Are you still using a personal Facebook profile to promote your business? Yeah, you might wanna do something about that. It’s time to convert your Facebook profile to a business page.

From the Facebook Help Center:

It’s against the Facebook Terms to use your profile to represent something other than yourself (example: your business), and you could permanently lose access to your account if you don’t convert it to a Page.

You can’t play ignorance anymore. Facebook has made this clear since at least 2012, if not earlier. And if you still use your profile for business purposes, it just looks like amateur hour.

Enough already. It’s time to behave like a legitimate business on Facebook. Let’s go…

What Happens When You Convert a Profile to a Page?

This was once a scary thing to do. By converting your profile to a page, you’d lose that initial profile, so it was suggested that you first download all of the information in it first to later recreate it. That’s no longer the case.

When you’re done converting your profile to a business page, you’ll end up with both a profile and a page. This is likely what you wanted anyway.

The profile picture, cover photo, and name that you’re using for your personal profile will all be transferred to the new page. These things can all be changed later, of course.

You’ll be able to select the photos and videos you want to move over to your new business page. Of course, none of those old usage stats will move over with them.

The Steps

Go here to start the process of converting your profile to a business page.

As much as I’d like to show you the rest of the steps, it scares the crap out of me just to get this far. I don’t want to submit anything by accident.

From this image you can see that you’ll do the following…

1. Choose up to three page categories
2. Select the friends and followers you want to follow your page
3. Select the photos and videos you want to move to your new page
4. Submit for review

You can preview all changes before publishing your new page, so that’s good.

When you’ve finished setting up your new page, Facebook will ask you to check your privacy settings on your profile to make sure you’re sharing what you want to share.

What About Your Friends and Followers?

Upon converting your profile to a page, you won’t have any likes or followers on this new page. You can, however, select from your friends and followers and add them as your new Page’s followers. But, there’s a catch, of course.

While friends you select will automatically follow your page and continue to be connected to your personal profile, the profile followers you select will be moved from your profile to your page.

Be smart with the friends aspect of this. They’ll be notified that you’ve created a page and that they are now automatically following it. Will they appreciate that? Are they actually someone who would want to follow your page? Don’t assume it.

What About Verified Profiles?

If your personal profile had a verified badge, your page won’t automatically be verified, too. You’ll need to resubmit for verification.

Wanting to Merge Pages?

Maybe you don’t want to convert a profile to a page but instead merge two similar business pages. You can do that, too.

Read this post for instructions.

The post How to Convert a Facebook Profile to a Business Page appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook marketers are always looking for ways to create content that people actually want to engage with. Facebook video polls could be a great solution.

Let’s take a closer look at an example of a Facebook video poll and how you can set one up yourself…

Example of a Video Poll

Here’s an example of a video post that I created on my page that includes a poll within it (click the link to engage with the poll yourself — polls don’t appear in embeds).

The poll comes up at about 19 seconds. If you missed it, the poll question is, “Is this a feature you will use?”

Once you answer the poll, you’ll see the vote results (per the way I set it up in the instructions below).

Set Up Polls in Facebook Video Posts

When you create a video post from your business’s Facebook page, you can add a poll to collect opinions from those watching it.

Let’s walk through the steps to create a Facebook video poll…

1. Click “Photo/Video” from the publisher on your page.

2. Click to “Upload Photos/Video.”

3. After selecting the video, you’ll get a dialog that looks like this…

Complete the Title, Description, Tags, and everything else as you normally would.

4. Click “Polls” on the right.

5. Click “Create Poll.”

6. On the right-hand side, create your question with two or more potential answers.

7. Indicate when the poll should appear within your video. You can either enter the exact start and end times manually, or by selecting and dragging the segment in green under the video.

8. Indicate whether you want to publish the results of the poll for the user immediately after they vote, at a scheduled time, or never.

9. If “Schedule” is chosen, indicate the time and date you want results published.

10. Click “Save.”

11. Create another poll! Yes, you can add multiple polls to the same video. Not required, of course.

Create a Facebook Video Ad with a Poll

This is something that has been tested since at least late 2018. I actually don’t have it yet, but my understanding is that once you select a video in Ads Manager when creating an ad, the Poll option appears when customizing the video.

The following screenshot is provided by Tod Maffin, a member of our PHC – Elite community:

Unfortunately, when I customize a video, it looks like this:

However, that doesn’t mean I’m out of luck. I can still promote the organic post that I already created that contains a poll. I can either do this within Ads Manager…

Or you can simply boost the post from your page.

Poll Results?

So far, I’m not clear regarding how to find the true participation level for the poll. I only know how votes are distributed in terms of percentages.

What I can tell you is that this post has performed quite well. Is that because of the poll? Or is it just the nature of the video post generally? More testing will be required.

Your Turn

Have you started experimenting with Facebook video polls yet, either with organic posts or ads? What results are you seeing?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Add a Poll to Facebook Video Ads and Posts appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook’s library of guides and resources is vast, yet these references can be a bit intimidating to navigate. Fortunately, for advertisers who are in need of case studies, best practice guides, tips, resources, updates, and industry-specific information, Facebook offers a trove of helpful information presented in visually-appealing formats.

After I put together A Short Reference of Facebook One-Sheeter Guides, I realized there were some advertisers who could use some help in navigating Facebook’s reference resources in general.

Sometimes, an advertiser simply needs some pre-built documentation for themselves, or to help educate colleagues, clients, or partners about a specific topic.

Below, I’ve curated a variety of Facebook’s resource pages for topics that are relevant to a wide range of advertisers. I focused on resources that have been updated within the past two years to help ensure the information is as current as possible. Many of the resources have been updated within the past six months.

I’ve grouped these by topical area to ease navigation. To access the reference page related to any specific item, simply click on the title at the beginning of the description. Feel free to bookmark this list if you’d like!

Industry-Specific Resources

There are definitely more materials relevant to each industry in addition to those that are shown in each of these topics pages. However, what I love about these is that they provide a great focus point, and more links to training resources, case studies, and Facebook research on various topics.

Food:

Food on Facebook and Instagram: CPG Food
Includes a downloadable guide on how to partner with Facebook on product launches.

Food on Facebook and Instagram
A general guide that is not specific to CPG. This resource also includes a downloadable guide with appealing visuals and detailed presentation of data.

Automotive:

Play with Cars: Automotive
Includes a downloadable Creative Best Practices manual focused on the automotive industry.

Facebook Strategies for Auto Dealers
Includes a downloadable strategy and resource guide.

Auto Insurance Insights
A very basic page, this also has a downloadable guide with research on the auto insurance industry.

Tech, Telecom, and Gaming:

Technology and Telecom Facebook Resources
Includes a downloadable “B2B Creative Playbook.”

The Art and Science of Movie Marketing
A simple page that includes a link to a downloadable deck with research about what influences audience film choices.

Facebook Business for Gaming
Links to various best practices and insights related to gaming, with a focus specifically on mobile gaming.

Real Estate:

Connect Your Real Estate Business with Customers Using Facebook
Single-page resource for understanding the opportunities of Facebook for the real estate industry.

Beauty:

Inside Beauty
Includes a downloadable “New Beauty Decision Journey” document. Note: This resource is focused on Europe, as of the time this list was put together.

Direct Response and Online Sales

Discover Growth: Facebook Marketing Solutions for Direct Response
Includes a downloadable whitepaper and links to various resources focused on driving online sales, offline sales, lead generation, and app installs.

Global Ecommerce Market -– Facebook for Ecommerce Industries
Includes a downloadable guide called “Drive Sales with Facebook: The Guide for Retail Marketers.” This comprehensive document is 89 pages long!

Lead Ads Playbook
Includes a downloadable Lead Ads guide.

Facebook Marketplace
A general resource on Marketplace, with links to additional resources.

Facebook Marketplace for eCommerce
This is a more specific resource related to third-party integrations for Marketplace.

Creative Development and Execution

Facebook Ads Inspiration
Includes examples of creative ads, intended to serve as inspiration for design.

How to Make a Video for Facebook
Includes links to different resources for creating videos.

It’s a Great Day to Video: Tell a Story with Facebook Video Solutions
Includes resources on development and performance measurement for video ads.

Facebook Through the Lens
This video series is focused on driving inspiration for those who are creating mobile-first video ads for Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook Mobile Studio
Includes guides as well as a downloadable template for creating a mobile content planning brief.

Facebook-Curated Editorial Content

Grow: By Facebook
Using Facebook’s own description for this resource: “Grow is a content and events programme that shines a light on people, companies and trends challenging the status quo.”

I would describe this as an “interesting read” resource, where Facebook aggregates interviews, opinions, and research on a variety of topics. There’s also a chatbot feature as well as an opportunity to subscribe to a mailing list.

A recent example is the “Headset and Heart” article discussing virtual reality’s power for social good.

Three and a Half Degrees: The Power of Connection (Podcast Series)
Somewhat similar to Grow, this is a series focused on interviews with subject matter experts and conversations on topics of connection enabled (and challenged by) technology.

Facebook Success Stories/Case Studies
Here is a repository of case studies (with results, where available) that can be filtered by Business Size, Objective, Industry, Product, and Region. You can also use a search bar to look for specific companies or topics, which is great for those moments when you think to yourself, “I know I read an example case study about this somewhere!”

Holiday Campaigns

Facebook traditionally releases campaign planning guides related to the holiday season, and I imagine they will again this year. Here are the resources from last year that are already available — these could help those trying to get an early start on planning for this year:

Facebook Holidays 2018 Shopping Insights and Marketing Tips
Includes a downloadable guide for the 2018 holiday season.

Facebook Christmas 2018
Includes links to downloadable guides about email and video, along with fact sheets.

Small and Medium-Sized Business Resources

Boost Your Business
Information on participating with in-person events to learn about Facebook resources for businesses.

Build to Break by Facebook Business: Accelerating Growth for Disruptors
This is an interesting resource focused on disruption. It includes an annual report titled “The State of Disruption 2018,” as well as a “Build to Break Playbook.”

Facebook and TV

Turn Great TV Ads into Great Mobile Ads
This resource covers some best practices on adapting traditional TV creative into mobile experiences. It also links to a specific Blueprint learning course on the topic.

TV and Facebook Work Better Together
A single-page resource that links out to more in-depth topics related to measurement, planning, and creative development for campaigns that utilize both Facebook and TV components.

General Topics (which didn’t fit neatly into one of the above categories)

Zero-Friction Future
This includes a downloadable guide to reduce friction across the various stages of a consumer journey.

Facebook Events
This is a repository for more “big event” types of occasions, e.g. Cannes Lions and Facebook Summit. Along with lists of upcoming events, the page also contains recaps of past events.

And that’s all… for now :-)

Your Turn

Are any of these particularly useful for you?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post A Curated List of Facebook Marketing Reference Guides appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The fourth quarter is the most wonderful time of the year for direct-response Facebook advertisers. Consumers are actively online and looking to purchase. They intentionally want to buy gifts for family, friends, and even themselves.

In 2017, Facebook reported that 70% of millennials are influenced in their holiday buying by Facebook and/or Instagram. And indeed, based on the years I’ve been advertising on Facebook, CPMs (cost-per-thousand impressions) during this time typically rise, but CPAs (cost-per-acquisition) decline rapidly.

Q4 Phases

The days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are when most consumers are looking for deals. Discounts and free shipping abound. Look at the spike of interactions on Black Friday in the graph below.

*Source: Facebook IQ Study

However, most advertisers forget that there are various profitable strategies that you can apply in the days and months before Thanksgiving week and after Cyber Monday. And if you do it right, you could maximize customer lifetime values and revenue while positioning yourself for success in the following year. It doesn’t have to be held to just those five days, aka “Phase Two.”

The “phases” strategy proves that warming consumers up to your company/offer before mid-November (Phase One), combined with targeting previous customers and re-marketing during Black Friday through Cyber Monday (Phase Two), and then continuing to re-market plus a small amount of prospecting post-Cyber Monday (Phase Three) can really be successful.

Utilizing multiple objectives in Q4, especially in Phase One, can also help you spend horizontally, versus vertically. This tactic helps you reach people in new ways and doesn’t require you to only focus on “converters.” Converters are only a small portion of the overall Facebook audience, so targeting potential and past customers with Page Post Engagement ads is a great first step in the horizontal methodology.

What’s Your Q4 Plan?

Even while considering these phases, many advertisers lack a comprehensive plan. You have potential customers, existing customers, your email list, your website Custom Audiences, and more at your disposal for targeting.

