facebook marketing playbook

Facebook Marketing

in 2015: Building Success for Content

Without Free Distribution

What the recent changes to the Newsfeed

algorithm mean for your marketing.

CitizenNet delivers patented technology for audience targeting

and media optimization proven to double social media advertising results

Facebook Marketing in 2015:

Successful Content Strategies Without Free Distribution 2

Early Days

Congratulations! By reading this you

are placing yourself in the vanguard of

Facebook marketing. According to,

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg speaking at

last year’s Preferred Marketing Developer’s

Summit, we are still in “Early Days” of

marketing and advertising on social media

and the best is yet to come.

Early Days are always tumultuous and

Facebook marketing was experienced

it’s share of upheaval. The last 12 months

witnessed a dramatic shift from reaching

fans for free to the elimination of organic

distribution for promotional messages.

Change creates opportunity and smart

marketers are adapting to the changes

in Facebook to create unique strategies

and tactics for direct response campaigns

while using different techniques for brand

engagement. This guide will give you

actionable insights for accomplishing both

these objectives in 2015.

Facebook continues to be a revolutionary

platform for marketers and the recent

changes promise to only make it more

effective for those advertisers taking

advantage of all it has to offer. CitizenNet is

committed to giving you the tools you need

to create meaningful connections between

consumers and brands, leveraging the

insights available through social media. This

guide is dedicated to you.

“Together, we will build

the future of success with

Facebook marketing and

social advertising.”





Evolution of Facebook’s Newsfeed

Since the beginning, Facebook’s guiding

principle has been to continually improve

the user experience. Since the Newsfeed

became the central Facebook element in

2006, a better user experience is largely

defined as more relevant and engaging

content in the Newsfeed.

Although Facebook

does allow promotional

and commercial content

in the Newsfeed, it is

designed to be more

relevant to consumers

than the advertisements

on other sites. This is why Facebook

provides advertisers with access to so much

data for targeting the right message to

the right audience. It is also why Facebook

makes it easy for users to understand

and have control over adjusting their own

targetable interests.

As the platform has evolved, Facebook

marketing strategies have moved with it.

Originally, companies asked customers to

“Like” them on Facebook so they could

continue to reach them for free whenever

they posted. As more companies joined

Facebook, Newsfeed inventory became

scarece and Brands tried to trick Facebook’s

Newsfeed algorithm into delivering more

reach by asking their fans to Like, Share, and

Click on posts, hoping to show Facebook

that their content was engaging and worth

spreading. Ultimately,

brands tried to trick their

fans by creating posts that

were really ads, disguised

as content.

In a recent focus group,

Facebook brought

in a number of users

to learn more about their experience

using Facebook. When asked what

percentage of their Newsfeed was ads they

overwhelmingly agreed “At Least Half.”

Interestingly, Facebook knew definitively

that less than 10% of the Newsfeed items for

these users were paid advertisements. The

glut of commercial messages masquerading

When asked what

percentage of their

Newsfeed was ads the

users overwhelmingly

agreed “At Least Half.”





as content from brand pages

and publishers, was hurting the

user experience.

It’s no surprise that Facebook

began restricting commercial

content. Forcing companies to

buy advertising for commercial

messages has two positive

outcomes. The first is that

obviously, Facebook generates

revenue, which keeps the

site operating as a valuable

marketing channel. The second

is that it allows Facebook to

control the number and quality

of ads that users see.

This is a great thing! Limiting

inventory means that fewer ads

get more attention. Control

over advertising messages

means that Facebook can

penalize advertisers that fail to

leverage user data for targeting

relevant prospects.

The evolution of Facebook’s

Newsfeed to a paid advertising

platform is a good thing for

advertisers and users.

The King is Dead - Long Live the King

As of September 2014, 71%

of online adults in the US use

Facebook regularly and for 18-

49 year olds its 80%. Clearly

the cultural impact of Social

Networking in general and

Facebook in specific cannot be

denied.

The recent eliminations of

free distribution is no reason

for marketers to ignore the

platform altogether. As

described in the section above,

these changes will improve

the effectiveness of Facebook

advertising moving forward.

As Facebook evolves, it’s

worth noting some of the

unique capabilities that make it

valuable for marketers to keep

pace with the changes.

