Facebook ads are a big deal. According to Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, the platform has 65 million businesses using Pages with about 4 million of those businesses directly advertising on Facebook. These businesses are targeting 2.2 billion Monthly Active Users (As of Q4 2017).

By any measure, these are vast numbers to contend with, and this is why it is undoubtedly a good idea to take advantage of this vast resource of active users on the platform.

With that said, one glaring dilemma comes up as soon as you decide to take the leap and use Facebook marketing and more Facebook business advertising for your promotional needs. How do I make my business stand out given that there are so many others already advertising on Facebook? An easy way to learn how to make use of this is to take a social media course that will help you learn techniques to distinguish yourself from what is common.

You could even start by reading this article and hopefully, you will be able to make a difference for your business through creating the perfect Facebook Ad campaign. The first logical step in our journey is to understand how Facebook Advertising works.

How does Facebook Advertising Work?

The tool that you will need to familiarize yourself with to create an AD on Facebook is the Facebook Ads Manager. The Facebook Ads manager is your ‘AD campaign Command Center’ that you use to create and manage your Ads on mobile or desktop.

For a first-time user, Facebook Ads Manager can be quite daunting. In as much as Facebook calls it a compelling AD management tool built for advertisers of any experience level, the truth is that just the sheer number of options that the tool offers can make it quite confusing for beginners.

Thankfully, there are a lot of guides out there that can hold your hand through the process for How to Use Facebook Ads Manager.

At the end of the day, there are a few key points that you need to pay attention to if you want to create successful Facebook Ads. Below are some of the key points:

Are you a good fit to advertise on Facebook?

Facebook Ads best work to generate demand and not to fulfill demand. In other words, most people using Facebook are there to connect with their friends and not to look for products to purchase. Essentially, the best way to advertise on Facebook is to make the distinction between display Ads and search Ads and learn when to use each to get the best ROI. As a rule of thumb, start with search advertising (with the likes of Google Ads and Bing Ads) and then slowly move to display advertising (Facebook Ads) for remarketing purposes.

Most successful Facebook Ads use low friction conversion techniques including asking for sign-ups. They also depend on customers who have a customer lifetime value of at least six months or more because you want to build trust before asking them to buy from you.

Who to target and how to target them

Facebooks targeting choices are quite robust, and you can reach a very large demographic. That said, by and large, the purpose of targeting is to focus on niche areas where you can derive the most benefit from your efforts. If you choose to go for broad category searching as opposed to precise interest targeting, be ready to pay more for it.

Depending on your audience, different target criteria like Education, workplace, connections, and language may be the best option for you. However, for most marketers targeting based on Age, Gender, Interests, and Location are sufficient. You should do Facebook Ads interest targeting research to find out what works best for you.

Choose your images carefully

The image you choose for your Facebook Ad is quite possibly the most significant part of your Ad. If your image doesn’t catch attention, then it is unlikely that anyone will actually take a closer look at the Ad and read your copy.

Since you want to make your Facebook Ads stand out, you must also make your images stand out and catch attention. Your options for creating such images is to either buy them, license them or to make them yourself.

Whichever approach you choose, remember that to make your images stand out, some of the well-known ways to achieve this include:

• Use images of people and especially close-up faces that your audience find attractive
• Use colors to grab attention
• Use your logo
• Use minimal text
• Use unusual pictures including quirky pictures and illustrations, fun and funny pictures of people or animals

 

Write a good copy

Once you choose a great image for your AD and thereby earn your audience’s attention, you then have the opportunity to tell them what you have to offer. Remember, when in doubt, keep it short, keep it crispy, and keep it simple.

 

Keep iterating on your Ads

Since your goal is to make your Facebook Advertising stand out, you constantly want to improve the Ads that you use. A good strategy is to choose a maximum of three Ads for each campaign and then based on the click-through-rate (CTR) of each AD, replace the lowest performing one and replace it with another. This strategy will eventually make your Ads stand out from the crowd. The average Facebook AD CTR should be based on your specific industry.

Place the right AD bids

If you don’t place the right AD bids, then two things often happen:

• You pay too much for AD results
• Your Ads will not get delivered due to low AD bids

As such, optimizing your Facebook AD bids is crucial. Your basic strategy should be to bid on conversions because Facebook sponsored ads will be delivered to people most interested in your offer which means a higher likelihood of conversion. Optimizing your targets and the Ads you place is one way to continuously increase your CTR.

Send prospects to a high-converting landing page

Beginning your Facebook AD campaigns with the end in mind is critical to your ultimate success with Facebook ads. In other words, optimizing your Facebook ads for lots of relevant clicks is just half the journey.

Although FB ads are best designed for generating demand, you still want to have a good ROI for the Ads that you place by converting the generated traffic into revenue. Therefore, instead of sending your audience directly to your website, direct them to a high converting landing page.

High-converting landing pages have the following basic characteristics (LINK to ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Landing Pages’):

• They lack navigation
• Have a catchy headline
• They have clear, compelling, and effective CTA
• They have a value-centric copy that is easy to skim through
• They have a simple and non-distracting language and design
• They incorporate impeccable and engaging content
• They include strong trust indicators

Make use of Facebook Analytics and insights

Once you have managed to get your voice heard in the Facebook crowd, tracking the performance of your Ads is valuable to stay on top. In fact, right from the start, understanding the metrics on your Facebook page allows you to ensure that Facebook algorithms work for you, instead of against you. Learning to effectively use Facebook Insights and Analytics is therefore crucial.

Tips to Keep in Mind for Great Ad Campaigns

If you have managed to through most of the content above including looking through the useful links provided to elaborate on the points made, then you are in a great position to make the next move towards creating great Facebook Ads. For those looking for just the highlights of what they need for Facebook AD success, here are some quick Facebook advertising tips for you:

Creating your campaign and relevant targeting

1. Learn to use the Facebook Ads manager
2. Make your Facebook Ads relevant by targeting your high probability customers first. For example, target your existing customers as well as people that have already ‘liked’ you on Facebook or people that have expressed interest in you or your brand
3. Make use of Facebook Insights and Analytics tool to optimize your demographic and refine your Ads
4. Test your Ads and rotate them as you find out what works and what doesn’t
5. Choose the right time of day to display your Ad. When your audience is most likely to view ads and click on them.

