Brian Meert's Blog, page 100

These Snapchat Advertising Updates Will Bring Cheer This Year

November 30, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

Snapchat is coming down the chimney with gifts for advertisers. Snap recently released two new updates to help advertisers better reach their audiences: a Lens Creative Partners Program and a Snapchat Ads Shopify app.

Lens Creative Partners Program

The Lens Creative Partner Program includes, at this time, more than 30 certified lens creators that advertisers can turn to for their augmented reality lens creation needs.

AR lenses allow advertisers to create unique experiences for Snapchat users while also incorporating branded content. The juxtaposition of branded content and personalized content allows advertisers to reach viral marketing exposure.

According to Tech Crunch, the bulk of certified creators currently participating in the program are located in the United States.  Some are in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Over the next few weeks, Snap plans to launch the program in more regions, with expectations to add more than 100 creators to the list in the coming months.

“To be certified, creators had to be experienced in developing quality AR and complete a rigorous course about the development process, creative best practices, ad policies and buy models of sponsored AR Lenses on Snapchat,” Snap wrote in its blog post announcement.

The Lens Creative Partners Program is a great resource for advertisers who don’t have the time or resources to create AR lenses in-house. For advertisers that do have the ability to have in-house developers create unique AR lenses, there’s the Lens Studio AR developer tool, which was launched about a year ago.

Snapchat Ads Shopify App

Shopify now offers an app that allows advertisers to manage two integral Snapchat for Business products on a convenient app platform: the Snap Pixel and Product Catalogs.

Snap Pixel is a metrics tool that allows advertisers to measure campaign performance. The Shopify app makes it easy to deploy the Pixel quickly and conveniently view important metrics from mobile devices.

Product Catalogs is a tool that syncs products from your store with Snapchat to create a catalog featuring your products for more engaging ads. Advertisers can use the Shopify app to easily create a catalog for their Snapchat campaigns.

Between the Lens Creative Partners Program and the Shopify app, Snapchat advertisers’ spirits will be bright this holiday season.

Written by Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

The post These Snapchat Advertising Updates Will Bring Cheer This Year appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Your Handy Dandy Guide to Creating Instagram Stories Effects

November 29, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ad agency

Creativity is always at your fingertips if you want it. In the words of Maya Angelou, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

Social media is a growing canvas for creativity. A perfect example is the Spark AR platform, which allows creators and developers to make interactive, augmented reality experiences for mobile-using Facebook and Instagram users. Previously called the Camera Effects Platform, Spark AR was first introduced in April 2017 and expanded to Instagram earlier this year. As a result, you can now create effects for Instagram Stories.

This article will serve as your guide for creating successful effects for your Instagram Stories marketing campaign. It will help you expand your creative reach to the world of augmented reality so you can engage with your audiences in more unique and immersive ways.

Spark AR: The Basics

To create camera effects for Instagram, you need to use the Spark AR Studio tool. At this time, this desktop tool is only available for MacOS. It allows you to perform authoring and compositing actions to create AR experiences. You will need to download Spark AR Studio to your desktop. You also need a Facebook account to log in to Spark AR. If you want to publish effects to Instagram, you need an Instagram account.

Creative Guidelines

Spark AR offers these creative tips for your Instagram effect:

Design for repeat use. Make an effect that can be used in a variety of contexts, that is relevant all year round.
Get it started quickly. Get to the essence of your effect within the first few seconds. Don’t risk losing your audience’s attention.
Avoid text. If you must include text, keep it minimal. Let users add their own text and stickers to your effect. Otherwise, you’re encroaching on their space.
Avoid obscuring faces. Again, you don’t want to encroach on users’ screen space. Users typically still want to see their faces in their Stories. Your effect should supplement their experience, not overthrow it.
Make it social. Users enjoy making Stories with their friends. Make your effect friend-friendly by adding support for multiple people in the screen.
Avoid the screen’s edges. To prevent UI from obscuring your effect, make sure your effect isn’t too close to the edges of the phone screen.
Avoid commerciality. Unless it is part of the real-world environment, avoid obvious branding in your effect. For example, refrain from logos, text, dates, URLs, and other commercial elements.
Respect creative licenses. Spark AR stipulates in its Terms that you must have the appropriate licensing rights to all the content in your effect.

The best AR experiences help users have fun, look cool, or participate in a cultural moment.

Technical Guidelines

According to Spark AR’s guidelines, there are three technical areas you should look at when testing your effect:

Design and Interactions. Your effect should be simple to use. Gestures should be intuitive and touch interactions should be obvious. There should only be one or two main interactions needed to master the effect.
Capabilities. Do not over-stack capabilities in your effect. It could cause your effect to perform slower or fail on older devices.
Touch Gestures. Make sure any screen gestures in your effect do not contradict or interrupt basic commands users are accustomed to on their mobile devices. Avoid full-screen gestures by instead attaching smaller gestures to specific objects in the scene.

Keep these technical guidelines in mind to create an effect that delivers only positive AR experiences.

