Greetings,
If you want to attend Wednesday's workshop on how to time Facebook Ads so they show at specific times of day to specific types of people, sign up as a VIP/PRO for $20/Month or less at https://nancyfulton.gumroad.com/l/dUzqTK/VID0nly.
BONUS: You will get instant access to 120+ recorded workshops in our video library. Need to raise money from investors or banks? Want to convert your screenplay into a novel? Want to publish a book, perhaps so you can pre-market your film or documentary (and prove there's a market for it so it is easier to fund)? You get workshops for that.
ANOTHER BONUS: You can also email me questions about anything covered in a workshops, or ask for help climbing over stumbling blocks that have thrust themselves your way. If I don't have a workshop for a given topic, I usually know where you can get the info or support you need and will give you a link or ten via email.
Things About Facebook Ads that Will Drive You to Drink
Facebook ads frustrate everyone. So if you've experimented with them and thought "this is byzantine", rest assured that there are people who get paid thousands of dollars a day to run ads on the platform who totally agree.
Facebook is stressful because you can create many kinds of ads, and they all have many options. You can target ads in a huge number of ways (by keywords, by age, by location, by whether or not the people you are targeting are on your mailing list, by whether they are like people on your mailing list, by the time of day they are on Facebook or Instagram or another website), and the ads can appear lots of places (facebook, instagram, websites all over the internet), and you can decide where they appear if you want. Facebook is a frustrating platform because you can do a lot of kinds of ads with it.
Facebook adds and subtracts features all the time. For example, you used to be able to use "tracking pixels" to show people your ad as they moved from site to site on the internet. You still can, but Apple made that a lot harder. The EU implemented a bunch of privacy regulations that had a big impact on tracking as well. Tracking was a great way to sell stuff. About the 50th time someone saw your ad, they really thought about buying it :) Something you count on for sales may go away.
Also, you have get used to the Facebook Ad UI changing frequently. After a while you do get used to it because most of the changes make sense. And they do have a help system which is pretty in-depth that they keep up to date. Facebook is always trying to make their ad platform more coherent and easier to use, but sometimes you wish they would just stop . . .
Finally, a lot of the "magic" is their invisible AI. Given time it figures out who is most likely to click on your ads and shows it to that kind of person more often. Actually, it's really more "machine learning" than "artificial intelligence", which is to say the platform is not super intelligent, but it does learn over time. If you don't let the ads run, they never really get optimized to give you the best clicks at the lowest price. You may start out paying $0.50 for clicks and end up paying $.05 for clicks.
There are two key things I think you should know.
First, you want to give your ads to the kind of people who actually buy what you sell or who will actually sign up for your emails. So you want to see clicks on your ads, and after that you want to some other more meaningful payoff. Ads that just get clicks prove you can interest people . . . but that doesn't mean they do you any good. You might first start running ads to see if you can get clicks . . . but you need to move on to the second part after that.
Second, small dollar budgets ($60/month or $120/month) work better than big budgets paid out in a few days ($60/week). Because you have to give the AI enough time to figure out who to show the ad to. You give it a starting point with demographics (Female, 18-25, in UK, US, Canada) and interest (Orlando Bloom, Lord of the Rings, Sorceror's Stone) and time of day (Thurs-Sunday 3pm-7pm). But it learns more overtime and the cost of the clicks will fall.
When you figure out what works, you can often kind of turn it on and leave it running until it stops working. Which it will, sooner or later . . .
The thing is, your audience is your audience. If you can spend a few weeks or months figuring out how to get them through Facebook, you'll be able to figure out how to get to them from here on out. And if you can find them on Facebook, you might well be able to find them on Youtube, and maybe even on TikTok (although that is a crazy data-mining platform the FCC is already trying to get Apple and Google to ban).
Being able to find your audience through ads is a huge thing because from then on, you can make money from your work. So it is kind of worth the hassle . . .
Not that ads are the only way to find an audience. You'll find lots of ways covered in the video library. But ads have the distinction of being kind of fast, easy, and cheap if you get them right.
In Wednesday's workshop ,you'll master Facebook advertising skills. We'll talk about targeting by age, gender, similar products, and time of day, etc. We'll talk about what to spend, and the easiest/cheapest tools you can use for giving your work away (and selling it). You can sign up for this workshop by becoming a VIP/PRO at https://nancyfulton.gumroad.com/l/dUzqTK/VID0nly
If you hate memberships, you can buy videos I've done on social media marketing for $5 or so each at https://nancyfultonmeetups.uscreen.io/categories/marketing-pr but you'll spend less money and get a lot more if you just become a VIP/PRO for $20/month.
Best Wishes,
Nancy Fulton
PS: If you are a VIP/PRO you'll get your link sent to you twice Wednesday. Keep your eyes open for emails with VIP/PRO in the title at 10am and 6pm. Remember, the event will be recorded and added to the video library, so it is okay if you cannot attend live.