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Looking at the screenshot above of the landing page that Facebook took me to when I clicked on Dodge’s advertisement in the sidebar, one might believe everything was in order. It’s not exceptionally attractive and definitely offers way too many options to be a strong landing page from a social media campaign, but at least it’s pretty compelling. The clear call to action – get a quote. There’s a payment offer for those who want such things. There’s a financing term offer for those who like 0%. There’s a cash back offer for those who want to pay less.

One might ask, “What’s the problem?”

Poor landing page layout aside, there was one big problem with the landing page. It’s about a Dodge Avenger. The ad that I clicked can be seen to the right. I wanted to look at deals for a Dodge Charger. That’s what I was promised. That’s not what I got.

Everyone makes mistakes and other than a few hiccups in recent years, Chrysler has done a pretty good job at staying aggressive on social media. This is the type of mistake that can cost money. It’s the type of mistake that can cost customers. There was no easy way for me to get to what I was promised, namely information about deals on Dodge Chargers that were associated with the big Dodge Event.

If you run ads on Facebook, test, check, recheck, test, click through, verify, and then do it all over again. You often get one opportunity to reach a buyer before they end up looking elsewhere. On social media, this is amplified by the medium itself. Test that the links work on mobile devices. Test that the promise (the ad copy) is what’s delivered when they get to the other side of the click. Otherwise, you’re just blowing through cash and customers.

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Article originally posted on socialnewswatch.com.

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There’s a challenge associated with Facebook advertising that isn’t as important when it comes to Google Adwords or similar advertising platforms. With Adwords, as long as your ads match well with the page that you’re advertising, you can maintain a high quality score and keep your ads working well. On Facebook, there is a much tougher audience than the Google algorithm that you have to win over. With Facebook, your ads fall under the scrutiny of the audience and if they don’t like what you’re advertising, they can hurt your current and future exposure.

When you advertise on Facebook, your posts get much more visibility. If the content that you’re advertising gets a good amount of negative sentiment in the form of reports and hides, it isn’t just the post itself that gets hurt. Your future posts will feel the wrath of the algorithmic damage that you do. It isn’t just negative sentiment that hurts, either. If your post is viewed by many people in their news feed and gets ignored, that too is damaging. When people see your post and don’t engage with it, Facebook’s algorithm recognizes that and will be less likely to present future posts to them.

Thankfully, the opposite is true as well. Facebook ads can be used to help future standard posts find the light of day by accumulating a high percentage of positive engagement. In the balance between conversational and conversion posts, focusing some ad dollars on the former can help the latter appear more prominently in news feeds. One of the easiest ways to do this is to highlight what the company is already doing in the real world – helping in the community.

“It’s important to keep a mix of community posts, conversation posts, and business-relevant posts,” said Louie Baur, social media manager for KPA. “The only thing worse than fan fatigue is spam.”

At first glance, the image above would appear to belong to a horticulture page or perhaps an arboretum. It’s a bonsai plant, something that you don’t see every day on Facebook but interesting enough nonetheless. When people see it in their news feed, there’s a good chance they’ll look at the description to see what the post is all about. That’s when it hits them. This is a post by a car dealer. They are supporting an event in the local community by posting it on their Facebook page. They even sponsored the post.

This does a few things. First, it does the most obvious thing – helps to promote a worthwhile community event. This is the most important thing it does and as long as the intentions are sincere, the benefits will be real. Second, it gives a piece of content that will resonate with a different set of people than standard content posted to the page. They are a car dealership and they post a lot of information about cars, of course. Mixing in a picture of a bonsai and connecting that to the community and the dealership itself is a strong maneuver from a strategic perspective.

Finally, it is a strong aid for future posts. Fans will interact. The beneficiary, in this case a local arboretum, will likely interact. As people like, comment on, and share the content, more local people will see it. This is where the magic can happen. The combination of strong organic interaction, paid views, and viral views can combine for a very powerful little campaign.

