Facebook Ads are an excellent way to boost your web marketing.
More than other online paid advertising, Facebook Ads are targeted and personal. Wedding and portrait photography is as personal as it gets. Add on top of that people’s love for sharing their lives online and you have a great way to gain brand exposure and promote your business.
As a wedding photographer, when targeting a Facebook ad, it’s important to specify your audience: Country, State, City, Age range, Gender, Likes and Interests, Connections, Birthdays, Relationship status (yes, you can target only ‘engaged’ couples), Education, Workplaces and more. With this level of specificity, you can see why its so powerful. You want engaged couples in New York between 25-35 with college degrees and an interest in fashion? Go for it, you decide who see’s your ad.
How To Create Your Next Facebook Ad
Facebook makes its money on Ads, so they do their best to make it easy for you to create and manage one or multiple ads on your Facebook admin page. Once logged in, go to http://www.facebook.com/ads and click the big, green “Create an Ad” button.
1) Choose the destination URL address (usually your FB page or website)
2) Create a 25 character title
3) Create a 135 character description
4) Upload a 110 x 80 jpg image
5) Target your ad and decide what profiles it should show up on
6) Decide your campaign name and your max daily or lifetime budget
7) Choose the start and end date of your campaign schedule
You will have the option to review your ad before your place your order and comeback to your main dashboard to view and measure the results of your ad clicks and impressions (or views).
Tips & Tricks
There are a few things that we’ve found to be most beneficial when creating ads for our business.
- In the past, Facebook ads were really geared more toward brand awareness rather than driving clicks. That’s changing rapidly however, we still believe that choosing ‘Pay For Clicks (CPC)’ vs. ‘Pay For Impressions (CPM)’ is a more economical way to utilize Facebook ads.
- There’s typically more traction when we direct clicks to our Facebook page vs our website. People who are comfortable on FB want to stay on FB. And frankly, we sometimes book directly from FB, so it’s imperative to have an ever-growing presence there.
- Pay very particular attention to your title. Your title makes or breaks people’s interest within a split second, so make it good. Also, use a dynamic image (tough to do in such an itty bitty space) and leave the description with a call to action statement.
- We’ve found that more than brand awareness, small, event specific ads get more attention and traction. So, if you’re hosting a Valentine’s Day/holiday/prom/bellies and babies mini-session just for a particular day – Facebook ads are great.
Facebook ads are economical (typically), personal, and measurable. And, can be a great tool for your business. So, try creating a Facebook Ad for a month and see what it does!
(This just showed up on our business page, how appropriately targeted! Special thanks to Lensbaby for using your ad as an example!)
Written by Wendy Roe
Wendy Roe has spent the last 10 years ingrained in all things web marketing – from design/development to search/social media. In May 2010, she decided to quit the corporate life and join forces with her husband, Byron Roe, to shoot full-time one of life’s ultimate highs – weddings. She now focuses on business development and being a second shooter for Bend, Oregon based wedding photographers, Byron Roe Photography.
Recently, she’s enjoyed speaking at WPPI Photographer’s Ignite and to west coast PUG groups consulting photographers on web marketing. She’s known as an interpreter, changing technical language into easy information. Above all, she’s an educator at heart and believes: “Web marketing and wedding photography are two passions that drive bringing the best out beauty and brands.”