Facebook has done it again. They’re adding new features so fast it’s starting to become difficult to keep up. What is the latest and greatest from Facebook you ask? Get ready because the two new ad types they rolled out, simply put are - “bad ass”. Each time Facebook updates its advertising they make Google advertising look plain old boring and less effective.
When you log into Facebook advertising, right away you will notice a couple of changes. Now you have an option to choose the type of ad you want. Your choices are “Sponsored Stories” and “Facebook Ads”. The first option “Sponsored Stories” is new. “Facebook Ads”, the second option, is the original ad choice.
“Sponsored Stories” compared to your typical “Facebook Ads” will give you distribution for the News Feed stories published about your Page, Place or App, as well as fans who like your page. You can choose from two different types of Sponsored Stories.
The first type is called “Page Like Story”. When people Like your Page, their friends see a story about it. This is an effective tactic to promote fan building. The below highlight of the ad shows my friends that I Liked the page; there is nothing better than getting a recommendation from a friend.
The second type of ad is called “Page Post Story”. When you post an update to your Page, your fans see a story about it. This is a great way to advertise a new product or promotion. The average Facebook user has almost 200 friends and this does not even count all the pages they “Like”. If you are a brand posting a new advertisement on your wall, it’s very likely to be missed on your fans’ walls. There simply is too much information being posted on their walls.
For an example, I created a status update that reads, “This is a status update to show the new ad type,” to illustrate how it would appear on this type of ad. The only drawback is when you make the next status update it will change the ad as you cannot specify one status update to always be shown.
Have fun using the new ad types in your campaigns. Let me know how successful they are for you. I will be doing a follow-up post once I have some measurable data of how successful the campaigns are. In the meantime, hold on because I have a feeling Facebook will be releasing many new advertising features in the very near future.
