Facebook

How to do Facebook Marketing – a Primer for Engineers

Dear Engineers and Other People who Think Logically,

Here is how to “do” Facebook Marketing.  It’s pretty simple, and it also explains the fundamentals of Marketing.

The analogy I use in the presentation is that of a Fair or Carnival…  it’s a good analogy, use it forever to explain marketing.  Imagine yourself selling a product or service (cotton candy or a carnival game) on the streets of a Fair!  How can you be successful?

See the presentation to learn:  How to DO Marketing on Facebook.  How to use Facebook Insights (e.g. Facebook Analytics).

Enjoy!

Engaging Social Posts that Don’t Suck

Social Posts onto Facebook and Twitter are important for companies… they serve many purposes, but first and foremost of those purposes should be ENGAGEMENT.

What the heck is engagement?  This picture should tell the story.. or click it or the presentation below to learn more.   Engagement, as you can see, leads to success… which is what Business is supposed to be about.

So, how do you write engaging posts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and so forth, without them sucking?
Well I’ve put together a little training presentation on just that.

Enjoy!  Comments welcome!

Facebook vs. Google. Direct Internet Marketing (Advertising)

Which is better for Advertising?  Facebook or Google?  Hell if I know!  What is better anyways?  Different… would be a better way to explain Facebook vs. Google, so here goes how I see them as different from a Direct Internet Marketing perspective.

Here is the main difference: The Targeting is Different.

  • Facebook lets you target Age/Gender/Location/Likes, and more,  because it knows “who it’s users are”.
  • Google lets you target Location and “Search Term Keywords” only.
From a direct marketer’s perspective Facebook might seem better. Marketers usually think of segmentation in terms of “demographics” and “psycho-graphics’, and with Facebook’s tools, you can really target a “market segment”.
The problem with Facebook Targeting is that you have no idea of “buying intent”.  You don’t know if they are interested or care about your offer.
For Google, you target the key words that a person is searching for AT THAT MOMENT.  There is some kind of intent implied in the act of searching.  While this doesn’t jive with Marketers view of segmentation, it certainly does have an impact on relevance to the user.
The difference in the CTR and CVR between the two platforms shows what I mean.
  • “Averages” from some of my own Facebook campaigns:   CTR: 0.025%   CVR: 0.012%  (yes a tenth of a percent)
  • “Averages” from some of my own Google Adwords campaigns:   CTR: 0.6%  CVR: 0.06%  (yes 6 tenths of a percent).
Meaning Google is between 20x better at click-through-rate, and at least 6x better at CVR.
Another big difference is the “Ad Frequency” settings of the two tools.
  • On Facebook, the ads are shown in smallish quantities until one of the ads in an ad group takes off… then the others get virtually no traffic.
  • On Google, you can SET the system to show ads evenly (when you are A/B testing, this is really really important).
So doing A/B testing on Facebook is almost impossible… (I havn’t figured out a way to do it in a statistically meaningful way).
Instead, on Facebook, I do “Survival Testing”… ads that Survive (get impressions and seem to keep working at a decent rate) go into my “good group”  and ads that do not get enough testing, stay in the testing group until I have enough data to “kill them”.   It’s a very slow and tedious process.
I’m sure there is more differences as well… what differences do you think are key?

Experimenting with Facebook Ads

I’ve run literally many hundreds of thousands of dollars ($200,000+) of Facebook Ads, and I’m still experimenting.

Yes, I have a formula that works well… and it’s called “experimenting”.

See, even the most successful mix of target, photo, image, link, landing page, etc… that works this week will lose its effectiveness over time (sometimes in a matter of weeks!)!

So, what I do is religiously experiment… to do this right, I change just 1 variable at at time.

The hard part: measuring actual effectiveness…. to do this: I try to look not just at clicks, but also at conversions.  There is a fine balance between conversion rate and click rate.  Generally you want to optimize for conversions, but on Facebook, getting a click often means getting viral impressions as well.. and that can lead to ‘pseudo-organic’ conversion that you don’t realize came from viral impressions…

Anyways, for those of you out there experimenting with Facebook Ads.. don’t give up.  Experimentation is the name of the game.

A Marketing Basic: Speak & Write Plainly!

Speak Plainly.  Seems obvious, but us marketers often get into the habit of “word-smithing” till the text on the page is unrecognizable by normal humans (and worse, by our target customers).  Writing regular Facebook or Twitter updates for your company SHOULD be part of a solid Marketing campaign (try our own tool to help: http://postontime.com… but keep the writing simple.  Here are a few examples to avoid, and better alternatives.

  • Don’t say user:   “Users can now log in via our web interface”
    • Say instead: customer or you.  “You can now log in via our web interface”
  • Don’t say best, most, or other false-ly colorful exaggerations: “This is the Best interface ever.”
    • Say instead: we think you will like. “We think you will like our interface upgrades.”
  • Don’t use acronyms:  “Anyone who wants higher marketing ROI should click here”
    • Instead, use simple terms: “Anyone who wants to get higher profits for their investments in marketing should click here.”
Remember, short is sweet, but complex, obtuse, or marketing-speak is sour.

