Brian Meert's Blog, page 76

Gavin McGarry on Agency Best Practices and the Future of Social Media

JAN. 30, 2020

Gavin McGarry, founder and CEO of Jumpwire Media, has quite the experience in social media marketing—more than 15 years, to be exact. Having worked with big clients such as Red Bull, Sony, and Yahoo, McGarry had a lot to say—understandably—about agencies and the state of social media in his podcast interview with AdvertiseMint CEO, Brian Meert. 

It’s no secret—or perhaps it is, to those who haven’t worked in the industry—that running a social media agency requires hard work. McGarry describes the business as “a race to the bottom,” in which people are unwilling to spend and recognize that social media marketing is difficult to do. But the struggle doesn’t end there. Not only do marketers scramble to catch up to the perpetually changing systems of social media platforms, but they must also meet the high (and often unrealistic) expectations of their clients: do more on a limited budget. 

Agency Best Practices

As McGarry illustrates, social media marketing is no easy job, but he provides a few tips that may help some agency owners along the way. 

Spending a Budget

During the interview with Meert, McGarry was given a project: spend a $20,000 budget. McGarry responds with a plan: crawl, walk, run data, strategy, and implementation. 

First, McGarry would spend $5,000 to $7,000 in analysis, which includes auditing social media and SEO. Next, he would spend $5,000 on testing and the remaining $10,000 on fixing problems with the campaign, which may include redoing a website. 

“At the end of that,” says McGarry, “you should know exactly how much you need to spend to acquire new customers that are going to generate an increase in your business.”

Agency Necessities

McGarry also gave insight into what he believes are agency necessities: narrative and measurement: When pitching to clients, the agency must know how it will tell the brand’s story, how it will build trust with customers, and how those tactics will lead to sales. McGarry then emphasizes the importance of measurement, showing clients how the agency is meeting its goals. 

“Those are two things that if we can’t do those for you, we shouldn’t be in business.”

Facebook Advertising Costs

When marketers say Facebook wants to take their money, they aren’t being hyperbolic. McGarry shares his experience with Facebook’s charging methods:

“We had a product, and we sold it for $49, and it cost us [to buy the Facebook ad] 10 bucks. Then we increased the product up to $127, and all of a sudden our costs went from $10 to $40 per acquisition.”

When McGarry reduced the price, Facebook charged less, dropping the cost to $15. 

“What we figured out is that Facebook knows the price you’re selling stuff for and charges you what they think you can take for that price.”

This experience, says McGarry, illustrates a harsh reality: To be part of Facebook advertising, one must pay to play. 



A Beacon of Trust

The United States is a country of bounty, a place where consumers are given numerous choices in whatever product or service they plan to purchase. Although this may seem like paradise, the tyranny of choice has worn down consumers—they are now too afraid to make a decision, lest they choose the wrong one. McGarry explains how this fear affects consumers’ decision-making:

That’s where we are right now. People have so much choice that they’re looking for influencers, anything that can help them make a decision. All we do all day is make decisions, and we are worried about making the wrong decision, especially when we’re spending money.”

Because consumers rely on recommendations—whether from friends, family, or influencers—to inform their shopping decisions, it’s important that brands present themselves as trustworthy.

“If we can find ways to help with trust and help with curation so that people are making decisions every single time, the right decisions, I think that we’re on our way to helping people cope with social media.”

Social Media 2020 Predictions

McGarry concludes his interview with Meert by sharing his views on the future of social media. He lists a few to watch for, including Instagram’s selling capabilities (currently, Instagram offers the ability to shop from a post), Tik Tok’s growth, video shopping developments (click on an item from a video to purchase), better AI for videos (recognize any object in a video), and more creative tools for marketers. 

He also shares his thoughts on the future of agencies, emphasizing the importance of knowledge: 

You [business owners] can go and do it [social media marketing] yourself, but you’re going to fail. My experience has been that many of the times you have to make significant adjustments that still require human brain power. And that is where the future of everything is going: You’re still gonna need the humans—we’re now knowledge workers.”

At a time when many social media platforms are available to business owners, businesses must leverage the power of choice. In other words, diversify, as one would with investments. If one investment was to fail, at least not all will be lost. McGarry shares his experience with a client who refused to diversify:

“We had a client that was only on Facebook. We told them that they need to diversify to Instagram, to Twitter, to get an email campaign going. Guess what? They posted some bad content. They were banned from Facebook for three months. Destroyed their business.”

McGarry’s final predictions come contrary to popular belief. Mobile, he says, will not dominate other devices, such as TV and desktops. He points to the difficulty of purchasing from mobile devices as an example. Rather than from a smartphone, shoppers usually purchase from desktop devices. 

Predictions are predictions. There’s no telling what will come true and what won’t. What does the future hold? As McGarry so frankly puts it, no one really knows.

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post Gavin McGarry on Agency Best Practices and the Future of Social Media appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Facebook’s Off Activity Tool Now Available to Users Worldwide

JAN. 29, 2020

Tim Bennet / Unsplash

Facebook is rolling out Off Activity to users worldwide, says a report by TechCrunch. The tool allows users to view the information businesses share with the social media company, clear activity history from their accounts, prevent Facebook from saving activity history, and download off-activity details. 

Mark Zuckerberg first announced the development of the Off Activity Tool, then called “Clear History,”  at the F8 conference back in 2018. The tool rolled out to select countries a year later. 

How Off Activity Works

Facebook advertising offers a selection of tools that help marketers run promotions on the social media platform. One of those tools is ad targeting, which uses a set criteria to determine who should see the ads. Targeting uses customer information, such as phone number, interests, location, and website activity, to find and serve ads to a relevant audience. 

