External Experts's articles
Enraged and frustrated with a break-up, Mark Zuckerberg, then a Harvard sophomore decided to teach his ex-girlfriend a lesson. He curated a website called Facemash that compared the attractiveness of students at Harvard. The site also allowed users to vote for the most attractive students. It was an instant hit with 400+ visitors within hours and over 22000 votes. Zuckerberg used this to humiliate his girlfriend by showing that there are more attractive people than her at the university.
Nevertheless, Facemash was shut down within two days as Zuckerberg had violated Harvard’s data protection policy while building the site. However, this sparked a wave of innovation and soon Zuckerberg came up with the idea of a social media website that can connect people from all over the world. He registered with the domain name thefacebook.com in 2004.
Since then, Facebook only went uphill, garnering more and more members. Today, the social media giant boasts of 2 billion-plus users, which is the highest among its competitors. And since there are so many people on Facebook, it automatically becomes a sought after marketing destination for digital marketers.
In this blog, I will give you a panoramic view of what Facebook marketing is and how it can be leveraged to attract potential buyers for your products or services and therefore boost your sales and revenue. Let’s explore.
What is Facebook marketing?
Simply put, Facebook marketing is a specialized digital marketing technique that leverages the social platform to attract potential buyers. Since Facebook now has over 2 billion users who spend at least 30 minutes on the site every day, it has gone beyond just a social media website and transformed into a marketing hotspot, just like a shopping mall.
There are various ways through which Facebook can be used to market your product or services such as ads, creating an online presence (inbound marketing), videos, and more. The most effective, however, is inbound marketing that includes creating a brand presence and earning a name for your brand, which translates into customer loyalty and hence generates sales for your organization.
Now, who should actually use Facebook marketing? I bet you are wondering about the same. Let’s see whom can Facebook benefit from.
Who should use Facebook marketing?
As stated earlier, the number of people swarming Facebook has gone beyond 2 billion and therefore, the social media site has become a sought-after marketing destination. Facebook can be extremely helpful for the following:
Brands: Any local food joint, an electronics company, home appliance manufacturer can promote their products through Facebook and transform passive customers into active buyers.
Celebrities: Authors, musicians, entrepreneurs, columnists, journalists, and others who want to make a fortune by just being famous can connect with 2 billion Facebook users and actually reach their goal.
Non-profit organizations: NGOs that work for a cause can actually advertise using Facebook to increase awareness and garner members, resulting in a win-win for everyone.
Government: Even Government and its various wings can use Facebook to update policies, create awareness, and more.
Why Facebook marketing is crucial for your business?
On the basis of the discussion so far, do you really have any doubts about Facebook’s marketing potential? I hope not.
Agreed that Facebook has a lot of users and you can market your offerings, however, do you know why I am constantly emphasizing Facebook marketing. I have listed down specific pointers that will convince you that Facebook is your go-to marketing tool. Let’s have a look.
- Global exposure: Facebook prides itself on having 2 billion-plus users and therefore you get access to 2 billion potential customers. Moreover, Facebook allows businesses to open pages, groups, and form communities to attract buyers for their products or services. Also, there are Facebook ads that can help you connect with your customers and turn them into buyers. Now, can you imagine the extent of global outreach you can have just by creating your business page on Facebook?
- Cost-effectiveness: Creating a Facebook page, group or building a community is free of cost. Heck, even sharing product information, engaging with your customers also comes without a cost. Do you see how Facebook can significantly reduce your marketing spends? Even paid ads are affordable and let you target potential customers. It is this cost-effectiveness that has turned Facebook into a hotbed of marketing activities.
- Specific targeting using Facebook ads: Facebook ad is the elixir that every digital marketer should gulp down. Not only such ads are cost-effective, but they also allow very specifically targeting on the basis of demography, location, likes, and interests. How cool is that?
For example, you want to target teenagers of Mumbai for your fashion apparel, you can simply create ads for demographics of age between 13 to 19 in Mumbai with interests in fashion. Isn’t it exciting? Not only such targeting helps you narrow down your target audience but also allows you to advertise on a local level. This also enhances your brand loyalty, which strengthens your customer base.
- Augments website traffic: By posting the link of your website on Facebook with an effective tagline, you can actually persuade your target audience to click through the link. Once they reach the landing page of your website, you can use further marketing pitch to sell your offerings. This is one of the most effective ways to increase organic traffic to your website and boost your bottom line.
- Facebook insight: After you have posted your ad, you can track its performance with the help of Facebook insight. This specialized tool provides information such as the number of times the ad was shown, audience reach, people engagement, and more. With this information, you can gauge consumer trends and create highly effective as well as personalized ads to rope in more customers.
Now, do you get my point? There are so many benefits that you can reap by using Facebook as a marketing tool and this comes at unimaginable cost-effectiveness.
