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Secrets behind Effective Facebook Ads

These days it seems like the internet is oversaturated with content. From text to pictures to informational videos, information is every where, and Facebook is no exception.

Every time you go onto Facebook you are bombarded with information and advertisements. The problem for advertisers is with so much out there, how can we be sure that our Facebook ads are effective and actually reaching the attention of our viewer.

Step 1 – Use unique and engaging images for Facebook Ads

A simple Facebook text post with no images is not going to cut it in todays day-in-age. People respond best to images, especially images that show people. When people are in images, it is easier for people to relate and respond. These images will also show emotions which draw people in to your advertisement.

Next time you go to choose an image for your Facebook post consider adding people. Also, choose an image that actually demonstrates or shows your business’s or product’s value proposition. However, there are other ways to get peoples attention. People love to see bright, contrasting colors. Also, people love to laugh and be surprised, so an image that is “out of the ordinary” might just be perfect for catching your audiences attention. For more help creating and choose effective images for your Facebook advertisements, check out this article.

Step 2 – Create content you want to engage with

A simple rule of thumb is do not post content you would not want to see on your Facebook. One way to test this is to ask, “would you be willing to share this business post on your personal account?” If not, try something different. In fact, it benefits to actual ask this to yourself and other employees. From this collaboration, you can gain valuable feedback that may help improve it.

Another great ideas is that you should like your business’s Facebook ads and encourage other employees and friends to do so. In fact, when people in a business start liking their own ads, the posts engagement almost always increased.

Step 3 – Don’t be afraid to try different strategies

We have all heard the expression “stupid is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” If you aren’t getting the results you want or need from your Facebook advertisement, change your settings! Change your budget. Change your target audience demographics. Just change.

You may actually think you have chosen the ideal settings, but unless you are a well-seasoned professional you may not know correctly what those settings are. If you check out this article by Hootsuite, you will see a number of tips for how to improve your Facebook advertisements and also how to play around with and change change change your settings to optimize your advertising campaign.

For more information on social media and advertising, check out our blog or contact Adventure Ad Agency.

The Augmented Reality in Augmented Advertising

Have you ever shopped online, and wondered how a pair of sunglasses would look with your face’s shape? Wonder no more, because Augmented Reality (AR) has bridged the gap between online shopping and the out-of-store shopper.

Want to know more about this new age method of advertising that is spreading like wild fire? Read below to learn more about the exciting new strategy named, Augmented Advertising.

Augmented Reality (AR) is ‘All the Buzz’ in the world of advertising.

Many of us have played Pokémon Go or have engaged in other types of virtual reality games before. In fact, if you have ever uploaded your picture onto Facebook and virtually tried on lipstick, then you too have participated in Augmented Reality (AR). Although this particular technology has been around for a while, Augmented Reality (AR) is now rapidly becoming a powerful tool for brands to engage with consumers.

Advertisers are now using Augmented Reality (AR) in full force!

Augmented Advertising is often used in many social media platforms, because consumers enjoy participating, along with sharing. Actually,the augmented advertisements are goofy, humorous, and hard to ignore. Furthermore, a lot of technology and sophisticated artificial intelligence was used while creating the ads.

Social media platforms use Augmented Advertisements.

Facebook has jumped on the Augmented Advertising bandwagon, and is now working with businesses to showcase their products on Facebook. By including Augmented Reality (AR) into social media advertisements, consumers can virtually try products with a touch of a button. According to an article written by Anthony Ha, Facebook plans to offer Augmented Advertising to businesses in both Messenger and Instagram.Finally as technology progresses, the average consumer will see more social media platforms that use Augmented Reality (AR) in their advertisements.

If you would like to learn more about Augmented Advertising, click on this  link for more information!

What’s up with Snapchat?

Have you taken a look at Snapchat advertising lately? We sure have, and we know it can get complicated. Let us break it down for you. Whether you are an advertiser or a snapchat user, this information can be useful to know.

Here is what snapchat has to offer in terms of advertising! The what, why, and how much …

1. SNAP ADS

What? Mobile Video ads with a choice of interactive elements such as games and quizes …

Why? The swipe-up rate for Snap Ads is 5X higher than the average click-through rate for other comparable social platforms.

How much? Varies, starts at $3,000/month to run the ad.

2. SPONSORED LENSES

What? A custom lense to be present on snapchat for all users to play with …

Why? Snapchatters tend to play with Sponsored Lenses for an average of 20 seconds.

How much? Depends on the day. For instance, it is around $700,000 for holidays or special events!

3. NATIONWIDE SPONSORED GEOFILTER

What? A custom filter to be present on snapchat in specific location for users to utilize when taking pictures.

