Facebook is the single largest social media platform in the world. It has more than 2.3 billion active users per month. As a result, it’s also one of the largest digital advertising platforms too.
The recent shift to remote work and online shopping has emphasized digital marketing. It’s likely that Facebook Ads will be an even larger part of many companies’ marketing strategies in 2021.
These five Facebook marketing tips are designed to help you get a competitive edge. With them, you’ll be poised for hugely successful Facebook campaigns. Dig in and get ready to supercharge your campaigns.
The first tip for anyone thinking about Facebook marketing in 2021 is to develop a strategy. With businesses opting to put more into their digital marketing, you’ll need to approach any platform with a game plan.
The days of the one-off ad campaign are over. Even thinking about ad campaigns apart from a long-term strategy will be risky in 2021.
Why? The space will be more competitive. You’ll need to think more about growing your audience on Facebook.
That means developing consistent branding and campaigns that tie back to overarching goals.
Thinking long term will guide you as you craft content, build campaigns, and define your brand.
One fundamental of an effective Facebook advertising strategy is customer relationships. Today, businesses must differentiate themselves on the customer experience more than anything. It’s important to note that customers want to have relationships with the brands they buy from.
An ad campaign is one touchpoint in a customer relationship. Don’t focus on what you want that particular campaign to do in the short-term. Think instead about how any marketing effort builds your relationship with the customer.
Social media platforms like Facebook are so much more than advertising platforms. They’re also places where your customers can learn more about you and interact with you.
Your ads should encourage customers to engage with your brand in these more meaningful ways. You should also include interaction and engagement as part of your own strategy.
Another part of any long-term marketing strategy is setting goals. What do you want to accomplish?
You can still set short-term goals for individual ad campaigns or posts. You should have overarching goals.
Why are you advertising on Facebook? What do you hope to achieve by using the platform?
Remember that Facebook is much more than an advertising platform. You might want to focus on building an audience, growing your customer base, or even creating a community for your customers. All this is possible with good Facebook marketing.
Once you craft a long-term outlook for Facebook, you should nail down your target audience. Who is it that you’re trying to speak to or engage with?
It’s probably not “every single Facebook user.” Instead, think about using demographic data to discover your target audience. Facebook offers plenty of data to help you find current customers and people who are likely to become customers.
The first step in discovering your target audience is often creating customer personas. If you already have a strong customer base, you can pull data to determine who usually buys from you.
You may find you have three or four different customer profiles or “personas.” These are your typical customers, the people who are most likely to buy from you.
Your different personas may have different reasons for engaging with your brand. When you craft these personas, you can see what problems or pain points the customer usually has. You’ll also have more insight into why these people buy from you.
With these personas in hand, you can inform your Facebook advertising strategy to target people who are most likely to buy from you.
Facebook’s data collection can help you go one step beyond your customer personas. Once you’ve set up an ad campaign, the platform collects data about who is interacting with your ad.
You can then pull this data into a campaign designed to reach “lookalike audiences.” These people look very similar to those who are already interacting with your ads. Based on this, they’re quite likely to interact with your ads as well.
You’ll be able to reach people who are similar to the customers you already have as well as people who may not “fit the mold.” In turn, your ad reach and your potential customer base will expand.
What makes someone interact with a brand on Facebook? What gets them to click an ad or like a page?
You might think of clever advertising slogans or viral videos. The effectiveness of any ad on Facebook relies on the story.
The same is true for ads on almost any platform or in any medium these days. You may not think you’re telling a story in a 15-second video, but you are.
In most cases, you’re telling the viewer why they need your product or service. Maybe it helps them solve a problem they have. Maybe it entertains them or brings them pleasure.
The point is that successful Facebook marketing relies on your storytelling abilities.
The key component here is crafting a compelling narrative. This doesn’t mean you need to write like Shakespeare. It just means your story has to strike a chord with the user and get them to act.
Sometimes, the story can be as simple as telling them they can get a great deal. In other cases, you might want to tell them about how adopting your product will help them solve a problem at their company.
Another narrative might showcase how your company contributes to environmental initiatives. The story here is that the customer can feel good working with your business.
