One of these ways of filtering is ignoring what is not recognisable and accept only what is already known. When it comes to Marketing, this is one of the signs of effective branding: famous brands grab consumer’s attention more easily than new ones.

And how do you achieve brand recognition on the online world?

In the same way as in the off-line one: message REPETITION and brand CONSISTENCY.

Brand recognition means higher credibility. And on the Internet, credibility leads to increased CTR and more time spent on the site, which in return increases your SEO.

And better SEO means more business.

Using images is a great way of improving your SEO, and there are a few simple but effective actions that will help you achieve this recognition.

Make sure you follow these:

PROFILE IMAGE

First step when promoting your online presence – and probably the most important – is having some brand consistency across all the channels you are using. Your brand must have the same look and feel everywhere.

Even if this principle sounds very basic, there are hundreds of companies using a different profile image depending on the site. This is especially more evident when talking about self-brands, that is: people who brand themselves as a specialist in some field.

Many times the excuse is the lack of a brand logo. Total mistake.

If this is your case, use a good face picture with a clear background. And use the same image everywhere!

You are your brand.

FAVICON

This is the little image that shows at the top of the window or tab when visiting a website. It is also the imaged used by browsers when a website is bookmarked.

Favicon on tab (top) and as a bookmark (bottom)

As mentioned before, seeing your brand embedded in the browser when visiting your website – whether it’s a logo or a headshot - transmits confidence and trust in your business. This is a strong enough reason to spend some time working on your favicon.

It also should keep the idea of consistency explained previously.

How to do it? It all depends on how you’ve built your website, but there are hundreds of plugins out there that allow this without the need of hard coding HTML. I use All in One Favicon for WordPress on this blog .

It is important to remember the favicon image has a size of 16×16 pixels (some browsers allow a 32 x 32 version), which means your image must be very small. Keep this in mind when designing it, as some content may not be visible (e.g.: text)

GOOGLE AUTHORSHIP

Have you seen that cool profile image that shows up next to some results on Google?

As with the favicon, showing an image of the person who created the content transmits confidence and trust. It is the “P” for “People” in the extended Marketing Mix.

To have this feature, there are some requirements:

• You must have a personal Google+ Account.
• Your Google+ profile image must be a recognisable headshot. Full body pics or logos do not work.
• Your website must include your name in the byline of the content you have created.
• The name you use on your website must be the same as the one in your Google+ account.
• You must link Google+ with your website.

According to Google, it is enough to register your e-mail with them. However experience has showed this not always works, so again I recommend going for the plugin solution that will do the hard work for you. In my case I am using Google Plus Authorship for WordPress.

Once these three features are in place, you can be certain your brand will get extra exposure through repetition and consistency, which with time will increase your business results.

Without getting – again – into the debate of whether companies should be focusing on their Reach or their Engagement.

I guess by now most people are aware Facebook uses a formula called EdgeRank to decide what to show to whom. In just a few words, the more someone interacts with a Page, the more content Facebook will show from that Page to that user.

This is where the concept of quality followers on Facebook plays a paramount role.

But it’s not just a matter of quantity (amount of actions) but also quality (types of actions). There are many ways to interact with a Page: liking it, opening a picture, playing a video, confirming an event, claiming an offer, clicking on a link within a post… and of course, the famous Like, Comment and Share. Each of these actions receives a different weight from Facebook.

This weight is used to calculate the EdgeRank score and show more or less content to that user.

Focusing just on Likes, Comments and Shares – simply because they are the most popular types of actions – doing one or another gives higher or lower score and thus it is used by Facebook to decide what content should be shown.

And of course, the more content shown the higher the Reach.

The answer to the original question is:

• A Comment weights approximately as much as 7 Likes
• A Share weights approximately as much as 2 Comments
• Therefore, a Share weights as much as 14 Likes

The reason for these ratios is based on human behaviour.

COMMENTS vs. LIKES

Liking something on Facebook does not require a lot of commitment. It is something very quick and in fact, you can unlike it very easily if you change your mind. It’s the “lazy” option. The smiling and nodding at a party.

On the contrary, Comments require more involvement. Users need to choose their words and spend some time writing them. And most times those words bring also an opinion that will be made public to many people.

Facebook understands, if users are taking that extra effort it’s because the content is worth it. And thus assigns much more weight than what it does to a simple Like.