Community Guidelines

You must adhere to Spark AR’s Community Guidelines to promote a safe and authentic digital environment for creativity. For camera effects, it is especially important to account for the following:

Well-being: Effects must not encourage bullying, self-harm, or violence.
Cultural Sensitivity: Effects must not alter physical appearances to match another ethnicity or support negative stereotypes.

The Spark AR Studio platform is intended for positive and safe experiences. Make sure your effect does not violate that purpose in any way.

Publishing Your AR Effect to Instagram

Once you finish creating your effect, you can publish it directly through the Spark AR Studio platform. Simply choose Instagram as the effect’s destination. Spark AR allows you to upload effects up to 4 MB in size for Instagram. After you have upload your effect to Spark, you can either specify a release date or publish it immediately after approval.

Before it can go live, your effect must be reviewed and approved. This is to ensure it is in compliance with Spark AR Platform Policies. The review process can take up to a week to complete. When your effect is approved, you will receive a link you can share across social media and your website to get the word out and encourage people to try it. The link opens on mobile devices to your effect in the Instagram camera.

After your effect goes live, users will be able to locate it within the Instagram camera. If a user shares your effect in Instagram Stories or Direct, those who see it can click a “Try It” link to use it in their own camera.

Once your effect is out there, you want to know how well it’s doing. Spark AR gives you access to the following metrics:

Impressions: The total number of times an effect was displayed on screen.
Story Impressions: The number of times an effect is displayed in Instagram Stories.
Camera Impressions: The number of times an effect is displayed while a person is trying it in the Instagram camera.

To stop your effect, navigate to the “Delivery” toggle in the Spark AR platform.

Testing and Support

You can test and preview your effect on a device through the Spark AR Studio Player, which is a mobile app. The app is available in the App Store and the Google Play Store. You can tether the app to the Spark AR platform on your desktop to view what your effect looks like on a mobile device.

Instagram recommends testing your effect multiple times across a range of iOS and Android devices.

There are various resources to help you navigate the effect creation process:

Documentation portal
Spark AR Studio FAQs
Spark AR Community
Branding Guidelines
Spark AR Platform Policies

Spark AR Is Your Creative Canvas

Spark AR Studio is ready to work for you. Dare to be unique and innovative, sharing your creativity with the world of augmented reality. You’re only steps away from connecting with your audience through new, immersive experiences.

So what are you waiting for?

Written by Anna Hubbel, writer at  AdvertiseMint, Facebook ad agency

The post Your Handy Dandy Guide to Creating Instagram Stories Effects appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Make Holiday Marketing Merry with These Business Tools

November 27, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising company
Drew Coffman / Unsplash

It’s both the most wonderful and the most stressful time of the year if you’re an advertiser. But it doesn’t have to be. If you want your holiday digital marketing campaign to succeed, there are a few business tools you should use, so it’s much easier on your schedule. With your schedule freed up, you can be more efficient with your time, making your campaigns far more likely to succeed. Here’s the list of business tools that you should check twice before getting deep into your holiday campaign.

ManyChat Automated Messages

Instantaneously communicating with your customers is crucial during the holiday season. Purchase intent is more fleeting when potential customers are searching for the perfect gift, so it’s important to reach them at that pivotal moment. A great tool that helps is ManyChat.

ManyChat is an automation tool for Facebook Messenger that lets you create a bot that delivers automated messages to your customers for marketing, sales, and support. You can create a bot that sends promotional messages like special holiday discounts, offer shopping assistance, and even sell specific products.

Let’s say you own a clothing retail store, and your customers, who are interested in your products online, haven’t made the move to purchase. A ManyChat bot can send those customers messages with links to the product to remind them of their interest and to make it easy for them to buy the product directly through Messenger. Your bot could also offer a special discount if the customers buy immediately. That extra nudge might be all that it takes to get them to buy your product.

Aesthetic By Science, a fitness-based community in Bulgaria, used a ManyChat bot, and the results were astounding. In just three hours, the brand sold $5,000 in t-shirts. Aesthetic’s bot allowed users to buy directly through Facebook Messenger.

MailChimp Email Marketing Messages

Email marketing is especially useful during the holidays because you can promote special offers in alluring ways. A tool for email marketing is MailChimp, which allows you to create automated email campaigns to reach your existing customers as they create their holiday shopping lists. Using MailChimp’s automated email features frees up your time to focus on other areas of your business during the busy holiday season.

The beauty of MailChimp is it allows you to send automated email messages customized for the individual customer based on where she is on the shopping journey. For example, if shoppers are on your website, and they add an item to their carts but then abandon the carts without following through on the purchase, you can create an automated MailChimp email that will remind shoppers that they left an item in their carts.

You can also take advantage of MailChimp’s automated emails by offering exclusive deals to customers on your email list. Give them special treatment, show them extra love this holiday season without taking extra time out of your schedule.

Topo Designs, a retail company based in Colorado, used MailChimp to encourage shoppers to return to their abandoned carts. Topo used a simple automated email reminder that included a link to the cart. Over time, Topo would offer a discount to entice shoppers to return and make a purchase. As a result, the company saw a 20 percent click rate.

Hootsuite Social Media Scheduling

You cannot expect to succeed during the holidays without a social media marketing strategy. But managing all of your business’s social accounts can be overwhelming this time of year. That’s where scheduling tools like Hootsuite come in handy.

