Are Paid Facebook Ads Worth the Bucks?

To advertise on Facebook, or not to advertise on Facebook?

There’s still plenty of debate about whether advertising on Facebook (or social media in general) is worth it, and whether it’s more useful as a lead generation tactic than a direct driver of sales. But as anyone on Facebook can see from the sheer number of promoted posts and sponsored stories, that businesses large and small are opening their wallets.

We wanted to learn what’s actually working on Facebook for startups, so we asked a panel of successful entrepreneurs which Facebook advertising strategies they find most useful — and what kind of ROI they’re seeing so far. Here’s what they had to say:

• Using Facebook Paid Ads With a Darwinian Approach
  

  Danny Boice

We primarily use Facebook paid ads for ultra-targeted user acquisition for our freemium product. We are Darwinian in our approach in that we experiment with hundreds (if not thousands) of different images and copy combinations that go to a plethora of landing pages. We double down on the ones that convert at a high rate (assuming the costs are reasonable), and we quickly kill those that don’t.

• Using Facebook Ads to Grow Email Lists
  

  Brett Farmiloe

We’ve used Facebook ads to grow our email lists at very affordable rates. The steps we’ve taken? 1) Define your target. 2) Find out what your target wants. 3) Advertise what your target wants to your target and offer it to them for free or at a discount in exchange for their email address. One example is we identified that an author’s audience was closely aligned with our business philosophies. We ran Facebook ads at the author’s audience and offered our target a free download of the author’s presentation slides in exchange for the target’s email address. By giving a little to get something in return, we spent about 10 cents for each email address, which is something we were happy with.

•  Working With a Growth Hacker
  

  Rob Emrich

We have a great growth hacker working on our team. He uses Facebook in combination with PR to drive traffic to a specific target and has used this for events. Instead of trying to send Facebook traffic to a sales page, he might just send Facebook traffic directly to the article in the press publication. In the past, this resulted in a 7 percent conversion rate and a sold-out event he was promoting.

• Boosting Mobile App Installs
  

  Sean Johnson

We have successfully used Facebook ads to drive installs of multiple iOS apps. One great thing about Facebook is the degree of targeting you can employ. By getting laser focused with our targeting and rigorously testing our ads, we were able to drive app installs for less than 49 cents.

• Retargeting on Facebook Exchange
  

  Andrew Saladino

Retargeting on Facebook works the same as other retargeting. It’s a cost-effective way to market to potential customers who have been to your site but did not make a purchase. You bring the visitor back to your website, and you get a second chance to prove how great your product or service is and keep your brand top of mind. With retargeting on Facebook exchange, we are seeing a 200 percent ROI.

• Hitting Specific Targets
  

  Joseph Recard

 Our company has used Facebook marketing to directly target users we want. We found that the Facebook app Install Ads is showing amazing results in certain markets. It’s a newer feature that they have rolled out, which is how they are planning to monetize their mobile users. But while it’s new, it’s pretty affordable on the conversion rates and relatively easy to use. I can tell you without disclosing too much information that it is a very good medium for now, and the pricing will increase probably four times the amount over the next two years. If you are smart and know your user and your budget to pay for your user, it’s an amazing platform for app installs.

•  Buying Advertising to Find Discussion Group Members
  

  Sarah Schupp

Hands down, the most effective Facebook advertising money I have spent was on finding people to participate in our Facebook discussion group for college parents. We did a sponsored story to people who were not currently our fans. We spent $199 for nearly 200 members. Although this isn’t a ton of people, the real value for me is in having our team see firsthand exactly what issues parents are facing. It really opened our team’s eyes to the emotional difficulties and challenges that our company is focused on solving. This made it worth every penny! Because our company produces a website, we don’t often see the impact we have on families. This group has made our impact real for the team.

• Offering Contests
  

  Josh Weiss

We have used Facebook to promote contests run on our site. Facebook ads got us a ton of entries at a cost below 49 cents per entry, and for each entry, the customer was required to submit his or her email address. This was a very affordable way to grow our list.

Image: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

Gap Buys Up All of Tumblr’s Mobile Ads for a Day – Digital Marketing

Gap wants to create a “pop culture moment” for its fall Back to Blue campaign, and it’s turning to Tumblr to create it.

On Monday morning, Gap issued a call on Tumblr for creators to share, through an original piece of content, what “blue” means to them — blue being, of course, the color of Gap’s logo and of its signature product, the blue jean.

