But what is monetization? How do you monetize a Facebook page?

We discuss all this in detail in this blog post.

But let’s cover some basic ground first.

Why do you set up and maintain a Facebook presence?

For most businesses, some or all of the following reasons to indulge in Facebook marketing are true:

• To build and maintain a positive brand image

• For reputation management

• To lead people from social media to your website and other potential platforms

• To stay in touch with your consumers to get timely feedback and opinions

• In order to market your products and services and get consumers interested in them

• To engage with your consumers in a meaningful way

The list can go on but you get the point.

The end goal associated with a lot of these reasons is the same – the eventual increase in sales and profits. In simpler words: MAKING MONEY.

That is what your business exists to do – it is the aim you need to fulfill with all your marketing efforts. And that is exactly why you need to monetize social media.

In this particular blog post, we’ll talk about how to monetize a Facebook page (or group) in particular.

To learn more about our Facebook ad marketing services, get in touch with an expert today!

Let’s begin!

But before we do,

What Does Monetize Mean?

Before we get into anything else, what does it mean to monetize something?

Monetize, in the simplest of terms, means to earn revenue.

Let us put it like this:

Our website is monetized, meaning we make money from it in one way or the other.

In the arena of digital marketing, you can make money from a number of platforms. And Facebook is one of the more important ones.

Why?

We discuss this below for beginners in the world of monetization in the digital sphere.

Why Focus on Facebook Monetization?

We’ve talked a little about why you should focus on monetizing Facebook. More likely than not, you’re already working on marketing yourself on the platform.

Why not earn money with Facebook itself too? It never hurt anyone to build an extra stream of income – even popular businesses do it.

But why Facebook in particular?

According to eMarketer, 87.1% of marketers in the US are estimated to be using Facebook as a tool in 2020.

What is the reason for this?

It’s simple: There are 2.41 billion users who use the platform actively every month.

Which means this is where the people you need to target are. In other words, it is an ideal platform for you to build a following and eventually use that to make money using one or many of the methods we’ll discuss in this blog post.

Check Facebook Monetization Eligibility Status

Imagine this:

You come up with a plan on how to monetize Facebook and you realize that you are not eligible for monetization, meaning your efforts go to waste.

That would be disappointing to say the list.

So before you ask yourself, “how can I monetize my Facebook account?”, you need to ask yourself:

Am I eligible to monetize on Facebook?

Facebook has set out certain standards you have to meet in order to be able to monetize your content. Because these rules vary based on the kind of content and strategy you follow, we will discuss them as we share the different ways to monetize, meaning make money, on Facebook.

The best part? The rules don’t apply to ALL of the points we will discuss in this blog post.

In a lot of cases, eligibility varies on a case-by-case basis and at the discretion of businesses that are considering working with you.

Set Up a Facebook Shop to Sell Your Products

Throughout this blog post, we will talk about different – read, indirect – ways of selling through Facebook. In other words, using Facebook to promote products and leads customers to other platforms where they can actually buy the products.

But right here, we’re going to tell you how you can make your life a whole lot easier.

All you need to do is to set up a Facebook Shop and you’re ready to start selling.

That’s right – the social media giant now allows you to sell to your consumers without leaving the platform!

While this is generally great for businesses that have the potential to sell online, it is especially helpful during these COVID-19 times when many businesses have been forced to shut down their stores, whether temporarily or permanently.

Facebook Shops basically provides you the opportunity to give your consumers a storefront shopping experience right within the app.

Once you have it all set up, consumers can access the store by tapping the “View Shop” button present on the homepage.

Here is an example.

With Facebook Shops, it is possible for you to

• Set up a Facebook shop for free.

• Customize the Shop to align it with the branding of the business.

• Encourage conversions due to ease of use.

To be eligible to set up a shop on Facebook, you have to meet the following criteria:

• You must have a Facebook Business Manager account, with your page and catalog in the same account.

• Have Manage Page and Manage Catalog permissions in Business Manager.

You can use the Commerce Manager and Catalog Manager tools provided by Facebook to manage your Facebook Shop.

To learn more about shops and how you set one up for your business, click here.

Monetize Facebook Videos with In-Stream Ads

Do you know those ads that appear before, within, or after videos you are watching on Facebook?

They may be annoying to the people who get disturbed in the middle of watching a super-interesting video, but they are super-beneficial to the brands whose videos they run on.

And honestly, even the viewers have come to accept this as the new normal. So it doesn’t drive them away from your videos if that is what you’re concerned about.

The bottom line: getting in-stream ads placed within your videos on Facebook is one of the best ways to make money on the platform.

To include in-stream ads in your videos, you will need to use the Creator Studio app offered by Facebook.

But before you can get started with Facebook monetization for videos, you need to check if you are even eligible to run in-stream ads in your videos? Here are the characteristics that make you eligible:

• You need to publish videos from your Facebook page, not a profile.

• You need to meet Facebook’s partner monetization policies.

• Your page must have 10,000 followers – these are the people who will see the ads, which, in turn, decides how much income you will be able to generate.

• Your page needs to be from an eligible country and in an eligible language.

• You must have more than 30,000 1-minute-long views on your videos in the past 60 days. This metric shows that you have enough engagement on your Facebook videos to be able to generate income from in-stream ads.

• The video you are actually trying to run an in-steam ad on needs to be at least 3 minutes long.

Having said that, Facebook claims to have made some updates, according to which you can now run in-stream ads on more types of videos than before.

Here are the updates:

• Image and post-roll ads in short-form videos (between 60 and 180 seconds long)

• Mid-roll in for live videos

• Increased payouts for videos in Watch

You can find details about these updates and more here.

An easy way to find out whether you’re eligible to run in-stream ads is to go to Creator Studio (which is basically the Facebook monetization manager for videos) and select the page whose eligibility you want to check. You will automatically be shown if you are eligible to run those ads.

If you are, you will then be able to set up an account and payment options in Creator Studio, after which all the eligible videos you put up in the last 30 days will be considered for ad placements.

You have the flexibility to make decisions about having older videos in the running for in-stream ads, where exactly in the content the ads will be placed, and so on.

So, should you use in-stream ads?

Absolutely!

If you meet the eligibility criteria or have to make only minor modifications in order to become eligible, you can use these ads to set up an additional stream of income without any substantial effort.

You can also choose to have more control over the way the ads are run, or let Facebook take care of the details.

Sell Affiliate Products

You may have tried to sell affiliate products from your personal Facebook page when you were starting off. That’s fine, considering that you were a beginner.

But can you imagine how limited your reach was on your profile? You were only reaching your family, friends, and some acquaintances.

You know where you have a much greater reach?

On your Facebook page or Facebook group. Or even on Facebook groups you don’t manage.

But this has to be carried off VERY smartly. You don’t want to spam people’s timelines with affiliate links all the time.

You may get some sales from doing that in the beginning but people will soon start to get fed up. Why? Because that isn’t what they signed up for.

Their aim in being a part of your Facebook community is to learn more about you and your business, be informed of latest happenings, find solutions to their problems, and come across occasional offers among other things.

