The emergence of Facebook in the early 2000’s has been one of the most impactful events of our lifetime. This social media service has drastically altered the way in which we communicate and changed the social landscape for the foreseeable future.
The disruption Facebook has caused, particularly in the way people gather information has greatly altered the advertising landscape; causing marketers to adapt to changes at a rate that has never been seen before.
When it comes to marketing and digital advertising Facebook and its network of other social apps, like Instagram and Whatsapp have been a godsend.
With Facebook’s mass collection of data, the previous style of ‘shotgun’ advertising at brod demographics has become more like a robotic surgical procedure with the ability to send ads to hyper specific groups of people.
Being able to narrow down the demographics and target your content more specifically has changed the game when it comes to marketing.
We are currently seeing a shift away from more traditional forms of visual marketing, with budgetins being shifted to funnel more into digital marketing as people are seeing it’s far more effective at engaging consumers.
More recently, marketers have noticed a shift in Facebook’s demographics. Over a period of the past two years internal Facebook reports have shown that the younger subset of its user base has moved away from the platform, opting for Instagram or another social network.
Though this may sound concerning, it is offset by a rise in the older demographic. Older users have risen significantly still proving that Facebook has an immense amount of value in the digital marketing landscape.
To understand how Facebook can fit into an advertising campaign, we must understand how Facebook fits into the greater social landscape.
Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has dominated the digital social space, but even from its position on top it is still not immune from change. With shifting demographics, Facebook’s role in the social landscape has changed and understanding this change is vital for marketers.
Particularly when looking at young people and new businesses, Facebook has become the base account. It is the staple of your online presence, whereas other Facebook owned sites like Instagram are used for niche or specific reasons, like displaying photographs and sharing albums. When people search Facebook, they are looking for who you are and what you do, It’s to gather information on people and understand what your about.
Why Use Facebook Ads for your Businesses
In recent times a lot of businesses are questioning the value Facebook advertising has to offer, for understandable reasons.
Though Facebook as been hit by some recent scandals, regarding their misuse of data, the user drop off has not been that bad.
To be fair, there has been a drop off in Facebook use by user 30’s but this has been offset by the growth in older users.
A Guardian article written in February of 2018, projected that 500,000 extra users will join the platform from the 55+ age group.
This just demonstrates how Facebook still has legs despite what some people are saying. Just because the demographic is changing it doesn’t mean that the opportunity for successful marketing is lost.
Facebook still has 2.32 billion monthly active users, almost twice than the population of China. So from a marketing perspective you ability to access large swaths of the population is still unmatched.
According to Facebook’s internal data they also received 22 billion ad clicks in 2018 alone, still not convinced? Facebook’s targeting capabilities are beyond exceptional, with the amount of users they have and the data that is collected on all of them, the ability to target mico demographics to a point of neer absurdity is unmatched.
With Facebook analytics and targeting metrics it really has solidified itself as a unmatched tool for sending the most effective targeted ad campaigns.
Being able to reach over a billion people is incredible in itself, but not only does Facebook increase your reach as a business it does it in a very cost effective way. With an average cost of £1.72 per click, you will be hard pressed to find another distribution platform that allows you to engage people at that cost.
The cost, the effectiveness and the reach of Facebook when it comes to digital marketing is unmatched and has become an indespecablet tool for large companies and boutique firms alike.
5 Ways to Use Facebook Ads
With data collected from our various research points, we were able to put together 5 key ways you can maximise your use of Facebook for your digital marketing campaign. The report and data we have accumulated, has provided us with some keen insight into how to make Facebook work for you and your company, and here at Bolt Digital Marketing, we can backup these findings with our personal experience.
1. Make sure everyone is on the same page
When starting a digital marketing campaign, especially on facebook is vital that everyone knows what the strategy is. Having a clear and concise plan can make all the difference when targeting your ads.
Be specific when making your ads, make sure you utilize the features Facebook has to offer and don’t just use the platform like any other marketing tool.
We see this all the time at Bolt DIgital, people using blanket statements and general ad campaigns on Facebook, and let me tell you those are the first ads people scroll past.
Create a plan, make it specific and use the targeting tools facebook has to offer.
2. Don’t overlook the analytics
When you have a Facebook business account you can have access to almost any metric or figure you can possibly imagine.
Facebook analytics is like a paradise for statistics nerds with the enormous amount of information they give you. If your able to pay close attention to what the data is saying you can really make the most of each ad. You can also use the analytics to lean and adjust your campaign. There is nothing worse than a stale campaign
With the data you have the ability to recognize when your ads are generating the most engagement and what types of ads are woking best.
You may be blasing a targeted ad first thing in the morning, but after seeing the analytics you may realize that staring the campaign just after lunch is going to yield better results. It’s these small things that people tend to overlook that can make the real difference.
3. Don’t be afraid to go for paid
More and more Facebook is becoming a pay to play atmosphere. Any good marketer could of told you it was going to go this way.
