Carma’s Wrap-up Of The Tourism Council WA Regional Conference 2021

What A Blast!

This time last week Adam Barrell, Monique Boucher and I were in Geraldton for the Tourism Council WA Regional Conference 2021, where we hosted breakout sessions.

What did we talk about?

Monique and I shared our experience with the Isolation Libation Tours (affectionately known as the ISO Tours) from a year ago (almost to the day!) and the impact they made on her business, those of the producers she featured, and that of her guests. More on that later.

In case you haven’t seen any of the tours, or you’ve forgotten who we visited – there’s some friendly faces in these slideshows:

The Wine Tour kicked it off with 7 venues! Nuts.

Next week we visited the distillers – 6 to be exact.

Then it was brewery mayhem – 4 breweries with 2 beer loving guests.

And lastly cideries (it IS a word) 5 of them spreading from the Perth Hills to the Swan Valley.

My Stuff

I couldn’t plan my words, because I knew if I had a script and I got lost I’d be in more trouble than if I just got up and spoke from the heart about a campaign I knew inside out. Slight panic attack when I realised our breakout was to be held on the main stage – eek!

I most wanted to get across that while much marketing activity is well-planned, well-budgeted and painstakingly produced; no-one planned for the shutdown and reactive campaigns on a shoestring can be just as powerful.

At a conference where you’ve presented on the same stage as the head of Tourism Australia, Tourism WA, and the Minister for Tourism, you know that there’s a lot of talent in the room – but a lot of the attendees are small businesses or solo operators, and they needed to hear about what we did because they could literally pick up a gimbal and go out and replicate it tomorrow. With no budget.

And I hope they do!

If you’re interested here’s a PDF of the slides.

It was so great to be able to include some short videos of the producers and one of our ISO tour guest and current Beer Chats With Brewers co-host, Daniel Rootman to show our audience so they could see that the campaign wasn’t just a hit for Monique’s business, but actually created sales and interest in the breweries, cideries (a WORD), distilleries and wineries.

Barrell’s Bots

In Adam’s session he championed the data capacity and time-saving automation Chatbots offer with practical examples that could be adopted by the tourism industry. RIP his inbox.

Bet he’s scheming up a way to automate his emails now as I know he’s had a tonne of enquiries for building custom chatbots since the conference.

The Journey

We drove up in a Tesla, making the road trip a lot of fun! We stopped to charge the car in Cervantes and had lunch at The Lobster Shack (a must-do) but unfortunately the charging station there was a bit slow.

So that we didn’t run the gauntlet making it to Geraldton on less charge than we’d anticipated, we stopped again in Jurien Bay where we caused quite a scene at the petrol station.

Sufficed to say, they remembered us on the way back home. Ask me about the story and I’ll tell you but for now I think I’ll leave it at that.

I drove The Tez home, and at one point nearly made Adam sick. I’ll leave that there too, lol.

We stayed at The Gerald, which we can recommend. Not just because it’s modern and tidy, but it has 2 bars, and they have over 80 gins. A dent was made.

They also let you eat and drink anything in the minibar for free. How cool is that?

The Conference

The conference was well run and both the attendees and the wider Geraldton community were incredibly welcoming of us Perth & Peel mask wearers.

I really enjoyed hearing about Tourism WA’s #WanderOutYonder campaign and the “Holiday Here This Year” activity run by Tourism Australia. Our formal dinner was to be held outside but the weather had other pans and we ended up in a hanger.

This probably undersells how awesome the hanger looked, and the food was of a high standard. Funny to hear the Gero locals groan “oh, crayfish” as they eat it so often it’s completely lost its delicacy status there. Someone even told me “we prefer marron” to which I had to giggle.

There was an award ceremony, and I’d like to say a big congrats to all the award winners!

While we’re on the thanks and congrats train – let’s extend that to the organisers who made this conference happen in what would have been pretty stressful times. I hadn’t even packed til the day before as I was sure we’d be going into a regional lockdown. They must have had a tough time working and re-working contingencies.

And to those who came up to us afterwards to share feedback on our presentation, massive thanks!

