Tag: facebook

Categories
Social Media

Facebook Algorithm 2022: How Does It Work?

Despite controversies, a massive branding change, and years of negative press, Facebook remains one of the strongest and most stalwart social platforms on the Internet and an invaluable source of potential leads and customers for businesses worldwide. However, making the most out of Facebook means understanding how it promotes content to its users. And as with most platforms on the Internet, it all comes down to an algorithm.

What Is the Facebook Algorithm?

The Facebook algorithm is a set of factors and characteristics by which Facebook sorts posts to recommend to other users, both from said users and non-individual sources, such as Facebook pages and groups. Things used to be very simple when Facebook was first launched. You would see posts from people you were friends with, and they were typically sorted by likes or chronologically.

As time went on, the algorithm for Facebook’s News Feed became more complicated. With the introduction of more features came a greater need to personalize and improve the quality of the News Feed. Posts were weighted by factors such as:

  • Whether you were friends with a person.
  • The interactions on said post.
  • The time other users would spend with the post.
  • Whether the post’s attached clip would be played to completion often.
  • How much time people would spend watching a clip.

Today, the Facebook algorithm curates your Feed (renamed earlier this year) via three main ranking factors:

  1. Who made the post? The more relevant the poster is to you, the more likely you are to see their posts, whether it’s a person or a business page.
  2. What kind of post is it? Depending on what type of post you typically react to, like, comment on, or interact with more often, you will see more of those posts. Like reading more than scrolling through images or watching videos? You’ll probably see more status updates, and so on.
  3. How are others reacting to the post? Engagement on a post – which can depend on how much time people spend with the post before moving on, the number of reactions on it, comments, and so on – will heavily weigh in a post’s favor. The more relevant the people who engaged in a post (i.e., your friends), the more likely you are to see it.

Following the latest changes in algorithms across the various social media platforms can require a lot of time and energy. If you want to build momentum without following all the latest news, consider working with a team of professional digital marketers specializing in social media marketing.

Do Users Control the Algorithm?

Starting in 2020, Facebook began giving users options to curate their own News Feed and manage the way their data is used to build the algorithm and create a feed that suits them. Facebook doubled down on this in 2021, giving users even more access to the way their information is presented and used on the platform. In practice, this boils down to a number of customization and privacy options on the user’s part:

  • First, users can select pages and other users to highlight as their favorites, up to a total of 30 users and pages. This increases the priority on posts produced by said users and pages.
  • Users can also choose what they don’t want to see, by clicking on the options of any given post and choosing “I don’t want to see this”. You are then given a series of options to explain why you don’t want to see the post, be it a status update, a picture, or a video.
  • On ads, this feature is called “Hide Ad,” and leads to a menu allowing you to indicate why. This helps narrow down your choice of advertising and makes targeted ads more effective (a major selling point for advertisers looking for a higher ROI).

What Does Facebook Optimization Look Like?

The tricky thing about optimizing the content on Facebook is that every user’s algorithm is tailored to their preferences and friend circles. It isn’t quite like Google where generalists or local authorities are weighted more heavily than anything else. Facebook sees itself as a digital community, and it will prioritize content from within a user’s friend circles and relevant activities. The algorithm also grows in response to a user’s actions and behavior. It isn’t so much about what you’re doing – it’s about what each of your customers is doing.

As for ads, Facebook will pool user data to create a tailored feed of ads to minimize recommending products and services that users might not have any interest in, to begin with. This makes the job of an advertiser much easier, as long as you’re continuing to create your Facebook ads with your primary audience in mind. However, there are still a few guidelines for making the most out of the Facebook algorithm.

It’s Still About Quality and Relevance

Quality, not quantity. Your posts will gain more traction if they’re something worth talking about and if they engender discussion and interest. Whether you’re investing primarily in video and photo content or are producing sparse reels and highlight clips in favor of more frequent and informative status updates, focusing on community building is just as important as making sure you’re posting often. Reply to comments, ask questions to encourage discussion, and be distinguished with your content so users don’t feel the urge to just scroll on by.

A lot of this will depend on strong audience research. Facebook wants popular posts to become popular through relevance and informativeness. If you want to nail those qualities, you must first figure out what’s most relevant and informative to your customer base and cater to it. Engagement is key. Content that gets more people to interact with it will generate more traffic and interest over time and will be pushed more.

Leverage Employees and Affiliate Posters

Last but not least, consider the value of your greatest in-company assets – real human beings, with a history on Facebook that includes years of virtual and real-life friendship, and more genuine outreach (usually) than your Facebook Page. Asking employees to share pre-approved content on behalf of their company is not something everyone is comfortable with, of course. If you’re a tight-knit smaller company with a team that feels equally incentivized to see your business grow, then it’s definitely an easier sell.

But if you’re running a bigger business, where employees might feel more “distant” to the emotional core of the company, asking your employees to use their personal, private accounts to post-marketing for your business might be met with lukewarm, if not angry responses. Gauge the interest and potential of your employees before suggesting any organic Facebook marketing on their part.

You don’t have to be overt with it, of course. Sometimes, it just helps to treat your employees right, throw a few extra office parties and company outings, and let the unprompted and unscripted status updates, pictures, videos, and event recollections from employees speak towards the quality of your business and the welcoming working conditions you foster. Take it from CEO Dan Price – it’s always worth investing in people.

Making the most of social media platforms like Facebook takes consistency and patience. But it’s important to gauge your return on investment as well. If most of your target audience isn’t on Facebook at the moment, then it doesn’t make as much sense to go above and beyond protecting your basic web presence to try and realize leads through the FB algorithm.

Working with a professional team can help you better direct your efforts towards channels that are more rewarding, or make the most of a platform like Facebook and its algorithm to promote and grow your business.

Categories
Social Media

Meta Makes Changes to Facebook’s Ad Targeting

Starting January 19th, 2022, advertisers on Facebook are no longer be able to create new ad sets utilizing certain Detailed Targeting options, including:

  • Health causes (e.g., “cancer awareness”, “obesity pandemic”, etc.)
  • Sexual orientation (e.g., “LGBTQIA+”, “trans rights”, etc.)
  • Race and ethnicity
  • Religious groups (e.g., “Islam”, “Catholic Church”, “Hannukah”, etc.)
  • Political beliefs (e.g., political movements, political candidates, political parties, etc.)
  • Social or political issues (e.g., “Black Lives Matter”, climate change, etc.)

If any of your ads are currently running utilizing these targeting points, they will continue to run until March 17th, 2022, at which point the targeting segments will b e automatically removed. Any significant changes made to ad sets between now and March 17th may lead to a removal of these targeted segments, so it’s recommended to keep any changes to the minimum (i.e., budget changes and the like, at most).

These changes come as a result of pressure being levied at Facebook’s parent company Meta, following the release of the Facebook Papers and multiple controversies surrounding use of sensitive data and discriminatory practices in targeted online advertisements.

Why Remove Detailed Ad-Targeting?

Facebook, like a lot of other tech giants, draws its revenue primarily from advertising and has been leading in its ability to provide advertisers with the tools to pinpoint who sees their ads, and when. It makes sense that a company making most of its money from advertising would aim to provide a targeted service for online marketers.

But that specificity came at a cost. Privacy concerns surrounding Facebook (and more recently, Meta), have become more frequent in the past few years, especially as numerous scandals surrounding the company’s use of data came to light, from Cambridge Analytical to the more recent Facebook Papers.

Under pressure from lawmakers and mounting discrimination lawsuits, Meta has ended the use of certain detailed targeting points. Meta For Business specifically notes the potential for abuse and negative experiences of underrepresented groups as a result of the removed targeting segments, as per their findings. As an announcement blog post points out, “we’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups.

“We routinely review, update and remove targeting options to simplify our ads system, provide more value for advertisers and people, and reduce the potential for abuse.”

This decision does not come at a cost to Meta’s commitment to targeted advertising, and being an advertising service. In the same post, the company outlines ways advertisers can continue to meet their goals while delivering ads on Facebook, including the use of broad targeting and other strategies.

Broad targeting will continue to be an important tool for advertisers on the Facebook platform, allowing them to make sure their ads are seen by segments of the population sorted by age, gender, and location. Meanwhile, Meta suggests:

  • Using Engagement Custom Audiences to retarget people who have previously interacted with your content and products on the platform, and the rest of the Facebook family of applications and websites. Engagement Custom Audiences can be generated through video clicks, lead forms, Facebook or Instagram Shopping, Instagram Profiles, Facebook Events, or an interaction on a Facebook Page.
  • Utilizing data gathered through Engagement Custom Audiences to generate Lookalike Audiences, by which Facebook takes the factors that are common between the people in your Engagement Custom Audiences (as a Source Audience, with ideally 1000 to 5000 minimum people) and uses that to find more potential customers to reach out to.
  • Utilizing Location Targeting for services that rely on local business.
  • Utilizing homegrown customer lists from user data your company gathers with the user’s permission.

Other Ad-Targeting Changes

In addition to removing certain targeting capabilities, Meta has also announced that they will continue to expand user control over what kind of ads users will be able to see. This means users will be able to opt out of certain kinds of advertising, or choose to see fewer ads of a certain type.

For example, at the moment, users can decide to opt in or out of ads that focus around:

  • Parenting
  • Politics
  • Alcohol
  • Pets

In 2022, Meta aims to expand these controls and let users opt out of advertising about gambling, weight loss, and other unmentioned ad types.

What This Means for Advertisers

At a glance, the first and most significant impact will be that advertisers are given less control about who they target with their ads. This matters because advertisers paying for ad views will want as many of those views to be from users who have the most potential interest in the respective service or product the ad offers. It isn’t about sheer eyeballs – it’s about the quality of your ad targeting, and how many leads each campaign generates.

Less targeting means fewer leads, as it may take time and a few stumbles to generate a custom audience reliable enough to have a customer profile worth advertising to.

Facebook and Instagram will be the first to implement Meta’s changes, but the shift in interest towards more user control, more user privacy, and fewer targeted ads is prevalent throughout the tech sector. Google has announced the removal of third-party cookies in 2023, and Apple has made several pledges to user privacy, to the point of giving users greater control over what permissions their apps have.

These may not be the last of the targeting points Meta decides to remove over time. The company has explained that they will continue to analyze the potential for abuse in their advertising system, which may mean advertisers will need to take a closer look at what detailed targeting interests most closely relate to their target audiences, and how else they might be able to target them.

Overall, creating a targeted ad campaign on Meta products has just become a lot harder. Companies may need to begin experimenting with targeting options and retooling their ad campaigns after March to lessen the long-term impact this may have on conversion rates.

It’s important to work with a competent team when setting up your ad campaigns, especially amid major changes in the advertising industry. Give us a call, and we’ll help you work through the necessary changes.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook Rebrands: Tech Giant Is Now “Meta”

When Facebook first launched in 2004, no one had any idea of the scope it would have just a decade later, or the way it would participate in a societal shift towards digital platforms and new social technologies.

In an effort to preempt future technologies this time, and build on the impact of the platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a rebranding and change in his company’s vision.

That new brand is Meta, and its vision is to create a whole new virtual reality (VR)-based social experience called the metaverse. Zuckerberg’s founder’s letter, published in late October of this year, goes into further detail on what that means.

Why Meta? What is the Metaverse?

Speculation and metacommentary aside, taken at face value, Facebook’s rebranding is part of a completely new direction for the company, but one that still remains true to what it’s been focused on over the years – social networking, and the ability to connect and remain connected through the Internet. Except rather than relying on the interface of an app or website, and the medium of a screen, Meta’s metaverse will be utilizing virtual reality.

