|
It has been awhile since I did a byline on using Facebook For Your marketing campaigns and so some, these tips may sound like no-brainers. However, for newbies to Facebook marketing and there are a lot of those in SMBs, hopefully these will help you find your way a bit easier on using Facebook in your scheme of things.
Building Your Audience One of the biggest complaints about leveraging any social media for content marketing, much less Facebook in particular, is that it can often be a waste of time: because posts go off into the ether of the internet and are never seen by anyone. This is a real concern… but only if you don’t take the time to build your audience base. If the likes on your page aren’t relevant, they do nothing for you or your business brand. You need to spend the time and effort to ensure that the likes your page gets are from individuals genuinely interested in your product or business. When those individuals see the content you’re promoting, they’ll be more likely to click through and learn more about your brand and your offerings of products or services. Manage Your Online Reputation Online reputation management is a big deal, and a poor reputation online almost always translates to lost customers and lost sales. You can do one of two things. Manage your reputation yourself by constant monitoring of what you have out there or pay a professional reputation company to do it for you. Try to respond to comments and ratings about your business in a timely and positive manner. Always respond to bad reviews, and make certain to ask the reviewer what you can do to improve their experience. It’s important to address every bad review so that review readers feel that you care about the quality of your business and product. Use Video And Images On your Timeline! Did you know that Facebook posts with images get wildly more clicks than posts without them? And watching videos comprise approximately 80% of all the activity on Facebook! Videos and images will ensure that the content you share gets more likes and more reads. Where images are concerned, ensure they’re horizontal images which have text titles on them, which can increase engagement. Examples of this are videos shot by your cellphone, Links to your YouTube Channel , Images of your products or services shot by you or your customers, and do Facebook Live events. Useing Facebook Promoted Posts Using small, short, highly targeted Facebook ads can help you get new viewers for your content pretty easily. Of course, promoted posts are primarily recommended for individuals who have grown their Facebook page likes beyond a threshold of 100, simply because promoted posts are traditionally displayed only to friends and connections of those who have liked a Facebook page. While there is also the opportunity to use Facebook ads, they’re not recommended for Facebook. I have mixed feelings about Facebook promoted posts as their effective reach varies and success rates on your ROI is questionable at times. Link to Your Own Website When sharing content, ensure that content is always on your own website when you share! Promoting links to your own website not only brings new potential clients or visitors to your website, but can provide a small SEO boost. And of course, having all of your website’s schema markups operating correctly can pull sample text and images from your website quickly, rather than requiring you to manually enter them, which can save a few minutes of work. Always, always link to your website whenever possible. I hope these tips give you a bit more insight into using Facebook for your marketing scheme. Do NOT mix your personal Facebook Page to your business Page. Keep things separate. Remember the above mention on your reputation? Mixing business with your personal life can kill that in a instant. -Roy FDMC Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com
0 Comments
Over the last few years, Facebook has quickly risen to become a powerhouse video destination, with its top ten publishers pulling in billions of viewers each month but just exactly why is that the case? Scientifically, is there a reason Facebook users, and even Instagram users, are attracted to video content when they’re on the site?
Facebook IQ recently conducted a study with some overseas users and found that they watched video content 5X more than any other content posted. Facebook’s study derives from a lab experiment where people’s eye movements and facial expressions were tracked as they scrolled through their personal feeds; this was followed up by interviews about the role video played in each participant’s’ life. The 114 participants were aged 18-30 and watched short-form (under ten minutes) online video content and ads at least once a month. Facebook IQ also enlisted Kantar Media to conduct a study of 1,999 people from two overseas countries who were over 18 years of age and who watched short-form video content monthly. The goal of this study was to try to gauge the content consumption of the participants and analyze related viewing trends.
