Should you be advertising on Facebook?

Dec 15, 2010•Blog Posts•Online & Digital Media•Social Media• by Michelle

Many manufacturers’ co-op programs are just beginning to offer support for Search Engine Marketing, but should you be focusing on pay-per-click ads on Facebook, instead? And should manufacturers’ programs help you do just that?

What is Search Engine Marketing? What is Social Media Marketing? How are they different?
SEM or Search Engine Marketing is typically Pay-Per-Click advertising on sites like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Advertisers, whether local or national, create ads that appear when a search user looks for a certain set of keywords. How prominently that advertiser’s ads are displayed among other similar ads depends on the advertiser’s relevance to the search keywords and how much he or she has bid for them. Although some demographic profiling is being added to standard SEM, most ads are still targeted just based on which terms are being searched, rather than on who is doing the searching.

Social Media Marketing has several components, and Facebook is just one facet of that. Good Social Media Marketing is goal oriented and incorporates Facebook Pages, Twitter, Blogging / Content creation, Viral Videos, targeted interaction with customers or potential customers online, and ore. There’s no exact blueprint for a successful Social Media Marketing campaign, and there are examples on both ends of the spectrum of great and terrible attempts. Crafting a successful Social Media plan for your business can be a matter of trial and error before you find the mix that works just right for you.

But with Social Media Marketing comes a more inherent ability to target your potential customers in a more specific way than SEM can accomplish.

I realized this first-hand as I was working on Social Media components for a new product. My Google AdWords were driving some traffic, but the keywords that seemed to be driving the most were the more general ones. And it cost me more to get prominent placement for them.

When I followed up to see what those clicks generated in my site, well, it was hit or miss. Many of the viewers were considered bounces and spent no time on the site. I had a higher success rate for the more targeted keywords, but there were MANY fewer searches for those. Essentially, my most successful ads for Google are the ones where people are looking specifically for the niche product I’m selling, and then they’re a more captive audience. But that does nothing to help me elevate the profile of this niche product that might be of great interest to some key demographics, if only they knew about it.

It was back to the age-old marketing challenge of Brand Recognition. I don’t have thousands of dollars to market this product, but the people who have seen it so far have loved it. I wanted to make it seen by those key potential customers without having to pay for views by people outside my target audience.

So first, I created a Facebook page for the product. I included some content from the main site, as well as some content unique to the Facebook page. And then, I placed a Facebook ad. The process was similar to that of Google Ads. You create the text of your ad, indicate where you want it to go, set your bid caps, your daily budget… but then, you set the demographics of the Facebook users you want to target.

You can target by interest, geographic area, gender, age, relationship status, language, education, connections, and more. While you modify your criteria, Facebook provides you with a count of how many members fit that criteria. You instantly know how many people may see your ad and can adjust your demographic requirements to instantly modify that target audience.

Unlike SEM, Facebook users don’t have to search for keywords related to your products. They’ll see the display ad, and if they’re interested, they can click through to your company page (and maybe they’ll even “Like” you).

What did I see when I started my ad? Within hours, I began to see results. You can view your impressions and your click-throughs (as well as your new “Likes”), and using Google Analytics on my main product home page, I was able to track the people coming through from Facebook. On average, they were spending six times longer on the site than my Google AdWords leads, and more than half of them clicked through to my action page.

Not everyone will see such a dramatic difference, and to be sure, some particular (though less searched) Google AdWord keywords did produce similar stickiness. But so far, we’re seeing better value per click for those Facebook ads, and it’s become a valuable part of the advertising for the product. At the very least, it does warrant consideration as you develop your 2011 marketing plan.

Social Media Marketing and Co-Op
We’ve seen many manufacturers careful about adding new media to their co-op programs, and understandably so. As a company who audits hundreds of thousands of claims a year, we’ve seen our share of vague invoices for some new media (and, to be fair, for traditional media, as well) that make it difficult for manufacturers to justify reimbursing for those expenses. At the same time, as the cost effectiveness of many traditional media dwindles (newspaper, for example), new media can offer a great alternative to driving business – if monitored properly.

We advise our manufacturers to consider adding support for these new media to their co-op programs, but to have solid rules behind what documentation is required as a proof of payment and proof of performance. We even internally offer services to many manufacturers to do that placement on behalf of retailers so we can prevent fraud and ensure expenses and invoicing are accurate.

We can help
If you’re a current SMS Manufacturing client and want to know more about incorporating Social Media Marketing support in your program, contact your Account Executive. If SMS does not currently manage your co-op program, click here to send us a message and one of our team members will be in contact with you to discuss your program and how we can help.

If you’re a retailer and want to know more about how SMS can help you with your Social Media Marketing campaigns, click here to contact us and one of our Retailer Media Support Representatives will contact you soon.