Archive for facebook advertising
Facebook Ads and Beyond: What Marketers Need to Know
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How Facebook Could Disrupt Traditional Online Display Advertising (SocialTimes)
Facebook’s advertising revenue dropped slightly in the first quarter of 2013 compared to last quarter, but analysts at Spruce Media say that the company “is poised to disrupt traditional online display advertising by becoming the starting point for all media buys.” Their findings are outlined in Spruce Media’s State of Facebook Advertising Q1 2013 report, in which the analysts explained that “Facebook is laying this foundation through a combination of acquisitions, monumental ad product releases and market strategy.” AdAge Overall, Facebook reported solid revenue of $1.46 billion last quarter, up 38 percent from $1.06 billion a year ago. Ad revenue was $1.25 billion, or 85 percent of the total, while the balance of $213 million came from payments and fees. AllFacebook Facebook’s transition to a mobile-first company continued with great speed during the first quarter of 2013, as the social network reported that 30 percent of its total advertising revenue during the period came from mobile, up from 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Facebook also touted its mobile application install ads, saying that 3,800 developers turned to mobile app install ads during the quarter, resulting in nearly 25 million downloads. The New York Times “What we have seen has made us more confident we can do more with advertising over time,” the company’s chief executive and co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, told analysts during the earnings call. He said one of his top goals was to build “the best mobile product” — and make money from it. USA Today The downside, however, is that mobile ads fetch lower rates than desktop ones. A report last year by Mary Meeker, a partner with venture-capital behemoth Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, estimates mobile rates at one-third to one-fifth the value of desktop ads. “A key item is: How fast is the user activity switching over to mobile and how is the monetization following?” asks Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics.
Twitter Updates its Apps with New Trends Locations, Adds New Android Options and Improves Vine Playback on iOS (The Next Web)
Twitter on Wednesday updated its native Android and iOS apps with a slew of new features and improvements. Less than a month ago, Twitter expanded the number of locations serviced by its Trends product by more than 160 countries and cities, and now the company has brought the feature to its Android and iOS apps. AllTwitter If you’re interested in seeing the trending topics elsewhere in the world, just click the Discover tab, scroll to the top, and you’ll see “Trends.” Click the “Trend” area, and you’ll be given the option to turn off your tailored trends, or pick a new location. VentureBeat Of course, you can’t have a full-on Twitter mobile update without a little love for its micro-video app Vine. Nothing huge here, as Twitter just updated the app Tuesday to give you access to the front-facing camera, but Vine’s video playback has been improved.
Yahoo Acquires To-Do App Astrid (CNET)
Yahoo’s app spending spree continued Wednesday with the acquisition of to-do app Astrid. The to-do-list and task management app “will continue to work as is” for the next 90 days but will not accept new premium subscriptions, Astrid CEO Jon Paris said in a company blog post announcing the acquisition.
How a 24-Year-Old Creator Went from YouTube to Making a Feature Film (AppNewser)
At the Digital Hollywood conference in Los Angeles this week, 24-year-old Smiley filmmaker Michael Gallagher explained how he built a career from YouTube to making a feature film. He had this simple mantra for creators to memorize: “I am open to anything.”
I’m Still Here: Back Online After a Year Without the Internet (The Verge)
I learned to appreciate an idea that can’t be summed up in a blog post, but instead needs a novel-length exposition. By pulling away from the echo chamber of internet culture, I found my ideas branching out in new directions. I felt different, and a little eccentric, and I liked it.
Company’s App Can Now Be Used to Hail Yellow Cabs in City (The New York Times)
After a series of court hearings and false starts, New York City’s yellow taxi riders can now, for the first time, legally hail a cab with a smartphone app. On Tuesday night, a company called Uber, which entered the yellow taxi-hailing market last year before being rebuffed by the city, said that its service was available, one week after a lawsuit challenging the use of such apps was dismissed.
Elevator Pitch: Burn Note Keeps Private Messages Private [Video] (Elevator Pitch)
In the latest episode of “Elevator Pitch,” host Alan Meckler speaks with Jacob Robbins about his startup that lets you send a secure email that disappears after it’s read.
From USC Annenberg to Dodgers Social Media Coordinator (FishbowlLA)
He’s 23-years-old. And now that LA Weekly Dodgers blogger Howard Cole has profiled Josh Tucker, many more fans today know the name of the person pulling the team’s Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram strings.
YouTube Users Now Watch 6 Billion Hours of Videos a Month (GigaOM)
People are now watching more than 6 billion hours of video a month on YouTube, the Google-owned video service announced on its blog Wednesday afternoon. That’s twice as much as just a year ago: In May 2012, YouTube announced that its viewers were watching 3 billion hours of videos a month. In August, that number had grown to 4 billion hours.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Facebook Relaxes Page Cover Image Rules: Use This Tool to Test 20% Rule
Facebook recently (quietly) changed its Page Guidelines around Cover Images. Previously, you could not have any price or purchase information, contact information, references to Facebook features, or calls to action. Now, you can.
