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Facebook is introducing an all-new brand. Here’s why

November 11, 2019 No Comments

One of the world’s most recognizable companies, Facebook has spent almost a year devising a new corporate identity.

Facebook used to be a website. Then it became an app. But even as the company rapidly expanded, it made sense to keep calling it “Facebook.” Then Facebook started buying other companies and apps, like WhatsApp and Instagram. It acquired its own virtual reality division with Oculus. It announced its own cryptocurrency with all sorts of partners in the banking industry. All of a sudden, Facebook stood for a lot more than an app. Yet, awkwardly, it was still the name of an app!

Today, Facebook—the company—has taken a big step in clarifying its identity as a corporation that owns many apps and companies. It’s launching an all-new brand that’s nearly a year in the making. Call it FACEBOOK.

[Image: Facebook]

The key to the new identity is an all-caps logo, which is meant to signify Facebook as a company. Meanwhile, the lowercase “f” logo and “facebook” wordmark will designate the social network’s app and desktop site as it did before. Note that nothing within Facebook’s existing corporate structure is changing as part of this branding announcement. Rather, this is Facebook reestablishing its identity as it becomes a more complicated—and scrutinized—company.

“It’s inspired by this realization that when one hears ‘Facebook,’ they almost automatically think about the Facebook app. [That’s] just a subset of the products and services that are part of the Facebook company,” says Luke Woods, VP of Design at Facebook. “Our hope is with a distinction between the company and app, it will help provide people with a little bit more clarity, clarity that a number of different products they might use that are part of this larger Facebook company.”

As Woods acknowledges, a recent Pew Research poll found that only 29% of respondents knew that WhatsApp and Instagram are actually owned by Facebook. I float that perhaps this was a good approach for users who might be wary of Facebook’s privacy track record. But Woods says that they know people value corporate transparency—and Facebook has conducted some of its own research regarding Facebook’s brands that confirm this. The ambiguity across its many brands and apps been a point of growing concern for Facebook since it acquired the business advertising tool Atlas in 2013. But it wasn’t until 2019 that the company added “from Facebook” to the titles of WhatsApp and Instagram, clarifying their ownership.

[Image: Facebook]

The FACEBOOK identity is meant to finish this brand-defining work. The logo’s characters are familiar but not an actual typeface you know; they were all custom-drawn with assistance from an unnamed external studio. The new logo will sometimes be shortened to a simpler “FB” and appear in place of the “from Facebook” message that features on many of the company’s platforms now.

The logo’s all-caps letterforms, rendered in bold lines, are a confident statement for sure. This is not a company that’s cowering in the face of heightened governmental scrutiny. It is FACEBOOK.

To link together many platforms, the new FACEBOOK logo changes color to match context. On Instagram, it’s a purple gradient. On WhatsApp, it’s a solid lime green. When it’s just the corporate entity, it’s a blue-grey, the graphic design equivalent of a corporate lawyer’s wool suit.

You’ll note the “A” and the “K” each have a quirky curve to them, the “E” and “B” letters are uncommonly wide for the context, and the tracking between letters is verging on too airy by most proportions.

[Image: Facebook]

These idiosyncrasies do have some practical purpose. “With all-caps, it’s really tricky to imbue a lot of emotion and unique characters,” says Zach Stubenvoll, design director. The custom curves and spacing also serve as interventions to ensure that Facebook’s logo doesn’t look like any other word art you might whip up in a Google Doc.

Why didn’t FACEBOOK just rename its corporate entity, instead of going through such a difficult design exercise to distinguish the app from the company through colors and caps?

“Certainly, at the onset of any work we’re doing, we consider a whole host and broad range of possibilities,” says Woods. “We think though, we always have been and always will be Facebook. And it’s very important we’re true to that. And we honor that. That’s not something we’re looking to shy away from.”

By Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson is a senior writer at Fast Company who has written about design, technology, and culture for almost 15 years. His work has appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, Esquire, American Photo and Lucky Peach More

Sourced from FastCompany

In News

Why I Removed My Children’s Images From Instagram and Facebook

November 1, 2019 No Comments

By Cillian Kieran

Who knows what these data-hungry platforms will do with the photos down the line

My wife and I recently removed all images of our children from Instagram. Like most people, I don’t trust Facebook, Instagram’s parent company very much, these days.

This fact isn’t so remarkable in and of itself, but it begs the question of why. Of course, there’s the oft-cited Cambridge Analytica scandal, but across history, brands have had various scandals that touched their users and managed to emerge relatively unscathed.

So then why do I, like so many other people, have a deeply ingrained trust deficit with Facebook and, more broadly, big tech? And is the cause of this something more serious that other brands should be observing and planning for?

