Facebook is a great place to advertise. I said it last month in our newsletter, and I’m saying it again.
Don’t caught up in the negative hype about GM pulling their ads, or about the lousy stock offering.
Yes, GM pulled its ads. But if they thought they were going to be selling new cars directly through Facebook ads, they were kidding themselves. Facebook ads are great for selling smaller purchases – events, music, fashion, seminars (and how do I know? Because I’ve been buying that way myself) – but it’s hard to conceive of someone clicking onto a Facebook ad and driving right over to buy a new Cadillac. You don’t use a fish hook to catch a whale.
Or maybe, as Ford has said, GM’s Facebook ads just suck.
Re the stock offering: There were too many shares, revenue is too low, and the price was entirely too high. My doctor was going to buy shares on launch day, but I told him to wait until the stock fell by 50%; now I’m thinking he owes me a year of free treatment. But who cares about that? If you don’t like the stock, don’t buy it. That has nothing to do with the value of the advertising platform.
And here are those values:
- 900 million people. One out of seven people on the planet are on Facebook. Tell me that advertisers are going to pass that up.
- Facebook ads are targetable. You can sift by seemingly limitless demographics – region (zip, state, city, radius and more), by gender, by interest – until you hit the formula that suits you.
- It’s all trackable. You’ll know how many people saw it, and how many people clicked. And, if you do your landing pages right, you’ll know how many people purchased.
- It’s inexpensive and it’s immediate. Compare against print or direct mail. Then spend the savings on a second home.
- It works. I use Facebook ads for personal purchases, and we’ve built very successful client campaigns.
In fact, if other advertisers have gotten skittish now may be the perfect time to jump in. Don’t miss your opportunity.