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The social media marketing discussion is now dominated by algorithms – almost everywhere you engage, within almost every platform you use, machine learning and data sorting is used to decide what it is you see.
Now social platforms are in much the same position, which adds a more complex, technical element to the social marketing process.
With this in mind, what do you need to know to ensure you’re on top of the latest social algorithm shifts, and how can you best prepare yourself, and understand the focus of each platform to maximize your business page performance?
Here’s a quick overview of the current state of each platform’s algorithm, based on what I’ve studied of their workings.
FACEBOOK
The most influential social algorithm is Facebook’s. The Social Network was the first to implement an algorithm feed, in response to the flood of spammy posts and junk which had taken over the app as its popularity grew.
Facebook’s algorithm aims to show you the content you’re most likely to engage with – though obviously there’s a lot more to it than that.
To best understand Facebook’s algorithm, you first need to get your head around the basic engagement equation Facebook uses.
Facebook’s News Feed chief, Adam Mosseri, explained this in several webinars, conferences and online publications last year, comparing their selection process to choosing a meal for a friend at a restaurant:
This process, says Mosseri, is essentially utilizing an algorithm within your own head – Facebook’s system simply transfers these though processes to a machine, shifting the same core elements into more technical factors – Inventory, Signals, Predictions and Scores.
Here’s the same calculations with Facebook actions replacing restaurant options:
Facebook rates each post based on your individual usage patterns, which, along with a range of other measures, enable it to come up with a score for each post. That score then dictates where each will appear in your feed.
Sound confusing? Yes, it is. These algorithms change constantly so studying and keeping up with the social channel’s updates are crucial to any business social media marketing plan. In basic terms, Facebook measures the likelihood that you’re going to take a particular action which their data suggests is the most engaging, then shows each story to you based on that probability.
TWITTER
Twitter’s algorithm is less advanced than Facebook’s, but they are putting increased focus on their machine learning efforts to boost engagement.
Users were initially outraged that Twitter would even consider changing to an algorithm, but the data has since shown that the system has helped the platform boost performance – as algorithms have on virtually every platform.
Twitter’s main objective with their algorithm is to show you more content you may be interested in – similar to Facebook, though Twitter is more about showing it to you in addition to the other tweets you might see, as opposed to “instead of”.
Even with an algorithm in place, Twitter can still show you almost every tweet, due to the real time nature of the feed. Nowadays, when you first login into Twitter, you’ll see tweets you may have missed, which are basically the most popular tweets from the people you follow. Twitter has also been working to boost engagement by showing you tweets that people you follow have liked, too.
INSTAGRAM
Instagram is one of the hottest social platforms at the moment for social engagement. They have now also implemented a Facebook-style algorithm. Facebook actually owns both platforms now, so the algorithms are almost exactly the same now. Like Facebook, Instagram’s algorithm is based on your likelihood to engage.
LINKEDIN
Like Twitter, LinkedIn’s algorithm is not as advanced as Facebook’s. A good example of how LinkedIn’s feed algorithm works is their comment sorting tool – LinkedIn recently published an update on how comments are displayed on each post, based on engagement.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many other LinkedIn users, their algorithm needs some work. You’ll often see posts from weeks ago in your feed but they are refining their data, and working to show you more relevant content, slowly but surely.
PINTEREST
The last platform has a constantly evolving algorithm to uncover more relevant Pin matches. Their goal is to keep you searching and their system has been upgraded from its initial matching efforts to better highlight relevant content.
Do you have ideas of how these social platforms might improve their algorithms in the future? Tell us in the comments!
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Why Your Business Needs A Paid Facebook Ad Budget
Author: Stephanie May - smay@askbisdesigns.com
Phillip Long - CISSP, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.
About BIS Technology Group
BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: Information Technology, Web Design & Digital Marketing, Office Equipment and Business Consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com.
You may reach out to us at: Phone: 251-405-2527 Email: plong@askbis.com
If you’ve been keeping up with the national news for the last two weeks, you’ve heard the reports of political campaigns acquiring private data on millions of Facebook users. It has now sparked new questions about how the social media giant protects user information.