We met some awesome people, and it sure is nice to be able to attend large events again.

February 19, 2021February 20, 2021

Facebook News – Newsfeeds Feed No News In Australia

Facebook News? Not In Australia!

Facebook News from down under…

What a way to wake up this morning!

Overnight Facebook implemented restrictions on publishers & Australian users sharing or viewing Australian & international news content.

So people opened their business pages this morning to find that the page was still there – but the content was gone. All gone – not just the news posts, but photos, the cover photo and everything.

Facebook News, The Marketer Page is Restricted

It’s still all there of course, but we can’t see it here in Australia.

After contacting Facebook chat support, it seems the distinction is pages connected to a site with an Australian news domain. So we qualify. In the same bucket as the big boys. Flattering…but a bit unfair!

Other fall-out

Some non-news pages have been wrapped up in this restriction like the BOM, DFES and some community health and NFP pages. As I write this some of them have been reinstated.

So what the heck is this Facebook News thing all about?

I’ll explain.

Facebook and the Australian government have been negotiating for years about paying for content. Here’s the “sides” of the argument:

In the red corner

The government’s stance is that news publishers should be paid for posting their content on Facebook.

The government claims that news is of value and should be paid for, ok – that’s fine, but advertising on news websites and paywalls pay for news content…

And there’s no coincidence this has happened the same week that Google had to get out its checkbook (or really just the coins in it’s centre console) to pay up for news content in deals it struck with Seven West Network and Channel Nine ($30m per year btw)

This claim supposes the money paid by Facebook – important distinction, not to the government, to the publishers (this has nothing to do with who pays how much tax where and when) will result in preserving the integrity of journalism.

Lofty.

IMO: Our government doesn’t care about the integrity of journalism. It’s quite clear by the way they’ve dealt with the ABC.

In the blue corner

Facebook’s stance is that the publishers are the ones posting content (they don’t have to – it’s voluntary) as a distribution method and therefor as Facebook doesn’t need the content and hasn’t taken the content (it is volunteered) then there’s nothing TO pay for.

News media get their clicks from distribution channels; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email, etc. Facebook is just one of them. The balance of benefit it weighted towards the publisher and not Facebook.

The best analogy I hear is that it’s like the paper boy paying The West every time he delivers a newspaper. That’s not how payment works….the receiver pays – not the deliverer.

In Facebook’s statement (linked below) they make it clear that it’s unlike Google, and users must actively post their content on their platform.

IMO: Yep. It’s different to Google. But most publishers (good ones at least) make special effort to be displayed on Google, so while Facebook is completely different there as it’s a choice to post, what to post, when, etc I don’t think Google should pay for content either.

Some Facebook News Thoughts

The timing of this isn’t a coincidence!

Earlier in the week there was a post in my Facebook group from a member which I’ll share with their permission:

These screenshots were shared on the 12th of February with a suspicion it had something to do with the proposed law changes. I replied that I thought they would be testing the fall out on a small group of users and that the member must have been in that group.

I think Facebook knew this functionality wasn’t flawless and that they had to deploy it as time’s running out to negotiate/amend the laws (and not only time, but the government’s willingness to negotiate or bother to learn how the internet and social media operate) and they rolled it out anyway.

This did cause (and is still causing some) issues with non-news pages being swept up in the restrictions.

The Bureau Of Meteorology, DFES and several community health and NFP pages were restricted. As well as Buggybuddies, So Perth, Urbanlist, Perth Is Ok, Zac Kirkup and many more.

The BOM and DFES are back up now. Buggybuddies has put through an appeal, but probably counts under the government’s very (deliberately) broad definition of “publisher” but we’ll update if and when we hear anything.

Facebook News Info, Resources, and Stuff I Collected

Starting with the official things:

The Facebook article explaining the changes by William Easton, Managing Director, Facebook Australia & New Zealand

Facebook’s Timeline of supporting news in Australia – or as I call it, “we tried”

The Facebook Help article

The link to appeal the restrictions if your page shouldn’t have been affected

What’s being said out there?

My Facebook group thread with heaps of info, stories and links you’ll have to request membership to be able to see this by the way.

