I just came back from Facebook Fit, an exclusive event at Facebook Headquarters created solely for entrepreneurs. Sheryl Sandberg even made a surprise appearance, and I have to admit, I was totally starstruck.

Of course, I couldn't wait to share my key takeaways with you!

Not only does she kick some serious ass holding down the female presence as the COO of Facebook and the author of Lean In, but she also believes in the huge power of small business owners like you and me.

After I re-learned how to breath, I focused in on what Sheryl, Dan Levy (Facebook’s Director of Small Business) and the other speakers had to say to entrepreneurs.

If you didn’t get to go, fear not! I have some exclusive takeaways and best practices directly from Facebook that will help your business grow.

Facebook Fit - General Advice

1. Do not give up on your passions

Have real resilience as your business changes and grows (and it will!). Stay with it, and believe in yourself.

2. You can build your entire business using the power of Facebook alone

With over 1 billion users, entrepreneurs can use Facebook ads to create an engaged community and genuine interest in their offerings. You just need to know how to use it right!

3. You don’t need a huge budget to be successful - testing is everything

You can test your audience and see how they respond to your posts with as little as $20! Start small and go with your gut, and then grow your budget as you start to understand where your advertising dollars are best spent.

4. Know and understand your key success metrics! 

What are the metrics of success for your online business? One of my key metrics are newsletter conversions.

If you have a product, perhaps its a sale directly from your site! When it comes down to it, you know what's best to measure for your business.

5. Create great content that your market loves and responds to

Remember, testing is key! Also, keep in mind that people and product photos perform the best as ads, according to Facebook.

The Nitty Gritty of Facebook Ads

6. Precision targeting is essential

As an entrepreneur with a smaller budget for advertising, precise targeting is key for me. I especially love the Custom Audiences tool.

Did you know you can build your audience based on demographic information Facebook collects, in addition to third party information, like online spending habits? This is HUGE!

You can also target people with “Lookalike Audiences”, a hand-dandy tool that creates an audience for you that is similar to customers you already have, based on databases.

7. CPC vs. CPM vs. oCPM

What you use here depends on your goals – what result do you want from your Facebook campaign?

CPC (Cost Per Click) -  this option is great if you simply want people to click on your ads and go to your website.

CPM (Cost Per Impression) - best when you’re trying to reach a lot of people and trying to create brand awareness

oCPM (Optimized Cost Per Impression) - awesome if you’re trying to get people to take action on your ad. "Actions" can be a number of things, such as Facebook Likes, clicks-to-website and conversions. This tactic is what Facebook recommends.

8. Conversion tracking is key to running a successful ad!

What’s your measure of success? Is it someone joining your newsletter? Is it someone buying a product? After you install a conversion pixel on your site, you can easily measure what goals you met so your ROI will be crystal clear.

9. Link Ads vs. Website Ads vs. Mobile App Ads

Link Ads are the way to go! Why? Because this is the option that allows direct placement in the news feed, mobile feed and the right sidebar. The only catch is that you need to have a Facebook page in order to use this option, which you should have anyways!

Website Ads are basically the same, but you don’t need a Facebook page to use it. I didn’t dive too deeply into mobile app ads, but what I do know is that it’s a way for users to easily install your app from Facebook’s interface, and for you to optimize conversions for this goal.

10. Boosted posts are great for increasing engagement

A Facebook boosted post is basically the same thing as an ad.

There are some differences worth noting. The hugest difference for entrepreneurs is the increased capacity for targeting and goal-setting that comes with creating an ad. With ads, I’m able to more precisely pick who I want to target, and also able to optimize for certain goals.

Boosted posts are more limited in this capacity. With that being said, boosted posts are great when you notice a certain post is doing very well organically, and you’d like to capitalize on its success.

Final Words

It was my intention to share key takeaways from Facebook Fit with you, and I hope you have benefited as much as I have! I don’t know about you, but I’m super inspired to go out and create my first Facebook campaign.

Bonus Tip: Once you run an ad (i.e. spend some money!), you have access to Facebook support here.

Test it out and report back! Let me know what works and what doesn't work for your Facebook Ads strategy in the comments below.