But how do you use them all? You want to generate new creative assets, but what should you do first? These examples and more sum up why it’s absolutely essential to have a solid plan going into Q4.

I’ll be brutally honest: you can’t just keep running the ads you’ve been running all year. You need ads that are specific to Q4 and to the offers you’re putting out throughout the holidays. They should be different because consumer demands are different.

Next, we’ll go over some creative and audience testing you should start NOW to help inform your Q4 plan.

Creative/Copy Tests

Since you’ll be speaking to potential customers, previous customers, previous engagers, and previous website visitors all within Q4, ensuring they all don’t see the exact same message is ideal.

You want general message alignment, yes, but speaking to different people in different parts of their customer journey will help to drive revenues and lifetime values higher.

Different people respond to different types of ads and ad sizes. Some may convert on a 1000×1000 photo post (to the right) while others might convert on a video carousel. This is why it’s always important to test, test, test.

There are a few must-do creative tests you’ll want to run before early November. Why? This testing will help inform the ads you create for Black Friday through Cyber Monday, thanks to a better understanding of what consumers are responding to.

At a minimum, you’ll want to test the following with your ads:

1. Lifestyle vs. product-focused imagery
2. Bolder colors vs. neutral colors in your creative
3. User-generated content vs. traditional product imagery
4. Customer testimonials vs. product benefits in the copy

Having a clearer understanding of these creative and copy components before Black Friday can help optimize your ad spend and give you greater confidence in knowing what consumers are going to be interested in. They can guide image and copy decisions and make you more confident during some of the most important days of the year.

Audience Tests

Ask yourself this question: What audiences do I currently have in my toolbox that I could target during a sale?

Most advertisers and business owners will list out some of the following audiences:

• Best/VIP Customer List
• Customer Email List / Previous Purchaser FB event Custom Audience
• Email List
• Previous Website Visitors

These audiences are all popular (as well as typically successful) because they are already familiar with you. If you have a smaller budget, focusing on these audiences during the Black Friday – Cyber Monday timeframe will likely be enough to show some serious ROAS and revenue.

But what if your “galaxy” could be expanded for use in Phase Two? You shouldn’t wait to target new customers as soon as Black Friday hits because every single major brand will be trying to do that — and they have the bucks to do it. And to be honest, you probably don’t have the budget or time to compete with those insanely priced CPMs.

So, what’s the solution?

Audience Tests: Examples

My solution is to target prospecting audiences, with a variety of objectives, between now and the week of Thanksgiving to expand your galaxy. An example of what I’m proposing is something like this…

Conversion Campaign

• Ad Set 1: 1% Purchaser Lookalike, 1% VIP Purchaser Lookalike
  • Variety of ads being tested here as mentioned above
• Ad Set 2: 1% Past 60 Day FB/IG Engager Lookalike
• Ad Set 3: 1% Lookalike of Top 25% Last 45 Day Website Custom Audience, 1% Lookalike of 2X Page Views Last 30 Days
• Ad Set 4: Interest-based grouping of relevant interests

Page Post Engagement Campaign

• Ad Set 1: 1% Purchaser Lookalike, 1% VIP Purchaser Lookalike
• Ad Set 2: 1% Past 60 Day FB/IG Engager Lookalike
• Ad Set 3: 1% Lookalike of Top 25% Last 45 Day Website Custom Audience, 1% Lookalike of 2X Page Views Last 30 Days
• Ad Set 4: Previous Purchaser Target

Video Views Campaign

• Same audiences as above

Lead Gen Campaign (purpose is to capture emails to grow your list for future use in Black Friday sales announcements)

• 30 Day Website Custom Audience Past Visitor, excluding email list
• 30 Day Engager Custom Audience, excluding email list

Messenger Campaign Driving To a Subscribe via a Chatbot (purpose is to capture Messenger audiences to grow your list for future use in Black Friday sales announcements)

• 30 Day Website Custom Audience Past Visitor, excluding email list
• 30 Day Engager Custom Audience, excluding email list

After the Tests…

Now, once you’ve run these tests, look at how you’ve expanded your galaxy well before Black Friday and at a lower cost! Here are your new audiences:

• Messenger Broadcast list
• Video Views to 75%
• Lead Form open but not submit list
• A bigger Top 25% Website Custom Audience Visitor pool
• Previous Engagers
• Fans
• Dynamic Ad Pools are bigger

On top of…

• Best/VIP Customer List
• Customer List
• Email List
• Previous Website Visitors

PLUS you’ve made more people familiar with you and your brand, more potential customers have been to your site, and more people have engaged with your products. Seriously, triple win!

To be clear, I’m not suggesting you have to do all of these things in this exact sequence. The purpose of mentioning them is to simply provide options in utilizing multiple objectives which can help you grow your awareness and audiences as we go into a very competitive advertising time.

The post Quick Facebook Ads Tests To Run Now for Q4 appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

If you’ve been following my Facebook page or content lately, you know that I’ve been experimenting with something very different for me: Short Facebook videos.

Let’s take a closer look at what I’ve been doing, why, and my developing strategy using short Facebook videos.

Background: I Hate Videos

Let’s be clear: I get it. Video is powerful. I encourage everyone to create videos. But I freaking hate it.

We can go back nearly five years now to my New Year’s resolutions for 2013. Since then, I’ve told myself repeatedly that I need to commit to video.

I’ve messed with video. I created tutorials on YouTube for a while. I conduct live webinars to my private communities via Facebook Live. But video is a major struggle for me.

It wasn’t until recently that I was able to isolate why it’s such a struggle. And once I did, it allowed me to tackle it in a way that makes me comfortable.

My goal is to create content efficiently. High impact with a lower amount of effort, if possible. But video stresses me out. Is it live? Do I record it? Is the lighting right? How do I look? What’s my script?

In the long run, it became a bad fit for me. I focus on blog posts I can churn out in two hours and reach thousands of readers. I create webinars and live training programs that I can repeat again and again.

So instead of trying to transform myself into someone who does edited, professional videos, I decided to make videos fit my style.

Why not create short videos that are all under a minute? Screen shares only. No sound. High volume and high impact. Something I could spit out quickly, but provide significant value.

Suddenly, I was inspired…

My Test

Last Thursday, I whipped up this video…

The response was fantastic. I knew I had a potential hit on my hands.

All this time, I had been neglecting the fact that the power of Facebook video actually fits my strengths. The best Facebook videos are short. Most people watch without sound (though Facebook seems to be moving to autoplay with sound). I can take advantage of that.

I quickly got to work.

My Video Strategy

I’ve been writing blog posts on this website for more than six years now. I’d be lying if I told you there wasn’t at least a little bit of burnout on the horizon. Video could be the answer.

It’s not only good for me, it’s good for my audience. It’s a different way to teach. A different way to consume content. And it generates, when done right, a ton of engagement.

Facebook advertising is a deep topic. I opened up a spreadsheet and started up a list of potential topics.

Here’s the beauty of a short (30-60 seconds) video: You can’t cover much. You can only cover one small part of a complicated problem.

That means lots and lots of video possilities. Within days, I’ve already created close to 20 of these videos with dozens more coming.

My Facebook page hasn’t been very active for a few years now. I use it to share my latest blog post. It does well for that one post. But my writing has been once or twice per week, sometimes once every two weeks. The page can get stale.

These videos have breathed new life into my page and my content. Every morning at 9:05am my time, I’m publishing a new video.

Through today, I’ve published the following from the “How To” series:

1. Video Custom Audience
2. Website Custom Audiences – CompleteRegistrations
3. Automated Rules
4. Reach Objective
5. Target Nearby Travelers
6. Post Engagement Audiences
7. Create Audience of Frequent Website Visitors
8. Target Highest Spending Customers

This gives me new content on a daily basis — something I haven’t provided my audience in three or four years.

After a few videos, one change I made was adding a call-to-action button that would drive people to my website to view the full list of videos.

Here’s an example…

This way, I could also drive traffic and build those valuable Website Custom Audiences. To where am I driving that traffic, you ask?

To this…

Website Integration

I wanted to leverage these videos for my most cherished asset: My website.

These videos needed a home base. I developed a page where I will embed all of these videos going forward.

The beauty of this is that I’m embedding the Facebook videos themselves. Anyone who watches these videos on my site will be adding to the engagement on the videos — adding more views and social proof.

Long-term, I’ll need to plan for ways to organize these videos as we start approaching 50 or 100. It could become a great resource for marketers looking for answers and quick tutorials.

List Building

I may be backwards, I admit. Most marketers think of how they can make money first. I start with a need and a way that I can fill it.

I don’t yet know how — or if — these videos will lead to a product. But after a few days, I decided to make it possible for people to subscribe so that they’re notified when a new video has been published.

One reason for this is that I know there’s no way I’ll be emailing my entire list every time I publish a video. But I want to allow people to opt-in to such a broadcast. That’s how this subscription was born.

That’s why you now see an opt-in form at the top of the Quick Video Tutorials page.

I love this type of subscription. My email list is a huge reason for the success of my website. It’s a built-in, unfair advantage. I email more than 100,000 people and immediately drive a few thousand page views.

While I won’t email 100,000 people on a daily basis for this, it’s still going to be a benefit to know that I can automatically send a few hundred to watch, engage with, and share these videos.

Of course, that gave me one more thing I could advertise…

Facebook Ads

I started simply. I created a Video Views campaign using the built-in split testing feature to try out three primary audiences:

• Website Custom Audience – Viewed Facebook Topic – 2+ Frequency – 180 Days
• Facebook Page Engagement Audience – Posts and Ads – 365 Days
• Page Likes

I limited my audience in each one to 13 “select countries” that are most likely to lead to an opt-in and sale (based on history).

I ran the split test for each of the first eight videos. The results? Very close.

In the end, my website visitors watch my videos slightly longer, with those who engage with my posts and ads close behind. Costs are very close.

Basically, this tells me that my page likes audience was built the right way. Going forward, I’ll use two ad sets to promote these videos:

• Website Custom Audience – Viewed Facebook Topic – 2+ Frequency – 180 Days
• Page Likes + Facebook Page Engagement Audience – Posts and Ads – 365 Days

This way, the second ad set will be those who like my page AND engage with my posts or ads.

I’m also running ads to promote the ability to subscribe to daily updates for this video series. There are a few variations of these ads, but here’s one…

If you’re wondering, this is a lead ad. Who am I targeting, you ask?

Video Views Custom Audiences

One of the big advantages of Facebook video is that it provides a new kind of remarketing. With video, you can build an audience efficiently that you can target later.

That’s what happened here. I created a video views audience of anyone who watched 95% of at least one of my Quick Video Tutorials during the past seven days. That way, I target those who found the most value in the videos, but I stop wasting my money on them if they haven’t subscribed within seven days.

I also create a three second video view audience for each individual video. I exclude this audience when promoting that particular video to prevent further waste. Once they see the video for at least three seconds, I won’t pay to show it to them again.

Here’s an example of the targeting for my eighth video.

I’m excluding anyone who already watched three seconds of the video I’m promoting.

Chat Bots?

I’ll admit that I’ve been slow to embrace Facebook Messenger chat bots. Some have expressed surprise by this. But I’ve always been one who favors a personal touch over automation.

However, this experiment got me thinking about chat bots again. What if someone could subscribe to my updates via Facebook Messenger?

There are lots of bottleknecks and hurdles associated with chat bots because all messaging currently goes directly into ZenDesk and generates a ticket. But I’m actively testing, and we’ll see where this goes.

YouTube

Taking me back to my roots…

I admit that I’ve completely neglected YouTube for the past few years. I even struggled to find my way around once I went back. But it occurred to me that YouTube is the perfect place for these videos.

Where do you go for “how to” videos? YouTube. What kind of video does great in Google searches? The “how to” video.

While it’s certainly not a major part of my strategy (and not making a big impact yet), I wanted to be sure to include YouTube in this as well.

On a side note, the mistake I see many YouTube-first marketers make is that they share links to their YouTube videos to Facebook. Those static, cropped, ugly links. Stop this. Upload your Facebook video! You can always link to your YouTube channel in the text or as the CTA button.

My Process

This is quickly getting complicated, but let’s recap…

1. Create a video ad with a CTA button to my website that is scheduled to my page at 9:05am on a designated day
2. Embed that video on my website
3. Create a Custom Audience for that video
4. Add that video to the 95% custom audience for all videos
5. Create a 1-day ad for that video
6. Run continuous ads promoting the Quick Video Tutorials subscription
7. Send a daily email to my (growing) list of QVT subscribers
8. Publish to YouTube
9. Rinse and repeat…

Your Turn

This is still a new and evolving strategy, but what I’ve outlined above is how it looks today. I’m energized by the results and feedback so far, so I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Are you experimenting with Facebook video? What else would you add to the strategy?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Short Facebook Videos: An Experiment appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook has announced the launch of Groups for Pages, allowing brands, businesses, and artists to create groups around their super-fans.