The four winning submissions, as determined by Gap, will be distributed through a mobile ad takeover on Tumblr on Aug. 29. On that day, Gap will purchase every single mobile ad Tumblr runs, the first brand to do so. Tumblr began running mobile ads in late April. The company says its mobile userbase is growing rapidly, and is expected to overtake desktop traffic by early 2014, founder and CEO David Karp has said previously.

By targeting Tumblr’s young, share-happy user base, Gap is betting that it can create a new “pop culture moment” on the Internet, Rachel Tipograph, global director of digital and social media at Gap, tells Mashable. “Pop culture doesn’t really start on TV

anymore,” she says. “Pop culture starts on the Internet. When you think about what community is creating pop culture on the Internet, it’s Tumblr. When you think about what community is creating pop culture on the Internet, it’s Tumblr.”

In a way, Gap is using Tumblr as its own creative agency. “We wanted to partner with the best content creators, give them a chance to make the Back to Blue brief, and then take the best pieces of content and turn them into mobile ads,” Tipograph explains. Winners will not be given cash compensation for their work; the compensation is in the exposure, Tipograph says. She declined to say how much Gap is paying for the mobile takeover.

In addition to the Tumblr push, Gap is making the usual buys in print, outdoor, direct and in-store marketing, plus a return to TV for the first time in four years. The apparel giant has also partnered with two dozen “influencers,” including MTV’s Tanisha Long, to create 250 pieces of content to distribute on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr over the next three months. A spokesperson for the company describes it as Gap’s “broadest-reaching campaign in the company’s modern history.”

Image: Gap

You Can Soon Make Restaurant Reservations on Facebook

The next time you visit a restaurant’s Facebook page on your mobile phone, you’ll be able to do more than browse photos and posts: You’ll also be able to book a table for four.

The feature is part of a new integration with OpenTable, which allows you to make online reservations at about 20,000 U.S. dining establishments. Beginning later this week, the booking service be available on Facebook’s mobile site and newly updated apps for iOS and Android (see below screenshot, left). A Facebook spokesperson says the company plans to gauge use and performance before rolling it out to other platforms, like the desktop.

Since the launch is taking place on mobile, there are some device-specific advantages: Namely, the ability to use Facebook’s “Nearby Places” function to find restaurants in your immediate proximity.

Facebook says its integration is far more seamless than with OpenTable’s other partners, like Yelp and Google Maps, which require you to open a browser window to complete a booking. All reservations can be made without leaving the Facebook app. In fact, you don’t even need to register with OpenTable to make a reservation.

Reservations will not generate any posts in your News Feed, nor will you be able to share a reservation with friends.

Also going out with the Facebook mobile update is a new feature called “Airings on TV.” Facebook has partnered with Rovi so that viewing information — channel, airing time, etc. — will automatically show up on the Facebook pages of TV shows and movies (see above screenshot, right).

A Facebook spokesperson says it’s all about making pages “more useful and actionable for people” — and indeed that’s exactly what Facebook is doing. Existing OpenTable members will no doubt find it easier to make reservations through the OpenTable app, which offers better search functionality across neighborhoods and cuisines, but it’s certainly a welcome improvement for Facebook users. Useful, too, is the viewing information for TV shows and movies.

Image: Flickr, Unique Hotels Group and Facebook

Yahoo to Pay Tumblr’s David Karp $81 Million to Stay for 4 Years

Yahoo filed a 10-Q report with the SEC Thursday, disclosing some additional details about the 10 startups it acquired between the end of March and the end of June — including its biggest one, Tumblr, which cost the company around $1.1 billion.

The filing also reveals Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp’s compensation package. In addition to the estimated $250 million in cash and $29 million in stock he received for selling Tumblr, he’ll also receive a salary of $10 million a year and an additional $41 million worth of stock if he stays on with the company for four years. (Note that the $41 million is current value of the shares, which could go up or down by the time he receives them.)

In addition, the filing reveals just how strapped for cash Tumblr was by the time it sold to Yahoo. Of the $85 million it raised from investors in September 2011, Tumblr had just $16.5 million left. Tumblr was likely feeling pressure to raise more money, and was no doubt having a hard time during the company’s lackluster ad performance. Yahoo’s offer may have come just in time.

