eenauy

Jun 20, 20207 min read

LOL Facebook for Advertising

Multiple websites now are offering Learning OnLine (LOL). During the lockdown, I was able to attend seminars from Citibank, Asian Development Bank and Google. Now, one of the more practical platforms on Marketing is introduced by Facebook Blueprint.

Here in the Philippines where almost everybody has a Facebook account. Whether a big or small brand wants to reach its target consumers, Facebook is a channel to do so. Facebook has over 2 billion users worldwide so it is a suitable platform to market your brand and business.

In this blogpost are eight modules which I found interesting and I would like to share with you all. It only took me 180 minutes to complete all of them in the comfort of my home!

MODULE 1: Brand Best Practices

This talks about the importance of brand awareness. Without it, your brand will not be successful. Your target consumers must be able to understand your brand and for your brand to be able to relate and meet the expectation of your target audience for them to even consider your brand as an option and make a purchase.

Some of Facebook's offered tools that we can utilize:

a. Facebook IQ: This is a power data-driven tool that gives access to insights offerings of studies and tools designed to help you create campaigns that resonate with your audience.

b. Audience Insight: Available audience data that can deepen your understanding of who your audiences are and what matters to them. It can be People connected to your page or all Facebook users.

Onto the next section under this module, Creative Development. Ad formats can be in a form of an image, video, carousel, slideshow, collection and Instant Experience.

Facebook's Instant Experience

Some tips:

Ensure CLEAR and EVIDENT branding
Grab the Attention
Be Concise -- be wary of time
Framing
Be Different -- experiment and do new things!

MODULE 2: Creating a Facebook Business Page

Simple and easy steps in creating a free FB Business Page:

To get your own business Page started on Facebook, all you need is a personal profile.
Choose if you will create a Business/ Brand or Community/Public Figure Page
Make a Username
Add Profile Picture and Cover Photo
Add Business description and information
Add a call-to-action button and other features like Order Here
Add Photos, Videos, Stories to stay visible and active and keep your target market updated. Be engaging!

A sample business page I created back in 2014 for my first online business was Shea.

As you can see, the brand is quirky with its profile picture and cover page. The cover page featured the designs we made for the different packaging of our product, Shea Lotion Bars.

MODULE 3: Business Influencers in Facebook and Instagram

Further on, after creating your page, if you want to know how a Business Influencer works in Facebook and Instagram or you simply one to be one, here is how.

First, determine your category.

For the Brand, Shea, it falls under Brand or Product. After knowing which category my page belongs, it is important to create a community of followers that can eventually be advocates of your brand. The more "likes" and following is to create more buzz and connections. This can be done through a creation of page events, posts and even to utilize your own personal FB connections.

Some values to take note of:

1. Earn Trust -- be credible!

2. Be Heard

3. Listen and Improve -- be humble!

4. Recruit Talent

5. Engage Employees -- interact!

6. Protect and Build your Reputation

With all these, you can acquire, retain and grow your FB Business Page/s!

MODULE 4: Develop Community Strategies and Processes

Now that your page has all be set-up, we move to key processes and strategies that community managers use to build and scale their communities.

The strategies are as follows:

Audience Strategy

This is to identify and to know the personal profiles of your target audience in order to build your community.

Platform Strategy

Determine the right platform to use to deliver and share content, and more significant reach. Options are: Facebook Groups, Facebook Page, Instagram Accounts etc.

Brand Strategy

This is a collection of characteristics that define how community members feel about your brand, logo, name, color, graphic style and style of the content. These should always be consistent with the brand image in all community strategies and platforms.

Launch Strategy

First determine your GOAL.Then here are the steps:

1. Define your community parameters and community strategies.

2. An objective is precise, measurable and time-bound, meaning that it needs to be accomplished in a certain time period.

3. Choose a tactic for how you are going to reach each objective.

4. When you reach your deadline, use your measurement data to assess whether you have accomplished your objective.

5. List your tactics, as they will create an action plan for your launch strategy.

6. Feel free to make changes anytime you redefine your goals and objectives through this process.

Team Strategy

Involvement of your entire team, getting the right people on your business bus, is crucial to the success of your brand. Why? Because they have to be inline with your GOAL. But also don't forget to hear them out as they will surely be after what's best for the brand. Communication is key to this! Frequent training and town hall meetings are required of to keep them motivated. Don't be afraid to rely on them for help.

