Decoding the Changing Facebook Algorithms

by with No Comment Social Media

On 12th January, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its newsfeed algorithm so as to favour posts by friends and family, over posts from companies. This is probably one of the largest changes to the Facebook newsfeed and will impact all businesses and force them to rethink their marketing strategies.

Zuckerberg believed that it is necessary that the time his users spent on Facebook, is worthwhile. He used this as a justification to introduce this new touch. “ You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard—it should encourage meaningful interactions between people”, he wrote.

It will be more challenging for companies to reach out to their audience now. Businesses will see a reduction in the organic reach, as the changes are rolled out. Unpaid promotions were never easy, and with Facebook incorporating this new algorithm, it will become all the more difficult. It is still not clear how paid ads will fare, but all in all, this is certainly not a great news for companies, to start the year with.

Yes, public unpaid content will still be available, but it needs to foster discussion among the audience. Facebook will promote content which attracts more comments. Coming up with tactics like ‘Comment on this picture for a free trial’, or in other words using ‘engagement-bait’ may seem like a viable option, but that will only be worse for your business. Facebook demotes such posts in the Newsfeed as it believes that they do not produce any quality interaction, and only lead to spamming of the user’s newsfeed.

Instead, you should look towards ways to create better, and more engaging content for your organic Facebook campaign. You can come with posts which encourage users to share their experiences or ask for their feedback. This will lead to more interaction, in the form of more comments which is exactly what Facebook is looking for. As a company, you need to start thinking from the customer’s perspective and create content which is appealing to them.

 So, what are the key areas in which you should be investing your time and effort, with these changes in the Facebook algorithm? Here are some areas to focus on :

Look out for Paid Ads:  You should look towards increasing your budget on paid ads on Facebook. Zuckerberg hasn’t said anything about paid promotions, but in probability, these will still reach out to the public as before. Unpaid content will be affected.

Create engaging content: Unpaid content that you create should be creative, engaging and lead to discussion among people. This is the only way such posts show up in the newsfeed.

Facebook Live: Videos, especially live videos fare extremely well on Facebook. If you haven’t started using it, this is the right time to do so. The new algorithm will support Facebook Live videos, and these can be used to maximize customer interaction.

Use other platforms: Other social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram if you are not getting favourable results on Facebook. These sites are also becoming popular among the youth and can be used to target your audience.

Why Outsourcing your Social Media Marketing is the Best Thing to do in 2018

by with No Comment Social Media

With most social networking platforms reaching their all-time high figures, in terms of the number of users, Social Media Marketing has undoubtedly become one of the most popular ways of reaching out to your target audience. If done properly, it can provide very high ROI and help shape your brand’s image.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)is very important for your brand and it needs to be done in a proper manner. Many people have this notion that it is an easy task, and the basics of Facebook and Twitter will help them sail through. In reality, it is much more complicated and requires the knowledge of a professional.

SMM is more than just advertising across social channels. It requires the knowledge of various software and apps for managing your marketing campaign. It also demands an ability to create quality content which will be a hit with your target audience. You need a continuous campaign, across various social channels, curated specifically for your target audience.

All this is seldom possible with a small in-house marketing team. They may not be as well equipped with the intricacies of social media marketing. Also, social media is time-consuming and it may not always be possible for them to look into this. As a company which is just starting up, you have numerous other tasks to look after. In such a case, outsourcing your social media marketing will be your best bet. The past year was a huge year for social media, with the number of Facebook users reaching 2 billion, and these figures will continue to grow in 2018. Outsourcing your social media will have the following benefits.

Save Money

If you don’t outsource, you will need to hire a professional. This will probably be more expensive as apart from the salary you will have to look into other benefits and overheads. Working directly with a b2b agency will provide you more value for money. Also, you won’t have to spend on any software, tools or training as they will already be equipped with the same


Expertise

Social media doesn’t just involve sharing posts. It also involves analysing huge amounts of data and figuring out a proper strategy based on the results. Marketing agencies catering to social media will have many experienced members who actually enjoy doing all this.Moreover, tools and technology are developing at a very steep rate and it will be difficult for you to keep up with all this. The coming year might also see newer forms of social media emerging or new advertising formats across channels. All this should be left to the professionals. As stated before, social marketing is not as easy as it appears.

Response Management

If you are busy, there are chances that the queries on social media platforms, by your customers go unattended. This will be better handled by a separate agency. So if you have a product launch or a team outing, you need not worry about your social media presence fading out. Marketing agencies like ours provide continuous solutions and ensure your presence across social channels at all times.

