Face Book advertising
 

Has anyone used it to increase their fan base?
I'm thinking of it seeing this is a weak point of my advertising - ie not many fans.

I'd be interested in people's thought / experiences before I give it a go.

We experimented with FB advertising. It did work, but I found our money was better spent on Google Adwords. That being said, we have a FB page, which is connected to our Twitter account and blog. Basically, we try to get word out about our services in as many places as possible. We currently have 427 people who "like" our FB page, which is a start, though most of our inquiries still come from people who find us online through google.

One cool thing about FB advertising is how targeted it is. E.g. We chose to only advertise to women between the ages of 20 and 35 who lived in our city, were engaged, and had weddings as one of their interests. Maybe that was too narrow, but it kept the cost down.

Additionally, I've thought about offering an incentive to clients to encourage them to post their highlight video on their own FB wall. Something like a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks or somewhere. We don't have the advertising budget for this yet, but it'd be interesting to try. Suddenly your video would be available to a group of people in your clients' same demographic.

Kevin, my brides post their highlights on their FB for free. I post it on their FB page. I also post it on the Banquet Halls FB page. I've booked 2 weddings from a local banquet halls FB page. Whatever vendor you worked with at a particular wedding, post it on their FB!

For the record, paying for advertising is a waste of money. Wedding Video is a "word of mouth" type of business. You can spend all kinds of money on advertising, yet the bride is still going to book her entertainment and photography before you and they are going to refer the vendors that they work with first. I have 2 banquet halls near me and I am the only videographer that they refer. Yet, I rarely still get referrals from them bc the brides are booking one of the 8 photographers that are referred. I'm still at the mercy of the photographers and hope they refer me. If they offer video, I'm stuck out in the cold.

Hi Michael, very interesting. Do you have to asked permission from the FB admin of the Hall? This is good advertising.

I would agree that 'word of mouth' is the way to go, but I certainly wouldn't say that paying for advertising is a waste of money. We've had all sorts of success with advertising AND by word of mouth. The trick is to advertise smartly and get the best ROI.

Actually, when I've done an SDE, the halls have asked me how soon till it appears on their FB page!

hey Travis. From my experience (18 years), I've had absolutely no luck spending money on advertising (Bridal Shows, Ads, Banquet Hall Brochures). Fortunately, I've never had to spend much because word of mouth works so well. But this is just my experience.

All we can go by is our own experience. I booked a governor's daughter for her wedding because of us being at a wedding show. I also booked the daughter of the VP of Kodak because she saw us in a bridal guide. Most of our weddings come from referral, but we've also had some good success with advertising. Again, the trick is to maximize your ROI. If you're getting all the weddings you want by referral, then stick with it. d;-)

Banquet Hall - Do you mean where they hold their reception? I was just about to do a search for Banquet Hall on FB...lol

Okay - I'm having no luck with finding reception centres who have a FB page...boy these people are slow in social networking.

Hi Dean

I tried facebook and did not have any direct success over a 4 month period. I did get a few inquiries but they were all really low budget clients, so I guess it possibly could work for certain companies who may fall into that market in their area. I did love the target marketing aspect of it and I have heard of certain companies who have had good success with it. I remember you could set your max budget per month or week so you could always throw some money at it for a month and see how you do without spending too much.

I will agree with travis that certain targeted advertising does definitely work, sometimes it just takes years to find the right sources that work for you!

thanks Chad,
we'll give it a go and see what happens.
Google adwords have been good for us and main goal of FB ad is to increase our Fan base

re
 

I dont use pay to advertise on facebook but have set up an account to advertise my business. I set it up a few months ago and have had 4 enquiries through it. Lucky living on an island word of mouth is where it is at. I have 560 friends ( not real friends ) on my facebook so as soon as i post a new trailer they will all see it. Only the other day i posted a trailer and within 15 mins literally 15 minuets on a sunday evening 100 people had seen it with most liking it or commenting. I could not get 100 people on my website that fast if i paid them.

Word of mouth and referrals are the best advertising. With that said, we get a great deal of business from our paid advertising campaigns. Some of the largest and most lucrative gigs have come from some form of paid advertisement. Like the saying goes "Keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting"... If you are happy with working in your home market and that's where you want to be and you don't want to book gigs outside of your area then sure... advertising isn't such a big deal.

For us we wanted to expand out of our area for three reasons; First: Raise our prices... we're quickly pricing ourselves out of our own market. Second: More bookings, weddings are very seasonal in my market due to weather, but wedding seasons change based on markets. Third: Change of scenery... getting board shooting the same country clubs week after week. Advertising was the best way to reach our goal. It works, in the first year of our campaign we booked 24 weddings outside our market... with a total of 45 weddings all together. We're ramping up our advertising as we are seeing great results. We've got upcoming weddings in great locations such as Cabo San Lucas and Jamiaca due to advertising that we would otherwise not have with word of mouth alone. Word of mouth IS the best advertisement, but it only travels so far.