Have you ever considered advertising your services? It doesn’t take a TV commercial to get word out about your wellness business. One of the easiest ways to get your brand out there is by turning to social media. Advertising on social media can be a great way to reach potential clients and it’s easier than you think. Today, we’re looking at how you can market your practice on Facebook with Facebook ads.

How does Facebook advertising work for dietitians?

First off, it’s a common misconception that by advertising online you’re advertising to the world. If you’re looking for region-specific clients, that is entirely still possible. Facebook allows you to select a region that can be as broad or as narrow as you’d like. If you don’t want to target everyone in your region, it even allows you to focus in your target demographic by interests. If someone in your area has an active interest in nutrition or fitness for example, they might be a good potential client.

Facebook’s ads also can be very budget friendly. If you’re just starting your private practice and have a tight budget, Facebook can be cost effective. You can set your budget for the day, for the week, for the month and shut off the ad with one click of a button. You’ll always know what you’re spending and can monitor it fast.

The last thing to note, for the Instagram fans out there, Facebook ads double as Instagram ads. Your ads can appear on both sites.

How do you go about creating your own ad?

When creating your own Facebook ad, you have a few options:

1. “Carousel” (2-10 images that you can scroll through)
2. a single image
3. a single video
4. a slideshow (looping video ad with up to 7 images)

We recommend the single image ad for dietitians. You can decide what image to use. Effective ads tend to include easily readable visuals with minimal text. While you might love your logo, your logo can appear in placements around the image as part of the ad and may be too wordy to be the image. Facebook’s recommended size for your image is 1200 x 628 pixels.

A few small things to keep in mind, be sure to check the copyrights before using an image that you do not own in your advertisement. Images can be used if public domain or note in their licensing that they may be used commercially. Some text fonts also may not be used commercially so be sure to check their licensing before you use them in an advertisement.

Boosting Facebook Posts

Another option to consider in your Facebook marketing strategy is to boost a post that you’ve already created. When you choose to boost a post, it will help to expand the post reach and you can also incorporate a call-to-action button.

Button options on Facebook Ads include:

• Shop Now
• Book Now (ideal for promoting a discovery call if you offer one)
• Learn More (pushes prospective clients to see more information about your practice and visit your website)
• Sign Up (helps collect contact information so you can then create an tailored email marketing campaign)
• Get Directions
• Send Message (creates a more personalized approach, where you can connect with prospective client and pitch your services)
• Send WhatsApp Message (ideal if many of your clients are international)

More than tailoring your call-to-action, you’ll also be able to tailor who your post reaches. With your ideal client in mind, adjust the location, age, gender and preferences to help reach the right audience.

Investing in Facebook Ads

At the end of the day, an effective Facebook Ad campaign will have a clear goal (ie. collect contact information) and resonates with prospective clients. Before investing in a large amount of money on Facebook Ads, make sure you feel confident in your campaign objective. Most marketing strategies require testing and modifying to land on the most effective campaign version.

With Facebook Ads, you can select the duration you want your campaign to run and the budget you’d like to spend. You may want to consider boosting a post or running a campaign for a shorter time period (ie. one week) with a smaller budget (ie. $5/day) and evaluate how it performs. Test a few different posts or campaigns and analyze which ones overall have the best performance. You can then invest more into the most effective campaign.