With the news being so new, there are very few concrete details on what the metaverse will look like, or what it intends to consist of.

What we have are a few details from Zuckerberg on his vision for the project, including his hope that “within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers.” Meta states that it seeks to invest $10 billion over the next year alone to further develop the technologies needed to build the metaverse.

This tells us two things: First, Meta is extremely invested in this. The financial commitment is immense, and with it comes a massive manpower commitment as well.

Secondly, Meta intends for the metaverse to be as ubiquitous as Facebook is now. It’s more than a potential new avenue for games. As Zuckerberg claims: “You will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up.”

Virtual reality is far from a new venture for Facebook. The Facebook company purchased VR company Oculus VR in March 2014, for $2 billion, seeing the creation and commercial release of the Oculus Rift and Rift S, following several development kits, and associated software (the Oculus Home and Oculus Store). Oculus’s VR technology has seen applications in gaming, sports, television, education, and media since its purchase by Facebook.

The investment in VR was more than just a way for Facebook to diversify.

Facebook and VR

John Carmack, who was behind much of the technical development of Oculus’ VR technology and joined the company after spending decades programming revolutionary game engines for id Software, spoke up about Oculus VR’s acquisition under Facebook as a sign that the company “get[s] the big picture as I see it, and will be a powerful force towards making it happen. You don’t make a commitment like they just did on a whim.”

However, he has been bullish on the actual creation of the metaverse since before the acquisition of Oculus. “I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not actually the best way to wind up with the metaverse,” he stated at his Facebook Connect keynote following the announcement by Zuckerberg.

“The most obvious path to the metaverse is that you have one single universal app, something like Roblox. I doubt a single application will get to that level of taking over everything.” Roblox is an online game platform marketed as the “ultimate virtual universe”, first released in 2004, with an average of over 224 million monthly players.

His arguments against the intentional creation of a metaverse under Meta’s new direction is that its walled-garden nature would make it too vulnerable to collapse under the weight of individual bad decisions by the application’s managers and executives.

“But here we are,” Carmack ultimately stated. “Mark Zuckerberg has decided that now is the time to build the metaverse, so enormous wheels are turning, and resources are flowing and the effort is definitely going to be made.”

But not all of what he said was sceptical. Concurrent to the announcement, Meta also marketed its VR products Horizon Workrooms and Horizon Worlds, both of which attempt to provide context for what something like the metaverse might look like, on the smaller scale of workspaces and public media events, respectively. With respect to products like that, and the technology associated with them, Carmack stated that: “interacting with other avatars in Workrooms, in particular, can be much more enjoyable than staring at a wall of Zoom faces”.

But these are ultimately small-scale applications with up to 16 other people, versus the envisioned application of VR as a virtual world, where live events with thousands of concurrent users would be possible.

“Everybody that wants to work on the metaverse talks about the limitless possibilities of it,” Carmack said. “But it’s not limitless. It is a challenge to fit things in, but you can make smarter decisions about exactly what is important and then really optimize the heck out of things.”

What Does This Mean for Facebook?

There’s a lot of work left between the proof-of-concept VR technology Oculus and Meta have provided, and the vision Mark Zuckerberg presented this year. But $10 billion is no small investment, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.

If the metaverse, as it’s envisioned, is the next step in social networking, then we might be looking at a literal new plane of reality for in-person events, content creation, large-scale gatherings and small private meetings alike.

On other concrete notes, Meta will start trading under the stock ticker MVRS on December 1, 2021, and Meta intends to report on two new operating segments related to the metaverse in the fourth quarter of 2021, titled Family of Apps and Reality Labs.

Does This Affect Me?

If you’re a marketer for a major global brand, then it might affect you sooner rather than later. Zuckerberg has already alluded to new opportunities for companies interested in digital goods, and as we’ve mentioned, the metaverse will undoubtedly become a new “frontier for advertising”.

But smaller companies shouldn’t write this off as a billionaire’s pipedream, or an elaborate attempt at sweeping headlines related to recent whistleblowing revelations under the rug. If the metaverse is indeed coming to a VR headset near you, it’s sure to present more than a few interesting challenges and opportunities to engage with audiences in a way that’s never been done before.

Was this a good move? Who knows. Scepticism and backlash are certainly at an all-time high, and Meta isn’t exactly the best rebrand we’ve ever seen (far from it). But only time will tell.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook’s New Tools for Businesses

Facebook’s new tools for businesses signal an exciting development for entrepreneurs leveraging the platform. Facebook’s new tools for businesses aim to enhance customer-business interactions, improve lead generation, and expand audience reach, particularly benefiting small businesses. They offer greater convenience for customers and provide businesses the ability to rapidly respond to feedback, adapt services, and initiate promotions, taking business communications and engagement to a new level.

It’s an exciting time for business owners on Facebook. If your boutique or brand has taken off at least partially due to your Facebook page, then you may have noticed that there’s a lot to benefit from in Facebook’s ability to foster customer interactions and provide a place for constant and immediate feedback, especially for small businesses that can routinely and effectively monitor comments and posts on their page, and respond immediately with statements, status updates, and even actual product changes and service additions, or promotions.

With Facebook’s new tools for businesses, Facebook intends to help businesses take things to a whole new level via a slew of upcoming new and overhauled business communications tools, which seek to improve on customer-business relations, help with lead generation, help small businesses reach out to larger audiences, provide greater customer convenience, and a lot more. Let’s take a closer look.

A General Overview of What’s Coming

It’s no secret that Facebook is and always has been in the business of sales. With the ability to interface with customers directly and utilize their information to personalize your sales approach like never before, Facebook aims to bring people and businesses closer together.

The added caveat is that they’re now trying to do so while providing people with an expanded range of options to control how their personal information is being used.

But that doesn’t mean the company aims to take away the personalization aspect in sales and marketing. Instead of shifting the focus entirely onto personalized ads, Facebook claims to be ushering in personalized experiences. This means improving the communication tools between customers and businesses.

Improving Customer-to-Business Communications

If customer choice is the big talking point, why not give customers more choices? Or, more specifically, why not give them the opportunity to choose to talk to businesses the same way they might talk to friends and family?

Effectively bringing individual interactions between customers and small business owners back to the same level they once were between shopkeepers and locals – but through the Internet. At least, that’s the vision Facebook is presenting with its proposed changes to customer-to-business communication on its platforms, including Instagram and WhatsApp.

The first step is to give businesses the option to provide a click-to-message button on their ads, directly connecting prospective customers with the business through Instagram Direct, WhatsApp, and Messenger. No need to first head to the company’s page and click their way through to the contacts – customers could now immediately ask the questions that pop up the moment they lay eyes on an ad.

Cross-Platform Chat Integration

A lot of businesses thrive on the publicity they can get through Instagram, and the functionality and ease of messaging on WhatsApp.

Facebook is trying to bridge any and all gaps between its apps for businesses, making it easier for them to facilitate customer communications and small business marketing efforts – by letting prospective customers immediately start a WhatsApp chat through the Instagram profile of any business they visit.

You might be interested in: How to Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Facebook’s New Tools for Businesses Improve Customer Acquisition

It takes a lot of time out of a business owner’s day to communicate with a client before finally being able to put together a quote for them. They can’t risk asking multiple questions at once, because one of them might be ignored or forgotten.

By implementing a customized 4-5 item questionnaire, certain service providers and businesses can get the information they need from prospective clients before the conversation even starts, and immediately give them a relevant quote to start things off.

Aside from quote requests, Facebook has also been testing lead generation through Messenger and is planning to expand on this idea via personalized ads.

Video and Audio Calls for Businesses on Messenger

Through the existing Business Inbox feature on Messenger, businesses on Facebook can now start video and audio calls with customers who prefer a more personal or in-depth sales pitch, or want to communicate with a representative face-to-face.

Audio Rooms for Businesses

Live Audio Rooms were a feature Facebook implemented for public figures, pages, and live streamers as a way to earn or raise money for a cause. New features are being added to help businesses utilize live rooms as a way to gain new customers, for example via product showcases, live reveals, tips and tutorials, and so on.

Expanding the Appointments Feature

Previously only available in select regions, Facebook’s Appointments feature is also going global. It’s exactly as described – a way for businesses to book and manage client appointments more easily.

Updating the Facebook Business Suite

Updates to the Facebook Business Suite will include managing business communications through Messenger, Instagram, and the Inbox, and send emails via the Suite. A proprietary File Manager is being added to help businesses manage content creation for their Facebook pages, engage in A B testing, and more.

Separating Business and Pleasure

After lots of feedback, Facebook is also officially going to provide business owners with the ability to create Work Accounts that allow them to have an individual presence on the platform without merging that presence with their private accounts.

More specifically, it allows managers and executives to control and operate the Facebook Business Manager without requiring a personal account to begin with. According to the platform, this feature is still being worked on with limited businesses and may debut at a larger capacity next year.

Expanding Facebook Business Explore

Facebook Business Explore is a new feature the company launched to help smaller businesses get discovered more easily, by providing customers with the ability to choose interests and get recommended a variety of different businesses based on what interests them, with a focus on local businesses and creators. The feature is now going global.

Most of Facebook’s new tools for businesses revolve around providing both businesses and customers with more opportunities to inquire about items, directly contact businesses via their ads, make it easier to communicate directly with sales representatives and business owners via video, and provide an array of greater options on the business side of things for companies managing their content on Facebook through the Facebook Business Suite.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook iOS 14 Update: How Will It Affect Your Ads?

Facebook recently published an informative post warning marketers of certain upcoming changes to web and mobile ad campaigns as a result of Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework, which will prompt users to give explicit permission to apps that track them for advertising data. These changes, introduced with iOS 14, have required Facebook to respond and reassure businesses that rely on Facebook ad campaigns to reach a target audience.

What’s Changing with the iOS 14 Update?

Among other things, Apple is aiming to reaffirm their commitment toward user privacy and data use. As per their explanatory post, Apple says: “In order to submit new apps and app updates, you need to provide information about some of your app’s data collection practices on your product page.

“And starting with iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, you’ll be required to ask users for their permission to track them across apps and websites owned by other companies.”

More directly, users will now be able to learn, in detail, how any app or product tracks them, what kind of data it collects, and whether that information can be pinned to their device or identity.

On the flip side, apps on the App Store need to provide an in-depth rundown on their privacy practices, from third-party data collection to proprietary collection systems, and more.

Apple will require that users explicitly provide permission to apps that intend to track them via the AppTrackingTransparency framework. Apple defines tracking as: “the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes.”

A few given examples of tracking include:

  • Display apps based on user data collected from other websites, and apps that are owned by other companies.
  • Sharing location data or email lists with data brokers.
  • Sharing ad IDs, emails, and other IDs with an advertising network to retarget users in other apps.
  • Using a third-party software development kit (SDK) built to combine your collected user data with data from other developers to target users or measure advertising efficiency.

Apple allows a few use cases without requiring that users provide permission via their AppTrackingTransparency framework. These use cases include when:

  • User data or device data is not sent off the device in any way that can identify the user and is only matched with third-party data stored on the user’s device.
  • When the data is being sent to a data broker who solely uses it for fraud detection, prevention, or security.
  • When the data broker is a consumer reporting agency and is collecting credit information.

Apple further specifies that developers may not block functionality behind allowing tracking, nor incentivize allowing tracking.

User Privacy and Ads Personalization

Now, does this mean that every iOS user will become untraceable, and you will be unable to apply personalized ads to that entire demographic of users?

No, it doesn’t. Not all Apple users are cutting off permissions to apps to track them. However, it must be said that the number of people making use of Apple’s data privacy features is increasing. More and more users will choose to not give permission when prompted.