The main rule that remains in place for Cover Images is that you cannot exceed 20% text. Why is this? So that the News Feed remains visually appealing and isn’t covered in giant text-based advertisements. 
Not sure what 20% text looks like? See below for a nifty tool to test whether your cover image (or any fan page cover image!) adheres to the 20% text rule! Just pop in the fan page ID (the part after the facebook.com/), click load Cover-Photo, then click the areas of your image containing text:
Got Facebook questions? Come join my community of over 470,000 Friends, Fans and Followers! Just click the Follow and Like buttons below to connect with me on Facebook!
Cover Image examples
By way of example, here is a cover image I threw together as a demo (top screenshot) and how it looks after going through the 20% test tool (lower screenshot). My simple calculation was 851 x .2 = 170. Everything to the right of the white vertical line is 170 pixels (with one excerpt on the left as my logo). One critical component when including calls to action on your Cover Image is to make sure you have the actual link in the description part of the photo, e.g. this is the narrative I have: Please take a just a few minutes to complete this 2013 Social Media Survey and get instant access to my latest FREE Special Report: 10 Facebook Marketing Do’s & Don’ts as a thank you! You ROCK! http://bit.ly/mari_survey
After putting my cover photo to the 20% text test!
Here is HubSpot‘s revised cover photo. Of course, with a call to action like this, you have to be sure to include the link you want your visitors to click through to! HubSpot’s narrative for this image is: Download “16 Companies in ‘Boring’ Industries Creating Remarkable Content” here: http://hub.am/14caEHw
Facebook’s revised Page Guidelines
As you can see from the screenshot below, the rules have been significantly relaxed. Though the newest Page Guidelines revision date now states March 6th (the day before Facebook’s last press conference when the new News Feed design was unveiled), the change of date was made retroactively on March 20th.
Facebook’s revised cover image rules
Just as an aside, I posted the above screenshot with the new cover image rules (thanks to a heads up from Grandma Mary and Social Identities) on my Facebook fan page on March 19th, and it’s since become my MOST popular post of all time with an organic + viral (not paid) reach of 137,024. This surpasses my previous most popular post from September 24, 2011 with an organic/viral (not paid) reach of 133, 431. Though it’s taken me 18 months and twice the fans, it’s good to see the reach numbers up so high again.
Permanent change?
(Of course, we never know if anything is “permanent” on Facebook!) InsideFacebook, HubSpot and MarketingLand were among the first to blog about the change to Facebook’s cover image rules. However, not everyone was in full agreement as to whether this change was official and/or permanent.
It seems that Facebook’s Manager of Small Business, Australia and New Zealand addressed a local conference stating that the cover image rules had not been changed officially and that they would be reverting back to the original terms of service within a couple of weeks. Hm, say whaat? This caused a great deal of frustration and confusion among local social media experts and business owners presenting this information back to U.S. based counterparts. Despite the fact both InsideFacebook and HubSpot stated in their respective articles that they had verified the change was official and permanent, I also reached out to my Facebook contact, who confirmed there had been a change in the rules:
“Reason being is that with the new news feed design change, Page like ads take the cover photo from a Page, so we relaxed the rules a bit.”
Cover images in new News Feed
Yes, that’s right. Not only will your Page like ads showcase your cover image, when the shiny new News Feed rolls out, whenever someone likes your fan page, a portion of your cover image will go out into the News Feed of that person’s friends. This is something to get excited about and to keep in mind when designing your future cover images. Along with the new relaxed rules, you’ll want to get strategic about what you place and where, given only a portion of the cover image seems to display in the News Feed. (Just as soon as we find out the dimensions, I’ll be sure to update this post and announce on my fan page). Actual cover image dimensions are the same: 851 by 315 pixels.
Facebook page cover image displays in new News Feed
So, how will you make use of the new relaxed rules? Have you already updated your Facebook fan page cover image? Please do share in the comments below and feel free to post a link to your page to let us see!
How to Analyze Your Email Newsletter List With Facebook
5 Facebook Ad Tips to Maximize Your Facebook Campaigns
Have you tried the new Facebook Ads interface?
Are you interested in getting more bang for your buck when it comes to advertising?
This article will show you five ways to enhance your Facebook Ads.
What Changed Within Facebook Ads?
If you’ve been running Facebook Ads over the past year, you may be confused by some of the new options and the new layout of the Ads area. You may have felt like you had a good handle on everything if you read our previous post about Facebook Ads.
But of course, this is Facebook, and the only constant with Facebook is change. Let’s dive into some of the new changes with the Facebook Ads platform so that you can fully maximize your next Facebook Ad campaign.