In this case, the total cost  of the campaign will be $5. The value of the thousands of views of the message and branding (for both the beneficiary and the business itself) will be priceless.

I’m always hesitant to talk to people about the wonders of Facebook advertising. It’s the most cost-effective way to get the word out to the right people. The targeting capabilities make Google envious and the effectiveness, when done right, is nothing short of a work of art for driving business.

The hesitation comes with the major caveat that surrounds Facebook advertising. It can be both a wonderful thing and a terrible thing because, unlike Adwords or other forms of digital advertising, you can actually do harm to your page and your future posts.

Facebook is governed by one of the most fickle algorithms ever created. It works in real time and has a long memory, making it like walking on eggshells when trying to promote a business. There are strategies for content posting that are specifically designed to play up to the algorithm just as there are strategies for playing properly with search algorithms. The difference is that there’s no attachment between paid and organic in search while paid and organic promoted posts on Facebook are connected at the hip.

Here is an example of the “Boost” options on a Facebook page that we manage for a client. It has around 1500 fans and thankfully we were able to build it nearly from scratch – they had 26 fans when we took the page over 4 months ago.

The numbers represented here show the estimated reach for the different numerical values available to be spent. These are stereotypical numbers of a well-managed page of this size with a history of posting strong content. It’s lower than what a fresh page can expect; Facebook gives first-time advertisers a wide range of people who can like their posts before reducing it down based upon successes and failures. The reduction is inevitable because as people see posts in their news feeds and do not interact with them, they become less likely to see the next post you put up. Unless you’re posting Shakespeare-quality unique content that is driving your audience to become mad fans, you will certainly see a major dip in reach potential.

The numbers go up and down, but as long as you can keep them reaching the total number of fans you have on the page with the lowest denomination of spend, you’re in a good place in the eyes of the Facebook algorithm.

Now, here’s an example of a different page. Same industry. More fans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have nearly the reach potential.

Sometime in the past, they burned enough people who saw their posts that they’re having challenges reaching them a second time. It could have just been poor content, but a scan of the page doesn’t lend to this theory.

The only other explanation is that they’ve used Facebook ads in the past and butchered them. They posted content that was deemed spammy and then promoted it to a ton of people.

It would be like picking up a bullhorn and screaming fowl language at people as they walked by the store.

The damage is done. It’s reversible, but we have a pretty long road ahead with this much damage to correct. If the offending post or posts was so bad that a lot of people reported or made their posts hidden, it might turn out to be a better idea to start over from scratch.

Facebook is an extremely powerful advertising tool, but there are right ways and wrong ways to harness that power. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t use it for business-relevant posts. It just means that you cannot use it to spam the wrong messages. Before posting or promoting anything, ask yourself if you would want to see something like it on your news feed if it was from a different industry. In other words, if you run a car dealership, before posting this week’s newspaper ad and promoting it to 50,000 people, ask yourself if you would enjoy seeing a newspaper ad selling furniture popping up in your news feed between posts of little Timmy sliding into third base and your hilarious co-worker’s hilarious rant of the day.

Bill the Butcher was one of the greatest characters in movie history, but Bob the Butcher (you know, your Facebook ad guy) isn’t going to win you an Oscar for best Facebook post if he’s promoting content that doesn’t belong on Facebook.

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Facebook has been a challenging venue for marketers and advertisers ever since it started really getting popular in 2009. At that time, it was clear that it was the social network to beat and the company started trying to cash in with different types of advertising options. Most of them failed miserably for the same reason that many marketers continue to fail today: people go to Facebook to be entertained, not to be the recipient of ads.

Today, it’s getting easier. People are more accepting of ads. A lot of it can be attributed to the way that Facebook has handled their promoted posts. They have done an excellent (some would say Draconian) job of keeping messages off of news feeds that are too promotional. Between the manual vetting they do of ads and the 20% text rule they apply to images, they’ve been able to keep a relatively strong balance between letting advertisers get their message out and keeping their users happy through minimized spam.