Hootsuite allows you to schedule posts across multiple social media accounts without manually publishing from each account every time you share a post. You can plan your holiday messages to publish throughout the week in advance, allowing Hootsuite to do the rest.

For example, you want to do a countdown to Christmas throughout the month of December. Pick a day to create a series of unique holiday posts, select which day and time you want each post to publish, then schedule it. You can have all your social media tasks finished for the month with time to spare for your other holiday marketing responsibilities.

Axel Koster used Hootsuite in his social media strategy to grow Australia’s Manhattan Group recruitment agency. The Hootsuite platform helped him attain more than half a million followers and become one of the 10 most-followed recruiters on Twitter. He became a master of social media management.

Facebook’s Custom and Lookalike Audiences

No amount of holiday advertising is going to do you any good if it’s not reaching the right audience. With so much content coming through on News Feed every second, it can be especially challenging to reach the right audience with your Facebook advertising campaign. Fortunately, Facebook has tools to help you do it, such as Custom and Lookalike Audiences.

Facebook’s Custom Audience tool lets you upload an existing customer list when specifying your target audience for your ad campaign. This is useful because it ensures that your ads will be delivered to people who expressed interest in your business. During the holiday season, those customers are more likely to buy from you again.

For example, if you have a list of customers you’ve garnered from rewards sign-ups at the physical location for your jewelry store, you can upload that list to Facebook to make a Custom Audience. Those customers have already bought jewelry from you in the past, so they are more likely to be interested in buying from you again during the holidays when an ad for your business pops up in their News Feeds. Having that Custom Audience handy makes it easier to generate holiday sales.

A Lookalike Audience helps you acquire new customers that have traits similar to those of your existing customers. This tool delivers your ads to like-minded customers so your ads aren’t reaching people who are less likely to buy from you.

Using the jewelry store example again, you can create a Lookalike Audience using the information from your Custom Audience to reach new customers. If your Custom Audience includes a lot of young men (buying for their wives or girlfriends) who live in a specific geographic area, your Lookalike Audience would target male Facebook users who have not yet purchased from you but live in the same or surrounding area.

Google’s Ad Strength Tool

If you plan to advertise with Google this season, you could give the company’s new Ad Strength tool a spin to make A/B testing much easier. The Ad Strength tool lets you measure an ad’s effectiveness before you publish it. It shows the strength of your Responsive Search or Display ads on a poor to excellent scale based on relevance, quality, and diversity within the ad copy. This unique tool helps you quickly learn which ads perform best, ensuring that you aren’t wasting any time on ads that won’t generate optimal results.

For example, you are trying to decide between “Shop Our Best Holiday Deals on Vacuum Cleaners” or “Best Vacuum Prices of the Season” for the headline of your Google ad. The Ad Strength tool will tell you which headline is more effective without going through a long, drawn-out trial-and-error process.

Master the Holidays

Your success during the holidays will set the tone for your business in the new year, so it’s crucial to give your holiday campaign all you got. But you don’t have to do it alone. These business tools will have you rockin’ around the Christmas tree with confidence, efficiency, and profits in your pocket, allowing you to buy your own holiday gifts for the ones you love.

Written by Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising company

The post Make Holiday Marketing Merry with These Business Tools appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Local Auto Dealers Should Know These Key Tips for Facebook Ads

November 27, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company
Goh Rhy Yan / Unsplash

The auto industry is all about the rush, action, and competition. It’s also full of pressure to be the best and prove it to potential customers. In such a highly competitive industry, auto dealerships are faced with the challenge of standing out in the marketing game. That’s where Facebook comes in.

From unique targeting capabilities to creative ad format options, Facebook is the best social media platform for local auto dealerships who want optimal reach. It offers unique ways to reach both existing customers and new ones who live nearby. That being said, not everyone knows how to market well on Facebook. That’s where I come in.

I may not be a professional car salesman, but I do know a thing or two about Facebook advertising. In this article, I give you my top tips for local auto dealers who want to advertise on Facebook. By the time you finish reading, you’ll be ready to get into gear and stand out above the others. Here is my top Facebook ad advice for local auto dealers.

Use Vertical Format for Videos

Video is the best way to tell a story and get customers excited about your vehicle. But most Facebook users watch video on their mobile devices, so your video needs to be convenient to watch; otherwise, customers aren’t going to waste their time on it. That’s why you want to make your video in vertical format, as opposed to horizontal format. Video that’s formatted horizontally requires users to rotate their mobile devices in order to view the video in fullscreen. Vertical video, on the other hand, eliminates that extra step, so users get the best viewing experience.

You want to make the best use of the vertical space to captivate your audience. You can do this by breaking up the video into sections from top to bottom. For example, you can do a split screen, with one video playing above a different one below, each playing simultaneously. Or you can have informative text on the top half of the screen and the footage of the vehicle on the bottom half. You can also keep it simple yet thrilling, filling the screen with the vehicle you’re promoting in action. The goal is to be creative and innovative, to wow your viewers.