Customer Data

There is no other platform

where customers so willingly

Facebook and Brand Reaction Timeline

2006

Facebook Launches Newsfeed

2007

Facebook Launches Brand Pages

2011

Facebook Launches Storefronts and Ads on Right Hand Rail

2010

Facebook launches Timeline and changes the look of Newsfeed

2012

Facebook launches Newsfeed Ads

Brands see better response rates to Newsfeed ads. Create posts to promote products/services via newsfeed. Posts with engagement get more reach. Encourage Liking, Clicking & sharing contant for reach

March

2013

Facebook launches Newsfeed Redesign with larger Photos for Ads

2014 2015

Sept

2009

Facebook Launches AutoPlay Video in Newsfeed

Facebook restricts posts with “Spammy Links,” to pages with ads and “Like Bait”

Brands receive additional reach by tagging other brands

Brands begin video posts in Newsfeed

Dec

Facebook promotes high quality content and news posts. Resurfaces older posts with current engagement. Restricts Meme photo posts

April

Facebook bans “Like Gating” special content available only to page fans

Aug

Facebook restricts commerical posts from brands

Nov

Facebook further restricts “promotional” posts that resemble ads

JanFeb

2008

-Brands seek “Fans” driving page likes. Posts reach most of their fans. Contests/Promotions drive more fans and reward engagement

Brands buy ads to build fans. Promote products to Fans and “Friends of Fans” with ads on Right Hand Rail





and frequently share such a high volume

of information about themselves. This is

information that savvy marketers can use

for customer research and insights as well

as prospect targeting and segmentation.

There are quite literally thousands of

different attributes and dimensions which

marketers can use to slice the marketplace,

leveraging demographics, behaviors,

interests, and even third party data to see

psychographic profiles and offline behavior.

Audience Targeting

In addition to niche targeting with

Facebook’s data, companies have many

other targeting options available on

Facebook that exist no where else. Offline

businesses can target customer lists by

uploading “Custom Audiences” built from

CRM databases and matched against

Facebook’s user profiles in a completely

privacy-safe way. Online businesses can re-

target site visitors or cart abandoners with

images of the items they shopped for or

even show different color variations. Both

of these audience groups can be expanded

using Lookalike audience modeling based

on Facebook user data. No other platform

offers so many powerful and flexible

targeting options for advertisers.

High-Impact Creative

The Newsfeed is the focus of all user activity

on Facebook and this is where ads appear.

Eye tracking studies prove advertising

resistant customers often ignore the edges

of websites where ads live, but Facebook

solves this by inserting ads directly within

content. Facebook offers long headlines,

lengthy descriptions and clickable links all

surrounding large beautiful images or even

video. Few advertising environments can

rival Facebook for the quality of the ad unit

and the integration within the content users

care most about. On most mobile devices

the ads completely fill the screen making

them even more powerful.

Mobile Penetration

US consumers spend more smartphone

time on Facebook than the next 10 activities

COMBINED. That includes YouTube, Google

Search, Google Maps, Yelp - everything! In

fact, 17% of all time on the mobile web in

the US is spent on Facebook. On average,

Facebook users spend 37 minutes per





day on the platform and 60% of that time

is mobile. Because this is spread across

approximately 17 visits per day, it creates

a huge opportunity for business to reach

consumers on the go while shopping, etc.

Facebook leverages user identity so it’s

easy to understand how interactions in

mobile impact purchases on desktop.

Identity Across Channels

Facebook offers a unique opportunity for

Cross Channel attribution. Over 13 Million

websites and Apps use the Facebook

Integrated Login, including more than 35%

of the websites for the Fortune 500. This

means Facebook can gather user behavioral

data from apps and sites visited outside of

Facebook.

Most of the activity on Mobile devices

exists within an app. Facebook is the only

platform that can do what cookies cannot,

link consumer behavior across mobile

applications, mobile browsing and then

connect that back to activity on a different

device like a laptop -- all using Facebook

identity as the link.

Identity allows for message sequencing and

other unique advertising opportunities that

only Facebook can provide.

Despite the frustrating loss of free

distribution to page fans, Facebook remains

a powerful marketing channel for 2015

because of it’s unique capabilities with

user data, audience targeting, high quality

creative, mobile impact, and cross channel

attribution.

Regardless of the volatility in the channel,

marketers must adapt and learn how to use

this powerful platform.

“Over 13 Million websites

and apps use the Facebook

Integrated Login, including

more than 35% of the

websites for the Fortune

500. ”





How-To: a Roadmap for Facebook Success in 2015

To succeed with Facebook in 2015, social

media marketers must adapt to changes

within the platform. Companies must have

two separate and distinct sets of strategies,

one for promotional campaigns and another

for brand campaigns.

In the past a concert venue could see great

success sharing a video post of a well

known artist backstage, using the copy to

invite users to click through and buy tickets

to an upcoming show. Moving forward

this type of post will receive virtually zero

exposure, selling few tickets

Instead, this same marketer should now

share the video with the fans of their page

to cement their brand position as the best

place to see live music and use a separate

post targeted to a specific audience

segment, supported with advertising, to

promote the sale of tickets.

