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Seven Tips For Effective Facebook Ads

With over 1.71 Billion monthly active users, Facebook can generate more leads and sales for your business than many other advertising channels. Facebook ads can be targeted to specific audiences, in specific locations, with specific interests relevant to your business. Facebook is the place to be for many small businesses, because you can get more bang for your buck! But it can also be confusing to navigate the world of Facebook advertising, so here are our top tips to help you get the most out of Facebook Ads for you business:

  1. Set a goal – such as: to get more social engagement, to get more people to visit your website, etc.
  2. Images – “thumb-stopping!” bright colors, bright images, lifestyle images
  3. Copy – less is more – align your caption with your image
  4. If you post video – it MUST have captions!! Audio does not load automatically
  5. More $$ for fewer days is better than less $$ for more days. It allows you to reach more of the right qualified customers due to Facebook’s ranking systems.
  6. Relevance score – Facebook ranks you based on how relevant your ad is to the audience you’ve targeted, on a scale of 1-10.  If you are less relevant, you will be seen less.
  7. Once you’ve posted an ad, do not edit it, it will destroy the algorithms Facebook has in place. If you want to make changes, start a new ad.

If you keep these tips in mind when creating your Facebook ads, you should be on the road to reaching more customers and generating more leads, so you can make more sales!

We appreciate you stopping by, and hope you enjoyed this post!  If you did, please Like, Comment or Share!

For more information on Facebook, social media and digital marketing, please contact us at www.zebramarketingsolutions.com/contact

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How-to: Facebook Strategy for your Business!

As of the second quarter of 2016, Facebook had 1.71 billion monthly active users, and growing! Out of all the various social networking sites, Facebook is currently the largest, with YouTube in second place. Our customers are on Facebook, and we should be too! You may be thinking, “I know my business should be on Facebook, but the world of social media for business can be daunting and confusing…” or, “My business is on Facebook, but I’m not sure I’m getting the results I’d like…” Facebook for business doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  And to take some of the guess work out of it, here are some tips for building a high-impact Facebook strategy for your business! Below, I have described different types of Facebook ads and how to use them.

First, Facebook has business pages locked down. This means that if you post something on your business page, the only people who will see it organically (as in, all you did was post it to your page) are the people who have liked your page. If only 100 people have liked your page, only those 100 people will see anything you post there.

Unless…

  1. You pay for ads, and encourage people to like, comment or share
  2. You post to your business page, then share the post to your timeline and any other groups you are a member of that are relevant to your target market

Facebook’s ultimate goal is to keep as many people as possible glued to the social network for as long as possible. If your posts keep people engaged, as measured by likes, comments, shares and time on screen, the social network will reward you with further reach. Spam up your page with excessive posts that no one likes or comments on, and your reach is likely to decline quite quickly.

So, if you pay for an ad, Facebook is checking to see how people respond to it. If it is relevant to your audience and engaging to people, Facebook rewards the post with more reach. If nobody responds to it, it will not be rewarded with reach.

There are a number of different kinds of ads:

Page Like ads

Pops up a summary of your business page in your target market’s Facebook feed, and asks people to like the page. Since only people who have liked your page will organically see your posts, this is a good way to get more page likes. You can set a target market, budget, and period of time to run the ad.

Boosted Posts

You may keep a blog on your website. If you do, it’s a great idea to re-post your blog posts to your Facebook page. You are providing original content that is relevant to your target market and positions you as an expert at what you do. You took the time to write it, and you want as many people to see it as possible! If you post to your Facebook business page, as I mentioned above, only people who have liked your page will see it. However, if you click “Boost Post” on the lower corner of the content you wish to post, you can choose a target audience and apply a budget. Always link to your website in a boosted post! You want to drive traffic to your website, so that people can see what you’re all about and contact you! As I mentioned above, you can also share your post to relevant groups you are a member of.

Sponsored Content

This is more like a traditional format ad…you can create the content and add an image. You could make special offers, or communicate a specific message, like inviting people to your upcoming free webinar. You can create or choose a target audience, say within a certain distance of your business location, with a certain set of interests that would be relevant to your target market. Then you can choose a budget and a period of time to run the ad. Always link back to your website in your ad! And again, you can share the ad to relevant groups.

We suggest doing a combination of all 3 types of ads for maximum impact.  Page Like ads will help increase the followers on your page.  Sponsored Content will help you with promotions and to build awareness of your business, and Boosted Posts will help you to provide something of value to your customers, so that they think of you as an expert in your field, and come back when they need your help!

We appreciate you stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed this post! If you did, please Like, Comment or Share!
For more information on Facebook, social media and digital marketing, please contact us at www.zebramarketingsolutions.com/contact

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Glad you stopped by! How’s your branding?

A policeman in the big city stops a man in a car with a zebra in the front seat. “What are you doing with that zebra?” He exclaimed, “You should take it to the zoo.” The following week, the same policeman sees the same man with the zebra
again in the front seat, with both of them wearing sunglasses. The policeman pulls him over. “I thought you were going to take that zebra to the zoo!” The man replied, “I did. We had such a good time
we are going to the beach this weekend!”

Thanks for visiting Zebra Marketing Solutions!  We’re excited you’ve stopped by, and like the man in the story above, we hope you enjoy your time with us and keep coming back for more!

Why are we called Zebra Marketing Solutions, you may ask?  A zebra on its own is a striking, stunning creature that catches the eye in any environment.  However, that same zebra within a crowd of zebras will blend in and be difficult to distinguish.  This is great for the zebra, because it makes it hard for predators to pick him out from the crowd to catch him for dinner, but blending into the crowd is  not good for your business!  In these days of Google, Facebook, Twitter and countless other digital channels, your customers have a lot of choices and you can’t afford to blend into the background.

There will always be similarities between you and your competitors, or “points of parity,” (ie: all luxury car dealers sell cars), but you bring something different that provides unique value to your customers (ie: Lexus provides a pampered driving experience, while BMW provides a “feel the road” experience).  These are your “points of difference” that give your customers that “Yes! I am in the right place!” feeling.  At Zebra Marketing Solutions, we want to help you be truly clear on the unique value that you bring to your customers, and help you build that message into your branding and get it out to the right people who can buy from you and refer you, so that you can get more leads, and make more sales!

We hope you’ll follow us for further posts on how to make the most of your marketing!  We’re looking forward to taking this journey with you.

If you enjoyed this post, please like, comment or share!  For more information on branding, messaging, and digital marketing, please contact us at www.zebramarketingsolutions.com/contact