Author: Carma

  • Promote Your Event on Facebook

    Promote Your Event on Facebook

    Promote Your Event on Facebook

    This article (that I wrote) was originally published on Social Media Examiner.

    Do you use Facebook Events to promote your events?

    Wondering how to use Facebook ads with your Facebook event?

    In this article, you’ll discover four audiences I use to successfully promote events on Facebook.

    But first, you need to make sure your event is set up properly. If you’ve nailed this part – skip to number 5.

    #1: Set Up Ticketing for Your Facebook Event

    You want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy tickets to your upcoming event, and there are a number of platforms that integrate with Facebook event pages for onsite ticket sales like Eventbrite.

    If you’re using Eventbrite to host your ticket sales, you can integrate it into your Facebook event so people can buy tickets without leaving Facebook. It’s best to set up your Eventbrite event before you create your Facebook event, but it can also be done afterward.

    Before you launch your Facebook event, make sure you add your Facebook pixel (and any other tracking) to Eventbrite to capture data you can use for retargeting. After you set up your event in Eventbrite, click the Manage tab and navigate to the Tracking Pixels section.

    In Eventbrite, click the Manage tab and navigate to the Tracking Pixels section.

    Next, click Facebook Pixel and enter your pixel ID and other details.

    While you’re here, you can also add other tracking such as Google Analytics. You can never have too much data!

    In Eventbrite, click Facebook Pixel and enter your pixel ID and other details.

    Once your Eventbrite event is set up with all of the appropriate tracking, you can publish your event and add it to Facebook. Eventbrite will most likely prompt you to do this and guide you through the process.

    Once your Eventbrite event is set up, publish it and add it to Facebook.

    If it doesn’t, you can manually do it. On the Manage tab, click Invite & Promote and select Add to Facebook from the drop-down menu.

    On the On the Eventbrite Manage tab, click Invite & Promote and select Add to Facebook from the drop-down menu.

    Either way, you’ll need to select the event and choose the Facebook page to host the event. You must be an admin of the Facebook page you’re using to host the event.

    In Eventbrite, select the event and choose the Facebook page to host the event.

    Once you’ve done this, click Add to Facebook.

    Click Add to Facebook in Eventbrite

    Your event will now be added to your page and also appear as a post in the news feed. This is what the Facebook event will look like to you as an admin:

    This is what the Facebook event page will look like to you as an admin.

    If your page and event are eligible, your attendees will be able to use Facebook’s own checkout experience, as shown here. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to buy tickets to your upcoming event!

    #2: Add the Venue and Sponsors to the Facebook Event as Co-Hosts

    Adding co-hosts to your Facebook event will allow them to post in the event itself. When you post content, users who’ve responded to your event will get a notification. This will keep the conversation in one place (making the most of the notifications) and allow the appropriate people to answer any queries about your event.

    To add co-hosts’ profiles individually, you must be friends with the person, or you can add pages.

    ALTTo add co-hosts profiles individually, you must be friends with the person, or you can add pages.

    You can add co-hosts when you initially set up the event or after you’ve created it. To add a co-host to an existing event, click Edit on the event page.

    To add a co-host to an existing Facebook event, click Edit on the event page.

    You or other stakeholders may want to display the event on your Facebook pages. This is easy to do, and it’s a good idea to add the event to any relevant pages so there are no duplicates.

    If you’re an admin of the stakeholder pages to which you’d like to add the event, click the three dots button at the top of the event page and select Add to Page.

    Click the three dots button at the top of the Facebook event page and select Add to Page.

    In the drop-down menu that appears, choose your page.

    If you aren’t an admin, you or your stakeholders can still add the event to your pages in a similar way. Go to the event, click the three dots button, and select Add to Page. When prompted, choose a page from the list of available pages.

    Go to the Facebook event, click the three dots button, and select Add to Page.

    #3: Tips for Posting on the Facebook Event Page

    The Facebook event page can be a busy place. You want to make the most of it because this is a captive audience of people either attending or considering attending your event.

    But you also don’t want to overdo it and annoy your audience, so take advantage of the new ability to schedule posts to the Facebook event wall.

    Schedule a post to the Facebook event wall.

    To encourage people to attend, tell them what they can expect on the day (or night) of the event. For instance, if you’re running a seminar, share some information about the speakers.

    You might also inform people about facilities and services available at your event. To illustrate, post parking information, a venue map, transport, dietary information, and payment methods.

    #4: Get Your First 15 Facebook Event Attendees

    You can pay to promote your event only if 15 people at minimum respond that they’re attending. So how do you get your first 15 attendees? Facebook will suggest people who are your friends who also like the host page as a first option.

    But you can invite any of your friends. Do this sparingly, though, and only invite people you genuinely think would want to attend your event.

    Facebook will suggest people to invite who are your friends who also like the host page as a first option.

    You, your sponsors, the venue (if appropriate), and the speakers (if it’s a conference or seminar) should all share the event to your respective pages. Also share your event with any relevant Facebook groups, your customer database (be mindful to remain compliant with privacy laws in your region), and any lists of past attendees if this is a recurring event or your business has hosted similar events before.

    If your event is interesting, well described, has good clear imagery, is held at a time and place people can easily commute to, and is a reasonable price, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting these first 15 “going” responses. Then you can use the power of Facebook ads to ramp up your event promotion!

    #5: Create 4 Custom Audiences to Target With Facebook Ads

    When you set up targeting for your Facebook campaign to drive ticket sales for your event, it’s important to split test the creative, copy, call to action, and so on, as well as the audiences themselves. Interest targeting will work in some cases, but your best and safest audience to get some purchase conversions is with four main custom audiences. Let’s walk through how to build them step by step.

    Your Current Customers + Lookalikes

    If your business is hosting an event, it’s likely highly relevant to your customers. Provided your customer data has been collected with permissions to be used for marketing (check your local laws if in doubt), you can upload the customer data to Facebook to create a custom audience.

    To do this, open Business Manager and select Audiences in the Assets column.

    Open Business Manager and select Audiences in the Assets column.

    Once you’re in the Audiences section, click Create Audience and select Custom Audience from the drop-down menu.

    In the Audiences section of Business Manager, click Create Audience and select Custom Audience from the drop-down menu.

    Next, you’ll see a list of options on which you can base a custom audience. For this audience, choose Customer File so you can upload your customer data.

    choose Customer File so you can upload your customer data to build your custom audience.

    To create your audience, your options are to upload your customer database as a .csv file, cut and paste data from it, or import the data from your MailChimp account.

    For this example, select Add Customers From Your Own File or Copy and Paste Data.

    Select Add Customers From Your Own File or Copy and Paste Data.

    Next, specify the origin of the data, upload your file, and give your audience a name. When you’re finished, click Next.

    Specify the origin of the customer data, upload your file, and give your custom audience a name.

    Facebook then maps the data to the available identifiers. In the image below, there are four mapped data fields: First Name, Last Name, Email, and Phone Number.

    If everything looks okay, click Upload & Create and the list will start populating.

    There are four mapped data fields: First Name, Last Name, Email, and Phone Number.

    Facebook hashes the data so it can’t be hacked or stolen and used to identify your customers. You’ll see the message below if the upload is successful.

    The next step is to create a lookalike audience. When you do this, Facebook will select an audience to target based on commonality with your current customers from the original database. When you see the page shown below, click Create a Lookalike Audience. You’re then prompted to choose a region and click Create.

    Now you have your first custom audience and lookalike audience to use in your campaigns!

    After you audience data is uploaded to Facebook, click Create a Lookalike Audience.

    Previous Attendees + Lookalikes

    If you’ve held this event before or it’s similar enough to a previous event that the same people will be interested, you can create a custom audience (and subsequent lookalike audience) of your previous attendees.

    Follow the same steps outlined above, but this time, use your database of previous event attendees instead of your customers. Make sure you name this audience in an easily identifiable way, so you can compare their performance metrics later and not get confused.

