Facebook Marketing 101 A Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing for 2015
by Zoe Summers of The Mass Planner Blog
Copyright 2015 Mass Planner | www.massplanner.com
Facebook Marketing 101 – A Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing for 2015 by Zoe Summers
All right reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher and author. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Facebook is a registered trademark of
Facebook Inc.
June 2015: First Edition While every precautions has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. This book presents general information about technology and services that are constantly changing, and therefore it may contain errors and/or information that, while accurate when it was written, is no longer accurate by the time you read it. Some actions in this book may be subject to legal restrictions. Your use of or reliance on the information in this book is at your own risk and the author and publisher
disclaim responsibility for any resulting damage or expense. The content of this book represent the views of the author only.
2
Letter from the author What You‟ll Learn
The Complete Guide On Getting Started With Facebook Marketing 11 Proven Tactics To Grow You Facebook Page Fan Base Inside The News Feed Algorithm: How To Get In The News Feeds More Often
5 6 8 39 53
The Importance Of Facebook Videos And How To Use Them To Your Business
67
The Beginner‟s Guide To Facebook Ads
82 98
Core Elements of Marketing With Facebook Ads
Every month 1.39 billion people log into Facebook. To give you
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.� - Ronald E. Osborn
some perspective, China has a population of 1.36 billion people and 1
Many businesses are still unaware of the
billion was the entire
advantages of connecting with their customers on
Earth’s population in 1804.
social media, and some still fear it due to their lack of understanding. But when 93% of buying
Facebook is clearly the biggest social media
community out there.
decisions are based on social media, ignoring social channels can be detrimental to your businesses.
4
Facebook Marketing 101 A Complete Guide to Facebook Marketing for 2015 by Zoe Summers @ Mass Planner .
With this eBook, we aim to help you get
started with Facebook Marketing and keep you up to date with all the changes that affect your plans. In today's marketing landscape, there is no question whether to start building a Facebook presence or not. The question is how to do it in a fast and efficient way. This eBook is a guide with the purpose to take you through the process of setting up your Facebook Page and Marketing plan, from the very Zoe Summers
beginning. If you're an advanced Facebook
Social Media Expert at
Marketer, don't worry, there are plenty of new
Mass Planner – The most
ideas that will give you food for thoughts and help
powerful social media
you improve your marketing game. There will be however a lot of testing and
automation software Follow me on:
experimentation on your part. But with the ideas and knowledge in this book you will be able to speed things up, build a successful brand and meet your business goals.
To your online success, Zoe Summers and The Mass Planner Team 5
Here’s What You Will Learn In This Book The Complete Guide On Getting Started With Facebook Marketing In this chapter, we will review the basic rules of Facebook Marketing. Everything you need to know before getting started with your marketing campaign, what is the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page and why you need to have one of each. You‟ll also learn the most efficient ways to use your cover photo for branding and the best methods to dramatically increase the engagement on your Page and drive traffic back to your website.
11 Proven Tactics To Grow You Facebook Page Fan Base We'll dissect the best ways to build your Facebook Page fan base. In this chapter, you will learn the best 11 strategies to quickly grow your followers with an ideal audience.
Inside The News Feed Algorithm: How To Get In The News Feeds More Often In this chapter, you will learn how to determine your EdgeRank and why it‟s important for your Facebook content. We will walk through all the News Feed algorithm changes throughout the years, and we will study the best methods to increase your score to help you get into the News Feed more.
6
The Importance Of Facebook Videos And How To Use Them With
Your Business Your Facebook content is the only thing that can make or break your business Page. That‟s why it‟s in your advantage to know what type of content can boost your engagement rates and ignite your fan base growth. In this chapter, we‟ll discuss the importance of the video format in
advertising and how to use it for your business. The Beginner’s Guide To Facebook Ads This chapter will give you a high-level snapshot of Facebook Ads. We‟re going to explore all the types of Ads that you can create on Facebook. In addition to that, we‟ll walk through the best practices when creating your first ad campaign.
Core Elements of Marketing With Facebook Ads This chapter will help you understand the whole idea behind Facebook Ads, how to prepare your campaign and optimize it until successful. We discuss the planning, targeting, creatives and budgets. We‟ll walk through the optimization process of your ads based on your business
goals. And we‟ll also see the best strategies to test your ads and continuously improve them.
So let‟s go ahead and dive in. 7
In this chapter, we will review the basic rules of Facebook Marketing. Everything you need to know before getting started with your marketing campaign, what is the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page and why you need to have one of each. Youâ€&#x;ll also learn the most effective ways to use your cover photo for branding and the best methods to dramatically increase the engagement on your Page and drive traffic back to your website.
8
The Complete Guide On Getting Started With Facebook Marketing Whether you have a small business or a Fortune 500 company, you are a celebrity or simply make a living online, you cannot ignore the importance of a consistent Facebook presence for your online success.
Facebook marketing has become an integrated part of the overall marketing strategy for the most thriving brands these days and contributed to their massive growth.
Every month 1.39 billion people log into Facebook. To give you some perspective, China has a population
However, it can be challenging, even for the experienced marketers to keep up with all the Facebook changes and algorithm updates. Many
of 1.36 billion people and 1 billion was the entire Earth’s population in
18041. According to the companyâ€&#x;s earning slides for Q1 20152:
strategies that once worked are useless and when you think you got it all figured out Facebook announces another change. So, before getting frustrated for not seeing the best results for your efforts, 9
let‟s take a look at the Facebook Marketing Best Practices for 2015. This
guide will keep you up to date with the latest changes on Facebook, the newest marketing strategies that work and mistakes to avoid. First, let’s see ten rules to have in mind before creating your Facebook Page.
#1 Get A Human Touch
It is not an accident that I‟ve started with this as a first rule. Showing a human side is the first rule of social media. Moreover, it will be so, no matter what changes Facebook might bring in the future. On social media (and I‟m referring to all the social platforms out there, not just Facebook), people connect emotionally with one another, and the same thing goes for brands too.
10
The best way to show your personal side and connect emotionally
with your audience is to invite them behind the scenes. Show them the team behind your amazing products. When talking to your fans use first names. Post holiday pictures or daily life events. You don‟t have to be too personal, just to let your fans get a glimpse of who you are when you don‟t put your working face on. People tend to trust a brand more when they know there‟s a real
person behind it. And with trust you have engagement, and traffic and sales, and … you get the picture.
11
#2 Create Fresh Content
I bet you hear this a lot. The key to social media success (in fact, to online success) is new, unique content. The internet is flooded with the same old stories. Too many people think alike, sound alike and write alike. There‟s too much content online, and it‟s getting harder and harder to find good, rewarding information. When you find such a source, you stick with it.
To make yourself stand out from the crowd, you need to have courage and determination. Don‟t be afraid to tell your opinions. Dare to be different! Tell a story from a new perspective, 12
find rules that you can break3 to help you enhance your social presence. Donâ€&#x;t just follow other social influencers. Learn from them, but do your own thing. Become an influencer yourself! The only thing you need to have in mind when creating fresh content is your audience. Write content to attract your ideal audience, because theyâ€&#x;re going to become your number one fans. No matter the social platform you use, you need to consistently create new content and always share your best stuff. Try creating a little curiosity with each post, to make people pay attention and want to read more. #3 Focus on creating a community (not on collecting likes) You can say that you have a community when you managed to attract the perfect audience for your business, the people that can
appreciate your real value. These people are genuinely interested in what you have to say.
Having true fans is more important to your Facebook page than racing to get more likes, any likes, just to have the numbers. In fact, having likes from people that are not interested in your content and are not engaging with your page, can actually hurt you.
Engagement is about getting your fans to take action (to like your posts, shares your updates, leave a comment or click on your links). Engagement is the real name of the game when youâ€&#x;re talking Facebook 13
Marketing. And the reason engagement is so important is that all your
fans actions are directly influencing your EdgeRank. We will talk more about the EdgeRank in one of our future chapters, but for now what you need to know is that this rank decides whether to show your content to your fans or not. So, every time people take action your EdgeRank goes up. This means youâ€&#x;ll show up in the News Feeds more often, and people will see more of your posts.
14
If youâ€&#x;ve got zero engagement, then none of your fans see your
posts in their News Feeds. Better reach goes hand in hand with more traffic to your page, which is good for your business, right? So, if you want better reach, you need to create an engaged community around your business #4 Don’t forget to have some fun Many people are on Facebook to have fun. To take a break from
work and connect with people that matter in their life.