Yahoo’s other acquisitions during this period were comparatively modest. The filing shows that the company paid $54 million in total for nine startups, which, based on their announcement dates, we believe include Summly, Astrid, MileWise, GoPollGo, Loki Studios, PlayerScale, GhostBird Software, Rondee and Bignoggins. (We have reached out to Yahoo to confirm.)

Estimates stated that Yahoo paid around $30 million for Summly, and either that figure was too high, or the other eight startups averaged about $3 million apiece.

Image: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Can a Popular Baby Franchise Turn Its Facebook Fans Into Customers?

Talk to most small businesses about social media, and they want to know how to get more fans and followers. But what if you already have a large following? How do you turn those fans into customers?

That’s the challenge Meg Faure, founder of The Baby Sense Company, and Jeremy Pepper, a Los Angeles-based social media and public relations consultant on our Small Business Panel, are taking on this month. Faure is the international bestselling author of Baby Sense, which over the past decade she has expanded into a franchise that includes several more books, a seminar series and an ecommerce business that spans three continents.

Faure and her company are a natural fit for social media: In South Africa especially, she is a well-recognized expert on child care, and the company’s Facebook page and Twitter account are peppered with questions from concerned parents. With a modest marketing budget (less than $500 a month), Baby Sense has amassed more than 31,000 fans on Facebook and 2,400 followers on Twitter.

Faure, who handles both accounts herself, along with a Pinterest page and a UStream blogger profile, posts a variety of content whenever she has a spare moment. Opportunities for fans to ask questions tend to perform best: A recent question posted to Baby Sense’s Facebook page, “What are your pressing baby skincare questions?” elicited 53 comments in four hours. Faure tells Mashable that for one hour once a month, she holds a “Facebook party” where fans can ask her anything, and that she’ll generally receive upwards of 200 questions in that hour. Faure will also post child care tips, and promote new products and upcoming seminars.

Faure says she’s pleased with the engagement she receives on social media, particularly on Facebook. With around 8,000 subscribers to her email newsletter, she feels it’s the best way to get the word out about new products and events. Faure’s also finding ways to monetize her presence on those platforms by mixing sponsors, including Johnson & Johnson, into the feed.

But Faure would like to use Facebook to generate more sales. She said she’s had some success with Offers, but so far most of her Facebook marketing budget is spent on promoting posts and getting more Likes on Baby Sense’s page — which ultimately isn’t converting to many sales, she said. Faure is also looking for a tool to help her schedule, manage and respond to posts. In addition, she has started a Pinterest page but isn’t sure how to optimize her presence there, and wonders if she should even be on Pinterest in the first place.

The Master Plan

Pepper has devised a social media strategy to help Baby Sense achieve its aims — one that spans Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, UStream and email — and fits within Faure’s current advertising budget and limited spare time. The primarily goal is to grow Baby Sense’s online community, seeking out possible paid sponsorship opportunities. The focus will be on Facebook, where Baby Sense’s community is already strongest.

First off, Pepper suggests that Faure develop an editorial calendar and schedule for Facebook and Twitter. That way she can plan and promote events and products, and the community knows when to tune in. He suggests using an app like Buffer to schedule posts.

The editorial voice of Baby Sense’s online profiles also needs to change, Pepper says. Right now the voice is very corporate. Faure needs to be more “Mom to Mom” — more conversational, engaging. Posts on Facebook should be between 200-300 characters with a call to action (tell a story, share an experience, or do you agree/disagree). Faure should spend more time reading and responding to comments on both Facebook and Twitter. She should also be cross-posting and cross-promoting content from Facebook, Twitter and UStream, encouraging users of each platform to participate in live chats on the other platforms. Faure should also create a YouTube channel to index her UStream chats.

As for the newsletter, that too is an important platform for community-building. Subscribers should be alerted to all of the content that’s going out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and UStream, and be encouraged to participate on those networks.

Curious to know how it all goes? We’ll check back in with Faure and Pepper next month.

Image: Flickr, Eric Fleming

Buy Linkedin Company Page Followers – Linkedin marketing

Attracting LinkedIn followers comes with challenges. Namely, LinkedIn Company Pages are not as popular as Facebook pages and company pages haven’t been around as long. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to boost the number of followers your company has, you just might need to dig a little deeper and uncover some less obvious strategies.

