Facebook ads - what are your thoughts?

[Rich Leigh]

Hi guys, I've lain dormant for a while as I've actually been busy starting a company alongside working at Yeti HQ!

So, I've just started a fitness agency, drawing on both my experience within PR and marketing and as a Personal Trainer previously. I'll be employing PTs and marketing within Gloucester and Cheltenham to find them clients, taking a cut, put simply, in what should be quite an easily scaleable business further down the line. I've got a great USP for the agency, which I'm keen to keep close to my chest until business launch.

Social media is a key part of the marketing plan, with phase one (whilst the website is developed and I start to advertise for PTs) being a Facebook fan page offering to answer any fitness and diet questions county residents may have within 48hours.

Now, I have some great subtle brand profile ideas that could be used on a populated fan page, but therein lies the question - the phrase 'build it and they will come' doesn't seem so apt in this interweb day and age.

I've looked at Facebook ads and feel that they may be a good idea seeing as I know exactly who I want to target, but I was wondering if anybody had any experience with using them? Did they work (in taking people to your business/fan page)? What budget is best to run with to start off with? Any general advice?

Cheers in advance. I'd honestly appreciate any thoughts on this!

 

[LowcostPR]

Facebook ads are effective, the only thing you will have to bearin mind is that you get quite a few adverts on Facebook that are clearly scams (like that "I made £5,000 posting stuff on Google").

However, some have had some real success so as long as you do it carefully, then you should see some promising results.

 

[eventdomain]

you want to use such a general medium like Facebook? Well, it's a bit untargeted for your needs isn't it. What about getting your clients into fitness websites/fitness/sport publications instead.

 

[highpointphotos]

I must admit that when I am on Facebook, I am focussed on chatting to friends or checking messages. I look right through the advertising as if it was not there. At least on google et al, people are specifically searching. I think Facebook is too passive.

 

[Rich Leigh]

Cheers for your advice so far guys! Eventdomain, it's not too expensive and you'd be surprised at how targeted it is for the agency initially, given that you can drill down to find 'women in the Glos area and 10 miles away between the ages of...', so I guess the success of it was what I was after. Whilst I source for PTs and get the site developed, I'm keen to give free but time-effective advice with others to sort of 'prove' the agency's worth/carve an initial impression on what is an undoubtedly gossippy target market! After I've started building a client base for my PTs, it will definitely take a back seat to other marketing and PR - I've luckily already got a slot in Men's Fitness as an expert towards the end of the year so can plug it in there. At the beginning though, free fitness and diet Q&As and organised live advice sessions will be a way of ascertaining interest.

LowcostPR, any chance you can remember of the top of your head what sort of budget you assigned to each PPC bid?

 

[eventdomain]

given that you can drill down to find 'women in the Glos area and 10 miles away between the ages of...',

That means nothing, when the site (as an example) is the wrong platform bcos it's too general.

Users will visit any advertising platform and make a judgement on it's suitablity for advertising. If that first glance fails, then they'll not look past that - so all this 'category' targeting is only bravado and salesmanship. Yell.com is built on that very thing, now people demand targeting and exact matching for their adverts.

The entire website platform must be targeted, it's not enough to offer a small segment thats targeted, ROI won't be much.

The entire advertising platform must be the sales promoter.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I looked into it about 18 months ago.

The targeting was good, but the interface was a load of dog crap. It just kept hanging... and that meant it was a non-starter.

However, that was a long time ago and, if it now works properly, it could be really effective.

Steve

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I have heard that results are poor but this could easily be due to the client writing bad sales text for the ad or targeting it ineffectively.

 

[PurityHealthandFitness]

Hi Rich, I thought I'd have a dabble in using it. Like Steve said, the interface is something to be desired, and I didn't really get great click results.
Given, I didn't put that much effort into it, but Google adwords gives me far better conversions for the same amount of effort.

It'll be great to read what you got to say in MH.

 

[Rich Leigh]

Really appreciate everybodies' thoughts, I might just try to grow the Q&A page generically, seeing as it all sounds a bit pants . Ah well, don't ask, you'll never know!

PurityHealthandFitness, hey, sounds like we're in similar waters! I'm planning on using adwords once the site is up, I have seen the benefits of using it whilst improving SEO and am keen to have a bash. With regards to MF, I'm writing in a section called Trainer Tips, talking about exercises people may not have heard of before, it was fun writing but due to the nature of trade mags, the lead time is yonks.

Cheers all!

 

[PurityHealthandFitness]

Really appreciate everybodies' thoughts, I might just try to grow the Q&A page generically, seeing as it all sounds a bit pants . Ah well, don't ask, you'll never know!

PurityHealthandFitness, hey, sounds like we're in similar waters! I'm planning on using adwords once the site is up, I have seen the benefits of using it whilst improving SEO and am keen to have a bash. With regards to MF, I'm writing in a section called Trainer Tips, talking about exercises people may not have heard of before, it was fun writing but due to the nature of trade mags, the lead time is yonks.

Cheers all!

Yep we are. A Q&A page seems like a great idea. drop me a mail if you feel like bashing heads.
It's always the same with the lead times, but it'll be good to see different exercises in Fitness Mags. They all seem to be going in a loop in recent years. I often get Deja Vu from them nowadays, so it's great to see fresh ideas and exercises. I'll assume the readers will be treated to the usual muscular behemoth models to show us how it's done.

