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Cheatsheet: Facebook now has 7m advertisers

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By Kerry Flynn

So much for privacy scandals dampening growth at Facebook.

Facebook exceeded Wall Street expectations with $16.9 billion in quarterly revenue and $6.9 billion in profit for the fourth-quarter of 2018. An especially impressive feat: Facebook is making an average of $34.86 per user in the U.S. and Canada, up 30.3 percent year over year. Its average revenue per user was up significantly in every region, the company said.

Despite a torrent of criticism over privacy scandals, Facebook’s core constituencies never left: users and advertisers. Facebook expanded its user base in the quarter. Several top marketers have issued their concerns about Facebook, but they haven’t pulled their ad dollars away from the platform. In a Digiday+ survey conducted in November of 182 ad buyers at brands and agencies, 62.1 percent said Facebook’s recent scandals would have “no material impact” on their spending. In a separate November survey of 363 media buyers, 50 percent said they would increase spending on Facebook and 79 percent said they would increase on Instagram:

Here’s what you need to know:

The key numbers:

  • 2.32 billion monthly active users and 1.52 billion daily active users (both up 9 percent from the previous year).
  • 2.7 billion monthly active users across Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger (up from 2.6 billion last quarter) and more than 2 billion use at least one of those services every day.
  • Added 20 million daily active users compared to the previous quarter (equal to what Facebook added between Q2 and Q3).
  • $16.9 billion in quarterly revenue (up 33 percent from the previous year).
  • Profit was $6.9 billion (up 61 percent from the previous year).
  • 93 percent of its ad revenue came from mobile (compared to 89 percent in the previous year and 92 percent in the previous quarter).
  • Average revenue per user is $34.86 in the U.S. and Canada, compared to $7.38 worldwide.

What Wall Street wanted: 
Facebook beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations, reporting $16.9 billion this quarter versus $16.4 billion predicted. The stock jumped 7 percent after the report’s release in after-hours trading.

Facebook has 7 million advertisers
The platform’s advertising base has reached a new milestone. Facebook has 7 million active advertisers, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg revealed. That growth plays into the company’s goal of helping grow more small businesses and thereby taking their ad dollars. Facebook had announced 5 million in April 2017 and 6 million in November 2017. Bottom line: Don’t expect any threats of an “advertiser boycott” to sway Facebook management. Facebook has managed to make it bulletproof when it comes to threats from even the biggest ad spenders.

Stories are still new despite 2 million advertisers, so far
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s goal is to “deliver meaningful improvements that improve peoples’ lives … that whole communities recognize and say, ‘Wow, we’re all doing something new on Facebook or WhatsApp.’” The most recent example of this type of reaction? Stories, Zuckerberg said. Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg said that despite consumers’ rush to adopt Stories, advertising there is still underutilized. Sandberg said 2 million advertisers are on Stories. Facebook has made the buying experience as easy as a click of a button.

Facebook is betting on more commerce, especially on Instagram
Instagram may still be a favorite ad platform for DTC brands, but Facebook wants to be more a part of the retail experience by improving discovery and transactions. “We want to nail discovery. People are already interested in commerce activity and following businesses, and I think there’s a big opportunity in enabling transactions, that you can trust [the sellers] and know that you’re going to have a good experience,” Zuckerberg said. Those experience can also be applied across Facebook’s Marketplace and WhatsApp.

Watch isn’t going anywhere 
The strategy behind Facebook Watch keeps changing. But Zuckerberg still wants video, and therefore Watch, to be a bigger part of his business. Zuckerberg said Facebook has worked to decrease the number of videos in news feed and instead drive users to the Watch tab. Zuckerberg said they want to emphasize engagement — likes and comments — on news feed instead of passive consumption. Though, Zuckerberg also said he wants Facebook’s videos to be more interactive, not passive. One way Facebook has tried to do that is through features like Watch Party and Premieres.

By Kerry Flynn

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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Facebook and Twitter just took down hundreds of fake accounts from Iran and elsewhere that were trying to influence politics

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By Rob Price

  • Facebook and Twitter have both announced takedowns of hundreds of fake accounts designed to influence politics around the world.
  • Facebook detected accounts from Iran dating back to 2010, while Twitter’s came from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia.

