The benefits of Facebook advertising have been argued upon, with some stating that it is a highly effective method for reaching targeted online communities (Tuten, 2008) and others sceptical about the level of privacy it provides the online user with due to the platforms ability to access a high level of user information (Truong & Simmons, 2010).
The aim of this blog is to provide an insight into two Facebook advertising features which have been criticised for harnessing privacy concerns, but that could, however, help local authorities and councils to reach out to the right people. My previous blog focuses on Facebook advertising best practice guidelines, if you are interested, please find it here.
Custom Audiences
Custom audience targeting is a feature which has recently been introduced by Facebook that allows you to target your advertisements to a specific set of people who you have already established a relationship with on or off Facebook (Facebook, 2015).
Let’s say that you have a selection of email addresses or phone numbers of people who have displayed an interest in becoming a foster carer. These details could have been captured from a fostering event, for example. You can then upload this list of email addresses or phone numbers to Facebook, and if the contact details match the details on the user’s profile, Facebook will deliver your ads to those people. It is important to remember, however, that the list needs to include at least 100 people and that the larger the audience size, the more successful the campaign is likely to be (Facebook, 2015).
Source: Facebook, 2015
The custom audience feature means that you when you target your adverts, the call to action button will become enhanced, therefore increasing both the likeliness of catching the attention of the user, and the likeliness of that user converting (B&T, 2014).
Source: Facebook, 2015
By using custom audiences, you are able to reinforce your messaging to an audience of users who have already displayed an interest in becoming a foster carer. This, therefore, impacts on the level of engagement and the rate of conversion (Jon Loomer, 2014).
For advertisers that would like to find out more about Facebook custom audiences, please click here.
Lookalike Audiences
Creating a lookalike audience can be an effective accompaniment to custom audiences. The feature allows you to reach new people who may be interested in becoming a foster carer by utilising attributes such as interests or demographics, which are possessed by people in your custom audience list, fans of your Facebook page or visitors to your website (B&T, 2013).
Simply put, lookalike audiences let you use information you already have to reach a more interesting audience through the following sources:
Custom audience list: This allows you to show your adverts to people who resemble the people whose email addresses or phone numbers you have;
Page fans: This allows you to target people who look like fans of your page but who do not yet know about your organisation;
Website visitors: This allows you target people who are similar to visitors who have visited your website, visitors who have visited a specific section of your website and visitors who have visited a specific page on your website.
Source: Facebook, 2015
The success of lookalike audiences, however, is highly dependent on the sector in which the organisation operates in. Let’s take the retail sector for example, the likeliness of a consumer converting who shares similar characteristics on Facebook to an organisation’s current customer base is relatively high, therefore lookalike audiences for the retail sector have harnessed many benefits (Loomer, 2014). For the recruitment of foster carers, it is difficult to assume that a user who possesses similar characteristics to those from the above three sources has an interest in becoming a foster carer; therefore it is far more complex.
Based on this, a recommendation for implementing lookalike audiences in order to reach out to potential foster carers would be to split test the three sources discussed above. Create one advert and target it at three different lookalike audience types: 1) Those who are similar to your custom audience list 2) Those that are similar to users who have liked your page 3) Those that are similar to visitors who have visited the fostering section of your website. From this, measure which of your three lookalike audiences are generating the most enquiries and which are not in order to understand which of your lookalike audiences are the most effective at helping to reach your goals.
For advertisers that would like to find out more about Facebook lookalike audiences, please click here.
Privacy Concerns
The ability to collect a large amount of personal data from users and use this data to target marketing appeals, however, has increased the privacy concerns of users. Users may perceive the personalised advert content as appealing and aligned with their interests, or they may view it as off-putting if they believe that their privacy has been violated (Tucker, 2014).
If users feel that their privacy is being invaded, it is likely to lead to “reactance”, which is a motivational state in which a user resists something that they find forced by behaving in the opposite way to intended (Tucker, 2014).
There are mixed opinions on the use of custom audiences and lookalike audiences, with some stating that the targeting options are an invasion of user privacy and others stating that an email address is no less sensitive than the data which is accumulated with partner categories, such as buying histories, lifestyle and home ownership status (Loomer, 2012).
Recommendations
Heightened user privacy concerns and user reactance should be viewed upon as highly important aspects to address. The type of advert content implemented is a key method for distilling away from appearing intrusive. For example, messaging such as ‘Are you considering fostering?’ or ‘Interested in fostering but worried about taking the next step?’ would be effective at softly communicating the key message and decreasing the chances of user reactance.
The changes to alter user privacy concerns also need to be made my Facebook. Its current privacy policy contains an overwhelming amount of information, which would benefit from being condensed into a presentable, user-friendly document. Although many Facebook users may still refrain from reading the policy, clear communication of its privacy practices is vital (O’Brien & Torres, 2012).