Comments is like talking to people at that party and try to make an impression.

SHARES vs. COMMENTS

Users Sharing make that content part of their own. Not only they Like it, but they want their friends to see it too. It’s like saying: “hey world, check this out. It’s not mine but I think it’s still worth it, so please have a look”.

Besides, when Sharing they can also include an additional comment – and statistics show that most times they do it.

Shares are like getting ideas from that party to use at your own event, acknowledging with all your guests those ideas are from a previous event!

THE REALITY BEHIND THIS RATIOS

The truth is: Facebook has not ever confirmed how EdgeRank works in detail, and these ratios are based on statistics across hundreds of pages. Thus, there are some considerations to remember:

• They are just an average, and it could happen that in your Page the ratios are slightly different to these. If this is the case, it probably has a lot to do with your content, frequency of posts and unique audience.
• They are decided by Facebook, and Facebook could change the weight of them at any time without prior notice. Although if this happens, it is fair to assume Shares will still be heavier than Comments, and these heavier than Likes.

To sum it up: the more interesting your content is, the more keen your followers will be to Share it or make Comments. And thus, the higher your Reach will be.

So, what is the big deal?

With CPC and CPM advertising, you work on a game of guess, assuming that users may be interested in your offer, but without a real guarantee they will convert to your campaign goal.

And this is where CPA becomes a great alternative.

But before using this option, it is important to understand the pros and cons of each option.

CPC ADVERTISING

With this model you pay only when someone clicks on your ad (CPC stands for Cost Per Click). Explained in this simple terms it looks like a good option: your ad shows to a lot of people, but only those really interested will click on it, right?

Unfortunately human behaviour is not so simple.

Some people may click several times in your ad because they couldn’t remember they did it previously. Others could click only because they like the ad itself, regardless of what you have to offer. And what about misinterpreted ads like the one I showed at my last post?

Not to mention there are some morons out there who would click on your ad on purpose several times just to corrupt your analytics with fake data….

Good option? Yes. Perfect? No 

CPM ADVERTISING

On a Cost Per Mille model you pay for every thousand times your ad is displayed – regardless if users click on it or not.

Costs usually are lower than CPC, and if you are targeting the right audience, a CPM model could be very effective especially to create brand awareness or for new product launches.

But, how do you know your target audience is optimal?

A small error when creating the campaign could turn dramatic and provide very bad results. What happens if, from every user seeing the ad, nobody really clicks through to find out more about your offer?

With this model you could still show your ad to a lot of people and not get any results at all…

OPTIMISED CPM

Further to traditional CPM Facebook offers this option where, based on existing behavioural data from users, the platform will prioritise showing your ad to those who are more likely to perform specific actions, such as: Page Likes, App Installs, Reach per day, clicks, etc…

This is very close to CPA, but we are still talking of a CMP model where you could still pay without having any new conversion.

We are not there yet. 

Optimised CPM on Facebook Power Editor

CPA ON FACEBOOK….

With this model – already being used in Google AdWords and other advertising platforms – you pay only when the user has performed an action you have previously chosen, which for now are only: Page Likes, link clicks and offer claims.  However it is fair to assume other actions will roll out in the future.

It doesn’t matter how many people have seen your ad or how many have clicked on it: if they have not performed that specific action, you will not pay for that ad. And when you do, you know it’s because you are one step closer to your campaign goal.

Ain’t that great?

But not everything are good news though, as for the moment this option will be available only through Facebook Ads API, which means only authorized developers or third party tools may be used to create campaigns with this model.

It is a starting point though, and I am sure Facebook will make this available to Power Editor and Self Serve platforms very soon. I am keen to start testing it and will share my experience then.

The main image of this post is a translated version of a real campaign run some years ago by a tyre service company in Spain. You can see the pics here.

I think there is no need to explain why it went viral online. But, did it achieve its business goals? I don’t have this information, however I doubt they managed to increase the sales of tyres thanks to that sign.

Effective but misleading campaign.

Some days ago I read an excellent guest post by Ryan Hanley on Jon Loomer’s blog, providing some tips about how to beat EdgeRank and increase your Page Reach.

What Ryan recommends is to give people what they like and expect. And in the example he mentions, people seems to like pets and babies – regardless of the Page industry.

