How to Run Instagram Ads

It's a beautiful time for digital marketing – a new and highly popular platform is open season for advertising. Instagram recently began en-masse rollout of their advertising platform, giving marketers access to the social network's 400 million daily active users. Here's how you can get started:

Navigate to your brand's Facebook page and hit the Settings button in the top right. You'll see the option for Instagram Ads on the left menu, and when clicked you'll be asked to add the account with the username and password.

For the time being, this is the tool you'll have to use to launch an Instagram ad. To get there, click the arrow in the top right of Facebook's navigation bar and select Manage Ads. At the top, underneath the search bar, you'll see the option to launch Power Editor. Note: Power Editor is only supported with the Chrome web browser.

When setting up your new Instagram campaign, make sure that you set your objective to one that is currently supported. At the time of this writing, the available objectives for Instagram ads are clicks to website, mobile app installs, and video views.

Based on your marketing objectives or the type of creative you're planning to use, it should be pretty easy to choose one of these options. For this example we've selected an oldie but a goody: clicks to website. We're promoting an event and want to lead visitors to a webpage that has the event details.

The great thing about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram is that advertising on Instagram comes with very familiar targeting options. Instagram accounts don't collect a whole lot of data on users' demographic information, but most people will connect their Instagram account to their Facebook (for the purpose of sharing) which is full of demographic data.

Input your targeting information; in our example we're trying to reach 15-25 year-olds who live within a 25km radius of Kitchener (which is where this event is located). Make sure that when you get to the section about Placement, you select the option to have your ads displayed on Instagram.

When setting up your Ad Set, you'll need to input your budget and set your bidding strategy and max bid. In 99% of cases, you want your bidding strategy to match your campaign objective. We wanted to get people to click and go to a webpage, so we set up our bidding to pay per click. We also recommend that you manually set your max bid – not only does it let you specify the amount that a website visitor is worth to your business, but it also gives you a chance make sure your bid is on the high end to help you win the auctions and get more impressions.

So that's what we did, and we were pretty shocked when Facebook told us the going rate for Instagram ads in our local market.

We also checked what the pricing would be using a CPM model (with the same targeting parameters). If website visits aren't central to your campaign, this could be a great way set your bidding strategy. It is especially effective if your goal is to build brand awareness or if you aren't trying to elicit a specific action.

The third step in the process is creating your ad. Instagram is the place where you need to use imagery that really stands out. Check out some tips from our designer on how you can do just that! Beyond the image or video you choose to use, you'll also have the option of inputting a text description (which can include @mentions or #hashtags) and choosing from a select list of CTA button text.

In the case of an event, we chose to go with "Learn More" because we wanted to make the text description compelling but short. Over time, we'll see this list expand just like Facebook's has over the years.

When we checked in on our ad after 12 hours of cycling, we were stunned by the results.

The cost per click (CPC) ended up averaging only $0.53! That was pleasant surprise compared to the $18/click suggested bid. This is a perfect example of why it's so important to monitor the performance of your PPC campaigns. Don't just launch it and leave it. The best data you can get as a marketer is your own data, so use it well! In our example here, I noticed these results and decided to refine my targeting based on Interests. This should result in a higher conversion rate as it is focusing more narrowly on the target market. Of course, I'll be checking on it again in another 12 hours to see if my hypothesis was correct.

As the platform evolves, we'll be sure to keep you updated with new strategies to use.

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Original source: How to Run Instagram Ads.
http://www.jretechnology.com

How to Cross Promote Your Social Profiles With Facebook

By Andrea Vahl
Published May 18, 2015

Are you active on multiple social platforms?

Are you using your Facebook page to grow followings on other platforms?

Promoting links to all your social profiles on Facebook lets your fans know where else they can find you.

In this article you'll discover six ways to promote your social profiles on your Facebook page.

Discover how to cross promote your social profiles with Facebook.

You can add links to social sites in the About section of your Facebook page. Add them to any part of your description where they fit.

If you include a link in your short description, it shows up in the About area of your main Facebook timeline.

