facebook marketing Archives

Facebook’s New ‘Business Recommendations’

October 25, 2018/by Corey Padveen

Facebook reviews have become increasingly important for both small and large businesses.

In 2017, 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. Meanwhile, 88% of consumers said that they trust online reviews as much as they would trust a personal recommendation. With the decline of Yelp due to their inaccurate review filtering system, more and more people are turning to Facebook for reviews. In a survey of over 2000 internet users, 49% said they had visited Facebook to check online reviews for a local business.

Recently, Facebook has been testing Recommendations: a new feature which may be replacing reviews on Facebook Business Pages. These changes come after many Facebook review issues saw business owners write false negative reviews on a competitors Facebook business page or the opposite where owners will write false positive reviews on their own page. With Recommendations comes a few important changes which may change the rating score of many businesses.

Facebook will now be tracking recommendations and opinions about a business even if they are not posted directly to the business’s Facebook page. When users write their opinion about the business, they will have the option to either recommend or not recommend the business. If the post is public, Facebook will consider it as a feedback about that business and will gauge the sentiment of the post to determine the rating which the business will receive. The rating, previously between 1-5, has increased to rank businesses between 1 and 10.

Facebook has also added the ability for users to post photos or gifs alongside their review. These will be displayed in the recommendations section of a business’s Facebook page. This may add to the overall experience and the quality of Facebook reviews by helping to get a user’s message across.

The final change made to Facebook business pages is the introduction of tags. Using recurring words from past reviews, Facebook will recommend tags (similar to hashtags) which will be suggested to users who are writing a review directly on a business page. This will make it quicker and easier for users to leave reviews and may bring more consistency to the wording of reviews.

These small changes may make a large impact on small and large businesses who can only hope that Facebook will properly implement their new Recommendations section. These changes will also hopefully show a more honest overall sentiment of a business while improving the quality and the number of reviews on Facebook. To continue to compete with Google, Facebook must continue to innovate on the business side of their platform.

Facebook’s Recent Platform Changes Explained

August 9, 2018/by Corey Padveen

This week, Facebook decided to relax its cryptocurrency ad ban. In doing so, they added new regulations to assure that any cryptocurrency company who advertises on the platform is legitimate.

Facebook will now be performing background checks and reviewing licenses before allowing cryptocurrency companies to advertise. This is one of many changes Facebook has made to their platform over the past few months. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March of 2018, Mark Zuckerberg vowed to improve the safety of Facebook user information. In doing so, many changes were made to the social media and ad platform. The following changes show Facebook’s attempt to regain the trust of their online community and improve the transparency of their platform.

Ad targeting

As of September 30th, advertisers will no longer be able to target Facebook users by a number of currently available targeting metrics. Facebook will be removing all targeting data from third-party databases such as Oracle. In doing so, Facebook ads will lose many powerful targeting options. These options include targeting by net worth, income, and various purchase behaviors. This may turn out to be a big loss for Facebook in the long run as advertisers will have a more difficult time reaching their audience. It may cause them to consider switching to Google Ads or Amazon Ads.

Simplified Privacy

Facebook has simplified the option to customize profile privacy settings. Users can now access a privacy shortcut menu where they and choose who can see their profile information, and which information can be used for Facebook ads. The new option to turn on two-factor authentication can also help further secure your account. On top of this, Facebook will be updating its service and data policy to ensure a better understanding between Facebook and its community. The company plans on continuing to show users how and why their data is being used and what they can do if they aren’t comfortable with certain data being shared.

Ad Transparency

Ad transparency is another important feature added by Facebook in recent months. Users can now view any active ads running from a Facebook page, they can filter ads based on country, and can report an ad if they deem it inappropriate or offensive. This doesn’t only add a level of transparency for users. It can also help businesses keep track of their competitors marketing initiative, and may help small business find inspiration for their marketing campaigns. On top of ad transparency, users will now be able to view the info of any Facebook page to see the creation date as well as any name changes the page has made.

Facebook has been making impressive changes to their platform to improve the safety of user information as well as the transparency of their ads. These changes are reassuring after a breach of trust between Facebook and its community but may come at a cost to the social media giant (Facebook stock dropped 19% after announcing their Q2 results and projections) and may significantly lower the quality of Facebook as an ad platform. Hopefully, Facebook can find a way to stay transparent and honest while continuing to grow their amazing community.

