The Best Session I Attended at #SMMW17

“We know that 50% of content shared on social gets ZERO shares. So why should you keep sharing on social media when most of the content goes nowhere? ”

My favorite lecture this year by far was "Hacking Facebook Ads: How 50 Dollars Can Drive Enormous Traffic to Your Best Content," by Larry Kim. 

Larry was introduced as the founder of Wordstream, a company of 225 employees that manages $1 billion of ad spend spread among 10,000 clients. (He has since moved on to found Mobile Monkey.) 

He sounded like a smart guy, and he was. 

What I loved about his approach was the intensity: he had something different to say, and he was going to spit it out. But his ability to share the concepts clearly and make them understandable made his talk very powerful. 

And what he had to say: we know that 50% of content shared on social gets ZERO shares. Organic social media reach and engagement are terrible, and paid search costs a lot. 

These are some of the most common complaints I hear from clients: "Why should I keep sharing on social media when most of my content goes nowhere?" 

In response, I've heard gurus point out that sharing good content consistently is absolutely crucial. You must keep going, to develop your reputation as an authority, to get your message "out there," to continue to allow for the possibility that the right people will see you at the right time.

Conventional wisdom. Larry is not a fan. "Social media marketing does feel a little bit like a suicide mission," was an actual thing he said. 

Larry's reasoning for sharing content consistently motivates me, because it's a reason that can make a crucial difference in your business. His point: use social media ads to promote pieces of content that you've shared organically that have performed well above average for you. Posts that you could classify as "viral" relative to the average performance of your content. 

This is the reason to continue to share content consistently: to have a baseline for engagement and clicks. That way, when a piece of content really outshines that baseline--goes viral relative to your other content--you know you can promote it cheaply on Facebook and Twitter. 

No one else at Social Media Marketing World share this concept this year in this way, and it knocked my socks off. 

He called these posts that are viral relative to your average content "unicorns." The other stuff he called "donkeys." 

Image via http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/15/quality-content-defined?utm_content=bufferf7406&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Read a deep-dive into this concept here. What do you think about this idea for choosing the content you boost with Facebook ad $$? 

Networking Is Not Easier When You Are an Extrovert

data-animation-override>
“Introverts have it rough at networking events. But you know who else doesn’t like feeling super awkward about trying to find and connect with people at a big event who would be great business and career connections? EXTROVERTS. ”

One of the talks at Social Media Marketing World last week was called, “Conference Networking for Introverts: Ninja Tricks and Tips.” The description: 

Do you believe there are potentially new connections that can be forged at SMMW17 that can help advance your business or career? Do you want to leave this conference with new contacts, relationships and follow-up meetings already scheduled? And do you feel the only challenge is knowing how to reach out and connect with them?

It’s funny because it’s not the first time I’ve heard someone describe networking as a challenge for introverts.

But you know who else doesn’t like feeling super awkward about trying to find and connect with people at a big event who would be great business and career connections? EXTROVERTS. Networking can be a big challenge for extroverts, too. 

I should know, because I am an extrovert. 

Introverts get all the glory in the solopreneur world—they love working from home, quietly on their own projects, eating cereal and quesadillas all day in their PJs.

This is not me. I love my business, but I miss working with people. (I do enjoy the quesadillas.)  

I’m an extrovert who runs a business solo, works with all of my clients by phone or email only, and spends about 60 percent of the week working from home. I. Get. Lonely. 

So by Tuesday night, at an unofficial warm-up mixer for Social Media Marketing World, I was chomping at the bit to chat it up! Even so, I was nervous. That’s because networking events can result in two very uncomfortable scenarios, scenarios that are not mutually exclusive, which means, both can strike at the same exact moment. Ack.

Scenario 1: socially awkward nightmares. The silences. The pauses. The realization that you are talking to someone with whom you have nothing in common. How do you exit without being rude? How do you let them exit, when it’s so clearly what they want to do??? 

Scenario 2: This scenario only happened to me once at SMMW–it happens to me about once at almost every networking event I attend. A man came up to me, asked me what I do, and then told me that what I do is related to what he does, and then told me how. You wanna know how? … Me, too. I’m still wondering after his explanation. Anyway, sometimes what you do and what I do are two things that are not related. But that didn’t stop this dude from shoving a business card in my hand. 