On the EasyLunchboxes page, special arrow characters highlight the social links. If you want to use these characters in your About section, just copy and paste them from another site.

Add links to social sites in the About section.

Your cover photo description is one of the most underutilized places for text and links. When someone clicks on your cover photo, they see the full description of the photo, so you can add anything there you want to promote.

List your social sites links in the description area of your cover photo.

While this may not bring you hundreds of new followers on all of your social profiles, it's such a quick and painless edit, why wouldn't you take 10 seconds to do a little cross-promotion?

Adding a Facebook app to your page, also known as a tab, can be a great way to show visitors your other social media profiles. Third parties (not Facebook) develop these apps and they all work slightly differently.

Here are some of the apps that easily bring in your other social accounts to your Facebook page:

There are many more apps that can also help you with adding a custom tab to your page.

Your apps can also appear in the left sidebar of your timeline, and you can customize the thumbnail so it matches your branding.

The top three apps on your page appear in the left sidebar and can have custom thumbnails.

One of the benefits of adding your social site links to your page is that people can easily follow you from the tab and see your activity.

The first app listed also appears just under your cover photo.

Your social tabs are automatically updated with your latest posts.

Remember that mobile users can't see your tabs on their phones, so if you include a link to your tab, make sure it's "mobile-ready." This means it has a special link that identifies when users are on a mobile device and takes them to a separate site that shows your tab content.

You can put together a Facebook album with icons from your social channels and include social links in the photo descriptions. When you initially share this album, your followers will see it, and you can always reshare a link to the album as a fun way for people to see your profiles on other social sites.

Use all of the social icons as images in a photo album.

The benefit of putting the photos in an album is that they're a little more visible than a single image that gets pushed down in your uploads as you add more pictures.

In the photo description, add the link to your social site.

Sharing content from other channels with your Facebook page helps you cross-promote all of your social profiles and makes it easier to post content in multiple places.

But always remember the true goal. If you're really trying to drive traffic to a blog post, for example, it doesn't make sense to share the tweet of the pin of the blog post to Facebook. It would take someone too many clicks to get there. But some occasional sharing from your profiles on other social sites helps draw attention to those channels.

If you have share buttons, sharing content from your other social profiles with your Facebook page is usually just a matter of switching the destination to your page.

Sharing from another social site to your page is usually just about switching the destination.

On Instagram, sharing your posts with your Facebook page is a matter of changing your settings. By default, Instagram shares images with your personal profile when you connect Facebook to your Instagram account.

To change the sharing destination of Instagram images from your Facebook profile to your page, open the Instagram app and go to Settings (the three dots in the upper-right corner when you're looking at your profile). Then tap Linked Accounts.

Change your Instagram settings on your mobile device.

Now tap Facebook to make changes to the destination.

Tap Facebook to make changes to your Facebook destination.

Edit where you want your Instagram photos to go when you tap Share to Facebook.

You can select a page to send your photos to instead of your personal profile.

If you only want some photos to go to your Facebook page, you have to manually change this setting before sharing. Or you can set up a workaround such as an IFTTT recipe (discussed in the next section) to send only some images to your Facebook page.

A little automation can be good. While it's a great idea to post natively to social sites so you can upload properly sized photos or tweak the language to fit the site, sometimes it's handy to post to several of your profiles with the click of one button.

There are a lot of tools that can help you do this, and the list below is by no means exhaustive. Here are a few ways to automate:

Send all of your Facebook page posts to Twitter by connecting them here. This option isn't recommended for everyone, as your posts get cut off at 140 characters (with a link back to the original Facebook post) and you may not want every post to go to Twitter.

Use tools to post to several profiles at once. These tools allow you to craft your post and then select which social profiles it will go to. Many of the tools have other features as well, such as analytics, special scheduling and team management.

Use IFTTT to create rules around a type of post or share that you want to automate. For example, if you want to put some images for an event in a special Facebook album, you can create a recipe to automate the process.

Use IFTTT to create special rules around social sites and sharing.

By making others aware of your Facebook page and connecting in multiple places with people, your messages are more likely to be seen.

