What are Facebook Advertising Objectives?

Each Facebook Advertising Objective drives toward a goal. To start, we need to determine the goal of your specific campaign. Each of the Objectives has been grouped by the goal they accomplish most effectively. Many Objectives can accomplish multiple goals when built properly, but each has its own core strategy.

As your business grows, your campaign goals change. First, your campaigns may focus on building awareness and acquiring new customers, and, later, you may encourage people to make a purchase or sign up for an event. At each point, you’ll select a campaign Advertising Objective that matches each campaign goal – Facebook

GOAL: Brand Awareness, Reach & Engagement

Facebook Advertising Boosted Campaign – Pottery Barn

Boost Your Posts

Boosting Facebook posts is a simple campaign that can be especially powerful. Here’s the basics: you select a post on your page and pay to increase the number of people that see it. Due to the Facebook algorithm limiting the number of people who organically see your posts, ‘pay to play’ has become standard to reach your fans. You can target these campaigns to  your fans, fans and their friends, or to a distinct audience you select through targeting options. This Objective is successful for two reasons: driving engagement on the posts and encouraging new fans.

One of the most important tricks here is you don’t have to actually boost a post that already exists. Once you get through the selection of the objective, targeting, and budget, you can create a new post that will only be used for the ad campaign. This is extremely powerful for running A/B testing of the same imagery and different copy as well as organic vs paid with the same content.

Get Video Views

Video view campaigns are used in the exact same way as a boosted post, just with video content instead of static imagery. Like boosted posts, you can create these campaigns to live in ads only but look like a native post. This means it looks like a post on your page even though it doesn’t actually exist there. And the person viewing the ad will only know that it is a ‘paid’ post because it says “sponsored” (like in the image of the Pottery Barn Ad). These campaigns are billed at a cost per view but still encourage engagement. This adds a secondary value to your results. Video campaigns are powerful, and with the right Call to Action (CTA) and content can also drive a significant amount of traffic to the website (extra bonus!).

Promote Your Page

Promotion of the page itself without a post or a website campaign tied to it accomplishes 1 goal: new fans (Reach). And while the number of people who have liked your page is a great marker, it has zero value without engagement. I find that the goal of this campaign objective can be better accomplished through a different objective: Boosted Posts. Using boosted posts to a target audience that isn’t already your fan encourages both engagement AND fans, which is a much stronger result.

Increase Brand Awareness

Brand Awareness campaigns have been available through Facebook Power Editor since last year. But for most brands using the ‘ad manager’, these are a new addition to the list.

From the Facebook Developer site – “Brand Awareness uses a combination of real-time proxy metrics, including both the reach and relative attention the users give to the campaign, to maximize ad recall lift. We introduced a new BRAND_AWARENESS objective and a new BRAND_AWARENESS optimization_goal, provided more control with REACH optimization_goal, and added a new reporting metric.”

Simply put: This campaign is about brand RECALL. How well does someone remember your brand after they have seen your ad? And, with more control over the frequency of ad delivery, you can create a longer Facebook advertising campaign with more pieces to the puzzle. It’s definitely a powerful new option, but will take a unique strategy to get the most from it. One big recommendation: do not use these for web traffic. These are about branding and recognition; if you want website traffic, select an Objective specifically in that category.

Reach People Near Your Business

If your brand is a hyper-local business, carrying products/services that can be purchased by almost everyone, but desires to narrow targeting by age and gender, this is a place to start. However, I find that almost every other campaign option is more effective. Having only 2 options for targeting makes this campaign very one-dimensional so I rarely recommend these. 99% of the time, brands are better off using “Boost post” or “Promote Page” instead.

GOAL: Find Potential Customers

Facebook Advertising Website Clicks – Dollar Shave Club

Send People to Your Website

Website Traffic campaigns should run during the same time as campaigns that focus on either engagement or conversions. They are exceptional when you’re looking to build a database of potential customers and learn visitor behavior. These campaigns are most effective when you use a custom audience based on website traffic and targeting people who have viewed specific products or pages (also known as retargeting campaigns). Be aware of your classifications and audience segments as well as your frequency to avoid over-saturation in your target audience.