Targeting your audience

If you cannot answer questions like who you are targeting specifically, and where is there presence likely to be found, it is best that a third party handle your social media handles. They will research your target audience, find out how and where to target them and generate leads for your company.

If you are not convinced enough, just have a look at your social media marketing outcomes. Is your in-house marketing team or the underpaid intern able to generate enough leads? If the answer is not satisfactory, you are probably not doing it right and should look towards outsourcing your social media marketing, in the coming year.

7 Hand-picked Digital Marketing Campaigns That Were Savage in 2017

by with No Comment Digital MarketingSocial Media

Digital marketing has become a crucial step towards generating leads and promoting the brand among the audience. The past year had witnessed various innovative digital marketing campaigns. Let us have a look at the six of our top picks, below.

Heineken – Worlds Apart

https://youtu.be/8wYXw4K0A3g

Heineken launched one of the most effective campaigns as of 2017, attracting worldwide acclaim. The 4 and a half minute video demonstrated a social experiment, wherein people were grouped into pairs and each pair was given some furniture to assemble, into a bar counter. Post this, they were shown videos through which it was revealed to them that the person they had been paired with, had vastly contrasting opinions. The feminist had been paired with a man who believed in patriarchy, a climate change denier with an environmentalist and a transgender with a person who did not support this notion. They are then offered an option to walk away or have a discussion over a bottle of beer. All of them choose to do the latter. Though the ending was evident (being an advertising campaign of Heineken beer), the content kept the audience hooked. It had 3 million views, during the first 8 days of its launch and was largely praised for tackling social issues properly, something which the Pepsi ad, launched at the same time, failed to address.

Airbnb – We Accept

Another ad which had the notion of diversity and acceptance, and was a memorable campaign of 2017.The ad depicted faces of people with different nationalities, races and gender, including immigrants, disaster survivors and refugees, along with textual slogans saying  ” No matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love, or who you worship, you deserve to belong,”  The campaign was a direct attack on Trump’s discriminatory immigration policies which had come to light during the same time.

The New York Times – The truth is hard to find

‘The truth is hard to find’ was a full-fledged campaign to showcase the importance of journalism, in today’s era. There were print ads and various versions of short video ads which targeted the liberal audience. The video ads were a series of photos along with a narration by the photojournalists who captured them. Video ads depict extreme conditions including ISIS bombings and Syrian refugees, depicting the hard work and dedication the journalists put in. Simple, yet very effective the NY Times campaign was an instant hit among the viewers.

Apple – Shot on iPhone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUa7YvhUJo

Whether or not you are an Apple lover, you cannot deny the fact that the ‘shot on iPhone’ ad campaigns, made an impact. Among them, ‘The Earth’ ad touched many hearts. With beautiful, high – quality nature-themed photographs, and a narration from the book Pale Blue Dot, this was a reminder of taking our planet more seriously. This was an extremely memorable ad of Apple’s ‘shot on iPhone series’, in the past year.

Worldwide Breast Cancer – Know your lemons

The #KnowYourLemons was a light-hearted campaign which was aimed at spreading awareness about the serious issue of breast cancer. It had a catchy hashtag, and adopted a visual approach, in order to inform women regarding symptoms of breast cancer. The campaign gave women critical information about catching the disease in its early stages, and a common forum at Facebook to discuss issues regarding the same. The pictorial depiction, using a tray of lemons, would even help illiterate women understand the symptoms. This donation campaign became very popular and exceeded their fundraising by 317%.

IKEA – Place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxOvsyNseY

IKEA is an augmented reality brand, which launched an App ‘Place’ utilizing Apple’s ARKit. It lets the user visualize and place furniture in his room ( or any other place), at a real scale. Apart from having some fun placing random furniture here and there, the app actually helped make people sound decisions while buying furniture.The campaign soon became a hit, and the idea appealed to people instantly. IKEA has become one of the leading names in the AR industry, post this ad campaign.

Top 6 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2018

by with No Comment Digital Marketing

Looking back at 2017, it is an undeniable fact that Digital Marketing has grown to new heights. Numerous new technologies and emerging social media platforms have contributed to the development of this sector.