Choosing the assets and optimizing them effectively

1. Make use of AIDA (Attention-grabbing headlines, garner Interest in your product by describing its benefit, create immediate Desire with a great offer/discount, call to Action) to generate leads and revenue.
2. Use high-quality images that have the following features:
   • Eye-catching images especially pets and beautiful faces
   • Images of women perform better than images of men
   • Images of fun and happiness
   • Avoid Facebook colors because people will most likely skip over the AD
   • Choose images that are the right size based on the type of AD that you choose to use
3. Use interactive experiences for example by experimenting with GIF’s
4. Be direct with your message and avoid being too clever. The main reason for this is that your audience probably has just a few seconds to stop and check out something attention-grabbing as they scroll through their Facebook page. As such, decoding messages is not something that they want to do.
5. Use powerful words or phrases to pass your message across but avoid making your text more than 20% of the image’s size.

Analytics and optimization

1. Install Facebook pixel to allow you to measure, optimize and grow your audience
2. Place the right bids by setting the right conversion value. If you don’t set a conversion value, it will default to $0
3. Setting the right conversion value allows you to measure earned amount versus the spent amount
4. Optimize your analytics by tagging your URL’s. or example, if you have two Ads that lead to the same URL, having tags will allow your analytics provide you with more information to differentiate the source and determine which Ads are more effective.
5. Use A/B split testing to optimize your Ads. Change CTA’s, headlines, descriptions, images, demographics, bidding types, device placement, time of day, purchase behavior, interests, and other elements to see what works and what doesn’t.
6. Give your Ads equal opportunity to succeed by choosing the right amount of time that is equal for each AD
7. Run analytics reports from the Facebook Ads Manager regularly to find out how your Ads are performing on an ongoing basis
8. Keep an eye on your relevance score. A low score means that your Ads are not resonating with your audience and this means that you should switch up your Ad.

Conclusion

This is not an exhaustive list of all that you could do to succeed with your Facebook Ads campaigns. However, if you at least keep in mind an apply the suggestions mentioned here you will create an ad that will stand out from the crowd and deliver the impressive results that you are after. By a lot of standards, this is just the perfect Facebook Ad campaign that every business owner or marker is looking for.

Thinking about how to crack your social media interview?

Not sure what social media interview questions are asked?

Read this article to learn more about how to crack your next social media interview. It could make all the difference between bagging the social media role of your choice or losing it to someone else.

Digital marketing is constantly changing. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that marketers were questioning if social media was even worth their time. Now, social media is an integral part of any successful digital marketing strategy.

Considering that this change in thinking is still in its infancy stage, there are tons of employment opportunities in this space with great growth potential. The only trick is getting past the interview to land your dream social media job. Of course, this task does become easy if you are the proud owner of a social media certification, which can tell employers about your commitment to learning new skills. However, no matter how qualified you are for a position, you’re going to do well by preparing for the social media interview questions that will be presented to you. Social media interview questions will vary depending on the position you’re applying for, but every interviewer is looking for high standards and the potential for growth in their candidates.

Here are some of the top social media interview questions to help you prepare, starting with some for SEO beginners and leading up to more advanced social media specialist interview questions.

Social Media Interview Questions for Beginners

Congratulations, you’ve landed your first social media interview. You’re excited but have no idea what to expect from the interview. Before the big day, it’s a good idea to brush up on social media marketing as much as possible. TThere are so many intricacies, that it’s easy to overlook something important.  A publication like social media for dummies can help lay it all out in an easy to understand format.

Once you’ve brushed up on social media basics and terminology, it’s time to prepare by getting an edge up with the most common interview questions for social media marketing positions. Here are a few to get you started.

Social Media Interview Question 1: What is social media marketing and how can it benefit our business?

Answer: Social media interview questions like this are looking to test your basics. Begin by explaining what social media marketing is and how it can be used.

An example of an answer to this social media interview question is given below. 

Social media marketing is the practice of using social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to promote brand awareness and generate traffic to the business’s website. The goal is to attract high-quality leads that will eventually turn into customers.

It can benefit a business in many ways, including providing valuable customer insight and increasing brand loyalty. While social media is also one of the best tools for increasing brand visibility, it also establishes better lines of communication and engagement between a brand and its customers.

Social Media Interview Question 2: In one word, tell me what it takes to succeed in social media marketing.

Answer: Authenticity. Audiences are attracted to the transparency of social media and the ability to get to know brands intimately. Authenticity in everything you do is going to establish respect and trustworthiness for any brand.

Keep answers to social media interview questions like this one short, crisp and to-the-point. 

Social Media Interview Question 3: Which social media platforms my business have a presence on?

Answer: This is a common social media intern interview question. Arrive at the interview prepared for this question by doing your research on the company. Understand their demographic, their message and their marketing goals. Then, determine which social platforms are best suited for helping them reach those goals, and explain why.  For example, a professional demographic for a B2B company means they need to be active on LinkedIn. Similarly, a brand that caters to young adults is missing opportunities if they’re not on Instagram and Snapchat.

Social Media Interview Question 4: Name a piece of content that you’ve seen recently that you’ve loved.

Answer: The interviewer isn’t trying to find out more about your personal interest with social media questions like this, but is instead assessing your eye for high-quality content. Your answer shouldn’t focus on the subject of the content. It should focus on what it was about the content that made it enjoyable.

Was it written by a master wordsmith, or maybe it was engaging live content that caught your attention? Share your insights about why you loved it and how you would apply the same concepts to your own social media strategy.

Social Media Interview Question 5: When is it best to not engage on social media?

Answer: This question is all about judgment. It’s especially important for damage control to respond promptly and appropriately to negative comments. However, we all know that some commenters are only on there to get attention and cause trouble, and it’s best to not engage with these people.  Often times, innocent responses “fan the flames,” per se, and make a bad situation even worse.

Show the interviewer that you know the difference when you must and must not engage. Highlight how this skill can protect their reputation by being prepared with an example that you have seen. If you don’t yet have personal experience with this, that’s fine too. Mention a brand that you’ve noticed has done an exceptional job of engaging with their audience while not caving into trolls.

Social Media Interview Questions for SEO Specialists

SEO and social media are intricately entwined. The social media marketing interview questions for these positions are going to be aimed at uncovering how well you understand this relationship.

