Are you making these 3 costly social media mistakes in your business?
Join in this free Facebook coaching session with Jen Sheahan to find out!
Tools & Resources mentioned in this Facebook training:
James Schramko’s Facebook Page
Groupon Australia Facebook Page
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There are three mistakes to avoid on Facebook. We’re going to cover a lot of
information in this session. I’ve set aside about an hour. If we need more time then
that’s fine. If you have questions, please type them in the question box.
I will go back through them at the end. We’ll try to get through all of your questions
and cover everything that is going on in Facebook right now. There have been a lot of
changes in the last couple of weeks. Facebook is on a rampage and doing all kinds of
crazy things.
If you can avoid these three mistakes on Facebook, then you will be on the right track.
When we were preparing the notes for this, we came up with 30 mistakes that we find
on Facebook. I tried to combine a lot of the mistakes into three so that I didn’t have to
change the title. Thirty mistakes are a bit overwhelming.
At the moment, Facebook is confusing. People are posting quotes, pictures and giant
rabbits. There are ads everywhere. There are ads in the newsfeed, sponsored things
and promoted things. It gets a bit crazy.
In the next hour, I want to get your head full of the information that you need to know
so that you don’t feel as overwhelmed. We’re going to cover three mistakes to avoid,
strategies that work now, what offers work best, and how you can position yourself to
have an offer that works best. What should I avoid? How can I get help?
In terms of how you can get help, I’m here to help you. I have an agency. This is what
we do. FB Ads Lab is how you found us. If you are overwhelmed and you’re taking a
gazillion notes, don’t stress. I’m here and I can help you. We have a variety of services.
We’re going to cover a lot of content in the next hour so stick with me. Why should you
use Facebook? These are the reasons that you should use Facebook.
It’s fabulous for social proof. When you have raving fans and they post comments on
your page, it’s fabulous. There is nothing better than a bunch of raving fans on your
page or profile saying, “Thank you so much for this.”
It’s really good for leads and list building when you do it right. You can generate sales.
Yes, you can sell from Facebook. We’re going to cover that. It is fabulous to get tons
and tons of traffic to your website, sales pages, offers, webinars and events. These are
the reasons to use Facebook.
Don’t use Facebook if you have no plan, if you are going to spam us with your crappy
links, mislead people, deceive people or copy your competition. There are so many
people out there posting crappy links to spammy crap. They are misleading people and
lying. There is negativity. People are blatantly copying their competition. It is so obvious
when you do this.
If you have no plan, if you’re an affiliate or if you want to spam people with links and
you don’t care about relationships, if you are in a shady industry or if you want to copy
what everyone else is doing, Facebook is probably not the best place for you. I would
suggest that you look at other ways to accomplish your goals. Facebook is not for these
things.
Let’s look at mistake number one, all work and no play. A friend of mine posted on her
page the other day. Someone said to her, “If you’re not going to talk about business
then I don’t want to be your friend on Facebook.” I’m sure you can imagine what she
said to them. She thought, “Get lost.”
Facebook is social. That’s the whole point. Yes, you can do business on Facebook.
Yes, you can sell stuff on Facebook but you have to know how to do it. If you’re all work
and no play, you will lose people and customers on your personal profile and on your
page. There is a really great formula that you can follow. I’m going to share that with
you now.
You should interact on Facebook by being real, natural and honest. Just be yourself.
You will attract other people who are like you and think just like you if you are just like
you. If you try to be someone else, copy something else, are fake or put up a front, it
comes through.
Just be yourself. Be natural and honest. Speak your mind. I know that some of you are
very opinionated. You might have controversial views. So what? Speak your mind. If
that’s the way that you want to do business and those are the kinds of customers you
want to attract then do it.
There are a lot of people who say things like, “Don’t post controversial things on
Facebook.” I disagree. There is nothing like controversy to engage your audience and
get some interaction happening.
Controversy is fabulous for Facebook if that’s who you are, that’s you’re branding and
that’s what you stand for. If your whole idea is to be someone different and stand out
from the crowd then go for it. Speak your mind. Be controversial. Start a big discussion.
You can also encourage interaction. You do that by using people’s names, liking their
comments and replying to them. When someone comments on your post, write back to
them. You can say, “Thanks for that, David. I agree. What do you think about this?” You
can say, “Martha, I love that picture you posted.”
Use their name, hit “like” on their comments and reply to people. It’s fabulous. When
you do that it’s like a chess match. You make a move by posting something. They make
a move by either liking it or commenting. Then you make a move. Then they make a
move. It goes back and forth like that. Far too many business owners post nonsense
and never interact. They wonder why they have no engagement on their pages. That’s a
huge mistake.
Discuss relevant topics. When things happen in your industry, neighborhood, town, in
the country or in the world, discuss it. Find some ways to bring it up. Interact with people
and ask for opinions. It’s really good. Relevant topics are fabulous for getting people to
engage with you.
Ask for opinions and listen to what people say. This is a big thing. This is how you will
be able to develop new products, services and offers for your audience that is relevant
to them. Ask them for opinions and then listen to what they have to say.
Understand that people interact on Facebook using visual photos. This is what people
do on Facebook. I like the picture on the top left. People post cats, dogs, puppies,
kittens, food, coffee, babies, holidays, drunk, crazy pictures and dancing. This is what
people are doing on Facebook.