This is an over-simplified summary, you better read the whole article to understand Ryan’s rationale.

It is a smart approach that will certainly beat EdgeRank – and that I use sometimes too: the idea is creating a post that will lead people to Like, Comment or Share (aka: create a story)

However there is a risky side on this: Ryan is an experienced marketer that knows when and how to apply this; but there are many people out there looking for a quick solution for their Reach “problem” (is it really a problem?) that may not consider the pros and cons of this solution.

EFFECTIVE (BUT OVERUSED) FACEBOOK POST-HOOKS

Babies and pets are only two of the list of content topics used by Pages as a way to engage with their audiences, beat EdgeRank and thus boost their reach. Other commonly used topics are:

1. SEX

The fact that Facebook Terms & Conditions of use does not allow nudity, doesn’t mean some sexual innuendo is often included in posts and ads. Just show an image of a hot girl in bikini or a muscular guy getting out of the pool and the audience will surely stop and click to enlarge the image.

These are very effective, but also highly misleading and people get tired of them very quickly. Remember the sign from the tyre service company.

2. FUN

There is nothing wrong with some fun and in fact everyone likes laughing. Marketers know this and they will try to post funny content hoping to have more stories generated. One of my favourite solutions, but keep always your industry as part of the content.

3. EMOTIONS

How often do we see images about sick kids, natural disasters, global warming, human rights abuses… Most people have enough level of empathy to click on some of these and read the story attached, which is enough for EdgeRank to establish some affinity. But some of them could also make people “look elsewhere” – especially if they are impacting images.

4. QUOTES

“The good thing of the Internet is that you can post whatever you want and nobody will care to use Google and verify the source” - Abraham Lincoln

(No more comments needed)

But many people still take some action and usually share or like the quote.

5. BEAUTY

I am referring to anything that will make the user dream and disconnect from reality: a nice tropical beach, a sports car, the Earth seen from space… In each of these posts (images or not), most people will picture themselves in that particular location. And they may create a story.

BAD FACEBOOK POST-HOOKS: AVOID!

6. FAKE ACTIONS

This recent trend consist on trick the user into thinking something “magical” will happen if they do some actions. Usually they have an interesting image and some instructions, such as “Write down the city where you live, press the key “L” on your keyboard, and see what happens”

Well…NOTHING happens. NADA, NIENTE, RIEN… except for the fact that the user has just made a comment (the name of the city) and a like (pressing “L”) into that page, creating not one, but TWO stories and thus boosting the Page EdgeRank

7. CONTROVERSY

There is a quote that says “It doesn’t matter what they say so long as they are talking about you”, and this is precisely the purpose of this type of post. Just say something that will upset half of your followers and the other half will support, and you’ll create a never-ending debate of comments that is only tricking EdgeRank into thinking all those users are interested in your page.

There is a downside of this though, and it is Negative Feedback, thus: those users reporting abusive comments, unliking your page, hiding some comments… if this figure is too high, Facebook may penalise your page.

THE PROBLEM OF FACEBOOK POST-HOOKS

There is nothing wrong to post a variety of content that changes over time. However if not used correctly, these hooks could distract your audience from your business offer. They may even not remember what your brand is about!

Another issue is, you may end up with a lot of followers that are not genuinely interested in your brand. The main purpose of your Facebook strategy is to communicate your business message with people interested –  NOT having more followers than your competitors.

My recommendation is:

• Use posts that are always related to your industry to some degree. In the tyre company example, highlighting the words OIL CHANGE would probably have been also an effective sign.
• Do not over-use them. Posting every day the same type of post and content may end up blurring your brand and message, as people start creating wrong associating of your Page.
• Never – NEVER – user Fake Actions or Controversy as your hooks. You may end up having a lot of negative feedback that EdgeRank will use to give you a bad score.

What other type of post-hooks have you found on Facebook? Do you think they were effective?

Its simplicity creates a problem though, as not many users take the time to do some training and learn all its features properly. Others, even if they know how to use it, simply forget a basic principle:

Web Analytics are aimed to understand human behaviour when users visit your site.