You know that social media and SEO both help build an audience. This interview is where you get to dig in and define how they each expand brand visibility and why they’re natural partners.  This is your time to shine.

Here are a few of the top SEO and social media coordinator interview questions.

Social Media Interview Question 1: Tell me about your SEO experience and how it relates to social media.

Answer: There are multiple things that the interviewer is looking for with social media interview questions like these. They want to make sure that you understand key points like Google’s algorithms and how they apply to social media.  So, mention key points like keyword usage, content creation, local listings and link building from social channels. It’s important to mention current changes. These changes could include examples such as Facebook’s recent change in the algorithm used to display preferred content on each user’s feed.

Social Media Interview Question 2: Which social media tools do you use?

Answer: The interviewer is going to expect you to be experienced in using social media tools like HootSuite, BuzzSumo, CrowdBooster, and/or Sprout Social. Be prepared to highlight those that you have experience with, as well as how you leveraged them and what your results have been. For added “oomph,” mention a tool that you’ve been interested in trying but haven’t had the opportunity to experiment with yet.

Social Media Interview Question 3: How would you respond if Google devalued one of your most trusted SEO strategies?

Answer: Google makes hundreds of changes to its algorithm throughout the year. Most of them are small and barely detectable in SEO, but occasionally an update will come along that really shakes things up.  At some point, a trusted SEO strategy will lose steam. Here’s your opportunity to discuss how Google adapts its algorithm and how you would approach restructuring your strategy.  This question is all about how you handle challenges and adversity.

Social Media Interview Question 4: What social media strategies do you plan to implement to generate more leads?

Answer: The company you’re interviewing with is going to expect you to produce a good ROI for their social media investment, and this means generating leads. You should familiarize yourself with the social media platforms the company is currently using and understand their unique strengths and weaknesses with SEO. If you see potential in a network they’re not currently using, be sure to mention why and how it could be an asset.

Social Media Interview Question 5: How did you generate traffic in your last position?

Answer: Arrive at your interview prepared with not only answers to this question, but with data to back them up. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to update your portfolio to include examples of how you’ve boosted traffic for previous clients.

Social Media Interview Questions for Managers

One of the best ways to prepare for this type of interview is by imagining that you were in the interviewer’s position. Start by making your own list of social media manager interview questions. What’s on your list and how would you answer each question?

Once you’ve made a list of potential question. You can go through your own list and prepare further. Review this list and see how you would want these social media interview questions to be answered.

Here is a list of the most common social media interview questions asked to managers during an interview.

Social Media Interview Question 1: How do you measure social media success?

Answer: Mention the key factors you look for in determining success, such as an increase in followers and leads, number of new inbound links to your site through social platforms, engagement and shares, amount of new traffic generated, and an increased conversion rate.

Social Media Interview Question 2: How do you respond to a social media crisis?

Answer: Do not answer this social media interview question by saying you can prevent a crisis from ever happening. This tells the interviewer nothing about you, other than you have an over-inflated ego. Instead, outline a methodical approach to a crisis.

When you face a social media crisis, the ideal steps of action are:

• Start by responding quickly. Negative remarks can fester into something larger when left unattended
• Let the audience know that you care about their concerns.
• Acknowledge the crisis and get all the details you can

Additionally, you should mention how you would use sentiment analysis to track what people are saying about your brand so you can stay ahead of a looming crisis.

It’s your job to prove to the interviewer that you have a keen sense of judgment. With this question, interviewers decide if you are capable of deciding if a resolution is possible on social media, or if the conversation needs to be taken off social media and resolved independently.

Social Media Interview Question 3: What is our competitor’s social media strategy and what do you think of it?

Answer: Be wary of social media interview questions like this one. Research the company’s biggest competitors and dig into their social media strategies. Being prepared for this question shows the interviewer that you took the time to learn about the company. This prep work includes the deficiencies of their competitors. These deficiencies present significant social media marketing and SEO opportunity.

Social Media Interview Question 4: What goals should we set for our social media strategy, and what does the road to reaching those goals look like?

Answer: Outline one or two specific goals and how you would reach them. For example, perhaps you’ve noticed that this company would benefit from increased brand engagement. You could start by researching their social media demographic to help you define a content strategy. From there you would determine the most important metrics for measuring success in achieving this goal. These metrics include clicks, engagement rate, and hashtag performance. The interviewer isn’t looking for a one or two-step process. They want to see evidence of methodical thinking.

Social Media Interview Question 5: We’re thinking of running a free contest on Facebook where all our followers need to do is like and share our regular posts to win. What do you think of this idea?

Answer: Social media interview questions like this one are a test of your knowledge of the rules and guidelines for each platform. Facebook doesn’t look fondly on “clickbait” posts, so running a contest like this could get the account temporarily locked.  Plus, while engagement numbers will climb while the contest is taking place, they will flat-line again once the contest is over. This short spurt isn’t going to do anything to help with sustainable, long-term organic reach.

Are you ready to make the next move in your social media career? Let these social media interview questions serve as a springboard for propelling you along the way. You’re worthy of that job you’re applying for. All you need to do is show them that the choice is easy!

 

If you follow events in the social media world, then you will be well aware that Instagram stories clearly did not come first. In fact, first came Snapchat, then Instagram Stories and then later followed Facebook Stories. More on this later. But for now, let’s start off by describing Instagram stories so that we are all on the same page as we go forward.

What is Instagram Stories?

Instagram themselves describe their Stories feature as allowing you to,

‘share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile.’

Essentially, Instagram stories allow you to share pictures, videos in a slideshow format. The photos and videos then automatically disappear after 24 hours. Once you take pictures and videos, you can then add Instagram story filters, text, stickers, drawings and even include mentions of other users and add links to add your distinctive flavor and interpretation to the images. You can learn how to do all this by enrolling in our advanced social media course.

Adding the links and mentions to the images and videos are two key features that differentiate Instagram from Snapchat. More on the differences later.

The other features that Instagram boasts include:

• Adding effects; such as adding doodles, geostickers, and live face filters
• View those watching your content
• Posting your insta-story to your public profile feed or grid (you must opt to do so since this will not happen by default)
• Allowing your story to be visible to a select few such as your friends/followers, and further blocking those that you do not want to see your stories on Instagram even if they follow you.

