Maximize Facebook Reach with the Billboard Principle

When you’re driving down the road and see a billboard, much of the time they are these huge images, with few words, and a call to action. They are one of the oldest and most tried and true forms of modern advertising. Because, why not use a huge canvas that’s hard to ignore to capture people stuck in traffic, on their way into town, and that are looking ahead at the road (and hopefully not distracted)? That being said, FB links are our billboards as bloggers, web advertisers, and product producers online. So when FB provides us free billboard space, we must take advantage of it. We must take advantage of all of it in order to maximize facebook reach.

For large companies, billboards are ideal. They cost a lot of money and are only relevant for the 6 to 10 seconds someone might see it while driving. Therefore, they must be high-impact and worth it every time. And while digital marketing is different an may not cost us money, it might just cost us clicks if we don’t follow some of the same rules.

How to maximize facebook reach and digital marketing by understanding billboard marketing

Every link on facebook is given a picture. 

This is our billboard space. It is 600×315 pixels (I have also used 560×292 with great success, but that link is directly to FB) and  we need to fill up every last pixel with something interesting, thought provoking, and/or visually beautiful. When we choose not to use the ad space we’re given, we lose out on potential clicks. Because while people may not be driving by, they still may only have 6-10 seconds of a first impression when they quickly scroll through their feed. So what will make you worth clicking on?

Unlike Pinterest, Facebook likes horizontal images. When we use vertical images as our primary link, many times it will either get chopped and cropped funny, or it will only be this tiny icon in the left side of the link. And that’s for sure not maximizing your ad space or reach on facebook.

Create Visual Interest.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words, and properly cropping and displaying it is probably worth another thousand. So when we look at the two examples above, we can see that even in the small space that you’re given, you can even include multiple pictures to help create interest and a desire to click.

Many times in the billboard industry, it is said to not use more than 6 words or something that’s easy to digest while driving. It’s not too distracting, but it catches your attention. Same goes for FB images and posts. Make sure that you’re not filling it up with words that clutter, but that you are enticing a reader to click.

Be Smart, Not clever. 

It may sound counter intuitive, but you want to leave the creativity behind in a way. You don’t want to lose a potential audience because your image doesn’t make sense. Each image needs to be clear, concise, make sense, and leave an impression.

Maybe your image is very straight forward and the FB caption is what hits the home run to want to click. Think through the entire process. Just like some billboards have 3D effects or take advantage of the pole or get creative with the medium, you can too and it goes beyond 600×315 image size.

In the end, you can maximize facebook reach if you carefully think trough your link images and take full advantage of the space you’re given.