In the next two sections we will review

key Strategies and Tactics for success on

Facebook in 2015, taking into account all the

recent changes and different promotional

and brand oriented objectives.

Promotional Campaigns on Facebook

2015 is the year many marketers will begin

to make serious investments in advertising

on Facebook. In the past, these same

marketers saw large volumes of traffic and

some conversions from Facebook’s free

distribution of content. Moving forward,

marketers must support their commercial

“In 2015, companies must

have two separate and

distinct sets of strategies”





messaging with advertising budgets forcing

these campaigns to be more accountable.

In building a framework for success, it is

important to understand the appropriate

use-case for paid advertising on Facebook,

as well as building an appreciation for

the best combinations of messaging and

targeting.

When to use Promotional Campaigns

on Facebook

In light of the latest restrictions Facebook

is placing on “promotional” content, any

campaign that is encouraging consumers

to engage with a company for business

purposes should be considered Promotional.

Most companies engage in social media

for the purpose of generating revenue. As

such, most campaigns should be considered

Promotional moving forward.

Truly altruistic campaigns (sharing tips and

tricks that don’t push products for sale,

sharing humorous or instructional videos,

sharing inspirational quotes, etc.) fall into

Brand Building. We will discuss these types

of campaigns in the next section.

A Framework for Success with

Promotional Campaigns

Before spending any advertising dollars,

it’s important that social media marketers

clearly define their objectives and the

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that

will serve as the measures of success.

Additionally they must solidify the targeting

and messaging strategies they will use to

accomplish these objectives.

For most advertisers, objectives will

include some type of conversion, whether

it’s a checkout or an offline action on an

eCommerce site. This is different from the

previous generation of Facebook campaigns

which measured success in engagement;

tracking likes, shares, video views,

comments or referral traffic. Although these

may be good leading indicators, the next

generation of campaigns must ultimately be

accountable for a conversion that can lead

to revenue in order to justify the cost of the

media.

The ultimate measure of success for most

promotional campaigns is revenue, but

some companies may have a long sales





cycle, or rely on customer lifetime value

(CLTV) as a better measure of profitability.

In these instances, it is important to

structure KPIs that are strongly correlated

to revenue and high CLTV. CitizenNet

generally recommends a balanced score-

card approach that builds in KPIs from

across the customer journey. Typical

scorecards might include efficient CPMs,

strong Click Through Rates (CTR) and some

measure of the quality of the traffic, like on-

page conversion for landing pages (whether

lead forms or eCommerce).

It is important to note that Facebook’s

auction is different from Google’s. As such,

Optimized CPM (oCPM) bidding is almost

always preferable to a Cost Per Click (CPC)

model for ultimately driving conversions.

For a detailed discussion on this, please

review CitizenNet’s blog post Facebook

Bid Optimization for Direct Response

Advertisers.

Strategies and Tactics for Promotional

Campaigns.

Facebook offers a full toolbox of options

for driving success with promotional

campaigns. Picking the right tactics is vital

for success.

Core Audience Targeting: Perhaps the

simplest strategy is to target an existing

core audience of fans, custom audiences

or fans of competitor pages. This is a

perfect strategy for building CLTV, selling

new products to existing customers or

conquesting a competitor’s customers.

These groups often demonstrate strong

response rates, although the reach is

somewhat limited. See below for tips

on expanding these audiences without

sacrificing response rates.

Custom Audience Targeting and

Retargeting: Facebook stands alone in

it’s ability to leverage existing customer

lists for ongoing targeting. Using custom

audiences, marketers can upload an existing

CRM database or email list and target these

customers with new offers. These lists can

be segmented to only inactive customers or

“The ultimate measure

of success for most

promotional campaigns is

revenue”





perhaps leads that never converted. In the

same way, marketers can import other lead

list acquired through different marketing

activities. With only an email address or a

phone number, Facebook can match target

lists to users in a completely anonymous,

privacy-safe way.

Retargeting works in a similar fashion,

except the custom audience is generated

dynamically based on site visitors. Using a

re-targeting vendor, eCommerce advertisers

can target users with dynamic creative

reflecting items in a cart, different sizes and

colors or recommended accessories / items

frequently purchased together.

Lookalike Targeting: Facebook Lookalike

Targeting was developed specifically to

expand upon a known high value audience.

Based on any of the audiences above,

marketers can use a simple slider interface

to reach more users that resemble this

known audience. Obviously finding users

who resemble high value customers is a

strong targeting strategy. Unfortunately,

Facebook’s Lookalike targeting is somewhat

opaque and it’s unclear which attributes and

dimensions Facebook is using to identify

and target Lookalikes, so its not always easy

to repeat or expand.