Although Facebook exchanges information with businesses for targeting purposes, the social media company says in a Facebook Help article that it does not sell information to data brokers or gather sensitive personal details about their users:

We don’t sell your information to anyone. We prohibit businesses or organizations to share sensitive information with us, such as health and financial information, your date of birth and passwords. If we determine that a business or an organization is violating our terms, we will take action against that business or organization.”

Off Activity allows users to purge their information from their Facebook profiles, preventing businesses from showing ads based on their Facebook and online activities. The social media company, in its announcement of the Off Activity rollout back in 2019, says clearing off-activity applies to Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger:

If you clear your off-Facebook activity, we’ll remove your identifying information from the data that apps and websites choose to send us. We won’t know which websites you visited or what you did there, and we won’t use any of the data you disconnect to target ads to you on Facebook, Instagram, or Messenger.”

In the same 2019 announcement, Facebook said it took months of research to develop the tool, bringing in the advice of privacy advocates, policymakers, advertisers, and industry groups. 

How to Use Facebook’s Off Activity Tool

Users can access Off Activity by going to their settings, clicking “Your Facebook Information” from the left-column menu, and clicking “View” on the Off Activity tab from the right side of the screen. 

Facebook Off Activity is accessible from Settings.

The page offers information including 

How Facebook received activity information, whether that’s through the Facebook pixel, SDK, or LoginThe number of interactions Facebook received, including opening the app, logging into the app, viewing content, and searching for an itemThe activity from apps and websites that uses Facebook loginActivity from data service providers and marketers

The Off Activity page also offers several actions:

Manage off-Facebook activityClear historyAccess or download informationManage future activity



Facebook Off Activity provides a list of actions.

With the option to manage off-Facebook activity, users can view the information businesses have shared with Facebook. To access this tool, they must re-enter their passwords. Once in the page, they can view the apps and websites with record of their activity, read more details about the information stored, and clear the activity history. 

Users can also view a record of their Facebook activities by clicking the “Access Your Information” link from the right side of the screen. To download that information, which includes Messenger exchanges, Story posts, and payment history, they must click on the “Download Your Information” link. Accessing and downloading information does not require password re-entry. 

Users can also prevent Facebook from storing their online activity by clicking on the “Manage Future Activity” link. 

Disabling Off-Facebook Activity prevents Facebook from storing information on users.



Facebook and Accountability

Facebook has been under scrutiny for the past several years. It had to answer for the fake Russian ads that proliferated within the platform during the 2016 US presidential election. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was called to appear before Congress after the data of 87 million Facebook users were compromised in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal of 2018. The social media company has implemented security measures since the first offense, rolling out the Ad Library, “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool, and Special Ad Category. Off-Activity is one of a slew of changes rolled out to protect users’ privacy.

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post Facebook’s Off Activity Tool Now Available to Users Worldwide appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

19 Ways to Make Your Video Go Viral with Tony Adkins, “Dancing Doctor”

JAN. 27, 2020

Every digital marketer wants to go viral, to hear the incessant ping! of notifications as comment upon comment, share upon share, propel a video to meteoric stardom. This is one experience Tony Adkins—also known as the “Dancing Doctor”—shares with AdvertiseMint CEO, Brian Meert, in an episode of Duke of Digital.

Adkins became a quasi-celebrity after his dance video with a patient went viral. The Facebook video, which has garnered millions of views, caught the attention of major news outlets, including Good Morning America, Access Hollywood, and Australia Morning News. Although there’s no single secret formula to going viral, there’s much to learn from Adkins’ story.

Lesson 1: Never Turn Down an Opportunity

Adkins never intended to go viral. In fact, his patient’s mother was the one who recorded and shared the video on Facebook. None foresaw the attention it would draw. Had Adkins refused the recording or had the patient’s mother kept the video out of public eyes, Adkins never would have gone viral. 

Lesson 2: Expand Your Social Media Accounts

When the Facebook video went viral, Adkins started receiving an outpour of friend requests, hitting the 5,000 limit. He then created a Facebook page where he could connect and build his followers, which has reached a number of 2.1 million to date. Without a Facebook page, Adkins wouldn’t have grown his followers, and he wouldn’t have had a place to post all of his future dancing videos.

Lesson 3: Post on the Right Social Platforms

Of course, for his videos to reach the right audience, he must post on the right social media platforms. Videos targeting younger users will perform well on Instagram while those that target an older age group will perform well on Facebook. For Adkins, he posts content to both, with Facebook as his most successful platform. Adkins did note that Instagram users are harder to convert into followers than Facebook users. 

Lesson 4: Create an Entertaining, Authentic, and Unique Video

Tony Adkins dances with a patient for epilepsy awareness. Video courtesy of Tony Adkins.

Adkins’ video went viral within a matter of hours, and it’s not surprising why. His relentlessly cheerful disposition, authenticity, and goofy dance moves draw viewers in, making them feel happier. The video also shows something unusual: a professional in white coat, dancing carelessly in an otherwise gloomy hospital. The video captures an all-around good time, and viewers couldn’t resist that.

Lesson 5: Create Videos That Follow a Hot Trend

Once Adkins’ video had gone viral, his discerning wife advised him to create another. This time he responded to a dance challenge: hopping out of a slowly moving car and dancing to Drake’s “In My Feelings.” Because Adkins responded to an internet craze, his video went viral, garnering more than 600,000 views. 

