METRONY.COM

Digital Marketing Consultancy

Facebook

How to Block Facebook Ads

by

How to Block Facebook Ads

Facebook drives the majority social traffic – more than any other individual social media channel. With over 1.71 billion monthly active users, it is important for brands to have a solid Facebook strategy in place. This includes organic (free) posts and possible paid Facebook and Instagram placements as well. Facebook started allowing ads in the newsfeed in 2012. Since then we have seen more and more innovative ad ideas and placements. Facebook now has carousel ads, local awareness campaigns, video ads, newsfeed on mobile and desktop, and right-rail.

How-to-Block-Facebook-Ads-440

Advertisers know that users can opt out of interest and behavior targeting. What some may not know is that Facebook is making its user base aware that they can opt out of seeing advertisements from specific companies as well!

Recently, Facebook served me with a notification to manage my ad preferences. Facebook allows advertisers to target users based on behaviors and interests. Behaviors are something a user has done – i.e. visited a certain website with the past 30 days. Interests are topics Facebook thinks a user may be interested in based on the type of content they react to.

Recently, I saw this notification on Facebook [Figure 1]

Facebook-manage-ad-preferences

Figure 1

“We want the ads you see to be useful and relevant. Let us know if you’re interested in these topics”

Facebook users can click on “Manage Ad Preferences” to see a list of interests that Facebook is using to tailor the ads a particular users sees. Also included in this list are the names of companies. Facebook users may be targeted because they like a brand’s page. They also may be targeted because they like a page related to a brand.

ads-opt-out

To block a Facebook ad based on interests:

  1. Drop down the category name [Figure 2]
  2. Click on the “X” to the right of the interest

To block a Facebook ad by a particular company:

  1. Drop down a category name
  2. Click on the “X” to the right of the company you don’t want to see ads from

How-to-Block-Facebook-Ads

How to Remove a Facebook Pixel

by

How to remove a Facebook pixel

Yesterday I came across a question in Facebook help section. The user asked for directions on how to delete a Facebook Pixel. The person asking for help had made a mistake when they set up the pixel and wanted to remove it.

A Facebook pixel is a snippet of tracking code that tracks a Facebook user’s activity on a website. Website owners use the tracking pixel to improve their ad campaigns by remarketing to Facebook users who have expressed an interest in their products or services.

How-to-Remove-Facebook-Pixel-440

Although there was a lengthy response, the question was never accurately answered. Multiple replies to the answer asked for more information on how to delete a Facebook pixel. I use the Facebook Business Manager to manage pages and accounts. The answer is written from that perspective:

How to remove a Facebook pixel:

To delete a pixel:

  1. Go to the Facebook Business Ads Manager at Facebook Ads Manager
  2. Choose the account you are working with
  3. Then go to tools --> pixels
  4. In the lower menu, choose “actions”
  5. Then choose “edit pixel”
  6. A small pop-up box comes up with the pixel’s name
  7. Click on the “X” to the right of the pixel’s name to remove it

That’s it! That is how to remove a Facebook pixel.

How-to-Remove-Facebook-Pixel

The Rise of Short Form Video

by

The Rise of Short Form Video

Last week I spoke at Affiliate Summit West 2016 on how to Optimize Images for Social Media Sharing. Part of what I weaved into the talk was the importance of video for marketers. Although the session primarily focused on image sizes, quality and content, I included video because it plays an important role in digital marketing this year.

Rise-Short-Form-Video-440

Shortform videos are defined as video content that is under ten minutes long. Anything else is called longform. I’ve stressed video to my clients for the past two years because video can be used as part of a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. High definition videos are favored in searches on YouTube. Add a transcript to your video and upload it to your own YouTube channel. This custom content can rank high in YouTube searches, where there is less competition than there is for identical searches term conducted on Google. YouTube is simply less competitive.

Facebook has its sights on the video market too. . As of November 2015 Facebook sees 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users. In September 2015, 1.5 million small and medium-sized businesses shared videos on Facebook. The average ad revenue per US Facebook increased 50% last year [1]. Note: that Facebook counts three seconds as a “view.”

