Sam Sprague, Author at Facebook Advertising Agency

5 Tips to Increase Facebook Engagement That Actually Work

Posted on January 11, 2021 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Facebook offers a wealth of opportunity to build an online presence.

The fact that 69% of US adults use Facebook is all you need to know. If you’re trying to reach an audience then you’ll surely find it through the social networking platform. That said, using Facebook for business isn’t what it use to be — competition is tough!

What can you do to increase Facebook engagement? What strategies offer ample returns when using the platform?

Get these answers, and so much more, in the details below:

1. Share Something Worth Sharing

Many Facebook business pages start, get spammed with links, and then are forgotten. This tends to happen because their owners never had something good to share with their community. The page’s feed became a dumping ground.

What’s worth sharing is wholly dependant on the community you’re building.

How do you figure out what people want? You can dig through analytics and use data to guide your decision. You can also take a look at competitor pages to see what works. Or, you can simply ask people what they want from you. Once you know, it’s then a matter of creating/finding that content and building your FB strategy around it.

2. Quality Over Quantity

The quality over quantity concept goes back to our #1 in that you need to share the good stuff.

You’ve got to understand that people see over 5,000 ads every day. This is a ton of saturation! Much of it goes unnoticed but even a small amount of engagement can lead to brand fatigue. You don’t want that association.

So, what do you do to focus on quality posting? Try:

Set up a schedule so you’re publishing when they’re most likely to engage
Prune what’s shared so only the best remain vs a feed that’s a mish-mash of quality

Investing a little extra time into each shared item can do wonders for engagement. So, spend that extra on better images or stronger copywriting. Condense all the social media tactics you know into that one thing you’re sharing.

3. Funnel to Facebook

People have their preferred platforms and so your audience is likely scattered around the Web. What you should do is try to bring them all together to Facebook by funneling them there.

Get your FB page link shared on:

The main site (in the sidebar and as CTAs)
On social media bios and profiles
Included in media and ad campaigns

Strive to make your Facebook presence a central hub of activity. This attracts those who love you most and this will lead to an active community. The activity will make it so much easier to engage.

4. Use Facebook Ad Tools

Facebook offers a bunch of paid methods to increase your engagement.

This can include:

Facebook ads
Promoted posts
Sponsored videos

…and a bunch of other formats worth exploring as you explore the platform.

By sharing your best stuff, you now have better metrics on the audience. You can then amplify those messages through paid promotion. Every successful campaign builds off the last, creating a blueprint for your success.

Increase Facebook Engagement and Amplify Your Brand

Many people struggle with their Facebook pages. They also run into hiccups with its ad platform. We’re here to tell you that you, yes you, can increase Facebook engagement. All that’s needed is perseverance, good resources, and a guiding hand.

We’ve shared a few of our top strategies for Facebook to get you started.

What comes after you’ve done the basics? Well, let’s talk and discuss strategy. The experts here at our Facebook advertising agency have an incredible knack for delivering exceptional results. We’d love for you to experience this, too.

Don’t wait for success. Reach out and get in touch, let’s make success happen!

How to Increase Instagram Followers in 4 Easy Steps

Posted on January 4, 2021 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Did you know that Instagram’s median engagement rate is 1,700% more than Facebook and 3,300% higher than a tweet?

For brands marketing themselves on Instagram, this is good news. However, to enjoy these high engagement rates, you first need to increase your Instagram followers and build traction on the platform.

If this has started to feel like an insurmountable task for your business, then don’t go anywhere. Because we’re about to share with you the top 4 failproof steps you can take to boost your following.

1. Optimize and Brand Your Page

The first step to gaining a loyal bevy of Instagram followers is to optimize and brand your page. This includes creating an on-brand bio, incorporating a relevant link to drive traffic to your site, and adding a profile image.

Besides this, you may also want to include hashtags in your bio.

2. Post Content People Want to See

The next fail-safe step to increase your Instagram followers is posting high-quality, engaging content on a consistent basis.

Although 80% of people on Instagram follow a business, they’re not likely to follow your page if all you share on it is shameless self-promotion.

Instead, tailor your Instagram strategy around creating content that tells your brand story, builds a relationship with your audience, and showcases your brand’s voice.

To do this, you should engage in visual storytelling and craft compelling captions.

3. Engage With Your Audience

If you want to increase your audience on Instagram, it’s essential that you engage with them. Building relationships with leads is an essential social and digital marketing skill, and responding to your Instagram followers is an ideal way to do this.

Are you getting comments on your posts? If so, don’t only reply to them, but head over to those people’s profiles and like a few of their posts.

You can also initiate engagement on your posts by asking questions in your captions or even running polls.

4. Use Targeted Hashtags

When it comes to hashtags, #targeted is the way to go.

At first thought, it might seem logical to target bigger hashtags. However, this means that when people do a search on Instagram, your content will probably be lost in a sea of competition.

On the other hand, if you choose to use more targeted hashtags, these have a higher likelihood of being found in search. For instance, say you run an online clothing shop that focuses on bohemian fashion for women. Instead of trying to be found just with terms like #fashion or #style, you could leverage more target hashtags, such as #bohofashion, #bohemianfashion, #bohostyle, etc.

Another top hashtagging tip is creating branded hashtags. These are hashtags that feature your brand’s name, slogan, or something else that’s specific to it. Besides coming up with branded hashtags, you should also cross-promote them to increase their exposure.

Implement These Steps and Increase Your Instagram Followers

If you want to increase your Instagram followers, be aware that it will take time. However, the sooner you start implementing these steps for growing your audience, the faster you’ll start hitting those follower targets.

