If you have a Facebook business page or a public profile, consider Facebook advertising to maximize your visibility. This can work for you in many ways: you can increase your brand awareness and generate real client leads—and you can do it while spending less money than you would on traditional advertising.
There are many different ways you can promote yourself on Facebook, so it’s important to know the different options.
Option 1: Grow your Facebook audience:
What is this? By choosing to “Promote Your Page” in Facebook Ads Manager, you can run ads to increase your follower numbers at an accelerated rate. You’ll want to do this if you’re just starting your profile and need to build momentum. The Facebook Ads Manager is a straightforward tool that will walk you through the steps of setting up your campaign. While it’s quite simple, not everyone may have the time to optimize and learn, and you can always enlist the help of a marketing professional. If you do need some help, Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate’s social media partner, Lumentus Social, has easy options for social guidance.
Why might you need it? With more followers—up to a level of about 10,000 connections—you’ll have more reach and impact with your social media efforts. Once you cross the 10,000-follower threshold, you may see a slight dip in organic reach, but you’ll still have the ability to speak to many more viable connections, and you can always promote your posts to keep reach at its highest level.
Also, you don’t simply want to rely on friends and family to get the word out; with advertising, you can connect with a wide network of valuable potential clients and referrers that you may not have had access to before.
Option 2: Send traffic to your website:
What is this? By choosing to “Send People to Your Website” or “Increase Conversions to Your Website” in Facebook Ads Manager, you can run ads with the goal of driving potential clients to a specific landing page or site, promoting your business.
Why might you need it? This is a fantastic way to generate leads and to reach new potential clients. You’ll want to be sure to have an email sign-up form, a download requiring visitor contact information, or some entry method on your website to get the contact information needed from these leads. However, once you have them, you’ll likely find it invaluable to be able to consistently and easily grow your high-quality contact list.
Option 3: Promote posts
What is this? By choosing to “Boost Your Posts” in Facebook Ads Manager, you can turn your timeline posts into ads that will reach beyond your average audience level and attract attention from new consumers as well.
Why might you need it? Boosting your posts can achieve many objectives for you: if your post links out to a website, you can increase traffic. You can gain followers this way, too, as the posts will be shown to new people outside of your audience. Most effectively, here, and most importantly, you can increase engagements on your Facebook page to really keep momentum going with your content and your audience. As organic reach may not always generate the buzz you’ll want, boosted post ads can truly help you engage with your audience and keep your community active.
Three tips to get started:
You’ll need to consider three key factors for each option:
1) Use a relevant, engaging image to use for your ad. Check this list to find all Facebook’s recommended ad sizes. You can adjust and use images you already own, or create new ones using free sites like Canva – or tools like Photoshop if you’re able.
2) Create ad copy that quickly catches your audience’s attention. Be sure to consider, as you begin: would I give this a second look in my newsfeed if I had never heard of this business/brand before?
3) Understand your target demographic. This needn’t get too technical, but it is important to consider targeting when you do create your ads: you’ll be given the option to narrow down the people that you reach out to on Facebook, and it’s extremely helpful to do so. High-quality interaction with your brand means better engagement on Facebook, better reach for your messages, and most importantly, a better chance of gaining new and loyal clients for your business. So have an understanding of location, interests, and habits of followers, in order to optimize your ads.
With these few tips, you’re ready to promote yourself. You can begin by spending as little as $5 a day to see how far your reach goes and expand from there. Remember to examine your goals as you get started to choose the best options for you—and you’ll find that you’re a social media marketing pro in no time!