Facebook claims five key factors have attributed to the increased popularity of online video viewing, which include “smartphones, shorter attention spans, binge-watching, the importance of context, and the thrill of novelty.” Taking all these into consideration, video publishers on the social platform (and its related photo- and video-sharing app Instagram) should consider the following strategies if they want to reach video watchers. Focus on mobile content. Most of the millennials in Facebook’s study prefer watching video content on mobile instead of on a desktop. Cater to this preference by developing mobile-optimized clips which users won’t be able to resist clicking on when the content shows up in their feeds. Harness the power of Instagram. Facebook IQ discovered that across all surveyed, video on Instagram resulted in 1.80x higher levels of joy than the same content posted on other platforms. Video publishers who want to incite action and brand loyalty should therefore consider posting more clips to their Instagram accounts. Keep content short. With shorter attention spans contributing to the rise of online video, video publishers need to make sure their own content on Facebook and Instagram is digestible and impactful, so that it not only captures the attention of users as they scroll through their feeds but also relays brand messaging or key points at the very beginning of the video. Try new video formats. Based on the idea that novelty is a key factor to online video’s growth and success, Facebook IQ suggests publishers experiment with new video formats. For example, the recent study of the overseas participants were found to look at 360-degree video 40% longer than regular video content; these respondents also reported a level of joy 1.40x higher than joy from standard video. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com In the past week, Facebook and YouTube have both announced some changes to their video advertising formats. These changes won't take place until later this year (or perhaps early next) but I know video marketers, too. They HATE to change things. But, with that kind of advanced warning, who can really complain?
So, what are these changes? Nothing too super radical but they are going to be noticeable. And why did Facebook, whose mantra for developers has long been “move fast and break things,” and YouTube, which changes at a rate of 33% a year, decide to alert us to these alterations in their video advertising formats several months in advance? Well from my research, here is what is coming down the pike. New Ways to Watch Facebook Video On Feb. 14, 2017, Facebook announced four news ways to watch Facebook video. The biggest change involves bringing sound to videos in the News Feed between now and the end of the year. As video marketers know, videos in the News Feed have played silently up to now — unless a user tapped on a video to hear the sound. But, as younger people have been watching more Snapchat videos on their smartphones, they’ve apparently come to expect sound when the volume on their device is turned on. Who knew? So, Facebook has decided – after testing sound on in its News Feed and “hearing positive feedback” – to carefully follow in Snapchat’s footsteps and slowly bring sound to more people, as well. When this update rolls out, sound will fade in and out as Facebook users scroll through videos in their News Feed. Now, if your smartphone is set to silent, then Facebook videos won’t play with sound. And, if you never want videos to play with sound, then you can disable this feature by switching off “Videos in News Feed Start with Sound” in Settings. Facebook also says it will be showing in-product messages to tell people about the new sound on experience and controls. In other news, Facebook also announced changes to make vertical videos look better on mobile devices. It made it possible to minimize the video you’re watching to a picture-in-picture view that keeps playing in the corner of your screen while you browse other stories in News Feed. And it announced a new Facebook video app for TV. But, these changes are less likely to ruffle anyone’s feathers. All media companies have to carefully balance what their readers, listeners, viewers, and users want with what their advertisers would like to have. Back in the 1980's when I still had hair and "gag me with a chainsaw" was a popular catchphrase, two-thirds of the advertisers in PC/Computing (an example) wanted their ads to appear in the first third of the magazine, even though reader research showed that the most popular part was the middle of the publication where the cover story ran. Today, advertisers may prefer that their videos autoplay with the sound on, but that may or may not be welcomed by the vast majority of Facebook users. Snapchat users are used to sound because the audio they hear instantly typically comes from their friends videos. Not from advertisers. With the advent of Facebook Live, we may see a similar response, but it’s too soon to tell. So, why would Facebook hear “positive feedback” after testing sound on in its News Feed? Well, not every Facebook user sees videos in their News Feed. The stats sate that only 500 million Facebook users even see videos, so the test may have been conducted using the most video-friendly segment of the social network’s users. And 85% of these Facebook users currently watch videos with the sound off. So, did Facebook conduct its test using the 15% that currently watch videos with the sound on? And as the social network rolls out videos that autoplay with sound, will the feedback continue to be as positive? In other words, kudos to Facebook for giving everyone