Examples of 3 Facebook Applications that every B2B organisation needs on its brand page

You will know that on every brand’s Facebook Page there are four app thumbnails, three of which are customizable and whose positions can be moved. I've marked them 1 through 3 below. Some companies choose to use this space only to feature their Page’s Like count or Facebook’s 'Notes' and 'Map' apps. These companies are not making the most of their precious Facebook real estate! In this article I'll show examples of 3 better alternatives.

Essential apps for your Facebook page

Much like the cover photo, apps are a feature of the Page that capture the attention of Page visitors first. For B2B companies that want to squeeze the most value out of their Facebook Page, there are three essential apps that should live on the Page at all times: Newsletter app Resources app Testimonials app.

1.…

Specific CTAs now available to increase response for advertisers using Power Editor

Facebook has rolled out a new feature recently that's useful for Facebook advertisers to be aware of since it's specifically to help with boosting direct response.

You can now create ads related to posts that feature a call to action button. In its announcement, Facebook suggests CTAs advertisers may use are:

Shop Now, Learn More, Sign Up, Book Now or Download.

The feature is only available in Power Editor (the free Chrome app for Page editors) and it's well worth checking out.  For those familiar with creating  what I described in a previous post as "dark" (or unpublished) posts using Power Editor this is simply a new option to click through as part of that process. I'd certainly suggest testing posts with this new button rather than simply including the call to action within…

Combining broad categories with precise interests. Plus a clever alternative to the Boost Post button.

As you are probably aware by now, Facebook offers some really nicely drilled down advertising options for targeting possible customers. Using these could become more important in 2014 since Facebook are now admitting that they are further turning down organic reach and forcing brands to pay for exposure even to their fans. As well as selecting demographics such as location, age and gender you can also target people based on all sorts of other criteria. In a previous post, I described targeting using custom audiences, enabling you to find people with similar characteristics. In this post I'll explore a combined targeting approach. If you are familiar with the process of creating an ad you will know that you have the option of listing "Precise Interests" of individuals to target as well as some "Broad Categories" that Facebook has…

Alert - new research shows popularity of sharing types for different content types and formats

Value: [rating=3] Recommended link: The Social Intelligence Report: Adobe Digital Index Q3, 2013 Interested in finding out how content is shared across Facebook and how to improve engagement, then Adobe Digital's regular consumer research report will provide some of these answers. Adobe Digital's quarterly report analyses consumer Facebook data, over two years, from retail, media, entertainment, travel and websites. Their survey analysed 131 billion Facebook ad impressions, 400 million unique visitors, 1.04 billion Facebook posts and over 4 billion Facebook comments, shares and likes. These are some highlights on Facebook engagement, though the full report shares information on ROI, click volume, geo-targeted posts, geographical and industry social sentiment.

Types of Facebook posts that engage?

Social engagement increases when posts include an image or video; posts with an image increase by 600% compared to a…

Using custom audiences to improve Facebook targeting 

How would you like to target advertising to people with similar characteristics to your existing customers and prospects? Like subscribers on your mailing list for instance? Well, that's the offer of Facebook's custom audiences. It's no longer new, in fact, checking the Smart Insights alert when it was launched, it dates back to March 2013 - Facebook launches "Lookalike Ad Targeting".

Custom Audiences are one of the more advanced features Power Editor users get to enjoy, Facebook gives you the lowdown on Custom Audiences in its help section but I'll attempt to provide you with a step-by-step guide here.

Firstly, this is not an introduction to Power Editor. If you've not used it before, this tutorial is not necessarily going to make a lot of sense. Power Editor is a useful Chrome app that gives you way more control and functionality than Facebook's…

A tutorial on creating dark posts - a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising

Facebook has become quite the place of the dark arts in recent years as brands seek to outdo each other in the advertising wars.

One of the features available to those in the know is the art of the "dark" or "unpublished" post. What this actually means is that the post will not appear on your timeline but can be accessed by anyone with a direct link (or by clicking through from an ad). They are used extensively by advertisers to create copy that then appears as a "Sponsored" piece of content.

A few months back, dark Image posts were the only way advertisers had of getting results into the newsfeed with images that took up a decent amount of real estate. In recent months, links with appropriately sized images have also been rewarded with a decent…

How to increase engagement for your Facebook posts

In this post, I'm going to take one skill from the list I curated in my article 'The Ultimate Guide to becoming a great Social Media Manager' and demonstrate to you exactly why it is essential for a Social Media Manager - that skill is graphic design.

How to improved the design of a Facebook Post in 10 minutes

So, let's start with an example. From a social marketing point of view, how effective do you think this Facebook post is? You might think it's not too bad. You might think it's terrible. You may also be thinking about a similar post that you shared and how this compares to it. But the answer I'm looking for is – it could be improved... You…

Facebook pushing quality content to the top on its newsfeed

Value: [rating=3]

Recommended Link: Facebook's Newsfeed changes

This Facebook update should be of particular interest to content marketers since it can potentially help businesses drive more traffic to their site based on their content. Facebook can already be effective in driving traffic given its reach. Indeed, in this update, Facebook announced that average referral traffic from Facebook to media sites has increased by over 170% - almost tripled - in the past year.

Facebook has introduced two new ways to highlight quality content on its newsfeed as it says it can now identify 'high quality articles' that are linked to rather than less newsworthy content such as what it calls 'meme photos'. The main changes within the feed are: 

1. Links to articles display more related articles

Selecting an article on the Facebook…

5 Legal ways to contact Facebook winners

When Facebook updated their promotion guidelines this past August, they casually removed the rule that stated brands could not contact promotion winners on Facebook via status updates, private messages, chat, etc. This rule was kind of a hassle, especially for businesses with multiple promotion winners to notify, so pretty much everyone we know was glad to see it go. With this rule no longer in existence, some of our users have asked: What’s the best way to contact contest winners now? In today’s blog post, we cover not one, but five great and totally legal ways to contact Facebook promotion winners.

5 Tips for contacting your Facebook winners

Here they are:

1. Post a status update

One simple way to contact promotion winners is to create a post on your Timeline and announce your winners in it. For example, the post would read: 'Congrats Winner Name! You’ve won our…

How brands can use Instagram to connect with customers

Following the news that Instagram is set to bring ads to the service, MyCustomer.com asked a number of experts how this will help brands connect with customers. When Instagram was bought by social media giant Facebook back in March, speculations quickly began about the likelihood that Instagram would follow Facebook’s lead and begin monetising the site. And it wasn’t long before this was confirmed. Last week, Instagram COO Emily White, who joined the company from Facebook, told the Wall Street Journal that the photo-sharing network would start rolling out advertising within the next year. 'We want to make money in the long term, but we don't have any short-term pressure,' she said, adding that the challenge for Instagram would be to integrate marketing without jeopardising the network’s ‘cool factor’. The details on…