    Also create a lookalike audience. This audience will include people who have matching attributes to your previous attendees, which can be an effective way to target your campaign.

    People Who’ve Engaged With Your Event + Lookalikes

    It’s likely there are people who are interested in going to your event and have looked at your event page, but haven’t yet purchased tickets. Because they’ve indicated interest in your event by engaging with it, you can create a custom audience based on this engagement and use it in your campaign.

    Start the process in the same way as the custom audience you built from your customer database. When you reach the How Do You Want to Create This Audience screen, select Engagement.

    When you reach the How Do You Want to Create This Audience screen, select Engagement.

    Next you see the options for creating a custom audience based on engagement. Choose the Event option.

    Choose the Event option for your engagement custom audience.

    Then you see the audience creation window. Here you can choose options for the level of engagement people have displayed in your Facebook event, select a time frame for that engagement, and exclude anyone you don’t think is relevant from your audience.

    Because Facebook will only let you use these audiences in campaigns if they’re large enough (you need 1,000 people to meet the criteria), you may need to experiment to find one that will match your needs.

    If you have a large-scale event, you can make these conditions quite detailed. However, if you’re a smaller business with a more locally focused event, keep them fairly broad so enough people have performed the necessary engagement to be added to the audience.

    You can create as many of these audiences as you like and choose which ones to use later once they’ve populated and have a size indicated.

    For this example, create your audience based on people who responded “Going” or “Interested”, but exclude people who have already purchased tickets.

    Create your custom audience based on people who responded "Going" or "Interested" but exclude people who have already purchased tickets.

    Once you’ve created this custom audience, you’ll be prompted to also create the lookalike. As with the previous audience segments, it’s a good idea to do so and test this audience in your campaign.

    People Who’ve Engaged With Your Facebook Page or Instagram Account

    As with the above custom audience based on engagement with your Facebook event, you can also build audiences based on engagement with your Facebook page and Instagram business profile.

    If you’ve been posting relevant and engaging content on your brand channels that align with the event theme, it’s likely people who’ve engaged with you will be open to hearing about your event.

    As with the previous audience segment, start by going to Audiences to create a new custom audience. When you’re asked how you want to create this audience, choose Engagement again and then select Facebook Page.

    Select Facebook Page for your engagement custom audience.

    Now you need to specify the criteria people will need to meet to be included in this audience. Because this audience will include people who have engaged with your page but not the Facebook event page specifically, choose a relatively non-passive action such as engaged with a post, clicked a call-to-action button, sent a message, or saved a post. These are the more active interactions a user can have with your page.

    As with the Facebook event engagement audience, you need to make sure the audience size is large enough to run. If you have a high level of engagement on your Facebook page, you can afford to be more specific about your criteria. If your engagement is lower, you’ll need to be broader.

    You can, of course, create multiple audiences with different parameters and split test each one if you like.

    Specify the criteria people will need to meet to be included in this page engagement custom audience.

    Unlike the other custom audiences, I don’t use the lookalike option here. I don’t find that people who “look like” they engaged with your Facebook page have enough intent to purchase an event ticket. However, if you think this will work for your page, create the lookalike and add it to the mix!

    Next you can build a similar engagement custom audience with your Instagram business profile. Note that you can’t create this type of custom audience for an Instagram personal profile. It needs to be an Instagram business profile that’s connected to your Facebook page and Business Manager account.

    As with the Facebook audience, create a new custom audience based on engagement, but this time select the Instagram Business Profile option.

    Create a new custom audience based on engagement and select the Instagram Business Profile option.

    In the audience creation window, you can choose a specific time period and certain parameters of engagement with your business. Again, you need that magical minimum number before this audience can be used in a campaign. Depending on the level of engagement for your Instagram account, adjust the options accordingly.

    Remember that this audience will only serve you if the content you post on your Instagram aligns with the core purpose of the event.

    In the audience creation window, you can choose a specific time period and certain parameters of engagement with your business.

    Always Exclude Purchasers

    When running a Facebook campaign, it’s often more important whom you exclude from your targeting than include. To maintain a high relevance score and low negative feedback (which affect the cost of your campaigns), make sure the audience that sees your ads is open to the messages contained in them.

    If someone has already purchased tickets to your event, serving them ads to get them to buy tickets is wasteful. So how do you exclude ticketholders? There are a couple of ways to achieve this.

    First, you can pull an event database daily and create a custom audience as in the first example, but this time made up of people who already have tickets. Then when you build your ad targeting, select this audience to exclude. While this tactic is very accurate, it can be a bit time-consuming because you have to constantly create and amend your ad targeting.

    The easier way is to use your website and pixel data. Using the URL displayed when a ticket purchase is completed (whether that’s a thank-you message, receipt, or confirmation pop-up), create a custom audience based on website traffic to exclude people who have already purchased a ticket.

    When you create this custom audience, select Website Traffic.

    Create a Facebook custom audience based on website traffic

    In the audience creation window, set the parameters of your audience based on website activity including pages viewed and time on page.

    In the example below, once a purchase is processed, the user is sent a unique receipt URL, but all of the URLs “contain” the “/receipt/” parameter. If you have a specific landing page for the purchase confirmation, you would select URL Equals and paste the exact URL into the box.

    Finally, name your audience and add a description if desired. Then click Create Audience.

    In the audience creation window, set the parameters of your audience based on website activity including pages viewed and time on page.

    And there you have it: four audiences to target and one to exclude. When you set up your campaigns, you can split test these audiences until you find the ones that have the lowest cost per action and scale them. Any non-performers can be stopped at any time, although I recommend giving them enough time to optimize (at least 3 days).

    To manage this process (which looks like a lot of work, but is very quick once you get the hang of it), it’s helpful to create all of your audiences first and leave them overnight to populate before you create the ad campaign.

    #6: Create Your Traffic/Conversion Funnel

    Events are fun! People like attending them, so as a rule, they don’t need a particularly complicated sales funnel. But like any Facebook ad campaign, the people most likely to complete a purchase conversion are those who’ve already performed the preceding action.

    For instance, if you’ve used custom audience targeting to attract traffic to your website with either Link Clicks or Landing Page Views objectives, you’ll get some sales right away, even from cold traffic.

    Some people will be excited about your event and won’t hesitate to buy tickets. But events can be expensive to run, so you’ll likely need more than these organic ticketholders to make your event a success. This is where retargeting comes in as you move users down the funnel.

    Keep your ticket sales funnel simple.

    The audiences you’ve made that include your customers, people who’ve engaged with your Facebook event or social media channels, and people who’ve attended your previous events are all considered warm traffic. They know who you are and what your brand is about.

    Many people in the lookalike audiences you created (and any interest targeting you may use) are potentially cold traffic. They haven’t heard of you, they don’t know what you’re about, and they’re less likely to attend a business event you’re hosting.

    With event marketing, you often don’t have time to build traffic in a phased campaign approach like you would with other types of campaigns. So you need to keep your funnel simple and let the retargeting do the heavy lifting with the engaged audiences.

    Once people have visited your website, found out more about the event, and demonstrated an interest in attending (in other words, have been warmed up), make sure you serve ads to them on Facebook and Instagram.

    The most cost-effective way to do this is to run a Facebook ad campaign specifically for people who added tickets to their cart but didn’t check out. They’ve shown the highest intent to buy, and therefore are your lowest hanging fruit in the funnel. You can target this bucket of users with the Conversions objective.

    Target this audience with the Conversions objective.

    Simply target traffic that’s added to the cart (which you know from the Facebook pixel) and exclude the purchasers (as explained at the end of section #5 above). Then all you need to do is wait for it to optimize and see if it’s going to convert at an acceptable cost. If so, scale up the spend because more money in equals more money out.

    If not, analyze the results. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and work out what stopped them, and either fix it or find a way around it.

    Who else can you target with Conversions ads? Potentially your current customers and previous event attendees who will start at the middle of the funnel, bypassing the cold traffic stage.

    What other objectives might you run? Engagement ads in the form of Event Responses. Remember how valuable the wall of your Facebook event page is? And if people engaged with your Facebook event, they’ll fall into your retargeting bucket.