Let’s take a closer look at how these groups change things and how you can link a group to your page today.

Groups Linked to Pages

In the past, you could have created a group for your most engaged customers and fans, but finding those groups could have been difficult.

Now, brands can showcase related groups straight from their Facebook pages…

Publish as Yourself or Your Page

One of the complaints of Facebook groups in the past has been that you couldn’t publish as your page. While this added to the personalization of groups, it removed branding opportunities to communicate directly between brand and customer.

That changes with this update. Admins of a linked group will have the option of publishing as the page or their personal profile.

How to Link a Group to Your Page

If you see “Groups” on the left side of your page, great. It’s pretty easy and self explanatory. But if you’re like me, this wasn’t the case.

If you don’t see “Groups” on the left side, go to your Page Settings and then click “Edit Page.”

I’ve found that clicking the “Use Default Tabs” slider will bring the Groups tab up.

Otherwise, click “Add a Tab” at the bottom.

That should bring up an option to add a Groups tab.

Then you should see “Groups” as an option on the left side of your page. When clicking on it, you’ll have an option to link or create a group.

To link an existing group, click “Link Your Group” and select the page you want to link to this page.

If you want to create a group from scratch, click “Create Group” at the bottom and start the creation process.

Facebook will automatically add you and your page as people to the group. You can add others (like other admins) if you want.

After choosing an icon, your group will then be linked to your page.

Cut Through the Clutter

If you’ve been marketing on Facebook for the past few years, you’re well aware of the primary complaint from brands regarding reach. The news feed is a competition for eyeballs, so Facebook helps surface what they believe will be most interesting to users. More often than not, this is at the expense of brand messaging.

That’s not necessarily wrong. Brands are boring. Facebook usage continues to climb. So the deprioritization of brands in the news feed is apparently the right move for user experience.

One challenge for brands is that a post to the news feed is a one to many conversation. It’s not much of a conversation at all. But groups give all members who share an interest equal standing to start or join a conversation.

Linking a group to your page has the potential to generate more natural discussion around a shared interest related to your brand. As a result, this discussion is much more likely to make its way into the competitive news feed.

Your Turn

I see opportunities to encourage higher quality conversation between brand and customer with this update. I’ve already applied it to a baseball related page with great success.

What are your thoughts of this update? Is it something you’ll use? How will you apply it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Groups for Pages: Cut Through the Clutter appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

For some marketers, Facebook’s constant tweaking of the News Feed algorithm — which determines what users see and don’t see in their feed — is a source of frustration. So if this is you, prepare yourself for further frustration.

I don’t think any of these updates are a big deal, but we’ll get to that later in this post. For now, let’s talk about what’s been updated and how that could impact you as a marketer.

Authenticity and Timeliness

Facebook is in an ongoing battle with inauthentic content. Whether it’s click bait or fake news, Facebook wants to limit how much of this content gets visibility in the news feed.

This update, in itself, is nothing new. But anyone who has been on their news feed will attest that while there may be less of this content than there once was, the difference isn’t all that noticeable. The sleazy publishers are still winning.

So this update provides Facebook with additional signals for detecting and dealing with inauthentic content. The target here is misleading, sensational and spammy content.

Here’s how Facebook will improve these signals:

1. Categorize pages that post spam or try to game the news feed.

These new signals will focus on spam as well as pages that ask for likes, comments and shares. Once again, this isn’t a new stand by Facebook. In April of 2014, they took aim at pages that ask for comments, likes and shares.

The focus is on authenticity. Facebook wants users to like, comment on or share a post because it’s of interest to them. It doesn’t mean that calls-to-action are bad, but it’s how some pages have used it.

You see, some will say “like this post if X, comment if Y and share if Z.” That’s clearly not authentic, and it’s a way to game the news feed.

Facebook will now categorize pages that do this. It’s not clear, of course, how often or recently a page needs to violate this rule to fall under this category. If it’s something they did often a year ago, will they be categorized this way?

2. Train a model that tests whether posts from other pages are authentic.

Facebook then uses those posts that were categorized as gaming the system to train a model to detect other inauthentic posts. Another signal these models will use is if people are often hiding these posts.

As a result, Facebook will be able to quickly detect when pages are attempting to game the system and punish their content accordingly.

3. Updates to real-time signals.

Real-time has always been important to the news feed. If you’ve engaged with something recently, you’re more likely to see something from that source again. If a friend engages with something recently, you also may then see it.

With this update, Facebook is taking a look at engagement changes that occur in real-time. For example, you may not have shown any interest in a particular topic in the past. But maybe that topic is getting way more engagement than normal from your friends right now (trending content, for example), so you’ll be more likely to see it while it’s temporarily a hot topic.

With today’s update, we will now take into account how signals change in real time. So now if there is a lot of engagement from many people on Facebook about a topic, or if a post from a Page is getting a lot of engagement, we can understand in real-time that the topic or Page post might be temporarily more important to you, so we should show that content higher in your feed.

Facebook also provided a sports example. These are live events that are going on right now. So it’s more important that you see updates on this live event now while it’s happening, rather than tomorrow or a week from now.

Video Completion Rates

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, video is getting more focus within the algorithm these days. It naturally gets more engagement, which leads to more visibility. And live video is even more likely to reach your feed.

But this update applies to completion rate. In other words, Facebook looks at how much of a video people look at to help determine how interesting it is.

Facebook has looked at video completion rate in the past when ranking content. However, the problem was that this naturally favored short videos. You could accidentally watch 50% of a 10-second video, and Facebook would then rank it high. Meanwhile, you could watch two minutes of a 10-minute video, and it may not get as much reach.

With this update, Facebook is tweaking how they weight completion rate. Watching a percentage of a longer video will be more valuable than watching the same percentage of a short one.

The result of this change is that you may start seeing more long videos — assuming they are getting good engagement — than short videos in your news feed. Or the longer ones will at least start appearing higher.

Facebook’s History of News Feed Algorithm Changes

Facebook has been documenting these updates since August 6, 2013 with their News Feed FYI blog. Looking back, the tweaks largely follow a common theme: Authenticity.

In addition to the recent update mentioned above to help flag inauthentic content, here are a few other examples of when Facebook took this on:

• December 15, 2016: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News
• August 4, 2016: Further Reducing Clickbait in Feed
• July 31, 2015: A Better Understanding of “Hide”
• January 20, 2015: Showing Fewer Hoaxes
• November 14, 2014: Reducing Overly Promotional Page Posts in News Feed
• August 25, 2014: Click-baiting
• April 10, 2014: Cleaning Up News Feed Spam
• August 23, 2013: Showing More High Quality Content

That’s eight updates, if you’re counting, and this only includes those updates that had authenticity, spam, and gaming the system as priorities to be addressed. Facebook really wants to limit that stuff.

What You Should Do

If you’ve been doing things the right way all along, you just shrug and smile. This only helps you. You don’t need to change anything.

I’ve long preached authenticity. I’ve long said that you should avoid attempts at gaming the system for short-term gain.

People often counter, “But if it works, why not?” Because Facebook catches up to you. You do not want to be on their bad side when they do.

Of particular importance is Facebook’s categorization of pages that spam and attempt to game the system. As mentioned above, it’s not clear how bad of an abuser you need to be to get this label. It’s not clear how badly you will be punished. It’s not clear when and if you’d be able to shake that label.

But that’s something I never need to worry about. And if you’ve been listening and following your gut, you don’t need to worry about it either.

Bottom line is that you always need an eye on the long-term. Those obsessed with short-term results at all costs have few breaths left.

Your Turn

It will be interesting to see if there are noticeable changes to the news feed as a result of these updates. As mentioned, it’s been a constant battle for Facebook to keep spammy, inauthentic content out of the feed — and it’s largely been a losing battle up to this point.

What do you think of these updates? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook News Feed Updates: Authenticity and Video Completion appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[AUDIO VERSION: I also recorded an audio version of this blog post. Click below to listen. Let me know if this is something you find helpful!]

If you are running Facebook ads that lead to any sort of conversion, directly or indirectly (sales, lead or opt-in), it’s a must that you use conversion tracking. Google tracking isn’t enough.

But even if you use Facebook conversion tracking, do you know when to use it? Do you know the difference between optimizing for and tracking pixels? Do you know how to set the conversion value? And do you know how to track for multiple conversions?

Answering these questions is precisely the purpose of this blog post.

[Tweet “You’re doing it wrong. Here’s how to track and optimize for multiple Facebook conversion pixels…”]

Why Google Tracking Isn’t Enough

Far too many advertisers think that it’s enough to use Google URL parameters, goals and analytics. It’s not.

When you don’t use Facebook’s conversion tracking, you aren’t optimizing for a conversion. We’ll get to why that matters in a minute.

When you don’t use Facebook’s conversion tracking, you aren’t able to break down Cost Per Conversion based on the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Age & Gender
• Country
• Ad Placement

When you don’t use Facebook’s conversion tracking, you aren’t able to break down cross-device performance. Within the custom Facebook ad reports, you can analyze on which devices users saw your ad and on which devices they converted.

How to Create a Conversion Pixel

Within Ads Manager, click the “Conversion Tracking” link on the left…

Then click the green “Create Pixel” button at the far right…

Next you’ll need to choose a category for the conversion you are looking to get. The options are:

• Checkouts
• Registrations
• Leads
• Key Page Views
• Adds to Cart
• Other Website Conversions

Finally, name your pixel and click the blue “Create Pixel” button…

You will then be given your pixel code…

Copy and place that code between the HEAD tags of the “success” page following a conversion (the “Thank you for your purchase!” page). It’s important this goes on the success page — and the page that only someone who just converted will see. That notifies Facebook that a conversion is complete.

Make sure to refresh the page that has the pixel on it. You should then see that the pixel is active…

Facebook will also begin tracking all times that pixel is fired (typically meaning a conversion, but someone — including you — may refresh it), regardless of whether someone reached that page from an ad.

In the example above, that pixel fired 506 times on September 26. That does not mean, however, that my ads led to 506 conversions on that day. I don’t need to run any ads at all for this to track.

When you run ads and connect a conversion pixel to those ads, Facebook will separate the conversions that happened as a result of someone viewing or clicking your ads.

Setting the Conversion Value

When you create your pixel, you’ll have the option of entering a conversion value. This isn’t required, and that value otherwise defaults to $0.00. But it can be very useful for your reporting!

There are two places where you can enter the value and currency for your conversion…

The value should be the cost of your product. This way, you can easily compare the cost of your advertising to the total value of conversions that resulted from those ads.

Tracking for a Conversion Pixel

You’ve created the pixel, but now it’s time to create a Facebook ad that tracks conversions. How else are you going to measure success?

I strongly encourage you to use Power Editor. The reason for this is going to become clearer in a moment. But trust me on this.

You can track for conversions regardless of your objective. Simply click the “Use Existing Pixels” button when creating your ad…

Note that you could have created a pixel at this step as well, but we already created ours!

Now check the conversion pixel you want to track and click the “Select” button…

Optimizing for a Conversion Pixel

Note that in the example above, you can track conversions no matter your objective. However, keep in mind that if your objective isn’t a Website Conversion, Facebook won’t optimize for that action.

Remember that earlier when you created your pixel, you selected the conversion type. Facebook is then able to see which users convert for which conversion type to help optimize accordingly.

When you choose the Website Conversion objective, you’ll be required to select a conversion pixel twice…

The first button is for choosing the conversion(s) you want to track. The second is for choosing the single conversion you want to optimize for.

Note that the same pixel should be selected for both tracking and optimizing. However, while you can select multiple pixels to track (we’ll get to that in a minute!), you can only optimize for one.

Why You Should Track for Multiple Pixels

If you’re driving website traffic, you should seriously consider tracking for conversions. Even if you aren’t leading to a landing page, you should track for any conversion that leads to that content.

For example, I am writing this post about Power Editor. I also link to my Power Editor ebook (there’s that link!). While getting conversions isn’t my main objective, I should still track for it.

In fact, I should consider tracking Power Editor course sales as well. Not that it’s the focus of this blog post, but because a sales funnel is created for it when someone gets the ebook.