The first step is to choose what you want to advertise. You can choose an external URL or a Facebook Page, App or Event. This step has not changed much from the previous iterations of the Facebook Ads interface.
First decide what to advertise.
You’ll notice your first difference if you choose to advertise your Facebook Page, Event or App.
#1: You Have New Choices
One big change with the new Facebook Ads layout is the choice of objectives.
Your new choices when advertising your Facebook Page.
The changes are as follows.
- Get More Page Likes. With this selection, you’re advertising your Page and trying to grow your Likes. You can write your own ad copy, but the title of the ad is still unchangeable as the title of your Facebook Page. If your Page name is too long, the ad will only show the first 25 characters of your Page name. (More on this in a bit.)
- Promote Page Posts. This option was previously under the “Sponsored Story” section of Facebook Ads. This is a way to advertise one of your recent posts and the ad is prewritten for you. This type of ad still appears on the right side of Facebook Ads, as shown in the preview, and it appears in the News Feed where people can interact with the post itself right from the ad. A word of caution on this type of ad: You will get charged for a click if someone likes the post that you’re advertising. They don’t have to like your Page to like the post and they may even think that they are liking your Page by liking the post. So make sure you’re using this option wisely. But one thing I like about the Promote Page Posts selection is that you can select a post that had a photo and get a “bonus” photo in your ad.
If you advertise a page post with a photo, you will have your profile photo and the post photo in your ad.
- See Advanced Options. Selecting this option allows you to have more flexibility in the bidding on your ad. If you select this option, you still have the same options of choosing to advertise your Page or a page post, and you will have to make those selections initially. The main difference here is in how you want to bid for your ad.
Only the Bidding options change with the See Advanced Options selection.
Also note that when you choose to advertise your Facebook Page, you can change the landing view so that when users click on your ad to see more information, you can direct them to a particular tab on your Page.
#2: Sponsored Stories Are Automatically Selected When Advertising Your Facebook Page, Event or App
Be very cautious about this next step, because it is one of the major changes with Facebook Ads.
Facebook auto-selects the Sponsored Stories choice for any ad that advertises something on Facebook, such as a Page, an Event or an App. Facebook says, “No increase in budget is required.” But that is a little misleading.
What that statement means is if you are spending $10/day on your ad, then Facebook will also run your Sponsored Story within that $10/day budget, but will still charge you when someone clicks on that Sponsored Story.
So now you may have $5/day going toward the Sponsored Story and $5/day going to the ad you intended and that has the copy you want.
Notice that Sponsored Stories is on by default.
Now this may not be a bad thing if you’re truly looking to increase your likes. Remember that Sponsored Stories are the ones that go into the News Feed (and they are shown on the right side also), where more people notice them.
The Facebook Ad I ran recently that included the Sponsored Story Ad performed very well. When you look at the data, the Sponsored Story looks like it had a 100% conversion rate (Actions to Clicks), versus the Facebook Ad that had an 80% conversion rate of Actions to Clicks.
The conversion on the Sponsored Story looks better than the ad.
But make sure you dig a little deeper into these numbers. When you expand each of these ads (notice how each of the ads has a different line item in your reports), you see more information.
You find that while the Actions were high on the Sponsored Story, they didn’t all result in an actual Page like. Some users just liked the post, some commented on it and some shared it.
Dig deeper into the Facebook Ad stats.
In this case, the Ad conversion now becomes 80% for the Sponsored Story and 77% conversion for the regular ad (74 likes from 96 clicks). The Sponsored Story still outperformed the ad in this case, but make sure you watch your numbers!
And do your own testing on Facebook Ads—you may find that your Page and your ads perform differently. Remember you can deselect the Sponsored Story if you do not want to create a Sponsored Story with your ad.
#3: Click See Advanced Options to Only Advertise a Sponsored Story
Another change with the new layout is that it’s more challenging to advertise just a Sponsored Story about people Liking your Page. To do so, click See Advanced Options, then Remove the Ad itself to leave just the Sponsored Story behind.
Click the See Advanced Options selection and Remove the Ad.
#4: Know Your Bidding Options
Bidding has not changed that much, but it is definitely something you should understand. When you choose to advertise something you have on Facebook such as your Page, Event or App, and you select the first radio button (Get More Likes, Increase Attendance, or Get New Users, respectively), then Facebook does your bidding for you. They optimize your ad with the CPM (cost per mille, which is cost per 1000 impressions) model.
If you choose the basic pricing model, Facebook optimizes your bid for you.
You can switch to the Advanced Pricing either here in the Campaign and Budget window or by choosing to See Advanced Options as mentioned in #1. If you choose the Advanced Pricing option, you can then use the CPC (cost per click) model, as well as set your own bids for the CPM model.
Switch to Advanced Pricing to set your own bids with either the CPM or CPC models.
