Category FACEBOOK NEWS

READY FOR ANOTHER FACEBOOK UPDATE?

Get ready for another improvement, this time from Facebook Events!
As part of this update you’ll see changes on News Feed ads for Events, the addition of Event insights and improving the look and feel of Event pages.

All of these updates aim to boost awareness of Facebook Events and response rates of every event created.

Facebook explained the rationale behind the improvements on their news blog:

“Every month, 400 million people around the world use events on Facebook to discover and connect with everything from parties with friends to things happening in their communities. And nearly 30 percent of all the events people connect to – like concerts, community events and special nights at bars and restaurants – are created by pages.”

“IN THE COMING WEEKS”

Page admins will be able to create right-side panel ads for Events on behalf of their businesses. This can be done via the ads create tool in Ads Manager, as well as the Power Editor.

Here’s a sneak peak of how the new event ad will look:

A CLOSER LOOK AT YOUR EVENTS

Also, hosts can now see metrics on how their Event posts are performing. Admins can view metrics in the right-hand column of an Event page. Insights will show:

• The number of people who’ve seen a link to the event on Facebook
• The number of people who’ve viewed the event
• The number of people who have engaged with the post (clicked, liked or joined)

Facebook describes these changes in a blog post:

“To make it easier for businesses to reach even more people for their events, we’re announcing new features that help Pages promote their events and see how they’re performing.

In the coming weeks, Pages will be able to create ads for desktop and mobile News Feed that boost awareness of events and drive responses. Previously, these types of ads were only shown in the right-hand column on desktop.”

Plus, all you need to do is click Boost Event to make your event an ad! It’s super simple and an easy way to get more eyeballs viewing your event.

HOW TO HIGHLIGHT YOUR EVENTS

You can also customize your Page tabs to further increase your fans’ awareness of Events in a single view. To do this, simply click the “More” menu on your page and reorder the tabs so Events is one of the first to appear.

People using Mobile can simply scroll through the Upcoming Events of their Facebook account to check what’s happening around town in the coming weeks.

Lastly, Facebook has improved the look and feel of each of the users’ Events page. Users can now see upcoming events, the ones they are hosting, as well as their saved events, just in case you want to follow an event without attending. This area now also includes a list of suggested events based on the pages you’ve liked, location and the day of the week.

What do you think of Facebook’s new updates? Have you seen them yet?

Are you using Facebook Events in a creative way?
Share in the comments below!

Ready for more changes on Facebook?!  It seems like they are making changes daily now and it’s hard to keep up so this post should break down for you the recent changes regarding the new Facebook ad campaign structure.

The New Facebook Ads Campaign Structure is set to roll out on September 15 and will be made available to 100% of advertisers in the next few weeks.

This change is designed to make advertising efforts easier for advertisers in three words:

• Organize
• Optimize
• Measure

WHAT’S NEW?

Before, Facebook Ads only has a 2-level structure: Campaigns and Ads.

It was in each individual campaigns that advertisers set everything: campaign goals, audience filters, budget and scheduling of ads. The Ads – there are the creatives.

This structure is particularly rigid: as it was difficult to optimize and measure ads effectiveness across different audience demographics and campaigns goals.

HENCE, THE NEW 3-LEVEL STRUCTURE: CAMPAIGN- ADS SETS- ADS.

In this new structure, you can set different campaign goals on Campaign such as branding, site visits or promote offers.

You can set your audience, budget, placements and scheduling in Ad Sets. Under each Ad sets are your Ad creatives.

To better understand, this 3-level structure allows you to:

• Separate different campaign goals from others
• Set different audience groups under each campaign
• Experiment on different Ad creatives under each demographic group.

This gives advertisers a chance to better analyze and understand how each creative content performs in a specific group of people, under each campaign goal.

Facebook has published a guide on how to bring the best out of the new Ads Campaign structure.

CAMPAIGN BEST PRACTICES:

1. Define your campaign goal.

Campaign goals are specific results set by a brand. For example, a local store will have the following objectives:

• Visits to Website
• Website Conversions
• Increase Page Post Engagement
• Likes your Page
• Install Apps
• App Engagement
• Promote Offers
• Event Responses
• Video Views

Thus a goal should be limited to some specific calls to action from a Facebook user.