Click the images for the link to the original posts.

WA Premier Mark McGowan almost gets it.

Interestingly his page survived while his Liberal counterpart’s didn’t.

Adam Bandt misses the point…but does HAVE a point instead of rolling out the TAXES argument which has nothing to do with anything…

Betoota nails it from a publisher POV (as usual).

And, surprisingly they’re still able to post links…

The world is looking on with interest, and…bemusement?

So there’s the shitshow that was my morning, dealing with the shock and confusion of clients, peers and the public and now I’ve finally got all this post down I’m going to get back to work…while I still have work.

The Wash

Pages this has affected can’t post at all.

Even non-news.

Even Facebook Stories.

Support your favourite pages by signing up to their email databases as that’s the only way they might be able to share their content with you for a while (or ever?)

Before I go here’s my recommendations is this has affected your page/s –

- - Appeal here.
  - Remove your website link if it would be considered “news” or a “publisher” based in Australia.
  - Change your page category from publisher to blog or community.
  - Wait and keep an eye on your support inbox.

Get in touch with us at hey@themarketer.news if you have a story on this to feature.

Join my group where I’m curating resources in real time, and if you’re in Perth and want to talk face-to-face, come along to our Grill The Marketer event Thursday the 25th. I’m sure we’ll touch on it briefly, lol!

Peace!

June 17, 2019May 19, 2020

Facebook Avatar Stickers – a first look

Facebook announced Avatar Stickers last year, and now they’re HERE!

Edited to add:

Obviously the Facebook Avatars have had a wider roll-out to Australia and the US as I’ve had countless messages from people trying to set theirs up.

So I’ve added some info to help you.

Step one:

Grab your phone or tablet (not a desktop or laptop)

Step two:

Go to the top right corner menu and press the down arrow which will open Facebook’s main menu as shown in the screenshot below:

Step three:

Got down to “See More” and the following menu will open:

Step four:

Choose “Avatar” and follow the prompts!

This is the original post from June 17th, 2019.

Facebook Avatar Stickers are here, and by here I mean LIVE in Australia – to some users.

Since they’re still rolling out for a lot of people I thought I’d share a bit about it and show you mine.

I had this prompt show up in my newsfeed:

So, of course I had to try it!

If you don’t get the prompt, try adding a comment to a post and press the sticker button to expand the sticker menu. You’ll get the search icon on the left, then your most recent stickers, then a lady waving (at least mine is a lady waving circled below. If you’re a man this could be a man? Not sure…)

If you tap that lady waving icon, you’ll be prompted to make your Facebook Avatar Sticker.

It takes you through the process of setting up your avatar so it looks like you.

You first choose your skin tone (so for me that’s the second whitest) but there’s quite a few options.

Next you choose your hairstyle and colour

Then face shape.

Next – the eyes! First a shape, then a colour, and then eye makeup.

My eyes are green and there’s a couple to choose from as you can see above.

Then it’s onto the all-important eyebrows!

Choose a shape and then a colour to best match your own (or the ones you draw on every day, lol)

The next one is glasses.

There’s quite a few shape options here for the bespectacled.

Now for the nose!

I found this the hardest one to match as the shading on top and bottom of the larger noses makes them look weird and huge. I went with a nose that’s most likely much smaller than my IRL nose so I didn’t get that shading effect.

Next is the lips:

Shape (above) and colour (below). There are quite a few lip colour options.

Next is facial hair and colour:

I’d say they’ll probably add way more options here as the product rolls out.

Then it was onto body type.

There’s not a lot of options here, and although the skin colours are quite inclusive, there’s no real body type options for anyone without the standard 2 arms and 2 legs. I’d suspect they add to these to be more inclusive.

Next you choose from the limited outfit choices.

There are a few options for hats to mix it up a bit more and also head coverings.

I chose not to add a hat.

And that’s it – you’re done! Admire yourself in Facebook Avatar sticker form. You’d imagine that as time goes on (assuming the Facebook Avatar Stickers are widely adopted) that companies would be able to sponsor clothing, hats etc. maybe even lipstick shades.