15
Why We Like, Comment, and Share on Facebook4
I will be brutally honest with you right now: people are not on
On average, 44% of Facebook users, “like” content posted by their friends at least once per day, with 29% doing so several times per day.
Facebook to do business with you.
Why we “like”: • It’s a quick and easy nod • To affirm something about ourselves • To express virtual empathy • Because it’s practical/we’ll get something in return
buddy or see what their long-
Moira Burke, has found in a research that personal messages are more satisfying to receivers than the one-click communication of likes.
Facebook page. Meet your fans
Studies show that when students updated their Facebook statuses more often, they reported lower levels of loneliness.
What we “share”: • 61% share interesting stuff • 43% share important things • 43% share funny things • 37% let other people know what they believe in and who they are • 30% recommend a product or service, movie, book, etc.
They want to look at some funny pictures, videos, find an old college
distance family members are up to. So you can‟t make it all about your business and brand on your where they‟re at and have some fun in the process.
#5 Make it all about your audience People love to talk about themselves and what they‟re up to. If you highlight your fans on your Facebook page, you will be able to increase your engagement rates and reach.
People will like and share more of your updates because they‟re not over promotional, but fun. So their friends will see them and share with their friends and so on. Sooner rather than later, your updates will show up more in your audience‟s News Feeds. 16
And when you win your audience‟s trust, your promotional updates will be well received and most importantly visible to a huge following.
#6 Create enticing Calls to Action We often assume that people will take the actions that we want them to take without having to mention it. But sadly that‟s not the case. If you
don‟t tell your fans what to do next, they won‟t do anything.
Have a clear goal for your content strategy, decide what the primary actions that you want your fans to take are and just go ahead and ask them. You‟ll see a boost in your performance and you‟ll start reaching your goals sooner.
People are too busy and even if they appreciate your content, sharing it with their friends may not be the first thing on their minds.
17
#7 Make use of the power of social proof Make sure that your top fans, those that not only engage with your content on a regular basis but purchased your products or
services, get the chance to share their experience with your brand. Make it easier for them to spread the word to their friends. One way to make people talk about you is to do fun things, like contests, where the spotlight is on your audience.
#8 Encourage conversations between your fans Create a community that supports peer-to-peer communication among your fans. When people are engaged with your content, you want to take it one step further and get them to talk to each other on your page as well.
One way to do this is by showcasing your fans. This way other fans
will get involved. And youâ€&#x;re not only getting your top fans to shine on your Facebook page, but you will get other people to know your fans as well.
18
Humans Of New York5 is one brand that successfully managed to create a truly inspired and engaged community. As you can see people engage with one another, they like and reply to other peopleâ€&#x;s comments.
#9 Create a brand link Make sure you establish a bridge from your Facebook presence to your website. Let your brand personality be noticed in all the content you produce. 19
Have a branded timeline cover and profile photo. Look professional
on Facebook but at the same time familiar to the people that know you from outside the social space.
#10 Always be measuring Always have clear methods in place that enable you to consistently track your Facebook marketing progress. All the time you spend tracking your progress will pay off as you will be able to expand the reach and
exposure on Facebook because you will continue to do what‟s already working for you. And you don‟t even have to spend that much time on tracking. In just 15 or 20 minutes a week you can figure out what improvements to make and what type of content your audience receives best. Make use of the Facebook‟s Page Insights, where you can see which posts get the most engagement and reach. You can see how many people are talking about a post, and if it‟s doing really well, you want to do more of that. 20
What is the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Page? Facebook Profile vs. Facebook Page
Your profile is more about your personal life. The place where you connect with your friends and family, people from high school or college.
A Facebook page is meant mainly to promote your business. So you can
look at a profile as a personal persona and your page like a professional persona. But how about mixing things up a bit? On your Facebook Page, you can offer a glimpse into your personal life, letting your fans know the real you. 21
21
Meanwhile, on your personal profile, you can let your friends know about
the products that you‟re working on or a coming event for which you need their support.
By mixing the professional with the personal and vice-versa, you will get double the exposure. Of course, you don‟t need to go overboard. You can share some pictures, maybe some fun facts about your life on your Facebook page. Not too personal, but enough to let people get to know you and see there‟s a real person behind your brand. The same goes with your profile: you don‟t want to sound too professional and talk only business with your friends. On your profile, you want to get more personal while on your page more focused about your niche and your business. 22
To take advantage of both your profile and your page you need to be
active on both. Donâ€&#x;t neglect one or another. At first, your updates on your profile will get more reach and engagement from your friends. But if youâ€&#x;re very active on your page, you will start to get similar exposure on page posts too.
Allowing people to follow your profile We all can have a maximum of 5000 friends on our Facebook profile.
When you reach this limit, you have the option to allow people to follow your profile so they can still receive your updates.
To do that you need to:
1.
Go to your settings
2.
Click Followers in the left column
3.
Choose Everybody next to Who Can Follow Me
23
Some people prefer to connect with the individual versus the brand.
By allowing them to follow your profile, you will get expanded visibility. You profile‟s posts will have higher priority when displayed in the News Feeds than your page‟s posts. Having both, the profile and the page will get you into the News Feed for more people often.
How To Create a Facebook Page - Step by Step
Now let‟s see what the steps to creating a Facebook page are:
1.
Click on the “Create Page.” option in the Facebook menu, right next to your username.
2.
Choose a category for your page in the following screen
24
3.
Add details for your business and then click “Get Started�
25
4.
Add more page details to increase the chance that your fans find you
through search and save your information.
Using Facebook “As Profile” vs. “As Page” Now that you decided to keep both your Profile and your Page, there are some things you need to know.
You can switch between your profile and your page when using Facebook. This means you can like other pages as your page, you can post content, like or comment as your page on any timeline of a page that you‟ve liked. You don‟t even have to like the page, and you can do all those things as your page on their timeline. Posting on other page‟s timeline as your page is a powerful method to get more exposure for your brand. If you go out there and post 26
valuable content on other pages in your niche, you will get noticed. Try
not to be too promotional though. It will turn people away. Instead share relevant and helpful information. However, you can‟t post as your page on another profile. That‟s against the rules. So, if you switch to using Facebook as your page and go to a profile and try posting on their timeline, that won‟t work.
Branding Your Facebook Page Now let‟s talk about branding. Having a brand consistency throughout your online presence is a critical aspect of any business. Branding your Facebook page will give your audience a sense of familiarity and trust. Show your brand personality through the content you share, the images you use or the voice and tone you promote. Let‟s start the branding process with your profile image and the cover
photo.
Branded Profile Image The Profile Image is the smaller square at the bottom left of the header, overlapping the cover photo. You have to upload an image at least 180×180 pixels. It‟s displayed at 160×160 pixels even though its size is actually resized to 168×168 pixels. There‟s a thin white border
automatically added to your picture, and there‟s no way to remove it.
The profile image that appears next to your name on comments and posts is the same image but is automatically scaled down to 32px by 27
32px. As you can see, the profile image works like a tiny avatar, so it‟s
better to avoid having words that can‟t be distinguished. Try to stick to your headshot if it‟s a personal brand or an image that represents your business versus a bunch of words.
Timeline Cover Photo The Facebook Cover Photo is the large panoramic image space at the top of the timeline. The optimal size for the cover image is 851×315
pixels. This is serious real estate for your brand to be visually represented on, so you don‟t want to waste it.
Another thing you need to have in mind when creating your cover photo, besides the size, is that they now have a narrow gray semitransparent gradient running along the bottom. This is something personal profiles have had for a while, but it‟s now also available on
cover photos on business pages. If you‟ve just set up a new Facebook profile or page and don‟t yet have a cover photo when you try to add one, you‟ll see a message from Facebook with some ground rules: •
don‟t use your timeline cover photo for ads, promotions or to sell
your products or services
•
don‟t use content that is commercial, promotional, copyright-
infringing or already used by someone else •
be creative and experiment with images to see what your
audience responds best to. 28
9 Innovative ways to use your timeline cover photo
#1 Extend the Brand
Airbnb6 showcasing their logo in an innovative way in the cover photo #2 Event Promotion
HONY (or Humans of New York)5 announcing a coming world tour by updating their cover photo.
29
#3 Highlight your team
The Buffer7 team all together in Sydney
Impressive Cover Photo showcasing the Mindvalley8 team.
