Week # 11 Online Advertising

At this early point in starting my business, I need to be as frugal as possible, and only spend money where it will do the most good.  I do need to increase my client base, but I don’t have an advertising budget to do that.  Thus, I won’t be spending any money on advertising right now.  So I need to find creative ways to get my name out there.  Facebook seems to be the best way to do that from a social media perspective.  I also think Yelp is a great tool to get people to call you for services they are looking for that others have used and are very satisfied with.  I always look at Yelp now when I need a service that I haven’t used before.  I want to see how other people have responded about different businesses.  I often base my choice on what I have read there.

I’m not an advertising exec so I really don’t know what good design is for a banner ad.  I also think they would be way too expensive for my business, so I won’t be using them.  The same goes for Twitter advertising.  I don’t want to pay $2.50 – 4.00 per follower, which seems to be the going rate.  There are over 15 Facebook ads ranging from a Page Post Text Ad down to a Domain Ad.  If I were to do some advertising on Facebook, I would use a Page Post Ad and maybe a Page Like ad. 

Page Post Ads are the most social types of ads, which will in turn generate greater engagement with your page.

A Page Post Ad is basically a status update on your wall that has been turned into an ad. The ad will automatically display the ‘like’, ‘share’ and ‘comment,’ buttons within the ad, which will make it easy for users to engage. If someone clicks ‘like,’ that action will show in their news-feed for their friends to see. Page Post Ads can be highly targeted by audience, and they can reach beyond just your fans and friends of fans.

When to use Page Post Ads;

- To promote something of value to your business, such as an opt-in for a free report or sign-up for a webinar.

- To generate maximum social engagement via the like, comment, and share buttons

- To reach beyond fans and friends of fans

- To target your ads precisely

Page Like ads are also called Engagement Ads.  Engagement Ads will typically say “Click ‘Like’ To/If…” or something similar and are a great way to increase your fan base quickly. Engagement Ads will also display friends who have already ‘liked’ your page; this social proof is a powerful motivator in encouraging their friends to also ‘like’ your page.

When To Use Engagement Ads

- To get ‘likes’ for your page

- To send traffic to an Opt-In page within Facebook

- To have the ‘like’ button integrated within the ad

- To include social proof of displaying friends who have already liked your page

This is the point in the homework where I say “HELP”, because I don’t have a clue as to creating an ad.  So, I’m kind of stuck.  Needless to say I won’t be doing any ads for quite a while anyway because of funds, so I would definitely get some help before embarking into that great unknown.