This scenario is a distance cousin of FOMO. I call it: “FONMESHICIBO.” Fear of Not Making Every Single Human Interaction at a Conference Into a Business Opportunity.  

Please don’t misunderstand me: I would have been happy to have a conversation with this man. But instead what we had was a sort of in-person reading of each other’s website homepages or the top of each other’s LinkedIn profiles. It was just weird.  

Anyway, that’s the bad. There was plenty of good–way more than bad. And for me, a lot of it occurred on Days 2 and 3 of the conference, after I re-listened to a Tim Ferriss podcast episode about how he networked at South by Southwest. Whatever you think of Tim Ferriss, the advice was simple: 

Don’t dismiss people. Don’t be a [jerk]. Don’t rush.

Here’s what I learned after incorporating that advice into 2 days of talking my face off with a bunch of marketers who love to talk about business.

Don’t dismiss people: it is OK to have several conversations at a networking event that are unlikely or even absolutely not going to turn into a business opportunity. I had great conversations about the nitty gritty of Facebook Ads–and learned a few useful things!–with people who are never going to be clients of mine.  But they know who I am and they know I know my stuff. 

Don’t be a [jerk]: this really didn’t happen at all at SMMW. It really attracts non-jerky people. So I’ll use Tim’s example: a woman asked a speaker what apps he had on his phone, so he showed his home screen to her. From there she grabbed the phone from his hand and texted herself from it so that she’d have his number. 

Don’t rush: Tim talked about how to excuse yourself from a one-on-one conversation you’re having with someone at one of these events without making them feel like they don’t “rate” with you and you’re on to find someone else better. This has always been a toughie for me.

His advice: say, “Hey, are you gonna be here for a while? I’m going to go mingle, check out the rest of the event. I’ll catch up with you later.” 

Ta-da! You don’t have to go to the bathroom! You don’t have to melt into the floor or the wall behind you. You can just say, “Bye.” Maybe this has occurred to you but it never occurred to me. And I loved it. I used it just as often on people I really felt like I connected with but had spent 20 or 30 minutes talking to.

On the topic of “don’t rush”–unlike Tim Ferriss, I can’t say I single-handedly built my client list for the coming year with his networking ninja skills.

But I made contacts, I had fun, and I’ve already implemented some of things I learned from the sessions and the people I met. In the same podcast episode, Tim talks about how in the lead-up to his life-changing visit to SXSW, 26 publishers had rejected the 4-Hour Workweek. He had finally gotten a deal and he was at the conference to spread the word about his book. The tipping point happened (in a BIG way) but not before he had to prove to himself that he could stay the course despite difficulty. That’s why “don’t rush” is my favorite piece of advice of his. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert–so far staying the course has made the biggest difference in my business, rather than following a single method or piece of advice. 

And the best thing about don’t rush? It works whether you’re introvert, an extrovert, or anything in between.  

2017: A Marketing "Tactic" That Needs to Die

So. A lot of earth-shattering, world-changing stuff is going on in 2017. 

People know where I stand, but in case you want the short version: I'm for compassion; taking care of the poor, sick, and vulnerable; doing unto others as I would have them do unto me; and trying to listen more than I speak.

Now that that's out of the way: I want to talk about a trend I've seen as long as businesses have been using social media and email to market themselves. I thought it had died, but just today I saw it rear its ugly head again. People call it different things: I'm going to call it "piggybacking on the zeitgeist."

You see it a lot on Twitter, and it either falls flat or backfires spectacularly. Here's an example of the latter: 

Example of a brand using a trending topic without understanding the context #Advertising#SocialMedia#WhyIStayedpic.twitter.com/iTSmfaT6Xv

— Scott Paul (@scottfpaul) September 9, 2014

And then, after being excoriated (rightly) for using the hashtag inappropriately, the apology 4 minutes later: 

A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.

— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) September 9, 2014

What went wrong here? DiGiornio decided to piggyback on a trend for maximum "exposure." There are so many solid reasons NOT to do this. 

1. Exposure doesn't help you make more sales.

2. You look desperate, on the order of begging people to like your Facebook page or join your group. By the way, stop doing this, too. (Most people have.) Just share stuff that people will like--let them decide whether they like it enough to join. 

