Facebook Advert Creation Basics

With Facebook Adverts, you can get more people visiting your shop, shopping on your website, liking your Page, installing your app and more.   

 

Page Post Engagement 

Get more people liking, commenting on and sharing your posts. You'll reach more of the people who like your Page and new audiences. 
 

Page Likes 

Build your Page audience by getting more Page Likes. It's a great way to connect with new customers and learn more about your audience.   

Clicks to Website 

Bring more people to your website from Facebook. When people click on your advert, you can send them to any page on your website – including your online store.

   

Website conversions

Track actions that people take on your website after they have seen your Facebook advert. This data helps you to understand who comes to your site and what they're responding to so you can make your adverts (and website) even better.
 

App installs

Grow your app by getting more people to install it. You can get your advert to the right people based on device, OS and more. And when they tap your advert, they'll go directly to the app store install page.  
 

App Engagement 

Get more people to engage with your app and take them to specific parts of your app, such as the purchase page for an item or a screen where they can register or start a download 

   

Event Responses 

Let people know about your special event with a Facebook advert. When people see it, they can join, and the event will be added to their Facebook calendar. They'll also get reminders for the event, and you can keep track of how many people have responded. 
  

Offer claims 

Create special offers to get more people doing business with you. You can offer discounts or other rewards – it's up to you. You decide how long your offer runs for, who sees it, how many people can claim it and more.  
 

Video views 

Create engaging adverts that feature your videos and tell your story. Your audiences can view your video adverts in News Feed on desktop and mobile devices.   

Local awareness 

Easily reach people in the area around your business. Just start with your business address and the area that you want to reach, and we'll show your advert to as many people on Facebook as possible within the selected area. 
  

Slideshows 

Bring your business to life without the restrictions of full video. These lightweight video adverts ensure that people all over the world can view your brand's story on almost any Internet- connected device.  

 
Carousel adverts  

Advertise multiple products, services or promotions without having to create multiple adverts. The carousel format offers flexibility and multiple creative options – while also lowering your cost per click. 

 
Dynamic adverts 

Make your adverts even more targeted and relevant to customers. Dynamic adverts help reinforce customer interest by featuring products that individuals have viewed on your website or mobile app. We'll even provide reports on which adverts are doing best.   
  

Lead adverts 

With Lead adverts, potential customers can sign up for what you're offering, and you'll get accurate contact info to follow up on them.

Audience Analyze and Audience Insight

 

The more customer insights you have, the better you’re equipped to deliver meaningful messages to people. That’s the thinking behind Facebook Audience Insights, a new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.
 

Say you want to raise awareness for your women’s luxury fashion brand, and you sell your products in-store. You’d want to know how many people on Facebook live near your stores, as well as their interests, their past purchase behavior and how they tend to shop (online vs. in- store). Using Audience Insights, you can get aggregate and anonymous information such as: 

• Demographics — Age and gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size 

• Page likes — The top Pages people like in different categories, like women’s apparel or sports 

• Location and language — Where do people live, and what languages do they speak 

• Facebook usage — How frequently are people in your target audience logging onto Facebook and what device(s) they are using when they log on 

• Purchases activity — Past purchase behavior (i.e. heavy buyers of women’s apparel) and purchase methods (i.e., in-store, online) 

And you can view this information for three different groups of people: 

• People on Facebook (the general Facebook audience)

•  People connected to your Page or event 

• People in Custom Audiences you’ve already created (an audience made up of your current customers) 

Audience Insights is different from Page Insights because it looks at trends about your current or potential customers across Facebook, whereas Page Insights looks at the interactions with your Page (i.e., likes, comments and shares).  

We built Audience Insights with privacy in mind. It surfaces aggregated information people already express on Facebook, along with information from trusted third-party partners — like Acxiom — through our partner categories targeting. Like Page Insights, Audience Insights shows information about groups of people without the need to share which individual people are in those groups. This allows marketers to view aggregate and anonymous insights while keeping people’s personal information private.

How can I optimize my fan page for EdgeRank?

How can I optimize my fan page for EdgeRank

It's hard to trick an algorithm into thinking that your content is interesting. It's much easier to rewrite your content so your fans leave more likes and comments. 

