Facebook’s New Ad Option for Pages: What This Means for Brands

Last week saw the official announcement of Facebook’s new self-service ad offering for Facebook Pages. As Mashable, VentureBeat, and others have reported, now you’ll be able to become a fan of a public Facebook Page right from the ad itself: simply click a “Become a Fan” link at the bottom of an ad, and you’re done. No need to visit the actual Page. And what’s more, becoming a fan in this way automatically generates a story on a user’s profile.

This feature has already been available via Facebook’s Engagement Ad unit, but its move into Social Ads is a welcome step.

Facebook constantly needs to strike a balance between its users’ preferences and its advertisers’ needs. With the launch of this new ad option, we think Facebook has hit the nail on the head. Ultimately, there will always be users who’d rather not jump around and click frequently in order to add friends, join groups, and become Page fans. For this family of users, then, Facebook’s new ad format should be both unobtrusive and relatively convenient.

Of course, Facebook is providing just one (albeit an important) piece of the marketing puzzle here. We’ve talked to a ton of brand managers and agencies over the last few months, and the vast majority of our conversations have reminded us that we must never forget the importance of one goal above all: engagement, engagement, engagement.

Most brand managers share the same vision of what a thriving fan page base should look like. In their ideal world, fans are fully active and enthusiastic. They watch and comment on multiple pieces of content. They visit a Page frequently in order to receive the latest multimedia and news. And perhaps most importantly, they share branded content (e.g., polls and videos) with their friends.

We believe that Facebook Pages and Facebook’s ads for Pages should be taken as two sides of the same promotional coin. This new unit within Social Ads is a solid way to garner attention and fans (assuming your ad message is compelling enough), but once you’ve found and hooked these fans, the responsibility is yours to capture continued attention through engaging content.

That’s why we’re building a robust and easy-to-use Facebook marketing suite here at Involver. We want to empower brands with unique, professional, and highly engaging Facebook Pages.