And that is exactly what you should give them.

Here are some considerations to keep in mind:

• Your affiliate marketing links should be a tiny part of a vast content calendar that also has many other posts for your target audience.

• Check if the affiliate program allows promotion on social media.

• Make sure that the affiliate links you share are for products relevant to the target audience of your page. If you post affiliate links for random products, it will come across as spammy activity and you will lose the interest AND trust of your target audience for good.

• Ensure that you comply with the FTC guidelines for disclosures about affiliate link posts.

• Try to sell as indirectly as possible – such as through a post about all the benefits of a certain product. Another great strategy is to lead people from Facebook to your site, offer something for free in return for an email address, and build an email list for your affiliate marketing efforts.

• Don’t spam your affiliate link on different groups across Facebook – this will do you no favors. A strategy such as sharing a blog post with instructions for fixing a hole in the wall, for example, and then linking to a product or service that makes the job substantially easier is the right way to go about it.

So you can definitely make money posting affiliate links on Facebook but you need to draft and implement the right strategy to get the results you desire.

Lead Traffic Back to Your Website

The link between your social media pages and your website is a crucial one.

One of the main aims of your social media posts should be to lead traffic back to your site from Facebook.

Here are some of the different types of Facebook pages you can drive traffic to:

Blog

A large part of your marketing efforts involves giving consumers solutions to their problems.

And your blog is where you do that.

Does this help you gain the trust and confidence of your target audience? Sure!

But it also does something else.

You will often be talking about one product/service or the other on your blog. Consumers may see this product or service as the appropriate solution for them, learn more about it, and opt to buy it.

Money-Making Pages

You may already be monetizing your website using an Adsense account.

Smart move – kudos for that.

But do you know what makes advertisers want to place ads on your site? A great amount of traffic! In other words, they will be more interested in placing ads on your webpages if you can show them that those pages attract a lot of visitors.

Do you see where we are going with this?

That’s right – you can enhance traffic to these webpages by leading it there from your Facebook page.

You can also get advertisers interested in new pages by building traffic to them.

And that is where your Facebook following comes into the picture.

Your efforts on your Facebook page can ultimately allow you to make more money from Adsense on your website.

Product or Service Pages

This one is a given and you are probably already doing it.

One of the primary uses of Facebook is to promote your products and services.

And one of the best ways to do that is to lead potential consumers back to the product or services pages on the website.

This does two things:

1. The user can find a lot more information about a particular product or service on its individual webpage than on Facebook.
2. If interested, the user can directly buy the product from the site, get in touch with a representative, or find out more about how they can buy it.

Introduce “Offers” to Consumers

If you are looking to discover how to monetize your Facebook page organically, one of the easiest ways is to post offers on your page.

Simply click on the “Offer” button below the “Create Post” bar on your page.

You will be able to add all the details about the offer, such as the discount available, a description and photograph of the product, where an interested consumer can avail the offer, when it is valid till, and so on.

The best part about this is that it’s absolutely free to create the offer, which will be shared with your followers in their newsfeeds.

People reacting to the offer in your feed will lead to an increase in sales and, hence, revenue.

Another way that you can share offers on your page is to share them directly from the website. Sharing them on Facebook will give them additional visibility, while also encouraging people to visit your website.

Run Facebook Ads

You can also, in a similar way, earn money by advertising on Facebook.

Advertising what exactly?

Your products and services!

But how is this different from posting an offer on your page? Is it easy to make money advertising on Facebook?

Let’s talk about how it is different first. First off, you have to pay to run ads on Facebook. And secondly, you specify the audience you want Facebook to show your ads to, which means that they reach relevant audiences beyond the following of your page that will likely be interested in your product.

That way you sell your products or services to more and more people.

So, are you wondering exactly how to earn money from Facebook ads?

Well, one way, that we will discuss later is to run ads on Facebook for other companies and get paid in the process.

But here, we are talking about running ads to promote your own products on Facebook. This will lead to more sales and, hence, more money.

Here is an example of an ad by Elementor. It pops up in the feed of Facebook users that may be interested in trying out its services and gives them an option to buy those services instantly.

Learn all about Facebook ads, as well as the tools you can use to run them in these blog posts:

The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ads (Demographics & Age Ranges)

Navigating Facebook Ads Manager and Business Manager – A Complete Guide

Creating Facebook Ad Accounts & Getting Them to Work

Clever Facebook Ads Optimization Hacks that Knockout Your Competitors

Use Your Influence to Your Advantage

If you are well-known in your field, you can get brands to pay you to post about them on your Facebook page.

In other words, you can indulge in a little bit of influencer marketing.

Let’s say you are a makeup artist who often posts makeup tutorials to your Facebook page. In this way, you have built quite a following on your page that trusts your opinions on everything makeup.

Now, when a makeup brand launches a new collection, they can pay you to review and/or promote their products to your audience.

You may have reviewed these products on your followers’ request anyway, but now you get paid to do so.

Build Brand Collaborations

Facebook likes it when brands are able to work together for their mutual benefit. Which is why it makes it easier for them to do so using the tool Brand Collabs Manager.

We’ll talk more about the tool below.

Here are the benefits you gain by working out deals with brands on Facebook.

Diversify Your Audience

The first thing collaborating with other businesses will do for you is that it will expand your reach to a great extent.

Your visibility will no longer be limited to your followers – your content will also be viewed by the fans of the other business. More visibility often means more business, so that is a plus point right there.

But there is more to it than that.

Earn Money from Paid Partnerships

Collaborating with relevant businesses not only allows you to tap into the relationship they have with their target audience, it also allows you to build a whole other revenue stream.

And Facebook makes it easy for you to do with Brand Collabs Manager in Creator Studio.

With the tool, you can

• Create a portfolio that outlines all the important information you want to share about your brands with other businesses. This allows you to be easily discovered by brands who need someone just like you to promote their products or services.

• Begin collaborations with brands that are the perfect fit for you and get paid in the process.

The Latest Updates Regarding Facebook Monetization Potential

Facebook is always improving its existing tools while also adding new ones that help you run your business more successfully.

Here are some latest updates/ways to facilitate for you the process of making money on Facebook:

• Fan Subscriptions: Your fans can pay a monthly amount for some perks in return

• Stars: Your followers can buy and send you stars in live videos, against which you earn money

• In-stream ads – An addition to the types of videos that can monetized (which we have already discussed above)

You can find details about each of these tools on their respective pages in Creator Studio. Here, you will also be able to check the eligibility of your page for using each of the tools.

For more details on how to make money from Facebook in new and enhanced ways, visit the following page:

New Ways to Monetize

Discover What Strategies Work Best for YOUR Brand

This is what makes the digital marketing industry a fun and exciting one to be a part of – what works very well for one business may do nothing for another.

This is why you need to analyze the goals of your business and where you currently stand in order to choose which of these strategies may work best for you.

But there are no rules set in stone about how to make money with a Facebook page. If one method doesn’t work for you, you can always move on to another. And another. Until you find the perfect mix!