When this concept goes forgotten, or when the knowledge on the tool is not deep enough, the results shown by some metrics could easily be misinterpreted. The following are the 10 most common mistakes when analysing Google Analytics reports:

1. BOUNCE RATE

Probably the most common error of all, it happens when the user freaks out after seeing a high Bounce Rate. The problem is focusing only on this metric without understanding how Google tracks this info.

When accessing a page, Google Analytics tracks the user activity. If the user does not interact actively with that page (e.g.: clicks somewhere) Google does not track any action. So, a user could spend some minutes reading some content without “interacting”, then close the page and this will be considered as a bounce.

In other words, some degree of Bounce Rate is still acceptable (if it’s not too high) and will always exist.

2. LOCATION

Google identifies the location of the user based on their computer IP address. However there could be some cases where users access the Internet through a Proxy that could be located elsewhere: in this cases Google will report all those visitors as being on that other location.

This reporting error is more common when working with B2B, as some organisations – especially large ones – use Proxies to provide access to the Internet. If this is your case, don’t be surprised if you see many accesses from a location other than where your main customer base is.

3. LANGUAGE

This information represents the language in which the computer accessing your website is configured, but does not necessarily show the reality of the person behind – although you could probably assume that person probably understands that language. However if your main audience is in a multicultural location where two or more languages coexist, this data could be slightly different.

4. AVERAGE VISIT DURATION

Internet software allows multi-browsing, which means people can open your page and then go and read something else on a different tab whilst your page remains open. Similar to what happens with the Bounce Rate ratio, in this case a high visit duration does not necessarily show the reality.

5. MOBILE

Access from mobile does not mean only smartphones, but may also include tablets. If you check this ratio to consider, for example, if it’s time to invest on a mobile friendly version of your site, then it is necessary to get into this metric specifics and filter by “Device”

6. NEW & RETURNING VISITOR

Google Analytics tracks visits using cookies, which means that if a user deletes their browsing history after visiting your site (e.g.: due to a company policy, computer settings, etc…) then a following visit from the same person will count as a different visitor and thus will increase the “New Visitor” ratio.

Also, it is not rare to access a website from different devices: home, work, mobile… so the same visitor could be counted as New one on different occasions.

7. HOURLY VISITORS

This sort timeframe is OK to track some campaigns, but could also be confusing, especially if your website is accessed from people around the world. If you have a peak of visitors at a certain time, does that mean it is a good time for business in your location? Or maybe your visitors come from a different place where the time is better for business.

8. REFERRAL TRAFFIC

Many people use this metric to find out how many backlinks point to their website, however this report may include sites that are not really a referrer. For example, searching for images or news on Google will show as a referral from google.com, rather than as organic search.

If the the goal is to understand which pages are sending you traffic, you should either: filter the information reported from Google Analytics, or use Google Webmaster Tools.

9. LANDING PAGE

As the name says, it shows only where people arrived to your website. But this is not synonymous of popularity, as visitors could arrive to one page and then change to a different one where they spend more time and even bookmark it. Which one would be more popular in this case?

In order to evaluate page popularity, it is necessary to consider other metrics, such as Pageviews, Av. Time Spent on the Page, etc…

10. IN PAGE ANALYTICS

The percentage figures displayed over each link could be easily mistaken if you do not consider that these values refer to where the link leads – rather than the link itself. For instance, if your page has a “Contact” option in the menu, and another one on the side bar, both pointing to the same contact page, then those percentage figures will be exactly the same on both links.

What is your experience with these metrics? Do you struggle to use any of them?

But there is a solution: two weeks ago Facebook announced the launch of Lookalike Audiences to enhance the advertising capabilities of brands

“Hang on…LOOK-A-WHAT? “

Before explaining what Lookalike Audiences are and how your Facebook Page could benefit from them, it is important to introduce another concept: Custom Audiences.

FACEBOOK CUSTOM AUDIENCES

This feature, launched in September 2012 and not known by many marketers, gives companies the ability to reach an existing customer base who may not necessarily be following the brand on Facebook.

You could have an customer list that you have built over time. Maybe you use it to send newsletters, promotions or maybe it is just a record of previous customers. But they all have something in common: they are people who have agreed to give you their e-mail address and/or phone number, so you can communicate with them. Quite probably you have a lot of data from this group.

On the other hand, you have a consolidated Facebook audience that follows your brand and would even provide further exposure (aka: “Reach” in Facebook terms).

