Using Facebook Ads

March 15

Growing schools
Advice ¦ support ¦ ideas
A guide to using Facebook Ads
This document is designed to give you a step by step guide to setting up Facebook Ads.
Several free school groups have asked us for more detailed guidance on this more technical
element of using Facebook and some groups have used ads successfully to supplement their
demand gathering online.

Like any promotional tool however, it will only work if it works for your audience, so it is
worth considering all your options before you decide whether Facebook Ads are right for
you.

NSN has already produced a guide to gathering evidence of demand for your school and
engaging with your community and you might find it useful to review the advice here before
you make a decision about Facebook advertising.

Facebook adverts in context

Advertising on Facebook can be a good way to reach a very specific target audience for a
specific task (e.g. filling in a survey) and speeding up the creation of a network of
supporters. It is also relatively low cost.

However, it is not a replacement for the organic element of managing your Facebook page.
On the contrary, advertising will make your presence on Facebook much more visible so it is
worth making sure your page looks good and is being regularly updated. More importantly,
if your campaign is successful you will see an increase in traffic and engagement so you
need to make sure your page is being monitored so that questions/comments are
responded to quickly and effectively.

Remember: Facebook is not the only game in town – there are many other online channels
that you may want to consider in conjunction with or instead of Facebook Ads. The best
option for you all depends where your audience can be most effectively reached but you
might want to consider some of the following. These sites are much smaller than Facebook
in terms of reach but if they are well used in your area can be a great way to access your
audience.

— Streetlife calls itself the ‘local social network’ and offers a free social network for
local communities.
— Local Mumsnet and Netmums websites give a forum for parents to share Advice on
all aspects of parenting – including education. These sites do charge for Adverts but
it is free to post on their forums.
— Your Square Mile encourages communities to connect and share ideas about
community engagement projects.

It is also worth bearing in mind that your target audience may already be connected and
discussing schools on Facebook: Local community or neighbourhood organisations will often
have their own Facebook groups (public or private). Connecting with them/ asking them to

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promote your cause can be a great way to increase the impact of your presence on these
channels.

Facebook basics (setting up your page)

From your personal Facebook page you can create a page for your free school page from the
drop down arrow in the top right of your screen.

There are six different types of pages but the most relevant type is the ‘Company,
Organisation or Institution’ option. It’s up to you what sub-category you wish to go for as a
number of these could apply to your group (for example, ‘School’, ‘Non-profit Organisation’
or ‘Community Organisation’

The Set-Up a page wizard will guide you from here through each step to creating your page.
Once you’ve finished you can edit your details at a later date from the ‘About’ tab on your
page.

Creating Ad campaigns
From your group’s page, you can create a range of Ad campaigns to help increase your
profile or to build on your evidence of demand. Facebook advertising allows you to target
people based on a range of geographical and demographical factors.

There are a range of Ad types available to you so it’s best to think about what you want to
achieve before you start advertising. For example, if you want to build your network then a
‘Promote your Page’ campaign is your best option, but if you want parents to visit your
website to fill in a demand survey then the ‘Send people to your website’ option is more
appropriate.

Increasing ‘Likes’ and promoting your group

Once users ‘Like’ your page they will receive your posts on their timeline, allowing you to
give them regular updates on the progress of your application and encourage them to
attend events, register their interest or get more involved with your group. It’s also a useful
platform for answering questions and engaging with potential supporters.

Getting started
— From your Facebook page, click on ‘Create Ads’ (from the drop down arrow in the top
right hand corner).
— Choose the ‘Promote your Page’ option. This Ad type is aimed at generating ‘Likes’.

Targeting Ads
— ‘United Kingdom’ is the default targeting area for all Ads, you’ll want to make sure this is
removed and the area your school will be located is there instead.
— Facebook targeting only covers the larger population centres so there is a chance your
catchment area won’t appear. If so just pick the largest city/town nearest your proposed
school.
— You can target a wider area by choosing the location +10miles.

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 — The size of your audience is defined on the right hand side under the ‘Audience
Definition’ sidebar.
— Once you’ve defined location, you can target further by age, gender, languages and
interests.
— The most useful targeting however is under ‘More demographics’. From here you
can choose to target ‘All parents’ in your location, or be more specific and target just
parents with children ages 0-3, 4-12, 13-15 or 16-19. So if you are hoping to open a
secondary school, targeting parents with children between the ages of 4-12.

