As I reflect back on my decade of working in this space, I have seen the fads, the innovations, and the flops. What initially began as a means of connection and communication has evolved into a powerful marketing and advertising tool that has been embraced wholeheartedly by the masses – not to mention brands, influencers and media.

Have a read through my 6 tips for navigating the social media universe today, tomorrow and into the future.

Don’t go chasing algorithms. Trust me on this one. They change so frequently, it’s becoming nearly impossible to keep up, let alone game the system. While we can have a surface-level understanding of the intent behind algorithm changes, the truth is that the sophistication of algorithms is beyond human comprehension. Strategies that work today may not work tomorrow, as machine learning analyzes thousands of data points and optimizes against them. Instead, focus on producing insight-driven content that resonates. Know your audience, understand their interests, behaviours and pain-points and you will be far more successful than if you were to spend your time dissecting how algorithms work.

Remember MySpace, Foursquare, Ello, Peach, or Google Plus? Their rise to stardom seems so long ago now. Change is the only thing guaranteed in the social media space. Social networks have risen and fallen, just like the ancient civilizations of our past. Every social network prides itself on continuous innovation, though new and flashy features have flourished and failed over the years. Always allocate at least 10% of your resourcing to innovation and testing. However, being flexible and agile is key. It won’t serve you to be rigid with your strategy, so don’t chase your tail. Fail quickly and move on.

If you can do just one thing, spend your efforts on creating quality content, versus quantity. The social media audience of today is fickle and discerning. You are competing against thousands of other brands and content creators who are vying for shortened attention spans. Put yourself in the position of others and ask yourself the honest question: “Would I share this?”  Spend time on your creative and really think it through. There are plenty of turnkey, budget friendly tools available to help you up your production game.

Please, whatever you do, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. All it takes is an ousted tech CEO, a drop in shares for one of the big giants, or a disastrous data breach, to leave a Silicon Valley business hanging by a thread. Remember the list of social channels above? At one time they seemed like steadfast investments, but have now become irrelevant. While Facebook is currently THE best place to reach a broad range of customers, it may not always be the case. Keep your options open and be prepared to shift your approach or you could be left in the dust.

Every customer counts. Having a social response strategy will help you ensure that every customer comment (whether good or bad) is addressed. Of course, there are the trolls who stop at nothing to try and discredit and harm a company. However, the majority of customers just want to be heard. Approaching social media response with humanity, humility and even a little humour can do wonders for building your brand reputation.

Storytelling approaches are as diverse as the companies that employ them. But, education and emotion-driven stories should be the tenets of every social media strategy. It’s been said many times that content is king. But context and insight are equally as important. Teaching people something they didn’t know – or stirring up an emotional connection with your audience is the trick to holding their attention – and building loyalty over time.

Every day, I’m inspired, humbled – and even a little astounded – by the speed at which social media is changing. There’s no question that online communication has brought out both the good and evil of the human race. But, I’m still hopeful that connecting our global community through the power of technology and storytelling brings people together in new and unexpected ways. Ideas are exchanged with every Livestream, every Tweet, and every inspiring image. And even if a small fraction of those ideas bubble to the surface to make the world a better place, then that’s just fine by me.  

Do you have a social media challenge for us to solve? Get in touch and let’s chat! 

Today’s customers are expecting hyper-personalized, contextual messages from brands.

Small businesses with an e-commerce website can accomplish just that by implementing a solid Facebook advertising strategy and a few key best practices at the onset.

Facebook Advertising has come a very long way over the last three years in particular. Its robust targeting capabilities easily rival Google’s advertising offerings – and in some cases trumps Google altogether. With extremely detailed data on each user (including interests, behaviours, life milestones, purchase intent, browsing behaviour and more), Facebook is an extremely powerful advertising tool when used to its fullest potential.

Read on to learn the key best practices for getting started with ecommerce advertising on Facebook:

Set Up Business Manager

It’s surprising how many businesses miss this very important step when setting up their business page. Facebook’s Business Manager is a tool that enables Facebook Page owners to manage their page and ad accounts from one centralized place in a more secure fashion. It also allows page owners create a team ecosystem with various levels of admin access across the page and ad account. This is especially important if you’re working with external consultants and employees. That way, when someone leaves the company or moves on from working with you, their access can be easily revoked from your Business Manager. If you haven’t setup your account yet, visit business.facebook.com to get started.  Check out this article for a full Business Manager overview.

Install Facebook Conversion Pixel On Your Website

This is table stakes when it come to the Facebook advertising game. If you haven’t yet installed a Facebook Pixel on your website, you’re missing out on important conversion data and limiting the opportunity to retarget people who have visited your online property. Once the special line of code is added to your website, the Facebook Pixel effectively works by placing a cookie on the Facebook profile of anyone who has visited your site in the last 180 days. Now, with a growing list of pixeled site visitors, you can design retargeting campaigns targeted to their browsing behaviour on your site. Customers who see products or messaging that are catered to their stage in the customer journey are more likely to purchase.

In addition to retargeting, the Pixel allows advertisers to optimize campaigns based on ecommerce goals, such as Add to Cart and Purchase. Campaigns optimized this way will target people who are most likely to complete these actions; making the advertising even more powerful and effective. The detailed conversion data – in particular the Cost Per Acquisition data –  will help for optimization of campaigns.

Learn more about installing a Facebook Pixel.

Create Product Catalogues

Facebook enables e-commerce clients to upload their products into its back-end so customers can receive dynamic, personalized advertising based on what they have browsed on the site. Product catalogue file formatting must be in designated formats of CSV, TSV, RSS XML, Atom XML. They can be uploaded one-off manually or automated through a feed that can be customized by your web developer or IT person.

Leveraging real-time product information to create dynamic ads and multi-product ads is an incredibly powerful tool for advertisers, creating a laser focused targeting approach and cutting down on manual ad creation. Learn more about Product Catalogs.

Upload Customer Database and Create Lookalike Audiences

Facebook’s custom Audiences capabilities are perhaps one of the most powerful tools available to marketers. Businesses can upload a CSV file of mobile phone numbers and email addresses of existing customers, enabling Facebook to match these data points to its own users. The data is hashed to protect customers, but enables advertisers to target the matched user profiles. Marketers can craft messaging and offers targeted just to customers, exclude customers from receiving offers and information that is not relevant to them, and also find new lookalike audiences who have Facebook profiles of existing customers.

Facebook has an API integration with MailChimp, but only allows targeting down to the list. Custom Audiences are predominantly manually uploaded by the advertiser. Read more about how to use Custom Audiences by visiting Facebook’s help centre.

Provide Customer Lifetime Value Data

One of the really exciting opportunities for businesses is to find high-value customers by providing Facebook with more details about your customers. The Lifetime Value Audiences can be sliced into a variety of data points, including: number of purchases in a set amount of time, average revenue per sale, length of customer relationship with the business, average spend over time.  Using the Custom Audiences technology, Facebook uses the lifetime value data to find more customers who are likely to spend more and become long-term customers. See how you can supply Facebook with Lifetime Value data.

By implementing some of these key steps, understanding your ecommerce targets, and leveraging Facebook’s robust offerings, you’ll soon see your online business soar!

Are you looking to drive traffic and conversions for your online shop? Get in touch and let’s chat!