This isn’t a product issue per se. On the surface, Facebook is a great consumer product. It offers a host of services, largely free, that connect us with our nearest and dearest, keeping us in contact in a way that would have been unimaginable before it existed. Sounds great, right? Yet people don’t like Facebook. Indeed, the company has a serious trust issue. A 2018 Trust Index of U.S. adults by Jebbit found that Facebook had the lowest consumer trust score (3.1) of any surveyed brand. How a company that offers such a great, valuable product could come to be disliked and distrusted so strongly speaks to the changing nature of trust in the data-driven internet era.

There are two issues at play here. The first is the lack of understanding that consumers have of just how much data is being collected about them and how deeply this is mined to synthesize incredibly personal insight. The lesson that Cambridge Analytica should have taught us is not simply that elections can be manipulated, but that we can be simultaneously susceptible to deep suggestions and unaware that it’s happening. This is covert mass manipulation.

Allowing any company to accumulate a pattern of your child’s behaviour or facial characteristics from birth to early adulthood is a treasure trove of data.

The second is a lack of understanding as to how this data may be used in years to come. The information we expose about ourselves or our children may not seem relevant today, but allowing any company to accumulate a pattern of your child’s behaviour or facial characteristics from birth to early adulthood is a treasure trove of data that, in decades to come will be mined, analysed and exploited in ways even engineers have not yet considered today. This is the risk. You’re placing your data (and faith) in a future state of technology driven by process automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence that no one yet quite has a grasp on.

Here’s a thought experiment, none of which is beyond even current technology. Suppose you have a public Instagram feed with photos of your children posted over several years. As a young adult, your child applies for health insurance. In this future universe, the systems that exist within the insurer’s actuarial armory have already scraped the photos from their childhood and noted an excessive amount of time in bright sunlight, and using skin pattern scanning, note some blemishes that may be early indicators of skin cancer. They’re denied insurance or even a human review.

The technology I’ve described above sounds frightening and sci-fi-like, but many of the technologies outlined here exist today with varying degrees of accuracy. Our images are regularly scraped, indexed and searched by systems, and various algorithms can be run on these. This is for data you can naturally see, notwithstanding the vast quantities of data you create without perhaps realization, such as behavioural traits, interests and physical location, all of which can be used to triangulate a detailed understanding of your personality, habits, disposition and socioeconomic status.

Consider as an individual, a parent or a company, how are you managing the data you create?

By Cillian Kieran

Cillian Kieran is CEO and co-founder of Ethyca.

Sourced from ADWEEK

In News

Three E-Commerce Channels Every Retailer Should Consider

October 31, 2019 No Comments

By Lin Grosman

In recent years, a lot has been made about whether or not the standard marketing funnel has changed for e-commerce retailers.

Traditionally, shoppers went through the following three stages:

• Awareness: “I have a problem.”

• Consideration: “What are my options for solving this problem?”

• Acquisition: “I’m ready to buy a product to solve this problem.”

The truth is that these three stages are still relevant to e-commerce retailers. To make the most of each stage, online retail marketers should consider taking advantage of the following three channels.

Pinterest: Absolutely Own The Awareness Stage

For years, Pinterest was a hit with users but wasn’t a go-to channel for pay-per-click (PPC) marketers. While there were some ways to take advantage of the visual-friendly website, those options weren’t as accessible as Google and Facebook.

Recently, that’s changed. Pinterest might actually represent one of the most exciting opportunities for retailers at the moment. Earlier this year, Pinterest launched a revamp of its marketing platform. Among other things, the new catalogs feature allows retailers to upload multiple images of the same product, organize their inventory by category and even turn their product images into dynamic product pins.

The reason this is such a big deal for retailers is that shoppers often visit Pinterest when they’re in the awareness stage. They may be looking for ideas for decorating their home this Christmas, planning a new outfit, picking the furniture for their living room, etc. Placing your products in front of them during this critical time can produce incredible outcomes.

Facebook: Introduce Yourself And Stay Top Of Mind

Today, if you’re an e-commerce marketer who isn’t taking advantage of Facebook, you likely have some grateful competitors. Facebook is another great platform for the top of your funnel because you can introduce yourself via Facebook ads, which can be targeted at users based on their interests.

This targeting is valuable since many users have problems related to their hobbies, activities and other interests. For example, if you’re currently in the market for new jogging shoes, it’s probably because you like jogging. You might have even mentioned this in your Facebook profile. This makes it easy for a retailer to send an ad your way, letting you know about their incredible shoes.

It’s worth noting that Instagram ads are similar in this regard. I find that they’re not as powerful at the moment, but given how popular Instagram is, it might be worth exploring how much potential Instagram ads have for targeting your prospects.

Of course, as every e-commerce retailer knows, most customers don’t purchase right from the awareness stage. They need time to consider their options — in the consideration stage — before finally reaching the acquisition stage. That’s why you have to stay top of mind, which can be done by leveraging Facebook’s dynamic product ads. When someone has signaled that they are interested in what your brand has to offer, use these ads to stay in front of them again and again until they’re finally ready to purchase.