You can use these Facebook Avatar Stickers to comment on posts both in the newsfeed and on Messenger.

So far these are the options I have available.

Screenshots from Messenger.

The above image also shows where the Facebook Avatar Stickers are accessed – show here as the waving avatar next to the clock face icon on the bottom menu on my phone whilst in Messenger (I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 8)

There’s a few options that cover the standard On My Way, Congratulations, OMG etc.

and then the ever-useful bachelorette sticker? Can’t really see myself using that one…

So that’s it – Facebook Avatar Stickers explored.

Do you have them yet? You might not as they roll out to different countries and profiles at different times.

Let me know what you think, is it a dumb gimmick that’s come too late behind Bitstrips, Snapchat and Bitmoji? A great new addition to Facebook’s features – or something else entirely?

November 29, 2018November 29, 2018

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.

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.

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

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

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

July 11, 2018July 12, 2018

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.

July 2, 2018

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%.

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.

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.

January 20, 2018January 21, 2018

Facebook Apocalypse | Actionable Tips To Negotiate The Fallout

Facebook set it’s house on fire by changing how the newsfeed works – so what do we all do now?

There’s some things in Social Media Marketing that will always be true. I’m going to start with those, as many publishers and brands will really need to go back to the basics to make sure they are still reaching their audience.

These are simple, but often overlooked and there’s only 3 main ones…

1. Strategy

What do you WANT from your Facebook activity? What does success look like for your accounts?

Is it sales, brand awareness, leads, customer service?

Think about what you actually want to achieve by being on Facebook in the first place. What’s the best way to achieve your goals, bearing in mind Facebook is saying they will be preferencing “meaningful” content that evokes deeper thought and attracts long comments.

I’ll outline a few formats I think will still be viable under this newsfeed change in the next section.

2. Audience

Your Facebook page isn’t for you.

Let that sink in.

It can be ABOUT you, but it’s supposed to be for your AUDIENCE. Facebook’s trying to put the Social back into Social Media.

What does going back to basics here look like? Stop creating content you like, and put your efforts into content that means something to your audience. Keep it relevant, put some thought into who your audience is, what they’re day looks like, when they want to hear from you and you should see success with Facebook’s new focus – creating a meaningful experience, keeping you safe from the newsfeed update.

Dive into your insights and check out who your audience are (you might be surprised) and always keep them central to your content creation (or curation)

You may need to post less often to achieve success here, but putting the extra thought into your content, and cutting down on your frequency could definitely help your newsfeed visibility.

3. Community Management

This one has been around as long as Facebook itself, but it’s lost a bit of shine, at least to me if I’m honest. I’d say this was mainly due to the amount of effort it takes to run a community, the fact that you can’t really measure community ROI, and the declining organic newsfeed reach which pushed all us former Community Mangers into the realm of Paid.

Having said that, it’s always been important to answer the questions, queries and issues of your fans and customers on your Facebook page. It’s Social after all!

In the announcements by Facebook in the previous week they’ve stated that simply replying to all your comments isn’t enough. They say they don’t care about page-to-person interaction (I have a hunch they still keep tabs on it, like they do with answered messages in Messenger, but I have no proof) they only care about person-to-person interaction.

So if you already have a community of active commenters, who participate in thoughtful conversions about the topics around your brand – this is going to be a huge advantage! If you don’t it looks like trying to build one is the key here.

I’m not going to lie, starting from scratch is going to take a lot of effort on your part, especially if you’re a small business. For larger businesses this will mean they might decide to dedicate a Social Media team member to “conversation starter” rather than simply moderating comments or providing customer service.

It also makes me wonder about the Telcos. If you’ve been on a Telco page lately (or ISP for that matter) you’ll find long, detailed accounts of people’s greivances. Is this what Facebook will end up preferencing in the newsfeed? Might be good news for NFPs and cause related communities?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Another thought pops into my head about trolls. Will brands now ‘Fake Troll’ themselves to get longer comments? Yuk. Let’s hope not.

Ok, so that’s my 3 back to basics tips. Bring ~~Sexy~~ Social Back with a re-think about your strategy and why you are on Facebook in the first place, ALWAYS post audience-first, and have a plan to engage your community.