With the advent of new and better automation driven technology, availability of more and more data for better analysis, and a further rise in social media platforms we would be looking towards a more customer-centric approach of marketing, in the near future. Here are some of the top trends to look out for in 2018, in the field of Digital Marketing.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning:

AI and ML  have made their presence felt across several domains, in the past year. Tech-savvy marketers can use AI to for predicting customer behaviour based on data collected from various social media sites, blogs and other platforms. Making better predictions regarding customer choice will allow you to target the consumer in a more personalized manner, and make your ads more effective.
It is essential for a digital marketer to learn about and master the various automation tools that are used in advertising. Automation is the future, and incorporating it into your marketing strategies will only yield positive results.

Credits: http://www.futuretravelexperience.com

Chatbots

Chatbots are artificial intelligence-based virtual assistants which have become largely popular in today’s digital era. They provide the customer with real-time answers to their queries regarding the product. Chatbots are evolving continuously, courtesy the various machine language and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, which they are based on.  These are a fun way to boost consumer interaction. A chatbot engages, entertains as well as retains customers as well as improve social media presence.

Credits: www.slideshare.net

Micro-moments :

We rely heavily on our smartphones for instant information today. We tend to look up what to eat, what to buy, where to go, reflexively on our phones. These are called ‘micro-moments, in which decisions are made at the spur of the moment. It is definitely a field which digital marketers are looking forward to in 2018. Marketers are striving to provide location-specific, relevant user experiences by analysing these micro-moments in depth.

Dark Social

Many times, we share posts or articles privately, i.e not on social media. We copy a URL and send it via messenger apps, or email to others. This is known as Dark Social. These can’t be tracked easily, and are often clubbed together with ‘direct’ traffic by your web analytics team. It is a difficult area to identify and explore, but it holds immense potential. Around 84% of outbound sharing, is done through Dark Social. This is something which should definitely be on the radar of digital marketers in 2018.

Credits: www.medium.com

Video Marketing

Video content is known to provide the best ROI. Apart from video ads, live streaming has also gained momentum. With video formats becoming popular not only across sites like Facebook and YouTube but also across micro-video sharing websites like Instagram and Dubsmash, it has become a very effective means of targeting young audiences.
It is estimated that video content marketing will continue to grow throughout 2018. Social media marketers should lay special focus on live streaming as well.

Personalization

Today simple means of content marketing is not enough and customers want a more personalized approach. E-commerce sites like Amazon, Flipkart etc already use personalized recommendations for their customers. These are much more effective than generic emails sent out to all subscribers. With the increase in automation and predictive analysis, personalized content marketing will be on the rise in the coming year.

 

How to Get Started with Facebook Advertising

by with No Comment Social Media

With a whopping 2.07 billion monthly users as of 2017, Facebook is undoubtedly the largest social media platform currently available. With people all across the world spending more and more time on Facebook, today it has become one of the best means to reach out to the consumer base for your company. Moreover, Facebook ads are extremely targeted and effective, without being too heavy in the pocket. If you have not started using Facebook Ads yet, for your start-up venture, it is high time that you start doing so.

This article walks you through the process of advertising on Facebook, and how to get started with the same.

  1. Navigate to your page and on the right-hand top panel, in the drop-down menu, select Create Ads. This will direct you to the Facebook Ads Manager which looks like this.

    How to get started with Facebook Advertising - digital raffish
  2. Now, you have to choose your marketing objective. This may seem a little intimidating the first time. Hence, it is important for you to research this beforehand and think of your campaigning strategy. Whether you want to just start off by creating a brand awareness, or you are more interested in sales, you should choose your campaign objective wisely. You can hover over each sub-category to know more about it. 
  3. After selecting your campaign strategy, we proceed to the following page, which is concerned with the setting up of your Ad account. You have to fill in your basic account details, like the country, currency and time zone. 

    How to get started with facebook advertising -digital raffish

  4. The next step is a crucial one, which consists of Audience, Placements, Budget schedule and additional fields, depending on your Campaign objective. Audience: Now, it is extremely important to choose your audience carefully. A very generalized idea should not be applied, and you should try to maximise your conversions. Facebook Ads can be made very target specific, thereby leading to huge ROI. Apart from specifying demography like age, gender and languages, you can also choose for a detailed targeting, based on interests.

    Budget, placements and schedule: Next, you choose your daily budget, starting at a minimum of Rs 40 per day. Compared to other social networking ad agencies, Facebook ads, actually are pretty economical.
    As for Placements, it is best to go with the automatic placements, which chooses where to place your ads, based on the target audience chosen. You can also choose to do it manually. You can choose the schedule of airing your ads as well. 

    how to get started with facebook advertising - digital raffish

  5. The next step consists of the format for displaying your ad. You can choose a textual display or a picture or a video or any of the formats Facebook has in store. Make sure the ad is visually appealing, as well as informative at the same time. 

    how to get started with facebook advertising - digital raffish

Additionally, there may be steps where you are prompted to add the URL of your website, or the link of the app that you want users to install. These fields are crucial for converting your audience to customers, and should not be neglected.