Do you have any Facebook monetization strategies that you think we have missed?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Monetization – How to Make Money on Facebook appeared first on Canz Marketing.

And guess what? You will turn up a bunch of results telling you just how to do that.

But don’t get excited because there’s a catch.

Let us put it this way. The real question isn’t how – it’s “CAN I create a Facebook business page without a personal account?”

And the answer is simple – IT ISN’T POSSIBLE! Or not anymore at least.

We’ll discuss all that in a lot more detail in this blog post.

Some of the items we will discuss are:

But before we get into those details, here’s a thought.

If it is going to cause you all sorts of hassle,

Is It Worth Having a Facebook Page at All?

Well, let us start with this: Facebook has 2.7 billion active monthly users as of the second quarter of 2020.

Your target audience is in there somewhere too. And your competitors are already doing all they can to try and reach them.

If you don’t use Facebook to launch your company or take your already established business digital, you WILL be left behind.

Building on that, it is against Facebook’s policies to use your personal Facebook profile, if you have one, for business purposes.

So you definitely need a page for your business – for these reasons among others such as building and creating awareness about the brand, interacting with your customers, posting relevant information, and so on.

Now, coming to the main question,

Why Does a Facebook Business Page Have to be Linked to a Personal Account?

The simple reason for this is transparency and accountability.

Facebook has made this mandatory in an attempt to curb scamming and other illegal activities.

How?

By making sure they can reach the responsible party in case something happens because their profile is linked.

This is why it’s illegal to link a page to a fake profile.

And if Facebook notices that your profile is fake, they can flag it as such and take away your administrative rights.

So, what does all this mean? Can you create a business page on Facebook without a personal account?

Unfortunately, you cannot. So what can you do?

Now we come to the real question,

Can I Separate my Business Page from my Personal Account on Facebook?

If we had a penny for each time we’ve had a client ask us this question…

The answer is yes.

But doesn’t that go against all we’ve discussed up until now?

Not really.

See, you have a personal Facebook account that you use to keep in touch with friends and family and stay updated about their lives.

But this isn’t the account you need to link to your Facebook business page.

So what do you do?

Read on and find out.

How to Create a Business Facebook Page without a Personal Account

Here’s your fix:

You can create a new “personal” account, which you can then link to the Facebook page of your business.

Does this mean, though, that you can create a fake Facebook profile with incorrect information? Absolutely not – that is illegal.

But you can create a profile with valid information that you don’t use much at all. You can also use the privacy settings to make sure this page isn’t visible to anyone.

As we mentioned above, the reason Facebook wants the business page linked to a genuine account is to make sure somebody is answerable in the event of illegal or unwanted activity.

This means that through this account, they know they can track and reach you if the need arises.

Keeping in line with that, the personal profile has to have a minimum of these things:

• Legal name
• Phone number
• Email address

Here’s how you can get started.

Create a New Account on Facebook

1. Go to www.facebook.com.
2. Click on the Create New Account button.

1. Fill in the details in the window that pops up. Take care that the information you enter is correct and valid in every way.

With that, your new profile is set up.

Next, you need to know how to make a page private on Facebook.

Keeping the “Personal Profile” Private

On the top-right-hand side of the Facebook page, click on the drop-down menu, and then on settings.

In the Privacy section, edit the details based on the level of privacy you want with regard to the account.

Creating a Facebook Business Page

You can learn how to create a Facebook page for an organization in a bunch of easy-to-follow steps.

We discuss them in detail in this blog post:

Creating a Facebook Page for Business – An A-Z Guide

Give it a read and get your own page up and running in no time at all.

Summing Up…

If you came to this blog post looking for answers on how to create a business Facebook page without a personal account at all, we’re sorry to disappoint you.

But this way works just as well and allows you keep your actual Facebook page private and separate from your business activities.

For more help with social media marketing, page management, and more, get in touch with us today!

The post Can I Create a Facebook Business Page without a Personal Account? appeared first on Canz Marketing.

But, hey! Do you remember the days when we started using smartphones?

Those days were pure addiction.

Facebook on our palms was all we wanted to open our eyes to.

Then in 2010, came the visual counterpart of our virtual social carry-ons.

Yes! The current photo and video sharing giant platform Instagram, it was!

Grown to a gigantic user-base of 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram management is surely the new mantra for marketers.

Source

Many of us didn’t realize the potential of this platform until some smart brands started making their business accounts on Instagram.

It is easy to get everything snapped and documented in one place.

People can follow you through stories, your snaps, through hashtags and Instagram ads.

Isn’t it super cool to get connected through a visual medium?

The users can see exactly what your offerings look like.

You get them interested in your product, and they’d come running to your brand story for more details.

Here’s the best part:

The users on Instagram keep coming back. They want to see what’s new.

Let’s explore how we can leverage Instagram to grow your business.

Instagram Management: The Stats That Matter:

Here’s an interesting fact: 71% of Instagram users are under 35 years of age.

Now, how does this matter? 

Because that presents an opportunity for the aspiring business owners.

So, why is there an opportunity?

Because the stats say so!

According to a blog post at Hubspot:

“More than 72% of Instagram users have purchased something they have seen on the platform.”

Do you see it? 

A ripe market of shoppers who are mostly under 35 years is awaiting your entry with a product.

So, why not sell them something they need and want? 

The next important question, But how will they know that you’re selling something? 

Here’s the confusing yet the right answer:

It is better to be a bit secretive here. You don’t always need to tell them that you’re selling something.

You need to snap or make a video to sell something.

Easy peasy, right? 

Wrong!

Here’re the details to run a successful Instagram business account:

Many brands outsource their management to an Instagram management service provider. These Instagram management services include almost all aspects of business account management. What we intend here to do here is to guide you to DIY your Instagram management. 

Let’s have a look at how to develop an intriguing Instagram business account.

Start With Making A Business Account On Instagram:

Most of us use Instagram to follow our fields of interest. 

From connecting to see our favorite stars’ daily life insights to make food choices and preferences by going through the restaurant Instagram marketing efforts, almost all of us use this highly engaging platform. 

However, as a social media user, our visual connection choices are different from a business that wants to take customers on board. 

So, a consumer’s perspective is totally another thing while managing an Insta account from a marketer’s perspective is another.

Not to forget that Instagram management as a business could be your jackpot.

So, if you own a business page on Facebook, but you haven’t started your Insta handle, the upcoming text is a gold mine for you.

 Let’s see how:

According to the Instagram blog, this social network had 25 million business profiles by 2017.

Why not climb up the bandwagon?

Let’s see how to do it – creating an Instagram Business Account.

How to Make an Instagram Business Account

The first step is to switch your personal account to a business account. For that:

1. Open the Instagram app on your phone. Go to the Edit profile section.
2. Going through the settings, you can find the option ‘ Switch to Professional account.’  

3. Once you select the mentioned option, the next step is to choose the type of profile you want.  Pick the business profile option.