How are you going to stay ‘newsfeed visible’ though?

It’s all very well and good for the answer to be “create better content” but HOW?

Here’s some tips I think will still be effective on Facebook, depending on your niche and audience.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live generates heaps of interaction. I wouldn’t say long comments per se, but it’s an awesome way to get your content seen in the newsfeed. If you haven’t thought about how you could go live with a tutorial, or something that helps your audience then the time is now.

AMAs

Ask Me Anythings would be a good way to get people thinking, writing longer comments and having meaningful interactions in their newsfeed. As a brand or business owner there’s surely things you know that your audience would be interested in. You could always invite guests in your niche to answer questions for your audience to keep it interesting.

You could even schedule these as Facebook Lives! Double whammy.

Facebook Groups

This newsfeed update will affect groups to a degree, but they tend to inspire more thoughtful dialogue as people feel safer to share in a group of likeminded people.

Perhaps your brand could benefit from it’s own group?

Facebook Events

As well as groups, events get a lot more interaction than pages. If your brand hosts events you can use them to help keep the interaction from the event off the main page and in one spot where it’s easily manageable, but more importantly you can promote them too (as long as they have more than 15 “attending” responses)

The final one is pretty obvious…

Facebook Ads

There’s a way you can get your important content into the newsfeed. You can pay for it to appear there.

Facebook did announce they were running out of ad inventory, but everything they’ve mentioned so far in this newsfeed update hasn’t included ads.

But don’t be fooled into thinking you can just boost a post that wasn’t written with your audience in mind and achieve success.

I think this newsfeed update has made sure we all know Facebook is getting serious about the social aspect of Social Media, and with potentially more brands moving into the paid realm, ads may get more expensive.

Over to you readers, what do you think? Have you seen any changes on your newsfeed yet? I’d love to know!

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018

Facebook Zero | OMG! | Algorithm Armageddon

Facebook Zero, the algorithm armageddon!

If you use Social Media for promoting your business, chances are you follow a couple (if not tonnes) of Social Media related publishers, and you would no doubt have seen a huge reaction from the community about the latest announcement from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg (below) where he states they’ll be changing the way they select posts to display to users in the newsfeed.

This update is stated to prioritise user to user interaction and focus on quality of engagement – which appears to mean time spent and meaningfulness, favouring longer, well thought out comments over tagging friends in memes or simple reactions.

Cue freakouts over Facebook page reach.

Facebook seems to be taking aim at the passiveness of users simply scrolling the newsfeed and not interacting, and publishers – including those looking to game the system with engagement bait (which Facebook announced they were cracking down on a couple of weeks back)

BUT there’s so much we don’t know!

Facebook Zero – Really?

Social Media Examiner was one of the first (naturally as probably the most well know Social Media publisher) to get vocal and ask if this was “Facebook Zero” in an 11 minute live video (below)

Would pages get any organic reach? Are we all doomed to the naughty corner? Are our Facebook pages going to be put out on the lawn with the big TVs and DVD players?

Let’s just calm down and look at what we know for a sec, which to be honest isn’t much.

If you’ve been in this world a while you know for a fact every time the newsfeed algo is tweaked people lose their minds, and each time we adjust, measure, test, refine and evaluate our accounts to try and work out a way to stay relevant and SEEN by our target audience, followers and fans – both organically and using paid distribution.

Let’s remember we all use Facebook differently!

You get the newsfeed you deserve.

I have quoted this before, a friend of mine said it to me once and it’s so true. If you hate your newsfeed – I’m sorry to say you did that to yourself. There’s so many options to unfollow people who annoy you, unfriend people you have no interest in, hit “see first”on pages and people you like, and generally reacting to things you’re actually interested in.

Facebook’s smart at figuring out what we like – but it’s not flawless. If you hate cats – stop tagging your friends in cat videos. Facebook thinks you like cats and will show you more cat content, pretty simple right? If you want to know more about the newsfeed read my post here.

