Online marketing can feel like you are yelling into the abyss. First which platform is right for you? Is your message actually reaching YOUR target audience? And if you get both of those right is your MESSAGE designed to convert into sales? With so many factors in play in addition to all of the different options that you can chose form how do you know if you did all of the technical parts correctly?

Facebook has become by far the best platform for advertising ALL FORMS of products, services, and EVENTS than any other platform compared to the price. In fact, even when you factor in LinkedIn’s ability to target businesses, Facebook is still more effective when you are narrowing down interests. But before we get ahead of ourselves let’s take a look at what makes Facebook so effective.

How To Have Effective Marketing?

Effective marketing boils down to one word: DEMOGRAPHICS. This is the what and who of the people seeing your ads. Facebook is extremely effective because it allows you to become laser focused on your demographics that isn’t seen on ANY other platform. Whether you are doing Business To Business (B2B) or Business To Consumer (B2C).

There are four major sections when doing your Facebook Ads. Location, Gender, Age, and the most important one: Interests. This last one allows your ads to only be shown to people that are interested in similar products and services. Typically similar products are very easy but when it comes to services it can get tricky. You see Facebook is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma, with a sprinkling of pixie dust. Which means they’re a huge vortex and if you can get it right and find what you need, it can be magic. You may find you pay very little per click for one ad, and 10 times as much for another. It takes time and detailed targeting experimentation to get it right.

You see Facebook is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma, with a sprinkling of pixie dust.

Myron Allis

B2B: LinkedIn vs Facebook – The Great Debate

When talking about advertising businesses the debate always gets steered to advertising on LinkedIn to reach businesses as that’s what it’s designed for. But what is rarely mentioned is that LinkedIn Advertising is HORRIBLE. There I said it. It is the worst. Bottom line. Now that doesn’t take away from effective advertising on LinkedIn, it just means that using their Paid Ad feature isn’t. There are many other effective techniques that we will cover in a different post. So now your a probably thinking, “What makes Facebook so great then?” And it’s Facebook’s ability to narrow down on the specific interests that makes it such an effective platform.

What’s the difference between Facebook and Google?

Google is by far the most expensive option between all of the different platforms and this is because they dominate search. Also Google has something that Facebook doesn’t and that’s: INTENT. Most people when searching Google for a product or service want to purchase that product or service giving a huge competitive advantage to Google when it comes to the intent of the person clicking on the link. While this is a huge plus it also has a rather large downside and that is while being able to target specific search terms you have to know what the specific keywords people will be searching for in order to have you ad shown to them. Facebook excels in this area by allowing your ad to be shown when people match your criteria of interests.

How To Know Which One Is The Right One?

When it comes to marketing, you want to be everywhere all the time, and the same applies to which platform you should be advertising on. Each has their drawbacks and advantages. We recommend that you start with Facebook to narrow down your demographics, interests, and which ad will work effectively before using Google Ads. As far as LinkedIn we recommend that you spend time building connections and participating in Groups. Until LinkedIn takes their platform seriously they are just not a realistic option at this time.

If you haven’t already read out article on Getting Your First 100k Visitors then we recommend that you do as we discuss how to break up your ad budget and on what platforms we use.

Now What?

Google Small Business is designed to help business owners effectively dominate local online marketing. Think locally, act globally. Effective marketing starts with your message and ends with your clients having their problem solved and their needs taken care of.

When you are ready to take advantage of all the different marketing solutions Google Small Business provides please contact us at Google Small Business or call us at +1 (516) 305-2266 to find out all the ways we can effectively market your business.