[Hilton]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/elandekel/2013/01/22/facebook-pages-are-a-bad-investment-for-small-businesses/

I have been doing some research into possible new marketing in 2015 and recently have been looking at Facebook for business, no matter which way I looked at it and despite being told you just have to be on it, I could not see a justification for the cost, so looked at what others thought and this article above sort of summed it up for us.....

As usual there is only one winner and that's Facebook.

[Jamie Pearson]

I would only use Facebook for Facebook Ads not promoting posts on your own page.

You could then send your Ads to a squeeze page on your own website.

This can be really effective as the targeting lets you be really specific who can see your ads so you can focus the spend on the demographic you want..

[wynne jones]

Wot Jamie said.

It's like anything else if you scratch the surface of a marketing opportunity and throw money at it you will lose. I remember the same thing with Adwords until a few people on here bothered to spend months getting to grips with it and collecting data. Tell me another platform that says give me your best 500 clients and I will find you as many new ones as you want just like them for pennies?

[Simon Gerrard]

How?

Simon

[JandS]

I advertise on 7 local FB selling pages c/w pictures and I get quite a bit of work from it now..it's free and the pictures sell it.
Some are just looking for a cheap clean but I have had several jobs from it in middle income households and even converted some of the price shoppers.
It's free and takes less than 10 minutes to copy and re paste my ad c/w pictures on the seven sites.
Here's an example...might have to scroll down to find my ad but I just put it to the top so not far.

www.facebook.com/groups/268915606484855/

[Jamie Pearson]

How?

Simon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eQtK3segMQ

[Hilton]

none of you are on FB for business as far as I can tell, you just seem to be tinkering with a Facebook page.

That's no good for me.

[neil 47]

done fb , filthy carpet , cancellations,non payers, trouble all the way .

But odd decent one if you put up with all the rest

[Jamie Pearson]

It really is worth spending some time to learn the Ads side of Facebook. You need to have a website with a decent landing/squeeze page and a good idea of the demographic you want to target.

My Mum is on Facebook. She spent £250 the other day at a local salon getting her hair and nails done.

Why? She is already a customer of hers but they marketed to her with an offer on Facebook and she took it up.

Its very easy to do to your existing customers then as mentioned get facebook to find you more with the same profiling to show your ad too which if you set it right will pitch you at the right level.

Setting such as age 55+, degree (think doctors, architects, lawyers) people with not hands on skills but money. Surely thats everyones target market. Or if it isnt you can choose 18 - 50s whjo like Jeremy Kyle if that fits you better.

[Jamie Pearson]

Before anyone says it, yes she is an existing customer buying again. However I know the 2 guys that own the salon and was at a networking event where they heard about facebook ads for the first time. What they are doing is setting a low budget and targeting existing so that they can hone their ads, offers and landing pages. They know she will have the same treatments/services later at the normal price as she normally has her nails done there but not her hair.

[Jamie Pearson]

Anyone needing a landing page should look at Lead Pages, Squeeze Page Toolkit or Thrive as it makes it very easy to put together.

The most important thing is you are using Facebook to drive traffic to your website and get them away from the platform. Not posting in groups where some fu@kwit comes on saying I got Davey to do mine last week and he was only £15.

[david@zap-clean]

Tried it, didn't like it, stopped using it over a year ago...

However, after not using my FB advertising account for over a year it was (just last week) cleverly hacked so watch out for this:

Keep an eye out for unusual 'your advert has been approved' notifications. 
Fortunately I had left all my notification setting on.
Someone was using my account to publish their own advertising campaign!
I managed to stop the advert before incurring any costs.

Irritatingly, the only way I could remove my payment details from this FB account was to delete the account - so I'm out of FB for good!

[JandS]

Why pay for it just, join a few local ad pages like I did....so you get the kn*bheads wanting room for £10 calling but you also get decent people.
FB has moved on a bit now and more and more people from better backgrounds tend to use it.
Had 3 or 4 decent priced jobs as well from so called kn*bheads on a couple of rough estates round here.....these were good priced jobs for littlle work because I priced not wanting them.....I got them and every one was a little oasis of clean in a desert of dirt.
You can post pictures and that's what drives people to ring you.....AND IR'S FREE.

[Carpet Dawg]

Why pay for it just, join a few local ad pages like I did....so you get the kn*bheads wanting room for £10 calling but you also get decent people.
FB has moved on a bit now and more and more people from better backgrounds tend to use it.
Had 3 or 4 decent priced jobs as well from so called kn*bheads on a couple of rough estates round here.....these were good priced jobs for littlle work because I priced not wanting them.....I got them and every one was a little oasis of clean in a desert of dirt.
You can post pictures and that's what drives people to ring you.....AND IR'S FREE.

John

The selling pages are RUBBISH thats why they are FREE!  Seriously, you just end up answering a lot of PM's for no gain. If your cheap or the higher end of cheap then you might convert a few. These where my findings after trying it for about 2 months.

The paid  facebook advert on the other hand appears in peoples news feeds or/and in the right hand column. And you can narrow your target customer by sex, age, job, hobbies, area, eduction level etc.

Like a leaflet drop you also need a bit of luck, the people that see your ad in their news feed need to be in the market for a carpet cleaner or an impulse buy. Maybe a good way to build up a brand?

[JandS]

Dawg...they are free but not rubbish....for every price shopper I get a genuine request.
At the w/e booked in a 3+2+1 seater to clean and protect at a very good price.....she PM me some piccies and it's in a good condition and I'm passing on Friday so going to have a look...the area is a middle income area     her daughter pointed her to my photos on one of the selling sites.
To be honest some of the work I've done for people off FB have been in a better state than some of the people from the so called middle income area.
I PM them all with higher than my normal prices and a lot of it sticks....I seem to be better at selling myself with words on paper rather than word of my mouth.

[tony bish]

Never had the inclination to use facebook as when I see an advert I just cant help thinking ....cheap

[JandS]

tony....times are changing...even my 78 year old father looks on FB regularly now....it's cheaper and easier than leafletting and it works.
You get all sorts but you get that with leafletting but at least you 'aint walked the streets to get them.
What's hard about PMing someone....I just pitch my price a bit higher and that weeds out the cheapos..easier than tramping the streets and with some good pictures with your ad  you get the calls.
Think of it as leafletting w/o the costs but with the bonus that you can put some good before and after photos on...it's a no brainer for virtually no work and free advertising.
I just copy and paste my ad from one site to the next and add the photos and leave the ad in the clipboard......log on from phone at convenient times and just type a comment in box and it goes to top of page again.