What is the difference between Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and Facebook?

In the war of Snapchat vs. Facebook vs. Instagram Stories, it gets confusing for brands. Most people aren’t even aware of the differences between the platforms. Before we can get to the differences between these different tools and platforms, it is important to touch on the similarities and the background of these tools. As mentioned above, first came Snapchat, and then Instagram and then later followed Facebook.

For those that are not aware, Facebook now owns Instagram. Also, it is clear to most that Instagram and Facebook both copied the one feature that Snapchat used to boast as being their exclusive domain. That is, the ability to automatically vanish your videos and images.

Instagram reinvented this feature and called it Instagram Stories while Facebook copied it as well and called it Messenger Day and Newsfeed Stories.

The similarities across the platforms are as follows:

• Videos and images disappear
• Filters, on-screen drawings, emojis, and text are used to enhance videos/images
• Images/videos can be sent publicly, privately or just to followers
• The number of views on videos/images can be monitored when the content is live.
• Individually delivered messages can be viewed twice

All these features work in much the same way and create the same sense of urgency across all the different platforms.

The differences between the platforms, or rather, the unique features specific to each platform are as follows:

How is Instagram stories different from Facebook and Snapchat

Instagram Stories or Insta snap distinguishing characteristics include:

• You can create and send out Live Stories, automatically notify your friends/followers and then interact with them in real-time
• Stories can be shown to ‘new’ users who have not yet connected with you in an ‘explore’ section. This feature is somewhat in Snapchat, but you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to enjoy this feature on your account.
• For more efficient marketing, you can create and share Ads through ‘Instagram Story Ads.’ You, must, however, pay for this feature.
• Instagram Stories has a larger fanbase than Snapchat

How Snapchat is different from Instagram and Facebook

Snapchats differentiating features are as follows:

• Snapchat still maintains a unique and fun feel even though Facebook and Instagram have poached Snapchat features
• Snapchat boasts unique and feature-rich geofilters in their Ad platform (Facebook tried to copy the feature with their ‘Location Frames,’ but Snapchat quickly shut this down through their patent)
• Snapchat has a unique and loyal fanbase

Facebook Messenger Day/Stories differentiating features

Facebook’s Messenger Day and Stories work comparably apart from the fact that Messenger Day is published on the users’ Messenger app while the Facebook’s Stories are published on the mobile Newsfeed.

Why You Should use Instagram for Business

There are several reasons to use Instagram Stories for business. Some of the features tailored to work well with business users are as follows:

Instagram Story feeds are uniquely organized

IG story feeds are ordered using an algorithm (instead of chronology) which benefits Business Marketing Strategies since factors such as engagement, likes, frequency, and consistency are prioritized. As such, Instagram stories are good for marketers and hence for businesses in the following ways:

• They allow for more average posts and not just viral posts to filter to the top of users feeds since frequency and consistency are just as crucial as viral or popular feeds.
• You can diversify content that you already have and use it in unique and diverse ways to stay top of mind by making it to the top of user’s feeds
• Instagram stories allow you to tap into instant marketing by allowing those that are not present at business/marketing events to still feel connected to your business
• Marketing through an insta story has a more fun, and authentic feel since posts are not perfected but instead created by merely taking snaps and pushing a few buttons to share your story.

Instagram Stories encourage personal engagement

Instagram Stories create a sense of urgency that encourages personal attention to the content that is in a user’s feed. As such, an ig story can have great benefit to a business in the following ways:

• It ensures that companies create content that allows for high-quality engagement since it promotes real-time participation.
• It allows businesses to connect with target customers right away
• It prevents cluttering of your business ig account since posts are automatically deleted.
• Your business Instagram account can be used to showcase your most recent and relevant content without any effort. Of course, if you want to keep a story and add it to your profile, you could easily do so

Instagram Stories allow you to manage and store your marketing content

Since you can choose to save the images or videos that you feel are valuable to you, you can instantly have access to lots of content that you can use down the road for your marketing needs. This has the following benefits for your business:

• Through the story saver for Instagram, you instantly have a store of all your images and videos that you can use for your other marketing and business endeavors.
• You can use the enhanced content created in stories (images/videos with drawings, text and other markups) to add more pizzazz to your overall marketing content.
• You can repurpose the images and videos to create more elaborate marketing campaigns

How to use Instagram Stories? (Instagram Stories Formats)

If you want to know how to use Instagram for business, you need to understand the different Instagram Stories formats.

Essentially, when you choose to use stories on Instagram, you can choose from different formats at the bottom of the screen and beneath the shutter button by just swiping. The different formats that you will find are as follows:

• Normal: this is a regular photo/video that you can take by tapping (to take a photo) or holding (to take a video up to 15 seconds long).
• Boomerang: this format allows you to create a GIF that loops over and over. If you time it right, you can capture a fun moment in a few seconds with few seconds of motion.
• Rewind: this works just like a normal format video but plays back only in reverse.
• Hands-free: works like a normal video only that you do not need to hold the button to record the video. All you need to do is just tap once to keep the camera rolling until the allotted time runs out or until you stop the video recording

An Instagram new feature that has also become popular is Instagram live stories. Through this feature, you can stream live videos to your friends and followers at the moment.

The difference between Instagram Stories and Instagram Live Stories is that with Instagram Live Stories the live video is even more ephemeral since it disappears as soon as the video ends and not 24 hours after it is created as is the case with Instagram stories.

What are Facebook stories?

As mentioned earlier, Facebook’s Stories are published on a user’s mobile Newsfeed. They sit at the top of the Newsfeed and comprise of two separate parts; Stories and Direct.

Direct can be accessed through the top left-hand side of the Newsfeed by tapping on the paper airplane icon. Direct offers a private messaging feature (distinct from the Messenger) that allows you to view stories sent directly to you. Direct also allows you to see replies to your own stories. Conversations in Direct can only be started through video/image and not through text.

Facebook stories sit at the top of the Newsfeed in the area that is occupied by circles with pictures and videos representing stories sent by you and your friends. Tap on any of the circles, and you can view the Story.

How are Brands using Facebook Stories?