15 Strategies to Boost Your Company’s Followers on LinkedIn

• Install the LinkedIn Follow Button on Your Website
• Learn About LinkedIn’s Publishing Tools
• Join LinkedIn Groups or Create Your Own
• Share Your Content
• Post Job Openings
• Cross-Promote on Your Other Social Media Pages
• Ensure Your Staff is on LinkedIn and Get Them to Follow
• Get Your Staff and Co-Workers to Share Your Updates
• Fill Out Your Company Profile From A to Z
• Designate Multiple Admins on Your Company Page
• Add a LinkedIn Company Profile Widget to Your Blog
• Add a Follow Company Link on Your Email Signature
• Create a Follow Campaign with LinkedIn Ads
• Ask People to Follow on Your Company Newsletter
• Analyze Your LinkedIn Business Page Insights

More followers = increased visibility 

• Attract top-quality talent
• Attract new business
• Improve company perception
• Build your brand

So why waiting ? Let us grow your LinkedIn Network  !

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The Next Wave of Ads Knows Everything About You — Before You Do

Welcome to the world of inference advertising, which relies on targeted ads that use your smartphone’s geo-location and social history to serve relevant mobile ads that know what you want, even before you do.

Predictive ads — tailored to your exact location and taste — may sound intrusive, but the idea is to cater to your preferences rather than to spy on you, says Bill Gross, the CEO of UberMedia and founder of the startup incubator Idealab.

“What we’re trying to do is change advertising from intrusive to invited,” Gross says. “The whole focus of UberMedia is to show the right ad at the right time, to the right person.”

A recent campaign for Nike’s new Carmelo Anthony shoe, for example, targeted those who followed New York Knicks players on Twitter or whose smartphones were GPS-tracked on hiking trails, running trails or tennis courts within the last month. When users in Manhattan were within 100 steps of a Foot Locker or Nike store, a shoe-shaped ad directed them to nearest locations of both of those stores.

Ads are served in approximately 100 apps, including some Tribune properties like the L.A. Times’ app. The Nike campaign ran in Echofon for iPhone, UberSocial for iPhone and Android and Plume for Android.

The service uses your phone’s geo-location and data from your social sites, building trackable data points of taste and patterns. The ads are served throughout the day in 15-minute intervals so companies can pick what times to best target customers.

UberMedia analyzed the top 100 auto malls, sports arenas and movie theater complexes in the United States, outlining the individual stores and brands within each location.

“If you actually draw the boundary of a car dealership, and draw the boundary of each brand within [an] auto mall, we know that people in this boundary right here were looking at a Honda,” Gross says.

The company, which is only three years old, appears to be producing results. Gross says his tactics achieve a click-through rate between 5 and 10%, 10 to 20 times more effective than average rates. UberMedia takes a flat rate of 30% off of ad sales.

Gross sold his bid-based pay-per-click company Goto.com for $1.6 billion to Yahoo in 2003. Now, he says he wants to do for mobile what he did for online search: bring value and relevance to audiences and profit to advertisers.

Yet concerns about privacy persist. “UberMedia has a responsibility to users to ensure big brother is not watching over them every single step of the way,” says Raoul Marinescu, a digital sales manager for CBS Television.

Gross claims to be aware of these worries, which is why the service is opt-in. Users who don’t want to be followed can turn it off in their phone’s settings or email UberMedia. No third-party information is sold and tracking is anonymous, meaning it’s only seen by the algorithm to fulfill ads.

“Not only do we not do it because we don’t want to bother anyone, but [privacy invasion has] no benefit to us,” Gross says.

What do you think of predictive ads? Do they creep you out, or do you think it’s the next wave of advertising? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: Blakespot; screenshots courtesy of UberMedia

Source : Mashable

Good News For Digital And Social Media Agencies In India. AICC Is Planning To Hire

Congress To Hire 50 Social Media Activists For 2014 General Elections. Isn’t It Late?

The country will witness Lok Sabha (Lower House) elections in 2014. Once again we would see the politicians coming out on the streets, knocking the doors of the common man and begging for their valuable votes. Political party promotions would see a lot of investments made for social media. The All India Congress Party, that has been ruling the country for the last two terms, has finally started scouting for a suitable digital or social media agency. The story was reported by Excahnge4Media.

The call for a pitch from various digital and social media agencies would be monitored by Deepender Singh Hooda, Member of Parliament, Haryana, and Vikramjeet Singh, President, Punjab Youth Congress. However, Digvijay Singh, Congress General Secretary will be taking the final decision for assigning the duties to the chosen agency.

