Today, I went to Facebook’s Boost Your Business event that was held in Downtown Tampa and hosted by a group who supports women in business. The event was pretty much a guide how to effectively use Facebook and Instagram for your business. I attended one a few years ago and have been looking for another one since then. I was ecstatic when I saw it on Facebook that it was coming back again. I went ahead, registered, and with an added bonus, it was FREE!!!

The presentation that was put on had a lot of information people could use and apply to their business profile pages on Facebook and Instagram. While the presentation included features I already knew, there were additional features that were new to me and I was very eager to learn, research, and apply them on my client’s pages and my own.

Let’s start off with what I already know: Insights, Ads, and targeting audience by various interests. Insights is a tab on a business profile where it gives all the details of how the page is performing such as likes, post reaches, and engagements. It also gives detailed information about people who are drawn to the page by their gender, age group, and geographical locations. The Ads Manager is where the magic happens when producing and managing ad campaigns on Facebook. Many probably know by now that you can produce ads and target your audience by interests, hobbies, locations, and their backgrounds. This feature is useful when you are trying to promote a product to a specific group of people by their likes, locations, and other interests.

Now onto the new features I have learned. On several occasions and presentations, I have mentioned how various apps, programs, and websites are linked with each other to target ads to users based off their internet usage on various sites. As a business owner who has a website, this is possible by adding Facebook Pixel onto your website. When someone visits, Pixel sees how the user accessed a company’s site either by desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or other mobile devices and what they searched, or the time spent looking at a product or service. With that information, the business can then produce targeted ads geared towards that user’s interest when they’re on Facebook. Is that creepy or cool? If you are the user it may be creepy, but you may not realize what is happening until it is explained. However, if you are the business owner of the website the user visited, not only do you have a potential customer who will buy from you, but your targeted ad will attract other prospects with similar interests to your site as well.

Running ad campaigns can be daunting if you do not know what you are doing. However, using Facebook’s Ad Manager does not seem that bad once you know the basics. As I mentioned above, you can target individuals using various targeting features. But what about creating the ad itself? Did you know you can produce high quality videos and pictures with little effort and at low cost? There are various creative tools available people can use when producing ad campaigns for Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites. We were shown a video of a product someone was selling in which the video appeared to have been made in a studio using expensive video production equipment. In reality, all it took was a cell phone, a mini tripod, and a foam board which was covered in plastic to look like a white granite countertop. The cost of materials to make the video? Under $40!!! You do not need expensive equipment, nor do you need to have knowledge in video productions. All you need is a bit of creativity and a free app or two to help you become creative.

The presentation wrapped up with a panel discussion involving 3 local women owned business owners who provided their perspective on how utilizing various features on Facebook helped generate growth for their businesses with time to spare for some preselected Q & A. The most popular discussion was how much does it take to run ads on Facebook and/or Instagram. The answer? It’s really up to the business owner. Most of the work takes time to see actual results and patience is key. The ad campaign budget can start as low as $10 a day up to hundreds of dollars a month. However, it really depends on the business owner and what they want to get out of their ads. It’s good to know that the possibilities are endless whichever route one takes.

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