Lesson 6: Don’t Stop the Haters

With great popularity comes great haters. Like many viral internet personalities, Adkins wasn’t immune to criticism. In television appearances, show hosts referred to him  as “doc” (hence the nickname “Dancing Doctor”) rather than his official job title, physician assistant. Despite Adkins’ corrections, hosts persisted in calling him “Doc.” Viewers expressed their displeasure online by leaving hateful comments. Still, negative comments are comments nonetheless, and this type of engagement is exactly the right ingredient in making a video go viral. 

Lesson 7: Take Partnerships

Not only did Adkins’ video spread to people’s News Feeds, but it was also circulated within Facebook groups, where the CEO of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (Adkins’ employer) saw his video. This discovery led to a partnership with the marketing department, and soon Adkins was dancing with consenting patients once a week. 

Lesson 8: Don’t Force It

The desire to go viral may compel people to create inauthentic videos, such as the ones with “good samaritans” giving bags full of groceries to the homeless. Adkins’ dance was neither for the camera nor for popularity. It was for his patient diagnosed with leukemia. News of such gravity would bring anyone’s mood down, and Adkins was eager to brighten the young boy’s spirits. Going viral happened by pure chance. It’s his authenticity that drew people’s attention. 

Lesson 9: Stick with a Theme

Dancing is Adkins’ passion, and he sticks with it. After all, he wouldn’t be the Dancing Doctor if he  decided to make cooking videos. Rather than producing content contrary to his personal brand, he continues to create dance videos. It works for him, and his followers expect nothing less. 

No one can predict which video will go viral, if at all. Going viral almost always happens purely by chance. If there’s one thing to learn from Adkins’ story, it’s this: Don’t try too hard to go viral, and if you do, enjoy it and have fun. 

Ten More Ways to Make Your Videos Go Viral

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post 19 Ways to Make Your Video Go Viral with Tony Adkins, “Dancing Doctor” appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

A List of Apps and Companies Facebook Owns

JAN 24, 2020

Rami Al Zayat / Unsplash

There’s no question that Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. The highly popular network boasts more than two billion monthly active users, which is almost a third of the world’s population. 

The social media giant has been under much scrutiny as of late. Many are claiming Facebook is a monopoly. In a recent anti-trust lawsuit, plaintiffs claim the tech giant removed outside apps from its platform that it viewed as potential competitors and “coerced” developers to share their user data. This somewhat aggressive strategy has helped Facebook acquire other apps and increase revenue.

This post explores some of the top brands and apps Facebook owns or has owned in the past few years. 

1. Instagram

On April 9, 2012, Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion. By the next year, Instagram began making money through advertisements. Now it’s worth about $100 billion, with more than one billion monthly active users. 

There’s no doubt Instagram will continue to be the go-to app for sharing photos and videos, connecting with followers, checking on popular brands, and researching various products and services. Some experts say that the platform will start focusing more on IGTV, which is a key feature that allows users to share long-form videos.

2. WhatsApp

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion on February 19, 2014. On the app, users can make calls and send text messages to other users for free. Today, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform, even surpassing Facebook Messenger, with more than 1.5 billion monthly active users. By 2020, WhatsApp’s revenue is estimated to be as high as five billion dollars.

In the near future, Facebook plans to bring ads to the platform to generate even more revenue. This is good for companies, but not so for users. The new change could disrupt their experience.

3. Oculus VR

On March 25, 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR—one of the leaders in the VR technology space—for $2.3 billion in cash and stock. Oculus Rift, a VR gaming headset, is the company’s best-known development. Well-known gaming company, ZeniMax, filed a lawsuit against Facebook and received $250 million in damages. The claim stated that Oculus Rift was built based on stolen code and research.

This setback didn’t stop Facebook and Oculus from releasing yet another VR headset, Oculus Quest, the first all-in-one gaming system for VR. Acquiring Oculus was indeed a smart move for Facebook. Demand for VR is only going to increase, and Oculus is just getting started.

4. FriendFeed

On August 10, 2009, Facebook bought FriendFeed for $47.5 million in cash and stock. During its operation, FriendFeed helped users follow trending topics on social media platforms without checking every online media service they used.

However, as years passed, the number of people using FriendFeed declined. This is likely due to the boom in social media apps. Now users can just log in and out of each platform they use with just the click of a button. FriendFeed finally shut down in 2015, but its influences, including News Feed, still remain in Facebook’s current UI. 

5. Masquerade (MSQRD)

In 2016, Facebook purchased MSQRD at an undisclosed amount. MSQRD allows users to customize their selfies by placing different effects on videos in real time. Before making the sale, owners of MSQRD stipulated that the app continue to live in the app store and that Facebook release frequent updates to users.

Shortly after the acquisition in March 2016, MSQRD’s monthly active users spiked to more than 40 million, but by October, the app only had approximately one million monthly active users. As a result, MSQRD began to fall in the app store rankings and stopped receiving software updates and new filters. Yet, Facebook started integrating the app’s features into its own products.

Although MSQRD hasn’t been updated since 2016, the app is still available for download in both iOS and Android app stores. Going forward, Facebook’s intentions for MSQRD remain unclear.

6. Poke

In 2012, Facebook released a standalone app called Poke, not be confused with Facebook’s original poke, which users used to virtually “poke” their friends on the platform. The Poke app allowed people to send photos, videos, and pokes to their friends. This media would disappear after a few seconds if users didn’t keep their finger on the screen. If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because Snapchat works the same way.

In the spring of 2014, Facebook removed the app from the iOS store because it didn’t gain the traction its creators expected. It likely failed for a variety of reasons, including its lack of privacy, with the app being too “open” to the public. 

