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Facebook in five minutes

Facebook has 2.4 billion worldwide users per month – among them your potential clients. Here’s Nelly Berova’s quick guide to reaching them.

Nelly Berova

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Facebook scores well among UK age-based demographic groups; millennials, generation X and baby boomers, you can use it to help your estate agency reach everyone from first-time buyers to downsizers or people renting out an inherited property.

The big reason to include Facebook ads in your marketing strategy, is that it lets you target your campaigns to audiences. If you’re not sure how to approach Facebook advertising, this will help you get started.

Boost a post… run an ad!

If you’re new to Facebook advertising, begin by boosting an existing post – this means paying to increase its reach to people who wouldn’t otherwise see it. Choose a high-quality post with a clear objective and call to action and a great photograph or video. Analyse your boosted posts to see which worked best – use this information to guide your marketing strategy. Before you begin creating adverts, you need to be clear about your goal, your audience, what you want to say and how much budget you allocate.

Your goals

These depend on what you want to achieve. Facebook gives a range of options, to increase awareness, generate leads or bring conversions. If you wonder how to attract more vendors, use your Facebook ad to communicate an offer such as an open house event, a free download or something else of value, and direct viewers to a specific landing page on your website.

Defining your audience

Facebook advertising allows you to define who sees your campaign. Facebook knows a great deal about its users, age, location, relationship status, behaviour and interests. In the past, it was possible to segment audiences based on income, the type and size of property they live in, etc. All that changed after the Cambridge Analytica case.

Now, Facebook’s advert creation tool is more restricted. You can reach Facebook’s permitted audience segments with targeted ads and content, which works as the filter.

Nelly Berova image

Nelly Berova

So, if you want to reach landlords with properties in North London, or new parents in central Manchester looking to upsize, you need to combine segments provided by Facebook (eg location and status) together with ad creatives and content, which communicates the correct and relevant messages to the chosen persona.

Before creating adverts be clear about your goal, your audience, what you want to say and your budget.

Use your sales data to find out where people moving to your target area have come from and focus on their postcodes in your ads. A useful feature is Facebook’s ‘lookalike audiences’ facility, which allows your ad to appear in front of users who share your previous customers’ traits. Choose a lookalike audience similar to your Facebook page fans, your customer list or your website visitors.

Spending your budget

Facebook allows you to choose from a daily or a lifetime budget, across the campaign. Decide your maximum spend and start with a small amount, to check how your posts are performing before allocating more money to the campaign. Whether you choose a daily or lifetime budget, Facebook does a lot of the work, optimising spend to achieve maximum reach and clicks for your advert.

Your campaign content

There are several options when considering the content of your campaign, it needs to be visual and arresting. Single image ads are the most obvious and easily constructed but be sure you use a high quality, powerful image.

Video is increasingly crucial, so don’t ignore this medium, which can dramatically boost click rates. Facebook video ads are great to showcase properties – or use 360° video so buyers can take tours of a home. Another option is the carousel post, showing several images of a property at once.

Keep your copy simple. Facebook gives you recommended character counts; 25 characters for headlines and 125 characters for body text in an image ad. Stick to these to avoid losing a chunk of copy at the end. A good approach is the foolproof formula of pain point + solution + call to action.

Remember to measure your results

You need to measure the results of your spend and adjust what you’re doing based on what works. A good method for monitoring is to install the Facebook pixel on your website – it lets you track leads and conversions resulting from your advert.

Need help? Book a call with Nelly by visiting www.artdivision.co.uk

March 22, 2020

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