One of the many problems of smaller businesses is that they don’t have either the time or the resources to spend on advertising. Small businesses like restaurants are unlikely to spend any more than $2,500 per year and have no plans of increasing their marketing budget. And yet advertising is crucial to being able to compete and succeed in today’s market. Which is why many small businesses such as restaurants and boutique stores are beginning to trend toward relying on the popularity of social networks to market their goods and services. Advertising on Facebook is one of the most popular means for small businesses to market themselves since many of them have limited financial resources and advertising on Facebook virtually costs nothing. Advertising on Facebook is also the practical first choice when it comes to social networks since it currently has the largest number of active users, numbering more than 600 million as of last July according to Wikipedia. Still, many of these businesses are still hesitant to begin taking advantage of the social media craze and are being left behind by competitors that are more inclined to taking advantage of these social networking sites and advertising on Facebook.
WHAT PREVENTS SMALL BUSINESSES FROM ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK?
There are several things that make many businesses hesitant about making the jump toward social marketing. First is the misconception of the technicalities involved when advertising on Facebook. Although it is relatively easy, many business owners aren’t as familiar with advertising on Facebook as other people are. They are more likely to prefer older and more familiar methods of marketing such as advertising through printed publications, broadcast media, and mailing lists. In fact, quite a few businesses are still holding on to tried-and-tested methods that have worked for them before such as coupons, yellow page advertising, and using direct mail as opposed to advertising on Facebook. This is rather unfortunate since the only real thing that is preventing most businesses from taking the jump to advertising on Facebook is their lack of familiarity with social marketing tools.
THE DECLINE OF TRADITIONAL MARKETING
However this isn’t stopping businesses from slowly trending toward advertising on Facebook and other social media networks. More and more merchants are making the jump to advertising on Facebook and other social marketing methods while traditional marketing methods are being abandoned. Group-buying and daily deal sites are edging out over direct mail coupons and simple discounts, while mobile marketing methods and advertising on Facebook and social media sites are being integrated into the marketing strategies of many businesses. According to a survey about marketing trends conducted by MerchantCircle among 8,500 businesses all over the U.S., only 27 percent still relied on print ads, down from last years figure of 40 percent. Yellow page advertising has dropped from 45 percent down to 37 percent, while businesses that use direct mail have dropped from last year’s 39 percent down to 28 percent. The use of social marketing has jumped up though, with 70 percent of surveyed businesses advertising on Facebook up from 50 percent, making it the most preferred social media network to advertise on.
TARGETING DEMOGRAPHICS BY ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK
At the beginning of its conception, Facebook was meant to connect Harvard students, and later college students from most Universities in Canada and the U.S., it’s opening to the general public aged 13 and over meant that people from all over the world could create an account and start connecting with friends. Advertising on Facebook allows businesses to gain new clients, keep in touch with old clients, and generate business-specific PR. There are a variety of tools that Facebook offers that businesses can take advantage of while advertising of Facebook. Because Facebook and other social networking sites provide general information such as age, gender, location, and interests, it provides one of the best opportunities for targeted advertising. By advertising on Facebook, businesses can reach their target demographic. Some tools are free, while others require a minimal investment, but considering social ads can be targeted to a specific demographic, they can be very efficient in terms of money spent on advertising of Facebook.
USING FACEBOOK PAGES AND GROUPS WHEN ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK FOR FREE
There are two main tools that businesses can use when advertising on Facebook: Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Both of them are free, however there are significant differences between them when advertising on Facebook that affect how many potential customers you can connect with, and how you can communicate with them. Facebook Pages is similar to a basic user account except that this one is set up specifically for businesses, brands, products, artists, bands, and public figures. By advertising on Facebook through their own age, they can post company-related information including images and video. Facebook users can “like” or “become a fan” of these pages, allowing notifications from a Facebook page to appear on their news feeds. Facebook Pages can reach out to more users compared to Facebook Groups since it doesn’t require users to be registered to Facebook. However Facebook Groups allows a business to be more personal with its clients since it can send private messages that appear in their inbox when advertising on Facebook.
USING SOCIAL ADS FOR TARGETED ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK
One of the most effective paid tools for advertising on Facebook are social ads. It is also one of the easiest to use, and you can choose the demographics that you want to target when advertising on Facebook such as an age group, gender, employment status, interests, and political views. This helps prevent irrelevant traffic from being directed to your site which is less likely to generate revenue when advertising on Facebook than targeted traffic. What is great about social ads when advertising on Facebook is that they only charge you based on a pay-per-click or pay-per-view system. This means that you do not have to pay for advertising on Facebook unless it generates actual interest. You can set a budget that you are willing to pay at most each day, allowing you to limit how much you spend and determine when to increase the budget allocation for advertising on Facebook. Since there is limited space where social ads can be displayed, you can also bid to have your ads prioritized by increasing the amount that you are willing to pay per 1,000 clicks or views when advertising on Facebook.