Social Media Marketing with Facebook

Using social media to market your business is a crucial component of advertising your services. Because there are billions of social media users, this ensures that you’re reaching a wide audience who can easily share information with others. Many social media platforms also offer analytical reporting to help you understand how your campaigns are performing and where you can make changes. 

With nearly three billion users, Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the world. Here, we’ll discuss some of the various methods of advertising that the site offers, as well as some of its advantages and disadvantages. 

Different Methods of Facebook Marketing

Basic Facebook Ads

Typically appearing on the sides of your newsfeed, the more classic style of Facebook ads (also referred to as Marketplace Ads) usually include a short headline, an image, and a link to your website. These campaigns can be targeted toward a specific audience and come with built-in ad testing. This means that you can run multiple versions of your ad at the same time to see which version performs the best. 

Facebook Contests

This is a popular method that helps users get excited about your brand. There are many types of contests that users can participate in to boost engagement on your page. For example, you can create a simple “comment to win” game where people leave a comment on your post and win a free experience with your business, like a meal or a photoshoot. While actual contests can’t be hosted on Facebook’s website, whichever third-party program you use can easily redirect back to your business page. 

Sponsored Stories

This approach allows you to pay to display information about user activity on your page to that user’s friends on Facebook. For example, say you own a small bakery and a person writes a positive review of your shop on Facebook. You can invest money in sponsoring that story, which means that the user's friends will be notified that they enjoyed their experience. When a user sees that someone they know and trust recommends your business, they’re more likely to give your business a try.

Facebook Exchange (FBX)

FBX is an advertising bidding tool that businesses use to retarget users who have already shown interest in their services but failed to initially make a purchase. This is a powerful tool since repeated exposure to a particular product or service makes someone more likely to invest their money. FBX is also exciting because it displays ads in someone’s main news feed rather than on the right or left side of the screen where they are less likely to look. 

Pros and Cons of Marketing with Facebook

Before you decide whether Facebook is the best place to market your business, there are a few pros and cons to consider. One of the greatest advantages to marketing with Facebook is the detailed audience targeting available on the platform. Because people provide a lot of demographic information on their Facebook pages, marketers are able to narrow their audience by age, gender, location, and even careers. For instance, imagine being a food supplier and being able to just target restaurant owners in your area! Facebook also offers Ads Manager to businesses, which enables the user to automate certain steps of your campaign depending on your comfort level. 

With its billions of users, the potential to reach a wide audience is greater on Facebook than anywhere else. But, this also means that the competition will be tougher. Having your campaign stand out among the crowd is more challenging on Facebook than it is on other social media platforms. Facebook also requires that any advertisements pass a fairly rigorous screening process before they are approved, which can sometimes take up to 24 hours. This is done to ensure that users have a safe experience while using the site, but it is something to consider before advertising. Marketing on Facebook can also be tricky for first-timers and can end up costing you money. It’s important to pay attention to goal tracking and audience selection to ensure your ad reaches the right people.

Learn about Social Media Marketing with Career Centers

Whether you’re starting a digital marketing career or a business owner hoping to improve your business by learning more about social media marketing, check out the social media marketing courses available with Noble Desktop, a partner program of Career Centers. Students here are given the flexibility to take classes in-person at Noble’s Manhattan campus or remotely from anywhere in the world. Noble Desktop offers students small class sizes and instruction from industry experts.

If you’re hoping to focus just on Facebook, Noble Desktop offers a six-hour Facebook Marketing course that focuses on targeting your audience, conversion tracking, and Facebook Pixels. For a more comprehensive overview, you can look into the Social Media Marketing Certificate. This is a 30-hour program that covers marketing with all of today’s most popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Noble Desktop also has a Digital Marketing Certificate as part of its programming. In addition to covering all of the previously mentioned social media platforms, this class covers Google Analytics and SEO.