4. After that, you can update the business category and contact information.

It enables you to use Instagram’s business tools, such as:

• Instagram analytics 
• Using Instagram posts as ads
• Using links in stories
• Scheduling your posts to get auto-published

These Instagram Marketing tools help you to measure how engaging your visual content is and develop a greater reach.

Watch the attached video to have a better understanding:

5. After setting up an Instagram business account, the next step is to create an engaging bio for your business.

An engaging bio:

• Gives the basic description of the business
• Uses relevant hashtags
• Includes links to promotional content.
• Makes use of appropriate emoji
• Can be updated whenever needed

Some Important Questions About Instagram Management And Marketing

Let’s discuss some important questions you are sure to have in your mind.

What Is A Competitive Engagement Rate On Instagram?

 Before answering this question, we first need to understand ‘what is engagement rate?’ 

 According to instazood.com:

 Engagement rate = (Number of likes or comments / Number of followers) X 100

 Makes sense? It should!

There can be a considerable number of followers on an Instagram account. However, having an equal number of followers on 2 different accounts does not ensure the same engagement rate.

Let’s get to the original question now, what is a good engagement rate on Instagram?

Instazood points out that an engagement rate between 1.5%-3.5 is considered average while above that limit, it is considered high.

The next probing question on the list is here:

How Can You Organically Grow Your Instagram Followership?

You know the business.game.

People pay to get likes and comments.

Some companies provide increasing followership services.

It’s a nasty game, though.

You can get banned anytime if you keep using bots to achieve Instagram followership.

Here’s another way which may be a bit tedious, but it’s worth the effort.

You can always grow your social media presence organically.

But how to organically grow your Instagram account?

Let’s have a look:

Good Instagram Management Starts with Running A Thorough Research To Know Who Your Audience Is:

Irrespective of how fast-growing and competitive digital marketing becomes, the basics stay intact. You need to go to the demographic and preferential research of who your audience is? 

Identifying their pain points is a marketing task that still remains at the core of this cut-throat digital marketing world. 

Keep An Eye On Your Competitor’s Moves And Plan Accordingly:

Your competitors sure are checking what you’re doing. So, before they move fast, take the lead, plan your move to engage those highly receptive Instagram users.

Collaborate With Accounts Similar To Yours:

*Collaborate to dominate* is the next big thing in the world of Instagram. 

Finding out similar accounts and reaching out to them for collaborations is the need of the hour. All your efforts converge on the only point of creating engaging content.

Now that the foundation is laid, let’s see how to create engaging content for business profiles:

5 Ways To Create Engaging Business Content For Instagram Business Profile:

We have gathered five practical solutions to creating engaging visual content that creates brand awareness on Instagram.

Good Instagram Management Starts With Choosing A Theme Which Resonates With Your Brand Personality

Every brand has a unique personality. Your business must have it too.

If you haven’t started working on the personality of your product, start with the basics.

Choose a color theme that stays consistent throughout your content and creates a brand connection in your follower’s minds.

Here’s a real-life example from the Instagram handle of Charles and Keith.

Source

All you see are the shades of whites and browns in the backgrounds of most of all the products.

Whenever followers view a new post, they immediately spot out which brand’s photos they are watching.

Whatever you do as a marketing initiative, make sure to make that effort consistent.

The color scheme is one such factor to focus on. 

Some brands create brand associations with different themes and use them in their marketing campaigns.

Here’s an example from the Instagram handle of Nike:

Source

What did you observe?

Nike associates itself with sports. You can clearly see the usage of this association in the image of their Insta feed above.

It is a time-consuming process, but you can definitely design themes for your account’s uniformity on Instagram.

Use Template Photos From Free Photo Editing Tools:

There are three ways to go about Photo editing.

1. You can go the old school way of hiring a professional to edit your photos, but to be honest, it is a wastage of resources in this digital era.
2. The second way is using Instagram’s in-built photo editing tools. You can use them to edit your photos.

 Pick those filters to edit your photos for a more professional look. 

3. The final way is to use graphic designing platforms such as Canva or Venngage to create stunning photos that awe your followers.

Popular Instagram Photo Editing Tools To Get Better Instagram Feed:

Here’s a list of photo editing tools that are popular among Instagram users:

• Later: Instagram users face the difficulty of previewing their feeds. Instagram Later – the amazing photo editing app – has resolved the problem for them. It allows the user to see how their photos will appear to a third person viewing their profile.
• VSCO: This app has been so popular on Instagram that the hashtag VSCO is one of the most shared hashtags on Instagram.
• Storeo: It is an IOS app that allows the user to record stories longer than 15 seconds. 
• Foodie: As the name suggests, this app is best for clicking food photos. Anyone interested in their restaurant Instagram marketing can use it to create appealing images

These tools provide thousands of templates that you can use to support your visual content. 

Use The Photo Captions To Provide Relevant Information:

A caption speaks volumes about a picture. It is pivotal to the understanding of a picture you have posted.

An appealing photograph becomes memorable if the caption resonates with its viewer.

As a marketer, you need to invest your energies in finding what is actually relevant for your audience.

There are different strategies to craft a fantastic caption of your intriguing photo.

Let’s just have a look:

• Give An Accurate Description Of What The Picture Is All About:

Think about it for a while.

You’re trying to run an Instagram image search on your personal account, and you don’t see a single picture relevant to your search.

You will definitely be frustrated.

But, guess what is more frustrating?

Finding irrelevant images for your highly relevant search query.

That is why as a marketer, you need to give an accurate description of a product image in its caption.- to increase its visibility in the Instagram image search.

• Using Emojis To Give A Sense Of Association To The Viewer:

Emojis are cute.

They make you express better during boring text sessions.

Similarly, when you put emojis in your text on your photo captions, it creates a positive association in the viewer’s mind.

• Do Not Make The Viewer Think That You’re Pushing Hard To Sell Your Product:

Keep it natural. 

Do not overload the caption with information. Stuffing hurts!

However, if you can’t make do without putting a lot of information, keep it structured and non- salesy.

• Design An Error Free Copy Of Your Caption:

Keep revising your captions, especially if you spot errors in the drafts.

It’s easier than you think and rewards beyond your expectations.

An error-free caption copy is what hooks your customers.

Tag Relevant Accounts In Stories For Collaboration:

Stories make the latest Instagram trend. 

You can create stories and tag similar accounts on your stories so that your content gets better visible to larger audiences.

You can tag your industry influencers in your stories for better reach.

Other collaborative efforts include taking Instagram bloggers of your niche into your marketing circuit.

Use IGTV To Create Engaging Videos:

Instagram stories allow only 15 seconds long videos. But less can’t always be more!

There’s another tool associated with Instagram, named IGTV.

IGTV allows Instagram users to upload stories as long as 15 minutes from mobile devices and 60 minutes from the web.

The minimum duration for an IGTV video is 1 minute.

There’s an optimum image size for an IGTV thumbnail, which is 420px by 654 pixels.

Now, how do you utilize this time and space?

• One idea is to create behind the scenes videos for your brand.

 Customers have a curiosity to find out what their favorite brands do during the process.

• Another thing that is on the go on Instagram is celebrity endorsement. 

