Facebook ads

In short, is it worth it?

 

What do people think about it? Has anyone done it to promote their series?

Tags: ads, facebook, marketing

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Permalink Reply by Freebird on June 25, 2011 at 12:25pm
Sounds like very mixed results. I think I'll use the $50 I got from my web host and see how it goes.
Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on June 25, 2011 at 12:38pm
Freebird, Good call. I've been advertising WSN on Facebook for 2 years and don't see an end in sight because it's working out so well for us. However, you need at least a 3 month campaign to see true results. Also, Facebook sends you monthly activity analytics about your page. For WSN, 60% of our fans are active on our page. Not bad.
Permalink Reply by Joey of AIF Productions on February 4, 2012 at 10:56am

Currently half-way through a test run on Facebook ads and will list the pros and cons so far.  I will update a month or so after the ads have stopped running.

Pros

  • Pretty cheap as advertising goes.  They have a great, "auction style" to how the bids for ads go in.  You input keywords that relate to what you're advertising and how much you are willing to spend CPC or CPM.  Say you bid 50 cents per click and the next highest bid is 20 cents, you will only pay 21 cents.
  • Easy to set up.  I set up online ads for other businesses that I worked for, (I had no part in the creative influence of the ad I was just putting the information into the computer and uploading the image) and they can be fairly difficult, for first time advertisers, to do.
  • Extremely focused targeting.  Since Facebook is a social networking site, and people put everything about themselves on the website, you are reaching the exact people  you want to reach.
  • Instant results.  With in the first day I could see results from the advertisement

Cons

  • People don't seem to interact.  Despite trying to engage with my audience, no one seems to respond.  I have noticed that views on my web-series have taken an upswing, but it would be nice to interact with my audience.
  • Reports are kind of vague.  Maybe I am just too used to using google analytics, but it seems to me that the facebook reports are a little too vague.
  • The ad will run over the maximum budget you set.  This hasn't happened to me, since my ad is still running, but I saw it first hand (actually saw it with my eyes, not just heard about it) on a friends advertisement.  He set a max budget of 300 dollars for his T-shirt printing business.  One night he went to bed and it was at $295 spent, when he woke up the next day it was at $350 spent.  He ended up getting refunded the $50 dollars but it took a couple months of emailing facebook to get it.  This wasn't an isolated incident either.  Another friend of mine was running an advertisement with a max budget of $50 dollars and he had to manually shut the ad off at $51.40.

So far I would recommend facebook ads.  It seems to be a cheap way to increase your presence on Facebook.  My tips for you are to make sure you have good key words, and your bid it high enough to win the bidding auction.  You may not have a lot of money, but making an ad won't matter if your ad doesn't have the funding to get seen.

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on February 4, 2012 at 3:39pm
What's your monthly budget on Facebook and what are you paying for CPC?
Permalink Reply by Joey of AIF Productions on February 4, 2012 at 8:28pm

Right now we are doing a test run with it.  To see how well it does, and figure out were we want to go in the future.  I only have a $30 total budget set.  After that I am going to evaluate all the data and make a decision on how much to put into it for the next advertisement campaign.  I have given a max limit of 50 cents CPC, but the highest I have had to pay is 22 cents on a click.  My average cost per click is 16 cents.

Permalink Reply by Chad Ream on February 5, 2012 at 6:12am

IMO advertising on Facebook is currently the most affordable option in growing awareness of your brand.   Engaging the fans is important and seeing the number of followers grow is rewarding.  In the end producers are going to have to become serious about how they monetize their production with those fans. 

A very interesting topic that is the news as of recently is Facebook's IPO.  I encourage everyone to take look into this.  There are discussion on how FB, Google and some other social media outlets monetize members. (They have to pay their bills to).  Facebook has an upward battle ahead of them as they go public and in will raise some eyebrows on how the users will respond down the road.

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on February 6, 2012 at 8:59am

"In the end producers are going to have to become serious about how they monetize their production with those fans."

I monetize the WSN Facebook fan page by charging to post material on it. We have 18,000+ fans with a 47,000+ weekly total reach. Creators and advertisers have actually paid me to promote them on our fan page. LAWEBFEST has advertised with WSN. Anyone looking to increase visibility in the web series community can advertise with WSN. I preach growing your audience because there's always someone looking to get in front of that audience. You also have to be business-savvy too and know your metrics (which you'll need in dealing with advertising inquiries, etc).

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on February 6, 2012 at 8:33am

$30 monthly budget @ 16 cents a click (minimum) = 180 clicks per month roughly. You're essentially getting 6 clicks for every dollar spent. What is your goal here? Where are you directing those clicks? Your website or Fan page?

Permalink Reply by Joey of AIF Productions on February 6, 2012 at 2:47pm

currently they are being directed to our facebook fan page.  Right now we are just trying to spread awareness of our group, and get fans to talk to.  From what I have gathered so far people are more willing to engage on a platform they are already established on (their social network, or youtube) instead of signing up for a new website and posting there.  Right now we are looking for fans who will regularly check out our content, and talk about it.  Down the line, once we get some more funds for it, we are going to upgrade our website to make it more engaging (adding forums and stuff like that)

Permalink Reply by Rich Mbariket on February 6, 2012 at 8:01pm

Not a bad idea. :)

Permalink Reply by Baltimore Russell on March 26, 2012 at 2:31pm

This is really interesting information. While we aren't quite ready for FB ads yet, I think that we will take them on in a few weeks/months as we prepare to release the series. Thank you all for the invaluable information.

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