So when you click the button to track conversions, you can actually select multiple pixels…

Note that this is only available within Power Editor. The main ads interface only allows you to track a single pixel per ad.

Using the Facebook Ad Reports

Now you need to analyze the success rate of your advertising. Most people use the main campaign dashboard within Ads Manager. That’s fine, but it’s only scratching the surface!

You need to use the custom Ad Reports. Click on “Reports” on the left within Ads Manager…

The ad reports are EXTREMELY valuable. You need to use them! But the default view is pretty worthless. Click the “Edit Columns” button to get access to your gold.

Select whatever columns are important to your report. Make sure you read this post for more info on that.

Since this is a conversion report, you’ll want to select the appropriate conversions within “Actions”…

To add columns for value of your conversions, select the appropriate conversions within “Value”…

And finally, select the appropriate conversion types under “Cost Per Action”…

This will give you a great base report that will show you the number of conversions, total conversion value and cost per conversion for your advertising. But recall that you can also break down performance by things like age, gender, country and placement.

You do that within “Data Breakdowns”…

Some Tips on Tracking for Multiple Pixels

These new reports will be great for breaking down the number of conversions, value of your conversions and the cost per conversion that resulted from your advertising. But you lose some granularity if you track for multiple conversions.

In the earlier example, I tracked opt-ins for my ebook as well as purchases of my Power Editor course. I tracked multiple pixels for conversion since I have different packages that can be purchased.

While I can view total number of conversions, total conversion value and total cost per conversion, it’s not as easy to break this down by product. Instead, Facebook lumps it together.

One way around this is through conversion types. Since I was tracking my ebook opt-ins (Leads) and sales (Checkouts), I can create columns for each of those conversion types (number, value and cost per conversion for each). However, Facebook lumps together all conversions that are of the same type.

Personally, I’m okay with this. But if you really want to isolate what product someone bought and you’re tracking for multiple conversions, consider using different tracking pixel types.

For example, if you’re tracking sales of three different products, consider using the following conversion types:

• Adds to Cart
• Checkouts
• Other Website Conversions

Of course, you should still optimize for the checkout.

Learn More Benefits of Power Editor

Tracking for multiple conversions is just one of the reasons you should be using Power Editor. The rest can be found in my ebook, “The 9 Ways the Pros Are Benefitting from Power Editor — AND YOU AREN’T!”

The post Facebook Power Editor: Track and Optimize for Multiple Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Back when Facebook first started discussing the possibility of auto-play video ads nearly a year ago (!!), I thought it was a terrible idea. And I’m someone who has been using Facebook since 2007 and tends to keep an open mind.

The backlash to something that doesn’t even exist yet was huge. We didn’t know how it would work, but we already hated it. As a result, Facebook did something they rarely do: They allowed the negative reaction to redirect their launch plans.

While I think it’s important to listen to the consumer, I’ve also admired that Facebook will often push through the negative reactions in the name of innovation.

Facebook should learn from feedback. But the public is also generally averse to change, and initial reactions are rarely a good indicator of what users will think of that change months down the road. Facebook has innovated by understanding that, sometimes, people don’t know what they like.

So that just shows how significant this backlash — again to something that doesn’t even exist yet — was. As a result, those auto-play ads won’t be rolled out in 2013, and there’s no immediate plan for when you will see them.

But you will see them. The groundwork has been laid with auto-play user video. It’s now just a matter of time.

The following is an excerpt from an interview by InsideFacebook’s Justin Lafferty with James Borow, CEO of Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer SHIFT. It underscores my current stance (and backtrack) on auto-play video ads.

IF: I know the big thing with video is auto-play video. Facebook has kept pushing back, pushing back, pushing back. It’s assumed that we’re going to see this at some point in 2014. What kind of effect do you think this will have both on the user experience and for advertisers?

JB: I don’t think it will be auto-play in the sense of being a bad experience. I think it’s going to be more like scrolling through Vine or Instagram. Your feed is going to become alive based on what you’ve interacted with. I think it’s going to be awesome, and it’s not going to be just for ads. Similar to Vine — as you scroll through, the News Feed will come alive. It’s like the newspaper in the Harry Potter movies.

I think from a user standpoint, it’s going to be great and then from an advertiser standpoint, it’s going to lead to incredible profit.

A few months ago, I would have scoffed at this like everyone else. But Borow is right.

It turns out that this delay was the right move. In fact, I’m convinced that when these auto-play video ads are finally rolled out, you won’t even care. You may even like them (whether you’ll admit it or not).

Here’s why…

[Tweet “Auto-play Facebook video ads are going to work, and you may actually love them. Here’s why…”]

You’ve Already Proven to Love Auto-Play Video

When Facebook first started talking about auto-play video ads, it was a concept that was difficult to visualize for most of us. If you’re like me, you expected something that took over the page and completely destroyed the user experience.

We think that because of what we see on sales pages and websites that have auto-play audio and video. It’s incredibly annoying for those of us who have multiple tabs and browsers open and can’t find a source of that sound.

But since the initial discussion of auto-play ads, something important happened: Vine and Instagram video exploded.

If you haven’t used either of these services (you’ll soon be in the minority), video automatically plays on your phone as you scroll through your feed. But they don’t all play at once. Only the current video is displayed. When you scroll past, the experience moves to the next video.

And you know what? It works well. And people love it.

Auto-Play Video is Happening on Facebook, and It’s Awesome

Have you noticed? Auto-play videos from your friends have already started when viewing from your phone.

This is not at all what I expected. It’s a seamless experience. Audio does not play, so it does not interrupt or annoy my browsing. If the initial few seconds of a video interest you, click it to bring up a video viewer with audio.

Guess what? I welcome this on my phone. It’s inviting. And I’m much more likely to watch a video as a result.

Auto-Play Video Will Come to Brands

So, why isn’t this capability rolled out to brands yet? Pretty obvious. The minute that happens, they can immediately be turned into ads.

Facebook determined that users weren’t ready for that yet. But in the meantime, we’re being warmed up to it through Vine, Instagram and auto-play videos from our friends on the Facebook app.

This functionality will come to brands. And by then, it will be functionality we’ll be accustomed to seeing.

When that happens, you will be more likely to click and watch those videos. And it will be enormously effective, when used correctly.

We’ve been bracing ourselves for the worst, but — in all likelihood — the only difference between an auto-play video ad and an organic auto-play video from a brand will be the “Sponsored” label. Will you hate some auto-play video ads? Absolutely. Just like you hate some organic content and many of the ads that are horribly done.

It really doesn’t matter if it’s an organic video from the Page you like or an ad. When done well, users will embrace them. When done poorly, they will be marked as spam.

Will users revolt and leave Facebook in droves? When initially announced, I saw this as a possibility. But now, thanks to Facebook holding off while we unknowingly get warmed up to it, I expect this won’t be such a big deal after all.

What Do You Think?

Here is what I said about the prospects of auto-video ads back in December of 2012:

Not only do people hate auto-play, but apparently, this will be available for advertisers to target non-fans in the news feed. It’s a recipe for disaster. There has been all kinds of blowback from non-fans over suggested posts and promoted posts. Can you imagine the response to auto-play video? Unlikely to be worth it to the advertiser.

Of course, there’s still plenty we don’t know about how this will work — whether audio will play automatically or not. But based on what I know, I just don’t see any positive angle to this.

Is it possible that auto-play video would be effective? Sure, it’s possible. But my bet is that this will be one of the rare occasions where backlash will be warranted and Facebook will pull back — potentially before it even happens. A new video ad unit could be a nice opportunity for advertisers. But auto-play — particularly in the news feeds of non-fans — is too much.

I’ve done a complete 180 since then, at least regarding whether I think they will work. I was on the right track here regarding audio. It was true we didn’t know the full story yet. And I even nearly predicted the launch delay.

But I did not expect to embrace the idea nearly one year later the way I do today. Now I can’t wait.

What do you think? Do you support or oppose the idea of auto-play video ads on Facebook, and has your opinion changed?

The post Facebook Auto-Play Video Ads Will Work, And You Might Even Like Them appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook advertisers far and wide have found enormous success creating dark (or unpublished) posts. It’s a terrific way to optimize and create ad variations that reach the News Feeds of your target audience.

But these same advertisers repeatedly ask the same question: How do you check the comments on these posts?

You see, unpublished posts are just that — they aren’t published to your Facebook Page. So monitoring these posts can be a challenge without a bit of creativity.

[Tweet “Unpublished Facebook posts present a challenge for monitoring comments. Here’s the fix…”]

The Solution

Select “Manage Pages” from the top left drop-down within Power Editor.

After selecting your Page on the left, you will then see all of the corresponding recent and unpublished posts within a list. Highlight the post in question.

Then click “View Post.”

This will open the post’s permalink, which will allow you to view all activity on that post.

The Admin Panel

One issue with this method is that Facebook will only display the most recent posts within the Manage Pages area of Facebook. So your post will eventually fall off that list.

However, keep in mind that any time users comment on your unpublished post, you will receive a notification as you would for a published post in your Admin Panel.

You may want to click that alert to access the dedicated page for that post to bookmark it for later.

Ads Manager Preview

Note that there is another way to do this from the Ads Manager, though it only works for photos, videos and text updates (not link shares).

Click the ad while in Ads Manager. That will bring up a dialog that reads: “Linkable Area. Users who click this area will link to the destination specified by this ad. preview.”

Click the “preview” link. That will bring up the dedicated page for that post.

Unfortunately, it only opens the link you’re promoting (not the post permalink) for link shares.

Still having issues? Watch the video at the top of this post!

The post How to View the Comments on a Dark or Unpublished Facebook Post appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

First of all, Facebook’s 20% rule that applies to the amount of text that can appear within images of News Feed ads is stupid. It’s poorly enforced. It’s inconsistent. It’s ridiculous that it applies to link thumbnail images.

Did I mention that I hate it?

Lately, most of my ads are getting through. Not all of them. But most. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be the case for most (as you’ll see from the comments under this status update):

One of Facebook’s issues is that they appear to approve most of these ads, but then later reject them. So if you’re looking to run an ad for a short time anyway (which has been the case for many of my ads that seem to slip through the cracks), you may skate by.

But I noticed something else recently that’s more than a bit annoying. The amount of text often doesn’t matter. It all depends on the placement of that text.

The Evil Grid

Recently, I started a campaign that initially consisted of two ads. Both were link shares that used thumbnails that measured 400×209 to make use of the new, awesomely big real estate in desktop News Feed.

Those ads used two different images. Here they are:

The two ads are nearly identical, barring some color differences. But guess what? Facebook rejected one of the ads — the orange one.

The reason? The 20% rule.

First of all, it’s pretty ridiculous that one made it through and one didn’t. And that ad with the gray image is still running a week later.

But when Facebook rejected that orange image, I was directed to their Grid Tool.

Upon uploading my orange image into the Grid Tool, that image was then displayed with 25 boxes over it. I was instructed to select the boxes that contained text.

I wasn’t sure if my logo qualified as text (or the “GO” button for that matter), but I assume it doesn’t. Even without the logo, the text I used spilled over into six boxes. Facebook claims that means my image was (at least) 24% text.

But I quickly realized the text could be moved to fit snuggly within those boxes. So I moved the text — the size and everything else remained exactly the same — and tried again.

Note that a sliver of the “g” in “Coaching” spills over into one box. Even if I were to count that box as well as the “GO” box, it would mean that my ad is now 20% text exactly.

So I resubmitted my ad. What do you know? It was accepted.

Get Frustrated or Use the Grid Tool

When you think about it, there is no true way to measure the percentage of text in an image. Since letters aren’t blocks, there will always be white space in between.

This is why using a grid is so inexact. It doesn’t really measure 20% text at all. It just measures whether there is some text within 20% of the squares within an arbitrary grid.

So, yes, it’s an insanely stupid rule. But you have two choices here:

1. Ignore the rule, cross your fingers and get frustrated when your ads get rejected; or
2. Use the Grid Tool to make sure that your text is in the right place.

I recommend #2. Be conscious of the amount of text within your image. Before you submit your ad, make sure that text is placed properly when you use the Grid Tool.

Your Turn

How about you? What are your experiences with the 20% rule? Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Get Around Facebook’s 20-Percent Text Rule on Ad Images appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Everyone wants to know how to get more Facebook Likes. Marketers have goals — whether from superiors or their own — focused entirely around a big, round number.

Obsessed. And they’ve got it all wrong.

Look, big numbers are fun. I get it. I’m approaching 3,000,000 total page views on this site. I’m also approaching 20,000 total Facebook Likes.

But the number, in and of itself, means a whole lot of nothing.

