Facebook Remains an Important Tool for Digital Marketing in 2024
In a world of almost endless social media options, it might seem like Facebook is losing its grip on users' attention. If that were true, it would logically follow that Facebook’s digital marketing power is waning. But it isn’t!
Facebook remains an important tool for digital marketing in 2024. Arguably, it's the most important social media tool in your digital marketing arsenal.
This blog post looks at why you should include Facebook in your 2024 marketing strategy, starting with the site’s impressive and ever-increasing number of users in the U.S. and worldwide.
Facebook Maintains a Huge User Base
According to Statista, the number of active monthly Facebook users within the U.S. and Canada rose by 2% in 2022 compared to the previous year. That means an astounding 266 million users actually engaged with the site in the third quarter of 2022. Worldwide, the site has almost 3 billion users who are active monthly. That’s a huge prospective market for your digital marketing campaigns, but how does it stack up to other social media sites?
At present, YouTube has around 2.5 billion active users worldwide. Whatsapp has 2 billion. Instagram sits at about 1.4 billion, and TikTok has only 1 billion.
Facebook’s user base grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that now could be a brilliant time to harness the power of Facebook for your digital marketing campaigns in 2024 and beyond.
Facebook Offers Easy Buy-In and Direct Access to Customers
A huge user base is one thing, but if advertising and marketing space isn’t affordable, very few brands will genuinely be able to reach that available audience.
Luckily, Facebook offers both easy and affordable buy-in and direct links to site content that's less complicated than platforms like TikTok. Facebook advertising costs are designed to meet you where you are, with Meta now offering ad auctions.
As a rule, $5 a day is a reasonable budget for Facebook ads — in fact, the platform has previously claimed that ads will never cost more than $5 a day. But specifics depend on the number of ads you’re trialing, whether you include video, and how many audience demographics you’re targeting.
Compared to Instagram, Facebook’s CPC values are $0.49 and $1.09 for Instagram (this is an average, of course). This price difference is just one example of the extreme value Facebook offers over its competitors, meaning you can throw more at your digital marketing, testing campaigns, playing with your ad mix, and personalizing digital marketing for various audiences.
Performance and Targeting on Facebook are Second to None
Facebook lets your business directly drive traffic to your website. This feature means a direct click-through, cutting out the middleman and increasing hits to your site easily.
Additionally, Facebook delivers a whole host of metrics on your ad performance. These metrics aren’t confined to what happens on Facebook either — they include reach, ad engagements, conversions, and revenue. You do need to install Meta Pixel on your site to make the most of these metrics, as Pixel keeps track of the types of users who convert into customers. This option means you can focus on these users with your campaign and develop new creatives and campaigns to test out on other user demographics. No guessing is needed!
This end-to-end funnel awareness makes Facebook ads appropriate for both B2B and B2C sellers.
Facebook Offers a Variety of Ad Formats
Video? Text? Visual? Sponsored posts? Longer form text? Facebook advertising allows all of these formats. Test what works best for your digital marketing needs.
You might want to start with video and text ads in a traditional model to build trust, but from there, you can branch out.
For example, sponsored posts are a great option as they allow sharing and create a "word of mouth" feel to your marketing. You can also boost user-generated posts on your feed, such as reviews of your product or service, creating strong parasocial relationships that are a massive part of marketing in 2024.
Advertising on Facebook Is Simple
Have an idea for an ad? Great. Get it up on Facebook.
It’s as simple as:
- Choosing an objective: Potential objectives include brand awareness, reach, traffic, Engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, messages, conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic.
- Naming your campaign (remember, you can set up an A/B test here)
- Set your budget and schedule
- Choose a target audience based on audience demographics or interests.
- Decide when and where your ad shows. In addition to device targeting, you can deliver ads on feeds, stories, reels, and other content categories.
- Set brand safety and cost controls
Now your ad is all ready to publish. If you want to test some ideas, try a campaign for a couple of weeks with A/B testing for titles. You’ll soon find your niche. Remember, there will be plenty of metrics for you to dig into.
Facebook as a Tool for Digital Marketing Going Forward
With its change to Meta, it’s clear that Facebook is in the process of moving on and looking forward. Although it’s impossible to predict what will happen, your digital marketing seems to be in safe hands with Facebook for the foreseeable future. To get the most you can from the advertising platform, make sure to study analytics available to you and make changes to optimize your output. Facebook has continued growing for decades — and with care, your business can, too.