You can reach out to a celebrity or Instagram influencer of your niche to create brand awareness with influencer marketing.

Now, after all the information to set up Instagram for business, here’s what we have learned so far:

A Quick Recap:

What we have covered in the post:

• Why is Instagram the next marketing tool for businesses?
• How to set up an Instagram business account?
• What is the optimum engagement rate for Instagram?
• How to organically grow an Instagram business account?
• 5 strategies to create engaging content for Instagram, which are:
  • Creating a thematic account
  • Using tools for good quality pictures
  • Strategizing the captions smartly
  • Tagging relevant accounts on stories
  • Using IGTV for lengthier stories.

Concluding Remarks:

Owning a business is one thing, but giving it deeper-dimensions through consistent effort is another. It is a multi-faceted competition which needs precision and consistency to keep up the pace. 

Therefore, for a social media platform that is growing at a considerable speed, Instagram management for marketers becomes extremely crucial. 

However, if Instagram management and Marketing for your business seems to be a burden, you can always turn to professional help.

So, are you ready to give a go to switching your personal Instagram account to a Business account?

The post 5 Ways For Better Instagram Management Of Businesses appeared first on Canz Marketing.

How are we so sure?

We won’t bore with detailed Instagram story analytics but we will tell you this:

More than 500 million people use Instagram stories every day.

Yes, you read that right.

500 million.

These are the people you have the potential to reach.

And if you manage to reach even a minute fraction of this number, you have won at the game.

But if that’s not enough to convince you, here are a few other reasons that will.

What is the Purpose of Instagram Stories?

You must’ve asked yourself this question at some point if you are new to Instagram marketing.

Why does my business need Instagram stories?

Aren’t the posts on my feed enough?

Why should I invest time and effort into yet another realm of social media – and Instagram – in particular?

We tell you why below:

Engaged Audience

One of the main reasons for the use of social media in general is to interact with one’s consumers and have open two-way communication with them.

Instagram stories let you involve your audience in a way few other tools do.

From inviting their opinion to encouraging them to share problems, solutions, experiences, and views; from introducing offers to making exciting announcements; you can keep your audience fully engaged.

Ability to Reach a Wider Demographic

Whether you use hashtags to reach people on the basis of interest or location tags to reach a particular geographical demographic, you can reach an audience beyond just your dedicated followers.

This is true for Instagram marketing in general, and stories in particular.

Limited Time Posts

There are times when you need to post about something that won’t hold true in the long term.

An example is a one-day discount, for example, or participation in a challenge that is truly valid for only a day (the following story was posted on July 29^th).

Things that are temporary or sudden don’t really have a place on your Insta feed – you’re much better off sharing them on stories.

A Space for Informal Interaction

If you look at Instagram stories by businesses on the platform, or even the examples we will share in this blog post, you will notice a common trend: stories are quite informal.

Whereas a lot of thought and effort goes into making regular posts for Instagram, stories are different.

While they do require planning and creativity, no one is expecting mad photography or copywriting skills in a story, among other things. The tone and style are much more conversational.

No Limits!

You can quite literally post about anything on Instagram stories.

Want to post an image? Great! Got a video or GIF instead? That works too!

Want to post about a promotion, an announcement, a challenge, a BTS shoot, a product, anything under the sun? You choose what you talk about and how.

While some kinds of posts will perform better than others, you can play around with multiple types and see what works for you.

Traffic to Your Site

When businesses put a new blog post up on their website, they post about it in their stories – you must have noticed this.

They do this so people will be intrigued and visit the site.

By “Swiping up” in this case:

Whether you are promoting a product, introducing a discount, or launching a CSR campaign, you can turn your Instagram story views into website visits.

In this way, on top of keeping your customers engaged, you also increase traffic to your site (and, hence, improve your SEO efforts).

Now that you know why your business needs to make stories a part of its Instagram marketing strategy, let’s discuss some Instagram stories ideas!

How to Ace Instagram Stories

Use Stickers

Stickers are a great way to engage your audience.

Why?

Because they are a lot more interactive than simple image and video posts you can put up in your Instagram feed.

And the best part? You can add them to both image and video stories.

How do you add stickers? Simply click on the Stickers icon once you have taken or uploaded a photo or video to Stories.

So, what are some kinds of stickers and how can you use them for your business effectively? We discuss a few of them with you here.

Let’s dive right into it.

Poll Stickers

Poll Stickers are just what the name implies: Polls.

You can ask a question about the brand, product, service, or something completely random, and give the consumer two options to choose from.

This engages the audience and also brings them back later because they want to view the results of the poll.

Take a look at this Poll in CLUSE’s stories. They carried out a poll to see which of the two watches that they were soon launching their consumers would go for.

In this way, they would find out what their customers were leaning towards, while engaging them and making them feel valued at the same time.

Challenge Stickers

Social media challenges are all the rage nowadays – especially now because people are stuck at home due to COVID-19.

Instagram story challenges are no different.

You can record your challenge and put it up on your story with the challenge sticker.

Take the Squat Challenge, for example.

If you own a gym, you can take part in the squat challenge and put it up in your stories, adding the challenge sticker and tagging other people too.

Question Stickers

These stickers allow you to ask your consumers Instagram story questions and get responses from them (which you can then respond to as well).

And it’s just as it sounds – there are a million directions you can take with this!

• Ask consumers about their opinions on a product.
• Share a problem and seek advice.
• Encourage your customers to ask questions you can help them with.
• The list can go on.

What all these options basically do is get your audience involved in a one-on-one conversation about something meaningful.

Here’s an example:

Cultivate What Matters, a company that is all about goal planning and achieving big things, asked people to share their goals/struggles.

When someone responded with a concern, they contributed a very helpful tip so they could get things in order.

Emoji Slider Stickers

These kinds of stickers allow your users to respond to your questions on a scale.

They are similar to the question and poll stickers in that they encourage consumers to interact with the post.

Unlike the poll stickers, however, the user gets to answer with a bunch of options on a scale (e.g., selecting how much they like a particular perfume scent, from not at all to quite a bit).

Mention Stickers

Mention Stickers allow you to tag someone in your story.

You can use this in combination with other stickers and elements.

As a business, it allows you to easily tag other businesses, influencers you may be working with, celebrities who used and endorsed your product, and so on.

Example:

Extra Exton is an Instagram blog owned by a special needs mom to create awareness and share her life with her son who has Down Syndrome.

She shared her appreciation about a motivational workbook and tagged the author using a mention sticker.

Some other fun stickers to play around with include:

• Date stickers
• GIF stickers
• Location stickers
• Hashtag Stickers

Use a combination of these stickers in your Instagram stories strategy (and even in a single post) and figure out what works for your brand.

Rely on User-Generated Content

One of the greatest Instagram stories tricks is to use UGC, or user-generated content.

But why is user-generated content so important? Why does it work so well?

The answer to that is simple:

It shares a story, a real experience, and introduces an element of authenticity into the picture (pun intended).

See, you can highlight 10 different specifications that make your product stand out from all others in the market. But if a user posts about their experience with even two of those characteristics, that is much more real.