You should know why by now. Many brands, guided by this obsession, buy Likes. Or they pay for poorly targeted ads that net them thousands of Likes from bots and irrelevant countries. Or they run mainstream contests that bring in the masses.

But when it comes to monetizing these people, such brands get the same results: Crickets.

The problem is that this obsession for a number takes the brand’s attention away from what really matters. And such Pages that obsess over the wrong things are so easy to spot.

Your content lacks value. It lacks direction and structure. It only sells and it’s sporadic. And your value proposition is far from clear.

Why? Because the brand doesn’t know why someone should like their Page in the first place. They don’t. They hope “If you build it, they will come” will work. And when it doesn’t, they resort to tricks to inflate that number.

[Tweet “Do you even know why you’re trying to increase Facebook likes, or is it no more than a number?”]

Know Your Value Proposition

I’ve had people come to me with the primary goal of building their Fan base to 10,000. Or 20,000. Or 100,000. They want to know how to get there as fast as possible.

I then ask them for their value proposition. The response: “Ummmmmm…”

When you obsess over number of Likes, you are dehumanizing your audience. It becomes only a number.

What you want is raving Fans. Fans are users. Users are people. People aren’t robots. People lead to business.

Humanize your audience. They are people. Refer to them as the “beautiful, amazing men and women who are passionate about a topic to which I can contribute. They like and dislike things. They have problems. They have emotions. They have limited patience.”

Why should someone like your Page? What is interesting about you? What is unique? What value do you provide?

Before you start talking about goals for your business on Facebook, you must be able to answer these questions. If you can’t, you’ll inevitably stray to focus on empty numbers.

What can you share on a daily basis to make a person’s life better?

This doesn’t mean posting a status update because it gets the most Reach. Or posting a photo because it gets the most clicks. Or using the call to action that gets the most bland responses.

Know who your ideal audience is and what makes them tick. Know what they like and dislike and how you can make their lives better. Leave the cat photos and memes for someone else.

Regularly and consistently publish valuable, self-less, helpful content. The purpose of the majority of posts should be to educate or entertain.

Once you’ve defined your value proposition, craft your branding, imagery, tagline, content and strategy around THIS. Not a goal for a number.

If you don’t do this first — if you don’t pre-define your value proposition — you can only build a number, not a business. And any results will be either hollow or unsustainable.

Build Organically and Paid

Once you define your audience and your value proposition, building that audience — an audience of people, not numbers — becomes infinitely easier. When you focus on providing value, you will grow organically.

But since you also know that ideal audience, it becomes far easier to define them when targeting ads. You know what they like and target those things in Precise Interests. You craft imagery and copy around filling the desires and needs you know they have.

Of course, you have to first answer some difficult questions to get there. Increasing an audience on Facebook takes effort. Don’t take shortcuts. But if you put in the effort to humanize your audience and your message to them, you are much more likely to produce positive results that actually lead to business.

And that — revenue — is the type of result you can be proud of.

The post Increasing Facebook Likes: You’re Building a Number, Not a Business appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I’ve struggled with this post. One that I know that is necessary, but one that I want to handle delicately.

Friday was an emotional day. I’m not going to refer to what happened on that day because I do not think it is relevant to this discussion, and the wounds are still far too fresh. But it was the type of day that you cannot plan for.

While you certainly can’t plan for that type of tragedy as a parent, family member, friend or human being, it’s also difficult to plan for this type of news as a brand or business owner.

I hate even writing those words because they sound callous. But the point is that too many brands came away looking tone deaf and insensitive because they were too focused on business to care like human beings.

The problem, though, is that many likely were ready to put business aside. But they hadn’t taken the proper steps to address what was already in motion.

I learned this on the fly. Hopefully I’ll never have to take these steps again. But we should be prepared, since undoubtedly there will be another big news event that will impact our planned messaging in the future.

Once some world-changing news comes in, collect all of the facts. If your gut tells you that this may impact your messaging, do the following…

1. Stop Everything

• Scheduled Posts
• Promoted Posts
• Facebook Ads

Understand that this does not mean you won’t be restarting them shortly. But you need to give yourself some time to evaluate whether your scheduled and promoted messaging will make your brand appear insensitive, out of touch or tone deaf.

When big news like Friday’s hits, no one cares about your marketing messages. You need to understand this. More importantly, you could take a major hit to your brand if you do not adjust.

Play it safe. This allows you the chance to observe how users are interacting with brands and determine whether your messaging will attract unwanted blowback.

2. Listen and Observe

I watched and winced as cheery holiday messages flowed into my News Feed from brands. Other messages were clearly planned before the day’s events. The reaction was emotional and negative.

You can’t approach such a day as “business as usual.” Understand that particularly in the News Feed, your messages are surrounded by those of shocked, outraged and emotional friends. Your marketing pitch is out of place and unwanted.

So take a close look and determine how similar brands are behaving and the user response.

3. Contribute or React

Approach this very carefully. Once again, even a supportive and thoughtful message may be unwanted when it’s from a brand. Make sure that whatever message you share provides a unique perspective and will be accepted.

In most cases, such messages from individuals or local brands will be embraced. But bigger brands may face greater scrutiny as users may question motivation.

Know that you don’t have to respond. You may choose to go completely silent, and that may be the best decision. You will need to weigh whether your contribution is appropriate.

4. Evaluate Planned Content

Is it still appropriate? Maybe it is. But it’s possible you’ll need to tweak a word here, change the tone there, delay or delete the message entirely.

When in doubt, delay or delete. Not worth the backlash.

5. Reboot

You’ll need to evaluate based on the conversations you are seeing from Facebook users. Are they beginning to move back to their normal lives? How are brand messages being received?

It’s again best to err on the cautious side here. There is no rush to be first back into the flow. Take your time.

Think Like a User

Give yourself some time. Be cautious. Stop everything and then address. You may find that your plan was perfectly appropriately. If most of your messaging was in sidebar ads, that may not be as big of an issue as News Feed marketing.

But it’s dangerous to address these things on the fly. Your brand’s reputation is at stake.

Did you learn anything from the way other brands behaved on Friday?

The post 5 Step Facebook Marketing Action Plan appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The most popular post on this site is my Reference of Dimensions for Facebook Timeline For Pages. So when any changes are made that I don’t know about, I can expect to hear from you!

I had been hearing rumblings of an issue with the profile photo size, but I confirmed that the dimensions themselves hadn’t changed. I then heard from Erwin Meester of Sociaal Lokaal in the Netherlands who explained the problem.

First, here is Erwin’s image showing the issue. You’ll see that Pages that created interactive designs between their profile and cover photos suddenly noticed something was off…

The issue dumbfounded me since my measurements tell me that the dimensions of the profile photo remain the same (still 160×160). But for whatever reason, Facebook now crops even square photos by default.

If anyone has an explanation for this, let me know. But Facebook decided to not only scale my 500×500 profile photo, but crop it in. This didn’t impact my design, but it obviously would screw up the creative designs of many others.

The Solution

The solution is ridiculously simple.

1. Hover over your profile photo
2. Click “Edit Profile Picture”
3. Click “Edit Thumbnail”
4. Check the box for “Scale to fit.”

Makes no sense whatsoever. This is your profile photo, not your thumbnail. And it already scaled to a point since the original photo size was 500×500. But this seems to fix the problem.

If you have any issues, see my video at the top.

The post Facebook Page Profile Photo Problem: The Fix appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Before you get started on Facebook, you need a plan. Far too often, I see brands aimlessly posting on their Page with no clear purpose or direction.

The approach is often self-serving. Hollow. Inconsistent.

The result should be no surprise. It’s impossible to gain any traction, and the Fans you do get are uninterested and don’t engage.

So how do you assemble the ultimate Facebook Content Plan? Well, it’s time to reveal my secrets.

Below is an overview of what I tell my clients. There are 11 factors that drive a Facebook content strategy that works. Focus on these things before you get started…

[Tweet “Before posting on Facebook, you must have a plan. Here’s how you can create one that works…”]

1. Your Audience

Think about your ideal customer. Here are some questions you’ll need to ask yourself about this person:

• Are they male or female?
• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• Are they single or married?
• Do they have children?
• How educated are they?
• What is their income?
• What do they like?
• What don’t they like?

Start drawing a picture of what this person looks like. Construct a story so that you understand their point of view.

This is your target audience. This is the person who will be the source of your inspiration.

2. Your Goals

Don’t think only about numbers. Attempt to visualize how you want your Page to look in one year. How do your customers perceive it? How many Fans are there? What drives the conversation?

Consider your competitor with the greatest presence on Facebook. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? What could you emulate it or improve upon it?

Now consider what you want to get out of using Facebook. What is the end game? Is it brand awareness? Customer service? Nurturing raving and loyal fans?

Now you can start thinking about the stats. But you first have to consider the environment that would get you there. Are you looking to sell product? How much? How often? Are you looking to generate leads? How will you do it? How many per month? Are you looking to drive traffic to your website? What kind of impact?

Be realistic here. Make direct revenue the final goal. Start with where you want to be in one year, and then work your way back.

3. Your Voice

You’ll want to be human. But what does that mean? Once again, this will be related to your target audience. What appeals to college kids won’t necessarily appeal to seniors (obviously). That doesn’t just mean the content you share, but how you share it.

Think through how it is you will present yourself. Start by writing a one page introduction of your brand to your Fans. You’ll never share or publish it. But it will give you practice.

4. Your Resources

These are all important factors to consider when putting together your content strategy. Make a list of these resources, and within those lists create sub-lists of content ideas that they could create that would appeal to your target audience.

5. Your Assets

Again, don’t think about this from a marketing and sales perspective, but from one of providing value. What will your ideal customer like?

Once you have this master list, start breaking it up into categories. We’ll get back to this.

6. Your Value

Understand that your typical Fan will have a News Feed that is flooded with posts from 500 other friends and Pages. You need to stand out.

Will you provide discounts? Run contests? Or will you teach something and make your Fans’ lives easier?

Once again, make a list of the various things that you can do and break them into categories. Do not skimp on this step! If it’s too difficult to come up with value, you will not create a Page worth following.

7. Your Team

This is critical, particularly when it comes to consistency and voice. Sometimes, it’s better to have one person write the updates, but have a team that helps with creating the content.

8. Your Time

Be honest with yourself from the start. Do not overcommit!

9. Your Themes

10. Your Calendar

Don’t go too far. This is your initial guide, but it should be fluid.

11. Your Execution!

For the first few weeks, be as structured as possible. Make sure people have very clear roles and assignments. Who will be managing Facebook and at what times? Who will be responding to Fans? At what time will each piece of new content be written?

Eventually, you should become less rigid, but it is important to establish some routine.

Your Turn

The post 11 Factors That Drive a Facebook Content Plan That Works appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I’ve never been happier to read an article by TechCrunch…

Killing Rumors With Facts: No, Facebook Didn’t Decrease Page Feed Reach To Sell More Promoted Posts

Josh Constine, you’re my hero.

If you’ve been reading my blog (and of course you have been!), you know that I’ve become increasingly grumpy about this subject. I’ve felt like the old man screaming in an empty room.

It seems that everyone has made up their minds that 1) Reach is down, and 2) Facebook is forcing us to pay for ads.

My data doesn’t support it (read this or this). In fact, I’m entirely convinced that Reach means very little right now. Everyone is fixated on this number while very few people talk about metrics that matter.

Anyway, this blog post isn’t about that. It’s about two things. First, Josh Constine’s awesome mic drop article. Second, some instructions on another “silent killer of Facebook Page Reach” that you need to research.

Cause of Reach Issues: Spam Filters

Each news feed post has a drop-down arrow next to it that lets users hide it from their news feed or mark it as spam. Facebook made these controls more visible and easy to use in September. That let people who thought a Page was spammy report it to Facebook or remove it from their feed.

At the same time, Facebook updated EdgeRank to more aggressively punish spammy Pages, the way Google updates PageRank occasionally to push down the search result rank of spammy sites.

When the change was made, these spam reports went way up. But as Facebook collected this data along with information about Pages you engage with, users began seeing fewer and fewer of this spammy content. As a result, fewer spam reports were made.

