4 Steps to Improve Your Facebook Campaigns

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The Christmas season is one of the most competitive times for any type of online advertising. Every business, from mom and pop stores to big-box retailers will be fighting over the public’s attention on Facebook. Does that mean you shouldn’t advertise? No! A study from Shop.org showed that mobile influenced 56% of in-store sales. It’s even more important than before to get your brand in front of your customers.

Note that these steps aren’t exclusive to JUST Christmas. If you can, try to follow our guide for every Facebook advertising campaign you run.

1. Plan Out your Target Market

Every business should have a good idea of who their target market is, but it’s important to really drill down here. Facebook has a lot of powerful tools that will help reach just about anyone, but you still have to tell it where to target.

A good way for your business to start is to look at what your customers have in common. Are they mostly 60+ women? Are they B2B companies with over 100 employees? Write down as many different segments as you can think of. The more accurate your market, the more relevant all your ads become.

Note: Facebook can target by age, gender, ethnicity (to an extent), geography, and interest.

2. Design Multiple Ads for each Market

It’s hard work to design a good ad, so trying to go above that and create several can appear daunting. However, it’s crucial to match your advertising to your segment. The same ad that appeals to a grandmother will probably not be very relevant to a 45-year-old man.

For each of the target market segments you created in the first step, design a different ad specifically for them. We would recommend changing the copy for sure, and changing the image if you think it would make sense.

3. Split Test your Ads against each other

One of the great things about Facebook is how easily you can split test your ads. Underperforming ads will automatically be assigned less money compared to the ones that do well. A little bit of survival of the fittest will go a long way to maximizing your ROI.

It’s important to keep a close eye on your split tests. If some of your ads are doing very poorly, shut them off, tweak the copy or the image, and start testing them again. It’s unlikely you’ll nail the perfect ad on your first try without a lot of testing.

4. Use a Retargeting Pixel

If someone clicks on your ad, let’s say they have a 5% chance of actually buying something from your sales page. What happens to the other 95%? With a tracking pixel, you can target those who “bounce” off your sales page and show them your ads repeatedly. We’ve seen some huge success through retargeting, but it really depends on how well you defined your target market in Step #1. There’s no point showing someone the same ad a hundred times if they’re just not interested

In our experience, Facebook advertising has become incredibly effective and cost-efficient… as long as you know what you’re doing!

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A Digital Marketer’s Christmas Wish List

Ah, it’s that time of year again, Christmas—a time when children of all ages and dispositions take a moment to count their blessings and pencil out all the things they want from dear old Santa Claus. Among the ranks of this year’s holiday season hopefuls is the beleaguered digital marketer, whose job description includes the unenviable task of harnessing the wild, unceasing tumult of a seemingly never-ending and ever-growing Digital Tsunami to enhance the customer experience and generate positive ROI. Faced with such a herculean mandate, we digital marketers need some loving from St. Nick now more than ever.

Partly as an exercise in personal catharsis, and partly in the hope that Santa and his elves are actually listening, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a generalized Christmas wish list for the beleaguered digital marketer in all of us. Here goes.

Wish #1: Abidingly Authoritative Algorithms

Come on, Google, we get that you’re all about continuous improvement, but how about finally delivering a one-and-done search algorithm that allows the beleaguered digital marketer to set a consistent SEO strategy—you know, something that can be periodically washed, rinsed, and repeated with minimal effort? Enough with the cutsy animal references, you need a name for this new algo update with sufficient gravitas to embody its perpetual nature, something like ALLSEARCH, or better yet, OMNIRITHM. Just spitballing here…

Wish #2: Continuously Copywriting Elves

Santa, let me give you some insight into the dark side of the digital marketing, which is embodied in a maxim that amounts to an unending devil’s bargain for the beleaguered digital marketer: the proliferation of digital media implies, and often necessitates, a corresponding proliferation of digital marketing content.

Bummer, dude.

This is largely because, as I’ve written before, in the mean streets of the online ecosystem—where web-based content reigns supreme—content is the alpha and omega:

In web design parlance, content refers to everything on a website: the words, images, and videos, etc. Just like you need matter to fill the universe and a body to fill a suit, you need content to fill a website page. Setting aside, for now, any debate over the merits of content marketing, in the context of web design content is a thing, not a strategy, tactic, or tool. Moreover, it’s an “are,” not an “is” – think plural rather than singular. When we refer to web-based content, then, we are referring to all the things that occupy or populate a web page, in aggregate.

