This is Social Media Advertising

Facebook Advertising

Facebook Advertising is an important part of Social Media Marketing.

As Facebook has now over 400.000.000 users world wide, Facebook Advertising has become one of the most important parts of the Social Media Marketing scene.

There are several ways you can advertise on Facebook. You can use all of them or choose the ones that will fit your current advertising campaign and business profile. Here are the most common methods of advertising on Facebook:

• Facebook Ads
• News Feed (Wall Post) Ads
• Facebook Pages advertising
• Facebook Groups advertising
• Facebook Events Ads
• Facebook Notes

Facebook Ads are offered to advertisers with monthly advertising campaign budgets under USD$30,000.- (Oct. 2009). For larger advertising budgets there are a few other options.

Running Facebook Ads on the ad space is the most popular way of advertising on Facebook but it is not the only option. There are lots of other effective ways as well; such as News Feed Advertising, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups or Events Advertising.

Facebook Presence Options

There are three main options to have a Facebook presence:

• Personal Facebook Profile
• Facebook Page
• Facebook Group

Each one of these has its advantages a well as disadvantages.

Personal Facebook Profile is the most common one and is used by individuals for their personal purposes in order to stay on touch with friends and relatives. People who are in your personal Facebook network are called “Friends”. Some Internet professionals use these profiles for their business purposes as well, however Facebook does not recommend this practise and those accounts are in danger to be deleted without notice.

For business related purposes Facebook offers two options: Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups.

Facebook Pages are mainly used for having on online presence for a business, artist, brand or other commercial entity. People who connect with you through your Facebook Pages are called “Fans”. If you are a regular person, like me for instance, it feels a bit funny having fans like a rock star, but that’s the way Facebook has this one sorted out.

Facebook Groups are useful for getting a lot of like minded people together over a particular topic, cause or a hobby. When you join a Facebook Group you become a “Member”.

Facebook Personal Profiles are currently limited to a maximum of 5000 friends. The way you can contact them is by a direct message. You can only send direct messages to 20 friends at a time which makes it a bit hard if you want to send that message to all of your 4287 friends. Facebook Groups on the other hand can have an unlimited amount of members. You can contact your entire group on one go by sending them a direct message. Facebook Pages can also collect an unlimited number of fans but have no direct messaging option. The way to communicate with your fans is to send them updates. Updates are not as effective as direct messages but you can use some clever targeting options with them. You can also attach links, photos and videos to these updates.

If you want to learn more about Facebook Advertising, please have a look at our Facebook Advertising Guide.