7. Slingshot

Facebook made another attempt at conquering Snapchat with its release of Slingshot in 2014. The app allows users to send and decorate images and videos with colorful drawings and captions. Unlike in Snapchat, where users can view messages as soon as they receive them, Slingshot prevented users from viewing an incoming “shot” unless they sent a shot back to the sender.

Just months after Slingshot’s launch, Facebook removed this unique feature from the app, making it just another Snapchat copy. The app eventually sank down the charts.

8. Flash

In 2016, Facebook released another Snapchat clone, but only this time, it was specifically for emerging markets with scarce Wi-Fi and weak connectivity. Since Snapchat was winning over American teens, Facebook wanted to try beating its competitor to places including Brazil, Indonesia, and India. 

Developers hoped that by providing features similar to Snapchat that use less data and storage, teens in emerging markets would choose Flash and no longer use Snapchat. Flash didn’t produce the results Facebook had hoped. Snapchat continues to dominate the ephemeral photo- and video-sharing game.

9. Lasso

Back in 2018, Facebook released a Tik Tok competitor called Lasso, which functions similarly to the former app. Lasso, available to iOS and Android devices, allows users to create and post lip-synching videos. To reach a wider audience, users can also add hashtags and simultaneously post to Facebook and Instagram Stories.

Lasso was created to compete against teen-favored app Tik Tok at a time when Facebook was losing younger users. To date, Tik Tok is still more popular than Lasso. Its usage will likely increase in the years to come.

As time goes on, Facebook will continue to look for ways to build revenue by purchasing a diverse selection of apps and companies in a variety of industries and launching its own unique creations.

Written by Britney Sanders

The post A List of Apps and Companies Facebook Owns appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

How Experiential Marketing Can Grow Your Business

JAN. 20, 2020

The Duke returns with special guest Peter Abraham, founder of the Los Angeles-based marketing agency, Abraham Content Marketing Studio. Abraham is a  storytelling expert specializing in social, experiential, and television campaigns for a wide variety of well-known brands, including Lululemon and Nike. 

Although he has pursued marketing for several years, Abraham, who extensively studied film during his undergraduate years at UCLA, didn’t begin his career as a marketer until 15 years later, a time he spent crafting television commercials. When he transitioned to marketing and built his own business, Abraham found an alcove in the industry in which he excelled: experiential marketing. 

To novice listeners, Abraham provides a simple definition of experiential marketing.

“The way I think of experiential marketing is really just a real-life engagement. It could be a live event; it could be a trade show booth; it could be a community meet up somewhere.”

Although digital—email, social media, online—has been a popular option for digital advertisers, its existence makes experiential marketing even more important, especially when mobile phones and desktop devices have drawn individuals inward, rather than connecting with the world outside digital screens. 

“We’re all still humans,” says Abraham on the importance of experiential marketing. “We all still want human contact and so the more pervasive digital gets, the more important experiential is. It doesn’t mean to the exclusion of digital, but I think it’s a really important component not only for brands but in life.”

Making a Successful Experiential Marketing Campaign

Abraham recommends creating an experiential campaign with a point of view. This, he says, makes creating strategies an easier task. He points to Red Bull as an example, which focuses its brand image and campaigns on action sports, using content and experiential marketing to amplify that idea. Abraham also recommends solving consumers’ pain points. He points again to Red Bull’s solution of providing entertainment to consumers, such as sponsoring music and sports events.

Peter Abraham is the founder of Abraham Content Marketing Studio. He specializes in storytelling, running experiential, social media, and television campaigns.

Marketers should not conflate marketing events with stunts. Abraham makes a distinction between the two: a stunt, unlike a marketing event, doesn’t provide lasting value or solutions to consumers’ pain points. Of course, that doesn’t mean all stunts don’t succeed. Abraham points to the Ice Bucket Challenge, created in 2014 to raise funds and awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Although the challenge was a success, it didn’t provide lasting value.

“The Ice Bucket Challenge raised one-hundred million for ALS. That was great, but I’ll bet you the next year they raised five-hundred. They were back down to five-hundred thousand because it didn’t have lasting value necessarily.”

Creating a Budget for Experiential Marketing

When pressed for a budget, Abraham gives an honest answer: There isn’t a single strategy that works.

“There’s no one secret formula for a brand. ‘Hey, thirty percent of your marketing budget should go into experiential.’ You can’t really say that.”

However, before funneling money into experiential marketing, Abraham recommends a full analysis of marketing strategies. For experiential marketing campaigns to succeed, the marketer must have a variety of different strategies. For example, a marketing event must be promoted to raise awareness, and that may require the help of social media, email newsletters, or blogs.

Measuring the Results of Marketing Events

Unlike the results of digital campaigns, which can be measured in a week-by-week basis, experiential marketing doesn’t have a clear measurable metric. According to Abraham, experiential campaigns must be measured year by year; its success by instincts. 

“If you feel like it’s working, it is probably worth expanding at some level.”

Abraham ends the podcast with one final advice:

“Tell us what you stand for and who you are. It’s always better for brands to appeal to a small group of people and be super relevant for them than try and be all things to all people.”

To hear more tips about experiential marketing, listen to the latest episode of Duke of Digital.

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post How Experiential Marketing Can Grow Your Business appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

What Is Cost Per Click? A User’s Guide to Facebook Advertising

JAN. 15, 2020

John Moeses Bauan / Unsplash

Facebook offers one of the largest and most effective platforms for digital advertising, allowing marketers to leverage nearly 1.62 billion daily users for their benefit. Well-deployed Facebook ad campaigns build brand awareness, solidify existing customer relationships, increase conversion rates, and help you stay one step ahead of your competitors.

