Looking for the best Facebook marketing tips?
Facebook continues to be the reigning champ where friends connect and share online. More than just a meeting place for friends, Facebook has grown into a venue for companies to market themselves through interaction with customers and self-promotion.
In this post we will be looking at 7 ways you can use Facebook for marketing.
(Read: Facebook ad account disabled next steps)
1. Facebook Business Page Tips
A Facebook page is a great free marketing tool for businesses. This is your digital storefront. Facebook pages let businesses identify themselves – not just through listing product offerings and services, but also by sharing links, images, and posts on a customizable page to give a better sense of a business’s personality and character.
Your Facebook business page is a great spot to develop your brand identity and show your human side. Facebook is where you can loosen the tie a bit – don’t be afraid to be funny. Simply connect your humor and story telling to your brand to increase conversions.
Ultimately you should consider what your target audience would want to see. Share social media images, links, videos, anything, as long as it is connected to your business and it seems like something your target audience would enjoy.
Use Facebook Insights to see what resonates most with your audience and reverse engineer successful brand campaigns to level up.
In addition to hilarious videos of cats walking in tiny shoes, a store specializing in footwear might also post an article about how to measure your foot size accurately or what kind of shoe inserts are best to help feet feel better.
A nice mix of humor, educational resources, and posts about your store updates is ideal.
Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts
2. Facebook Advertising: Classic Ads
Facebook offers its own form of advertising with Right Hand Column Facebook ads, which appear in the side columns of the Facebook site.
They include a headline with copy, an image, and a click-through link to either a Facebook page, a Facebook app, or an outside website.
Applying Facebook engagement ads into your Facebook marketing strategy is one possible technique for increasing likes or driving website clicks.
Facebook advertising features include:
- Demographic targeting by FB user data on age, location, education, & interests
- Ad budgets
- A/B testing aka Split Testing ads in the same Ad Set to see which performs best
- Built-in ad performance measurement tools
- Local Ads: advertise for your particular area— great for local businesses
Each Facebook ad campaign has 3 levels:
1. Campaign
2. Ad Set
3. Ad
The Campaign is just where you name your ad but on the Ad Set level you determine targeting and budget.
On the Ad level you write your ad copy and upload your creative, whether that's a video or a static image or a slideshow.
Facebook doesn’t release information about their ad CTRs, so it’s difficult to know how successful Facebook ads really are. Facebook ads generally have a CTR of 0.051%, and an average CPC of $0.80.
However, a business’s Facebook advertising cost can vary a lot depending on the targeting options set and competition.
Using Facebook advertising to increase your “Likes” can be very beneficial – once a user likes your page, they essentially become followers of your business page, and your posts will appear on their Facebook news feed.
This results in more users interacting with you and your brand, forming relationships that may end up translating to conversions in the future.
New to facebook advertising? You may want to check out another resource: What to Do After Violating Facebook’s Ad Policies.
Liana Lang, CEO of Power Up Strategy Inc. said, "Please meet Trevor, my 'secret weapon' for all things Facebook compliance. I highly recommend hiring him to help you out especially if you plan to be running ads."
Want the same white glove treatment navigating Facebook shutdowns?
Click here, to schedule a discovery call.
3. Hosting Facebook Contests
Running Facebook contests, sweepstakes, or promotions is another Facebook marketing tactic that can increase fans and brand awareness.
When conducting a Facebook contest, be aware that contests can’t be hosted through Facebook itself (meaning you can’t ask for likes as entries, have people write answers in the comments).
Businesses must use a third-party app for creating their Facebook contest, then direct users to the app from their Facebook page. Want to make sure your landing page doesn't get flagged by Facebook? Click here.
There are plenty of paid tools to help you do this, as well as some free ones. Shortstack offers a number of free contest templates, so long as your page has under 2,000 likes. Pagemodo also has a free option.
Many third-party Facebook contest apps offer free versions, but your options with them are limited.
Keep in mind: contests will create a higher volume of clicks but often lower quality as you'll attract people that just want freebies. That won't build a loyal fan base or extend the customer lifetime value.
A good technique to do is to prequalify some of these leads. Or, after acquiring your leads from contest ads run on Facebook, integrate them into your email marketing campaigns and qualify them from there to move further up your funnel's value ladder.
Are you trying to recover an ad account? Don't get ripped off! Read How to Recover Facebook Ad Accounts now
Is your Facebook ad account is disabled and Facebook is offering no guidance on getting ads live again? If that sounds familiar you're like one of my clients, Steve Martinez, Vice President of Apollidon Learning.
This is what he had to say about working with me:
"Trevor took us through the process of getting one of our University of Texas ad accounts reinstated (within minutes). He offered some critical insights to why our Facebook Ad Account was disabled and shared options to reduce our chances of future issues. We have a better understand of how the algorithm works and know exactly what to do and say if our account gets disabled again."
Want to see how I can help you? Schedule a free discovery call here. Or, if you're in a rush, prepay for your consulting call and skip the line.
4. Facebook Boosted Posts
Facebook Boosted Posts ( that some incorrectly called "promoted posts" despite Facebook itself calling them Boosted Posts here) let you pay a flat rate in order to have boost visibility of individual Facebook posts reach a certain number of users, increasing a specific post’s reach and impressions.
Some businesses have asked – why should I have to pay to ensure that my post is seen by users who are my followers? If a user has liked my page, they should always see my posts on their news feed, shouldn’t they?
The answer to this question is Facebook suppresses organic reach - and has since the early to mid 2000s. Even people that like your Facebook Business Page will probably miss most of your posts as Facebook aka Meta deliberately hides these posts.
You gotta pay to play.
If a fan of yours happens to be looking at their news feed when you post your story, they are likely to see it, but even then there is no guarantee if their news feed is swamped by other posts.
