Getting Facebook Likes with Advertising

Facebook AdvertisingOne of the goals I set when joining TimeTrade was to increase our social footprint through Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and our Blog.  At the time we were very low on Twitter followers, and just over 100 likes on our Facebook page.  Our Google+ page didn’t exist yet either, but hey, it’s a new network. In this post I’m going to focus on Getting Facebook Likes with Advertising and the steps we took to increase our Facebook reach and Likes from around 100 to over 2,500 likes in one quarter.  Remember, ask me any questions you may have!  We can have a discussion right here!

How To Increase Facebook Likes

  1. Post on Facebook with Consistency
  2. Start harnessing Facebook Advertising

Posting with consistency was not an easy task especially for a smaller company where social networking gets pretty much trumped by everything else in the company.  This means your posts are going to be inconsistent, only when you have time, and only if you have something good to talk about!  Internally we still struggle a bit with this as we are all managing so many other moving parts of the company.  Here is how you should approach this…

  • Start looking for thought leadership materials to share (You don’t have to create all your content!)
  • Use tools to help schedule and manage upcoming posts (Hootsuite.com works very well)
  • Reach out to your colleagues for posts on related topics (There are a lot of creative people in your company)
  • Set some discipline and keep social

The Science of TimingMarket research varies on how often you should post and what time you should post.  Typically we try to post an update once every 1-2 days, around lunch time and closer to Thursday – Sunday. I recommend you watch “The Science of Timing” from Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella.

The second item is to start using Facebook Ads, but these need to be worked on.  They don’t just sell themselves.  At this time we were looking for page likes without offering a discount on our already modestly priced software.  We needed to take more of a thought leadership role in our industry and get people to engage with us for education and interaction…and of course promotion!

I decided to put a quick video together showcasing the common problem our clients have, and how frustrating it can be while also enforcing the fact that it’s a relatively inexpensive product.  Below is the video I put together.

This video is short, a little stupid and has sub par production quality.  What it does do is convey our message, make people laugh, get people to like our page, and more importantly was free to produce!  I filmed this alone with nothing but my camera and tripod…and a lot of strange looks from my co-workers.

After the video was produced we needed to create a Facebook Ad.  The key here is to use an attention grabbing title and Image. Since the ad is small you need an image that is clear and identifiable.Office Freakout Ad

People love drama! Of course they want to see an office freakout!  This drives a ton of traffic, and you can see people are liking, commenting, and sharing…AN ADVERTISEMENT!

We ran this add for 90 days at $50 per day targeting men and women 18-55 who are considered early technology adopters.  Within those 90 days we were just over 2,500.  We still run the ad, at a limited budget, and we’re still getting likes.  We are just about through 3 quarters of it running and we are now seeing a trail off so it may be time to make a new add.

Do you have questions on using Facebook Ads, or how to create engaging videos?  Just ask!

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