Social Media Marketing
What You Need to Know about Facebook Advertising in Singapore
Praise Sim, Copywriter, GENIA
29 July 2020
Facebook Advertising in Singapore
If you’re on Facebook in Singapore or anywhere else in the world, you’ve probably fallen prey to one of their many ads you come across every single day. Facebook Advertising is one of the most sophisticated methods of advertising due to its talented algorithms that fish out the most relevant content for their audiences. They have long gone from simply a social media network for you to communicate with friends and relatives to a multi-billion dollar parent company of many of the social media you use every day –– yes, including Instagram and WhatsApp.
Hence, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Facebook is the number one social platform for both marketers and consumers alike.
But what does that mean for you and me? It simply means that 1) Facebook has an unparalleled capacity to observe your shopping habits, identify trends in interest and offer you the content that’ll keep you coming back. 2) Facebook user network is probably the biggest one there is, given their 2.6 billion monthly users from just Facebook alone (excluding additional users from WhatsApp/Instagram)
However, despite a wave of popularity in Facebook advertising, few make a fortune out of it. The success of any campaign largely depends on the engagement it generates with each promotion. And to attain great engagement, your ads have to be displayed to the right audience. This is why the Facebook algorithm is the most important thing to understand, adapt and ultimately work to your advantage.
What is the Facebook algorithm? And how does it affect me? The Facebook algorithm determines the order and presentation of posts, such that users see what is most relevant to them. The algorithm currently ranks the posts and ads seen by each user in an order that they’re likely to enjoy them based on the ranking signals. “Ranking signals are data points about a user’s past behaviour, and the behaviour of everyone else on the platform, too.”
Facebook mentions 3 major categories of ranking signals:
1. Who a user typically interacts with
If a user has previously engaged with your page, your ads or posts are more likely to be ranked well. Engagement can be as simple as liking, sharing or commenting on your posts. This engagement from your audience helps the algorithm recognise and accord value to your page, working in favour for your future promotions.
2. The type of media in the post (eg., video, link, photo, etc.)
The rising popularity of video marketing does not come without a reason. Video Ads are not only easy to share around social media platforms, but they are also versatile, interactive and ultimately generate a huge return on investment (ROI) through many channels –– Facebook is no exception.
In fact, 81% of businesses are now using video for marketing. And according to HubSpot, the ideal length of videos for each social media platform is:
Instagram: 30 seconds
Twitter: 45 seconds
Facebook: 1 minute
YouTube: 2 minutes
3. The popularity of the post
It shouldn’t be a surprise that you organically popular posts are going to fare better when paid for. The interactions and engagement with the post signal to Facebook that your content is well-received. In fact, when working with a limited budget, many businesses adopt the strategy of boosting only their best performing posts to improve visibility while driving more engagement for their popular content.
With all being said, how much do Facebook Ads cost?
Much like Google Advertising, Facebook Advertising follows an auction-based bidding process. That being said, there isn’t a straightforward answer to the cost of Facebook Ads and there will always be changes in cost that you won’t be able to control.
Facebook Advertising Costs: What you should know
Setting your bids. When you create a campaign you can set and adjust your bids from the pricing and bidding section. If you choose not to set a bid, Facebook will automatically select a bid according to the budget and duration you set for each ad.
Competition. As the name ‘auction’ suggests, your bids placed will be pitted against every other advertiser on the same platform –– making a good bidding strategy imperative in ensuring that your ads deliver.
Timing. When you choose to run your ads, from the month of the year to a specific hour of the day, can and will affect the cost of your ads. You can expect costs to go up during the peak periods due to greater competition over limited placement.
Placement. Mobile feed? In-steam videos? The ad placements you choose will incur you different costs, competitive placements typically cost more. According to AdEspresso, where you place your ads can change the click-through rates (CTRs) by as much as 400%. Instagram Story placements are popular as they allow greater discoverability of your posts to non-followers and also allow you to incorporate general and local hashtags to increase the chances that your ads are found.
Advertising with Facebook: Support your organic wins with paid ads
Facebook can be a strong source of insight into many of your followers’ demographics, interests and behaviours. If you’ve been on Facebook long enough, you’d realise that the network is essentially “pay to play”. But that doesn’t render organic growth ineffective. In fact, it is impossible for a business to flourish with a paid strategy without having a solid organic strategy. Paid advertising should be seen as a complement to the success achieved organically.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “Whether your purpose is to grow your audience, create loyal social media followers or favourable actions from highly targeted audiences, combining paid and organic tactics for social media and SEO will get results.”
Two popular ways to boost organic posts is through sponsored (or boosted) posts or Facebook Ads. The option of boosting your posts is an effective “quick fix” to blast out your content to your target audience. In fact, you don’t even have to enter the Facebook Ads Manager to create sponsored post content. Facebook will often prompt you to boost a certain post in order to gain greater visibility and better engagement with the post. If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, it can be further enhanced by setting up conversion pixels and running a website conversion ad.
The ad results of both boosted posts and promoted ads will both show up in your Facebook Ads Manager, allowing you to monitor ad performance and run more detailed reports.
With promoted ads, you can benefit from their advanced targeting, pricing and bidding options from the Ads Manager. It gives you greater autonomy and control over your pricing and targeting strategy, and it can essentially perform the functions of a boosted post. The sophisticated targeting capabilities make it easy for even small businesses to optimize their budget by reaching out to the most targeted audiences.
According to Facebook, to boost audience engagement and develop brand awareness, boosting posts is a good option to maximise visibility and grow your audience. However, for more advanced ad types and campaigns, using promoted posts with Ads Manager is more effective.
Sponsored Posts or Facebook Ads?
All in all, the decision whether to use sponsored posts or Facebook ads should ultimately depend on your company’s goals, budget, and overall digital marketing strategy. Needless to say, having a solid organic strategy will provide a strong foundation for any promotions be it sponsored or through ads. Regardless of the specifics of each campaign, Facebook Advertising can offer you the opportunity and platform to grow your business.
SEO and Social Media strategies go hand-in-hand
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is about gaining visibility on dominant search engines like Google, attracting organic traffic to your website. On the other hand, social media marketing focuses on leveraging social networks and displaying content to the right audience. The goal of both forms of marketing is to get your content across to the desired audience, which is why having a powerful SEO strategy can take your social media game to the next level. If you already have a strong social media presence, Google will pick up on that, making your SEO results all the more fruitful and impressive.
Here’s why.
Social media helps build authority. As you keep publishing popular content and gain more relevant backlinks, it will signal to Google that you are publishing content that is relevant to your audience. Social media has become one of the primary channels for distribution of content and leveraging this platform can have a huge impact on your website’s influence and authority.
Good social media strategy encourages branded searches. Branded searches are any queries through a search engine that includes the name of your company, business or brand. Posting good quality content regularly and engaging with your follower base will help your audience to better recognise your brand and the product or service that you provide. When more people become aware of your product or service, and look for your company specifically it demonstrates intent on their part and they are much less likely to bounce or click away from your website.
There are many other ways social media and SEO complement each other. Social media allows you to get to know your audience and hence create more targeted content while SEO research helps you to understand what your target audience wants to read. The bottom line is, a good understanding of both social media and SEO will help your business to perform even better on both channels.
