Changes to Marketing Small Business on Facebook

Our primary social media for our small business clients continues to be Facebook. Even with the emergence of popular platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, our efforts for a majority of clients marketing small business on Facebook remains priority. But man, they keep changing the game, and we figured it would be a good time to update everyone on what we’re seeing with the world’s most popular social media marketing platform.

Facebook Wants More Money for Ads

It’s no surprise that their advertising model is hitting its stride, and Facebook continues to find minor but impactful ways to change how you budget for your Facebook advertising. And, it’s not making small businesses shy away. In fact, their ad business continues to grow. According to MarketingLand.com, budgets are up 16% because of new spending limits placed on ads and advancements in Facebook’s advertising program.

How We’re Adapting

Moving forward, we’ll be looking to offer additional advertising credit included in our basic social media packages so we can grow a business’s following and target carefully crafted content to the right Facebook user.

Facebook Ads versus Boosted Posts

Speaking of spending limits, you’ll find that it’s still relatively inexpensive to use boosted posts and page like campaigns if your monthly budget is limited.

What’s the difference?

Facebook Page Like Campaigns

These are a great way to target an audience to get them to become followers of your page. We find this is the most effective use of ad dollars in the beginning. It’s been increasing difficult to get organic reach from business pages so Page Like Campaigns can let friends of your followers know who you are or an audience you set by targeting. These are more inexpensive to do and can be easy to execute if you have the targeting right.

Facebook Boosted Posts

Facebook boosted posts are best used when you craft a page post with original content that you want to ensure reaches a targeted audience like either your page followers and their friends or an audience you put together through targeting. Great for photos, links to blogs on your website, original videos, etc . . . These are easy to do and are most effective when you’re trying to ensure your message reaches only your followers.

Facebook Promoted Posts or Facebook Ads

Promoted posts and Facebook ads are like boosted posts, but we craft these inside of Facebook’s ad manager or power editor instead of boosting an existing post from the page. These ads appear as sponsored content in the newsfeed of your target audience rather than appearing as a post on your Facebook page. The content created from in the ad can be completely different from content that appears in your timeline. You can have your ad appear to different target audiences in their timeline, in their sidebar, on mobile

The content created from in the ad can be completely different from content that appears in your timeline. You can have your ad appear to different target audiences in their timeline, in their sidebar, on mobile feed and in third party apps. Facebook won’t reveal which audience partners they show ads on which is frustrating, but we’ve had good numbers in this area even with the mystery.

You can also do retargeting ads through Power Editor which will show a specific ad to people who visit a specific page on your website. Facebook Ads are more expensive with spending minimums and higher per-click costs, but can be effective if you’re looking to expand your reach or get people to take specific actions on your ad, like visiting the site or downloading an app.

Other Good Things to Know

Facebook Wants You to Make Videos

Facebook started prioritizing video content earlier this year. So, short clips that can be enjoyed silently and when clicked on are very popular. Facebook also has video advertising now so if you’re looking for additional uses for a business video, Facebook is a great place to market that content.

Facebook Prioritizes Your Friends Text Over Page Content

You’ve probably noticed that you see your friends posts and have to really struggle to find content from the pages you follow. Facebook has been looking to create a friendlier environment for its users so a simple text update from a friend is going to perform better than page content. Sounds like you need to make sure your friends are sharing your content!

Facebook Wants Everyone to Feel Good

We struggled earlier this year getting an ad for a spray tanning business approved by Facebook and knew it wasn’t because the image was too risqué and we weren’t violating any text or image rules. Turns out, Facebook was worried our ad would make users feel bad because it shows an idealized body. Ooops!

The same is true of posts. Posts with positive content will perform better over negative content. Try to spread positivity from your business page!

Feeling like it’s a lot to keep up with? It is! This is just in the last few months. Thankfully, our clients don’t need to worry about the details!