Learning more

As I said right at the start of this chapter, if you have a mind to learn then there’s a lot more cool, creepy and technical things you can do with social media advertising that will help you find customers.  For example, you can build ‘lookalike’ audiences where Facebook first tracks the kinds of people who visit your website (again by using its tracking pixel) and then tries to find more people on its platform like them to show your advert to.  Or it can know if someone has been to a specific page on your website – eg to view a product or service – and then show them adverts just relating to that product they viewed.  You will have seen it all before yourself.  You will visit a website and then – BAM! – that company’s advert appears in your social media feed, and that’s no coincidence.  This isn’t just an option for large companies any more either; anyone can set it up with a bit of knowledge and pay relatively small amounts of money for very targeted results.

And you shouldn’t be afraid of going and finding an up-to-date tutorial to show you how to do it too.  Or if you have less time than money, find someone you can pay to do it or set it up for you.  And again, if you are going to pay someone to help then find a fellow vegan.  It’s not just about giving business to someone who is on the same mission as you, but it will save you a heap of time in having to explain your customer, the kinds of pages that customer might follow, or what kind of graphics to use in the adverts.  They will already be on your cruelty-free wavelength.

Facebook especially have moved towards getting everyday users and small businesses to try paid advertising services.  The interface you get if you are just running adverts from your personal account is a lot more simplified than if you’re running your adverts from a dedicated advertiser account where you have the option to run multiple accounts for multiple pages.  Since Facebook now own Instagram you also run your Instagram advertising and Facebook advertising from the same dashboard – which is really useful for comparing how each platform is performing for you.  Replicating your Facebook advert on Instagram is as simple as ticking a box.

So if you have a little bit of money to spend, because of the manageability and sheer audience size, you should consider spending it on social media.