These narratives encourage emotional responses. The user is then compelled to take action. Maybe they click a button to “learn more” about how your company has gone green and how they can help.
Sometimes, a narrative can exist in music or visuals. A single image of a smiling student looking at their workbook can tell a complex story. Paired with a line or two of text, this picture might tell you about a struggling student who found success with the right tutor.
Music can inspire emotions as well. A feel-good tune might inspire someone to take advantage of that great deal.
The right multimedia can make a huge difference when it comes to Facebook marketing. The right images can catch people’s attention. They also help you get the message across, creating the context for the customer to take action.
One of the advantages of Facebook advertising is how much data comes with it. You can track plenty of metrics, as well as collect audience data.
Having this data in hand can help you make more informed decisions about your Facebook strategy. By analyzing it, you can determine what’s working and what’s not. Then you can adjust your strategy to drive success.
One of the important aspects of Facebook advertising success is using metrics to power your data insights. To do this though, you have to be sure you’re tracking the right metrics.
Facebook offers plenty of data, but not all of it will be useful for you. It isn’t necessarily helpful to track likes on your ad if you’re trying to drive website conversions.
If you run a local restaurant, you’re likely interested in reaching people who live in a certain area. You will be less concerned about Facebook users who aren’t from your local area who click your ad or like your page. Tracking local reach and clicks will be more informative for you than other metrics.
Once you have information about how your Facebook ad is performing, you can adjust your strategy. Using data insights to see what’s working and what’s not allows you to tweak your ad campaigns and strategy on the fly.
This means you have the ability to consistently improve your Facebook campaigns and adjust your goals. In turn, your campaigns can be even more successful.
Features like A/B testing can help you gather data on messages and images included in ad campaigns. You can compare performance with similar ads shown to the same audience. You can even test ads with different audiences to determine what’s resonating with them.
This last tip is going to be particularly important as you head into 2021. Facebook ads were already becoming more competitive. As businesses put more effort into their digital marketing, the competition will be more intense.
What does that mean for Facebook marketers like you? It means you’ll need to have a better plan for budgets, bidding, and more.
The first thing you’ll want to review will be your budget for Facebook ads. Digital marketing is more affordable, but the major ad platforms have become more expensive in the last few years.
With the recent shift to online, the competition will increase even more. That’s made bidding for spaces more intensive. In turn, the average cost of ad space will continue to rise.
That may mean you need to expand your Facebook ads budget. It also means you need to be more strategic about how you spend that budget. Revising your bidding strategy may help you keep costs under control while still reaching your goals.
Next, check out what your competitors are doing with their business Facebook ads. By taking a look at what they’re doing, you might be able to get some ideas on how to construct your own campaigns.
That doesn’t mean you’ll copy their strategy. Looking at what your competitors do will give you ideas about how to differentiate.
It may also give you some ideas about campaign parameters. Are your competitors targeting a wide audience? You might want to go niche then.
Are they running ads in the middle of the day? You might want to try running your ads at off-peak hours then. This strategy could help you save your budget while still reaching the right people.
Finally, you may want to see if you can get any information on the keywords your competitors are targeting. If you know they’re targeting the keyword “pizza,” you might try related terms that are less competitive.
In turn, you can spend your budget more effectively. You don’t need to go toe-to-toe with heavyweight competitors and drive up bid prices. You can reach many of the same users in a more cost-effective way.
Facebook marketing can be an effective addition to your marketing strategy. With more companies looking to use this platform, though, it’s about to get even more competitive.
As with any digital marketing platform, knowing how to use Facebook Ads the right way will help you get more out of your marketing. These five tips will help you build not just a successful campaign but a great Facebook strategy.
Do you already have a Facebook ad strategy, but you’re not sure if it’s delivering the way it could be? It might be time to review your entire digital marketing strategy. When your strategy is aligned the right way, everything, including your Facebook Ads, will be more effective.
Get started by booking a consultation with us today. We can review what you’re doing right now and see what’s working. Then we can make suggestions and help you craft an even better strategy.
Great digital marketing is easier when you have the right help.
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