That’s where Boosted Posts comes in – it ups your chances of being seen on a user’s news feed. Facebook Promoted Posts are shown to existing fans, with an added option to reach friends of fans.
And the upside is it increases engagement for your entire posts. You'll often get free Facebook likes, without having to have a separate Facebook likes campaign running. Because people checking out your boosted post will also get curious about your Facebook Business Page.
Boosted Posts are easy to set up – just click the button beneath any of your page posts. But if you want advanced targeting options, you'll want to set it up inside Ads Manager.
While the flat rate simplifies the process, Boosted Posts lack the targeting options offered by other Facebook ads. Be sure to set up a Facebook Custom Engagement Audience first.
Do this so that the traffic to your page is tracked and you can retarget all Facebook users interacting with your ads with future ads now that they are warmed up.
Also check out: Top Reasons Why Facebook Disables Ad Accounts
5. Sponsored Stories
Sponsored Stories are a type of Facebook ad that shows a user’s interactions, such as a Facebook like, to the user’s friends.
Sponsored Stories seeks to capitalize on the “word of mouth” marketing concept. If a user sees that three of his friends like a certain page, he is more inclined to pay attention.
The goal of Sponsored Stories is to have a user take the same action as their friends. Advertisers can choose to show friends “likes” if they want more page likes, show friends who have “claimed this offer” if a business wants more users to claim offers.
While the action performed by a friend liking a page or claiming an offer is automatically posted in a user’s news feed, these posts easily get overlooked.
Sponsored Stories get preferred positioning, capable of appearing in news feeds and the right side bar. Sponsored Stories are only available on mobile devices.
Sponsored Stories don’t only apply to likes or offers – they can be used with any Facebook Open Graph app. If a friend has just installed Scramble With Friends on Facebook, Sponsored Stories can show users that their friend has just played the Scramble game, with an invite to “challenge them,” “play with them,” or any similar variation.
Facebook claims that Sponsored Stories have 46% higher CTRs and 20% lower CPCs than regular Facebook ads, making them a very serious strategy for marketing on Facebook.
Facebook Sponsored Stories can be created easily through the Facebook ad create flow. Open Graph Sponsored Stories with a customized call to action require advertisers to use a third-party provider.
If you haven't had a chance yet, read my break down of Common Facebook Ad Policy Violations [Explained]
6. Facebook Open Graph
Facebook Open Graph lets businesses label a user’s action with their app. Billions of interactions are posted with Facebook Open Graph every day.
Businesses can create third-party apps that connect to a user and post a notice on Facebook when a user performs a specific action with the app. Facebook’s Open Graph allows for creative interactive options outside of the standard “like” and “comment.” Posts can suggest that users “listen,” “taste,” “read,” – it’s up to businesses to get creative.
Virtually any time a site or app prompts users to sign in to Facebook, it has something to do with connecting the user with the Facebook Open Graph.
Spotify is a great example of how Facebook Open Graph becomes a powerful Facebook marketing tool.
It all starts with a Facebook login prompt.
This is followed immediately by a permission request, which many users click through with little thought.
Once permission has been obtained, Spotify is able to stream what songs a user is listening to on a friend’s news feed.
Notice that users are given a variety of options – they can like the song their friend is listening to, listen to the song themselves, or star it as a favorite in Spotify.
Open graph actions like these are unique enough to stand out from the cluttered craziness of a user’s news feed. Many Facebook games make frequent use of Facebook open graph actions, posting a notice when a user has completed a level or won an achievement.
Farmville. The best way to lose brain cells!
Open graph actions are being categorized as a new type of consumer story, taking advantage of the word of mouth phenomenon.
Open graph posts are more meaningful to users because they are being generated by a familiar friend, not simply a brand, making them the latest and greatest of Facebook marketing tools.
Dealing with a Facebook ban? Read: Your Access Can’t Be Reinstated Facebook Ban
7. Facebook Exchange (FBX)
Facebook Exchange lets advertisers take advantage of ad retargeting on Facebook through real-time bidding. Advertisers can target audiences based on web history data – when a user visits a product page on a retailer’s website, but fails to make a purchase, the retailer can then display an ad for that same product on Facebook with FBX.
While Facebook retargeting ads were only relegated to the side columns, recently these ads have been allowed to appear in news feeds, the most valuable Facebook real-estate. This is great news for FBX advertisers, since response rates for news feed ads are 10 to 50 times higher than that of ad placements in the right column.
So how do Facebook Exchange ads perform? The CTR for Facebook Exchange ads is 40% lower than for other web retargeting ads, like those offered by the Google Display Network. Other retargeting ads are also cheaper, with price per unique clicks costing 80% less than Facebook retargeting ads.
Still, in terms of cost-per-impression and cost-per-click, FBX ads are considerably cheaper, so the monetary benefits depend on your business’s needs. These numbers are also subject to change as FBX ads begin to appear more often in the news feed.
If you are returning to my blog because you googled "disabled facebook ad account" you're in the right place. I help advertisers on Facebook stay compliant.
I've worked at Facebook for years and have my own company that helps advertisers stay compliant with Facebook ad policies even if Facebook won't hep you understand why you were banned.
Keep reading for these answers and more:
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After years of working at Facebook, I understand exactly what ad copy in your funnel is triggering the automations and how to get compliant.
Get solid answers directly from the source instead guessing, googling, and playing roulette. Schedule a call with me and I can easily tell you proven reasons why the automations flag you and how to become compliant.
You'll be swapping out walking in a minefield of ad flags, to have a sure path to having your Facebook ad accounts protected from being disabled.
My clients have included the social media marketing agencies of Tony Robbins, Harv Eker, and Dean Graziosi. I'm featured on the Queen of Facebook Mari Smith's Marketing Essentials Course.
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