Facebook Ads Seem to Not Work

I've been using Facebook ads for sometime now. That Boost Post button is quite the temptation. It’s cheap, it’s easy and most of all it’s addictive. If you are not familiar with it it’s just button that turns a Facebook Page Post into an ad. You click it and a popup asks for some money and some targeting and then you are up and running. Reporting is live and it shows you all kinds of statistics: how many people saw the post, how many clicked on it etc.

Thing is it seems to me that you must have a great product for it to work. Reading this NY Times article I can’t help but think that no product or service can appeal to everyone. It’s just fact. By definition of product(or service) design you make decisions about features that are going to displease some people. Trying your best to keep the target audience as wide as possible is a challenge an it sometimes eludes people of how they can sabotage their own product. The incomplete nature, the design, the color it can be anything…some things are not going to appeal to somebody.

The power of social networks is that everyone has a voice(some have louder ones). Anyone of the people who doesn't like it is going to express himself and the network effect takes it from there. His friends see the post, his friends of friends see the post and before you know it your not-so-perfect product gets negative publicity. They say all publicity is good but I have found that if you are a small company that wants to spend little time to say something and not deal with it afterwards, then negative publicity is kind of a hassle…

These beautiful TV ads by Apple and Disney show the power of TV. TV has no comments and viewers just watch the short trailer or change the channel if they hate it. Even if they go on twitter and rant about their annoyance they get out of their way to do it and they instantly seem like loosers with too much time on their hands. TV is great for that but it’s too expensive for a small company.

So if you are small and decide to advertise go for a Facebook ad but don’t do it lightheartedly. Plan. Spend time to think about the points you want to emphasize and spend more time keeping up with the waves of engagement. Be short and try to be emotional(this seems to work). As long as Facebook doesn't enhance it’s advertising tools I think social advertising is too much a time waster for anyone.