If you are constantly posting your links to your affiliate offer, you have to find a way
to link it to what people are doing. This is how you will get people’s attention, not by
constantly writing, “I wrote a new blog post,” and that’s it. Instead, you could link your
blog post to this picture of kittens jumping.
You could use a picture like this linked to your blog post. Find a way to link something
visual, funny, interesting, cute, humorous or controversial to your blog post. That will
help you get a lot more interaction than if you just post the link to your blog post.
This is how you balance work and play. You can meet people where they’re at. You
need to understand that people are posting pictures of holidays, babies, food, coffee,
fun quotes, sayings and inspirational things. If you can do that then that is where you
will find engagement.
Find and encourage similarities between you and your friends or fans on Facebook.
By posting who you are and what you like to do, you are going to find similarities. Then
you can encourage them. You might quickly realize that your audience absolutely loves
surfing.
If your audience enjoys surfing and you enjoy surfing then you can post things about
surfing on your business page and link it to your customers. People want to do business
with people they know, like and trust. Virtually you can build up the know, like and trust
feelings by encouraging similarities between you and your audience.
Build a connection. You build a connection with your fans when you use their name,
reply directly to their comments, like their posts and say, “I was thinking of you. Mary, I
saw this and thought of you. Remember that question you asked me a few weeks ago?
I saw this and it made me think of you.”
Imagine if a brand did that for you. They might say, “Robert, I know you asked us this
question. Here is the answer. We thought it might help you.” They post that on their
page tagging you. How cool is that? Build a connection and look for opportunities like
that.
Be forgiving and generous. I don’t mean financially generous. I mean to be generous
with praise, words and kindness. If people are harsh or mean, you can ban them from
your page. It’s your page. You have control of it. You can get rid of spammy, mean or
destructive people.
If someone disagrees with you, fair enough. It’s OK. They can disagree with you. That’s
fine. I respect you and your opinion. By having that kind of approach to the comments
on your page you will encourage more interaction as opposed to encouraging people to
go away from you.
Think twice before posting. Many times, I’ve posted something and taken it off quickly.
I’ve thought about posting and thought, “Maybe I won’t say that. Maybe that’s a bit
harsh.” Think twice before you post something.
Think twice before you respond to negative comments or complaints on your page.
Usually, the first reaction can be harsh. Just be careful. Maybe ask someone’s opinion
about your comment or post before you do it if you are unsure or don’t do it at all.
Humor doesn’t translate well. If humor is your thing, people are used to you, they know
you and they get it then that’s fine. If you’re talking to your family, friends or spouse then
maybe humor might work.
Be really careful with sarcasm. It usually doesn’t translate very well on Facebook pages,
comments or posts. Be really careful with humor. Make sure that the person you are
commenting to understands your sense of humor.
I have a question here that I want to answer before we go on. The question is, “When
you respond to someone’s comment on Facebook do you direct message or reply for all
to see?” That’s a really good question. I like to reply for all to see.
I might say, “Thanks, Debra, we agree.” or “That was a mistake. Thanks for pointing
it out.” I might say that in my post. It depends. If someone says, “I’ve written to your
customer support 50 million times and no one has responded.” then you should post
publicly so that people can see.
You can say, “I’m so sorry, John. Thank you very much for commenting. I’ve sent you
an email.” You want people to see that you handle negativity direct and straightforward
and that you respond straightforward.
If someone says, “I want to know which product suits me best. I have this kind of
company.” then you might want to post a simple comment that says, “We’ve sent you a
direct message. We’re happy to help. Check your messages.” Then you can send them
a private message with details. It depends on whether you direct message or reply for
all to see. I like to reply for all to see when possible.
Mistake number two is not having a plan. Far too many people jump in and they don’t
have a plan. People think, “I can get on Twitter.” They start tweeting things. They get on
Facebook and put up a bunch of links without any sort of plan. You end up wasting a
ton of time. I’m pretty sure that no one here can afford to waste any time.
Social media is a huge time suck if you don’t have a plan. It’s really simple to make a
quick plan of which social networks you are going to be on, what you’re going to post,
when you’re going to post it and how much time you will invest in each social network.
A simple formula is to figure out three social networks that are best for your market.
They might be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Instagram is interesting as well for some businesses, especially visual ones. You want
to figure out which social networks are best for you and then make a plan for that.
For example, we are sending this for our average client every single month. There
are almost 300,000 clicks through to their website. There are almost 19,000 average
leads. If I’m going to send 285,000 people to your website this month, are they going to
convert? Do you know? Will it be like throwing rotten tomatoes at a brick wall?
You have to understand what will happen with those 285,000 people who are going to
come to your website. Are they going to opt in? Are they going to buy something? Are
they going to comment? Are they going to engage? What is going to happen with them?
Before you start you really need to make sure that your website is in order. These
are the essentials in our opinion. When we get a new client request we want to make
sure that they have split testing in place. This would be Visual Website Optimizer or
something along those lines.
You want to have some kind of tracking set up. You might have affiliate links. Some
people use Infusionsoft. Some people have Google Analytics. We can set up links with
Google Analytics.
You want to have some kind of tracking so that you understand where these people are
coming from. Otherwise you are going to get 3,000 visits from Facebook and you won’t
know how many of them converted. It’s a ridiculous waste of time and effort.
You need to have an email autoresponder whether you use Office Autopilot, MailChimp,
Aweber or Infusionsoft. You want to follow up with people once they’ve gotten to your
website and opted in for your free report, gift or video.