Facebook and Twitter have taken down hundreds of fake accounts designed to influence politics and public debate, the two social networks announced on Thursday.

Facebook took down 783 accounts linked to Iran that targeted countries ranging from Afghanistan to France, Germany, Israel, Morocco, South Africa and the US.

Twitter, meanwhile took down accounts linked to Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, it said, that were active during the US 2018 midterm elections. According to The Washington Post, 418 and were from Russia, 764 were from Venezuela.

“This morning we removed 783 Pages, groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior tied to Iran. There were multiple sets of activity, each localized for a specific country or region,” Facebook cybersecurity exec Nathaniel Gleicher wrote in a blog post.

“The Page administrators and account owners typically represented themselves as locals, often using fake accounts, and posted news stories on current events. This included commentary that repurposed Iranian state media’s reporting on topics like Israel-Palestine relations and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, including the role of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.

“Some of the activity dates back to 2010. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our manual review linked these accounts to Iran.”

This story is developing…

Feature Image Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

By Rob Price

Sourced from Business Insider

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Social Media – How To Choose The Best Platform for your Brand

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Sourced from MEN STYLE FASHION

The digital platform has led to the immense growth of social media. This has led to growth in a lot of areas on the internet including trade, advertisement and marketing. There are so many sites where you can advertise your brand, but which is the right one? It can get very confusing and overwhelming to make such a decision. Although some sites may not need too much investment financially, they can really take up your time.  One effective way to get to know the perfect site is to understand your audience, commodity or services and markets.

Here are some major social site and how they can do for your brand

Facebook

Facebook is a pretty old social media site and is among the most used among all generations. This is the safest choice when you want to market your brand. Statistics show that over 2 billion people across the whole world have active accounts on this platform. They also share videos, audio and other content types.

You can market your brand by creating your own page with your brand name and description. Getting followers on facebook is easy, you just have to send some follow requests to your audience and convince them to share them with their friends and family. Growing the page won’t be that hard also, as stated there is a numerous audience on this platform. Facebook also offers you the tools to target the audience specific to your brand and advertise to them.

facebook

Instagram

One fun fact is that Instagram is that it is owned by facebook. There close to one billion people who are active of this platform and they share posts, pictures, videos and stories. Statistics show that more than half of these people follow at least one brand. This is the best place to advertise your brand or sell your goods and services.

Instagram offers you the ability to showcase your products to your target audience while pinning the location at the same time.  You can use this visual platform to your advantage by personalising your brand and making it different from the rest.  You can also get followers who have a specific interest for your brand. There are some few methods you can use to give your brand more notice. You can choose to use the hashtag strategy, tag other followers in your posts or even pay for story advertisements.

If you’ve only created your Instagram business account, there is another way to get more followers. You can choose to engage different people through likes, comments or if you don’t have time you can get auto comment for your Instagram posts and let it do the work for you.

instagram

Twitter

Although this platform is more social than marketable, it can work as a real great advertisement.  For the most part, twitter is a platform for trending news, updates and opinions on everything.  Users on twitter follow accounts they would like updates on.  Your update is restricted to a number of updates, making it pretty short and precise.

The good thing is, you can use the hashtag to categorise your content with key words about your brand and what you have to offer.  Twitter will need you to be more engaged with your audience. You will need to tweet several times daily in order to reach a certain number of audiences, or just a target.  Most twitter users are critics and tend to be college educated, not every brand will pass in this platform.

Linked in

It is estimated that one person in every 4 or 5 social media users owns an account in linked in. It is probably not as popular as other platforms, but is a great marketing platform.  It is used equally by both genders and is a great platform for marketing any form of resume or job.  You can use this to find employees or get new jobs.

linked in

YouTube

This is one of the most popular social media platforms across the whole world.  You tube has an active user list of more than 1 billion users. It is estimated that most people who won social media account spend one third of the activities online watching videos on YouTube.  This is the widest platform when it comes to different cultures and languages. There are close to 80 different languages on this platform.