 
Take your stodgy press releases, and turn them into questions that compel your fans to engage. 

 
Here's some examples: 

 

• "Click 'like' if you're excited that we just released our iPad app."
  
• "Fill-in-the-blank: All I want for Christmas is ___. Our latest Christmas special is X."
  
• "Yes/No: I brushed my teeth last night. We just announed a new brand of toothpaste."
  
• "On a scale of 1-10, I think Obama is a great president. Watch this video of our CEO shaking hands with Obama."

All those likes and comments will increase the Affinity Score between each fan and your page, boosting how many fans see your status updates in their newsfeed.

How do I check my EdgeRank Score?

How do I check my EdgeRank Score

 

Anyone who claims to check your EdgeRank is lying to you. It is completely impossible. 

 
You can measure the effects of EdgeRank by seeing how many people you reached. You can also measure how much engagement you got (which impacts EdgeRank) using a Facebook analytics tool. 

 
But there is no "general EdgeRank score" because each fan has a different affinity score with the page. 

 
Furthermore, Facebook keeps the algorithm a secret, and they're constantly tweaking it. So the value of comments compared to likes is constantly changing. 

 
Lastly, fan pages never appear in the newsfeed--stories by/about the pages show up. So I really don't care about the EdgeRank score of the page, I only care about the EdgeRank score of the status update (which is affected by the EdgeRank score of the page). 

 
There will never be a 3rd-party tool that can measure EdgeRank. Too much data is private--eg, if a fan leaves a comment on my page's status update, I can't know how tightly he's connected to the other fans--and the more tightly he's connected, the more his comment impacts the Affinity Score of the status update for the other fans.

How does EdgeRank work?

How does EdgeRank work

EdgeRank is like a credit rating: it's invisible, it's important, it's unique to each user, and no one other than Facebook knows knows exactly how it works. 

 
At Facebook's 2010 F8 conference, they revealed the three ingredients of the algorithm:
1. Affinity Score 

2. Edge Weight 

3. Time Decay 

 
Affinity Score 

 
Affinity Score means how "connected" a particular user is to the Edge. For example, I'm friends with my brother on Facebook. In addition, I write frequently on his wall, and we have fifty mutual friends. I have a very high affinity score with my brother, so Facebook knows I'll probably want to see his status updates. 

 
Facebook calculates affinity score by looking at explicit actions that users take, and factoring in

 1) the strength of the action,

 2) how close the person who took the action was to you, and 

 3) how long ago they took the action. 

 
Explicit actions include clicking, liking, commenting, tagging, sharing, and friending. Each of these interactions has a different weight that reflects the effort required for the action--more effort from the user demonstrates more interest in the content. Commenting on something is worth more than merely liking it, which is worth more than merely clicking on it. Passively viewing a status update in your newsfeed does not count toward affinity score unless you interact with it.

 
Affinity score measures not only my actions, but also my friends' actions, and their friends' actions. For example, if I commented on a fan page, it's worth more than if my friend commented, which is worth more than if a friend of a friend commented. Not all friends' actions are treated equally. If I click on someone's status updates and write on their wall regularly, that person's actions influence my affinity score significantly more than another friend who I tend to ignore. 

 
Lastly, if I used to interact with someone a lot, but less so now, then their influence will start to wane. Technically, Facebook is just multiplying each action by 1/x, where x is the time since the action happened. 

 
Affinity score is one-way. My brother has a different affinity score to me than I have to him. If I write on my brother's wall, Facebook knows I care about my brother, but doesn't know if my brother cares about me. 

 
This may sound confusing, but it's mostly common sense. 

 
Edge Weight 

 
Each category of edges has a different default weight. In plain English, this means that comments are worth more than likes. 

 
Every action that a user takes creates an edge, and each of those edges, except for clicks, creates a potential story. By default, you are more likely to see a story in your newsfeed about me commenting on a fan page than a story about me liking a fan page. 

 
Facebook changes the edge weights to reflect which type of stories they think user will find most engaging. For example, photos and videos have a higher weight than links. Conceivably, this could be adjusted on a per-user level--if Sam tends to comment on photos, and Michelle comments on links, then Sam will have a higher Edge weight for photos and Michelle will have a higher Edge weight for links. It's not clear if Facebook does this or not. 