How does this affect the functionality of Facebook ads? Well, it will introduce limitations in a few select areas. Specifically:

  • Ad Creation
  • Ad Reporting
  • Ad Targeting
  • Dynamic Ads

Let’s take a look how Facebook has responded.

Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement

As a compromise between user privacy and effective ad campaigns, Facebook will be rolling out the Aggregated Event Measurement feature, which basically allows ad campaign managers to track web events rather than the users who cause them. This means that ad managers will be able to manage their ads based on data collected from conversion events linked to their different Facebook pixels.

This will allow ad campaign managers to continue to gauge ad campaign effectiveness through Facebook and measure the success of their efforts.

A Facebook pixel is an analytics tool in the form of a string of code placed on your website. These events are reported, and can be reviewed via our Business Manager Account. Aggregated Event Measurement allows for the management and analysis of 8 conversion events from one or more pixels, per verified domain. The process of enabling conversion event analysis through Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement is as follows:

You can learn more about the process via Facebook’s Help Center post on the Aggregated Event Measurement feature.

How Will the iOS 14 Update Affect Ads?

Regarding ad creation limitations, there are new limitations in place regarding the number of iOS 14 campaigns you can run per business app. There is a 72-hour reset period when you delete one of your campaigns before it stops counting against your limit.

On the topic of reporting limitations, real-time reporting will not be supported. Data can take up to 3 days to be reported. Statistical modeling will be used to produce estimated results. Delivery breakdowns based on user factors like age, gender, etc. won’t be supported.

As for user targeting limitations, the size and activity of your Custom Audiences may decrease over time. As will the size of your app connections.

Facebook is also introducing new statuses under the Delivery column in the Ads Manager, specifically for iOS 14 app campaigns. These will warn you of updating limits and pending limits, as each app ID is limited to 9 iOS 14 campaigns.

Check out Facebook’s post for more in-depth updates on the topic.

What Should You Do?

If you want to continue to measure the performance of your campaigns with iOS 14 users, Facebook is suggesting the following steps be taken:

  • Update to Facebook’s SDK for iOS 14, version 8.1. You can do so from the Events Manager page.
  • Utilize the Aggregated Event Measurement feature by adding a verified domain to your Business Manager Account and measure up to 8 prioritized conversion events at once to gauge ad performance.
  • Check out Facebook for Developers for news on future updates and changes as the team figures out other solutions.

These changes aren’t by any means new – the writing has been on the wall for a while, and Facebook has been preparing accordingly. But we do expect to see greater changes throughout the dynamic ads and personalized ads landscape as more and more apps are pressured into conforming to increased user privacy demands. Watch this space.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook Launches 4 New Ecommerce Features

Facebook commerce, or F-commerce, has grown throughout the pandemic and has been a great boon to the company’s stock, even amid privacy concerns and Apple’s new policies affecting gathered user data.

But that doesn’t mean the Facebook storefront feature is in trouble – instead, it’s pivoting towards rolling out features for businesses and products that benefit more from the social network experience, and shared shopping elements such as public wish lists and purchasing discussions.

On the success of Facebook’s burgeoning retail and ecommerce tools, surveys found that up to 85 percent of respondents purchased an item they had first discovered on Facebook. Furthermore, nearly three quarters of Facebook’s users rely on the platform as a means to find new brands and products.

Facebook’s new features seem particularly targeted towards specific consumer goods (especially electronics, beauty products, and certain fashion accessories) and virtual products, which draw the most interest. If you’re interested in making the most of Facebook’s ecommerce environment and massive userbase – over 2.8 billion monthly users, at this point! – then you’ll need to be up-to-speed on what the platform has to offer.

Exploring the New Features

Facebook’s new and planned additions to its Facebook Shop and general ecommerce features include four major changes:

  • First, major additions to how Facebook Shop can utilize the Facebook family of products to interact with customers and sell products, including through WhatsApp and Facebook Marketplace.
  • Second, Facebook is making changes to personalized ads.
  • Third, new features are rolling out making use of mobile AR.
  • And fourth, customer review features on Instagram.

We go over each change below.

More Shops in More Places

The first new feature is the ability to bring your Facebook Shop products into the Facebook Marketplace, starting in the US (with an international rollout in the future, presumably). With over 2 billion monthly active Facebook users, Marketplace alone has over 1 billion users browsing products and checking in every month. That’s a lot of potential leads, and through this new feature, you won’t have to present your products on Marketplace as a private account or single individual.

Furthermore, Facebook is integrating shop functionalities into WhatsApp, so shop owners and managers can display their inventory and share product information with customers via the company’s messaging app, and answer customer questions at the point of purchase. Any business’ on-site inventory can be accessed through a shopping bag icon in the WhatsApp chat, even while answering customer questions.

A lot of businesses that advertise through Facebook and run an active shop on the platform presumably already use both Marketplace and WhatsApp to further promote their products and interact with customers – this feature aims to help streamline the shop management experience, and help businesses reach a wider on-site audience, with about half as much trouble.

Individualized Shop Ads

Facebook Ads are one of the company’s biggest sources of revenue, and these include ads for on-site shops. But Facebook is taking things a step further by launching a new brand of personalized advertising for on-site shops, pointing customers towards a shop’s curated inventory.

Rather than advertising a single product or orienting a customer towards the shop’s storefront in general, these new ads aim to utilize the user’s previous shopping history to pick and display products that best suit them.

In other words, users will see ads from your shop personalized towards their tastes and interests, showcasing a line of curated products that Facebook’s algorithms consider most suited to the user.

Facebook is planning to expand functionality on this feature even more in the future, by allowing companies to offer exclusive promotions to specific customers, further personalize their product list, and more.

eCommerce AR (Augmented Reality)

The ongoing pandemic has hit brick-and-mortar stores hard, and plenty of people who have had to turn to e-commerce miss the experience of physically being in a store and browsing their selection.

While this upcoming feature doesn’t replace that experience, Facebook’s planned AR storefronts would allow shops to create and provide a virtual storefront and shopping experience for users to enjoy. Facebook is planning to implement these through newly-developed APIs, which aim to make it easier for businesses both small and large to implement AR and let their customers try their products virtually.

For example, one possibility would be to try a new lipstick via AR and your phone’s front-facing camera. Facebook is also planning to utilize its personalized ad experience to recommend relevant products to users through the AR storefront, based on their shopping history – like a virtual retail worker, suggesting new items based on seasonality or style.

The first industry to test the feature is the beauty and makeup market, and support is planned for other businesses in the months and years to come.

Instagram Customer Reviews

Last but not least, Facebook is expanding its customer review feature on Instagram’s new Instagram Shopping feature. In addition to written reviews, customers will be able to upload pictures and videos of the product, much like on Amazon and other online retailers.

Facebook stated that: “These changes will help people make more informed decisions on what to buy, and will let businesses know if they are meeting customer expectations.”

In general, the new features seem to be aimed at further incentivizing an individualized user shopping experience, while allowing users to share and promote their experiences, or provide information on a product (including negative reviews).

The new level of personalized ads for shops might draw privacy concerns, but the other features will likely be openly welcomed as simple quality-of-life improvements for both storefront managers and customers, especially the integration of Facebook Shops into Marketplace and WhatsApp.

It remains to be seen how authentic or useful the new “try on” augmented reality features will be, as they become available to a larger group of businesses. It makes sense to start with the beauty industry, where customers can get an idea of what a product might look like on them through camera filters. But achieving the same effect with other products might be a bit more difficult.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook Confirms: Instagram For Kids Is Coming

According to an internal post obtained by BuzzFeed News and a statement from Mark Zuckerberg given at a Congressional hearing earlier in March, Facebook is currently prioritizing the development of an Instagram for Kids, specifically targeting audiences below the age of 13.

Instagram’s vice president of product, Vishal Shah, wrote to employees on the company message board in early March, stating: “I’m excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list.”

As of right now, Instagram does not allow individuals under the age of 13 to use the service. However, the protections put in place to prevent younger teens and children from joining the app are not very strong.

Some speculate that the decision to create a new app specifically for younger audiences comes in part from an interest in protecting existing younger users from the negative influences of the social media app, ranging from increased potential for self-harm, body dysmorphia, and cyberbullying, to exposure to conspiracy content and extremism.

Instagram for Kids is On the Way

One way or the other, Facebook has confirmed that Instagram for Kids (not the official name) is in the works. But it has also stated that the development of the product is very much in its early stages, meaning we know little of what to expect form Facebook in terms of additional protections, privacy, service costs, monetization techniques, and advertising.

What we do know is that the internal memo identifies two specific priority missions of the company: “(a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age or 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time.”

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s intentions for an Instagram for Kids center around working out issues that the current app has with underage audiences.

“There were clearly issues that need to be thought through and worked out, including how parents can control the experience of kids, especially kids under the age of 13,” Zuckerberg explained at the hearing. “And we haven’t worked through all of that yet.”

The US government is concerned about Facebook’s apparent lack of transparency towards crucial information such as how many of Instagram’s users are estimated to be under the age of 13, especially given the company’s track record regarding privacy and conspiratorial content, as well as cyberbullying.

During her opening statement in the virtual meeting, Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers asked: “What will it take for your business models to stop harming children?” Perhaps this app is one of Facebook’s answers to that question.

Justified Worries and Concerns

An estimated 95 percent of teenagers have access to a smartphone, with the overwhelming majority of them logging the most hours on Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. In 2018, nearly half of all surveyed teens stated that they were online “almost constantly”.

That number has assuredly risen since the pandemic, at a time where teens have been all but encouraged to lead their social lives almost wholly through digital means. But all that connectivity comes at a steep price, according to various studies.

While only a quarter of teens in 2018 found that social media’s impact on their lives has been mostly negative, another Pew survey from the same year found that 59 percent of teens experienced one of the following forms of abusive behavior on social media:

  • Offensive name-calling
  • False rumors
  • Receiving unsolicited explicit images
  • Constant asking of where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re with by someone who isn’t a parent
  • Physical threats
  • Having explicit images of themselves shared without consent

Social media is a relatively young and volatile technology, and negative content is to be expected, especially at the sheer volume at which data is being produced and consumed on the Internet today. Unfortunately, teens and children with access to these apps and websites (often against the companies’ own Terms of Service) are most at risk of experiencing the negative impact of this content.

There’s more than just name-calling and unwanted messages on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Other concerns include the rampant spread of misinformation and conspiracies, and the platform’s potential for radicalization.

In part, the decision to create a separate app for children may help protect some of them from the less savory elements of online social media without attempting to do the impossible, which would be to cut them off from a growing online social ecosystem.

Of course, there’s a clear incentive for the company here. An Instagram for Kids would help stave off some of the criticism headed for Facebook over the negative influence that its apps may be having on kids especially. Furthermore, it may given them an opportunity to funnel young users into their other networks when they become of age.

What This Might Mean for Parents

Now more than ever, being a parent and trying to protect one’s child from negative interactions in the outside world is incredibly difficult. Parents will continue to have to supervise and monitor how their children interact with the Internet and use social media, something Mr. Zuckerberg claims he does at home as well.

Facebook also suggested that a potential Instagram for Kids might expand parents’ options for monitoring their child’s use of social media, further empowering parents.

How Will Facebook Monetize an Instagram for Kids?

But perhaps the most crucial question is: what about the money? Facebook and most other free social media platforms monetize their data aggregation and advertising functionalities, allowing users to use their services for free while selling the ability to target and market to hundreds of millions of people.

