Advertising a Local Business on Facebook and Instagram

by Diana | Mar 26, 2019

If you have a local business, dependent upon local customers, advertising on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram may not sound worthwhile. Why advertise to billions of people when your customer base is probably in the tens of thousands (or less) in your locale?

Here’s the thing: You can target a local audience through these platforms, if you know how to do it.

Facebook Ad Creator/Manager

1. Facebook allows you to target ads based on geographic location, down to an individual town or city. Based on the information it has about its users, Facebook will only show your ads to that targeted audience.
2. You can upload your email list to Facebook and target ads only to those leads and customers.
3. You can use Facebook’s Offers to offer coupons and discounts to people in your locale, and they can even claim those on Facebook to purchase from you.
4. You can further define your ad targets by defining your ideal customer (age, gender, etc.) through the Facebook Ad Creator/Manager. Your ad will not only target a specific geographical location, but specific people within that location.

Connecting Your Facebook Ads with Instagram

You do not have to create entirely new ads for your Instagram account. If you have a great ad that includes visuals that are appropriate for Instagram, you can simply connect your Facebook ads to Instagram to use them there as well.

Now, here’s the thing about Instagram. Only followers will see your ads if you rely on only your basic Instagram account. So, you have some additional work to do. Here are your steps:

1. Connect your Facebook page to Facebook’s Business Manager. The instructions for doing this are easy but necessary if you are going to move onto Instagram advertising.
2. Connect your Facebook Ads account that you intend to use for Instagram ads to Business Manager. Just go to your Facebook Ads Manager account Settings and copy your account ID in the required field.
3. Add your Instagram account to Facebook Business Manager. You’ll be asked to “link” your Instagram account to your Facebook Ads account – it’s a simple click.
4. Go to Facebook Ads Power Editor to make sure you are eligible for Instagram advertising. You’ll get a message stating you can now use Facebook Ad Manager for Instagram – you are connected, and you can run the same ads on both platforms.
5. Using your Facebook Ad Manager, you can now create your Instagram campaign, using the same localization criteria that you have used with Facebook.
6. You have to choose your placement based on your budget, the daily reach you want, and pay-per-link to your website (how much you are willing to pay). Instagram will walk you through this process, so don’t be anxious over how this is accomplished.
7. The point is this: you can use the same localization criteria that you use for Facebook localization, and, just as with Facebook ads, you can track the success of your campaign for those local audiences.
8. Be sure to supplement your paid ad campaign by using your account to post amazing visuals, with the right hashtags that include your locale. When users search for products or services on Instagram, and they want local providers, they will search for those hashtag keywords.

The Takeaway

Both Facebook and Instagram can be great platforms for you to advertise to your local audience. It will take a bit of learning and work, but Facebook makes it quite easy and will walk you through the process. You can target your ideal customer at a much lower cost than running local print ads or sending out mailers, most of which will be tossed anyway. Leverage these two huge social media platforms where your customers hang out.