PostOnTime lets you post to Facebook and Twitter while you are away.

If you are “into” social network marketing like I am, then you already know that posting to your Facebook and Twitter page on a consistent (and constant) basis is vital to keeping your Fans and Followers active and growing.  A daily or twice daily post is not at all too much.  However, knowing and doing are 2 different things.  My company, Karmaback, has just launched PostOnTime  to make the doing part of posting to Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis MUCH easier.  You can now schedule posts for any time of the day, even when you are away from your computer.  You can even post on weekends, evenings, and when you are travelling or on vacation!  It is free for 30-days, and as low as $4.99/mo after that, so give it a try!  It’s awesome!

http://karmaback.com/tw_postontime/

Referral Marketing and League of Legends

First, if you love PC games… or even just like them… you HAVE to try this Free downloadable game: League of Legends.  It is really an amazing game, and it’s free.  How easy is that.  Best of all, if you use MY track-able link: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e80eb3ecc45f219796048  then, I get bonuses for you joining and could even earn the right to “design my own character”!

What was that?  A perfect example of referral marketing in action.  In truth, I do love the free game league of legends, and I do want you to try the game!  Here is that link again in case you missed it: http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4e80eb3ecc45f219796048 .   Why do I care?  Because IF people use my referral link (which is easily track-able and associated with my account), THEN I get stuff.  Some of it REALLY cool!  

Referral Marketing works.  It worked “before” Facebook.  It works “after” Facebook.  

Before Facebook:  People got paid to get their friends to buy stuff (Tupperware Party), and they could get a discount if they brought a friend, and they could get real hard cash if they referred somebody to somebody else…  

During Facebook: Everybody got crazy about this “Free” system that seemed to do referrals for free… but there was a cost: it was called SPAM.  And Facebook couldn’t afford to pay that cost any more.

Now After Facebook (because they virtually removed the SPAM capabilities of viral apps): Referral systems STILL work.

If you are NOT giving rewards for referrals for your business… I ask, why not?  Isn’t that cheaper than advertising?

Karmaback has actually built a FULLY track-able Online Referral system…. but we shut down the project once our Sweepstakes began to take off in popularity.

Any interest in us restarting the referral SaaS tool?

Why do Social Marketing?

Social Marketing is more than just a buzzword.  If you are not doing “basic” Social Marketing, you are missing out in a revolution of internet marketing; and failing to market where your customers live.

This video explains (statistically) why the hype about Social Marketing is important… I’ll summarize it: BECAUSE ALMOST EVERYONE IS THERE!  e.g. almost your entire market is spending more and more of their time on social networks!!!

Got it?  Here are 3 levels of Social Marketing you should be considering:

  1. Just be there!  Make a Facebook Fanpage and a Twitter account.  Link Facebook to Twitter, so when you post to Facebook, it posts to Twitter automatically.  And write 1 post per week about something new at your company.
  2. Grow your page by getting more fans, likes, and followers.  Simply run some sweepstakes (using Karmaback of course), or ads, to encourage your fans/followers to join!
  3. Reward your Fans/Followers for following you.. and encourage them to talk to you on Social networks.  You can reward them by doing give-aways (using Karmaback of course), and by offering them special discounts/offers.
Now stop procrastinating and make a Facebook Fanpage or Twitter Account.  It’s super easy!

Google+ Will Fail and Why.

Many of you know I’m in the business of Marketing; specifically social marketing.  I’ve been playing with Google+ lately and have come to several opinions about the service that I thought I’d share.  In general, I think the service will die, and die quickly.  Here are the 5 observations why I think this is so:

  1. Google+ has no cachet… it’s not really that cool to be on Google+… there is no reason to right now (as opposed to just being on Facebook).  Google tried to make some buzz with the “fake” limits on user growth, but those in the know, know that was contrived.
  2. Google + doesn’t help companies (yet).  I expect Google will get around to it, and when that happens, companies will rush to setup their pages… but soon they will realize: it’s EXPENSIVE to maintain Google+, Facebook, and Twitter: then they’ll say, gee, we’ve invested in Facebook; we’re staying.
  3. Games will kill it.  Games on Google+ are coming, and when they do, let the spam wars begin.  Google has a TON of work, trial, and error to do, to keep up with Facebook on this delicate balance of fun and non-annoyance.
  4. Google+ doesn’t “give me more” of anything over Facebook.  It’s just not superior in any way; so what’s the point?
  5. Google Adwords is too expensive; and Google+ may “dilute” prices over time for adwords (which Google WILL NOT LIKE).  Hence, the quick, fast, and early demise of Google+.  
Google.  Stick to search!  It’s making you rich!