Here is an image from PageLever (also from the TechCrunch article) that visualizes this initial spike and then slowdown of spam reports:

Image courtesy of PageLever and TechCrunch

So what about the non-spammy Pages, right? They benefitted. Page Reach has remained relatively constant dating back to the beginning of July. Here is another chart from PageLever and TechCrunch:

Graph courtesy of PageLever and TechCrunch

What does this mean? Once again, I’ll let Josh explain…

The amount of fans Pages were reaching has stayed relatively stable since July. However, the standard deviation of reach did shoot up. That’s because the few especially spammy Pages and those affected by an increase in news feed competition had their reach drop significantly, while the reach of Pages that almost never get spam reports got a boost. That’s the impact of Facebook’s changes to the spam reporting UI and the EdgeRank algorithm.

There’s more to Josh’s article, and I beg you to read it. Very well done.

Is Your Page Spammy?

I don’t know about you, but this was my first question. Whether or not you think your Page is spammy is irrelevant. Facebook users will tell you.

How do you figure this out? I’m glad you asked. There’s a video that walks you through this at the bottom. But here are the basic steps for finding out how many people have reported your Page for spam during the past five months…

1) Go to your Admin Panel.

2) Within the Insights widget, click See All.

3) Click Export Data.

4) Select a period of time lasting five months, leaving it on Page Level Data.

5a) Within cell A1 of the first tab (or really anywhere), type in this formula:

=SUM(‘Daily Negative Feedback User…’!F:F)

That should spit out the number of people who have reported you for spam during the past five months.

5b) Or you can run a search of the workbook for “spam_” and the first result should take you to the correct tab. You’ll know you’re on the right tab if the A2 cell reads…

Daily The number of people who have given negative feedback to your Page, by type. (Unique Users)

Then simply type the following formula anywhere within that tab, other than in the F column…

=SUM(F:F)

The number I get is 34, which is about .5% (that’s a half of one percent) of my total Fans.

Is that bad? I don’t have a point of reference. But I do know that my numbers haven’t suffered, so I am going to assume it’s acceptable.

How many people have reported your Page for spam? Are you seeing a corresponding drop in Reach and Engagement? Let me know below!

6YNBDPZECMK9

The post TechCrunch: Your Facebook Page Reach is Down Because You’re Spammy appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

There’s an awful lot of anger bubbling up over an apparent change in EdgeRank that is limiting visibility of posts for some brand Pages. With anger often comes irrationality.

I should be able to reach 100% of my Fans!

I’ve seen that sentence, nearly word-for-word, more times than I care to count. It’s simply ridiculous.

Before I get to the hidden reason why this is ridiculous, the obvious reasons:

• Only half of your Fans are on Facebook during the day you created your post
• Others who are online weren’t within a several hour window to see your post
• Some of your “Fans” are fake profiles or dead accounts

Sure, the third may be included in the first. But all are worth mentioning to underscore just how impossible it is to reach “all” or even “half” of your Facebook Fans on a given day.

And I haven’t even gotten to the “Fans” who have chosen to never see your content again.

The Silent Killer of Reach

The typical user who bores of your content will simply unlike your Page. This is actually good for you. Not only does it send a signal about your content, it helps to optimize your audience. You don’t need these people.

Trim the fat.

The action that can kill your Reach: Hide All.

It’s actually not even called “Hide All” anymore. It’s still called that within Facebook Insights, but “Hide” is only related to single posts now.

To hide all of a Page’s future content, I now need to hover over the Liked button for a given Page and uncheck “Show in News Feed.” I can do this either while viewing an individual post or when going to that brand’s Page.

The big problem with the people who do this is that they kill your numbers. You will never reach them. They will undoubtedly be a Fan long past the time you stop managing your Page (because they’ll never be reminded of your annoyance), but they won’t see your content. Ever.

This means that your total Like count is somewhat padded. And depending on the size of this padding, it will negatively impact the percentage of Fans who like, comment, share or are even reached.

How to Check Your Hide All Count

Facebook doesn’t make this particularly easy, but you can find it. There is some work involved, particularly if your Page has been around for a while.

Go to your Admin Panel > Insights > Export Data. Then select Page Level Data and enter a range of about 200 days. I’ve gotten errors when requesting much more than that.

Within that document, run a quick search for “hide_all” (include that underscore) and search the entire workbook, not just the sheet. The first result is for the Daily Negative Feedback tab and Column D is the one you should be focused on.

Go to the cell below the last item in Row C and enter the following formula:

=SUM(D:D)

That will tell you how many people have hidden all of your posts from their News Feeds.

[Note: Sometimes, columns C and D are switched. No idea why. But keep an eye on it.]

Of course, that’s just this document. You’ll need to run additional exports until you get to the date when your Page was created.

Will some of these people have also unliked your Page? I guess so. But that would presumably be extremely rare.

How Much Dead Weight Do You Have?

I asked my Fans this question and received a wide range of answers. However, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that my percentage of “Hide All” Fans is higher than any other shared with me.

In about one year, 398 people have hidden all of my posts. This is almost 6% of my total Fan count.

I considered not even reporting that. But full transparency and stuff.

And hell… If I’m at that immediate disadvantage, I should be one of the people screaming about Reach, right? Well, I’m not. So I guess there’s actually something to be proud of there.

Additionally, this has quite a lot to do with my strategy of posting multiple times per day. Some people will hate that. Most will unlike my Page as a result. Others take this approach of hiding all (bastards!).

There really isn’t a “good” or “bad” percentage. If your percentage is too low, it may be because you aren’t posting often enough. Or maybe you aren’t controversial enough (meaning: you don’t have a voice). You can’t please everyone, and you shouldn’t aim to.

Where This is Leading…

There’s a reason why I wanted to find out this number. Everyone is complaining about feeling we should reach “all” or even “most” of our Fans. But I’m convinced that not even promotion will get any of us close to that number.

I want to find out the following:

How many of my Fans were online on the day that I created this post and scrolled through a time period where they could have seen it — but didn’t?

That’s the bottom line. That’s what I want to know. Until I know more about what that number is, I’m not convinced that EdgeRank is harming me.

And this is really just the surface of the things I’d like to know.

How many of my Fans are completely inactive this month? How many weren’t on today? How many were on today, but not when I posted?

The problem, of course, is that there’s no current measure to find out. The only number I can get is the “Hide All” total.

So what’s your Hide All percentage? Don’t be bashful. And don’t just post to brag. Someone’s gotta have a higher percentage than me! Share below!

The post Some of Your Facebook Fans Will Never See Your Posts Again appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Back in August, I wrote about how you could merge Facebook Pages after converting a personal profile to a business Page. Well, Facebook has switched things up again.

The Facebook Help Center has been updated on how to merge Pages. Before we get to that, a few things you should know:

• The Pages being merged must represent the same thing
• You can only merge Pages with fewer Likes into the one with more Likes
• If you’re merging Pages with a location, they must have the same address information
• Merging Pages combines all of your Likes and check-ins
• All other content from the Page(s) with fewer Likes (wall posts, photos, username) will be permanently deleted
• Content on the Page with more Likes will remain unchanged, except for the addition of likes and check-ins added from the Page(s) with fewer Likes
• The Page(s) with fewer Likes will be removed from Facebook and you will not be able to unmerge it
• You must manage all of the Pages being merged (duh)

Okay, got it? Now let’s merge stuff. To access the merge tool, do this…

1. Of the Pages you want to merge, go to the admin panel of the Page with the most Likes
2. Edit Page > Update Info
3. Click Resources
4. Click “Request to merge duplicate Pages”

Then…

1. Select the Page that has the most Likes as the Destination Page
2. Select up to five Pages to merge into the Destination Page
3. Enjoy the merge

I’ve never done this, but it appears there will be some approval process once you submit the Pages. This makes sense given the rules at play.

This is a good opportunity for anyone who has created multiple Pages in error. Just make sure you control them all and that they have the same or similar name and the same physical address.

Good luck!

The post How to Merge Up to 6 Facebook Pages appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook now gives brands the ability to target Facebook ads to their current customers based on email, phone or Facebook user ID list.

The new feature is called Custom Audiences and is available through Power Editor and the Facebook advertising API.

What does this mean and how can you use it? Let me do my best to explain…

What Are Facebook Custom Audiences?

You have been building an email list away from Facebook. You likely use AWeber, MailChimp or another tool to do this. Not all of these people Like your Facebook Page.

You can now export that email list into a one column CSV file and upload it into a Custom Audience within Power Editor. Then, Facebook will match up the email addresses with current Facebook users to serve your ads to only those people.

You can still layer on other targeting as well. So you could target only those users in your email list who aren’t currently a Facebook Fan, live in the US and are female.

You could also use a phone list or Facebook UID list that would be gathered with a Facebook application. For those worrying about privacy, the email addresses and phone numbers are “hashed” (or encrypted) before being sent to Facebook.

There are rules that you need to follow when targeting ads at Custom Audiences. And to be honest, I’m still digesting exactly what the rules mean, what would be allowable and what would be a violation.

I’ll cover that in more detail later. Until then, you should certainly be careful about how it is you use your customer data. If you’ve determined that you can use that data for Facebook advertising, this has significant potential for you since you’ll be reaching people who are already close to your brand.

How to Create a Facebook Custom Audience

Within Power Editor, you will now see a new main navigation item for Custom Audiences. Click on that and then click Create Audience.

First, name your audience. Then select whether you are uploading a file of email addresses, phone numbers or Facebook ID’s. In each case, make sure that it is a CSV or TXT file with only one column and no header row. Then upload the file.

Next, highlight that Custom Audience you created and click the Create Ad Using Audience button. You will now create an ad the way you normally would, but the Custom Audience is now automatically added within the new Custom Audiences ad creation step.

As you can see, you can also exclude targeted users by Custom Audience. If you have very segmented email lists, this could come in handy.

Topics to Cover Later

Privacy Concerns?

Effectiveness of Custom Audiences

Strategies for Using Custom Audiences

Will Custom Audiences remain free?

There’s currently no charge for making a data match and building your custom audiences on Facebook…

Yes, currently. And if it’s as effective as I expect it to be, Facebook will certainly charge for it and many advertisers will be willing to buck up.

How About You?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Custom Audiences: Target Facebook Ads by Email List appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook advertisers are now able to create Sponsored Results, a new form of advertising that appears within the typehead of Facebook search results.

Here is an example of a Facebook Sponsored Result when typing “Zynga” into the Facebook search typehead:

Following is the explanation of Sponsored Results from Facebook, as quoted by TechCrunch:

“Everyday, many people on Facebook use our search to find people, places, and things. We want to help them better find and discover the brands, products, and experiences relevant to them. Sponsored Results gives brands the ability to buy ads in search results, bringing more awareness and traffic to your App, Page, or Place. Sponsored Results give you:

1. Expanded distribution of your message, with placement in one of the most used features on Facebook.

2. The ability to target what people are looking for, by appearing alongside related Apps, Pages, and Places.

3. Flexibility to customize your landing destination, such as a specific tab on your Page.

Brands are not able to drive offsite using this product, but you will have the ability to drive to specific Pages, Tabs, and Canvas Applications.”

Note that advertisers are only able to target users based on the Page, Application or Place they are searching for. This is not a Google clone, where advertising is based on keywords.

This brings up a topic for another day. Today I want to focus on how to create a Sponsored Result Facebook search ad unit.

1. Use Power Editor

First, this functionality is only available through Power Editor or third party tools that utilize the Facebook advertising API. It is not available within the Facebook Ad Manager.

Power Editor is a Chrome plugin that offers the ability to bulk edit ads. Another advantage to using Power Editor over the Facebook Ads Manager is that you can also create mobile and News Feed ads.

For more information, read How to Use Facebook Power Editor.

2. Create a Campaign

When you create a campaign, you’ll need to provide the following:

• Campaign Name
• Budget (Lifetime or Daily)
• Type (Marketplace or Premium)
• Schedule
• Status

The Marketplace (Classic) and Premium (Multi-Objective) options just started appearing for me. I don’t know much about Premium yet, and Facebook hasn’t answered my questions. When I’ve tried selecting it, I get plenty of bugs. For the purpose of this tutorial, you need to select Marketplace (Classic) or it won’t work.

3. Create an Ad

Within Creative, make sure to click I want to advertise something I have on Facebook and select the Facebook Page you wish to advertise.

Within Story Type, select “Sponsored Result” from the drop-down.

Pick a destination tab. You don’t have to drive people to your Timeline; it could be a contest or free offer you’ve created. Just make sure you add context in the body.

Now, enter the body of your ad. You have 70 characters to work with, so make them count!

Within Interests & Broad Categories, you’ll want to list the names of Pages, Places or Applications that you want to target. I have a difficult time with this. Ethically, I do not want to steal Likes from others like me in my industry. For now, I’m instead sticking with searches of big brands related to my topic. I figure they can stand to lose a few Likes.