#5: Use the URL of Your Facebook Page to Edit the Title of Your Ad
This isn’t a brand-new trick in Facebook Ads, but it’s one that seems to work sporadically. Luckily with the new Facebook Ads interface, this trick seems to be more available.
If you enter the URL of your Facebook Page, rather than select your Facebook Page from the drop-down menu, you can then edit the headline.
Use the URL of your Facebook Page to modify your headline.
The Choose your Audience section of Facebook Ads still works the same way as before and is great for reaching your perfect customer.
Hopefully these tips have helped you stay on top of some of the changes in Facebook Ads and maybe even given you some new ideas on how you can leverage Facebook Ads.
How about you? What have you found to be working with your Facebook Ad campaigns? How frequently are you using Facebook Ads? Share your experience with us in the comments section below.
Facebook Mobile for Business: What You Need to Know
Do you take Facebook with you on your mobile device?
Turns out 543 million people access Facebook while out and about!
To explore the marketing implications of mobile Facebook users, I interview Mari Smith for our new Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This New Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a brand-new show from Social Media Examiner.
It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
In this premier episode, I interview Mari Smith, author of The New Relationship Marketing and co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.
Mari shares insights into Facebook mobile and the opportunities this new mobile environment gives businesses today.
You’ll learn about how to get your Facebook content seen by the large mobile audience and you’ll also discover the best Facebook advertising options.
Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!
Listen Now
You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Zune, Stitcher or Blackberry.
Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:
Facebook Mobile for Business
What are the mobile marketing opportunities?
Businesses need to understand why mobile users are important on Facebook.
- 543 million people use Facebook mobile each month
- 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook each month
Mobile is critical on Facebook because of the number of users and also because mobile users are twice as active on Facebook.
Businesses cannot ignore their audience accessing Facebook via mobile.
Listen to the show to learn about the opportunities Facebook mobile users offer businesses and discover how mobile marketing has become an integral part of their social experience.
How can Instagram and the Camera app on Facebook give you more options?
Mari shares how Facebook is now positioned to take advantage of this mobile opportunity after acquiring the solely mobile app Instagram.
She also brings up the possibility of Facebook rolling out Instagram.com profiles and the rumors of Facebook entering the hardware market and coming out with a phone. Mari also gives you a quick review of mobile apps and how they work.
Check out how to incorporate Instagram into your Facebook marketing.
Listen to the show to learn more about what to expect in the future mobile environment.
How should you adapt your marketing for mobile Facebook users?
Mobile users consume content mainly through their Facebook news feed. With this in mind, here are some marketing tips for businesses to ensure visibility in these mobile news feeds:
- Post succinct content of 160 characters or fewer
- Make use of photos
- Ask short-and-sweet questions
- Be humorous and entertaining if appropriate
- Add calls to action
Facebook Offers are popular with local businesses from a mobile standpoint. But if you don’t use Offers, take advantage of your updates and post something like: “Are you on a mobile phone? Come in and get a free coffee.”
Check out successful Facebook pages with high engagement.
Listen to the show to understand how to adapt your marketing to reach mobile Facebook users.
What are the best paid advertising options on Facebook?
Since going public, Facebook has made changes in the reach of content posted on Facebook and their advertising options. Many businesses are frustrated with Facebook now asking them to pay to get higher visibility for their content.
Some businesses are finding value with Promoted Posts. Mari advises businesses to take the time to test Promoted Posts when their page has a low number of fans or has plateaued with a low engagement rate.
Also, given the nature of the Facebook mobile app, Promoted Posts will get more visibility on mobile Facebook apps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7G4bVVqO0
Listen to the show to discover other tactics to get your content in front of a larger portion of your audience.
Survival Tip: Critical Blog Plugin
A while ago, I experienced a nightmare blogging scenario. This is why I use the two WordPress security plugins Secure WP and WSD Security.
Consider using these two plugins together to keep your blog secure. You should check them out.
Make sure your blog is secure with WordPress plugins such as Secure WP.
Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:
- Check out Cliff Ravenscraft’s Podcast Answer Man to learn more about podcasting.
- Useful WordPress plugins: Secure WP, WSD Security.
- Facebook mobile apps: Instagram, Facebook Camera, Facebook for Mobile, Facebook Page Manager.
- Facebook advertising: Promoted Posts, Facebook Offers.
- Facebook pages with great engagement: George Takei, Dollar Shave Club.
- Connect with Mari Smith on her website and on Facebook.
Help Us Spread the Word!
Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet on Twitter.
If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe.
Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:
- Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
- Click here to subscribe via RSS (non-iTunes feed).
- You can also subscribe via Zune, Stitcher and Blackberry.
What do you think? What are your thoughts on Facebook Mobile, the Facebook mobile apps and the best Facebook advertising opportunities available today? Please leave your comments below.
