Facebook Advertising is one of the best marketing values available today – and most brands and agencies are still standing on the sidelines.
Shortly before Facebook became a publicly traded company, news broke that General Motors was ending its $10 million-per-year advertising relationship with the social network. GM leadership doubted the effectiveness of Facebook as a means to sell cars to consumers. Ford, though, saw the situation quite differently.
According to Matt Van Dyke, Ford’s director of marketing communications, “You won’t make the right choices if you view Facebook as an advertising network. You can’t just pick up advertising that would run somewhere else and put it on Facebook as an ad banner.”
Added Scott Monty, Ford’s global digital/multimedia communications manager, “It’s all about the execution. Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content and innovation.”
So what happens when a Facebook Advertising campaign effectively combines social strategy, top quality implementation, metrics and analysis? Just ask Samsung what can happen.
Samsung spent $10 million on Facebook ads over a three-week period — during Apple’s iPhone 5 launch — for its Galaxy S III release. The Korea-based electronics giant turned that into $129 million in sales, entirely due to Facebook.
According to a recent Facebook case study, Samsung USA’s Facebook ad campaign reached 105 million people and drove a 10 point lift in awareness. Facebook users who consumed Samsung’s content were 85 percent more likely to buy the Galaxy S III.
But what caused those lofty results for Samsung?
The brand methodically built connections on its Facebook Page in anticipation of the launch. During the launch, it leveraged those millions of connections and Facebook’s social ads to quickly build broad awareness of the new phone among the more than 588 million friends of Samsung Mobile USA Page fans.
The second phase focused on using Facebook’s mobile consumer audience targeting to drive brand consideration for consumers in the market for a smartphone. Samsung knew that their fans were already supporters of the brand, and most likely to buy a Samsung device the next time they shopping for a smartphone.
Rather than targeting current their supporters, Samsung used the power of social influence and Facebook’s premium advertising platform to feature their brand support in the form of a third-party trusted recommendation. They knew the audience they wanted to reach and strategically crafted their entire campaign around them.
Results on the level of Samsung’s campaign don’t happen by merely publishing a witty post on your Facebook page and then hitting the “Promote” button. You’ve got to develop a comprehensive social strategy, set attainable objectives, develop measurable metrics, and identify the target audiences most likely to engage and move you toward reaching your organizational goals.
Beyond the value of image and perception, it doesn’t matter how many Likes you’ve accrued on your Facebook Page. Because of the algorithm Facebook uses in determining who sees what particular content, not all of your fans will see every post you make.
This is the biggest business misconception about Facebook right now – the erroneous belief that every post is seen by every person it’s intended for. In reality, your message is only going to reach a small percentage on its own, without some additional boost.
The true value of Facebook Advertising is the opportunity to publish hyper-relevant content directly into the News Feed of those audience members who are most likely act on it, whether that action takes the form of buying your product or spreading the word about who you are and what you do.
The cost is lower than most other forms of advertising, and customer engagement is through the roof. You’ll know exactly who you reached for how much cost, and you can refocus your budget toward the most successful creative content that will reverberate with segments of the audience that YOU choose.
It all comes down to crafting engaging content and then delivering it to the audiences most interested and willing to take action – the consumers that are in the market for your product or interested in your issue, but need a push in the right direction.