by Marianna Muscat | Oct 4, 2016 | Facebook
With video being the top performing format on Facebook, it’s a medium you really should be using for your online marketing strategy. Videos range from professionally edited pieces to short clips taken with a mobile phone, but there are things you can do to improve the videos you post. Strangely, the most watched type of Facebook videos are those relating to food – how to make something, to decorate something, how to eat something…you get the idea.
Many people have spent many hours watching Facebook videos to find the common elements of successful and popular posts, some of which are:
- Aspirational videos: Taking something ordinary or commonplace and showing it in a different way. In the food context, showing how to make something amazing, without watching it cook, waiting for it to cool, etc. is a way of suspending reality. It takes the hard work part away, leaving the fun (or aspirational) part. Although we all know there are shopping trips involved, dishes to wash after and the inevitable fails in the kitchen, viewers don’t seem to care – it’s about a fantasy, or dream of making something cool.
How to do it: focus on the best parts of the process; focus on saving time by making a short piece; consider creating a passion page around an inspirational idea that relates to your product.
- Videos about DIY: The ever popular How-to videos. Crafts, hair styles and of course food preparation lend themselves well to these types of videos, but anyone who has searched for a solution online, will know you can find a YouTube video on something useful (how to play the guitar, change your bicycle chain, fix a toilet…). Think of how your product or service relates to skills you could film. Moz.com has found great success with their Whiteboard Fridays – problem-solving, how-to explanations of how to do specific content marketing Providing useful information for your target audience builds your brand and strengthens your company image.
How to do it: Use your customer feedback or online platforms to find out what your audience’s questions and interests are; answer these questions, while appealing to the viewers’ desire to accomplish.
- Short clips: the most shared videos are under 2 minutes long, with many being under a minute. By cutting out the unnecessary detail and getting to the point, you are able to get your message across without losing your viewer’s interest. If your product demo features a process that is lengthy, consider speeding it up.
How to do it: Use visual tricks like changing the scene and downplaying boring footage. Opt for more short videos, rather than one longer one. Remember, if it’s too long for a tweet, it’s too long for a Facebook post.
- Simple instruction: Less fuss=more share. Facebook videos are not the place for case studies or white papers; videos should be simple solutions for your audience’s problems. Simplifying is what makes these videos entertaining – viewers are amazed at the end result of such a simple process – it’s worth adding an element of surprise to keep them engaged. When a lot of choice is involved, a video that simplifies the decision making process is a win.
It’s a great time to be starting or increasing your Facebook video marketing strategy. For more on digital marketing or assistance with your social media presence, call us – we’d love to help.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 26, 2016 | Content Marketing, Facebook
Most marketers wanting to use video in their marketing will turn to YouTube – unsurprisingly, since 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute! YouTube has a massive audience, so it seems like the best platform. But Facebook is another equally large and growing video home – with four billion video streams daily, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with. Think about using Facebook for your video marketing and how you can engage with more fans on the platform.
- Upload your videos natively – meaning, upload directly to Facebook, rather than sharing it as a link. Native Facebook videos are seeing more interactions than those from YouTube or Vimeo.
- Catch the attention in the first three seconds – the autoplay function means the video will play as people scroll though, so grab the attention, with or without sound. Create a compelling title. Using a thumbnail also does a great job in grabbing attention – whether custom made or generic.
- Create exclusivity for Facebook – by posting your video on Facebook only, you make it seem more special, and fans are more likely to follow future video posts. You can promote your video content on other social media
- Make videos that are shareable – like all content on Facebook, it gets discovered by sharing. You either want your audience to relate to the video, respond emotionally or find it fascinating enough to want to share with the world.
- Create a teaser – providing a bit of information from the video, like a key quote, will set up the expectation.
- Add a call to action – this could appear at the end of the video – click through to a website, replay the video, watch related videos, etc.
- Tag other pages – this helps to spread the organic reach of your video. Tag people who contributed to the video, are mentioned in the video, who inspired the video.
- Use video insights to determine performance – Facebook provides metrics like video views, average duration of views, audience retention etc. This can tell you a lot about how your audience engages with the video and help you to increase it next time round.