You can use pictures from team buildings, events or you can just take a quick picture in your office. The important thing is to let your team shine.
30
#4 Personal Branding
Amy Porterfield9 strengthens her personal brand with a high impact cover photo.
#5 Highlight your fans
Seth Godin10 chooses to showcase his fans holding his latest book.
31
#5 Show your audience
It makes sense for Girls Who Code11 to showcase their ideal audience in their cover photo, which is young girls working together #6 Create curiosity
Microsoft„s12 cover photo makes you wonder whatâ€&#x;s that about
32
#7 Simple Branding
Crazy Eggâ€&#x;s13 cover photo is designed with the same distinctive brand colors.
#8 Showcase your products
Sony14 chose an iconic product to showcase in their timeline cover photo. 33
#9 Have Fun With It
Oreo15 is all about animations and fun, not only on their cover photo, but throughout the entire Facebook page.
Facebook wants you to get creative and change your cover photo often to show your audience what youâ€&#x;re all about. Itâ€&#x;s a good practice to
have different versions and change it once a month or even once a few weeks if you want to. Keep things interesting and fun.
34
Things to do on your Facebook page to make sure you drive all
the traffic to your website We‟re not done with setting up an effective Facebook page yet. Next thing to do is to optimize your page for driving traffic back to your site. After all that‟s our primary goal, right? Here‟s a list of a few things you can do right from the start.
Add Calls-to-Action On Your Page At the bottom of the cover photo, you can see the “Create Call to Action” button that lets you add a button to your Page that takes people directly to your website or mobile app. You can choose from: •
Book Now
•
Contact Us
•
Use App
•
Play Game
•
Shop Now
•
Sign Up
•
Watch Video
35
After you select the type you want, you need to add the URL of your website and the URL of the mobile version if you have one.
36
Next, you will see the iOS destination screen, where you can choose where to send the people that tap the button on an iPhone or iPad. You can choose to send them to your website or your mobile app if you have one.
The final step is deciding what happens when people tap the button from an Android device: whether theyâ€&#x;re sent to the website or the Android application.
Link back to your website Donâ€&#x;t forget to add a link to your website in the About section even if
you have a Call to Action button that does the same thing. This will give your audience a sense of authenticity, especially if your page is not verified. Also, it improves your search rankings16 at the same time, so you should not ignore it. 37
Notes
1 World
population, Milestones by billions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Milestones_by_the_billions 2
Facebook Q1 2015 Results, slide 5:
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDANJ5DZ/75562925x0x822961/fd718a09-c312-4605-9a171d6ef07bdd5a/FB_Q115EarningsSlides.pdf 3
9 Social Media Rules That Are Meant To Be Broken:
http://www.business2community.com/social-media/9-social-media-rules-meantbroken-01183351 4 Quicksprout
infographic Why We Like, Comment, and Share on Facebook:
http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/06/19/why-we-like-comment-and-share-onfacebook/ 5
Humans of New York https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork
6 Airbnb‟s
7
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/airbnb
Buffer‟s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/bufferapp
8 Mindvalley‟s 7
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/mindvalley
Amy Porterfield‟s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AmyPorterfield
10
Seth Godin‟s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/sethgodin
11
GirlsWhoCode: https://www.facebook.com/GirlsWhoCode
12
Microsoft:https: http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft
13 Crazy
Egg: https://www.facebook.com/crazyegganalytics
14
Sony: https://www.facebook.com/Sony
15
Oreo: https://www.facebook.com/oreo
16
Optimize your social media profile for SEO:
http://www.massplanner.com/optimize-social-media-profiles-seo/
38
We'll dissect the best ways to build your Facebook Page fan base. In this chapter you will learn the best 11 strategies to quickly grow your fan base with an ideal audience. So letâ€&#x;s go ahead and dive in.
39
11 Proven Tactics To Grow Your Facebook Page Fanbase Growing your fan base is not just about the numbers. You can get the numbers without any effort these days: page likes, posts likes or comments, shares. You can get anything really. But that‟s not the point of having a Facebook presence. It‟s all about the community. You don‟t
So why does growing your
want just fans, you want engaged fans.
fan base matter? Because
Engaged fans will bring other engaged fans
it will increase your social
with the word-of-mouth being in your favor.
traffic, will build your brand, will get more exposure and more potential clients. And
To start a chain reaction that will increase your fan base organically, you need to define your ideal customers, attract them to your Facebook page and build an engaged community.
that‟s good business.
What is a super fan? Amy Porterfield says that it‟s the super fan you want to attract to your page. Because their loyalty is absolute, they‟re the best of the best. They are the fans that have given you data permissions, purchased from you, and sparked other fan‟s purchases.1
8
The next step is to send your fans to your website. So the ultimate
goal is to bring your genuine and engaged Facebook audience to your website and grow your business.
The more super fans you have on your Facebook page, the more engagement you will have around your updates. Meaning that more of your posts will show up in the News Feed for more people. The super fans are those that don‟t stop at liking your Facebook page. They actively
engage with your content. They like it, comment or share it. They spread your word. So you need more super fans. Whenever they like or leave a comment or share one of your posts, these posts will also appear in their friends‟ News Feeds. These friends will discover your brand and in turn they will like your page.
11 Tricks you can do today to grow your Facebook fan base
#1 Add A Like Box Or Button To Your Website We all agree that having a great, genuine following is good for your business. Now let‟s see the best tactics to help increase it.
First of all you want to attract the audience you already have, that spend time on your website. You know they already have a genuine
interest in your products or services, so you want to make it easier for them to follow you on Facebook as well. They can become the super fans that we talked about, given that you consistently provide great content on your Facebook page. 41
One way to drive the traffic to your website to your Facebook page is to add a like button or box to your site. This way people spending time on your site are one click away from becoming your fans on Facebook. They donâ€&#x;t have to leave your website to go to Facebook. They just have to click the Like button.
Another advantage is that this kind of plugin will show all the pictures of your visitorâ€&#x;s friends that already liked your page. People are more inclined to like your page if they see that their friends already liked it. 42
#2 Connect Your Personal Profile With Your Pages
We already discussed the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page and what you can do with each in our first chapter. And we also discussed the fact that if you have both you get double the exposure. Now, to make it easier for your page to get discovered, you need to link it from your profile.
In the About section, you can add the company you currently work
for, which is your Facebook Page. Then you need to select “ I currently work here “ and voilà: your page and profile are linked together.
Now all the traffic that goes to your profile will quickly find your page as well. Everywhere on Facebook where your profile appears, a link to your page will show up from now on. For example, if you go and type your name into the search bar, you will see under your name your job title and your Page name. Or, for example, if you take your mouse over your profile name in your Timeline or News Feed, you will see a box showing up that contains a short description of your profile, including a link to your Facebook Page. 43
Another benefit of having your profile and page linked together is
that, if you leave a comment on a website that uses the Facebook commenting platform, your page is linked to that comment as well. If you comment in niche groups, your Facebook Page will be visible too, getting more exposure from targeted groups and leading to more fans.
#3 Make Sure Your Current Audience Knows About Your Facebook Page
Make sure that all the people you are currently communicating with, regardless of the platform or medium, know about your Facebook Page. Have the link on your e-mail signature, mention it on your other social platforms, on your business card, in your local store, banner ads, forums and events.
Let people know that they can find useful and exclusive information
on your Facebook Page, that they donâ€&#x;t want to miss. And donâ€&#x;t limit to your Facebook Page, add a link to your Facebook profile also to get even more exposure. This way people that you are communicating with regularly will be able to go on Facebook and like your page or add your profile and stay connected.
#4 Link To Your Facebook Page In Your Email Signature And
Forum Or Community Profiles The e-mail is the primary form of communication these days. We use e-mails back and forth all day long, whether it is for personal purposes or business 44
Adding a link to your Facebook page or profile in your e-mail
signature, will make it easier for all the people you communicate with daily, to add you on Facebook or to follow your business page. It‟s a great opportunity to let people get to know your better.
It‟s quite easy to add your Facebook profile or page in the e-mail signature. You can add it manually by simply adding the link and a text “Follow me on Facebook” or you can use a tool like WiseStamp that lets you create something more professional. You can add links to other social platforms as well, but try to keep it clean and brief. If you build an e-mailing list for your website, then don‟t forget to add your Facebook links in the newsletter that you send regularly.