a “heads up” that changes are coming down the road. For a company that just celebrated its 13th birthday, the social network is showing a lot of maturity. But, video marketers should still watch this particular change like a hawk, because sound may not be welcomed by as many Facebook users as advertisers would like. The jury is still out. YouTube to End 30 Second Unskippable Ads Google provided an official statement on Feb. 17, 2017, that said YouTube will drop the unskippable ad format beginning early next year. A Google spokesman added that YouTube will “focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers.” The 30-second unskippable ads were popular with advertisers. So, apparently this format didn’t work for YouTube users, who have apparently come to expect the ability to choose which video ads they want to watch – which is what TrueView video ads gave them seven years ago. Advertisers will have until 2018 to make adjustments to their plans. And video ads that are shorter than 30-seconds, including 20-second spots, can still be made unskippable. Plus, YouTube has been touting its six-second unskippable bumper ad format since its introduction in April 2016. Again this is nice that YouTube gave consumers and advertisers a “heads up” that changes are coming down the road. For a company that just celebrated its 12th birthday, the video-sharing site is showing a lot of maturity. But, video marketers should recognize that YouTube appears to be giving its users want they want while Facebook is testing the limits of what its advertisers would like to have. Although both video platforms and trying to balance the two competing forces that any media company feels, one is zigging, while the other is zagging. That means this isn’t a horse race where both competitors are trying to pull out ahead of each other on the same well-defined track. This is more like cross-country running where two different teams are competing in a race across open-air courses over natural terrain that is not well marked. That makes the changes to Facebook and YouTube’s video advertising formats well worth watching – even if we won’t know the outcome until next year. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com “Over the next few years, video is going to be some of the most engaging content online, and by continuing to innovate here, we have a chance to build the best place to watch and share videos.” -Mark Robertson, Facebook Why should marketers upload native Facebook video to their Pages? In short – video marketers should upload to Facebook because it works best, and because Facebook, a platform with the largest number of daily active users worldwide, has put significant resources into enhancing the platform to showcase and promote native video content. Although Facebook has allowed for uploading of native video for many years, they implemented several changes in mid-2014 that made native video, an incredibly popular medium for the platform. After Facebook tested “auto-play” videos beginning in December 2013, they officially made it the default video playback experience in May of 2014. Since then, any video content uploaded to the platform, is given unique, and prominent visibility within user’s news feed through the automatically moving picture. Secondly, Facebook, like other platforms, is constantly making algorithm adjustments. But, it’s become clear that Facebook began to reward native video posts (vs. photos, status updates, URL links – which include YouTube video links) in the algorithm a couple of years ago. Since mid-2014, there have been several studies published which indicate that natively uploaded video is one of the most-rewarded formats within Facebooks’ algorithm in terms of News Feed impressions delivered. Whether as a consequence of this preference or not, studies have also shown that video also generates more engagement than other post formats in Facebook. This is particularly true with regard to Facebook Live, for now. With growing popularity now of "Facebook Live" and the two video platforms now go hand-in-hand. Benefits of using Facebook video vs. YouTube? For most video content strategies, it's important to leverage both platforms. However al it's important to understand that they are also different applications and platforms. YouTube is a video-first destination, and is primarily a video discovery platform. YouTube provides a great environment for building video channels and for generating viewership both in the immediate term, as well as over time. Videos uploaded to YouTube vs. Facebook tend to bring viewership long after they are posted. Due to the nature of discovery on YouTube it is primarily driven via browse and search discovery methods. For Facebook, viewership is often generated more-so from a “push” perspective. Facebook users are not searching out videos to watch on the platform, but rather, are viewing videos that they did not expect, but that were shared to them within their News Feeds.With Facebook, if your video content is compelling enough, it could potentially generate massive viewership in a very short time, due to the vast user base that resides in Facebook and the fact that any viewer/user can immediately share your video with their friends and fans inside the platform – creating viral potential. In fact, 53% of all Facebook video views are generated via shared posts. Best practices for uploaded native Facebook Page videos An important consideration and best practice for any content published digitally (video in particular) is that there are a couple known best practices for Facebook video, that pertain much more-so to the environment in which videos are consumed in the platform.
