Week 13: Part 2: Online Advertising: Analysis of the Marketplace

When it comes to advertisement, good design is definitely key and very important. If you use the wrong text or the wrong images or wrong colors it could definitely interfere with potential clients because of the reaction at first sight. Many people don't realize they are turned off by the appearance of the advertisement because they have not taken a design class but due to something in the human brain we can be triggered and repelled easily if something is off. Certain colors together or fonts or poor design can be distasteful and if they don't come across as professional you will not attract any clients.

In terms of the Facebook ads I believe that letting them give you the guide is generally the best unless you are a promoter or some sort of graphic designer. For myself as a photographer, I feel they are all good ads to run but probably the best one would be to promote my page to get more likes. The more of an audience reach I have the more people see me the more the potential to gain a client and have someone hire me. The next one would probably be to promote my business locally because I am a photographer who provides a service and having local clients is the primary source of income because I'm not able to send out my services like if I was selling a product.

 When it comes to Instagram I believe it does have a greater reach per ad but I feel that is because they don't specifically cater to your interest. They show you many different products and advertising promotions in hopes that some of the people who see the ad will intern use their product or service.  They're designed to reach and be seen by as many people as possible and they realize only a fraction of those people will click the link. Due to the amount of information and images we see on Instagram the ads tend to have images and stand out a little bit more than your normal post and they do have the learn more Link at the bottom of each ad which differentiates it from a normal post. I'm not yet running ads myself so I'm not sure which one would be better for my business.

The Boost option on each of the posts on your page could potentially be a benefit because it showcases my work and puts it out there for people to see and hopefully like my images and will use me as a photographer or recommend my services to someone else. I feel that depending on the business the Boost option would be tricky, for example if you were selling a product I believe it's not that productive or beneficial but if you're supplying a service it definitely would help boost your post because you would be showcasing your work and more people would see it. The more people that see your post the more Facebook would promote your page because of the attraction and attention that you're receiving.

As a photographer I feel the best advertising I can do is a promotional ad to gain more clients. I think the best option would be once every 6 months or 3 months depending on the number of clients I have at that time. I think depending on how often you put out an ad would reflect the time or the days that the ad would be running or available. If I was running it every 3 months I would try to keep the length of the promotion down to one month or even less like a week but if you were doing it every 6 months it should run for a month or at least the promotion would. If you are a business selling products I think more ads like once a week would be great just to showcase what you sell but not necessarily at a discounted rate or promotion. The ad would be just to attract more viewers and intern hopefully sell more products. Depending on the amount of income you are receiving should reflect the number of ads that you are posting. As a photographer I would want to put out more ads when I'm slower and making less money to attract a lot of clients. I would run less ads when my schedule is becoming fuller because I would be making less money on my promotional deals through ads than a standard client that I charged a regular fee. If you sell products I believe you'd want to post more ads when you're making more money but only if the ads are being beneficial to gaining more customers and selling more products but you would definitely try to post more ads if you aren't selling a lot of product because that would give you more of a reach and audience and spread word of the business and hopefully would then sell some more product.