Hey Facebookers, have you heard of or seen the new privacy setting called Instant Personalization that went live earlier this week?  This new technology is different from Social Plugins, which many B2B and B2C sites are already using.  Social plugins include things like Facebook live streams and “Like Buttons” and are intended to drive user engagement and make a website more ‘social’.  With Instant Personalization, Facebook  shares data with a handful of non-Facebook websites. 

At present this “select set of partners” is limited to:

Bing
TripAdvisor
Clicker
Rotten Tomatoes
Docs
Pandora
Yelp
Scribd

By pulling in your Facebook data, these partners are able to personalize your web browsing experience when you hit their sites.  For example, if you visit Yelp to check out a review on a restaurant where you are thinking of eating, you may find that your Facebook friends have already reviewed that same restaurant!  Or, if you are not yet a Yelper you would see a message along the bottom of the screen like this:

This feature is made active, by default.  Although you can turn off the personalization experience on each of the partner sites, you can also opt to deactivate this feature in your Facebook account.  To do so, navigate the path below:

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Instant Personalization

Since social media is becoming a way of life, company’s advertising budgets are shifting more to social marketing channels. Paid search ads are becoming available on most of the top social media sites, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Facebook offers a variety of targeting options. You can target the audience as wide or narrow as you want. For example, you could target a certain school, major and year of graduation. One thing to note is that the more granular your targeting is, the average recommended cost rises per click or per thousand impressions.

Facebook ads are based on either a cost per thousand impressions or a cost per click model. Whichever you chose Facebook will let you know a recommended range of budgets that will be competitive within your target market.

In the following example, an extremely niche target audience was chosen with ad copy appealing to that audience - female bridge players with a picture of the “fun” set of the bridge game being sold in the ad. This brought awareness to the product and returned a great ROI because of the small users in the pool and the ad creative specifically tied to the target audience.

Always keep in mind your advertising goals and objectives when choosing your social media marketing plan. Displaying catchy but specific ads to your audience sometimes requires a bit higher CPC, but usually has a greater ROI.

Social media is a marketing channel available to everyone with computer access. It started out with individual users on a personal basis and now many businesses have included social media into their everyday marketing campaigns and strategies.

I find that there are unique techniques for a successful social media marketing campaign, which differ when compared to traditional advertising methods. With this instant and free way to reach to consumers, it is important to keep in mind a strategic “Social Media” plan. Use social media as a compliment to other marketing efforts; so keep in mind not to go overboard.  Below are few tips as you venture into social media marketing.

1. Always be ethical – Lying or deceiving your customers with potential specials or promotions and not following through will burn a bridge with your loyal customers/social media followers/fans. Don’t offer items you can not deliver.
2. Stick to your overall company image – Social media networks are not meant for creating new business images. The channels are best used as a support to other marketing campaigns, not to cause confusion with your other online marketing initiatives.
3. Be sure to double & triple check your marketing message on social media channels – A common mistake made is posting a message that does not encourage positive comments or interaction by fans. It is important to spend the time and money on social media campaigns. A successful campaign can deliver huge payoffs.
4. Always have a “damage control” plan – Be prepared in case of bad feedback or comments.  Know what steps will be taken or how something like this will be approached.  It is important to have an action plan to head off a sticky situation before it escalates. 
5. Remember “Sometimes less is more.” – Do not overwhelm users with too many options or opportunities; it can create confusion and lead away from the main purpose of your social media campaign.

Having a plan and following through with Social Media efforts is important. If you are going to put a social media strategy in place, make sure you have a plan to avoid pitfalls.

In the past month LinkedIn has expanded their marketing capabilities in a positive direction for businesses. Previously there were no options available to test more than one ad in the same campaign. Businesses would have to run ads in different campaigns at different times, or compete against their other ads, which in turn had the potential to raise their overall per click (CPC).

LinkedIn’s New Features Include:

1. Capability of creating multiple ads under one group of demographic settings.
2. Ad optimization capabilities, which are automatically performed by LinkedIn based on click thru rates (CTRs).
3. Option to evenly rotate ads.

Creating multiple ads is easy to do and assists in marketing strategies within the channel. Testing a different ad copy with features of the product or service versus an ad with an offer or discount for that specific product or service, can be used in determining what your customers are reacting to and how they are making their final decisions.

It is an easy step-by-step process. First, click on create a new ad campaign, you will be asked to create your ads first (screen shot below). Next, you can just mouse over the ad and a duplicate ad option will appear, or you have an option to click “add an ad variation.”

After creating the ads, click on “next step” and it will walk you through the entire available demographics, verticals, ad bidding options, etc.

To ensure you are properly measuring the success of your efforts, you should be sure to properly code your URLs for tracking in your analytics platform. To code your destination URLS (“Go to URL”) and tag each ad separately so you may clearly see how each ad is performing.

Many businesses find it hard to see value in their social media campaigns, when in fact they do not realize the impact of this free advertising tool. Even one campaign can affect a business in a positive manner. Before beginning your social media efforts be sure that you have an analytics program in place to track the progress and impact over time.

It is important to note that social media campaigns affect a business both directly and indirectly. Directly, it increases brand awareness, traffic, leads, sales, etc., can increase brand “followers.” Indirectly search engine rankings are affected. A successful campaign can attract backlinks to your website which in turn can lead to higher search engine rankings. Very successful viral social media campaigns have attracted hundreds and even thousands of backlinks.

Gathering followers is not always an easy task. First, placing a Facebook, Twitter or other social media link on your current website draws in current customers or users to your social media accounts. Next, to gather new users, a special offer or incentive may be helpful to grow your user base.
 
Once “followers” are obtained, it is important to retain them. Customers join because they are interested in receiving quality information, coupons, sales, new products and other news. Businesses must update their “content” on their social media pages on a regular basis. There is a mix between what is too much and what is not enough. If a follower/potential customer feels bombarded, they may remove themselves from the connection they established with you.

Businesses will be able to directly see the effect of a successful marketing campaign through the interaction within the channels as well as through their analytics program. Below is an example of data showing how Facebook can contribute to quality traffic.

It is important for a business to keep current and positive information about themselves on the internet. Social media should be utilized by businesses to keep brand awareness fresh in the minds of the consumer and to keep the business growing positively for the future.