The Opportunity of Social Targeting on Facebook Ads (a Facebook Advertising Agency Perspective)
In my previous article, “The Perils of Social Targeting on Facebook – A Consumers Perspective”, I discussed the horror for a consumer to have their fan-ship of a Facebook page such as Pepto-Bismol shown by social targeting advertisements to their friends. A fan who allows friends to know this tidbit of information is providing fodder for jokes about potential gas problems. But as a Facebook advertising agency, what an opportunity social targeting provides.
Think about it, how else could the good folks at Pepto-Bismol gain over 125,000 Facebook fans? Simple, by using social targeting on Facebook they are able to use a type of online word of mouth to convince Facebook users to become a fan of their page. As Facebook users see that people they know ‘like’ a certain Facebook page, it provides them with the vote of confidence they need to become a fan and ‘like’ that page themselves. Social Targeting on Facebook in a nutshell is a quick and easy way for advertisers to provide users with the motivation needed to ‘like’ their page or post as the page has already been vouched for by known friends and colleagues.
(Above: an example of Pepto-Bismol Social Targeting Advertisements)
I am affirmed of the success of social targeting on Facebook as I review the top performing ads for my client who spends roughly $15K monthly advertising on the forum. As I review the top performing ads from this past month, I notice a trend strongly favoring social targeting. Overwhelmingly, Facebook ads that use social targeting make up over 50% of the top performing ads for my client when measured by click through rate (CTR) and Cost per Conversion (a.k.a. Cost per New Fan).
But don’t just take my word for it. According to Nielsen’s Brand Lift Study 2010, a Facebook user is 25% more likely to click on an ad with social context. Additionally, a user is 100% more likely to remember the advertisement with social targeting and shows a 300% increase in purchase content (Source: Nielsen Advertising Effectiveness, April 2010).
In conclusion, Facebook advertising agency, do your clients a favor and try out social targeting on Facebook. Your client will appreciate the results.
(Above: Social Targeting is an effective way to get fans to land on your Welcome Page)
Have your own experience and opinion on Facebook ads and social targeting? Share it with us here in the comments!
See the blog: Consumers Perspective on Social Targeting on Facebook Ads.
Pepto-Bismol Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/peptobismol
The Perils of Social Targeting on Facebook Ads (the Consumer Perspective)
So one day, against your better judgement you accepted the tasty chimichanga. You were no longer hungry, having already consumed three and now were eating purely because they tasted marvelous. Upon returning home later that evening with your belly in agony, you reached for the Pepto-Bismol and called it a day.
In the morning, grateful to the good folks at Pepto-Bismol, you “Liked” the Pepto-Bismol page on Facebook. A simple gesture, but the least you could do to show your thankfulness for the previous evening. Wary of your friends jokes, and not wanting all your friends to know that you spent the evening near the bathroom, you delete the update on your Facebook Wall that shows you as becoming a Fan of the page. So now your Fan-ship of Pepto-Bismol is your perfect little secret. No one will know besides you and the friendly admins of the Pepto-Bismol page, right?
Wrong. As one of Facebook’s newest advertising options called Social Targeting, companies advertising on Facebook may choose to advertise to friends of Fans on any page. That means, guess what?, anybody, including your comedic best friend or relative may be greeted with an Ad that looks like this:
(Above: I REALLY wanted my friends to know I was a fan of Pepto-Bismol...)
How embarrasing right, your name shows up to your friends as a part of the advertising, a type of word of mouth in favor of Pepto-Bismol. Don’t worry though, you agreed to this in the updated Privacy Policy, you did read that right?
But Im not necessarily complaining about this feature. I as a Facebook advertiser find Social Targeting very successful. Read a Facebook Advertising Agency Perspective on Social Targeting.
So in summary, think twice of what you ‘Like’ on Facebook as advertisers like me may share some of your perfect little secrets.
(Above: You may not be the only one that knows if you click that "Like" button)
See the Advertisers take on Social Targeting on Facebook Ads
Pepto-Bismol Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/peptobismol
Why Marketing to Hispanics using Social Media Works
Check out this quick presentation which covers:
- Why is the Hispanic market important?
- Do Hispanics use Social Media?
- Why is Social Media an attractive way to target the Hispanics?
- Benefits of Marketing to Hispanics using Social Media
- How businesses will engage the Hispanic market?
- What is Social Media Spanish?