In other words, the world is fast going digital, and in a digital world, it’s all about the content.

Help.

OK, Santa, you’re a magical dude, you must have an ad hoc solution for this content conundrum: a brood of continuously copywriting elves, perhaps? Nothing to flashy, maybe an underperforming elf on the shelf who would rather be penning poems than pounding together playsets.

Give it some thought.

Wish #3: Socially Savvy CEOs

Here’s a tale of two stats if ever there was one:

• According to the 2014 Global Social CEO Survey by social media consulting firm Brandfog, 83% of senior executives in the U.S. think CEOs who actively participate in social media can build better connections with their customers, employees, and investors. Moreover, nearly three-fourths of these same execs believe that C-Suite leaders who use social media to communicate their core mission and brand values are more trustworthy than those who don’t adopt social media.
• In early 2015, Weber Shandwick released Socializing Your CEO: From Marginal to Mainstream, an audit of the online presence of CEOs from the world’s 50 largest companies. Overall, the study found that social media usage by CEOs is still relatively low, at just 28%. Not surprisingly, the most popular social network was LinkedIn, used by 22% of CEOs, followed by Twitter, used by 10% of CEOs. None of the CEOs audited said they used Facebook or Google Plus.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ok, I understand the potential liability issues with CEOs directly interacting on social media, especially CEOs of large multinationals. My neighbor is a general counsel for a biggish global travel agency, and he blanched at the very thought of his CEO freely Tweeting or Facebooking.

But come on, surely there is a sensible work-around here. After all, direct social engagement is working fine for Richard Branson, who largely composes his own Tweets to an audience of over 3.5 million Twitter followers. In fact, Branson recently earned the top spot in an analysis of the most social CEOs among Fortune 500 companies. A larger than life persona largely shaped by his relentless commitment to personally engage on social media, Branson is arguably the most popular entrepreneur in the world, well regarded by employees, peers, and the general public alike—sort of a businessperson’s Santa Claus, if you will.

Say, there’s an idea. Santa, maybe you could team up with Branson to host a webinar series on social engagement for CEOs. Two jolly old souls, both consummate marketers, imparting pearls of wisdom to the leaders of today, etc. Santa, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), I’d be happy to work with you and Sir Richard to concept it out. After all, according to Wikipedia, Branson’s nickname is “Old Beardie”—talk about a layup!

Wish #4: Digitally Dedicated Clients

Which brings us to the last item on our list—one that is personally nearest and dearest to my heart. Santa, could you work your elven magic and send us beleaguered digital marketers a brace of digitally dedicated clients? You know, the kind who see social engagement, content creation, and inbound marketing as paradigm-shifting marketing functions rather than one-off campaign initiatives; who regard digital transformation as a fundamental realignment of business culture, mindset, and process rather than a short-term band-aid.

Earlier this year, I recall having a conversation with the CEO of a mid-level healthcare company about putting together an integrated digital marketing strategy for his firm. After politely listening to my recommendations, he circled back to what he felt his company needed: a “really sexy” social campaign, something that would “go viral” on social media. He honestly believed such a campaign would transform his company from the digital laggard that it was to a digital leader overnight, sparing him the need to oversee a fundamental restructuring of the marketing function, and indeed the entire company; to manage the overhaul a business that was originally designed to operate in a pre-digital environment but now had to compete in the digital age.

The budget he had proposed was less than one tenth of what would be needed to accomplish his myopic social media goals, to say nothing of my comprehensive recommendations. Sensing we were at an unbreachable impasse, he politely ushered me to the door and was never heard from again.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, he is no longer with the company.

Santa, here is my final wish: help me and my beleaguered digital marketing cohorts convince top executives and business owners—especially small business owners—of the wisdom of employing proven digital marketing strategies. Help them understand that digital marketing and digital transformation are not one-off campaign strategies or short-term business initiatives, but instead are long-term strategic imperatives for most, if not all, brands great and small.