 
As a sidenote, Facebook may actually rank the act of commenting, liking, visiting a fan page, or even fanning a page differently depending on the source. For example, becoming a fan via an ad may have a lower Edge score than becoming a fan by searching for the fan page and then becoming a fan. This makes intuitive sense--the one user is hunting for the page and generally will care more about page stories than someone who had an ad thrust in their face. There is no conclusive proof of this though. 

 
New Facebook features generally have a high Edge weight in order to promote the feature to users. For example, when Facebook Places rolled out, check-ins had a very high default weight for a few months and your newsfeed was probably inundated with stories like "John checked into Old Navy." Generally, after a few weeks or months Facebook dials the new feature back to a more reasonable weight. 

 
Time Decay 

 
As a story gets older, it loses points because it's "old news." 

 
EdgeRank is a running score--not a one-time score. When a user logs into Facebook, their newsfeed is populated with edges that have the highest score at that very moment in time. Your status update will only hit the newsfeed if it has a higher score--at that moment in time--than the other possible newsfeed stories. 

 
Facebook is just multiplying the story by 1/x, where x is the time since the action happened. This may be a linear decay function, or it may be exponential--it's not clear. 

 
Additionally, Facebook seems to be adjusting this time-decay factor based on 

1) how long since the user last logged into Facebook, and 

2) how frequently the user logs into Facebook.

It's not clear how exactly this works, but my experiments have shown time-decay changes if I log into Facebook more.

Facebook Algorithm (EDGE Rank)

Facebook Algorithm

 

EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that decides which stories appear in each user's newsfeed. The algorithm hides boring stories, so if your story doesn't score well, no one will see it. 

 
The first thing someone sees when they log into Facebook is the newsfeed. This is a summary of what's been happening recently among their friends on Facebook. 

 
Every action their friends take is a potential newsfeed story. Facebook calls these actions "Edges." That means whenever a friend posts a status update, comments on another status update, tags a photo, joins a fan page, or RSVP's to an event it generates an "Edge," and a story about that Edge might show up in the user's personal newsfeed. 

 
It'd be completely overwhelming if the newsfeed showed all of the possible stories from your friends. So Facebook created an algorithm to predict how interesting each story will be to each user. Facebook calls this algorithm "EdgeRank" because it ranks the edges. Then they filter each user's newsfeed to only show the top-ranked stories for that particular user. 

 
Why should I care? 

 
Because most of your Facebook fans never see your status updates. 

 
Facebook looks at all possible stories and says "Which story has the highest EdgeRank score? Let's show it at the top of the user's newsfeed. Which one has the next highest score? Let's show it next." If EdgeRank predicts a particular user will find your status update boring, then your status update will never even be shown to that particular user. 

 
Caveat: There actually appears to be two algorithms, although this has not been conclusively proven. The EdgeRank algorithm ranks stories, and a second algorithm sorts the newsfeed. This newsfeed algorithm includes a randomization element and a keyword aggregator. Zuckerberg mentioned in an interview with TechCrunch that Facebook users found it eery how well Facebook knew what they were interested in, so they started randomizing the newsfeed slightly. 

 
The numbers on this are frightening. In 2007, a Facebook engineer said in an interview that only about 0.2% of eligible stories make it into a user's newsfeed. That means that your status update is competing with 499 other stories for a single slot in a user's newsfeed.

Types of Facebook Ads

Types of Facebook Ads

 

There are a number of ad subtypes you can choose from. 

 
You can create ads that direct to your Facebook page, or to a site not on Facebook. You can create ads to promote a Facebook event, complete with an RSVP link. You can create ads for mobile app installs and app engagement. 

 
Users Can Hide Your Ad 

 
Facebook used to offer the option to "Like" any advertisement on Facebook. Not anymore. People can "Like" an advertisement (if it’s that type) or hide the ad. Upon closing an ad, Facebook asks the user to specify why they didn’t like it. 

 
It’s valuable information, providing insight into why your ads might not be doing very well.
Powerful Targeting Options 

 
As already mentioned, Facebook has some of the most powerful targeting tools of any online advertising program. 

