PWB Blog

Facebook Ads: Do They Work?

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Tammy

There are many ways to market your business website. You can do so through paid search, print ads or outdoor advertising, just to name a few. Broadcasting you business name, products, services or brand has never been easier. However, when I ask clients if they’d consider advertising on Facebook, I often get a blank stare or an immediate ”no”.

The rejection in using Facebook ads has perplexed me - If well thought out, advertising on a popular platform like Facebook could bring a large return to the client. I just didn’t have many clients willing to play along.

A few weeks ago though, I received a free Facebook advertising opportunity after my Page reached a certain number of “Likes.” At first I too was stumped. The Facebook Page for my personal blog is certainly popular enough, but what would I really offer? For my Ann Arbor Mom Facebook Page, the answer was simple - I offered new fans the opportunity to find information on free and low cost family activities in the area. That meant that my Facebook ad campaign should be one to generate more ”Likes.”

So with a $50 ad campaign, I ran a 10-day trial spending it on a $5/day budget. What did I get you ask? A lot! The 10-day campaign increased my pages likes by 62%. It actually improved fan engagement drastically too! As a blogger, that allows me to give more to my fans through relevant, well thought-out content.

Running a 10-day trail of Facebook ads increased on page Likes by 62%

Was it a fluke? Could I do it again? A few days later, I was happy to realize, that yes, I could try it again. The PWB Facebook Page was sent a similar offer.

Once again I set off with $50 in free Facebook Ads, but this time it was for a company that markets to B2B. The free ads for PWB only generated a 6% increase in “Likes” however it also improved user engagement and the overall virility of our posts. Our content didn’t change much, however the increased visibility the ads afforded us allowed us to get further with our Facebook Page.

For PWB, running a brief Facebook Ad Campaign, improved user engagement and the overall virility of Facebook posts.

With two “wins” under my belt I was very excited to try ads a third time which happily happened when another client Facebook Page that I manage was offered free advertising dollars. The client is a Ypsilanti bariatric surgeon, and with obesity being in the media often enough, I wondered how the campaign would run. Would it gain a lot of new “Likes”? Would engagement improve like the other campaigns?

Engagement did improve, and the Facebook Ad campaigns did generate a 10% increase in the number of “Likes”. What was enlightening to the client however, was viewing the demographic data provided by Facebook analytics. The client was also able to clearly see that many Facebook fans come back to the page with a much frequency, which indicated a good amount of brand loyalty!

Running ads on Facebook can certainly provide new “Likes” and greater user engagement, but often the analytics prove to clients that they reach a cetrtain demographic or that that they have strong brand loyalty.

One of our current clients is going through a website redesign and has indicated that they will use targeted Facebook ads, so I’m in a holding pattern. Through the three brief trials I ran, Facebook ads have certainly proven helpful on many levels.

Want to know more about advertising on Facebook or through other online marketing? We can help. Let us help you define a roadmap to help you reach YOUR business marketing goals!

Posted in Facebook, Marketing | Leave a comment

From Concentrate: PWB Marketing Expands Client Base, Geographic Area

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Tammy

Our C.O.O. Sean Hickey was interviewed by Concentrate the other day. Here is an exerpt of the article posted to their site today. To read more about our expanding client base and business growth, be sure to read the full PWB Marketing Concentrate article.

PWB Marketing Communications has not only seen its client base in Michigan grow over the last year, it’s also expanding its geographic reach.

The Ann Arbor-based marketing agency has recently added to its customer list a software firm based in Montreal called Miya. The two share a business relationship with a third company and started to do some work together over the last year. [Read More]

Some Basic Branding “Don’ts”

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Sean

Recent social media traffic has me feeling like some basic reminders are in order for companies who are using these channels.

: Be your brand. Not something you saw on TMZ.

Don’t #1: Trendy Stuff
By the time you became aware of the Harlem Shake, it was already passé. That’s really swell that your CFO wanted to wear a gorilla suit. But you look like the most interesting thing you could find to say was to copy someone. Be your brand. Not something you saw on TMZ.

Don’t #2: Commenting Excessively on Social Topics
Your personal opinions are just that – yours and personal. Unless same sex marriage impacts your business in some way (for example, you’re a health care insurer and you have some cogent thoughts on the economic impacts of partner benefits) then leave it alone. While we appreciate socially aware companies, this needs to be part of a larger, well thought-out strategy. If you need guidance, watch Patagonia or Target. They both do it well. In fact, go read Yvon Chouinard’s excellent book Let My People Go Surfing if you want to build a socially conscious company. And, no, I won’t loan you my copy. It might be the best business book ever.

Don’t #3: Noise
Don’t have anything valuable to say? Then shut up. Your clients and followers are busy people – they follow you because you deliver value. When you don’t deliver value … well, you get the picture.

