Introduction: How to Create Ads on Facebook
Social media has been proven to be the best possible tool for digital advertising in present day and age. Among all the popular social networks, Facebook takes the crown of being the biggest and most influential platform for promoting just about anything these days.
What are Facebook Ads?
Facebook advertisement is known to be the most effective way of growing a business, marketing a certain institution, increasing more members of a group, promoting events and generating more financial revenue. The ads come in various forms suited to your specifications, such as still images or short clips in between a user’s feed. Different types of ads have various price rates based on number of clicks and schedules. For as little as $5, you can get tremendous results for small organizations.
How does it work?
Due to Facebook’s massive audience size all over the world, it is quite easy to gain a wide level of recognition for your institution. Additionally, it offers audience customization using which you can adjust your advertisements to be viewed by the general public or a targeted group of people suited to your specific organizational needs. Facebook’s news feed is programmed to display “related” ads which means users navigating through the site will only see ads related to their search history terms, location and matching interests. Hence, you will get responses from people who are specifically interested in just your organization.
Success stories
According to an article published by Advertisemint, a fashion company called Temraza has used Facebook Ads for wider brand recognition and has seen an increase of 20,000 views of their website. Following that, their sales increased by 55% in six months, doubling their revenue. Furthermore, the article also mentions about an online education website, Simplilearn. They have used Facebook video ads to grow their number of memberships by targeting 24-45-year-olds in the country’s top cities. In five months, Simplilearn reached 10 million viewers and decreased lead costs by 60%.
There are various small groups in a university campus related to academics, student-life, residences, food services and fitness, which are interested in using social media to connect with communities. The set of Instructables below will surely help you achieve your desired goal of making a good social media marketing plan.
Step 1: How to Set Up Facebook Ads, and Pay for Them
Facebook has made creating and managing ads very simple. They have divided their advert campaign structure into three levels namely Campaign, Advert Sets and Ads. These levels makes it easier for users to organise, optimise, and measure the performance of their ads.
To begin your ad campaign you would need to visit https://www.facebook.com/business page and select the create advert option.
Level I: CAMPAIGN
At this level you are supposed to select an objective and name for your campaign. The objective should be chosen carefully as your ad objective is what you want people to do when they see your ads. The objective could be more visits on your website, increase downloads of your app or increase brand awareness. Multiple campaigns can also be created if you have different objectives for your end goals.
Level II: ADVERT SETS
A campaign can contain one or more advert sets. For each advert set you can define your target audience, budget, schedule and placement. With multiple advert sets you can target multiple audiences. Target audience can be selected on factors like age, location, language, gender, etc. The more specific you are with your target audience, the better your advert set could be marketed. Each advert set can have its specific schedule as well.
Now you need to decide where your adverts would be placed. You can either select desktop news feed, mobile news feed or on the right-hand column.
Lastly you need to pay for your Facebook ad. For that you would need to set a bid and a budget as Facebook ads run on an auction based system. So your budget and bid determine the price of your campaign. Ads bids compete against each other and Facebook's own system decides which ads will win that auction for the target audience specified.
Level III: ADVERTS
This is the level where you create your adverts. Each advert set can include multiple adverts. Facebook provides multiple advert formats from carousel, single image, single video, slideshow or canvas. The format is what your advert will look like on eligible placements. As you add details to your advert, you will be able to see a preview of how your advert will look like on different platforms Facebook offers.
Now you have some knowledge on how to set up Facebook ads. The next step would help you in setting up individual adverts in more detail.
Step 2: Advanced and New Features of Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads have advanced features that will definitely improve the performance of your ads if you use them correctly. As with any ad, the goal is to captivate your audience to make them want to research more about your products or your business, which would result in more sales or greater success. We would like to introduce two popular features and give tips on how to implement them – Video Ads and the Carousel format.
Video Ads
Video ads on Facebook are an effective way to send deep or meaningful messages to your audience with a lot of detail. Here are some key things to keep in mind when creating your video ad:
1. Get attention as quickly as possible
Most users will make the decision to continue watching a video ad or not after just a few seconds, so make those first few seconds of your video catch your audience’s attention.
2. Design for a volume-off ad
Some users will watch your video without any volume, so designing an ad that can effectively get the message across just using visuals will increase your ad’s success.
3. Keep it short and simple
Like the first tip, having a short and simple video will be more effective than a long and drawn out video. Videos that are too long are usually navigated away from and the users that watch them have a hard time remembering what the message was.
Carousel Format
Similar to a slideshow, the Carousel format allows an ad to have multiple ‘cards’. Each card can contain an image or video, some text, and possibly a link to your product or website if the card is clicked on. Below are some things to consider when designing a Carousel ad:
1. Show the best performing cards first
Like the first tip for video ads, showing the best performing cards first will draw in your audience to investigate the other cards as well.
2. Images should be a 1:1 ratio in size
Having a 1:1 ratio in size for your images will ensure that your ad will look as you want it to.
3. Use the Carousel format to send a bigger message
Using these cards, you can do things such as show multiple products, highlight different features of a single product, explain a process, or tell a story to your audience.
If you consider all the above tips when creating a video or carousel Facebook ad, you should have a very effective ad that captures the interest of your audience, sends a meaningful message, and will certainly increase the success of your business or product.
How to create Carousel and Video ads for Facebook
To learn more about on how you can use Facebook as a community building tool and how to connect with your target market check out these links:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Facebook-As-a-Community-Building-Tool/