But if Facebook is planning on creating a platform that specifically allows advertisers to target children on the Internet, it may be entering a regulatory maze. So far, the company has been unclear as to how they are planning to monetize an Instagram for Kids, or to what degree advertisers may be able to work with Facebook on such a platform.

The comparable YouTube Kids has been heavily changed to comply with the FTC’s children’s privacy law, with the onus largely being on content creators to correctly label and monetize their content according to whether it targeted kids or not.

In many cases, YouTube would designate content as “for kids” depending on viewership and the nature of the content and would strictly control engagement and monetization on such videos, even if that content wasn’t flagged as for kids by the respective creator.

Many videos with subject matter usually associated with children (including popular video games and comic book characters) may be intended for mature audiences. Furthermore, terms like “kid attractive” and “kid directed” are not at all clearly defined by the FTC. So far, YouTube is relying on machine learning to try and better distinguish between content intended for younger audiences, and content for more mature audiences.

What the content on an Instagram for Kids would look like, and how advertisers would be allowed on the platform, are unanswered questions for the near future. Keep an eye on this space.

Categories
Social Media

Study: What 100 Social Media Followers are Worth

While a recent study set out to answer what 100 social media followers are worth, it’s difficult to measure the ROI. The value of social media followers lies beyond mere numbers – it’s about engagement and conversion potential. Followers who actively interact with content and align with the brand’s target audience are more valuable. They can increase brand visibility, drive traffic, and potentially lead to conversions. Therefore, the focus should be on building a quality, engaged follower base.

When it comes to the social web, platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram command billions of eyeballs every year. This makes the channels too big to ignore, so you have no choice but to participate in them to avoid missing out on revenue and traffic.

That brings the question of how much time and money should you spend on each social platform. Which ones produce the best return on investment?

Fellow digital marketing expert Neil Patel recently sought to answer the question and surveyed nearly 500 companies who are all using Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. Each company surveyed has been actively participating in all of the social channels for at least three years and have at least 100 social media followers on each platform.

Out of all 483 companies surveyed 159 of them were in the B2B space and 324 were B2C companies. Revenues varied from as little as $10,000 per year to $250,000 per year.  Before we dig into the data remember all of the stats are broken down based on 100 social followers.

Organic Social Media Traffic Over Time

Compared to when each social platform it made its debut, it has become more difficult to generate organic traffic from each of them. Though it’s possible to still generate organic visits your reach has declined. But how much has it declined?  From 2015 to now, we have gone from just over three monthly visitors per 100 followers to two monthly visitors per 100 followers.

Related: How to Turn Instagram followers into Customers

Traffic By Social Network

While it’s true organic social media traffic is dying as each network wants to earn your advertising dollars, certain social media networks drive more traffic than others.  Which one would you guess drives the most?  If you guessed Facebook or Instagram you’re wrong as these two generate the least amount of organic traffic every month.

Pinterest drives the most organic social media traffic at a little more than four visitors per 100 followers. LinkedIn was a close second driving a little more than two visitors per 100 followers followed by  YouTube also driving a little more than two visitors per 100 followers. It’s worth mentioning that although YouTube drives a decent amount of visitors per 100 subscribers, most people using YouTube don’t experience much traffic because they aren’t linking out to their site within their videos. Though it used to be possible with YouTube annotations, those were discontinued in January 2019. Link to your site in the video description and include a video transcript with your URL.

Do More Posts Mean More Social Traffic?

Even though organic reach is dying down, if you post more often this should in theory increase your traffic. In general, posting more often does increase your traffic but after 8 months of posting on each social network, the data indicates that you will see diminishing returns.

The majority of social media algorithms work is based on engagement. The more people engaged with your content the more of them will see your content as you post it. As such, your goal should only be to post content people love and want to engage with. The second you start posting any kind of mediocre content, it will hurt your overall traffic numbers because it means fewer people in the future will see your new content regardless of how amazing it is.

Engagement By Social Network

Speaking of engagement, Which social media platforms tend to have the most engaged users? like Neil, I assumed Pinterest would win the engagement battle since they are driving the most traffic but I was wrong.

Though Pinterest did well, LinkedIn won.  Instagram also did well but this isn’t really a surprise as most people use it for a social network rather than leveraging it for business. That’s why Instagram engagement is high.

Post that don’t contain a link, such as images or videos tend to get the highest amount of engagement. This is also because social sites tend to promote content that keeps people on their site as opposed to sending visitors to your site.

Which Social Platforms are Best for Videos?

If videos aren’t part of your digital marketing plan, it’s something you should consider starting. Even though they don’t wink well on Google they are the future of the internet. When it comes to video, there are two main types: ones that you upload and ones that are live.

The data shows that Instagram produces the best results for video and then LinkedIn and YouTube. But, Instagram automatically plays videos while YouTube is much stricter about what they count as a video View. That said if you’re going to create video content, you should plan to post it on all of your social media Networks focusing the majority of your efforts on Instagram LinkedIn and YouTube.

YouTube won’t give you amazing numbers within the first day of uploading a video but by utilizing YouTube SEO you can continually get views that you won’t see happen on any of the other social platforms.

When it comes to live video, the results are similar in that Instagram and YouTube are the leaders. Live videos don’t generate as many viewers as just posting in scheduling them. The main reason wasn’t that social sites don’t want your live content it’s that when it comes to non live videos, businesses are spending more time leveraging keyword research and optimizing videos for the maximum amount of views. That is quite a bit harder to do with live videos.

Putting keywords in your title and descriptions isn’t enough. Social media sites are able to interpret the sound to see what your video is really about.

Building Your Email List

It’s no secret in the marketing world that the money is in the list. If you aren’t using your social media platforms to collect emails, you need to start immediately. Once you have your email list you can always make it to the people on your list and convince them to buy your services or products.

In terms of converting a visitor to an email subscriber, LinkedIn has the best conversion rate but Pinterest and YouTube also perform well. It’s a common misconception that most of the people on LinkedIn only care about B2B. Everyone on LinkedIn is a consumer who buys everyday products.

The most interesting part of the email collection data is the majority of your social media followers will never convert into email subscribers. But as you continue to share and post content on the social web, the followers of your followers may also see your content which then increases the likelihood of getting more traffic and email subscribers

Revenue

Regardless of how you feel about leveraging social media for your business, the truth is these platforms to drive your revenue and you do not have to spend money on ads to generate that Revenue. Ads of course do help but the percentage of Revenue that each business generated from organic social media traffic is quite impressive. while the percentage of Revenue has declined from just under 8% in 2015 to just under 2% in 2018 and 2019, we’re starting to see the numbers even out.

The decline isn’t just related to social media algorithm changes. It can also be attributed to the fact that businesses are diversifying their marketing approach to take an omni-channel approach meaning they are leveraging more channels. Because of that each one makes up a smaller portion of their total revenue.

Social media is still going strong despite the fact that it has become harder to make things happen organically. You may only be able to generate two visitors a month for every 100 followers you have, but as you grow your following that scales and can generate a hefty amount of organic traffic.

Categories
Social Media

How to Use Facebook Video Ads

.
.

Video is among the most popular type of content on the internet, and with good reason. By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic – 15x higher than it was in 2017. Studies show shoppers who view videos are 1.81x more likely to purchase than non-video viewers. So it makes sense as to why marketers would want to include video in the marketing strategy.

Facebook is a saturated platform where it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the competition. Ads are everywhere, but Facebook video ads give you a bit more room for creativity in terms of your ad campaign options.

In this guide, you’ll learn what Facebook video ads are, why you should be using them, how to set them up, and a few tips to help you make the most of video advertising on Facebook.

What Are Facebook Video Ads?

Facebook video ads are the same as Facebook ads, but rather than using text and images, they use video. You don’t have to write a snippet of text or upload an image. You’ll instead upload video you’ve created in-house or, created with a videographer, or one you already have so that it operates on Facebook’s native video player. After the upload is complete, you’ll be able to customize the video description, the video thumbnail, the ad budget, and the audience you want to see the video.

Why You Need to Use Facebook Video Ads

Facebook video ads are a great way to make people remember your brand and come back to your site. Using video is a strategy proven to engage and convert website visitors, push leads down your funnel, and to fuel social engagement across a number of channels.

Video promotions are just as popular as photo promotions on Facebook – and video is more memorable than text and images. People are over 27x more likely to click a video ad and than a static ad.

Setting Up Facebook Ads

Now that you understand the power behind a Facebook video ad, it’s time to get them up and running. If you’re already familiar with Facebook Ads, the process is similar.

Step 1:

At the top of your profile page, press the “Create” button. Select “Ad” from the menu that appears.

Step 2:

Set the campaign objective to “Get video views.”

Step 3:

Set your audience – either by defining it or choosing a predefined audience already in your account, along with the budget, and ad schedule.

Step 4:

Create your ad. You can upload a video, browse through your library for video to add, or create a slideshow with images. Most of the time, you’ll want to use a pre-made video from your desktop or promote a video that you’ve previously posted organically.

Pay attention to the recommended video specs before you upload to make sure you get the highest quality playback experience for viewers. If the video doesn’t fit in those specs, you could have poor playback which may negatively affect your brand in the eyes of viewers.

Step 5:

Customize the copy above your video, preview it, then set it to start running. It will begin once Facebook approves it and run according to your budget.

Tips to Improve Your Facebook Video Ad Campaigns

To make the most of your campaign budget, use these tips to give yourself an edge.

Show Videos That Don’t Need Sound

You never know where people will be when they see your ads. That’s why it’s important to create videos that people can watch and understand without needing the sound. 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound anyway, so it makes sense to build your ads with the assumption that people won’t have the volume on.

If you want to be sure your video makes sense without sound, Facebook allows you to automatically add captions to your videos. Facebook reports captioned video ads increase video view time by an average of 12%.

Use CPM Bidding to Make Sure Your Ads Autoplay

It may be tempting to shy away from autoplay in certain environments, but Facebook shouldn’t be one of those places. Why? Facebook has enough distractions as it is, so it’s important to engage the newsfeed scrollers who are already multitasking. Automatically playing your videos is the best way to do that. To be eligible for autoplay, you must bid with cost per impressions (CPM) instead of cost per click.

Get to the Point

Facebook Business reveals the maximum video duration for a video ad is an astonishing 14,460 seconds. For those who aren’t quick on the draw with math, that’s 241 minutes, or four hours and one minute!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to watch an ad that runs for the length of two movies. The longer your video ad is, the less likely someone is to watch it in its entirety.

Data from Wistia shows videos up to two minutes long get a lot of engagement. There’s a sharp drop off between two and three minutes, though. The longer the video runs, however, the less engaged people are.

Use Video Content That’s Performed Well on Other Platforms

Have you ever uploaded video to your Facebook page? Check the stats to see which of those videos have performed the best. Which of your webinars have driven the most engagement? Which videos on your website perform the best? Use the data you have about videos you’re already using to guide your ads, because the better performing content gives you an indication of what your audience wants to watch.

Look at metrics like engagement and pay rate of your video content across all your channels before you determine which videos are worth investing in ads to run. Focus on promoting only the best content.

Examine Ad Stats and Adjust Accordingly

Once you’ve run your Facebook video ads long enough to get a significant amount of views, take a moment to analyze the data. Is the money you’re spending giving you a return? Is the return worth continuing the ad? How many people are watching the videos? How many people are clicking on your ads? How many are visiting your website after watching?

Understanding how your ads impact your audience will help you improve your video production and your ad strategy so you can get the best ROI. If you find that you’re not getting the ROI you expected, test various ads to see what works best for your audience.

