3 reasons why you should invest in Facebook Ads

to promote your brand page

And this is not an advertising note :-) Rather, I like to describe my own experience with this paid solution, comparing to free marketing strategies I have been using on Facebook.

Over the last years, Facebook has updated more than once its layout and many of its features, including the famous facebook pages basically made to promote business and media.

As any beginner, willing to recruit free fans on this growing network, I have been trying to take advantage on every feature, like sharing my page on my connections walls, and obviously, inviting them to join my page, asking them to invite their friends, etc.

Unfortunately, this function has been disabled for a while, in the start of this year, then it was restored but can be only used by admin, after that all facebook pages have been updated their layout.

Worse, invites are nor more visible as notifications, you may invite as much friends as you have, but your page is still striving to get new fans.
I finally realized that there is no durable and efficient solution, it’s time to give my money and to try professional paid solution. And I have been by far satisfied. Here are some great opportunities to optimize your marketing plan thourgh Facebook Ads :

You surprise your prospects

It’s even possible to wish happy birthday to your prospects by sending promotional offer to them. In fact, you can choose to only target people whose birthday is coming shortly, and you can imagine how much they would be amazed to see your offer.




You fit their interests

The more specific is your ad, the more informative it will be. Though, you need to target the right people, who would be the most concerned. Referring to the previous step “Interest > Broad Category”, you can specify the ideal profile of your prospects from a wide range of interests including their preferred activities and mobile phones, etc.


Word-to-mouth

In real, your are more likely to trust a product your friend has been using. It goes the same in the virtual world. Through sponsored stories, you can create an efficient buzz. Only friends of your page fans will see your advertisement which they can “like” without leaving their current page.




You will be given an estimate number of targeted people accordingly to your targeting options. It’s just professional, and it won’t never be substitued by any genius marketing plan you “tinker”. By using paid Facebook Ads, you can be sure to take full advantage of the wide network and detailed information Facebook collected about users.


At any time, you can simulate your marketing plan using Facebook Ads without obligation to pay or to give your billing information. Just check in this link : www.facebook.com/ads/create/

Read it later ! An improved bookmarking solution

While browsing the web, you are continuously exposed to great discoveries and interesting articles you did not suspect.. But you are in office, you are busy, or in hurry… so you like to read such article or revisit such website to sign up, etc.

Read It Later is basically a bookmarking solution. First time I used it, I wondered how it can be different from default bookmarking feature of browsers. Though, I have been sincerely fascinated by the large enhancements brought to this tool, and this is my review:


Advantage #1 : Tag your bookmarks and easily retrieve them !

Read It Later is definitely one of the most intuitive and efficient solutions to help you to bookmark huge number of pages dealing with different topics, in an intelligent way.
Read It Later stores your bookmarks and displays them on your browser, you need only one click to check them ! You need once more click to list your bookmarks related to a given topic - tag - you have previously set.


Advantage #2 : Read It… Everywhere !

You just need to sign up for an account, to bring your bookmarks everywhere : at Home, in your Office, during a travel, thanks to the multitude of platforms supported by Read It Later : browsers, mobile applications, …

Moreover, using your Android application for example, your bookmarks will be automatically downloaded so that you can check them when you lose connection ! Synchronization feature works without troubles.
Whatever is your devise or your preferred browser, you can find here the appropriate version of Read It Later. Take full advantage of your browsing experience, now !

You, and only you, are responsible for your own privacy

Privacy concerns are among the most sensitive criteria to trust such and such website or social network. With no doubt, websites are asked to not abuse your personal data, and to ensure your privacy by giving you options and settings to control who can search for you (e.g. on Facebook). Don’t hesitate to regularly check latest updates of privacy settings , to fully take advantage on them.

Linking profiles together, good idea ?

In order to make it easy to connect and to update your fans/friends on different networks, you can find it useful to connect your facebook wall to your twitter profile, for instance. That’s great. Let us, however, imagine this situation : you are networking for new books on your Scribd profile, which is linked to your Twitter. Your friends will know instantly what are you reading, whatever is the book. Are you ready to get your beliefs and private interests public ?

Shall we cluster our contacts as far as possible (e.g. using Facebook Lists), to prevent such situations ? Unfortunately, not every social website has advanced privacy settings.

We have different faces

Shall we have multiple accounts ? Shall I switch to my second “private” Scribd profile, to read “private” books? Or shall we simply unlink our Scribd profile (in this case) with global networks where expose our life to our families, friends, colleagues, and may be fans ?

This is a big issue, in my opinion, perfection can’t be reached shortly, meanwhile, I believe that more than one has… two (or more) profiles, in the world wide web. How many ?