Messenger once allowed users to chat across platforms, but now Meta is emphasizing the app’s ties to Facebook.
Meta’s Messenger has a new logo set in Facebook blue.
The instant messaging app dropped the multicolour gradient used in its previous logo for a solid blue that matches the shade used by Meta’s flagship app. Some small, subtle refinements were also made to the lightning-bolt shape inside the Messenger logo’s word-bubble mark. Secondary versions of the logo appear in black or white.
“We often refine our designs to enhance the look and feel of our products,” a Meta spokesperson tells Fast Company. “In this spirit, you’ll find that we’ve updated the Messenger colour palette.”
Online, some suggested the change was made because of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comment that his company needed more “masculine energy,” or his hopes to get back to the feeling of “OG Facebook.” Regardless, the colour change just so happens to be a delayed reflection of the app’s diminished cross-platform communications capabilities.
[Images: Meta]
Messenger was originally known as Facebook Chat, but Facebook spun its instant messaging services into a stand-alone app in 2014. The light-to-dark-blue gradient of the Messenger logo when it launched matched the gradient of Facebook’s logo at the time. In 2020, Messenger rebranded to the multicolour gradient that it used up until last month.
Though Meta eventually did announce last year it would acquiesce to the EU’s Digital Markets Act and open up Messenger as well as its other messaging app, WhatsApp, to third-party chats for users in the European Union, the new Messenger logo suggests the company is still set on linking Messenger to Facebook.
“Messenger is a messaging app from Facebook,” Messenger’s brand guide says. That connection is now made crystal clear with colour.
There is an exodus of users who are ditching Meta platforms following the decision to end fact checking.
Apparently not everyone is ready to live in a post-truth world. In the wake of Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will ditch professional fact-checkers in favour of a Community Notes-style crowdsourcing approach to accountability, searches for deleting Meta accounts have spiked significantly.
Searches for “how to delete Facebook” and “how to delete Instagram” peaked in the days following the announcement that accuracy is no longer a priority for posting on the platforms, according to Google Trends data. Related searches like “how to quit Facebook,” “how to delete threads account,” and “how to delete Instagram account without logging in” have also achieved breakout trend status, meaning they have seen 5,000% increases or higher in interest, as TechCrunch pointed out.
Fittingly, Facebook competitors are also seeing a spike in interest. Bluesky saw a nearly 1,000% increase in searches during the same period that saw people looking to exit the Meta-verse of social apps. Zuckerberg accused people leaving his company’s platforms of “virtue signalling,” presumably because he assumes everyone is as deeply unscrupulous and malleable as he is and wouldn’t do anything simply out of principle.
Alas, for those looking for a landing spot, there aren’t a lot of suitable replacements for platforms like Instagram—or Facebook, for that matter—for folks looking to leave the platforms behind as they turn into post-factAI slop factories.
Of course, that should not stop you from trying to limit your exposure to the tentacles of the monster that is Meta. And just statistically speaking, since you likely landed here by searching something along the lines of “how to delete facebook,” the least we can do is give you what you’re looking for. You get your guide, we get some clicks, and everyone leaves happy.
How to Delete Your Facebook Account
A quick preface here: Facebook, through what could probably best be described as a wilfully inefficient user interface, has created a labyrinthian maze of menus that you have to navigate in order to find the option to delete your account—and that maze will be different depending on what operating system, platform, and version of the Facebook that you are accessing.
That said, if you are on an iPhone or Android device:
Click the three-bar “Menu” button on the bottom right of the Facebook app
Tap the “Settings & privacy” header
If “Accounts Center” appears in this menu, tap it. If it doesn’t, tap “Settings” and the app should redirect you to “Accounts Center” following a popup explaining its function
Tap “Personal details”
Tap “Account ownership and control”
Tap “Deactivation or deletion”
Choose the account or profile you want to delete
Tap “Delete account”
Tap “Continue” and follow the instructions on screen to confirm
If Accounts Center appears for you, you should be able to delete your Facebook and Instagram accounts at the same time, assuming they are linked together.
If you are viewing Facebook on a desktop, the same steps apply, except your first step is to click your profile picture in the top right. From here, find “Settings & privacy” and follow the same steps as above.