Facebook is working on chipping away YouTube market share of video content. The social channel is doing this by:

  • testing dedicated video feeds
  • building an intellectual property tool that will let contributors monetize their videos uploaded by others
  • picture-in-picture viewing

The good news is the quality level a user expects from a YouTube video has decreased and with it the cost to produce a video.

Rise-Short-Form-Video

[1] Source: “Investor Relations.” Earnings. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. http://investor.fb.com/results.cfm

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

by

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

The world has a love of visual communication. People of all ages and cultures share photos and videos of their everyday lives. We cannot get enough of pouring over photos images of travel destinations, fashion, and food. Do it yourself videos are the go to for many trying to master a new skill.

This is evidenced by the popularity of well-trafficked social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and SnapChat. Video is expected to surpass images in popularity in 2016 so we have to include video is on sites such as YouTube and maybe even Vine in our marketing strategies! Images are only optional in two of the social sites I listed – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+.

How-to-Increase-Social-Media-Engagement-440

We look to be entertained with no down time. If we are not engaged in an activity, we are heads down looking at something on our smartphones.
According to the US Department of Commerce, US E-Commerce Sales accounted for only 7.40% of retail Sales in the third quarter of 2015. However, many businesses are 100% online must do all they can to drive ecommerce traffic.

Data supports that including images on social media posts increases engagement. Figure one shows that by including native video, that post engagement increase by 8.71%. Including images increases post engagement by 3.71%. This number is a bit of a reversal for images. Facebook’s Edgerank prevents the majority of posts from ever appearing in Facebook users’ newsfeeds.

Improve-Facebook-engagement

Figure 1

Including images also increases the likelihood of a Twitter Tweet will be retweeted! (Say THAT three times fast!) Tweets with images and native video simply stand out on the Twitter stream. They receive more retweets than Tweets that only include text. [Figure 2]

Improve-Twitter-Engagement

Figure 2

How-to-Increase-Social-Media-Engagement

Tips on Finding Social Media Influencers from Pubcon 2015

by

Slides from my talk with Dennis will be posted here after PubCon 2015 concludes. Here are two of my slides which talk about importing users from other social networks and uploading them into Facebook

Pubcon Speaker seemespeak-pubcon-2015

With a larger follower base you can increase your following on Facebook, targeting those who you know are already interested in your product or services. It’s also a way to find a larger audience similar to your current users. I have posted some Tools to download followers from social networks

You can use tips these to:

  • Remarket website visitors
  • Target page fans to build an email list
  • Target recent visitors
  • Add contacts from other sources
  • Target app users
  • Target prospects who never open your emails
  • Create look-a-like for a specific page of your site
  • Boost your fanbase
  • Target your best customers
  • Exclude/include existing contacts

Fighting Ebola Through Donations

by

Last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated $25 million to help stop the spread of the Ebola virus. This is the largest donation given by any individual. Monies donated by Zuckerberg went to the foundation that funnels private donations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC (CDC). Zuckerberg’s Facebook post stated,

“Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting up care centers, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more.”

Fighting-Ebola-Through-Donations-440

Last month the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $50 to fight the deadly virus. This is the largest private foundation donation yet. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is working with pharmaceutical company Amgen Inc. to find and alternative production method for the experimental drug, ZMapp, the only approved treatment for Ebola.

Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, gave $9 million through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Ebola infected communities continue to spread the disease because they cannot even clean up after the sick or deceased. It is common for disasters, healthcare crisis and other high profile outbreaks motivate individuals, corporations and foundations to give goods, time and money. The effects of Hurricane Sandy motivated donors to give over $310 million dollars to the Red Cross alone[1]. From my area in the Philadelphia region, many took giving into their own hands. Neighbors organized food, clothing and essentials drop-off points, rented vans and simply drove them into devastated New Jersey shore neighborhoods, giving whatever they collected to families in need. That’s not an efficient way to fight Ebola.

According to Business Insider, “A significant percentage of this money has been pledged but not yet distributed to the affected region.” The grpah of contributing sources and nations is below[2].

Ebola funding graphic

Sources:
[1]Did You Know? (Sandy Response)
The American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/support/donating-fundraising/where-your-money-goes/sandy-response

[2]Here’s Who’s Paying To Fight Ebola – Other Than Mark Zuckerberg (Business Insider)
By: Friedman, Lauren.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-countries-pledge-to-fight-ebola-2014-10