You need to have some sort of customer support in place whether that’s you, a team
member or a VA. You need to look after your fan page, email list and customers. If you
don’t have some kind of customer support, you’re taking orders and not helping people
then that’s going to be a problem.
You need to have a content plan. That’s a simple plan of what topics you’re going to
cover each week on your blog, Facebook page and Twitter. We make a content plan for
every quarter. We know exactly what we’re talking about every single week.
The blog posts are written. The Facebook posts are done. The tweets are done. We
know that this week we’re talking all about conversions. Next week we’re talking all
about tracking. The next week we’re talking all about images. We can cover all different
kinds of things. We have a plan. It gives you peace of mind knowing that you have a
year’s worth of stuff to talk about.
You need to have an ad strategy plan. It’s simple to write up what kind of ads you’re
going to use and how you’re going to attack your ads. Chances are that you will waste a
huge amount of money if you don’t have that in place.
These are the essentials that you need to have in place for social media. These nine
questions are questions that we ask our clients. If you can’t answer these questions
then you should spend some time doing this before you spend time on social media.
Does your product convert? What other forms of traffic work for you? Are you trying
AdWords? Is it JV or emails? What forms of traffic work best? How do you follow up
with people who haven’t bought anything? Are you setting up re-marketing?
Are your affiliates successful? Some people have affiliates but their affiliates can’t sell
anything. What else do your customers enjoy? How much do you know about your
customers? Do you have a Facebook page? Do you want one? Should you have one?
Do your competitors have a Facebook page?
How do you track your traffic? Who buys your stuff and when do they buy it? Many of
our customers know exactly when their products sell the most. If you know that then you
can make sure that you’re posting on those days or set up ads only for those days and
times.
That way you increase your conversions and click-through rate. You keep your ad
spend very low. This is your plan. It’s quite simple and straightforward. It definitely pays
to spend some time investing in this.
Mistake number three is that you can’t sell on Facebook. I hear this all the time. It’s BS.
You can sell on Facebook. We do it all the time. Our clients do it every day. Yes, you
can. You just need to be smart about it. If you’re posting crappy links, no, you can’t. If
you have a plan, you’re wise, you’re building engagement and support then yes. You
can sell a lot on Facebook. Let’s cover how to do that.
This is the social traffic sales strategy that we recommend. Know what offers work best.
Fill your funnel with targeted buyers. Follow up, interact, engage and entertain. Then
ask directly for the sale. It’s very straightforward. Let’s cover them step by step.
The first step is to know what offers work best. We get this question a lot. “Will my stuff
work on Facebook?” Ninety percent of the time the answer is, “Yes, your stuff will work
on Facebook.” There is a section of the population where it does not work on Facebook.
We’ll cover that in a minute.
What works best is anything related to entertainment, fun, movies, shows, plays,
theater, TV, videos, music and entertainment. There are vacations, holidays and hotels.
Entertainment is a huge industry and it works very well.
Services work well on Facebook. You might provide a digital service to people. It could
be a digital service, virtual service or real-life service like lawn mowing, window washing
or ironing. Services work very well.
There is the self-improvement industry. People like self-improvement. If you can
position yourself in the right way, this can work wonders. It’s also a vague category.
Self-improvement is not “get rich quick and learn how to make $5,000 a day working in
your pajamas with a typewriter.” I don’t mean that.
I mean self-improvement with webinars, seminars, courses and investing. It’s anything
to better yourself, your position and financial status. That can work very well.
Ecommerce is a huge opportunity. We have a whole division working only with
ecommerce websites. It is so powerful. Ecommerce has a specific formula on how you
sell things directly. You go straight from a Facebook ad to a click to a sales page to sell
something.
It is very powerful. If you have an ecommerce website I highly encourage you to talk
to us. Once you get this right you just turn it on and then turn it off again. You sell
something else the next day. It’s really powerful.
There are webinars and events. This can be touch-and-go depending on how Facebook
is feeling on the particular day that you submit your ads. Sometimes webinars and
events work very well and Facebook approves them.
You can get thousands of people to visit your opt-in page every day. Other times
Facebook goes on a rampage and disapproves all webinar ads. It comes and goes. I
can’t predict when it will or will not work for you.
Over the past year, our clients have had millions of dollars in webinar sales from their
Facebook ads. Again, there is a set formula for that. I will show you that. You want to
link your ad to the webinar. You want to make sure the ad image is the same as on the
webinar page. Then you follow up.
You have to follow up with people and get them to come to the webinar. You have to
remind them to come to the event. Maybe you send them some kind of hard copy in the
mail to get them to come. These categories are huge on Facebook.
This is another question that we get all the time. “What works best?” If you’re selling
something less than $50 then direct to a Facebook sales page will work. If it’s more than
$50, sometimes it’s easier to go for the opt-in. That’s a general rule.
However, I was just selling a $5,000 package. I sold two of them with Facebook ads. I
invested $200 in ads and sold two $5,000 packages. That was direct from a Facebook
ad to a sales page with no video. It can be done.
It depends on who you are advertising to. I knew exactly who I was advertising to. I was
known to them. You need to have your targeting right. This is a general rule.
If you’re selling a sun hat and everyone knows what it is, or a water bottle with a brand
name, you can go direct. Someone might say, “Yes, I need an insulated water bottle. I’ll
get one now.” It works really well, especially right before Christmas.