Operational Workflows

Manage operational workflows to stay efficient. Delegate responsibilities, flow of work, scheduling, guidelines and FAQs.

Partnership Strategy

Reach out to different strategic partners, like other communities, brands, nonprofits and organizations, helps to strengthen their community’s efforts. Kinds of partnerships are: sponsorships, discounts and bundles, cost-sharing and more.

MODULE 5: Reach and Frequency Campaigns

Reach is the number of people your campaign will communicate with and frequency is how frequently a person will receive your ad during your campaign.

If one wants to increase their presence in Facebook, they can opt to pay for Marketing Campaign. This is advisable to those who to reach an audience of at least 200,000 and have a budget. Reach and Frequency buying gives you more brand awareness and predictability as you get more information like spend per day, placement distribution and more.

Different types of AD deliveries are as follows:

But it is also important to have a frequency cap, which is the maximum number of times your ad will be delivered to someone within a given period of time. You wouldn't want your consumers to be annoyed on nonstop advertisements on a particular product or brand and get fed up instead of leading to a sale.

Steps required to create a reach and frequency ad set:

Access reach and frequency from the initial screen in Ads Manager
Schedule your campaign
Narrow down your audience
Select your placements
Review and finalize your ad set

In order to make things easier, Facebook offers a standalone interface called Campaign Planner to create, compare and share reach and frequency media plans for reach and frequency campaigns. This is best for Media Planners and Facebook Marketing Programs!

MODULE 6: Stories School: Tips & Tricks for Organic Stories

Fo further reach out your target audience, the best way today in social media is through the use of Stories. Stories are like short advertisements of your brand and even of one's self. It is less of a hard sell and more of a personal natural approach. Stories started through the application Snapchat then is now evident in Facebook and Instagram.

Stories are one of the most common ways people share and consume content on mobile. It is an exciting way to engage your audience and drive effective campaigns and build your brand.

Stories is one own's creative toolbox. It allows one to experiment with fun and creative ways to express themselves through filters, GIFs, stickers, drawngs, text, posters and more. Other options added are Boomerang, Rewind and Fast forward. It is basically a way to show one's freedom of speech in his or her own way.

An example of my own Instagram Story:

Instagram Story posted last April 2020

I labeled all the dishes and details using the "text" feature and made mention of the restaurant I ordered these from. I usually post the location using the location feature in the Instagram story to inform those who view them the name of the restaurant and once this is clicked, one can know where the restaurant is located as well as posts affiliated to the restaurant as well.

MODULE 7: Business Manager

Now that you have created a brand, your goal, target audience and message using the Facebook as a platform, time to understand how Business Manager is a tool for everyone. A business admin just needs to create a brand account to maintain control of your Facebook assets and securely manages user access to the right people and right credit lines. This to be organized by having all of their business assets and information all in one place, making one's life easier!

NOTE: It is different from one's personal Facebook account.

Below is a hierarchy of key lists on what Business Manager can access:

So, how to set-up a Business Manager in Facebook? Simple! Add a Page, Brand Account and your People.

You can either assign your "people" or employees to have Employee access or Admin access.

Employee access: Can only work on assigned accounts and tools. RECOMMENDED!

Admin access: Admins have full control over your business. They can edit settings, people, accounts and tools.

Business Manager also generates reports such as audience, brand and sales outcomes for brands to help them analyze and improve on their brand and business.

MODULE 8: Brand Safety Across the Facebook Family of Apps and Services

But with the growing advertisement, Facebook also does it part to uphold and maintain its image of safety, sensitivity and suitability at all times. We all want a platform that does not pose any harm or exploit our image and dignity. This module talks about Facebook’s approach in protecting brand safety of advertisements to its Facebook family of applications and services, as well as to the brands. This is done through enforcing policies and implementation of relevant controls by removing prohibited content and holding accountability and transparency.