Facebook has made many changes in the last couple months: a new layout, updated insights, and dips in organic reach to name a few. According to one source, organic reach for businesses has dropped from 49% in October 2013 to 6% in February 2014, making Facebook advertising an important consideration for any business trying to market on Facebook.

Facebook has begun a new age for businesses, and those who spend money on advertising will see increased engagement. While many of us long for the days where we would reach our targeted audience with relative ease, the truth remains: Facebook has changed the game, and to compete you need to advertise.

The Facebook Advertising Basics

1- Boosted Post: If you manage your business page you are sure to have seen this button:

Boosting a post is just what it seems – you set a budget. For this example, let’s say our Facebook advertising budget is $30. This method is a set and forget it approach. Once you set your budget, the post will be seen by an increased number of people until your budget runs out. This type of Facebook advertising is very simple and many users see the reach increase; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean the engagement increases.

Rule of Thumb: Use the segmentation tools to your advantage. When you choose to boost a post, you are given different audience variables, age, gender, interests, etc. to target. Fill out as many of these as possible to see the most return of engagement.

When to Boost: If there is a specific event or product you want to announce in a single post, boosting that post is a great idea. Say you are announcing the deadline for enrolling in a certain insurance program, boosting that post will help your message get heard. Pro tip: Remember to target.

2- Ad Campaign: For most other types of advertising, creating an ad campaign is the best way to reach your audience directly.

Setting up an ad campaign on Facebook is much easier than most people expect. Simply go to https://facebook.com/advertising while logged into your business page. From there you can target exactly what you want the purpose of the ad campaign to be. Some choices include page post engagement, clicks to website, and page likes.

For this example we will choose to get more “Clicks” to the Zywave.com Blog.

Here, you can upload up to 6 photos that will be used for your ad campaign.

Next, you have to determine what the headline of you advertisement will be and the text it will feature. You can see how your ad will look every step of the way on the right hand side.

There is also an extensive section to segment your post based on many variables, including geography, age, gender, language, interests, behaviors, and connections. This is where you will start to really target your exact audience for your message. What makes this more advanced than a “boosted post” is you can set up many different ads, each targeting a different demographic. This will allow you to see what types of people are interested in your agency.

Lastly, you can set a bid for clicks which determines how much you will pay for every click to your website. You can also set up scheduling and billing information.

When Creating Your Campaign, Focus On:

• Determining Your Audience: For help on this look at your Facebook insights, it will tell you what types of people already like and engage with your page.
• Optimize Your Ads: Think about keywords and phrases that would get you to click on or find out more about a certain website.
• Manage Your Budget: There is a lot of flexibility with Facebook advertising and almost any budget can be met, but be sure whoever is in charge of advertising lines up with the name on the credit card!
• Be Selective: Not every post needs to be promoted. Think about doing several ads targeting a new product, or promoting a charity event your agency is involved with. Advertising is most effective when done strategically.

For a deeper dive on all things Facebook advertising, look into their tutorials, FAQs and examples at https://facebook.com/advertising, and keep posted to the Zywave.com blog for all things inbound marketing.