Keep in mind that in a mobile experience (75% of all video views), aspect ratio matters. In the top 25K, only 30.9% of videos were widescreen, or 16:9 aspect ratio, while 56.3% of the top performing videos were either square (1:1 aspect ratio), or vertical videos. However, in taking a look at the top 1K most-engaged videos from that set, only 20.6% were 16:9, vs. more than 70% being either square, or vertical videos. Because 85% of Facebook video views occur with sound-off, it’s important to include timed-text, so as to better tell the story and hook a viewer. This can be done in a couple different ways. First, you’ll notice that many successful video publishers on Facebook include text subtitles and overlays within the video itself. Secondly, adding closed-captions to your Facebook videos, can help. In fact, according to Facebook itself, video ads with closed captions generate 12% more video watch-time, than those without. By the way,the most important and obvious best practice required for success in a social platform like Facebook, is to understand, interact with, and cater to desires of the community itself. Posting schedule or frequency for Facebook Videos There can be more upside than there is downside to increasing the frequency at which a Facebook Page owner publishes content to their page. Many popular publishers like Buzz-Feed are publishing videos at a rate of 5 or more videos per day, per page. If you are concerned that this could cause post fatigue, or over-saturate your audience, pay close attention to the “negative feedback” analytics available within Facebook. If your audience is constantly hiding your video posts, or un-following your page, you can reduce the frequency with which you are uploading to test if that may be a cause. While some studies suggest best days and times for posting video content (Thursdays and Fridays most often referenced), the best schedule is going to be one that best fits your unique audience, and their network. Therefore, rather than deciding schedule based off published, aggregated research, each publisher needs to deploy a proper, data-driven testing strategy in order to determine what works best for a given, often times, niche audience. Metadata optimization On Facebook, it appears that video metadata (while arguably always of importance), is less important in terms of video performance, than is the format and the content of the video itself. Remember, when users are served a video in Facebook, it’s not the metadata that causes them to make a decision as to whether or not to click and watch or engage with a video. Rather, it’s whether or not the video itself caught the users’ attention and interest in the few seconds it exists when scrolling through one’s feed. All that being said, because metadata options are available within Facebook’s video uploading process. Metadata is still of importance and may be of importance more-so in the future. If Facebook enhances their internal search functionality, metadata may play a bigger role in the future. Additionally, for search engines like Google (which has been indexing more and more Facebook video URLS), metadata will be important as user signals within Facebook will be unavailable to outside search engines. Tips For Facebook Videos and using Facebook Live Interact with your audience: When you post a video and someone comments or reacts to your video, be sure to interact with that user. Aside from the overall importance of being interactive in social platforms, think about the result. Each time that you like and respond to a user’s comment, you generate an additional view, and two additional interactions. If that user then returns to view your reply, you then generate yet an additional view, and perhaps interaction. This engagement can help send additional positive signals to Facebook that your video is one worth providing additional exposure to. Custom Thumbnails: While it’s true that most videos on Facebook are set to autoplay in the News Feed, there are many users who have opted to disable auto-play, for various reasons. In those cases, as well as for related videos, it’s still important to upload a compelling, custom thumbnail. The future of Facebook video? Live video is exploding on Facebook and will continue to grow in the future. It is a well-known fact that the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has taken a tremendous interest in live video streaming, and as such, has re-focused internal resources into building out the company’s live broadcasting offerings. I would expect to see continued push towards live video, as well as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality moving picture content formats. I believe that those who wish to succeed with Facebook video should look to embrace live video now and figure out what types of live video content resonate best with your audience such as grand openings, sales, related events that are relevant to your business or profession are some examples. Lastly, given that Facebook is a social platform with audience interests that span genres, geographies, etc., it’s important to continually evaluate your audience and community, to determine what will resonate with them. Testing can be done through organic post-segmentation as well as via paid promotion. I hope these tips and comments give you more insight to Facebook Videos and Facebook Live. Good luck! Roy Garton FDMC Social and Digital Video www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Snapchat is rolling as the hot app and Facebook is taking a serious look at its competitor so it can shore up many of its most successful features.