Collect Leads for Your Business

Facebook Advertising Event Attendance – Burger Boss

Why would you use a Facebook lead generation campaign instead of your website lead generation form? Simplicity. Facebook lead generation campaigns feel cohesive to the users experience on Facebook. The form can auto populate with a users Facebook information and doesn’t direct them off the platform. By combining the form with a valuable offer or inside information, this is a perfect campaign for the top of the sales funnel at a significantly lower Cost per lead. And by adding in custom audiences, it can become a generator for qualified leads too.

Raise Attendance at Your Event

Event pages are successful when you allow the people who are interested in attending to take the lead in the conversation. Promotion of an event page is essential to drive awareness. It can also be used to create leads/sell tickets by integrating your website properly into the campaign. The best campaigns will have a social sharing component to encourage the organic reach of the event. Location-based targeting will be your best friend here.

GOAL: Drive Sales (Ecomm or Brick & Mortar)

Facebook Advertising Website Conversions – Beta Brand

Increase Conversions on Your Website

Facebook Advertising Offer – Splendid

If you’re using this campaign for a NEW customer, you could be looking at anywhere from $10-$100 to get a sale. Having a firm understanding of your cost per sale vs cost per acquisition is key. If your product price can’t support the CPS/CPA, you’ll spend more than you’ll ever get out of it. However, if you’re using this in combination with custom audiences and understand the long term value of building new customers, that cost becomes less important. These campaigns work well with the right offer and targeting. They should run at the same time as engagement and branding campaigns for maximum impact.

Get People to Claim Your Offer

Offers are designed to be used during a limited window of time or for a very specific product. To make an impact, you need to have a heavy discount or special gift with purchase and a limited supply. Facebook offer campaigns work great in both Ecomm or Brick & Mortar stores, but the long-term impact for a brick & mortar is significantly greater. Getting a customer to walk through your doors, even if it is for a discount, gives your brand the opportunity to create a customer for life. Be aware: once you create an offer, you can’t edit or delete it. So, triple check your wording, imagery, and details before you click publish.

Promote a Product Catalog

Until recently, Facebook dynamic ads were only available through the developer API or select partners. And they have been extremely powerful. Now, dynamic ads and product catalog campaigns have been opened up to all brands. However, these campaigns are not for beginners. The back-end work to build this out takes development expertise and ideally, a live feed from your existing product catalog that works with Facebook. If you want to know more about integrating a product catalog, Facebook has a great starting guide.

GOAL: App Installs & Engagement

Facebook Advertising App Install – SaveHoney

Get Installs of / Increase Engagement in Your App

Have an app you want people to use more often? This is where you want to go. You can link directly to the install page on Facebook or on any outside platform. Facebook apps are Pandora’s box, and I’d prefer not to open that here. If you do have an app and could use some help with these campaigns, we can discuss in the comments.

Next in the series, we will discuss selecting placements and formatting.

Which types of Facebook Advertising Objectives have you used in your campaigns?

All Facebook advertising examples were pulled from my newsfeed (brands targeting me) because I can’t share the ads I am running for clients (sorry!)

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Instagram claims that they are driving huge engagement and conversion levels – much higher than Facebook has ever been able to do. Of course, they never share the poor case studies, but with how seamless Instagram advertising feels to the platform, it isn’t a surprise that they are getting solid numbers. In addition, Instagram users miss 70 percent of the posts that show up in their feeds, meaning they only see 30 percent of the content posted by users and brands they follow. The new Instagram algorithm will impact this number even more (it’s definitely not improving organic reach), making advertising on Instagram a must for brands.

The Good News

• Instagram advertising pricing has gone the way of Facebook, with low-cost advertising options. Twitter is the last of the social media platforms with absurdly high minimums ($3k+ month).
• Brands have 3 different options for ad campaign formats: carousel ads, using multiple images in one post and :30-second videos (instead of just :15).
• The Instagram advertising objectives are just as strong as Facebook. They offer clicks to the website, website conversions, branding/reach, engagement & video views. Instagram also offers an additional objective – Mass Awareness – which creates some incredible campaigns, but is currently still only available via Instagram Rep.
• It removes the ‘no links in the post’ issue. The call to action button opens the door to creativity and real tracking with website clicks/conversions.
• Don’t have an Instagram for your business? You can still run ads there, using your Facebook page as the connector.