3. It's not your wheelhouse. The latest offender I saw was an email I received for a list on I'm on. I'm a big fan of this company, which provides a subscription service that I happily pay for each month. That's all I'll say so as not to out them. 

In their case, they decided to first write about the state of the world today:

"Everywhere I look, people are butting heads. Friends are un-friending each other on social media and families are avoiding each other for fear of an argument. But there is hope…" 

They then made the (pretty awkward) segue from wringing their hands over the fear and anger they're seeing online and offline (a very legitimate and heartfelt concern, to be sure) to selling their product as a way to help. In this case, they offered a referral code and asked users to share it with their families. 

This one's in the "fell flat" category. Was it a DiGiornio-sized faux pas? I would say no. But does using the country's heartbreaking divisions to sell a few more subscriptions make you look kind of like a weasel? ...

No doubt we are all selling our services, products, expertise, from those of us who are consultants working for themselves (like me), to people who work a "day job" to successful small business owners. My quibble is that you need to sell for the problem you solve. Does my subscription service solve the divisions that are tearing at the fabric of this country? 

No. 

But here's what that subscription does do for me: it saves me time, which gives me more time to devote to family, and it saves me money. Those are great benefits! And those are the benefits I would tout if I were them. 

What do you think? 

**UPDATE** Today, April 5, 2017, Pepsi had to pull its ad with Kendall Jenner handing a soda to a riot cop. Repeat after me: "Using this country's heartbreaking divisions to sell more pop makes you look kind of like a weasel." 

Subscribe

Join to receive occasional marketing tips and tricks straight to your inbox!

We respect your privacy and will never share your email address.

Thank you!

If You Don't Get a Lot of Website Traffic, Use Facebook's Love for Video to Find Your People

In my previous post, I talked about website visits: "An unspecified number of people visiting your site for an unknown amount of time, reading an unknown portion of its content and taking either no action or an unknown action. That's what website visits are. But, they can be useful. "

And so can video views. 

In 2016, Facebook was obsessed with CRUSHING IT in the video department. They wanted to crush "IT" and they wanted to crush  YouTube, Periscope--you name it--in the process. This fact is mildly interesting for personal use of Facebook and it's fun to futz with Facebook Live and all.

But it's really interesting for Facebook for Business and using Facebooks Ads to find customers. 

Because video ads are really cheap. You must supply the video of course, but uploading a video directly to Facebook ads and then targeting the ad at cold (cold = they have never heard of you) traffic doesn't cost you nearly as much as promoting a blog post and getting a user to click. 

Setting up this ad is relatively simple: Set the objective of the ad to "Get Video Views" and upload your video. You can even set up captions right in Facebook Ads Manager. 

Depending on the target audience and the quality of your video

In a recent campaign I ran for a client who has almost no website traffic, we paid about 2.5 cents per view of her entire 40-second video. 

If I had targeted the same cold traffic with a link to a blog post on her website, I guarantee you we would not have been 2.5 cents per click. We could have been paying more like 50 cents a click. That's almost 200% more, for those of you who like getting your mind blown by big sounding numbers. 

Put another way, we reached 1,000 people for $25. If we had tried to get them to click to the website, it would have been more like $500. 

But we haven't even gotten to the part I'm excited about! Here is why I'm really excited about this: we (you, anybody) can now use Facebook Ads' Custom Audience feature to create an audience out of video viewers.You don't need people to go to your website to make a Custom Audience out of them. 

And you can specify that you only want to include people in your audience who watched 50% or more of your video. So you know you're not creating an audience of people who are getting counted because the video played for a second or two while they were scrolling. 

This is a huge breakthrough! If you just don't have the numbers or the money to advertise clicks to your website to strangers, you may still be able to carve out a budget to create an audience of several thousand people who have demonstrated that they are interested in your topic. 

Here's how to create the custom audience: 

Choose Audiences from the top menu

Click the blue button in the top left that says "Create Audience." Then click "Custom Audience." Choose the Engagement on Facebook option. Then click Video. Here's where you get to specify a video audience that watched at least 50% of your video: 

Once you've created this audience, you can build the ad that offers them the coupon for the free class. Just remember to target this video audience when you are setting up ad targeting. 