First of all, as a business advertising on Facebook, we are all thankful for the data which identifies personalities and buying trends of users. This doesn’t mean people’s personal information like credit cards, social security numbers and other secure information was ever shared via Facebook.
What does it mean?
This all plays a big part in Facebook’s algorithms, which have changed drastically in the last two years. The algorithms now only allow content that you are interested in to be in your newsfeed. To me, this isn’t a bad thing at all. It is a highly intelligent way of keeping users happy and engaged. For businesses, it also makes it more difficult to advertise because you need to pay attention to what users want to see on a daily basis and tailor your content to that audience. Otherwise, your content will go unseen. This is what I do on a daily basis for dozens of business accounts, study trends in order to make sure the business pages are reaching the most customers.
Now, back to Cambridge Analytica. What’s the big deal? The firm offered tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. This behavior was then, allegedly, used to target voters for the election. This app has since been removed from Facebook but there are reports that the data still exists, so this is why Facebook is being scrutinized.
What kind of information was collected and how was it acquired?
The data included details on users’ identities, friend networks and “likes”. The idea was to map personality traits based on what people had liked on Facebook, and then use that information to target audiences with digital ads.
Researchers in 2014 asked users to take a personality survey and download an app, which scraped some private information from their profiles and those of their friends, activity that Facebook permitted at the time and has since banned.
Facebook has always prohibited this kind of data to be sold or transferred “to any ad network, data broker or other advertising service” so the question everyone has been asking is, was Facebook hacked? No one really knows for sure.
What is Facebook doing to fix the situation?
Really, there isn’t much they can do about it at this point. Once the data is out, there isn’t really a way to recall it. They can conduct all the forensic audits they want, but the information will remain out there in some form, and will likely remain useable and indicative. For damage control, Facebook needs to show users that it is improving, learned its lessons and their systems are actually now better for it.
We’ll see in the next year whether or not users pull away from the social giant or whether it will blow over and everyone will go back to using Facebook as usual. As already stated, no sensitive information was really obtained but it is simply a matter of users trusting Facebook to keep up with their social habits without exploiting it for political reasons.
What do you think? Does it bother you that Facebook tracks your likes and, in turn, creates a personality profile of your daily habits in order for businesses to advertise to you? We want to know! Let us know on Facebook!
12 Reasons Why Your Business Needs A Content Marketing Strategy
Whether you’ve noticed or not, organic traffic on Facebook has dropped – and it’s likely impacting your company in a big way.
There are a few reasons that you need a Facebook advertising strategy and budget. Let’s start with the basics – because Facebook’s algorithm does not make it easy for business pages to succeed on Facebook.
What does the term “Facebook algorithm” actually mean? And how does it work?
Facebook’s algorithm controls who sees the content that you share. It’s not as simple as you posting a status update then Facebook pushing it out to all of your followers. That’s a thing of the past. Not everyone who follows your page will see your posts. Facebook is way more intelligent now. And, there’s a reason for that, but we’ll get into that later.
Adam Mosseri (VP, News Feed at Facebook) puts Facebook’s algorithm in layman’s terms for us. He says he thinks about it like he would when ordering his wife something to eat at a restaurant.
The Facebook algorithm process goes like this:
This process happens on millions of devices countless times each day. And, it’s also the reason why your Facebook business page’s posts aren’t getting as many views as it used to.
This makes a lot of sense when you think about it from a business perspective. The reality is that Facebook is a business. And how does a business like Facebook make money? You guessed it – paid advertising.
So why isn’t your Facebook business page making you money? Because the only way for company pages to succeed on Facebook is through Facebook paid advertising. Facebook’s only real concern is to find ways for more business pages to spend more money. You can’t blame them. Any CEO would do the same thing.
The truth is that social media doesn’t work the way it did in the past.
This is because posts were served in reverse chronological order. In 2009, Facebook changed the algorithm to be based on popularity.
As you might’ve guessed, the Facebook algorithm is changing more frequently than ever. Simply posting on your page every day without a Facebook advertising strategy or budget is a waste of time.