45
Don‟t neglect the
possibility to add links to your page when creating profiles on
When creating a profile on community websites, you usually can add several social media links. Make sure you add a link to your Facebook page, and also to your Facebook profile. Some people prefer to connect and follow the real person and not the business page.
forums or communities in your niche.
Also, you want to add the link in the signature too. People that will find your posts or comments useful will click your links to learn more about you and to follow you on social platforms. Being in your industry, people on these forums are right in your target audience.
#5 Ask Your Fans On Other Social Platforms To Follow Your Facebook Page Don‟t be shy on your other social accounts. Go ahead and casually ask your Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn audience to follow you on Facebook too. Let them know that they can have exclusive content on your page, and they will be more than happy to follow you. After all they‟re your fans for a reason, right?
Tweet your Facebook Page URL to your followers and let them know that they can get value by liking your page.
Add your Facebook Link to your Instagram description to funnel the traffic to your Facebook page.
Link to your Facebook profile and page on your LinkedIn profile and
share your blog post with your LinkedIn connections or fellow group members as well.
#6 Interact As Your Page In the first chapter, we discussed how you can switch between using Facebook as your profile or as your page, and all the things you can do as your Facebook page. Go to pages in your niche (preferably not
competitors) and comment on those pagesâ€&#x; posts as your page. This will bring the attention of people in your target audience that might like what you have to offer. You can also post on events related to your business.
#7 Be Active On Facebook Groups Facebook groups are another way of creating communities of people with common interests. And unlike Facebook pages, the posts on groups
have better organic reach. This is partly because of the notification system: people joining groups have the notifications on, set by default, so every time someone posts or comment son the group they will be notified.
Another reason is the fact that people are more active in groups. They engage more with the content being posted on groups, which is a
signal for Facebook to show them more of that content.
So a good strategy is to join groups in your niche and offer valuable content and leave useful comments. If you help them as much as you can, they will notice, and they will also notice your Facebook page
47
because it‟s linked to your profile. How to Benefit from Using Facebook Groups • Consider creating a group for your dedicated fans to attract and convert them to loyal customers for your products and services. • Create a customer support group for your current clients. • Create community groups based on the interests shared by your target audience. • Find and Join groups in your niche to connect with your peers and prospective customers. • Create a Facebook group to promote an online event. • Create a group to bring your distributed team together.
Next, you can create a group for your business (like we have for Mass Planner: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ massplanner/ ) where your fans can join and discuss topics related to your products. Or you can create a group that covers a broader
subject in your niche. Either way, you need to be active and get yourself noticed by the members of those groups.
#8 Guest Blogging With guest blogging, you will not only get extra exposure and traffic for your website, but for your Facebook page as well.
But before thinking about guest blogging, you need to build your own blog with fantastic content that‟s a great representation of you and your brand. That‟s the only way you can prove that you are an expert in 48
your industry, and you know how to express your unique ideas and perspective of things. After you successfully add some great content on your blog, you can send a request to blog for somebody else. But before reaching out, you need to study these blogs and understand their style, their voice, and their audience to know if your content is a good fit. Most blogs have their guest blogging guidelines on their site so that you can prepare before approaching them.
When you contribute on other blogs with content, make sure you add links to your social profiles and pages when setting up your author bio. There are some blogs that offer a like button for your Facebook Page within your author bio, but almost on every blog that accepts guest blogging you can add a link to your Facebook page and profile.
#9 Add Share Buttons To Your Blog It goes without saying, but on each blog post on your website you should include share buttons to make it easier for your visitors to share your best content on social media.
There are many plugins to help you add these buttons, and you can place them at the beginning of the post or the end. Or even throughout 49
your content if you prefer.
You can test different positions for your share buttons and see which ones get the most clicks. As you can see, the guys from Mention2, opted for
a floating panel, a set of share buttons right under the blog postâ€&#x;s cover photo and another one at the bottom of the post.
50
Copyblogger3, on the other hand, decided to stick with the share
buttons above the cover photo for their blog post and at the bottom of the blog post.
As you can see, there is no strict rule about where to place your share buttons. You can play around and combine several placings until you are content with the results.
#10 Add A HelloBar To Your Website Use a HelloBar4 to add a Facebook Like button to the top of your page. I‟m sure that the most common use of a HelloBar is to build an e-mail list. But to get traction on your Facebook page, at least for a limited period, you might want to add a Like button.
This is most beneficial in the beginning to get the first few thousands
likes before the organic growth kicks in.
#11 Use Popup-us That Request Likes Instead Of E-mails As we mentioned before, it‟s difficult to get likes on your Page at the beginning. People don‟t want to be the only ones to like your page. You need social proof to get the ball rolling.
One way to get more likes to your Facebook page is to ask for a like by using a popup on your website. When the reader is about to leave your website, a popup will appear and kindly ask to stay connected and get more exclusive content on your Facebook page. 51
Notes
1 Amy
Porterfield is one of the author for Facebook Marketing All-in-One For
Dummies 2
http://blog.mention.com/
3
http://www.copyblogger.com/landing-page-goofs/
4
https://www.hellobar.com/
52
In this chapter, you will learn how to determine your EdgeRank and why itâ€&#x;s important for your Facebook content. We will walk through all the News Feed algorithm changes throughout the years, and we will study the best methods to increase your score to help you get into the News Feed more.
53
Inside The News Feed Algorithm: How To Get Into The News Feeds More Often The Facebook news feed algorithm, also known as EdgeRank, was implemented in 2010 with the sole purpose to choose what Facebook users will see in their News Feed. So if you had the feeling that not all your followers see your Page‟s updates, that‟s exactly what happens. The EdgeRank algorithm decides which of your followers see your updates.
With the first version of the News Feed in 2009, every single story was displayed as it was published. That led
The goal of the News Feed is to deliver
to increased engagement, which
the right content to the right people
apparently resulted in even more
at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them.1
content resulting in too much noise for the user. That‟s how the EdgeRank algorithm was born. This ranking algorithm came as a solution to the noise in the News Feeds. A method to prioritize the stories that are displayed and to make the Facebook experience more enjoyable. 54
So when Facebook first announced the new algorithm that will make
people‟s news feeds so much better, they used a formula like this:
I‟m sure you all remember the EdgeRank formula that can be simply translated into this: You will see more of a particular friends‟ update if: •
you spend more time communicating with them, or you have more friends in common AND
•
you interact more with their content (like, comment, share) AND
•
their updates are recent.
These three factors, affinity, weight and time decay, play a significant role in determining whether your own posts are displayed in people‟s news feed or not. 55
As for your Facebook Page, there are three things that you need to
do to make sure you raise your score: •
get people to like your Page (if they don‟t like your page, you can be sure they will not see any of your updates)
•
publish content so great that people want to engage with it
•
publish consistently so that your content isn‟t old. But it‟s never that simple, right?
Over time, Facebook made significant changes to their ranking algorithm.
Related Articles First they started to determine the quality of the content shared by Pages throughout the platform. Then they added the “Related Articles”
section, focusing on delivering the latest news.
56
Focus on friends’ text updates
Then, in January 2014, the company noticed that if people saw their friends sharing text updates, they will start writing their own updates. So they decided to increase the distribution of this kind of posts. For brands, on the other hand, they introduced a new way to share links.
Tagging friends or pages Soon after that, Facebook released the tagging for additional reach, meaning that the audiences of the pages that were tagged in a post will see that post too.
57
Click-bait and over promotional posts penalization
Youâ€&#x;ll never believe what happened next! In August 2014, Facebook started to penalize click-bait posts2. A few months later, they began to pay attention to trends and show posts about trending topics higher in the feed.
As of the end of 2014, Facebook started another penalizing spree: posts that were overly promotional or used the same content from ads
saw a massive decrease in their organic reach.
Now it seems that Facebook is on a mission to refine its feed lately, hiding all the things that might annoy people3. The social network wants to show more of the posts published by usersâ€&#x; friends, rather than pages.
58
Similarly, Facebook will give less visibility to likes and comments
from friends in a user‟s news feed. Both changes should lead to a decline in the organic reach of the pages‟ posts.
They also announced offering a longer news feed: the amount of content displayed will be higher. What‟s more interesting is that Facebook is testing a new
feature4 that puts people‟s favorite pages and people‟s posts at the top of the News Feed. This feature, named “See first”, might be an excellent opportunity for pages to make sure their updates reach their fans‟ feeds.
