Things You Should Know For 2017

Facebook

The platform's getting more and more business friendly.  If you’re not spending some of your time every month looking at how your business page is performing, you’re probably missing out.

Video

Continues to grow in importance - particularly on the aforementioned network.  Remember when you didn’t see the point of writing blogs?  Equate that to you currently not seeing the point of doing video.

Advertising

A little bit of money now goes a long way.  If you can’t find $50 a month to spend on digital ads then you’ve probably got bigger problems to worry about.  However, a $20 narrow.io account and a dollar a day on Facebook Ads will have a significant impact on your business.

Mobile

Google is splitting its mobile index from its desktop one and guess which is getting priority?  You don’t really need to understand that - what you do need to do is look at how your website performs on mobile, and if you’re blogging that you’re using AMP technology.  No idea what I’m talking about - you should probably get in touch.

Strategy

If you’d like help developing a plan that makes best use of your time and resources, drop me a line. If you’d like help setting up Facebook ads - get in touch with Molly at Taylor Digital Marketing - she's great.

It's Friday

I'm not going to be sending a regular weekly email this year, most likely it will be monthly or when there's something of particular relevance.

I wish you all a very profitable 2017.
 

Do you love music?  Tell us about your favorite track and we'll see if it fits one of our playlists: http://musicto.com

Image credit: Focus by Kenya Allmond on Flickr

The Juggernaut you Need To Be On

Facebook revenue: $6.43 Billion +59% on last year

Facebook profit: $2.05 Billion +186% on last year

(Oh yeah - and these are just figures from the last quarter!)

It’s About Mobile

4 years ago Facebook made exactly zero dollars from mobile.

Nowadays more than 1 billion people check Facebook from their phones every single day.

As a result, mobile now accounts for 84% of its advertising revenue, that’s $5.24 billion every 3 three months.

So what?

It means that advertising on Facebook works.

It means that ads have to perform well on mobile devices

It means that if you have a product or service that appeals to the general public, you might want to be thinking about how you can use the channel.

Feeling a little down? Listen to this, it really helps you feel better.

Image credit:  AT&T - 1968 rchappo2002 on Flickr

Are You Mobile Friendly?

I know - if I’m not banging on about Video I’m ramming mobile down your throats but trust me on this one, it’s important.

I’m not going to bore you with the detail behind Google’s projected separation of mobile from the search index or what AMP means, or how to determine what percentage of your target demographic are looking at your site on a phone.

What I am going to do is encourage you to put your website url into this link:

https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

If you don’t get a big green check mark - well, you should probably do something about that.

Oh - and if you are interested in finding out which which sections of your audience use mobile and developing an appropriate content production, site design and sharing strategy - then, get in touch.

Feeling a little down? Listen to this, it really helps you feel better.

Image Credit:  Gilles Lambert on UnSplash

Get On Your Phone!

You know the difference between you and your customers when it comes to your business’ digital footprint?

You experience it on a big screen - they experience it on a phone.

Think about it - when it’s time for you to “do marketing” you’re at your desk using your office computer or a laptop.

Social Is Mobile

We all have Facebook pages, most of us have Twitter and Instagram accounts.  We have them in order to increase the reach of our messaging.

Having run several rounds of Facebook ads for different clients I can tell you that the vast majority of social traffic that comes through to your website is overwhelmingly mobile - in some cases over 90%.

Design For Mobile First

We just changed the landing page for a current Facebook campaign when we discovered that the average time on page for mobile visitors was less than half that of desktop visitors. 

Turned out that the beautiful layout that worked perfectly on a large screen became way too text heavy and complex on a mobile screen.  It was a simple fix, but with nine times as much mobile traffic as desktop - we should have started with the mobile design first.

Get Off Your Desktop

The next time you “do marketing” spend some of that time on your phone, you might be surprised at how different you look.

Find yourself procrastinating and avoiding your work? Listen to this, it really helps you get things done

Image Credit: Smartphone Abstraction by Jonas Smith on Flickr

Time to Revisit Facebook

I’ve not been a particular fan of Facebook for business.  Sure it was amazing in the beginning but over time if you didn’t have a huge budget and content team - it was tough to see any kind of ROI.

But as with everything in the digital marketing world - things change, check these facts out:

• Last year about 20% of the world’s population logged into Facebook - on the same day!
• Business’ organic reach - which has been steadily declining for years is now back on the rise
• In some markets, Facebook is sending more traffic to websites than Google

Google Ads Vs. Facebook Ads

Google grew because its core product - selling ads - worked and businesses made more money.

But what was Facebook’s core product for businesses?  A place for them to hang out & meet customers?  The ability to organically move their annoying message into the news-feed?  No - it was and is again - Ads, but for years Facebook Ads sucked.

Facebook Ads No Longer Suck

Whether it’s the amount of people, the easy to use interface or the incredibly granular control that allows you to target all single female nurses between the ages of 25 and 33 who have a passion for bodybuilding and theme parks, love beer, own a dog and have just got a new job,  I’m beginning to see Facebook Ads work for small businesses again.

There’s 3,500 people on the planet, using Facebook, who meet the above set of requirements.  Think about what image you could put in their mobile news-feed to grab their attention!

Huge Mobile Ad Distribution

One recent campaign we did for a local business saw less than 3% of click throughs come from the desktop- whereas 48% came from the mobile news feed and 47% came from off-Facebook mobile apps and networks.

Try It Out

You can get in the game for as little as $150, so long as you get creative with your Ad imagery and have a decent landing page that will convert.  If you need a hand - get in touch.

Written while listening to: Music to Grieve to - Acceptance #1 by music2work2

Image Credit: dinero facebook by Esther Vargas on Flickr

2015 Internet Trends - More Mobile - More Video

2015 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

I always look forward to Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report, it’s 196 slides of the sexiest business intelligence you’ll read all year, and as you probably won’t, here are some of the main takeaways:

• Mobile ads are getting good
• The power of messaging and real time communication
• The growth of Men’s imagery
• How to manage Millenials
• The importance of customer reviews
• How to capture the teen market
• and much, much more…

What’s most relevant for you?

While 2013 was about mobile and 2014 was the development of the tablet audience, this year it’s about video.  But just to underline how important mobile has become consider this, back in 2011 people spent less than 1 hour a day on mobile devices (phones, tablets etc) - now they spend almost 3 hours and that accounts for over half the time they spend online!

That’s nuts!

But while mobile traffic grew 69% last year, the real insight is that over 55% of that traffic was video!  Just check out these figures from Facebook:

• 50% of all Facebook users watch at least one video a day
• 53% of those views come from shares
• 75% of those views happen on mobile.

Takeaway for 2015

Now before you all leap off and start your own YouTube channels let’s be real.  Those videos getting shared on Facebook probably have more to do with puppies than they do small businesses. 

The takeaway for me is that video is now a mature channel and is just one of the options you have to communicate your story.  Have a think about where and how you could use video as part of your overall communications strategy, with all the different options and platforms, you should be able to find something that works for you and your customers.

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Written while listening to: Tubular Bells Part 1 Mike Oldfield

2015 Internet Trends: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends