small & sprightly: how a small brand can rock facebook

Small & Sprightly: How a Small Brand Can Rock Facebook

Table of Contents(click to navigate)

Introduction ................................................................. 3

Grow Your Audience .................................................... 4

Contests ...................................................................... 5

Content, Content, Content! .......................................... 7

The Art of Facebook Ads ............................................. 10

The 5 Keys to Facebook Ads ...................................... 16

3

IntroHow a Small Brand Can Rock Facebook

Social Media can be an overwhelming realm for a small business,

but these days it’s becoming more and more necessary.

Facebook, in particular, has become a social network that is an

absolute must for any and all companies. It’s a great way to attract

and communicate with your customers, to increase awareness of

your business, and to form long-lasting relationships.

However, Facebook has become a tricky platform to navigate: from

posts to pictures to ads, where does one begin??

Not to worry – we’re here to help… The following tips will

have your brand rocking Facebook in no time!

4

Grow Your Audience

If you’re just getting your company onto Facebook, then the first

order of business is connecting with your current customers, as

well as attracting a bigger audience.

The first step will be to set up an attractive page (use the best

photos you have – now a larger cover photo (851 X 315 pixels)

and a smaller profile picture (180 X 180) are necessary; use the

Facebook timeline to tell your company’s story – perhaps using

older photos where possible). Then dig up any emails you have

collected over time to let your customers know that your business

is on Facebook – send them an email encouraging them to follow

you on Facebook, letting them know that fun content and special

offers will be available on your page.

The second step will be growing your audience. It’s hard to

generate valuable engagement when you only have a handful of

followers, so let’s increase that number! The best way we have

found for growing that initial audience is with contests backed by

ads (see more on Facebook ads on page 10).

+

5

Contests

If your business is a restaurant, create a dinner contest (who

wouldn’t want to win a free dinner?!). People must ‘Like’ your page

and submit their email to enter, so you end up growing your email

list as well as your fan base.

6

Contests

Any sort of freebie

or “special status”

works for a giveaway!

Other businesses

can run contests

that give people

special access to

events –

7

Content, Content, Content!

With many recent Facebook changes, one thing has become clear:

visual stimulation is key for a successful Facebook page. Gorgeous

photos with brief, funny, light, and/or appealing captions do

tremendously well in stimulating engagement.

Take a look at this attractive Cappuccino pic – note how much

engagement it generated. Notice that the caption wasn’t pushy, but

rather light and appealing. Folks online (as in life) tend to respond better

to an interesting observation or a conversational tone, versus a sales

pitch. Of course, it’s ok to let your customers know what you have to

offer, but it’s best to do it in a fun way.

This Cappuccino photo did so well so quickly that we decided to

promote it even further with a page post ad – the trick to these ads

is also visual appeal. (see page 15 for more on page post ads)

8


We had an inkling that the photo below would also get a lot of

positive feedback, so we promoted the post – just $15 spent

and look at the impact.

(For more on promoted posts, see page 14.)

Appealing Photos

+ Fun Captions

= High

Engagement!

So, remember: The photo below, with its lively caption, generated numerous ‘Likes’ as well.

9


The content you post doesn’t always have to

be about your products, directly. Think about

what subject matter may be interesting, useful,

or just plain funny to your audience:

Videos, articles, photos – all are up for grabs if they appeal to your audience. Mix those in with photos

of your products/services, information about who you are, contests or promotions that engage your

fans. Be light, have fun as you do this – your audience will respond in kind!

10

The Art of Facebook AdsFacebook ads are essential for small businesses looking to build

greater social engagement. There are two types of ad formats that

can be used to reach your desired audience, CPC (cost per click)

and CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions).

The average CTR (click through rate) for an internet ad is generally

.1%, but Facebook’s average is much lower – about .05% – though

also much cheaper (a better investment for a limited budget). While

this average may seem very low, we have had great success with

ads getting CTR’s of .2% or higher on Facebook.

The most important part of any Facebook ad is the picture and

targeting. You can have great ad copy, but with a boring picture

and poor targeting, your ad is not going to get any traction.

Facebook is becoming increasingly more visual and an eye-

catching picture is imperative for a successful advertisement.

Facebook is an instantaneous medium: you’ll know within a couple

of hours (from the time your ad is approved) if your ad is successful

or not. Initially, you should always create a couple different ads to

figure out which combination of copy and visuals performs the best.

Facebook blasts out your ad once you’ve created it and if it doesn’t

perform, you will waste your ad budget. In order to prevent this, you

should always review your ads within 2 hours of creation. This initial

test period will tell you which ads to stop or to adjust.

11

Facebook has been the subject of great debate due to the IPO

flop and GM’s public departure from using Facebook ads. If you

are a small business owner, it is best to ignore this debate. We

will tell you first hand, Facebook ads are extremely important for

small businesses. We have had great success with Facebook ads

and have packed events solely though Facebook promotion. If

your business does not use Facebook ads, your social marketing

campaign will never reach its full potential.

Remember, the whole point of Facebook marketing is to put a

personality behind your brand. Do the same with your ads!

Picture and CopyFacebook gives you 90 characters to use when writing ad copy.

Ideally you want to create the best copy using the smallest amount

of text possible. Be short, get to the point, and don’t use too many

exclamation points or CAPS.

Ads with a ton of text generally do not perform well. To get around

this, try adding text into your picture, this way you can write less,

but still get the point across. Your picture is essentially the most

important part of your ad. Ads with pictures of people tend to

perform better than pictures with no people. Pictures of food, pets,

drinks, and beautiful scenery also perform well.

The Art of Facebook Ads

12

TargetingTargeting your ads correctly is just as important as having quality image and

copy. You could have a great ad, but with poor targeting, you’ll spend your

entire budget without reaching the right people.

How you should target your ad depends on your goal, as well as the type of

business you’re promoting.

The first step in ad targeting is picking a location. You can go as broad as

an entire country or as specific as a single zip code. For example, for a local

business in New York City, we find that targeting by zip code works best to

bring in foot traffic. If you’re a global or national brand, then targeting by city

will be optimal in order to generate brand awareness. Keep in mind: this all

depends on the goal of your ad.

Next up is age and gender, which are pretty self-explanatory.

Finally, we have precise interests and broad categories. The more precise

interests

you select, the larger your target audience will be. This helps push your ad to

people who will actually be interested in what you have to say. You should add

as many precise interests as possible to ensure you do not leave people out.

Broad categories allow you to get even more specific with your targeting. You

can target people who have recently married, recently moved; you can even

target specific races.

Facebook ad targeting is key for small businesses because it allows us to tap

into niche markets.


13

CPC (Cost Per Click)CPC ads work best when you want the target audience to click on

and look through your Facebook page or website. With these ads,

you’re bidding and paying for clicks. The more popular your ad, the

less you will pay for each click. For example, if you bid a maximum

of $1.50 for each click and you get a ton of clicks, your cost per

click is going to drop significantly (we’ve gotten it down to below

$0.10 a click). If you have a strong call-to-action, i.e., you want your

target audience to join a seminar, make a purchase, or attend an

event, CPC ads are going to give you the greatest ROI.

CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions)CPM ads are more of a gamble compared to CPC ads. With these,

Facebook knows that they’re going to get paid no matter what, so

they blast your ad out to thousands of people, non-stop. If your ad

is successful, you will get a ton of clicks with a low CPM cost. Of

course, this works both ways… If your ad does not initially perform,

you will spend your entire ad budget on nothing. Like I said above,

it’s imperative that you check the status of your ads religiously

after creation (especially with CPM ads). The last thing you want

is to spend your budget with no results. For small business, this is

key because they are likely to have smaller budgets. We find that

CPMs are best for growing your page and building greater brand

awareness, as opposed to voicing a call to action. CPM ads tend to

get more people to become fans of your page, thus growing your

audience – and as mentioned earlier, that’s very important in the

beginning.

CPC

CPM


14

Promoted PostsPromoted Posts are Facebook’s newest type of ad and are most

effective for businesses/brands that have a large, active fan base

(1,000 plus fans). These ads are also the only type of Facebook

ads that show up on mobile devices (very important: 50% of

Facebook’s users use the service via mobile).

Facebook’s algorithm makes it so your fans see only 16% of your

content. All of your content is shown, but only 16% is delivered to

your fans. This may be a shock to some, but it prevents brands

from spamming. In order to frequently push content to more of

your fans, promoted posts are REQUIRED. They are also very

cost effective and affordable. You purchase these ads in small

increments – as little as $5 – depending on how many people you

want to reach. Posts can be promoted for a maximum of 3 days.

Promoted posts are set up like CPM ads and therefore you pay for

impressions. Facebook engagement is highest Monday through

Wednesday, so we like to use these ads to boost engagement

during the slower days of the week (though they’re also great

to promote specific timely promotions). These ads are ideal for

advertising in a subtle way, because you’re just making sure that

content from your Facebook page is seen. They allow you to

advertise without explicitly saying, “Buy my product!”


15

Page Post AdsYou can also create ads for your Facebook page posts. These ads

are a good way to promote your posts to people who don’t already

like your page, without sacrificing your brand integrity. The pictures

used for page post ads are also 18% larger than on traditional ad

pictures. This is significant because it allows you to use a more

detailed image.

Page post ads also let you showcase videos that link directly to

your Facebook profile. This is the only way to advertise a video

without having it link to YouTube or Vimeo page (this is ideal, since

bringing people to your Facebook page is what helps you grow

your Facebook community).

We like to use this ad format to promote a post that garners high

engagement – we know the post is likely to get some interest and

attract new fans since it has already done well with the current

fans. Unlike promoted posts, these do not show up on mobile. But,

these can be targeted like any other ad and are only different in

that they originate from a page post (rather than being created from

scratch). Be careful – the character limit applies to these ads as

well. If it’s over 90 characters, it will be cut off at the last character.

This is why you see “…” at the end of some ads or in the middle of

a word. You might have to play around with your wording a bit so

that your text is not cut off, or is cut off in an appropriate place.


16

Review your ads regularly It is imperative that you check your ads multiple times daily.

Picture

A good ad must have a great picture.

Targeting You must target your ad in a way that represents your overall goal.

Timing

Think about real world events when launching your ad campaign –

i.e., don’t launch an ad campaign during a holiday or on a Friday –

it’s a waste of time and money.

Budget

Money is tight for small businesses, but don’t cheap out on ads.

$100 a month in Facebook ads is not enough (we recommend at

least $250). GO ALL IN!

1.2.3.4.

5.

THE 5 KEYS TO FACEBOOK ADS


We hope you find this paper helpful in building your Facebook presence. If you’d like to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level, we’re here to help!

To learn more about Able, visit our website or contact us directly: 212 873 1974 | [email protected]

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small & sprightly: how a small brand can rock facebook

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