Most funeral home Facebook users who maintain a business page understand the importance of increasing their fan base so their content has a better chance of being seen by more people. But we’ve made it clear in a previous article that the average Facebook user will NEVER see all the content posted by his or her friends and by the businesses s/he follows. There is simply too much, so Facebook utilizes algorithms to filter users’ news feeds and prioritize the content that rises to the top (if Facebook didn’t filter the news feed users could see up to 15,000 pieces of content each day). The end result of this filtering is that, on average, only 6% of the content posted by a business is ever seen by the fans of their page.

The creators of Facebook have made a way for businesses to partially circumvent the filters and get their content in front of more eyeballs…and this is through the use of paid ads. Facebook ads offer a quick, easy, cost-effective way to reach consumers in your local area. In this article, we will explain the basics steps to get your business in front of local customers using Facebook ads. Here are the steps:

• Access your business page through your profile, then click on the blue Promote button to the right of the background photo, and then click on the Go to Ads Manager link at the bottom of the pull down menu. This will load the Ads Manager. You may receive a message suggesting you disable your ad blocker in order to effectively utilize the advertising tools

• Click on the green Create Ad button in the upper right corner and then choose the objective of your ad. Facebook has added a couple of ads designed specifically for businesses looking to target users in their area: Reach People Near Your Business and Raise Attendance at Your Event. In particular, choose the Reach People Near Your Business ad type if you want to specify the area you want to target. When you do a map will appear that gives you an idea of the area you will cover when choosing various options. You will be prompted to give you campaign a name. Once you do so, click the blue Continue button.

• The next page will allow you to define the parameters of your ad campaign: the audience you wish to reach, where to place the ads on users’ news feeds, and the budget and scheduling parameters you wish to choose. As you make these choices, you can monitor the Potential Reach on the right side of the page. When you are satisfied with your choices, click Continue.

• On the page that follows, you make choices regarding the format of the ad and the media images or video you want to use. You are also prompted to edit the text that will appear in the ad. You will see a preview on the right side of the page where you can monitor how your ad will appear to consumers. Once you are satisfied with these choices, you can review and place the order. It’s that simple!

If you are new to this process, start small and monitor what happens. Work your way up to larger and more aggressive campaigns. As every funeral home owner/manager knows, it is very difficult if not impossible to make accurate ROI determinations in a short time period, but you can utilize Facebook Insights to see the impact on reach and engagement your campaigns are having. Before long, you will become a fluent Facebook ad campaign guru!

As a locally-based business, it makes sense to limit the visibility of your ads to people within a reasonable distance of your location. Utilizing the steps above makes this process fairly simple. Even so, you may not have the time to effectively set up and manage Facebook ad campaigns on a consistent basis. If this is you, don’t despair! You can turn to the experts at DISRUPT Media. We are the only full-service social media agency specifically catering to the funeral profession, and we regularly set up and manage effective ad campaigns for our full service clients. Go to http://funeralsocial.com to find out more about the services we offer. Our clients who are a part of our FUNERAL Social Design Process are seeing an increase in post reach and engagement of over 300%.

Schedule a live demo with DISRUPT Media: http://www.funeralsocial.com/demo

Learn more about our FUNERAL Social Design Process: http://funeralsocial.com/social/

Download our social media goals worksheet: http://funeralsocial.com/social-media-goals-worksheet/

About Author

Ryan Thogmartin is a death care entrepreneur and the CEO of DISRUPT Media and creator of ConnectingDirectors.com. | Follower of Christ | Husband | Father | Entrepreneur | Host of #DISRUPTu! and #FUNERALnationtv | Lover of Skittles

DISRUPT Media is a social media first marketing company that focuses on social storytelling for funeral companies. DISRUPT uses insights gained through analytics to build creative campaigns that achieve actual business goals.

Schedule an online 30 minute demo to learn more about DISRUPT Media and how to reverse engineer your social media success: http://www.funeralsocial.com/demo