Social Media Advertising: What You Need to Know

 Social Media is constantly evolving, sometimes this works in businesses' favor and sometimes against. Facebook’s latest move to decrease organic reach is a blow to many marketers but it should also be a wake up call – get ready for pay to play. I liken it to when one airline charges for baggage, opening the flood gates for others to do the same. Pretty soon all networks will require some sort of ad spend, and for those who want to stay in the game they’ll need to learn the basics of social media ad buying. After all...what’s the point in creating content that nobody sees?

-          Facebook: The Promoted Post versus the Like Ad. Facebook offers several different type of ad campaigns but at the heart of it all the ads either work to drive people to your page to become a fan or to increase the reach of your content.

• The Promoted Post: Use this ad when you want to get relevant content in front of fans and non-fans – a special deal on your burger, a new product you are rolling out or a service you want to highlight. This type of ad helps drive action. Think of it as a more short-term play and remember you can leverage the data Facebook has on its users to reach people who haven’t even liked your page. Be sure to set the right interests to get the most out of your promoted post ad budget. If you are going to interrupt someone's newsfeed you better make it relevant.
• The Like Ad: This ad is becoming less useful as the game has changed with the decrease in organic reach. However the Like Ad may still be good for general mass awareness - (ie) here’s what my company does versus here is a specific deal. If Facebook changes the game again and increases organic reach, the number of acquired fans may become more important once again. You just never know.

-          Twitter – Twitter follows Facebook’s lead when it comes to advertising offering similar products to the Promoted Post and Like Ad.

• Promoted Tweet: Much like a promoted post on Facebook a promoted tweet is best used for a specific call to action, a more short term play. Use a promoted tweet to drive traffic to a website or to promote a contest, for example. This ad function basically tells a user – we want you to pay attention to (insert marketing program) now, and we’re willing to pay to get it in front of you. You can promote a tweet to followers and non-followers. Remember to select the right interests and demos to keep it relevant though.
• Promoted Account: This is comparable to a Like Ad and is a long-term play. Get people to follow you and they will see your content on an ongoing basis. Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn't have immediate plans to limit reach to a brand’s followers. That could always change as Twitter and Facebook morph more and more into the same type of network, but for now your tweets go uncensored.

Both of these ad platforms are self-service. The two musts for setting up an ad buy:  1. Access - you must be an admin of the Facebook page or have the username/password to the Twitter account in order to run a campaign. 2. Payment – You need to have a credit card tied to that specific account (for Facebook this is set up through your personal account, for Twitter it is through the brand’s page). More tips to come…what questions do you have about social media advertising?

Know How Technology Works

When driving North on I-65 I came across two billboards each a mile apart. The first was for a local mom and pop diner. On it was a picture of food and a call to action - the restaurant's phone number. From what I could tell it wasn't the type of joint you would need to call ahead for a reservation, so why was the phone number featured so prominently?The second billboard was for Burger King. It also had an image of food but in big bold letters it read: Turn right at the next exit. Followed by an arrow. Burger King nailed it. Granted they probably had a support of a large agency,  but they clearly understood how the medium (a billboard in this case) worked.

Whether it's a poorly placed QR code or a text heavy Facebook post, people often fail to think about how the medium is being used by their customer. Here are two key questions to ask yourself when developing a campaign:

1. What is the information your customer needs to know?

2. What is the best way to deliver that information on the particular medium you are using?

If you are using mobile use wide ranging methods to reach your customer -  less QR codes and Apps and more use of mobile web and SMS. Mobile search is often searching "in the moment" or "on the go." What types of information would your customers need to know as they are heading out to shop, eat, etc?

If you are using social be conscious of which platform you are using. Twitter behaves differently than Facebook which behaves differently than Pinterest. Make sure you are in the right space to reach your customers. On social media, what social currency can you give your followers so they'll help spread the word? Maybe it's a coupon, maybe a recipe or perhaps a bit of trivia. Think about information that is interesting and useful for your fan base while still helping you achieve your business goals.

No matter what the medium, it's important to understand how people are using it and to identify the critical information they need so you can make a sale. Sometimes it's as simple as a big yellow arrow pointing toward your next Whopper.

Optimizing Facebook Ads

I have to admit...I was a bit hesitant about sponsored stories ads on Facebook. Wouldn't you want a compelling line of copy (even if it is only a few characters long) and your picture of choice in your ad? That way you could ensure you'd win people over as customers and fans. But alas, much like everything else in social you have to shove your ego aside and give people what they want...which isn't your copy writing genius.Having hosted ad campaigns for a variety of businesses large and small, I can tell you what works best over and over again. It's the sponsored story.

There's something about the personal recommendation that is far more legit than any ad copy you or I could write.  And I've seen it not just perform better once or twice. It's every time, most of the time performing 10X better than a standard Facebook display ad. (I usually always run them side by side, just to be certain).