To build an effective Facebook ad campaign, you must first define your goals and your audience, then craft the best approach within your spending budget. Just as important, you must make a decision about the best ad delivery system. This will relate directly to your campaign goals — for instance, to generate video views, website clicks, or conversions.

Your delivery system will also directly affect the choice you have in terms of how Facebook charges you for your ad. One of the most common approaches involves charging you every time somebody clicks on your ad. The metric known as cost per click (CPC) is essential for analyzing how effectively this type of ad campaign is proceeding.

This article takes a closer look at CPC — what it is, how it is used, and what its relative merits are compared to other payment methods and performance metrics.

Facebook Cost Per Click

The confusing thing about cost per click is that the term is used in two related yet different ways. On the one hand, according to Facebook’s own usage, CPC designates a particular billing method. On the other hand, CPC is used as a performance metric to analyze many types of Facebook ad campaigns, not just those that use a per-click billing method.

CPC as Billing Method

Those who select CPC will only be charged for their ads when a user clicks on the ad. A click may encompass a number of different ad objectives, including all of the following: 

Clicks that redirect to another websiteClicks that cause an app to installClicks that open videos or other media on another websiteClicks that lead to Facebook Instant Experience ads

In this regard, CPC must be understood in opposition to the other billing methods such as paying per thousand impressions (each time somebody views your ad), paying per likes, or paying per specific result other than clicks.

The principal benefit of CPC as a billing method is actionable focus. You are specifically targeting only those users who choose to engage with your ad, rather than paying for impressions that may or may not yield results. Meanwhile, since you are only paying for clicks, all of the impressions your ad gets will be free.

CPC as Performance Metric

CPC as a performance metric provides you with vital information about how much your Facebook ad campaign is costing you. At first this might sound somewhat confusing, since you likely already know your precise daily advertising budget. The key thing to understand here is Facebook does not use a set payment structure. Instead, Facebook uses a bidding system in which advertisers compete against one another for ad space. During certain times of the year — most notably, the holiday season — competition increases, and the average price of ads goes up correspondingly. Likewise, numerous other factors influence ad costs, including

Time of the week or dayIndustryAd relevance scoreTarget audienceBid strategy

CPC provides a vital metric for understanding just how far your marketing budget is going, measuring the average amount you paid per ad click during any given span of time. And because clicks are recorded no matter what billing option you use, you can analyze your CPC even if you aren’t actually paying per click.

Likewise, businesses who select a per-click billing method can analyze their results in terms of other metrics as well. For instance, if your daily budget is $10, and your ad receives 100 likes per day, then you know that your cost per like (CPL) would amount to $0.10. In the same way, you can determine your CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPV (cost per view of video ad), and CTR (click-through rate).

CTR is another particularly helpful metric, one that is derived using both your CPM and your CPC. Simply put, your click-through rate is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. This tells you the overall percentage of viewers who ended up clicking on your ad. CTR has a large role to play when it comes to increasing engagement through ad optimization.

CPC Benchmarks

The bottom line when it comes to Facebook ads is that they will always exhibit a high degree of variability when it comes to cost. Yet businesses need to have some idea about how much each click will cost, since that number in turn directly affects how many clicks your chosen budget will afford you.

To get a better picture of what kind of CPC results to expect, companies must consult industry benchmarks — that is, data sets that break down Facebook ad trends, usually in a quarter-by-quarter fashion. For instance, according to one benchmark report, the first quarter of 2019 saw a median CPC of $0.63 for Facebook News Feed ads.

Bear in mind, however, that that piece represents the average CPC across all industries. As a result, it likely isn’t the best piece of information to base your quarterly goals and expectations, since CPC can vary greatly from industry to industry. Generally speaking, more engageable industries — think food and drink or pets and animals — tend to have significantly lower CPCs than industries, such as finance or telecommunications.

Lowering Your CPC

A common question advertisers ask is what they can do to lower their CPC, and hence get more from their marketing budget. One good place to start is your bid amount. Facebook gives you two options in this regard: automatic and manual. Automatic allows Facebook to algorithmically determine the maximum CPC you should pay.

While automatic bidding works well in many cases, it sometimes means you may end up paying more than you want for ads. If you choose the manual option, you can specify the maximum bid amount you are willing to pay under any circumstances, which may help you achieve a slightly lower average CPC.

Also keep in mind that Facebook grades ads based on both quality and relevance. Higher quality and more relevant ads tend to enjoy better exposure and lower prices. Therefore, content creation should always be a high priority when crafting an ad campaign.  

By Evan Miller

The post What Is Cost Per Click? A User’s Guide to Facebook Advertising appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Live Nation Senior Marketing Manager Shares Tips on Promoting Events

JAN. 13, 2019

In this episode of Duke of Digital, AdvertiseMint CEO and podcast host Brian Meert is joined by Malcolm Gray, the senior marketing manager at Live Nation. Gray, with his repertoire of marketing, radio, and social media expertise, shares his strategies for promoting music events using Facebook and Instagram.

At Live Nation, Gray promotes 150 tours (give or take) each year, and part of his job requires adjusting strategies when needed. With the growth and popularity of Instagram Stories, Gray is currently shifting 10 percent of his resources to the in-app feature.

Of course, shifting budget from one platform to another varies case by case, says Gray. If promoting a rapper whose fans are 13 to 35 years old, Instagram Stories, a platform popular among younger users, is the best place to advertise. If promoting a classic-rock artist whose fans are within the 35 to 54 age range, Facebook, popular among older users, is a better choice. 