To recap, the steps are: 

1. Create an informational video (don't close with a promotion or try to sell anything). This is news your audience can use. Keep it to 1-3 minutes. 

2. Buy an ad with the video and target cold traffic. 

3. Create an audience out of the people who watched 50% or more of the video. 

4. Re-market to them by buying a second ad where you target only them and ask them to do something that's a heavier lift, like sign up for your email list. 

Questions? Leave them in the comments. 

If you want help setting up this particular ad type, find out how to work with me. 

What to Do When You Need Free Photos and Graphics--Fast

Get your cute and cuddly free photos from these great sites. 

Free stock photo sites: 

1. Picjumbo.com

2. Unsplash.com

3. Pixabay.com

4. Pexels.com 

5. Gratisography.com 

6. Morguefile.com

Edit photos using Picmonkey.com, a free basic photo editor I've been using for years. The big disadvantage to Picmonkey is that you can't save a design and edit it later. That can be really painful, but if you're just creating simple graphics, adding a layer of text or creating a simple collage (like the one I created above), Picmonkey saves you hundreds of dollars over Photoshop. 

It's easier to use than Canva and it has more free features. 

Here's a great introductory tutorial: 

Using Instagram's Geo-Targeting Feature to Identify Leads

This tactic, like many others, is quite simple, but you need to spend some time on it if you really want to start seeing it work for you. 

1. Where does your target market spend time? Let's say you're product or service is aimed at people who work from home. How do you find them? Where do those people tend to go when they get tired of sitting at home in their PJs but still want to get some serious work done. ... 

I bet you answered this question before you even finished reading it: coffee shops. So, if you start by typing in the behemoth of coffee shops, you'll see you have dozens of spots to explore via Instagram.

Make sure the PLACES tab at top is highlighted when you're searching. 

Make sure the PLACES tab at top is highlighted when you're searching. 

This geo-targeting tip allows you to connect with people who are ready to hear about your offers--and you may not have found these leads in other ways, or even by paying for an Instagram ad. 

Remember, when you find a potential lead, you don't need to pitch them in a comment or private message. Just like two or three of their photos and follow them. If they are someone who's genuinely interested in your products or services, chances are they will start to follow you. 

Then, work on posting great photos that represent you and your product. Here are some photo tips. 

Have you tried this tactic for getting noticed? How has it worked for you? 

One Simple Change That Will Make You Feel 100% More Organized

I got this great tip from Cassie Nevitt: Color-code your calendar.

Maybe you already color-code yours--but I bet you don't do it this way.

Cassie's tip was to color-code based on the category of the activity, so that at a glance, you can see the type of week you're going to have and can mentally prepare for it. 

Here's this week for me (I covered up names for privacy's sake): 

This is my coding system: 

• Blue: self-care

• Red: Husband not here =  me taking care of all baby-related needs

• Light Red: Time with husband

• Orange: Time With family

• Green: Revenue-generating time

• Peach: Planning, non-business

• Gray: Pitching, drumming up business, selling

• Turquoise: Writing

• Yellow: Education, planning for my business

• Lilac: Meeting not otherwise covered 

This color-coding system has changed the way I schedule my time.

For example, blue is my color for "self-care." Whenever I don't see any blue in my week or day, I find a place to shove some blue in to make sure I don't go insane. 

Do you have a color-coding scheme that brings order to your life? Let me know what it is in the comments! 

How to Use Facebook Events to Increase Engagement

Harness the power of the Event page. 

Have you thought of using Facebook Events as a content type? Here are a few ways to create and market Facebook Events that you may not have thought of. 

1. A Facebook Event doesn't have to be an in-person event. If you run an online business and never meet your clients, you may be thinking that Facebook Events are useless to you. But they can actually be used quite effectively. 

A 7-day or 30-day challenge is a great example of this. If you're planning a campaign that includes blog content, videos, and e-mails to subscribers, why not call it a "challenge," assign some dates to it, and ask people to attend virtually? 

Make sure to invite your audience so that they receive a notification about the event. 

2. Facebook does audience targeting for you. One big benefit to creating an event like this: Facebook suggests events to people it thinks might be interested.