 

[Essene Master]

Hi Rich,
We've used FB & MySpace as advertising in the way one would use Flyers for events, likened to a Global Flyer .. but that is due to the loyalty of our international clientele and our committment to their wishes, who range from college students to members of NATO, and are scattered literally from Universities in California to mountain tops in Afghanistan. To date, we have not quantified the data regarding data: appearance of the info/ event participation. We can say because of the distance affected by the ads, that we have had customers coming up and saying that they had indeed seen it on FB. MySpace in our opinion does not really warrant our time and effort, but we occasionally do, because of customer base.

While our main Website was getting a new facelift, several fan group sites shot up on Facebook & a fan site on MySpace ... so a following does help. What a starting up business would benefit, IMHO if placed with the right Group, one could possibly target the marketing population, regardless of the normal studies, by region - accessability or distance to business as a factor.

An old adage says... if you shout long enough, someone will hear you. The crazier the advertising, the better the attention given. For that matter, if you have a graphics artist ...even better.

And an old maxim from my Marketing Professor: In the end, it's customer perception! In this modern age and not forgetting the whims of the age group - 18-25, it is extremely short and driven by fashion ...what's in today , like the X-Box Games or PS3, is OUT tomorrow.

Good Luck,
Ed

 

[born2becool]

Hi - good debate here so i thought I'd drag my soap-box out...

For any SME Facebook is worth serious consideration - especially if your getting killed on Google (increasing CPC's and decreasing ROI's). But my feeling is only consider Facebook if you're completely max'd-out on Google.
Facebook CPC's ordinarily undercut google by anything up to 75% - so it feels like a good buy. Keep in mind the critical differences between the two however:
Google works as a point-in-time demonstration that you have something to offer to a prospect who has already decided to research your product/service, so they are already soem way down the decisin making process. That 'relevancy' thing, right?
FAcebook doesn't serve your ads based on keyword comparison - Facebook 'sells' you a profile - the fields we fill in when we set up a Facebook account (aka 'profile'). This is where Facebook differs - we had their sales team visit us and they liek to say 'like Google but better'. Cute, but not really accurate.
Try it for yourself to see how simple it is to create your ad (the small image and text ads that appear on Facebook profile pages - but NOT on the Homepage, please note). Once you put an ad together (tip - avoid logos, try using faces - they just work better - which is funny, but Facebook is about faces - millions of people upload millions of images of people every day - maybe that tells us something??) then play with the targeting. Select audiences, play with the demographics, set regional targets (and as you do this watch the predicted audience volumes your ad will be targeting) then get creative and select 'Interests' - the stated interests of the audience you want to reach.
There are more targeting options available as Facebook rolls out new features so check back regularly. And if you want to run a banner campaign (the branded skyscrapers you see bottom right of the screen) you can buy these on a cost per thousand at about £1 from MSN. But don't - unless you have deep pockets - as the targeting is basic and results we've seen very poor.
Finally - set up a number of profiles to match the profiles of your target groups and see how different ads are served to different genders, age groups - one of our girls recently changed her Status from 'single' to 'engaged' and within 24 hours started seeing wedding related ads.
A last 'disclosure' - we buy digital media on behalf of some very grown-up brands and this year we have incorporated Facebook into the majority of our campaigns - so when I say 'our results' or 'we've seen' then these are tracked and reported campaigns we manage - spending between £5k to £50k per month on paid search.
I hope this helps - but as with any new channel the mantra has to be 'test, learn, discard, consolidate, test again...'. Good luck!

 

[adam_uk]

Good debate and thought I share my thoughts.

Two are totally different - social marketing and social networking. You can't put both in the same box.

First you create a social marketing strategy using your content and then you social network.

For example, in 30 minutes, you can..

1. Write a valuable topic that is needed within your target audience.
2. Syndicate it.
3. They (target audience) sees value in your article, book mark it and people sharing your work.
4. They visit back to original poster. You, your site etc.
5. They download more valuable info.
6. They step into your system or sales funnel.
7. Then...you use the social sites to network with...these prospects to ask them more questions on what they reall want and need. That's how one brands themself by what customer thinks of them.

Here's where most may go wrong..

They..

1. Network in social sites, to get prospects. Trying to network business in social sites. Work so hard, busy, busy...open facebook, other social sites, busy, busy.

2. Then they social network and find it doesn't make them the money they hear about. Nor prospects, leads and it leaves a bad taste in other people's mouth.

These are tools to connect with the audience you have already by creating a social marketing strategy first.

Then you network with your tribe, followers, prospects to build a tighter relationship in engaging them, asking them questions to deliver..

Hope maybe it has some ideas. A great guy I know, master at social marketing is Charles Heflin. Been reading his knowledge for sometime now and glad I did.

He written a post called The Big Social Media Marketing Mistake. Hope it comes useful for anyone who reads it. It gets rid of the misconceptions.

Got to give credit to this guy, cause it's really what I am sharng is what I learnt from way, way back. His posts opened my eyes more to see clearly and now I see results.

Adam

 

[sargefit]

It worked for me for my fitness bootcamp but then it was only ever meant to be small scale. Having said that my greatest weapon was and still is referals for which facebook is good.