Often, Gray adjusts strategies in an artist-to-artist basis. A well-known musician, for instance, does not require too much audience research since that artist already has a large fanbase. A lesser known artist, on the other hand, requires more work in finding its audience. For such an artist, Gray recommends starting with an email list and expanding that list on Facebook using the Lookalike Audience tool. 

“If you don’t have an email list, start one,” says Gray. “You can input that into Facebook as a Custom Audience and start targeting those people directly and build Lookalikes off of those.”

One strategy works for artists both big and small: refreshing creatives.

“You don’t want to keep running ads with the same content that you have. Every time you get a new song, you can run something new.”

When advertising a last-minute event, Gray recommends advertising heavily on platforms that have proven to work. 

“If you put out all three placements and then Instagram Stories sold the most tickets, that’s [Instagram Stories] ]where you put the bulk of your money.”

Gray also recommends thinking like a user.

“You always have to remind yourself that you’re a user of that platform. Where would you convert? What are you looking at? For the most part, we all are using the same platforms, and those platforms want us to use them in the same way.”

According to Gray, Facebook and Instagram are a big part of his advertising strategy because they have the most users. Because Instagram is the main platform where users follow their favorite artists, it is especially important that his ad campaigns include Instagram.

Gray also provides additional tips on specific targeting versus broad targeting, images versus videos, and ad schedules for events. To close the show, Gray provides one final piece of advice: Try everything, analyze the data, and learn from there.

To learn more about using Facebook and Instagram to promote music events, listen to the Duke of Digital podcast. 

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post Live Nation Senior Marketing Manager Shares Tips on Promoting Events appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

How to Get Press for Your Online Business with Priscilla Vento (Podcast)

JAN. 8, 2019

In this episode, podcast host and AdvertiseMint CEO Brian Meert is joined by the Founder and CEO of 30 Miles North, Priscilla Vento. With more than a decade of experience, Vento reveals, among other valuable pieces of advice, her strategies for pitching to publications, the characteristics of a successful publicist, and her distaste for phone calls.

Vento’s first tip? Do your homework. 

“Now everybody has a voice,” says Vento of the advent of social media.  “On the PR end of things, it’s really figuring out who’s the best fit, as far as an outlet, for that story or announcement or product launch. Don’t be lazy. Do your homework on who you’re pitching.”

Not only has socal media given people a platform to amplify their messages, but it has also increased the number of outlets PR professionals can contact. Despite the wide selection, Vento recommends pitching only to the outlets that best fit campaigns goals. 

Why pitch to 50 people who will probably say no because they know you’re going wide with it? I’d rather give it to a higher-tier outlet and shoot for the stars first.”

When promoting a story, Vento first pitches an exclusive to one journalist from a big publication, rather than sending stories to several smaller outlets. The reason behind her strategy drips with ambition and optimism.

“Why pitch to 50 people who will probably say no because they know you’re going wide with it? I’d rather give it to a higher-tier outlet and shoot for the stars first.”

If clients require press during a specific time, Vento recommends applying an embargo on the story. This, she says, ensures clients will receive publicity at the time that they expect. 

Priscilla Vento has more than a decade of PR experience. She has worked with clients in the entertainment, tech, and gaming industries.

“That writer agrees to not publish it until you say when. Then it launches on the day that your client expects. That’s the best case scenario to go about it.” 

Not all are fit to undertake the resposibilities of a PR professional. According to Vento, a successful publicist must be skilled in handling stressful situations, pressure, and criticism. Above all, a publicist must be completely forthright, especially when publications aren’t interested in clients’ stories. 

“Be completely transparent with your client. That’s hard to do. Sometimes it gets hard to say, ‘Hey, there’s nobody picking this up right away. Let’s move. Let’s try another strategy here, another story, another angle. Whatever it may be.’”

Although many publicists may prefer calling the outlets to whom they’re pitching, Vento, unlike her contemporaries, is more of an “email gal.”

“I don’t want to talk to you on the phone. I know you’re busy. I’m busy too.”

Her sentiments are shared by the journalists with whom she works. 

“I hear reporters complain a lot about phone calls. The people who I have a really great relationship right now appreciate that I don’t pick up the phone every three seconds to follow up and hound them.”

A time will come when clients will exhaust their stories, once the public launch or funding announcement has passed, and there’s nothing left to pitch. At this time, Vento says, get creative. 

“What is your client good at? Can they be a thought leader in that industry? You don’t always need to have a press release to reach out to press.”

Of course, as always, the story pitched must be relevant to the outlet, must fit the reporter’s area of interest. 

Would you give yourself your own haircut? Your own surgery? No. So why would you want to do your own PR?”

When should businesses hire publicists and when should they do PR on their own? According to Vento, always on the former question and never on the latter. She puts it in words everyone can understand:

“Would you give yourself your own haircut? Your own surgery? No. So why would you want to do your own PR?”

Business owners, she says, will be deprived of the resources that come with hiring a seasoned public relations agency if they decide to do PR alone. 

“You’re not going to have a strategy. You’re not going to have a campaign. You’re not going to already have a Rolodex of wonderful reporters you’ve been working with for who knows how long. You’re not going to have a team behind you.”

Vento’s valuable advice are welcomed words, especially at a time when competition is fierce, when attracting the attention of coveted outlets has become even more arduous.  

“In the last 10 years, you have so much VC [venture capital] money popping up. More VC money means more start-ups, which means more PR people trying to pitch stories to all these different writers. You’re in a race to get your client’s story in these top tier publications.” 