In the meantime, why not leverage Instagram advertising? Instagram allows for highly targeted and cost-effective ad campaigns that you can use to supercharge your business.

Need help? We are experts in social media advertising. Click here to get a free audit where we will dive into your analytics to devise a three-month advertising strategy for your team to analyze.

What You Need to Know to Run a Successful Social Media Campaign

Posted on December 21, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

According to statistics, 78% of Americans can be reached via ads on Facebook, and 75% of Instagram users take action (e.g., visiting a site or making a purchase) after seeing an ad.

These are just some of the numbers that show the power of social media. Social platforms can allow you to reach highly segmented target audiences, gain brand exposure, and build a following.

However, to achieve these outcomes, you need to know how to launch a successful social media campaign. Random posting won’t cut it, so stick with us as we outline exactly what you need to know to nail your brand’s campaign strategy.

Defining Your Goal Is Key

The first step to launching a killer campaign on social media is defining your campaign goal. This is essential, as without a clear goal:

Your campaign will be uninformed and lack direction
You won’t know what actions you want consumers to take
You won’t be able to measure your success

There are a number of different goals you can choose for your campaign. You might want to increase brand awareness, drive followers, generate leads, or ramp up sales numbers.

Whichever your goal is, your campaign strategy will need to be tailored towards it to generate results.

SEO Is Important

Before you launch your social media campaign, it’s important that you look into SEO. Each social media platform has its own algorithm, and you want to make sure your posts cater to each one’s ranking factors.

For instance, Instagram users hashtags, Youtube is powered by tags and keywords, and Facebook page optimization plays a big role in visibility.

You Should Scope Out the Competition

Scoping out the competition is always important, and especially so when it comes to social media marketing. Start by finding your competition’s pages and analyzing their posts.

What type of content are they posting? Is it how-to based, humorous, or promotional? What type of posts do they get the best engagement from?

What’s more, do they have gaps in their strategy that you could fill? By digging into competitor profiles, you can pinpoint what they are doing wrong, what they are doing right, and formulate your strategy so that it tops their efforts.

Balancing Promotion and Entertainment Is Essential

At the end of the day, social media marketing for brands is all about promotion. However, this doesn’t mean that all of your content needs to be promotional.

In most cases, consumers will give higher levels of engagement to content that is non-promotional. Therefore you must balance self-promotion with entertainment and value.

Do You Need Help With Your Social Media Campaign?

Social media offers brands the chance to reach new audiences, tap into targeted advertising, and build trust and community. The basic tenants of launching a social media campaign are identifying your goal, catering to SEO, topping the competition, and providing value.

However, implementing successful social media marketing and campaigns can be time-intensive.

Short on time and hungry for optimized results? If yes, book a free audit with us, and our team will do a deep dive into your analytics to create a 3-month customized social media marketing plan for your brand.

Brainstorming process. Photo young business crew working with new startup project.Notebook on wood table. Idea presentation, analyze marketing plans. Blurred background, film effect.

5 Ways To Tackle Social Media Advertising Like a Boss

Posted on December 14, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | 1 Comment

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More than half of the planet is expected to use social media this year. That’s over 3.8 billion social media users.

Social media has never been more relevant for businesses, especially in a world impacted by COVID-19.

Is your social media marketing campaign up to par?

Keep reading for 5 tips for tackling social media advertising like a boss.

1. Research and Understand Your Audience

Before you even start posting, you have to take a step back and analyze your target audience and your goals. Then you can come up with a game plan.

Some social media platforms, like Facebook, have built-in tools to help you analyze your audience and control where your marketing efforts are focused. Taking the time to develop a thought out strategy can save you time and money in the long run.

2. Create Engaging and Informative Content

Research shows that social media audiences respond best to visual content. Using eye-catching images and compelling videos in your social media marketing campaign is the best way to capture and keep your audience’s attention.

Social media is an excellent way to build a community around your brand. Your posts should encourage your audience to engage with you by leaving a comment, sharing their experience, or even sharing your content with their own followers.

3. Avoid Being Too “Salesy”

Content should be focused on providing useful information to your audience without asking anything of them in return. Doing this helps foster a positive relationship with your brand.

If your content comes off as an obvious sales ploy, your audience will be turned off.

Focus on creating content that is useful for your target audience and they will want to become lifelong customers. You don’t have to constantly remind them that you want their business.

4. Create a Cohesive Marketing Strategy

One of the hardest, yet most important parts of creating a successful social media advertising campaign is creating a flow across multiple social media channels.

Social media is constantly evolving with new platforms like Tik Tok bringing new challenges for marketers. It can feel like as soon as you’ve mastered one platform, another one is thrown into the mix.

This is one of the biggest reasons businesses consult professional social media advertising agencies. The pros are always up to date on the latest social media trends.

5. Track Your Results and Make Adjustments as Needed

Managing your social media marketing campaign is a continuous process. Many businesses make the mistake of setting up a social media campaign but never evaluating how well it’s working.

There’s always room for improvement, even if that simply means seeing what is working and implementing more of that.

It can be time-consuming to focus continually on social media advertising, but this is the best way to get results. Hiring a professional advertising agency not only gets you better results, but it frees up time to focus on your own business.

Let Us Help You Nail Social Media Advertising Like a Boss

As a business owner or manager, effectively marketing your products or services in the digital age means keeping up with continuously evolving trends. The good news is – you don’t have to figure it out on your own.

Our social media advertising experts can help you develop and run a meaningful and effective social media marketing campaign. Click here to learn more about what we can do for you.

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Choose an eCommerce Agency to Market Your Business Correctly

Posted on December 7, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

eCommerce is only getting bigger. By the year 2021, worldwide eCommerce sales will reach $4.9 trillion. More people want to shop from home in their PJs. This is why more e-commerce businesses are emerging to meet this demand.