    Run engagement ads in the form of Event Responses.

    And if your event has door sales available and your budget allows, run Reach objective ads to the local community that fit your event demographic.

    There will always be people who don’t want to be locked in and prefer to buy tickets on the day of an event. If they’re aware your event is on, you still have a chance that they’ll attend. If you choose the Reach objective, you can easily cap the frequency and reach of the campaign to avoid annoying your audience.

    Click here to find answers to 10 questions marketers ask about creating, promoting, and managing successful Facebook events.

    What do you think? Do you use Facebook ads to drive ticket sales for your event? Have you created some of these custom audiences? What tips can you offer for promoting your event on Facebook? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

  • Announcement for Marketers | The Marketer

    Announcement for Marketers | The Marketer

    Exciting times…

    Introducing our new arrival!

    No, it’s not a baby.

    Well, not as such…it’s a website (we’re calling it a publication) and we’ve just gone live with our soft launch.

    Why on earth would you want to release another website when you don’t even publish regularly one this one?

    Great question. I need to do better. It’s the typical scenario of marketers being slack at their own marketing. It’s boring – and I need to prioritise my own work more.

    But in the meantime, let me introduce you to The Marketer and maybe you’ll forgive me.

    I’ve joined forces with a local Social Media agency owner and birthday twin, Clayton from Smith Social to bring you The Marketer.News

    Now I hear what you’re thinking, why would you team up with a competitor? 

    Why indeed!

    Well why not?

    Anything we can do successfully in our separate lives we can smash if we get together, right?

    Plus there’s MORE than enough businesses who need our help than we could possibly ever service alone. It’s called an abundance mentality, but before we get all woo-woo – let me tell you the story…

    The Marketer was kind of a natural progression.

    We liked getting together and talking about Marketing and found the recurring theme was “what does great marketing look like” and it turned out we agreed on enough to keep it fun – and disagreed enough to keep it interesting.

    And it wasn’t just digital marketing – we wanted to cover all marketing, not just our specialties but old school marketing theory, print media, out of home, TV, email…everything!

    But both our company blogs are written for business owners and people learning to DIY their marketing, so we needed something new.

    We looked around and there wasn’t much out there covering great marketing campaigns and executions, especially that pertained to our local market of Perth, and we wanted to change that.

    Sure, there’s marketing news sites, but that’s not our focus.

    And we found plenty of marketing company blogs, but they’re spread out, and focus on their areas of expertise (naturally) so we concluded there’s not really a resource for discussing Perth Marketing from the POV of a Perth marketer.

    Until now.

    If you’re an Australian marketer – we’d love for you to get involved!

    Visit TheMarketer.News and sign up, follow us on Facebook and Instagram while we finalise some content specifically for YOU.

    There’ll be articles, discussions and maybe even some get-togethers in the future.

    We’ll be guided by you, and where and how far you want to take us.

  • Facebook Ads Manager Vs Boosting Posts

    Facebook Ads Manager Vs Boosting Posts

    Facebook Ads Manager Vs Boosting Posts

    Which is better?

    Anyone who runs a business knows they must have a brand presence on Social Media to reach new segments, support existing customers and be part of the conversation happening around their brand and the wider industry they’re a part of.

    And something else that’s abundantly clear is that organic reach just isn’t what it used to be. Once upon a time, you could post on your business page and your fans had a good chance of seeing it in their newsfeeds.

    Both Facebook’s big Social platforms (Facebook and Instagram) have been declining organic reach for brands for some time, meaning business owners who want to generate higher reach have been opening their wallets.

    But this isn’t the only reason people choose paid distribution methods. It may be that your target audience is quite specific, requiring a more targeted approach that organic Social posting can achieve.

    Or perhaps you’ve created some amazing content, why take the risk of minimal exposure?

    Get it out there!

    If your video auto-plays in the forest, and no-one is there to read the captions – did it even play at all?

    Deciding to promote your content isn’t the hard part, but how to do it effectively can be confusing. So let’s look at the difference between Ads Manager and Boosting Posts!

    There’s a little bit of jargon to learn when paying to distribute your content on Facebook (and Instagram) and the first thing is that Boosting Posts and Sponsoring a post via Ads Manager are quite different.

    Facebook Boosted Posts

    Facebook’s defines a boosted post as:

    “…a post to your Page’s timeline that you can apply money to in order to boost it to an audience of your choosing. This is the simplest way to advertise on Facebook.”

    Boosting a Facebook post is straightforward as pressing the blue “Boost Post” button under the post you’d like to put the budget behind and following the prompts.

    Boosted Posts start off as organic posts – and have budgets applied.

    Ads Manager
    Boost Post is the big blue button you’re often prompted to push

    Facebook Ads Manager

    Running ads via Facebook Ads Manager gives you more control over your campaign.

    Facebook describes it this way:

    “Facebook ads are created through Ads Manager and offer more advanced customization solutions. There are many advertising objectives to help you reach your specific business goals and the audiences you care about most.

    Where a boosted post may initially optimize for Page likes, comments, and shares or overall brand awareness, Facebook ads can optimize for app installs, website conversions, video views, shop orders and more.”

    Running Ads via Facebook Ads Manager requires an Ad Account, preferably set up inside a Business Manager account set up for your business.

    You’ll get access to more robust targeting, more features, and greater support from running ads this way.

    Running ads via Ads Manager means they don’t ever display on your page itself unless you deliberately share them there.

    Here’s a breakdown of the other differences.

    Ads Manager

    Image credit: Social Media Today

    Running ads via Ads Manager will give you access to many objective options, under 3 main headings.

    Awareness:

    • Brand Awareness
    • Reach

    Consideration:

    • Traffic
    • Engagement
    • App Installs
    • Video Views
    • Lead Generation
    • Messages

    Conversions:

    • Conversion
    • Catalogue Sales
    • Store Visits

    Ads Manager

    Boosting posts will only give you 3 ad objectives; website visits, Engagement and Messages.

    Ads Manager

    So now that we know the difference, which is better?

    It depends exactly what you want to achieve.

    Facebook explains it this way:

    “It’s important for any business to identify exactly what they’re hoping to achieve with an ad.

    For example, if you want audience engagement on your Page or to develop your brand awareness, boosting a post is a great way to maximize visibility and grow your audience.

    To create more advanced ad types and campaigns, use Ads Manager.

    In almost all instances, running ads via Facebook Ads Manager is preferable to boosting posts.”

    Boosting Posts is certainly quicker, easier, and requires a less steep learning curve.

    But there’s only 3 times I’d ever use it myself

    If I wanted my content to only be seen by people who already like my page​

    Seems counterintuitive, but if you were offering a promotion or discount to your page fans only the most effective way to do this is via a boosted post to current fans of your page.

    If you already have your Facebook Custom Audiences set up in Ads Manager

    You can access your Custom Audiences and Saved Audiences in your Boost Post options if they have already been created in your Ads Manager. This way you have the same targeting options, and it’s quick and easy to promote your post on the go.

    For Social Proof on your Ads

    If you’re going to run an ad that’s possible to do as a Facebook post (E.g. Engagement, Link Clicks) you can create first as a post on your page, and Boost to build up reactions, comments and other Social Proof before running as an ad via Ads Manager.

    In all other instances I’ll take the extra objective and targeting options of Ads Manager any day of the week!

    The other point to note with Boosting Posts is that it’s only effective if your post meets certain parameters.

    • If your post has performed well organically
    • A clear call to action – don’t leave people confused over what to do
    • It’s relevant, timely and optimised for your target audience

    Boosting a post that doesn’t have these factors is a complete waste of your Facebook Ads budget!

    Ads Manager Advantages

    Controlling who sees your ads (and who doesn’t) is one of the main attractions to advertising on Facebook – not using this targeting to its full potential isn’t making the most out of your Facebook ads budget.