When it comes to putting out a message that resonates, that users can enjoy while still getting the promotional message out, businesses (local ones in particular) should consider adding a touch of fun and flair to their posts. In the example above, the goal of the car dealership in question is to promote their oil change special. There are a couple of different ways to go about doing this. They can make it a Facebook offer which can be very effective if the special is a true Facebook-only special. They could make it an event, but they would have to really make it a true event for that to work and few people would consider car maintenance an event. They could be direct – post about the special and throw some ad money at it. This is not recommended as the negative sentiment would murder the page’s EdgeRank.

In this case, they added the localized and timely flair of focusing on a wonderful aspect of living by the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s spring and people are thinking about what they’re going to do when school is out, when vacation time comes, and when the weather is in a state of awesomeness that they can venture forth and enjoy the world. The message is clear and ends with the “pitch”:

“Spring in Waynesville, NC. You know what that means, right? Time to plan a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“Before heading out, make sure your ride is in “Mountain Ready” condition. Here’s an oil change special just for your trip…”

By positioning it in a way that takes a positive aspect of local life and applying the marketing message at that point, it allows for the post to flourish. Even though the page itself has around 700 fans, it was liked by 80 people, shared by 3, and commented on by several. Branding was achieved. Positive sentiment was achieved. The link to the special itself on their website received a nice amount of clicks. Most importantly, the message was seen by around 10,000 locals.

There’s a fine line between tricking people into interacting with a post to click on an advertisement and actually engaging with them on their terms and getting the message to them as a result. Using local flair is one of the easiest ways to make this happen.

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Here's a quick post for you (I know many of my recent posts have been pretty long).

If you have an email database of your customers and prospects and you are using Facebook advertising to promote your page or posts, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be advertising directly to your database. While I don't recommend jumping in headfirst, you should be jumping in nonetheless.

It's easy. It's almost too easy. This is where, as I've posted in the past, you have to be measured and strategic with your advertising. If you advertise the wrong content or with the wrong message, you can actually do more damage than good. The last thing you need is a high percentage of users who are seeing your Facebook ads to block or report your posts as spam.

Remember, it doesn't have to be true spam for users to report it. People take their Facebook news feed seriously. If they don't want to see your posts, they'll block you. This prevents others from seeing your posts as well, which means that you quickly start to get a much lower effect for the same amount of money.

Facebook is an excellent venue to generate retargeting, to garner foot traffic through offers and events, and to gain exposure. Your email list is powerful, but it's simply not as effective today as it once was to use it directly for emails. They get blocked. They go unopened. You can reapply their usefulness to Facebook if you do it the right way.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

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There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

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Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

There is plenty of vanilla out there. As someone who explores various social media campaigns, techniques, and strategies on a daily basis, it gets pretty boring seeing the same old things being spun in slightly different ways. When something truly fresh comes along, I normally applaud.

When I saw Fiat's attempt at being bold on YouTube, I had to watch it again. And again. Each subsequent viewing I went deeper into analyzing what they were trying accomplish with the clever rap. They wanted to go viral, that was certain, and it worked. They're approaching 3 million views. They also wanted to relate to a demographic, and they probably did to some extent by mentioning many of the trials that mothers face when they transition into motherhood.

The only thing I couldn't figure out was whether or not the risk was worth the reward. They didn't hold very many punches, mentioning controversial topics such as fake orgasms and itchy thongs, and the funny play on words talking about dogs and gardening equipment as "bitches and hoes" brought the full spoof factor into play right from the beginning, but can it really do anything other than garner a few laughs and knowing nods of agreement? The challenges faced by mothers were never shown to be addressed by the stylish Fiat 500 other than the fact that this particular mother liked to drive one.

The risk, of course, is that some people will be offended. It's as clean as a spoof like this can get but there will be those who get a negative vibe about the brand as a result. This is fine and any time you take a risk with social media you're going to make people upset but there needs to be a greater reward potential to counteract the negatives.