Here’s what you should be using Facebook for –
Facebook Paid Advertising
The new reality is that businesses on Facebook are unlikely to succeed without putting a budget toward Facebook paid advertising. In turn, this requires a Facebook advertising strategy similar to how you would strategize for billboard, radio or TV ads.
When creating a Facebook ad campaign, there are a few key things that you need to consider – like your goals, target audience and the content of your ad. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Facebook ad campaigns can get incredibly detailed and complicated, and the platform itself isn’t exactly user-friendly. We’d love to dive into the specific best practices for executing a Facebook advertising strategy, but that’s a whole other blog.
Its Database
What you’re really doing when you create a Facebook ad campaign, is using Facebook for its extremely extensive database. In other words, you’re using Facebook paid advertising to buy an audience.
Think about all of the millions of people that use Facebook. In fact, Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users according to the company’s website. That’s a lot of people – a lot of people that may be interested in your product or service.
Think about Facebook’s database as an untapped market. You may not have their email or mailing address but you have their Facebook profile.
When you use Facebook paid advertising, you are purchasing access to advertise to millions of people that you otherwise would have had no access to. Even better, you can segment your audience to the specifics of your ideal customer by choosing preferred age, gender, interests, etc. to give you an incredibly high customer value.
Organic Posting 2-5 Times a Week
Just because you realize that Facebook paid advertising is more lucrative than simple sharing updates on your company’s page (otherwise known as organic posting), doesn’t mean that you can give up organic posting altogether.
There’s a huge difference between social marketing and social selling. Social selling is where you can really see the return on your investment, and it includes your Facebook paid advertising strategy that we talked about in this blog post. However, social marketing is also essential.
Other than running Facebook ad campaigns, it’s still very critical to be active on your company page.
Think about this scenario – a highly qualified lead that saw your Facebook ad in their newsfeed now visits your company’s Facebook business page to learn more about you. But, you haven’t posted an update in months because you focused all of your efforts on your Facebook advertising strategy. That scenario isn’t exactly ideal because the customer doesn’t get any added value, in turn stopping their customer journey.
This is why it’s extremely important to pay attention to your Facebook advertising strategy as well as organic posting. It may seem like a lot to balance, which is why marketing companies like us (BIS Designs) are here to ease you into the process.
Fun Fact: Did you know that the average person will spend over five years of their life on social media. WOW! That’s a lot of time spent on Facebook!
Author: Stephanie May
5 Benefits of Business Blogging
Facebook is a popular way for companies to market their products and services to consumers like ourselves. In the past, it hasn’t been as helpful for businesses looking to market to other businesses. However, that’s no longer the case. Facebook is now proving itself to be a successful marketing tool for business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
LinkedIn has long been the most effective platform for businesses to market on social media to other companies. However, Facebook has over 1.4 billion monthly users allowing businesses to get their message in front of the right audience through paid advertising. Businesses are five times more likely to engage with a sales rep who shares a mutual connection. This is one reason why it’s important not to ignore Facebook. We have seen success with this social media strategy with our clients in Mobile, AL.
1. Expand your audience. Reach past your current audience through advertising on Facebook and targeting people that meet certain qualifications. 2. Target work categories. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram advertising allows you to go past general demographics to drill down to specific interests, job titles and income levels. 3. Offer incentives for lead generation. Using ads to target the audience you want, you can bring prospects to your website looking for access to the content you’re offering. By directing them to a landing page that asks them for their email address, you’re able to generate leads by giving them access to a free trial of your product or service, or access to an ebook or webinar.
4. Create custom audiences.
Custom audiences can be set up in Facebook by:
• Importing a list of emails from your contact database. • Upselling to customers that purchased a particular item or service (making recommendations). • Retargeting lost customers by putting a Facebook pixel on a certain web page to track if users completed your call to action. If they didn’t reach the ‘Thank you for signing up/purchasing’ page, then you can retarget your ads to those who missed out.
• Increase awareness, connections and leads. • Set you apart from your competitors. • Strengthen your company’s credibility. • Keep your business’ name at the top of potential customers’ minds.