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Budgeting
— You can decide to set a per day budget, meaning you will never spend more than the
specified amount a day, or a lifetime budget that means once you’ve spent your total
amount the Ad will stop running.
— Also under budgeting is the option to schedule your Ads to run for a certain time period.
Before scheduling make sure someone will be able to monitor the Ad campaign every so
often in case comments or questions are posted.
— It’s best to use Facebook’s default options for ‘Optimize for’ and ‘Pricing’ (located under
the ‘Advanced options’ section) as this generally will deliver more ‘Likes’ for your
money.
— The ‘Estimated Daily Reach’ sidebar on the right will give you an estimate for how many
people will see your Ad.
— To pay for your Ads, you can add a credit or debit card. A record of payments and
Invoices can be found under ‘Manage Ads’ and then ‘Billing’ in the left sidebar.

Creating your Ad
— The first step to creating your Ad is to choose your images. You can use up to six images
or a video with your Ads and as this will dominate most of your Ad it is best to get the
most engaging images possible.
— Make sure you have permission to use the images you want to use in your Ads.
— Facebook limits the amount of characters you can use as text in your Ad (90 characters
for the body text) so think carefully about the message you’d like to get across and how
best to phrase it, calls to action and simple statistics (for example ‘Sheffield needs X new
primary places…’ often works well.

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— One last thing to be aware of: if you are using an image with text overlaid, it will fall foul
of Facebook’s Advertising guidelines if the words take up more than 20% of the image.
You can test your image to check it is acceptable on the Facebook Grid Tool.

— Once you are happy with the text and images, you can review the Ad before placing an
order.
— Once the order is placed Facebook then reviews the Ad before approving it. Approval
usually takes no more than 30 minutes to an hour.
— You can check on how well the Ad is performing or edit it under ‘Manage Ads’.

Increasing your evidence of demand

If your website has an online form for parents to register their interest, Facebook Ads can be
used to increase traffic to your site and has the potential to increase your evidence of
demand. You’ll want to choose a page on your website with all the basic information about
your school bid, preferably with a ‘Register your interest’ form embedded or linked to from
this page.

Getting started: From your Facebook page, click on ‘Create Ads’ (from the drop down arrow
in the top right hand corner). Choose the ‘Send people to your website’ option and add the
URL you want users to land on.

Targeting: The same rules apply here as in the above Increasing ‘Likes’ guidance. Targeting
the parents with children of the right age range to attend your school is more important
here if you want to gather demand to show your school will be oversubscribed.

Budgeting: The same rules apply here as in the above Increasing ‘Likes’ guidance. It is also
best to stick with Facebook’s default options, i.e. Optimize for ‘Click to Website’.

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Creating your Ad:
— As in the ‘Increasing ‘Likes’ ’ Ad types, you are limited by the number of characters you
can use. However with this type of campaign you can use a Headline (max. 25
characters) along with the body text. You may want to use this space for the name of
your group or a line like ‘New school for Sheffield’ to get across your group’s mission.
— Again, calls to action are effective in the body text, e.g. ‘We want a new primary school
for the Sheffield area. Register here to show your support’.
— You can also add a ‘Call-to-Action’ button to appear on your Ad. This is optional but
using the ‘Learn More’ button adds another clickable link to the Ad and helps your
audience understand what action you want them to take.
— Once you are happy with the text and images, you can review the Ad before placing an
order. Once the order is placed Facebook then reviews the Ad before approving it.
Approval usually takes no more than 30 minutes to an hour.
— You can check on how well the Ad is performing or edit it under ‘Manage Ads’.

Boosting posts and promoting your free school bid

The Advantage of boosting existing posts instead of creating Ad campaigns is that you aren’t
limited by characters. You can publish a post that sets out the vision and ethos of your
proposed school in detail, include a link to your website and an engaging image, and then
promote it to parents who might be interested in learning more or registering their interest.

Getting started:
— From your group’s page, write your post as you would normally and then publish.
— Then click on ‘Create Ads’ followed by ‘Boost your posts’. On the right should appear a
drop down box from which you can pick the post you would like to promote.

Targeting: The same rules apply here as in the above Ad campaigns.

Budgeting: The same rules apply here as in the above Ad campaigns, however you may
want to change how you want to optimize the post. If you want users to Like, Share or

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Comment then ‘Post Engagement’ is best but if you want your post to be seen by as many as
possible then ‘Daily Unique Reach’ or ‘Impressions’ is best. Finally, if you have a link to your
website in the post you’d like users to click, then choose to optimize for ‘Clicks’

Creating your Ad:

— Since you’ve already written the post to be promoted you can just review the content
here and then place your order.
— Like the other Ads, you can check on how well the Ad is performing or edit it under
‘Manage Ads’.

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