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Love them or hate them, the guidelines of Meta’s ad platform greatly impact the ways credit unions market their services.

Social media advertising for credit unions has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Finding and converting your target audience on Facebook or Instagram at one point felt akin to shooting fish in a barrel; not only could advertisers tap into the demographic attributes and on-platform interests and behaviors provided directly by users, but Facebook’s partnerships with third-party data providers allowed advertisers even more opportunities to target exactly the right person with the right message.

On a recent broadcast of our WebStrategies Live show, we gave an introduction to Facebook advertising, and it was a hit. It turns out many of you are hungry for advice on how to approach Facebook ads and make them successful for SMBs. We had a lot more to say on the topic, so we decided to continue the conversation with Intro to Facebook Advertising Part 2. This segment offers guidance on custom audiences, different types of ads and placement of those ads, and tailoring your message to where your prospects are in the buying journey.

Our recent show, Intro to Facebook Advertising, had the highest live views of any of our broadcasts to date, and for good reason. Many small to medium sized businesses know that there are opportunities for them to reach their audience through Facebook ads, but aren't sure how to get started and what to expect.

You've no doubt heard about the controversy over Facebook's use of customer data. For marketers, Facebook has developed excellent targeting capabilities that can produce an impressive ROI. But if Facebook is in hot water over improper data handling, what does it mean for advertisers? If you currently advertise on Facebook, or have considered trying it, we want to update you on how you may be impacted.

You've been doing this content thing for a while now. You've even established a content promotion strategy to make sure people actually see what you're publishing. If you're like most marketers who are doing well with content publishing and promotion efforts, your strategy probably includes things like reaching out to industry influencers, guest blogging and maybe even a little social post boosting.

Just like other online advertising channels, freshness is critical to the success of Facebook advertising campaigns. If you only have one set of copy and one ad image, your campaign is sure to run out of steam quickly. One way to keep your campaigns fresh is to edit ad copy and images frequently. Another way is to use the Facebook Carousel feature, which allows you to display multiple graphics & copy within one ad. Not only is it a great way to keep your ads fresh and varied, it's also a great way to test what's working and what isn't. So, what are you waiting for? Here's a step-by-step guide for creating, customizing and editing a Facebook Carousel Ad:

Facebook has recently announced that there are important changes coming for their social plugins, most notably the Like Box and Activity Feed. If you currently have a Like Box plugin on your site, as of June 23rd, 2015, you will need to update to the new Page Plugin instead. If you do not, the plugin will no longer work. There is no update for the Activity Feed, it simply needs to be removed for your site before June 23rd.

The following post was originally published in WorkIt Richmond, a small business news and resource publication.