Categories
Social Media

6 Ways to Engage Your Audience on Social Media

There are several ways to engage your audience on social media, some of which are more effective than others. Effective ways to engage audiences on social media include creating interactive content like polls and quizzes, hosting live sessions or Q&As, responding promptly to comments and messages, sharing user-generated content, personalizing content to audience preferences, and storytelling that resonates with followers. Consistency in posting and authentic communication are key to maintaining engagement.

Social media development can sometimes be a beast and leave you and your team frustrated. There are some methods that work for one group and others that work for another. Sometimes, you just have to experiment and take notes on what works and what doesn’t. But what if you’re stuck on where to start?

Take a look at these six ways to engage your audience on social media to help you get started.

Use Hashtags to Build Comradery

Hashtags are extremely popular and have a dual purpose. You can search a hashtag on any social media platform and see what others are saying while using your hashtag. Every business should already have a main hashtag (ie: #sachsmarketinggroup) and create specialized hashtags for major events, contests, or changes in business.

Let’s say you have a donut delivery business and you plan to release a new donut in September. You can create a lot of engagement on social media if you use a hashtag designed for that release (such as #WheresTheDonut2019 or #DonutSurprise92019). When creating a specialized hashtag, search for that hashtag to see if it is already being used and if you can tweak it to make it yours. Continue to use main business hashtag alongside the event/promotion-specific hashtag so that people who discover you through the promotion can easily find out more about your brand.

Use Live Videos to Your Best Advantage

Creating video content is one of the best ways to get social media engagement. Video should be a part of any marketing plan, but it’s even better if you can include live video. Live videos air live on a social media platform (YouTube and Facebook are the popular options) and allow you to see comments posted as you move through your script.

It’s best if you have a script, or at least a general idea of what you plan to cover before going live. Practice can help you figure out how to speak naturally without getting flustered, which is important if you have a fear of public speaking or are camera shy. If you have a script, you definitely don’t want to read from it during the live event – it’s just meant as a guide to help keep you on topic.

What are live videos good for? Product line release parties, introducing new members on your team to your audience, contest and winner announcements, and good content encouraging a call to action. If you want to see how others have used a live video for sales, look for  lives featuring the Paparazzi Jewelry line. The men and women who sell the jewelry on live videos have seen major sales increases and were some of the first people to use lives to sell items.

Use Tools for Better Engagement

One of the hardest things many businesses struggle with is the time factor. Live videos will require a specific time frame that you can schedule in, but the rest can be automated. Plenty of automated tools will post your content across a wide range of social media platforms. Automation is every marketer’s friend because it allows you to keep a steady flow of content without additional work. This can be an invaluable tool for you while deploying your content strategy.

This is especially helpful if your audience is spread out across time zones or primarily in a time zone different from your own. It is also extremely helpful if your business will be closed for long holidays or other special circumstances. It’s particularly useful when you’re a one-person team, or your team has other priorities to focus on.

Be Responsive to Comments on Content

Whether it is a blog post, Facebook review, or a comment on an Instagram post, always make time to be responsive. You want to nurture the positive comments so that people feel like they can speak freely with you. You also want to tackle any negative comments to curb any issues.

It is always worth investigating every complaint, even if the complaints are unfounded (some people refuse to be happy). It is especially important to respond to feedback about any campaigns that are well-received or not. While some people can be particularly ferocious when it comes to a campaign that triggers heavy emotion, those are the comments you will not want to respond. Vicious commenters are usually the ones you don’t want to engage because they are soliciting for an online argument. Save the energy for those that are respectful and to the point.

Contests and Giveaways Are Your Best Friend

If you are struggling to gain new followers or even getting your audience to engage, a contest or giveaway can fix that quick. People love contests and giveaways and are willing to do a few steps in order to win. You can require that they visit the landing page and then a pop up shows up so they can include email and name information. If they want extra entries, they can fulfill other tasks. Blog posts on their website, following on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, or sharing the contest announcement are few great ideas you can start with.

Offer just two or three extra entry options. Offering too many will overwhelm people and cause them to skip entering the contest. As they spread the word about your contest, more followers are likely to join in and take the time to learn more about your business. If you keep the engagement up and quality content flowing, you will retain a majority of the new followers. Always be sure to learn about the guidelines for running contests and giveaways on any social media platform to keep your accounts in good standing.

Share Content That Is Relevant To Your Audience

The general rule for content on social media is that only 20% of the content you share should originate with you – and not all of that content should be promotional. Social media isn’t about tooting your own horn. The remaining 80% of the content you share should come from other sources – but still be relevant to your audience. You want to establish yourself as a source of credible information, not as a constant sales pitch.

Social media engagement doesn’t happen overnight. Constantly test and experiment, focusing your efforts on what your audience responds to the best. You can always ask them what kind of content they’d like to see more of, then make an effort to give it to them.

Categories
Digital Marketing

Facebook Pixel Losing Effectiveness for Marketers

Keyboard Concept

In the coming months, Facebook will release its Clear History tool. Once it is released, the new feature will allow users to see, manage, and disconnect activity that happens off-Facebook from their user profile. As such, the tool will impact marketers ability to reach a targeted audience on the platform.

What is the Clear History Tool?

The Clear History tool was announced at the 2018 F8 Conference. Facebook says the feature will allow users to see the websites and apps that send Facebook information when they are used. It will also give users the power to delete the information from the account and turn off the ability for Facebook to store the information associated with your account moving forward.

Apps and websites that use features such as the Like button or Facebook Analytics send Facebook information to make their content and ads better and more relevant. Facebook uses the information to improve your Facebook experience.

If users clear their history or use the new setting, Facebook will remove identifying information so a history of the websites and apps you’ve used will not be associated with your account. The browsing history isn’t erased or removed, but instead made anonymous. Facebook still plans to provide apps and websites with aggregated analytics so they can build reports to let developers know whether their apps are more popular with certain genders or age groups. Facebook will do this without storing the information in a way that is associated with your account – and they will not provide information about who the people are to advertisers.

According to the Facebook Newsroom post from May 2018, it will take a few months to build Clear History, since they will be working with privacy advocates, policymakers, regulators, and academics to get input on the approach, including how they plan to remove identifying information and rare cases where the information is needed for security purposes.

What Marketers Need to Know

Providing Users with Control and Transparency Makes for Better Business

When people know how their information is used, it makes them feel better about ads and the businesses they interact with online. Ads are how Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp are made free for people to use. The same can be said for many online services. It’s important to understand that protecting people’s information and advertising are not working against each other; it is possible to do both.

Facebook is Helping Users See How Advertisers Use Their Tools

A large part of the clear history tool is helping people understand how the advertisers use Facebook business schools. Facebook is working hard to deliver this type of transparency on Facebook. They are also open to conversations with other businesses about approaches they may take to help people understand more about what data they share and the value that share offers. Businesses are encouraged to start thinking about ways to educate their consumers regarding their marketing practices.

The New Feature May Impact Targeting

When a user decides to disconnect their off-Facebook activity, Facebook will no longer be able to use that data for targeting. This means that targeting options powered by Facebook’s business tools, such as the Facebook Pixel, can’t be used to reach someone with ads. This includes Custom Audiences built from website visitors and app users. Businesses should remember this when they are developing strategies for these kinds of campaigns in the future.

Until now, marketers have been able to install the Facebook Pixel on their website to match people who’ve visited their websites to who they are on Facebook so they can continue to advertise to them. While the Clear History tool will affect targeting because a portion of users will exercise the control and disconnect their off-Facebook activity, there are still some users who will not mind sharing that information. As such, you may still benefit from using the Facebook pixel and Custom Audiences. It’s likely, however, the audience will be smaller. The Clear History feature will also affect businesses that use the SDK or the API.

Measurement Will Remain Intact

That said, Facebook’s measurement and analytics tools have been designed to protect users’ identities. There is no sharing of personal information such as names and phone numbers in the measurement and reporting tools. As of now, Facebook does not anticipate making changes to measurement once the Clear History feature is live. Because of this, Facebook will still be able to provide accurate measurements to understand the impact of their investment in Facebook Ads, while still allowing people to exercise control over their off-Facebook activity.

The marketing industry is seeing the first glimpse of an entirely new Facebook. This iteration of the social platform is more focused on one-on-one messaging and privacy than it is on public social feeds. While this is a good move for users, businesses may need a bit of time to adjust, simply because the ad targeting options are going to become more limited. As we embark on the new era of Facebook, we must begin reconsidering how to connect with our audiences, both on and off the platform.

Categories
Social Media

How to Optimize Your Facebook Page

If you want to be sure you’ll reach your audience, then you’ll want to be on Facebook. After all, 2.23 billion people log in to the social network every month. 66% of U.S. adults report that they are Facebook users, and 74% of them say the use the platform every day. Both daily and monthly users are up 13% year-over-year.

Chances are, your competition is already using it to reach that same audience, because there are 80 million pages for small and medium sized businesses. And if you already have a Facebook Page, you need to be sure it’s optimized. For those of you out there who are just getting started, I’ve included a short section on how to create your Facebook Page.

Basics of Facebook Marketing

Know your audience. You’ll need to create a business page to share relative content and announcements to your target market. Share your page often and encourage others to share the page as well. Include a link to it on your website. Post frequently to keep your page active and likely to be seen. Respond in a timely fashion to direct messages and comments on your posts. Keeping engagement strong not only builds your reputation with your audience, they are more likely to share your content and the algorithms will work in your favor.

Do not use your Facebook Page as a replacement for a website. Treat it like a microsite that complements your brand’s official website.

Creating Your Facebook Page

When creating your Facebook Page, choose the right type of page. Your options are:

  • Local Business or Place: Choose this if you have a single location. If you plan on expanding to include additional locations later, worry not – that’s what location pages are for.
  • Company
  • Brand or Product
  • Public Figure
  • Entertainment
  • Cause or Community

Your Facebook Page should reflect the same branding you use on your website, marketing material, and in the office. Make your profile picture your business logo. The cover photo is a little more tricky, but you can change it according to your marketing campaigns.  The cover photo should be a snapshot of the business. You may use an employee photo, a collage of employee photos, your logo and tagline, or any other image you feel reflects the message you want to share with your audience. You should also fill out the profile as completely as possible, including your company’s mission, contact information, website and email addresses, and physical locations (if applicable).

Locations Pages

If you have one location, start off with a location page. But if you expand to additional locations, you’ll need to get access to Locations. Once there, choose the existing page as your main page. Then, you’ll be able to create locations for your business.

Go to the Facebook Page for your business, then click “Settings” in the top right.

Select “Locations” in the bottom left. This opens the location manager tool in Business Manager. If you’re adding locations for the first time and your page has an address on it, you’ll get a warning message asking you to remove the address from your main page in the page info section. This ensures your main Facebook Page is the parent page, while child pages are created for each business address.

If you have ratings and reviews, you can either hide them or move them to a new page. It’s best to keep them active, because reviews help SEO.

Once you’ve created child pages for each location, fill them out with all the information the same way you did with your parent page: name, address, phone number, username, category, web address, email, and about.

Keep Business Information Accurate

Your business information must be accurate at all times. If you have changes that affect contact information, business hours, business location, or a change in team members and/or ownership, update the Facebook Page immediately. It helps  to make announcements on your page to these changes as well. Keeping the information accurate will help avoid confusion and miscommunication.

It’s worth mentioning that unlike Google My Business, Facebook does not allow you to customize hours for holidays or events. You can use a post or advertising to alert your followers of any deviations from the standard schedule.

Check that your hours of operation are correct when you add locations, especially if the new locations operate on varying schedules.

