Today, there are 1.49 billion active users on Facebook. With so many people around the world using this form of social media to connect with friends, discover new things, and expand their online reach - it's no surprise that businesses want to make the most out of a possible new resource. Facebook advertising provides companies with an effective way of reaching out to target audiences - but just like anything else online today, the concept comes with a number of worrisome myths.

How much do you really know about Facebook advertising? Here, we'll discuss 5 of the most common prevailing myths about this type of online advertising.

Myth 1: Facebook Ads Are Only For Branding

Some businesses are convinced that it's impossible to generate new business and customers through Facebook advertisement - but this is not the case. Despite the fact that advertising through social media has evolved significantly over the recent years, many advertisers continue to regard it as a type of email-marketing alternative. What many people fail to notice is that Facebook Ads are actually highly effective at generating leads, direct sales, mobile app installations, and more. Through demographical and locational targeting, Facebook advertising can ensure that your marketing efforts get to the people who will benefit from them most.

Myth 2: Advertising On Facebook is Expensive

Last year, a large number of people began to bash Facebook advertisements - not because they were truly problematic, but because insulting a huge corporation is a great way to get attention. Yes, advertising with Facebook does cost money - but the amount you spend depends entirely upon you. Some people choose to run advertisement campaigns on Facebook for as little as $1 a day, whereas others take their marketing efforts sky-high. At the end of the day, you'll need to decide whether placing your advertising dollars in social media efforts could be more effective than your current strategy.

Myth 3: You Should Boost Every Post

Some people believe that "boosting" their Facebook posts is the best way to generate attention - but this might not be true. Although boosting is the simplest ad to create, it's not necessarily the most effective. Facebook actually provides more options for advertising than most people realize. Along with simply boosting your posts, you could decide to develop an advertising campaign that's designed to drive traffic to an app, get conversions on your website, and more. Although boosting every post is likely to give you more engagement on your content, its worth remembering that if that content doesn't have a solid way of capturing leads or creating action, then you're wasting your money.

Myth 4: It's Pointless To Advertise In The Right Column

Facebook have recently developed a new look for advertisements in the right-hand-side column, yet some people continue to believe that advertisements in this location are useless. The truth is that assertions such as these are wrong. There have been plenty of successful campaigns in which right-column ads on Facebook have generated significant improvements in regards to return on investment - particularly when compared with advertisements that simply show up on the newsfeed. At the end of the day, there's no way to tell whether using the right column will be beneficial to you until you've tried it for yourself.

Although it's true that the rate of click-throughs obtained from the right-hand column can be as much as ten times worse than click-throughs obtained through the newsfeed, it's important to remember that there's far more inventory space to take advantage of, and the prices are generally a lot cheaper. Crucially, fewer things in the right hand column distract users, because they can click on links without having to worry about comments, likes, and shares getting in their way. If you want to get the most out of your advertising in this area however, you should look into utilizing pictures with significant visual contrast to draw your viewers in. Retargeting is also quite useful in the right column as users that already know your brand are more likely to notice your advertisements.

Myth 5: It's Fine To Buy Fake Facebook Likes

This is potentially the most dangerous myth about Facebook advertising that exists today. We're in the year 2015, and the truth is that good marketers shouldn't even be considering this option as way to improve their traffic. No matter what other articles might tell you, or what you may believe yourself, selling Facebook likes is a scam, and buying them so that your brand seems more popular will only hurt your company in the long run.

The truth is that the number of likes your page generates doesn't actually mean anything to your business. Just because you have a significant number of likes on your page doesn't mean that you'll be generating extra revenue. Similarly, a page that has fewer likes will not look any less trustworthy than a page with thousands of likes but no engagement.