And you can use that to your advantage.

Whether you repost an Instagram story or a regular post by a consumer on your stories, it benefits your brand in ways you cannot imagine!

And the cherry on top? Each piece of UGC is one less post for you to create!

Employ Behind-the-scene Posts

Your brand and your consumers are a family in today’s day and age – the rigid business-customer dynamic doesn’t exist anymore.

Because your consumers treat you as an important part of their lives, they deserve to see little tidbits of life behind the scenes for your brand.

From sharing memorable throwbacks to teasers about something exciting about to be launched, you can play around with this idea and see what works best for you.

Introduce Time-Sensitive Promotions

A lot of times, your brand introduces promotions or shares news that is time-sensitive.

Like so:

If this time period is very short, you won’t always post about it on your feed (or you can do both) – we talked about this above.

Sharing these updates with the consumers on stories will save you lot of hassle. You won’t have to explain to customers a month later, for example, how a certain offer was only valid for one day – the day mentioned in the post!

On stories, the post will disappear after 24 hours and there will be nothing left to be confused about.

Make Discount Announcements

If done right, Instagram stories allow you to reach an audience beyond your current following.

But do you know who follows your Instagram stories regardless?

Your loyal fan base.

And what better way to thank them than with discount offers they learn about on your story?

Reach them and others with announcements about discounts they can obtain when shopping with you.

Save Story Highlights

There are some things you want your consumers and potential customers to see the moment they land on your Instagram page.

And let’s face it – you can’t really put all that information in your bio – you’re only allowed 150 characters!

But there is a way around that – you can create story threads for such information and save them as highlights. This could include anything, from pictures of items from your newest range to delivery details and product “catalogues.”

When you do that, they will become permanently visible to the visitors of your page – directly below your bio and above your feed.

Go Live

Going Live from Instagram is a brilliant way to interact with your customers in real-time.

Here are some ways in which you can use the Live functionality to benefit your business:

• Introduce your products and services in real time through first look and unboxing posts, for example.
• Take your audience behind the scenes and show them the process you follow to devise a service.
• Cover an event you are holding live.
• Conduct a session where the sole purpose is for you to interact with your customers in a fun, relaxed virtual environment.
• Invite guests onto the Live session and conduct real-time interviews.

Quick Story Hacks

We’ve covered some really useful techniques using which you can win with Instagram stories.

Here are a few more quick pointers you really shouldn’t skip.

Add Hashtags to Your Stories

We mentioned the Hashtag sticker up top when we were discussing the use of stickers in stories.

Whether you use the Hashtag sticker in Instagram stories or in your feed, you’re essentially bringing together people who have similar interests to each other. And to you, of course!

And that is what will help you build/strengthen your community.

Lead More People to Your Feed from Stories

Your feed is crucial for longer term posts. And as with any social media marketing material, you want to bring as much attention to it as possible.

And one way to lead people to the posts is through stories.

The concept here is the same as leading people to your website, YouTube channel, or other desired location.

Use Links in Instagram Stories

We talked about leading people to your website from the stories. But that’s not the only destination you can aim for.

Buzzfeed Tasty, for example, puts a teaser of a cooking video in its Instagram stories and adds a “Swipe Up” option. Once you swipe up, you’re led to the complete video on YouTube.

Tasty isn’t alone is doing this – many brands use this tactic.

And you should too.

So,

Are You Ready to Up Your Game with Instagram Stories?

Our job was to give you ideas on how you can leave other businesses behind when it comes to Instagram stories.

Now the ball’s in your court.

A sincere piece of advice: leverage the power of Instagram stories because guess what? Your competitors already are.

The post How You Can Ace Instagram Stories for Business appeared first on Canz Marketing.

What tactics are pulling you down?

Did you mess up your first Instagram post and it has all been downhill from there?

We’re going to tell you how to remedy the situation.

You can see this as an “Instagram for Dummies – Stay Away From the Following Practices” guide.

We’re pretty confident you’ll learn something new by the end of it.

This is what we will cover:

Let’s get right to it!

What Should You Not Do on Instagram – Strategy

Don’t Forget to Plan Your Strategy

A plan is essential if you want to start at point A and set off on a journey toward point B.

In this case, point B is Instagram marketing success.

See, here’s the thing: you must likely have the endpoint in mind. But without a strategy in place, you won’t be able to take the actions needed to reach that goal.

And that means tons of wasted effort and lost opportunities.

A few core elements of your marketing strategy include:

• Determining the audience you are targeting
• Setting clear goals (short- and long-term) as milestones for success
• Selecting content types and producing high-quality, engaging content
• Creating a plan for analyzing and auditing your Instagram marketing efforts at regular intervals

Start with these things and you’ll learn the ropes along the way.

Don’t Be Inconsistent with Your Posts

A great way to hamper growth on Instagram is to be inconsistent in the way you post on and the manage the page.

It’s great if you’re creating and posting 1-2 posts per day. It’s also okay if you’re managing three a week.

What’s not okay is for you to post multiple times a day on some days and not at all on others.

What’s also not okay is for you to get consumers into the habit of coming across something from you in their feed on a particular day and time, and then stop posting at those times.

This can massively affect your viewership AND the way your consumers see you.

The best way to ensure consistency is to create a content calendar and have posts ready well in advance so you never miss your posting slot, even in the case of an emergency.

Don’t Create Content for the Sake of Creating Content

Having said what we did above, you can’t just post anything because it is “post day” and you want to “follow the calendar.”

Your social media marketing needs to resonate with your audience and give them a certain message. It also needs to make them feel a certain way.

Look at this beach resort’s feed, for example:

Everything about this feed screams beach, fun, relaxation, and just a darn good time! You can almost hear the sounds of the beach and can’t wait to take a trip.

Which is exactly what the intention of these posts is – to encourage you to visit the beach resort as a break from life.

Now imagine if this Instagram business account started posting pictures of a hurricane. Or if they went ahead and posted things like “10 essentials to bring to the beach this year” – a post they planned and created way before the COVID-19 crisis and shelter-in-place.

This will be irrelevant and will completely throw off the feel of this feed.

Put in the effort to create content that is meaningful to your consumers.

Don’t Undermine the Power of Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories is where it is at nowadays – they are the perfect place for brands to interact with their consumers.

And the best thing is that the potential for creativity is unlimited. Instagram knows how much Stories can help your brand, which is why there are lots of features you can use to engage your audience.

As an example, you can:

• Conduct story polls and make your consumers feel like they have a say and their opinion matters to you.
• Use Emoji slider stickers to achieve similar results.

• Share content that you have been tagged in by consumers (UGC).
• Use quiz stickers to educate the audiences (your engagement will see a definite boost as people who participate will come back to see the results).

Done right, Insta Stories can make your business an all-time favorite in, well, NO time at all.

Don’t Underestimate Instagram Shop

E-commerce dominates modern-day shopping trends – pandemic or no pandemic.

And Instagram knows that it needs to take this element of online business seriously.