Unfortunately, the video does not do enough to get positive sentiment for the brand. Mothers may associate with the video, even feel the pain, so to speak, but the positioning of the brand within the lyrics and visuals is not enough to bring the association full circle.

When Toyota came out with their Swagger Wagon video nearly three years ago, they did much more to accomplish the same goals. They created a video through which parents could relate, but also centered it around the vehicle itself. It was effective on both ends - controversial and funny enough to be watched (over 11 million views) without running the risk of offending many people. The Sienna was front and center through most of the video and not just a subtle background statement for the sake of lifestyle association.

Even the name itself was much better. There are those today who likely still call their vehicle their "Swagger Wagon", whereas Fiat naming their video "The Motherhood" does little to keep the video or the branding going once it falls off of people's buzz radar.

Creating a viral video for the sake of going viral is no longer an effective technique. It helps somewhat with branding, but even in that regard Fiat is too subtle without being powerful about it. There's nothing wrong with subtle branding when done properly. Pantene had a viral video that didn't mention the brand or highlight its effects until the end of the 4-minute video. It was effective because the storytelling throughout was powerful and the final minute where the star's hair is highlighted ended at the peak of emotion when the brand is finally revealed.

Fiat was close to having a successful video. Had they worked in the brand into the song itself, toned down some of the potential negatives, and showed that the vehicle represented some level of freedom and expression that their target audience craved, the effects would have been much better.

Watch the videos and you be the judge. Did they work?

In business, we often look to social media as another venue through which to achieve our business goals. It's a marketing goldmine - at least that's what the experts are telling us. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the websites and apps that the people, our potential customers, are visiting, so putting out our marketing messages on these venues makes absolute sense.

The problem with that premise is that people aren't going to those sites to receive marketing. One can argue that the same is true for television and they would be right. Television is an extremely effective advertising platform for many despite the fact that most people don't like seeing advertisements. The real difference is choice. On television, radio, and other venues, we have the choice to change the channel but normally we sit through and watch the marketing in between our shows because we don't want to miss it when it comes back on. On social media, the messages are chosen. Those who are posting content that doesn't appeal can be easily unfollowed. In the case of Facebook, they can be blocked, removed from the news feed, unfollowed, and even reported as spam.

It's a paradox. How does a business achieve their goals on social media while maintaining a connection with the audience that prevents them from blocking us? There are several answers to this question and many different strategies that can work, but one of the easiest and most underutilized is simply posting the things that we and our audience enjoy.

In the example above, the city in which a car dealership resided had their local team playing for their playoff lives. Sunday was the day that would determine whether it was time to pack it up for the season or continue on into the playoffs. The post itself, a simple message, was put on Facebook the day before the game and promoted through Facebook ads. The results were very strong. It had over 100 likes, a handful of comments, and dozens of shares, the majority of which were done by locals to the area since the Facebook ads were extremely geo-targeted.

How will this help them sell more cars? First, it expresses the dealership's personality. They love their local team. It's not a marketing ploy - the owners and most of the employees are strong supporters of their football team. Second, it's a shared love - many of their customers and potential customers are fans. These two things are great from a PR and branding perspective but they don't answer the question of how this directly helps them sell more.

That answer is the algorithmic response. When a piece of content resonates and is widely liked and shared by the target audience, it dramatically improves the ability for the marketing messages that follow to be seen by the same people and their friends. Facebook's and Google+'s algorithms are designed to reward businesses and individuals who post popular content with more visibility. By working in the truly likable things within a business' market area into the overall social media mix, the marketing messages will see more exposure. One strategically placed and properly promoted "fun" or "inspiring" message followed by one or two marketing messages will have a dramatically higher reach than a flurry of marketing messages that are not set up by the fun pieces.

The easiest way to find the right content is to look inwards. What do you know? What do you like? What do you enjoy that your audience will enjoy as well? For local businesses, it's best to stay laser focused; don't jump on a movie's buzz bandwagon, for example, but stay in the realm of your business' expertise and/or the local area's interest.

