The Idiot Guide to Content Marketing Part 2 freedomiseverything.com /2016/07/12/the-idiot-guide-to-content-marketing-part-2/
The Idiot Guide to Content Marketing Part 2 – Facebook again!
In the Idiot Guide to Content Marketing: Facebook Part 1 , I covered the basics of getting started with content marketing using Facebook as the tool. I discussed how to create posts as well as the different types of post that you can create. We also looked at why to use certain types of post depending on your goals. In Part 2 I am going to go into a bit more detail on the Facebook Ad platform and graph search.
Facebook Ad Manager In the last part we looked only at boosting posts, and you can do this very easily simply by clicking on the ‘boost’ option on anything you post to the timeline.
1/7
However this promotes your boosted posts individually and does not incorporate them into a proper ‘campaign’. A better long-term strategy is to use the Facebooks Ads Manager. This can be found if you click on your page name in the top right corner – and select ‘manage ads’ from the dropdown. Once in the ad manager you can start to create a campaign. My advice is to keep it simple at first. Click on ‘create ad’ and you will have the chance to opt for a boosted post. This works in a similar way to boosting from the timeline, except it umbrellas the boost under your campaign in ad manager. It will be much easier to track and measure the ad results against each other at a later date. Another point to note is that if you want to run ads or boosted posted simultaneously, you will have to create a separate ‘campaign’ for each. You cannot run two ads at the same time under the same campaign.
When you go into the ad manager, you can see ‘create campaign’ above your list of ads and boosted posts: as shown here:
Types of advert The type of business you have and the purpose of the content you create will inform the type of advert you create on Facebook. This series is about content marketing and so I have focused a lot on creating and boosting posts. From a content marketing perspective boosted posts can be valuable because the specific target of the boost is a link to your content. But as I said before, often when you boost a picture post you receive massive engagement on the FB post itself, but few clicks to your content. You can therefore use other types of Facebook advert to your advantage. For example, you can optimise an advert for ‘website clicks’
2/7
This option is designed to get traffic to the main pages of your website (generally speaking). In my case that would mean Freedom is Everything.com. What I have found an extremely useful tactic however is to optimise an ad for website clicks, but then put the link URL as one of my blog posts. This way is the best I have found to drive traffic from Facebook directly to your site content. but does not generally produce the same level of engagement as a boosted post. People are being filtered straight to your site, and they are less likely to then go back to Facebook with the specific purpose of giving you a ‘like’ or share for the content they have just read. Unless the content is fantastic of course. Another ad option you have with Facebook is to optimise for conversions. This tactic is more complex and requires the use of a pixel to track the conversions. It is only worth choosing this tactic if you have a product and are trying to build a list. I will cover this is detail in a later post.
A review of options Here is a quick review of the choices you have in terms of ad types: Boosted post (media post, event, regular post of link post) Website clicks Conversions and leads Page likes
And here are the main types of result you may look for: Post Engagement (likes, shares, comments) Page engagement (likes) Clicks through to your website Conversions on your website Clicks through to your content
Decide on the purpose of your advert As I’ve said before it is really important that you get to know and understand 3 things when using Facebook as an advertising platform: Who your target market is (the demographic) What you want them to do (go to website, give you likes, shares etc) How to use Facebook properly to carry out each tactic
Understanding these three factors will enable you to create not only purposeful ads, but a clear strategy. Therefore you must know what you want to achieve, some example questions are:
3/7
Are you trying to build the biggest Facebook following possible? Are you looking for post engagement, comments and shares? Do you not care about a large FB following and just want traffic to your content? Do you not care about anything except getting traffic to your landing page? Are you trying to build business leads, or find a high conversion from sales to leads?
It’s important to ask and know your answers to these questions as the answers will define the kind of ads you create, who you sent them to, and may even determine the content you create.
Facebook Graph Search Facebook graph search was difficult for me at first because I was expecting some kind of separate platform. In fact, Facebook graph search is simply the results you get from typing searches into the bar at the top of your page, as below:
The beauty of Graph Search is it’s scope and flexibility. As you can see in the example above, I have typed in a search for people who like my page, however I could be much more specific. For example:
4/7
As you can see, I have narrowed my search. I can now see the pages that are liked by the people who also like my page. The insights you can gain from Graph Search are potentially very instructional. You may find (as I did) that the people who follow you are not exactly the demographic that you had in mind. In my case I was targeting people interested in personal development, marketing and online business. When I analysed graph search, I discovered that the people who were actually liking my page were very spiritual….the Dalai Lama was a common theme! Very unexpected. Statistics don’t lie but the power of them is in how you analyse and act on the results. For example let’s say you do a search like mine above. You discover that those following you are not the demographic you expected. What do you do? You can look at it in one of two ways:
Have an even more targeted focus on the types of people who already follow you Decide that somehow your posts are missing the intended target market and change something about either your content, or your ad campaign
There is no right or wrong answer because it depends on your business and your strategy. What I would say though is that, generally speaking, your eventual goal will be increased leads and sales. That being the case, you need to make sure that your product, your content, your ad campaign and your target market are all aligned. If you ultimately want to sell online business coaching, and you find that your followers are not interested in business….perhaps some re-alignment is needed. It all depends how you are positioning yourself and your brand. Marketing is about offering the right product, to the right person, at the right time. So you need to dig deep into your demographic to find out not who your ideal follower is – but who your ideal customer is. There is a difference.
5/7
Video Ads Videos can be very effective on Facebook. I have found that video posts generate a reasonable amount of interest and engagement. However I have also found few link clicks coming from them. It is also very easy to do video poorly. Content which is too long, too waffly, too dull etc will quickly be ignored. That said if you can get it right video can have a powerful effect. It takes practice. People like to see the person they are following, whose stuff they are reading or who they are buying from. Video makes it possible to get your face and personality ‘out there’. Some are uncomfortable with this but it’s an important step to take for a number of reasons. I would recommend every new Facebook marketer to try and do at least some video content. At first, you are likely to suck at it. This is normal and is part of the process. The reason I recommend every marketer try video is that it forces you to confront your zone of discomfort. Improving your speaking ability in video actually makes you a more confident marketer overall – particularly if you speak on a topic you know and understand well. If you do want to create some video content to advertise on Facebook, here are a few quick tips: Keep it reasonably short. Anything more that about 3 minutes may be turned off Try to have an interesting setting – outside with a nice view works well! Be professional (depending on your branding) – try to be presentable and don’t look like you just got in from drinking until 5am Be engaged. Be animated. Don’t drone on and on. Enjoy your topic and get to the point Provide a link to whatever you are selling, further info, your website etc (a call to action) Be yourself. Get some of your personality across. Don’t act like someone you are not
This brings me to the end of ‘The Idiot Guide to Content Marketing, Facebook Part 2’. Believe me there is a lot more detail in Facebook marketing and I have barely scratched the surface here! If you want further reading check out some of the sites listed below the article. If you are interested in getting started in online business and don’t know where or how to start, click here for a free video series from my mentors.
Good luck!
6/7
7/7