Using Facebook Ads - It's All Russian to Me!

            A few years back when we living in New York and I was working for a winery on the weekends, I decided to practice what little Russian I knew with one of our visitors who had arrived from Moscow. Unfortunately, I wound up accepting a marriage proposal. (Seriously!) When I got home and told my husband that the guy might be showing up (because I had actually managed to provide a decent description of where we lived), my husband was incredulous.

            “What am I going to do?” I yelled as he continued to weed the rock garden on all fours. 

            “Beats me, but I’m going into the house. You got yourself into it; you’ll have to get yourself out.”

            Believe it or no, I did, but the man was persistent, sending me chocolates and cards. 

            Now, years later, I think I’m in a similar position because I thought I could figure out the way in which to manage my Facebook ads, but everything is going wrong. What little knowledge I have isn’t paying off and no one is going to be sending me chocolates any time soon.  

            It used to be so easy to set up an ad that would appear on the side of the newsfeed. Now, it becomes part of the feed itself. That means I get all sorts of nasty comments from people who didn’t want to see it in the first place! Hey – it’s not my fault, just keep scrolling. Apparently that’s what everyone else does.

            Then, there’s “Boost Your Ad.”  It took me three days and numerous phone calls to understand how the “maximum budget” works. Was it maximum for one day (in which case I’d be broke by the end of the campaign) or was it maximum as in the honest-to-goodness total? No clear cut language there, folks. I figured I’d set a short campaign and a short maximum just in case it really was for each day. Then I held my breath and hoped that my bank account wouldn’t be wiped out.

            Just when I thought things were getting better, I got an email from Facebook about something called a “threshold.” Mine was for an amount I didn’t establish so I really got worried. I’m still seeking answers and eyeballing my checking account like a vulture. 

            Fellow author, website designer, and avid FB user, Beth Cornell, had this to say when I whined about the entire process.

            “There are three or four ways to actually boost a post. They don’t always offer the same ways either, adding to the mystery and challenging the mastery of this skill.”

            Terrific. As if I didn’t have enough challenges with the marketing process. Next week I plan to market my book the old fashioned way – hand out business cards to anyone I come in contact with and refrain from practicing my Russian!