New Facebook Ad Strategies That Will Reinvent Your Mobile Marketing

Facebook has become synonymous with mobile. Not only do 87% of Facebook users visit the social network on mobile devices, they spend an average of 21 minutes every day on the mobile app. As a result, marketers are using Facebook to reinvent their mobile marketing and generate more business, increase website traffic, and build brand awareness. Why else do you think Facebook’s mobile ad revenue is projected to make up one-third of all mobile ad spend this year?

Consumers Research and Shop Via Mobile Devices

The impact of mobile on the customer journey has marketers in nearly every industry responding in kind. Marketers see the numbers and know they need to take advantage of every mobile opportunity since that’s where their customers research and shop:

• 86% of consumers use mobile devices to plan their shopping trips (NinthDecimal)
• 54% of financial services shoppers only use their mobile devices during research and purchase (xAd)
• 4 out of 5 auto shoppers use their smartphones in the car purchase process (Cars.com)
• 50% of insurance shoppers start on mobile devices (IIABA)
• 72% of boomers (often the senior living decision-makers) with incomes over $75k own smartphones (Pew Research Center)
• Over 40% of U.S. adults booked travel reservations on mobile devices in 2014, up 20% from 2013 (Criteo)

To target these smartphone-first consumers, here are some tips from different industries to improve your mobile marketing on Facebook.

Auto Marketers: Don’t Wait to Advertise Your Brand to Mobile Car Shoppers

Most digital car ads are delivered in the final month before consumers make a purchase. But according to new research from Facebook, most shoppers have already settled on 1-2 models by then, so the ads are either redundant or irrelevant. Targeting these shoppers 6 months out – when they are still undecided – is important to raising your brand awareness and making their vehicle shortlist. Provide an appealing multi-media campaign of images and videos that excites a shopper about your brand. Promote posts from shoppers’ friends that like your brand to get it on their radar in a favorable, peer-endorsed way.

Hotel Marketers: Use Facebook Ads to Promote Mobile App Downloads

Research on the effectiveness of mobile apps in driving hotel bookings is mixed, but that has more to do with the value an app provides. But what is clear is that Facebook is an effective driver at promoting app downloads for both hotel brands and OTAs. Try running “Install Now” app ads and promoting things like mobile-exclusive deals, free Wi-Fi, or early check-in options for app users.

Insurance Marketers: Local Matters to Mobile-First Shoppers

Smartphone shoppers are most likely to click on ads with promotions, but they also respond often to ads that are locally relevant. 44% of smartphone shoppers want an insurance agent to be within 5 miles, so use location targeting to run Facebook ads promoting local agents.

Senior Living Marketers: Use Video to Promote Daily Community Life

54% of boomers and seniors watch online video, and 75% have taken action as a result. Create videos that show what daily life is like in senior living. Assuage their fears about the transition with videos showing the friends they will meet and the activities they will do.

Test These Two New Facebook Ad Formats

Two new Facebook ad formats (among others) have emerged to help marketers engage with mobile users. Facebook carousel ads can display multiple images and links in one ad. Facebook claims this format drives 30%-50% lower cost-per-conversion and 20%-30% lower cost-per-click than single-image link ads.

By using a “Call Now” button, customers can call you right from your ad in their news feed. It’s a great way to drive calls to the shopper’s closest local store or agent.

Don’t Forget About Attribution – It’s Critical

Thanks to smartphones, Facebook and social advertising will generate 12 billion calls next year. And since those calls convert to purchases, you can’t measure the return on your Facebook ad spend without measuring call conversions. Call attribution software helps marketers track every caller whether they come from Facebook, search, or another advertising source. Only when you close the loop on your attribution can you prove the full value of your ads and optimize spend for what’s really driving results.

We have a few more strategies up our sleeves. Download the guide now and they’ll be your strategies too: “New Facebook Ad Strategies to Convert Mobile-First Shoppers.”

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8 Interesting Facts About Mobile SEO (Infographic)

Everywhere you go and in almost every place in the globe, you could see people hunched over a smartphone or a gadget. The world has really gone mobile. Who can blame them? With a smartphone that has the capability of a personal computer, almost every transaction can now be done online and on the go.

This chart from Search Engine Watch is a clear indication of how the world has truly gone mobile, with smartphones and tablets going head-to-head with laptops and desktops as the primary media channel for getting all types of information. Print, television and other traditional media channels have given way to the power of online and mobile channels.

These trends signal business owners and digital marketers to focus their efforts away from traditional channels and go for mobile marketing. Search Engine Optimization, a stalwart in digital marketing, is breaking new boundaries by integrating mobile channels into the mix.