Vento also offers advice on how to handle a scandal, an example when she elegantly marketed a client on Reddit, a scenario of when not to get press, and a list of necessary PR tools. For more on this discussion, listen to the seventh episode of Duke of Digital. 

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post How to Get Press for Your Online Business with Priscilla Vento (Podcast) appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

How to Double Your Instagram Followers

DEC. 9, 2019

Georgia de Lotz / Unsplash

If you’re going to advertise your business through Instagram, your following is what makes or breaks the success of your social media campaign. Fortunately, once you’ve achieved a decent following, it gets easier to continue building it. But getting to that point takes dedication and consistency. Here are some tips to help you double your number of followers on Instagram.

Set Your Profile Settings to Public

When it comes to gaining followers, even the simple steps can be powerful. Consider, for instance, the ability to make your Instagram account public. With a simple change in settings, you can increase your discoverability. With a public profile, all users on all devices (including desktop computers) can see your account and its individual posts. If the content is good enough, they will feel the need to follow you. To set your profile from private to public, follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to Settings

Step 2: Click “Privacy”

Step 3: Click “Account Privacy” then set your account to “public.” 

Tag Your Location

Another simple step with a potential powerful impact is tagging your location when you make any post. Again, it’s a simple step you can take with any content you post that increases your visibility. Tagging your location means your posts will appear under the “Places” section of Explore. There, users, even if they don’t follow you, will see your content and, if it interests them, follow your account to discover more. 

The “Places” section of Explore divides content into two groups: top and recent. Posts that have the most engagement will appear in the “top” section while those that were recently posted will appear in the “recent” section. If you plan to stay above people’s posts for a certain location, accrue as many engagement as quickly as you can or post frequently.

Boost Your Most Relevant Posts

Advertising can be a powerful way to increase both the reach of your individual content and your followers. Images and videos that score particularly well on engagement might be worth boosting with a bit of extra money behind it to your target audience. Boosting your Instagram posts helps you reach audiences who may have never heard about your business. If you focus only on the most relevant and high-engagement posts, you will likely attract potential followers. 

To boost your post, you must have a business account, which you can have by either creating a new account or switching your personal account.To create a new account, tap your profile name then click “Add Account.”

To switch to a business account, follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to your settings then click “Account.” 

Step 2: Click “Switch to Professional Account.”

Participate in Trending Hashtags

Include hashtags (#) with every post. Instagram uses hashtags to organize content and expose it to relevant audiences. Be careful not to overuse them, but never underestimate their value.

In addition to being strategic about your own hashtag, your Instagram strategy should include understanding the hashtags your audience and the larger user base uses to communicate with each other. That can help you participate in discussions, maximizing your exposure to potential followers.

There is no “trending” section on Instagram that’s directly comparable to other platforms such as Twitter. Instead, you’ll need a tool like Brand 24 to find trending topics and tags. Once you find them, post your own content related to the hashtags to become a part of the conversation.

Highlight Best Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories is an important part of any strategy on the platform. You might not know that there are ways to use them specifically for follower growth. The key to success: Add some of your best Instagram Stories to your profile highlights. (Highlights appear underneath your profile’s bio.)

As long as your profile is public, anyone who visits will be able to see your featured Stories. These Stories provide exposure to any member of your audience who seeks you out and wants to learn more. For a full experience, featuring all of your stories, of course, they’ll have to follow you.

Try to Get Featured

Entire Instagram accounts exist specifically to collect user-generated content that are fun, cute, or unique. You’ll find accounts, such as Elite Owls and I Love Playmo, using this practice. Every interest and niche available has at least one account like this, often with tens of thousands of followers.

One strategy to get more Instagram followers is to try to get the attention of these accounts. They are little more than aggregators, reposting images sent to them to increase their content variety. They also give credit where credit is due; meaning, if you send in a picture that’s engaging and unique enough to get featured, your account will get tagged and you can gain some extra followers as a result. 

Partner with a Brand or Influencer

Taking the above concept one step further, you can partner directly and on a long-term basis with other brands and influencers who are looking to reach the same audience as you. When featured on a brand or influencer’s account, you increase your visibility to potential follows, who happen to be the audience of the person who partnered with. To make this strategy successful, you have to find accounts that have the same target audience and make sure your account is always tagged in posts.  

Learn from Your Analytics

Instagram Insights is a powerful tool in making sure that your efforts on the platform pay off. More specifically, it can help you better understand your current followers, which allows you to more closely target your efforts towards new followers. For instance, your Instagram Insights might show you your most successful posts, the locations of your followers, and their basic demographics. You can use that information to better focus your strategy, posting content and Stories that directly speak to that audience segment.

Leverage Other Channels

Don’t confine yourself to Instagram. To build a follower base, leave no opportunity to promote your account on other channels, which might include

Including a link on your other social media platforms, such as Facebook or TwitterEmbedding your Instagram feed into your websiteAdding an Instagram profile link to your email signaturesAdding an Instagram Nametag to printed promotional materials to increase your offline reach







Transfer Other Followers

Followers from your other social media accounts and subscribers to your newsletters and mailing lists are low-hanging fruit to target. Transfer these followers and subscribers to your Instagram account because they are most likely to follow your account since they already know you. 

There is no way to automatically transfer these users to your Instagram account. You have to ask them to follow you. Come up with the best reason for why your Instagram is great and link directly to it. Give them a glimpse into your account and encourage them to follow you. 