In as much as Instagram Stories seems to be the preferred way for businesses to engage their customers through the use of visual content, Facebook marketing, through Facebook Stories does not lag too far behind. Brands use Facebook stories in the following ways:

Product showcases: One of the best ways for brands to use Facebook Stories is by highlighting product versatility through images, videos, text, and special effects. Not only is the visual element of a product displayed but also how the product should be used or how it can be used differently.

Adding an authentic perspective: Through Facebook stories, brands can share their stories and journeys in the most authentic way possible. At the end of the day, most people love a story that is not only entertaining but one that has emotion and passion for expressing an authentic perspective of events or moments.

Revitalize communication: In this visual age that we are living in, having yet another way to share visual content and especially visual content with special effects never seems to grow old. In fact, Facebook content is used by brands and businesses to combine text and visuals that are easier to attract attention to and absorb.

Provide an insider perspective: Everyone loves to be an insider or to have an inside perspective of what is happening with their favorite brands. Facebook Stories is a window that can provide this view of the inside of a brands work and play by humanizing a brands activity.

Straight-up marketing: By merely recording a marketing event through photos or videos, brands can make audiences feel that they are present at the event and this is an additional way to reach out to large numbers of people for higher levels of engagement.

How to Use Facebook Stories for Marketing

Facebook is continually improving ways for individuals and businesses to connect with their audiences. Recently, (October 2016) Facebook rolled out Stories for all Pages. Since businesses mostly use Pages for their business needs, this has provided a massive incentive for businesses to use Facebook stories.

More specifically, sharing of Facebook stories has had a significant impact on brands since it is widely known that, great companies are not just about products and services but about their stories. In short, an authentic brand story can improve trust which can have a significant impact on a brands bottom line.

With this in mind, below are three main ways that Facebook Stories can be used for marketing and branding:

Give your audience an insider view

People love being insiders with exclusive access to their favorite brands. By offering behind the scenes access, through Facebook stories, to; office parties, product lines, conferences, or just sharing scenes from the office you will make your audience feel like connected to you by humanizing your brand. This, in turn, increases engagement and creates a loyal following that is a lot easier to market to.

Show up and offer value unscripted

With Facebook stories, all you need to do is show-up and provide value. There is no need to perfect scripts and offer huge production value to market your ideas. As such, Facebook Stories allows marketing to simply rely on sharing expertise or information as the vehicle for success in reaching out to audiences.

Share valuable and exclusive content

If you make people excited about viewing your stories, then you will always have direct access to promote your ideas and market to them. This excitement can be easily created by offering valuable and exclusive content that allows people to feel special. Valuable content is informative, educative and engaging while exclusive content can include new content, discounts or special offers.

What is Snapchat Stories?

Snapchat plays the role of both a social network as well as a messaging platform. Snapchat allows users to use their smartphones to chat with their friends by sending pictures or 10-second videos. A simple way to think about it is texting through videos and pictures.

One of the defining features of Snapchat is the ephemeral quality of all the content that is shared on the platform. Essentially, content gets deleted just a few seconds after the receiver has viewed it.

The images and videos shared have the characteristic feature of being manipulated in fun and exciting ways to add value to what would probably be a very mundane or ordinary visual experience. Snaps can be edited through the use of Snapchat filters, effects, geofilters, drawings and text captions.

Snapchat also features a Snapchat Stories feature through which users have a feed feature where they can share videos and photos with their friends as a story clip as opposed to just a specific individual or as a group message. Stories disappear after 24 hours.

Snapchat Stories That Have Worked

Snapchat stories were initially not as easy to pull off as Instagram or Facebook stories. That being said, they are well worth the effort since they allow brands to reach a target millennial crowd that seems to easily gravitate to Snapchat stories as their chosen social media platform.

Some of the brands that have successfully used Snapchat stories for business and marketing include the following:

Audi and the Onion

Both Audi (car manufacturer) and The Onion (a satirical news site) released fun stories throughout the 2016 Superbowl for viewers that wanted to watch something apart from football. In a campaign tagged ‘all news that isn’t football,’ Audi and the Onion generated more than 37 million impressions and 100,000 total views through their Snapchat stories.

Cisco

Instead of keeping a focus on just their products marketing campaigns, Cisco chose to focus on their employees by using Snapchat stories as a window to an inside perspective of the company.

According to Cisco, the highly successful Snapchat stories campaign dubbed wearcisco ‘a day in the life of…’ garnered a 600% follower increase every week from its inception and a 70%-80% rate of story completion.

Netflix: Gilmore Girls promotion

Through the Snapchat stories campaign to promote Gilmore Girls on Netflix in 2016, over 200 coffee shops were used to recreate Luke’s café from the show. ‘Snapcodes’, (Snapchat’s version of QR codes) were used on free ‘Luke branded cups of coffee’ to direct customers to a custom filter that they could apply their photos to. The Netflix filter reached 500,000 people and was viewed 880,000 times for the one-day stunt.

How to Use Snapchat Stories for Marketing

Now that you know Snapchat stories can be effectively used for marketing and promotions through the above examples, isn’t it time that you create a Snapchat business account for your marketing needs? Below are some ways to use Snapchat stories for your business marketing purposes:

Sharing big events and milestones

You will probably not create a massive marketing campaign surrounding the achievement of a milestone or for the preparation of a big event. That said, letting it all pass by without some marketing should not be an option. You can use Snapchat stories to capture the moment in a fun and engaging way for your audiences.

Offer deals

As with the Netflix-Gilmore girls example, you can offer deals like free coffee as well as exclusive filters and such to your customers or audiences to drive traffic and engagement.

Brand Loyalty

You could, for example, offer deals or discounts to those that watch your Snapchat Stories right up to the end. You could also provide instructions on your Snapchat Stories that can get audiences free gifts or coupons. You could do this by for example asking them to send snaps of themselves using your product or service. All this can increase or encourage brand loyalty.

Other ways to efficiently use Snapchat stories for marketing include:

• Promoting a more elaborate marketing campaign on other platforms and your website
• Promoting traffic towards your other social media platforms
• Partner with micro-influencers on Snapchat to grow your following on the platform

Stories on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook and Influencer Marketing

According to Collective Bias, a shopper focused influencer marketing leader, 70% of millennials prefer peer endorsements when seeking to purchase products. Since Stories on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook offer influencer-friendly tools, they are the perfect match for influencer marketing.