The Most Important News from Facebook’s F8 Keynote

April 19, 2016/by Corey Padveen

There is a lot to look forward to in Facebook’s future, as evidenced by the Facebook F8 keynote.

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg delivered the keynote address at the Facebook F8 summit and shed some light on what the future has in store for the social networking giant. (It should be noted that at this point Facebook is a giant in many – if not most – respects, and not only when it comes to social networking.)

The Age of Spiritual Machines

So maybe we haven’t yet reached that fateful period that Ray Kurzweil has prophesied, but Facebook has certainly taken a step in that direction by embracing bots (and a form of artificial intelligence) when it comes to brand engagement on Messenger.

The idea behind automated interaction like this is to improve the distribution and engagement with brand content (and other content from around the web). At first – as with all things that are unfamiliar to us – it will likely feel like an intrusion. As these bots adapt to your tastes and mold to your Facebook engagement habits (not to mention the improvements that will surely come) it will certainly reach a point where it passes a Turing Test.

Following the announcement, two big content distributors – Business Insider and The Wall Street Journal – announced the launch of their bots, and those brands using this service has only increased since then. We can surely expect to see brands (of all sizes) start to embrace this service in the near future, if for no other reason than to test its capabilities.

Sharing Text Just Got Easier

You’re reading a book, you see a quote that inspires you, it’s time to share. Now, that process (which was pretty easy to begin with) just got easier.

Now when you see text in an integrated app (Amazon Kindle will feature this soon) that you would like to share, you can simply highlight it and choose to share it to Facebook. Sure, the aesthetics of a beautiful sunset setting the backdrop for some inspirational text might still be preferable, but who knows where this option might go from a creative angle. That might be phase two.

For now, sharing text is a click away.

Streaming Coming Up in a Big Way

Facebook is making an even bigger play in live streaming content. In their ten year roadmap, their connectivity focus includes plenty of drone, 3D, 360 and live streaming elements.

There has been a lot of excitement and hype around the live streaming space. That’s exacerbated by the fact that Facebook has been putting plenty of weight on content that is live streamed in its News Feed algorithm. But if we were to imagine live streaming on the Gartner Hype Cycle (shown below) where would it fall?

Realistically, we would probably see live streaming between the Peak of Inflated Expectations and the Trough of Disillusionment. Yes, there are undoubtedly applications and yes it is an exciting new field as far as content delivery goes, but it still has yet to find a balance. That said, it is easy to understand why Facebook is putting a lot of weight behind it.

Better Bookmarking

Lastly (at least lastly for this article, but there is plenty more to catch up on) Facebook is venturing into the bookmarking space in a more robust way. Every day, more and more people are using Facebook to digest news content. A lot of what was discussed in Facebook’s F8 keynote was news-related.

Bookmarking is another way that Facebook is trying to extend its value to consumers. Bookmarking and better segmenting the content you see is an area where Facebook offers little right now. That’s going to change as they extend how bookmarking on the platform works, and what benefits there are to using it.

Conclusion

A lot was announced by Facebook, which is nothing new. Every day, there are plenty of great innovations coming out of the social networking behemoth. It’ll be exciting to watch how they approach (and adhere to) their ten year roadmap.

3 Steps for Optimizing Your Facebook Ad Scheduling

March 30, 2015/by Corey Padveen

With Facebook ad scheduling now easier than ever, these are the steps you need to follow to do it right.

Nobody likes wasting money. So when you’re running an ad campaign, the last thing you want to see is your ad spend draining while no one is actively engaging with your content.

With Facebook’s updated scheduling capabilities, that no longer has to be the case. There are three steps that any Facebook advertiser needs to follow in order to successfully leverage the capabilities and maximize the impact of your budget.

Step 1: Review Your Page Insights

On your Facebook Page insights, you’ll find that under the Posts tab there is a treasure trove of valuable information about your audience.

Select first the ‘When Your Fans Are Online’ tab, and then begin to review when your audience is most active. Keep in mind that all of these data are going to be registered in your computer’s timezone. Look to see what days have the highest volume of active audience members, and what hours of the day present a great opportunity to capture their attention.

Step 2: Set a Lifetime Budget

In order to utilize Facebook ad scheduling in its current form, you’ll need to determine a lifetime budget for your campaign as opposed to a daily budget.

Consider how much you would like to invest in the campaign and determine how long you would like the campaign to run.

Step 3: Choose When to Show Your Ads

Using the Facebook ad scheduling feature (shown below) it is easy to determine the exact times that you would like to show your ads to the desired audience.

