In an earlier article I described the 5 Most Important Requirements for Building Your Facebook Following. (great content, consistency, format types, advertising, and engagement) This article goes into greater depth on Facebook Advertising. As with most of my recommendations, this is based on my experience helping several Christian authors build their platforms. But also please remember, these recommendations are generic, and each situation may differ.
First the bad news: if you do not spend money advertising on Facebook, or already have a very active and attentive fan base, few of your fans will see your posts.
The good news:
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- Powerful, granular targeting of prospective fans is easy to achieve
- The results of your spending are immediately measurable
- You can choose to spend a little or a lot
Ignore it at your peril!
As with anything in marketing, the first order of business is to determine what your objectives are. In this case, here are some potential examples:
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- Build your platform by increasing your Facebook Likes
- Build your platform by collecting email addresses
- Increase book sales
- Promote an event
- Etc.
Once you know your objective, you can plan your advertising campaign. For instance, if you are most interested in engaging with your existing fans (to get them interested in your new book, for example), you might be better off with boosting Facebook posts. However, if you are most interested in growing your fan base, then ongoing Facebook ads are a better choice.
As you might expect from my earlier article on content format types, I would recommend memes as your primary content type for advertising, because for most people they are the most sharable format type. Your advertising dollars are thus more efficiently spent!
Once you get into setting up your ad (whether a boost or an ongoing ad) you have the opportunity to target your audience based on age, gender, geography, and interest. Go after the audience you expect is most likely to meet your objective!