Yes, all these things, and a Doctor Who lunchbox, thanks very much…

Happy Holidays to all!

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Adobe Launches Adobe Post To Help You Build Better Social Graphics

Free iPhone app gives anyone the ability to create professional looking social graphics.

Martin Beck on December 22, 2015 at 8:00 am

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Need a quick and easy way to create graphics for social campaigns? Adobe can help with that.

The company has launched a new iPhone app, called Adobe Post, that should come in handy for marketers without an in-house design team.

The app is loaded with pre-selected templates, or “Design Filters,” that overlay images — pulled from the camera roll or the selection of free stock photos within Post — with text, colors and other graphical elements. The templates are as easy to switch as Instagram filters and after you settle on one, you can adjust further by tapping on your iPhone screen before posting on social networks. Post also automatically suggests color combinations based on background colors in images.

“This past year, we’ve been talking to many small businesses, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs and the message is clear: consumers need a simple app to create professional looking graphics so they can better engage with their social media followers,” Adobe wrote in a blog post. “Taking the best of Adobe’s 30 years of experience in delivering tools for creative professionals, what we call ‘Adobe Magic.’ We crafted and tailored Adobe Post so that anyone can stand out and communicate with impact.”

The free app is available now in the Apple store.

Here’s a Adobe-produced demo video:

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How Live Streams Are Forever Changing Social Media Marketing

The world of social media marketing used to be so blissfully simple. You posted a picture, watched your engagement grow, and reaped the rewards of your digital efforts.

Raise your hand if you’re an experienced social media marketer and immediately called BS on the above sentence. It’s easy to reminisce about past marketing ages, even if in this case, that age happened only a few years ago. While social media marketing may have since become much more complex, it also offers a myriad of new opportunities to track success and highlight your brand.

Speaking of new social media technologies that are forever changing your brand: it’s time to consider live streaming options as one. With a relatively easy set up to go along with immense potential success, new live streaming services could be the key your business needs to enter (and sustain) the digital conversation among your audience.

Social Media Live Streaming Explained

Live streaming video, of course, has been around for years now. But until this year, services like UStream and Justin.TV fell short in that they did not offer any type of social media integration. You should stream your events live on the internet, but all you could offer your followers was a lifeless link in their news feeds.

Of course, much of that changed in 2015. In February, the iPhone app Meerkat launched at SXSW, promising to deliver live video feeds to your Twitter Followers. Following immense immediate success, Twitter realized the untapped potential of social media live streams, and released its own alternative – Periscope in late March.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest social media network finally got in on the action when Facebook released its own live streaming functionality this August. Unfortunately, that feature came with a caveat: while Meerkat and Periscope are both available to the general public, only celebrities can stream their videos live on Facebook.

The Success of Social Media Live Streams

2015 was the first year in which social media live streams became a thing, so it’s still early in evaluating early returns from brands integrating the feature into their social media marketing strategy. But these early returns are incredibly promising:

• Only a few months after their respective releases, Meerkat and Periscope each had individual live streams shared over 1.5 million times on Twitter.
• Periscope has since hit over 10 million users, while Meerkat has a few million on its own. That’s live streamers only, as any Twitter user can view these live streams without needing an app.
• Celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Serena Williams, Michael Buble, Madonna, Ashton Kutcher, Edward Norton, Jimmy Fallon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many others are avid live stream users.

In other words, live streams are carving out a niche even early in their adoption process, suggesting the promise of this new technology as it moves more into the realm of general, “every day” users.

Integrating Live Streams into Your Social Media Marketing

If you’ve read our posts before, you know that we’re big fans of jumping onto a new, promising feature or technology while the market is not yet saturated. Doing so allows you to become known as forward-thinking by your audience, while also operating in a realm that is not yet drowning in noise from your competitors.