Posted in Branding | Tagged branding | Leave a comment

Great Example of Photos in Social Media [Infographic]

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Tammy

Sharing photos in social media often improves the chances that posts get views. It can also help improve user engagement. Hubspot recently reported that Facebook posts using photos received 53% more Likes. In fact imagery is one of the major reasons for the Facebook News Feed redesign. Simply slapping images into posts onto Social Media sites, like Facebook or Twitter isn’t going to cut it. Want to see a great example of sharing photos in social media?

Last week on Facebook, I noticed an image shared on The Soup Facebook Page. It wasn’t simply loaded to the wall in the hopes that someone would see it, instead the photo featured a large yellow rectangle blocking the image. Viewers were then instructed to click-through to see the image, then come back to Facebook to comment on the “Caption This” photo contest.

You may ask yourself, “Why is that important, or in the very least, why would that be noteworthy?” I would then argue that in posting an image with a good part of it blocked, the viewers are drawn in. They are drawn in by the yellow block but they also get the “what’s behind the curtain” feeling and want to peek. That my friends is user engagement. The Soup’s social media interns have just caused fans to take an action!

What makes this example even more special is that the contest wasn’t being run on entirely on The Soup Facebook Page. The post directed viewers to click-through to The Soup to see the image, then asked the viewers to come BACK to Facebook to post their comment. Pretty brilliant eh? Simplicity often is.

A week later The Soup posted the entire image to their Facebook Page which included the best caption. They also wrote a second blog post about the image and Caption This contest that included a second award for the comment with the “Most Likes.” Want to see if YOUR comment won the most likes? You created more user engagement by having fans click-through to the blog yet again.

Want to know something even more amazing? Between their website analytics and the basic analytics Facebook provides, The Soup should be able to guage the effectiveness of the contest, two Facebook posts and two blog posts! It must be working for them. There are more “Caption This” contests happening that include the yellow rectangle.

Now lets’ stop for a moment to consider the many social media sites. How can your business grab attention on each of them by posting photos? Are there things your company can do to improve user engagement acorss channels? With millions of potential viewers and rapidly growing social media platforms this better be something your company is thinking about.

social media, photographs in socail media

Using photos on the many social media platforms often increases visibility. Are you using images to reach more readers? Does using photos improve user engagement?

Infographic Sources: Facebook, Hubspot, CNN

Posted in Facebook, LinkedIn, social media, Twitter | Tagged Facebook, social media | Leave a comment

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Sean

Rebranding is ticklish business. There are a myriad of issues and questions to address to achieve success. Do I just update what I have? Do I throw it all out and start over? Is there significant equity in my current brand mark? Do I rename at the same time? All of these (and more) are among the reasons we believe that working with a solid outside partner is practically mandatory.

I ran across an interesting example from the outdoor industry this weekend. With consolidation, a fair number of the major brands in fly fishing are being rolled up into families. The group that owns Sage fly rods also owns Rio fly lines – and more. Scientific Anglers has been under 3M ownership for a number of years. Last year’s acquisition of Ross Reels by 3M was a significant development.

Almost immediately, Ross was rebranded. Personally, I liked the old logo better – it had a lot of equity and was visually unique. But I see now that they’re trying to get the Ross and Scientific Anglers brands in alignment, so as a marketer I get where they’re coming from.

So now Sage feels compelled to get into the game by rebranding Rio. The old Rio logo looked like an escapee from the 80’s, so it was definitely time to freshen things up.

Here’s where I think it gets weird. The new Rio logo has been in-market for a few months. Something about it has been vaguely bugging me since I first saw it. This weekend I figured out what it was. What do you think?It sure seems to me to look just a bit too much like the new Ross logo. Yeah, I get it, I see the fish. But the basic letterform sure does have a lot of similarities to the Ross logo. And, it gives up one of the strengths of the old Rio logo – the fly line built into the image.

This brings up a key factor of rebranding – adjacency. You can’t just look at what your competitors are doing. What is needed is a holistic view of your segment. Both Rio and Ross are well-known and well-respected brands. I really believe that it would have been a good idea for Rio to consider what Ross had recently done before launching a visually similar brand.

Keep this in mind if you’re considering a rebranding. I think Rio made a major faux pas. One that could have easily been avoided.

But I will give Rio credit for one marketing win. It offered Facebook fans who visited their booth at the Midwest Fly Fishing Show a free hat just for stopping by and mentioning that they were FB fans. Solid way to tie social media to your trade show strategy – nice work, Rio!

Posted in Branding | Tagged B2C, branding, marketing, rebranding | 2 Comments

Censorship: Think Before Deleting Comments in Social Media

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Tammy

Negative opinions and comments that you don’t like don’t merit immediate censorship – Think before hitting delete!

I was chatting with a friend the other day about a comment she didn’t like on a Facebook post. She told me “Well I didn’t like it, so I removed it.” I asked if the comment was especially negative, off-topic or otherwise offensive and she stated that no, she just didn’t like it. This really struck a cord for me, and not in the most positive way.