I bet you must be pretty excited to have a Facebook marketing strategy in place now. Believe me, there are many who have tried to market on the social media platform but fell on their face. It’s not at all easy. This is why I am here. I will show you exactly how to formulate a Facebook marketing strategy that stands out from the rest and helps you garner customers for your offerings.
Google Ads: What Are Google Ads & How Do They Work?
Google Ads : Here we are, decades later and possibly living in the golden age of information.
There are 2.3 million searches on Google alone, every second, and guess what the majority of the search results are? That’s right, Google ads; those annoying websites that fill up the first part of your screen anytime you google something.
Being on the other end of the screen, you might dismiss these ads as irrelevant, and did I mention annoying?
Yet Google ads are so much more; they are the best way for you to take the guesswork out of advertising your business online.
They are the little workers that you hire to drive paid traffic to your site and attract relevant attention to your business.
You need to learn a little about Google ads before running some of your own, and in this post is all the information you need. And no, it is not nearly as expensive as you might think.
Google ads; What are They?
Currently, and every day since September of 2014, the world wide web hosts over 1 billion websites.
The very thought of this is scary. Think about where your recently opened site fits in all this, and after you realize that it is just a speck in a world that will only continue to grow, you will understand the importance of Google ads.
Google ads is a Google advertising service that allows your website to come up on the search engine’s results.
It is a way to attract attention to your site, something that you might need considering the odds created by the millions of websites out there. You will, of course, have to pay for this service.
Sitting back and waiting for your site to somehow get discovered by the world will not do any good for your business, but lucky for you, Google ads is here to get your business noticed by more people, sorry, I meant to say more relevant people.
The What, When, How, and Who of Google Ads.
When you look something up on Google, I am sure you have noticed the first results that come up are usually marked with a green or yellow ‘Ad’ label.
These are paid search results, and although they might resemble organic results that occupy the rest of the screen, a Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) will display your website on the top or the side when you run a Google ad for it.
A banner ad from Google Play
That is the basic functioning of Google ads, but there is so much more, Google also offers AdSense and Display Ads; other forms of marketing that allow you to extend your reach online.
Let’s dive in a little deeper and find out why these ads are relevant to your business.
How do Google Ads Work?
These ads are mainly focused around keywords, and keep in mind that I used ‘mainly’ and not ‘only.’
You have to choose a few keywords that you believe your potential customers will use, and I know you hate to hear this, but you will not be the only one.
Google then offers a bid for the advertisers who have selected particular keywords.
The more you pay Google per the number of visitors who click on your ad, the more our site will appear on the SERP. Here is an example:
If you run a business in the legal profession and you offer divorce law services to clients, then you might want to focus your ads on keywords like ‘divorce lawyer’ or ‘divorce attorney.’ Get the idea?
So each time a visitor searches any of the two words, your site will appear on the top of the SERP. The amount of money you pay is, however, not all that Google takes into consideration.
There is something else they use; quality score.
What is Your Quality Score? And Why it Matters.
Is your ad relevant to the searched word? Is your landing page equally relevant to your visitors? How many clicks has your ad previously received?
You need to get your quality score as high as possible. If your ad says ‘divorce attorney available here’ and a user types ‘divorce attorney,’ then the advertisement needs to redirect them to a landing page that gives them exactly what you advertised; a divorce attorney.
If your landing page is simply your generic web page, then Google will rank your quality score as low. It does not matter how much you bid, if your quality score is not good enough for Google, then your ad will appear less.
Here is what a high quality score will get you:
– More exposure
Your ads will appear on the SERP more, and rather than be displayed on the bottom of the page where users hardly look, the ads you run will be first on the results page.
– Reduced Costs
Google will charge you less for your ad if you keep your quality score high enough. You will invest little in advertising and get a significantly higher return as long as you keep your score high.
Let’s Talk About the Money
So Google takes your bid and then evaluates your quality score to determine whether or not your ad will appear on the SERP. Here is the formula Google used to calculate the amount of money for each click, or rather CPC (Cost Per Click) for each ad:
‘Ad Rank of the Competition/ The Quality Score + 0.01.’
The cost, as in the formula, changes depending on the competition on the keyword you selected and your quality score, but it also changes based on your physical location. In the United States, for instance, the average CPC Google charges is $2.32.
External Experts is the #1 digital marketing agency and SEO firm in india. Offers Digital Marketing Services, SEO Services, Social, PPC & Web Development
External Experts is a digital marketing agency and digital marketing training institute in Bangalore established in 2015. We provide services to companies, domestic and international, helping them achieve tangible results from their marketing efforts. Across industries, External Experts has always relied on data-driven strategies and the expertise required to promote brands on multiple platforms. We are a tech-savvy digital marketing agency with experience in overcoming challenges and implementing the most modern marketing methods. External Experts stands out for strict campaign policies. We believe that only facts matter when it comes to producing results and thus, develop our digital strategies based on solid data.