Regardless if you are on desktop or mobile apps, if the Accounts Center doesn’t appear for you, do the following:
Follow steps 1 and 2 above
Once in “Settings & privacy,” tap “Profile Access and Control”
Tap “Deactivation and Deletion”
Choose “Delete Account” and tap “Continue to Account Deletion”
Follow the instructions on screen to confirm
How to Delete Your Instagram Account
If your Instagram account is not linked to your Facebook account, you can delete it separately in the iOS and Android app by doing the following:
Tap “profile” or your profile picture in the bottom right
Tap the three-bar “More” menu on the top right
Tap “Accounts Center”
Tap “Personal details”
Tap “Account ownership and control”
Tap “Deactivation or deletion”
Tap the account you’d like to delete
Tap “Delete account”
Tap “Continue” and follow the steps on screen to confirm
If you’re visiting Instagram on desktop, your first step will be to Click “More” on the bottom left of the screen, then click Settings. From there, follow steps 3 through 9 above.
“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Connor Hayes, Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI, told the FT. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that’s where we see all of this going.”
While it’s unclear when this plan will move forward, Hayes said that there are already “hundreds of thousands” of characters that have been created on the site — though most, for now, remain private.
“Translation: ‘Our real users are quitting the platform, so we will fill our community with fake users instead,'” one user wrote.
As another aptly put it, “the advertisers buying space on [Facebook] won’t be able to tell the difference either, so it’s all just more clicks and more ad revenue.”
The potential implications for advertising on the platform overall seemed to strike a chord with the Redditors.
“With advertising being their bread and butter and pretty much the reason they still exist, how is this legal and not misrepresenting numbers to clients?” another user mused. “If they tell advertisers that they get X number of impressions, engagement, etc. but those aren’t real people anymore, that seems like straight up lying. Wild that they’re just coming right out with it and doubling down.”
For others, the prospect of fake users is yet another reason they’re ditching Facebook.
“I rarely check my FB feed at all anymore, and when I do it’s almost entirely made up of pages I don’t follow and have never interacted with,” another user wrote. “There’s no way to actually get rid of them, just briefly mute them. So now we can look forward to our actual contacts being even harder to see among a bunch of fictitious users too.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s horrible changes for Instagram — and Facebook — have become untenable, writes Lennon Torres.
Mark Zuckerberg stood up in the Senate hearing room on Capitol Hill, turned around, and began to speak. It was hard to hear him over the camera clicks. I felt the room lift behind me as bereaved parents held up photos of their dead kids, lost to suicide or exploitation following exposure to Zuckerberg’s online platforms. I realized I was standing by the time I could make out any of his words. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through,” he said.
This deeply craven and dangerous reversal, ostensibly to reduce “censorship” from Meta platforms, will make Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp even more unsafe for LGBTQ+ users. That’s why, after 13 years on Instagram, amassing 80,000 followers, and having monetarily benefited from being an influencer, I am finally leaving Instagram.
I initially joined Instagram because it was what all of my friends were doing. As a young dancer featured on television shows, it was a place to build and maintain connections and community. It was also a business, a place where I could earn money for more dance training and raise awareness about causes and issues I cared deeply about. But over time, due to policy and content moderation decisions made — or not made — by Meta, it went from something fun and engaging to something that fuelled anxiety, took over my childhood, and ultimately caused harm to me and people I love.
At the end of the day, social media is a product of its environment, and the environment is getting worse. The rise in hate speech on social media has become a significant concern in recent years. Meta’s decision to end its fact-checking program and ease content moderation will only add to the increase in harmful behaviours, including harassment and hate speech, especially if Zuckerberg implements something similar to X’s community notes. Giving anyone with a valid phone number and six months of a clean record on the platform the status of “approved moderator,” a status kept anonymous, is not enough to keep harmful disinformation and hate speech from spreading.
That doesn’t mean members of the LGBTQ+ community should lose hope entirely. There are people fighting to hold technology companies accountable and to make online spaces better. It’s important that young LGBTQ+ people know that there are people, like my colleagues at Heat Initiative, fighting for Big Tech to clean up their act, so that isolated members of the LGBTQ+ community aren’t forced to turn to dangerous online experiences when their in-person community fails them. The unfortunate reality is that, right now, the LGBTQ+ community is harmed disproportionally more on these platforms than their peers. Zuckerberg’s actions will only accelerate the risks that young LGBTQ+ people face on Meta’s platforms.