    Not only is it counterintuitive to use the more limited targeting of Boosted Posts, but placement options are incredibly important to running successful Facebook ad campaigns. Placements determine where your ad is displayed. Will your target market be more likely to be compelled by your ad in Messenger, on Instagram Stories, or Facebook’s mobile newsfeed?

    Something else that’s important to achieving a return on ad spends (ROAS) is split testing – which you can’t do with Boosted Posts. How will you know which creative works best, what copy inspires people to click, which placements are most effective if you can’t split test them?

    Plus, Ads Manager can do almost everything Boosted posts can do!

    In fact – following this process will give you the same result as a Boosted Post (for the Engagement objective) but with more robust targeting options:

    • In Ads Manager, click the green “create” button and select “Engagement” as an objective
    • Choose “Post Engagement”
    • Define your Audience, Placements and Budget
    • Click the drop-down menu to designate a pre-existing post
    • Confirm & launch

    This method generates better results, at a more cost-effective rate.  Go ahead and put it to the test – I’m confident you’ll appreciate learning how to promote a post on Facebook using the platform’s Ads Manager tool.

    Using Facebook Ads Manager to run your advertising is a lot to get used to, but when you’re going to be paying Facebook to find your target audience isn’t it worth spending some time familiarising yourself with the platform that’ll get you the most bang for your buck?

     

    I’d love to know what you think! Drop me a comment.

    This article was originally published on SavvySME

  • 5 Things You Can Do To Boost Social Media Presence

    5 Things You Can Do To Boost Social Media Presence

    5 Things You Can Do To Boost Social Media Presence

    A guest blog by Elaine Bennett

    In a social-media-driven world, where everyone and their grandparents have a social media account, there is really no viable excuse for your business not to be present in the SM arena as well. After all, some three billion people use some form of social media on a daily basis, it only stands to reason that you should try to tap into this wealthy pool of opportunities – you can bet that your competitors are doing the same.

    But you need to be better than they are. With that in mind, here are five things you could be doing to boost social media presence, reach new audiences and transform them into paying customers.

    Developing a personality people will love

    The days of faceless corporations with cheesy slogans are long gone. Nowadays, customers expect brands to have a personality, a unique tone of voice, and an aesthetic presentation that is relatable and portrays the right values to the public. Needless to say, your brand cannot afford to be just another face in the crowd – it needs to stand out.

    Uniqueness is the key to brand recognition in the online universe, which means that you need to build a brand personality audiences can connect with on a profound, emotional level. Only by striking an emotional chord with your demographic can you hope to transform them into loyal brand followers.

    Building SMART goals for your SM strategy

    The concept of SMART goals has been around for decades, used by managers from every department to keep the cogwheels turning and keep the higher-ups happy. Now, you can use the SMART concept to optimize your social media strategy and take it to new heights.

    Succinctly, in order for your SM presence to thrive, your goals need to be:

    • Specific – what is the goal, specifically?
    • Measurable – how do you measure effectiveness?
    • Achievable – the goals need to be realistic.
    • Relevant – creating a positive impact internally and externally
    • Timely – setting a realistic timetable.

    SMART goals will allow you to build a comprehensive, realistic social media strategy. However, setting these goals will require constant feedback and social media monitoring.

    Gather relevant insights to boost your SM game

    Knowledge is power. The more you know about your audience, as well as your brand’s performance in the online realm, the better the chances of your marketing team crafting a winning SM strategy and improving upon past results.

    Strategies such as media monitoring have become an integral part of every brand’s social media strategy, as it provides you with the relevant insights your company needs in order to eliminate any guesswork from the equation. Also, it is important to consider where your audience comes from. For instance, if they’re based mostly in New Zealand, you should use a media monitoring platform or a media portal from New Zealand to collect this data. This real time information will help you safely plan for the future and mitigate any risk, allowing your brand to gain the traction and recognition it deserves.

    Post engaging, quality content across the board

    In the online world, content will always be king. No matter how much money you pour into advertising or sponsorship deals, nothing will be able to save your brand’s reputation from the backlash that inevitably follows a poorly-written blog post.

    This is why complementing your posting schedule with stellar content across all social media channels will be essential in portraying your brand in the best possible light. What’s more, if you want to take your game to the next level, be sure to diversify your content pool by introducing various blog content, images, infographics, videos, podcasts, and more.

    Be consistent and drive innovation

    Finally, a silent social media feed is soon to become a barren one in terms of followers. There is no better way to lose your audience and push them into the loving embrace of your competition than to post seldom or irregularly, so make sure you have a tight schedule in place, jam-packed with engaging stories and visuals.

    Moreover, you also want to retain a hefty dose of spontaneity, and keep your followers coming back to your page, by being innovative, always offering something new and exciting for your audience to experience. Remember, only by staying on top of the latest trends and changing with the tide can you hope to stay afloat and surpass the competition.

    The race for social media dominance is a never-ending one, especially if you consider that the number of social media users is only expected to rise in the years to come. With that in mind, now is the time to implement these solutions into your SM strategy and pave the road to long-term recognition in the SM universe.

    boost social media

    Elaine Bennett is a regular contributor at Bizzmark Blog.

    She’s a marketing specialist, focused on branding, social media marketing and small businesses.

    She’s also a tech enthusiast and a video games lover.

  • How To Reap The Benefits Of A Content Marketing Strategy

    How To Reap The Benefits Of A Content Marketing Strategy

    Content Marketing can have some incredible benefits for your business

    But a lot of people still underestimate the value of Content Marketing, or indeed don’t fully understand what it is or why they should invest in bespoke content.

    So let’s start by working out exactly what it is!

    CONTENT MARKETING – a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.

    But I prefer Content Marketing Institute’s definition:

    Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

    Especially the line following that definition which says “Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.”

    So Content Marketing is a way to talk about your products or services in a way that’s audience first and user driven. It’s less about you, and more about them – a good place to start.

    What can be content?

    Anything your audience can consume can be content.

    • Blog posts
    • Video & Slideshows
    • Graphics & Animations
    • Podcasts
    • Quizzes
    • Ebooks & Whitepapers
    • Resources & Workbooks
    • Playlists
    • Q&A or AMAs
    • Facebook/Instagram Live
    • Branded Filters & Camera Frames

    And the list goes on!

    The type of content you create for your Content Marketing efforts will depend completely on your audience and objectives.

    Great Content Marketing can have a multitude of benefits to your business, let’s look at some of them.

    Traffic & Search Results

    Everyone wants more traffic to their website, or at least more qualified traffic. When you publish or host quality content on your site, people hit your site to consume it. And you know they’re more than likely interested in your product or services because that’s what your content (even if loosely) relates to.

    When you offer something of value to your audience, they’ll come to you. This is the complete opposite of traditional marketing where you go to where they are and interrupt them. If you content is strong enough and valuable enough you might not even have to pay to promote it. You can publish it, and let people come to you in their own way and their own time.

    Here’s a great example – Jon Loomer’s Facebook Image Dimension Guide. In case you don’t know who Jon Loomer is he’s a Facebook Ads heavy hitter who runs online training and a couple of membership clubs for exclusive content. In fact, everything Jon does is an example of excellent Content Marketing.

    I read in one of his emails a while back that this page on his site is the most visited. It comes up if you Google “Facebook Image Specs” and in creating it, he knew that anyone who visited that page was looking for information on how to optimise their creative to best display on Facebook.

    Whether they were marketers, or business owners, or entrepreneurs – they all had that in common. And they were coming to him. For free!

    Imagine you’re in a competitive niche; all clamoring to get to the top position in a Google search, but your content – perhaps a simple “how to” video is what people are visiting? That’s YOUR brand getting ahead. Standing out without pushing people away with a hard sell.

    We’ll talk more about what you can do with this traffic in a sec.

    content marketing

    Brand Awareness & Recall

    Word of mouth is still an incredibly powerful way to get your business noticed, and you’ve probably heard the phrase “word of mouse” said too. It’s so important to be known and remembered.

    How can people use your services if they don’t know who you are?

    How can they recommend you to their friends if they can’t remember your business name?