Claim Your Custom Username

Create a custom username  for each Facebook Page. When you first make the page, the URL looks something like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/your-brand-name/6598561987=?ref=ts

This isn’t user-friendly or easy to remember. Claiming a username makes it shorter, easier to remember, and easier to find in search. If the name you want is already taken, try adding location information to your brand name.

You must be an admin to create a username. You won’t be allowed to use underscores or spaces, but you can use periods to separate words. You can also capitalize words to enhance readability because the usernames aren’t case sensitive.

Usernames must be at least five characters long, but cannot exceed 50 characters.

Profile Images

Your main profile image should be your company logo, but you can also use the cover photo space for marketing purposes, as long as it follows Facebook’s guidelines. For those that want to get more creative, you can create a video or slideshow to use in the profile and featured image spaces.

Call to Action Button

Under the cover photo, you can add a call to action (CTA) button that encourages users to interact with your page or contact you to learn more about your business. Your industry will determine the best CTA for you.

For example, if you’re a restaurant, you’d want a “Call Now” button for reservations, rather than a “Sign Up” button.

Go to your Facebook Page. Look to the bottom right of your featured post and you’ll see the blue CTA button. Click it to choose the CTA you want to use.

Manage Customer Reviews and Comments

Interacting with your audience is a big part of social media. When used correctly, Facebook is a wonderful platform for customer service and feedback. For best results, you’ll need to develop a strategy for responding to comments and reviews.

To turn on the reviews feature:

Go to your Facebook Page, click “Settings”.

Navigate to “Reviews” under “General.”

Click “Allow visitors to review this Page”

Using Facebook Messenger

You can, but do not have to, allow people to send messages directly to your page. Messenger is another way to provide customer service, so you must have the ability to respond to messages quickly. Your responsiveness rate will appear on your page, so only implement this feature if you’re sure you’ll be able to maintain it.

To turn on the Messenger feature:

Go to your Facebook Page, click “Settings”.

Navigate to “Messages” under “General.”

Click “Allow people to contact my Page privately by showing the Message button”

Organize Page Tabs

You can arrange the Page tabs based on what you want to communicate to your audience. Some tabs will be higher priority, depending on your business. Some can even be turned off. Facebook has templates to help you see how to organize your tabs, as well.

To adjust them:

Go to your Facebook Page, click “Settings”.

Click “Edit Page” on the left.

Once there, you’ll see the templates, and can change tab order. Drag the three-lined icon to the left of the tabs and move them around according to your needs.

Claim Any Unofficial Pages

Unofficial pages are created by Facebook when someone checks into a business location and there isn’t a Facebook Page for that business. You can claim those and merge them with your business page. This is important so that when people check in, they will tag your page rather than the unofficial page.

Facebook optimization is easy and yet requires a long-term commitment from page creation through business closure or sale. Set up will take time, but once the initial information is all in place, maintaining the page becomes much easier. Experiment with your social strategy to determine what works best for you and your audience.

Categories
Social Media

Lush UK Quits Social Media

Earlier this month, cosmetics brand Lush, announced on social media that they are quitting social media. (Ironic, right?) Lush is a global brand known for their bath bombs, body care products, and makeup. The social media boycott applies only to the UK division, as Lush North America has announced it will continue to be active on all its social media channels.

What’s the Story?

The Instagram announcement, shown above, included a caption that reads:

“We’re switching up social.⁣

Increasingly, social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. So we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead.⁣

Lush has always been made up of many voices, and it’s time for all of them to be heard. We don’t want to limit ourselves to holding conversations in one place, we want social to be placed back in the hands of our communities – from our founders to our friends.⁣

We’re a community and we always have been. We believe we can make more noise using all of our voices across the globe because when we do we drive change, challenge norms and create a cosmetic revolution. We want social to be more about passions and less about likes.⁣

Over the next week, our customer care team will be actively responding to your messages and comments, after this point you can speak us via live chat on the website, on email at wecare@lush.co.uk and by telephone: 01202 930051.⁣”

The same was shared on the Lush UK Twitter and Lush UK Facebook accounts.

Days later, the company posted another announcement across their social channels:

This caption reads:

We believe it’s time to stop talking, and start listening. So that’s what we’re doing.⁣⁣

You can still get sneak peeks and news from our inventors, founders, and everyone else who makes Lush what it is.⁣⁣

You can join in conversations with our staff, friends and shop social media accounts on their pages and on hashtags like #BathArt, #LushLabs, #LushMakeup (let’s face it, anything that starts with #lush).⁣⁣

Plus there are plenty of other places to take a dip into the Lush world, from our shops, events, and Customer Care team, to our digital platforms. Soak up fresh content on Lush Player and Lush.com, give feedback about exclusive products on Labs.lush.com, and engage with us and the latest digital experiments on the Lush Labs app.⁣⁣

Let’s spark passions, and stop chasing ‘likes’.⁣⁣

Here’s to the #LushCommunity, where all are welcome, always. ”

Though as of this writing the accounts are still active, they have not been updated since that status on April 15. Their social following is quite large, with 596,000 followers on Instagram, 423,000 on Twitter, and 202,000 on Facebook. It seems they don’t want to pay to play, so they’d rather use other channels to connect with their customers.

In addition to the main accounts, BBC reports they also plan to close accounts associated with Lush Kitchen, Lush Times, Lush Life, Soapbox, and Gorilla.

Ultimately, Lush UK isn’t getting the ROI on their social media efforts they consider high enough to justify continuing their current strategy. There’s nothing wrong with changing tactics when you find that something doesn’t work out the way you believe it should or the way you want it to. However, when this happens to most other brands, they shift their tactics without completely closing down their social channels.

Social media provides a connection to your audience, but it also provides your business with data you can use to provide better products and services. Letting go of it altogether doesn’t seem like a good move for the majority of today’s brands, especially considering social media is such a highly preferred customer service channel.

Why Lush North America Still Says Yes to Social

Lush North America, based in Canada, handles orders in the United States. They have no plans to stop the use of social media to connect with their audience. Unlike the UK division, it seems they don’t feel like social media is the middleman between themselves and their customers… or, they’re waiting until the decision can be supported in the North American market. Time will tell.

As of this writing, the Lush North America division has 4.4 million followers on Instagram, 313.4K followers on Twitter, and 1.2 million followers on Facebook. The difference in social following between UK and US could easily explain why the US division isn’t so ready to ditch social.

Could This Be a New Trend?

Instead of relying on branded social media channels, Lush says the new strategy will involve a rise of  “Lush personalities” online. In a statement provided to The Independent, the company says, “This isn’t a replacement for the brand channels but an opportunity for our customers to connect one-on-one with people within Lush based on the various categories. This isn’t the end, it’s just the start of something new.”

I believe it means they’re switching from a pay-to-play model on social media to focusing their efforts on influencer marketing. I don’t believe many brands will follow in their footsteps, as it is possible to do both, and to do them both well.

The lack of social signals from the Lush UK side isn’t likely to harm their SEO efforts, because there will still be plenty of people discussing the brand online. I do find it somewhat baffling they’ve decided to abandon ship, but it’s clear they’ve gotten a lot of press as a result. Maybe it’s just a publicity stunt and they’ll return to social channels eventually. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

What do you think about their decision to shut down their social media channels? Would you consider doing the same to find other ways to connect directly with your audience? Talk to me in the comments!

Categories
Social Media

New Features Coming to Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups are a valuable tool for many businesses, because it allows them to build a connection with customers and prospects on a platform they’re already using regularly. Coming together with a group of like-minded people allows you to build trust and stronger, more meaningful, relationships.

Why You May Want Both a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group

Though not necessary for all businesses, there are some situations where you may want to add a Facebook Group to your Facebook Page as part of your social media strategy. Facebook Group expert Bella Vasta equates your Facebook Page to your front yard, where people drive by to see what’s going on, and the Facebook Group to your backyard. Your back yard is where you spend time with people you want to connect with – and it’s by invitation only. As the host of your backyard gathering, you don’t just go inside and nap once people show up – you engage and introduce people so they talk to you and to each other.

If your business is conducive to having a group, because you’ve sold members a product and want to provide additional networking and support, or because you want people who are interested in your non-profit organization to come together to spread the word, then it makes sense to create a group and link it to your page.

Let’s take a look at some of the features announced at the most recent Facebook Community Summit, which were rolled out to attendees first.

New Feature 1: Badges

Badges are a feature admins can turn on or off. They are designed to help group members feel special. When the feature is on, unique badges appear next to the member’s name, recognizing them as an admin or moderator, new member, a founding member, celebrating membership anniversary, conversation starter, conversation booster, visual storyteller, rising star, and more. All the badges (except admin and moderator, of course) disappear within about a month after someone has earned them. New members will see this badge for the first two weeks of group membership.

The conversation starter badge is used to recognize people who frequently start meaningful discussions, which encourages group members to contribute more. This badge appears for members whose posts have received the most likes and comments for the past month.

The conversation booster badge is  recognize people who frequently generate meaningful discussions, which encourages group members to contribute more. This badge appears for members who make comments that people find valuable.

The visual storyteller badge is used for members who share photos and videos that other group members find valuable.

The rising star badge is used to recognize new members within their first month of membership that contribute to the community. This appears for the members that receive the most comments and reactions on their posts and comments.

Other badges include founding member – only available in newly created groups, greeter, and link curator.

Badges are available for groups with more than 50 members. They tend to work better with smaller groups, but can work for larger groups as long as the group strategy aligns with their use.

New Feature 2: Group Units

When you create a Facebook Group, you choose a Group type. If you choose to use the Social Learning Group type, you’ll be given access to Units. In the past, admins published posts and over time, the post decayed so it was hard for members and admins to find and refer to again. Now admins can pin posts to specific units so it’s easier to find. Units allow you to categorize important information in your group.

If you want to use Units, but didn’t choose the Social Learning Group type, you can change your Group type to get access to this feature.

New Feature 3: Group Post Formatting

The ability to format your group posts with H2 headers, bulleted text, bold, and italic is designed to help you accentuate and differentiate the message you’re trying to get across in the group. It aims to pull attention in the group feed and members’ news feeds to draw more attention to your group.

New Feature 4: Group Rule Violation Notifications

Members will violate group rules, and that leaves admins in a tough spot. You can delete their posts, reach out to them directly via message, or ban them without explanation. With this new feature, you can send a message to the member that alerts the rule that was violated, and if you choose to, add a personal message to provide more clarity. You can also mute the member for one to seven days so they can see posts, but cannot comment, rather than banning them from the group without explanation.

New Feature 5: Group Activity Log Filters

In the past, the activity feed for groups was a list of events that could be scrolled, but was not searchable. Now, admins and moderators can filter the feed to show removals, memberships, and other admin activity. The feed is also searchable by member name and by date.

New Feature 6: Subscription Groups

I’ve briefly discussed subscription groups already in my post on Facebook Group monetization. Facebook Subscription Groups gives you the option to charge anywhere from $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-groups that contain exclusive posts that are not available to members of the main group. You’re free to choose what to offer based on what you believe your members will pay for. Members pay their subscription fees through Facebook Payments, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Opting for Google or Apple Pay manages payments through the respective app stores, which will take a cut of the fees. It’s possible Facebook will take a percentage of the fees in the future as well. This feature may not be able to available to all users yet, but will continue to roll out.

With these new features, Facebook Groups are much more user friendly for both members and admin. Not only are they easier to manage, but these features also make it easier to grow membership and engage participants.

Categories
Social Media

Facebook Group Monetization 101

If you’re the admin of a popular Facebook group, it may be time to put that group to work earning money for you. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to monetization, as a lot of what will work for you depends on your niche, level of engagement, and group size. To attract major brands, it’s safe to say you’ll need at least 10,000 members in your group, but if you have a highly engaged audience willing to spend on high-ticket items, you can get by with 3,000 to 5,000 members.

