social media marketing

How to Run a Successful Facebook Contest

July 26, 2018 by Advertising

Being the most popular social media platform out there, Facebook is a great marketing tool these days for any business out there who’s looking to either convert or build awareness around the brand.

If your ultimate goal is to grow your business through new clients and sales, it’s time to consider running a Facebook contest. Here’s everything you need to know about setting up and running one:

Determine Your Goal

Lead Generation – If your goal is to collect more email addresses for your newsletter or email promotion blast, a Facebook contest is a great tool for that.
Getting new customers – Offer a new discount or promotion to those who sign up for your contest.
Growing your account – Ask your entrants to like your business Facebook page when participating in the giveaway.
Promoting an exclusive offer or a sale – Offer a product or service that’s already on sale as a giveaway prize to get people interested in what your business has to offer.

Choose a Giveaway Prize:

Offer a relevant prize to all your potential customers, in other words – entice them to enter your Facebook contest. The goal is to give away something that people will be willing to take action for. Furthermore, your prize should be relevant to your target audience, so make sure to allocate an appropriate amount towards a prize (product or free service).

Select an Entry method:

Don’t ask for too much from your participants, so they don’t get discouraged or confused. Be clear and direct about how to enter your giveaway. We recommend sharing up to 3 rules of entry:

Like a business’s Facebook page
Comment
Tag a friend
Fill out a form on a landing page – great option for collecting emails
Offer an additional entry for those who share your post on their page

Include These Giveaway Post Must Haves:

Design an appealing post – Decide what’s the best way to grab people’s attention keeping your target audience in mind. Next, make sure that you include important information (prize, deadline, your logo, etc.) in the image as well as the giveaway caption. Try to be as specific yet concise as possible.
Include what’s the giveaway prize
Share the rules for entry
Determine who can participate and what are the entry deadlines
Include how and when you’ll select a winner

Important

Check Facebook Contest Rules to make sure that your promotion doesn’t violate any platform rules, such as ‘Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.’

Promote Your Facebook Contest:

Pin the Post – Make sure your giveaway post is pinned to the top of your page for the duration of the contest and when you announce the winner.
Facebook Ad and Boosting – Put some money into running an ad or boosting your giveaway post on Facebook to reach more people and to target the right audience.
Social Media – If your business is active on other social media platforms (Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat), let your followers know about your Facebook contest as well. There’s a good chance they will be willing to enter on Facebook if they’re already active users on those platforms.
Blog – Write a blog post detailing the contest and the prize or include a blurb about the opportunity at the end of an article you’re currently promoting.
Custom Giveaway Hashtag – If you’re promoting your Facebook contest on Twitter or Instagram, create a custom hashtag to grab more attention and to monitor the giveaway entries.
Email blast – Send out an email blast to your current subscribers to give them a chance to participate. After all, they are your most loyal followers and they will most likely be more inclined to spread the word about your giveaway.

Once you select a winner, don’t forget to announce it to the public and thank everyone else for participating!

Last but not least, make sure you measure your results so you can run more successful giveaways in the future.

Need help setting up and running a Facebook Contest? We can help!

Advertising Is Simple is a full-service marketing agency located in Wilmington, Delaware helping small to mid-sized businesses with all their digital marketing, radio and television advertising needs. Call us now.

Advertising Is Simple | 302.407.0431 | info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

Recent Facebook API changes You Need to Know About

April 26, 2018 by Advertising

Social media never stays the way it is for too long. In fact, as soon as we get used to some apps, features and functionalities, API changes once again. For those of you who don’t know, API is an application program interface, which in other words means a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications.

Speaking of changes, just this past February we shared an article on the new Facebook algorithm and what we should expect from those updates. Today, we’d like to discuss yet another announcement made by Facebook on April 4, 2018.

Interested to know what Facebook API changes have been announced recently and how they may affect your social media marketing? Please keep reading!