Contact us for a complimentary marketing evaluation and let’s get your business back on track!
Read Our October 2016 Newsletter Here!
As the name implies, “social media” is a platform for real time social exchange. This exchange takes place on a global scale, offering you unprecedented access to desirable demographics around the world.
You can infuse your brand with personality in a number of ways. Whether you write a blog or create a carefully crafted ‘about us’ page on your website, you’re putting your personality out there for the community to see. By posting informative, funny and inspirational posts, a human side to your business comes out, which naturally instills a greater sense of trust for your organization, ultimately enhancing your networking efforts.
Be professional, but don’t sound scripted, and avoid industry-specific terms and phrases. Try to strike a casual tone.
These can be tangentially related to your business offerings, or as unrelated as a hobby. The goal is to flesh out who you are beyond your brand.
We communicate a lot of day-to-day information in story form. Relatable anecdotes are easy to follow and – if told well – hard to forget. The more entertaining, the better.
More specifically, use your sense of humor – so long as it’s appropriate. Laughter is the easiest way to tear down any barriers separating you from future clients.
We often hear companies ask why social media is so important for their business. The answer is simple: businesses need a solid online presence if they expect to be successful. At the end of the day, you need to be actively posting on social media to expand that presence. According to the Small Business Technology Impact Study of 2016, 50% of 18-34 year olds, 42% of 35-54 year olds, and 24% of 55+ year olds prefer businesses who regularly post to their Facebook pages. “If you're choosing between setting up a website and starting a Facebook page for your business, know that up to 30% might not buy from a company without a social media presence.” Source: TWC 2016. BIS Designs is your local and reputable source for digital marketing. We can complement your company’s digital presence with customizable social media marketing packages that fit your business. Whether through LinkedIn, Facebook, or email marketing, our digital marketing specialists will help you communicate your brand voice and promote your company through social interaction. By staying top of mind within your community, you will retain both loyal customers and attract potential leads. Call us at 251-405-2535 for more information or visit our website to request an online quote.
Read Our June 2016 Newsletter Here!
If you’re marketing your business digitally, which you should be in this day and age, you probably have a nicely designed website, maybe some SEO integrated into your site and a company Facebook page. It doesn’t take a huge budget or hours of labor to get your business seen online. Actually, some digital marketing tactics are pretty downright inexpensive.
Compared to traditional advertising via print or TV and radio spots, digital marketing puts less strain on your wallet and can be seen by thousands of people daily. But it really depends on how far you want to go to market your company online. Don’t be surprised if a “barely there” presence is not generating the amount of traffic to your website as you hoped.
But many small business owners ask, “What do I do to help grow my business online?” Well, there are many avenues to go down when it comes to digital marketing, some complex and some simple, but there is one specific tactic we want to highlight: Facebook advertising.
We are firm believers in using social media to help grow a business. Social media creates exposure, two-way communication with your audience and helps expand your business. There are organic ways to do that such as creating valuable content, establishing dialogues with your page fans, posting consistently and sharing interesting, cool articles and knowledge. But there are also paid tactics to grow your business on social media.
Facebook advertising is one of those tactics.
Facebook offers businesses a way to promote, grow and drive website traffic through “sponsored” posts. These advertisements show up on your target audience’s newsfeed and have a strong call to action that prompts viewers to:
The list extends further than just those four CTA's too. It really depends on what you want your Facebook advertising to do.
The best part about Facebook advertising is that you can place your ad in front of the people who truly matter to your business.
You can select very specific demographics that you want to target and Facebook does the rest. For example, say you were a local clothing boutique who catered to women aged 16 – 32 that lived in Baldwin County and are interested in shopping and fashion. You can enter that information and Facebook will find users that match those specifications and put your message in their newsfeed.
But how does this directly translate into new sales?
Well, if you don’t yet see the value, let me simplify:
Facebook ads put your business front and center of the people who matter on a channel they use daily. This exposes your business to people who have not yet heard of your company, but who will be interested in your product, then prompts them to visit your website to take a look at your services/products, and ultimately can lead to those visitors calling about how your business can help them. Ta-da!