Let’s look at how to get your Facebook group ready to earn money, and some of the ways you can bring in cash.

Prepare the Group for Monetization Opportunities

Create a Website Filled with Value-Driven Content

While your Facebook Group is where the action is, it’s important to have a website that’s similarly branded because building your business on rented land, since the Facebook platform doesn’t belong to you, leaves you susceptible to losing your audience at any given time. Your website needs to define your target audience and show the value your brand brings. Set up the Facebook tracking pixel to allow for remarketing to people who’ve visited your website, as this can help you grow your group faster.

Develop Downloadable Assets

These will make it easier to build an email list of people you can reach out to over time. Email marketing helps improve your ability to deliver sales for brand partners and earn more money at the same time. Create assets, such as checklists, guides, resource lists, and other things your audience is interested in. Giving these things away for free to get people to join your list makes it easier to sell to them later.

Use Search Engine Optimization

Take time to learn about SEO. You’ll need to create targeted content for your website and work on generating organic traffic to grow your brand and your Facebook group. Doing so will give you even more affiliate marketing potential and add to your passive income stream.

Generate Media Coverage

Media coverage helps you build backlinks and referral traffic, which are essential for SEO. It also helps spread the word about your group to boost your membership, and may even help you get on the radar of some brands you’d like to work with. Start with Help a Reporter Out (HARO), and look for

Create a Media Kit

This is essential to helping you land sponsorships and advertising campaigns, and will even allow you to command a higher rate. Include your group stats, website traffic stats, member demographics, rate card outlining the packages you offer, and case studies of past partnerships.

Ways to Monetize Your Facebook Group

There are many ways to monetize your Facebook group that could easily expand into a series of blog posts all on their own, but we’re going to cover three of the most popular options here today.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money from your group because no matter what niche or industry you’re in, there are products and services you can promote to your members. You’ll get paid when members make a purchase. You can search for your industry/group interest + affiliate and see what comes up. Or you can join a platform like ShareASale or Commission Junction and see what brands and programs are there. Experiment with various products and services to see what your audience responds to the most, and go from there.  You can also use the Amazon Associates affiliate program because these days, most everyone buys products at Amazon.

Brand Sponsorships

Marketers are starting to see the potential of using Facebook Groups, since the organic reach of the Facebook Page has meant the number of fans someone has doesn’t really matter anymore. As the group admin, you’re the primary influencer, and this where your media kit will work for you.

Think about the brands and services you use and love, and what members of your group can get value out of. Contact the companies and let them know you’re brand-friendly and would be willing to work with them to share their products and services with your group members who are part of their target audience with a sponsored post campaign.

Charge a Membership Fee for Premium Content

Facebook now offers Subscription Groups, which lets group admins charge anywhere from $4.99 to $29.99 per month to get access to special sub-groups that contain exclusive posts that are not available to members of the main group. The content can be live videos, mentorship, or expertise – or any combination. You choose what to offer, based on what you believe your members will pay for, bearing in mind that you will always have some members who will not pay to upgrade their group experience.

Members will pay via Facebook Payments, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Apple Pay and Google Pay will be managed through the iTunes Store or the Google Play store, if members choose one of those payment methods. The app stores will take a portion of the subscription fees, and Facebook will likely eventually take a cut, as well.

This monetization approach will require some kind of premium exclusive content on your part – and it needs to be on-going to justify members keeping their memberships, so take time to plan your offerings in advance to be sure they’re ready when you need them, and offer the value your audience expects.

No matter which path you choose to use for Facebook group monetization, if your business benefits from the group interaction, you can use it to generate additional revenue. Whether you’re using it to sell your own products and services, affiliate products and services, or something else entirely, the key is not to over do the sales. If your group becomes nothing but a sales pitch or sponsored posts, you’ll lose members and engagement. Remain true to the purpose of your group – community and interaction. The money should be a bonus – not the main focus.

Categories
Social Media

Creating a Community: How to Better Manage a Facebook Group

Having a presence on social media is critical to brand awareness. While your marketing goals are ultimately always going to be conversions, your social media goals should include relationship building and engagement as well as the eventual benefit of converting followers into sales. The organic algorithm associated with fan and business pages doesn’t allow for as much visibility as most would like, but creating a Facebook group can tie directly to your page, opening up a whole new world of possibilities.

What’s the Goal of Your Facebook Group?

There are two main goals you can have for your group. The first is to offer a free space where you create a community around your niche. Here’s an example; do a quick search of Facebook groups for any hobby you’re interested in. You’ll instantly find a long list of social media communities sponsored by both individual gurus and social media managers. Some are backed by larger training companies or agencies instead.

While your objective isn’t to give away everything you know for free, you can use this as a space to share information and tips. It’s also a great place to encourage your more experienced group members to share with those who are just starting out. This type of group could be open to the public, closed, or secret.

The second option is to create a limited or exclusive group for your supporters. This could be people who have made a purchase, for example, so you can offer a better customer service experience. Or, it might just be for people who pay to access a course you write on a specific subject (on a third-party platform or within the group itself). This format works best when you make the group privacy settings closed or secret.

Consider the Visibility

It’s definitely important to consider your visibility when you are managing a group. Here are your main options:

  • Public – Anyone can see the content within the group. The friends of members will see activity in their newsfeeds.
  • Closed – Anyone can find the group in a search, but only members can see the content within the group.
  • Secret – The group is not visible in searches. Members must be invited by another member. Only members can see the content inside.

You need to know your goals for the group when choosing a privacy setting. Groups in the infancy phase can be altered from public to closed or secret and vice versa. Once groups reach 5,000 members, you can only increase privacy; you’ll no longer be able to change a closed or secret group back to public.

The majority of groups are closed to prevent spam and improve engagement. Secret groups should be reserved for online courses, customer service, and specialty groups where you profit directly from the content shared within.

Group Management Tips

Once you know your goals and have your settings secured, post regularly and encourage engagement. The larger your community becomes, the more difficult it may be to control the content and advice shared. Consider the following as you work to align your group’s content with your niche and goals.

Give the Group a Great Name

Your group should be associated with your business page, so it doesn’t need the same name. Think of something catchy and consider including a keyword to make sure it’s better optimized. If you’re on the edge, give it a name that includes something catchy and add “by Your Business Name” at the end. Group names can be a lot longer than page names, so you have quite a bit of room to work with. Remember, a catchy name will catch the eyes of your members when they see it in their feeds.

Create Clear Rules or Guidelines

Set clear expectations for your group from the start. While you want to encourage people to share their ideas, you may need to set rules preventing self-promotion. Many groups only allow moderators to post links to outside articles.

Consider including rules about behavior, bullying, vulgarity, and other inappropriate types of content. It’s your group. You can set the rules however you’d like. Simply make them clear by creating a post or document that is marked as an announcement and pinned to the top of your page.

Lead Your Group

Don’t let your community run away with your group. Make sure you are offering insight and ideas, even in your free mentoring communities. The more visible you are, the better the group will serve your business.

Treat Your Group Like Your Page

In other words, make sure it’s optimized with all of the information you’d want your visitors to be able to find. Customize your group header image, fill out the “about” section, include a link back to your website, and optimize your group settings. Make the group visually appealing – and join the group with  your relevant pages.

Encourage Admin Participation

While it’s fine for there to be just one admin, most groups do better with more than one. Add a second person as an admin and encourage them to participate so the group recognizes their authority. There will be an “admin” tag under the name of anyone in this role. Shake things up by giving each admin a theme or creating a weekly post in their own series.

Create a Posting Schedule

The only way to maintain engagement in your group is to have a consistent posting schedule. Yes, your group posts will have more visibility in the newsfeed than a regular page post, but they still depend on engagement for broader reach. Make sure you are posting in your groups at least once per day. Utilize the post styles offered by Facebook. Polls, images, live videos, and text all work. Mix your business/niche related posts with some fun content to shake things up from time to time.

Create Hashtags

Create a couple of hashtags specific to your group so you can easily search for questions based on those subjects. For example, tell your members to use a certain hashtag for questions or comments about your core subjects — like #FacebookQ or #TwitterQ if you’re running a social media group. This will help you to easily search for the most relevant conversations or questions pointed directly to group admins.

Engage, Engage, Engage

Really — engage. You don’t have to reply to every single comment, especially if group members are having a back-and-forth conversation. Do try to have at least one admin comment on each new post. It’s important for group members to see they are getting value from the people running the group. This helps with brand awareness and will build the trust level necessary for you to eventually convert some of your members into customers.

Running a Facebook group can be a lot of fun, but time consuming. Set limits and share the work with your partners. You’ll be pleased with the way your community grows over time!

Categories
Social Media

10 Reasons You Need to Start Focusing on Facebook Stories

Tired of fighting to get your content seen in the regular Facebook newsfeed? Not sure how to organically bypass the regular algorithm? You might be missing out on a really compelling feature: Facebook Stories.

This often-misunderstood feature originally allowed personal users to share snapshots of their lives for a limited length of time. It has since been opened up to businesses, but many have difficulty trying to determine why they should even bother with it. It’s just not intuitive at first, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.

Let’s clear up the confusion, shall we?

Enhanced Visibility

It doesn’t matter if you’re on desktop or on a mobile device; Facebook Stories are incredibly visible. They’re right at the top of the main news feed – above the fold on mobile and to the top/right on desktop.

Why is this so important?

Stories have the potential to be the first thing a person sees when they log into Facebook. This means you have the opportunity to grab the attention of people who might not necessarily see all of your regular posts because of the normal algorithm.

Free Marketing

A lot of Facebook’s business tools for visibility come with a cost. Stories show in the same place whether they’re from a personal profile or a brand page, meaning there is no advertising fee associated with their use. Who doesn’t like free?

You can also cross-post your Instagram stories from one platform to the other, leveraging your efforts across both platforms. One story has the potential to give you the chance to really experiment and analyze where your story efforts are doing best.

Time-Sensitive Marketing

Because story posts are more visible, they’re a great place to post limited-time-only deals and specials (sometimes referred to as flash posts). A story only lasts 24 hours; people who aren’t clicking on your brand’s icon may miss out on something great.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) , is a very real thing. Offering great discounts or specials via Stories alone will train your audience to check them on a regular basis.

Better Influencer Outreach

The Facebook algorithms have definitely changed in the past year or more. Now, they place heavy emphasis placed on personal interaction. Businesses are faced with the pay-to-play concept or they get very little visibility. People are also becoming wary of seeing too much from big brands, but they’re not necessarily against seeing content from individual influencers. Partnering with influencers with large Facebook audiences will give you quick access to a very engaged group of people.

Natural Stories

People who do still like hearing from brands want to feel like they’re connected on a personal level. This means less pre-planned content and more on-the-fly videos, stumbles and all. Consumers aren’t looking for super-professional, highly-edited stories. They’re looking for authentic interactions. Sit down in front of the camera and start talking.

Don’t worry about a script, the perfect background, or anything else. Show your customers what’s happening behind the scenes.

Facebook is Invested

A lot of people accused Facebook of simply copying a similar idea from other social platforms, but they’ve shown consistent and dedicated effort when it comes to developing this part of the site. Facebook added features that allow users to cross-post stories from within Messenger or Instagram. Post once, appear three times for enhanced visibility. More changes are being tested on a regular basis. They’re constantly adding filters, enhancements, and additional tools.

Simple Branding

Facebook makes it easy to brand simple stories without a lot of graphic design work. The built-in filters allow you to add effects, stickers, text, and components that will give your brand a consistent look in the stories feed. While you can of course have special artwork designed, you can still post on the fly with relative ease.