Below is a brief examination of how each tool can be used efficiently:

Instagram

The polls feature, in Instagram Stories allows an Instagram influencer to post a question to followers and get real-time feedback. Brands and influencers can use this tool to encourage audiences to share and provide unbiased feedback about the brands and to learn more about brand products and services.

Preferences, suggestions, and concerns can then be immediately addressed or used to inform future campaigns and product development strategies.

Snapchat

Snapchat has recently rolled out the conversion tracking Snap Pixel feature for brands that can be used to not only measure conversions but also to retarget site visitors and create niche audiences. Although this feature is only available to brands, brands can partner with influencers to create content or to sponsor products and services to loyal influencer audiences.

Facebook

One of Facebook’s more recently added features is the ability for brands to promote influencer posts directly. Through this feature, brands can easily retarget relevant influencer content in a streamlined and transparent manner and therefore also manage multiple influencers at the same time.

Over to you

Deciding who tells a better story between Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook are entirely up to you and how you choose to use the tools available to you. At the end of the day, you can succeed with any one of the tools. Of course, there is also nothing stopping you from using all the tools before deciding the best approach for your brand going forward.

In 2017, social media ranked above store visits and TV advertising as a source of information for purchases in Asia, according to research from WARC. The micro influencers marketing campaigns became a staple thing for most marketing strategies in the APAC region. The outstanding engagement rates of the opinion leaders attract brands, while regional peculiarities make Asia the best ground for implementing the influencer marketing.

Companies are waking up to the influencer marketing trends and are on the lookout for skilled professionals who can lead influencer marketing campaigns for their brands. This demand has led to a dearth of social media marketing professionals. In situations like this, a social media course could take you a long way. With the right social media course, you’ll learn all there is to learn about how to find and outreach influencers and how to use them to raise your website’s brand and ratings.

Why is Influencer Marketing in Asia so special?

Influencer marketing is the most cost-effective customer acquisition channel today. On average, businesses in Asia generate $6.50 for every $1 invested in micro-influencers. There are some specific factors that drive this outstanding number.

Highest levels of mobile penetration

Asia is extremely saturated with mobile technologies. The smartphone penetration throughout the generations is way over 50%. The mobiles are everywhere, and they’re much more common than the desktop computers.

The number of active social media users in East and Southeast Asia is four times bigger than in North America. This makes the region number one in the world with over 1.5 billion active users. Thailand, for instance, is the country with the ninth largest number of Facebook users. Impressive by its own, but even more impressive when you figure out that this means 70% of Thailand’s population using Facebook.

As the mobile web is number one medium around the country, people rarely look for the goods from the browser search. Mostly, they will collect the info from the reviews and posts published throughout their social networks. It makes a perfect soil for creating the demand and using influencer marketing to promote brands through influencers with an audience even as little as one thousand followers.

Extremely customized messaging

The audience in Asia craves for the extremely personal, intimate relationship with influencers. They fancy the communication, personal details, very often updates, excessive emotions and abundant sharing. And the KOLs here mastered the art of keeping their followers engaged every second. They are sharing the most private tidbits of their lives and keeping next to no distance.

Besides, as they’re well aware of the technical peculiarities of their audience (bad bandwidth internet and only the smartphones to enter the web), they make perfect content: short, personalized, and tailored for every channel in particular. As a result, their reach brings higher quality engagement.

Case study: Disney is heavily engaging the micro-influencers around Asia. Namely, promoting the Star Wars franchise in the region is tricky because people have very little knowledge of the subject. In Vietnam, for example, they don’t know the Star Wars at all, which makes billboards and paid ads useless. Only real people can bring the awe to their audience directly and stimulate people to buy a ticket by showing an example. Like mymmu, a fitness blogger from Thailand, who now appears in her feed geared in SW merchandise from head to toes to promote the Last Jedi.   

Priority strategies for benefitting your brand with micro-influencers

• Attendance at sponsored events and partnerships
• Building hype around product launches and store openings
• Creating product reviews to increase trust with the audience
• Having an always-on strategy to increase brand love
• Creating opportunities for conversion through offers and promotions

Who are these cool kids rocking the market?

Different types of influencers bring different sets of benefits. Lots of brands are simply using the actors and pop stars who have millions of followers. For instance, Chi Pu, a Vietnamese singer/actress, can bring you 30K likes per post out of her 8.5 million following. Yet, that doesn’t mean you get a quality audience interested in your product.  

The very word “micro-influencer” covers the range from 1K to 100K followers, with some wiggle space on top. Seemingly small, they beat celebs engagements rates in a breeze. In the example above, the 30K from 8.5 mln makes less than 0.3% engagement. Compare it with the case study below, featuring mom bloggers working for about 50 times smaller fees.

Case study: to introduce a new product on market and test the e-seller platform, a sanitizer brand encouraged Instagrammers to share the post and redirect followers to the e-shop link. Out of the 112,000 total audience reach, they got 2500 likes and comments, which equals 2.2% engagement rate. What’s more, 138 clicks to the product made over 0.12% direct sales conversion.

If only the above-mentioned celebrity was any closer to these numbers, her post could bring over ten thousand sales. But that doesn’t happen.

So, take a closer look at these mommies with two kids and four thousand followers. Or, check out other categories:

Beauty

The girls and sometimes boys making the reviews of the beauty products and promoting various brands are very, very often to see in the Asian social networks. While the top players in this niche would make good money and often collaborate with the specific brands as ambassadors, there is a legion of smaller and aspiring influencers, and the best part is that you can often get them to promote your product for a modest reimbursement of sending out the free samples.

Artists

We’re not speaking the PSY here, of course. Rather, think of the category of “Asia’s got talent” participants. Each of them has a social profile with some devoted followers. As people in Asia adore the singing, dancing, and musicians (Bollywood and karaoke are the proofs), they would listen closely to the stars even that small, and often follow the recommendations. A poll in Vietnam showed that 60% of the teenagers would follow the fashion style from their favorite artists, and 50% would be influenced by their lifestyle advice.

Case Study: A Korean snack brand, for instance, gained attention by using home-grown talent in the form of pop stars and actresses. They did extremely smart move by adding a twist of urgency to the content angle. Influencers described the difficulty of getting their hands on the coveted snacks. No wonder the brand repeatedly sold out, reinforcing an aura of desire around it.