As with so many pieces of advice that I've been giving lately, the moral of the story is that if you "keep it real" and deliver authentic messages that resonate within you, there's a good chance they'll resonate with your audience as well.

In 2013, there will continue to be a growing number of people who have their smartphones and tablets handy while watching television. People are multitasking more often now than ever before while enjoying their television time. They are Tweeting, posting to Facebook, and visiting websites all from the comfort of their living room.

Many of us have done it before. We’ll be watching the game or our favorite show and talk about what we’re watching through our mobile devices on social media. We will see something that catches our eye and do a search for it to get more information.

Television shows are taking advantage of this, but it’s rare to see advertisers do the same. This is perplexing as there has never been a time when a television ad asking people to “act now” can actually get them to do just that. Those who use television ads can get immediate responses and interactions by crafting it into their television ads.

It’s better than telling people to “call now” or “come on down” because they’re not in that mode. They’re passive. They’re safe. When they’re watching television, they don’t want to get on the phone with a salesperson or stop watching the game to head down to a store. What they will do is visit a website, a social media account, or otherwise contact a store that advertises properly.

Think about it. Many car dealers use television advertising to get their brands out there, to talk about their low prices, and to highlight a sale that’s going on right now. There are people in the market for a vehicle who are currently watching television. They may even be watching your television ad right now. Why don’t you ask them to engage while it’s at the top of their mind.

It could be as simple as setting up a campaign. You can post an event on Facebook and pin it to the top of your page. The event can be to highlight the big sale this weekend. You may be giving away a free gift such as sunglasses to anyone who clicks that they might attend the event.

Then, it’s a matter of putting it in the television ad. Talk about the sale. At the end, say something like this: “Go to our Facebook page and like our sales event. Everyone who does gets a free gift just for attending – no purchase required!”

When they click that they’ll attend, it will show as such to their friends and family. More importantly, you’ll have the ability to engage with them before and after the event. It’s a soft lead, but you have to assume that people who actually show up aren’t there just for the free sunglasses. They are there to test drive a vehicle. The rest is up to you.

It doesn’t have to be so blatant. It could be as simple as “Send us a Tweet or post a comment on Facebook about what you think the score will be this weekend. The closest guess gets a free oil change!”

You could always go for the direct approach. “Go to our website right now. We’ve posted our no-nonsense best price on all of our new and certified pre-owned Altimas, so if you’re in the market today, grab your tablet or smartphone and head to abcmotors.com.”

This is where creativity comes in. People have their smartphones close by and their tablets within reach when they’re watching your television ads. Take advantage of it. Adapting to the second screen will help your television advertising and mobile marketing work together to bring better results to both.

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As more businesses start to embrace the cost-effective method of social media promotions that Facebook Sponsored Stories offers, I’m seeing some mistakes pop up. As Louie Baur posted last week, you have to be careful what you advertise, as pushing the wrong content can do more harm than good.

I want to take that concept a step deeper using this analogy. It can be confusing to some who wonder why so much money is paid to sponsor racing teams. After all, their logo is placed on something that is attempting to travel so fast that the logos themselves cannot be read properly. What’s the benefit?

The reality is that everyone wants to be associated with a winner. They want to be associated with the sport itself and their hope is that their logo will appear on a winning vehicle and/or piece of racing apparel.

The same holds true with Facebook Sponsored Stories. You can throw money at anything and get it more views than it otherwise would have gotten, but I see too often that businesses are advertising the content that they think needs more help. The spammier it is, the more likely they are to sponsor it. This is the exact opposite of what businesses should be doing with Facebook advertising. If something is a winner – that’s the story you want to be pushing. You want to pick out content that would probably get likes, shares, and comments even if you didn’t sponsor it in the first place.

This has an affect on the rest of the “spammy” content that you might be posting more than if you sponsored the spammy content itself.

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