For social media to be “social” there has to be dialog – Two way dialog. My policies often include never removing negative comments or “opinions” unless they are purposefully nasty to the blog author, advertise irrelevant products or are somehow derogatory in nature. Certainly this leaves room for interpretation, however I feel strongly that everyone has a voice and that voice should be heard so long as it is respectful of whatever policies are in place.

Simply removing a negative opinion often “fires up” the individual who made the comment. It’s like adding fuel to the fire and can cause you to get burnt in the long run. So my advice is to simply leave the comment where it is and respond directly to the post.

Here are a few brief things you can do to address a negative comment on your social media outlets.

Take control before things spin out-of-control and address comments head-on.
Be respectful to those posting the comments; Always take the high-road and be sincere in your response.
Address comments as quickly as possible – A good rule of thumb is to respond to Facebook or blog posts within 24-hours or to Twitter within a few hours.
Personalize how you respond using the individuals name if at all possible. Don’t use terms like “valued customer”. If the writer used an alias to hide their identity, use that name in your response.
Follow-up to the comment in other ways. Can you call the individual? Email them? Respond with a personal message on Facebook?
And most importantly don’t hide your head in the sand and hope it will go away. It won’t!

Be proactive by creating a social media policy ahead of time to guide you and your team should a situation arise. At that point you can ensure discussions remain within the parameters you have set and can enforce the policy regarding offensive posts and comments.

Posted in Facebook, social media, Twitter | Tagged social media | Leave a comment

Facebook Ads In Your Inbox

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Tammy

Fear not, it’s really not the end of the world, however it may be the end of an era. Or is it the beginning of another? Facebook is trying REALLY hard to make some money, and has implemented changes that allows YOUR Messages inbox to be monetized – Yes that’s right, they are beginning to sell your inbox to the highest bidder. Enter the “Inbox delivery test.”

On an announcement in Facebook, the marker has said the following:

“Facebook Messages is designed to get the most relevant messages into your Inbox and put less relevant messages into your Other folder. We rely on signals about the message to achieve this goal.

Some of these signals are social – we use social signals such as friend connections to determine whether a message is likely to be one you want to see in your Inbox.

Some of these signals are algorithmic – we use algorithms to identify spam and use broader signals from the social graph, such as friend of friend connections or people you may know, to help determine relevance.

Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance. This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with.

Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful.

This test is designed to address situations where neither social nor algorithmic signals are sufficient. For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox. For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.

This message routing feature is only for personal messages between individuals in the U.S. In this test, the number of messages a person can have routed from their Other folder to their Inbox will be limited to a maximum of one per week.

We’ll continue to iterate and evolve Facebook Messages over the coming months.”

If you are a marketer. This may be really GREAT news! If you are an individual that thought Facebook was safe from messages like this – well things are a changing. Marketers will now be able to PAY to assure that everyone and anyone will see their messages.

Posted in Facebook, social media | Tagged Facebook, social media | Leave a comment

What Can a Business Review Do For You?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Tammy

Get leverage from your clients by soliciting for positive business reviews!

I’ve been working with several clients on their search and social media strategies. Of course one strategy does not fit every client, however I often recommend that clients make sure they have a couple of business reviews posted across the web – On Google Maps, Yelp and of course on social media sites of their choosing. It’s not as challenging as getting client testimonials, however it can help validate their products and services. There is one caveat though, I want clients to make sure that they get business reviews on the websites their clients are likely to frequent.

Not long ago I posted a review to Google Maps. While I generally liked the local physician, I was dissatisfied at how they handled a recent interaction. Guess what? The business read my comments, and responded with a hand-written note. Later when they found a small balance that I should have paid, they waived the fee. Want to know what I did? I went in and edited my review to tell others what the business had done!

I know several friends that live and die by business reviews of local bars and restaurants. They won’t go to an establishment with un-favorable reviews!

Have you ever searched to see what others are saying about you?

There may be industry specific sites applicable to your business so be sure to consider those, however you should also be aware of where your clients are looking for you. Check out your referring sites through your analytics. Generally speaking though, here are a few places you might consider soliciting business reviews from clients:

AngiesList.com
BBB.org
Bing
City Search
Epinions.com
Google Maps
InsiderPages.com
Local.com
TripAdvisor.com
Yahoo Local
Yelp.com

Do you check on your business reviews? Do you have any posted? Are they favorable or non-existent? Ask for opinions and monitor them – It’s a great way to attract new clients!

Posted in Analytics, SEO | Tagged Search marketing | Leave a comment

Facebook Ads: Do They Work?

From Concentrate: PWB Marketing Expands Client Base, Geographic Area

Some Basic Branding “Don’ts”

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

What Can a Business Review Do For You?

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