Introduction To The Facebook Phenomena
Facebook is one of the largest social phenomena to hit our society over the last . Second only to Google in terms of size and scope, Facebook is arguably what defines “social media,” as its close to 1.5 billion users worldwide will agree. Almost every person with an internet connection has a Facebook account, from the junior high teen in Sweden to the war veteran in Canada.
Every day, 936 million people check their Facebook profiles. The average time spent on each Facebook session is 21 minutes. Every 20 minutes, there is an estimated one million links shared, two million friend requests sent and over three million personal messages sent.
Given this immense activity on just one website, it’s no wonder that Facebook generating massive profits from its social advertising business. For many people and companies, Facebook traffic via paid ads and social sharing is the lifeblood of their business.
The Facebook Marketing Difference
Facebook ads come in many different forms. Some are ads seen on the sidebar that go directly to a certain website, while others are shown in the form of news-feed promotions from the actual business page. Some ads are videos while others are “canvas” which are a mix of video and stills. The whole point of Facebook marketing, and what differentiates it greatly from other forms of online marketing is its massive data trove of personal, fine-grained user data. This allows for very precise targeting of users for particular products and services. The data is accumulated:
- Via first-party data that users voluntarily provide in return for free access to its service
- Combined wiith data from other third parties and from off-line purchases to create very detailed profiles of its users.
- Data it mines from interactions between users such as the contents of chat messages and LIKEs and SHAREs
Put simply, there is no other service on the planet that can target ads at users as precisely as Facebook.
The Network Effect
A large driving force in Facebook marketing is social value, or how people perceive a brand. The more visible a business is and the more engaging its Facebook content, the more likes and shares it will get. This in turn leads to a wider audience, as people who like and share do so with their own personal networks. For example, a funny post by a wedding dress shop entitled, “Don’t Be a Bride-zilla” might be shared by prospective brides on their own Facebook walls. This post will be seen by their friends, who in turn might share it with others, and so on, rapidly increasing the wedding dress shop’s prospective customer base while also increasing its brand visibility.
In the same vein, a person whose friends have liked a certain brand is more likely to buy from that brand because they trust their friend’s opinion and feel that the brand has been validated. In addition, businesses and companies use their Facebook pages to interact with customers, using things such as surveys, quizzes, videos, games and images to pique interest. This kind of personal engagement is another reason why Facebook advertising such a powerful and effective marketing platform, as it relies on people’s sustained interest to gain conversion.
How You Can Benefit
Conversion from Facebook ads has success rates that, in general, are far beyond other web-based advertising. Facebook’s ads are reasonably priced and easy to use, and the platform is equipped with an impressive suite of tools and options to help users maximize its functionality and features. After-all, its in Facebook’s interest to make things as easy as possible so that you can run as many ads as possible.
Facebook Ad Manager, for instance, gives marketers comprehensive data on ad performance over time so they can tell at a glance which ads are good, which are not and what has to be done to change the bad. The Facebook ad maker, on the other hand, lets ad creators see which images work best for their ads before picking a final look and gives flexibility in overall ad creation. This accessibility and user-friendly experience is important on the marketing side, as it gives owners better control of their goals, expenses and direction. As you drill down into the capabilities of the platform you realize that you are getting an enterprise level marketing platform for free.
Minefields To Avoid
While Facebook wants to make it as easy as possible for you to place ads and engage your fans and customers, there are certain things they do no tolerate.
A Facebook Marketer need to know the rules otherwise the account will be banned. More often than not, a banned account is never re-instated.
So you need to follow their rules and avoid their gotcha’s. One big area that ensnares a lot of new Facebook marketers is in the claims made in ads. Unless the claims are based on fact, Facebook will terminate an ad campaign. So, while you can say something like “Lose up to 10 pounds”, you cannot say “Lose 10 pounds in 1 week”. The former is more realistic while the latter cannot be proven to work for any particular user.
Building A Six Figure Business
If you have a small niche product to promote or idea to sell, Facebook is the place to do your marketing. Between the precision targeting of users for paid advertising, re-targeting users on other websites using the “Facebook Pixel”, the constant stream of new advertising capabilities released every quarter, Fan pages, business pages and user engagement, it is relatively easy to get in front of your audience. And, given the size of Facebook’s audience, you only need a tiny niche to create a six figure business. A niche that consists of just 1/10th of one percent of Facebook users is still 1.5 million users. Turning 1% of those into your customers is 15,000 customers. That’s a lot of customers for any business and is more than enough to build a six figure income stream.
Learn more about building out a six figure business in this longer article on simplysales.com. Or, better yet, get the e-book that discusses how to generate traffic to your new business without wasting your money.
Regardless of how you proceed let us know how you’re doing by commenting below.