Best part of all, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is a digital marketing tactic that is very inexpensive. You can create an ad for as little as $10 or as much as $300. It’s all based on your budget. Talk about a deal! Facebook is not the only social media channel offering advertising either.LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are other channels that let your business shine.
So, think you want to jump on the Facebook advertising bandwagon, or are you still hesitant? No worries, that is why BIS Designs is here to help. Get in the know all about digital marketing with our free luncheon coming up on January 28 at the Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, Alabama. RSVP today and enjoy a complimentary lunch and listen to our experts present on “How to Develop & Implement a Successful Digital Marketing Plan to Increase Company Revenue.” We want to help business owners grow their business and market the right way! Walk away with a powerful toolkit to make 2016 the best year yet for your business. Sign up here: http://askbisdesigns.com/seminar
Whitney Jones
Digital Marketing Specialist
Holiday marketing campaigns are a great way to boost sales and increase exposure. And social media plays a big part in making your holiday campaign a success or a flop. As we have preached lately, social media is a powerful player in today’s marketing sphere. People flock to social media during the holidays to review products, research companies and read reviews before buying gifts. If you’re not using social to help market your brand or product, you aren’t helping your business grow to the best of its ability.
As of this year, almost one-third of shoppers made purchase decisions based directly on social media interactions, according to a MarketLive survey. And these direct purchase decisions based on social media experiences are expected to continue growing substantially.
But just how can you incorporate your social media marketing to your holiday campaigns? Well, for starters you need to remember to ALWAYS incorporate any marketing campaigns into your social media marketing. Social is where you can organically spread the word about your brand and product and encourage your followers to share your campaign with their friends.
Stemming off that point, when developing your holiday campaign for social media, make sure that your campaign is responsive. What does that means? It means that your campaign is accessible on both mobile devices AND desktop. As we have predicted for 2016, mobile is overtaking desktop at an unbelievable speed, and soon will be the main source of internet surfing, putting desktop computers in the dust.
So, make your campaign available on both mobile and desktop computers. Along with this, many social media channels have a “buy” button now that enables users to simply click on their Facebook or Twitter page to buy a product. This is extremely useful because you are taking the product straight to them. Alleviating the hassle of going on your website to shop gives the user a much easier shopping experience- straight from social media.
Some handy social media campaigns:
Content-generated contests and giveaway
Many users enjoy seeing user-generated content. This means developing campaigns that make use of user photos, reviews and voting contests. By allowing users to share their own content, it creates a deeper sense of value for the campaign.
Loyalty Discounts
As people get on social media to research products, brands and reviews, reward your followers by giving them an exclusive social media discount or deal for following your brand on your social channels.
Social media advertising
Facebook offers extensive advertising services to help promote your brand and target your audience, but Facebook is not the only platform offering advertising services. Twitter and LinkedIn now have paid advertising that can help expand your campaign’s reach.
Time-Bound Holiday Campaigns
By creating a sense of urgency and exclusiveness, making a campaign that is only advertised on social media for a short time helps hype customers up to your deal. Also, offering a limited number of a product and “holiday discount” helps incite motivation to participate in your campaign.
Make sure your campaign is holiday-themed
This may sound obvious to some, but it’s a good reminder that if you want to attract holiday shoppers, you should make your campaign look and feel like a holiday offer.
There are plenty of ideas on the internet of good holiday campaigns, but the suggestions listed above are tried-and-true campaign ideas.
As marketers are all getting ready for the holiday deal dash, remember to find a unique selling point to your campaign. Focus on your target audience and figure out what kind of campaign may suit them best. Not all campaigns are created equal.
Something for all social media marketing campaigns to remember to do is to invoke engagement. Whether it is commenting on campaign post, or liking your page, make sure you are asking your followers to interact with your page somehow. This helps expand your post reach, which is now moderated by the new Facebook algorithm. Be the judge of how much you ask your followers to do though. If you give them a million tasks to complete before they are eligible for your giveaway/discount that may discourage them from entering at all.
Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn! And for more helpful hints, read our other blog posts!