By Nel Reed

It might sound extreme, but your new business cannot afford to go without a Facebook presence. There are more than a half a billion users on Facebook, and your cost of using the basic service is $0. If you have a little budget for advertising, you should also consider using Facebook as your platform. With “as used” pricing, Facebook is a less expensive tool for making sure people get plugged into your services and products. Here are some different options for advertising with Facebook:

Set Up Your Company Facebook Page

Facebook initially called their ‘business pages” fan pages, and when you would invite your friends to subscribe to the page, you would be called a ‘fan.’ They’ve since amended the page to be just simply a page that your friends can “like.” The change instigated a rise in the number of pages friends would subscribe to. To build a Facebook page for your business, click on the star icon in the upper right hand corner of your Facebook page. Choose “advertise” From this page, you will have the option of advertising for free by getting friends to “like” your page.

Run Facebook Ads

If you want to pay for a more involved service, you can opt for running ads through Facebook. Click on the “run an ad” after you’ve set up your page. Facebook will ask you what your goal is. You can choose to build your audience, get people to engage with your posts, or you can connect with the ad department to create a unique package for your company.

Facebook allows you to designate your intended audience. You can limit your demographic by age, gender, location, interest, and connection. You then set your cost based on your daily budget. Depending on your budget, Facebook will limit your work. Pricing is set up to work per usage, called CPM, or cost per thousand impressions, or simply how often people see your page. You can also choose CPC, cost per thousand clicks, instead, which will charge you by the number of clicks responding to the advertising Facebook does for you.

Check Out The Competition

Not only can you place your own ads on Facebook, but you can check out the ads of other companies targeting the same demographic as yours. You can learn by looking at these companies to see what they are doing that is successful or not successful. Go to Facebook Ad Board and you can find all the ads that target your profile. The ads marked “sponsored stories” are ads for which companies have paid. Which of these ads stand out? Why would you choose to click on them? The answers to these questions can help you set up your own ads.

Facebook boasts costs that are 80 percent lower than the average advertising platform. Companies such as State Bicycle Company claim that more than 10 percent of their annual income can be attributed to their advertising campaign done on Facebook. Whether you choose to do the work yourself and set up a page for your friends to like or pay Facebook to work its tricky magic in connecting your services to people they think will want them, you won’t want to miss out on a platform that most of the world is linked into.

About the Author
Nel Reed is an avid blogger for various marketing sites. If you are passionate about advertising, UF is now offering an online masters degree in communications to increase your marketing knowledge.