Feature Multiple Products with the Carousel Format

An auto dealership has more than one vehicle model to sell. Rather than creating a separate ad for each model, use Facebook’s Carousel format to showcase the variety of cars you have in stock. This ad format is both convenient and sophisticated, giving your selection a professional look with high-quality images while also allowing potential buyers to easily browse what’s available.

To use the Carousel format effectively, feature high-quality images or video that attract your audience. Professional lighting and high resolution are essential in achieving this standard; anything less diminishes trust in your dealership’s overall quality. The images should primarily feature the vehicles you are promoting to avoid ambiguity and to also drive more interest in buying. When your audience sees your Carousel ad, they should know what to expect when they click it to learn more.

Image Courtesy of Bridgewater Chevrolet

Bridgewater Chevrolet uses a combination of photos and video in this Carousel ad for the 2018 Silverado. There are several good elements in this ad. The images are crisp and professional, showcasing one of its trucks in a location that matches the vehicle and showcasing the others in a variety of angles to give more information about the trucks. The text above and below, next to the Learn More call-to-action, tells you exactly what’s in the image. This ad is an excellent example of how dealerships can use the Carousel format.

Target Local Customers with Location Targeting

Customers don’t like to travel far for their auto buying needs, so auto dealerships rely on customers who live nearby. Therefore, your Facebook ad should target those customers; otherwise, users who don’t live nearby, who are unlikely to buy from your dealership, will see your ad and not convert, which does nothing for your return on investment. Luckily, Facebook allows you to target local customers with location targeting.

When creating your Facebook ad and specifying your audience, you can indicate the location you want to target. Below is an example of what that might look like.

Image Courtesy of Facebook

Location targeting makes it easy to deliver your ads to nearby customers who are shopping around, attracting them to your dealership. When they see how close you are, they’ll be sure to express interest in what you have to offer.

Use a Custom Audience to Target Leads

Whether through online or offline sign-ups or contact forms, you’ve likely generated a list of leads that have already expressed interest in your dealership. Capitalize on those leads by creating a Custom Audience. A Custom Audience allows you to upload an existing list of leads to target when creating your Facebook ad. It helps you deliver relevant ads about your dealership to users who know who you are, who are more likely to buy. Below is what it looks like when you’re creating a Custom Audience for your Facebook ad.

Image Courtesy of Facebook

Custom Audiences are a great way to generate conversions for your dealership because they’re made with leads you’ve already collected. When those users see your Facebook ad, they’ll easily recognize your dealership and, hopefully, convert.

Expand Targeting with Lookalike Audience

Custom Audiences are well and good for reaching existing leads, but what about reaching new ones? That’s what Lookalike Audiences are for. Lookalike Audiences resemble the traits of your Custom Audience, except they include only users who have never interacted with your business before. This lets you expand your targeting and bring in more sales. Below is what it looks like when you create a Lookalike Audience based on a previously uploaded Custom Audience.

Image Courtesy of Facebook

Lookalike Audiences make the venture for new customers less daunting because they target users who look very similar to people who have already shown interest in your dealership. This handy feature makes acquiring new customers less of a shot in the dark.

Retarget Users Who Clicked Your Ad

If someone clicks your Facebook ad once, the chances are higher that they’d do it again, especially when they’re shopping around for a new vehicle. The auto buying process is often a long one and requires a lot of visiting and revisiting a variety of dealerships. Make it easy for them to revisit your dealership by retargeting users who clicked your Facebook ad.

You can use Facebook’s Custom Audience feature to retarget users who have previously clicked on your ad, specifying which criteria to target by, as in the example below.

Image Courtesy of Ad Espresso

By retargeting users who have previously clicked your Facebook ad, you’re reminding them throughout their auto buying journey that they’ve already looked at you once, so why not give you another look?

Exclude Users Who Already Converted

There’s nothing more annoying than getting ads from a dealership you just bought a vehicle from. When a customer has converted and bought from your dealership or signed up to learn more about your vehicles by clicking on your ad, you don’t want to pester them with more ads. Otherwise, you risk losing their loyalty and may even drive them to a different dealership the next time they want to buy. To avoid this scenario, when specifying your target audience for your Facebook ad, make sure to exclude users who have already converted.

To do this, simply create a Custom Audience based on users who have already converted, then select “Exclude” for that audience in your targeting settings, such as in the example below. By excluding users who have already converted, you help the dealership-customer relationship stay strong.

Image Courtesy of Facebook
It’s Time to Conquer the Auto Industry

Facebook advertising is just as competitive as the auto industry, so combining the two is a unique challenge. But local dealerships have the advantage of highlighting their location as the best reason to buy from them. That only works, however, if you know how to use Facebook’s tools to deliver your ads to customers based on location and target only customers who live nearby.

I hope you will use the advice in this article as a guide for your dealership’s Facebook marketing strategy. The truck is now in your garage. Put your dealership on the map and start using Facebook advertising to help rack up those sales!

Anna Hubbel , writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company

The post Local Auto Dealers Should Know These Key Tips for Facebook Ads appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Instagram Tests New Profile Design That Highlights Bio

November 26, 2018
Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency
Photo courtesy of Instagram-press.com

If you’re worried that no one pays enough attention to your bio, this Instagram redesign will surely put you at ease, maybe even compel you to do a celebratory dance.