Think of your own browsing habits and how often you see messages in all places at once. If you're anything like me, it's probably not that often. So don't worry about overwhelming your audience with the same messages if you post in multiple places.

Conclusion

I find that most businesses err on the side of not promoting their other social real estate often enough. Make sure you're using some of these tips to get the word out about your other social channels.

How about you? Are you cross-promoting links to all your social media profiles? What is working best for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=167506593384213&version=v2.0"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));About the Author, Andrea Vahl

Andrea Vahl is co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and also uses her improv comedy skills to blog as Grandma Mary, Social Media Edutainer. Connect with her at http://www.andreavahl.com/. Other posts by Andrea Vahl »

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Original source: How to Cross Promote Your Social Profiles With Facebook.
http://www.jretechnology.com

7 Ways to Create an Effective Facebook Ad Campaign

By Rocco Alberto Baldassarre
Published May 7, 2015

Are you using Facebook ads?

Want tips to step up your game?

Facebook ads can be highly profitable, and there are countless ways to make them more effective.

In this article, you'll find seven ways to create an effective Facebook ad campaign.

Discover seven ways to create effective Facebook ad campaigns.

Use Audience Insights to find new potential customers to target based on characteristics and interests of people who already like your page.

First, click on Audience Insights in the Ad Manager.

Use Audience Insights to target your ads.

In the pop-up window, select People Connected to Your Page.

Next, click on People Connected to Your Page.

You will now see your Audience Insights. Demographics is the default on the horizontal menu.

When you get to Audience Insights, you'll see your demographics.

Scroll down the page until you see a drop-down menu on the bottom left of the page that says People Connected To. Although you are using Audience Insights for your page, you still need to select your page name in that field.

Select your page name under People Connected To.

You will now see a variety of metrics, including age and gender distribution among your current page likes, lifestyle, relationship status, education level and job title.

Use what you know about your audience demographics to create targeted audiences for your Facebook ads.

Based on the insights Facebook provides, put together new target audiences to split test against or add to your current audiences. Use what you know about your audience demographics to create meaningful, directed ads.

The content of the Facebook post should be aligned with the content of the landing page for two reasons.

First, you get a higher Ad Relevance score, and as a result you'll pay less per click. Over the last couple of years, Facebook ads have become more competitive and consequently more expensive, so it makes a lot of sense to do this.

Second, alignment among ads and landing pages increases your conversion rate. Once people click the ad, they expect to get exactly what the post promised. If they do, your website and brand gain credibility, and potential customers are more likely to trust the company as a whole.

Trust is particularly important if you are running Facebook ads to increase sales of a product or service, because customers are more willing to insert their payment information and complete the purchase if the brand looks trustworthy. Plus, a high degree of alignment among the ads and landing pages typically lowers shopping cart drop-off rates and increases conversion rates.

Instead of creating different ads and split testing them, create variations of whichever ad currently performs best, and change one element at a time.

For example, take your best ad, make copies of it and change the headline of each version. You now have multiple ads that are identical except for the headline that you can test.

Take your best Facebook ad and duplicate it except for the headline to see which gets the best response.

After you determine which ad gets the best response, make copies of it and test another element like description or image.

Remember, also test combinations of different split tests. For example, take the winning headline and put it with various descriptions to determine the winning description. Now put the winning description with one of the other tested headlines to see how it does. It might even outperform the winning headline/description combination.

Once you determine your most effective ad, test each element separately to see if that gets an even better response.

Instead of just choosing news feed right-column ads or going for all news feed ads, split test the different ad placements. If you have one campaign with news feed right-column ads, as well as desktop and mobile ads, run a placement report to find out how they perform.

Ideally, you would have three campaigns or ad sets: one for news feed right-column ads, one for news feed desktop ads and one for news feed mobile ads. This allows you to control the budget to a much higher degree than if all ad formats were in one campaign or ad set.

When you set up a like campaign with the Power Editor or in the live Facebook account, you are allowed to exclude audiences such as people who already like your page. Here's how.

