Facebook is the largest social networking site online today, and it is actually the second most visited site in the world next to Google. Whenever something this big comes around online, the big question in all marketers’ minds is how they can use it to their advantage. Facebook actually offers a surprising opportunity to build traffic for your website, with significant advantages over traditional advertising media. Here is a look at how you could use Facebook for your website and what advantages it may have over other options.
Facebook is a giant social media platform that allows a user to easily link up with his friends, colleagues, siblings, relatives and more. It is not gender specific, race specific, age specific, or anything of the sort. Any realm of people that owns a computer can be found on this site, and therein lies the key to your success in using it. Unlike the newspaper or television where you basically throw out an ad to everyone hoping for a response, Facebook allows you to actually target certain people to reach out to, so that you can make the most out of your efforts. In other words, you can make a direct impact on your core demographic unlike you would anywhere else.
For example, event organizers who wish to target people who are interested to attend an investment talk in the past will have to place out huge amount of advertising fees in the newspaper, especially if they want the advertisement to appear in certain categories of the newspaper. With Facebook, there are no such “loading fees” for targeting your core demographic group. You are able to select according to the Country or City they live in, Gender, Age group, their Interests, Marital Status, or even their Workplaces.
Other benefits of Facebook advertising over traditional media include the ability to start with a small budget and faster processing time. If we refer back to the event organizers’ example above, not only is the investment huge, the process of booking a newspaper advertising slot can stretch between 2 to 3 working days. The artwork for newspaper printing will also take time to conceptualize and develop. With Facebook advertising, a daily budget of US $10 will enable you to start the advertising, and it also allows you the flexibility to increase your budget according to different dates. The process is also highly simplified, requiring just a simple picture, and a short description of the coming seminar. Your advertisement will then be reviewed and can start to run within the next few hours, reducing the overall planning time tremendously.
Facebook is still growing in terms of it’s registered active users, so it’s important to understand not just the social aspect of using Facebook to connect with your friends and colleagues, but also the advantages of this new media advertising.