Fit / Healthy

The ones who probably started all this fever. It’s really hard not to buy the named protein power or slimming tea when you see the daily updates with the perfect bodies and shredded six-packs. Especially, when it comes from a girl next door. Nowadays, this category gets engaged in promoting all kinds of products, not only the fitness goods. Insurance companies, for instance, would engage them to bring the life insurance products to people who care about their health – pretty logical. Yet, the majority of case studies would still involve the foods, drinks, and supplements.

Case study: Ayam Brand aimed to run a long-term influencer marketing campaign to promote its products. They invited a pool of engaged influencers and tracked their post-performance. Good performing ones were selected as Ayam Brand’s social ambassadors and engaged in a long-term community building plan.

Pets

Worldwide phenomena, pet blogs can get a multimillion following easily. The most popular social account in Japan, for example, is the Instagram of the Maru Taro, Shiba inu dog with over 2.5 mln followers. Recently the couples started to invite Maru Taro to their weddings as a guest celebrity. There is a mass of smaller cat and dog accounts, and you couldn’t find a better audience for your pet-related brand.

Lifestyle

The lifestyle influencers cover it all from wellness to traveling, and their hobbies vary widely. Veganism, minimalism or entrepreneurship are just to name few. The lifestyle influencers carve their niche in the audience that relates to them on certain parameters. As blogs emerge on something as little as one hashtag, the marketers get a chance to target campaign in a very certain niche.

Downsides

Micro influence works well with the bright and catchy products: sports apparel, bright snacks packages or cars. It’s harder to promote software, tech solutions or other less tangible services.

Another bottleneck for handling the micro influencers campaign is, actually, handling it. It’s a lot of work to find the right people, outreach to them, develop the content plan, get it rolling and track the numbers. Yet, the tools are here already to answer the demand. The web is generously sprinkled with the platforms that connect brands and influencers. You can create your campaign in few clicks on one of these sites:

Parklu

BlogMint

Viral Access

Narratrs

With Influence

Takeaway

The rise of “become the influencer” platforms made the social web of today home to a millennial digital entrepreneurial camaraderie. Brands make a good use of it by handpicking ripe ambassadors, ready to promote their values, from the army of new social influencers.

A proof of micro-influencers efficiency would be the fact that most agencies doubled their budget for the influencer campaigns this year. Hundreds of new influencer agencies appear in Asia every day while the bigger Western players like Maker Studios, StyleHaul and adMingle are also entering the market. The trend is booming the digital marketing as much as Asia is booming the global market – and both are not giving up their positions to anyone.

Disclaimer:
This article was written by one of our guest writers. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not be indicative of the views of Market Motive.

After a decade of successful marketing career, Samantha Engman switched to her all-time passion – content creation for aspiring businesses. Don’t miss out her articles at Bid4papers and Twitter for more useful tips on building your success online.

 

It is now a well-known fact that Instagram is no longer limited to celebrities showing off their swanky cars and lavish lifestyles. It now has a subset called Instagram Business that has now become a goldmine for brands worldwide, be it a new startup or a well-established brand. This field of digital marketing is new and brands of all sizes have jumped on board. 

The statistics mentioned below are a testament to the reach that Instagram has globally.

• There are 800 million Instagram users worldwide
• 80 % users of Instagram are not from the US
• More than half of American Instagram users are under 30
• 4.2 billion posts are liked each day
• There are 25 million businesses on Instagram
• 80% of all users follow a company

[Source]

In today’s world, it has become important to present content visually. While Instagram is the way to go here, not everyone gets their Instagram Business strategy right. A social media course goes a long way in helping you get your Instagram marketing strategy right, but for those who just don’t have the time, there is always this article.  

In this post, we will speak about a few brands who own and flaunt their Instagram Business accounts.

Sabyasachi

At Sabyasachi, they don’t sell products; they sell an experience. With exclusive designs and photoshoot done around them, SS follows a vintage theme for their Instagram account, which has more than 2 million followers. And boy, do they know their magic filters! Don’t worry you don’t need a designer to own an Instagram page like Sabyasachi. All these graphics and more listed in this post can easily be created with free graphic design tools like Canva.

Takeaways:

• Make Use of your Happy Customers. Sabyasachi features their customers on the official Instagram profile. This helps them in creating more engagement among their audiences.
• Share stories: They share not only well-shot pictures but also the complete story which revolves around the collection. This is storytelling at its best and helps customers relate to the thought behind the product.
• Get Influencers on Board: Sabyasachi recently got Deepika Padukone on board. Getting influencers to engage with you helps get exposure as these influencers have their very own huge follower base

• Reputation Management: Social media is not just about the selling. It is also about connecting with your audience at a personal level. This social media characteristic means that you could come off as cold and thoughtless if you don’t post personal content. However, on the upside, it could also mean that social media accounts are a great way to manage your brand’s reputation. If controversy surrounds you, using your brand’s account to dispel untrue information (or apologize for true ones) are a great way to handle unpleasantness. In this regard, Sabyasachi knows more than just elaborate embroidery.

 

IKEA

IKEA is one the most popular home furnishing brand since 2008. Ikea’s Instagram Business account is popular with millions of fans across the globe. Their “solve it in a snap” video series is a beautiful example of an engaging Instagram post. You can pick a leaf or two from IKEA’s Instagram account and learn to engage your audience in new innovating ways.

Takeaways:

• Engaging with creative posts or campaigns:  IKEA PS 2014 campaign on Instagram Business is a whole new level of creativity. They created an entire website on Instagram with the help of tags. Once you tap on a photo, you can see a bunch of tags, and when you click on them, it takes you to the Instagram LP of that category. Try it yourself!

 

• Captivating Ad that sells: IKEA doesn’t feature a direct sales ad. Instead, they choose to follow a blended approach. Its key to success is the perfect mix of product & non-promotional images. Its elegantly curated Instagram Business content is bound to inspire followers to buy a new piece of furniture.

CocaCola

Coca-Cola is a name not unknown to anyone – from a 10-year-old kid to a 60-year-old man. Its clever marketing strategy combined with the cheerful motto of “Sharing happiness” has made Coca-Cola a global brand. Where there is the talk of creative marketing strategy, there is Coca-Cola. The marketing team in Coca-Cola firmly believe in the phrase “creativity has no limits,” and this attitude is easily visible in their campaigns.