If you own an eCommerce business, this will create serious competition for you. But you can defeat the competition with excellent marketing and advertising strategies that will put you in front of your buyers.

The best course of action is to find an eCommerce agency that will put your brand ahead of the masses. But how do you choose an e-commerce marketing agency that will market your business?

Why You Should Hire an eCommerce Agency vs. DIY

You may be tempted to market and advertise your brand DIY. But this is a mistake for many reasons.

A marketing agency knows different opportunities for success and can put time and focus into their strategies. As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate already. You may not be able to put all of your time into marketing, resulting in less-than-satisfactory results.

What if you already created a marketing strategy? A professional can analyze any potential problems and will use their experience to create a winning strategy. This will ensure you’ll increase your customer base and will achieve your ROI.

How to Identify the Best E-Commerce Marketing Agency

Now that you know the importance of hiring an e-commerce agency, how do you identify the best one? Look for these qualities.

Determine Your Objectives

While a marketing professional has expert insights, you’ll want to share your own goals. This may include advertising your brand to a targeted audience or enhancing your presence on search engine results.

After you’re done evaluating your goals, start conducting research. Find an e-commerce agency that specializes in your goals. For example, if you want to increase your presence on social media, look for a social media marketing agency.

Experience

Should you choose the first agency you find? Do your homework and make sure the agency has years of experience.

You’ll specifically want to look for a portfolio of e-commerce stores; e-commerce is a specific niche and consists of marketing techniques and knowledge that may not apply to other industries.

It’s also helpful to look at previous campaign success on their website and see if their past work aligns with your goals. The most trustworthy agencies will offer a portfolio, past clients, or other insight. If not, don’t hesitate to ask.

Tech-Savyness

Digital marketing technology becomes more advanced every year. Marketing technology can benefit campaigns in many ways. Your brand will have a more effective campaign, giving you a competitive edge and ensuring you make your ROI.

For example, marketing automation tools can pre-schedule posts and cut out menial tasks so marketers can focus on more important tasks. eCommerce video is also becoming a necessity for all businesses.

Any professional marketer will be tech-savvy, utilizing the latest in marketing technology.

Choose an eCommerce Agency Today

In order to achieve eCommerce success, you’ll need a great eCommerce agency to market and advertise your brand. Are you looking for an eCommerce marketing agency? If so, we offer social media advertising and more.

Female Vlogger Recording Broadcast At Home

Marketing Your Business With eCommerce Video

Posted on November 30, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Social media marketing has really changed the game. On average, people spend nearly two and a half hours on social media each day. That’s billions – yes, billions – of people scrolling various platforms for over two hours every day.

With that kind of traffic, anyone looking to engage in social media advertising is almost guaranteed to see some level of success. And, if you play the game right, you can target eCommerce video as your most prosperous avenue.

Together, let’s take a closer look at eCommerce video, see why it works, and consider the best platform for your new marketing plan. You’ll quickly see why video is key and want to dip your toes into these prosperous waters.

What Is eCommerce Video?

Once upon a time, companies were encouraged to advertise through imagery. It was important to upload quality images to all websites, social media accounts, and email marketing campaigns.

Today, imagery has advanced to video. Short how-tos and other explainer videos are what people want to see. Consider the amount of time people spend on YouTube watching makeup tutorials, product reviews, and other short episodes.

eCommerce video is a great way to put the spotlight on new products and services in a format that people are likely to consume. By keeping it short, sweet, colorful, and engaging, it’s possible to garner a host of new leads with one short video.

Why Does eCommerce Video Work?

eCommerce video is an effective marketing tool because it has a very high conversion rate. Anywhere from 64% to 85% of people who watch these videos quickly turn from new leads to actual customers.

It’s also a great SEO marketing tool. By adding the right alt tag, hashtags, and meta description to your video, you can attract quality leads to your videos. This can draw in new customers as they’re searching Google for various items and it can work across every social media platform.

By incorporating video into your Facebook, Snapchat, or Pinterest ads, you can reach almost anyone who has an account. Best of all, your ads can be targeted toward your desired demographic.

eCommerce Video for the Win

Platforms like TikTok are making one thing clear: people love scrolling short videos. Sure, other platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are still popular for great imagery and text.

But, they’re also branching out and taking on short video snippets. That’s why Insta stories, IGTV (Instagram TV), and Instagram Reels have skyrocketed. These are surefire ways to spotlight your eCommerce videos

When you’re ready to boost your SEO, take on Google, and master social media advertising, we hope you’ll reach out to us.

Here at Sprague Media, we dramatically increase our clients’ eCommerce revenue on social media through stellar video creatives and intelligent data.

As a social media marketing agency, we focus on leveraging Facebook’s algorithm across all 14 platforms while using old-school techniques to keep our clients omnipresent.

Let’s start with a free audit and strategy analysis. After that, it’ll be time for social media domination and a host of new conversions. We look forward to taking your company to new heights!

how ot advertise on snapchat phone mobile

How to Advertise on Snapchat Effectively

Posted on November 27, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Have you ever considered using Snapchat for business?

Snapchat, founded in 2011, was once a social media app focused on sharing photos and videos. In 2013, Snapchat finally introduced new features like Stories and Chat. By 2015, Snapchat was able to gather around 75 million monthly users.

Many business owners focused on other apps for social media marketing. Snapchat is one of the lesser-known apps among Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. However, when used right, Snapchat can be a great business tool.

Want to know how to advertise on Snapchat? In this article, we give you some tips for advertising on Snapchat. Read on to learn more about Snapchat advertising!