 
You can target by virtually anything on a user’s profile. You might start with the location, if that’s important. You can specify either city, zip code, county, or state. This works particularly well for local businesses. From there, you can choose basic demographics, including relationship status, age, workplace, education (including major and years of attendance), birthday, and much more. 

 
You can target ads to people who have recently moved. So, if you own a gym in Scottsdale and want to find all the individuals who recently moved to the area, you can target your ads and ad copy to those individuals. 

 
You also can target people based on their interests. Say, for example, you have a product that’s targeted at baseball fans. You could enter baseball in the Interests field. 

 
Or, maybe you’ve written a book and you’re sure that people who like another certain book will like yours. Enter the book’s title under Interests, and you’ll specifically target those users. 

 
You even can target a private list of users. If you have a list of email addresses of people that you want to target, you can use Facebook’s ads manager to target just those people. So, if you run a SaaS business and have 200 people on your "prospect list," you can use their email addresses to target them with ads in Facebook. 

 
Customize Your Ads 

 
The other big advantage to tightly-targeted ads is that you can create different ads for different demographic groups. Better-targeted ads are going to garner better results.

 
If you’re targeting baseball fans, you might create individual ads for different popular teams. You could have one ad specifically aimed at Red Sox fans, one at Yankees fans, and another at Cubs fans, and then have those ads shown only to people who have indicated in their Interests that they are fans of those teams. 

 
Or, let’s say you’ve targeted people based on their love of a particular book. You could mention that book in the ad itself to make it more likely to catch their attention. Create different ads for different books, and then target accordingly.

Post Useful Information to Your Wall

Post Useful Information to Your Wall

What you post to your wall will show up in the news feeds of everyone who has ―Liked‖ your page, just as it does when you post something to your personal profile. 

 
So, make sure what you’re posting is useful to your fans. Don’t post endless updates about the same thing, and don’t post too many updates, clogging the news feeds of your fans.
Here are some ideas for the kinds of things you might want to post to your wall:

• Links to articles related to your company or your industry 
• Links to your blog posts 
• Coupon codes for fans to save on your products 
• New product announcements
• Links to online tools your fans might find useful. 

Again, make sure that your posts are useful. Also, don’t post more than a few times each day unless there’s a special event going on. 

 
Ask Your Fans Questions 

 
Getting your fans involved with your page is a great way to inspire loyalty. 

 
Asking questions in your updates gets people involved, but on their own terms. What you ask depends largely on your product and your niche, but asking open-ended questions usually garners the best responses. Asking opinions on a new product idea or project can be a good way to convince your fans that your company cares about what they want. Getting more engagement on a post may also help you reach the top of the Facebook News Feed. 

 
Don’t Spam 

 
Spam is one of the quickest ways to lose fans. If you do nothing but send out promotional blurbs about your company, without ever adding anything of value, then you’re going to have a hard time getting and keeping fans. 

 
Before you send out any update, ask yourself if it honestly adds value to the conversation. If not, don’t send it. 

 
Study Your Statistics and Results 

 
Facebook offers some really great analytics for pages. Pay attention to them. If you see a big surge in fans (or a drop off), look at what you’ve posted recently and see if you can figure out a reason for the trend. Then, post more of that kind of content (or less, if you’re losing fans). 

 
Targeted Advertising 

 
Because it gathers so much demographic information about its users, Facebook has one of the best targeted advertising programs online. You can target users based on virtually anything you might find in their profiles, as well as track your success with each segment. 

 
Ads can be run on a per-impression or per-click basis. Facebook shows you what bids are for ads similar to yours, so you know if your bid is in line with others in your industry. You also can set daily limits so there’s no risk of blowing your budget.

How Can You Market on Facebook?

Facebook has three tools (pages, ads, and groups) that can be used by anyone. Each of these options has its own purpose, and they can be combined for greater reach. 

 
Pages 

 
Facebook pages are similar to profiles, but for businesses, organizations, and public figures. Users can "Like" a page, which means they’ll automatically receive updates from that page in their news feed. Users also have the option to "Like" a page but not follow it. (Users also can follow some profiles.) 