Event Design

Facebook Stories makes it easier to advertise upcoming events; this is perfect for event planners, concert venues, and similar venues. Your videos, slideshows, and announcements will all enhance the user experience, drumming up interest as you build up to the big day. You can even collaborate to allow other people you are connected with via specific groups to share clips relevant clips.

Experimenting with Voice

In addition to enhancing events, Collaborative Stories allow brands to give different people within their organization the chance to share their own personalities. Your CEO may be strictly friendly business chat, while your marketing team may be bubbling with fun ideas and colorful content. Your followers will feel like they’re getting to know your brand’s “family” on a more intimate level.

Growing Popularity

According to Business 2 Community, Facebook estimated Stories will surpass the regular newsfeed sometime in 2019. While nothing has rolled out yet, Facebook is looking for ways to monetize stories as well. This means you’ll want to have already figured out how to incorporate great stories into your strategy so you are already visible when it comes time to advertise.

Tips for Creating Better Stories

Ready to get started? Anyone within your organization with admin access to your page can post a story. People with mobile devices can record and post on the go, but you can also use a desktop to upload more refined content from time to time. Keep the following in mind:

  • Adding text? Change the font to better match your overall brand. Facebook gives you several to choose from.
  • Move the text around. You can change the angle or move it to a different place on the screen. Position it in a place where Facebook’s icons won’t cover it up, or where the image itself isn’t compromised.
  • Upload multiple images to create a slideshow story, keeping the attention of your audience for longer.
  • Create a Stories content plan separate from your main feed. You don’t want to post the same content in both places.
  • Don’t be afraid to post selfies, photos of your work day, or personalized/branded quotes. Let Stories be the place where your audience gets to know the faces behind your brand.

Facebook Stories are here to stay. While they may be limited by their 24-hour existence, they can have a huge impact on your brand awareness strategy. Make sure you post consistently to maintain your new level of visibility and engagement.

Categories
Social Media

Is Facebook the Next Best Zone for Influencers to Make Money?

 

We spent the last year telling you that Instagram is the biggest up-and-coming platform, both for regular businesses and for influencer marketers. Now, we’re about to turn that advice on its head and suggest that Facebook may be a serious contender for second place by the end of the year.

Facebook officially launched a new marketing tool called “Brand Collabs Manager” just last week. This interactive plugin gives businesses the power to identify, explore, and connect with influencers who can seriously boost their brand.

Supply and Demand

After glancing over the details surrounding the new tool, it’s pretty obvious that Facebook wants a shift – and that shift is to make their platform more friendly to influencer marketing efforts. It’s a change many of us saw coming after Facebook bought Instagram for a record-breaking $1 billion back in 2012. Granted, the change did take a little bit longer to arrive than we expected.

Influencer marketing is on the rise. Nearly 90 percent of all users trust word of mouth, including influencer content, over advertising alone. Around 30 percent are compelled not by celebrities, but by small-time bloggers and non-celebrity bloggers they feel are “more like them.” Around 19 percent find Facebook to be the most compelling and engaging platform for influencing users.

That’s a significant amount of demand for a platform that stereotypically made it more cumbersome to collaborate instead.

Additionally, we know that Facebook saw a dramatic slump in stocks after Cambridge Analytica. More than just a few businesses jumped ship out of fears about insecure user data, often heading off to more reliable platforms. While the user base hasn’t dropped (in fact, it’s grown), businesses are still feeling nervous about the social media giant’s intentions.

Facebook clearly saw a massive opportunity to serve a relatively untapped demand while also ironing out negative opinions and fears. In tandem with their efforts to fix privacy concerns, it could be exactly what they need to bounce back.

Brand Collabs Manager

“Brand Collabs Manager makes it easier for brands and influential content creators to find each other.”

Sounds simple, right? That’s Facebook’s tagline on the new tool, and honestly, I can’t say it much simpler than that. What I can do is go beyond the tagline to tell you about the features I’m seeing and how they work.

The tool, which is currently operating on limited list access as they ramp up, has two distinct sections – one for creators, and one for businesses. Both must apply and indicate their Facebook profile, website, and information, after which a review takes place to determine whether they’re suitable. It isn’t yet clear whether this application process is a product of the beta testing or whether it will remain in place long-term.

What’s Under the Hood: Businesses

On the business side of the platform is an aesthetically-pleasing, clean dashboard with an easy-to-scan grid of influencers. A set of filters at the top lets you add promotional requirements and drill down through the presented influencers to find someone who really matches your business.

Facebook gives the example of filtering for “Creators who really like my brand;” useful, given that pages can’t see the names of likes anymore.

Even more helpfully, every influencer has a percentage profile listed on their account beside their information. That number tells you how closely the influencer matches up with your niche, business, product, or service based on a number of in-depth factors ranging from interests to age and other standard demographics.

Once you find someone you think is a good fit, just click their picture. The tool will take you to a short profile listing information like age, gender, preferred post types, content categories or niches, location,  language, and sometimes, links to their website or Instagram. You can also review all of their past collaborations, making it easier to judge the quality of the content and their interactions at the same time.

All of these features shorten the length of time it takes to link up with influencers. It’s much easier to find who you’re looking for quickly, rather than hashtag surfing or relying on your own analytics. It’s also far more straightforward to get into contact or make a connection.

What’s Under the Hood: Creators

So, what about creators and influencers? Whether you’re an industry influencer or a true online celebrity, Brand Collabs Manager has features you’ll love, too. Moreover, they go far beyond the simple recognition and visibility improvements mentioned in the previous section.

When creators are approved for the platform and log in, they’re presented with their own brand collaborator profile. Like a traditional Facebook profile, this section has room for basic information, contact info, a cover photo, a profile photo, gender, and more. It also provides room for intro videos, case studies, pitch decks, and original content explicitly created for review by brands.

As a creator, you can also use your influencer profile to “like” specific companies on Facebook you want to work with. They’ll get a message letting them know you like them, and that you may make a good partner for future content.

Will it Work?

Whether or not Brand Collabs Manager will turn out the way Facebook hopes it will remains to be seen. Until they officially launch the platform and open it up to all creators and businesses, you should consider it more like a growing experiment or case study. Don’t jump in feet-first just yet expecting perfection – but don’t be afraid to apply and get those feet wet, either.

Something else to consider is that Facebook isn’t charging anything for the tool, nor are they taking a cut of the profits creators and businesses make when they work together. That’s encouraging because it means the platform really cares more about the connection than any potential profits. That said, Facebook will still benefit from ad campaigns created as a result of those partnerships.

It makes sense for Facebook to move in this direction on multiple levels. The open willingness to find solutions, the desire to make it easier for creators to get noticed, and even the desire to provide the tool free of charge are all a sign of positive growth and rebounding.

Another influence (pun intended) is whether Facebook might move forward in the future toward monetization like YouTube, Vimeo, and other content platforms. A monetized Brand Collabs Manager could become very lucrative for businesses and influencers alike, especially if they can maintain quality of options.

Categories
Social Media

5 Facebook Changes Spurred On by Cambridge Analytica

 

Facebook is currently struggling from a poor public image issue. Somehow, the platform managed to allow research company Cambridge Analytica to not only access, but retain years worth of private data for nearly 50 million different users on the platform. Users who, for the most part, had no idea their info had been gathered, used, and studied, all by the same research company.

The entire event led to significant backlash against the company, including a #DeleteFacebook hashtag that encourages people to walk away from the platform for good. But it’s a hard sell for businesses and marketers, who may rely on the platform for publicity and sales.

Fortunately, Facebook is taking some serious steps to correct the current privacy and data issues inherent to its design. We did a little digging to see what’s changing in coming weeks; here’s what we found.

More Auditing for Apps

Facebook has always audited the apps that work through its APIs, but how often and how it plans to audit apps is changing. Not only will the platform audit more frequently, but they’ll also be more proactive about suspending or auctioning issues when they find them – even if those issues are small. This includes apps that ask for too much information, apps accessing too much information, and any app suspected of stealing or misusing member data.

Businesses who rely on Facebook’s APIs for statistics, analytics, market research, and lead generation may find themselves no longer able to access the same kind of data. Such behavior isn’t rare, either; until a short while ago, a significant number of businesses specifically turned to Facebook because it allowed for such robust data gathering, especially through apps. If you’re currently gathering data off the platform, it’s time to find new strategies that don’t risk suspension or bans.

A Temporary Moratorium on New Messenger Bots

If you were planning to create a messenger bot to help you answer questions on your Facebook page more quickly, you might be too late. Facebook also announced a (possibly temporary) moratorium on the creation of new messenger bots.

The problem with bots lies in how, when, where, and why they gather information from the people who interact with them. Most bots require a significant amount of information from people just to function at all; they need to be able to “listen” to input in order to respond, and that means monitoring a person’s text submissions. In the case of on-page bots, this may include monitoring all content submitted to the business page wall or group.

Why is this a problem? The platform believes some developers may be using these bots to gather an excessive amount of information. Moreover, they aren’t sure how to fix the problem just yet, and that means if someone were to create a malicious bot, they could be held responsible. So, for the moment, they’ve decided it’s safer to just take bot creation offline. Existing bots will be permitted to stay, but may face additional audits in coming months.

Stricter Data Access Guidelines

Facebook is also planning to significantly reduce what data apps and businesses can access full-stop. For example, for API-based logins on websites and other platforms (anything that uses a Facebook login), the social media giant will soon only permit you to access their first name, last name, and email address. Previously, some login services were able to access not only the basics, but also advanced information like Facebook profiles (even if set to friends only) and “friends of friends” lists.”

In terms of apps, Facebook is planning to strip back data access to disallow collecting data that “isn’t needed.” Exactly what that means is open to interpretation because the platform isn’t clarifying right now, but likely, it will strip most businesses back to only the data they need to provide customer support or services.

Here’s a few examples. If you include a tab on your Facebook page that allows people to sign up for your newsletter, you probably can’t ask people to provide anything other than a first name, last name, and email address. If you’re using a tab to run a contest, and local laws demand you collect addresses, Facebook will (probably) view this as appropriate use.

The goal here is to make Facebook more secure by preventing excessive data collection. The more free data floating around out there, the more likely someone is to misuse it. Unfortunately, the restrictions will likely impact the SEO and marketing industries as it becomes more difficult to access analytics.

Data Access Permissions That Expire

Cambridge Analytica didn’t just gather more data than they should have; they also stored and actively used that data inappropriately for many, many years. Then, they used that data to create “psychographic profiles of users and their friends,” which later bolstered their clients’ political campaigns – including, allegedly, Trump’s social media team and several Brexit supporters.

Developers who request data will maintain permission to access and store that data for as long as the individual in question actively utilizes the service or app. If the user doesn’t log in or interact with the app for 90 days, they’ll expire access and permissions on the data for good.

A New, Redesigned Settings Menu

There are big changes on the horizon for users, too, especially where privacy controls and security are concerned. Facebook is totally redesigning their user settings menu for both individuals and businesses, making it easier to control what data you allow them to use and how they use your data.

They haven’t rolled out changes to all accounts just yet, but when they do, you should see better data controls for users, brand-new extensive account download and total deletion options, and a less confusing interface. New pages in the works will give users the option to see a list of developers and specifics for data given out in the past – with the option to remove access or permissions at any time.

Ultimately, these changes just barely scratch the surface of the social media security issue. But they do at least take steps to make the platform safer. As a business using Facebook for content marketing and/or digital marketing, it’s up to you to determine how to roll with the changes. We’re always here to help if you need us!

Exit mobile version
Skip to content