What has been your experience using facebook ads to promote your biz?

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Question: anyone use facbeook ads to promote your biz? if so, has it been successful?

Dejah:I have :) And I've done ok with it.

Cate: I have done it three times in the past and just initiated another one yesterday.... I have found it is helpful for adding likes but NOT helpful for bookings or sessions. More of a "name out there" and less of a "book me" marketing technique in my experience.

Tierra: I agree with Cate. I got some "likes" from the ads and maybe one or two inquiries but no bookings. I think I would rather do google ads.

Amy:I am wondering the same thing. I have thought about doing it but I need to meet new clients & book sessions, not just get more likes!

Dana:I have done a few over the last year and after finding larger pages and photographers that have "liking ladders" and page sharing on their pages...I quit paying facebook...gotten alot better response and many more fans without paying for them and also agree with Cate!

Michelle:I have done it and it wasn't successful.

BP4U:when you do the ads. do you direct them right to your site or to your fan page?

Angela:I ran them and got a few new likes, I directed 1 to my site & 1 to my fb page. Like everyone else said, it just helped get likes not bookings or inquiries.

Gina:What's a "Liking Ladder"?

Cate: There are limits on how you can design them if you direct them to your page vs a URL. For my wedding one, I directed them to my page and increased like 20 likes but I have never heard from a SINGLE person from that list. (likes, comments, bookings, etc)... this time around I am directing them to my URL on my blog with a discussion of my Senior Rep Program. My hope is that when they click, they get stuck in the site and will be more apt to opt IN or get off and I will know their interaction immediately. Likes are neat, but when its 200 people who never interact... it inflates your confidence and that can be a bad thing.

Gina: a liking ladder is when a page asks you to put your fb URL in a comment and then you like all the people ABOVE you on the comment string. So, you earn likes from people who want to add their own URL to get likes. A quid pro quo thing.

Summer: Ohhh neat, I might have to jump in on one of those one day.

Sasha: Model life magazine does liking ladders every night around 9:30 est

BP4U:this may be a dumb question but the liking ladder.. are those bad or good...

KIT:I'm in the same boat as Cate Waters. facebook ads didn't really work for me either, just good for getting likes nd thats it really!

Gina: ....so someone who knows how, let's make a "liking" ladder for all BP4Us to like each other. Would that just be chaos??? I'm laughing because I don't really quite understand it, but with more likes how could that be a bad thing? It could only help; right? Plus, I love liking other photog pages for inspiration and encouragement!

Cate: I dont think ladders are all that amazing... I mean its nice to meet new people to follow and learn from them but upping the likes on your page isnt always encouraging in my mind... it might be useful for others to see that you have a ton of likes? im not sure!

Sasha:I got a lot of new fans quick, but it only really counts if they are from here. :/

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