Lennon Torres protesting an an Apple store for the Heat Initiative.Credit: Photo by Johnny Makes
But no one in the LGBTQ+ community should be under the illusion that social media or the newest technology will inherently increase connection or belonging. At least not without thorough protections. After I saw that even Apple CEO Tim Cook, a so-called LGBTQ+ advocate, donated $1 million dollars to the Trump Inauguration and sat directly behind the now president as he took the presidential oath, I was reminded again that technology CEOs are focused only on protecting their power. That unsettling realization and Zuckerberg’s announcement left me asking myself if I will keep using these platforms. Our LGBTQ+ community must come to terms with the fact that tech tycoons like Zuckerberg, Musk and Cook don’t have our best interests at heart. Ever.
Ultimately, we have to reckon with the fact that Meta’s new policies are just the latest in a long line of decisions that have put LGBTQ+ users at risk on their platforms. To know they have a ton of hate speech on their platforms, are building algorithms meant to addict young users to their products for life, and are actively moving to ensure less content safety, I can’t sit idly by and use their platforms. Zuckerberg is taking the company in a fundamentally dangerous direction.
It is so clear to me that the young and wild toxic relationship of my youth was not with a romantic partner or friend, but with Mark Zuckerberg and the products he has built to imprison and profit off of our attention. And like many exes do, he sticks around uninvited — and I am certainly done giving him a pass.
Feature Image Credit: Rob Dobi for Getty Images
By Lennon Torres
Lennon Torres is an LGBTQ+ advocate who grew up in the public eye, gaining national recognition as a young dancer on television shows. With a deep passion for storytelling, advocacy, and politics, Lennon now works to center the lived experience of herself and others as she crafts her professional career in online child safety at Heat Initiative, aiming to bridge the gap between online safety and LGBTQ+ representation through intentionally inclusive strategies. Lennon’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennon-torres-325b791b4/
People who are angry with the decision accuse Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of cosying up to the Trump administration at the expense of turning the company’s social media platforms into more of a hotbed for misinformation and polarizing speech than they already are. Zuckerberg’s remarks that the company’s third-party fact checkers were “too politically biased” for his vision of “free expression” probably didn’t help matters.
Since Meta’s announcement, many users have called out inconsistencies with Zuckerberg’s newfound commitment to free speech. Meta admitted in mid-January that it blocked links to Pixelfed, an Instagram competitor. And just days after Zuckerberg took a front row seat in President Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Instagram blocked searches related to a number of political hashtags, including #democrats and #jan6th.
People outside the U.S. might be considering their options, too. Meta says it will keep fact-checkers in markets outside the U.S. “for now,” but things could change.
So if you, like countless others, have had it with Meta’s algorithms whipping you into a frenzy over [insert cultural or political issue here] and are tired of the company slurping up your data to train its AI or send you targeted advertising and political messaging, then read on.
How to download your Facebook archive
Image Credits:Meta
If you’re really set on deleting (and not just deactivating) your Facebook account, you should download your personal information from the Facebook archives, which includes photos, active sessions, chat history, IP addresses, facial recognition data, and ads you clicked on.
Note that these instructions require a computer and a web browser, not a mobile phone.
Here’s what to do:
Click the down arrow under your profile picture in the upper-right corner.
Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Scroll down on the left-hand column till you get to Your information, and click Download your information.
You will be prompted to visit the Accounts Centre. Click Continue.
When the pop-up appears, click Download or transfer information.
You can choose information from which accounts, including your Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Horizon accounts, to download. Click Next.
Choose how much information you want to download, and click Next. Note from FB: “If you select Specific types of information, you will be able to choose which kinds of information you want to download, including data logs.”
Decide if you want to download your info to a device or directly transfer your info to a destination and click Next.
If you select Transfer to destination, you can choose the destination and schedule future transfers. Once you make your selection, click Start transfer and enter your Facebook profile password.
If you select Download to device, choose your file options. There will be a list that lets you create a date range, and you can download in HTML or JSON, and choose between high, medium, or low media quality.
Click Submit request.
How to delete your Facebook account
Image Credits:Meta
Note: If you do delete your account, you cannot regain access to it. Facebook delays deletion for a few days after it’s requested and will cancel your deletion request if you log back into Facebook during this time.
Also worth noting, some information like messaging history isn’t stored in your account, so your friends might still have access to messages you sent after your account is deleted.
With that in mind, here’s how to do it:
Click your profile picture in the top right corner.
Go to Settings & Privacy > Settings.
Click Accounts Centre at the top left of the screen.
Click Personal details, under Account Settings.
Click Account ownership and control.
Click Deactivation or deletion.
Choose the account or profile you want to deactivate.
Select Delete account.
