Inbound Marketing Blog

Cambridge Analytica, a data and analytics firm focused on political communication, has been accused of harvesting data from millions of Facebook profiles that was then used to specifically target and influence people on social media during the 2016 Presidential election.

With video marketing on the rise, coming up with a catchy and attractive video can be a huge challenge for those who lack the time (and money). That's where the beauty of Facebook Live comes in. Making its debut in 2016, the service has enabled users to make videos that stream live using only a minimum of your smartphone's camera to capture it. But as intimidating as streaming live might be, there is a variety of brand-boosting benefits to using the service that will only make you seem more trustworthy and credible as a company.

Social media is a powerful marketing tool to reach your audience and increase brand awareness. However, in recent years, the space has become much more competitive for brands and businesses of all sizes.  For this reason, marketers have had to turn to paid options to reach their buyer personas. Facebook pay-per-click (PPC), more popularly known as Facebook Advertising is currently one of the top platforms businesses look to up their game on social.

There’s a major shift that’s happening in the way businesses reach their audience. Moving forward, that means your traditional inbound marketing strategy may not be comprehensive enough to reach your audience.

I wrote a blog a few months back about digital intimacy and how personal our digital space has become. Nowhere is that more relevant and noticeable than on Facebook. News leaks of a potential new News Feed and consumers and professional users panic. Nine articles. That’s how many I read about this new News Feed. Each said something conflicting and none seem to be aligned on what was actually happening. What was unanimous is that Facebook was bringing us a new News Feed, an “explore” tab, whether we wanted it or not. It was also mutually agreed upon that this was bad news bears for marketers and businesses who leverage Facebook for relationships, traffic, and awareness. But listen -- It’s all just smoke.

Organic reach on Facebook becomes increasingly difficult to get day after day. With over 2 billion users worldwide, the amount of content generated on the platform is staggering. However, despite all these users and all this content, why is it that only 45% of marketers think that their Facebook efforts are effective? Perhaps we haven’t given the Facebook AI enough thought, or maybe we don’t post enough content. Should we post 80% helpful content and only 20% promotional? We’ve heard it all -- but the fact is, now, and in the future, the machine learning algorithms that run our favorite social media platforms will continue to improve the experience for users. What does that improved experience look like right now? 

Facebook advertising is one of the most popular advertising platforms available today with 92% of social marketers using it, but are all of those people using the platform correctly? Not even close. Like all aspects of digital marketing, the target for successful Facebook advertising is ever moving. No marketer is immune to making mistakes, let alone in an area so new and dynamic. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the top 11 Facebook ad mistakes you could be making and how you can avoid doing so in the future.

It's amazing how ingrained Facebook has become in our lives, personally and professionally; as consumers and as individuals.  When a business doesn't have a website, it's surprising, but when it doesn't have a Facebook page, it's straight up dumbfounding.  Facebook pages, like most social media profiles, are free, easy to set up and use, and to a degree, level the competitive playing field for businesses -- why wouldn't you create one?  For those that have, it can be extremely frustrating when they don't see success just as easily as the set up was, but there is hope.