The cheapest and easiest way to reach your audience online is through social media. But algorithms are changing and post reach is deteriorating. Is the end of social publishing nigh? Are your most engaged followers falling prey to newsfeed devastation?
Watch this recording of our September 6, 2018 webinar to find out what your brand can do to survive.
Question? Contact us.
Your company’s webmaster has probably ensured that your website is optimized for viewing on mobile devices, but is mobile-friendliness the focus of your social media strategy? It should be.
95% of Facebook users access the platform from a mobile device. A large portion of Instagram’s functionality can only be utilized via mobile. For these reasons, device-appropriate content is critical to your social success. Here are four tips to ensure you’re approaching content with mobile in mind:
Making sure that your social content displays well on mobile devices means ensuring text is easily legible, within content-safe areas, and limited to only the most important details. With social restrictions like Facebook’s 20% text rule in place, it’s much easier to begin crafting content for social publishing and adding details for print or web publications later.
A great social experience begins with clear, clutter-free content. If your posts contain busy images, small, pixelated fonts, or unintentionally cropped photos, your mobile visitors won’t stick around to read what you have to say.
In today’s scroll-addicted world, marketers have only a brief moment to capture their audience’s interest. If you’ve designed well enough to do so, the next step is to quickly convey your message before that attention span dissipates.
Keeping descriptions to a minimum not only ups the likelihood of your posts being read to completion, but ensures that they’re being seen at all. On many mobile apps, long text blocks are shortened with a ‘read more’ anchor that could hide important aspects of your messaging. On Instagram, for example, that cut off occurs around the 125-character mark. We recommend stopping at 90 and incorporating an emoji to be safe.
In a research study, Facebook found that people with visual impairments used the platform just as much as those who do not. Applying alternative text to your visual content, and captions for those who are hearing impaired, ensures you aren’t alienating a portion of your mobile audience.
Any time you branch out to try a new graphic layout, video style, or inactive piece of content, you need to test it. Using a personal or experimental account, post to your timeline, story, or grid and then view the content from a variety of devices to determine compatibility. We’re here to help if you need recommendations on which dimensions to use.
In March of this year, at the height of their international privacy crisis, Facebook announced they would begin to gradually remove Partner Categories – the ad targeting parameters made possible by third-party data providers. As we reported then, the move means that many audience identifiers will be removed from target audiences by October 1. These include:
Though disappointing for some industries, businesses were (and still are) encouraged to expand their interest targeting options to make up for the cutback in audience size. This week, Facebook is making that even more challenging with an announcement that some 5,000 additional targeting options are also being removed. The biggest among them:
How can you continue to utilize Facebook to reach the appropriate audience while targeting options shrink?
The removal of key targeting features is a harsh reminder that you don’t own the Facebook audiences you’ve spent years carefully curating. The only way you, as an advertiser, can save and continue to re-market to potential leads meeting the criteria specified through a Facebook audience, is by offering those leads the opportunity to opt-in to your email marketing lists. We recommend using Facebook’s built-in Lead Generation Forms to transition as many potential customers as possible from social viewers to email subscribers.
With a properly installed Facebook pixel on your website, you can track users who visit particular pages of interest, then serve them appropriate ads on social using a Facebook-generated list created with the pixel data.
Although Facebook will no longer absorb the cost associated with Partner Categories, you can still acquire data from the partner companies themselves. Acxiom, CCC Marketing, Epsilon, Experian, Oracle Data Cloud, and Quantium will generate potential customer lists on your behalf for the right price.
Want to make the most out of Facebook’s targeting options before the October cutoff? Connect with Deph Digital Media to build a conversion-worthy audience today.
When it comes to digital marketing, pretty much every business has at least one goal in common: Generating leads.
While Facebook and Instagram have kept busy mimicking the success of Snapchat, LinkedIn – an oft-overlooked social networking platform – has implemented a slew of features that make connecting with potential customers easier than ever before.
Let’s look at how you can utilize the updates to earn more leads.
1. Spruce up your profile
Before you start reaching out to a new audience, make sure that both your company page and personal account are equipped with high-quality, professional photos or your logo. 29% of social media users admit to researching a company via their social pages before committing to a purchase, so complete your profile as much as possible and try to answer any frequently asked questions before they even come to mind.
2. Connect with people nearby
Attending a conference or tradeshow alongside a ton of potential customers? Enable LinkedIn’s “Find Nearby” feature to see users within close proximity and make a connection request.
3. Connect later on down the road
In some instances, it may cumbersome (or even rude) to pull out your phone in an attempt to look up someone’s profile. Add LinkedIn’s new profile QR code to your business cards to make it easier for contacts to connect with you in their own time. The scanable codes could be particularly useful for those with difficult to spell names.
4. Identify your target audience
When making a LinkedIn post, target your ideal audience to ensure your content is being delivered to the right people. You can select people based on location, a specific company, a specific industry, the company size, a job title, and even specific skills.
5. Make contact
Once you’ve identified and connected with potential customers, it’s time to make contact by way of InMail. A good first message should be more personable and less promotional. Note specific references from a user’s profile page and make their interests the point of conversation. Looking to go the extra mile? Add a voice memo to better communicate aspects of your personality that might otherwise get lost via textual translation.
6. Keep engaging
As you build rapport with LinkedIn connections, the opportunity to convert ordinary conversations into leads increases. Like and comment on the status updates of your potential customers until you identify an issue where your product or service could be of use.
Don’t feel like putting in the work? Contact us and we’ll be happy to kick start your LinkedIn potential.