Click Continue and follow instructions to confirm.
How to download your Instagram information
There are two ways to find the web page where you’ll download your Instagram information — you go through the Accounts Center or your Instagram Settings. For the former, navigate to Your information and permissions to find Download your information. To get to Instagram Settings, click on the three parallel lines on the bottom left of your screen, then click Your activity…
Either of those steps will take you to the Download your information page. You’ll need to click the profiles you want to download your information from and choose if you want to download it to a device or directly transfer the information to another destination.
If you select Download to device, you’ll have to pick a date range, notification email, format of your download request, and quality of photos, videos, and other media — the same as with downloading your Facebook info. Then click Create files.
Once you’ve made the request, it’ll appear as In progress under the Current Activity tab in the Download your information tool. Instagram will notify you by email and on the app when it’s ready to go, and you’ll have four days to download the information.
How to delete your Instagram account
Downloaded your info? Now you’re ready to permanently delete.
Once your account is deleted, you can sign back up with the same username if it’s still available, if you have a change of heart.
How to delete your Threads account
Note: If you delete the Instagram account associated with your Threads profile, that will also delete your Threads profile.
But to delete only Threads, you’ll need to go to the Threads.net web page on a computer, and follow these steps:
Click the two parallel lines in the bottom left of the page, then click Settings.
Click Account at the top, then Deactivate or delete profile.
Click Delete profile.
Follow whatever prompts show up, then click Delete Threads profile.
It’ll take 30 days for the deletion request to go through. And if you want to sign back up with the same Instagram profile, you’ll have to wait 90 days.
Feature Image Credits: Alex Wong / Staff / Getty Images
Facebook announced that it will roll out a new monetization program called Facebook Content Monetization Beta. This program will merge in-stream ads, Ads on Reels, and the Performance Bonus into a single initiative. Creators will be compensated for Reels, longer videos, photos, and text posts based on a performance-based payout model.
Facebook also reported that:
It has paid out creators $2 billion in the past year alone, following its expansion from compensating creators for longer videos to other content formats.
Payouts for Reels and short-form videos have grown by more than 80 percent.
Currently, only one-third of creators who monetize on Facebook do so through more than one Facebook-funded program.
The new program will be available in 2025, but creators can learn more and express their interest in the program here.
Why It Matters: Facebook is simplifying its monetization programs for creators by consolidating what were previously multiple programs, which had varying availability, eligibility requirements, and sign-up processes, under one umbrella. This streamlined approach will make it easier for creators to participate in and earn from Facebook’s monetization opportunities.
Despite paying out billions to creators in the past year—though still much smaller than YouTube’s $70 billion over the last three years—Facebook often doesn’t receive enough recognition for the opportunities it offers on its platform. However, with recent moves to create a more TikTok-like video experience and its push to attract Gen Z, we can expect an uptick in creators investing their time and resources in Facebook.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?”
A hot potato: For almost as long as we’ve had smartphones, there has been the belief that they surreptitiously listen to our spoken conversations to serve us targeted ads; most people have experienced seeing an ad on Facebook for something they were recently talking about. It’s always been claimed that this type of privacy invasion doesn’t happen. However, a marketing agency, whose clients included Facebook and Google, has admitted to using an “Active Listening” feature that eavesdrops on conversations via phone mics to gather data.
A pitch deck from Cox Media Group (CMG), seen by 404 Media, states that the marketing firm uses its AI-powered Active Listening software to capture real-time data by listening to phone users’ conversations. The slide adds that advertising clients can pair the gathered voice data with behavioural data to target in-market consumers.
The deck notes that consumers “leave a data trail based on their conversations and online behaviour” and that Active Listening collects and analyses behavioural and voice data from 470+ sources.
It’s also revealed that CMG’s clients include Facebook, Google, and Amazon, though it doesn’t specify if they used the Active Listening tool.
When 404 Media reached out to Google for comment about its relationship with CMG, the search giant removed the group from its Partners Program site, suggesting it no longer works with the agency.
“All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action,” a Google spokesperson told The New York Post.
Meta, meanwhile, says it will investigate CMG to see if the agency violated any of its terms of service. “Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
Amazon said it has never worked with CMG on the program and has no plans to do so. The tech giant said it would take legal action against any partner that violates its terms of service.
Cox acknowledged the legal implications of its Active Listening tech in a now-deleted (but archived) blog post from November 2023. “We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” it asks.
