fbpx

Build a basic audience for Facebook Ads

  • September 6, 2019

One of the most powerful aspects of advertising on Facebook is the ability to tailor your audience. Now you can take it to the nth degree. That’s the reason Facebook is free. Users trade their personal data for an engaging social platform. Advertisers purchase that data to find audiences who resonate with their message (read: buy).

In non-profit and charity fundraising, dedicate your precious advertising dollars for donors and volunteers sympathetic to your cause. The focus needn’t be myopic. However, audience consciousness makes a difference in the effectiveness of an ad.

Building a basic audience is easy. There are a few things to consider:

  • Location
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Language
  • Connections – whether they like or follow your page
  • Detailed targeting – this is where it gets fun!

Detailed targeting allows you to find pet lovers, runners, or social warriors. Users either gave this information willingly or performed telling behaviors on the platform. Some audience examples might be:

  • Women aged 55+ in Dallas, TX who speak English and list knitting as a hobby
  • Anyone 18-40 within 20 miles of Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio concerned with LGBTQ equality
  • Spanish speakers in Texas who like BBQ

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, who you’re trying to reach is a huge part of success!

Instagram Stories for Nonprofits

  • July 14, 2019

A social media presence for your charity or nonprofit organization probably means you have a Facebook page, Twitter handle, and Instagram account. To use each one to the its full potential, you should learn about how to use the platform, but also a bit about how other people prefer to consume content. That can vary based on your target audience, but in general Instagram Stories are a popular and fun way to stay relevant and share in a fun and informal way about your team.

How to post a story

The technical how-to on posting stories is the first step. The easiest way to do this is to swipe right from your Instagram account’s main timeline. This will open up the tool to share stories.

Instagram Stories Editor
Instagram Stories Editor

From here you have a few options:

  1. The button on the far left of the bottom opens your stored images and videos. You can select something from your gallery to share. Both still images and videos are available.
  2. The big white circle in the middle will take a photo. Press it quickly to snap a photo to share.
  3. Hold down the white circle to record short snippets of video

There are many other options you can explore in the menu along the bottom. Share bright colored text, your favorite songs, go live, or add a plethora of filters to your story. Explore!

What to share

Now that you know HOW to share, the next question is WHAT to share. I have two general rules if you’re just starting out:

  1. Don’t over-share. Your stories will queue up in the feed of all of your subscribers and they’ll need to tap through each of your videos. If you post too much, you run the risk of being muted.
  2. Don’t over-think. Videos expire after 24 hours, so if it’s not perfect, that’s okay! Think about videos as being a little more spontaneous and a little less curated than your photos.

If you are having a fund-raising event, a few videos during the event can make those who couldn’t attend feel more a part of the fun. If you just received a big donation, a shout-out thank you can let your followers know about other great organizations contributing to your success. Introduce the team! Let your followers know who is behind the account and all the great work you are doing for your community.

Most of all, have fun! Instagram Stories are a fun and informal way to engage your audience, remind them of your mission, and share your success.

Google+ social network is closing

Google+ is going away

  • February 23, 2019

You may have seen in your online news feed that Google+ is shutting down. Google+ failed to rival Facebook and claim a slice of the social media scene. There are two main reasons for this. First, the users of Google Plus never numbered close to other social media platforms. And second, a data security bug has made it not worth maintaining. It’s unlikely you’ve been severely compromised. However, data marked as private could have potentially under some situations not remained private.

If you’ve been using Google+, you have until April 2 to download any materials you want to save. After that your Google+ account as well as any pages you have created will be shut down and deleted.

I, for one, will miss the platform, although I’ve declined in my use over the years. It was a unique collection of tech-minded people. Staying up to date on topics like paid search advertising and SEO was fun to do through the network.

There is one exception to this, and that is business users of Google+. As of now, those are going to remain. You are only a business user if you use a paid version of Google called G Suite. If you’ve been using G Suite for Gmail, Google Docs, and Google+ then talk to your administrator . They should have additional information about the fate of your Google+ accounts and pages. The rest of us can remove one social platform from our advertising and marketing budgets/attention. Then we can refocus on reaching our audience where they are more likely to be.

Facebook UTM Parameters

UTM Parameters for Facebook Ads

  • October 19, 2018

If you run Facebook Ads, metrics like impressions, clicks, and landing page views interest you. Each metric, available inside Facebook Ads Manager console, contributes to evaluating the effectiveness of your campaign. That information drives future optimizations to make the best use of your advertising dollars. However, there is one question those metrics cannot answer:

Once the user arrived on your site – what did they do next?

Tracking User Behavior on your Website

Just because you drove 100 people to your landing page does not mean you made 100 sales. What’s more important is how many people engaged with your site, clicked to read more, or completed a goal defined inside Google Analytics. It’s entirely possible that while one campaign seemingly outperformed another in Facebook metrics, the less-clicked ad brought more conversions. No one metric tells the entire story, so it’s important to evaluate all metrics together for the entire length of the customer journey.