Why? Snapchatters not only see your filter, but can share and send images with you filter to friends.

How much? Undetermined, but a much cheaper alternative to sponsored lenses

4. SPONSORED LOCAL GEOFILTERS

What? Just like nationwide geofilters, expect local and pinpointed to a specific area.

Why? A great and reasonable offering to reach young audiences with high ROI!

How much? Cheapest offering! Can be as little as $5!

5. SNAPCHAT DISCOVER

What? Ads are placed in the premium discover section of the app by big names such as Cosmo, Daily Mail, and the NBA.

Why? This is reserved almost exclusively for the big brands.

How much? Very expensive, starting at $50,000/day

6. SNAP TO UNLOCK FILTERS/CODES

What? Find QR codes and snapchat them to unlock exclusive and innovative ads

Why? This is new, new, new.

How much? Unknown

It’s shocking just how big a role advertising plays in Snapchat. Be sure to stay on the look out for these cool features, and even if you’re a small business owner, consider the effect they can have on your business.

All this information was acquired from Wallaroo Media’s article. Check back in to their article for updates and further details on these advertising strategies. Also for more information, check out Snapchat!

Just Pin It!

If you have heard of the social media site Pinterest, you probably only know of it as a site for women to collect design ideas, share recipes, and drool over DIY projects. However, there is so much more to Pinterest. If you plan it right, Pinterest can actually help advertise and market for some businesses in a fun and exciting way.

The first thing to note is this will not work for all business types. Using Pinterest as a social media marketing tool obviously will help lifestyles companies more than say a law office. This is important to keep in mind as you read on.

However, Pinterest provides the unique opportunity for customers to find you and your products and/or services in a fun and friendly atmosphere. Unlike a lot of other social media platforms, it is not overwhelmed with ads jumping in the users fact. Plus, people who go on Pinterest have a problem or a need and are looking for a solution. Since the audience is already looking for you and your products, the audience will be much more likely to engage with your product or service.

There are two main ways you can use Pinterest as a marketing tool.

The first is the branding approach. With this method, you simply want to build your brand. You create a Pinterest account for your business with the hope of sharing ideas, information, and inspiration with your customers and possible potential customers. This is similar to the idea behind blogging. By sharing ideas, you build a community of customers.

Some of the businesses that might benefit from this approach are event planners. These boards can allow them to show case events they have pulled off, while also serving as a tool for other groups to find inspiration. It doesn’t always have to be as clear as that. For example, an athletic wear company could have a Pinterest with boards highlighting best athletic equipment, great excursive routines, and more. Not only would these boards please and aid existing clients, but it can creates another touch points for future customers to be exposed to your brand.

The second is the product marketing approach. If you create a Pinterest board, you can show off your products and services. For instance, an event planner as I said can post its past events for people to see. This strategy works outside the service industry too. If you have a cool company producing, let’s say t-shirts, you can post all the different shirts you have on Pinterest with links back to your website.

These two approaches do not have to be used separately. In the case of the event planner, it would be easy to be both. Just make sure what ever you do, you are doing it intentionally. It is easy to get lost in the clutter and charm of Pinterest.

Nevertheless, one of the biggest benefits of Pinterest is how quickly and easily information is shared and re-shared through pinning. If you think this marketing strategy could work for you, explore Pinterest for a few hours and have some fun.

Are Social Media Scheduling Platforms Worth It?

As more and more businesses jump into social media advertising, the more work it seems needs to be done. While Facebook provides the great service of allowing you to schedule your posts, other social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, or even LinkedIn don’t. While it may seem simple enough to hire a social media manager or two to take on the extra workload and schedule posts throughout the day, the workload does not actually need to be as heavy as it seems.

Many different platforms have come out to allow you to schedule your posts through their application and it posts to social media for you. The major player is Hootsuite, but there is also other platforms such as Social Booster, Buffer, Sproutsocial, and more that are more or less similar to Hootsuite.

Some of the different services include management tools for managing several different social media accounts on one screen, post scheduling, detailed analytics reports, and help with social media campaigns and promotions. While it may seem easy enough to do it all yourself and not spend the money on a social media scheduling platform, here are three simple reasons we think it might be worth it for your business.