Step two is to fill your funnel with targeted buyers. This is a really involved process.
I’m going to go through it quickly. Filling your funnel with targeted buyers is the whole
concept of Facebook and social media in general.
This is an example of a social media sales funnel. These are the steps involved.
Number one is to attract the right people. That is targeting and understanding your
audience. Step two is to get them engaged and know how to speak to your audience.
Step three is to ask questions. I put that as separate from getting them engaged. Asking
questions is specifically driven to help you make sales. What are your biggest problems
with XYZ situation? How can we make this better? Asking a question is directly related
to the problem that you solve.
Then you step in and solve those problems for those people. You invite feedback. Step
four is that you show that you solved this problem for someone else. So-and-so had this
situation. They couldn’t get enough traffic with Facebook. This is how we did it.
Then you invite feedback. I do it on my fan page all the time. I put up an example. I
say, “What do you think of this?” Then everyone comments. They say, “We think this is
ridiculous.” You are inviting feedback. That gets people involved.
Once you have people involved and you’re inviting feedback then you test and test.
You send them to different landing pages, offers and products. Once you have this tight
group of people who know, like and trust you and you’re solving their problems then you
test several different landing pages.
You can do that with your ads. Once you have that engaged audience there and ready,
you can set up a couple of different ads. Spend $10 a day and send them to different
landing pages. You can see what converts best for your audience.
Then that is when you make sales. I hope that makes sense. I’m not finished. I have
more to cover. This usually generates a lot of discussion and questions. If you want to
know more about this social media sales funnel and how it works, make sure you type
your questions in the box.
Step three is to interact, engage and entertain your audience. If any of you know Frank
Kern, you should definitely go to his Facebook page. He is the master at entertaining
and engaging his audience. It’s fantastic. He’s funny and crazy but he knows his
audience. He speaks directly to them right there on his fan page. He’ll post pictures
of his family. Then he’ll post a crazy picture of something else and ask for people’s
opinions. He’ll post a testimonial from a client. Then he’ll post something great about
one of his coaching students. He really does interact, engage and entertain on a
fabulous level. I definitely think it’s worth checking out his stuff.
Meet people where they are at. Find and encourage similarities. Build that connection.
Be forgiving and generous. All of this is important. Remember to have fun and be
yourself. Understand your audience and how you can connect with them.
People are asking me about Frank Kern. He’s very funny. He’s in the internet marketing
industry. He understands his audience very well. He communicates very well with them.
Another brand is the Groupon Australia page. They are very funny. I always laugh at
what they have to say. James Schramko is another person to look at.
Step four is to ask directly for the sale. Using Facebook ads is an excellent way to ask
directly for the sale. You see here that we have an ad for Frank Kern that goes to fans
of Frank Kern. The landing page is exactly the same image. It’s the same concept.
We were able to help get him a 300% ROI on this. We doubled his click-through rate.
We halved his cost-per-click simply by understanding how to link his customer and
client base over to the landing page on the webinar.
It’s really important that you have some sort of continuity between the landing page, the
ad itself and the audience. You want to link all of those things together. Once you get
them to the landing page you follow up by email or re-marketing code on the landing
page. You need to follow up with people.
While we’re talking about landing pages, it’s important that you have a privacy policy
written on your landing page. They’ve just made that mandatory for everyone. You can’t
just have a link to a privacy policy. You need to have the privacy policy right there on
the page.
You can follow up with a webinar, video series or a free coaching series. Somehow
you want to get people engaged with you, the knowledge that you want to share or the
products that you have to offer.
It’s a bit different for people in ecommerce. You might want to do something like this in
ecommerce. You take people straight to a landing page where you get their details. You
follow up with a phone call or SMS. This is another way to follow up with people and
make sure that it’s relevant. This is how you ask directly for the sale.
Once you’ve done all the ground work in building up your value with people then
you can ask directly for the sale with Facebook ads. I like doing it via Facebook ads
because I love Facebook ads but also because it’s not as invasive as asking for the sale
on your fan page.
When you ask for people to buy stuff from your fan page, it’s so blatant. It’s like inviting
people over to your house for dinner and saying, “By the way, I want you to buy this big
cooking set for $500,000.” You think, “I didn’t ask to be sold. I came over to have a chat
and a nice meal with my friend.” Selling directly on your Facebook page is really difficult
for a lot of people.
That’s why I recommend that you set up ads. When people click the ads they are opting
in to be sold to. You can set up ads with a very small budget of $5, $10 or %15 per day
and target only your fans so that they are the only people who will see your ads. It is the
same thing except you’re not slapping them in the face and asking directly for the sale.
We have a couple of questions. Donna asked, “Are all of these people clients of yours?”
Yes, some of them are clients of mine. Some of them are not. I’m sure there are other
fabulous, engaged fan pages. We see a lot of the fan pages of the people who are our
clients.
Someone asked, “How many ads are being blocked by Facebook using ad blocking
software?” I don’t know the percentage. My feeling about ad blocking software is that
the people who are using ad blocking software are probably people like you, technical
genius guru-types. They are really good at technical stuff.
My guess is that if that’s your audience you will have to find another way to attract them.
Setting up ads traditionally is not the best way to reach programmers or anyone who is
highly technically inclined. It’s like internet marketing. The internet marketing industry is
very switched-on to affiliate links, redirects, offers and cloaking.
