The Pros And Cons Of Facebook Advertising
There is a saying that “if you are not online, you don’t exist.” This posits that we are in a digital world, where information is at our finger tips. That is, a time in which information reach the world population within a moment. However, this boils down to the fact that Facebook advertising is one of the digital marketing platforms that businesses can leverage their advantages.
Nonetheless, for those that have shallow knowledge of “digital marketing”. I will briefly simplify its meaning here. Digital marketing is advertising business product or brand online via social networks or web. This means that you let people see and access information on your company through social media or web, in order to get them trust your brand, and most especially buy from you.
Therefore, any company that wants to succeed globally must leverage the many benefits of digital marketing. Facebook is one of the most popular social networks or digital marketing platforms, because of its global membership, as well as being a recommended advertising medium for both large and small businesses.
Facebook Global Recognition
Research shows that in 2018, Facebook hit 1.8 billion daily users, which is massive when you think about the potential it has for businesses and marketers alike. Furthermore, over the last decade, Facebook has shifted from the most prominent social media on the internet into one of the biggest marketplaces.
Sometimes, you may ask “is it worth it to pay for Facebook advertising?” Yeah! It’s a good question. But know that if you understand that social media advertising is right for your business, and you want to create an effective digital marketing strategy that will save you money, time, and resources, Facebook advertising is the best option.
In this article you will be convinced if it’s right or not for your business through the pros and cons of Facebook advertising that will be expounded.
Table Of Contents
- Facebook Global Recognition
- What Is Facebook Advertising?
- The Pros And Cons Of Facebook Advertising
- Conclusion
What is Facebook Advertising?
As good as knowing the pros and cons of Facebook advertising, it’s not enough to choose the right strategy if you don’t know what Facebook advertising is all about.
Simply, Facebook advertising is a social media platform that offers a variety of highly targeted paid advertisements and organic posts, allowing brands to put their products and services in front of the larger audience. Indeed, successful marketing doesn’t reach everyone, but only reaches the right people. And this is where Facebook is incredibly useful.
The Pros And Cons Of Facebook Advertising
It is a fact that the focus of every business owner is to move their businesses beyond their current status, and take them to where there are more prospects. So, in order to extend the reach of your business visibility with Facebook advertising, you must take a look at how it works, how to get started, as well as the pros and cons, over other online advertising techniques.
The Pros
Wider Reach
Undoubtedly, Facebook advertising offers one of the largest user bases. This is corroborated by its global coverage of over 1.5 billion users that visit it’s network daily, and about 2.3 billion every month. And that’s probably more than any other social media platform. More importantly, the audience on Facebook is not merely, but also spans across many demographics.
Your Customers Use The Facebook
Undeniably, 80 percent of all internet users use Facebook, which compromises 65 percent of adults over the age of 65. Facebook has billions of users and most of them check their Facebook page times without count per day. Without controversy, your customers are using Facebook regardless of who they are. They even spend most of their time on Facebook. So, one of the benefits of Facebook advertising to your business is that your customers use it daily.
Cost Friendly
Facebook advertising is the most cost-effective investment any company can make. It is cheaper than almost every alternative source of advertising. You can double or triple the growth of your business with Facebook advertising at lower cost.
New Market
Surely, profit maximization has been most of the time the goal of every company. Therefore, they make use of every tool and platform to achieve this. Facebook advertising can help you make maximum profit by making your business to break into new markets. It also helps you to increase your exposure as you bring new product or service to the market. Likewise, it helps you to test the market at your own pace.
Referrals
One of the core things that make Facebook advertising better than any other form of advertising that exists is it’s social aspect. Facebook advertisements can go viral. And if your ads are reaching the right people, they will probably share it with their friends. However, the most significant benefit your business can derive from Facebook advertising is the ability to spread word-of-mouth and referrals.
Remarketing Tools
Facebook remarketing is one of the ways to reach visitors who saw your products or services in the past, who still remain in the awareness stage. For instance, someone sees your product on Facebook, looks at it and goes further without making a purchase, though he has a little interest. Remarketing helps to show your product again to that prospect in the future. Perhaps, you can give better price or exciting offer this time, improving your chance of converting that lead. Thus, Facebook provides effective remarketing tools.
Drive A Repeat Business
You can use Facebook advertising to drive repeat business from customers who have bought from you in the past. You can get to do this by importing your customer emails into your Facebook advertising campaign, using their audiences feature. This will allow you to advertise directly to the audience that’s likely to buy what you offer.
It’s Mobile
It is evident that 50 percent of all internet users are Mobile, so mobile is said to be the future of online. Facebook is one of the largest mobile applications that exist today, as over 84 percent of its users access their Facebook page from a mobile device. This implies that you can advertise to your audience on the devices they use every day. That’s more than a billion potential audience and buyers for your business.
Build Engagement
Engagement built through Facebook advertising consists of the likes, comments, and interactions on your advertisements. This form of engagement is important because it signifies a stronger connection with your target audience. People’s engagement with your brand creates an indirect connection. And the more engaged your audience is, the stronger your connection is with them. More so, the more connected they are to the business, the more likely they will convert.
The Cons
Competition
Facebook advertising is available to all businesses, and as a result, many companies are using Facebook ads. This can lead to reducing the chance of standing out. Which means that catching people’s attention and having your business ad stand out from friend’s updates can be more challenging. The consequence of this may necessitate using innovative ad packs which can be expensive.
Adhering To Policies
Some businesses find it difficult to advertise on Facebook because of the guidelines on wordings, product, and services. These guidelines help to determine if content is allowed. Therefore, any business that is not creative enough regarding content-creation may find Facebook advertising policies challenging.
Low Conversion Rate
Facebook as a default is developed for connecting with friends. Their web is not made up for a sales process. Consequently, many people visit Facebook to socialize, not for product connection nor to make purchases. Hence, Facebook advertising suffers from low conversion rate. To the extent that no matter how well you set up your ads, many users simply ignore advertisements whenever they come across them.
Maintenance
Facebook advertising maintenance is considered to be a difficult task. It involves lots of time and energy. The maintenance in essence doesn’t mean reaching high number of followers, but requires frequent response to their queries through comment sections. Moreover, this should not be relaxed, but there must be effective efforts needed to be put up by the Facebook ad users.
Loss Of Control
Truly, Facebook on a default is designed for connecting friends. An interactive online forum that encourages members to share information via video clips, written posts and links. Account owners have absolute control of what remains on their public profile, but have little control over who posts information or the content of the post. As this can give room for a competitor, angry customer to post accusatory comments that are inflammatory is slanderous to your business on your Facebook page. Negative comments affect the trust people have on your product. Thus, small business owners find it costly and time-consuming to maintain vigilant control over the content that appears on their Facebook pages.
Conclusion
The best way to know if something is a better option is to consider the percentage of the gain and loss. If the gain is 80 percent compared to the loss, you are good to go. However, looking at the fact that Facebook advertising has more outweighing benefits (i.e pros) than its cons, I believe choosing it for your business brings no regrets.