  1. Increased and more engaged viewership. The time of day that you post can have a big effect on how many people see your post and how many people are actually paying attention to the post. There have been many studies done on exactly what is the best time and day of the week to post on the different social media outlets. Through platforms such as Hootsuite, you not only can schedule the post to make sure you hit the perfect time for your audience, but also the Hootsuite software can actually autoschedule the post for you in order to reach the most people.
  2. Time is money. As the old saying says, your time might be worth the money. How much time are you spending making sure you’re staying up to date on social media that you could rather be using to improve another area of your business or even to have more time with your family? Do you have a big project you keep pushing to the backburner? If this is the case, the money might be worth it. Honestly, with the help of platforms such as Hootsuite you can cut your time about in half just by not having to log in to each account before you use it and constantly flipping back and forth.
  3. Other features actually make your social media better. Many of these platforms provide additional auxiliary services that will actually make your social media better. For example, social boosters providers 24/7 customer support. Hootsuite provides education videos and assistance in launching a social media campaign. In fact, simply having a platform I have found encourages me to do more with social media, to be creative, and to see how I can improve my posts day by day. Not only will the programs teach you, they will force you to grow and grow your business.

At the same time, social media platforms are not for everyone, and different platforms are right for different business. The best thing you can do is to take a look at the various plans and consider what effect it would have on the daily operations of your business and the effect it would have on your personal life.

Over the last few months, Adventure AD Agency has decided to try out Hootsuite to assist in managing all of our clients social media accounts, and thus far, it has been an exciting and rewarding process. If you don’t want an advertising agency managing your social media, perhaps consider a social media platform instead.

Hootsuite: Top 3 tools to take advantage of this year

The most recent development in social media advertising is to use social media platforms such as Hootsuite, Social Booster, Buffer, Sproutsocial, and more to help manage the social media workload placed on business and to better schedule posts. For 2017, Adventure AD Agency has decided to try out Hootsuite to assist in managing all of our clients social media accounts.

From scheduling posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and beyond to providing  management tools such as the ability to examine several different social media accounts on one screen or to providing detailed analytics reports and help with social media campaigns, Hootsuite has provided us with some exciting new capabilities as a business. While we are still learning about all of the different services Hootsuite provides, here are some quick tips and tricks we have already found helpful.

  1. Use the autoschedule feature. When you are going to publish a post, you can either publish it immediately, schedule it to be posted later, or let Hootsuite determine the best time that day to schedule your post. Many studies have been done to show the best times and days of the week to post on different social media outlets. Unless you plan to dive deep into this research, you should probably let Hootsuite take over that job for you. Using the autoschedule feature should not only get your post seen by more people, but also it should target viewers that are more engaged with your content.
  2. Explore Hootsuite Campaigns. One of Hootsuite’s services is a campaign function. In a few simple steps, you can set up a contest, galleries, or sweepstakes for your social media channels in this section of Hootsuite. Even if you have never done one of these before, check it out. It might give you some great new content ideas for you social media accounts and push you to be better online.
  3. Watch the educational videos. Another great part of Hootsuite is the multitude of educational videos and resources it provides. In the tools section, there is an entire section dedicated to education and improving your social media savvy. These resources include free online training videos and other certifications. The website also has a blog full of helpful ideas and guides for how to better make use of the Hootsuite software for your business. You can get even better tips and tricks from them then you can get from us.

If you are considering using a social media scheduling platform, you should consider all of the different pros and cons, as well as how it would personally affect your life and business. Most important though is that once you decide to pay for this service make sure you are getting the most out of it. These three tips are just the beginning.

10 Step Website Self-Check

What makes a website great? What makes a website terrible? The quality and effectiveness of a website really comes down to ten main elements. All of these ten elements are pretty simple, but due to the wide variety of options in each category, sometime people make websites overly complicated or confusing, or maybe on the other side of things, they make it boring and dull.

Fear no more. We have broken down these ten elements for you a created a 10 Step Self-Check Test for you to use to rate your website. What do you think your score will be.

  • If you have 2 or less elements, your website is an F.
  • If you have 2-5 elements, your website is average and is a C.
  • If you have 5-8 elements, your website is pretty good and receives a B.
  • If you have 9 or 10 elements, your website is fantastic and is an A.

Good luck! Here is our 10 Step Self-Check Test:

  1. Home Page: Your homepage is your front door, your welcome mat, your first impression, and your first impression is one of the most important. It sets the tone. While this may sound silly, think about the way you feel when you open your home page. Does your homepage leave your audience with the right feeling?
  2. Design: The way you set up and design your website will make a big impact on the experience your user has. The most important design element about a website is if it is functional. Can your user find everything they need to find easily? Does the layout make sense for the purpose?
  3. Timeliness: This is simple. Is the website being updated? Look at the last social media post and see if it was in the last week or two. Are you regularly posting new content? At the very least, is all the information correct and up to date.
  4. Searchability: Most people come to websites with a purpose, not just to look around. The search bar needs to be somewhere easy to find so that people can use it. Your menu also must make sense and clearly direct your audience to information through helpful categories or whatever is best for your purpose.
  5. Branding: Does your website stay true to your brand? Is your logo thoroughly incorporated through the website? The easiest thing to forget is to maintain your brand on every section of your website. Your logo should be the same across sections and social media platforms. The colors and theme of your website should go not only with what you are trying to convey, but also you brand.
  6. Credibility: A section of your website need to be devoted to showing that you are a legitimate and serious website. For a company, this would mean including you mission statement, certifications, a portfolio of your work or services, and other additional resources to build credibility. Often people like to showcase their employees and give background on the company’s purpose and founding. All of these benefit the credibility of your site which is an ever increasing problem online.
  7. Headlines: Your headlines are important. They bring your audience into what you are trying to tell them. Whether it is a blog post, a news blurb, or a helpful tip, creative and engaging headlines make the difference between people clicking to read and just passing over it. Do you have thoughtful engaging headlines?
  8. Social Media: In the world we live in, most websites will also have corresponding social media accounts, even if it is just a Facebook page or a LinkedIn account. Optimally, a website will add as many social media accounts as makes sense for them. Whether or not they are incorporated into the website well is usually the problem. What is the point of having them is they don’t work together with you website. Plus, the most important thing is that you add as many as you can keep updated.
  9. Audience: Remember who your target audience is. If you are trying to sell children’s toys, make the website more user friendly for a younger audience. Make it a fun, colorful, exciting experience. If you are a dentist, you may not need as much color and fun, but you will need to appear professional with a clean website that is easy to use.
  10. Overall: At the end of all of this, it is the combination of these nine other areas that leave an overall impression. When your user leaves the website, they will leave with either a good overall feeling of being satisfied or a bad overall feeling. The big question is which does your website give? Does it leave your audience satisfied and do you believe they can find and enjoy finding what they need to on your website?

How To Make The Most Out Of Twitter’s Limited Character Space

Have you ever wondered why Twitter has a 140-character limit? Have you ever wished it was bigger? We’re going to help clarify the reason for the limit and teach you how to say more on Twitter (without actually saying more).

To understand how to utilize Twitter’s character limit, you must first understand why it exists in the first place. The origin of the 140 character-limit traces back to the company’s roots. Founded in March 2006, Twittr (Twitter’s original name) was born. The app originated as a way to send text messages to all of your friends. To prevent the texts from spilling over into multiple messages, the 140-character limit was set in place. Although text messages have a 160-character limit, the 140 limit was chosen to allow 20 characters for users’ handles.

You may be wondering why Twitter still has the character limit, since it is now not based via text message. Twitter is a platform that distinguishes itself by being used for quick, frequent status updates. The purpose of Twitter is to get the information you are looking for without having to sift through unnecessary ‘fluff’. Twitter, although accessible via computer, is predominately used on mobile phones. The character limit allows users to send a quick message and see what their friends are up to without having to read paragraphs of information.

Although you may find the 140-character limit to be restrictive sometimes, consider posting anything longer to Facebook or a blog. Twitter is meant to be short and sweet, and utilizing the platform as it was intended is vital for your marketing efforts. So how can you get the most out of 140 characters?

Luckily, earlier this year Twitter started excluding replies (@name when replying to a Tweet) and media attachments from contributing towards the 140-character limit. Although this helps, 140 characters is still a relatively small space to send a message. We’re going to help you get the most out of your Tweets without having to sound like a 15-year-old girl (think: how r u 2day?).

The first thing we recommend doing is having a new Tweet for each separate thought. Because Twitter is a ‘real-time’ platform, multiple Tweets in one day are acceptable and you don’t have to put all of your thoughts in one message. Our second tip is to avoid unnecessary explanation or ‘fluff’ words. There’s no need for introductions or explanations – just make your point, and leave it at that. You should also limit your hashtag usage. We recommend a maximum of three hashtags with precise keywords. If you’re sending out a link, be sure to shorten it in a platform such as bit.ly so the URL doesn’t take up unnecessary character space. Another tip is to make your content interesting. 140 characters is not a lot, and it is easy for people to scroll past something when browsing Twitter. Make your Tweets count. Use compelling language and craft a Tweet that people want to read. It shouldn’t take more than 140 characters to get your message across. Keep it simple, but worth reading.

Try these tips out on Twitter, and let us know how they’re working! If you need further assistance, contact us today!

