Facebook: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition

Chapter 12. Advertising on Facebook

In Facebook’s early days, “advertising” meant college students looking to sell their old textbooks or find new roommates. But now that the site is open to the public and has several hundred million members, things have changed. Facebook’s ability to comb through gazillions of personal details at a practically unheard-of level of granularity (“Show me all the single, conservative, male college students who live in Portland and enjoy watching vintage Bugs Bunny reruns”) and tap directly into each member’s circle of friends is an advertiser’s dream come true.

These days, big companies with big ad budgets are placing ads on Facebook. As the site has grown, marketing strategies have changed, too, from simple network-targeted banner ads to social ads, which mine members’ personal details and friend lists to hawk products. This chapter explores your options for advertising on Facebook, which range from free to affordable to don’t even think about it.

Note

Facebook recently announced an upcoming feature, Facebook Questions, that will let you ask a question of everyone on the site and—if you like—conduct a poll. To find out more, point your browser to www.facebook.com/questions.

Facebook Pages: Profiles for Bands, Brands, and More

The unfortunately named Pages (could the Facebook team have possibly come up with a more generic name?) are basically Facebook profiles for things other than people, like TV shows, bands, and companies. Pages combine the detailed ...