People know what you’re doing. If that’s your audience then you really need to find
another way to reach them. If you think the vast majority of them use ad blocking
software, you might need to do it directly on your Facebook page. My guess is that they
are probably not on Facebook in huge amounts.
Our experience shows that Twitter might be better for some of those audiences. There
are a lot of question and answer sites for techie-type people that are really good
advertising opportunities. If you have a very technically-minded audience, you might
want to look at other options.
It’s the same thing if you are business-to-business. Facebook can work for business-
to-business but LinkedIn is fabulous for that if you know how to strategize and position
yourself on LinkedIn. It’s really good.
Kristen asks, “What’s the difference between getting them engaged and asking
questions?” I guess there is not that big of a difference. I was referring to getting people
engaged with pictures and social things.
You want to share a little bit about your life. I’m a coffee lover. I love to go some place
cool and get a coffee. When it’s presented really nicely sometimes I’ll take a photo of
it and say, “It’s time for a coffee break. Should I have the mocha syrup or the coconut
syrup?”
I put engaging your audience in the social category, like the pictures that I was showing
earlier. You want to ask questions that are very specific about your product, service or
industry. You might have several different posts about life in general or you just got new
computers and you took a picture of that.
You might say, “My book was just listed on Amazon. How exciting. Here’s a picture of
me with the publisher.” That’s all nice. Then ask a question. “What do you think? Is it
right to direct message your customers or should I comment here on the page?”
That is different from engaging. I know that you could easily put them in the same
category. I’m being a bit nit-picky about it but I see them as two different things.
Here is another question. “Why is my RSS feed outperforming the normal posts?” That’s
interesting. I don’t know. We would have to look into that. RSS feed or automated
posting is really funny on Facebook.
It works for some people and doesn’t work for others. I really don’t like automated
posting. I never have. PostPlanner seems to be good because you can link it to your
website. Then you can have a link to your website right there in your post.
Facebook allows you the opportunity to schedule your own posts so that it comes
directly from Facebook. It gives the appearance that you are there live, which is good.
I like to be there live. When I post something and I’m live then I can answer live. I think
that’s interesting. That’s what gets people involved. I don’t like automated posting.
Savannah has a big question. “How can I convert my 1600 fans into engaged,
participating fans? Is there a way? When I promote my posts it goes to all foreign
speaking countries? Do you have any suggestions on post promotion?” Her question is
about promoting posts. I have suggestions about that.
Promoted posts can be good but they’re also a pain in the ass because of exactly the
reason you just mentioned, Savannah. When you go to your Facebook page and make
a comment, Facebook gives you the option to promote the post. That means that for
$20 we can make sure that this gets to 1,000 of your fans. Some people still do it.
That’s fine but 1,000 of your fans may not be 1,000 of your customers. The vast majority
of our clients know that their customers are in one country or place. For example, one of
our clients has almost all of their sales come from California. They have fans all over the
United States.
If we promote a post on their page, it goes to the entire country and not just California.
We know that the people who buy their stuff are in California. Why would I want to
advertise to people in Pennsylvania when my customers are in California? Instead, go
into your ads manager and set up a page post ad for that post that you’ve just created.
Then you select “California only.” You can select women 40 to 42 who live in California
who are marketing managers. You have full control when you go into your ads
manager. If you just promote the post it can be fine sometimes. If you don’t mind
spending $20 and you want something quick and easy to get a little boost, that’s fine.
If you really want to reach your customers, I highly recommend that you go into your
ads manager and do it there. You will save yourself a lot of money. You will probably
spend $5 and reach all of the women in California who meet that criteria and are most
likely to buy your stuff as opposed to promoting a post and wasting $20.
Yes, you can convert 1600 fans into engaged, participating fans. I would recommend
that you go back to the information that I showed earlier about how to get them
engaged, what to post and when.
Social media is free. I know that I said I would cover three mistakes. This is four but I
have to throw this in here. Social media is not free. It takes time, money, experience
and expertise. Social media is an investment in your brand.
You can invest your money, time, knowledge or experience or that of your team to
make it work for you. Please understand that it is well worth finding someone who
understands your market, you and your business and hiring them to do it for you. It just
makes sense.
You have to do intensive research into your customers, competitors, similar services,
blogs, news and current events to understand what to post, when to post it and who to
post it to. It takes time and effort to understand these things.
Here are some research tips for those of you who want to do it yourself. You can go to
Quantcast, SimilarSites.com, Alexa, YouTube and Facebook. You can do research into
your audience. You can figure out exactly who you need to be speaking to. You can
definitely do that using these tools.
There are other tools that are handy for managing your social media. I love Hootsuite.
It’s fabulous. You can set up Google Alerts for your brand, company, product or industry
names. It’s interesting to set up Google Alerts.
Whenever anyone writes a blog post about a topic you will get an email from Google.
They will say, “So-and-so is talking about pink yarn for knitting.” Then you might say,
“Look, there is new pink yarn for knitting.” You are also sharing that information with
your audience. You can link to that blog post.
You can share their information. You can support them. You can post it on your own
blog. Then you are at the cutting edge of your topic. Google Alerts is really good for
that.
Another cool thing is SocialMention.com. You can type in any topic, word or phrase. It
will tell you everyone who is talking about that online. It is really good for current events.
The person who looks after my blog is in Mexico at the moment.
I highly recommend Sharebar. Sharebar is a plugin. I have nothing to do with Sharebar.