Google: Level The Playing Field With Amazon

If you’re an e-commerce retailer and you’re not using Google Ads, you may be struggling to attain sales unless they’re coming through Amazon. In order to keep more of your revenue, you need to show up before Amazon in Google’s search results, and one of the best ways to do that is with Google Shopping.

On this platform, you can create image ads that show people your products, which appear right at the top of the Google Search page and bring users to your listing the moment they click.

In your listing, you can answer all of the relevant questions people have when they’re hoping to make a purchase. For example:

• Do they have this item in my size?

• Is my favorite color available?

• Can I just buy this product at a nearby store?

• Are they running any sales to save me money?

Two other options e-commerce retailers can take advantage of on Google include Google Merchant Promotions and Google’s local inventory ads.

Just like the name implies, with Google Merchant Promotions you can create “special offers” for any of your products listed in Google Shopping. So, whether you have a surplus of inventory or you just want to boost sales, it’s as easy as logging into your merchant account and dropping your prices.

Finally, with Google’s local inventory ads, you can show searchers that one of your nearby stores already has the item that they want. If they’re already at the acquisition stage and are ready to buy, you can show them there’s absolutely no reason to wait.

Google Shopping is a powerful tool no matter where your prospect is in your marketing funnel. Whether they’ve just become aware of their problem or they’ve decided to spend money, there’s a good chance they’re going to do some online research on this platform first. Meet them there.

Upgrade Your E-Commerce Marketing Funnel

Before you go turning your entire e-commerce marketing funnel upside down, introducing new stages or throwing it out altogether and starting anew, consider revamping your traditional strategies. Arm it with the three channels I’ve outlined above, and you’re on the right track to more visibility.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Lin Grosman

Lin is Director of Communications & PR at GoDataFeed, a multichannel platform that helps retailers sell more on e-commerce channels.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

TV networks are using a new strategy to sell ads more like Google and Facebook

October 30, 2019 No Comments

By Megan Graham

OpenAP, an advertising group owned by Fox, NBCUniversal and Viacom, is officially launching a marketplace letting advertisers buy across digital and linear TV programming.
This is a way of making inventory easier to buy, like it is from digital companies.
It’s also bringing automation to the area of TV buying.

OpenAP, an advertising company founded by a group of some of the biggest TV companies, announced on Tuesday a new platform to let advertisers buy ad campaigns on linear TV and digital video across publishers. As TV ad spend has been bruised by the rise of digital and other factors, this kind of move could grow ad dollars flowing to big TV networks by making it easier to buy and reach more specific audiences.

OpenAP came together in 2017 as a consortium including Fox, Viacom and Turner (now AT&T’s WarnerMedia) as a way to make it easier and more valuable to buy more specific, data-driven audiences than standard TV demos across multiple publishers. WarnerMedia pulled out in April 2019 after becoming part of AT&T, which has its own advanced advertising functions. NBCUniversal joined OpenAP last year.

The coming together of the networks may be a way of making TV more competitive against digital, as digital ad spending in the U.S. is poised to exceed traditional ad spending this year, according to eMarketer. The platform will let advertisers buy inventory from Fox, NBCUniversal, Viacom and Univision using automation, which “really hasn’t been something that has been the case” in the past, OpenAP CEO David Levy said.

Here’s how it works.

Let’s say an advertiser wants to reach a certain audience, such as people interested in buying a car. That advertiser can pull together one buy across TV networks and both linear and digital viewing environments. Advertisers only pay when that ad reaches that intended audience. Levy said it’s possible because in recent years, TV networks have been investing in data science platforms to help forecast which shows specific audiences are likely to watch. But until now, it was harder to execute on a one-off basis, he said.

This move should make it easier to target a big group of consumers across publishers in one fell swoop. The members together hold more than 20 cable networks and three broadcast networks. The digital video included in the inventory for now is on 30-minute or longer shows, Levy said.

This could bring more of the ease that advertisers have on digital giants Facebook and Google, which have self-service tools for advertisers. Those tools are attractive to small businesses that typically don’t have the budget to make large ad buys. It also gives Google and Facebook a massive base of advertisers compared with the more limited pool of advertisers for TV.

“Linear has always had, content-wise, a significant edge versus digital,” Levy said. “But it’s difficult to buy,” especially for smaller brands.

He said that’s because advertisers have to either have a direct relationship with the sales rep of a big network or a relationship with a big national agency, along with minimum spends, among other factors.

“Part of this approach is really to start to create an easier way for more DTC brands to buy directly and for other smaller brands to make it a lot easier and a lot more manageable, in a way they’re used to buying it,” Levy said.

Feature Image Credit: David Levy. Source: OpenAP

By Megan Graham

Sourced from CNBC

In News

Facebook’s Zuckerberg said he will ‘go to the mat’ and fight breakup in leaked audio

October 15, 2019 No Comments

By Brett Molina

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said he will “go to the mat” and fight efforts to break up the social networking giant, according to leaked audio from meetings with employees.