Recent Facebook API changes You Need to Know About

Enhanced security and safety measures – At the base of the API changes lies the fact Facebook wants to limit third party applications access to your Facebook and Instagram account. To protect your personal information and content usage, a lot of those apps (e.g. Hootsuite, Buffer) need to adjust their functionalities to the new policy.
Third Party Apps cannot use the Instagram API Platform to crawl or store users’ media without their express consent. In other words, Instagram users own their media and that right needs to be respected. So far, a lot of affiliate platform functionalities that used like-based shopping (e.g. LikeToKnow.It) have been greatly affected by this update.
Facebook Login – if you don’t log in to your app in 90 days, the app will be blocked and you won’t be able to access your personal data until you re-authorize it.

For more information on API changes, please check out this article on Facebook for Developers and Facebook Business.

FACEBOOK’s COMMITMENT TO YOU:

“Innovation demands iteration; it requires constant change. And, while change is never easy, we believe the immediate platform updates we are announcing today will build stronger connections for people, developers and businesses in the future, while maintaining their privacy and security on Facebook.” source

Are you a social media marketer? What are your thoughts on these recent Facebook API changes?

Let us know in the comments how these updates affected your work.

Advertising Is Simple | 302.407.0431 | info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

Best Practices when Using Pinterest For Business

March 13, 2018 by Advertising

If you’re an online creator, we hope you already recognize the big potential and opportunities that Pinterest for Business can bring to your brand. Using this platform as part of your social media strategy is a huge advantage! Why? Because besides the obvious – traffic and website clicks, Pinterest is also a great platform to upsell your products!

Want to know how to get your products or services in front of the right eyes? Keep reading for 6 best practices on using Pinterest for business.

6 Tips for Using Pinterest For Business

Set up a Business Account. This is where the magic happens! Once you convert your regular account to a business one, you will get the access to all the analytics you’ll need.
Include a call to action in your bio. Any time you get the opportunity to share an opt-in or a link to a special deal you’re currently running, take it!
Use Boards to target your audience. If you didn’t know that before, it’s time to cleanup your boards a bit. Your Pinterest page should resemble exactly what your business can do for the people that end up pinning your content.
Design shareable pins. It’s always worth taking a bit of time designing pins that are shareable! What does that mean? Good design elements (not too crowded), catchy titles and most importantly – a vertical shape – the longer the better.
Utilize appropriate keywords and hashtags. You should know that Pinterest is a search engine and should be treated as such. Take time looking up what phrases in your niche people search for to determine which ones will work best for your business.
Keep an eye on your analytics page. Once again, this is where you’ll find out what your dream audience looks like, what content they pin the most and what areas you should focus on!

There you go! 6 easy yet oh so rewarding steps for taking your Pinterest for Business to the next level. If you need help managing your business account, don’t hesitate to contact Advertising Is Simple.

FOLLOW US ON PINTEREST for more digital marketing tips!

Advertising Is Simple | 302.407.0431 | info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

New Facebook Algorithm: What to Expect?

February 13, 2018 by Advertising

It’s a fact. Social media is in constant flux. As marketers in this industry, our job every day is to stay on top of changes, which more often than not in result define and dictate finding new, effective ways of digital marketing.

Speaking of changes, if you’re one of the over 2.13 billion monthly active Facebook users, you probably already heard of the big announcement Mark Zuckerberg made last month regarding new Facebook Algorithm. If somehow you missed it, below is the full copy of the statement responding to the major News Feed update.

The question you’re probably asking now is how does the Facebook Algorithm actually work? Here’s the best way to explain it:

Screenshot from the Social Media Marketing World keynote session. Watch the full presentation here.

Well, if you remember the times when everything you posted on the platform was shown to your audience chronologically, we hope you know that’s a thing of the past. These days, Facebook News Feed is NOT based on time anymore. Instead, it’s all about the CONTENT you share. But not just any content…

Part of the new Facebook Algorithm strategy is to spark meaningful conversations among people, aka your audience/ page followers. In order to do so, Facebook now wants you to only post content that’s relevant and valuable. What it essentially means is that businesses need to rethink their digital marketing strategies and don’t solely focus on promoting a product or service they want to sell. What they should do is forget the numbers and shift their focus onto meaningful community involvement instead.