With less than a year’s time, the AICC has pulled up its socks to create a better presence, impress the youth especially from urban areas and to manage its online reputation along with counter attacking its biggest rival party. The move is nothing to be appreciated for two reasons – 1) It is a late move, and 2) Politicians think that social media is still a supplement and has a long way to go before it becomes main stream.

The last time we had heard from AICC was when it had planned to rope in Twitter influentials like Shashi Tharoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Shabana Azmi and other techno savvy leaders to spread its message. The idea is to have these eminent personalities who have a great presence on social media, to drive the AICC party’s message. These would not only deal countering negative sentiments but also disseminate information about the party’s stand on trending issues and also the accomplishments of the party.

Getting a specialized agency would definitely change things but will that be enough to save the soul of AICC online or compete against a party like BJP who have been the torch bearers at least on social media. Furthermore, how would AICC handle the situation if there is an early election in 2013?

Image courtesy: www.ndtv.com

Are There Fake Users on Social Media? – Want a social media Audit ?

It seems as if now a day everyone throughout the world has some type of Social Media account. Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. Tumblr. Google +. You name it. Grandmas to young kids now know how to browse through these different sites. But how do we know that the person behind the profile is real? Could the profile be fake—someone posing to be another person or a business creating fake users to get fans & followers? How are we supposed to figure out the real from the phony?

We’ve seen it on MTV’s Catfish. People pretend to be someone their not on Facebook, make another person fall in love with them and potentially ruin the relationship they have found themselves in. Seems to be a bit fishy… I don’t know why people hide behind a photo and are afraid to be who they are. When you look around there are so many different ads, books, and websites that influence you be yourself and love the person you are inside and out. No one should be hiding behind the computer screen. Embrace who you are and forget about the fake profile!

Businesses even buy fake fans & followers to help boost their popularity on their Social Media sites. By getting these high numbers, the account shows an indication of power over other pages and makes you feel like you need to follow the business as well. I get it, you want to get a lot of people to follow you on Twitter and Facebook, but do they really have to buy these followers to achieve it?

Some Social media agencies on the other hand create compelling content to engage current fans and inspire them to share out material. They help to increase a company’s fan volume organically. Why can’t businesses do the same?

It seems as if Turkey has kind of the right idea. The country is cracking down on fake users and banning the opening of “fake” Social Media accounts. Its government is trying to regulate online activity and attempting to stop various protests that have been going on. Turkish people are using Facebook and Twitter to protest against the government and their Prime Minister believes that Social Media is the key element to plot against him. He obviously wants to stop this from happening and is doing everything he legally can to do it… Ok, users from Turkey may not be pulling a catfish or try to buy fake fans &  follower for a business, but the issue of “fake profiles” is seen everywhere!

Twitter has been really trying to crack down on their fake users as well. Digitrock helps you out by auditing  to figure out who is phony and who is real. Digitrock will allow you to see if your fans & followers are real, fake, or inactive. Digitrock also help you to find out whether a friend is fake or not. However, WikiHow explains a couple of ways to investigate and see if someone is phony. Basically, be aware of who you accept as a friend, read their profile, see who their friends are and be alert for instances when they may post something weird. It’s up to you to figure out who is real and fake throughout these sites. Check it out and see how many of your friends or followers aren’t real!

Digitrock helps  out business by auditing their Facebook Fan Pages & Twitter Profiles.

For auditing mail us at [email protected]

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Call : 9004809090/ 9654343424 

Foursquare Starts Showing Ads After You Check In

Next time you check in to a location on Foursquare, you may see an ad pop up right after.

AdAge reports that brands like Toys ‘R’ Us and Captain Morgan have started placing ads that appear after users check in to locations on Foursquare. Users who check in at a bar may see a Captain Morgan ad encouraging them to order specific drinks, while users who check in at a park may be shown a Toys ‘R’ Us coupon.

A Foursquare rep confirmed to Mashable that the ads started rolling out over the last several weeks. According to the rep, Foursquare charges on a cost-per-action basis rather than a cost-per-click basis, meaning Foursquare only makes money if users click the ad to get more information or check in to an advertiser’s physical location (such as a Toys ‘R’ Us store) within a certain period of time.

The post check-in ad product is Foursquare’s latest attempt to boost revenue. Multiple reports claimed that Foursquare was on pace to generate just $2 million in revenue last year. Earlier this year, Foursquare raised $41 million to prove its business model can work.

Image: Flickr,John Fischer
Source : Mashable