The photo-sharing platform has expanded its horizons and offers an immersive storefront shopping experience to users.

The platform is also on its way to offering a dedicated Instagram Shop tab to users for their ease.

And honestly, one would be a fool not to take benefit.

Imagine displaying your products to consumers with all their details mentioned, including the price. Better yet, imagine giving them the option of buying the product directly with a few taps, instead of searching for the product elsewhere online.

It is a gamechanger that you definitely want to bring on board if you are to win at selling online.

Don’t Ignore Consumers in DMs

We live in a world of no delays.

You order something from Amazon and want it delivered the next day. Or even the same day!

This is the norm.

Can you imagine then the impression you would leave on your consumers if you left them waiting for a response when they reached out to you in a private message?

They could have a query about a product, an incident to share, or a complain.

The message may be time-sensitive or otherwise.

None of those things matter. Yet all of them do.

What matters the most is that the consumer gets an answer as quickly as possible from your brand.

What Should You Not Do on Instagram – Individual Posts

Don’t Forget Your Brand Voice

Your brand voice tells the consumer a lot about your company – its personality, values, and persona among other things.

It helps you bring like-minded people together and create a community.

But that’s not all.

By working hard and establishing a brand voice that is recognizable, you make sure that, in turn, your brand is recognizable.

And social media is the best (and most important) place to do this because that is where you interact with your consumers.

They should see a post and instantly realize its from your account, even before seeing your handle. And this can only be possible if your brand voice is consistent – from your first Instagram post to today.

Read about creating a brand voice for Instagram in a lot more detail here:

4 Simple Ways To Develop A Strong Brand Voice On Instagram

Don’t Leave Your Bio Incomplete

Your Insta bio is the first thing a consumer will go through if they are coming to your page for the first time.

It is like your very own online business card – you have your name, what you do, your contact details, a link to your site.

What it has in addition to all that is a description of exactly who you are – a one- or two-line introduction to new folks.

Here’s what an updated Instagram bio does for you:

• It instantly tells people who you are and what you do when they land on your Instagram page.
• People get a great idea of whether they belong on the page just by looking at the bio.
• You can redirect people to your site by including a link in the bio.
• You can also link other accounts in the bio.
• It can help you obtain content. How? By displaying the hashtag you potentially use to attract UGC.

We think these reasons are enough for you to go and start working on improving your bio ASAP. Can you think of other important ones we’ve missed out? Let us know in the comments below!

Don’t Forget UGC (User-Generated Content)

User-generated content is all the rage nowadays.

And why shouldn’t it be?

It makes the experience with a product or service much more real for potential consumers. They can relate to it.

And guess what? Instagram is the perfect platform for promoting user-generated content. Consumers do it on their own too – bloggers, influencers, ordinary people will review your products or mention them in their posts.

All you have to do is share that content from your Instagram Business Profile.

Here is a recent example from Starbucks. A loyal consumer took a nice shot of their Starbucks order and put it up on Insta.

Starbucks shared the post and got – wait for it – more than 116,000 likes!

This is one example of many.

And that is why it is very important that you don’t just rely on content that you create. Whether you share random UGC or launch a full-on campaign, it’s a must!

Don’t Be Robotic – Share Your Story with the Audience Raw

At its core, what is Instagram?

It’s a photo-sharing platform that people use for visual storytelling.

And that isn’t restricted to personal Instagram accounts – it’s what your brand needs too!

So don’t just post distant, promotional, impersonal stuff on your Instagram account.

On this particular social media platform, when the audience sees the Instagram handles of their favorite brands, they almost expect to learn a new piece of their story.

They want to know your values, what you represent, what your team looks like, what your history is, what your consumers mean to you – the list can go on.

Be real and be raw in a way that also showcases your products and services – that will show the consumers what life can look like with your products in it.

Don’t Stick to Only Single-Picture Posts

A lot of the time, brands stick to posts that consist of a single picture on Instagram.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But we think there is massive potential in using carousel posts on the platform.

The list of opportunities you can explore with these multi-picture/video posts is endless.

• Telling a story that’s a little longer than usual? Break it up into multiple pictures or videos in a single post.
• Putting up a post introducing or promoting a product? Show it off from multiple angles in more than one picture.
• A new product has more than one uses? Tell the audience all about its applications in a single post.
• And so on.

Look at these pictures (which are coincidentally part of a UGC campaign Apple has launched where users submit photos #shotoniPhone #atHome): 1

These are just four of the photos in a single carousel post by a man finding ways to avoid anxiety and boredom in his new home during the pandemic.

They tell the story of a man who is settling in, finding ways to keep busy, and just coping – something everyone can relate to nowadays.

Don’t Be Boring – Emoji It Up!

So many times when you don’t have words to express how you feel, an emoji steps up to the task and says it all.

We all use them on our private social media every single day.

But did you know that they have a massive benefit for your business too?

Quintly, a social analytics platform, carried out a study and found that the greater the number of emojis in a post, the greater the interaction with the post.

What’s also true, though, is that more than 52% of the 34,000 businesses analyzed in the study do not use any emojis in their posts.

You might be one of these Instagram handles.

We understand that emojis may seem a little childish or you may feel they just don’t resonate with the voice of the brand.

But the numbers suggest that you should at least give them a shot and try to incorporate at least SOME emojis in your posts.

Don’t Overdo It with Hashtags

Using hashtags is a great way of reaching more and more people. Which you obviously want to do.

But how do hashtags help you reach a much wider audience?

Well, your post becomes visible to people who are searching for the same things but don’t follow you yet. They’re already interested – once they see the post, thus, they have a higher chance of converting.

So how should you be using hashtags? Should you be using one, many, or none at all?

Quintly found that smaller businesses use more hashtags (and more often!) than larger counterparts.

And this makes perfect sense if you think about it. Larger brands have wider audiences and a massive reach – they don’t need hashtags to reach people.

Smaller brands, on the other hand, that not many people know, gain a lot more in visibility, exposure and reach by using hashtags.

But here’s what interesting: according to Quintly, as the number of hashtags used by larger businesses increases, engagement with their posts go down.

Whether that is because of consumers seeing them as unauthentic, trying too hard, or something else, larger brands are better off sticking to fewer hashtags.

Analyze your business, see which approach seems to be right one for you, and then implement that. If you’re unsure, try both approaches and analyze the results at the end.

Avoid to Thrive on Instagram

We hope you have a lot of clarity about what to stay away from on Insta and won’t feel to need to ask, “what should you not do on Instagram?” again any time soon.

Remember your Instagram marketing plan takes into account specifics related to your business.

So some of the things we discussed in this blog post may be a lot more relevant to you than others.

And you will likely know which ones you need to focus on.

But if you still have any confusions, our experts are always here to help you figure out Instagram marketing – in its entirety.

Get in touch!

The post 13 Instagram Marketing Don’ts – What You’re Doing Wrong and How to Stop appeared first on Canz Marketing.

It is common to have questions about the power of the social media network and its influence in the days – and years, to be honest – to come.

Will Instagram be a good choice for me to market my up-and-coming brand?