I just discovered it a couple of weeks ago. It looks really good. It’s a plugin for your
WordPress blog that allows you to have a couple of social posts.
They are social networks that scroll alongside your posts. I’m sure there are others
that are good, too. Sharebar is pretty cool. I’m going to get that installed on my blogs
quickly.
I’m still talking about how to find your ideal market. I get a lot of questions about Google
AdWords versus Facebook. If your traffic works well on Google AdWords it can work on
Facebook but you have to understand the differences.
With AdWords, there are active searches. People are typing in keywords like “buy
queen mattress Melbourne” for people who want to buy a queen mattress in Melbourne.
If you want to sell a queen-sized mattress in Melbourne on Facebook, it’s going to be
a different strategy than if you’re going to do it on AdWords. If your stuff is working well
on AdWords, that’s great but you’re going to have to translate it to get it to work on
Facebook. Facebook deals with demographics, people, age, gender, location, likes and
interests as opposed to keywords.
Google AdWords is fairly consistent. I’m sure that if any AdWords experts were here
they would probably throw things at me if they heard me say that. It’s fairly consistent
when you compare it to Facebook. Facebook is very inconsistent. It’s almost fickle.
One day it will work and the next day it won’t. It’s very frustrating and confusing.
People lose their accounts. They have ads disapproved for the wrong reasons. It’s
very frustrating. It’s a very immature platform whereas AdWords is a very established
platform.
If you’re going into Facebook to do ads, it is high risk. That is a good way to explain it.
You never know. It could work. It could not work. You could get all of your ads approved
or disapproved. It’s like a mine field. You have to step carefully and tiptoe around. You
have to make sure that you are following the rules because the rules change all the
time.
There is quite a significant difference. The only thing that these two platforms have in
common is that they are both PPC, pay-per-click, advertising. That’s about it. Everything
else is really different and requires a different strategy.
With Facebook, you want to be seen and be social. It’s really important for ads to be on
Facebook if you have a big brand, but not all the time. Then you’ll waste all your money.
You have to understand that you’re selling in context.
It’s like at the supermarket checkout. You didn’t go into the supermarket to buy a trashy
magazine and a pack of gum but you might buy one when you’re standing at checkout.
They know exactly who is standing in the checkout at grocery stores. They position
things perfectly for impulse buying.
It’s exactly the same with Facebook. You want to position yourself perfectly for impulse
buying. Congruency is king. You want to make sure that your audience is linked to your
topic which is linked to your ad which is linked to your landing page which is linked to
your autoresponder. Everything flows nicely from beginning to end.
I have some examples of ads to show you. I want you to see different styles and things
that you can do with Facebook. We have a question first. “If my target audiences are
outdoor climbing, walking, soul music fans and work wear users, I should use Google
AdWords for the work wear customers and Facebook for the lifestyle choices such as
music and outdoor?”
You can use Facebook for all of those things. If you have climbing, walking, soul music
and work wear, all of those people are on Facebook. It’s a matter of how you find them.
It would be completely different targeting people who need work wear then it would be
for people who like climbing and outdoor stuff.
You want a different target audience and maybe a different Facebook page and
different landing pages. Soul music would be perfect for Facebook. I would still be on
AdWords.
If you needed to buy new work wear and you needed it quickly you’re going to go to
Google and type in “buy work wear Sydney.” You’re not going to go to Facebook and
look for work wear.
You will find more people in context on Facebook. They are people who are looking at
pictures of their mates’ holiday or their latest climbing adventures. They are there on
Facebook. They see the new work wear and think, “I need to get that. I’d better grab
that.”
It might not be the same people who are out there actively searching for it. That’s what
I would do. There are a lot of fun things that you can do with work wear. I hope that
helps. There are different strategies for different products.
Let’s take a look at some different ads. As you know, ads are my favorite thing. I
love talking about them. What if you have a passionate topic? Paul was talking about
outdoor climbing and walking. Soul music is probably more passionate than work wear.
The more passionate your topic, subject matter or ad, the better it will be. If you can
get someone whose heart and soul is linked to something and set up an ad for it, the
chances are that they will click it. Kids are a great example. Pets are a great example.
Religion is a good example. Politics is a good example.
There are fans of a non-profit. You might be a fan of the RSPCA, which is for the
protection of animals. If you’re really passionate about that, the RSPCA would do very
well to call for donations from their fans using an ad. They can really pull at heartstrings
and get people to donate $10. Passion works very well in Facebook ads.
Being very specific and saying exactly what you’re going to sell works. You could say
that it is a free 20 minute session or a $75 package, now only $37. Very specific short
sentences can work well if you’re targeting your audience.
Use bright colors in your image. This ad did very well. This is the ad that I was talking
about that sold a lot. They are using number in the headline and bright colors in the
image. It’s very straightforward.
Specific use of capitalization works very well, too. Those are examples of different
things you can do. Using emotion is the same thing as passion. You can use the image
of a presenter. If you have an event or a live audience, you can use the image of a
presenter. Usually, the more amateur the photo, the better.
That seems very strange but it’s true. We had one image of Frank Kern sitting at his
desk. There was something strange behind him. Everyone was commenting on his
page about what was in the image behind him. He ended up selling a ton of his product.
People were clicking this ad because there was something strange in the background.