    Create content that resonates with your audience and they’re more likely to remember you. And if they hadn’t heard of you before it’s an even better way to make them aware of your brand!

    The idea is that it’s not only valuable enough for them, but sharable as well. Any time you can get people to share your content as a brand you’ve allowed them to represent you and vice versa. They’ve thought whatever you created was good enough for them to put their name to and pass along to their friends and colleagues.

    And with Content Marketing you can do this without the rude interruption of more traditional types of advertising.

    Brand Affinity & Loyalty

    Something else you can achieve with Content Marketing is affinity from your audience, and loyalty from your current customers.

    This isn’t just touchy-feely (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but in a crowded market you want people can choose your brand, over others and their affinity for what your brand stands for could be the deciding factor. But they can’t do this unless they know what your brand MEANS.

    You content can explain your brand positioning, and win your audience over into fans and purchasers.

    Tell your brand’s story and let your audience fall in love with you.

    Then once you’ve earned their support you want to retain them!

    Great content can remind people why they choose you and not your competitors. It can help deepen the relationship they have with your brand and make them less likely to stray.

    content marketing

    Audience Segmentation

    Content Marketing can help you segment your audience and only show them what they want to see more of.

    You can track and tag pages of your website and/or individual pieces of content, to build audience pools from your different content themes into remarketing segments.

    That way when you pay to promote a new piece of content you can target the people who’ve consumed similar content. Facebook targeting allows us to differentiate traffic that’s visited certain pages of our website and not others, and also people who’ve spend a certain amount of time on a particular page so we can serve ads to people who interacted with particular content this way.

    It’s the same concept ecommerce stores use when they offer you similar items to the ones in your cart. They know you like xyz product with certain attributes, it follows you’ll like other products with similar attributes.

    This segmentation keeps your audience seeing the content that resonates with them, and prevents them seeing content themes that may not.

    content marketing

    Funnel Content

    If you have a sales funnel you need to fill that funnel with content.

    This content needs to be relevant to the audience AND their buyer journey.

    Content Marketing can attract people to your brand and fill the top of the funnel.

    And it’s especially important during the consideration phase (middle of the funnel) to make sure people choose your brand over your competition.

    content marketing

    Thought Leadership

    Content Marketing can position you (as a personal brand) or your company as the thought leader in your niche.

    Great content will ensure your fans know you’re the “go to” source for information on your product or industry and give you an edge over your competitors, just like in the Jon Loomer example.

    content marketing

    Business Opportunities

    Checking the data from your Content Marketing efforts can point you in the direction of new business opportunities.

    If you’re looking at expanding or even narrowing your offerings, the data on which content your audience consumed can help you refine your business to offer what has most resonated with your target market.

    Content Marketing & Social Media – BFFs

    Why am I telling you about Content Marketing?

    Because Content Marketing and Social Media are BFFs. Your content can be distributed on Social Media, and content themes can be established based on your social posting.

    Think about your most popular Social Media posts – what were they about? What can you learn from this to inform your content offering?

    Social Media gives us the power of community for our brands, and it also allows us to target with a high level of accuracy people we want to reach beyond that community where we know our content will resonate.

    So put some thought into your Content Marketing efforts and invest in some quality creators if it’s not your thing. The work of an excellent copywriter, graphic designer or videographer will elevate your content and you’ll reap the benefits.

    But make sure to leave some money in the budget to ensure this content sees the light of day with the people you made it for.

    Do you invest in Content Marketing?

    What questions do you have about content?

  • The Recipe For Facebook Ad Success | Facebake

    The Recipe For Facebook Ad Success | Facebake

    Facebake – My Facebook Ads Recipe

    Facebook Ads are similar to baking, so Imma teach you how to Facebake!

    There’s a recipe. But more importantly there’s knowing how to bring together a recipe without blindly following it. A good baker knows when the dough is too wet, or if the cake needs a bit longer in the oven.

    The recipe for Facebook Ads is the same – there’s 5 things you need to make them work, let’s call them ingredients. These are the building blocks of your ads structurally – but also the items you need to split test to find the most effective combination for your goal.

    What are they?

    Facebake Ingredients

    • 1kg Amazing creative (mix of video & images)
    • 2 heaped Tbsp Clever & Convincing copy
    • 1 whole Offer (may be substituted with a benefit)
    • 2-3 cups of Audience targeting
    • 1 pinch Excellent landing page

    We’ll examine them one by one.

    Amazing Creative

    You want your ads to stand out in the newsfeed – but for the RIGHT reasons.

    Shouty, text-heavy, blurry, weirdly cropped images will not do. Well they could do the job – but you’ll be paying more than if you had good ones, and the goal is to pay the least as possible needed to meet your objective, right? Good. SO get some design skills or hire a designer.

    Same with video. Is your video square or vertical? Does it have captions? Is it as short as humanly possible to still get your point across? Good! The research shows people will watch about 6 secs of your video ad, so you need to make them count.

    Your Facebake creative also needs a lot of other components:

    Facebake
    5 additional ingredients your Facebake will need

     

    You know how important aroma is in cooking?

    Well there’s this thing called ‘ad scent’ and it’s important to apply this to your ad creative. Make sure the ad creative matches in some way the landing page creative. They should ‘smell’ the same so people know they’re in the right place.

    And how do you choose what type of amazing creative to use with your ads? We’ll discuss that in the method 🙂

    Clever & Convincing Copy

    Your copy (or text) on your Facebook Ads is another ingredient you’d like to pick fresh from the garden!

    Firstly always think in terms of your target audience. Rather than making a vague general message, split off your copy for each layer of audience. If you’re targeting mums, think like a mum. If it’s young men, put your young man hat on. You’ve paid for space in someone’s social experience – make it for them and you can’t go too wrong.

    There’s a couple of schools of thought on ad copy length, but for me – I go short every time.

    Puns are good, alliteration is fun, rhyming can work…this is the clever part.

    When picking copy avoid words like; sale, buy, offer, shop etc if you can help it. Remember you’ve interrupted someone’s newsfeed to serve an ad to them. Don’t use overtly spammy “buy my shit now” types of wording.

    Having said that, you do need to include a call to action (CTA) Tell people what you want them to do. If it’s to read your latest post try “check it out” or if it’s to sign up to a list think “subscribe” but remember you can also choose your CTA button to do most of the heavy lifting for you in this area. Just don’t leave it open. In my workshops I always say confused people wander off – and they do, so steer them to your objective, just do it nicely.

    And don’t forget about emojis. If your target market would use emojis then you should too. If you go to getemoji.org you’ll be able to see how the emoji display on Facebook so you can match or contrast them to your branding as best you can.

    Bear in mind that emoji mean different things to different people though! I had a client who loved eggplant but using the eggplant emoji wasn’t going to fly. Another common one is the “praying hands” which some people think is a high five. You just don’t want to be misunderstood.

    Double check your copy is clear and free of typos and spelling issues before posting. Although I have heard of people deliberately spelling a word wrong for entra engagement, I wouldn’t advise it.

    Finally, thinking like your audience should allow you to write copy that addresses their curiosity, to either solve a problem or fulfill a desire they have. People buy emotions, so think of the way your product will make them feel.

    And remember where you’re landing them when they click (if it’s an ad type that has clicks) so you introduce the page in a way that once they land there they aren’t confused. Why? Because confused people wander off remember! We’ll talk more about landing pages soon.

    The Offer

    What are you selling? If you have a discount, sale or actual promotion your ads are going to convert better due to our brains being hard-wired to nab a bargain. It also creates scarcity which prompts a “do it now” response.

    If you’re selling something no-one wants no manner of amazing Facebake ads deliciousness is going to get them to buy.

    Think about what type of people will take up your offer, what times of day they might be most receptive, what device they’ll be using, where they are in the buyer journey – all these will help you whip up an offering to tantalising to ignore.

    Audience Targeting

    This actually should be a whole topic in itself – so I’m going to keep it as brief as I can.

