… and then do more of that
• Quality content is no longer a choice or option. If your content is relevant, and appeals to your audience, natural engagement will mean its featured in the News Feed
• As organic reach continues to decline, the role of Facebook Advertising should play an even bigger role in your marketing plan.

Facebook advertising is suitable for all sizes of budgets and a whopping 95.8% of social media marketers say Facebook delivers the best ROI among the social networks³. We have pulled together our 5 top tips for Facebook advertising to give your campaigns the best possible of success:

5 top tips for Facebook advertising

1. Objectives

Campaigns on Facebook are objective-based and ads must be set up with clear objectives at the beginning of the campaign. Multiple campaigns can be run in conjunction with each other, all driving different actions & results depending on the business goals. Be clear on what you are trying to achieve with your ads and what metrics you will be measuring the campaign against.

2. Creative/Content

Facebook has 4 ad formats: photo, video, carousel and slideshow – each have pros and cons depending on your product / service / imagery.

Your advert format should be chosen based on what would appeal to the audience. If you’re unsure, we would always suggest testing all types of formats to begin with and then assessing which works best to then invest into further.

Remember, ads need to grab attention quickly, so make sure they convey your brand but equally gives users that thumb stopping moment where they will stop and take in your ad.

3. The 20% rule

When advertising on Facebook, your ad cannot contain more than 20% text on the ad image.  BUT…It’s not just 20% surface area. The text is confined to certain areas, or boxes.

Using an example to illustrate this, if you split your image up into a grid of 25, the text and logo can ONLY fill up 20% of this grid i.e. 5 boxes.  Any more than 5 boxes, the ad will be rejected.  It doesn’t matter how much text is in the rectangle – if there’s any text whatsoever (even in a tiny corner), it counts the full rectangle.

4. Targeting

Targeting is crucial to ensure your ad is seen by those who are most likely to engage with it i.e. your target audience. This will ensure your advertising budget is spent cost effectively. Start with who your existing customers and if you’re unsure, start with a broader audience and narrow down once the ad is live and you know which type of people are best converting through the ads.

5. Monitoring, Learning and Optimising

What’s great about Facebook advertising is that you can view your results in real time, so all elements of the campaign can be amended, updated and optimised based on actual results. If you have multiple ads running, you can assess which one is working best and alter budget accordingly.

You also have the ability to carry out A/B testing on your adverts. With A/B testing, Facebook understands that you intend to directly compare them so won’t prioritise (as traditionally it has done) one over the other, even if one is performing better.

Facebook Insights is a great tool as it really gives you the ability to drill down into the detail and understand who is reacting to your advert.

As much as we would like to get things right first-time round, in reality this is not always possible. A great feature of Facebook advertising is the ability to monitor and react quickly when things are working well or not so well.  Check in daily and see how your ads are performing. Once you have a good sense of what’s working well vs. not so well, hone your targeting, spend and copy to continually improve results and optimise your ad spend.

Our bespoke social media package includes an analysis of your existing social channels and recommendations for targeting and spend for your ad campaigns, as well as a step by step guide on how to post ads and use Facebook Insights. Please contact us if you’d like to know more about this, we’d love to hear from you.

alison@weave-marketing.co.uk

www.weave-marketing.co.uk

Sources: 1 Facebook 11/01/17; 2 Pew Research, Jan 2017; 3 Social Fresh, “The Future of Social”, April 2016