The Facebook Ad Formula – Show Them How to Turn from Friends into Likes (THEN Customers)

The impact of social media is most felt by the amazing control Facebook has over it’s huge audience, by some estimates up to 25% of all Internet traffic results from Facebook.

So what do most business people start thinking? How can I make sales, and the good news is, you can make sales if you understand that social media is about lead generation, from getting them to Like you on Facebook, to registering with an email address, to actually working with you.

Making sales directly through Facebook is not as common. Let me walk you through 5 minutes on this video:

How Facebook Ads Work, the Formula to Turn Friends into Likes and Customers
On Facebook, it's all about Visuals, Targeting, and Getting Likes to Communicate More....

Visuals Sell – Make it Easy to Understand

  1. On Facebook, and likely on mobile as well, it’s all about small visuals and brief text. You’ve got to have an image that is fairly easy to understand, that is simple and often with a close up of a face, and that leads you to read the headline.
  2. The visuals lead into the headline, and the call to action on the right; to do this right you’ve got to constantly change and test visuals, AND your headlines.
  3. Don’t just depend on the headline, as most are used to from early Internet marketing. Headlines matter, just not as much as visuals.

Wash Your Ads Daily – Lather, Rinse, and Repeat

The biggest reason people fail with Facebook ads is that they just don’t understand the work it takes. Most people draft up a whole bunch of images, 20-50 at least, and start testing them to see what the audience responds to…

  • They also work on the headline, and the call to action on the side, or combining them somehow. To get noticed you need more than the usual headline, you need something unusual, brief, and connected to the interest of the person on the Facebook page.

And yes, that person ignores most ads. You won’t get a ton of clicks, but those that do are qualified generally. It’s up to you to change your ads every few days, just like you wash your hair.

  • Lather, Rinse, and Repeat…if you can’t do this, don’t bother with Facebook ads. You have to pay attention regularly to get them to work.

You Get What You Play For – Cheap Budget = Cheap Results

Like all Internet advertising and marketing, it’s become a big business. Running in with your little $50 ad buy will get you little, and more money does tend to get you better treatment in any ad network.

Put it this way; if you owned a restaurant, and one customer came in every day for a cup of coffee, while another brought in 2 tables worth of customers, which one would get more attention and better service?

While the answer should be both, it’s really just the one bringing in the money, the oldest rules of business still apply. You have to pay to play, and you have to participate to play in Facebook ads.

Focus on Likes and Lead Generation Instead of Selling Direct

The last part of the formula is conversion; selling direct rarely works on Facebook, unless it’s a local product or service to the user.

  1. Most Facebook ads drive Likes, which then allow the business to follow up, with permission, and build a community around their Page. It also works because Facebook users are within the Facebook universe, taking them outside to your own site directly often doesn’t work as well.
  2. Get a lead, and while you are getting a Like, get them to share their email address, download your mobile app, and other methods you have for keeping in touch with them.
  3. Social media is more of a branding and lead generation tool, and it’s up to you to convert on second or more contact. First contact sales just aren’t the reality here.

What’s your experience? What have I missed here so badly you have to point it out!


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