How To Make YouTube A Vital Part Of Your Social Strategy

YouTube has become a the go-to destination for video content. With over four billion videos viewed daily, it’s no surprise that marketers are beginning to make YouTube a vital part of their social strategy. YouTube is a valuable asset to your company because videos help SEO and are more likely to go viral compared to a text or image post. But remember, the videos won’t share themselves. Combining YouTube with other social platforms can create a social strategy that cannot be topped, and we’re going to show you how. There are two main aspects to making YouTube a vital part of your social strategy – creating the content and promoting it.

1.      Create content your customers want

Your customers don’t want to see a boring informational video about your latest product, they want unique, innovative videos. When it comes to YouTube, the more creative the better. The video doesn’t even have to relate to your product really. You want an eye-catching video that will make customers click. Showcase your creativity and add a unique twist to your brand. However, we would like to caution you when creating this type of content. Even if the video itself is unrelated to the product, you want to ensure that customers are feeling what you want them to feel and the video comes a full circle to tie into your promotion. The last thing you want to do is leave customers feeling confused by posting a random video with a link to your product at the end. Although the connection between the content and the product doesn’t have to be direct, it does need to correlate in some way or another.

Although stories tend to provoke the best response on YouTube, you have other options as well. Feel free to experiment with the following types of videos:

  • Business intro video: Give your audience a brief introduction to your business. You can put this on your YouTube Channel Trailer to welcome new viewers.
  • Tutorials/Product Demos: Show your viewers how to perform a task using your product
  • Customer Testimonials: Interview a satisfied customer
  • Behind-the-scenes videos: Take your viewers on a tour of your office or workspace, or introduce them to your staff or co-workers
  • Tips and tricks: Share useful insights that will help your prospects
  • Commercials: post your commercials to YouTube for viewers
  • FAQs: Compile a list of frequently asked questions and respond to them via video

2.      Promote that content

Once you’ve created great content, you must get it seen! Some YouTube videos will get enough exposure without outside promotion, but most will need some extra help. If you have a large number of YouTube subscribers or your video becomes highly ranked on YouTube, then you may be able to skip this step. Otherwise, you’ll need to find ways to promote your videos to the desired audience. The easiest way to promote your YouTube videos is to share them on your other social platforms. Be sure to add engaging copy to the video, and a direct link to your YouTube channel. You may want to embed the video directly on your Facebook page, as Facebook videos are rapidly growing in popularity. Another way to promote your YouTube content is to post it on your company website or blog, or to partner with other YouTuber’s to promote each other’s videos. We recommend experimenting with your particular audience and seeing what works best for you.

Don’t get left behind, start creating YouTube content today! If you need assistance in hopping on the YouTube bandwagon, please contact us today.

Facebook Ads Manager 101

A majority of the population is on Facebook, or is at least familiar with how the Facebook interface works. If you’re reading this blog, you may have even posted an advertisement for your business on Facebook.

Facebook Ads Manager is part of Facebook for Business, and it allows you to easily view, change, and manage your Facebook ads. Ads Manager gives you many valuable tools you can’t access through a regular Facebook account. It allows you to create custom audiences, view audience insights, gather information about your pages, and access more support for your advertising campaigns. Ads Manager gives you faster editing, powerful insights, and customized reporting. It allows you to quickly and efficiently edit every aspect of your ads in one place. You can change the target audience, budget, duration, etc. of each ad in the same place without having to scroll through your feed to find each individual ad. You can also view your page and ad insights with Ad Managers custom graphs and data. This will allow you to measure the success of your ad and gauge predicted performance of future ads. Facebook Ad Manager’s reporting tool will break down the data and give you all the details you need about every ad you’ve created.

So why do you need Facebook Ads Manager? Our advice is that if you rarely plan to post a Facebook ad, you don’t. It would be more time consuming to learn the interface of Ads Manager than it would be to create and manage each ad manually. However, if you plan to post Facebook ads frequently Ads Manager can be life changing. It will ensure you respond to every like, comment, and message on your page by notifying you through your ads manager account so the notifications don’t get lost in your personal account. It will let you quickly change your promoted posts out so you don’t have to worry about promoting outdated content.

Another great reason to utilize Facebook Ads Manager is because it helps you optimize your budget. Ads Manager allows you to set your budget to distribute in the best way for your ad campaign. You could evenly distribute it for the duration of the ad or vary the budget over time to reach more people on strategic days or at strategic times. Ads Manager allows you to customize your budget to get the most bang for your buck.

Other customizable options in Facebook Ads Manager are editing audience, ad placements, schedule, and bids. Ads Manager gives you the most customization for your Facebook ads and allows you to have the most control over various aspects within each ad and over every campaign. Although Ads Manager can be overwhelming at first, we think it is a very useful tool if you are going to be managing multiple ads. If you need help setting up a Facebook Ads campaign or starting your Ads Manager account, please contact us today.