Up until now you could unfollow people without unfriending them if didn‟t want to see their updates anymore. But you couldn‟t select your favorite friends or brands to see more of their content. You can‟t actually check up your EdgeRank. No one knows all the factors involved in computing this score (except maybe the developers that built the algorithm). What can you do instead, is increase your score taking advantage of the things you know.
How can you increase the EdgeRank score for your Page?
#1 Post Valuable Content And Provoke The Maximum Engagement Possible Give your fans your best content and they will engage with it. But 59
you can also add a call to action to ask them to like it and share it with
their friends. If you have great content, they will be glad to share it.
Ask questions that will get your fans talking. Make them entertaining and simple, like one-word responses that are easy to engage with. These are fun ways to get your fans talking.
#2 Not All Types Of Interactions Are Equal
While it‟s great that your followers like your content, only clicking the “like” button will not take you too far. You need to entice them to share it with their friends, to start spreading your content to other people. And eventually to sign up to your lead list, so you can communicate with them outside Facebook. In terms of the EdgeRank algorithm, the “Sharing” of an update has
more weight than a simple “Like”. So you need to focus on getting your fans to take more actions, to spread your content and to move outside Facebook and to your website. That‟s where the money is.
#3 Be Consistent With Your Posting You have fans from all over the world. Even if they are from the same geographical region, they visit Facebook during different times of
the day. So one post per day is not enough to reach them all. You need at least 2 to 5 posts per day, every day. Of course, you need to play a little and see what works for you best. Maybe two posts per day are more than enough for your audience or maybe you need to post 4 or 5 times 60
per day. Track your engagement rates and your fans‟ responses and plan
your strategy. But remember, consistency is the “secret” ingredient that makes you win on Facebook.
Another thing that you might want to do is post different types of content throughout the day. Videos, links, photos, contests, questions –
just mix things up a bit.
#4 Determine the best times to post your content Analyze your audience and see what the best times of the day to post are so that you can get the maximum engagement. It‟s great to have consistency, but it‟s even better to know when to post.
It is necessary to publish at the right time to benefit from the most attention and to reach the widest possible audience.
According to research5, the best days to post on Facebook are Thursday and Friday while, for the posts published on Monday through Wednesday, the engagement rates fall below 3.5 %. If you want more shares for your content you need to post at around 1 PM and if the clicks
are what you‟re after, then post around 3 PM.
Of course, these results may vary depending on the industry, brand, target audience and so on. You need to test and see what are the best 61
times to share are for your business.
Use your page insights to see when your followers are online. Go to Facebook Insights, Posts, and choose � Where your fans are online�. These statistics should give you a baseline for your posting times, just go from there and start testing.
#5 Use Photos And Videos For More Exposure Photos and videos are a great way to grab the attention of your fans. They appear larger in the News Feed, they take up more real estate, and they get more organic reach than any other type of post.
Videos have incredible organic reach rates lately (as much as 35%
of the audience6). Not only that but if you upload the videos directly to Facebook, they will automatically play when people scroll their feeds, increasing the engagement and the viewing rates.
62
Watch your Page Insights and see your best performing updates to
know what type of posts is commonly appreciated by your audience, and do more of that.
Access the Facebook Insights for your Page, click on Posts then choose “Post Types�. You will see the average reach for each type of posts and the average engagement (the number of clicks per post or the likes, comments and shares). See what types of posts get the most reach
and add more of that to your strategy.
#6 Take Advantage Of Trends Since Facebook added the Related Articles feature to the News Feeds, they started prioritizing updates about trending topics. So, a good idea would be to benefit from this strategy and share relevant and trending updates promptly.
63
Even though you schedule your updates in advance, you can step in
and take advantage of some spontaneous marketing ideas.
#7 Share Content From Another Aficionado In Your Field Sharing relevant links or mentioning some authorities in your niche not only will help spice up your timeline but will help you build relationships. If you go on and on about you, people might get annoyed and hide your posts or worse, unfollow you.
#8 Run An Ad Promoting A Post To Your Existing Facebook Fans Promoting a post is a guaranteed method to reach the fans you already have, to re-engage with them and get your posts back to their news feed.
So one strategy to get older fans re-engage with you is to run Facebook Ads, so they will see them and engage with them, thus having your new posts showing up in their feeds again. Now let‟s see some things to avoid if you want to increase your EdgeRank score: •
Don't create posts that are too promotional and try to avoid click-
inducing titles. This will lead to a penalization from Facebook, and you don‟t want that! •
When scheduling your posts in advance don‟t use the same content for all your social media accounts. Each platform has its own 64
particularities, and you need to take advantage of that.
•
Don't get caught up in a game of numbers. The number of likes you have on your Page is not that important. What matters most is the number of engaged fans that liked your Page. They will truly help you thrive.
•
Don't have content that is not related to your business. You want your fans to kind of know what to expect, even though you produce unique content consistently. People should easily recognize you and your
brand in what you share. That‟s the reason they follow you, after all.
65
Notes
1A
Window Into News Feed: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/News-
Feed-FYI-A-Window-Into-News-Feed 2 Click-baiting:
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-
baiting/ 3
Balancing Content from Friends and Pages:
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/04/news-feed-fyi-balancing-content-from-friends-
and-pages/ Facebook‟s News Feed Algorithm Relinquishes Control Of What We “See
4
First” http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/18/facebook-see-first-puts-your-favorite-peopleatop-the-feed/ 5
What Are The Best Times to Post on Social Media:
http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/02/what-are-the-best-times-to-post-on-socialmedia/ 6The
Importance Of Facebook Videos And How To Use Them For Your
Business: http://www.massplanner.com/the-importance-of-facebook-videos-and-howto-use-them-for-your-business/
66
Your Facebook content is the only thing that can make or break your business Page. That‟s why it‟s to your advantage to know what type of content can boost your engagement rates and ignite your fan base growth. In this chapter, we‟ll discuss the importance of the video format in advertising and how to use it for your business.
67
The Importance Of Facebook Videos And How To Use Them For Your Business Videos are more accessible than ever to create or view. These days, to make a video is as difficult as the click of a play button on a smartphone. And according to Cisco Systems, this trend will not slow down anytime soon. In fact, by 2018, the video traffic will represent 80-90% of the global consumer Internet traffic. So there‟s no surprise why Facebook is focused on creating a video marketing ecosystem. Since
“Everybody thinks of YouTube as the
August last year, when comScore
default holding place for video,”
found that, for the first time Facebook
says Scott Symonds, managing
had more video views than YouTube on
director of media at digital ad
desktop, a new battle1 began for the
agency AKQA. “Facebook is changing that and fast.”2
top spot in the video space. Facebook‟s rise is backed by a year of investments, improvements and features to its video marketing platform like the video metrics and insights, the auto-play feature or the new video 68
rankings in the News Feeds just to
name a few. Photos reach 14% of brands’ audience, text only updates reach 4%, but video posts reach as much as 35%!
eMarketer predicts3 that in the US, “spending on mobile video advertising will reach $2.62 billion in 2015 (more than 70% growth) – over one-third of the estimated $7.77 billion to be spent on digital video ads”. By 2019, eMarketer forecasts
that mobile‟s share of total digital video ad dollars will reach 47.7%. “US adults will spend an average of
If you’re still wondering if you should include video content into your marketing strategy, here are some interesting stats4: • Facebook has over 4 billion daily video views • BuzzFeed‟s video views on Facebook reached more than 500 million in April 2015 • In February 2015, 70 percent of Facebook‟s videos were uploaded directly to the site, versus 25 percent in February 2014. • The average Facebook user watched 75% more videos this year compared to last year (in US the number is actually 94%) • For brands with more than a million Facebook fans, photo posts reach 14% of their audience on average, text only updates reach just 4%, and video posts reach as much as 35%
39 minutes watching video on mobile devices accounting for more than half of the total 76 minutes of average time spent per day with digital video content.”
These are impressive stats that should give you some food for thought, but there‟s more. A video post on Facebook gets instant traction compared with a post consisting of a static image. It‟ll sure be interesting to see how the gif posts would perform on Facebook, now 69
that they added support for this5.
Facebook has also become the first choice for video advertisers. (Is this the beginning of the end for YouTube?) According to a recent study from Mixpo6, advertisers and agencies are taking the Facebook plunge when it comes to video advertising.