It's a great way to reach people who may not regularly see your page posts, plus Facebook is doing the work of finding potentially interested people for you, and targeting them. 

You can see this for yourself by logging into Facebook and visiting your own Events page. On the right, you'll see events you haven't been invited to but which FB has determined you may be interested in. You don't have to pay for this promoted spot. 

3. You can even reach users who don't commit to attend. When users click on an event, they now have the option to choose "Interested." 

That means even if they don't commit to going to the event, they will receive notifications as you update the event wall with more info, and even with video and blog content. They will also receive a notification on the day of the event (from the "globe" tab in the upper right on desktop, lower right on mobile. 

Have you tried FB events for your business? How did they perform? 

Tactics: Staying on Track

It's been a busy week. After running a million errands over the past four days, my husband and I realized we have at least one rat living in the wall of our house. The exterminator came and plugged the hole where he came in, but he wouldn't promise the rat couldn't find another way in. 

All of this is to say that I ran out of time today and didn't get a chance to write my blog. But I promised myself, come hell or high water, I'd blog twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. It says so on my home page. 

I can't advise clients to blog consistently, create a schedule and stick to it, and not do that myself. 

So, it's still Thursday here on the west coast, and I'm blogging. I'm blogging a yawp of persistence and doing what I said I would do. 

Your "Why" and Their "Why": Honing in on Your Call to Action

I was reading Megan O'Neil's blog post about adding a "call to action" to your Facebook Newsfeed video. (Her post is here.) It got me thinking. 

The call to action is a big deal when it comes to social media marketing. In fact, it's the difference between social media marketing that builds your business, and using social media just for fun.

Yet so many people who are using social media to build their business have never heard of or thought much about "CTAs," so they don't know what they're doing with the power they wield. 

UNTIL NOW. Muhahahahahaha. (Because I'm going to explain it.) 

First off, whether you follow Megan's advice or not, every single social media post already has at least one call to action built in. 

But let's back up. First, what is a call to action? 

What is a CTA? 

Take it away, Wikipedia:

In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is an instruction to the audience to provoke an immediate response, usually using an imperative verb such as "call now", "find out more" or "visit a store today."

Q: What do you think the most common online CTA is? 

A: "Click here."

"Click here" has revolutionized marketing. When you share a link, the implicit call to action is always "click here." That's why it's so important to think strategically about whether you're linking to your own website or to other people's websites. Your post is requesting something from your audience. "Like this post." "Share this post." "Click to the site."

They are all versions of "Click me." 

Understanding these implicit CTAs will help you focus on which one you want your audience to actually pay attention to. 

Understand your mission. Understand your CTA.

A single Facebook post has at least 3 implicit calls to action: Like, Comment, and Share.  

The link post above contains a fourth implicit CTA: "Click on me to read the whole story."

That implied call to action is the reason Facebook drives about one-quarter of all referral traffic. If you add an enticing turn of phrase at the top and a fun headline, that "click me" call to action is hard for your audience to resist. 

Now, apply this knowledge to what you share on your business' social media. (Because it's probably not articles about Star Wars.) But should it be? How you decide what to post has a lot to do with who you want to reach and what you want the audience to do when they see your post. 

Your "why" and their "why" 

You want to share posts that prompt people to check out your website and join your email list so you can begin developing a relationship with them.

That's your "why." 

But your audience's reason for clicking on something is because they find it interesting, period.

That's their "why." 

Your post needs to muster the interest of people who are receiving dozens of other updates from friends and family: new baby photos and engagement announcements, celeb gossip and food porn.

For this reason, many businesses post links that are intriguing to a large audience, but don't build a relationship with people who are likely to become potential customers. They even post links to pages that aren't part of their own websites.

Those fun posts may get a lot of likes, comments, shares and link-clicks, but if they're not generating value for the business, that engagement serves no purpose. 

Those businesses are aware of their audience's "why," but not of their own "why." 

On the other hand, some businesses (sometimes the same businesses) post links directly to their product pages, with a CTA of "Buy Now!"

That's the businesses "why," but it totally ignores the audience's "why." In other words, that post is gonna bomb. 

Remember: you're competing with friends and family! You need to create posts that take into account your "why" and their "why." 

How do you do that?

Content marketing.