Having a mobile-friendly site is just the tip of the iceberg. Digital marketers can learn more about Mobile Marketing through this series of facts and figures that can help you jumpstart your Mobile SEO initiatives.

1. Search Goes Mobile – Mobile devices are slowly but surely becoming the primary search tool of choice, with as much as 50% of search users begin their search with a mobile device, with numbers going up to 88% if the search is for a local business or establishment. What they came up was the introduction of the Mobile-Friendly label that appears in search results listings. Google has hinted on rewarding mobile-friendly sites with better ranking.

2. Mobile Traffic Will Overtake Them All –  ComScore predicted that mobile will overtake desktop in online traffic by the year 2014. That prediction was made in 2012 and on July of 2014, Search Engine Watch reported that prediction coming true with mobile usage overtaking desktop.

3. Mobile SEO and Local Intent – When mobile users intend to make an in-store purchase, 50% search for a local business using their mobile devices according to new research from Google.

4. SEO and the Mobile-Only User – Current recent data from comScore indicates that up to 174 million consumers in the United States own a smartphone. That’s 72% of the total population, while another 38%, or roughly 93 million people, own Internet-connected tablets.

5. Purchasing Behavior and Mobile SEO – comScore highlighted that as high as 66% of the time spent on online retailing is done through smartphones or tablets, prompting digital marketers and business owners to take this into consideration when they roll out their Mobile SEO strategy.

6. Mobile SEO and the User Experience – Mobile SEO has gained good ground in 2014 and is expected to perform more in 2015 and beyond. Key to Mobile SEO success is how to provide targeted audiences with a superb mobile experience as they browse through your websites on their smartphones and tablets.

7. Responsive Website Design and Mobile SEO –  An important part of providing a great user experience for mobile web visitors is to setup your site to a responsive design. This configuration is considered an industry best practice by Google, and when this Internet pillar speaks, everyone should listen.

8. Conversational Search and Mobile SEO  – The advent of “smarter” smartphones gave birth to conversational search technologies like Apple’s Siri and Google’s Voice Search. Use of conversational search is more likely to grow in parallel with the phenomenal growth of smartphone sales. Google highlighted that as much as 41% of adults and 55% of teens in America use conversational voice search.

Want more? See below!

Embedded from Digital Marketing Philippines.

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Why Smart Social Media Marketers Care About Mobile Optimization [Infographic]

How many of you use your smartphone and/or tablet to check email, scroll through Twitter, and even read blog posts like this one?

Most of you, I'll bet. While we're not quite ready to do away with our laptops and desktop computers, people are spending more time using their mobile devices to access the internet -- especially social media sites. In fact, users spend more time accessing social media from their mobile devices than their desktop. Plus, mobile users tend to share social media content 2X as much as those on a desktop computer.

Successful social media marketers are constantly thinking about how they can optimize their social posts for mobile users. To help you get more out of your social media posts from today's mobile consumers, check out the tips in the infographic below from Unified.

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10 Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch Out for in 2015 (Infographic)

It was a little over five years ago when MySpace was still popular and Facebook just rolled out the now iconic “Like” button. Since then, social media grew into a huge worldwide phenomena with more than 1,730,000,000 users uploading 20 thousand pictures on Tumblr, 104 thousand images on snapchat and 2.46 million posts on Facebook every minute.

These figures are expected to grow substantially next year, with a projected 2.44 billion users networking with friends and family on their favorite social networks. Such figures attest to how influential social media can be in how people communicate and engage with others online, as well as how they do business and commerce.

As much as 97% of marketers use social media, with up to 92% acknowledging the importance of this tool for their businesses. The following provides an overview of new trends, highlights and things to watch out for next year so you can prepare yourself and your business for what’s in store for social media in 2015.

1. Content Marketing Gets More Social – The strength of content marketing relies not only on the creation of an Epic content but on how you can effectively distribute this content for your targeted audiences.

2. Real Time Social Media Marketing will Be a Buzzword - By monitoring and responding promptly to their targeted audiences’ needs, business owners and digital marketers can generate better engagement that drives conversions and sales.

3. Audio and Video Will Dominate Social Content - Just like any other digital marketing channel, audio and video elements evolved to become powerful visual tools that generate better engagements and positive responses.

4. Steady Shift towards Mobile Social Media – With experts projecting that more than one billion people in 2015 will access the Internet only through their mobile gadgets, focusing on mobile social media will be a very logical thing to start right here right now.

5. The Continued Rise of Paid Social Media Advertising – The organic or natural reach of a typical Facebook post will only be a mere 0.073 percent. If you really want to get more mileage from all your social media efforts, then it would be wise to consider paid social media advertising.