You see, Facebook’s ONE JOB is to learn what you like and optimise your experience to that so it can keep you on the platform longer. Mainly to serve more ads (to make more money) but also to make sure you aren’t using the other platforms (except Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp since it owns those)

But so what, Carma? What’s this got to do with this new Facebook Zero announcement?

The curated newsfeed

I, and probably many other Social Media Marketers might not be typical users – but we know one thing, and that is that Facebook has made a pretty big assumption in the basis for this update: that we want to see more content from our friends in our newsfeeds. For me this is not the case (soz friends)

People think the newsfeed has become a crowded place for ads and page updates, and they aren’t seeing enough posts from the people they care about. I don’t find this the case, as I’d rather read a breaking story from ABC News than another “creative” engagement, pregnancy or gender reveal announcement.

Adam Barrell of The StoryLab Perth put it this way:

Facebook used to be about sharing your whole life and connecting with friends. Now more than ever Facebook is used to engage with pages and publishers. People want to explore and find new things to read and engage with.

When I want to engage with friends and family I use messenger to share photos, articles and arrange catch ups.

Wasn’t Facebook meant to make the world more open? And now Zuck is telling us we’d much prefer seeing posts from friends and family the most?

Just make a Tab/filter that users can select to just see friend posts – don’t go changing the algorithm again.

Good point! Bit hard to connect the world, when people wont accept a friend request from people they don’t know…always too many degrees of separation!

And Jon Loomer (Facebook Ads Legend from Jon Loomer Digital) described it like so:

Not everyone uses Facebook the same way. I purposefully see more brand and publisher content in my news feed than posts from friends. That’s only partly because I’m an antisocial jerk. But it’s mainly because I care most about political and sports news.

That’s the stuff I actually want to see. I don’t comment on those posts. I don’t provide “long and thoughtful replies.” Will I stop seeing that content?

If I do, that would kind of suck. That would be bad for my Facebook experience.

Jon posted a long and very considered post this quote was taken from, you can read the full post here.

So why this change?

Facebook has been trying to prompt us, as users – not publishers, to post more original content since this has been declining. Also it’s no secret the kids don’t think Facebook is cool…PLUS they’re running out of ad space.

Facebook knows it needs to tread a very fine line between showing you what you like organically and what advertisers might think you like. This is why better targeted ads with higher relevance scores perform better. As users we accept there’s ads, we just don’t wanna see ads for things we’re not interested in.

In theory this change prompts less but deeper connections to the people we’re friends with, with less page posts cluttering it up, and would help achieve Facebook’s goal of making us feel better mental health wise than passively (maybe obsessively) scrolling our newsfeeds. We’ve all had one friend say they felt happier after quitting Facebook (or Social Media more generally) so essentially it’s a retention strategy.

Will it work?

IMO? No.

For the way this update appears to work (once it’s rolled out – again we don’t really know til it happens) would be based on the fact that people want to post more, or at least the same amount of original content they do now. Your newsfeed will always be full – so if your friends aren’t posting photos, live video, links, events etc then what will make up the rest of your feed?

Page posts and ads, right?

You probably already interact with the people you want to hear from, so their posts will get upweighted, but beyond that who are we going to see posts from? Old high school acquaintances? No thanks (no offence JFSHS class of ’96)

You can leave me with my newsfeed full of tech pages, recipe videos, and Social Media publishers thanks.

But what do you think?

Will this clear up your newsfeed for more friend action? Good or bad? If you’ve got some thoughts drop a comment, I’d love to know!

December 10, 2017December 10, 2017

Facebook Sound Collection | New Facebook Feature

Listen Up!

Facebook’s got a new featiure and not everyone has it yet – so I’m going to show it to you. Have you heard of Facebook Sound Collection? Neither had I, but I was doing to scheduling this morning and I stumbled across it in my page menu and decided to take a look.

It’s a library of sounds – both track and souns effects and you can download them to add to your content. Awesome!

I wondered if I was the first to discover it – so a quick Google search said that I was about a day behind – but none of the articles I read on Facebook Sound Collections had any screenshots of what it actually looked like.

Welcome to Facebook Sound Collection

Thanks Facebook! So polite, happy to be here 🙂

How do you get there?