    Interest targeting is sketchy at best. Yup! simmer on that one.

    Your best targeting comes from people who’ve performed an action with your business. What action? Anything really; clicked a link, viewed a video, hit “going” on an event, engaged with your Instagram account…most things can be measured and re-targeted.

    If you need to run cold traffic try using a Lookalike Audience (LAL) or your current customers and let Facebook’s mighty algorithm find an audience for you. It’s very clever!

    Upload your customer database (if permissions allow) and make a LAL of them.

    MOST importantly, don’t layer your audiences too much – you need to test them separately to find the ones that work. Why? Better results and less bad feedback – which affects your ad Relevance Score and in turn tends to affect your overall ad performance.

    A common misunderstanding is that layering audience interest like this will get you an audience of people who like BOTH football AND Beer. But it won’t – this will get you people who like football OR beer. You wouldn’t think it’d make a huge difference though, right?

    Facebake
    Football OR Beer

    This audience in Australia with no other filtering is displaying an estimated audience size of 4.4m people. If you layer it correctly to find people who like BOTH football AND beer like this

    Facebake
    Football AND Beer

    Your audience drops to 720k – which is a MASSIVE difference!

    Before we get too bogged down in targeting (seriously this should, and probably will be its own post) don’t forget your exclusions. You wouldn’t cook a steak for a vegetarian!

    It’s SO important to exclude people who aren’t relevant to your ad. If they have bought a house from you, you can probably leave them off the targeting for some time. Anyone who isn’t going to convert because they just did the thing you want them to do should be removed.

    Exclusions can save you wasting budget on people who aren’t your audience, and we all want that budget to go as far as it can.

    Most other targeting magic happens in the method, which we’ll discuss when we get there in a few paragraphs.

    Excellent Landing Page

    Why Excellent? Your Social Media Ads can do amazing things, but they can’t help you convert on a shitty landing page.

    Most conversions are made on a website rather than a social platform, so don’t spoil the sauce by sending people to a confusing, ugly, non-responsive or slow loading site.

    You may as well put your ad dollars in the toaster.

     

    Facebake
    Ingredients to an excellent landing page

    Now we’ve discussed our ingredients, and you’ve picked the freshest, most in season, best quality components to put into your Facebake, let’s talk about how you put it all together!

    Method

    Baking is a precise art – I tried to make macarons once and it was a complete disaster. And I think a lot of people reading this might feel the same about Facebook Ads.

    When baking, you need to pay attention to the order of the ingredients. It’s the same when setting up your campaigns.

    Cold Audiences 

    Your cold traffic needs the most love, and the highest level of hand holding because they don’t know you at all.

    They’ve likely never heard of you, or your business, and sometimes even your product – so asking them to marry you (convert) before introducing yourself is creepy and weird.

    Start at the beginning, and ask them for something else first. Buy them a drink, offer them a seat, put your best foot forward.

    In this analogy, buying them a drink is an offer, discount or promotion. The seat is articulating how you can help them, and putting your best foot forward could be introducing them to your best-seller or a helpful post, whitepaper, ebook or other resource to let them know you’re interested but you aren’t a creep.

    I use a combination of Video Views and Link Clicks in this phase of the buyer journey. This not only gets traffic to your site, but builds a layer of data to re-target in the next phase in the form of Custom Audiences from Video Views.

    Test all of your targeting as described above so you know which ads work the best – kill off any not performing, and add budget to scale the ones that are.

    A lot of people don’t understand that they need to warm up this cold audience first, but it’s important to let the audience self-select that they’re interested in your brand by which pages they choose to visit, how long they remain on the page, or how much of your video they watched.

    Warm Audiences

    Your warm audience knows you, but probably haven’t converted yet, so they didn’t reject your initial advances but they haven’t agreed to date you. This could include your email database, and any other Custom Audiences you’ve made from engagement on your page, Instagram account or event.

    Remind them why they started talking to you in the first place.

    This is the perfect time to use your retargeting from website visits or Video Views ads, and hit them with a link click or Landing Page View ad to a more sales-focused page of your site. If they landed on the “cakes” page of your site you know they like cakes, so you can follow this segmentation along and only send people the most relevant ads.

    The Canvas Ad format can be added in the warm phase (I find it works better here than to a cold audience) and also Lead Gen ads – which I find perform well to a warm audience and pretty woefully to cold ones.

    Depending on your buying cycle, price of your product and the length of your consideration phase, you can also start running Conversion ads to warm traffic.

    Remember that a conversion is not necessarily a sale, it is whatever you set it up to reflect, so it could be an email database signup, or an Add To Cart (ATC).

    You need 50 Conversions a week per Ad Set for your ad to work properly – so make set up your conversion point as close to a sale (or other end conversion goal) as you can afford at the required budget to get these initial 50 conversions or your ad will stop spending.

    So again – split test all your ingredients to come up with your best warm traffic ads, kill off the burnt ones, and scale the winners.

    Piping Hot

    These guys are prepped to buy!

    Facebake
    Fry is ready to buy

    Your warm audience should be ready for conversion ads.

    Retargeting anyone who ATC but didn’t check out is a very effective targeting strategy, but like in baking you need to have the oven hot enough (ie. have enough data) – so depending on your budget, audience and product you may need to do this in a few stages.

    If you have a repeat purchase type product you’ll want to maximise your current buyers by encouraging them to buy more often, or upgrade to a more expensive product.

    The LAL of your purchasers are a very powerful prospecting audience, the same way you can sometimes substitute ingredients like oil instead of butter.

    Conversion ads work best with static creative in my experience, video is too distracting.

    Once you have your required conversions coming through at an acceptable cost per conversion (CPC) you can scale up your ads carefully so that you’re maintaining a good return on investment (ROI)

    Be sure to change up your creative if it starts to loose its appeal – ads can’t run forever…

    And always be experimenting – a great meal is tasted and adjusted at every stage of cooking. And no great meal is made without seasoning to taste, so make sure to add a healthy sprinkle of data.

    Your secret ingredient?

    So now that you have my recipe – are you going to get baking?

    I’d love to know your secret sauce to a successful Facebake!

    Got questions?

    Feel free to join my new Facebook Group and ask away, or drop me a comment.

  • TL;DR | 2018 Yellow (the artist formerly known as Sensis) Social Media Report | Part 2

    TL;DR | 2018 Yellow (the artist formerly known as Sensis) Social Media Report | Part 2

    Part 2 – Getting Down to Business

    I was going to call it report-ier in reference to Die Hard – but decided not to. Anywho, part two of the Yellow Social Media Report is out and I’ve got to say it’s really got 3 main takeaways. If you missed my wrap-up of Part 1 you can read it here.

    I could drag it out and fill this blog post with all manner of stats and insights, but unless you’re a Social Media Advertiser you’re probably not going to be interested. So I’ll keep it on-topic 🙂

    So what are we talking about then?

    Well I didn’t say there wasn’t anything valuable in it! After reading the Yellow Social Media report and thinking on it for a couple of days, and re-reading it there really are only 3 pieces I think you need to know.

    1. More Than Before

    Quite simply, there’s more businesses than ever with a Social Media presence.

    The Report states that for small business it’s 51%, medium is 58% and large is the highest with 85%.

    On average 90% of these have Facebook, and they are optimistic about Social Media’s ability to effect their business with 6 in 10 believing it will increase their sales between 11%-16%  in the next year.

    2. Adding It Up

    According the the Yellow Social Media Report, Australian businesses are spending more on ads, with 52% of respondents declaring they have used paid social and 9/10 reported they had run Facebook Ads.

    1 in 3 small businesses are using Social Media advertising, and with medium and large businesses this increases to 1 in 2.

    3. We’re Coy About ROI

    The findings of the Yellow Social Media Report point to the fact that we don’t really know how to measure our ROI – or return on investment. Which is pretty bad tbh…

    Only 21% of small business, 32% of medium and 35% of large businesses measure their ROI!

    That’s an average across the business segments of 29%, so only around a third of businesses are actually calculating if the money (and time) they put into their Social Media is making a return.

