Utilizing Facebooks advertising platform is a great way to conduct market and consumer research.
Facebook may have over 500 million users who frequent the site and spend a considerable amount of time on there but those people are not particularly interested in ads. Theyre interested in what their friends are doing, looking at photos, searching for other people, and of course playing social games such as Mafia Wars.
Facebook knows this. In order to give their users a quality experience they have chosen to not place advertisements directly in front of the user, instead they keep them unobtrusive and off to the side. This means two things: Facebook wont send your business hordes of traffic and CTR percentages can often be incredibly low (well below 1%).
So then why bother with Facebook?
Demographics
Facebook users offer the site very detailed information about them, from their age, sex and current location all the way to what movies they watch, places theyve checked-in at and of course fan pages of brands that they like.
With enough clicks from Facebook ads, your business can look for and identify trends in an effort to uncover a hidden target market that wasnt previously known. Or, your business can learn more about their interests and then optimize your entire marketing strategy to better reach your audience.
Dont expect Facebook to send your business a high volume of buyers but use its advertising platform as a means of conducting market research. The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them.