But there is a disconnection here: how well do you know all your Page followers? and, how many of your existing customers follow your Page?

As you can imagine, there will probably be many previous customers that, although have purchased from you, may not necessarily follow your brand and thus do not maintain a constant communication line. They could be missing offers, new products or services, news…

…and you may be missing a lot of good loyal brand advocates that could boost your page Reach!

But how do you connect with them? How do you show them your message? Probably you have already asked them to follow you on Facebook, but this hasn’t worked. And this is where Custom Audiences become useful.

Custom Audiences lets you import your contact list, and Facebook will look for those people on its records and show your message to them – regardless if they follow your brand or not. Furthermore, you can even target specific segments of your list. For example: people living in your city who are aged between 25 and 35.

INTRODUCING: LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES

In theory, Custom Audiences is limited by the number of people you have on your records, and this is a problem – especially if your list is not too large. But there’s another problem: that limit is only theoretical. In the reality you will get to a point in which no more previous-customers will follow your brand – doesn’t matter how effective your message is. Maybe they were not happy with your product, maybe the e-mail address you have is not the same they provided Facebook… or maybe they don’t even have Facebook!

So, your Custom Audience is always going to be equal or lower than your database record. Until Lookalike Audiences arrived…

Lookalike Audiences allows to reach a larger non-fan audience, by matching interests and characteristics from your existing Customer Audiences.

Imagine in that previous Custom Audience of people living in your city and aged between 25-35, 70% of them like soccer and Chinese food. Lookalike Audiences will allow you to reach non-fans who are in the same demographics and have the same interests. Without a doubt a very useful tool that, if used correctly, will boost your Reach and business results.

What techniques do you use to increase your reach? Have you already used Custom Audiences?

Unfortunately there is not a simple answer for that question, it would be like asking “how long it’s a piece of string”. The right amount of posts depends on many factors: your industry, your business nature (B2B or B2C), company objectives, your demographics, previous activity, current metrics, etc…

As a rule of thumb, many Digital Marketing Consultants recommend posting on Facebook at least once a day – and not more than five times. On Twitter there is not a clear figure, however everyone seems to agree you should post at least once every few hours.

I insist: these figures are very general, and they could change depending on each Page. However they seem to be an accepted standard.

But, why?

Because of how each of these Social Media networks show content to your followers.

FACEBOOK: TARGETING USER ENGAGEMENT

Facebook does not show everything to everyone. It works with an algorithm (or formula) called “EdgeRank” that decides what to show depending on affinity between an user and a Page. In just a few words: the less someone clicks, likes, comments or shares your content, the less Facebook will show further content to that person. In this case, even if the Page keeps posting a lot of content, this won’t be shown to that user so easily, so in order to increase your reach it is very important to have an engaged audience.

In other words, higher engagement produces higher reach.

It is estimated that if a user doesn’t see your post within 2 hours of being posted, he/she will never see it. The problem is: you don’t know when your followers are connected; so if you don’t post enough, your reach will decrease drastically. If on the opposite, if you post too often, those users who receive your posts may feel annoyed and simply stop following your page.

So my recommendation as a Digital Marketing Consultant is: post less often high quality content that will induce your followers to take action – that is: comment, like, share or click. In this way, not only their friends will also see your posts, but also Facebook will keep showing them content from your page.

TWITTER: THE QUEST OF REACH

Twitter works differently and shows everything to everyone. Some may think this is a better option but it only means anyone posting right after you will push your tweet down the news feed.

Let’s say you tweet at 10:00am, and your average fan follows 100 accounts. Now imagine that fan connects to Twitter at 10:10am, but between your post an 10:09, 50 of the other followers twitted something too…. So your post will be pushed down by…50 tweets !!!

Could you image if that user followed 1,000 accounts instead? Which in Twitter world, it is not a large figure.

If that user has time – and patience – to scroll down, he/she may find your tweet…but most times your presence will be diluted in the crowd of messages. Hence why on Twitter it is important to post more often: so you increase the chances your followers will see your messages. Once every couple of hours seems to be a good average.

How often do you post on each of these Social Media networks? Have you tested a different schedule in either of them?

The problem is, not many times they stop to analyse the reasons for those figures. And from those who do it, not many consider how the specific demographics of their followers could be the reason for these results.

