Get more out of your Facebook Page with an ad
I have been using Facebook ads off and on for a couple years now. Since Facebook change the rules on how your messages are placed in your Fans news feed, it has become very difficult to get any “organic” reach.
Organic reach is when you post something on your page and your audience naturally sees it in there feed. In the good old days this was simple. Post something and everyone would see it. That has since changed as “Pages” like Rockin H Farm Toys, Nike, Cabellas, Peterbilt and every other page was basically advertising for free and filling up our newsfeeds with unpaid ads.
The public spoke and Mark Zuckerberg listened. Thus, if you want your posts seen you gotta pay to play.
Here is the real reason you buy a FB ad. See that light orange spec at the very left of the darker orange bar? That is how many people would have seen my post had I not bought an ad. The black boxes make it very obvious the power of an ad – 2,000 vs 120,000 eyes saw my post. 
When an add is finished running, and even while it is running, you are provided with all sorts of data about how the ad is doing. What is nice about this we get immediate feedback that the ad is working. In my case, I had a sales video that I wanted people to watch, then go to my site and buy. It worked brilliantly. 43,892 people watched at least part of my video.
On the video data I can see how many people watched the entire video and how many watch up to 35 seconds of it. Great metrics to help us craft our message and say something meaningful.
Of course, each time a post is commented on, shared, and liked helps the post be seen by more people. All those numbers did well for this ad.
Another useful piece of information, we get to choose our audience. Meaning, we get to determine exactly who gets to see our message. This is unprecedented. Unlike TV ads where you have no clue who is going to see your ad much less buy what your selling, FB ads let us drill down and sell directly to people who are more likely to want what we are selling.
In this ad I chose men only between the ages of 18-64 living in the United States. Then I trolled a few my clients to see what they were interested in selected my potential clients based on what they like. See the black box for a list of interests I used to refine my audience.
Finally, you can see the demographics of my target audience to the right. Notice a few women saw my ad which is just fine. Perhaps they would make a gift for the husband or boyfriend.
In any event the bulk of my viewers were 25-44. Perhaps not the richest group of people to purchase a premium weekend, but I have found when people want something, they’ll buy it. It’s all about providing great value.
Couple important things before you get started. Start by simply “Boosting” a post. This option is available to any owner/manager of a page. It is the easiest way to get going. Depending on your niche, you can get great value for your ad dollars.
When you jump up to custom ad covers and a few more sophisticated ads, the ad must meet FB approval before it will run. This should not intimidate you, there are few rules to follow and with a little practice it will not be a big trouble.
Finally, everything I learned about FB ads I learned from Kimra Luna. Don’t let her blue hair scare you. This lady made over a million dollars and FB ads were a big part of her business. I make it a rule to follow people kicking *** and she is definitely doing that.
I hope this primer on FB ads is helpful. I am learning a ton and have been surprised how far even a tiny ad budget will go. Please ask questions as I know I left information out.
Go get em, Eric
