Any of you business owners doing it and have you seen any success with it?

Normally, I wouldn't use social media, but considering the demographics of our target clients I sort of have to in order to be seen. If you're using them, what advise are you willing to share?

I just started relatively inexpensive campaigns on both. I'm watching the analytics to see what results I get from the money spent.

I own a small marketing shop that helps small businesses.  My experience with Social Media marketing is that the success of a given campaign depends on a few key factors:

1)  Clearly defined goal of your campaign (What are you going for? LIkes? Sales? WEbsite visits?)
2)  Clearly defined demographics (who are your customers and where are they?) Which it sounds like you are doing.
3)  Targeting your marketing message to be inline with the 2 above
4)  Tracking metrics and making changes based off information and insights you glean


Good luck!

PS:  Success varies with social media...better to "Fail fast" on these types of campaigns if they don't work and move on to something else.  Marketing is like bug spray...the bugs build up immunity.

Really appreciate the insight.
I think I did well defining the campaign and clearly hitting the demographics. Although, I don't know what is considered success when advertising on these two platforms because I've never done it.

I am no expert on the matter, but can only speak of my personal experiences.
Success & fails

For frame of reference I am in my early 30's


1) Likes to your page do not equal sales
2) Likes to of your pictures do not equal sales
3) the time of day & day of the week, when you post and boost matter. to how many people will see it.
4) if you post a something to your page, only part of the people will see it. you have to pay for the rest.
5) Choose your targeting, are you advertising to world or to your area. this will be over on the left side when you click boost a add box.
6) photos work better than words.  When people are on Facebook they will look at a picture for a second, they will scroll right past just Text.
7) BECAREFULLL WHAT YOU POST ON YOUR PERSONAL PAGE, & IN GENERAL WHAT YOU POST ON SOCAIL MEDIA. THE SJW YOU WILL RUIN YOU BUINESS PAGE AND A_ROCK YOU INTO THE GROUND!!!!!!!


1) & 2) make you feel better about your post.
Facebook does a lot of things to make you feel good about your posts, and your page to make you think you are dollars are being spent well there, so you will spend more with them.
Kind of like the more bells, lights, and sounds on a slot machine. Just because it is going off a lot does not meaning you are really winning.

When I boost the post, I will usually throw  $3 - $6 at it.
Not a amount I will miss, and if I through afew darts one might stick.
If I get one sale off of it, it has paid for its self.

The under 27 crowded is leaving Facebook, and there numbers on this are down. { if it was not tied to my business account I would have dropped it long time ago }
If this is group you are trying to target you are wasting your time.


Boost a particular  post, not the hole page,
Post go into the main timeline, and the other stuff gets sent off to the right side of the page, and is over looked and lost.









I am not a expert, and not saying I am right, but I am just speaking out of my own personal experiences.

That is hugely appreciated. I knew Facebook was running the adds you place in a way so it looks good to you, but isn't always seen. I tend to look a lot at the "insights" to get a better idea of how I'm performing. It is my understanding that the best times to post on Facebook and Twitter are between 1pm - 3pm EST. I will admit those are the times in which I see the most interaction on my pages.
For reference I too am in my early 30's. Do you suggest spending money to boost specific posts RATHER than just spend 30 bucks a month and let a campaign run?

I don't know about your page
But from my knowledge of 30 years olds get on Facebook is
1) the board at lunch during work crowed
2) the 1 - 3 board amd ready to get off work
3) after work at night after getting the kids to bed.

Don't be scared to post on a Sunday night or after 5pm
I have been reading & experimenting about this but have not found the mahic bullet yet.

I also like boosting specific post, with a graphic.
So if one does not work this week,
They get hit with a new and differnt one next time.
As compaired to the campaign


Another good time to advertise on Facebook is during natural disaster, like snow and ice storms when people are stuck in side snd can not leave there house but have nothing else to do but play on Facebook

I use facebook exclusively, but for what is probably a bad reason.  I have a hard time keeping up with several social media outlets with as often as I should be posting.  Since I don't know the size of business or what you're going after, here is a bit of info on what we do for facebook and some small background on the business.

We manufacture and sell furniture, both for retail and commercial (colleges, behavioral health, etc.).  We make solid wood furniture, some of which is not the most appealing in the world but will last 20yr is a freshman dorm.  This particular company was a pretty large business in the 80s & 90s and went bankrupt.  It was bought out of bankruptcy in ~2000 and been running at a manageable size since.  There are many people who are aware of the brand, and all of them know they went into bankruptcy...not all of them know we are back even 16 years later.  

We run a background page like campaign of $10.00/day.  Not much and could certainly be more.  We started this May 1, 2015 at 2,359 page likes and gain of 0.5 likes/day.  We are currently at 23,434 and gain 50 or so likes per day.  Its true that likes do not mean sales, but it is important for us because people who know our furniture see that we are still around.  Replacement parts and cushions can be bought and guaranteed to fit, and new pieces can be bought to match what they currently have.  We have had several sales from people who did not know we were back, so in the last year the $3650 has probably come close to paying for itself.  

What was said earlier about facebook only showing posts to a certain number of people and having to pay for more is absolutely true.  This is another reason I want our page likes to increase.  The more people who like the page the more that will see posts organically.  The other aspect of this is post frequency and engagement.  I have seen that posting infrequently, or only when you have a sale will end up hurting your organic post reach.  The more engaging you are with your audience and the more they engage posts will help getting posts out.  This is an area I don't do too well with because I have enough going on that I forget about facebook.  This is also the reason I only use facebook and not twitter and instagram.

I target the audiences for specific boosts as well.  We are based in NC, and if I want to run a 50% off shipping sale I want to try to avoid sending our product to CA.  Its heavy furniture that is built before it leaves (except beds and dining room tables) and is not cheap to ship.  Therefore I target the I-95 corridor for shipping because it is much cheaper for us to ship along that route.  

I also target certain pictures and phrasing for certain audiences.  For example I know unfinished furniture may be of interest to people in the age group of 18-40, those who have recently purchased a home, who like diy, etc.  Making posts catering to specific groups and targeting those groups does a few things, increases the frequency of posts as well as the likelihood that people will comment and share.  For us, 98% of posts have an image as well.  We take photos at least once a week of different product with different setups so we have plenty to use and not recycle too frequently.  

Hope it helps out some, I was interrupted a few times typing this up so it may seem a bit disjointed.

OP, Check out Jab Jab Jab Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk on this. It's a couple years old but has a good framework.

FYI get on Snapchat and start building an audience. It is Facebook in 2005, huge opportunity.

Will do, thank you.

I looked into snapchat, but I don't think it will work for us. We don't sell a physical product, but rather services. I tried downloading it on my phone and it just wants me to take pictures. Did I somehow mess that up?

I prefered advertising on Facebook, I have a couple businesses on there. I targeted my competition's fans.

I ran a promotion for 15% off and boosted it for 5 bucks for one day. It reached 7,800 people.

I also ran a month long campaign for like 25 bucks and so far it's reached 37,000 people. Guess we'll see.