Concluding Points
Both custom and lookalike audiences are beneficial methods for local authorities and councils seeking to recruit foster carers, due to their ability to increase the chances of reaching out to the right people. If choosing to implement custom audiences it is important to remember that you need at least 100 contact details (Facebook, 2015). If choosing to implement lookalike audiences a suggestion is that you split test all three available sources in order to determine which audience gains foster carer enquiries and which audience does not.
It is, also, vitally important to remember that the increase of social media usage is accompanied by a rise in user privacy concerns (Goldfarb & Tucker, 2010). Therefore the type of messaging that you choose to implement is critical in order to avoid appearing intrusive.
For further reading on the topic, please see the references below:
“Facebook launches Custom Audiences”, 2014, B & T Weekly, [Online] [accessed 06 April 2015]
“Facebook rolls out lookalike audiences globally”, 2013, B & T Weekly, [Online] [accessed 06 April 2015]
Goldfarb, A., Tucker, C. (2011) ‘Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising’. Privacy Regulation and Online Advertising,[Online] Vol 57 (Issue 1), pp. 57-71 <pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.1100.1246> [accessed 6 April 2015]
O’Brien, D. & Torres, A.M. (2012), “Social networking and online privacy: Facebook users’ perceptions”, The Irish journal of management, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 63-97 [accessed 07 April 2015]
Truong, Y., Simmons, G. (2010) Perceived intrusiveness in digital advertising: strategic marketing implications. Journal of Strategic Marketing, [Online] Vol 18 (Issue 3) [accessed 06 April 2015]
Tucker, C.E. 2014, “Social networks, personalized advertising, and privacy controls”, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 546.
Tuten, T (2008) Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. United States: Praeger Publishers.
Facebook used to be predominantly about users socialising with friends and family in an online space, however, recent trends have seen this change. Users are now increasingly seeking to engage with their favourite brands on social media, with 62% stating if a brand engages with them online they are more likely to become a loyal customer, and 78% stating that they are more likely to make a purchase (Schawbel, 2015; Ahmad, 2014).
Although councils are not seeking to engage with ‘customers’ as such, they do have an online audience to build relationships and engage with through showing support and understanding how people in the local community feel (The Guardian, 2014). It is important, however, that Facebook advertising for councils seeking to promote beneficial behaviour is fully understood and embraced as a tool, so here are my top 5 tips on how councils can effectively integrate Facebook advertising into their marketing activities:
1) Produce content that is interesting
I know it may seem obvious, but Facebook users experience a high volume of content in their news feed, so it is fundamental that content is catchy,relevant and interesting. An effective way to produce content that is interesting is to explain how becoming part of something could help better the user’s local community. So, for example, rather than asking people to report pot holes in their local area, councils could explain that by reporting pot holes, people would be bettering the safety of the roads in their local area. This is important, because people are interested in how performing an action is going to benefit them (Hurwitz, 2013).
There is no doubt that we are moving toward a more visual marketing world, so using relevant images in Facebook posts is also a highly beneficial way to increase traffic, as users find this visually appealing in comparison to large blocks of text. Therefore, for you to heighten the appeal of the council’s posts, you should make a conscious effort to use high-quality, engaging images.
Source: Social Bakers, 2014
2) Don’t just talk about yourself, show that you care for people in the local community
Facebook is a very effective tool for helping councils to gain the trust of user’s, therefore it is important that you show your audience that you care by showing support for people in the local community, not just asking for it. If users feel that by performing an action they are going to become part of a team, this is likely to make them feel positive and confident.
In this instance, it could be for creating awareness around the need for foster carers in the local community. By showing the online audience that the council already has a supportive network of foster carers supporting local children in need, people in local communities may feel that they also want to become a part of such a strong network.
3) Show behind the scenes, let people feel that they are part of what you are doing
You should try not to predominantly focus on advertising content; post behind the scenes content and photos of what the council is doing. For example, posts on how you are helping people in the local community. This makes people feel that they are part of what you are doing, humanises and explains the organisation on a personal level, and increases trust.
4) Identify the emotion that you want people to feel
Emotion shapes virality, people on Facebook share content that triggers the most arousing emotions (Berger & Milkman, 2012). Users might share a video with friends because it made them laugh, or may share a newspaper article because it made them feel happy or sad.
Every user is different, so posts are likely to affect humans in different ways, but it’s beneficial for councils to think ‘how do I want people to feel when they see this post?’. Decide it, and express it.
5) Have a clear CTA
Again, it may sound obvious to make it clear what you are specifically asking people to do, but I’ve seen a lot of Facebook advertisements recently where brands have advertised content, with a lack of call-to-action, making the advertisement in my opinion, a waste of advertising efforts. A brand may have a highly engaging post, but if it does not explicitly state what they would like the user to do, the success of the advertising is likely to be low.
