New Age Advertising

Internet advertising is a strategic business initiative, and the statement your advertising strategy makes is critical to the business it represents. Advertising in the realm of social media—specifically Facebook—has proven to be a key marketing tool—bringing in new customers and keeping current clients coming back for more.

The growth of Facebook has been phenomenal, and its ability to target users based on their demographics, geography and behaviors makes it a highly efficient and effective promotional and advertising tool, while remaining scalable to any budget.

According to Marty Weintraub, the Minnesota-based author of Killer Facebook Ads: Master Cutting-Edge Facebook Advertising Techniques and CEO of aimClear, an online search and social marketing agency: “More than half of Facebook’s officially revealed 500 million users log in every day, engaging for an aggregate 700 billion minutes per month.” These statistics offer enormous implications for marketers.

So why aren’t more companies dedicating a large portion of their advertising dollars to the Facebook medium?

“The biggest misconception I see about Facebook advertising is that the channel is not valuable because CPAs (cost per action) are too high,” says Weintraub. It's true that conversions generated with Facebook ads tend to be expensive. But it’s important for companies to study the analytics in terms of how Facebook ads influence other channels.

For instance, as Weintraub explains, the cost of leads acquired via paid search is often reduced as a desirable artifact of the branding effect of massive amounts of Facebook advertising impressions. “Also, Facebook ads can cause viral reactions and even result in blogger and other media coverage, possibly sending scores of public relations traffic with conversion in mind,” Weintraub says.

The crux of Weintraub’s book provides insights into identifying and finding your advertising audience by leveraging extremely personal combinations of Facebook users’ traits.

Other key lessons in this book include:

 • Learn that contextual ads are a different beast than search ads. “Be social in social space and speak directly to the demographic segments targeted,” Weintraub says.

• Set business goals. “Without sound justification for spending money on Facebook, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall,” Weintraub says. “Facebook ads are great for public relations, branding and advertising alike.”

• Target the whole user. “When brainstorming demographic segments, don't look to Facebook and ask, ‘Where are the users?’ ” Weintraub says. “Look to life, note how real people actually cluster, the organizations they belong to, books they read, jobs they have, websites they fan, etc. And then look to Facebook to find where life's natural cliques are represented.” mb