Login and click Create Ad in the top right corner. You then see the regular campaign setup. Next, scroll down to Connections. Click Add a Connection Type and choose Facebook Pages. Then select the last option, Exclude People Who Like Your Page.

Go to the Connections section to exclude people who already like your page.

It is a common best practice to exclude people who already like your page, because the whole point of the campaign is to get additional likes, not to get irrelevant impressions by showing your ads to people who already like your page.

If you have installed the conversion pixel, you can exclude people who already converted to prevent irrelevant impressions and clicks.

Go to your campaign settings and edit the Targeting & Placement section.

Edit the Targeting & Placement section to exclude people who already converted from your ads.

A window will pop up to allow you to edit your ad set. Click in the Custom Audiences field.

Click in the Custom Audiences field in the Targeting tab.

Once you click, the word "Include" will appear. Click the arrow next to "Include" to open up the drop-down menu. Select Exclude.

After you click on the drop-down menu, select Exclude.

Facebook will automatically provide audiences to choose from for this field, such as Exclude People Who Like [your page name]. After you select this custom audience to exclude from your targeting, double-check the change in the overview of the settings.

After you exclude a custom audience, double-check your settings.

To save money on bidding, set up ad sets according to geographic target areas. Ideally, each ad set should just target one geographic area because the cost per click can vary greatly.

By separating different geographic targets from the start, you can adjust your bids accordingly. Bid higher where it makes sense and use other geographic areas on a seasonal basis or exclude them entirely.

If you are targeting just one country, keep in mind that ad sets can also target cities or zip codes.

Over to You

There are a variety of ways to optimize your Facebook ads. Experiment with audiences, placement, split testing and more to get better results from your Facebook advertising.

What do you think? What do you do to improve your Facebook ads? Have you tried any of these suggestions? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.

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Original source: 7 Ways to Create an Effective Facebook Ad Campaign.
http://www.jretechnology.com

9 Ways to Improve Your Pinterest Marketing

By Julia McCoy
Published September 8, 2015

Does your business use Pinterest?

Want to get more exposure and engagement for your pins?

Marketing on Pinterest is an excellent way to showcase your business, engage current and potential customers and boost your bottom line.

In this article I'll share nine ways to improve your Pinterest marketing.

Discover nine tips to improve your Pinterest marketing.

To have an effective Pinterest plan, it is vital to understand your audience. When you know your followers, you are better able to create engaging Pinterest content that connects with them.

Etsy knows their customers like to do things themselves, and provides them with DIY tips and tricks to keep them happy and engaged. Etsy also shares gorgeous images of the top products people can find on the site.

Etsy knows their audience is filled with creative people, so they share content that speaks to them.

What to know your audience better? Just ask. Do basic research by sending out surveys to your customers. Another option is to study your followers' profiles or review Pinterest analytics. Then create user personas based on the data.

When you understand who follows you and when, you are better able to provide them with tips and tricks that speak to them. This will definitely help you stand out from the competition.

Followers look to you and your business for valuable information. Show you know your industry and develop powerful relationships with your clients.

For example, Bank of America provides excellent, relevant information to help their followers. They share useful money tips in a variety of categories, from educating kids about money and buying a home to planning weddings and travel. On Bank of America's Better Money Habits Pinterest account, there's something for everyone with money concerns.

Bank of America uses Pinterest to provide clients with useful information on a variety of topics.

If you provide your audience with helpful information, people are more likely to follow your Pinterest boards and engage with your content. Know what your clients want and need, and create content that helps them view you as a trusted resource. The result will be powerful relationships with loyal clients.

A way to strengthen your brand presence is to vary the types of boards you create. That way, you speak to multiple facets of your audience and increase your reach.

Book Riot, a small book and blog community, has a strong Pinterest presence. They create multiple boards on a variety of topics to give their readers a huge selection of content. This sets them apart from other small brands and makes them a contender with larger ones.

Book Riot creates multiple boards to give their followers variety, thereby increasing their appeal and reach.

Create multiple boards that offer different things for your audience, while remaining true to and strengthening your brand. More boards and topics will lead to an increase in followers.