The advertisement and marketing opportunities in this social platform is outstanding.  Most people who own accounts on YouTube use it to promote themselves, and some products.  The audience is both old and young making it convenient for most types of products.

Pinterest

Like Instagram, this platform is mainly a visual platform.  One amazing fact is that Pinterest is preferred by more female compared to male. This means that if you want to use for marketing, you have to ensure your brand suits the target market.  This platform is also thought to likely to convert your marketing into a purchase compared to other social media accounts.  One amazing feature on this platform is that you can pin the purchase product on your photo and the buyer will get direct access.

Snapchat

I think we all agree that snapchat is the least expected for marketing, branding and business. At first, it was more appealing to teenagers and younger generations.  The application has very fun features and filters which draw the younger generations.  It has an outstanding 300 million users. It offers you a creative and fun way to advertise your products and services.  The filters are ever changing, making it exiting and alluring for the young.

Manage several platforms

Keep in mind that social media platforms are ever changing and require you to make changes as you go. Instead of advertising your brand in one platform, you can use the opportunity to your advantage by creating accounts with your brand in all these platforms. Ensure you have an idea of what brand will work well for the target audience before putting it out there.  If you are too busy, autolike applications or social media managers can do the work for you.

snapchat

Sourced from MEN STYLE FASHION

 

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5 Facebook Ad Mistakes That Could Be Hurting You

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Are your Facebook ads underperforming? Are you unsure how to get your ads to work better?

In this article, you’ll discover five issues that impact Facebook ad performance and how to fix them.

#1: You’re Bidding Against Yourself

The way Facebook ads work is that you’re in an online auction bidding for the chance for your audience to click (or do whatever your goal is) on your ad. You only pay when somebody completes your event—clicks on your ad, for instance—and your competition is other ads that also target the same audience.

You shouldn’t ever need to worry about bidding against yourself unless you’re running campaigns or ad sets targeting the exact same audience.

As soon as you target the same audience twice with multiple campaigns or ad sets (in the exact same time period), you’ve placed yourself in direct competition with yourself for prime real estate. You’re trying to place two different ads in the same place at the same time and show them to the same people.

Most likely when this happens, your campaigns will underperform and underspend. If you’ve also set a bid cap on your ads (which limits the value of the bid your ads place at auction), you may even find the ads don’t deliver at all. You’ve placed your ads into a bidding war that they can never win, and you’re going to outbid yourself into oblivion and then never spend a cent or gain a single conversion.

Here’s what to do: Avoid targeting the same audiences at the same time with multiple ad sets or campaigns.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article.

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Sourced from Social Media Examiner

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Why Facebook is giving $300 million for local journalism

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By Hamza Shaban

Facebook announced on Tuesday it will commit $300 million to journalism projects to help local outlets strengthen their newsgathering operations and build their readership and subscription models.

“We’re going to continue fighting fake news, misinformation, and low quality news on Facebook,” said Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, in a company blog post. “But we also have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to help local news organizations grow and thrive.”

Among the funded initiatives are a $20 million investment in a program to help local outlets design and execute subscription and membership models; a $5 million endowment to create a grant program with the Pulitzer Centre for local multimedia reporting projects; and a $2 million investment in Report for America, an initiative to recruit and fund journalists to cover under-covered topics in local newsrooms across the country.

Facebook’s financial commitment comes a year after Google pledged the same dollar amount, over the same timeline, to combat misinformation and support journalism, with a focus on boosting subscriptions to local news outlets. The pair’s investments are significant because of the tech giants’ dominance in the market for online advertising, which has exacerbated the decline of American newsrooms. Together, the two companies command about 58 percent of the digital ad market, steering massive amounts of ad dollars to their platforms.

The two companies have also come under intense scrutiny over the role their platforms played in the spread of a Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 presidential election and after. Critics have said Facebook and Google were too slow to understand the foreign interference. But the companies have since cracked down on such threats.

Meanwhile, with restricted advertising revenue and an abundance of competing free news content and entertainment on the Web, employment in newspaper newsrooms has declined by nearly half since 2008. And local news has been especially hit by the collapsing news media ecosystem, with fewer customers willing to spend subscription dollars.