Using capitalization, punctuation, percentages and numbers can be combined to attract
attention. When we have a new client and create their first round of ads we almost
always get this question. We include question marks in most of our headlines. They
always say, “Why do you have a question mark there?” That is not a natural tendency to
put a question mark in a headline but it works very well.
I recommend that you try having a question mark, percentage, number or capitalization
in your headline. You can see more ad examples if you go to Facebook.com/ads/
adboard. You will see exactly who is advertising to you. That’s a great way to see how
you can stand out from the crowd.
You can see here in these ads, it wouldn’t be very difficult to stand out. If these are
the ads shown to you and your audience, all you need to do is get some numbers,
headlines and bright colors. Then you will be fine.
You can use Facebook ads to pages. Sponsored stories and page post ads are by far
the most effective methods of advertising your page right now. Sponsored stories work
very well. You have two different variations. This is what they look like. Page post ads
are excellent for the same thing. Getting new fans and amplifying your current content is
what they are good for.
You can advertise for life coaches, politicians, internet marketers, webinars, events,
network marketers, MLM, digital products, real products, sports and community centers.
I hope that we covered it all. We have three mistakes to avoid, strategies what work
now, what offers work best, who to target and how you can get help.
Getting help from us is very straightforward. We have a done-for-you service where we
do everything for you. If you work for a corporation or company that needs Facebook
ads and strategy, we can do it. It’s $5,000 for the first month. Then it drops down after
that depending on volume.
You can also get my help. We have a special. This product is running only for the month
of January. It includes a video review of your campaigns with me, tons of training, 30
days e-coaching with me and two live personal calls with me. It’s only $500. If you really
need help and you want to take the next step you can either go for the done-for-you
or you can do this. You can do it on your own. You received tons of information today.
This is what’s included in Fast Start. You can go to FBAdsLab.com/faststart. You should
automatically see the $495 price. If you don’t, just type in the code “earlybird” as one
word. That is one way of getting help.
I have time for your questions. I am very happy to help. If you have time to stick around
I would love to help you. The first question is, “Are some business types better suited to
using Facebook ads as a traffic source than others?” Thanks, Michelle.
I think that most businesses can benefit from it. It’s just a matter of how often you
advertise. Some people could advertise every single day. For example, eBay could
advertise every single day. They have millions and millions of customers.
They could advertise every day and people wouldn’t get annoyed seeing their ads as
long as they change them up regularly. There are other businesses like your local pizza
shop, café or something with a very small targeted audience.
We have one client who has a handyman service. They only service a couple of towns
in Virginia. Their audience is quite small. They wouldn’t want to advertise every single
day. First, it would cost them a fortune. Second, people would get sick of it. They would
say, “Please, enough with the handyman.”
Instead, you only want to advertise once a week. Saturday afternoon is a really great
time for people to share and comment on things. It should be in the time zone that
you’re in. U.S. Eastern is the most popular.
That’s what I would do. I would choose one time and advertise my local business at that
time. I would only spend $5 to $10 to do it. I hope that answers your question, Michelle.
If you are in the adult industry or sell anything related to adult products, you’re going to
struggle with a Facebook page. Do people want to make it well-known that they’re doing
debt consolidation, visiting a brothel, buying sex toys or that they’re in legal trouble?
People don’t want to be associated with a fan page that will be announced to their
family and friends. If you have an ad for those products then you might be better off.
Kristen asks, “Do you have any tips on how to get ads approved?” You need to follow
their guidelines. You should go and check the ad guidelines. Make sure that you’re
suited to them. Make sure that your landing page has no cloaking.
You can use a tracking link but not a cloaking link or a redirect. Make sure that you
have your privacy policy on the page. If you’re unsure, we send a new harmless ad to
a generic blog post on your website to see if that gets approved. If that gets approved
then the problem is with your ad or the landing page, not with your account in general.
If you try to send an ad directly to a generic blog post that is helpful, isn’t’ asking for an
opt-in, has no pop-ups and it doesn’t get approved then you have problems with your
account. Those are two things to consider.
I would make sure that you are following the ad guidelines. You need a landing
page with a privacy policy. You are not doing any cloaking or redirects. If it’s all very
straightforward then you should get your ads approved.
Mike is asking me if there is going to be a replay. I don’t think so, Mike. The whole point
is that this is live. We’ll see. I’ll have to look into that. The next one is, “Please talk about
the value of using Facebook versus LinkedIn.”
LinkedIn ads are ridiculously expensive. I have not been able to find a decent
conversion rate from LinkedIn ads from any of our clients in four years. That says it all.
Yes, you can make a sale here or there with LinkedIn ads. You can get some attention.
I don’t see the value or ROI. It’s just not there.
You can have a LinkedIn profile and use it to join groups on LinkedIn and get involved.
If you are business-to-business and most of your customers are in business or they
are employees or high level marketing, those people are using LinkedIn. If you are
business-to-customer and you’re selling direct to a consumer then there is nothing to
beat Facebook.
If you’re going to be on Facebook and you need to sell business-to-business, one tip is
to target your ads to job titles. Use the title of the job of the person that you’re looking
for. If you need to speak to the purchasing officer, set up an ad for the purchasing
officer. If you want to talk to someone who is working at a newspaper then find out their
job title and target them. It’s really effective. It’s a great way to stand out.
