Customer Reviews

Facebook Advertising For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

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The Good:

Facebook Advertising for Dummies was written by Paul Dunay, Richard Kreuger, and Joel Elad, who I'd never heard of before, but that doesn't mean they're not reputable experts -- after all, I'm sure they've never heard of me.

And the book is formatted and structured just as every other Dummies book, so if you've read one before, you'll know how to get to what you need.

Now the question for a book like this is: is it worth the $30 Canadian? And there's no way to say it's not. Facebook ads are one of the things that the Zuggernaut has gotten right (there's no need to enumerate what it's got wrong here), and they represent a cost-effective way for businesses and groups of all sizes to access online advertising in an easy, powerful way.

Facebook Advertising for Dummies gives you a practical and commonsense guide to using ads on Facebook. Some of the things that I think are particularly useful in the book:

* how to design and optimize your ads

* how to test ads before launching a campaign

* how to integrate Facebook ads into your overall marketing strategy

* how to manage multiple campaigns

* how to work with the copious data that Facebook provides on ad performance

The Bad & The Ugly:

Overall, the book is a super resource, plainly written (which is a compliment) and useful. For me, the section that was least useful was how to design landing pages in Facebook. While I could likely figure out how to use FBML, I don't see that happening any time soon. Most of the time, someone better with code than I would be designing the landing pages (if the ads were going to point people to Facebook pages).

There's a lot of resource here, and it would likely be especially useful for small businesses or not-for-profits that want to get online but don't have an agency or money to spend on consultants. However, I suspect that as a PR guy who sometimes recommends that consulting clients use Facebook ads, I'll be continuing to refer to this book in time to come. Unless, that is, Facebook changes the way things are done. In which case I really will look like a dummy. And not the good kind.

Terrific and practical guide to Facebook advertising. If you have a business and an audience on Facebook than this book is more than worth the price and the read.

I have been doing social media and Facebook campaigns for many years now. But even with that experience, the structure and discipline in this guide prompted me to buy it as a practical resource for our team. And it delivers. My bet is that it will stay useful for many years because it helps guide the "what" and "why" of Facebook strategy and not just the "how" of execution. And that is important because in the world of Facebook and social media the how is always changing.

Because BrainRider is focused on B2B, Facebook is not always the right tool (but you might be surprised in how often it does fit). But as a great test and learn medium with very low-budget options it should be considered as part of your planning process.

So don't be a dummy and go get more customers. The tools are yours to use.

Scott Armstrong

BrainRider

"sharing what we know about how to connect with and convert more B2B customers is what we do!"

Columbo answer: Buy it now, explain why later.

Sherlock Holmes answer: If you explore and remove all the options, the remaining one must be the answer. Or Sherlock reportedly said, "Should I answer chronologically or alphabetically?" There are no answers to advertising, marketing, social media marketing, there are only roadmaps, recipes and ideas. If we had all the answers, then we wouldn't need to know anything we would have already done it. In lieu of knowing everything or even a very little we need to get ideas, direction and "how-to's" to do something. This book gives you a "soup-to-nuts" approach to Facebook advertising. If you have the money to buy only one book, buy this one. Reports, graphs, graphics and even some great cartoons by Rich Tennant to get you going and keep you motivated.

Advertising is hard work, I've done Google Adwords since the beginning in 2003 and they keep making it harder to do. Facebook advertising is a great platform for "their" audience but it is not the only audience. Being a Twitter fan, I prefer it than others. Yet you the advertiser have to find your own marketplace or space to suit your own needs. Coffee cups, billboards and very traditional media still works. It will continue work in spite of proclamations of the "death of email marketing" email still works as well. I am coming the end now as I like to keep writing shorter than the Gettysburg Address but want to leave with my favorite chapter and one that everyone seems to want to know the answer to. What is the ROI or rather "where's the money, honey?" Chapter 9 Tracking conversions to Sales is more about marketing then Facebook, it is about how sales and marketing work together. The greatest sales person I have ever known Dan Broussard, who said it best, "marketing tells sales people who to call on." Buy the book for Chapter 9 alone or as Holmes would say, "Elementary Mr. Watson*."

One final note, I first met Paul at a presentation he gave on Avaya's stealth product integrating contact center with Facebook.

Tom @techtionary is the author of 13 books on technology and society including: Split Second Society, Knowledge Engineering Business Uses of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Buildings. He writes profusely daily created TwitterTutors [...] and built the first and largest animated library on technology called TECHtionary [...] because he like Holmes would ask the question -- why would you put static text on the internet?

*(or if you want the funny answer, [...]

I felt intelligent about advertising on Facebook after reading "Facebook Advertising for Dummies". With this guide in hand I have the information I need to start campaigns for my own products or recommend campaigns to my clients in order to generate new revenue with an efficient advertising program.

If you have any responsibility for generating revenue in your company, then this book is an important resource for you in 2011 and beyond. You might have been so busy performing your job as a marketing expert, salesperson, or CEO that you have not had time to participate in Facebook or learn about how it might be used to serve your company. If that's the case, then this book is your opportunity to catch-up.

Lead author Paul Dunay is a recognized expert in Business-to-Business marketing and other areas of commerce. If you have been wondering whether Facebook advertising might work in Business-to-Business marketing, then Dunay is your guide and this is your guidebook.

One of the aspects that I liked about the book is that it's suitable for both strategists and tacticians. Dunay, Krueger, and Elad lead off the book by explaining how any company can profit from the Facebook revolution. This section introduces a number of good speaking points for that you can use to help your team to understand the importance of this medium. The authors also provide advice on metrics and other topics to help you gauge whether your campaign is successful or not.

In the first of five logically organized sections, this trio of modern-day "Mad Men" provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up your Facebook Account, match your ads to your strategy, and choose the right campaign.

Another aspect of the book that I liked is that Dunay and company tap their years of traditional marketing experience to help us apply long-standing techniques to Facebook advertising. They walk the reader through a target market analysis and then explain how this type of advertising can be used to ensure that your marketing money is directed at the audience you seek and not wasted on those outside of the target.

The last point of this review addresses a question you might be pondering. The book was written in 2010 and you know that Facebook and other sites change as quickly as the weather in New England. Therefore, you might be asking, how do I stay ahead of the crowd so that I am not dumbfounded when confronted with the latest version? The answer is that you can engage in Dunay in real-time by following his Twitter account ([...] ) and website ([...] ).

Therefore, you can consider the "Facebook Advertising for Dummies" book as the foundation of your knowledge on this topic and then tap into Dunay's updates in order to remain current and intelligent on this topic. The combination of these resources plus your own talent adds up to a winning recipe for succeeding in this new world of advertising.

You can order this book now on Amazon and get started in the next few days. I wish you good success and encourage you to contact Dunay with your results.