    WOW.

    And the ones who do measure their Social Media efforts are looking at likes, followers and subscriber numbers to indicate success – not sales.

    But nevertheless they’re saying they’ll spend the same if not more in the coming year…

    It’s also outlined in the report that half of businesses Social Media budgets go to paid ads, 1/3rd to content and the rest to management of the platforms – which are overwhelmingly managed in house.

    What else?

    I did say there were only 3 main takeaways, which I’ve covered – but there’s a couple of minor ones.

    One is that interestingly businesses are posting less often than previously recorded (probably due to algorithmic changes making their posts seem less effective) and that businesses are stating that most of the traffic to their Social Media platforms come from the company website.

    Which means you need to check your site’s Social Media icons are working, and your Facebook pixel is up and running to track your website users’ journey.

    That’s It…

    I hope this has been useful and has saved you reading the 30 pages of the Yellow Social Media Report for yourself.

    There’s a lot more stats to pour through if you’re inclined, you can read the Part 2 in full here.

  • TL;DR | 2018 Yellow (the artist formerly known as Sensis) Social Media Report | Part 1

    TL;DR | 2018 Yellow (the artist formerly known as Sensis) Social Media Report | Part 1

    A Yellow rose by any other name…

    The much-loved Sensis Social Media Report has changed its name. It’s now the Yellow Social Media Report. But what’s in a name? It’s still going to give you the same delicious stats and facts as always, just with a brighter background.

    If you’re into Social Media, or data about the way businesses are using it, this report has something for you!

    For the last 2 years I have brought you a TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) summary of the report, and it’s always one of my most-read posts! This year I’m doing it again. I’ll highlight my main takeaways of the report from my opinion as a Social Media practitioner in regard to the way Western Australian’s and WA businesses are using Social Media.

    Why the Yellow Social Media Report?

    Why do we love this report so much?

    The main reason the Australian Social Media community gets excited about this particular report is because even though there’s a LOT of data out there, it can be tough to find anything that reflects an Australian audience. We’re a big country with a small population and we just aren’t like anyone else.

    Another reason is it’s incredibly important to stay up to date in this fast-moving industry. Trends shift in the blink of an eye, and as a Social Media professional (or a small business owner looking after your own businesses Socials) you need to keep up with usage trends to get the best from your efforts.

    The Yellow Social Media Report has been asking (mostly) the same questions for the past 7 years, so it’s become somewhat of an authority piece.

    Start to Finish

    Did you know that the first thing nearly 60% of Australians do every day is use Social Media? It’s how they finish their day, too! I know I’m in that 60%…

    62% of Australians use Social Media daily to connect to friends and family – and 60% open their Social Media more than 5 times per day, across an average of 3.5 “internet connected” devices.

    Mostly we’re there to connect with people we know – but 44% of Aussies follow brands on Social (up from 25% last year) and they are using your presence to find out more about your business and check your reviews.

    Facebook – STILL not dead.

    People tell me Facebook is dead. Or that it “doesn’t work for my business” but maybe you’re not giving your audience what it wants, because it’s the most widely used Social Media platform in Australia – consuming an average of 10 hours per week of our time.

    94% of Western Australians surveyed use Facebook, and it’s the same as last years result, despite people saying they’re going to #deletefacebook. This is also way out in front of second placed YouTube at 44%.

    Yellow Social Media Report - pic 1

    Message Me

    It’s the same when we move to private messaging services, with Facebook Messenger coming out way in front in WA 79% for Messenger and 30% for Facebook’s other messenger option – WhatsApp. None of the others even came close.

    Yellow Social Media Report - pic 2
    These are the Australia-wide figures

     

    Live and let LIVE

    Us sandgropers are not really embracing Facebook live – with 79% saying they have neither watched nor published a Live broadcast. Are we a bit behind? A bit camera-shy? Maybe we’ll catch up in next years report…

    Tell it like it is!

    We’re also behind all other states when it comes to publishing Snapchat, Instagram & Facebook Stories with 74% saying they have never published a story on the 3 channels.

    Down to Business…

    Why do we need to know all this stuff about how people use the platforms? Because it’ll help us as brands get our messages seen and acted on most effectively.

    33% of us check out a brand’s social media presence before making our first online purchase from them. WHat if there’s nothing there when they look? Or something old and out of date? Not a good look!

    40% of West Aussies said they had provided an online review (we’re the second last state for this – coming in last is SA) and people from the ACT shared the most opinions with 52%.

    Only 12% of WA folks said they stopped following a brand in the past year. Mostly they did this because their content was irrelevant or unappealing – or they just posted too often.

    Western Australians aren’t very trusting of news on Social Media, with only 20% trusting news on Social Media or news their friends posted on Social Media. We prefer our news on the news, thanks.

    We’re also the state who cares least about likes, and the least likely to check our phones while eating with family and friends, so that’s good news.

    Yellow Social Media Report - pic 3

    So there you have it – that’s the Part 1 wrap up – Part 2 of the report should be out soon, letting us know more about brands and businesses use of Social Media.

     

    What did you think of my wrapup of the report? Or the Yellow Social Media Report itself? Any surprises?

    Want more? You can read the full report here.

     

     

  • People Doing Cool Stuff – Perth Happenings | Pieta Sharpe

    People Doing Cool Stuff – Perth Happenings | Pieta Sharpe

    I’m lucky enough to meet a lot of inspirational business people who are doing cool stuff!

    You’ve probably heard of Perth Happenings. You either follow their Instagram, or have looked for stuff to do on their site – maybe even advertised your event there! But do you know the lovely face behind the brand?

    Let’s get to know Pieta Sharpe a bit better, and in the process we’ll find out how Perth Happenings was born!

    Tell us a bit about yourself and Perth Happenings!

    I’m Pieta, 37 year old solo Mum of two sensational young men. I’m passionate about community building, people in general and creating a beautiful life for my family and those around me. I have spent way too much money at uni, am on the board of my old high school and I’m an ambassador for Youth Focus which I am so proud of.

    Perth Happenings was created when we saw a gap in the ‘market’ per se. There are so many large scale event websites and social media that don’t really create a space or give any air time to smaller, local community events.

    When building Perth Happenings we felt it was important to develop community pages to create that point of difference.

    So we have 8 – North, south, east, west, central, freo, hills and out of town. You can head to that local community page and see events in the area, local blogs, local businesses and really get a feel for what is in your community or conversely try a NEW community.

    Perth is very spread out and we tend to stay in our comfort zones and not travel out of our space. Having community pages means that if you feel like a weekend in the Hills and you live in Freo you can check it out and plan ahead.

    We offer free online listings to almost any event in Perth and will often select random community events to provide free promotion and upgrades to. We also offer 50% off silver and gold packages to Not for Profit and local community organisations.

    We will never be focussed on the large scale events and the multinational organisations and that means we won’t attract the bigger bucks but that is a-ok for us. Our audience are supportive of our dream of building an online community to keep the people of Perth engaged with each other and we showcase many events that others really don’t!

    We have a TV show in the pipeline too so keep your eyes out for that!

     

    Tell us about your journey, how did you get to this point?

    I have a background in psychology, education and community services alongside currently completing my Master of Marketing and Innovation. All of my education is based on people – learning about them, engaging with them – I just love people.

    Motivating and inspiring them and just helping us to be the best humans in the best society that we possibly can!

    I feel Perth Happenings has allowed me to develop a platform to make a difference and I am looking forward to developing that.

     

    What music/song have you got on high rotation right now?

    I went to Falls Festival as a reviewer (terrible aspect of my business!) and I absolutely fell in love with Glass Animals and fell back in love with Peking Duck.

    The two songs I don’t seem to be sick of are Life Itself (Glass Animals) and Let you down (Peking Duck).

    I think I play them seven to ten times a day.

     

    How do you stay motivated?

    This may sound cliché but knowing my 13 and 10 year old sons are watching and learning from me at all times keeps me motivated. I want to show them you can achieve any dream you can think up be it in business, health or fitness either with a partner or be ok on your own.