Within Connections on Facebook, make sure to list your Page for “Target users who are not already connected to…” so that you don’t throw money away on people who are already Fans.

Finally, you’ll want to select CPC and enter a bid under Pricing & Status. No other option currently works.

Fill out all other information as you normally would. Feel free to experiment. I’m keeping the net pretty wide and not entering in any Interests (precise or otherwise). I figure that if they are searching for a relevant Page, that’s all that really matters.

When you’re done, make sure to click the Upload button at the top right, and that’s it! As you would with any Facebook ad, feel free to split test. Try different things and figure out what works.

How About You?

The post How to Create a Sponsored Result Facebook Search Ad appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

This is part of a series of posts that I will be writing every Thursday during the month of August about my continuing journey to start a profitable online business (read Part 1 here). It will include lessons learned, mistakes made, milestones hit and advice I can give along the way.

One year ago Saturday, this journey began.

At the time of my layoff, I was a well-seasoned digital marketer. My professional experience on Facebook dated back to 2007. Yet… Creating a Facebook Page was not the first thing I did when I started building my personal brand.

I finally — reluctantly — created my Facebook Page on November 4, 2011. At that time, it was in my name. I’d eventually add “Digital” to differentiate it from my personal account (it was confusing for me, and was likely for others as well).

That day started the true test to determine whether I really knew as much about Facebook marketing as I claimed. While challenging, it kept me on my toes and helped me become more knowledgable in the process. To be a teacher, you must actually walk in the shoes of the students. And I certainly do that.

In a little over nine months, I’ve generated more than 5,000 Likes (just hit that number yesterday!). I’ve learned quite a bit along the way. Following are the seven most important Facebook marketing lessons learned during the past year…

1. Talking To Yourself is Okay

Check out this post I wrote 10 days after launching my Page:

There is so much that is sad about this. I ask people to share their Twitter handles. No one responds. No one even clicks “Like.” And only 34 people even saw the post.

The next day, I created this Thank You video when I reached 65 Likes (65!!).

I can’t even open the video. Only 30 people saw it. No one commented or liked what was a “sincere” video message that took quite a bit of effort and courage. Just… sad.

I shared 38 posts in the month of November to my Facebook Page. A total of 26 didn’t receive a single comment or like.

My point? I know it’s hard in the beginning. I talked to myself a lot. You need to have a “no fear” approach. Don’t worry about embarrassing yourself. You’re basically naked. It’s okay.

Just keep at it. Keep talking to yourself, and eventually others will join in!

2. Understand Your Audience

Once you have an audience that answers back, you’ve got to understand what they like and want. There are two main ways of doing this…

First, ask them. Ask what’s on their mind. Ask what questions they have. Ask where they’re from, when they are on Facebook, what they like and what they don’t like. I’ve been using Facebook Questions a lot this month for this very purpose.

Second, put yourself in their shoes. Will they think what you’re posting is interesting? If not, don’t share it. Do something else. Take a different approach.

I often see people and brands broadcasting garbage that no one will care about and they wonder why it’s ineffective. See your audience as people instead of dollar signs and let them lead the way.

3. Stay True to Yourself

I hate traditional, accepted forms of marketing. Much of it feels cold, forced and inauthentic.

If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Don’t sell out because you’re told it’s what you need to do. To be truly successful with anything, it has to be natural.

Don’t be afraid to show your true self, showcasing your values and beliefs. Let this be the starting point of your personal brand.

4. Put On a Good Face

I was budget conscious, and I still am today. But I’ve learned that there are times to cut corners and there are times to do it right. When it comes to branding yourself, do it right.

That could mean buying a premium WordPress theme or having someone else design your logo and business cards. But it also means getting a photographer to take some professional head shots and getting design help for your cover photo and Facebook tabs.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to make a good first impression. I finally figured that out.

5. Fight Through the Hard Times

Don’t quit. But to keep from getting frustrated, distract yourself with a strategy. Know what you’re going to post and when. Know what your tone will be. Know how you’re going to engage your imaginary audience.

And please… celebrate the little victories! Set reachable goals, and make a big deal of it when you reach them. Write on your white board a number of Likes you want to reach, and circle it. Every day, track your progress.

When you hit that 100 or 150 or 500 fans, celebrate with them!

6. Stay On Top of It

Check your tabs… Do they work? Are they still relevant? Are there other tabs that you could create? Should you feature something else?

Check your Insights… Is your content effective? Should you change course?

Read, read, read… Get out of your world. What are others doing? What is the latest news in Facebook marketing or in your field? Is there something else you should try? Stay ahead of the curve.

Stay focused and disciplined… Don’t lose your motivation or your purpose.

You can’t get too comfortable. To be successful, you need to blaze trails, not follow them. To do that, stay curious, aware and eager to innovate.

7. Keep the Checkbook Open

I know. There are other well known marketers who have you convinced that buying Facebook ads is as good as burning your money. But I’m telling you… I am proof of their value.

I don’t spend much — maybe $50 per month. And I don’t only use them to drive new Likes. I use ads to strategically bump content that leads to business goals. I use ads to not only better engage my current fans but create viral content that will reach new ones.

Don’t be scared of Facebook ads. You can make an impact with a very small budget.

What other lessons would you add to the list?

The post A Personal Look Back: 7 Lessons Learned on Facebook [Part 2] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Little known secret alert!! Watch the video or read below for more info…

One of my favorite Facebook marketing tools is the Promoted Post. I can set up a campaign easily without leaving my Page, it doesn’t cost much to make a significant impact and the content is promoted within News Feeds and mobile devices instead of on the sidebar.

On the surface, though, Promoted Posts appear to be limited. Here are a few of the rules you may be aware of:

• Only posts under three days old are eligible for promotion
• Only specific budget options are given
• Once you set a budget, it can’t be changed from your Page

Guess what? I’m going to tell you how to get around these restrictions.

The Little Known Secret

Here’s the thing that you need to understand: Facebook Promoted Posts are nothing more than glorified Page Post Ads. Facebook simply streamlines the process, taking away some of the options and controls in the process, to make advertising easier.

But you could completely recreate everything you did by creating a Promoted Post from within Power Editor (you can’t create a News Feed or Mobile ad within the Facebook Ad Manager). And once you’ve created the Promoted Post, you can edit the ad as you would any other ad within your Facebook Ad Manager.

The Promoted Post

As you can see, I’ve already started promotion for $15, and I am only allowed to change the amount to $10. My other option would be to pause or stop the campaign when it hits an amount I prefer.

But what if the promotion does really well? How do I raise the budget to $22 or even extend the promotion beyond the three-day window?

The Solution

All you have to do is edit the budget like you would any other ad. You can even change the date to go beyond the three-day limit of promotion.

Once you go back to your Page, you’ll notice that the budget is reflected accordingly:

Pretty cool, right? The thing is, you could do all kinds of editing of this ad now if you really wanted to get messy. You could change the targeting, too. It’s just any other ad!

I hope you find this tip useful! Did you know that you could edit a Promoted Post after it’s been created?

The post How to Change the Budget of a Facebook Promoted Post appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I find that every time I create a new Facebook ad, I’m running a Google search trying to figure out the ideal dimensions and character limits. So I decided it was time that I finally created this cheat sheet.

The below infographic provides the main specs that you need to know for three different types of Facebook ads (all promoted within the right sidebar on Facebook.com):

• Promoting an External URL
• Promoting your Facebook Page
• Promoting a Facebook Page Post (shared image)

A few key things that you need to know…

Headline Character Limit

This makes it easy for external URL’s. Through trial and error, find the best headline that fits within 25 characters.

But the problem comes in if you are promoting a Facebook Page, application or Event that has a name with more than 25 characters. In that case, the headline will be cut off.

This is problematic since you probably won’t change the name of your Page for an ad. But this is one more reason why you need to be succinct when you choose the name of your Page.

Facebook Ad Photo

Because of this, you need to be very careful. Do not pick a square or narrow image since it will then leave a random-looking white space between your image and copy. If you can, create an image specifically for this ad that is 100 x 72 pixels.

The example I provide in the infographic for promoting a post is of a shared image. Since images are so effective on Facebook, I’d also recommend them when promoting posts. In this case, the maximum height will be 90 pixels and maximum width is 90 pixels (you’ll likely share a larger photo, and it will be scaled).

Unlike the prior ads, this image will go below your copy and should be square to maximize the space you are given. I wouldn’t worry about sharing a photo that is 90 x 90 pixels. Instead, just make sure that it’s square and it will be scaled down.

Copy Limitations

Once again, you’ll control this copy when promoting an external URL or promoting your Page. But if you’re promoting a Page post, the ad will be based on the actual description that you used within that Post.

If your Page post description is greater than 90 characters, it will be cut off. So it’s imperative that when you create the post that you get to the point quickly. I’d even suggest strategically making a post that you plan to promote with the proper image dimensions and character limit for your description.

Okay, so here it is. Bookmark it in case you need it later. And please, pass it on!

The post Facebook Ad Dimensions and Character Limits [Infographic] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

In a previous blog post, I wrote about the benefits of using Facebook Power Editor. If you aren’t using Power Editor or a third party application that utilizes the Facebook advertising API, you don’t have access to several great features, including advertising on mobile devices.

Today I’m going to get into the details of installing and using Power Editor.

What Is Power Editor?

Power Editor is a free tool that replaces and enhances the capabilities of the Bulk Uploader. Power Editor makes it easy to create, edit and manage ads and campaigns in bulk, even across a large number of different ad accounts.

Install Power Editor

Once installed, you can access Power Editor by going to https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/powereditor.

Use Power Editor

Once you install Power Editor, you’ll be asked which accounts you’d like to download into the tool. My guess is that you’ll want access to all of the ads you created previously, so you’ll select “all.”

Now you’ll have access to every campaign and ad that you’ve created.

Virtually everything that is available on Facebook.com/ads/manage will be available here, plus some additional features.

1) View Stats
When you’re viewing individual ads, the final columns will display key stats for those ads. If you want to view more stats, simply click Options and then Settings at the top right to select other columns.

2) Create a New Campaign
When viewing campaigns (click on the left), click Create Campaign at the top. An “Untitled” campaign will then populate on the left. Click it to begin to fill in the details (those details will go into the bottom panel).

3) Create a New Ad
When you’re within a campaign, click Ads at the top and then Create Ad. Once again, fill in all of the details in the main panel on the bottom.

4) Bulk Update Campaigns or Ads
If you want to edit multiple campaigns or ads at once, simply select the ones you want (with a Mac, you use the Command or Shift keys) and start editing in the bottom panel. These changes will apply to all campaigns or ads that you are editing.

5) Don’t Forget to Upload and Download!
The Power Editor is definitely not perfect. When you make changes outside of the Power Editor, you’ll need to make sure to click Download. When you have created or edited campaigns or ads within Power Editor, you’ll need to click Upload before they will take effect. These buttons are at the top right.

6) Access to Other Features
As mentioned before, you also have access to the following features when using Power Editor or the Facebook advertising API:

• Create an ad that appears within News Feeds (other than Promoted Posts)
• Create an ad that appears on mobile devices
• Create ads that use CPM, but not Optimized CPM

If you are currently advertising with the regular old Facebook.com interface, you have no idea what I’m talking about.

Final Notes

But in the end, if you want to access some great features that you may have been missing, Power Editor is definitely worth checking out.

Have you tried out Power Editor? Let me know your thoughts below!

The post How to Use Facebook Power Editor appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

This has been bothering me for a while, and it’s time that this blog post is written…

I keep seeing people freaking out about the fact that their brand’s Facebook Page posts only reach 16% of their fans, “forcing” them to pay for advertising. I continue to read grand proclamations about how EdgeRank is the culprit, and that they should be able to reach everyone.

Just stop.

My biggest struggle with EdgeRank (the formula Facebook uses to surface content that is important to you), is that Facebook is incredibly ambiguous about how it’s used. It makes sense that EdgeRank is the force behind Top News, but I still doubt it’s much of a factor when your News Feed is sorted by Most Recent.

How much exactly is Facebook keeping you from your audience? Is EdgeRank the reason the percentage is 16% instead of 17%? 30%? 50%? No one knows for sure.

I’ve read comments from uninformed users and blog posts from respected writers who are all certain that EdgeRank is the Boogeyman. Yet no one has statistics or studies showing exactly how that’s the case.

Something scientific would be great here, folks. “After a two week study, we concluded that our average Facebook post reached only 160 of our 1,000 fans, and we would have reached 40 more if not for EdgeRank.” You know, facts and evidence and stuff.