And especially with a new technology that is as promising and has as much potential to change the way we view social media marketing as live streaming, why not jump in and utilize it to advance your brand? Social Media Examiner recently posted 6 ways to use live streaming video on social media to benefit your business:

1. Share Live Events. This is perhaps the most obvious use of social media live streaming: allow members of your audience who can’t join you in person to still take part of an important company event. Whether you hold an awards banquet or moderate a panel at a popular conference within your industry, live streaming the event can increase the impact of your efforts beyond your physical attendees.
2. Host Interviews. Interviews are a great way for your audience to get to know members of your company, and even other customers – but too often, the recorded versions seem stilted and over produced. Instead, live stream spontaneous interviews, which will make your brand seem more relatable and personable.
3. Showcase Products. Whether you produce products or provide services, why not show your audience exactly what it is that your products/services do? A quick, live presentation may carry a small risk (you wouldn’t want anything to go wrong, after all), but also brings the significant benefit of authentically showing the benefits of your product to your customers.
4. Go Behind the Scenes. A behind the scenes look is popular for many social media marketers who already use video extensively, but again – it simply becomes more authentic if you do so live, without an obvious script. Instead of seeming like you only want to show your audience certain aspects behind the scenes, your brand’s transparency and credibility greatly increases.
5. Conduct Training. Of course, you can also use live streaming for internal communication, helping your own employees understand and perform their job better. Used another way, trainings can also help your customers get more familiar with your products after the purchase.
6. Host Q&A Sessions. The benefits are obvious; Q&A sessions allow you to interact directly with your audience to communicate your brand and answer any questions they might have.

Of course, none of these types of video are exclusive to live streaming. In fact, many marketers we know already use them as recorded versions in their social media marketing strategy! But by turning them into live streaming events, you significantly increase the authenticity and credibility of your brand.

And that’s how live streaming is forever changing social media marketing. In an age where your audience trusts your brand less than they have ever done before, and increasingly expects an honest two-way conversation to become a customer, social media live streams offer you the opportunity to increase the reach and credibility of your brand.

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How Can Marketers & Designers Work Better Together? [Infographic]

It's not uncommon to feel like marketers and designers speak different languages. You have marketers focusing on the timeline, designers focusing on the creation process, and neither of them understanding where the other is coming from.

For example, less than 30% of marketers say designers are anticipating problems and following a transparent process. But at the same time, 39% of designers say
it’s difficult to estimate the scope of projects in the first place.

What are the most common misunderstandings between marketers and designers?

What can each do to address these misunderstandings? To help break down that communication barrier, check out the infographic below from Visually.



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7 Ways to Reach Your Target Market on Facebook

Facebook is the second largest website on the internet. Having a Facebook account for your business is almost a mandatory requirement for any organization that wishes to expand their internet presence. However, a Facebook account for your business is meaningless unless you are able to reach the types of individuals that need your products and services. There are many ways to do this; some are simple and others are a little more complex. So let us now take a look at seven ways to reach your target market on Facebook:

1. If you haven’t already, open a business page

Most businesses already have a Facebook business page; however, if you are using your Facebook personal page and don’t have a business page yet, don’t worry, because creating a Facebook business page is an easy thing to do.

First, login to Facebook, go to your homepage, and select “create page” in the left sidebar. You then need to select a category and then fill out all of the appropriate information. You can then upload your cover photo. All of the controls are very intuitive and user friendly. If you have any problems locating anything, just run a search and you will find what you need in a matter of seconds.

2. Engage in conversations

This is the probably the best way to get more interest in your company. By interacting with your potential customers, you can get their attention in a very personal way that allows for a higher conversion rate. It is also worthy to note that by interacting with your customers in this manner, you increase the likelihood that they will help spread the word about your business by telling their friends.

However, there is one major issue that you must face, and that is the element of time. Posting in all of the appropriate places and interacting with all of the people that may be interested in your business is very time-consuming. The obvious solution is to hire additional staff members to do this; however, this requires a lot of money.

In order to reduce costs and increase the number of people working for you, go to upwork.com or freelancer.com and hire as many people as you want for pennies on the dollar. You don’t have to pay worker’s compensation, provide healthcare, or deal with any additional insurance issues. Just give them with all of the appropriate information and turn them loose.

3. Analyze your competition’s Facebook accounts.

In order to see what your competition is up to, just go to their Facebook account and see what they have. However, you can use this information to reach more members of your target market. See what types of groups that your competitors belong to, so you can join these groups and begin interacting there as well.There are also lots of businesses that are not in competition with you but provide things that are relevant to your business. By analyzing these accounts, you can gain even more valuable insight about other accounts and groups. Doing this will also help you expand your outreach to your target market.