- Feature food – food is by far the most popular content for video uploads to Facebook. It’s an interesting fact, but obviously, can’t work for all businesses.
- Embed your videos in your blog posts – this will increase your reach.
For more on using social media for your business, contact us. We have loads of experience in social selling and social networking.
by Francois Muscat | Jul 13, 2016 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
When looking at Facebook as one of the social media platforms where content is posted, your interactions (likes, shares and comments) can be an indication of how your content is resonating. But is it the sheer number of interactions that counts, or is it the specific number of shares that actually has an effect on the success of your content?
While some believe that Facebook shares are more powerful than Likes, the Like button is the quickest way for people to share content. A Like shows positive feedback and allows you to connect with things that matter to you, though some would argue that the Like option is the lazy choice, unlike commenting or sharing, where users need to spend some time writing about the post they are sharing. Whatever your opinion, Likes outnumber shares and comments, with users 8 times more likely to hit the Like button than the Share or Comment.
Interestingly, surveys in the United States have shown that by analysing the Likes of thousands of volunteers, the characteristics of the user could be determined with incredible accuracy. Demographic, gender and even sexual orientation can be determined, along with a person’s political leaning – indicating that Likes show a high correlation with content that resonates.
Marketers generally place more value on Facebook Shares than Likes, reasoning that sharing involves more commitment and will more likely be shown in News Feeds. Facebook states that:
“The goal of News Feed is to show you the stories that matter most to you. To do this, we use ranking to order stories based on how interesting we believe they are to you: specifically, whom you tend to interact with, and what kinds of content you tend to like and comment on.”
Shares and Likes are a critical part of a more complex picture about what appears and where in the News Feeds. Facebook uses many factors, including your privacy settings to ensure that what appears in News Feeds is relevant to you.
So whether you’re a Sharer or Liker, interaction with Facebook of any sort adds up to tell you that your content resonates with your audience. To find out more on using Facebook and other social media platforms to promote your content, contact us.
by Francois Muscat | Jun 13, 2016 | Facebook, PPC
Humble beginnings
Founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook started out as an online social networking service for Harvard students. Seeing its fair share of ups and downs and legal battles, as of 27 April 2016, Facebook now boasts 109 billion daily active users, with the average user spending 20+ minutes per day on Facebook.
That’s a LOT of people! And they are all potential customers.
Realistically
In the world of digital marketing, social media marketing is by far one of the most cost effective options. And many platforms, like Facebook, have embraced the use of social media by businesses.
How does Facebook help you reach your business goals?
When it comes to online advertising, Facebook offers an extremely effective digital marketing strategy through powerful and unique methods to target your adverts to the people who are most likely to care about your business.
Facebook PPC Ads operate on a pay-per-click basis and enable you to reach people based on location, age, gender, and interests. It also has tools available for you to understand how the adverts are performing. Amongst the most useful monitoring tools available is the ability to find out if an advert to get people to your website was successful in helping visitors to make a purchase or take another action
This has a direct impact on link building – where external pages link to a page on your website. This, in turn, is one of the many procedures used in search engine optimisation (SEO).
Facebook is so encouraging of business that it has published several guidelines, including one specifically related to content marketing:
“Include a clear action you want your audience to take in the body text of your ad
Highlight any benefits, sales or similar specials that your business is offering
Use a simple, eye-catching image that is related to your ad text
If you’re advertising a website, include your business name or other key information in the headline”
To find out how our marketing experts can help you grow your social marketing, please get in touch with us today.
by Francois Muscat | May 11, 2016 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
By now, most businesses know that they should have a business Facebook page – with over a billion daily users, it’s easy to see why. There are a number of ways to grow your business and following through Facebook, well worth a shot, even if you don’t like using Facebook very much.
With targeted advertising, you can reach a very specific audience, which you should have determined by looking closely at your existing customer base and buying personas. It’s quite amazing just how targeted your audience can be with Facebook – by age, gender, status, geography, hobbies, employment type, likes and dislikes. How broad or niche the market your product or service is aimed at, will determine the type of targeting you need to aspire to.