What Is Snapchat Ads?

Snap Ads are video ads meant for vertical screens. An ad can last for 3 to 10 seconds. Any Snapchat user can swipe up while the video plays.

Swiping up can lead to an article, website, or a longer video. You may also link your ads to read an article. A Snap Ad can appear in between a friend’s stories. It may also appear between Snapchat content, stories, or between publishers’ stories.

Snapchat offers two types of advertising. These are Lenses and Snapchat Geofilters. However, you may need to work on the mobile app or work with a Snapchat partner.

Why You Should Use Snapchat Ads

While it’s not as big as Twitter and Instagram advertising, Snapchat is a powerful app. Snapchat has over 166 million daily users. Each user spends over 30 minutes on average and uses the app more than 18 times a day.

Snapchat can help you engage with a distinct audience. Many of Snapchat’s percentages are unique to the app. You can’t access 35% of Snapchat’s users on Facebook.

The same goes for 46% of Instagram users and 81% of Twitter users. Snapchat uses Oracle Data Cloud. This allows you to reach users based on their online and offline demographics.

Snap Ads are effective compares to ads on Facebook and Instagram. Users are more likely to convert after seeing an Ad on Snapchat, over 2X more than other social media ads. Snap Ads take up the entire screen, allowing you to capture more visual attention.

The swipe up rate is five times more than the average clickthrough rate of other social media ads. Considering incorporating Snap Ads in your social media marketing strategy? Read on to learn how to advertise on Snapchat.

Before you start using Snap Ads, you need to familiarize yourself with the Ad Manager. Here are some of the key sections in the Snapchat Ad Manager.

Dashboard

In this section, you can create, view, and manage your ads. Here, Snapchat gives you a graph and table of your ad metrics.

Creative Library

This is the section where you can view and edit ad creatives. You may also use this to create new ones.

Custom Audiences

You can create a list of Snapchat users for ad targeting. You can form this using customer data.

Help Center

Need help in managing your ads? In this section, you can find guides and contact Snapchat for help.

Define Your Goals

Depending on your goals and budget, Snapchat offers different advertising methods. Here are some of the different campaign goals that Snapchat can help you with.

Brand Awareness and Video Views

Snapchat is a social media app built on videos. It is the simplest way to start advertising on Snapchat. If you want to use a video ad, ensure to keep it short.

Web Views and Conversions

This is one of the most popular forms of swipe-able ads on Snapchat. It helps you increase your conversion rate by encouraging users to read an article or visit a site.

Lead Generation

This is the best advertising method for building leads. Ad Manager allows you to create ads and convince users to register, download, or fill a form.

App Installs and Engagement

Snapchat is a great app for incorporating Deep Linking in ads. It allows marketers to add a link in their ad to bring users to an app.

Snap Ads

Whichever advertising method you choose, you can upload a 3-10 second video. Here are Snapchat’s advertising restrictions that you need to follow.

1080 X 1920 JPEG or PNG image
Apply a Call to Action when you add an attachment to your Snap Ad.
A brand name and headline that matches the paying advertiser

Ensure to upload a fullscreen and vertical format. Make sure that your content is appropriate for viewers aged 13 years old and above.

Story Ads

Snapchat Story Ads places a branded tile in the app’s Discover section. When a user opens the title, it will bring them to a collection of three to twenty ad placements. Snapchat creates a design for you, basing it off the assets you deliver.
To use Story Ads, you need:

34-character limit headline
25-character limit brand name
If you’re going to use the swipe up, include attachments
Individual files for each Snap Ad

Story Ads are best for a branded content experience. It helps you create a narrative that will engage your users.

Snapchat Filters

Making a Snapchat Filter is a great way to build brand awareness. A filter can help you creatively represent your brand. When creating a Snapchat Filter, use the following specs:

1080 X 2340 pixels
300 KB or less
PNG and transparent background
210-pixel buffer zone
74 pixels (send arrow)
32 pixels buffer zone for larger phones
Portrait orientation

Remember that your ad should only occupy 25% of a user’s screen. Keep it simple, and avoid using dense graphics.

Collection Ads

Collection Ads allow you to showcase a series of your products. It offers users a seamless way of shopping. A Collection Ad looks like a ribbon with thumbnail-sized products.

You can base a Collection Ad on a product catalog. However, this form of advertising has more requirements. Snapchat may ask for unique links, CTAs, and swipe-up URLs.

Now You Know How to Advertise on Snapchat

Now you know how to advertise on Snapchat. Want to learn more about Snapchat advertising? Contact us today!

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Types of Online Advertising Your Company Needs to Try

Posted on November 23, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Do you want your brand to reach the corners of the Internet that matter?

With over 30 million business in the USA, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Failing to market your business will only result in it getting lost to irrelevance. It’s a surefire way to make your business go bankrupt.

What’s great is that simple advertisements can generate a lot of buzz and save your business from becoming irrelevant. The only things you need to worry about are the types of online advertising and what they can do for you.

Knowing which type of advertisement your business needs can impact your entire marketing campaign. It can be the difference that decides if you get the oomph you’re looking for or if the campaign fails. Read what’s below to know which type is better for you.

1. Display Marketing

Display advertising is among the easiest and simplest ways to advertise your business. They’re also the cheapest, making them the most popular choice for any business that wants to advertise their services.

These include banner ads, landing page ads, and pop-up ads on different websites. This means that it’s everywhere, and people may not notice them at all. You’ll need to create a good ad to make it engaging enough to get noticed.

A good way to do this is to use engaging visuals and colors in the ad. Certain colors make something stand out, and using them is sure to break the focus of the people browsing the Internet.

2. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a type of digital advertising method that focuses on using search engines like Google and Bing to market your website. The goal of this advertising method is to put your business website on top of the search results. This is important because there are 3.5 billion searches on Google per day.

This means that there are at least 3.5 people on the platform at any given time. It means that there’s a high chance that people come across your ads when searching for something relevant.

What’s great about SEM is that it also increases your organic SEO score. This helps your natural organic search rate increase regardless of the topic of search. It’s a great way to appear higher on the SERP.

3. PPC Advertising

If you’re looking for a cost-efficient way to advertise your business, pay-per-click advertising is the best choice. As the name suggests, you only need to pay for each click that your ad gets. This ensures that you get your money’s worth when going for this type of advertisement.

All you need to do is pay for the ads upfront and leave it to generate traffic. It’s a great way to keep spendings low if still starting up as a business. It also helps with your ROI since only interested people will click on your ads to check your website out.

4. Social Media Marketing

If you want your ads to get lots of engagements, consider posting them on social media platforms. Most of the Internet’s population go online to check their social profiles. This means that any advertisement on the platform is sure to get noticed.

Any ad on platforms will appear as promoted posts or sponsored stories. This is to tell people that these are ads and not posts from other people. Other ads will appear on the sides of the platform as paid ads.

What’s great about this advertising method is that it allows you to engage with your audience. Social platforms have comment sections and sharing features to increase engagement. These will help you gain the loyalty of potential customers even before they do business with you.

5. Influencer Marketing

Another way to advertise it to have other people talking about your business. This is what people call influencer marketing, and it helps you extend your reach. This is because you will be hiring people to talk about your business to their own followers.

This makes it important to choose an influencer who knows a lot about your services and field of expertise. Doing this ensures that their audience will also find interest in your business. You wouldn’t want to hire a fashion influencer if your main service revolves around technology, after all.

6. Remarketing

Remarketing is a great way for you to advertise to people who already visited your website. This is an advertising technique that involves using cookie-tracking to become effective.

How it works is the cookie tracker follows anyone who visited your website all over the Internet. It will show more ads about your business as the visitor goes to other websites.

It’s a great way to make people interested in your services again. It makes it a good advertising tactic for services or goods that are repeatable. It’s also a good way to entice more people to go back to your website if they didn’t buy something the first time around.

7. Video Marketing

Videos are among the most engaging media today. This is because people find it more convenient to watch a video than read some text. They don’t want to strain their eyes to know about the service they may or may not find interest in.

The only thing you need to do to succeed in video marketing is to create an engaging intro. Once you get their attention, they’re hooked until the end of the video.

Regarding video length, try keeping your video short. People often click out when they learn that the video is more than five minutes in length. You can use formats like Instagram Reels or Tik Tok videos to deliver a quick message to your consumers.

Know the Different Types of Online Advertising Today

The different types of online advertising each bring an advantage to the table. Know which one works best for you and use it in your marketing campaign! Increase your business’s reach and watch it grow and thrive today.

Do you need help with advertising your company? With everything else you’re doing to keep your business afloat, you may not have time to create a good marketing strategy. Contact us here and we’ll help you in any way we can!

Online Advertising 101: Snapchat Advertising Made Easy

Posted on November 17, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Do you want to bring more attention to your business?

There are over 30 million small businesses in the USA. This makes it important for you to be good in advertising to prevent your business from getting lost in today’s ocean of business. Doing this also helps you stand out and define your business to become more appealing.

A great way to do this is to advertise on Snapchat. Snapchat advertisements can change the direction of your business and help your business thrive. How does it do this, though?

Read on to learn about Snapchat advertising and what you can do to be effective at it. Help your business get off the ground through Snapchat today!

Know the Goal of Your Ad Campaign

The first thing you should do is define the goal of your ad campaign. There are many reasons for you to create an ad campaign on Snapchat. What’s great is that Snapchat advertising can cover all the bases to help your business.

Most businesses use the platform to increase brand awareness through videos. This makes Snapchat the perfect platform because there are over 18 billion video views on the platform every day. It’s a surefire way to increase views and awareness of the brand.

Businesses also go on Snapchat to make a sale. The platform provides them with an easy way to advertise their products that lead to their stores. This increases the chances of making a sale on the spot.

Others also use these ads to generate leads. Ads can redirect users to pages where they can sign up and register for anything they find interesting.

If a brand is looking for engagement, Snapchat is also the best platform for it. Many of its features, like the Live Video feature, can increase engagement tenfold.

Choose a Type of Snapchat Ad to Use

Now that you know your goal as a business, it should be easier to choose an ad type. Knowing which one is best for you will increase the effectiveness of your ad campaign. Here’s a list of the ads that you can choose to use on the platform.

Single Video or Image

These are the most common type of Snapchat ads. This is because they can fulfill any business purpose and are already optimized for mobile devices. They’re great for featuring something big on your platform.

Gifs, videos, and photos are the most common types of these ads. If you’re using videos for your ad campaign, it’s best to keep them short.

People on the platform often see videos that only last up to 10 seconds long. Any longer than those can be too long and cause the viewer to click off of the ad.

Filters and Lenses

Filters and lenses do the same thing and add effects to your posts. These are great for any ad that looks bland on its own. You’ll need to add some pizzazz to your posts if you want them to stand out on the platform.

Filters are more for adding stylized texts to your posts. You can also add images to add more elements to the post.

Lenses add AR filters, animated characters, and other objects to your posts. It’s a great way to make it more appealing and noticeable. It’s also a great way to show that your brand is more of a fun-loving brand.