At the same time, Snapchat is moving away from ephemeral content and beginning to engage in a stronger battle against the most popular social network in the world than we first thought. Will there be a clear winner? Audience We may not have all the stats to compare side by side the audience for both platforms, but Facebook is #1 with its 1.65 billion monthly active users. There’s no social platform yet that can beat this number, while Snapchat says it has 100 million daily users but no hard facts to back those numbers up. Youth appeal Snapchat got popular for its impressive appeal to the younger audience, starting as a fun and instant form of communication among teenagers. Although it has evolved since then, it is still popular to the audience aged 13-24, as it forms 60% of its audience. Snapchat states that it reaches 41% of all 18 to 34 year olds here in the US on any given day. Facebook may be the most popular network but it's appeal to the younger audience has given away to mid millennials and the over 40 generation. Teens early 20 somethings don't want nothing to do with those stats as they like their own "space" in the world of social media. There has been a 46% growth of new Facebook profiles from 2012 to 2015 for the ages of 45-54, while a decline of 25% has been noted at the same period for the new Facebook profiles of people aged 13-17 in the U. S. Young people face a new reality when family members join Facebook. They head to new platforms to freely express themselves. They don't abandon Facebook they just don't share content on it as much. They use Instagram and Snapchat for those outlets. Ephemerality This is probably the most obvious popular feature for Snapchat. The power to make its users check content with high frequency on it's platform before the content disappears. Snaps last for just 24 hours, which means that FOMO (fear of missing out) can become more intense, especially once you start adding more friends.Facebook seems to be fascinated lately with the idea of ephemeral content and that’s why it announced the launch of secret conversations on Messenger, a feature that will introduce encrypted messages with a timer to control the when they will be visible to the recipient. Engagement Snapchat has managed to create impressive engagement with ephemeral content, but it’s still not easy to beat Facebook, which has turned into a daily routine for a great number of its users. Adults spend about 23 minutes a day on Facebook according to most stats. Snapchat has observed that 54% of its its users engage with the app daily, while the average iOS user spends an average of 18 minutes on Snapchat during the day, which means that there is an indication that the battle of engagement will become even more competitive soon. Authenticity You don’t have to like (or even understand) Snapchat to admit that it brought a new type of content to social media, with its explosive growth being attributed to the combination of ephemerality, creativity, simplicity and visual content.The idea of vertical video has proven to be successful (and effective for brands), while filters turned out to be a fresh use of branded promotion.It wouldn’t be fair to omit Facebook’s own authenticity back when it started, but as it’s heading to a more mature status, we’ll give this round to Snapchat and its attempt to beat the odds of success at a surprisingly fast rate. For The Fun Of It Snapchat is fun. No question about it. Facebook as it is today really is not meant to be fun but more of an informative platform. This is why teens and young people have left it. They want fun because they have not grown up. They want to be entertained and they want excitement. While Facebook in its infancy was cool to be on it has evolved into a communication tool that the older generation has embraced. Facebook however has established itself and we know it will be around a long time. The verdict on Snapchat is still out as it is still a relative "fad" platform but growing. Snapchat is trying hard to be taken seriously, as it is still known as the platform that may turn you into a dog, or swap your face with Leonardo DiCaprio. Lenses have turned out to be very popular for Snapchat and their constant update creates a habit of trying out the new ones, again, for the sake of (useless) fun.However, this changed when brands joined the game of sponsored lenses, which made them more interesting from a business perspective.For example, Gatorade created a sponsored lens during Super Bowl and it led to 60 million plays in total, 165 million views and an increase of 8 points in purchase intent. Branded content Facebook Pages have formed the idea of branded content in social media and they have been imitated by many platforms. It’s an organized way to distribute content by encouraging users to stay up-to-date with a brand’s news, while Facebook offers