6. Payment Features Using Social Media Wallets – The phenomenal rise of mobile usage have driven major online tech players like Paypal and Apple to take action and grab a good hold of the mobile payment space.

7. The Rise of the Social Media Commerce – Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are capitalizing on this by testing their eCommerce “buy” buttons that will eventually roll out next year in full swing.

8. Social Media Becomes Smarter and Analytical - Experts from Gartner and SocialCode all agree that the way businesses use social media will become smarter and more analytical in 2015 and beyond.

9. Social Media and the B2B Market – In 2014, Facebook still stood on top as the main social network used by marketers in the B2B arena, with a high 89% usage rate. LinkedIn however is following at a close second at 88%.

10. The Rise of New Social Networks - Among the more prominent of these new social networks include Ello which claims providing an ad-free social network that will not sell vital user data to third parties, Yik Yak which focuses on anonymous post exchanges on physically adjacent people. Others includes Tsu which offers revenue sharing on popular posts.

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Social Media New Year’s Resolutions [Infographic]

With the New Year come the New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe yours is going to the gym, learning a new language or even just relaxing more. Whatever your personal resolutions might be, there’s also a good chance that your social media accounts could use a new start in the New Year, too. That’s why we put together this list of 10 social media resolutions to keep your brand on track.

1. Use More Visuals

Guess what? They visual age of marketing isn’t going anywhere. With Pinterest’s valuation at $5 billion, Instagram’s at $35 billion and Tumblr’s $1.1 billion acquisition, these visual sharing platforms proved themselves to be business giants. With visual platforms being a multi-billion dollar industry, it’s incredibly important for your business to be making a show of itself with visual, sharable content.

If your business is less-than visually inclined, never fear. There are many simple image creator apps, like Canva and Share As Image with Tailwind integration, that can make anyone into a graphic designer.

2. Create Content

Like visual marketing, content marketing is here to stay. By creating sharable blogs, infographics, white papers, webinars, etc. you’re not just pushing your product in people faces – you’re teaching them about your industry and how your company can help. Plus, content marketing provides the opportunity to use different keywords to help boost your site’s SEO power.

3. Engage Users

Talk to your fans! Now, this might sound simple, but you would be amazed at how few businesses actually do it. By building a relationship with your users on social media, you’re building a lasting customer. They’ll see you as a confidant rather than a hollow business. It can be as simple as thanking a fan for sharing your content, or sending them a congratulatory tweet on their new engagement. Whatever it is, get your fans talking.

4. Find Your Perfect Timing

Similarly to a tree falling in an empty forest, a social media post going out when no one is online might as well not exist. Catching users when they’re online will increase the chance of your messages being seen. Social media scheduling makes it super simple to automatically post at the right times. Even if you’re not sure when the perfect time is, apps like Tailwind and HootSuite will figure that out for you.

5. Test Using Social Advertisements

Social media allows for inexpensive advertising tests. Try targeting a new audience, or tweaking your copy, or even try a whole new advertising network, like Pinterest’s. Although there is still a waitlist to try their new advertising product, the consumer-driven nature of Pinterest will pack a serious punch for paid media in 2015.

6. Make Your Posts Move

Instagram videos, autoplay Facebook videos and the popularity of hilarious .gif’s have proven the power of motion pictures in social media. Whether you’re making explainer videos or just pinning amazing cat .gif’s, it’s time to get your brand moving.

7. Use Hashtags Right

Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and now even Facebook all support the use of hashtags. While they can be a great way to find information and people with similar interests, or even to rally behind social movements, you must understand how to use hashtags correctly. Most importantly: #don’t #use #them #excessively.

8. Optimize Posts for Different Platforms

Not all social media is created equal. What works on Facebook won’t necessarily work on Pinterest. Each platform has different requirements for image size and description length, as well as different styles of posts that will work best. Sprout Social’s “Always Up To Date” Social Media Image Size Guide can help set you straight.

9. Post Less About Yourself

Sure, someone will follow you on social media because they’re interested in your brand. However, they do not want to see tons of posts boasting about how wonderful you are – they already know that! Instead of constantly posting about yourself, try only using 20% of your posts to talk about yourself and the other 80% to talk about things your audience would be interested in. Fans will also be more likely to share useful or interesting information on their social pages, letting your name go further.

10. Master Mobile Marketing

Whether your loyal to Apple, or a fan of Android, it’s safe to say that most American’s are carrying around a computer in their pocket. In fact, mobile usage surpassed PC usage for the first time in 2014. Because the likelihood of someone hitting your site from a mobile device, rather than on a PC, it’s more important than ever to have a responsive website. If your site’s hard to navigate on a phone, you could be loosing sales.

What other social media resolutions are you making in 2015? Let us know in the comments!

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