What to Read from the Top 2010 Hispanic Online Marketing Reports
Since there are already too many 40+ page reports out there instructing marketers as to where the opportunities lie in engaging with Hispanic consumers, we’re here to make it easy. This is our analysis of the 3 most current free Hispanic Online Marketing reports; the 2010 US Hispanic Social Media and Marketing Overview, the 2010-2011 Hispanic Social Media Guide, and the 2010 Hispanic CyberStudy. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses and we have ranked them in the order that we recommend them to a marketer with a limited amount of time for research on the Hispanic Consumer.
1. 2010 US Hispanic Social Media and Marketing Overview
This was our favorite report and a clear case of why not to judge a book by its cover. While the title page and overall design may look a bit like a 12th grade History Paper, this report is full of useful statistics as well as qualitative data from industry experts that make it a good read. Recommended reading includes: “The Latino Research Story” (pg 9-10), “Who’s Best to Handle it All” (pg 21-23), “The Pan Latin Connector” (pg 33-34) and “Expectations, Propositions, & Future Thought” (pg 35-39).
This is the shortest and most visually attractive by far of the three studies, you can actually get through the entire report in about 15 minutes. The focus of this report is on internet usage by Hispanics and it breaks the Hispanic population down by level of acculturation and details the language and usage preferences of those groups. While it does not have the sheer amount of information as the other two studies, we found it to be very educational and succinct. Must reads include: “American Yardstick” (pg 15), “Young Hispanics” (pg 11), “Technology Leaders” (pg 15), and “Life Stages” (pg 22-26).
3. 2010-2011 Hispanic Social Media Guide
This report reads like a conglomeration of differing opinions from a multitude of firms in the Hispanic Marketing industry. So if you are looking to shop a number of these firms, you can find plenty of advertising and contact info in this report. Besides that, the only articles that I would recommend reading would be “How to Build a Hispanic Online Community” (pg 19-22) and “How to Effectively Work with Latino Bloggers” (pg 24-26).
There is a notable lack of quantitative data as the first graph doesn’t show up until page 27 and it is borrowed from an eMarketer Ad of their own report. Additionally, a majority of the other statistics found in this report are copied over from the Hispanic Cyber Study Report described above.
All three of these reports bring something a little different to the table while educating the marketer looking to engage Hispanic customers. Hopefully this guide saves you a little bit of time in trying to read all three.
Measuring Social Media Engagement
So if your Facebook fan page has 2,000 fan interactions per week and mine only has 200, is there any way my page could be considered more engaging? Why yes, absolutely there is. What needs to be considered is the amount of interaction per fan, which puts all pages on an equalizing, pound-for-pound scale. Basically, this enables an apples to apples comparison of your fan page with 2 million fans with my page of 200 fans.
It is often hard to measure how effective a campaign is and how engaged fans are in the conversation. A simple, albeit manual way to measure how involved fans are is by using the Social Media Engagement Scoring system that ranks a page based on posts per day to quantity of fans. This system allows a brand to take a realistic view at how well they converse with their fans in comparison with other brands.
We have found that in general, a score of over 200 in Facebook means fans are engaged. A score over 300 means that fans are highly engaged. A score of over 50 in Twitter is good. A Twitter Engagement score of over 75 is superb. Our calculations are simple (download an example here) and can be broken down into four easy steps for both Facebook and Twitter.
For Facebook:
Step 1 - Decide how many days to count for (if an account is very active, than fewer days) and then extrapolate it to 1 month or whatever time period you prefer. If the account is not terribly active it is easy to account for a whole week and sometimes even month.
Step 2 – Our favorite part – counting. This is the most time consuming part. We count both interaction on admin posts and fan posts in Facebook. We count a post by an administrator plus any “like” of that post or comment on that post as an “Admin Interactions”. For “Fan Interactions” we count any post by a fan on the wall and any comments or “likes” of that post. We sum those interactions and obtain the number of fans of that page.
Step 3 – Record these numbers in a spreadsheet such as the one we provided as an example above.
Step 4 – Run the numbers. If you use our example (above) the formulas are already there (no calculation necessary!) For Facebook we add up the number of interactions from admin posts and fan posts and convert that to a daily figure. After that we simply divide “Total Interactions/Day” by the number of fans and multiply that number by 100,000 to make the figure a bit more usable. This will give you the Facebook Engagement Score for that page.
For Twitter:
Step 1 – Decide what time period you would like to account for. A week is the most practical for Twitter but you can also do daily. This is because the Twitter search function only maintains one week of results.
Step 2 – Count the number of @s (mentions of another user) on a given Twitter page for that time period. After that number is obtained we find the number of times that Twitter page has been mentioned. We use http://search.twitter.com to search how many times that twitter page has been referenced (See illustration below). Again, this data only goes back one week so that limits the time period you can actually account for.