 
While profiles require a mutual relationship between friends, pages can be liked by anyone, without a requirement for the page creator to accept a fan. They also don’t have a restriction on the number of friends/fans they can have (unlike profiles, which are limited to 5,000 friends). 

 
Advantages: Pages are free and easy to set up. 

 
Disadvantages: It can be hard to get a foothold and build a fan base with a page. 

 
Ads 

 
Facebook offers a fantastic targeted advertising platform. You can create ads targeted at specific geographic areas, ages, education levels, and even the types of devices used for browsing. Facebook also lets users close ads they don’t like and "Like" a page right beneath an advertisement:
 

Advantages: Ads have powerful targeting parameters. 

 
Disadvantages: Ads can get expensive, depending on your goals. 

 
Groups 

 
Facebook groups are similar to discussion forums, but with additional features that pages and profiles have (like a wall). You can create groups related to your industry or product offerings as a way to reach out to potential customers.

 
Advantages: Groups are free and have high levels of engagement. 

 
Disadvantages: Groups can be very time consuming.  

 
How to Market with Pages 

 
Facebook pages are the simplest, easiest way to get started marketing with Facebook.

They’re free, relatively easy to set up (at least in their basic forms), and incredibly flexible.

There’s not much of a downside, either. 

 
Unfortunately, many companies don’t use them to their full potential; or worse, use them badly. These guidelines will help you avoid making those mistakes. 

 
Profile Photo and Cover Image 

 
Your profile photo should be your logo. Simple as that. 

 
The cover image is a different story. It’s really up to you to decide what to put here. Some use photos of employees, while others use fancy artwork and put their contact information in the cover image. Pick a photo that will enhance your page and draw the eye of your visitors.

 
“About” Section 

 
The "About" section is prominently placed right below your company logo. This is your chance to tell anyone coming to your page what your business does. 

 
Make sure you put good information here, telling people what you’re company does, why you’re different, and other interesting details. If you can, take the time to write it specifically for your Facebook audience. You can copy the text from the "About" page of your website or blog, if you’re in a pinch. Be sure to fill in all of your data under "Basic Info."

 
Just remember to keep it friendly and informal. A casual tone usually works best on Facebook. Here are a few good examples: 

 
HubSpot tells us what they do and gives a contact method:  

 
WP Engine shares what they do and the number of customers they have, which helps establish credibility:
 

You also may want to put your hours of operation in the About section. 

 
Tabs 

 
Tabs are the little squares that sit to the right of your About section. Here are ESPN’s tabs:  

Facebook allows you to use up to 10 application tabs, known to Facebook admins as the "Favorites" section. Photos and Likes are required tabs. You may move the Likes tab wherever you wish, but Photos must remain as the first. Your top tabs are set to a limit of four. 

 
Think about what the priorities are for your visitors. If you’re a physical store, you may want to make a tab for location. If you host webinars, perhaps you could use the Events tab to let people sign up and join your webinars. Social media is about engagement, so the more (and the more closely) you get your fans to engage with you, the better marketer you will be.

Basic of Facebook Marketing

Basic of Facebook Marketing

 

Facebook is big. As the largest social network in the world, it has more than 1.23 billion active users, 62% of whom log in on a daily basis. 

 
With such a large user base, ignoring Facebook really isn’t an option for most marketers. You can bet your ideal market is using Facebook nearly every day. The question is: how do you target all of those users with your marketing? 

 
The good news is that the Facebook advertising platform allows you to zero in and specify the type of people you’re looking for. You can target by location, demographics, and interests. 

 
In this guide, I’ll show you the basics of how to use Facebook to your advantage. The guide is aimed at the beginner who wants an introduction into marketing their business on the world’s largest social network. 

 
Who’s On Facebook? 

 
Facebook may have started out as a social network for college students, but, by now, nearly everyone with an internet connection is using it. The minimum age requirement is 13, and there is reason to believe it is being used by all other age groups. 

 
Facebook doesn’t publicly release data on their most popular age group, but a survey by Pew showed that social networking is most popular with the 18-29 age group. Its popularity decreases with age. It is least popular with those 65 and older. 

 
I can assure you that, no matter what age group you’re targeting, there will be more than enough of those users on Facebook.