The agency claims that it is legal for phones and devices to listen to users. Cox says this is made possible by including consent to use Active Listening in the multi-page terms of use agreements – which few people ever read – that appear with new app downloads or updates.
404 Media first reported on CMG’s Active Listening tech in December.
Back in 2017, Facebook’s then-president of ads, Rob Goldman, said the platform doesn’t and has never used phone microphones to serve ads. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to repeat the denial to Congress a year later, while he was answering questions about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russian election interference.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?”
Actively Creepy
In a pitch deck to prospective customers, one of Facebook’s alleged marketing partners explained how it listens to users’ smartphone microphones and advertises to them accordingly.
As 404 Media reports based on documents leaked to its reporters, the TV and radio news giant Cox Media Group (CMG) claims that its so-called “Active Listening” software uses artificial intelligence to “capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations.”
“Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioural data to target in-market consumers,” the deck continues.
In the same slideshow, CMG counted Facebook, Google, and Amazon as clients, though it didn’t specify whether they were involved in the “Active Listening” service. After 404 reached out to Google about its partnership, the tech giant removed the media group from the site for its “Partners Program.”
A Meta spokesperson also pushed back in a statement, saying that CMG was a general partner, not a partner in the program advertised in the deck.
“Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” the statement read. “We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”
And an Amazon spokesperson told 404 that its Ads arm “has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.”
Ill-Fated Admissions
This latest leak marks the third time in a year that 404 has reported on CMG’s shady voice targeting service. Last December, the independent news site not only put a marketing company on blast for boasting about such creepy tech on its podcast, and also revealed the existence of CMG’s Active Listening feature.
Together with this latest update to the CMG saga, these stories bolster longstanding suspicions about advertisers using our phones to listen to us.
“We know what you’re thinking. Is this even legal?” a since-deleted Cox blog post from November 2023 noted. “It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page term of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included.”
Beyond taking a big game, CMG did not cop to how it acquires its alleged voice data, instead saying only that it can identify users who are “ready-to-buy” and create targeted ad lists based on their interests. For this service, the media group that specializes in hyperlocal news charges $100 per day to target folks in a 10-mile radius, and $200 per day to target those in a 20-mile radius.
CMG didn’t respond to questions about the story.
Given that the company boasted about it on its public — and still archived — website before anyone began paying attention, however, it seems like it would be pretty hard at this juncture to deny that it was charging for its eavesdropping services.
Updated with a denial from Meta that it’s involved in the Active Listening program.
Scroll through your Facebook feed, and you’ll get pelted by advertisements begging for a click. Like any other type of post, these ads allow you to react. Often, you’ll notice that one or more of your friends has already “liked” them.
Advertisers hope that a high number of such endorsements, especially from familiar faces, might make users more likely to click. But new research from Texas McCombs finds it depends on the type of ad—and the type of friend.
The wrong ads and friends could have the opposite effect, making a viewer less likely to click. So say Ashish Agarwal, associate professor of information, risk, and operations management (IROM), and Andrew Whinston, professor of IROM. Whinston is also the Hugh Roy Cullen Centennial Chair in Business Administration and director of the Centre for Research in Electronic Commerce at The University of Texas at Austin.
Agarwal, Whinston, and Shun-Yang Lee of Northeastern University focused on call-to-action (CTA) ads. Such ads use assertive wording to urge users to do something specific, such as purchase a product or download a mobile app. They’re different from the passive wording of informational ads, which politely invite users to click to “learn more.”
Advertisers tend to prefer CTA ads, Agarwal says, because they put social media users “directly into purchase mode.” But past research had shown a downside to CTA ads: They often rubbed users the wrong way, especially when people felt manipulated.
The researchers wondered whether an accumulation of “likes” could overcome that resistance.
Agarwal asks, “Given that these are assertive ads, how would these social cues help or hurt?”
The team conducted two rounds of studies.
In a field experiment, they teamed up with a mobile app developer to place a CTA ad on Facebook, asking users to download an app. It appeared 710,445 times, resulting in 799 “likes” and 4,052 clicks.
For a lab test, they evaluated different combinations of ads and cues: informational vs. CTA and generic “likes” vs. “likes” from friends. Each of the 982 study participants provided the names of five friends.
The studies found that users had different responses, depending on the ad and the cue. For informational ads, more “likes” led to more clicks. The odds of a click rose 3% for every 100 generic likes and even more—21%—for each “like” by a friend.
For CTA ads, the opposite was true. The overall number of “likes” had no meaningful impact on clicks.
