Yes.
With a few tweaks, that is.
First of all, you should know that Facebook Ads don’t work with personal profiles, so let’s get that out of the way. As a solopreneur or professional looking to utilize Facebook Ads to grow your reach, you will require a Facebook business page. The information you fill out for this page is what will let audiences know what your business/profession is all about. Make sure to highlight your strengths as a business and as a person. List your awards, notables and accomplishments.
Once you a clean looking, well organized and written business page, Facebook Ads are an absolute must.
How do you engage audiences?
It first starts with what your purpose is for venturing into ads is. You don’t want to be an aimless brand simply advertising because it’s what everyone’s doing. Sit down, evaluate your brand, and figure out a reason for investing your time and resources into Facebook Ads.
When you have a clear reason, crafting marketing copy and sourcing the right images, videos, and links to use with the Facebook Ads becomes easier. It also helps if you know the kind of audience you want to target (targeted audience vs at-large audience). A targeted audience comprises of people you know (or who know you) and are more likely to engage in your content. An at-large audience on the other hand, is the general population on Facebook, who are less likely to take the actions you wish for.
Being a personal brand, you probably have a personal page or website that speaks more to what you do/who you are. You want to tie-in the Ad you come create with this personal “landing page.” After audiences see you Ad, you want them to know more about you. A link to your personal page is encouraged, and should lead to a professionally designed page that is appealing.
How does your personal brand benefit?
- First of all, the potential for exposure is massive with Facebook. With over 200 million unique visitors each month, your Ad can be viewed a whole lot of people you never imagined. They say the average Facebook user has around 500-600 friends. If you target around 20 people with your Ad, you have the potential to reach another 1000, who have the potential to reach their 600 or so friends. So really, the exposure is exponential, and great for your personal brand.
- Facebook Ads allow you to carry out targeted advertising, which is inexpensive in itself and can be affordable to you in the long run. Really, even if your budget is constrained, you’ll very likely find a package that will suit you fine.
- Facebook ads allow you to be creative. Suppose you want to impress a group of executives you would wish to meet (or have an upcoming meeting with). With their email information handy, all you need to do is upload that email list to Facebook, and target them (and their companies) with your Ads. You can set the number of times you want this particular group to see your post, update, picture or even unpublished post.
For example, I recently attended a couple of conferences. For one conference, I was speaking so I promoted my session via Facebook ads by making sure my post was visible to those who attended or were planning to attend the conference.
For the other conference, I was merely attending but I knew who all the speakers were going to be plus I had access to their email addresses (after all, they were promoting themselves as speakers at the event and were readily sharing their contact info). I uploaded their emails into Facebook and created a targeted list of people to see “my face and posts” prior to the event to make the in-person connection happen more readily since I looked “familiar”.
The perception out there is that only medium, big-sized businesses, and product centered brands are in the best shape to utilize Facebook Ads. While they might have the resources to spend a little more on such a campaign, your personal brand will benefit greatly by having its own Facebook Ads campaign. You can target the people you want to reach, be more creative with your posts, and work within your budget, all while having one of Facebook’s greatest features at your disposal.