several tools to boost this experience.On the other hand, Snapchat wanted to revolutionize the idea of branded content, by encouraging a new format of visual content which focuses on the engagement with the user, ensuring that the reach is not missed through a customized feed that hides the content you’ve liked.This doesn’t mean that all brands are ready yet to experiment with Snapchat and this may be attributed to the lack of options regarding the distribution and the measurement of the content, which is certainly something that we’d love to see in the future.Both platforms have their advantages and their disadvantages when it comes to branded content, but Facebook is certainly a winner, mainly due to its established status, the flexibility and its insights. Video This is probably the biggest battle between Facebook and Snapchat and it’s also the most interesting one. Both try hard to succeed in this field, as this may be the battle that will crown the ultimate winner.Video content is on the rise and it’s not expected to stop anytime soon, and both Facebook and Snapchat have their own advantages and disadvantages on its creation and distribution.What’s more, Facebook has launched the idea of Facebook 360 videos, in an attempt to succeed with another popular trend. Snapcat is definitely ambitious enough to compete with Facebook’s plans with video content, This sign of explosive growth cannot stay unnoticed and that’s why there is an attempt to keep up with its fast growth by offering more features and options for brands that join the platform. Instant communication Snapchat started as a fun platform of instant communication between teenagers and that’s how it became popular with its ephemeral content, its simplicity and its mysterious appeal.Facebook started as a platform that connected people all over the world, although the concept of communication changed over the years. The launch of Messenger was a great move for Facebook. That brought the best features of Facebook and it's apps into one platform. which now boasts over 1 billion users.Both Snapchat and Facebook have benefited from their appealing instant communication in their own way, the first by creating a strong engagement rate which helped it grow, the second by expanding its features to interesting paths that we keep exploring. Chatbots Instant communication in terms of business opportunities is already changing on Facebook Messenger with the introduction of chatbots, the pre-programmed messages that allow users to stay informed from their favorite brands and pages regarding a new release, a sale, or an event.This could be the big step for Messenger in e-commerce and further business opportunities, and as there are more than 11,000 bots in Messenger, we are expecting great things from this feature. Advertising This is an unfair battle, as Facebook is already established in advertising, offering numerous options for brands to promote their products. There has been a 50% increase in Facebook’s active advertisers in a year.Mobile advertising has turned out to be extremely effective, as it accounted for 79% of the company’s revenue of Q1 2016.From a brand’s perspective, Facebook’s advertising tools can help an ad reach the right audience, while the introduction of Canvas led to more creative formats that may be more appealing to users.On the other hand, Snapchat is yet at an early stage of its advertising growth, but early reports from Snapchat on it's ROI is very impressive. It has noted that its Snap Ads have a 5x higher CTR compared to other platforms. Summary The fact that Snapchat managed to become a serious competitor for Facebook in certain areas in just a couple of years is an indication that we cannot ignore its potential, as its growth is expected to continue. Snapchat is expected to surpass Twitter and Pinterest in users this year, reaching 58.6 million users with a growth of 27.2%, while it will keep building its audience until 2020 to further close its gaps with Facebook.Even if it’s not enough to ever beat Facebook, it is still impressive to monitor its success to go up against Facebook. Roy www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com Social Media continues to evolve. It seems to be changing every month with new platforms, new trends, and applications. So you have your business on Facebook and Twitter and you think you are doing just fine in the world of social media. But are you really? Here are a few facts with business and social media. As Facebook becomes more of a "We want your money" operation, more and more people are drifting away to find the free platforms for their business to reach their masses. If you want the goodies now on Facebook, you are finding you have to cough up some dough to get it. Facebook's recent audience network launch program means for the business, the days of something for nothing is over.