In a post on its press page, Instagram announced that it is testing a redesign of the app’s profile. Although the redesign includes several changes, one striking difference is the bio’s placement. In the current version, the follower list appears, in large bold fold, above the bio. In the new version, the bio dominates the profile, appearing above the follower list.

This change emphasizes the bio rather than the follower count, turning the Instagram profile into a better web traffic tool. Those who use Instagram for business include their websites on their bios, hoping that followers will visit their sites. With the redesign placing bios higher in the page, web traffic may increase.

Mutual followers is another pleasing addition to the design. While the current design shows two tabs separating followers and the accounts you’re following, the new design also includes a mutual tab, listing the followers you and another account share. This is a welcome change to anyone who often add connections of connections on Instagram.

Finally, a change that may please some and not others, Instagram will do away with the three icons above your profile feed, replacing them with five tabs, Grid, Posts, Shop, IGTV, and Tagged. Replacing icons with words makes the profile user-friendly: we no longer have to figure out the meaning of each ambiguous symbol.

Adding IGTV, which rolled out in June, to the tabs is also a notable change, a move goading users to visit the unpopular video hub more often.

Instagram is testing a profile redesign, but before you do your celebratory dance, wait for these designs to officially roll out first. Let’s not get too excited.

Written by Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

The post Instagram Tests New Profile Design That Highlights Bio appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Instagram Is Stripping Accounts of Fake Likes and Follows

November 20, 2018
Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency
Jakob Owens / Unsplash

You didn’t think this day would come, but here it is. Buying those fake Instagram likes and follows is now going to bite you in the derrière.

As announced by The Verge, Instagram is implementing its Community Guidelines and Terms of Use by stripping accounts of fake likes and follows bought from third-party apps. Instagram’s machine-learning tool finds accounts that increase followers and engagement then automatically removes those fake likes and follows.

Instagram will notify the accounts that use those third-party apps about the removal. It will also require those accounts to change their passwords in case the apps compromised their account securities.

Instagram’s Community Guidelines emphasize the importance of creating genuine interactions, urging users to keep the platform free of spammy behavior by “not artificially collecting likes, followers, or shares.”

Keeping the social media app spam-free is especially important now, when marketers, advertisers, and influencers rely on the platform to grow brand presence and revenues. While some are willing to play by the rules (paying for ads and growing followers and engagement organically), some are not, relying on engagement groups and bot farms to beef up their profiles.

While Instagram purges accounts of fake likes and follows, it’s time to change your marketing strategy. You either pay to play or put in the hours to organically acquire real followers and genuine likes.

Written by Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

The post Instagram Is Stripping Accounts of Fake Likes and Follows appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

How to Manage an Influx of Customer Messages This Holiday Season

November 20, 2018

Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

‘Tis the season for holiday shopping, and as flustered customers scramble to buy the perfect gift for their loved ones, expect calls and messages to flood in with requests for support and general inquiries, may that be an inquiry for return policies, a request for store hours information, or a small complaint about a defective product.

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year, but don’t you let the thought of hectic calls and messages overwhelm you. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to share.

Don’t Dawdle

Don’t ignore the flood of messages the way you ignore the dishes piling up in your kitchen sink. Although it is overwhelming to see unread messages pile in your inbox, you must respond to each message as quickly as possible to deliver satisfactory customer service.

People are impatient, studies show. In an experiment that measures attention spans, Computer Science Professor Ramesh Sitaraman at UMass Amherst examined the viewing habits of 6.7 million users and found that users abandon a video after the first two seconds. As technology provides people with instant gratification (same-day shipping, quick internet speeds), users become more and more impatient. If customers can’t finish a video past two seconds, they won’t wait days for your reply.

If you communicate with customers using Messenger, Facebook recommends that you respond within a few hours. If you don’t, your untimely responses will be documented for all to see, as all Facebook pages disclose a business’ response time. If your response time isn’t up to par with customers’ expectations, your business could be viewed as unreliable and unprofessional.

Each Facebook page discloses a response rate

Of course, you’re no superhuman being. You can’t manage a flood of messages on your own. If you become overwhelmed, enlist the help of a chatbot. According to research by Gartner, organizations that use chatbots had reduced calls, chat, and email inquiries by 70 percent. They also had a 33 percent increase in customer satisfaction.

You don’t need coding knowledge to create a chatbot. Because a few services, like ManyChat, help you easily create Messenger bots, there’s no reason not to have one.

Treat Customers like Human Beings

People are intelligent creatures with complex thoughts and feelings. Like most complex and intelligent creatures, people want to be treated like human beings. Talk to them with the same amiable disposition as you would with a friend. Even if you become frustrated (let’s say you’re dealing with a difficult customer), respond politely and professionally, even when it hurts.

There are a few things you can do to make your messages sound more human and less robot. You can call customers by their first names and sign your messages with your name to show you are not a chatbot. If appropriate to your brand, add stickers and emojis to your messages to lend a personal aspect to your responses.

