Is There Any Real Benefit to Advertising on Facebook?

Facebook is a great medium to use for social media marketing, especially if you have a product consumers have an interest in. You can see how customers really feel about your product, create polls that people love to share, or even create a unique landing page using FMBL for your inbound marketing efforts.  But what about advertising on Facebook?

When you create a Facebook page, one of the first suggestions Facebook makes is to promote your page with an ad.  Facebook ads are good for targeting a specific audience and some companies have found that advertising on Facebook does work.

Facebook ads are subtle, off to the side and look just like a page suggestion. People click on page suggestions all the time, especially if one of their friends is a fan. But, why spend the money when you can create a fan page for free?

Just like anything in life, there are pros and cons to Facebook ads and Facebook pages.

Facebook pages are free, and any time a fan interacts with your page, it goes into their news feed for all their friends to see.  You can create a fan page in just about 20 minutes and then you’re off to recruiting fans and creating fun polls, quizzes and top five favorites to engage your fans.

The biggest problem businesses have with Facebook pages is growing their fan base and getting those fans talking to talk. Here is where creative content comes into play.  Using FBML and contests are great ways to prompt your fans to interact with your page.

It may take a while to grow your fan count, but here’s where you can really target your brand loyalists and educate those fans who are just getting familiar with your company.

Advertising on Facebook makes your fan page grow quicker.  If you have a product that will be available for a limited time, and you have created a fan page for it, then spend some money on Facebook ads to get the word out as quickly as possible.

You can target the audience you want to receive the message, but you have to remember that once you’re out of money, no more ads will be displayed and your campaign is over. If one person clicks on your ad 15 times a day, that’s 15 potential fans you missed.

Advertising on Facebook does get your message out there, but there’s a price for it. Creating a fan page and using Twitter, LinkedIn, your company blog and other social media networks you are on to recruit fans may take a little time, but it costs you nothing extra.

Is there any real benefit to advertising on Facebook?  Sure.  But, what’s it worth to you if your most important customers are getting lost in the multitudes of fans Facebook ads attract?