Why have business owners been migrating their on-line ad spend to Facebook?
The simple answer – Market Reach.
The latest finding published by comScore shows that that businesses can reach 62% of the all Americans that are online via Facebook. A very distant second is MySpace.
Here are some of the pros and cons to venturing into the wild and crazy world of Facebook advertising:
Pros – Advantages:
* Target market based on demographics (age, sex, marital status) location and profile information and interests.
* Low cost of entry into Facebook – Fan Page setup cost are less that other corporate websites and landing pages.
* Increase Brand Awareness – Businesses can to communicate directly with current and potential customers
* News feed feature can help spread information on your business virally
Cons – Disadvantages:
* Users are not solely looking for a product or service when visiting site
* Where is the users focus – on the ads or is it on games – photos – videos- etc.
* Users are at multiple stages of the purchasing cycle and you cannot target your ads accordingly.
This why conversion of ad viewers to “Fans” is critical. If a business is fortunate enough to get the user to click the ad make sure you send them to a landing page within Facebook that will give them a reason to at the very least “Fan/Friend” your business. I never recommend sending the “clicker” to the company website. Facebook users are in Facebook for a reason and it is not because they are searching out your businesses products or services. Also, I don’t recommend the ad be linked to the fan page wall. There is no call-to-action on the wall. The goal of any on-line ad program is conversion and “The Wall” will not generate them.
Conversions within Facebook advertising can take on many forms.
* User becomes a “Fan”
* User clicks through to your corporate website and surfs to learn more and bookmarks for future reference
* User subscribes or provides contact information through some type of capture form
* User calls your business to learn more
* The most valuable conversion – the user makes an on-line purchase of your product
I welcome comments on other conversion measures and how you might rank the value of the different conversion types I have referenced.