When you first create your Facebook business page, it can take awhile to get people to become your fan. Many people are hesitant to like a page with few or no fans, and the key is to get a viral effect going. Once people see that you have a good number of fans, they’re more likely to jump on the bandwagon. One of the best ways to get your fan numbers up is to run a Facebook ad promoting your page. Running an ad exposes your page to a large volume of people that are within your target demographic, and that means that the people who end up becoming your fans are more likely to be potential clients. The trick is to get people to click on your ad and see what your Facebook page has to offer. That’s where these three key elements come in:
Have an eye-catching graphic. The generic Facebook ad that you can run just has your business page’s profile picture as the ad’s graphic. While we’re sure that your profile pictures are very nice, the key to getting people to look at an ad is a unique graphic that is eye-catching and different. Whether it’s a stunning picture of your city’s skyline or a breathtaking country view, you want the picture to be able to stand out amongst a group of other ads. You might also want to put some sort of text over the picture in an interesting, colorful font. The text should be enticing, making the viewer curious about what the ad is about. Whether it’s a question or a promise of a discount, the text should make someone want to read your ad and click on it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be real-estate related, either. Your graphic can be more about your geographical area, niche marget, or target demographic. After all, you want to be seen as both a real estate expert AND community resource.
- Intrigue potential fans with the ad copy. You have a 135 character limit for the ad copy on Facebook ads. That is less space than a tweet! You have a limited amount of room to summarize what your page is all about and include your geographic area, too. That means that when it comes to Facebook ad copy, you have to get creative. You want your ad copy to be just as enticing and intriguing as your image. This can be difficult, but you might want to start by picking a few key words or phrases that summarize your geographic area, niche, and what your page is about. For example, if your area is in South Florida and you target golf communities, you might want to include, “Golfing”, “Sun”, “Easy Living” and “Real Estate” as key phrases in your ad copy. You will also want to include your geographic area, (South Florida, in this example), and also entice the person viewing your ad to like the page. You’ll have to play around with the phrasing, but your end result could be something like “Golfing under the sun. Easy living. Quality real estate. Wouldn’t you “like” to join our Florida community?” This ad copy is within the 135 character limit, paints a picture of what your geographic area and niche is, and also gives the person clicking on the ad an idea that this is a real estate related page. It’s also worded and phrased in a way that’s enticing and interesting, and people would be intrigued to see what your page is about.
- Know your target demographic, and use it. The best part about Facebook ads is how targeted they are. Their targeting is incredibly specific, so you can cater each ad you run specifically to the select group of people who you would want to be your next client. You can target your ad based on geographic location down to the city. You can also go even deeper and select the age range, gender, marital status, and languages you want to target. If your clients are largely a Spanish-speaking group, you can cater your ad to target only Spanish-speaking users! You can also select your demographics based upon your client’s interests, level of education, and even what specific company or workplace they work in! As you continue to target your ad, you will see a column on the right side of the page that says “estimated reach.” This tells you how many people will be able to see your ad, based upon the demographics you’re putting in. The more specific you are, the more the estimated reach goes down, and the more targeted your ad becomes. The idea of being as specific as possible with your targeting is to narrow the scope of who sees your ad. The reason you want to narrow down your target demographic as much as possible, instead of making your ad available for all of Facebook to see, is because you want anyone who becomes a fan of your page to be your next potential client. In order to do that, you really need to target your ad specifically to that group. If you only have 200 people on Facebook who can see your ad, after you put in the demographics, you can be assured that those 200 people are the type of people who would be your next client.
To put it all together, having the right image, ad copy, and specific demographics are the three key elements to getting the results that you want from your ad. Used correctly, Facebook ads can be an essential tool to getting you more fans. The more fans you have, the sooner the viral effect will start, and your fan base will start growing more rapidly! These are the three pieces of the puzzle that you need for an effective and successful ad that gives you the results you want, and with a little time and creativity, it’s possible for you to create one! If you feel as though you can’t sit down and spend the time to make an ad that looks and sounds great, your real estate virtual assistants are happy to help! We’re all about building up your social networking presence.
Make it a great day!
Sarah Kay
Social Media Specialist
Comments(2)