Audience Expansion: Using Facebook’s

Audience Insights Tool (or some targeting

technology like CitizenNet’s Predicted

Affinity Audience targeting), brands are

able to expand upon their core audiences

in a more transparent and repeatable

way than what is available with Lookalike

targeting. For a robust discussion of how

to use Facebook’s Audience Insights Tool,

see CitizenNet’s Whitepaper ”The Facebook

Audience Planning and Purchasing

Playbook” this download includes Excel

worksheets for identifying new audience

segments for expansion, as well as

budgeting tools for planning media to reach

these audiences.

Reach and Frequency: Facebook’s ability

to limit frequency is unique among online

platforms. Reach and Frequency buys

ensure high penetration and awareness with

“Facebook stands alone

in it’s ability to leverage

customer lists for targeting.”





a specific audience and can be applied to

any of the targeting strategies discussed

above (as long as the audience is at least

1 Million Monthly Active Users). For a

detailed discussion of Reach and Frequency

buying on Facebook and Best Practices see

CitizenNet’s Blog Post Facebook Reach and

Frequency Buying.

Messaging Strategy and Creative: Facebook

is the world’s largest real-time focus group,

and can provide insights for messaging

strategy across media channels. Facebook’s

built in tools or those available through a

media buying platform allow marketers to

see engagement with promotional posts

(ads). The volume of likes, shares and

comments can be a strong indication of the

quality of the message and how well it is

received by the target audience segment.

Many 3rd party tools (like CitizenNet)

can even provide sentiment analysis, with

insights on how positively or negatively

the target audience is reacting to a specific

message.

It is important to remember Promotional

campaigns are different from Brand

Oriented or engagement campaigns

your company may have executed in

the past. Promotional Posts supported

with advertising budgets should be non-

published / dark posts and considered

ad units. As such, traditional advertising

principles are important. Strong headlines

with a Unique Value Proposition highlighting

a product’s specific benefit to this target

audience are crucial. Powerful images (or

videos) help promotional posts leap out of

the Newsfeed and grab the users attention.

Or course, a strong call to action is essential

to stimulate a response.

Testing and Optimization: Ongoing

optimization is the key to driving efficiency

with any media. Facebook offers so many

unique variables for testing and optimization

that many marketers rely on some type

of technology platform, like CitizenNet, to

analyze and optimize ongoing campaigns.

Testing Mobile vs. Desktop, different

images, headlines, targeting criteria, etc.

“Promotional Posts

supported with advertising

should be considered ad

units.”





all lead to performance improvements. It

is essential that marketers continue to test

and modify their targeting as well as their

messaging to drive the best results with

Facebook promotional campaigns.

Brand Building on Facebook in 2015

Given the recent changes to Facebook’s

Newsfeed, what should brands do with

their pages? As discussed in the previous

section, they should no longer look to their

pages to drive near-term sales outside

of paid promotional campaigns using

dark posts and managed like advertising.

However, companies have the opportunity

to deepen engagement and build long

term brand preference and loyalty through

engaging with their customers on the

platform.

Remember, beginning January 15, 2015,

Facebook considers any post that asks

for engagement of any kind (likes, clicks,

shares) to be commercial. Even posts that

are only sharing a non- commercial post

on a company’s blog off of Facebook

may be considered commercial in nature

because they ask users to leave Facebook

to visit another page where there may be

an advertising message or call to action.

Additionally, if the post contains any of the

same content as a paid ad, it is considered

commercial. Even certain keywords

associated with promotional offers, like

“Tomorrow” have been shown to impact

organic reach.

Despite these changes, many brands

should still use Facebook as a channel for

deepening engagement with their existing

fans. Creating and sharing high value,

altruistic (non-commercial) content will

cement the emotional connection between

a brand and their core audience and will

result in sharing to new potential customers.

Companies that do not participate in

market-shaping and brand building may be

better served to focus on direct response

objectives using promotional campaigns as

described in the previous section.





Measuring Brand Engagement

Objectives

Although posts should not overtly ask for

user action -- likes, shares, views, and clicks

are still good measures of engagement for

content and make for meaningful objectives.

Moving forward brands should not however

use referral traffic as a KPI.

Over the last year, Facebook has made a

significant investment in improving their

native hosting

capabilities for video

and other content.

In August 2014,

Facebook passed

YouTube for Video

Views, and in early

2015, Facebook is creating a video hub for

brands within their Facebook brand pages.