2. Set up campaigns based on advertising objectives.

You can create different campaigns under each objectives. Here are a sample list of campaigns you can choose from:

3. Set the cap how much you spend across all your campaigns.

You don’t need to worry about over-spending. You can set your budget across campaigns. The Ads will stop as soon as your cap budget is reached.

4. Take note of spending for each of your campaigns.

Use the spending meter to track how much your ads had spent so far. This will let you in the loop of how much your ads costs to run, as well as compare which ad delivers better results over cost-effectiveness.

AD SET BEST PRACTICES

1. Organize ad sets by audience.

Learn to determine your audience by gender, age, location, likes and other demographic data available in the Ads Manager.

This will help you determine which audience group drives better response to your ads. For example: you can and create ad set for people you liked your Page and another for those who haven’t liked your Page yet.

One secret is to keep your Ad Set consistent so that you can easily single out the best performing Ad Sets.

2. Optimize top performing placements.

You can alternately assign one placement in an Ad Set or have multiple placements in a demographic Ad Set so optimize your ad results.

3. Set bidding to maximize performance.

Make sure that your ads have consistent optimization settings to optimize your ads; whether you are bidding for clicks, impressions or reach, your choice depends what your prefer to pay for.

4. Adjust budgets to optimize spend.

Monitor which ads perform better than the rest. Make sure your budget appropriately and equally to all top-performing ad sets.

AD BEST PRACTICES

1. Know which ad types suits your campaign objective.

Select the best types of ads to use such as link ads, photo ads, text ads, app install pages to match the needs of your campaign.

2. Come up with multiple ads to optimize creative.

As much as possible create other ad variations using a creative. For example, an ad creative can be both in form of a image or a video. This allows more optimized delivery.

3. Always monitor to improve performance of a creative.

Always make a point to record results such as number of clicks, impressions as well as rejections. This helps you see the performance of your ads in a user’s view point. Use what you have learned to improve future creatives.

4. Work within the limits of your account.

Every account can hold as much as 1000 campaigns, 1000 ad sets and 5000 ads. This only applies to live campaigns, deleted ones do not count. To better manage and track your campaigns, follow your marketing plan and run a good number of ads that you can manage.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE NEW AD CAMPAIGN STRUCTURE?

Like-gating is a way to incentivize Facebook users who haven’t liked your page yet. It can be a simple image with a “like my page” call to action. Once a user liked your page then that’s the only time they get access to your freebie, prize or discount.

HERE IS SAMPLE FROM MY OWN FACEBOOK PAGE:

Under the ‘proper use’ policy, effective November 5th, 2014, Facebook admins are no longer allowed to give incentives for people to like a page or use social plugins.

Incentives include: rewards, freebies, discounts and gating apps to force people to like a page first.

It will still be acceptable to incentivize users, who already Liked the page every time they visit the page or login to the app.

This is stirring up some reactions among marketers online. This is what Facebook has to say:

“To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.”

What this quote from Facebook implies is that in order for your Page Likes to grow organically, people must really like and connect with your brand in the first place.

Let us take a look at this study by Ignite Social Media.

It shows that incentives is still the top reason for people to like a page so it’s a bit shocking that Facebook would prohibit pages from doing so.  But it’s actually a VERY good thing.  If you have fans that have liked your page because you made them like your page to get something from you – they are likely not an engaged fan and the key to Facebook success is having fans that are ENGAGED with your page and your brand.

This update will challenge business owners, marketers and admins to:

• improve the content being shared on Facebook by creating genuine engagement
• maximize the use of Facebook Insights to know when your fans are online and what they “like” most
• use Facebook Ads to build a targeted audience

What do you think of the new update?  I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Consistent with the Facebook’s aim to clean up the news feed, they announced another update to de-emphasize pages that practice “like-baiting”.

What is like- baiting anyway? “Like-baiting” is when a post explicitly asks News Feed readers to like, comment or share the post in order to get additional distribution beyond what the post would normally receive.