4. Post regular updates

By posting with a great deal of regularity, you are constantly asserting your presence on Facebook in a way that is not intrusive and will expand your reach. If someone does not want your updates in their feed, they can always remove you, but if they do want updates, then you definitely need to make sure they get what they want.

However, it also important to not overdo it. You need to carefully estimate how many updates per day (or per week) is appropriate. Too many updates can be worse than not enough if they start to annoy people.

5. Offer exclusive deals

Another great marketing ploy is to offer your Facebook connections spectacular deals on your goods and services. You can offer percentage discounts on various items for a limited amount of time. You can also offer free information or products as incentives for them to purchase more or upgrade the free products they will receive.

The best thing about offering online deals to your Facebook customers is that there a greater likelihood that they will tell all of their Facebook connections about your great deals. If your deals are really good, this could go a long way. That’s why you need to make sure that the specials you offer are substantial so there is a greater chance that a lot of people will tell a lot of other people about the amazing deal they just heard about.

6. Create a Facebook group

In order to make a group in Facebook, you only need to do a few things. First, you need to login to your account and then click on the “create group” icon located on the left sidebar. You then need to fill in all of the relevant details and choose a cool icon for your group. Once your group is created, invite all of your customers to become a part of your new community. This is also the perfect opportunity to offer special incentives for those who join.

7. Advertise on Facebook

There are two kinds of advertising on Facebook: ads that appear in the right sidebar and ads that appear in news feeds. The news feed ads are far more effective and have a much higher success rate. However, in order to run news feed ads, you must have a Facebook business page. Facebook also has many options that allow you to target specific demographics. These options will be made available to you when you purchase your Facebook ads, so you need to have all of this information ready before you begin purchasing your advertisements.

Conclusion

Using all of the many tools on Facebook is rather easy. However, using these tools takes up a lot of valuable time and effort. That’s why you should seriously consider hiring several employees or freelancers to interact with your customers, gather information about your competition, and retrieve information about the various details of your target audience.

By using this powerful social media outlet, you can expand your online outreach exponentially in rather dramatic ways if you do things right and remain persistent with your efforts.

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The Recipe for an Award-Winning Content Dish [Infographic]

Blog content plays a very vital role in generating B2B leads as much as drawing awareness towards your product. Much like cooking stew worthy of Gordon Ramsay, mixing the right content maximizes the appeal of your blog, urging people to come back for more.

In this infographic, we explore the most important content types to add to your blogging recipe.

1-2 Cups of Infographics

You can’t have a blog without producing visual material at least once a month. So, start researching for infographic ideas and share them across different social media.

Did you know? 40% of people respond better to visual information than plain text.

Here’s how to perfectly start your infographic.

A Dash of Video

An informative video that is worth a prospect’s time is at any rate a good lead generation device. For best results, make it stand out and insert a highly engaging call-to-action.

Did you know? By 2017, 74% of total internet traffic will be video.

A Slice of Whitepaper

Too technical? Nah! Whitepapers are in fact effective in pushing potential leads to engage you. Just get your facts straight and your details hard.

Did you know? Whitepapers can also be shared with companies as reference material for industry research projects.

2 Tablespoons of Embedded Tweets

Using embedded tweets, promote yours and other people’s content. Aside from giving your engagement rates a boost, it also gains the affection of the influencers whose “tweets” you shared.

Did you know? About 34% of marketers use Twitter to generate leads. 

3 Pieces of Quality Articles

Delivering quality articles is no doubt an important strategy for increasing traffic. Pay attention to important keywords and focus more on solving problems than on merely giving your insights.

Did you know? At least 81% of B2B companies use blog articles for driving quality traffic.

2 Servings of Case Studies

Narrow your case studies down to the most serious problems. Now, tell how your company was able to solve them by using a storytelling formula that leads from the problem to its corresponding resolution.

Did you know? Along with whitepapers and other technical documents, case studies are proven to increase your credibility and brand image. 

A Whole Lot of TLC

Don’t rush! Spend a great deal of time coming up with quality content ideas. Let them simmer for a while and take extra care to making them extra special just for your audience.

Read the original article on Callbox Blog.

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