Takeaways:

• Diversify your strategy but stick to your tagline: Coca-Cola keeps coming up with new ad series but retains an air of youth, happiness & thirst in all their campaigns. These ads embed themselves in your subconscious, tug at your emotions and ensure that you associate their brand with pizza, fun and hot summer days.
• Influencer marketing: Apart from their regular posts, Coca-Cola is known for planning viral campaigns like the “Share a Coke” campaign. To boost these campaigns, Coke makes use of Instagram influencers. These influencers are carefully chosen on the basis of their followers’ demographics and reach. Once set, they encourage these influencers to post about a campaign with relevant hashtags, videos, and images. This helps spread the word, create a buzz and raise the engagement level of their posts.

 

Paperboat

 

Perhaps the youngest in the list, Paperboat has managed to create a completely new segment of social media engagement with their heartwarming stories that make you reminisce your childhood days. Studying their social media profile could help you connect your brand with people’s emotions.

Takeaways:

• Tailored Content: The Paperboat social media team uses unique content for their Instagram profile. Having content that customized to each social media platform helps in creating new audiences and a diverse content strategy. When brands can customize their content, then users who follow them one platform will not hesitate to follow them on another. Moreover, it’s boring to see the same thing over and over again. Diversifying your posts can help avoid the rut.
• Emotional Connect: Bringing back those memories is what Paperboat does best. As a user, you can relate to almost all the post they publish on their social media pages.
• Interact with your audience: Paperboat is quick to reply to comments left by their followers. This habit could go a long way in encouraging users to interact more with them.

 

The Ustraa

Ustraa is a brand of its own. Targeted towards the young, Indian male, Ustraa has managed to create a thick layer of curiosity around the brand. What can you learn from them? No niche is too small to target if you’ve got the spunk for it.

Takeaways:

• Don’t push: Ustraa does not believe in shoving their products on uninterested audiences. Rather, they are all about the charm. Instead of talking directly about their products, they focus on creating macho and witty content that the modern, metro man (aka their target audience) relates to.
• Make it content-oriented: Their target audiences are modern, well-traveled and urbane youth. Little is known about this demographic and almost no brand has targeted this audience and lived to tell the tale. Except for Ustraa. They know their audience. They know what makes them tick and what gets them excited. This strategy is a sure-shot way to make people love your brand.

 

Chumbak

Chumbak means magnet. Chumbak works to produce souvenirs and curios that combine traditional Indian designs with contemporary patterns and colors. These products are vibrant, colorful and Bohemian.

Takeaways:

• User-Generated Content: Users maketh greatness. No social media account is worth anything without its followers, and Chumbak recognizes this. Chumbak recently launched a campaign where they asked their users to design a cup based on a theme. The post went viral with more than 8000 views, which is a lot more than their other posts.
• Well-Crafted Product Shoot: The photographers at Chumbak manage to capture the essence of the products. They are highlighted, interesting and make people want to own them! These skills are not used enough if you ask us!

 

RAW Pressery

Fruits are naturally photogenic, and RAW Pressery knows that! This brand is one of its kind in India and provides users with cold-pressed fruits and vegetable juices. Health is their main motto, and they seem to stick to it. We picked this brand because they are a perfect example of sticking to your key message consistently in every post.

Takeaways:

• RAW Pressery leverages the power of hashtags by mixing popular hashtags with their own ones. This piggybacking on hashtags gets them additional traffic without much effort.

• They make their consumers love them by featuring them on their official Instagram Business handle. This is a win-win situation for the brand and the users. Being featured on RAW Pressery’s official account can help users raise their cool factor, while also raising the brand’s popularity on Instagram.

 

Kingfisher

Kingfisher deserves the credit for making beer the common man’s drink in India. Thanks to its branding efforts, the drink that was once considered taboo is now being served everywhere. It’s no wonder that Kingfisher has the largest market share in India.

Takeaways:

• Kingfisher is not just all bark and no bite. Their Instagram Business account is truly about being “The king of good times” (their slogan). They keep it casual and share pictures of people having fun, which, like Coca-Cola, helps audiences associate their products with good times.
• Re-post user’s post: Again, there is no better content than user-generated content. Kingfisher leverages that very well by reposting photos from their fans with hashtag #Goodtime & #Repost.

 

Vogue

Vogue is a globally accredited synonym for fashion. Their global Instagram Business profile is indicative of this with 17.5 million followers. However, they have a completely different approach when it comes to India. Vogue India is more than just fashion; it is also about raising social issues related to women. That isn’t to say they shy away from beautiful and elegant photo shoots. On the contrary, they continue to master their avant-garde fashion shoots with a panache that only they are capable of.

Takeaways:

• Make Noise Where it Matters: By talking about issues like women empowerment and domestic violence, they give back to society while encouraging a much-needed dialogue about these issues.
• Go all the Way: Vogue India also create videos related to these causes. They use popular celebrities to endorse these causes and help spread the word about the causes. Their #StartWithTheBoys video starring Madhuri Dixit is one such campaign, which was an instant hit and still gets them traffic.

 

Zomato

Zomato doesn’t have a lot of followers due to the niche they are working in. But that doesn’t stop them from being awesome on Instagram Business.

Takeaways:

• Witty Content: Funny posts keeps the unfollow button away. With posts like the one given above, it is easy to see why Zomato keep on winning hearts. Such posts tend to get viral as they are liked and shared by many. Who doesn’t want to share fun content on social media after all?
• No fixed posting schedule: Quality trumps quantity. Always. If you cannot post great content every day, that’s okay. Just don’t post several mediocre posts. You’ll lose followers, and it’ll do you more harm than good.

There you have it, these brands have done great at their Instagram game. You can use these tidbits to up your Instagram game as well. After all, as Karl Marx says, it isn’t about the brands if it isn’t about the people (We’re kidding, he didn’t say that).

If you can think of more examples, then reach out to us, say hi, and tell us what we’ve missed.

Disclaimer:
This article was written by one of our guest writers. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not be indicative of the views of Market Motive.

Author Bio

Prince Kapoor is Freelance Marketing Analyst and Blogger. While not working, you can find him in the gym or be giving random health advises to his colleagues which no one agrees on :D. If you too want some of his advise (on health or on marketing), reach him out at @imprincekapur