Organic content is just not predictable enough, even though you can get some great results from it.
I just really depends on what your trying to do with your campaign, but if that target is reaching thousands of targeted consumers with hyper specific ads, then going with a paid model is the way to go.
Having your marking is the paid space means you are able to measure it more. With the analytics provided you are able to calculate how much you have to spend to reach the engagement leves you want, and you can even map it out with some long term projections.
By adding paid advertising into your campaign you can drive it more of the direction that you want.
The organic content more or less goes the way it wants to, sometimes it can blow up and get more engagement that you ever could of dreamed of, but a lot of the times it just sits there doing only half of the work you want done.
4. Video is the wave of the future
When I say that “Video is the wave of the future”, that is an incorrect statement.
Video is the wave of now! It has emerged that video ads on these platforms are hands down the most effective way to reach consumers and drive conversions and engagement.
According to Facebook’s internal data, 57% of consumers prefer to buy products that they have seen on video. If you want to make you social ad campaign really work, you need to get some video in there.
Now, like most things the nature of Facebook has meant that marketers have had to adapt to the unique environment the platform presents.
You can’t expect to put your average 90 second tv advertisement on Facebook and then see some crazy engagement.
Starting with the millennial generation, attention spans have been decreasing and a 60 second ad on Facebook is pushing it.
People see the most success with ad 30 seconds or under. People are looking for short quick soundbites that catch their attention and stop the scroll.
Once you master this technique, you will soon realize how valuable video is in the social network marketing landscape.
5. Don’t go it alone
If there is one thing for certain, the digital marketing landscape is always in flux. There is constant change around trends, and what strategies are best implemented to reach the most amount of people, platforms charge and demographics shift on a near daily basis.
One of the best tools Facebook offers it how to capitalize on those shifting demographics. The amount of data Facebook collects is immense, and this collection of data allows for marketers to target different groups with great precision. There are hundreds of different demographics Facebook has identified, and the best part is that you can layer different demographics in an ad campaign to not only target individuals but hyper specifics groups of individuals with shared interests.
It takes a dedicated team just to stay on top of this crazy environment, and you can ask any marketing expert, when it comes to digital marketing if you don’t stay ahead of the curve you will quickly find yourself behind it.
Being able to ensure you company retains its competitive edge, you need to get the experts to work with you; a dedicated team with a broad base of knowledge is going to maximise your campaign potential.
Contrancing with a professional digital marketing team can be one of the best assets for your business.
Unless your a large multinational firm, your business is not going to have the time or resources to make the most of the digital marketing space, thats why its so important if you seriously want to grow and scale your business to contract with the experts so that you are getting the most out of your campaigns.
Bolt Digital
Here at Bolt Digital, we work tirelessly to make sure all of our strategies and marketing techniques are staying ahead of the curve.
We understand how rapidly the environment can change and have experience with finding solutions to the most tricky digital marketing problems.
One of the many examples we are proud to showcase is our work with a health brand called, Absolute Collagen.
When we started working with Absolute Collagen their conversion rate was abismal, but we could see that they had a really good product that definitely could find a niche in the market. It was here that we understood it was a marketing problem, and we jumped straight to work.
We started rapping up the digital campaign, making the product more available by bringing it direct to consumer and boosting the brand awareness through social media channels.
These things take some time and any firm that is promising you overnight success is lying to you, but steadily month after month we saw the sales grow. Now if you look at Absolute Collagen you wouldn’t recognize it from six months ago; in fact over the last six months we have seen some significant growth in revenu, thanks to our Facebook campaigns driving revenue Absolute Collagen has seen a 25% increase in their monthly takings over that time. It simply has exploded and become wildly successful.
Absolute Collagen success is in one part, definitely due to the quality product they produce, you can’t make money with a poor product.
Another aspect is the personal branding strategy we implement at Bolt Digital. People love to hear stories and relate the products they engage with, with an actual story and that is what we did with Absolute Collagens founder Maxine Laceby.
We were able to brand her personal story and how her drive and passion goes into her products. This is just a key example of how understanding trends and staying ahead of the curve is something we do best here at Bolt.
Marketing for the future
Marketing is an industry that sees a tremendous amount of change, and at this moment in particular the change is quite immense.
The amount of disruption in the current marketplace and the rate at with trends are changing is incredible, chage at this pace has never been seen like this.
With an environment as volatile as the new media landscape we can understand how it may turn some people off, but as much as I would like to say do what feels comfortable i’m afraid this is not an option here.
I guarantee within the next decade it’s going to be impossible to have a thriving consumer businesses without social marketing. This is an unavoidable shift in the marketing paradigm that any successful business needs to get ahead.
Below you can find a link to some more resources if you want some more information about the rapidly changing world of digital marketing.
We have also provided a link to the Absolute Collagen page if you want to see the success we have helped create with them. You can also find all the information for contacting Bolt Digital at the bottom of this page you are interested in finding out more of what we have to offer.
