Or, alternatively, “Why Your Social Media Community Manager Should Be in Charge of Social Ads”.

Facebook advertising rarely gets good press in social media management circles. Facebook’s increasing insistence on pay-to-play has marketers balking and pinching pennies. But what if I told you paid social advertising isn’t as scary as people make it out to be? No matter how small your budget, you can get your content in front of your fans and use advertising to engage your community. You can even do it for under $0.10 per click. The answer to your social advertising woes? Your community manager.

Part 1: Why Everyone’s on the Facebook Hating Bandwagon

There are plenty of blogs and digital conversations discussing why Facebook is difficult for brands. To sum it up, Facebook used to be about building fanbases and free, organic reach– but it was too good to be true. There are continually fewer ways to avoid paying to play. It’s only going to get harder with new rules like cracking down on promotional copy in posts without money behind them.

While the griping that Facebook is becoming harder to work with (and less and less free) isn’t completely unwarranted, I have to play devil’s advocate and point something important out: Every other social media platform is also hard!

Some examples of what I mean:

• Twitter: The average lifespan of a tweet is estimated at only 18 minutes.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn is getting more and more noisy with promotional content (especially since publishing capabilities rolled out to everyone).
• Google+: Even Google itself hasn’t been able to convince people the platform isn’t the walking dead.
• Instagram: The inability to post links make driving web traffic practically impossible.
• Pinterest: Even if your target audience is there, making your content stand out takes true talent and patience.
• reddit: This is not for the thin-skinned and very few brands are welcomed.

The lesson? Suck it up. It’s the community manager’s job to find solutions for getting useful content to our communities. Remember social media is media. The faster we accept that, the better off we are.

Part 2: Play By the Rules. Yes, All 3 Sets of Them.

You have to play by the rules to see results. You may hate me for this, but there are actually 3 sets of rules to play by:

The company’s

Regulatory/legal, branding and budget all come to play. The company is involved when determining what you’re allowed to say, how to say it, and which resources you have in order to say it. If you can’t play by these rules, you aren’t really in the game.

The platform’s

Everything from image dimensions to character length, targeting capabilities to language and algorithms are all determined by the platform. Some of the rules (like character length) are concrete and easy to understand, others aren’t so clear (like what a “spammy” Facebook post looks like or how to be featured on LinkedIn’s Pulse).

The community’s

I don’t mean community guidelines you set as a brand. Community rules are often the most fluid and unclear of all. It entails what they love and do not love; what makes your community take the actions you want. This is seen in clicks, comments, RTs and conversions (or the lack thereof). Sometimes, if you’re lucky, community members will let you know if they’re happy or not and why.

Part 3: What Playing By the Rules Looks Like

When you play by all 3 sets of rules and end up with good content, you’ll pass 3 main checkpoints:

1. The content is approved by your company
2. The content is approved by or optimized for the platform
3. The content is approved by and engaged with in the community

On Facebook advertising, that means:

• The image and copy meet marketing and brand objectives
• The image is a certain size
• The image meets the <20% text rule
• The copy is under a certain length
• The content, copy and image are appropriate (not just safe for work, but also careful of demographics)
• The content is accurately targeted
• The image and copy speak to your community (grabs their attention, elicits emotion, etc.)
• The image and copy are understood by your community
• The image and copy elicit engagement/action from your community

You may have noticed that the further down the list you go, the more subjective and less tangible the points are. Sadly, those are the most important parts. An ad that meets brand and platform criteria will surely underperform if it doesn’t get the community’s needs and wants.

That’s what makes social advertising hard. But mastering the rules really does make it possible to create truly cost-effective advertising. Like these Facebook ads:

CPC: $0.36
CTR: 3.07%

For an intimate product targeted at a notoriously difficult (and private) audience? Not bad. Here’s a breakdown of how it met all 3 sets of rules:

Company: It used important product information (“estrogen free”) and branding keywords “reignite”) with language that matches the brand’s honest and hopeful voice. It also used wording that is FDA-cleared (a big roadblock for this product).

Platform: The copy included words like “vaginal” and “sex” in appropriate ways without explicitly implying that the viewer suffers from vaginal dryness, painful sex or dulled intimacy. The image and character length were also optimized for the space.

Community: The image immediately spoke to the community and put them in the frame of mind to remember what they miss in their love lives. The copy directly addressed their often ignored needs in a way that inspired action.

CPC: $0.08
CTR: 7.797%

This isn’t even the lowest CPC seen for this brand. The most successful boosted posts were under $0.05 per click! Here’s a breakdown of how this ad met all 3 sets of rules:

Company: The copy’s tone matched the brand’s sympathetic, understanding and counseling voice.

Platform: The copy did not  imply that the viewer suffers from baby envy or is currently trying to get pregnant. The image and character length were also optimized for the space.

Community: The image and copy immediately spoke to the community and were easy for these women to identify with. It used the buzzphrases “TTC envy” and “everyone else is pregnant” but also promised a solution to these common frustrations.

Part 4: Why a Social Media Community Manager Does it Best

We’re in there every. single. day. It makes us understand what the brand, the platform and community all want in ways that can’t be taught. Getting real people to click on an ad isn’t just about call to action buttons and clickbait headlines. A community manager knows how to use those by inherently understanding what triggers reactions from users and fans. We know when to reach out to them, what questions to ask and what images to use. We have both the data and the second nature rapport only learned by experience.

It’s hard to measure ROI for social media marketing– especially on engagement. But the spoils show when a social ad campaign is both time, and cost, effective. Don’t waste your marketing budget on banner ads, advertorials and sponsorships. When Facebook gives you lemons, make your lemonade irresistible.