The Bad News

There is always some – and in this case, it’s the perception of advertising on Instagram. Of course, this isn’t a new issue. When advertising rolls out on any platform, the users are unhappy. Which is ridiculous. Social Media platforms can’t exist without advertising. If you love Instagram, you should be appreciative for the brands willing to spend money on advertising.

So, Why Instagram Advertising?

Because your brand is worth the investment and the flexibility of the platform is brilliant. With the right strategy, content and imagery – I firmly agree with Instagram’s assessment of their reach and conversions.

Want to explore more about Instagram advertising campaigns? Tell me what you want to know in the comments!

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A social media policy is designed to protect both the company and the employee by laying out clear guidelines for what is acceptable and what is not, as well as what happens if the rules are broken. While your social media policy will vary depending on your employees, beliefs and industry, here are a few points to get you started (or, validate your existing policy against):

Employee Social Media usage

• Unless the use of social media is part of the employee’s job description, time spent on social media should be reserved for break/lunch.
• Posting on social media during work trips should be kept to a minimum.
• Posting about events, customers, or meetings can cause issues if it is seen by the wrong parties.
• Employees should not post on the official brand channels as themselves.
• Content posted by a brand employee reflects on the brand and will be treated as an official statement from the employee.
• Access to brand social media channels should be limited, and the list of authorized users should be reviewed regularly .

Representing yourself & the company

If any employee participates in a conversation about the brand or the industry in a public forum they must identify themselves as an employee. Not only is this ethical, but failure to do so could result in personal liability exposure under the Federal Trade Commission regulations. (HINT: All social media channels are considered public, regardless of your privacy settings)

Confidentiality

It’s good business practice for companies and individuals to keep certain topics confidential. This includes things heard during conversations between employees in and out of the workplace. Refrain from speculation on the future of the Company and its products. Keep topics focused to matters of public record when speaking about the Company or industry. Do not disclose non-public company information or photography or the personal information of others.

Common Sense

Common sense is not so common.
Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)

If you are unsure about posting the content or comment, don’t. It is never worth the risk to your job or future career. Treat past and present co-workers, other personnel, suppliers, consumers, partners, competitors, the Company and yourself with respect. Avoid posting materials and comments that could be seen as disrespectful, offensive, threatening, demeaning or abusive. Acknowledge differences of opinion. If you can’t be nice – log off!

Public vs Private domain

The Internet is a public space, so consider everything you post to the Internet the same as anything you would post to a bulletin board or submit to a newspaper. Nothing you post is private; even if you have strict privacy settings, assume that anyone could potentially see the content. Many eyes may fall upon your words, images and comments, including those of reporters, consumers, your manager and the competition. No matter how private the site you’re using may seem, it isn’t and others will see it. The delete button does not exist when it comes to social media and once it is out there, it is virtually impossible to take it back.

The bottom line: A social media policy should be a key training document for all employees, and should be reviewed with any employees who are moving into a role that has access to the company’s corporate social media accounts.

Does your company have a social media policy in place?

Image Credit: Unknown. If you know, let me know! I will update it!

The post Do you need a social media policy? appeared first on Wright Creativity.

1. The order in which you see your content will no longer be chronological.
2. The content you see first will be based on (speculating here…) the Facebook algorithm: affinity, weight & time decay.
3. Brands will have to spend money on the platform to make sure that people see their content.

Facebook didn’t buy Instagram for $1 Billion because they liked the #selfies people took. They wanted access to the data, the users & the ability to launch advertising on the platform. And keeping the platform controlled by when the users post vs an algorithm they design is not good for business.

The Instagram Algorithm and Users.

Yes – it’s irritating. It kind of defeats the purpose of the name “INSTA”gram… but it doesn’t really do much else. You’re not leaving Instagram because of it. Instagram will still be an amazing place to share photos and videos, and for most, the effect will be minimal. The content (and users) you engage with will remain your top content, you’ll see a few more ads, and you won’t particularly see things in chronological order. But the good news is, people will still be taking a million and one #selfies for you to comment on!

