Social Media tutorials , infographics and blog from Andrew Macarthy, author of Amazon Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.
Do you create promotional videos for Facebook, or is it something you are considering? It's an avenue that I'm personally interested in experimenting with - particularly short promotional videos that can be used as entertaining Page content, as Facebook ads to drive business objectives, or both - ideally, no longer than 10 seconds.
Read MoreDo you advertise on Facebook, or are you considering it? In this blog post, I'll show you what I managed to achieve over a two month period between July and August 2015, limiting myself to a budget of just $3.00 per day.
Read MoreDo you handle customer service issues on Twitter? According to new statistics lifted from Twitter's customer service playbook, handling customer queries and forging relationships on the site is marking the future...
5 Surprising Statistics About Customer Service Statistics on Twitter
My new book, Successful Social Media Customer Service is out soon.
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How to Shoot Shareable Instagram Photos: Real Life Good vs Bad Examples
Do you use Instagram for business? Do you want to shoot photos that receive more likes and shares? The most popular Instagram photos evoke a strong emotion in viewers, are inspirational, aspirational, and eye-catching. With just a few simple tweaks, you can improve the quality of the photos you take, and drive more engagement with your content. Let's take a look, using real life examples to demonstrate. In each case, ask yourself which
Let's say you're in the business of selling accessories for the home. Customers will most likely be drawn to photos that show how your items fit into their own spaces. shop_juliecouch's photo is rather uninspiring (the lamp even still has its plastic packaging!), while hkliving's shot is carefully staged, colour co-ordinated, and eye-catching.
Taking the time to light a photo properly (or improve the lighting in post production) can make a huge difference to the quality of your content. Both photos above serve to show off a printer, but Canon France's shot - lit well - is much more appealing to the eye.
Some of the most popular Instagram posts include arrangements, patterns, and shapes that are pleasing to the eye. In the above examples, jampaper's photo is colourful and neat, but there's something about the angles and composition of juliamanchik's composition that people find innately appealing.
When you publish a photo, it should be obvious to viewers what the main focus of the image should be. In kellygerland's photo, the black dog is lost against the dark sofa and dominated by the banner on the wall. Meanwhile, kaianatural's photo has the office dog as centre of attention (even looking at the camera lens!), with very little dead space in the rest of the shot.
images: staples, poppin, sloanestation, fredaldous greengable
Above all, the most successful Instagram images from brands are those that connect with your customers in a way that only you as a business owner know best. Fun, creative, and inspirational, or aspirational content - well planned and shot - is nearly always a winner.
Have these pointers inspired you to look again at your Instagram strategy? Or do you already but these ideas into practice? Let me know in the comments below!
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5 One-Minute Strategies to Boost Your Facebook Ad Conversions And Increase Sales
Do you advertise on Facebook? Are you looking for ways to optimise your ad campaigns and boost conversion rates?
In this blog post, I'll show you five simple strategies that you can use to improve your Facebook ads, hopefully saving you money and increasing your returns!
With Facebook ads, sometimes the temptation can be to shoot for a brand new audience of people, but for many brands, targeting their existing customers will provide the most fruitful returns. After all, if they've bought from you in the past, chances are higher that they will do again. In addition, you will already be familiar with the make-up of these group, so in a better position to shape your marketing message and product offering. You can do this is through custom audience targeting. Facebook will allow you to target users by email (upload or import your own list), app user IDs, or phone number - and your ads will be fed to them if they are on Facebook.
When creating your ad, Facebook will ask you if you want to add a call-to-action button to it. These buttons - including Shop Now, Sign Up, Call Now, and Download - give customers a stronger indication of what the purpose of your ad is, and a precise course of action for them to act upon what they see. Make sure that you match the correct CTA button to your campaign. Doing so will help to drive click-through and decrease bounce rates from your website.
After a one-month review of AdRoll advertisers’ running campaigns with CTA buttons, the Facebook found that those ads experienced a 2.85x higher click-through rate compared to ads that didn’t have a CTA button. They're free to use, so definitely worth considering!
Currently, video ads only make up small proportion of brand marketing efforts on Facebook, but with estimates suggesting that that digital video advertising will make up 15% of the total digital advertising market by 2017, there's never been a better time to get in ahead of the curve. And according to an analysis by Kinetic Social, a Facebook marketing partner, paid video placements maintained a higher clickthrough rate (CTR) than all other types of US Facebook ads served to desktop and mobile via its platform throughout 2014.
Why are Facebook video ads performing so well? Putting aside their relative novelty, research shows that the auto-play ads in News Feeds - even if watched only for a few seconds - helps to drive value and purchase intent.
"...data shows that people who watched under three seconds of the video ad created up to 47 percent of the total campaign value, and people who watched for fewer than 10 seconds created up to 74 percent, depending on the metric. That means that while lift continued to increase the longer people watched, people didn’t have to watch a whole video to be affected by the ad."
Facebook recommends that brands experiment with short video ads, remembering that value increases the longer people watch. I would add that it is not always necessary to focus on product; use video to educate, inspire, bolster your existing content strategy, and overall brand awareness.
image via adstage
It might sound obvious, but if your ads mostly run at a time when your target audience isn't usually online (or at least not actively in the mood to purchase), then you're pretty much throwing money down the train. Use the knowledge of your audience to decide when they will be most active, and willing to buy! If you've set a lifetime budget for your ad, you can schedule specific times of the day or days of the week to run your ad by going to Ad Scheduling, clicking More Options and then selecting Run ads on a schedule. (you may need to click Show Advanced Options first.
No one really wants to see ads in their News Feeds, but if yours are to be engaging and successful, they need to influence users after just a glance; keep headline, link, and main copy jargon-free. It helps to narrow the focus of your ad campaign to one specific offering. In addition, where your ad takes viewers once clicked, should be right where the customer expects. For example, if your ad promotes a 50% discount on one of your products, the landing page should be the product page for said item, not your website's home page.
Have these strategies given you some ideas about how to optimise your Facebook ad strategy? Do you already use them, or do you have any more ideas? Let me know in the comments below!
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Hi there, and welcome to my website. I'm Andrew Macarthy, a social media consultant and author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing TIps. hope you enjoy my blog. If so, please do get in touch to hire me to help you with for your social media marketing needs.