Facebook users love being entertained – after all, it is a social network. Using short and to the point video posts that are quirky, funny or pull some emotional strings work very well to capture attention. While you obviously want to market your business, product or service, showing a lighter side of your company will go a lot further than a boring five-minute monologue on your latest offering. If your video can engage a viewer in the first 15 seconds, you’ve got them hooked in.
Facebook contests, although nothing new, are tried and trusted and virtually guaranteed to get you more followers. It’s worth keeping it simple and fun – like asking people to submit photos with your product, or suggesting captions for amusing pictures. If there’s a cool prize involved, people will participate and share.
Although it sounds like the cliché of the year, posts featuring cute dogs, babies and kittens still work. Even if dogs, cats or kids don’t relate to your business in any way, an adorable image with a quirky caption grabs attention and bizarrely, is very likely to be shared – a lot. It doesn’t really matter how vague the link is back to your company. A picture of an angry puppy growling at a ping pong ball is more enticing than one of a frustrated worker at a laptop.
Through Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature, you can upload a list of emails and target the leads you’ve already captured, with a more personalised advert. If you already have people on your page who liked a post or downloaded something, send them more of what they like. Another useful feature, the Lookalike Audience, allows you to expand your reach and find new leads by targeting an audience that has similar features to your existing one.
Use fun pictures of your employees to engage your audience – it’s not just about pushing your product. Your followers are likely to become more loyal if they feel they ’know’ you. With everyone having a camera on their mobile, there’s likely to be a good supply of amusing photographs you can use, or set up photo booths on celebration days, like Valentine’s Day or National Slipper Day.
Lastly, in the same vein as the cats and dogs, using emojis in your Facebook marketing posts can add emotion and personality to your content. Just why they work is a bit of mystery, but since over 90% of online users like emojis and believe they express their feelings more accurately than words, it’s probably worth a shot.
For more on the mysteries of social media and how to get your digital marketing producing results, contact us – we’d love to show you our collection of cute cat pictures. Only joking.
by Marelise da Silva | Apr 7, 2016 | Facebook, Social Media Optimization, Website Optimization
With over 1.5 billion people regularly using Facebook, there’s pressure on the developers at Facebook to constantly come up with new features and products, so it can be hard to keep up with this social media storm. Even if you think you know it all, there’s probably a whole bunch of tips, tricks and interesting things you didn’t know you could do on your Facebook page or profile. So let’s look at a few, shall we?
Did you know you can make your online video calls with Skype through your Facebook page? Add the Skype app to your account and start talking!
Did you know you can edit your photos directly on your profile? Using an app like Lunapic, you can add custom animation effects, two-tone colours, make greeting cards…
Did you know you can unclutter your Facebook content? With “Interest Lists”, you can organise your content into lists in a most convenient way.
Did you know about “Nearby Friends”? Activating this feature will push notifications to your phone when one of your Facebook friends has checked into a location near you.
Did you know you can tag friends in videos? You all know about tagging in photos, but you can do it in video too, pretty much the same way.
Did you know you can create and distribute petitions? With the YouSign.org.app you can use Facebook’s powerful network of people to share petitions for a good cause.
Did you know you can edit your Facebook ad preferences? The advert preferences list a range of topics that Facebook believes you may be interested in. You can remove or add to your preferences by going into your Settings, selecting Adverts, then editing in the “Ads based on my preferences” section.
Did you know that images posted via Instagram get more engagement than native Facebook image posts? Up to 23% more, according to Buzzsumo’s study.
Did you know you can download all of your Facebook information? Pictures, information and content, not to mention memories and conversations, can all be downloaded and stored in a safe (and private) place.
Did you know posts with hashtags receive less engagement than those without? Hashtags have become the default way to search for content on Twitter and Instagram, but do not have much impact on Facebook.
Did you know you can save links for later? When you don’t have time to watch a video or read a post, but want to come back to it, you can easily save the link, using the “Save Link” button on the drop-down menu in the right hand corner.
Did you know you can sync your Facebook calendar with your Google one? Add events by URL from Facebook to your Google calendar and never miss an event.
The world of social media and using this digital marketing tool to promote yourself or your business, can be baffling at times. If you need help with any aspect of your social media strategy, contact us.