I’m fully convinced that we’re focusing on the wrong thing, and some basic math shows this to be the case. People want to point the finger when EdgeRank is not the main reason why you’re reaching only 16% of your fans.

Is 16% Really That Bad?

I find it a bit strange that so many marketers are demanding that their posts reach more than 16% of their fans. Why is it that anyone can expect we’d easily reach more?

The typical open rate for a marketing email is 20%. Yet, email is a stationary target. Whether your target audience is on their email right now or not, they’ll get that email. They just may not open it.

Facebook ain’t email, people. When you post an update, you aren’t sending it directly to your customers. Instead, when you share content to your Facebook Page, you’re doing so with the hope that your fans are around to see it.

On Facebook, your target audience is constantly moving. While users are on Facebook more than any other website, that doesn’t mean that your fans are sitting at their computers waiting for your brand’s latest update.

A recent study indicated that the typical Facebook update has a lifespan of 2 1/2 hours. If your fan isn’t on Facebook within 2 1/2 hours of you posting it, they probably won’t see it.

Another study indicates that the average user is on Facebook 16 hours per month, or about 30 minutes per day. So, what are the odds that your post reaches your target audience during that 2 1/2 hours when they are only on Facebook for 30 minutes per day? Also keep in mind that only half of all users are on Facebook on a given day.

Let’s do the math. An average Facebook user is on for 30 minutes per day. There’s a 2 1/2 hour window from when that person is online that you can reach them (total of three hours). Of a total 24-hour day (especially for international brands), that leaves you with a 12.5% chance of reaching fans through the News Feed on any given day — without considering EdgeRank.

Have a US-only audience and think that only 16 hours matter? Fine, then we’re talking 18.75%.

Maybe my math is wrong (statistics nerds — let me know your thoughts), but do you see what I’m getting at? Our biggest obstacle isn’t EdgeRank. It’s that our audience is a moving target. It’s that, unlike email, if our fans aren’t on Facebook during a small window of the day, they probably won’t see our post.

It just seems to me that people have latched onto the concept of EdgeRank without thinking. How many of your Twitter followers do you think see your updates? How about Google+? No one talks about this because there isn’t some big, bad formula to blame.

Is 16% really that bad? No way.

The Solutions

Of course, you also need to do your due diligence to make sure that you’re reaching as many of your fans as you can organically. Don’t post updates blindly. Use your Facebook Insights and analyze posts made during the past three months that were made in specific 15-minute windows. Which had the highest reach? Which were lowest?

Insights can be a great tool to strategically determine when you should post (and what you should post) to reach the largest possible audience.

Your Thoughts?

The post Your Facebook Posts Reach 16% of Fans… THE HORROR! appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Rumor is finally reality as Facebook has launched the ability to assign varying levels of admin roles for brand Pages.

Within your Admin Panel, click Edit Page (previously part of the “Manage” grouping, but now a separate menu item) and you will now notice an option for Admin Roles.

The five roles are as follows (from least to most access):

• Insights Analyst: View Insights
• Advertiser: View Insights and create ads
• Moderator: All of the above, plus send messages as the Page and respond to and delete comments
• Content Creator: All of the above, plus create posts as the Page, edit the Page and add apps
• Manager: All of the Above, plus Manage Admin Roles

Here’s a handy graphic from Facebook:

You can also read more details in the Help Center.

These new role assignments will be especially helpful for teams of people or for brands that bring in consultants to analyze Insights or run advertising.

Will you be assigning admin roles? Which ones will you use?

The post Facebook Launches 5 Levels of Page Admin Roles appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

November 19 Update: If you suddenly saw that your profile and cover photos don’t “fit” properly, read this! Facebook Page Profile Photo Problem: The Fix

Just when you get everything the way you want it, Facebook makes another change…

Today, a new Facebook profile photo size was rolled out for brand Pages. Formerly 125×125 pixels, Facebook has increased the size of profile photos to 160×160 pixels. In either case, the minimum size of the photo you use needs to be 180×180 pixels, but Facebook shrinks it down to the smaller size.

I know, that’s confusing. Just know that you need to pick a photo that is at least 180×180 pixels, just as before, but it will now appear as 160×160 pixels instead of 125×125 pixels.

This matters, as I discovered with a couple of my own Pages. I created a nice little montage of baseball cards on the Brewers Updates From 1982 Facebook Page, making a 1982 Topps Robin Yount card the profile photo. Sweet, right? Well, with the change, it no longer fits…

Of course, I’m not the only one with this problem. Countless other Facebook Page admins got cute with their Cover Photos and Profile Photos and now need to scramble and make adjustments.

I’m here to help. The infographic below details all of the dimensions you need to know. Which are:

• Submitted profile photo must be at least 180×180 pixels
• Facebook will shrink profile photo to 160×160 pixels (formerly 125×125)
• Including padding, profile photo area is 170×170 pixels (5 pixels all the way around)
• 23 pixels from left edge to profile photo border
• 210 pixels from top edge to profile photo border
• 658 pixels from right edge to profile photo border
• 105 pixels from bottom edge to top profile photo border

[Click the image for a close-up]

I’ve also updated the reference of all Facebook Timeline dimensions Infographic to reflect this change.

Are you having to scramble as a result of the larger profile photos? Let me know in the comments below!

The post New Facebook Profile Photo Size Impacts Cover Photos [Infographic] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Insights is a wonderful tool when used properly. But the data is so extensive (and the updates often unreliable) that many page managers ignore their Facebook Insights completely.

The purpose of this tutorial is to not only explain why you should use your Facebook Insights but to show how you can use them to determine what and when you should post on your page for maximum effectiveness.

The Data Available in Facebook Insights

Most page managers look through what is available in the web version of Facebook Insights and stop there. The truth is that the power of Facebook Insights can be found in the downloadable spreadsheets.

Granted, this data is a bit overwhelming. Everything you can possibly want is in there. Anywhere within your Facebook Insights you can export either Page Level or Post Level data to Excel or a CSV file.

There is so much information that it’s difficult to list it all here. But I’ll try to provide an overview.

The Post Level data includes the following tabs of information:

• Key Metrics
• Talking About This Per Post, by Action Type
• Stories Created Per Post, by Action Type
• Number of People Who Click Within a Post, by Type
• Number of Clicks Within Each Post, by Type
• Number of People who Give Negative Feedback Per Post, by Type
• Number of Times Negative Feedback Given Per Post, by Type

And the Page Level data includes the following tabs of information:

• Key Metrics
• Daily Like Sources
• Daily Viral Reach by Story Type
• Weekly Viral Reach by Story Type
• 28 Days Viral Reach by Story Type
• Daily Viral Impressions by Story Type
• Weekly Viral Impressions by Story Type
• 28 Days Viral Impressions by Story Type
• Daily Total Frequency Distribution
• Weekly Total Frequency Distribution
• 28 Days Total Frequency Distribution
• And a bunch more…

There are 51 more tabs. Yeah, there’s a lot of information in there. So trust me that you can waste an entire weekend looking through it.

Determine the Best Day to Post on Facebook

Determine a period of time that you want to compare and export both the Post Level and Page Level data. I used two months, but it’s up to you.

From the Post Level data, let’s stay on the Key Metrics tab and focus on the following columns (feel free to delete the rest):

• Post ID (A)
• Message (B)
• Posted (C)
• Lifetime Post Total Reach (D)

The Page Level data provides Lifetime Total Likes in Column H of Key Metrics. This will allow you to find the percentage of Total Reach over Total Likes. This is important since the number of people you reach is significantly impacted by number of fans.

Once you find the percentage of Reach vs. Likes, you can then start sorting out what days provided the highest reach.

For me, it turns out that the best day to post is Thursday (25.1% reach) and the worst day to post is Saturday (21.6%). Not a huge discrepancy, but that 5% can make a difference.

It should be noted that I posted far more often on Thursday (26) than Saturday (7) or Sunday (9). So the weekend data can be easily skewed. Otherwise, my worst days to post are Tuesday (22.6%) and Friday (23.2%).

Determine the Best Time to Post on Facebook

What’s interesting is that 25% of my posts were between the times of 7:00 and 7:59 AM. This is above the overall average of 23.7%. So it’s not necessarily a bad decision to concentrate my posts at that time.

That said, there were certainly better times to post. I experimented recently when I heard it was best to post at less busy times, particularly at night. And that is reflected here. The best two times were from 8:00-8:59 PM (27.2%) and 10:00-10:59 PM (26.3%). These results should be taken with a grain of salt since I’ve only posted twice during each time range. But something to watch.

The two next best times to post were 12:00-12:59 PM (26.1% for eight posts) and 2:00-2:59 PM (25.7% for six posts). It looks like I should otherwise avoid posting between 8:00 AM and Noon as well as between 5:00 and 8:00 PM. These are the pockets where the lowest percentages of reach are concentrated.

I wouldn’t suggest using my data as gospel, but keep in mind that all times are Mountain if you want to take anything from this.

Determine the Best Content to Post on Facebook

The types of content I shared in this analysis are as follows:

• My Own Links (68)
• Links of Others or Guest Posts of Others (27)
• Photos (3)
• Videos (7)
• Status Updates (26)

I could have gotten lazy here and stuck with Total Reach vs. Likes. But it seems we’re trying to find something different here: The content people are most likely to engage with.

You see, if we stuck with Reach the type of content wouldn’t hold much relevance. What doesn’t matter here is whether people see it. It’s that they interact with it.

And so, in place of reach I took the total number of people who “consumed” the piece of content. A consumption includes Talking About This (which is anything that creates a story) as well as any people who register a click that doesn’t count as Talking About This (link clicks, video clicks, photo view, and other clicks).

What I found is that people engaged with photos (4.0%) much more than any other type of content (0.9% for links, 0.7% for videos and 0.6% for both status updates and links of others).

There’s an enormous caveat here. As mentioned earlier, only three photos are included in this analysis. So while those three photos were extremely successful, you can’t extrapolate these results over all photos.

What Can Be Learned

But there is still plenty to learn here. I should post more photos and see what comes of it. I should also continue the experiment of posting later at night (and this is going to be part of that experiment!). I should avoid posting in the middle of the morning and evening, and I should lighten up on status updates and links of others.

That’s what I see. What can you learn from your Facebook Insights?

The post How Facebook Insights Tells What and When to Post appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

NOTE: A NEW infographic has been created with updated dimensions for Timeline, News Feed, mobile, desktop, posts and ads. It’s the only infographic you’ll need for Facebook dimensions! SEE IT HERE.

Now that Facebook Timeline for Pages is a reality, it’s important to optimize it by using the proper image sizes. So below I’ve put together an infographic (feel free to pin it!) that highlights the appropriate dimensions for the following:

• Cover Photo
• Profile Photo
• Custom Tab Photo or Logo
• Shared Photo
• Highlighted Photo
• Milestone Photo
• Custom Tab Page

So, here it is. All of the dimensions for Facebook Timeline for Pages that you’ll need. Feel free to bookmark and share for future reference!

Also See: The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Timeline For Pages
Timeline Dimensions, Cover Photo Rules, Free Tab Icons,
How to Choose and Execute Apps and MORE!

Pin It

The post Reference of Dimensions for Facebook Timeline For Pages [Infographic] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Places give users the ability to “check-in” and tell their friends where they are and what they’re doing at a given moment. We’ll get into the benefits of Facebook Places at another time, but this tutorial focuses on creating or claiming your Place.

If your business has a physical location, you should create a Facebook Place. If you have regular foot traffic at your place of business, it’s possible a Place has already been created, but you should claim and take ownership of that Place.

Check In

YES! Your Facebook Place has been added!

If you don’t see your business, type it into the search just in case. If nothing comes up, it will say “Add ‘[Business Name]’. Go ahead and click that. From there, you’ll add some basics about your business to officially add your Place. When you’re done, check in for fun!

Claim Your Place

Go to Facebook on your computer and type the name of your business into the search. If you don’t see it immediately, filter to Pages. Make sure you find the new Place that you created and not another page.

On the left hand side, you’ll see links for “Is this your business?” and “Do you know the owner?”. If you aren’t the owner, click the “Do you know the owner?” link to let them know that they can claim their place. Otherwise, if you own the business click on the other link.

Important: What you are going to do next is convert this Place into a Facebook Page. If you already have a Facebook Page, you’ll be able to merge the two listings on the second step. Make sure you read the instructions closely so that you don’t miss it.

Is this your Facebook Place? Claim it!

Good luck!

The post How to Create or Claim a Place on Facebook appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.