The Instagram Algorithm and Brands.

For brands who have already been advertising with Instagram, you’ve probably noticed what started as a requirement of a $5k ad spend minimum, through specific ad partners and a multi month commitment has turned into an open ad platform accessible through the main Facebook ad manager. This update means that there are going to be even more options for advertising at a lower price point, giving brands that couldn’t afford to advertise a fighting chance.

Personally, I have no issue with the change, I will still see the content from my friends and might discover some new brands I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

And from a brand standpoint, I have even less of an issue. The update means brands will need strategic planning and advertising to reach their audience, which is great for my business.

Have you been effected by the Instagram algorithm update? What are your thoughts on the change?

The post The Instagram Algorithm Is Here. Have You Been Effected Yet? appeared first on Wright Creativity.

Yes, you can organically grow a Facebook page; reach people, engage an audience and develop a community without spending a dime… but it is slow, frustrating and can completely ineffective in delivering sales.

So, crack open the wallet and let’s create a Facebook campaign that delivers a community that engages AND buys.

The 5 Steps of a Successful Facebook Campaign

1. Well defined and realistic OBJECTIVES
2. Step by step TACTICS to achieve said goal
3. Strong CONTENT, both in copy and imagery
4. TRACKING on all pieces of the campaigns, links, and content
5. Positive RESULTS with the ability to modify & improve future campaigns

To show you how it all works, I’m going to give you the outline version of a real campaign I built for a brand that sells luxury makeup products – dubbed “BrandX”.

(If you want a fully built Facebook campaign, let’s talk!).

Currently, BrandX’s Facebook page has under 1000 fans, and they want to grow that fan base with engaged fans that are potential customers and drive sales through their Ecommerce website using Facebook. We do not have a set ‘growth’ number for their fan base because they do not JUST want a large number of random women, but a growing number of ideally targeted women. BrandX has zero sales and negligible traffic from social media, so there is no ‘hard’ number outlined in the objectives there either. However, once the first rounds of campaigns run, the traffic and sales objectives will be updated with CPC and Conversion rate numbers. Their total Facebook budget is $3000 a month.

OBJECTIVE

1. Increase BrandX’s Facebook fan base with women that fit their target market
2. Drive targetted traffic to the website from Facebook
3. Convert the Facebook web traffic into sales

TACTICS

• ($500 budget) Post 3-4 times per week on the Facebook page with content designed to encourage engagement while building the brand story. Use boosted posts to increase reach to fans, friends of fans & target market.
• ($2500 budget) Multiple paid Facebook campaigns with the goal of:
  • ENGAGEMENT & BRAND EQUITY – utilizing the extensive options in Facebooks audience selection to specifically target BrandX’s ideal fan/customer base.
  • TRAFFIC & SALES – narrowing the BrandX target market further with monetary/purchase qualifiers.

CONTENT

The Facebook Campaign Content should accomplish a goal:

1. Fall in love (So pretty! So glamorous!)
2. Envy / Imitation (I want to be / am that person, this is perfect for me too)
3. Impulse buy (OMG! I HAVE to have that now!)
4. Researched purchase (This is exactly what I have been looking for!)

Pick an emotion and dedicate the image and copy to it. 

BrandX has 4 different core audiences. Once the audience is selected, the copy and images are developed based on that person/group of people for each campaign. The campaigns are created using a mix based on the likelihood of purchase and / or engagement.

