Should I use Facebook Ads for my business?

A simple yes/no exercise

Photo by Kristin Hardwick from StockSnap

I’m asked this question from time to time, and as more small businesses are moving online amid the pandemic, it’s coming up again. I’d like to address this in the simplest way possible, so that whatever your business type and model, you can make the best decision for yourself.

A lot of small business owners choose advertising over the slower, longer game of content marketing, and that’s both right and appropriate for many people.

But where you advertise makes a huge difference, and for the sake of keeping things ultra simple, I like to break the online advertising space into two camps.

Social versus Search

Those two camps are social media and search results. The social advertising landscape is dominated by Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook). Whereas the search results world is, of course, ‘Planet Google’.

So the big question for many small business owners starting out with advertising, is which one is more relevant for them.

Here’s how I answer that question, with another question…

“Do your clients know that they need you?”