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- For niche bloggers and entrepreneurs, including gay entrepreneurs, a Facebook ads strategy is a must, and Louie is a good resource for that education.
- For entrepreneurs, Facebook helps business owners find the audience to present their ads that are most likely to be interested in their product or service.
With the world growing increasingly digital, despite Facebook’s recent struggles, both virtual and brick-and-mortar, entrepreneurs need a social media strategy. For the cost and effectiveness, Facebook ads, especially for niche entrepreneurs, are one of today’s most effective tool.
We talk with Facebook ads pro Monica Louie, of Flourish with Facebook Ads, about how to navigate the social media landscape and grow a clientele with a niche market like the queer community with gay Facebook ads on this Queer Money™.
Listen to Louie talk Facebook marketing on Queer Money™:
Who is Monica Louie?
Louie started blogging when she and her husband paid off $120,000 of debt in two years on a single, middle-class income while raising two children. In the process, Louie learned to use Facebook ads to market her debt freedom training, and it worked.
She started sharing what she learned with colleagues and business partners. By 2016, Louie decided she enjoyed helping other people grow their businesses more than her own blog. So, she transitioned into a full-time Facebook ads coach, and in 2017, launched her Flourish with Facebook Ads course, of which we’re affiliates.
How can entrepreneurs use Facebook ads, especially if they don’t have blogs?
There are over two billion active users on Facebook. Niche business owners need to know where their clients are on social media. For example, LGBTQ people tend to be on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Instagram is owned by Facebook, so LGBTQ entrepreneurs or any entrepreneur trying to serve the LGBTQ community must be on Facebook.
No matter what type of business one has, their ideal customer is likely using Facebook in one way, shape or form. Therefore, it helps business owners to use Facebook for their business, too.
Facebook ads aren’t just an online business tool. Even entrepreneurs with brick-and-mortar stores can use Facebook ads to drive foot traffic to their stores. This is the magic of Facebook marketing because what used to cost tens of thousands of dollars can now be done more efficiently and cost-effectively with Facebook for as little as $5 a day.
Many existing LGBTQ entrepreneurs are real estate agents, insurance agents, financial advisors and stylists. Businesses can input their business location on their Facebook page and the Facebook Ads Manager that’s used to create ads. Facebook can, then, help these businesses connect with the right consumers in their geographic area with the “In-Store Visits” campaign objective within the Facebook Ads Manager.
Louie’s advice for local businesses to maximize an objective of “In-Store Visits” is to create an offer within those ads that require the Facebook user to visit the store. For example, “Stop in today and get your free chocolate sample,” “Buy two massages for the price of one by stopping in-store today” or “Come in today and show us this Facebook Ad to get 10% off your purchase.”
How does a business owner get started with Facebook ads?
First, business owners should install the Facebook Pixel, a bit of HTML code, on their blog or business website. The sooner this is done the better because the longer the pixel is on a site, the more accurate Facebooks gets with the behaviors and characteristics of the people who visit and are likely to become customers.
Then, business owners should choose the ad campaign objective within the Facebook Ads Manager, determine the budget for the ad campaign, pick the audience and then, finally, create their ad. Louie offers a free guide that walks business owners through the five questions to ask before spending money on Facebook ads.
In her course, Louie walks her students step-by-step to create such a campaign, create headlines, choose the right copy and then A/B test different campaign ads to find the lowest cost-per-conversion and the most effective results for the business owner.
How can gay Facebook Ads be used to target market the LGBTQ community?
There are several common and unique steps LGBTQ entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who serve the LGBTQ community can take to create smart LGBT Facebook ads. The Facebook Ads Manager Detailed Targeting Tool has filters to let entrepreneurs market to people with certain interests, such as "LGBT," "Pride" or "homosexuality." Filters can narrow down to people interested in other LGBT-themed businesses or LGBT organizations, such as The Advocate and the Human Rights Campaign.
After some time has passed with traffic being driven to a blog or website using the Detailed Targeting Tool, then users can create “Look-A-Like” audiences. A look-a-like audience is a group of people with the same characteristics and virtual behaviors as the original audience.
When business owners create look-a-like audiences that have visited their site or specific pages on their site and present an LGBT Facebook ad to that audience, they’ll find that the look-a-like audience is more likely to engage with the ad, click through and want what the business owner offers. This reduces the amount of money it costs for ads because business owners can reach the right audience rather than everyone on Facebook. Louie says, “Using the look-a-like audience is a great way to put the work on Facebook to find more people like your core audience.”
But, is Facebook evil?
With all that, though, should a business want to work with Facebook and its past transgressions?
Facebook is a huge company with over 2 billion users worldwide but, more than anything, Facebook is a data company. Louie believes Facebook ultimately has good intentions with that data, though mistakes will happen as Facebook learns to live up to its responsibility. Keep in mind, social media is a relatively young industry and both company and consumers are still learning.
For entrepreneurs, Facebook helps business owners find the audience to present their ads that are most likely to be interested in their product or service. Louie says, “Facebook is a very sophisticated company but, as with anything, things do go wrong, and Facebook is experiencing that now.” Louie believes that Facebook is addressing its problems and that will result in better products and a better user experience.
In response to current events, Facebook disabled a form of advertising called partner categories. This means that Facebook will no longer use third-party data aggregators for target marketing purposes. Thus, Facebook is only using the data that Facebook collects.
Facebook is also becoming more transparent. Even before the recent scandal, it beta tested View Ad in Canada. View Ad lets users see all the ads a business is running from its business page. This feature lets users better understand the messaging of a business.
As with any technological growth and changes, there are bound to be issues. Entrepreneurs, especially LGBTQ entrepreneurs climbing an uphill battle, shouldn’t sacrifice their potential growth because of such mistakes. The opportunity for their business and their opportunity for personal financial independence can’t afford it.
