The social media toll road: the promise and peril of Facebook advertising

Abstract

In the world of Facebook, can money re-ally buy popularity? At the Montana State University (MSU) Library, armed with a small advertising budget, we aimed to find out. After two years of using the library’s Facebook page as a free avenue to reach users, we decided to explore different paid routes available within Facebook. Our goals for implementing a Facebook advertising campaign were primarily to increase user awareness of library services and resources, and secondarily to understand the mechanisms of Facebook advertising. Our experiences allowed us to get a glimpse of life on the Facebook toll road.