Be Organized

There’s a way to make your conversations less overwhelming whenever you open Messenger—it’s called organization. If you have a Facebook page, you can easily manage all of your messages from the Inbox tab of your page. You can create folders for read and unread messages, messages you replied to, ongoing conversations, and messages you have not yet replied to. If there’s a particularly important message you want to easily spot, you can mark it with a star icon.

Facebook pages allow you to organize messages

Once you organize your inbox, you won’t have to spend time hunting down messages or, worse, lose important conversations in your pile of unread messages. When you have an organized inbox, you can also easily allocate tasks to your chat support team, if you have one. For example, if one person is in charge of responding to messages, that person can easily find all of his tasks under the “unread” folder. Similarly, if another is in charge of responding to important messages, that person can easily find important messages marked with a star.

Don’t Let the Holiday Season Overwhelm You

As Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Christmas quickly approach, customers will be scrambling to buy the perfect holiday gift. When they contact you for any reason, don’t be overwhelmed. You have three new tricks up your sleeve to make this holiday season easier.

Written by Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency

The post How to Manage an Influx of Customer Messages This Holiday Season appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

6 Theme Park Facebook Ads That Knock It Out of the Park

November 19, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company
Travis Gergen / Unsplash

I can’t show you the world like Aladdin, but I can show you some great theme park ads. Now, you might be thinking, “It’s the holiday season. Going to an amusement park is the last thing on people’s minds.” While that may be true, you have the power to change that. It’s called Facebook advertising.

You can excite your audience about your theme park all year round by implementing your creativity through the brilliance of the Facebook platform. If you’re not sure how, or if your current Facebook campaign isn’t working for you, take a look at some of these ads by major theme parks to see how it’s done.

In addition to getting people excited about their theme parks, these ads serve as great examples of value proposition, emotion, high-quality creatives, and mobile optimization.

Disneyland
Image Courtesy of Disneyland

Disneyland taps into the holiday spirit to keep people thinking about the theme park even in the cold winter months. With the simple post text “Something merry has begun,” we are lured into watching the 15-second Facebook video to learn more. Then, regardless of where you live, you can almost feel the icy chill when you see the bundled-up family atop a mountain peak in a blizzard. Within the first two seconds, we know exactly what the ad is for through the close up of a snowflake with the classic Disney Mickey Mouse head.

The snowflake then flies like Disney’s magic sparkles. We follow the Mickey snowflake to a young child, who looks up as the snowflake spirals around the Disney castle. At this point, a white text overlay appears, inviting us to either visit Disneyland.com or call our travel agent to book a special holiday trip between November 9 and January 6.

Below the video, we see the headline that reads “The Holidays Begin at the Disneyland Resort.” It is supplemented by the text “Come discover your most wonderful time of the year.” Both lines make the ad relevant to the holiday season when most people wouldn’t even think to go to an amusement park.

This Facebook ad effectively triggers our childlike awe, imagination, and sense of adventure, using mountains, sparkles, Mickey Mouse, and the Disney castle. Additionally, the high-quality video and CGI makes it captivating, getting us to watch the video from beginning to end.

Universal Studios
Image Courtesy of Universal Studios

In this fun, Harry Potter-themed gif ad, Universal Studios also uses the spirit of the holidays to get you to book a trip to the theme park. The image of a girl dressed as a wizard spinning in snowfall correlates with the post text above it: “Celebrate Christmas in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter with new nightly snowfall.”

On top of awakening our inner magical selves, this ad also offers value. In the headline text just below the gif, it reads “Buy a Day, Get a Day at Universal,” telling us how we can benefit by booking now. We get a list of even more benefits below the headline, where it reads “Enjoy holiday decorations, holiday-themed food, treats, delights, and more from Nov. 17-Jan. 6th.”

This Facebook ad is effective because the gif is high-quality. If it were pixelated, we would subconsciously associate it with a poor quality experience at the theme park. Since the image is nice and sharp, however, it is more appealing and it is linked to positive experiences.

Six Flags
Image Courtesy of Six Flags

This Facebook video by Six Flags makes a hat trick of value propositions. First, the post text promises 70 percent in savings when you buy a 2019 season pass. Second, it says you can visit anytime for the rest of 2018 for free. Third, Six Flags tosses in the word free a second time in reference to parking.

Additionally, the video evokes thrill and a rush of adrenaline by giving us a test ride on a roller coaster from start to finish. It affirms the type of experiences we can expect when we go to Six Flags. We actually have the first-hand proof.

Finally, this ad is effective because it is optimized for mobile screens. The video is in square format, not horizontal, so we don’t have to rotate our phones to view the video in full screen, making it more convenient to watch. We can easily experience the thrill of the roller coaster from the palm of our hand.

Knott’s Berry Farm
Image Courtesy of Knott’s Berry Farm

Knott’s Berry Farm plays itself up as a winter wonderland in this video ad. The sleigh-bell music combined with Christmas lights, cookie decorating, snowfall, holiday-themed performances, and Christmas trees gives us that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling. With shots of children and their families throughout, we also feel nostalgic. The video evokes all the feelings we typically have during the holiday season.

The post text accurately matches what we see in the video, adding a play on words, “Merry Farm,” to make a visit to Knott’s relevant this time of year.