When asked about what platforms they ran video campaigns on last
year and what platforms they plan to run video campaigns on in the next year, hereâ€&#x;s how they responded:
So how can you best use Facebook as a video marketing tool?
Upload Your Video Directly to Facebook The Facebookâ€&#x;s News Feed is a powerful place to land a key message through a video. The secret is to directly upload the video to Facebook, instead of sharing a YouTube video for example.
The reason is that these videos will automatically come to life while people scroll down their News Feeds, unlike the videos shared from other 70
platforms.
Another reason for native videos on Facebook is that they will fill the entire available width of the News Feeds.
Seriously though, Upload Your Videos Directly to Facebook! If you‟re not convinced yet that videos uploaded directly to Facebook
get more views than those shared from other players, here are some thoughts: •
There‟s a 30% higher video play rate (meaning 30% more users click to play a native video)
•
You‟ll have video insights and metrics like, the number of views at various moments throughout the video, the average time watched or the number of people that watched at least 3 seconds. This will help
you test different scenarios, messages and see what works for your audience, thus improving your strategy over time.
71
•
Auto-play feature anyone? Your video will automatically play while
people scroll down their feeds grabbing their attention and luring them to stop and see the entire video. •
You can add call-to-action buttons during the video or at the end of the video.
You can upload the video right from your smartphone, using the Facebook app or by e-mail the video to your Facebook‟s post-by-email
address with the caption in the subject line.
While uploading the video, you can add tags to help it gain traction on other Facebook pages, you can add a CTA (call-to-action) button (with a hyperlink with headline and description) that takes people straight to your website after they watched your video.
Short Videos Are Better The truth is that you don‟t need highly polished and professional videos to take advantage of the impressive organic reach that this type of posts gets on Facebook. You can get the same traction with simple, quick videos made with your smartphone and edited with uncomplicated “capture, edit and share” software like Cinematic and Vee.
Not only on Facebook but across all the social media channels, short videos get the most engagement and views compared to longer, in-depth videos.
72
Short and simple! Short, so you don‟t have to steal too much of your audience‟s time, and simple to make it easy for you to incorporate them into your online marketing strategy. If you need an entire (expensive) crew to come up with an entertaining animation for your message, sooner or later you‟ll choose to use your marketing budget on more affordable artifices.
The ideal length of a Facebook video is 21 seconds7 if better completion rates are what you‟re after. If you want to get more in-depth, you should consider breaking it down and making a video series.
Make Sure Your Video Is Share Worthy The key to a share-worthy video is to deliver the right message, to the right people at the right time. You need to craft a good story, that is in
line with your brand personality and create an emotional reward to the people watching it. The videos auto-play as soon as a user scrolls past it. This means you need to grab the user‟s attention in the first few seconds of the video. 73
You can add an explicit action for the user to take in the first seconds
with Call-To-Action buttons.
Silence Can Be Gold The Facebook videos auto-play in the News Feed, but they do so without any sound. At least not until people click the video to see more and turn the sound on. That‟s why it‟s best to not rely on sounds when trying to get your message across. So, a talking head may not be the way
to go. Use instead text and graphics to get attention or create a dynamic flow of imagery that compels users to turn on the sound and hear what‟s all about.
Follow The User Across The Sales Funnel Create your video campaigns with your sales funnel in mind. There are three types of videos that you can create depending on your
audience: •
“Seed” videos – that will help you create initial brand awareness. You need to ensure your target audience sees these videos. If you want to create Facebook Video Ads to boost reach, for this phase in the funnel, you need to optimize your ads for views or predictable reach and controlled frequency. In this initial phase, your goal is to reach as many people as possible and introduce them to your story.
•
“Blast” videos – this will drive engagement among your existing audience. These videos are ideal for product launches or rebranding campaigns. In this phase, you want to target people that already watched the initial video, and you want to show them a second 74
video or a third one.
•
“Sustain” videos – for building your brand. In this type of videos you need to include strong Call-To-Action buttons and invite people to interact with your brand. You have the possibility to add a CTA button during a video (like “Learn More”) or at the end of the video (for example: “Replay”, “Learn More”, “Done”)
Test Test Test
Have fun with it and experiment. Try out different formats and see what your audience respond best to. Depending on your audience, you can create: •
Inspirational messages – these are ideal when you want to drive shares and engagement.
•
Educational videos – when you want to show your audience a quick tip or a useful fact.
•
Videos that showcase your podcast, a webinar or a new product.
•
Entertaining video – we all want to have some fun, right?
Just explore different ideas and measure their success.
Facebook Video Ads Facebook has offered video ads and posts for quite some time, but they only rolled up native video advertising last year.
75
These are some characteristics of the Video Ads:
•
all ads in the News Feed start as auto-play with audio off
•
a video play is considered a view if played for 3 sec (on YouTube, you need to watch a video for at least 30 seconds to be counted as a view)
•
the user must click/tap to turn audio on
•
advertisers can create remarketing audiences from video watchers
•
available to buy in their auction marketplace
•
available for an upfront buy, but the video must be pre-approved
Video ads settings: Thumbnail size: 1200x675px; Video: 1080px; Ratio: 16:9 ratio; File Size: 1 GB max;
Length: 20 min max; Text: 90 chars.
How to Create a Video Ad, Step by Step 1. Click on “Create ad” option in the Facebook menu
76
2. Choose “Get Video Views”
Choose “Get Video Views” from the options list and the Facebook Page where you want to place the Video Ad, from the right side of the screen.
3. Upload Video
You can choose to upload a new video or select an existing one. 77
4. Video Processing
Wait until the video is processed and successfully uploaded to Facebook. 5. Choose a thumbnail
You have the option to choose a thumbnail from the screens in the video or to upload a new image that you want to show as the thumbnail for your Ad. 78
6. Add Compelling Text
Next, add the text that will be displayed next to your video. You can also choose a Call to Action button that will appear after the video starts. You can choose from: Shop Now, Book Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Download and Watch More.
7. Choose The Audience
You can define your audience for the video ad by choosing specific demographic data, interests and behaviors.
79
8. Define Your Budget
80
Notes 1 Google
Ad Chief: “How Many Of Facebook‟s Video Views Are Engaged?”
http://marketingland.com/google-ad-chief-how-many-of-facebooks-video-views-areengaged-129644 2
How Facebook's video-traffic explosion is shaking up the advertising world:
http://fortune.com/2015/06/03/facebook-video-traffic/ 3
Mobile Video Challenges Hold Back Advertisers:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Video-Challenges-Hold-BackAdvertisers/1012563 4How
& why Facebook video can overtake YouTube:
http://om.co/2015/06/08/facebook-vs-youtube-battle-for-online-video/ 5
You Can Finally Put GIFs on Facebook, Here's How: http://gizmodo.com/you-
can-finally-put-gifs-on-facebook-heres-how-1221285918 6
The State of Video Advertising:
http://marketing.mixpo.com/acton/fs/blocks/showLandingPage/a/2062/p/p-
00b2/t/page/fm/0 7
Want to Succeed with Facebook Videos? Keep Them Short:
www.socialbakers.com/blog/2222-want-to-succeed-with-facebook-videos-keep-themshort
81
This chapter will give you a high-level snapshot of Facebook Ads. Weâ€&#x;re going to explore all the types of Ads that you can create on Facebook. In addition to that, weâ€&#x;ll walk through the best practices when creating your first ad campaign.
82
The Beginner’s Guide To Facebook Ads
After all the changes to the Facebook‟s algorithm and the decrease in the organic reach of your posts, you probably started thinking about using Facebook Ads to boost your engagement rates. However, many business owners are disappointed with the results they get and sooner or later they give up. That‟s because they expect that once they set an ad up their job is
done, and Facebook will somehow magically increase their fan base, traffic, and conversions. The truth is that it‟s not that easy. You need to put serious effort into this in order for it to work and not waste your time and money.
Here is a short guide to help you get started with Facebook Ads and
how to optimize them for maximum performance.
But remember, before starting any campaign you need to make sure you have a good product to sell. There is no magic campaign that can fix a flawed product.
What types of Ads can you create?
For starters, let‟s take a look at all the types of Facebook Ads that you can create. To do that, just click on the “Create Ads” option in your Facebook Menu under your name.
8
You can see that you can create ads based on your objectives for your campaign:
Boost your post
84
If you want to get more engagement for your Page content, you can choose to boost your posts. After you select the Page, you can choose the post that you want to promote and get more people to see and engage with it. A Facebook Ad will be created from your post. With this type of ad, you don‟t have to target only people that are not your fans. Not necessarily. You can choose your existing fans as well if you want to get them to consider your products, to get them up the sales funnel. Again, it depends on your marketing plans.