Or better said: is their Page content adequate for their audience?

Without getting into too much detail (I would really need to organise a training to go through all the specifics) the following are some demographics where the information provided in Facebook Insights could assist you to create better content that will boost your audience engagement. Of course there are many other demographics that could be considered (e.g.: mobile vs. non mobile, metropolitan vs. regional, etc…), however these ones are the most commonly used in any marketing campaign.

Gender: MALE vs. FEMALE

Gender is one of the first things you see after accessing your Facebook Insights. It’s not a secret that “Men are from Mars and Women from Venus”, but how does this different behaviour affect your Facebook Page content?

• Majority Female Audience: Women are more reactive to posts involving feelings and emotions, and tend to pay more attention to longer posts – or those that require more visual attention. For example, a picture of a car with a comment suggesting that “it will make your driving experience more enjoyable” works better on women than on men. Women are also more open to communicate – especially with other women – so posts that incite to comment, share or like are also more effective.
• Majority Male Audience: Men are driven more by facts and numbers as well as more primordial stimuli (food, sex, status…), and we struggle to pay attention to posts with complex content. Make short and specific posts and focus on features and quantifiable aspects (speed, size, time, numbers…) Commenting, Liking and Sharing is easier when the post involves things such as: humour, quotes, scientific stuff, etc…

Age: YOUNG vs. MATURE

Also quite easy to identify in Facebook Insights, although in this case results are classified in several age groups (seven, to be precise) and split by gender, thus content analysis is a bit more complex than when considering only gender.

• Majority Mature Audience: A well known trait of baby boomers is their brand loyalty and patience to look for the right service / product. Without focusing just on that term (too overused in Marketing, and too limited), a mature audience will engage more with your Page if you post less often but content is consistent, without large variations. For example, posting twice a week and focusing mainly on topics related with your industry will produce better engagement.
• Majority Young Audience: Younger generations are used to receive many messages from many sources, and care less about loyalty if there is a new competitor that can provide a better offering. In this case it is better to post more often, but changing the type of message to provide some diversity. Post daily and create a content calendar with things such as: funny posts, games, news and current affairs, etc… Of course, all of which related with your business or industry.

Location: LOCAL vs. GLOBAL

Although most pages represent a business that operates only on one country, the Internet gives you the ability to go global! Unfortunately inadequate content could lead to disengagement from followers from other regions that otherwise, could also bring an important part of business.

• Global audience: Be aware of your main countries and start by trying to identify some patterns. Do they all speak the same language? Are all located in the same geographical area? Do they have a similar culture? When posting, ignore events that are local (unless you are using Facebook targeted posts) and try to think of things that could interest the whole audience. Be conscious about things such as: time zones, inverted seasons in northern and southern hemisphere, etc… So if you Page is in Australia but most of your audience comes from the US, UK and Canada, do not ask them what is their preferred beach to spend Christmas Day: it could actually sound funny – and thus produce some initial engagement – but too many of these posts will make your audience switch off.
• Local audience: In this case it is very important to show your followers that you are close to them and you care about the events happening nearby. The beauty of Facebook Insights is, it will not only tell you the country, but also the town of origin, so if your audience comes from a very specific area, it is also good to focus at that level.

What other demographics are important in your Page? Do you currently have any content strategy in place?

One of these cases is tracking where your visitors are coming from.

Of course Google offers this metric under the “Traffic Sources” option, however data here is shown at a top level. For example, it will show how many visitors you receive from Facebook, but without showing details about which specific posts, ads or comments are driving this traffic.

Wouldn’t it be great to know also this?

There is a solution for everything though, and in this case it’s called URL Campaign Tracker. What this means is, by adding an extra (long) string of (funny) text to your normal URL, Google will understand “what you are tracking” on and “how do you want it to be reported”

USING GOOGLE URL BUILDER

Personally, I don’t like to write long pieces of text that only computers understand. I am sure nobody does. Hence why Google created a tool called URL Builder, which creates the new URL you should use on your campaigns. The steps to follow are simple as 1-2-3

1. Type the URL of the post/page/content you want to track. That is: the page where you want people to land when they will click on your link.
2. Select the fields that will help you identify your campaign on Google Analytics. From the available fields, 3 are compulsory – so I’ll focus only on those.
   1. Source: Where are your visitors coming from. For example: Newsletter, Printed, Facebook…
   2. Medium: Marketing tool you are using. For example, On a Facebook Campaign (Source = Facebook) the medium could be: Timeline Post, a Tab/App, an Ad…
   3. Campaign Name: How do you want to identify this specific campaign. For example: “Newsletter Promotion – Christmas”
3. Final step is… create the new URL!