After following these steps, your Ad is ready to go live on Facebook. You will have to look into the Facebook Ad reports to find out if you are making any progress. You can use various tools provided by facebook ads manager, in order to know how you have fared. Based on these insights, you can alter the schedule of your ads, make some changes in the target audience fields and adjust your budget in order to maximise your returns.

An effective advertising campaign can do wonders for your company… An average product, with a largely successful marketing campaign, has greater chances of survival than an excellent product, with lousy advertising.Facebook Ads are undoubtedly a great platform for you to expand your business, and if done right, it can be a huge boost to your startup venture.

Decoding the Basics of Advertising on LinkedIn

by with No Comment Social Media

Ever heard of advertising on LinkedIn? If not, give this a read to expand your business or brand by promoting on social media sites and even on LinkedIn which can help you get access and target more employees as well as customers.

There are several types of ads on LinkedIn:

  • Dynamic ads: Such ads pop-up on the right hand-side column, and include display ad unit formats.
  • Display ads: Content is shared within a limited audience.
  • Sponsored content: such content appears in the LinkedIn home-pages of your selected group.
  • Text ads: Such ads are based on texts and show on the right column of the device.
  • Sponsored In Mail: Distributes content which is sponsored directly to user inboxes on LinkedIn.

Target Group

Unlike selecting audience on social networking sites, targeting on LinkedIn is especially beneficial for employees and staff- and industry-specific targeting. There are options for selecting the specific type of people you wish to cater the ad to, according to the industry they are a part of, their work profile and experience, where they work, how successful their employer is and more. Because of this, advertising on LinkedIn is exceptionally effectual for B2B marketing and career and job-associated advertisements.

If the target group you select is either huge or too tiny it may not function well, so check group targeting with a few ads to select one most suitable for you.

Cost

Similarly to Facebook, LinkedIn gives you the option to select whether to pay based on the cost-per-click (CPC) method or by every 1,000 impressions. But, LinkedIn has set the least budget of $10 on a daily basis for each campaign. There are also minimum bids for CPC text ads ($2 per click) and CPM text ads ($2 per 1,000 impressions). Specific Content bids will differ according to the audience you select.

It’s essential that you sincerely think about your goal along with these minimum bids options when creating ads on LinkedIn. These ads ought to be company-focused and career-oriented since Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter offer way low-priced substitutes for content marketing. Experiment a few LinkedIn ads and check if the cost is worth it for your company and industry.

How to buy

The procedure will differ a bit based on the nature of ad you want to use. Let’s focus on ads based on text since they are the easiest and least costly way to get started.

Action 1: Design a new ad

On your LinkedIn home page, linger over the Business Services tab at the top right and select advertise, then scroll down to the bottom and click Create Ad. Then, choose the kind of ad to make. If you don’t have a Company page yet, you’ll be restricted to Text ads.

Action 2: Make your ad

Pick where to connect your ad to, and then include a tiny icon alongside the title and copy. The ad can be previewed in diverse layouts on the right-hand side of the page.

Action 3: Select your target group

Opt for your desired audience by trade, industry, company type, work profile, and more.

Action 4: Financial plan

Decide on your daily funds along with bids, from the options involving paying for clicks or by impressions.

In case you haven’t developed an ad previously, conclude by giving your payment method along with the required bank details. Then evaluate the advertisement and commence your campaign.

With LinkedIn advertising and it’s great targeting methods, get more staff members or employees for your company more easily and in a short duration without wasting time and resources.

Facebook Marketing Tips To Grow Your Business

by with No Comment Digital MarketingSocial Media

Haven’t tried marketing on social media yet? It’s time to shift to Facebook marketing, with methods and tricks which will facilitate your Facebook business page develop, gain new followers while remaining engaged with previous customers.

Facebook Marketing Tips To Grow Your Business

 

  1. Organise a Competition!

    Previously it was mandatory for marketers to employ a third-party application to host FB challenges, however, Facebook in recent times has altered its rules and has started allowing contests to be conducted on Facebook itself. Conducting a bargain or challenge on Facebook has become way simpler and hassle-free!