In my page it’s under Publishing Tools, but there could be other ways to navigate straight there.

Then What?

You’ll notice it in the menu:

So what’s it got?

Sound Collection is literally a collection of sounds. It’s got 1,00 Tracks (I expect they’ll keep adding to it) in 24 Generes and 21 Moods. Then there’s also Sound Effects broken up into 17 Categories and lengths of between 2sec to 30sec+.

For some reason there’s more different zipper noises than you’d think were required…

Anyway as you can see above you can play the track or download it to your device.

But how is this useful?

Well if you’ve ever uploaded video and had it rejected by Facebook for the audio breaching copyright then Facebook Sound Collection is a good way to get around that as the tracks have been pre-approved.

Although many of us use Facebook with the sound off, anyone who’s ever consumed content knows that the right sound track can make all the difference. I’m seeing this new feature as another commitment by Facebook to removing the barriers of users to create high quality original video content.

Or is this just a play for Spotify’s business?

I guess we’ll see…

have you got Facebook Sound Collection yet? What do you think? Will you use it?

Want to read more?

Read Facebook’s announcement.

Endgadget’s post

Techcrunch’s post

August 3, 2017August 4, 2017

Social Media – Friends in Digital Places

Where we get by with a lil’ help from our friends

The world wide web can be a scary place and a lot of people don’t trust it. And that’s their prerogative – but it can also be a wonderful place where like minded people can find each other, connect and explore whatever it is they are into.

When, a few weeks ago my husband’s and my house was broken into and his car got stolen we were shocked and devastated. You see – my husband’s car is very precious to him and he loves that thing almost as much as he love me (at least that’s what he tells me). It’s a special brand of ‘hot-hatch’ that was in a very distinctive colour with custom number plates. Not a subtle car to steal I can assure you.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with the internet?

Well – he found fellow car enthusiasts via the interweb.

Not only was his favourite pastime on the weekend to obsessively clean the bloody thing – he also met up with fellow car enthusiasts to park up, admire, discuss and fang around a racetrack in their vehicles. He found these like minded people via an online car forum, an online car club, and several Facebook pages where they share tips, tricks, photos and schedule meetings and events.

So when his vehicle was stolen he immediately put out the SOS on multiple social media car groups – both local and statewide.

His post was shared hundreds of times and gained momentum within a few short hours, being viewed by car lovers statewide as well as all throughout our city. With their help we managed to track the vehicle, and find where it had been stashed/dumped approx 48 hours later – with minimal damage.

As you can imagine we both breathed an audible sigh of relief.

We had several reports of the missing vehicle throughout that 48 hour period through friends, and friends of friends, on social media – and when it was eventually found a kind soul even remained with the vehicle whilst we made our way there to ensure it would be safe and not unattended.

Thanks to these reports we suspect we found the vehicle before the thieves were ready to part with it. We also found out it was spotted in connection with a ‘gas & go’ incident that ultimately lead the then driver to be arrested in connection with our robbery.

Applaud yourselves vigilant car club people!

Honestly I was amazed, and pleasantly surprised that all of hubby’s car club buddies banded together in his hour of distress. I hadn’t given them enough credit, thinking that all they do when they get together is talk odious car stats that any ‘normal’ person would find tedious (Queue eyeroll from long suffering partners)

Had it not been for my husband’s friends he made via social media, and connecting with people he has a hobby in common with, we would have most likely not found his vehicle in such a timely manner.

The quick nature of social media, the ease with which someone can tag and share posts to bring said content to the attention of others I very much attribute to the speedy recovery of the car. I am also impressed with how much support we received online via our posts and people’s genuine concern and shared devastation. We greatly appreciated the support.

I have been left feeling buoyed in aftermath of the event.

The police were honestly less that helpful, but I feel we came through the situation relatively unscathed. Apart from having to replace our entire front door and ‘reclaim our home’ after knowing strangers had been in it – we have come through the incident well.

The car is now being repaired by the insurance company and hubby is eagerly awaiting the return of ‘my precious’. He is receiving continued support from his fellow car club friends and can’t wait for the day he gets his car back – so that he can go to a ‘cars and coffee’.