SeaWorld
Image Courtesy of SeaWorld

This SeaWorld video ad runs on the longer side at one minute and 28 seconds, but it’s clear from the getgo what it’s about. The ad first engages its audience by posing a question in the post text: “How many of these record-breakers will you check off your Florida to-do list?” The professional video then supplies us with a list of record-breaking rides at the park, such as “The world’s tallest river rapid” and “North America’s tallest freestanding drop tower.”

The ad also awakens the thrill-seeker in us by showing each ride and attraction in action. We see people smiling and enjoying each record-breaker, with the SeaWorld logo at the bottom corner throughout, so we naturally connect a fun experience with the brand.

Legoland
Image Courtesy of Legoland

Legoland’s primary strategy with this Cyber Monday ad is value proposition. The post text promises exclusive access to its “super top secret Cyber Monday sale.” It also elicits curiosity and creates perceived mystery with the static image of a Lego character in an investigation. Additionally, the ad promises “BIG savings,” another value proposition, to direct our attention to the “Sign Up” call to action.

Bring the Thrill to Them

People go to theme parks for thrill, fun, and good memories. Show them how your theme park will deliver each of these experiences by giving them a small taste in your Facebook ad. You will have to get extra creative to keep them interested at any time of the year by establishing relevance, as each of the ads in this article do.

With these ad examples as your guide, you can be the next wizard of Facebook advertising for theme parks.

Anna Hubbel , writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company

The post 6 Theme Park Facebook Ads That Knock It Out of the Park appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Facebook Is Shutting Down Connected-TV Advertising

November 16, 2018
Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company
John-Mark Smith / Unsplash

Facebook’s plans to dominate TV advertising has met its demise. According to Digiday, Facebook is shutting down connected-TV advertising, retracting the option to purchase connected-TV ads on January 2019.

Facebook did not announce this shutdown, but several publishers tipped the site about Facebook’s recent activity: the company stopped filling their OTT app inventories.

Digiday cites several complications that may have led to the shutdown of connected-TV ads. Digiday noted that the connected-TV environment has walled gardens that prevent third-parties from serving ads to the platform. An example is Roku, which does not allow Facebook ads on its service.

Digiday also cites lack of advertiser and publisher interest in the offering. Few advertisers are willing to pay a premium for OTT ads and many publishers, who limit their budget for connected-TV advertising, worry they will not generate enough money from the ads.

Facebook rolled out connected TV ads in March as a way to expand ad space and alleviate the congestion in the already overcrowded News Feed. Connected tv ads may be off the table from now, but trust Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to find someplace else to serve ads.

Written by Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company

The post Facebook Is Shutting Down Connected-TV Advertising appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Movie Studios Can Learn from These 9 Killer Facebook Ads

November 16, 2018
Anna Hubbel, writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company
Ian Deng / Unsplash

Lights, camera, advertise! Getting attention for a new movie isn’t as easy as it sounds. No matter how good a movie is, if it doesn’t get the right promotional exposure, if it doesn’t get people to theaters, there are going to be a lot of empty seats on opening night, foreshadowing your studio’s empty pockets.

Big-name movie studios are using Facebook to make sure that never happens. To market their movies, they strategically use the platform to create hype, evoke emotion, build anticipation, and offer value. This article analyzes Facebook ads by nine prestigious studios to give you inspiration for your own movie marketing campaign.

Warner Bros
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment

Warner Bros. cleverly highlights the connection between two imaginary worlds in this video ad. The video begins with two actors who play main characters in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Jude Law (Albus Dumbledore) and Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), excitedly summarizing the J.K. Rowling-inspired film. They focus on promoting the movie’s connection to the Harry Potter series, supplementing the message in the post text above the video. They speak for about 40 seconds before leading us into a trailer.

As the video fades to black after the two actors lure us in with their promises of magic and brilliant story connections, we feel like we’re about to watch the movie. Warner Bros. then intertwines scenes and dialogue from the Harry Potter series with scenes and dialogue in The Crimes of Grindelwald, giving us various aha and that’s-who-they-were-talking-about moments. The ad effectively creates excitement and mystery.

In the post text, Warner Bros. encourages viewers to purchase tickets by including the link and the call to action “Get tickets now” above the video. Additionally, it includes the hashtag #FantasticBeasts to create the illusion that everyone is talking about this movie and to draw attention to a title we’re already familiar with, as this is the second of the two Fantastic Beasts films.

Universal Studios
Image Courtesy of Universal Studios

Universal Studios Entertainment uses value proposition to excite us about the extended cut of Night School. This video ad draws attention to what we will get with the extended cut that we didn’t with the original version. For example, we see clips from the movie with brightly colored, bold text overlays accompanied by a strong voice-over promoting bonus features, deleted scenes, a gag reel, and an alternate opening. The use of both a voice-over and text overlays allows us to view the video both with or without sound.

The post text also highlights big celebrity names of the two main characters in the film, Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. Additionally, the post text includes the hashtag #NightSchool to increase visibility in Facebook’s search results. The value proposition is accompanied by a sense of urgency, which is created by the inclusion of the December 11 and January 1 release dates. It makes us feel a little impatient with anticipation.

