Ads on Facebook have been around for a while now and based on reviews coming out from some users, results using facebook ads are mixed. I personally find them to be an effective and intriguing option for many small businesses.

Here’s why

You have a very large universe on Facebook, but you can target your ad to be shown based on the location, sex, age, education and keyword interests of the Facebook user, making this a potentially narrow ad buy, particularly for the local business. If you want to show your ad to business type folks only in Denver, CO, so be it.

Some detractors claim that Facebook ads don’t convert to sales, but I would suggest that is the wrong way to think about and use this tool. Think of your Facebook ads, or ads in any social media space, as content that is intended to create further awareness about more content. See, Facebook ads don’t have to link out to your sales page, they can be associated with content right there on Facebook. For instance, if you use the events application to promote an event you are hosting, such as a webinar, you can associate ads with that event and drive targeted people to find out about or even directly RSVP to your event on Facebook. Same is true for the video application. Use Facebook ads to drive people to a video on Facebook that gives great content and invites them to learn more at your primary web hub.

You can also tightly integrate your ad campaigns with the largely revamped fan or business pages options to create outposts for your fan pages and invite narrowly defined target audiences to become a fan on Facebook.

When you use these internal ad plays, your ads, complete with social features, become more like tiny bites of content instead of sales pitches and help prospective customers get to know, like and trust you a bit more before you ever ask for business.

Facebook allows you to buy your ads on a Cost per click or cost per thousand impressions basis and provides decent real-time reporting so you can adjust your ads as needed.

If you already have a Facebook profile and/or fan page you can start running ads today from the Facebook Ads page