Story Ads

Story ads are among the most popular ads on Snapchat today. This is because most people are on the platform are looking for a good story. Giving them the chance to connect through your stories is a good way to increase a sale’s chances.

These ads often contain 3-20 image tiles in a single post. This means you have to tell your story within the allotted slots. It’s a great way to establish a brand, show off your product’s capabilities, or tease an upcoming event by building up to it.

Product Ads

If you want to go for a simpler method of advertising, product ads are the best choice for you. This is a more straightforward method as you only need to set up your post.

The post contains your product and a link that will lead to your store/service page. It’s a great way to increase the chances of a sale. If you want to increase it further, though, you can automate sales to increase efficiency.

Commercials

These are six-second videos that anyone on the platform can’t skip, no matter what. It’s the best way to show off your services or products without any fear of them getting skipped.

However, most people find these ads to be obnoxious because they’re forced to watch them. To prevent them from feeling like this, you have to make the ads engaging and creative.

You should also create new ones on the regular. Ad fatigue can lead to the loss of effectiveness of your ad campaign.

Target Your Audience

Now that you have an idea of what ad you’ll run on Snapchat, it’s time to target your audience. What’s great about Snapchat is that it gives you lots of choices to modify your ad campaign.

You can select the intended target’s age if you have a specific location to market to in mind and if you want your ad to target people who visited a specific service/product store on the platform. This allows the platform to send the ads to the right demographic.

This is important if you want a cost-efficient marketing campaign. You don’t want to waste your budget, showing ads to people who won’t become interested in your brand.

Snapchat Advertising Made Easy

Do you want to learn how to advertise on Snapchat? All it takes is for you to have a successful Snapchat marketing campaign to make your business thrive. Learn all about Snapchat advertising and watch your business grow today!

Do you need help with your online marketing campaign? You will have your hands full if you try to do it all on your own. Contact us here and we’ll get in touch with you as soon as we can!

How to Create the Perfect Facebook Advertising Strategy

Posted on November 10, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Did you know that 97% of marketers use social media to reach their audiences? Besides leveraging the organic reach of social platforms, most marketers also invest in paid ads.

Of all the options out there, Facebook remains one of the most popular for running ad campaigns. According to statistics, 93% of social media marketers utilize paid Facebook ads.

If you’re looking to capitalize on the effectiveness of Facebook ads, you’re making a common but smart choice. However, in order to create leads and trigger conversions, you have to fine-tune your Facebook advertising strategy. If you don’t, your ads won’t perform well, and your efforts and ad budget will go to waste.

Ready to learn how to create the perfect Facebook advertising campaign? If yes, don’t go anywhere, because we’re about to dive into the top tips for a flawless ad strategy.

Get Clear on Your Target Audience

Once you have completed the basics of getting started with Facebook ads—such as ad account creation—it’s time to get clear on your target audience.

There’s no point in paying for ads that are not directed at your target customers. The more targeted your audience is, the more successful your ad campaign will be. Failing to target the right audience will bring down the ROI of your ad campaign and basically waste your ad budget.

Fortunately, when it comes to targeting your audience, Facebook is your friend. Facebook’s targeting features, rivaling that of Google’s by far, include options such as:

Demographics (including income level, education level, relationship status, etc.)
Location
Interests
Age

To hone in on your target audience, you might need to do a little research. However, once you know exactly who you want your ads displayed to, the ads manager page will allow you to finely target this subset of users.

Be Compelling

Another essential tip when it comes to Facebook advertising is to create compelling ads.

But what makes a compelling Facebook ad?

If you are stuck for ideas, think of it this way. Most people go onto Facebook for entertainment.

If you are posting boring ads that lack flair, you’re not going to stand out in anyone’s feed (or sidebar). The trick is to create ads that provide some kind of draw or entertainment. For instance, humorous ads generally do well because they engage people.

Even if you have to spend twice as long planning and creating your ads, don’t settle for uninspired or run-of-the-mill. There are currently around 3 million businesses actively advertising on Facebook. Of course, not all are direct competition, but when it comes to attention, anything is competition on social media.

Choose Your Ad Types With Care

While you are creating your Facebook ads, it’s also important to consider what stage of the buyer journey you are directing the ads at. Here are the three main buyer journey stages you can target:

Awareness stage: prospects haven’t heard of you and need to be introduced to your brands (tip: this is not the stage for hard-sell ads)
Consideration stage: prospects have become familiar with your brand (here you can encourage interactions with your content)
Conversion stage: prospects know about your brand, and are in the final stage of the buyers’ journey, ready to make a purchase if conditions allow (more direct calls to action are appropriate in marketing messages for this group)

It’s essential that you target the right tone of ads to the different categories of prospects within the buyer’s journey. Imagine if you targeted a prospect in the awareness stage with ads urging them to buy your product? This smacks of traditional hard-sell techniques—exactly the stuff that leaves most people running for the hills.

On the other hand, a more direct approach can be helpful for a prospect who is in the conversion stage. They’ve been wanting to try your product/service for some time, they haven’t gotten around to making the decision, and there your ad’s in their feed, offering them a free trial.

In this example, you do not want to miss out on a conversion, by offering this prospect an “introductory” ad that’s aimed at familiarizing them with your brand. They already know about your brand!

Do Competitive Analysis (AKA Scope Out the Competition)

Competitive analysis is a fancy way of saying spying on the competition. Spying on the competition is always essential in business. By analyzing what they are doing wrong, you can step in to fill needs and gain market share.

Competitive analysis can have many components, but at its basis, you need to find out what your competition (both direct and indirect) is doing, and how you can (or do) meet the gaps in their offering. From here, market yourself on Facebook in a way that lets potential customers know how you top any popular competition brands.