These developments signal an emphasis

on hosting original content directly on

Facebook. In the past, Facebook was a

promotional channel for driving traffic to the

content. In 2015 and beyond, Brands should

see Facebook as a publishing channel for

hosting content, in the same way they host

content on YouTube or their owned blog.

By simply sharing content with a specific

point of view, many brands use Facebook

as a platform for strengthening brand

association. For example, home insurance

companies are sharing ‘Move Day

Checklists’, as a completely altruistic tool

that homeowners can use to prepare for a

move. Through this content, the insurance

company strengthens their position as a

helpful brand in the mind of the consumer -

even with consumers

who do not use the

checklist. Likewise,

hotels hoping to

build a perception of

sophistication share

high quality artistic

images of tourist

attractions in markets where they have

properties. Neither of these campaigns are

measured by specific revenues. This is the

type of content that will continue to do well

by reaching existing fans and being shared

on Facebook. What’s more, this content

impacts any audience that sees the post,

whether they engage with it or not.

“In 2015 and beyond, Brands

should see Facebook as

a publishing channel for

hosting content.”





A clear statement of objectives like

deepening engagement, increasing strength

of association with specific brand tenets,

etc, can help guide what content is created

and published on Facebook.

What is Engaging for your Audience?

The restriction in free distribution will

require brands to be more sophisticated

in their approach to content marketing on

Facebook in 2015. Fortunately, Facebook

offers many tools for gaining more insights

into a particular audience. Facebook’s Page

Insights Tools offer an understanding of

the type of content page fans engage with,

when they engage, and even what types of

posts they prefer.

Many companies gain an even deeper

understanding of their market using

Facebook’s free Audience Insights Tool.

This tool is an invaluable resource for

understanding different interest segments

within your core audience. Through

analyzing the overlaps and gaps between

different audiences and their interests,

brands can gain a clear view of the type

of content that will make an impact.

Interpreting these interests through the

filter of a company’s overarching brand

strategy, marketers will be able to know

what content will be the most engaging

and best support the brand objectives. This

blog post provides a detailed overview of

how to use this tool. “How To” Guide for the

Facebook Audience Insights Tool.

When creating content for your audience,

remember, goals should center on

connecting with specific brand principles

and beliefs, not informing them about

new products or sales promotions - those

types of objectives should be handled with

advertising campaigns.

“Understanding different

audiences and their

interests, brands gain a clear

view of the content that will

make an impact.”





Amplifying Content

Companies with a large number of fans

may choose to share certain content

only with specific segments of their fan

base. Facebook now makes it easy for

page owners to target which aspects

of their audience see which posts. This

same segmentation strategy should be

applied with advertising budget to amplify

particularly powerful content to reach a

greater proportion of the fan base and

seed the social conversation to facilitate

continued sharing.

The End of the Beginning

Facebook has been evolving towards a

paid media channel for some time. The

restrictions on organic reach and free

distribution over the last year, culminating

with the change of January 15, 2015, signal

a significant shift in this direction and the

beginning of the next phase in Social Media

Marketing.

This isn’t surprising. There are many

analogs between Search Marketing and

Social Media Marketing. Search engines

are myopically focused on delivering the

best possible content on the results page

in the same way Facebook is committed

to delivering the best possible content in

the Newsfeed. Early on, marketers gamed

search engine algorithms with SEO tactics

designed to get free exposure -- the same

way marketers gained free traffic from

Facebook sharing content to fans. As

Search Marketing evolved, companies

made a commitment to Paid Search and

now Pay Per Click advertising is the basis

of competition for many in this channel.

Most successful search marketers use

technology to support keyword selection,

bid optimization, targeting etc.

“There are many analogs

between Search Marketing

and Social Media

Marketing.”





As Facebook transitions to a paid channel,

most marketers will adopt technology to

support their advertising efforts. CitizenNet

is the only Facebook Marketing Partner

with technology proven to improve social

media performance through better audience

targeting and media optimization. With

solutions specifically designed for either

brands or the agencies that serve them,

CitizenNet’s clients see success using both

self serve and fully managed solutions.

For a more detailed overview of CitizenNet’s

technology or to schedule a demo, please

contact us through the form on our website.





References

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/

https://www.similartech.com/technologies/facebook-connect

http://www.leadledger.com/tech/Facebook-Connect

http://media.fb.com/2015/01/07/what-the-shift-to-video-means-for-creators/

Imagery

Andres Arenas from the Noun Project

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Transportation Authority of the State of New York, DWHonan, kalmyket, Rudi Riet, ARBRE

ÉVOLUTION, Tiffany Creatiff Photos, Uqbar is back, Graham Coreil-Allen, tanakawho and