Facebook Advertising: Quick Tips

By Hannah Ketelhut

Jason Dodge from Black Truck Media shared with our members last Tuesday about the benefits of social media advertising – specifically focusing on Facebook. Having a basic knowledge of Facebook advertising will be extremely beneficial for us as students as we enter the industry.

Why is Facebook advertising so effective?

Jason mentioned some quick advertising stats just to prove how effective Facebook advertising (and digital advertising in general) is. First off, digital advertising is worth investing in, with roughly 60 billion dollars being spent on digital advertising yearly. A total of 65% of American adult’s use social media, with 1.4 billion on Facebook. Needless to say, Facebook has major reach.

Okay, so what are some benefits?

Facebook makes advertising easy. Anybody can advertise, and target specific users using this powerful platform. Targeting users on Facebook is easy because we give them that information. We’ve all seen those status updates of Facebook friends searching for a specific product or service. From there, advertisers can place an ad right in front of the user. Facebook places advertisers in front of their exact audience down to the nitty-gritty details, which is something other platforms can’t do.   

Here are some tools from Facebook you can use to advertise to your audience:

• • Re-targeting
  • Geotargeting
  • CPC/CPM
  • Custom Audiences
  • Lookalike Audiences
  • …and so much more!

What makes it work?

Something to keep in mind with all advertising is the audience. Jason stated, “We’re playing on the psychology of people. I’m just a psychologist online.” Social media at the end of the day is who we are as human beings. Interests and behaviors shared online all stem from the interests and behaviors of the users in everyday life. With Facebook advertising, as the advertiser, you need to have a user-first mentality. What do their daily lives look like? After answering that question, you can create better ads that will interest and fit the needs of your audience. The goal at the end of the day is to sell to the people directly.

The Wrap Up

If you want to learn more directly from the source, check out the Facebook Ads Guide Jason shared with us. This guide has everything you need to know about Facebook advertising all in one place. If you’re a blog post skimmer like I am, you can find the fine details within this guided website.  

Overall, Facebook is an extremely effective platform for advertising and lets you customize your ads to fit your exact audience down to the minute details. Facebook advertising is definitely something we as students should be familiar with as we enter the industry.

Final Words from Jason

“Not all audiences are created equal: measure and refine, develop an audience and test it, change one variable and test it again.”

Facebook advertising, like all advertising, is built around key objectives and business goals that if properly aligned with the right audiences, will deliver more positive results.