     

     

    I regularly go to F45 sessions and hope the dream of doing burpees and unassisted pullups is a reality soon too!

     

    What/who inspires you?

    Besides my boys, my group of friends inspires me every day. They are just some of the most amazing people you could meet.

    Additionally, knowing that as an ambassador for Youth Focus, I may inspire and motivate a young person one day – that keeps me focussed on the prize.

    If I can use my story to help others believe in themselves then there is no greater reason to do what I do.

     

    How do you deal with impostor syndrome?

    It’s a funny one this imposter syndrome theory.

    I think with regards to Perth Happenings I don’t really have it. I have worked super hard to strategize and get to where we are. I have put in lots of love and time and am proud of my achievements. I think often we see those who say – yep I deserve this and I AM awesome as being conceited, so I wonder if we all actually do it because we feel we should or because we’re afraid of the ramifications of praising ourselves.

     

    What’s your favorite place/way to relax?

    I love the beach.  I adore just sitting there or walking and collecting shells.

    I also enjoy music – listening, dancing, singing very badly, and yoga, F45 – plus I love just talking and engaging with my boys. It is simple but true.

     

    If you hadn’t started your business what do you think you’d be doing right now?

    Still working in Not for Profit organisations wondering how I can make more of a difference and be a little frustrated.

     

    What’s been your most successful Social Media platform for your business? Do you think you’d be in the same place if it wasn’t for Social Media?

    We are an online business so digital marketing strategy and social media are paramount for us. One important component of building the business has been that I have been very true to my audience.

    Starting Perth Happenings our growth was slow because community isn’t as sexy as big bands and fancy restaurants. However once we got the momentum we’ve had a steady climb.

    Constant reviewing and making changes has resulted in lowering our bounce rate of our website by providing more blogs and other events on the pages.

    I altered our strategy in October and have seen a 72% increase in website traffic to date since November which I am of course VERY proud of.

    I researched into my secondary market (24-34 year old women) and looked at what we could offer on our Facebook that would attract them and encourage engagement.

    Knowing your audience is key!

     

    Have you hit any huge problems that made you re-think your whole career? How did you get around it? What was your approach to solving the issue?

    I rethought my whole career when working with underprivileged children and realising how under resourced and often poorly funded not for profit community groups are.

    I couldn’t handle working with these kids and seeing that really what they, and their families needed was community engagement and feeling they were a part of something. Bigger picture, I am hoping to provide an online community as a conduit to that feeling real life connection.

    Fingers crossed!

     

    What is the hardest thing about your work?

    Relationship building. We have struggled to get the local councils on board with what we are trying to do which is frustrating and challenging considering they are the perfect partner for collaboration.

    Finding the right people with the same vision is harder that I anticipated from a corporate level.

    Otherwise it would be all the movie premieres and concerts I get to go to… tough!

    How do you manage it all with such a busy schedule?

    That is something I am working on!

    I am focusing this year on quality. I want quality relationships with businesses and people I can trust and WANT to work with. I say yes to much too much and need to reign that in.

     

    What’s next for you?

    The Perth Happenings Youtube channel development and the Perth Happenings TV show.

    Both coming soon to a screen near you!

     

    How do we find and follow your cool story?

    Facebook

    Website

    Instagram

     

    So now you now more about the brains behind Perth Happenings!

    I hope you’re enjoying this series of People Doing Cool Stuff, I’ve got loads more fun peeps to introduce you to, so make sure you stay tuned!

  • People Doing Cool Stuff – Chalk of the Town | Megan Manning

    People Doing Cool Stuff – Chalk of the Town | Megan Manning

    I’m lucky enough to meet a lot of people from all over the world who are doing cool stuff!

     

    Having spent a lot of time working in pubs with prominent chalkboards like the Belgian Beer Cafe, The Greenwood and The Albion, I know how important it is to have them done professionally so they are neat, legible, and inviting. And I know it’s MUCH harder than it looks!

    Let’s have a chat with Chalk Of The Town’s Megan Manning and find out how she does it!

    Tell us a bit about yourself and your business – what is Chalk Of The Town all about?

    I’m Meg and I run and operate Chalk of the Town signwriting.  What’s Chalk of the Town you ask? Well, I’m an artist and I work mainly with Chalkboards.

     

    Tell us about your journey, how did you get to this point?

    I started my little business when I lived in Europe and needed to start making some money. I have always been creative and good at art so when the opportunity to work closely with a local artist to learn my trade arose I jumped at the opportunity.

    I trained alongside my mentor for 6 months in Spain before returning to Australia and starting up my little business here 2 years ago and haven’t looked back yet.

    Have you ever seen one of those fancy colourful chalkboards in a pub or a restaurant and wondered how or who did that? Well that’s what I do. I’m the person they hire to create those masterpieces!

    I also create beautiful signage for weddings, parties, events and businesses which is cool because I get to work with other businesses and wedding vendors on photoshoots and all sorts.

     

    What music/song have you got on high rotation right now?

    Well, It’s a pretty funny story. Most likely a ‘you have to be there kind of moment’ but, our kids LOVE Detroit Rock City from KISS so as we can imagine we have to play this every time we get in the car or are at home listening to music.

    They all know the words (even the 2 and 3 year old) and jump around like crazy when it comes on. They are so cute!

     

    How do you stay motivated?

    Hmmm, this is a hard one because sometimes I do struggle to motivate myself BUT I Love what I do so I just remind myself of that and it kicks me up the butt on the days that I need it.

     

    What/who inspires you?

    This is so super soppy of me but I would have to say the person who does inspire me if my Husband to be. He is the most amazing person I have ever met and he inspires me to be the best person that I can be and to always work hard and to never give up.

     

    How do you deal with impostor syndrome?

    Well, I just remind myself that I AM good at what I do and how far I have become.

     

    What’s your favorited place/way to relax?

    My husband and I both work fulltime and we have 3 kids so we never really get to relax, because as you can imagine our life is pretty full on!

    But when we do get a chance to have some ‘us time’ and relax our number 1 destination is Busselton, We often grab our snorkelling gear and go off snorkelling for the day. In this beautiful country it would be stupid not to, Right?

     

    If you hadn’t started your business what do you think you’d be doing right now?

    A long long time ago before I became a mum I actually studied Graphic Design at university (this also comes in very handy for my business now) so most likely I would be doing something creative anyway.

     

    What’s been your most successful Social Media platform for your business? Do you think you’d be in the same place if it wasn’t for Social Media?

    My Major Marketing Platform that I use is Facebook. About 99.9 % of my clientele has seen my work on Facebook or via word of mouth.

     

    Have you hit any huge problems that made you re-think your whole career? How did you get around it? What was your approach to solving the issue?

    Yes, but only with Bride funnily enough.

    I recently took 6 months out because of some not very nice people. I won’t go into details but it was a very stressful time that was completely unnecessary.

    Thankfully thought I fought back and came out even stronger and more determined than ever.

     

    What is the hardest thing about your work?

    I love my Job, I love the creativity and the freedom but sometimes you just meet people that have no idea about advertising, or don’t have a creative bone in there body and they are so adamant on an idea of what they want which is complete poo but they just won’t listen to your advice.

    I find this hard because number 1 its my name on the artwork and number 2 it makes me cringe haha, but apart from that I am really luckily to be doing what I do.

     

    How do you manage it all with such a busy schedule?

    It’s taken me A long time to balance work with life but we are getting there. I am very strict about the hours that I work and where I work.

    I have to work from home so I can take care of my children and I will not work after hours or at the weekend as that is family time. I have found balance and I manage to do all of my work and be a mum and wife at the same time. Its great.

     

    What’s next for you?

    I would like to teach some hand lettering courses to the general public so that could be something I look into this year.

    We will see how we go.

     

    How do we find and follow your cool story?

    Facebook

    Website

     

    Make sure you stay tuned for more cool stories! And if you think you’re doing something cool – get in touch!