As The Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan recently wrote, the decline of local reporting has profound consequences for communities and for self-governance. “One problem with losing local coverage is that we never know what we don’t know. Corruption can flourish, taxes can rise, public officials can indulge their worst impulses,” she said. Local reporting can also help establish a foundation of common information, easing polarization and misinformation, owing to high levels of trust that local outlets have with their audiences, she said.

Facebook said it decided to commit to the journalism initiatives based on feedback from users on what they wanted to see on the platform and from news outlets who told the company how to better boost their audience impact. “We heard one consistent answer: people want more local news, and local newsrooms are looking for more support,” Brown said. Facebook added that, over time, these initiatives can elevate civic engagement, which in turn can boost interest in local news.

Feature Image: Facebook’s financial commitment comes a year after Google pledged the same dollar amount, over the same timeline, to combat misinformation and support journalism. (Thibault Camus/AP)

By Hamza Shaban

Hamza Shaban is a technology reporter for The Washington Post. Previously, he covered tech policy for BuzzFeed.

Sourced from The Washington Post

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How to Discover New Audiences for Your Facebook Ads

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Looking for more people to reach with your ? Wondering how to find new audiences to target?

In this article, you’ll learn how to research and test interests that yield new Facebook ad audiences.

#1: Brainstorm a List of Interests

If you don’t have a customer persona to work from, the first step toward finding new audiences interested in what you have to offer is to create a control profile that incorporates key demographic characteristics of your ideal client.

This control profile will be the same for all of the audiences you create. If you’re offering a free set of styled stock images, for example, your list might look like this:

Demographic Control

  • Age: 35-55
  • Gender: Female
  • Country: United States
  • Employment: Social Media Marketer

Now it’s time to come up with a list of things your ideal client might be interested in. Consider topics such as hobbies, influencers, TV shows, tools, and other areas you think your clients might follow or pay attention to. Your extended interest list might look like this:

  • Hobbies: Photography
  • Social Media Influencers: Social Media Examiner
  • Shows Watched: Shark Tank
  • Tools: Mailchimp, Convert Kit, Click Funnels

Once you have this list, you can work outward to discover new audiences to target.

#2: Mine Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook has a lot of information about the users of its platform, and you can tap into that knowledge to improve the targeting of your Facebook ads.

Log into Ads Manager and select Audience Insights from the menu under the Plan section.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article

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Sourced from Social Media Examiner

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The ‘super alliances’ that could help media owners fight back against the tech giants

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By Graeme Finneberg

As we start to think about our predictions for the year ahead, I’m anticipating that 2019 will be the year of collaboration. With the Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (GAFA) quadropoly continuing to dominate the ad market, more publishers are realising there will be strength in numbers when it comes to fighting back.

In 2018 dozens of new media alliances were created among publishers and broadcasters. Of particular note in the UK was the launch of the Ozone Project in June, with The Guardian, News UK and Telegraph pooling their resources to create their own digital ad network, serving up a monthly audience of over 42 million unique users. Facebook has 40 million monthly active users in the UK. So, when it comes to scale, these media alliances are positioning themselves as credible alternatives to the walled gardens.

However, when it comes to offering the same richness of data as the quadropoly they are falling short. For instance, the Ozone Project only uses navigational data. Compare that to the GAFA brands which offer gender data, interests, friends’ interests and transactions etc as well as navigational data and you can see why advertisers may still not feel brave enough to wean themselves of what many in the industry call the GAFA ‘crack’. Without this depth of data, for some advertisers the argument to shift budget is just not compelling enough.

This is why 2019 is not just going to see greater collaboration in the form of more media alliances, but the creation of a new breed of ‘super alliances’.

A good example of what I mean can be seen with the Gravity Alliance in France. It doesn’t only have large publishers like Le Parisien and Lagardere Active as members, but also two telecom companies (SFR and Orange) and also search businesses, content providers and sizeable retailers (eg Fnac-Darty).

