By Savanna Walker
The Daily Herald, Columbia, Tenn.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Facebook is crisscrossing the country this month in an effort to help women in business better understand Facebook’s marketing tools. This article takes a look at Facebook’s various features and strategies. Most interesting seemed to be Facebook’s Pixel technology which is a code that tracks visitors to a business’ website. Every time someone new visits your website, the pixel fires and creates a list of people you can now connect with on Facebook.
FRANKLIN
Facebook hosted a seminar for female small business owners Monday.
The Boost Your Business event is one of several sessions Facebook is hosting in cities across the United States in celebration of Women’s History Month.
The event featured a presentation from Facebook Community Engagement Coordinator Meghna Mahadevan, who showed the attendees advertising features and strategies. There was also a question-and- answer session with local entrepreneurs and marketers.
Make your business personal
Mahadevan pulled up a personal Facebook page and business Facebook page and said there shouldn’t be much difference between the two.
“The way you’re interacting with your customers should be human and authentic — the same way that you’re connecting with your friends and family,” she said.
She said advertisers should remember that ads on Facebook go between posts on a user’s timeline.
“This is a really personal, intimate space, so you want to make sure you’re really interacting with your audience,” Mahadevan said. “You want to make them respond, feel something, emote.”
Kim Leggett of City Farmhouse in Franklin said the natural tone of her advertising helped her gain customers.
“I tried not to make my content sound like ads. I just talked in my own voice,” she said.
Get attention quickly
Mahadevan said she recommended video and photo posts over text posts, and advertisers should remember how content is delivered on the site.
“You may not have noticed this, but they actually autoplay without sound,” Mahadevan said about Facebook videos. “That means that when you’re creating a video, you want to make sure that the first three to five seconds are captivating without any sound.”
“I’m a big believer in quality over quantity,” Julie Walton of Walton’s Jewelry said. “Take the time to take a really great photograph and keep it in your arsenal.”
Tailor ad content to audiences
Facebook tailors ads based on interests, demographics, behavior and location, Mahadevan said. Business owners can create custom audiences by uploading customer or mailing lists.
With custom audiences, users can expand their reach. Mahadevan said Facebook creates lookalike audiences based on the existing populations business owners already contact.
“You’re able to target a group with similar interests based on people you already know,” she said.
Take advantage of Facebook’s technology
Facebook Pixel is a code that tracks visitors to a business’ website.
“Every time someone new visits your website, the pixel fires and creates a list of people you can now connect with on Facebook,” Mahadevan said.
Business owners can track people who visited specific pages, people who only visited once or other options, and then tailor advertisements accordingly.
“You can optimize that delivery by targeting people who have already taken the action you wanted them to take,” Mahadevan said.
Ad Manager can be accessed on Facebook’s site and downloaded as a mobile application. It gives an overview of how ads are performing, with reports, breakdowns and an overall relevance score from one to 10.
“This is a great way to understand what’s really working,” Mahadevan said.
Another Facebook feature that can be used as an app is Page Insights, which tracks demographics of visitors to a page.
Mahadevan said she recommends business owners use the tools Facebook provides to figure out which ads are most effective.
“It’s really important that you’re repeating your successes and learning from the things that didn’t work so well,” she said.