For BrandX, the following mix will be used for their Facebook campaigns to drive the most engagement and sales based on our understanding of their marketplace, customer and goals:

• 3 Campaigns focused on LOVE – Focused on their top 5 product offerings (Budget: $600)
  • 1 boosted post, 2 ad campaigns (1 carousel, 1 singular image with A/B testing on copy)
• 2 Campaigns focused on ENVY – Using 2 brand ambassadors to show off how they use the makeup (Budget: $400)
  • Run both as boosted posts and ad campaigns simulaneously – boosted to fans only and ad campaign to competition fans
• 6 Campaigns focused on IMPULSE – Focused on their top 5 product offerings (Budget: $1500)
  • Ad campaigns based on web traffic to those pages + targeting based on potential customers. 2 different images per set of copy for A/B image testing
• 1 Campaign focused on RESEARCH – Building the story of the brand and why they are trusted in the industry (Budget $500)
  • 2 images, 2 different sets of copy with each image for A/B testing. Science vs legacy. Brand ambassador vs product details

TRACKING

All campaigns need to have as much tracking in place as possible. On the website side, this means Facebook pixels were put in place for the different conversion options (add to cart, purchase, specific products added, etc) as well as unique URL’s for each campaign utilizing UTM structures. On the Facebook side, it means that each campaign is named in a unique way so we can monitor the results easily and we created A/B testing in the campaigns to determine what garners better results. On the data side, it means understanding what each data point means, how it is effected and what you can do to change it so that you can modify future campaigns based on the results you achieve.

RESULTS

The results you need to mark your campaign successful will depend on your objectives. In this case, BrandX’s Facebook Campaign objectives will be measured through: 

1. Engagement Rate (actions vs reach)
2. Fan Growth (% increase)
3. CPE (Engagement Campaigns)
4. CPC (Traffic Campaigns)
5. Conversion rate (Sales Campaigns)

It is important to track only the data that actually tells you something about the campaign, rather than all possible data figures. Data overload doesn’t help anyone.

Facebook will be a successful piece of Brand X’s digital marketing strategy because their campaigns have defined and realistic OBJECTIVES, step by step TACTICS, strong CONTENT, link TRACKING and positive RESULTS.

What questions do you have about building a Facebook campaign? Are you ready to get started with a strategy for your brand?

Facebook Icon via Land Of Web

Featured image: Flat design vector illustration of creative office workspace by karnoff

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“Social media is about engagement, conversations and an audience… designed to increase reach of the brand. Social media is immeasurable against traditional ROI + ROAS standards”.

ROI + ROAS {Return on investment + return on ad spend}. It’s what every C-Level executive wants out of their Social Media Marketing team and their initiatives.

And rightly so.

Why would you execute a strategy that you can’t prove works? Justify the spend & expect results.

With that said, there is more to social media than straight dollars and cents. It’s not some elusive beast that we can’t define, but many choose to pretend it is so they don’t have to validate their work. Don’t let that be the case for your brand.

Social Media ROI + ROAS is measured by increases in:

• Profits
• Share of voice
• New customer leads
• Retained customers
• Web traffic (including conversions)
• Positive Customer experiences
• Engagement with your content

But to get to these strategic (and tangible) results, you have to know what you’re doing:

1⃣Build a strategic road map. Focus on your customers needs, not solely what benefits your organization.

2⃣ Set reasonable goals. Establish goals in every social initiative that are trackable, tangible and valuable.

3⃣ Create stunning campaigns. Copy & visuals can make or break a campaign. Do not half-ass this.

4⃣ Invest properly. You cannot achieve success without a solid budget spent wisely.

5⃣ Analyze & report the results. Be disciplined, target improvement not ‘the next big thing’.

6⃣ Adjust, modify, improve. Do not let your campaigns be the definition of insanity.

Social is an inherent cost for a brand. But that doesn’t mean it should be a spending black hole. If you have the right road map in place, ROI + ROAS are not only achievable, but expected. If your social strategist can’t provide this or do that, RUN.

Does your social deliver?

The post Stop the Social Media ROI + ROAS Bullsh*t. appeared first on Wright Creativity.

So, I quit my job without another one lined up. It was (is) terrifying. But it was the right choice. It was the choice I had to make to open the door for what’s next – something that lets me utilize my experience as a social/digital strategist AND gives me more time with the two little humans that call me mom.

But, until I find that perfect next fit, I am going back to what I loved and started 6 years ago: Consulting on social / digital strategy. Now, with a lot more experience in the big bad consumer goods world!

Explore my site, check out what I offer & if you’re looking for a partner to help take your brand to the next level in social media, let’s talk!

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