Working From The Basement

Sorry for the month long absence folks, but I’ve been working on a few things and trying to catch up with some other projects.  Anyway for those of you that know me I’ve had this side thing going on for awhile now where I got out and listen to local music on the weekends.  Well a few weeks ago while I’d been working on the website (which isn’t finished), I decided to promote my fan page on Facebook.  Initially I had convinced 4 of my friends to join but hadn’t posted anything, but with about 50 videos up on YouTube I finally had something for people to see.

Initially I sent invites out to about 100 people that are my friends this generated about 50 people signing up within a day or two.  Well I wasn’t exactly happy about that number, but eventually it organically grew to about 100 fans.  Considering I have slightly more than 150 friends on Facebook that’s not a bad number, but I really wanted to see if there was any interest in what I was trying to accomplish.  So I decided to take the plunge and set aside some money for a Facebook advertisement.

Well I am a newbie at this but Facebook has a really easy system for creating an ad, especially for Fan Pages.  I am not going to go into detail on how to do this part because it is really simple and Facebook has some great help documents on how to do it.  The biggest decision I had to make was in the pricing section either Pay per 1000 Impression (CPM) or Pay per Click (CPC).  Based on Facebook’s advice I went with CPC which means you only pay when somebody clicks on your Ad.  I targeted my Ad with the criteria listed in the image below, which gave me a pool of around 175,000 people.  Wow really, that’s a lot of people to reach, what’s the circulation of a typical daily paper?  No wonder the paper’s are losing advertising revenue, and remember these are targeted.

So after about a week and a half of playing with the daily maximum that I was willing to spend, along with the cost per click out of 175,000 people, 77 people clicked on the Ad and 42 people signed up for a total cost of $54.99.  The Ad actually was displayed over 175,000 times but that is irrelevant because I choose CPC, it would only have been a factor if I had chosen CPM. 

So here in a nutshell is what I learned:

• It was in my mind over 50% effective in getting people to become a fan when they clicked on the link.  This was with hardly any effort in producing the Ad, I took my logo and mission statement and did a cut and paste.
• Fan Pages have a viral quality, since the people who joined the Fan Page also had friends with similar interest for each person that became a fan other’s joined. This is because the newsfeed now posts when somebody joins a Facebook Group or Fan Page.
• I wasn’t selling anything so your results may vary if you are promoting a product or service.
• People on Facebook don’t click on the Ads very much, but this is irrelevant if you select CPC.
•  Know your target demographics bid as close to the suggested maximum and keep an eye on it; reduce it when you don’t think people will be into what you have to offer.  I increased my bidding in the afternoon, because if you’re into local bands and have been out I doubt you’re going to be up early.
• I now have the confidence to go through with the project, based on the feedback and people I have met through the Fan Page.

So the inevitable question becomes will I continue promoting the Ad and I have mixed emotions on this one.  While I want to promote the community the final website isn’t up so is it worth paying a $100/month, I’m not sure.  Once the website is up, yes I would use Facebook advertising to drive traffic to the Fan Page, then ultimately to my website.

Anyway I hope everyone is having a great year so far and check out my Local Band Review Fan Page and the Local Band Review YouTube Channel.  Also make sure to go see some of our hard working local talented bands most of them work  for little money and they put on a great show.  Technically all band members work from the basement or at least the garage.

WFTB
Michael Lawson