If you’re just trying to get a grasp of all the new Facebook Algorithm changes, we recommend watching this great Social Media Marketing World keynote session. During his presentation, Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner and host of the Social Media Marketing podcast (also worth checking out), reveals in further detail how marketers should respond to the latest Facebook news and shares the hottest trends in social media based on brand new research from over 5,700 marketers.

WATCH: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/sample/

Some important takeaways from the Social Media Marketing World keynote session:

Post a mix of good content – don’t link just to your own website.
Post content that’s relevant and sparks meaningful conversations.
Educate, entertain and inspire but don’t spam. Less is more.
Shift focus on Community Development not numbers.
Invest in Paid Advertising.
Utilize “See First” feature.
Use Live Video consistently.

If you’re a business or a digital marketer who uses Facebook as part of your marketing strategy, we would love to hear your thoughts on this Facebook algorithm news!

Advertising Is Simple | 302.407.0431 | info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

10 Tips to Run an Inbound Marketing Campaign for Your Delaware Business

May 2, 2017 by Advertising

In the business world, there are many different sub fields discussed about the promotion and advertising of your given business. One of the most important concepts to gain revenue and overall sales on your business is how you integrate marketing strategies daily. Without a plan to market and sell your business to customers, you will not be able to have both personal success and financial success for your business. To give you a little help, we have come up with some tips that we find to be helpful for your business to have a successful marketing campaign.

Here are 10 Tips to help you run an Inbound Marketing Campaign for your Delaware Business:

Identify your Campaign Audience: The first question you must ask yourself for your campaign is “Who is my Audience I am trying to reach to?” “What are the demographics?”

Set your Goals and Benchmarks: Like every good business plan, you need to set achievable and measurable goals to help you gain the best results from your market.

Create your offers and landing pages: Optimizing is key! Optimize for SEO purposes to get the best reach and frequency of customers for your Delaware business.

Plan and Build your Marketing Automation and Nurturing Flows: Plan your automation in such a way to develop the most amount of leads. The more effort you put in on your end, will hopefully give you results on the markets end.

Write a Blog Post: Write a post about your company! Go show it off to the world! Promote Promote Promote!

Share it on Social Media: Drive your business traffic with other channels other than the internet. This will give you more overall reach will in turn give you more possible sales!

Add in Long-Tail Keywords: Make your company SEO friendly even after you stop running a campaign to promote it. KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS!

Consider Paid Search and Other Channels: Measure the effectiveness and reach of other channels you decide to use to get the best overall results. Sometimes possible sales are worth the extra money.

Track your URLs: Make sure you know the answer to the question of, “Where is my traffic coming from, and how my visitors are finding me?” This answer will help you to emphasize your campaign on certain websites to maximize your reach.

Report on your results: Set goals at the beginning and celebrate your success at the end. Organize and evaluate your numbers at the end to see what you could do differently for your next campaign.

All of these are pretty good tips for any Delaware business that you are trying to promote whether an old or new. The marketing world is so diverse, and to be successful, you as business need to be able to integrate yourself to the changing market effectively. The market changes every day, and you must be aware of the local trends in order to keep your business up and running smoothly.

Advertising Is Simple is a full-service marketing agency located in Wilmington, Delaware helping small to mid-sized businesses with all their digital marketing, radio and television advertising needs. Get in touch.

Call 302-407-0431

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Determine Your Goal

Choose a Giveaway Prize:

Select an Entry method:

Include These Giveaway Post Must Haves:

Promote Your Facebook Contest:

Need help setting up and running a Facebook Contest? We can help!

Advertising Is Simple | 302.407.0431 | info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

Recent Facebook API changes You Need to Know About

Are you a social media marketer? What are your thoughts on these recent Facebook API changes?

6 Tips for Using Pinterest For Business

Here are 10 Tips to help you run an Inbound Marketing Campaign for your Delaware Business:

AdvertisingIsSimple | 302.407.0431 |info@AdvertisingIsSimple.com

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