What Facebook Can Do for You

Q: I don't really get how I can use Facebook in my small business. I doubt anyone would become a "fan" of it, so then what? What am I missing?

-- Lisa

A: While it is true that keeping up with the latest and greatest technological change can sometimes seem overwhelming, the fact is, we are indeed living in an era of great change for business. So one of your jobs as a small-business owner is to keep up with the times.

And so the truth is, Facebook and other social media sites are near the forefront of those new things that you must master. Facebook is a great place to advertise online, and tapping into its social media power can yield equally impressive results.
Here's but one example:

Chris Meyer is a photographer -- specifically, a wedding photographer. Wanting to try something new to grow his business, Chris decided that he would start small and try a Facebook ad campaign. Like many others before and after him, Chris found that one of the best things about advertising on Facebook is that you can very specifically target who will see your ad. That means that you only (generally) pay for highly qualified leads, and that means that you save money while getting better prospects. When only people looking for what you sell see and click on your ads, your budget goes a long way.

So Chris created an ad for his wedding photography business and chose to have it be seen by women in his area, aged 24 to 30, whose Facebook "relationship status" was "engaged."

Chris spent $600 on the initial ad buy. And how much did he make? How does $40,000 over the course of a year sound? Obviously, he didn't stop there. Today, Chris says, "I have found [Facebook Ads] SO effective. My business wouldn't be anywhere close to where it is today if it weren't for Facebook, and the ads campaign."

Creating a Facebook ad campaign of your own is really very easy:

• First, check out the Facebook advertising center.
• Next, use the point-and-click design tools to create your ad.
• After that, Facebook will ask you to target your exact audience, like Chris Meyer did. Your audience can be as large or small as you like, but the greater the reach, the more you will pay. You can choose to either pay per click (CPC) or pay per impression (CPM) -- that is, pay for the number of people who see your ad as opposed to how many click on it.
• After that, you will be asked to create a budget, review your ad, and get started.

One thing you should really like about a Facebook ad campaign is that you will be able to track your results in real time, see who is clicking and change your ad if necessary.

That last point is very important. It is unwise to simply create an ad, check out, and come back a month later to see what happened. I once did a Google ad campaign, seeking people looking for "small business speakers." I ended up paying a lot of money for clicks from people looking for "Bose speakers," and not someone to keynote their next event.

So I say, yes, check out new opportunities like Facebook -- you will be glad you did.

(And by the way, my friends here at AOL offer a similar sort of online advertising opportunity, yielding similarly great results. You can check it out here.)