In the "old days", if you wanted to meet someone, you had
to get dressed up and drive to a public place. Not
anymore. The Internet has changed all of that with the
popularity of social networking sites. Two of the biggest
are MySpace and Facebook.
Basically, a social network website allows you to register,
display photos and some personal information, then you
can invite others to become "your friends". You can
meet thousands of people right from the comfort of
your living room. How great is that?
Facebook has an audience of over 100 million people with
over 24 million active users. The majority of visitors
to the site are between the ages of 18 to 34. Next to
MySpace, it is the second largest social networking site
online. If you'd like to advertise on Facebook and reach
this young, highly targeted audience, now you can.
When setting up your ads, you can choose to target people
by age, location, gender, interests, education and more.
For example, you could choose to target 26 year old women
who are interested in men and are single in the U.S. When
making your audience selections, you'll be shown the number
of users who fit your chosen profile that will see your ad.
Facebook ads are displayed in the side column of almost
all pages. There may be up to three ads appearing on each
page.
You can also choose to buy ads on a CPC (cost per click)
basis, or CPM (cost per thousand) impressions. The title
of your ad can be up to 25 characters and the body text
up to 135 characters in total. A small image can also
be uploaded, but must fit inside a 110X80 box ad
format. You are also asked to select keywords that relate
to your ads.
If you decide to advertise on a CPM basis, the minimum
budget you can set is $1.00 per day, with a minimum
per one thousand impression bid of only $.10. They
will give you bid suggestions, but you are free to
set it to your needs.
If advertising on a pay-per-click basis, again, the
minimum daily budget you can set is $1.00, with the
minimum cost per click being one penny. Again, suggested
bid amounts are given. You can set your ad to run
continuously or only during specified times.
Facebook makes it easy to track your progress with
downloadable Excel reports. It's easy to see how well
your ads are performing at a glance.
There are three different types of reports:
"Responder Profiles"- This information is gleaned
from users profiles, and will tell you what types of
common interests people have who are clicking on
your ads.
"Responder Demographics"- This report tells you
the sex, age and geographic location of those clicking
on your ads.
"Advertising Performance"- Detailed reports which
show you impressions, click-throughs, etc. This report
can be broken down by month, week or time of day.
As part of their advertising program, you'll automatically
be subscribed to Facebook's newsletter which will keep
you up to date on news, updates and tips for best ad
practices.
Social network marketing is an effective way to reach
a highly targeted audience, and shouldn't be forgotten
when putting together a well rounded marketing plan.
If you haven't considered this type of advertising in
the past, now's a good time to take another look. Social
networks continue to grow in popularity as millions
of people continue to flock to this type of website
daily.
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