If you have more money than you know what to do with, you're luckier than most of us, and you might be unconcerned about throwing your wealth around willy-nilly. For the rest of us, we want to know that we're getting a solid return on our investment when it comes to paid social before we commit any cash.
One of the steps to this is knowing your brand's audience and where you're already engaging them. Sometimes brands don't have this information; sometimes one department does have the intel but hasn't yet shared it with the social media team; sometimes you do have the information but haven't yet synthesized it into a cohesive overview.
At the PR News Social Media Boot Camp at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Luis Betanzo, senior account supervisor at Edelman, emphasized the importance of using what you know about your audience to prime yourself for success when engaging in paid promotion on Facebook. The platform is a powerful tool that knows a lot about people; you can take a broad audience and zero in on specific niches to create messaging that resonates by starting with these five considerations:
- Define your objective. Are you trying to generate awareness, create online engagement, drive clicks to your website or to a specific piece of content?
- Identify the correct KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and ensure you are using this to measure success. Depending on your objectives, your KPI might be impressions, engagements, click through rate, conversions, etc…
- Identify your audience. Pool together what you know about your audience and then identify what type of person is most likely to help you achieve your objective.
- Ensure that your messaging aligns with your audience and with your objective. How is your message connecting with the values, interests or business objectives of your target audience? Does the messaging in your ad ladder up to your objective?
- Test. Optimize. Test. Facebook allows you to quickly and efficiently test your ads without a large financial commitment. Try different messages against different audiences until you figure out what works best for you.
Once you've completed these five steps, you can start targeting your campaigns far more precisely, paving the way for a greater return on your Facebook dollars.
Follow Ian on Twitter: @ianwright0101