Leverage Facebook Lead Ads

The objective of a lot of Facebook advertising strategies is to lead prospects away from Facebook to a landing page or product.

This can, however, be detrimental to your strategy. Many users go onto the platform because they want to be on Facebook, and not led away to “random” sites.

Facebook offers an ad option called lead ads. Facebook lead ads allow users to take action within the platform on your ad, such as signing up for newsletters, more info, etc. If your ad lends itself to this format, your campaign might benefit this in-platform option.

Test Drive Your Campaign on a Small Scale

Most online marketers will tell you that ad testing is invaluable for optimizing campaigns. Facebook offers a split-testing feature where you can test out ad visuals to determine which create more conversions.

With this feature, you can play around with things like font colors, visuals, and more.

Track Your Ad Campaign Data and Refine

Once you have set up your ad campaign, make sure you monitor your analytics and refine your strategy from this data. By analyzing metrics like click rates and engagement you can determine which ads perform best for your brand.

Lastly, don’t forget to also engage in organic social media marketing. Paid ad strategies tend to work best in conjunction with organic marketing.

Need Help With Your Facebook Advertising Strategy?

With patience and the right techniques, creating the perfect Facebook advertising strategy is possible. If you start by implementing the above strategies and tips, you’ll be off to a great start with your campaign.

However, learning how to advertise on Facebook takes time and practice. If you want to enjoy maximized results right away, you can also choose to hire a company like us to professionally create your Facebook advertising strategy.

Here at Sprague Media, social media marketing is our game, and we’re good at it. What’s more, we hold ourselves to a high level of accountability with our clients because we know trust’s earned in this industry.

If you would like us to kickstart your Facebook advertising campaign for maximum lead generation right off the bat, contact us today.

Self employed business person working from home

How to Advertise Your Products on Facebook Effectively

Posted on November 3, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Have you tried social media marketing for your business?

Social media is a powerful marketing tool that can help you build an online presence. As more businesses are taking part in the online market, social media helps them grow. These platforms range from Facebook to Twitter and Instagram.

Facebook started as an online communication platform. Today, many businesses use Facebook to promote their products. Are you looking to use Facebook for business?

In this article, we show you some tips on using Facebook for business. Facebook advertising can help you build your business if done right. Read on to find out more!

Use Facebook Canvas Ads

Facebook Canvas ads can offer your subscribers an immersive user experience. It comes with added functionality in exchange for a time-consuming process. It combines still images, texts, and videos.

You may also incorporate a call to action. Statistics show that Canvas ads are effective in a Facebook marketing strategy. The average view time of a Canvas ad is 31 seconds.

It gives you an impressive storytelling ability. You can immerse users in a brand experience with a mix of photos and videos. While time-consuming, Canvas ads are easy to use, thanks to their templates.

All you need to do is drag and drop the needed material. You can find templates to Get New Customers, Sell Products, or Showcase Your Business. Links to your lead forms open on Canvas, allowing you to skip slow loading landing pages.

Carousel Ads for Products

Carousel ads are perfect for showcasing your online products. You can also show different parts of a single product with only one swipe-able ad. With carousel ads, you can display up to ten photos or videos in a single ad.

In one ad, you can link to different pages with each panel on the Carousel. Carousel ads are effective on desktop and mobile channels. You can use Facebook Carousel ads for any of your business objectives.

Post Engagement Ads

If you want to build your follower base, consider using Page Post Engagement Ads. Many businesses on Facebook have trouble reaching out to their followers. Even with a satisfactory number of likes on a business page, you may not reach your audience.

Facebook’s algorithm only allows your posts to receive a certain amount of exposure. An organic post may receive a limited amount of exposure from followers. If you’re having issues like this, try using Page Post Engagement Ads.

Track Progress With Facebook Analytics

There’s a variety of Facebook advertising methods that you can try. If you’re trying out a new technique, keep track of your progress. You can do this with Facebook Analytics.

Facebook Analytics allows you to see customer engagement history. This can range from how they interact with your website, app, and Facebook page. Facebook recently announced new features for Facebook Business owners.

You can generate custom insights by adding events to Facebook Analytics. You may also use AI to find the paths that users often take within your app or site. They also came out with a new mobile app so you can review metrics from your smartphone.

Use Custom Audiences

Are you new to Facebook advertising? Try using Custom Audiences. Using Custom Audiences allows you to access five different user data.

Customer File takes users’ IDs, email addresses, and phone numbers. It matches this information with existing Facebook accounts and targets them. Website Traffic allows you to target users who visited your website before.

App Activity targets Facebook users who launched your app or game. This will also include people who have interacted with your app or game in any way.

Offline Activity targets users who engaged with your business in-store. This includes people who found your store by phone or other offline channels. Finally, Engagement creates a list of users who have engaged with your content.

Know Sizing and Spec Requirements

Working on digital platforms requires the right sizing and measurements. Incorrect specifications can lead to cuts in an ad’s lead image.

Image ads, for example, should still with 1,200 X 628 pixels dimensions.

For video ads, you should aim for 720p resolution and keep them in either MP4 or MOV formats. The maximum filesize for video files is 2.3 GB. Their thumbnails should maintain a 1,200 X 675 dimension.

Yes, it would be best if you took advantage of carousel ads too. Limit these images to 1,080 X 1,080 dimensions. For slideshow ads, you can keep their dimensions at 1,289 X 720.

Use Relevant Ads

Facebook measures the engagement and quality of your ads using Relevance Score. This determines your cost per click. It also shows you how often Facebook showcases your ad.

A low score could mean that your audience may not be engaging with your content. It means you may need to pay to keep the ad in rotation. Know that Facebook doesn’t score your ad based on actual engagement.