The leaked audio, obtained by tech site The Verge, originated from two meetings Zuckerberg held with Facebook employees in July.

The sessions covered a range of topics, including increased calls by lawmakers to break up Facebook. Zuckerberg said Facebook would legally challenge any efforts to split up the tech giant.

“We care about our country and want to work with our government and do good things, Zuckerberg said. “But look, at the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”

Zuckerberg also said breaking up Facebook, or other tech titans like Google and Amazon, won’t solve issues raised by lawmakers, including how they handle the spread of misinformation on their platforms.

“It doesn’t make election interference less likely,” Zuckerberg said. “It makes it more likely because now the companies can’t coordinate and work together.”

Warren hits back: Facebook’s Zuckerberg criticized her plan to break up big tech

Zuckerberg speaks out: Facebook CEO says breaking up social network wouldn’t help

Zuckerberg has long said Facebook shouldn’t be broken up despite calls seeking such a move, including from co-founder Chris Hughes, who wrote in a May op-ed for The New York Times that the power amassed by Zuckerberg is “unprecedented and un-American.”

Two weeks after that op-ed, Zuckerberg said on a call with reporters that a breakup would make tackling issues more challenging.

Feature Image Credit: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

By Brett Molina

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

Sourced from USA Today

In News

‘It’s found money’: YouTube stars look for ways to expand to Facebook

October 8, 2019 No Comments

By Tim Peterson

YouTube has largely reversed the changes to its verification program that were announced Sept. 19. However, the initial announcement to revoke some creators’ verified status served as a reminder that no other platform has yet emerged as a viable viewership- and revenue-generating alternative to Google’s video platform in the minds of creators. But YouTube stars continue to look for low-stakes opportunities to syndicate their YouTube videos to other platforms in hopes that they could become competition for YouTube.

Digital media company Jellysmack has begun working with YouTube creators to edit their YouTube videos for Facebook as well as Snapchat and establish the platforms as relatively passive income streams. Over the past two to three years, the publisher had developed its own tools to optimize the videos that Jellysmack posts to its own Facebook pages, such as Beauty Studio, which generated 269 million views on Facebook in August 2019, according to data from Tubular Labs. In the first quarter of 2019, it created a program to open up these tools to YouTube stars, who may be interested in expanding to Facebook in order to diversify their businesses but struggle to find the time to do so while continuing to manage their YouTube channels; in August Jellysmack began to add Snapchat to the program’s mix. In addition to assisting creators with tailoring their YouTube videos to run on the creator’s own Facebook page, Jellysmack helps them to find an audience on the social network by investing its own money to promote creators’ videos as ads on Facebook.

Jellysmack and the creators share the revenue from the ads that Facebook sells against creators’ videos, according to Jellysmack CEO Michael Philippe; Jellysmack does not currently have the ability to sell ads against its videos on Facebook. Philippe declined to say how specifically the revenue is split between Jellysmack and creators but said that some creators in the program are making “six figures per month on Facebook.” Additionally, the processing of creators’ videos will help Jellysmack’s optimization tools understand different types of content than the types of videos it posts to its own Facebook pages, and Philippe hopes the program will help it to establish relationships with creators who may eventually star in Jellysmack’s original shows.

For YouTube stars and their talent managers, Jellysmack’s program is appealing for obvious reasons. “It’s found money,” said Adam Wescott, partner at talent management firm Select Media Management. “But it’s still a bit unproven. When it comes to Facebook, the CPMs don’t match YouTube.”

While Facebook has cultivated a crop of homegrown creators, the social network has struggled to win over YouTube stars for two main reasons. YouTube-centric creators are unsure whether Facebook can consistently deliver a large, intentional audience a la YouTube, as opposed to passive views from people scrolling through their news feeds. And even if the audience is there on Facebook, the money may not be, at least not enough to justify the effort required to either produce original videos for Facebook or edit their YouTube videos for the social network. Conceivably, creators could cross-post identical versions of their YouTube videos to Facebook, which is nice in theory but unproven in practice. “While it seems easy, there’s not really that payoff when you talk about monetization,” said Christina Jones, vp of talent at talent management firm Digital Brand Architects.

YouTube-centric creators like Lizzy Capri face a dilemma when looking to expand to Facebook. Since 2017, Capri, who is not involved in Jellysmack’s program, has worked to develop and hone a content strategy that has amassed her 3.9 million subscribers on YouTube. She would like to replicate that success on Facebook but recognizes that that would require replicating the time and effort she had to put into her YouTube channel because Facebook is “a whole different beast to learn,” she said. For example, she would have to edit her YouTube videos, which are usually more than 10 minutes long, for Facebook, where three- to five-minute videos perform best, she said. Additionally, she would have to determine how the profile of her audience on Facebook might compare to her YouTube audience and take that into account when tailoring videos for the platform. Because she knows the effort required to establish a successful channel on Facebook, she also knows that she doesn’t have “the bandwidth to do that right now,” she said.