Josh is in a direct sales company. He asks, “How can you separate yourself from others
who have the same products as you?” Josh, my advice is to build up your own personal
brand and people who like and follow you. Develop some kind of training or specialty
that only you do. Maybe you’re the expert at giving large group presentations. Maybe
you’re the expert at hair care.
Let’s say that you’re in Tupperware. People can follow you. You can post interesting
things about ways to use the Tupperware or recipes. You can say, “Today I used
my…for this.”
One example is flavored water. You can say, “Did you know that you can add
strawberry and mint to a jug of water and put it in your fridge? It makes this lovely,
refreshing, summery, strawberry mint water flavor using your Tupperware jug.” Give
people ways to add value to your products. You become the leader. You become well-
known for being unique in your industry. There are a number of examples.
You can look up Thermomix. It’s a cooking, blending, steaming kitchen machine. There
are tons of consultants. They all have fabulous Facebook pages where they have
huge followings of people how are really engaged and involved with them. They would
be very likely to buy or recommend a Thermomix being sold from them. There are a
number of ways that you can do it.
There is another question here. “My websites need filling. As I moved into a retail
premises only five weeks ago, things have been busy. In reality, would I be better to fill
up my websites prior to increasing my social media or is that putting the horse before
the cart?”
If you have new websites, I recommend that you get them up and running. Your
website is your home base. You really need to make sure that it’s working and cranking.
That’s what is going to make your sales. That is what will really drive your customers. I
recommend spending and investing time in your website.
Paul is asking for pricing and how to get started. It’s $495 today for FB Fast Start. You
can go to www.FBAdsLab.com/faststart. If you don’t see the $495 price when you land
there, simply enter the code “earlybird” as one word and the price will change. If that
doesn’t help you then send me an email at jen@fbadslab.com and I will help you get
started.
Kristen is saying that she is in the marriage industry and can’t get any ads approved
when she references “getting marriage help.” The only ads they approved were basic
and boring like a free teleclass from an expert with a basic picture of the author.
One of the things that Facebook has cracked down on in the last six months is the
whole concept of saying, “Do you need help with this?” When they click it, they are
admitting that they need marriage help, financial help, weight loss help, metabolism help
or sex help.
Facebook has told me that they don’t want that kind of indication. They don’t want, “Do
you have back pain?” Instead, you can say, “We are marriage experts. We help save
marriages or avoid divorce.”
Think about the benefits that you provide to your customers. Then put that in there. I
would try things along those lines. Maybe you can post a picture of two people really in
love.
You can say, “Remember the days when you were in love? Remember getting that
butterfly feeling?” Include a nice picture of a butterfly. You are dancing around the topic
without saying, “You need marriage help. Get in touch with us now.” Facebook will not
like that.
Someone asked about the best time of day to get your ads approved. I used to say that
it was best to send them overnight or that the weekends take a long time. Right now I’m
noticing that they are very inconsistent. Who knows? If you get them all disapproved
at once then I would wait three to four hours and then try again. This happened to us
yesterday. We had 16 ads in one account disapproved for no reason. We waited a
couple of hours, resubmitted them and they were all approved. It’s very strange and
inconsistent.
Kristen wants me to go through the sample ads again because I went through them
really fast. Let’s go back through them. We have sports and community. If you have a
local footy club, soccer club or book club, it’s a great way to get people on board. You
can target your local area and people who like that topic.
It’s very effective to use page post ads for ecommerce. People come to your page. You
have to make sure that you provide enough links on your page without being spammy to
really attract the right kind of people.
Here is one for digital products. You can use quotes and strange images. Red borders
are everywhere now so you might want to avoid that. This is really good for network
marketing. This is for MLM and direct sales. If you’re trying to recruit people for your
MLM, you really need to teach them something.
You don’t just want to say, “Join my great MLM because we’re the best.” You have to
teach people how to do something. If you’ve done something outrageous, teach them
how you did it. You can do that with a video series or a webinar.
For live webinars and events you want to add the date. If you’re someone like Frank
Kern, you want to say, “This is not the same-old-same-old. This is something completely
new.” This double border on the image works very well. If you can find a way to do that
then give it a try, especially with something black and white. It’s a dark picture and you
want to drag it out.
Sometimes you have to be very specific. You can say, “The first 30 days are free.
Then it’s only $97.” Sometimes you have to say that specifically to get it approved on
Facebook.
Politicians can be really successful. We worked on Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.
We were helping them get votes in swing states. We were advertising to people who are
very passionate about a particular topic, who live in a particular area and are undecided
voters. It was a very specific, very clear-cut successful ad campaign.
You can say, “Will you be there?” If you’re having an event then say that it’s live in this
town. If you have a suburb name, definitely use it in the first sentence. Tony Robbins is
very recognizable. This is his account so we are able to use his image. If you don’t have
authority, please don’t use people’s images unnecessarily. It’s bad karma.
Here is another question. “Does the Fast Start Month start today?” Michael, send me
a message and let me know what you want to do. It’s the month of January for Fast
Start. I don’t usually have a lot of time for coaching because we have a lot of clients to
manage.
I have a team to manage. I’ve just hired two new people. They are taking over a lot of
the client work, which is fabulous. I’m flexible. Michael, send me a message and let’s
talk about how long you are deferring. It’s really the month of January. I would love to
help you if it’s possible.
Thank you so much, everyone, for sticking around. I think that I’ve answered all of your
questions. Thank you for your time. I know that it’s precious. Have a fantastic weekend.
I’ll speak to you soon.
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