Et voilà! By adding non-media brands to the publishers in the alliance, the Gravity Alliance has been able to build not only scale, but a unique picture of consumers. It provides a real depth and richness that goes beyond the GAFA offering, including contextual, search, geographic, transactional and purchase intention data. The alliance is in control of its own eco system and the members are able to monetise all of their first party data across all of their sites. With over 150 campaigns already executed via the platform and revenues of €5m in its first year, the Gravity Alliance is starting to knock down those garden walls.

This is likely to inspire UK publishers to think beyond straightforward media alliances and explore the super alliance route – either with existing media alliances expanding their membership or with totally new super alliances being launched. We are already in conversation with a number of potential new collaborations around the world.

Super alliances are likely to still be driven by publishers and broadcasters as they have such a wealth of knowledge and expertise in online advertising – and with declining print revenues and traditional TV audiences, the benefits of collaborating to fight the GAFA threat will be high on their agenda. However, bringing in partners from outside the media world is likely to be relatively easy as the impact of GAFA is being seen across so many markets, from telecoms and retail to travel. If a super alliance is a way to compete and also potentially open up an untapped revenue stream, then what’s not to love?

I suspect we won’t just see broad alliances setting up, but also more niche companies coming together to pool their inventory and data to allow heightened targeting. A great example would be the travel sector with travel publications and broadcasters collaborating with travel comparison sites, airlines, online travel agents etc. For the right brands, the kind of data that a ‘vertical’ alliance would create would be extremely powerful.

The biggest sticking points in creating a super alliance has always been the complexity of setting one up and also the issue of traditionally competitive firms having to get in the same room as their rivals.

It’s true that setting up a super alliance will always be an involved process, so bringing in non-media ‘newbies’ will create its own challenges, but the advancements in technology will make it somewhat easier. For a start, the new generation of universal data marketing platforms are built to sophisticated standards to ensure that any worries about data safety and security are met. Plus, just as importantly, they have safeguards in place to make sure that each brand’s data is kept separate at all times so it’s totally safe and GDPR compliant – an absolute prerequisite when competitive brands collaborate.

When it comes to long-held rivalries, potential alliance members are becoming increasingly confident that issues are manageable and far outweighed by the benefits. The vital thing is for them to get terms agreed up front and also for an independent company to be set up to run and market the alliance. This ensures that all members’ interests are equal and no one’s data gets priority. Also, given that what differentiates a super alliance from a traditional alliance is the greater variety of members involved, this will mean fewer direct rivalries.

What will be particularly important in driving this trend in 2019, will be the statistics that prove the worth of the super alliance. When it comes to demonstrating the value to potential alliance members, our own analysis shows that this kind of collaboration grows revenue overall, so any worries about cannibalisation are unfounded. Plus, advertisers should note that agencies like Dentsu Aegis who are using the Gravity Alliance are now going public in saying that the results are particularly good with regard to the visibility rate and also scale, suggesting that campaigns targeted via a super alliance are a viable GAFA alternative.

With this kind of evidence available to create a compelling argument to steal budget, super alliances will provide a real alternative to the big four for advertisers. ‘Super alliances’ in more ways than one.

Feature Image Credit: Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

By Graeme Finneberg

Graeme Finneberg is country manager, UK at mediarithmics

Sourced from The Drum

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How to Build a Facebook Ad Funnel

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By Juupiner

Do you want more conversions from your Facebook ads?

Wondering how funnels can help?

To explore how you can build Facebook ad funnels that improve conversions, I interview Susan Wenograd.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Susan Wenograd, a Facebook ads expert who specializes in Facebook ad funnels. She’s also a consultant and regular speaker on Facebook ads.

Sue explains how video-based funnels create micro-conversions.

You’ll discover how to nurture prospects using a Facebook ad funnel.

Facebook Funnels

Susan’s Story

Susan got her start in ecommerce in the mid-2000s, when she worked for Circuit City. Back then, her focus was email marketing and paid search. After she moved to another job, she learned about Facebook advertising. At the time, Facebook ads were easier to learn because Facebook had half of the advertising features it does now.

Running Facebook ads, Susan was able to experiment and get to know the platform. She loved that these ads took her back to the marketing 101 stuff she enjoys: branding, content, the language you use, and so on. Facebook ads allowed her to use a little more creativity than paid search did.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article.

By Juupiner

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