Caylus Cunninghman, a creator who goes by the name “Infinite,” could probably make the time to grow his channel on Facebook, he said. But he doesn’t have to. As one of the creators in Jellysmack’s program, Cunningham has been able to “just leave it in [Jellysmack’s] hands because, at the end of the day, they know how to run a Facebook page, and I don’t really. I know YouTube,” he said.

Cunnigham had tried to get to know Facebook. In early 2018, he began uploading some gaming-related videos to Facebook to try out the platform but only attracted roughly 20,000 followers. That pales in comparison to the more than 12 million subscribers he has on accrued on YouTube since he started taking YouTube seriously in 2016. Then around April of this year, Cunningham began working with Jellysmack to edit his YouTube videos for a new Facebook page that has amassed 2 million followers to date.

Cunningham can customize whatever edits that Jellysmack makes to his videos, including their titles and thumbnail images. But he usually just leaves whatever optimizations are made by Jellysmack’s tools. Typically Jellysmack removes the intro and outro from his YouTube videos and adjusts the aspect ratio of his videos — which are produced horizontally for YouTube — so they can be more easily viewed when people are holding their phone’s vertically, he said.

While Cunningham has established a large following on Facebook, YouTube continues to generate more views and revenue. He estimated that his YouTube videos typically receive two to three times as many views and ad dollars as his Facebook videos. However, considering that Jellysmack is handling the heavy lifting in adapting his YouTube videos for Facebook, whatever views and revenue he can reap from Facebook is pretty much all profit. While Jellysmack has effectively made Facebook a passive income stream for Cunningham, the platform is beginning to take a more active role in his content strategy. “Sometimes when I’m making my YouTube videos, I do think of Facebook now,” said Cunningham.

By Tim Peterson

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

Google advertising overtakes rival Facebook in app downloads market

October 3, 2019 No Comments

By James Warrington

Adverts on Google now drive more app downloads than adverts on Facebook, marking the first time the search giant has overtaken its Silicon Valley rival.

Google has increased its share of the app installation sector eightfold in the last five years and is now the largest player in the app marketing space, according to marketing analytics firm Appsflyer.

The tech giant’s rapid growth can largely be attributed to the dominance of its Android operating system in the mobile market, the report stated.

Broken down by region, Google’s growth was fastest in Latin American and southeast Asia, rising 18 per cent and eight per cent respectively in the first half of 2019.

However, Facebook remained the top media source, delivering high-quality users in most regions and categories, according to the report.

Growing competition in the app store markets has led marketers to invest heavily in moving up the rankings in both Google Play and Apple’s app store.

In fact, Apple Search Ads, which promotes apps at the top of the search rankings on its app store, enjoyed an 82 per cent growth in its share of the global app installation market.

The report also highlighted the rise of new entrants in the market such as Tiktok Ads, the advertising arm of hit Chinese video app Tiktok and news app Topbuzz.

“For most media sources, making the ranking is a one-time thing,” said Shani Rosenfelder, head of mobile insights at Appsflyer.

“That means maintaining growth in this hyper competitive space is very difficult, so companies must stay alert, recognise potential, and move fast to stay relevant.”

He added: “On a positive note, the fact that we see new companies with different types of products and qualities demonstrates that this industry has plenty of opportunities for those who can survive.”

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By James Warrington

Sourced from City A.M.

In News

Facebook Explains World Of Ad Tracking And It’s Complicated AF

August 13, 2019 No Comments

By Karissa Bell

Facebook is trying to shine a light on one of the more confusing aspects of the advertising industry: how webs of seemingly unrelated companies use your data to serve ads.

The social network is updating its advertising settings to make it a bit easier to see how advertisers are getting your information, why you’re targeted for specific ads, and how to opt out of them.

To make this happen, Facebook is making a couple updates. The most notable change are new sections in Facebook’s advertising preferences that lets you see exactly how companies wind up with your info.

The first section, labeled “advertisers who have uploaded a list with your information and advertised to it,” includes businesses you’ve frequented (either online or IRL) that have uploaded your information to Facebook.

The second section, called “businesses who have uploaded and shared a list with your information,” might be more surprising. These are the so-called data brokers — firms you’ve likely never heard of that buy large swaths of data about people that businesses are able to use for targeted advertising. (Check out BuzzFeed’s story for more details on how these companies operate.)

While these companies are well-known in the ad industry, it’s not something that the typical social media user had much visibility into until now. But with Facebook’s new tool, you can see exactly how a company with a name like “3Q Digital” or “LiveRamp” has used your info to show you targeted ads from seemingly unrelated companies.

Facebook's new settings page lets you see how data brokers share your info for other companies' targeted advertising. — Facebook’s new settings page lets you see how data brokers share your info for other companies’ targeted advertising.

It’s not a perfect explanation, but it at least exposes the relationships retailers and others have with these firms.