Facebook predicts results by using audience data and campaign objectives. You can raise your relevance score by testing or specific targetting.

Be Aware of GDPR

GDPR stands for General Data Protection. This new feature, first established in 2018, will explain how Facebook will change its data regulations. To use consumer data, you need a relevant legal basis.

Some of the things that count as a relevant legal basis are consent, legitimate interests, or contractual necessity. If any illegal third-party companies gather on Facebook, Facebook will not be liable. If you need to run lead ads, you must collect consent by adding a link to your privacy policy.

Advertise Your Products on Facebook Now!

Facebook can be a powerful marketing app if used right. Here, we give you a short guide and some tips for advertising on Facebook. Learn these features and use them to your advantage.

Thank you for reading our article! Are you looking for more ways to build your brand with social media? Contact us today to learn more about advertising on social media!

7 (Highly Effective) Ways to Optimize Your Facebook Advertising

Posted on October 27, 2020 | by Sam Sprague | Leave a Comment

Facebook is one of the most popular social media websites of all time, providing ample advertising opportunities for your brand. Everyone and their mother uses the website, and sharing posts is highly encouraged.

But are you taking full advantage of the available resources? Is your brand reaching everyone you need to reach?

Here are seven ways to improve your Facebook advertising and reach your marketing objective.

1. Strategize Your Facebook Advertising

When starting on any endeavor, one of the most important steps is creating a worthwhile plan.

You need to decide who you’re trying to reach, how they use the website, what their interests are, and how much to invest. Facebook gathers information like this through a tool called Audience Insights that lets you choose your audience based on any combination of classifications, such as location and hobbies.

You should also consider sending ads through Facebook Messenger, which can take the form of sponsored ads, click to message ads, and home screen messenger ads.

2. Choose a Target

Over 1.7 billion people use Facebook monthly, with over 1 billion using it on their mobile devices. With those kinds of numbers, not only should you be creating ads for mobile viewing, but they should target the users who are on their mobile devices the most.

Precision targeting on Facebook lets you go a step further. As previously mentioned, brands have access to information on users who fall into various categories, some of which will be your targets of choice.

You could use that information to advertise to potential clients such as parents, locals, people with multiple credit cards, as well as specifically men. However, don’t get too specific, or you could limit the scope of your campaign.

Even after your campaign has launched, you’ll want to go back in and monitor your ROI. If the numbers are too low, consider retargeting using Facebook pixel to resend ads to visitors you didn’t convert.

3. Structure Your Campaign

Facebook allows you to choose between 11 different types of campaign options, all of which fall under three categories: awareness, consideration, and conversion.

Under awareness, you have brand awareness and reach. The goal here is to simply raise awareness of your product or service.

For consideration, your options are traffic, engagement, app installs, video views, lead generation, and messages. Here, the drive is for people to seek out more information about your business.

With conversion, you can choose between conversions, catalog sales, and store traffic. These objectives actually encourage people to buy your products or use your services.

When you first begin your campaign, you’ll need to consider what your business’s goals are. As your business grows, those goals will likely change, pulling you from building awareness towards making conversions.

4. Design Your Ad

Your ads are going to look different depending on where they’re viewed. However, a well-designed advertisement will carry with it the same attitude and design philosophy regardless of the screen size.

Facebook will also require ads to be in a banner format to fit their news feeds, meaning you can’t take the same design with you across social media platforms.

Another thing to consider is the type of ad you use. Video ads tend to do better on Facebook because of the autoplay feature in addition to the creativity and different qualities that go into the video.

But don’t worry about putting too much time and effort into a video ad. As long as it’s over two seconds long, Facebook will run it.

5. Track Metrics

An important task in any campaign is tracking your advertisements’ metrics. Although ads on Facebook run on their own, the built-in Ads Manager lets you manage your progress.

Turn off any campaigns that aren’t generating the results you’re looking for. Though, keep in mind that a new campaign can take at least a week for Facebook’s algorithm to show it to the right people, but over three months to really see if it’s working as intended.

Facebook Pixel is another way to monitor visitors to your site. Simply embed it on your website, and you can use the data it gathers to create custom audiences and adjust your campaign.

6. Leverage Influencers

Another thing to keep in mind when working on your ad campaign is repurposing material created by your influencer network.

Any content created by your brand will appear promotional because it is. With influencers, you’re paying them to use their following and creativity to reach out to an audience your brand might otherwise struggle with.

It’s not uncommon for marketers to repurpose content created by influencers and publish it on their own social media channels. The content benefits your brand by being entertaining and informative, and it benefits the creator by introducing their own brand to your potential clients.

However, always get permission first.

7. Whitelist Facebook Pages

Another way to utilize your influencers is to post ads to their social media pages, rather than posting their content onto your page.

The reason you’ll want to take advantage of whitelisting is the same reason you use influencers at all. They draw much more attention than your brand does and likely have a target audience you’re interested in.

Whitelisting also allows your brand more control over your influencer’s content, such as filtering anything that can harm your reputation. Obviously, this requires significant trust on both your parts but in the end can help both parties expand and generate new interest.

Improve Your eCommerce Revenue

Whether you’re a newer brand looking to get a footing on social media or a bigger brand improving your online presence, Facebook advertising provides ample opportunity.

It may seem challenging at first, but Facebook provides plenty of options for monitoring your progress and connecting with influencers who can help sell your product.

When we go into business with you, it’s a partnership. We’ll work hand in hand with you to reach your audience on both Facebook and Snapchat.

Reach out to us today and one of our specialists will answer any questions you have.

Author: Sam Sprague

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