An example of how to use the URL Builder Tool

SHORTEN YOUR URL

The new URL will already work and you could include it anywhere you want (instead of the original URL you typed on Step 1), however it could probably be really long, which will affect not only user Click Through Rate (some users don’t like to click on URLs that look too long or “weird”), but also not appropriate for some websites such as Twitter, where posts are limited to 140 characters.

The solution is to use a URL shortening tool. My preferred one is Bitly, however, there are plenty of them out there. Even Google has its own.

The added benefit of shortening your “way-too-long” URL is that, most URL shortening platforms offer also analytics, which could be used as confirmation and backup of the data that Google Analytics will show.

WHERE TO USE URL WITH CAMPAIGN TRACKING

As the name says… where you want to track a campaign. But also, when you want to differentiate the sources of traffic coming from the same campaign. Some common applications are:

• Newsletters: It may help you identify with issue of your Newsletter created that traffic.
• Hidden in QR codes: Convert your shortened URL into a QR code to be placed on printed material, and you’ll be able to find out how many people are scanning your code.
• Social Media posts: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest… anywhere you want to drive people to your site, it would be good to know from which specific post they are coming from.
• Online ads: is the same campaign running different ads types? Maybe you would like to know which one is more successful

Campaign tracking is a very useful technique that will certainly help you to decide where to invest your money and energies. Have you ever used it? I am keen to know your experience.

I think this reaction is quite exaggerated, after all nobody obligates any business to use Facebook. I understand that some of the platform rules could upset some users, but if you don’t like them then don’t play their game. It’s as simple as that: a life without Facebook is still possible!

Quite probably this sentiment generates from the fact that many of these companies had spent a lot of money on Promoted Posts with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. I know some cases in which they have promoted every single post!

Being the real reach much higher than what was reported by Facebook, these businesses have been spending money for the wrong reason. Some are even suggesting Facebook created this bug on purpose as a way to earn more money from its users.

Really? Do you think Facebook does not have any other better ways to generate revenue?

FACEBOOK INSIGHTS REACH METRIC HAD A BUG: WHO THE HELL CARES

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am ignoring the issue….only that I don’t give it as much importance as others do. Why? Simply because I consider other metrics much more important, such as Engagement or “People Talking About This” (PTAT)

For a few days, I thought I was the only one not concerned about this bug, but yesterday I read an article from Jon Loomer (one of my favourite Social Media gurus) where he shares similar ideas.

“But hey, over the past months you have written a few articles about Facebook Reach!”

TRUE; but I have done this as a response to specific discussions I have previously had with other people. The Reach metric seems to be a topic that distresses many companies and marketers, so I have written about it when the situation has required it.

WHY FACEBOOK REACH BUG DOES NOT WORRY ME?

Very simple: Reach tells you how many people may have seen your post on their News Feed….but does not guarantee they have “absorbed” and processed your message. Imagine placing a TV ad on National Television on the first seconds of the New Year. Every home has the TV on, thus your reach should be massive, right? But…how many people really receive your message? Not many, as mostly everyone will be greeting their friends and relatives on that moment, and thus not paying attention to the TV.

If you reach many people, but you don’t grab their attention so they take some action… your message will be lost. As Benjamin Franklin said:

“Tell me, I’ll forget. Teach me, I’ll remember. Involve me, I’ll understand”

Just replace the word “involve” with “engage” and… it all makes sense.

Reach is a commonly used metric, but it could be quite irrelevant if not used wisely. I always recommend using it as a support or verification metric of the Engagement and PTAT ones – but never by itself. Obviously, the higher the Reach, the higher the chances for someone to engage with your message, but all what I’m saying is: do not put all your marketing efforts only on this metric.

So, to all those companies joining the protests against Facebook, I would recommend to have some strategy in place. Establish your goals first, and only then decide which metrics will help you track your performance best.

As I’ve said other times: Less winging. More Marketing