Additionally, Facebook is making it easier to see more about why you’re being shown a given ad. Now, when you select “Why am I seeing this ad?” on a post in your News Feed, you’ll get a more detailed look at why you’re being targeted with that particular ad. This includes Facebook’s infamous ad “categories,” the seemingly random group of interests, locations, and activities Facebook guesses are relevant to you based on your use of the service.

The updated “Why am I seeing this ad?” page will also let you dive into your ad settings to opt out of these categories. Facebook users have been able to do this for awhile now, but the setting is fairly buried so it’s likely not something most people check. Having it available directly from an ad might make it a little easier to get to.

Of course, all this disclosure still requires a good bit of clicking around to find. But, if you’re willing to make the effort, the new tools should at least help you understand how your information is getting passed around the internet, and why certain ads seem to be “following” you.

By Karissa Bell

Sourced from MASHABLE India

In News

How I Grew My Dying Facebook Traffic

August 9, 2019 No Comments

By Neil Patel

Is it me, or does Facebook just want to keep you on Facebook?

Every time I post a link to my site, I get less and less traffic. And it’s been this way for years.

In other words, my organic reach on Facebook was dying.

And to make matters worse, they give you hope every time they launch a new feature.

For example, when they launched Facebook Live, you used to be able to get tons of views because they promoted it organically… but not really anymore.

The same goes with Facebook Watch. I used to easily get 30,000 plus views per video when Facebook Watch came out… again, not anymore.

Now I am lucky to get 10,000 views.

But hey, I can’t really hate on Facebook. They are a business and they have to do what’s best for them. So instead of getting upset at Facebook, I decided to run some tests to see if I could find a way to get more organic traffic.

Because there has to be a way, right?

Well, there is. 🙂

And here is my traffic from Facebook over the last 7 days:

facebook traffic

That may not seem like a big increase, but I generated 10,621 visitors the month before. In other words, I took my Facebook traffic from 10,621 visitors PER MONTH to 10,085 visitors PER WEEK.

I am getting roughly the same amount of traffic I used to get in 30 days from Facebook, now in just 7 days.

So how did I do this?

Taking control of your own destiny

As marketers, our faith typically relies on the big giants… you know, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram…

If they decide to change their algorithms your traffic could go up, down, or stay flat.

For that reason, over the last few years, I’ve been building up marketing channels that aren’t as reliant on algorithms.

For example, you may learn about new blog posts I publish through my email lists because every time I publish a new post, I usually send out an email blast.

Or it could be through browser notifications.

subscribers

Every time I release a blog post or a video… again, I send a message out through push notifications.

But why can’t we do the same with Facebook?

Sure, you can post on your wall or page like everyone else, but if Facebook doesn’t want to show it to people they don’t have to.

So, I decided to push really hard on Facebook Messenger, which gives you the same ability.

In other words, you can send a direct message to everyone on Facebook through their chat feature and share a message or a link to your website.

Something that isn’t too controlled by an algorithm… similar to text messaging or email marketing.

I built this list of 129,560 Facebook Messenger contacts and leveraged them to continually generate traffic back to my blog.

Now before I break down the exact steps I took to do this, the tactics here take execution and elbow grease. It isn’t rocket science, it’s not hard to do, but it does take a bit of work.

But first, let’s go over how Facebook Messenger marketing works.

Facebook Messenger

grow facebook messenger list

First, let’s back up on why Facebook Messenger is working so well today.

Facebook Messenger open rates are 50-80% click-through rates post elite stats.

When you send an email campaign, you can expect a 20% open rate on a really good day. On average, I get 28 to 31% with my NeilPatel.com email list.

In other words, if you send your email newsletter to 100 people, 20 people will open it. If you scrub your list and work really hard like me, roughly 30 people will open it, which still isn’t great.

However, when you send a Messenger message to 100 people, 88 people will open it and read it.

We’re talking about an 88% open rate on Messenger. That is crazy!!!!

Now over time, you will notice that it will go down, but it is still substantially higher than email.

But here is where it really gets interesting.

With email marketing, you’ll typically see a 2% to a 4% click-through rate. So for every 100 emails you send, you will get 2 to 4 clicks back to your site.

To give you a benchmark, again, I spend a lot of time fine-tuning my emails and I can get about 6 clicks for every 100 emails I send.

Better than the 2 to 4 percent most people get, but still not life-changing.

With Messenger? You can get 20% click rates.

Over time, you will see it go down, but it is still substantially higher than email marketing.

And it is not just marketing, it works with pretty much any industry. Here’s an example of a real estate company that leverages Facebook Messenger:

As you can see from the screenshot above, Facebook Messenger works like how you would chat with a friend on Facebook or even email. You don’t always have to promote or link, you could just have a conversation with a friend.

This is why their adoption rate is continually climbing in the United States.

That’s almost 140 million users that are projected to use Messenger.

Messaging apps are also surpassing social networks in popularity. Just ask yourself… how many times do you use WhatsApp each week?