Examples of effective call-to-actions for councils might be ‘Learn More’ or ‘Find Out More’. Or to spread awareness and create online word of mouth, a strong CTA would be ‘Share this post with a friend’, as users may feel encouraged to share the content with their friends.
Source: Salesforce, 2013
Conclusion
Of course, Facebook advertising is more complex than following 5 tips, but through the implementation of these recommendations, councils are likely to receive increased recognition, improved loyalty, higher conversion rates and richer audience experiences (DeMers, 2014).
Berger, K. & Milkman, K. (2012) ‘What makes online content viral?’ Journal of Marketing Research [Online] Vol 49 (Issue 2) Available at <http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jmr.10.0353. [accessed 20 February 2015]
With the continuous rise of organisations adapting digital & social advertising into their marketing activities, there is one aspect that has interested me the most: The use of social media advertising for promoting socially beneficial behavior in local communities.
With the number of social media users continuously growing, and users becoming increasingly reliant upon the internet for research reasons and to communicate with peers (Ryan, 2014), it is no wonder the local government and not-for-profit sector are moving a high proportion of their advertising activities online.
Social media advertising allows the sector to specifically target audiences based on age, gender, location and interests, therefore decreasing advertising wastage, (Hollis, 2005), but what it also does, unlike traditional methods of advertising such as TV, is create online social communities of people creating, co-creating, commenting and engaging in content which is applicable to their own likes and interests (Tuten, 2008). It transforms the sector’s ability to reach and engage with their target audience, through diminishing the one-way communication seen in traditional methods of advertising where an individual sees a bus advert and the journey ends there, to two-way communication whereby the user is encouraged to communicate and share their thoughts and opinions.
For example, lets take spreading the awareness of the need for foster carers in local communities. Traditionally, you may see a billboard with the words ‘Make a difference, foster with ______ Council’. This method may be successful at grabbing the attention of individuals passing by and spreading awareness, but really, the journey ends there and there is no way to clearly measure whether the advertisement has led to fostering enquiries. With social media advertising, the journey is trackable and users are able to comment on, like and share the adverts that they see. This not only creates two-way communication between a local authority and their audience, but also spreads awareness through online word-of-mouth advertising as foster carers and prospective foster carers share their thoughts in an online, public space.
Something a little bit different, but also relevant to promoting socially beneficial behavior, is a social media campaign success story based in the US. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention ran a social media advertising campaign targeting parents aged 30-55, encouraging them to inspire their children to exercise more. Awareness of the campaign grew as more and more users were encouraged to become part of bettering the health of children in the US, and after just one year, results showed a 34% increase in weekly physical activities among 8.6 million children ages 9-10 in the US (Sonya & Bryant, 2005).
Although the social media campaign ran by the CDC may not have been focusing on local communities in particular, rather the US as a whole, it provides evidence that the power of social media advertising cannot be under-estimated in creating online word-of-mouth advertising and encouraging users to become part of socially beneficial behavior. As social media usage continues to increase, I expect we will begin to increasingly see the sector tapping into online social communities, and utilizing them in order to spread awareness of socially beneficial behavior to help better local communities.
I’ll be researching lots more into this, so if it’s something that interests you, please keep reading :)…
Hollis, N. (2005). Ten Years of Learning on How Online Advertising Builds Brands. Journal of advertising research. 45 (2), 255-268.
Norman, C. (2012). Social media and health promotion. Global health promotion. 19 (4), 3-6.
Ryan, D (2014). Understanding digital marketing: Marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. 3rd ed. London: Kogan Page Limited. 4-27.
Sonya, G., Bryant, C. (2005). Social marketing in public health. Annual review of public health. 26 (1), 319-323.
Thackeray, R., Neiger, B., Smith, A., Wagenen, S. (2012). Adoption and use of social media among public health departments. BMC Public Health. 12 (12), 1-12.
Tuten, T (2008) Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. United States: Praeger Publishers.
Cupcake sales have increased rapidly in the past few years and have become a guilty pleasure for many. Through their eye catching presentation and ever-growing range of different flavours to suit consumer tastes, the competition to be different in the cupcake industry is forever growing.
As a cupcake fanatic, I’ve tried lots of different cupcake shops in Brighton! The best by far has been a lovely little shop called Catwalk Cakes in the North Laines, with it’s cute internal and external decor, the shop has a real feel of a traditional vintage cafe.
The cupcakes sold at Catwalk Cakes do not just taste great, they are also extremely visually pleasing for the consumer eye, a factor which Catwalk Cakes could successfully take advantage of in their digital marketing activities. So I decided to look into how it is Catwalk Cakes market their business online, and also compare their activities to those of competitors within the local area.
