I conducted a webinar for the Professional Beauty Association on Facebook for Business.  I’ve done variations of this presentation before, but conducting them in-person is very different than online. Speakers usually take their cues from the audience but when you don’t get to see your audience, you’re on your own (and hoping that your jokes are actually funny).

The session was attended by 180 people or so, all owners and managers of salons across the country.  The moderator did a great job of keeping the conversation going and asking some good questions throughout.

After sharing  some initial thoughts about social media (it is here to stay, tools will just change) and talking about the importance of being there (customers expect it), we got into the specifics of the talk….how businesses can use Facebook to promote their business.  Here are the topline discussion points:

 Successful Fan Pages

• Create content that generates participation and engagement
• Have a voice/personality
• Use photos
• Use video
• Link to “traditional” media placements

 Grow your audience on Facebook – utilize your existing resources

• Website
• Business Cards/Promotional Materials
• Advertising
• Friends/Family
• Email
• Networks

Grow your audience on Facebook – additional resources

• Fan other sites
• Sponsored Stories
• Page Post Ads
• Promoted Posts
• Marketplace Ads

We spent the majority of the time talking about the pay-to-play tools that Facebook has introduced:

Sponsored Stories

• Built around user activity
• Pay to highlight an action that users have already taken and is shown in the sidebar or newsfeed
• Cannot be used to reach an audience not already connected to your page
• Can be stories when user shares links from your domain

Page Post Ads

• Ads that begin as posts on a fan page but get additional paid distribution among fans or non-fans within the newsfeed or side bar
• Links, photos, videos offers, events, questions or status updates
•  Anyone can see, even if not connected to your fan page

Promoted Posts

• Posts that get additional paid reach in newsfeed among fans and friends of fans.
• Reach more of your existing fan page and their friends
• Gets content seen but does not generally result in new likes
• Seen in newsfeed on both desktop and mobile

Marketplace Ads

• Desktop sidebar advertisements
• Includes headline, body copy and image
• Lead to a Facebook page or website
• PPC – you designate the dollar amount and budget

In preparation for the talk, I posted a question on Facebook asking what people thought about sponsored and promoted posts and if they ever clicked through.  Of those that responded, almost all of them were leery of clicking, mostly because we’ve been taught that those types of posts could be spam.  And since there are quite a few spammers out there, I didn’t disagree with that thinking.

Interesting though, the business owners that responded told me that they get why their potential customers may not want to click, but sponsored and promoted posts still get the message into the feeds and serve a valuable purpose of name awareness and recognition.  Sure, the user may not get to the offer or other promotion, but that isn’t the main point, according to those that responded.

We all know Facebook will continue to evolve and change so who knows what will we’ll see next in our feed.  But tell me, what do you think about the sponsored/promoted posts?  Click, don’t click, don’t care?