Here are 2 good examples of like-baiting:

1. If you run contests on your Facebook page with the following mechanics: “Share and like this post to win a FREE gift”. Be aware that you can no longer ask/require the person to share the contest on their personal timeline.
2. 

Here is the rule quoted directly from Facebook’s page guidelines: 3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries” is not permitted).

How will this affect your Page?

It’s time to get creative with your posts. Share helpful information that your fans will share without you asking for it. Be original – be you!

What do you think of this Facebook update? How will it affect your page? Let me know your thoughts by adding a comment below!

Wowzers!  Keeping up with Facebook can be a full time job and most of you don’t have time to sift through the web to find everything you need when it comes to Facebook marketing and advertising.

You might just have a quick question about Facebook for your business but aren’t sure where to look – this post will give you all of the info you need. It is also going to be PACKED with TONS of Facebook resources you should know so you can maximize your Facebook marketing strategies for your business.

Make sure you bookmark the resources that are most relevant to the information you need for your business related to Facebook

1.  FACEBOOK FOR BUSINESS

This is hands down the best place to go when looking for a Facebook related question.  Whether you’re just getting started or looking to amplify existing efforts, Facebook for Business can help you understand your options and choose the appropriate strategies.  Facebook for Business is the centralized destination for news and information about marketing with Facebook.  If you’re looking for valuable tips on how to optimize your marketing efforts visit Facebook.com/Business.  You can also like their page here Facebook.com/marketing

2.  FACEBOOK STUDIO EDGE

Facebook Studio Edge offers training to help you brush up on your Facebook marketing skills, learn some new ones, and keep up with all the latest from Facebook. You can also earn recognition for your expertise in Pages and Advertising. To learn more, visit : Facebook-studio.com/education. Facebook Studio Edge also highlights different agencies and marketers’ creativity when it comes to Facebook marketing. Here Facebook  recognizes great campaigns from all corners of the world that could help you get inspired: learn fresh ideas and strategies to help strengthen up your brand online.

3.  FACEBOOK AD PRODUCTS AND SPECIFICATIONS

If you want to learn all the options you have to advertise on Facebook, their requirements, best practices and pricing, visit Facebook.com/help/ads/products.

4.  TEXT OVERLAY GRID TOOL

Upload your photos and ad creatives to see if it passes the 20% rule using this tool. It scans the image to make sure that texts in the image only 20% of the image. Too much text for Facebook, will only make it look like it is spam. This encourages people to use the headline and body of your ad to tell people more about why you’re advertising and what you want them to do. Learn more about this here…

5.  FACEBOOK PAGES

A Business page dedicated to give you more tips on utilizing and optimizing your Facebook Business Page. To like Facebook Pages click here…

6.  DEVELOPERS RESOURCE

For tech geeks, get more information on how to build, install and deploy Facebook Apps and Mobile Apps here – developers.facebook.com. You can also head over to the Facebook Developers Blog to read stories behind new features, products and apps on Facebook.

7.  FACEBOOK + COMMERCE

Facebook + Commerce = Helping Commerce partners use Facebook. Learn about best practices and tools to help you increase registration, conversions, and cart size; drive referral traffic; and deepen user insights on your site. Be part of their Facebook community here: www.facebook.com/commerce.

Mashable has written this blog post that will give you an overview of how it works – The Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Commerce.

8.  FACEBOOK LIVE

Facebook Live connects you with some of the top public figures and information about what they’re working on – on and off Facebook. Go to FacebookLive.com to watch live stream events and stay tuned for announcements and Q&As with your favorite celebrities, athletes, musicians, and entertainers. More importantly, watch videos about Facebook updates and announcements.

9.  CONTACT FACEBOOK

Individuals or companies can report any violations of copyright, intellectual property, use of trademarks, abuse here…

10.  FACEBOOK POLICIES

Keep yourself abreast about Facebook’s official guidelines on Ads, Credit Terms, Pages, Platform, Payment Terms, Promotions, etc. Visit www.facebook.com/policies.

Make sure to bookmark these sites for easy access to Facebook tips and information.

Have more Facebook resources I left off the list?  Post them in the comments below!