Sazbean

Software Development Management

Main navigation

You are here: Home / Archives for Marketing / Social Networks

Social Networks

/

Thoughts on #Socialnomics 2014 by Erik Qualman

Erik Qualman is at it again, with an updated 2014 installment of his #Socialnomics video (see below). If you are still unsure of the impact social can have on your company, consider these statistics from the video:

  • “53% of people on twitter recommend products in their tweets”
  • “93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media”
  • “90% of consumers trust peer recommendations only 14% trust advertisements”

Whether or not your company is using social networks, your customers are — in order to inform their purchase decisions and opinions about your brand.  Being active on social media gives companies an opportunity to listen, connect and contribute to the opinions consumers form of their products. Or as Erik states “Goodbye 4Ps – hello 4 C’s of digital: creating, curating, connecting culture”.

What do you think?

/

Improving Your Facebook Ads

facebook ads
facebook ads (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Facebook ads can be a relatively cost effective way to increase awareness and even to generate sales.  Social Media Examiner has an article — 4 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ads — that serves as a good starting point.  The article mentions 4 ways to improve your Facebook ads: 1) Meaning of Colors, 2) Language that Reflects Brand, 3) Impact with Images & 4) Effective Targeting. I think two of the most important ways to improve ads (of any kind) are missing: 1) Providing Value 2) Catchy Wording.

State Value & Benefits in Ads

I think it’s important to remember in any marketing communications or advertising that customers want to know what’s in it for them. Instead of a list of features, they want a list of benefits. While Facebook ads have a set limit of words and images, these should be used to inform the audience of the value you are offering them. It’s important that messaging reflect your brand, in terms of voice and image, but without communicating value, you are relying on what the customer knows of your brand (which may be nothing at all).

Ads Have Only an Instant to Impress

Images and color certainly have an impact on how we feel and whether something catches our eye.  Once that attention is caught, even if only for a split second, it’s vital to do your best to communicate in a way that keeps the attention.  Obviously putting your value/benefit out there front and center is key, but also to word your call to action and entire message in a way that’s both easy to read and catchy.  The example ads for #3 in 4 Ways to Improve Your Facebook ads are great examples of having catchy messaging.

What ways have you improved your Facebook ads?

Enhanced by Zemanta

/

Does the Facebook News Feed Algorithm Leave Out Lurkers?

FACEBOOK LIKE
FACEBOOK LIKE (Photo credit: owenwbrown)

There’s been much news about the Facebook News Feed Algorithm which seems to remove posts from most of our friends and the pages we’ve liked — some might claim for reasons of wanting people to buy promoted posts.  While Facebook claims that the changes are to boost engagement — claiming that people are more likely to make updates when they see updates from others (but not from pages) — I think this leaves out a huge chunk of the Internet/Facebook audience — The Lurkers.

If you manage a Facebook Page for you ecommerce business, you may have noticed your organic reach and engagement has tanked lately. Analysis of the Internet Retailer 500 Facebook Pages shows engagement sunk 27% in 2013 vs 2012, and rumors abound that Facebook’s News Feed algorithm is increasingly hiding Page posts to force marketers to pay for exposure in the News Feed. — Hacking the Facebook News Feed Algorithm by Linda Bustos

Lurkers are people who read and consume content — probably even regularly, but never share, like or comment on it.  They find the content valuable enough to consume, but not enough to take an action.  Many people just aren’t the type of person that feels comfortable with commenting or sharing online.  But they do find content valuable, and sites that can provide valuable content regularly are useful to this type of content consumption.

If Facebook discounts people who just read content (maybe not even clicking on the links), and removes that content from feed — is that providing a service to that type of person?  My argument is that is not.  Even the least Internet saavy has noticed that Facebook is “tampering” with their feeds.  Will this make Facebook less useful in general?  Time will say, but I certainly have seen the impact in my own content consumption — preferring to get content from my feed reader, Feedly, or maybe even Google+ which doesn’t filter my feed.

What do you think?

Enhanced by Zemanta