Identifying (through the use of your Posts data in your insights) when your audience is most active, and when the largest segments of your audience are online, you can limit wasted ad spend that is not being shown to a maximum number of possible users at a given point in time.

This is a fairly simple process but it can do wonders for improving the performance of your ads and the optimization of your ad budget.

Give it a try and let us know how it works!

8 Important Facebook Mobile Stats and What They Mean for Your Business

March 3, 2014/by Corey Padveen

The importance of Facebook mobile for business has grown considerably with the increasing popularity of the app.

One of the most fascinating realities of the digital marketing world is the rate at which it evolves. It wasn’t long ago that Facebook and MySpace were the only two ‘networks’ out there as we understand the term today. The idea of connecting on mobile devices was an afterthought at best. Today, Facebook mobile is becoming exceedingly important to business, and the proof is in the numbers. Below are a few of the most impressive (and shocking) statistics when it comes to Facebook mobile with some explanation as to how these numbers relate to your business.

1. There are 945 million monthly active users (MAU) on the Facebook mobile app.

That means that nearly every Facebook user is taking advantage of the network on-the-go. In today’s mobile business landscape, your brand cannot afford to be stagnant. You need to travel with your Facebook audience and appeal to them with mobile friendly content (i.e. responsive and short).

2. There are 8,400 Facebook advertisers on mobile.

This is a huge opportunity! There are over 25 million businesses with registered pages on Facebook and on the website, there are only a million advertisers. That’s roughly 4%. If you think that is a big opportunity, consider how few advertisers there are competing for attention on mobile!

3. There was an 89% increase in the usage of Facebook Messenger among teens (16-19) in 2013.

To anyone that tells you Facebook is losing its teen demographic, refer them to this statistic. The popularity of Facebook among teens still exists, it is just evolving as the nature of teen engagement does: moving to mobile.

4. 927 million hours are spent every month on Facebook apps and games by Facebook mobile users.

Are you a game or app developer, or are you considering gamification for your brand? Then you should probably consider spending some time focusing solely on Facebook mobile apps. Why? Because people are spending over an hour per month, on average, playing games on Facebook mobile. In an age where it is hard to keep someone’s attention for more than eight seconds that’s quite an achievement.

5. There are 556 million daily active users (DAU) on Facebook mobile.

Consider this: if you have a mobile ready blog that you share across your social networks every day, there are 556 million people that can be targeted through social ads on Facebook mobile to read your article.

6. Your content is twice as likely to be shared or clicked on a mobile device than it is on a desktop.

The world is full of distractions and perhaps the greatest distraction of all is in the palm of your hand. Think about your daily activity on your mobile device; you are probably liking pictures on Instagram, liking status updates and re-tweeting great content on Twitter. Well, when you share content to Facebook mobile, users are, as with anything on mobile, twice as likely to engage with it than they are on a desktop.

7. 60.3% of social sharing on mobile devices can be attributed to Facebook.

Massive engagement is generated from Facebook mobile. Of all the social networks on which people can share content, Facebook is the most active. If you are trying to reach a broader audience and expand your mobile presence on social media, there are few options better than Facebook.

8. 45% of social logins are through Facebook.

If you require a login on your mobile site or app, make sure there is an option for social logins. People simply want to press a button and have their Facebook account connected to an app as opposed to creating an account. This is also beneficial when it comes to targeting your content strategy, as you will have far more insight into your engaged audience (through Facebook).

How do you leverage the power of Facebook mobile for your branding and content strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter! (Stats courtesy of ShareThis, TechInAsia, Facebook, Venture Beat, AllFacebook)

How to Look at Post Details on Facebook [VIDEO]

January 17, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Your post details on Facebook can give you some tremendous insights into the success of your Facebook marketing.

When it comes to marketing on Facebook, the network has come a long way. That’s not surprising, considering it is now a public company and needs to provide value to the businesses that use it.

That said, Facebook is constantly going through changes – some more drastic than others – and it is not always easy to keep up.

One of the great features that Facebook provides for marketers is the ability to look at post details on Facebook to see exactly what your audience is doing when they come across and engage with your content.

Superficially, it’s a simple feature. But when you tie it into some of the great data that Facebook Insights provides, it can be extremely valuable.

Have a look at the video below and see for yourself why the ability to look at your post details on Facebook can be a great asset when marketing your brand on the world’s largest social network.