So when you choose your audience to show your promoted post to, you can choose people based on their information shared on Facebook, like location, age, gender or interests, or you can choose people that already liked your page and their friends. Boosted posts will show up in people‟s News Feed, and they look like any other story, except that you get to pay for the impressions that this ad generates. So make sure you only promote you own stuff, in case you don‟t want to pay to drive traffic to someone else‟s website.
What types of content should you promote? •
Promote useful content that will benefit your audience. You can push sales messages from time to time too, but try to choose more of your best, helpful content when promoting.
•
Lead generation content: free ebooks, giveaways, webinars and any other type of content that can help you grow your e-mail list. 85
•
Content that announces recent product launches, events, rebranding
campaigns, to drive mindshare for your brand. •
Video Ads
Promote your page
With engagement ads, you can increase your fanbase extremely quick. People can like your Page right from the ad with just one click. The easier liking your page is, the better.
The best part with this kind of ads is that they show the friends who already liked the page, making use of social proof to reel them in.
What you need to do is create a real image that would delight Facebook users and entice them to become your fans. So to get more likes to your page, you don‟t want to target your existing fans, but their friends instead. And you can also create custom audiences by targeting 86
your website visitors or the users of your mobile application that are not
your fans yet.
Your Facebook Ad, therefore, contains a Like button, copy, and an attractive image, which when you click redirects you to a landing page inside Facebook to convert them. If you redirect your visitors to your timeline, and not a cleverly crafted custom tab, your conversion rates will be lower because you don‟t have a strong call to action. Except maybe
for a “Sign Up” or “Shop Now” or “Use App” button that you can add at the bottom of your timeline cover photo. But a custom tab can be more efficient:
Now, you should have a clear and distinctive goal in mind for your ads. If your goal is to get more likes for your Page, then your ad should say something like “Click Like to stay in touch with us”. 87
But if you‟re not after likes, and your primary goal is to get people to
your custom tab and sign up for your blog, for example, you can‟t ask them to click the Like button. You need to change your message accordingly. You will still have the like button in your message, but if you tell them “Click here to try our awesome product.” they will do just that. So, you need to know what‟s more important for you when you build your strategy.
Send people to your website
These ads are placed in the right column of your Facebook page, and you can take people outside Facebook by using them. You can drive traffic to your sales page or website to increase your conversion rates. You can even add multiple images (up to 5 images) to your ad at no extra cost if you want to highlight more aspects of your business or
88
more products. Every image has a unique URL, so you can drive more
traffic to different pages on your site.
Increase conversions on your website
For this type of Facebook ad, you need to add a snippet of code to your website in the section that will measure your conversions.
89
When you set up your pixel, you can optimize it for one of the
following conversion types: •
Checkouts
•
Registrations
•
Leads
•
Key page views
•
Adds to cart
•
Other website conversions
Thanks to this piece of code Facebook will know which users perform these desired actions through advertisers using conversion tracking. This way Facebook will target your ad to people most likely to convert. So you want to choose your primary conversion type based on your goals and marketing plan.
For example, if you want to drive people to your website to convert them to purchase your product, you have to choose “Checkouts” as conversion type for your pixel. You then add the pixel in the section of your success page, the page where the user is directed after a successful purchase. This way, Facebook will be able to track the people that clicked your ad and landed on your success page, meaning that a conversion was made.
90
Get installs of your app
To get installs for your mobile application, you need to add a Call To Action to take people to the App Store or Google Play. You can use either an image or a video for the creative, and you can choose from several CTA buttons: •
Install Now
•
Play Game
•
Watch Video
•
Shop Now
•
Book Now
91
Increase engagement in your app
To increase the engagement for you mobile app, you need to target your existing users, that already installed your application and take them from Facebook to your app.
Raise attendance to your event
92
Get people to claim your offer
You can only create an Offer if your Page has at least 50 fans. Otherwise you will not even have the option to create an offer. Also, there are some restrictions on some Pages (for example, Community Pages cannot create offers) and the Pages must be at least 1-month-old.
The offers usually appear in the News Feed, meaning that they are visible to mobile users as well. You can use offers for your online store or local business, you can give product discounts or even free content to build your mailing list.
93
Get video views
Videos are pretty hot on Facebook right now (those videos that are directly uploaded to the platform). You get the most organic reach1 thanks to the features like auto-play and the integrated calls to action. If you choose to promote your videos, youâ€&#x;ll get even more reach for less money. So you can see itâ€&#x;s both efficient and inexpensive. You have the option to optimize your ad for video views, to automatically play the video while people scroll down the feeds, and you can also choose to remarket to people that already watched other videos.
94
Best Practices When Using Facebook Ads
One of the most important rule of marketing with Facebook Ads is to reach your audiences and create the ads based on where they are in the sales funnel. Your funnel is basically a framework that follows your users from awareness when you capture people to see your content or product, through the moment they consider to choose your brand until when they convert and share your content to other people.
For the people placed at the bottom of the funnel, you want to make sure you design ads that drive awareness and are optimized for predictable reach and controlled frequency.
Next, you want to make sure that you target people that already know your brand. So you can create custom audiences with people that already had an initial contact with your Page or website. You want to tell them to consider your business, your products or services.
For the audiences at the top of your funnel, you want to include Calls to Action to invite them to interact with your brand. To share your content with their friends, to drive affinity.
Another best practice is to use native ads. These are the ads that are placed in the News Feeds, and they are the most engaging because: •
theyâ€&#x;re cross devices (these ads are visible on mobile devices too)
95
•
they are large with more clickable real estate
•
and they are perfectly integrated with the other stories in the feed.
But you can and should test different ad placements. This way you can track their performance and see which one gets you the best results. Now the question is when it‟s a good idea to run a Facebook Ad. It all depends on your goals, of course, but here‟s a list of a few situations that might benefit from running a Facebook ad: •
when you want to increase your fanbase
•
to build brand awareness
•
when you want to drive in-store sales. If you have a local business, you can use Facebook ads with location-based targeting to sell a product, a program or a service and to actually get people to visit your local store and generate sales.
•
to drive online sales. You can send people outside Facebook, to a sales page and tell them about your programs, products, and services.
•
to launch a new product or service.
•
to promote a mobile application.
•
to promote offline or online events, like webinars, conferences, online and offline summits, meet-ups or local events. There are so many different types of events that you can market with Facebook ads.
•
to generate leads for your business.
96
Notes
1 The
importance of Facebook Videos and how to use them for your business:
http://www.massplanner.com/the-importance-of-facebook-videos-and-how-to-usethem-for-your-business/
97
This chapter will help you get the whole idea of Facebook Ads, how to prepare your campaign and optimize it until successful. We discuss the planning, targeting, creatives and budgets. Weâ€&#x;ll walk through the optimization process of your ads based on your business goals. And weâ€&#x;ll also see the best strategies to test your ads and continuously improve them.
98
Core Elements of Marketing With Facebook Ads For a successful ad campaign, you need to design the right message, to find the right people for your business and to plan your ads to be displayed at
perfect times to generate the best conversions. So you want to take into consideration several elements like planning, targeting, creatives, budgets, and tracking.
Planning
When you decide to create a Facebook Marketing campaign, the first thing you want to do is identify your primary goal. Whether you want to send people to your site, increase
Deliver the right
conversions, boost your posts or get
message to the right
more likes for your page, you can
people at the right time.
choose from a variety of objectives for your campaign.
Targeting Next, you want to determine who the people in your target audience for your campaign are. What type of data 99
or insights do you have about them?
With Facebook ads, you can decide to target three types of audiences: •
Core Audiences target people based on the information they shared on Facebook like interests, demographics or location, and their behavior.
•
Custom Audiences that are determined based on CRM data and
data from your website or mobile app. This usually involves third party integrations to your website or application. •
Lookalike Audiences: people that are similar to your current customers, website visitors, mobile application users or page fans. So depending on your goal and your understanding of your ideal
customer, you can decide which type of audience to target with your Facebook ads.
Creatives The creatives are the images you use to highlight your ads. Your images need to have a “thumb” effect, to stop people from scrolling. You can even customize your images for the same ads depending on your target audience.