But the key is to start now because it will become saturated just like every other marketing channel that works. So whoever builds the biggest list early on will have the best shot of doing well in the long run.

If you are already leveraging Messenger, great, just skip to the tips below to start growing your Facebook traffic.

If you aren’t, just like email marketing you are going to need software so you can send the messages on Facebook. You can start off with this free software called MobileMonkey.

Now let’s get into how you can build your Messenger list and get consistent Facebook traffic.

Tactic #1: Website Messenger widget

My own tests have shown that chat on a website can boost conversions 45%.

So I wondered, what would happen if I installed a Messenger bot on a website?

What’s great about adding this is that visitors get answers to their questions immediately, 24/7. Say goodbye to conversion bottlenecks.

But also, everyone who starts a chat on the site becomes a new contact in my Messenger list.

So how does this work?

Add a Facebook Messenger bot to your website with a widget.

Everyone who visits your website is invited to become a Messenger contact. Website traffic turns into Messenger contacts.

Most users are already logged into Messenger on their desktop or device. So when they have questions or want info and see the Messenger widget, they tap it and boom — new Messenger contact.

If your site is on WordPress site like 34% of the world’s sites, a WordPress plugin called WP-Chatbot is the quickest way to add Facebook Messenger chat to your site.

Install the plugin on your WordPress site and you’ll have Messenger chat on your site in just a few minutes.

This widget makes list building easy. An active website could get hundreds or thousands of new contacts from the visitors on the site who engage the chatbot every day.

Think about yourself.

Are you more likely to search for a contact form on a site, fill it out, and sit back and wait who knows how long for an answer to your question?

Or are you more likely to pop open the chat window, ask your question, and get an immediate response?

Tactic #2: Run Facebook click to Messenger ads

You can do a lot without leveraging paid traffic, but if you really want to put some fuel on the fire, a few hundred dollars goes a long way.

And for the purpose of this blog post, I spent $391.58 just so I would have some stats to share with you. 🙂

Facebook Messenger ads are a Facebook Ad format in which the user who clicks on the ad is immediately added to your Messenger contact list as opposed to going to a landing page where they may bounce or exit, anonymously.

Everyone who clicks the button on the ad converts when they send the advertiser a message — becoming a permanent Messenger contact.

The key part is… they need to send the advertiser a message. In other words, if you don’t get them to send you a message they won’t be added to your Messenger contact list so you won’t be able to send blasts to them.

That’s why you want to use an autoresponder. If which you automatically start talking to each person to increase your chance that they will get added to your contact list.

Here’s an example of an ad:

How much will Facebook click-to-Messenger ads run you?

I personally haven’t scaled a campaign too large yet, but with a $391.58 test budget, I’ve been able to generate leads for roughly 62% less than traditional Facebook ads.

But again, the key with all of this is in the autoresponder. Without that, your numbers won’t be too great.

Within MobileMonkey, use the bot content builder to create the autoresponder to your Facebook Ad.

Then create a new Messenger ad in MobileMonkey to connect your autoresponder to your Facebook Ad.

Next, pick the autoresponder from a drop-down of all your bot dialogues and connect it to your Facebook Ads Manager account.

The result is a low-cost ad campaign that drives more contacts into your Messenger list.

Facebook Messenger ads work time and again across industries, including e-commerce and service businesses.

Now, if you are like me and you prefer to do things a bit more organically and save some money, here’s how you generate more contacts without spending money.

Tactic #3: Use organic Facebook post autoresponders

Growing your list with a little ad spend goes a long way, but this next list building power tactic is totally free.

Anyone who comments on your Facebook Page posts instantly becomes your Messenger contact.

A Facebook post autoresponder adds people to your Messenger contact list if they comment on any Facebook post.

Here’s how it works.

You post to your Facebook Business Page.
Someone comments.
A Messenger bot automatically responds and as soon as that person replies, they’ve become a contact in Messenger.

You can see an example of this tactic in action here:

The more engaging your Facebook post, the more likely it will be that people will want to comment on it.

These kinds of posts always get a ton of comments and contacts:

Quizzes
Contests
Riddles

You could ask fans to post a GIF in response to a question. “Describe your boss with a GIF.”

Or ask them to tell a story or ask them a question like “What industry are most of your clients in?”

Even just asking them “what do you do?” is super-engaging because people love to talk about themselves!

This store asks fans to name how many duck species are in the photo. Comment with your guess and get a discount code in the autoresponder follow-up.

You can create the Messenger dialog for this technique in MobileMonkey with the “FB Comment Guard” tool.

That feature is what allows you to add the autoresponder to an organic post.

I love this technique because it converts my hard-fought organic Facebook engagement into a list of contacts I can follow up with.

Tactic #4: Convert page fans into Messenger contacts

I’m a fan of cross-promoting, traffic-sharing, and allowing various marketing channels to build off each other.

After all, if someone follows you on one channel, they may want your updates on a different channel as well. This increases your odds of connecting with them and amplifying your content reach at any given time.