Why Your Facebook Posts Organic Reach is Down

December 19, 2013/by Corey Padveen

A lot of brands have noticed that their Facebook posts organic reach is down and many are asking why.

More and more, brands are noticing that their Facebook posts organic reach is down, and continuing to drop. This is not the first time companies have noticed a dip in reach and engagement, but there is something unique about this change: Facebook is acknowledging it.

Yes, it’s true. The reach of your page posts is not going to be quite as far without some financial stimulation. After all, Facebook is a business with a valuation roughly ten times its revenue, and they are going to have to find a way to even that out. So what is their answer? Make brands pay for their marketing efforts.

What is happening?

About a year ago, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm underwent some changes and brands started to see a decrease in reach. According to Facebook, this was their way of providing people with the best possible experience and removing spam from individuals’ news feeds. This time around, Facebook is being much more blunt about what they are doing.

It is no secret that brands use Facebook for marketing efforts. Sure, the approach on the network is a much softer sell than say, on their website. But still, Facebook is a marketing and advertising medium, and the social network realizes that. So, another recent overhaul of the Facebook algorithm has resulted in this: brands have to pay to play.

The paradise of ‘free’ (and I use that word very lightly) marketing is over. With over a billion users, Facebook is no longer letting brands access these pools of potential customers without paying for permission. In a recent publication by Facebook, it was revealed that brands are going to need to consider investing in the network in order to reach fans in their news feeds.

Why are brands upset?

This is pretty clear. Brands have spent a tremendous amount of time and resources building loyal fanbases. Now, Facebook is telling them that that they are going to have to pay to reach that audience.

So naturally, companies are asking, “What was the point of building up my audience if I was just going to have to pay for people to see my content?” Well, that’s a fair point. But there are certain benefits to advertising that very few brands have taken advantage of to date; they’re going to have to now.

What’s so great about advertising?

Facebook advertising offers a whole selection of great targeting options. In addition to the usual demographics, brands can also choose to target users by device (FYI, mobile is the way to go), pages liked and even interests!

Even if you had built a large audience on Facebook, you still would not have been able to specifically target these users. All you could do was post to your page and hope for the best.

What’s more, advertising on Facebook is still very inexpensive. Currently, only 4% of companies on Facebook are leveraging the power of ads. Facebook needs to keep them affordable if they want people to take advantage of them. So, before prices skyrocket (look at Google AdWords for competitive categories) your brand should take advantage of the great advertising platform.

Have you noticed a drop in your Facebook posts organic reach? Tell us if you plan on advertising in the comments below or on Twitter!

What You Need to Know About Instagram Direct and Snapchat

December 16, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Late last week, Instagram launched Instagram Direct and now the world wants to know how it compares to Snapchat.

Instagram Direct comes just a short while after Snapchat turned down Facebook’s almost surreal offer of $3 billion. Well, if Snapchat thought they were holding all the cards, it seems as though they never considered Facebook’s contingency plans.

Instagram, as we all know, is a mobile photo-sharing app. Originally, users could tag friends in captions and make their profiles private. This was the only way to privatize the public network. Now, with Instagram Direct, users have the ability to send pictures to a select group of friends that only they can see. Sound familiar?

Well, if it does, that’s because the premise is very similar to Snapchat’s model. The difference rests in the fact that Snapchat’s appeal is the disappearing nature of images sent. They will only stick around for at most ten seconds (or thirty, if you are using the Story function). However, Instagram offers a few things that Snapchat does not and vice versa.

The Similarities

When one looks at Instagram Direct, it is clear that the feature was designed to compete directly with Snapchat. Users can take pictures, select a group of friends with whom to share the images, reply to images shared and filter their friends lists with both services.

The popularity of visual content is no secret. (There is a reason why Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion and offered Snapchat $3 billion.) Offering users a way to communicate with pictures? Priceless. It makes sense that apps like Instagram and Snapchat are so popular. But it is the differences that will determine a winner in this battle for photo-conversing supremacy.

The Differences

Snapchat images disappear. That is perhaps the biggest appeal of the app. You can feel safe knowing that any picture you take will disappear from viewers’ sight in at most ten seconds. With Instagram Direct, images will remain archived in a conversation. The benefit here is that Instagram Direct is designed for an actual, ongoing conversation to take place between a select group of friends either through comments of shared images. On Snapchat, images might be fun to share, but there is no way to like them, comment on them or maintain an ongoing conversation without simply sending a disappearing image back to the original sender.

