7 Ways to Effectively Use Organic Content with Facebook Advertising

Have you ever run an ad campaign that just didn’t work out? Were you making a hard sell? Did your audience trust you or even know you or your brand? Are you using your organic content with Facebook ads?

The struggle is real. But there are simple, intuitive ways to make Facebook Advertising work for us with the help of your very own organic content.

Leslie Samuel delivered a fantastic presentation about building and nurturing your audience with your blog. His business, Become a Blogger, is based on helping others build their own businesses around blogging. His main tactic? Deliver tremendous value. Customers will come back for more and might even buy a course or service.

Why?

You trust him based on the value he’s already delivered. As a potential customer, you already have a little trust that this won’t be a complete waste of money.

The same rings true for Facebook Advertising.

As Leslie demonstrated in this video: Don’t propose to a stranger i.e., don’t hard sell a casual reader.

Direct Selling with Facebook Ads Can Be Difficult

How many times have you bought something on the spot from a cold-call telemarketer who was hawking new home insurance?

If you don’t trust the person/company on the other side, you aren’t going to take action. Moreover, the power of Facebook comes from the massive and connected user base. Plus, you can precisely target your audience.

Give Before You Ask

If you sell marketing services, give away a guide or checklist that can help people prepare or organize the type of project you offer as a service. Be generous in what you give. Your goal is to build trust, not hide behind a paywall.

Plus, Facebook offers many ways for you to get value out of the engagement you are creating. Marketing elements like retargeting and placing the Facebook pixel are critical to learning more about the audience that is interested in your brand.

Take Care of the Fundamentals

According to Hubspot, these are Facebook ad aspects you’ll want to get right as you build out your own Facebook ad campaign. They provide some great insights in this article covering Facebook Ads That Actually Work (And Why). These key points are worth noting — make sure your ad is:

1. Visually engaging
2. Relevant to your audience
3. Contains an enticing offer
4. Has a compelling call-to-action (CTA)

Social Media Examiner also provides an in-depth breakdown of important steps you need to take while setting up an effective Facebook ad campaign. They cover a ton, but the big ones are:

1. Choose a campaign objective
2. Create your ideal Custom Audience(s)
3. Build and test ad creative

Now that we have some of the basics covered, let’s look at some real examples where businesses and brands are succeeding with this organic approach.

7 Real World Facebook Ad Examples

These real-world examples have effectively taken advantage of organic content and give generously without any hooks or hard sells.

1. Content as a Free Resource – Digital Marketer

This example clearly demonstrates how offering a free, valuable resource to your audience can lead to deeper engagement. As noted by Social Media Examiner, this ad by Digital Marketer offers tremendous value to people interested in building up their own Facebook ads. I was so intrigued by the possible ad ideas, I hunted down the content from Digital Marketer about Facebook ad templates.

Source: Social Media Examiner

2. Be You, Be Different – Sumo

Sumo tells a compelling story based on someone else’s impressive success — Tony Robbins. Building rapport with others via common interest helps Sumo connect with a relevant audience. Also, they catch the attention with this ad since it’s immediately clear what the value proposition is to the reader.

The big differentiator is how they retargeted with audiences after they engaged with the initial ad. The follow-up ads were personal, quirky and to the point. It was almost a tongue-in-cheek hard sell.

The results are amazing since Sumo managed to double its business based primarily on targeted ads like these.

Source: AdEspresso

3. Provide a Free Taste – Design Pickle

In this example, Design Pickle offers a free design consultation within their ad. Facebook has specific settings if you are going to run a special offer. Obviously, this was a compelling deal that many audiences engaged with and requested information. Design Pickle was able to generate a bunch of targeted leads while giving some work out for free to a targeted audience.

Source: Connectio

4. Teach Your Audience Something New – Moz

Class is always in session once a week during the Moz Whiteboard Friday video series. Moz has a special place in the hearts of many in the SEO community, novice and expert.

These jam-packed videos tend to focus on one specific problem or strategy which are most often posed as a question (that many others have asked). The ever-present whiteboard lets the presenter go deep and help the viewers learn as they watch. Moz is able to showcase their valuable, recurring video content to engage with new Facebook users.

Charlie Lawrance highlighted this and many other awesome Facebook ad examples to learn from. He notes this helps Moz built trust and awareness with their targeted audiences.

Source: Charlie Lawrance

5. Provide an Essential Guide – Hubspot

Hubspot tempts its audience with a massive guide to competitive analysis. I know a few raving Hubspot fans and this would be exactly the type of content they would gleefully share with friends and colleagues.

In this case, they’re offering a useful tool to marketing practitioners, which also lines up with potential businesses/marketing teams who would appreciate the HubSpot software benefits.

Source: Digital Marketer

6. Share Expert Ideas – Shopify

Shopify helps customers and businesses manage digital commerce. Here they offer up useful ideas that any retailer would find helpful in strengthening customer loyalty. The Facebook Custom Audience features enable Shopify to target anyone in the retail space that would enjoy their list of customer loyalty ideas. Plus, they can use this ad campaign to re-engage with existing customers and connect with new leads.

Source: Charlie Lawrance

7. Engage and Retarget Your Audience – New York Times

The New York Times obviously covers a wide range of subjects, every day. NYT deftly combines a useful health article (targeted at the younger generation) and sparks a conversation with a simple question: “What advice would you give?”

As a result, it generated a very healthy conversation from users on what health tips would benefit those young whippersnappers. With this smart ad campaign, NYT is able to build trust with audiences in and around this younger generation and can re-target younger potential subscribers who value New York Times content.

Source: Hubspot

Your Turn to Give

Hopefully, these useful resources and actual examples are enough to get you excited about using organic content with your Facebook ads.

Just the other day, I had a coffee meeting with a friend to help them understand the potential of running some Facebook ads. She is a self-proclaimed Luddite. But even looking at these examples helped convince her about the tremendous targeting opportunity given the breadth of Facebook. Remember to give before you ask and your audience will reward you in the long run.

Are you already doing this or know someone who is? Please share your stories in the comments!