Posted by: Micah Pratt, Director of Social Networking R&D
The 2012 presidential election will be like one never experienced before. Social networking sites are playing a role in these elections that wasn’t imaginable four years ago by hosting debates, facilitating the political conversation and connecting candidates with voters in the digital world. Here is an article from CMO.com, written by Kim Soth, senior vice president of business development & marketing at Jennings Social Media Marketing, on how to get Facebook ads to work in your favor.
Five Ways to Make Facebook Ads Work For You
There is much talk in social-media circles about how to build your audience organically and that, for the most part, it is the best way to build an audience. It is certainly a good way, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. We suggest that if you are a new company or are launching a product, you can do a great job of building fans with Facebook ads, which offer a great alternative to your marketing strategy. What’s more, Facebook ads are not nearly as complex as Google AdWords—but don’t let the simplicity fool you. For our campaigns we’ve found that Facebook ads, on average, deliver a higher click-through rate than Google AdWords.
For example, we were brought in to help promote a senatorial race. After a month of struggling to gain fans on Facebook, we eventually doubled the candidate’s fans in a week by running ads: We picked up 1,500 fans for a total cost of around $1,000.
So if you think this strategy might be for you, here are five tips that will help you make Facebook ads work for your campaigns.
1. It’s about testing. Always run multiple ads targeting the same “Likes and Interests,” and keep your Likes and Interests the same while testing different ad copy, headlines, or images. What needs to remain the same as your control for a general test is your Likes and Interests keywords. You can test many controls, but the simplest is Likes and Interests. Facebook targets audiences off of two variables: Users and Likes and Interests: If you change these in two different ads, then you don’t have an apples-to-apples test.
2. Likes and Interests matter. Likes and Interests are essentially keywords you are targeting for your campaign based on what shows up for a user. You don’t want to use random Likes and Interests keywords. To make Likes and Interests work for you, it’s important to target based on what is associated with that individual in some way—associations they belong to, things they like, where they work, what they are fans of, or what they’ve written on their walls.
It’s is important not to get carried away and add a hundred Likes and Interests keywords just because it’s cool to see the numbers of possible audience continue to rise. It would seem that big numbers of audience is a good idea, but it’s actually counterintuitive. You want to choose highly targeted Likes and Interests keywords that are tightly associated with your ad copy. Don’t choose a keyword just because of its audience reach. You want to make sure it matches everything you know about the ad copy. Just because someone rides a motorcycle doesn’t mean he is interested in a Harley. One person might buy sports bikes, another might buy BMW motorcycles, while another might be really into Harleys. So it does no good to blast all of them with a message about Harley gear.
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October 21, 2011 | Categories: Blogged, Blogging, Facebook, Google, Mobile Marketing, SEO, Smartphones, SMS, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | Tags: 2012 candidates, 2012 election, 2012 elections, advertising facebook, advertising on facebook, blog marketing, business marketing, election, election 2012, election date, election day, election news, election of 2012, election poll results, election polls, election results, elections results, email marketing, facbook ads, facebook ad, facebook advertisements, facebook advertising, facebook.com, faceboook.com, Google, government and politics, interactive marketing, internet advertising, internet marketing, internet marketing tools, Kansas City, KC, local election results, marketing, marketing advertising, marketing communications, marketing services, marketing strategies, marketing strategy, marketing tools, media marketing, news in politics, news on politics, news politics, online advertising, online marketing, political issues, political news, politics, politics news, presidential 2012 candidates, presidential candiate, presidential candidates, presidential candidates 2012, presidential elections, product marketing, public relations, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine optimization marketing, search engine ranking, search marketing, SEO, seo marketing, seo search engine optimization, social marketing, Social Media, social media and marketing, Social Media Marketing, social media marketing company, social media marketing firm, social media marketing services, Social networking, trends, Twitter, twitter marketing, viral marketing, web marketing, website advertising, what is politics, www.facebook.com | Leave A Comment »
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Over the years, Facebook has been known to make small changes to how users operate on the social networking site. With Google+ becoming a threatening competitor, Mark Zuckerberg made serious changes to Facebook. On September 22, Mark Zuckerberg explained exactly what the 800 million users could expect from the new and improved Facebook at its annual developer conference including:
•Timeline: a stream of information about you
•Facebook Gestures: turning any verb into a button, similar to the “like” button. Example: Reading a book.
•Open Graph: third-party companies can connect their apps and services to Facebook using a one-time permission from the user to share stuff on Facebook
•Subscribe: subscribing to strangers or celebrities to receive posts from them without being Facebook friends
•Ticker: a real-time list of what your friends are posting
•Media: watching TV and movies, listening to music and reading news all within Facebook
Watch the whole video here
September 29, 2011 | Categories: Blogged, Blogging, Facebook, Google, Mobile Marketing, SEO, Smartphones, SMS, Social Media Marketing, Twitter | Tags: advertisements, analysis data, apple, applied research, ask, audience, audiences, best serch engines, bing, bing search engine, bing toolbar, blog marketing, branding, business marketing, changes to facebook profiles, content, content definition, content for website, content management, content management system, content management systems, content manager, content share, content sharing, content website, contents, decsion making, direct marketing, email marketing, f8, Facebook, facebook ad, facebook ads, facebook advertisements, facebook change, facebook changes, facebook fans, facebook likes, facebook links, facebook posts, facebook profile change, facebook users, facebook.com, facebookcom, faebook games, Google, google app engine, google applications, google apps, google apps android, google apps blog, google apps marketplace, google mobile applications, google search engine, how facebook is changing, how to develop a message, how to please consumers, image search engine, influencer, influencers, interactive marketing, internet advertising, internet marketing, internet marketing tools, Kansas City, KC, list of search engine, list of search engines, location based service, location-based marketing, location-based services, Mark Zuckerberg, market research, marketing, marketing advertising, marketing communications, marketing ideas, marketing message, marketing messages, marketing plan, marketing research, marketing research companies, marketing services, marketing strategies, marketing strategy, marketing tools, mashable.com, media content, media marketing, media plan, media plans, mobile, mobile marketing, mobile phone tracking, mobile tech, mobile technologies, mobile technology, new technology, on data mining, online advertising, online data, online data entry, online marketing, people search, people search engines, product marketing, public relations, research, research a company, research and development, research methodology, research methods, research sites, research topics, search engine, search engine linst, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine optimization marketing, search engine optimizer, search engine optimizing, search engine ranking, search engines, search engines list, search marketing, SEO, seo marketing, seo search engine optimization, share content, share content from, share this content, sharing content, site search engine, small business marketing, sms marketing, social data, social data network, social marketing, Social Media, social media and marketing, social media how to, Social Media Marketing, social media marketing company, social media marketing firm, social media marketing services, Social networking, technologies, technology, technology development, technology research, tip, tips, top apps, top search engine, top search engines, trends, Twitter, Twitter Apps, twitter marketing, video content, viral marketing, web content, web content management, web marketing, web search engine, web site content, website advertising, website content, website search engine, website search engines, what is a search engine, whats new to facebook | Leave A Comment »
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