It's essentially word of mouth marketing, but you don't have to wait for someone to tell their friends because sponsored stories do it for you.  For example, when you like Nike's page it goes into the newsfeed once. It's up to Nike then to pour a few dollars into a sponsored story ad campaign to make that "Like" work as hard as possible. Now that "Like" is being shown to all of your friends multiple times a day in the form of a sponsored story ad. Good news for Nike, especially if you're an influencer among your circle of friends. If you want the biggest bang for your buck on Facebook ads, go sponsored stories and save your copy writing skills for another day. It took me awhile to become a believer, but I got there eventually. You should too.

$50 Facebook Ad Experiment - Small Businesses

I've worked with global brands who have spent six figures on Facebook advertising and seen great results, but what about a small budget for a small business? Here's what happened when I invested $50 on a Facebook ad for my company Go Social, a Louisville, Ky based communications agency.The Set Up: Creating the Ad

Some will disagree but I find the Facebook Ad system fairly easy and intuitive to use. There are multiple ways to get to the ad system - I went to my company page and clicked the Create an Ad link on the right hand side.

When you get to the Ad page the first step is to create the actual ad. Facebook will ask you to choose the page or insert a url that you want the ad to drive to  (this is super important to get right because that's where people who click on your ad end up).

Choose Sponsored Story or Facebook Ad. Sponsored Stories pulls in fan activity from the newsfeeds and serves it up in an ad. If you have a small fan base and your goal is to get new fans or awareness I would keep it simple and go Facebook Ad, which are the standard ads you see on the sides of your page.

In terms of where you should send the people, I would choose Wall or Default (which is most likely your Wall). Really not sure why you would spend money on an ad to drive people to your photos tab or discussions page. I would guess most advertisers want more fans, in which case the Wall is probably your best bet.

I would put your logo or an image of your product as the picture. Remember the space is small so the more simple the picture the better. I went with my logo because it is bright and colorful, and I was hoping it would attract attention.

Facebook will put your page name as the Title. In a larger ad buy you can alter this and get more creative with the Title, guess that's one of the perks. For the body text you need to keep it simple as you only have 135 characters.

Tip: Tell people what's in it for them. My end goal was to get people to like the page so I could continue the conversation with 2 - 3 posts showing up in their newsfeeds a week. I could have said, hey hire me as your social media agency, but that's a bit obnoxious and unless someone was specifically in that moment looking for an agency, they probably wouldn't like the ad.  Instead I said let me help you keep up to date with social media trends.

The next step is Targeting. I narrowed my audience finally settling on the following: live within 50 miles of Louisville, Ky., 30 years or older, college graduate, English-speaking and not already a fan of Go Social on Facebook. Again, if your goal is getting new fans, make sure you aren't serving up ads to people who are already fans as it's a waste of money.

I played around with other attributes targeting people's interests - like social media and small business owner - but it narrowed the field too much.  I've worked on other ad buys which were too targeted and Facebook was unable to deliver enough impressions for the budget.

Lesson: Be smart about your targeting, pick the things that really matter. In my case, I wanted to make sure that I was reaching people in Louisville that were in a position where they may influence marketing departments or own a small business themselves. I wasn't interested in reaching people right out of college.

Budget/Distribution

Having worked on previous campaigns I've found you get more bang for your buck if you run your ad over a short time period. The idea is to take advantage of the social newsfeed aspect - more people seeing "so and so" liked Go Social in their newsfeed, the more likely they are to recall it and possibly like the page themselves. I ran my ad from 7 am on Thursday to 7 am on Saturday. Facebook will spread the money out over that period based on a bidding system. Every time someone clicks on your ad, you get charged. Remember though, you set the ultimate limit in terms of total money spent, so no big surprise bill at the end.

The Results

Long story short I received 164K impressions from my ad. Sounds impressive but I was less excited about impressions and more interested in the actual likes. If your goal is awareness then 164K impressions for $50 is pretty good. My goal was to get more likes so I could continue the conversation on a regular basis and stay top of mind over a longer period of time.

I had 45 people click my ad and out of that number 15 people actually liked my page. As a result of those 15 people liking my page I got an additional 3 people who liked the page because they saw it in their friends' newsfeeds. So 18 fans for $50 which means I paid about $2.77 for each new fan.  Not bad. Prior to the ad buy I was averaging 8 new fans a month, so you could say $50 bought me two months worth of fans.

I researched advertising in a local paper and rates for a fairly small ad that would run in the back of the paper, surrounded by other ads, ran around $150.  While that price did buy me a month's worth of exposure, I still find great value in getting into someone's newsfeed, especially knowing the average Facebook user has 130 friends.

Was it worth it? We'll see if any new business results, but for $50 I felt I got a good deal of exposure and 18 people who (fingers crossed) will help me spread the word to their friends.