This tactic combines several methodologies for a boost to Messenger contacts.

If you’ve gone to the effort of building a robust Facebook page, you will want to convert these fans into Messenger contacts. Fans are great, but Messenger contacts are better because Messenger is personalized, interactive, one-on-one, and has way more visibility than Facebook News Feed.

Organic reach on Facebook is very low. Maybe 1%, of your fans on your Facebook Page will even see your post.

Using Facebook Messenger changes this. Instead of a low organic reach, you’re getting high-powered interactions that are personalized.

This is important because page fans aren’t automatically Messenger contacts. You have to invite them or connect with them in Messenger first.

Here are three ways to convert your Page fans into Messenger contacts.

First, and this one is pretty obvious, you can change the CTA button on your Facebook Page to “Send Message”.

Right now your Facebook Page CTA button might be sending traffic to your site with a button like “Learn More”.

Hover over the button until you see “Edit Button.” Then choose the option to “Contact you” and “Send Message.”

Customize the message that people will see when they click that button in MobileMonkey.

Boom. Now anyone who clicks the “Send Message” button from a Facebook Page will become a Messenger contact.

Second, create a Facebook Post Autoresponder (see tip #3).

This autoresponder was a simple invitation — Stay in touch! Sign up for Messenger updates.

Third, you can then use Page fan audience targeting of a click-to-Messenger Facebook Ad campaign.

Remember, your existing Page fans are more likely to take another step into more interaction with a brand that they know and trust.

Tactic #5: Turn your email subscribers into Messenger contacts

Email marketing has a low engagement rate.

Facebook Messenger has high engagement.

Would you rather send your content to your subscribers in a channel with a 2% click-rate or 20% click-through rate?

Ideally, you should do what I do and leverage them both.

Send your email list an invitation to join your Facebook Messenger list. Those who choose to do so will become email subscribers and Messenger subscribers, but their engagement level (and therefore your reach) will increase using Messenger.

One of the most effective marketing methods is to convert your existing contacts into more effective marketing channels.

Using MobileMonkey’s chatbot builder, you can create an opt-in page consisting of a quick and simple “Want to receive occasional updates?” invitation.

Link to that invitation anywhere you’d normally include a link.

Link to that invitation in a button, like the examples below.

And here:

Link to your Messenger experience in your:

Email signature
CTAs in blog posts
Business card in QR codes
Landing pages
Newsletter subscription forms

The list is as long as you are clever. And it works very well!

Conclusion

You are always going to deal with algorithms, but if you want more consistent traffic you need to take matters into your own hands.

Just look at me, I leverage email marketing, push notifications, and even Facebook Messenger marketing.

I’m now looking into leveraging text messaging too.

Sure, I leverage SEO, content marketing, paid ads, social media marketing… and every other major channel out there.

But I focus a large part of my efforts on controlling my own destiny and you can too.

If you haven’t started, start with Facebook Messenger. It works so well right now and I expect it to last for a while. The key is getting in on the right time and time is right now.

By Neil Patel

He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Sourced from https://neilpatel.com

In News

Independent audit finds Facebook activity has fallen by 20% since Cambridge Analytica

July 17, 2019 No Comments

Sourced from boingboing

The “business analytics” firm Mixpanel has released its figures estimating the total usage of Facebook (liking, sharing and posting) since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke; they showed usage falling off 10% in the first month following from the news of the scandal, and continuing to fall, with overall usage down by 20% since April 2018.

Mixpanel’s figures roughly coincide with Emarketer’s stats, which have daily usage-minutes falling from 41 minutes/day/user in 2017 to 38 now.

Facebook’s own figures are much rosier: the company claims increases in daily and monthly active users over the same period. Facebook’s figures are not subject to independent scrutiny. Facebook previously engaged in widespread, systemic, long-term usage-statistics fraud.

It’s possible to reconcile the gap between Facebook’s picture of increased usage and independent auditors’ claims of a decline: it may be that people still feel like the must use Facebook to coordinate with other Facebook users (they are unable to overcome the collective action problem of convincing their friends to leave Facebook all at once and shift their discussions of their little league games, family reunions and rare diseases somewhere else), but they no longer use it to “share” with friends, only to perform the utility functions that they must use the service for.

Sadly, it’s likely that users who do leave Facebook will take their business to Instagram (a Facebook subsidiary); not least because Facebook has used the dirtiest of dirty tricks to crush rivals like Snapchat, depriving their users of an escape to a superior service.

Since April 2018, the first full month after news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in the Observer, actions on Facebook such as likes, shares and posts have dropped by almost 20%, according to the business analytics firm Mixpanel.

Taking that month as a baseline, total actions fell by more that 10% within a month, recovered a bit over the summer and then fell again over the autumn and winter of 2018, except for a brief rally over the period of the US midterm elections.

Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests [Alex Hern/The Guardian]

(via Naked Capitalism)

Sourced from boingboing