  2. Focus, Click, YouTube.

    Videos have wild interrelation rates, employ them frequently to grab eyeballs, and positive feedback.

  3. Make it short and snappy.

    Crisp posts are more likely to do as compared to their extended counterparts – it’s suggested that you cut down your words to anywhere between 150 and 300 words to get best possible participation. No one wants to read a book in their News Feed.

  4.  Revise the cover picture.

    Revolutionise your Facebook cover photo to shows people that you are lively and staying relevant. Modernise the cover picture to broadcast/promote an unusual sale or event. It will help get noticed more easily.

  5.  Post regularly and unswervingly.

    As long as the posts are spaced evenly throughout the day, you don’t have to worry about the number of posts. Post more, so that your chances being seen increases. But, keep in mind to pay attention to quality, not quantity.

  6.  Use #tags:

    Facebook has allowed hashtags so put them to use.  Hashtags assist in cataloguing the post’s topic wise, and you can search hashtag words to find out fan interactions you might want to keep up with.

  7.  Pose inquiries!

    Facebook users are keen to voices their opinions. Try including questions or surveys in your posts for attention. Ensure that the questions are simple, people don’t want to fill out forms on Facebook.

  8.  Take part in amusing themed posts:

    Participating in weekly movements like #ThrowbackTuesday, #FlashbackFriday etc and sharing about fun holidays ensures you entertain your fans.

  9.  Post fan-made content.

    Sharing fan-created content is an awesome tactic to boost a sense of belonging to the community. It portrays that you cherish and treasure your fans.  

  10.  Quotes rule.

    Posts containing motivational or life-affirming quotes do very well. For a more added bonus, do a Pinterest-style or WeHeartIt-style image/quote overlay. People are crazy about that stuff! You can also add GIFs.

  11.  Aboard the Meme Train:

    Memes too work on a similar law as quotes, but with auto meme generators they are easier to create. People are obsessed with memes.

  12.  Get users to “vote” or “choose” with the reaction buttons.

    People love to state their views and beliefs on social media. Get them to choose option A or option B or more, with a vote for An as a “Like” and a vote for B with a “Love” and so on with the other reaction options. You’ll get increased engagement and popularity.

With these tips, rest assured your business will reach great heights!

Source- The WordStream Blog

To Resist Or Persist Attribution?

by with No Comment Digital Marketing

Leads and conversion on our websites are golden, so to whom do you attribute these little nuggets of gold? 

Last touch?  First Touch (if you could ever know what that is)…. One day? Seven Days? Last Year? Or do you abdicate your own POV to Google?

After all Google Analytics is easy to sell internally to cross-functional peers. Unless your communication plan is exclusively through Google – Google analytics attribution will not be enough.

Historically marketers have not been known as analytical numbers folks. However, as our craft has gone digital we can now attribute very crisp returns on our investments and evolve from an expense line on the P&L to a profit center. However, there is still an art to the math. Since consumers do not live in one “channel” of communication, we cannot attribute a single channel of communication for all the site traffic or sales. This leaves us the responsibility of creating unique attribution models appropriate to specific campaigns.

For example, You launch a new product on the Rachel Ray show. During the show, you tweet to your followers big thanks to Rachel Rayfor supporting your launch. Your site has been optimized so that search will bring your product up to the top of the search organically, as well as, sponsored search to be guarantee first position.  Pinterest has boards showing all the uses of this product and is now trending. Facebook live video aired from the Rachel Ray green room by your social media manager. There are also several affiliate marketing sites supporting your product launch. Who do you attribute the site visits and sales this week when you report back into the cross-functional team about the amazing success of your first week in the market?

brandymybiz - persist or resist attribution

Here is where persistence versus resistance is critical to maximizing the success of your product launch. Not every communication vehicle will be equally valuable, and this is where the real art of our craft begins. What do you dial up and what do you dial back? Persistent marketers will immediately start playing with the dials and watch daily, weekly and monthly impacts of all your channels to see where traffic and engagement are active. There is also a need to believe in your gut and if one channel is suffering, don’t assume it is the channel but more likely your execution in that channel. Test different target definitions. Test different content.

Be authentic to the channels and don’t be lazy with the same content plastered on all channels. “Consumer Speak” search terms are rarely a headline for a social post, so I’m sure you aren’t mixing those two, right?
Be persistent with our communication craft and take the attribution data from all the different channels not as a go/no go directive, but as a gauge for changing the dials to optimize and keep the traffic coming and converting.

Rebecca Fretty

President & CMO, PinkImperfection