Worth advertising business on social media?

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:50

I was wondering if any of you chaps have used Facebook or Twitter to advertise your business. I don't just mean have an account with them and write the odd tweet etc. Wondering if paid advertising with these platforms actually work and bring in any leads.

Thanks in advance guys.

wez130 · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:55

Social media is probably one of your best 'free' ways of advertising, you can offer so much through social meda too, special offers etc.

Bunka · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:59

It somewhat depends on what your business is. Targeted social advertising can work really well if you're hitting the right demographic for your product / service. You can choose who you want to target when purchasing the ad space.

Why not give it a shot with a small amount to start with and see if it works for you.

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:59

wez130 said:
Social media is probably one of your best 'free' ways of advertising, you can offer so much through social meda too, special offers etc.

I already do, got accounts on tweet and Facebook.

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:02

Bunka said:
It somewhat depends on what your business is. Targeted social advertising can work really well if you're hitting the right demographic for your product / service. You can choose who you want to target when purchasing the ad space.

Why not give it a shot with a small amount to start with and see if it works for you.

Our work is architectural design and town planning, so in sense of target audience it could be anyone with a home or commercial business. Might try it, Facebook is £14 per day for 7 days = £98 worth a risk I guess.

R.O.S.S.I · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:05

It doesnt have to be £14 though, you can spend as much or as little as you like afaik. I've done stuff for a few quid a day.

Bunka · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:05

Tingtangmakadingdong said:
Our work is architectural design and town planning, so in sense of target audience it could be anyone with a home or commercial business. Might try it, Facebook is £14 per day for 7 days = £98 worth a risk I guess.

If your company page has some decent before and after case studies, examples of previous work etc. etc. then driving people to it could work pretty well.

ChroniC · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:06

I am interested in find out if anyone has done this. Looking to promote my business. Facebook seems the ideal platform, but at a 5er a day for 28days I'm wondering if it will bring in anything.

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:08

Bunka said:
If your company page has some decent before and after case studies, examples of previous work etc. etc. then driving people to it could work pretty well.

We sure do, there's a page dedicated to past work. I'll definitely be sticking a link to that page.

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:11

R.O.S.S.I said:
It doesnt have to be £14 though, you can spend as much or as little as you like afaik. I've done stuff for a few quid a day.

Lowest on Facebook is £3 per day but reach is couple of thousand, for £14 it goes up to 11k to 30k. £100 for a week to get response from marketing ain't bad for us, even if we got one work it would easily cover the cost.

Bunka · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:11

In case you're wondering about how the targeting side of things works:

https://www.facebook.com/business/products/ads/ad-targeting/

Bear in mind though that due to the nature of your business, the results could be more on the slow burn side as people don't tend to click a link and drop £5k on a new plan for their house without a bit of research. It's more of a brand awareness campaign that you'd be going for, making sure that people think of your business when they're looking for similar services in the future.

ChroniC · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:15

The thing i'm worried about is pop blockers. I have one and I don't see ads. I see the occasional page suggestion but don't know if this is what your money buys?

Tingtangmakadingdong · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:18

Bunka said:
In case you're wondering about how the targeting side of things works:

https://www.facebook.com/business/products/ads/ad-targeting/

Bear in mind though that due to the nature of your business, the results could be more on the slow burn side as people don't tend to click a link and drop £5k on a new plan for their house without a bit of research. It's more of a brand awareness campaign that you'd be going for, making sure that people think of your business when they're looking for similar services in the future.

Great link, thank you. Nearly all our work is word of mouth so I know what you mean when you say people do their research
I hope no one pays £5k for plans on an extension! We charge nearly half that!

Bunka · 29 Apr 2016 at 15:18

ChroniC said:
The thing i'm worried about is pop blockers. I have one and I don't see ads. I see the occasional page suggestion but don't know if this is what your money buys?

The average demographic that needs architectural services very likely doesn't even know what ad blockers are. None issue really.

godinman · 29 Apr 2016 at 16:16

You pay per click anyway so it's irrelevant. In terms of cost.

Deleted member 77746 · 29 Apr 2016 at 17:18

I would say give it a go. if you get enough business from it great. If not just don't use it again in the future.

Sagalout · 29 Apr 2016 at 18:03

We do this for clients and it can be very effective, especially if you have a local or niche business. I'd argue with the 'free' comment in an early post though. a) that will only reach followers of your page, which is hard to build up, and b) it will not reach a small subset of those. If you have 1000 fans/follower your posts will not show on the timelines of a fraction of them without paid spend on top. You need to consider Facebook as a paid platform these days.

Pestilence · 29 Apr 2016 at 20:24

Sagalout said:
We do this for clients and it can be very effective, especially if you have a local or niche business. I'd argue with the 'free' comment in an early post though. a) that will only reach followers of your page, which is hard to build up, and b) it will not reach a small subset of those. If you have 1000 fans/follower your posts will not show on the timelines of a fraction of them without paid spend on top. You need to consider Facebook as a paid platform these days.

This is true. But it's also the most consistently profitable paid social platform out there, IMO.

OP: Do it. Just make sure that you've got your targeting down. Don't throw money willy-nilly because your "reach" is in 100k+ etc.

Make sure you tune it for demographics, geography and interests. (Protip: Look up magazines relevant to your customer avatar online, and add those among the interests. If you can dig into one -- for example with an online preview -- see if you can spy any ads in there, and check those companies for reach under interests as well.)