Walt Disney Studios
Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

This short video ad by Walt Disney Studios is simple, clear, and effective. Its simplicity appeals to our childlike sense of humor, capturing our attention. Very few words are needed. Upbeat, techno music, a catchy line, and a fun computer arrow pointing at Ralph do the trick.

The ad creates a sense of anticipation with the “in 1 week” line, which appears in the post text and in the top bar in the video. At the end of the video, we also see “In Theaters November 21” to build upon that anticipation. The ad uses the hashtag #RalphBreaksTheInternet, the movie title, to create a postable and searchable catchphrase. The video is straight to the point, lasting only 15 seconds with very little text (both above and within the video) so that we don’t have to think too hard or spend a lot of time deciphering the message.

Sony Pictures
Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures promotes its Blu-ray and DVD formats of The Crown’s second season in this sophisticated video ad. To pursue the theme of royalty, Sony begins the video with “A piece of history for your royal collection.” In a smooth transition like a watercolor stroke, we see an image appear.

The music in the video is both majestic and dramatic, suggesting there is something dark underneath the exterior, underneath the polite smiles of the characters pictured in the static photo, a snapshot from the show. This undertone is affirmed in the quote by Mrs. Kennedy from the show: “People are so rarely what they seem.”

The video fades out to a shot of the Blu-ray edition of The Crown, showing praises by esteemed news sources. It is here where we get social proof, as these testimonials tell us the show is well worth watching.

The ad includes a “Shop Now” call-to-action, making it easy to buy the season on Blu-ray or DVD.

20th Century Fox
Image Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

This 12-second Facebook video by 20th Century Fox doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles to touch on our emotions and excite us for the Widows film. In addition to the dark, ominous lighting, the only movement in the image is the light wafting over “ONE WEEK,” sparking our curiosity about these seemingly mysterious and foreboding characters. Add the post text above, which reads, “It’s almost here. Widows hits theaters in one week,” and we become aware of and excited for this upcoming movie that will answer all our questions the video elicits.

The studio also provides a link in the post text where we can buy tickets to comfort our temporary impatience. Additionally, the studio ads the #WidowsMovie hashtag to create hype and to make a searchable catchphrase around the movie.

Paramount Pictures
Image Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures creates hype and uses celebrity names to draw attention to its movie Bumblebee, using this new poster for the film in a Facebook post. In the post text, Paramount evokes interest and curiosity with the opening line “Every story has a beginning,” which parallels the tagline in the poster. The ad also includes the date, Christmas, adding to our existing excitement for the holidays.

The piece that really helps this ad, however, is the tagged names of the two celebrities who star in the film, Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena. By tagging the actors, the post will appear on the feeds of Steinfield and Cena, informing their followers of the upcoming film.

Lionsgate Films
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate

In this 16-second Facebook video, Lionsgate grabs your eye, creates urgency, and builds suspense while promoting Robinhood. The brief video includes Robinhood moving in slow motion behind the text with the movie title and release date. This edited shot from the film matches up with the post text, which playfully teases, “Right on target,” followed by a link where you can easily purchase tickets.

Just like Disney’s ad for Ralph Breaks the Internet, this message is clear and easy to understand. We instantly know what it’s for (Robinhood) and how Lionsgate wants us to respond (buy tickets).

DreamWorks
Image Courtesy of DreamWorks

DreamWorks promotes How to Train Your Dragon with a unique gif and very few words. It evokes feelings of wanderlust and bravery, switching between a little boy and a grown man. The post text affirms these feelings: “Be brave, Hiccup.”

Like the other ads in this article, this one creates a hashtag with the movie title, #HowToTrainYourDragon, to get you thinking about it as a trending topic.

The movie title logo stamped in the bottom left corner of the video serves as a subtle reminder of which movie the gif is promoting.

Blumhouse
Image Courtesy of Blumhouse

This ad for the movie Glass by Blumhouse evokes fear, a sense of mystery, discomfort, and thrill. Blumhouse taps into these feelings by using ominous music, images of broken glass with sharp edges, and the deep voice of Samuel Jackson’s character. The ad’s post text leads us into this spiral of lurking danger: “You cannot contain what you are.”

Unlike the rest of the ads in this article, this ad doesn’t put a lot of focus on the movie’s release date. In the video itself, the date doesn’t appear until the end, and then we see it in tiny words below the video.

Instead of pushing ticket sales, Blumhouse instead allows an “Interested” call-to-action to lure its audience, which is a strategic play because when users indicate interest, they will receive Facebook notifications as the movie’s release date approaches. This makes the ad engaging as well as thrilling.

Get Your Audience into Their Seats

When marketing your studio’s new movie or television series on Facebook, you need to create enough of a reaction that will get your audience into movie theaters. Although the platform makes it easy to get very creative visually, it’s your job to come up with a unique approach that stands out above the rest. Fortunately for you, most people seek out ways to be entertained because they want to have a good time. Movies are one of the most popular forms of entertainment.

If you play your cards right, the next big thing coming soon is your incredible Facebook ad.

Anna Hubbel , writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook ads company

The post Movie Studios Can Learn from These 9 Killer Facebook Ads appeared first on AdvertiseMint.