But “likes” from friends did have effects—both ways. They were positive or negative, depending on whether a user believed a friend had similar or dissimilar interests.
Having similar interests increased the odds of a click by 180%.
Having dissimilar interests decreased the odds by 66%.
Why the difference? In a follow-up lab study, the team found that users responded negatively to CTA ads, because they felt advertisers were trying to manipulate them. They saw the highlighting of “likes” as part of that strategy.
They set aside that resistance, though, when they saw that friends with similar interests “liked” an ad. They saw the ad as having higher credibility.
By contrast, they found informational ads less intrusive than CTAs. They felt less resistance and were more open to being swayed by “likes.”
The team’s findings have implications for advertisers, Agarwal says, as well as for social media companies that rely on advertising revenue. Displaying “likes” may be effective for informational ads but not for CTAs.
“You have to be a bit careful about the value of these endorsements,” Agarwal says. “Maybe social media companies can make their presence optional. Maybe advertisers should have a choice: Do I want my content to be promoted with these endorsements or not?”
The research is published in the journal Information Systems Research.
When it comes to advertising your business, you no longer need months of planning and preparation to launch your campaigns.
When I started my advertising and PR agency over 22 years ago, it took weeks of planning to write clients’ ads, design show-stopping pieces and then manage all of the production for an integrated print, TV and outdoor campaign.
Nowadays, you can launch a social media campaign within a few minutes and then scale it overnight, internationally if you want. You can wake up to a calendar full of potential clients who are all warmed up and waiting to engage your company’s services.
Here are four tactics to use when you’re rolling out ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
1. Be Aware Of Your Audience
Who is your target audience? Knowing your audience is crucial not only for setting up your campaign objectives but also for designing your creative. Not sure where to start? You can use tools like Google Analytics and Facebook’s Audiences section to discover information about your existing customers and identify their key interests and behaviours.
Having a great understanding of your audience also helps you craft your ad copy. You want to ensure that you communicate with your target audience in a tone that will resonate with them.
The great thing about Facebook is that it also offers look-alike audiences that allow you to reach potential new customers based on the attributes of your existing audience. You can simply upload a list of email addresses of current clients and then Facebook will automatically create a look-alike audience for you.
2. Prioritize The Meta Pixel
Properly installing the Meta pixel on your site, landing pages or customer relationship management tool is crucial. The pixel is a powerful way to track your ad audience’s behaviour on your site and then optimize the performance of your ads.
Installing the Meta pixel on your website allows you to track who is viewing your site, what products they add to their cart and what purchases they make. The pixel also can help with conversion tracking. This allows you to determine which ads produce the most conversions so you can optimize accordingly. Using the pixel as part of a retargeting strategy helps you further advertise to those who have visited your site or abandoned their shopping cart.
3. Optimize Often
Make sure you are continuously optimizing your Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns as things can change quickly. Even if you’ve hit a home run with winning creative, after a while I guarantee that your cost per lead will increase dramatically. At this point, you could either increase your budget or go back to the drawing board and start running new creative.
When testing new creative ideas, make use of Facebook’s A/B testing option, which allows you to see quickly which is the winning creative so you can roll out the ad that will ultimately perform the best.
Monitoring your daily ad spend is important as well. Although it seems like a given, many people set up their ads and don’t look that often at their ROI. You should pause any ads that aren’t meeting your advertising goals so you can give more weight to those that are.
Another metric to take note of is your ad frequency. I’ve found that ads with a frequency of two or more often start getting more expensive to run as your target audience may have ad fatigue, which can lead to a decrease in engagement.
4. Integrate Your Campaigns With Your CRM
Once your social media ads are up and running, integrate your CRM software with your Meta Ads Manager platform so your leads will be emailed to you in real time, and then you or your sales team can reach out to them promptly.
I also recommend setting up automated workflows in your CRM so you can keep prospective customers warm by drip-feeding them emails about you and your company throughout the month. You could even create an AI chatbot to engage with them and sell via a text messaging campaign. I have done this for my own company.
Running paid social media campaigns is a great way to grow your business without spending a fortune if you are doing it correctly. By taking a methodical approach, determining your goal upfront, testing creative along the way and monitoring your return on investment, you can be sure that you are setting your company up for success.
Adrian Falk, Founder of Believe Advertising & PR | Helping Entrepreneurs Scale Through PR & Digital Marketing | Best-Selling. Author. Read Adrian Falk’s full executive profile here.
