The Advantages and Disadvantages Of Facebook Advertising

Written by Michael Bass

Are you a daily Facebook user? I am, and I see business ads GALORE! I can’t tell you how many ads I see in less than an hour much less in 5 minutes. Do you want to market using Facebook like other businesses do? Facebook advertising has its advantages and its disadvantages. There are more than 500 million users on Facebook and some use it for games and chatting with their friends while others use it to raise awareness, to share the latest big news and to promote their business. It can be a great marketing tool, but Facebook has its marketing downfalls as well. Let’s take some time and look at the advantages of Facebook marketing.

Businesses’ can have a Facebook page (commonly known as a Fan Page):

Creating a business page is easy and after you have it up and running anyone can “like” the page and your page posts will appear in your newsfeed. Once somebody shares one of your posts all their friends can see it and then they might be interested and click on the post and so on and so forth resulting in a snowball effect.

Advertising:
Create Facebook ads to reach consumers of different ages and geographical regions, of various education and income level and even of different characteristics. Facebook offers customizable ad formats that are easy so you can attract more people and to achieve your goal.
Facebook only allows you to provide ads in specific areas such as a zip code or a town. This is a great advantage for owners of local businesses.

Potential reach:
Another advantage is that Facebook allows you to see your potential ad views.

Control:
It is very easy for one post or comment to be harmful to your business. Someone can post bad comments that can damage your fan base and it’s time consuming to catch them before they hurt your business. There are approved content monitors but they are very costly and also time consuming for small business owners.

Maintaining a Facebook page can take up your time:
New useful content needs to be added on a daily basis for your followers. Your page needs to be continually updated in order to do any good and to be effective for your business.

Advertising costs:
Advertising using Facebook can become costly because your ads will cost money to circulate, which is a big disadvantage for small business owners with small budgets. Especially if customers are not properly targeted.

It’s hard to catch consumers’ eyes:
Most people pay little, to no, attention to the ads on Facebook because they are too caught up playing games and chatting with friends. You have to try EXTRA hard to make an eye-catching advertisement.

Have you decided to give Facebook advertising a try? If so, I hope this article has given you some good tips on the advantages and disadvantage of this specific type of marketing. Just keep in mind that when ever you use a brand new form of advertising, that you have never used before, mistakes will be made. Just keep your head held high and learn from your mistakes in order to master that form of marketing. Have you ever made any mistakes taking on a New type of Advertising? I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments section below. Have a wonderful day and stop by another time for some more useful tips and information.

Image References:

Featured image source: Oxlade, A. (Posted: February 12, 2013). 5 To send money on facebook with new app. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9864309/5-to-send-money-on-Facebook-with-new-app.html

Image source for Reaching hands: Lewis, M. (n.d.). New research shows companies not using social to reach full potential. Retrieved from http://www.socialnomics.net/2012/10/09/new-research-shows-companies-not-using-social-to-reach-full-potential/