As for editing, Snapchat allows users to post comments directly on an image and draw with their fingers. Instagram Direct allows for filters to be applied (as with traditional Instagram photos) and captions to be written. Once again, in terms of a conversation, Instagram opens up the possibility of conversing either through images or written responses. Snapchat, on the other hand, relies on a user responding with an image.

Snapchat is still ad-free and that makes people happy. Instagram has started sharing ads, and that makes people sad. (Or mad, if you have had a chance to read some of the comments.) But the reality of the situation is that these apps are businesses. Billion-dollar businesses need revenues. Ads generate revenues. Apps need ads. Snapchat had the option of remaining ad-free (for now) and integrating with Facebook as a free feature of the network. They chose to decline the acquisition request and are now left to figure out how revenues will be generated. Instagram will presumably make its money from ads on the public feeds, and Instagram Direct will remain ad-free so that friends can have uninterrupted conversations while staying on the network.

The Winner?

Time will tell.

Snapchat might see this move as an attempt by Facebook to quash the photo-sharing app after they rejected their offer. At least, that is how they will see it for now. Hundreds of millions of snaps might be sent every day on Snapchat, but you have to wonder if the investors that just fed Snapchat with another $50 million are a little nervous now that they see this new feature on Instagram. There is no revenue being generated by Snapchat and now there is what appears to be a very serious competitor emerging.

Do you use Snapchat? Do you plan on using Instagram Direct? Why or why not? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Why You Need to Focus on Facebook Mobile

December 5, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Facebook mobile is now more important than ever, and your strategy needs to incorporate Facebook mobile in a number of ways.

It is no surprise that Facebook mobile is now among the most important focal points of a successful social business strategy. Over 70% of Facebook’s users are accessing the network through a mobile device, and an increasing proportion of Facebook users are now only accessing the network via their mobile devices.

In order to capture the attention of this large and continually growing audience, you need to incorporate Facebook mobile into your strategy in a big way.

Some Interesting Facts About Facebook Mobile

A recent study by Shareaholic has revealed some very impressive data with regards to the importance of Facebook mobile.

In the last year, the referrals generated from Facebook (for businesses) have grown by 58.81% (year-over-year). How did they do this? Mobile.

As the chart below shows, referrals from mobile devices have increase a whopping 253.25% in the past year! What’s more the study finds that more than half of Facebook’s referral traffic growth has been the direct result of mobile activity.

As more and more people rely on their smartphones for everything from phone calls to everyday business and social use, the importance of a mobile component to your social strategy increases.

Below are a few ways you can take advantage of this growing trend and capitalize on the value of Facebook mobile referral power.

Create Mobile-Specific Ads

There exist some incredible features on the Facebook advertising platform that so few businesses are taking advantage of.

When you create a Facebook ad, you have the ability to target your ads to mobile devices. What’s more, you can specify the type of mobile device being used. Now, if you pay attention to your Google Analytics, and see that a large proportion of your mobile audience is coming from iOS, you know that you can create an ad on Facebook that targets only users with an iPhone! (Yes, this is actually something you can do.)

All it takes is a little tweaking and you will be able to really boost your success with Facebook ads click-through rates.

Create Mobile-Friendly Content

This is really more about creating content that is Facebook-friendly. Writing a long-winded story as a post is going to be annoying enough as it is for your fans on their desktop. Imagine how much more frustrated they would be if they had to scroll past in on their mobile devices as well. And do you expect anyone to click on images and see the full thing if it does not simply show up on their mobile News Feed? Probably not.

People want something fast and easy – that goes double for mobile users. Your content should have a clear message delivered fast and in an easy-to-view way. This way, you can encourage your mobile fans to click on links and read more if they are interested.

Share From Your Device

If you are using Facebook as a business – or even as a professional – then you should be using it to share content from your device. Post to your page from your mobile phone and check in at different locations. Generally, this increases engagement with your mobile audience, and should certainly be tried. This tactic also helps humanize your brand, and helps users relate to your company on a more personal level.

Try out some of these pointers and see if you can start capitalizing on the huge surge in mobile referral traffic from Facebook!

Do you access Facebook on your mobile device? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

3 Great Features on the New Facebook Insights [VIDEO]

November 30, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Tag Archive for: facebook marketing

Facebook’s New ‘Business Recommendations’

Facebook reviews have become increasingly important for both small and large businesses.

Facebook’s Recent Platform Changes Explained