Using search.twitter to find mentions of any Twitter user
Step 3 – Record these numbers in a spreadsheet. Use our example from above.
Step 4 – Divide @s by mentions and multiply by 100 to arrive at the Twitter Engagement Score. (Calculations already done when using our downloadable example.
Now you will understand how a fan page with only a few dozen fan posts can be far more engaging than a page with thousands of fan posts. Do you have anything to add? Other ideas? Let us know in the comments please.
How Fortune 1,000 Brands Engage Spanish Speaking Facebook Fans
Many large brands such as Nike, McDonald’s and others have well over 1 million fans and struggle deciding how best to communicate with Spanish speaking fans which in many cases are 10% or more of their total fan base. We determined there are 4 main methods to begin engaging a brand’s fans using Spanish language marketing.
They are: 1 – Creating a new Page, 2 – Posting to Everyone, 3 – Using Filters, or 4 – Creating a new Tab. We created a list of pros and cons for each of the 4 methods and we detail these below.
1 – Creating a new Page
Building a new page dedicated to Spanish content is one popular choice that many large brands use. AT&T, CNN, Tostitos, and the NBA have all chosen this path and grown substantial followings. A new page will show up on an internal search by the firm’s brand name which will help in drawing new fans. A key benefit for choosing this method is that it enables a brand to provide content specifically targeted to its Spanish language fans in a dedicated forum. This has been seen as the most common way to communicate with a brands Spanish speaking fan base.
However, there are a number of cons associated with beginning a new page dedicated to Spanish conversation. First of all, you will be driving fans away from a very popular page with thousands or millions of fans and starting a new page from scratch. Secondly, the new Spanish page will inevitably cannibalize fans from the existing page. Maybe most importantly, many Spanish speaking fans of these large brands are bilingual and enjoy having access to content in different languages. Now with two pages, the brand is making them choose. Furthermore, many bilingual Americans have the belief that English content is generally more accurate and updated then Spanish content.
2 – Posting to Everyone
A solution to beginning a new page, is to integrate all Spanish content onto the existing English page. Whether the brand adapts all content to Spanish, or just selected parts, it all will appear on the Facebook stream to all fans whether they speak Spanish or not. This may be a good option for brands as the method generates high awareness of the fact that the brand speaks and understands Spanish and they will do so without starting a new page without their millions of fans. Bilingual fans will also be able to easily see all content in both languages.
There are many downsides to this method though. First off, it can get very cluttered. Postings of the same content in different languages may actually turn off a number of fans. Also, the brand is losing the opportunity to target its Spanish speaking fans using a dedicated forum. Finally, what if fans that speak other languages get offended that they do not see their second tongue displayed?
3 – Using Filters
To avoid having duplicate content visible to a brand’s fans, they might also consider the use of filters. Any time an administrator posts content on a fan page, they have the option of posting to everyone (default) or to post only to certain geographic areas or languages. A brand can thus post Spanish content only for its fans that have their Facebook account set to Spanish. Bilingual fans will like this as they will see all Spanish and English content with no duplications. Also, the brand doesn’t have to start a new page from scratch and fans with different language settings will not even know that there is additional Spanish content.
There are some big problems with filters though, chiefly is that many bilingual Spanish speakers have their settings on English. They would not even know that there was additional content there for them! Also, as the page would mostly be an English page with only some Spanish content available through filters, it would not have the same feel as a newly created Spanish dedicated page. Finally, some of the virality would be lost as a fan’s comment on a Spanish posting would not have the ability to stream to a friends’ wall unless they both had their language settings on Spanish.
4 – Creating a new Tab
The final option to consider is the use of custom built tabs. Many ad agencies and other custom web agencies will develop a custom Facebook tab that can hold all Spanish content within the original main page. This would in many ways work as a second wall in which the brand would engage its Spanish speaking fans with an attractive Spanish title as well as content targeted in their language. They would maintain their original fan base and be able to provide links to this tab in all their marketing material geared towards Spanish speakers. Also, bilingual fans would not feel left out from the English discussion which is important to consider.
Creating a second tab has some disadvantages of course. They are typically more costly to maintain, on average between $100 – $2,500 per month depending on the content and frequency of posting. A custom tab also does not have all of the same functionality as the wall does such as the ability to show up on the stream of friends of fans. Virality is critical to the success of many brands marketing campaigns and a degree of this is lost here. Finally, the tab will not show up in an internal Facebook search.
You can download the entire Facebook Spanish Engagement Options List here.
This list is in by no means complete. Please comment back with your thoughts, additions, and revisions as we all think about how best to engage Spanish speaking fans.
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