Luckily, there is a way to link the two systems so you can follow users from click to session. Look for UTM Parameters – or URL Parameters in Facebook. Each campaign provides an option at the bottom marked “optional.” However, to do things right, this is absolutely mandatory. Click on Build a URL Parameter and you’ll get a window like this:

UTM Parameters in Facebook

Facebook UTM Parameters

You can customize each of the fields for tracking in Google Analytics. Recommended values are:

  1. Tell where the user came from with Campaign Source.
    Example: facebook
  2. Tell what form of content brought them with Campaign Medium.
    Example: ads
  3. Separate out individual campaigns with Campaign Name.
    Example: spring-2020-promotion
  4. Designate multiple variants with Campaign Content.
    Example: red-background

Save yourself a headache in the future, and force everything to lowercase with dashes in place of spaces. Google Analytics tracks any variation in UTM Parameters separately (including capitalized letters). Then, set up a segment inside Google Analytics for these users. Track the behavior of anyone who clicked your ad on your website and determine the true effectiveness of a campaign from start to finish! If you need help setting up campaign tracking in Facebook, contact us today.

Facebook conversions

Facebook Business Manager Account Conversions

  • September 30, 2018

If you run a small business or nonprofit, chances are you’ve already explored or even realized the benefits of a presence on Facebook. You can create a Facebook Page for your organization, assign multiple administrators, and start sharing posts and collecting followers. If you’ve made it that far, congratulations! Leveraging social connections is a great way to extend the reach of your charity. If you’re ready to take it to the next level, however, you’re going to need a Facebook Business Manager account.

Advanced Permissions

A Facebook Business Manager account is set up under the business entity – so your personal Facebook account won’t be the sole owner. There are advanced user permissioning options in a business account as well. So everyone who once administrated your Facebook Page can continue to do so uninterrupted. But you might want to give different users different levels of permission, and you can control that through Business Manager. You can also grant Partners access to your page, which is helpful when an agency is employed. You can grant (or revoke) Partner status without explicitly giving individuals from the Partner agency personal access.

Facebook Business Manager

Business Ad Account

You will also get a Business Ad Account. If you’ve take advantage of the Boost Post option in Facebook, you’re already half way there. A Business Ad Account gives you more information and control over your boosts. But it also opens up a whole new world of advertising options. You can set up, run, monitor, and report on official ad campaigns – big or small. You can create a Facebook Pixel to embed in your website so your ads can see what the visitors Facebook sent you did on your website – and how to optimize the delivery for better results automatically.

Integrated Facebook/Instagram

Another benefit is advertising across both Facebook and Instagram. Don’t have an Instagram account? No problem! With a Facebook Business Manager account, you can still advertise on Instagram. Or if you do have an Instagram account for your organization, you can link it to your Facebook Business Manager account and incorporate it into your ad strategy and metric reports.

Advantages for Nonprofits

Lastly, if you are a certified 501(c)(3) charity or nonprofit, you can set up your account as such. This allows you to host fundraising events directly from posts, boost, or ads. You can also allow others to fundraise on your behalf. You might have seen this trend recently where individuals will set up a fundraising target for their birthday or other event, and Facebook will report on the progress to their goal. At the end of such a fundraiser, all the proceeds go directly to the nonprofit – FREE of fees!

If you’re ready to incorporate Facebook and/or Instagram ads into your overall digital marketing strategy, start by converting your existing assets into a Facebook Business Account (https://business.facebook.com). If you need help with this conversion or want some help developing a campaign strategy and execution, contact Dijon Marketing today.

Integrate social media with your website

Integrating Social with your website

  • March 3, 2018

In order to drive the most traffic and authority to your website and domain, you should always think of your online presence as an entire ecosystem. When it comes to social, try to avoid creating distinctly different and separate entities for each social platform. It isn’t hard if you change your mindset from one of “I’m maintaining a Facebook page for my organization,” to “Facebook is one way for people to find my website.

Think about these scenarios:

  • You’ve just written a blog post promoting a charitable program that your organization leads. You want to get that message out to as many of your followers as possible, so you cut and paste that post into a Facebook message. What would be better? Instead, write a teaser. Give the first few sentences or a general theme with a “to read more, click here” at the end. This will funnel people to read the full story on your website where you have more control over their next action.
  • You are trying to promote your calendar for upcoming events. Instead of posting an even on Facebook or putting all of the details into a post, try linking to your events calendar. This gives people the ability to look a head, see other upcoming events, and may lead to more volunteer hours.

Any time you can drive people to your website, it strengthens your domain overall and can eventually lead to a snowball effect of more, free traffic landing on your site when people are searching for relevant phrases. Try changing your thoughts from maintaining separate engagement platforms to an integrated approach. If you need help putting together a holistic strategy, you know where to turn – Dijon Marketing!