Pinterest is excellent for increasing visibility, since the more a pin has been shared, the more people will see it. Create a Pinterest contest to increase sharing and attract new potential customers.

To enter Adagio Teas' "I Love Adagio Teas" contest on Pinterest, fans needed to create a board with 10 Adagio teas and share it with the company. Adagio gave a $10 gift certificate to those who created a board. Plus, every participant was in the drawing for the grand prize.

Adagio Teas' Pinterest contest asked users to create and share a board featuring their tea.

Launch a contest that encourages users to create a board featuring your product or service. It's a great way to encourage sharing, which may lead to new customers.

The more people know about your brand, the more likely they are to check it out. Remember, just as important as bringing in new customers is maintaining the ones you have.

Building trust is a great way to create and maintain a loyal client base. Use visuals on Pinterest to showcase your accomplishments.

The United Kingdom's conservation charity, National Trust, uses their Pinterest account to share images of historic and natural locations they have saved and improved. People are more likely to donate to National Trust after they see the good the organization does.

National Trust conservation charity in the United Kingdom shares results of their work on Pinterest.

Whether you are a charity or not, show what your business does through photographs on Pinterest. Giving your followers a peek behind the scenes goes a long way to building a trusting relationship.

Pinterest provides an effective way for your business to drive traffic to your website. Create beautiful boards with quality images, so your followers can't help but click.

For example, BuzzFeed has a varied audience and boards to match. Their graphics are engaging and high-quality and address the topics people want to read more about.

BuzzFeed covers a wide variety of topics and has quality content that encourages people to click.

Create boards with pins that lead to your blog, as well as product pages. Create fun boards with excellent pictures and interesting material that relate to different topics. The more boards and pins you create, the more likely your following and organic traffic will increase.

Humor is an excellent way to engage with current and potential customers on Pinterest. Create a "funny" board or even a unique board with a humorous twist.

While Wayfair's "Holiday Gift Hiding Places" board offers people great hiding place ideas, it's also amusing for those who struggle to find places to hide presents from loved ones.

Wayfair adds a bit of humor to their Pinterest presence with their "Holiday Gift Hiding Places" board.

Brainstorm ideas and then create a specific funny board, a way to put a humorous twist on your content or both. When you utilize humor in your Pinterest marketing, especially funny material that speaks to your fans and followers, it grabs attention and improves clicks and engagement.

Sharing real-life photos is very effective in engaging clients and building lasting relationships. This helps your followers feel like they are part of your business, and they are more likely to comment, pin and favorite.

Petplan Pet Insurance's Petplan Protected board showcases animals that are under the insurance. This encourages clients to send in content for user-generated pieces and increases their feeling of inclusion.

Petplan shares photos of the pets protected by their insurance to encourage engagement.

Share real-life photos from your company and encourage users to do the same. To get started, create a "behind the scenes" board and a user board, and go from there.

More than anything else, Pinterest is known as a place for DIY, tips and life hacks. Utilize the platform to show your audience tips and tricks that relate to your product.

Dreyer's Ice Cream offers helpful ideas that include great treats, holiday-inspired recipes and more.

Dreyer's Ice Cream shares a variety of uses and recipes for their products on Pinterest.

This is something you can do regardless of your industry. Just make sure it's relevant.

Come up with great tips to share. Then create and curate the content to go with it. Your customers will appreciate other uses for your products and will show it through likes and shares.

Final Thoughts

Pinterest marketing can be a valuable tool for your business. The visual media, combined with useful information, gives fans and followers a peek at who you are and what you know. This will help you develop trust, build and cultivate relationships, encourage engagement and help you grow your business.

What do you think? Do you use Pinterest to promote your business? What tricks work best for you? Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments.

Nine tips for improving your Pinterest marketing.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.4&appId=159389674132284"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));About the Author, Julia McCoy

Julia McCoy is a self-taught copywriter and Internet marketer who founded Express Writers at 19 years old. Today, it's a full-size copywriting team providing worldwide businesses with high quality content. Other posts by Julia McCoy »

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Original source: 9 Ways to Improve Your Pinterest Marketing.
http://www.jretechnology.com