By Teri Lichtenstein

Why Facebook?

Whether you love it or hate it, whether you use it professionally or not (yet!), there is no doubt that your current and future clients are definitely active on the world’s most popular social media platform.

Facebook’s viability as an advertising channel is something that people ask me about all the time. Facebook does a lot to help business owners find their ideal audience online, and with 93% of Australians using Facebook no matter you’re your business as a dietitian, your target audience is using this platform.

Proving return on investment is important in any business, but when you are using newer forms of advertising, it is essential. Whilst there’s no secret formula to proving return on investment on your Facebook ads, there is a whole range of actions you can take to absolutely get the most out of your spend. Below I will share some tips on a range of actions to help you to run successful Facebook ad campaigns.

1. Determine your objective

This is the first and the most important thing that Facebook will ask you to do when setting up your ads. It is about developing a social community? Or driving traffic to your website?

Which ad you want to run really depends on your goals and strategy. The top 3 most popular ads are like acquisition ads, website traffic ads and post engagement ads. Each requires different inputs, including different photo size, different call to action, etc. How you measure return on investment will vary depending on your objective.

• • Likes acquisition: I’m sure all of you have clicked one of these adds before. Brands use these to grow awareness of their brand and reach people online to grow a community that they can speak to. By clicking like you join a community where you’ll then see their content
  • Post engagement ads: these ads ensure your posts and content is promoted and shown to the users you want to target. By promoting your posts and putting them under more people noses, you increase the amount of engagement, clicks, likes and comments
  • Website conversion or traffic ads: These ads prompt users to take an action and drive them to a website or online store, or other online asset that you want to drive people to and take an action (e.g. book an appointment with a sports dietitian or register for an event).

2. Ad Copy

This is the fun part! The copy and content you use can make or break your ad and when developing your ads its important to test many different versions to see what cuts through. Sometimes it can be worth starting with a blank piece of paper and write 20 different tag lines. Come back the next day and refine, cross check with a colleague refine again. The key elements for good ad copywriting include:

• • Make it sharp and strong – get your message across in 80 characters or less
  • Clear call to action – make it obvious to your audience what action they should take
  • What’s in it for them – it’s not what you want to tell your audience, but rather what benefit your audience will realise from seeing your ad and taking action
  • Respect your audience’s social zone – Facebook is a place for catching up with friends and it can be very ineffective to blast them with sales pushes and cliché lines.

You want to go out with strong ads but if you’re unsure what works then test it in a post, test different language and techniques and see what resonates the most. If you have a top performing add in adwords, then you could use that language in a Facebook ad and see if it works well.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to get started with Facebook ads is to ask a “yes” question.  For example, your “yes” question might be “ Are you sick of diet plans that don’t work?” Then write something like “If that’s you, check out our tips for getting off the diet bandwagon and start enjoying your food.”

When you start an ad this way, you get your audience’s attention. This kind of setup with text has proven to be really successful.

Try this text format: Start with your question. Then write two sentences to tell your audience what to do. Also, include either the link in the text or write “click below” to lead your readers to the link in the ad.

3. Images

There is so much you can do with images to really lift your ads and give them that wow factor. Here are a few suggestions:

• • Mobile ads are quite small so ensure the image is effective when scaled down
  • Different ads require different sized images so ensure your ads are the correct resolution to avoid blurry or squashed ads
  • Ensure you don’t have too much text on your ads, Facebook wont approve adds with over 20% of the image covered by text
  • Remember Facebook is predominately white, so ensure this doesn’t wash out your ads. Try bright colours, patterns and keep it fresh and clear
  • If you’re going to use people in your add, try and choose individuals who are looking right at the camera. This eye contact is proven to get better results

Your ad image or graphic should be able to speak for itself without too much text.

Since you can only have 20% text in an ad graphic, use the Facebook grid tool test your images before uploading them

Remember that ROI (return on investment) means different things for different businesses and individuals. ROI depends on your business goals and strategy. It depends on the conversions you are trying to achieve and the different style of ads. It also depends heavily on what you see as business value. So to set yourself up to be the master of your data, ensure you analyse your results and know your metrics. Facebook plays a huge role in customer retention. If you consistently engage customers through great content and keep in touch, they are much more likely to remain your clientele and refer your services to their friends and family.

There is lots of information out there to learn about Facebook advertising, but the best way to understand it is to get your hands dirty and give it a go!

Further Details on Teri:

Teri Lichtenstein, An APD with her own digital consulting business FoodBytes, specializes in digital nutrition communications. In this article, Teri provides some guidance on how you can effectively use Facebook advertising to grow your business through this popular social media platform.

If you wish to engage further with Teri and find out how you can grow your nutrition business with the world’s most popular social media platform, you can contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @terilichten.