Yes, the shop has a presence on the three main social media platforms; Facebook, Twitter & Instagram, but are they using these platforms to their full potential? Social media marketing allows businesses to form word-of-mouth advertising as more & more people start to engage with the brand (Sago, 2013), and seeing as cupcakes are so visually pleasing, the branch could highly benefit from using the digital marketing platforms to their full potential.
My project for the new few months will be to research into my favourite Brighton cupcake shop and find out how they could be using digital marketing to it’s full potential for their marketing activities. But for now, here’s an image of some of the cupcakes they offer… Why not go and try one for yourself!
Each and every one of us receive an influx of email marketing promotions through to our inboxes every day, but what is it that makes us respond to some and ignore others?
I read an interesting article recently about how businesses need to make the online conversion process after clicking on a call to action quick, simple and user friendly as a heavy amount of content may detract a potential consumer away (Hernandez & Resnick, 2012). This is a factor which Bills, the restaurant, appears to have incorporated into their marketing techniques.
I receive, on average, 30 marketing emails a day, their origin mainly based in the retail and food sector. Due to the heavy influx, my immediate reaction is to delete them in bulk, however there was one recently that caught my eye. The subject line was clear, simple and related to my wants and needs: Bills – Dinner On Us? This email immediately caught my eye amongst the heavy amount of content displayed by other businesses.
The email content was short, concise and displayed a clear call to action. It successfully corresponded with the season of the year through pulling on people’s feelings and emotions by offering a free dinner for two in a warm, cosy environment. The advertisement was visually very appealing and easy on the eye through colours, text and imagery, all of which corresponded to create a bold advertisement without being too much for the user to take in.
The combination of the clear, simple subject line and visually appealing email advertisement corresponded effectively and encouraged me to click the call to action button which simply stated ‘CLICK HERE’. Once through to the landing page, the colours, text and imagery mirrored the email advertisement structure, therefore providing a sense of consistency, which works effectively at decreasing the drop off rate. The landing page did not require a lot of information to be entered; name, email, date of birth, post code and favourite Bills restaurant.
The example of Bills email marketing implies that businesses need to create a clear and concise subject line which feeds into the target market wants and needs. Once through to the email advertisement and the landing page, the content needs to be kept to a minimum in order to require as little as possible from the potential consumer.
Let’s hope I get that free dinner!
Hernandez, A., & Resnick, M. L. (2013, September). Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition An Eye Tracking Study. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 1042-1046). SAGE Publications.
Facebook is changing the way that organisations market to their target audience. It is transforming the traditional one-way communication whereby a target audience passively take in what is being advertised to them, into two-way communication which allows the target audience to participate more in what it is they are viewing through engaging, commenting and sharing with an organisation.
Users on the social media platform are faced on a daily basis with pages popping up on their newsfeed encouraging them to “like” the content that is being displayed, whether it be a page for a University or for a retail brand. This simple click displaying a like in a particular product or service can be used by organisations. They can use it to effectively target their Facebook advertising content at potential consumers who have displayed an interest in a product/service which is similar or corresponds with what it is they are promoting. For example, a beauty product at users who have possessed likes in beauty brand Facebook pages i.e. Loreal.
Jennifer Golbeck, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, has produced varying studies into the way that people use social media. Her view is that users of Facebook should have the choice as to whether what they display an interest in on the social media platform is used by organisations for their marketing activities.
Do you agree with Jennifer and feel that Facebook users should have the right to say “I don’t want this to be used”? Or do you feel that targeting through Facebook likes is a beneficial tool to be adapted into business marketing activities and means that the content users view is tailored to their wants and needs?
Why not watch what Jennifer has to say and comment your thoughts and opinions below…
With the ever-growing strength of the internet, organisations are realising how they can use it to their advantage. Where before organisations were acting on intuition and past experiences, they are now using big data to revolutionise decision making and learn significantly more about their target audience.
The ability to learn more about their audience means that they can effectively measure not just the purchases that have been made by an online user, but also what they have looked at previously, how they navigate around the organisation’s website i.e. which website pages are receiving the most traffic, and the similarities across individuals and groups of people.
By learning more about an organisation’s target audience they are able to tailor marketing activities and produce effective, personalised marketing to match the wants and needs of the target audience, thereby increasing the chances of the online user converting to a consumer.
Marketing decisions based on Big Data rather than intuition and experience are better made decisions. Using Big Data means that the approach enables managers to decide on the basis of clear evidence. For that reason it has the potential to revolutionise the way that organisations market their products and services.
As the benefits of Big Data for an organisation increase, the cost is continuously decreasing. With these two factors in mind, it’s no wonder more and more organisations are using it to receive greater opportunities and greater competitive advantage.
Mcafee, A., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2012) Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90 (10), 60-66.