What is becoming more popular for target marketing is video and images. Many of the Fortune 500 companies are moving in this direction for advertising and marketing. Images tell a lot and young shoppers especially are using this to their advantage and in their shopping habits. Pinterest and Instagram are picking up not only more users but advertisers as well as they pull away from traditional desktop platforms. Mobility, video, and photo images is 3 key words you as a business need to grasp and embrace for marketing and advertising. Video and still images have helped push Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine to new heights. Another popular tool for the young 15 to 25 crowd is Snapchat. While advertisers and still trying to figure out how to capture this new hot platform, Snapchat has become very trendy to this key target market. While I am not saying you should not still keep a solid market plan in place for Facebook and Twitter, businesses need to be open to new platforms and monitor social media trends to capture that market share. keep up regular engagement conversations with your customers and stay connected. Remember, spending your marketing dollars in an empty room is not only fruitless, it is silly. Capture your market share and stay abreast of technology changes. Be a leader in the social media circle. Reach your goals. In past blogs, I have focused on the small business and how to launch a social media campaign. Getting their brand out with basic social media tools. If you have not read those blogs, you might want to go back in the "vault" and read them. In a nutshell, trying to help the Mom and Pop businesses launch a basic Facebook fan page or Twitter Account to get into the digital age was the main focus. While many larger SMBs have tried to do this on their own, they may now ask themselves "What does it cost to hire someone to do this for me?" After some research around my area from smaller marketing firms to the "Big Guys", you may find yourself with a sticker shock. I know I had to ask myself, I offer my services on most bases as a courtesy, maybe I should start charging more! (Just kidding) Seriously, not trying to take business away from these folks or even myself, but you can do some of this yourself if you are just wanting to break into social media branding, however if you are really serious about it, email me for more information. Now if you want to shop for any kind of marketing or social media agency, here are some rates I found (averaged out) for particular services. Keep in mind I am located in a somewhat rural metropolitan area but within 50 miles of a large city. Facebook-Twitter Setup fees: $300.00 ot $1,00.00 Monthly content charges: $200.00 to $500.00 Blitz or Promotion Campaign. (Also known as short-term) $1,000 to $5,000.00. This usually includes integration with Twitter, FB ads, daily or weekly updates and it's packaged. Does not include your prize or giveaway if you are offering anything. Short term usually means 2 to 6 months. Expect higher rates from larger or major city firms. Video So you like to have some video on a new YouTube channel or Facebook site? Shoot, produce, and edit is usually offered as a package. $300.00 to $10,000.00. That is for a 2 minute video with one camera and basic graphics. Longer videos, two camera shoots or added production is more. The big gap in prices is due to shopping marketing firms and actual production houses who do nothing but video using professional broadcast equipment. they did offer web videos. Rates quoted are for HD video, 1080. Social Media as a Strategy This is consulting, monitoring, keywords and analytics, measurement of results, and offering professional advice. The more keywords and analytics to measure the higher the fees. Average fee is $2,000.00 with some marketing firms as high as $10,000.00 for an audit report with recommendations. If you were not using video, this can be your most expensive investment hiring a professional Social Media Marketing firm. You just need to ask yourself, "How bad do I want to see how Social Media is working for me? I have to say that most do not understand how the internal measurements work so for SMB's who have the money to invest in Social Media, this is a no brainer. Social Media Training If you just want to hire a professional consultant to train one or more of your staff to implement social media including making landing pages or do content management expect to pay $30.00 to as much as $100.00 per hour for the privilege. Most will offer block timing of say 5 hours and negotiate a rate for you. Want a nice lunch and learn workshop? Expect to pay $500.00 to $1,000.00. Travel is extra. In conclusion, as stated these rates are from my area and I can safely say that if you live in a major city the rates are going to be as much as 20 to 30 % higher. For smaller businesses, these rates with the exception of maybe bringing a trainer on board are beyond their budgets. For larger SMBs it may make sense to have someone outside of their staff to do this for them at least for a minimum contact period. I do hope this helps. It was a bit of a surprise to me and glad I did the research. Email me with your comments or your experiences with consulting firms. In other blogs, I covered why you need a Facebook site. Here, I will give you a basic overview on how to get your business Facebook fan page up and running. There are videos on YouTube on how to do this so I am not going to spend a whole lot of time on the set-up process. If you do not have the basic tools to make a fan page, then don't. It will look like you know what. If you do not understand the basics like pixels, how to make a jpeg, or use html, then again, don't attempt. Get a friend, an associate, or your kid who may know how to go about the process. I am not condeming you for trying but making a decent landing page requires some software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to get the canvas size right and clean artwork. If you do not have that software or knowledge of using it, well my friend take time to learn or pass the project on to somebody who can do you a decent job.