When testing different images for your ads, you will see that headshots perform better than logos or other abstract images. Headshots of attractive women statistically perform much better than anything else. You can start experimenting with these kinds of images if it makes sense 100
for your business.
Make sure you use appropriate image sizes for your ads. The link thumbnails should have a 1.91:1 aspect ratio to stretch across the width of the News Feed. The quality of the images is also important , you donâ€&#x;t want them to look too blurry or stretched. 1
The copy is crucial as well, but there are no definitive rules about
their form. Usually, it takes a lot of AB testing before determining the best copy for your audience. Your target customers should also give you a clue about the text they prefer. Based on the data you have about your clients you should know how to address them. Ultimately your job is to come up with a message that entices people to click and convert. And you canâ€&#x;t rely on what works for other businesses, you need to test it for yourself.
Bidding and budgets A bid is a value captured for each click, impression or action that people take on your ads. Many advertisers get overwhelmed with the complexity of the Facebook ads and especially with all the bidding options.
101
These are the main bidding options:
Optimized for Actions We already discussed all the different types of ads, all depending on a campaign object in our previous chapter:
All the bidding options are customized for each objective. So in essence you have the option to optimize your ad campaign for a particular action for each objective (except for the mobile apps objectives).
When this option is selected, your ad will be displayed to people that are most likely to take that particular action. Letâ€&#x;s take a look at the available actions (notice that the actions are in fact the objectives): 102
•
Clicks to Website
•
Website Conversions
•
Post Engagement
•
Page Likes
•
Desktop App Installs
•
Desktop App Engagement
•
Offer Claims
•
Event Responses
•
Video Views Let‟s say you want to convince people to try your new product, so
you choose to create an ad with the “Send people to your website” objective, to drive traffic to your landing page and sign up for a trial.
103
Then you will create an audience based on demographic information
and interests. Go ahead and choose your daily budget that you want to spend and then click on Show Advanced Options in the Budgeting and Pricing section.
You can see that by default the bidding is optimized for “Clicks to Website�, but if you click on the drop-down, you can see other bidding options.
104
Let‟s stick with the “Optimized for Clicks to Website” bidding option
for now. Facebook will show your ad only to those people in your target audience that are more likely to click the ad and go to your website. So even if your estimated audience is around 100,000, your add might be promoted to only 10,000 people. Facebook chooses the people more likely to click on your ad based on their history, their previous activity and the links they clicked.
When optimizing for actions you can choose to be charged by impressions – the automatic bid pricing, or you can manually set up a bid per action, in our case per website click.
CPM is cost per impressions, meaning that you pay for ad views that are measured in multiples of thousands. So you‟re not paying for clicks but for every thousand people that see your ad. If your bid is optimized
for clicks to your website, and you choose to pay for thousands of impressions, you pay only for those people that actually see your ad. So it‟s a good thing that Facebook shows your ad only to people most likely to take that particular action. This will avoid wasting impressions on people that will not take your desired action. If you choose the automatic bid pricing, CPM, you won‟t need to set
a bid. Facebook will get you the most actions at the best price. However, you can manually set what that action is worth to you.
105
This option works in almost any situation. Even if you defined a vast
audience, Facebook would only pick the most relevant one, those with the best chance to take your action.
Optimized for Daily Unique Reach When you select this bidding option, your ad will be advertised to as many people within your target audience as possible, but no more than once per day.
In this case, Facebook will try to show your ad to as many people as possible in your target audience, regardless of their likelihood to perform your desired action. So, the best scenario when optimizing for Daily Unique Reach might work best is when you have an extremely relevant audience that you know to be most likely to take your action.
Optimized for Clicks (CPC) Optimize for Clicks is another way of saying that you are using the Cost Per Click (CPC) bidding method. In this case, you will be paying for the clicks made to your ad.
With CPC you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, regardless of the number of impressions resulted. The more clicks you receive, the 106
lower the cost per click will be. The ads that are optimized for clicks are in
fact tuned to find people most likely to click your ad.
A “click” includes any click on your ad, which could be a photo click, comment, like or any other random click. Optimizing for clicks will result in a high number of clicks on a low-cost, but that‟s not necessarily good for business, because it includes all the random clicks not only those that take people to your website and convert them.
However, if you want to increase engagement, then this type of bidding might be a solution for you because Facebook will show your ad to people most likely to engage with it.
107
For pricing a bid you have two options: automatically bid pricing, which lets Facebook get you more clicks at the best price, or you can choose to manually set up the maximum price you are willing to pay per click. So if you are a beginner you might want to stick with the automatic pricing and let Facebook do its magic, and when youâ€&#x;re ready you can test different bids and see whatâ€&#x;s optimal for you.
Optimized for Impressions (CPM) If you choose to optimize your ad for impressions, Facebook will show your ad to as many people within your target audience as many times as possible. Much similar to Daily Unique Reach optimization, but with no limit to the number of displays per day.
Facebook will not optimize your ad to be shown only to those people that will take your desired action on your ad. The goal is to show your ad to as many people as possible. So try to define your audience as relevant as you can. And be careful when setting your budget to avoid wasting too many impressions on the same people.
108
For this type of bidding, you will have to set up the maximum amount that you are willing to pay for one thousand impressions for your ad. The price charged, however, is almost always less than the bid.
Measuring and optimizing The best way to improve your ads is to split test them. To split test your ad you need to create two versions of the same ad, with one single difference (for example a different headline), track their performance for a specific period of time and see which one provides the best results for your goals. Keep the best performing ad and start testing a different element (maybe changing the image this time). People also refer to split testing as A/B testing, because you have a version A and a version B, very similar but with a crucial difference that is put to the test.
Of course, this is a continuous process. After the first successful A/B test, your work is not over. One version of your ad might work beautifully this month, but not so great next month. So you need to continuously innovate and come up with test ideas for your ads. Thatâ€&#x;s the only way you can ensure you get the best results for your marketing efforts. Not to mention that if you keep the exact same ad for more than a few weeks, it becomes stale.
The first step is to create two versions of the same ad to test one against the other. The key is to change only one element, so you have a good idea about the factor that contributed to the success of one of the ads. 109
Here‟s a list of a few ideas for your split tests: •
test the picture of your ad: picture A vs. picture B, keep the same copy for both;
•
a picture vs. a video ad
•
a picture vs. a carousel (multiple images in the same ad)
•
use an ad image with a human vs an image without a human in it
•
the same ad image with and without text overlay
•
a call to action A vs. a call to action B, both with the same creative
•
test two different bidding options to see which performs best
•
test different target audiences
The possibilities are endless. Next, you have to track your ads performance in your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard and decide which one performed better.
You always need to measure the performance of your ads, not just for split test, because you want to know if the results, whether your objective was to increase sales or engagement to your page, were worth the amount of money you spent.
When you create a Facebook ad campaign, you start by selecting an objective that is an action too.
Depending on the objective you choose, that can be either clicks to your website, engagement to your Facebook Page or application downloads, there are a few ways to measure how well your ads are performing: 110
•
using the Facebook Conversion Pixel on your website to track crossdevice conversions on Facebook. To use it, you need to add a code snippet provided by Facebook within the tag of your website, and it will alert Facebook whenever a conversion is complete.
•
Facebook SDK and App Events for measuring the data you need to optimize your mobile ads. App events allow you to understand who is using your app and measure all the in-app actions to be able to optimize your ads and reach more relevant people. Whether you have an iOS application or an Android one, you will be able to understand how people engage with your app.
If you go to your Facebook Ads Reporting dashboard you can see several stats: “Reach” , “Frequency”, “Impressions”, “Clicks”, “Unique Clicks”, “CTR” and “Unique CTR”. Here you will see an overall picture of each of your campaigns and their status.
From the ads manager, you can drill down into each campaign and you will see more details such as the number of actions as a result of your ad, the average cost you paid for each action and the number of people who saw your ad (reach).
111
Notes
1 In
this infographic: http://www.jonloomer.com/2015/05/11/facebook-image-
dimensions-2015/ you can see all the Facebook image dimensions and ad specs put together.
112
About Mass Planner With Mass Planner, you can schedule all your posts in advance not only for Facebook, but for six social platforms – Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram. Additionally you can import from RSS, automatically find and join groups or communities. Automate your posts on groups using spin syntax, auto retweet, repin, auto-like, follow, follow back, unfollow and all the timesaving tools that you will ever need!*
*Find out more at: www.massplanner.com
113
114