Facebook is an extremely powerful platform that can be used for online marketing and ultimately increasing brand awareness. With over 1.9 billion active monthly users, Facebook provides unrivalled access to a wide and varied audience (Zarrella and Zarrella, 2010). Companies have identified this and are utilising the social platform for various marketing efforts such as increasing brand engagement and brand awareness amongst prospective customers (Goldfarb, 2010).

In order to reap the potential benefits of Facebook, it’s crucial to understand what’s effective in regards to building awareness for a brand (Alba et al., 2013). With this in mind, a few useful methods have been suggested below.

 

Create a Facebook page

Creating a Facebook page should be one of the first steps taken in attempting to build brand awareness. A brand page that users can refer to is key for developing a significant online presence. Indeed, through the creation of a brand page, strong online communities consisting of brand followers can be formed (Rao, 2016). It’s therefore important to make the page interesting by posting engaging content that users can interact with and share.

 

 

For help creating a Facebook page for business, simply click here.

 

Communicate with the audience

One of the most attractive aspects of social platforms is that they help to facilitate direct communication between companies and social media users. Through Facebook, companies can engage and discuss with their customers and prospective customers about issues that are important to them, thus building more meaningful relationships (Kubacki, 2015). Customers feel valued if companies listen and interact with them, making them more likely to give positive reviews and make recommendation to others, which would eventually spread through word of mouth (Vreedenburgh, 2013). Thus, brands should look to communicate with customers as openly and often as possible.

 

Video ads

Videos are becoming an increasingly popular medium for marketers to promote their messages and  products to users. According to Steers (2013), videos have been found to be the most engaging form of content compared to text and images. Thus, it can be said that video ads represent a good opportunity for brand promotion.

Facebook offers its own native video that allows companies to upload videos directly to the platform so that they appear on users’ news feeds. Facebook have highlighted that users are highly interested in native videos and that they are actively engaging with this type of content (Gingerich, 2014). Interestingly, a study by CMO.com found that native online video ads can reportedly incite an 82% brand lift among users (Abramovich, 2013).

Here’s an example from IKEA of how video can be used effectively to get a message across without directly selling a product.

 

 

Designing a kitchen using the metaphor of cooking a recipe is an extremely creative concept and excels at engaging the viewer.

For ideas on how to create an effective video ad, simply click here.

 

Content marketing

Content marketing is a popular concept as it helps build brand awareness whilst encouraging social media users to share a brand’s content around their online communities, essentially taking care of a lot of the marketing effort. Content marketing pertains to the creation of content that’s original, appealing and eminently shareable without being explicitly promotional (Kuenn and Kuenn, 2015). Compelling content marketing can increase brand exposure as users will often share and discuss interesting content with other Facebook users, eventually spreading the content to a larger audience (Pulizzi, 2014), making it an effective brand awareness tool.

 

This example of content marketing from Airbnb is effective in the way that it promotes the brand by providing helpful neighbourhood guides, subsequently encouraging viewers to travel and use the service.

Facebook advertising

Facebook advertising is an effective method for building brand awareness as it’s features allow for companies to target users who fit their target market with precise ad campaigns (Carter, 2013). Facebook ads can also be created with specific objectives in mind, for example a campaign can be designed that focuses on building brand awareness amongst prospective customers. While one of the major selling points of advertising on Facebook is that it’s free, paid advertisements that are promoted by the platform are an especially useful feature for brands as they have a higher chance of engagement (Turban, Strauss and Lai, 2015).

It should be noted that it can be quite difficult obtaining ad recognition as increasing competition means the Facebook news feed is littered with brands’ ads (Curran, Graham and Temple, 2011). Therefore, it’s imperative for an ad design to stand out in order to grab a user’s attention as they scroll through their home feed.

 

This ad created by Slack demonstrates a good example of an effective Facebook ad as it immediately grabs the viewer’s attention through the use of colourful imagery. The illustration of ‘What it feels like to sit in 25% fewer meetings’ appeals to a wide audience as a lot of people around the world don’t enjoy having to go to meetings. The ad also displays minimal text providing viewers with a sense of clarity, while ‘Like Page’ and ‘Learn More’ represent two clear call to actions, encouraging viewers to engage with the ad.

For some more examples of effective Facebook ads, simply click below.

https://adespresso.com/academy/blog/15-inspiring-facebook-ad-campaigns-beloved-brands/

 

 

 

 

 

Abramovich, G. (2013). 15 Mind-Blowing Stats About Online Video Advertising. [online] Available at: http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2013/8/27/video_15_mind_blowing.html#gs.I1J_oEM [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Alba, J., Stay, J., Melia, R., Smith, M. and Stelzner, M. (2013). I’m on Facebook–now what???. Cupertino, Calif.: HappyAbout.

Carter, B. (2013) The like economy: How businesses make money with Facebook. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Que Corporation, US.

Curran, K., Graham, S. and Temple, C. (2011). Advertising on Facebook. International Journal of E-Business Development, [online] 1(1), pp.26-33. Available at: http://scisweb.ulster.ac.uk/~kevin/ijed-facebook.pdf [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Gingerich, M. (2014). How To Use Facebook Ads to Promote Your Blog Content : Social Media Examiner. [online] Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-ads-to-promote-your-blog-content/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Goldfarb, S. (2010). Facebook for Business – How To Market Your Business on Facebook and Get More Sales, New Customers and Brand Awareness. 1st ed. Tradimax.

Kubacki, K. (2015). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old. 1st ed. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Kuenn, A. and Kuenn, B. (2015). Content marketing works. 1st ed. Vertical Measures.

Pulizzi, J. (2014). Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less. 1st ed. McGraw-Hill.

Rao, N. (2016). Social Media Listening and Monitoring for Business Applications. 1st ed. IGI Global.

Steers, N. (2013). Online videos more engaging than text, study finds. [online] Available at: http://www.mycustomer.com/marketing/technology/online-videos-more-engaging-than-text-study-finds [Accessed 29 Apr. 2017].

Turban, E., Strauss, J. and Lai, L. (2015). Social Commerce: Marketing, Technology and Management. 1st ed. Springer.

Vreedenburgh, B. (2013). The 12 Labours of Social Media: A Guide for Small Business Owners. BookBaby.