Here is some other news that some of those YouTube videos do not cover because they are outdated. Due to some recent changes by Facebook (Boy, how they love to make changes) your canvas size must be 520 pixels wide. It can be any length. Suggest 900 pixels long. This is due to advertising on the right pane on Facebook. Anything wider than that will be "lost" by the viewer. (Also, newer flat screen computer monitors project different viewing sizes depending on their width I have discovered) The second item by Facebook is their sercurity. Without losing you here, there is http:// and then there is https:// the "s" stands for secure. Landing pages are hosted by various 3rd party servers. The people who make those applicatons (apps) use servers to host your landing pages. If they do not use a secure server, (the https://) your landing page will show up as a big fat "X" and you will get an annoying message that asks you "you are going to an unsecure website, do you want to proceed?" By this time you lost your prospect or possible fan so forget it. I know I would bail. So which app should you use to host your new landing page(s)? I did a lot of research and trial and error. Most of these 3rd party apps that host landing page fail to tell you that they are NOT https:// One I found does and it is free. As of this writing, it is the only one I found that runs smooth and is https:// compliant. It also allows you to make both a fan and non fan page and to top it off , allows loading of a jpeg image or html/ccs. I love this app! It is called Woobox. Get it here. http://woobox.com/customtab. The app is https:// even though you see only http:// on the link. Trust me, it is and they explain that on their web site. You can add tabs too or upgrade other features for a fee but you really only need the free version. To do all this I assume you all ready have a business fan page. If not, make one. Create a Facebook account, if you have a personal one up now simply go from your home page to "Create Page", go to the business portion and select your catagory. (You can watch the YouTube videos for this part if your lost) You will need to upload a picture or image and your info to finalize it. You will become the administrator of it and if you have a Facebook account, a link to manage it will be on your home Facebook page. Check for your "Like" button. Do not click it or if you did, unlike yourself so you can see your newly created fan pages later to check for appearances, otherwise you won't see them. Again, YouTube videos are out there on this specific subject area. Once the site is up AND you made your landing page template jpeg or html/ccs, got to the woobox site and download the app. It self installs and it if VERY easy to follow to load your landing page(s) I suggest you make both. One for non fans and a fan page. make them want to be a fan. Make the non fan page exciting and make the fan page rewarding for clicking on it. Something like free or a discount. Do not import your friends to your business site. That is a no-no. You don't want personal stuff on a business fan page. I will cover suggested topics for your fan page in a later blog. DO set your privacy and viewing settings however. Thats it. Email me if you have questions from the last tab on my site here. Good luck! If you are a SMB (small to medium sized business) owner, chances are you are in 4 catagories; you're are using Facebook correctly, you're using Facebook but incorrectly, you are not using it at all because it scares you to death or finally, you won't use it because you don't belive you have the time. Most SMB's do not have a full time marketing dept. thus the owner or someone "picked" does Facebook. First, don't use your personal site to promote your business as personal and business matters should not be intigrated. It is not difficult to create your own business site. What is a bit time consuming is setting your fan page up. You don't need to go "fancy" to start , just set it up. If you don't have a business Facebook site, shame on you. Email me, and I will walk you through it. There are videos on YouTube that show you how as well. Don't let a business fan page scare you. You can control things like people posting comments or posting pictures or videos. Use your fan page to promote your brand. Once it is up and running, you should post on your new site at least once a day. If anything, talk about a special you are running or a good product or service you have to offer. Now how to get fans. Word of mouth is the best way to start. You do not want to necessarily import your friends to your business site. These are your friends and not all of them are your customer base or your market vertical. Sure, tell them you have a business site but be remember, this is a fan page for your business, not another social site of who got crazy last night, or posting pictures of Grandma's 80th birthday. Later I will talk about apps to make fan gates, apps that allow you post from your cell phone, and how to link FB to your web site. I will also cover what topics are best to cover on your new fan page.
|
Catagories
All
|
RSS Feed