Like Other Photos

Perhaps you’ve established a decent following, but you are having difficulty exposing your brand to new followers. An easy way to make yourself known is to like photos that aren’t your own. But don’t just like any photos—like photos that are relevant to your Instagram brand or blog. Simply use a hashtag and search words that relate to your content. Are you a foodie? Search “#Food” to see what others are posting.

Comment on Users’ Content

According to Forbes, commenting on other users’ photos is a very effective way to attract followers, especially if you compliment the user’s image in some way. Look specifically for images with little to no comments, as it increases the likelihood that your comment will be seen.

Follow Other Users

Forbes also recommends using Instagram’s “Find People to Follow” feature and “Explore” section to find people to follow. These will help you connect with your existing Facebook contacts as well as identify suggested accounts for you to follow. According to Forbes, one third of the users you follow will return the favor.

Photo courtesy of Instagram.com



Use Tags Correctly

Make your tags match your content. If you are a foodie and posted a photo of chocolate cake, use the tags #Baking, #Chocolate, #Cake, and #Homemade. Use tags that are popular, regardless of whether they’re relevant to your content to increase your exposure across Instagram. However, you should only use popular tags after you’ve included the relevant ones.

Don’t go overboard with your tags. Around 10 to 12 tags for one post is sufficient enough to improve your visibility without making your post look too desperate and cluttered. For a more polished post, place only a couple of tags in the post itself and place the rest in the comments section.

Develop a Visual Style and Stick with It

Color schemes, photo filters, lighting, objects, tones, and angles are all elements that influence visual style. Find a style that fits your business or brand, then use it consistently. This will make it easy for users to recognize the style and associate it with your business or brand.

Post User Generated Content

Since you can’t share through Instagram, you can come to an agreement with another Instagram account to post UGC. UGC is an image of another Instagram page posted on your account to expose the other user to your audience. Find another Instagram account that may share a similar audience with yours. With your budget also in mind, you can increase your exposure through UGCs at a low cost.

Engage with Other Users

Obviously, your following will increase faster if you engage with other users. Comment and like images as a personal user would. Don’t use fluffy advertising language; be authentic and relatable. This will not only increase brand exposure but also your likeability, driving more followers to your account.

Post Frequently and Consistently

It’s important to remember that you have an Instagram account. Never leave it unattended for more than a day. To keep a strong presence, schedule multiple times (up to five) throughout the day to post to Instagram and stick with that schedule. Evenly space out that time so as not to post everything all at once (which would cause users to feel overwhelmed). For instance, post once early morning, once late morning, once at noon, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening.

Make Your Message Clear in the Image

You want users to get the message and identify who you are as a business or brand within seconds of viewing your image. If you’re unsure whether the message is clear enough, ask a colleague or two to take a look and see if they are able to grasp the message quickly without thinking too hard. In this example, you quickly grasp that Starbucks is promoting its summer beverages.

Keep It Relevant

Keep up with current trends and social media news to help construct your posts. For example, if you were to post something about social media tools, make sure you are up-to-date on the latest features. Make sure you don’t post about something that has been changed or that no longer applies.

Chances are your Instagram blog already contains interesting content. It’s simply a case of increasing your exposure to help people see what you’re all about.

By Anna Hubbel, writer

The post How to Double Your Instagram Followers appeared first on AdvertiseMint.

Facebook Video Ad Best Practices with Anna Barnes (Podcast)

JAN. 1, 2019

In this episode, podcast host and AdvertiseMint CEO, Brian Meert, is joined by Anna Barnes, director of video at AdvertiseMint, to discuss video best practices for Facebook ads. 

At AdvertiseMint, Barnes creates videos for clients and optimizes their existing creatives for Facebook’s platform. During her time in this position, she noticed several strategies that have and have not worked on Facebook.

According to Barnes, a traditional approach is one of the mistakes clients make. These are the clients who use the same creatives for traditional advertising (radio, television, billboard) for Facebook ads. Although this approach can work, the strategy is short-lived, as all creatives on Facebook have a lifespan.

“Everything that you put out has a timeline. It’s going to die within a certain period of time on Facebook, even if you create the most amazing video that has the biggest celebrities.”

Rather than using one long big-budget video for ads, Barnes instead creates numerous shorter videos that lasts for a longer period of time, combating ad fatigue, a phenomenon in which users ignore an ad because they have seen it too often. This method, which Facebook favors, gives audiences new videos to watch, improving campaign performance.

To create effective Facebook videos, Barnes recommends creating mobile-optimized, vertical video ads. Although the vertical format performs best on Facebook and Insagram, Barnes still recommends shooting for horizontal if, for example, the video will be placed on a website. Horizontal videos can then be cropped and reformatted to vertical for Facebook and Instagram.

Anna Barnes is the director of video at AdvertiseMint.

Because users’ attention spans are shorter on social media—advertisers have 1.7 seconds to grab their attention—Barnes recommends front-loading videos, with the most important information appearing during the first few seconds. She also emphasizes the importance of a/b testing videos to find which version resonates with audiences.

To gain engagement on ads, Barnes creates videos that intrigue users. This, she says, is a better alternative to the now-banned engagement bait. She also hires actors who are charismatic.

“If you pick a boring person, nobody’s going to want to talk to them. Pick somebody who they would want to be frieds with. More often than not, that’s what performs best on Facebook.”

Barnes also shares her tips on creating videos for the lean-forward and lean-back audience, designing for sound off, and allocating the right budget to the right creatives. To learn more, listen to the sixth episode of Duke of Digital.

By Anne Felicitas, editor

The post Facebook Video Ad Best Practices with Anna Barnes (Podcast) appeared first on AdvertiseMint.