Is my career as an Instagram influencer going to be as successful tomorrow as it is today?

Why Instagram? How is Instagram different from Facebook? Which one should I choose?

What is the point of getting an Instagram?

Will Instagram last forever?

The list of questions, doubts, and concerns can go on – much like time.

And to be entirely honest, no one can say for sure what the future of marketing holds. One can make predictions for the next few years, perhaps, but nothing beyond that is set in stone (pun intended).

But why is that?

For the simple reason that digital media use and trends change quicker than a 2-year-old changes their statements.

Social media today is not what it was yesterday, and not what it will be tomorrow. Nor is social growth.

We explore that in a little more detail with a focus on Instagram in this blog post.

Let’s begin by looking at some underlying information that will help you understand what the future Instagram experience may look like.

The Revolution of Instagram – How It All Started

We all know Instagram as the number ONE photo-sharing app today.

And for good reason.

But how did it actually start off?

When Kevin Systrom first developed the prototype of an app called Burbn, it focused on check-ins, plan-sharing, and photo uploads.

After achieving funding from two venture capitalists and bringing on board Mike Krieger, the duo realized that something was missing from the app – the social element that made sharing easier.

Thus came about Instagram, an Apple app made primarily for sharing photos taken from a mobile phone.

And how quickly did it grow and gain popularity?

See for yourself!

• 25,000 people downloaded and started exploring or using the app on the day it was launched, October 6^th, 2010.
• After a mere two months, the platform was actively in use by 1 million users!
• In March 2012, less than a year and half after it had been launched, the app had around 27 million users.
• The next month, when the app was launched for Android phones, the app saw 1 million downloads in what wasn’t even a complete day!

Where are we going with this?

Well, first of all, we want you to understand how well the social network did as soon as it was launched, as well as how it maintained its popularity in the weeks, months and years to follow.

Now that we think about it, “maintained” is anticlimactic and extremely inaccurate to say the least. The platform has consistently shown an upward trajectory when it comes to growth.

Next, we want you to understand where the platform stands today!

Instagram As It Stands Today

Instagram is a platform that is of immense interest to businesses and marketers today.

It celebrates its 10^th birthday this year and it has come a long way!

Here are just a few tidbits of information that will explain how:

• The platform currently has around 1 billion active users.
• In 2019, 37% of adults in the US used the photo-sharing app.
• 60% of the app’s users log in to use it every day, 21% use it once a week, and 19% log in less than once a week.
• The average time for which users browse and use the app is 53 minutes – just 5 minutes less than the average time for Facebook!

So…what have we learned until now?

From 25,000 users on the first day to 27 million users in the following year and a half, and 1 billion today – the platform has grown rapidly over the years.

Reasons for Instagram’s Rapid Growth

• Storytelling is at the core of the human experience. From your first ever Instagram post to every single one that follows, you tell your own unique story, just the way you want.
• Similar to telling your own story, Instagram gives you the chance to follow the lives of people you love and admire. These can be friends, family members, celebrities, activists, and influencers to name a few.
• Instagram allows users to build a community that has the same interests as them, in turn making them feel like they fit.
• When it comes to amateur (and mostly cell phone) photography, Instagram is the platform most people choose to show off their skills.
• Brands use Instagram to show off new products, introduce discounts, and engage with consumers in a meaningful way.
• Instagram offer users a single platform where they can discover, research, and buy a product with a few taps!
• It isn’t difficult to use Instagram – anyone, tech savvy or not, can use the app without too much trouble.

So, we’ve established that the growth of Instagram is exponential. But what does this mean for businesses?

Why are marketers so keen on using the platform? And why will they continue to do so in the future?

Let’s find out.

What Does the Popularity of the Future Instagram App Look Like and Why?

A marketer or a brand uses a platform for as long as it benefits them.

And that is precisely why we need to take a look at the perks businesses enjoy when they market on Instagram.

Did you know that 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business on the platform?

Brands recognize the potential of marketing to these folks, even if they haven’t experienced it yet.

Coming back to the point, here are just a few benefits of Instagram for businesses:

Amplified Reach

You’ve seen the stats about the number of people using the app today.

These are people you can reach if you have an Instagram Business Account (vs. personal) that you use properly.

Platform for the Younger Target Audience

Instagram has a wide variety of users of varying demographics that marketers can target. It is also true, though, that the majority of these users are from younger age groups.

More than half the users on Instagram across the world are below the age of 34, according to Statista.

Which makes it the perfect app for brands looking to target the younger demographic.

Ability to Reach the “Correct” Audience Every Time

As a business operating on Instagram, you pride yourself on having a loyal fanbase of just the customers you want to reach.

But through the use of the genius that is hashtags, you gain the ability to reach people who don’t follow you but are interested in the things you sell.

They search for the relevant hashtags – you get the visibility and, eventually, sales.

Opportunities for International Brands

Instagram isn’t just popular in the US.

The app has millions of users all across the world.

This makes it the perfect platform for brands that want to expand their horizons AND their customer bases – they can reach global audiences.

Perfect Contemporary Platform for Selling

From building their brand image and awareness to introducing users to products through various marketing means, companies can do it all on Instagram.

But that’s not all.

With Instagram Shop, brands can provide complete information to the user about a product, after which they are led to the site where they can make the purchase with one click.

Highly Specific Instagram Ad Targeting

Instagram ads have gained more and more popularity over the years.

The reason advertisers like to use them is that they give you full control over who you target and make sure you reach the right audience based on their demographics, location, interests, and other characteristics.

The things we just mentioned, among many others, are the ultimate dream for marketers and businesses alike. And they are not going to let these perks go any time soon.

So what characteristics do we think will set apart the future Instagram platform?

Future Instagram Strategies: Features Marketers Should Start Exploring

There is no doubt that brands will continue to use Instagram to reach, engage with, and sell to consumers.

These are some practices they are likely to focus on more than others in the future.

1. Selling on the App

Consumers like to have the complete picture (ALL the details) before they make a purchase decision.

They like it even more if a single additional click can take them to a page where they can place their order.

With the immersive storefront experience of Instagram Shopping, consumers can browse through products and make informed buying decisions.

They can then instantly convert these decisions into action.

So while the app is already a top choice for marketing and promotional material, the future will see it gain traction as an e-commerce platform.

The platform is already making efforts to make this a reality.

A few days ago, Instagram started a global test in which they changed the Activity tab to a Shop tab, ensuring single-click access, as opposed to going through the Explore tab.

Once a user enters the Shop tab, they will be able to filter products through category, brands, and so on.

It’s safe to say that we will see Instagram emerge as an interactive and easy-to-use e-commerce space very soon.

2. Promotional Material on IGTV

The advent of the front camera has forced us into a habit of using the vertical camera mode – when we’re taking selfies or making videos.

While all of us have found ourselves telling someone to flip their phone to take a horizontal video in a condescending tone, IGTV, launched two years ago, quickly introduced vertical video as a new normal.

Influencers have found that the vertical video form facilitates content creation such as testimonials (e.g., selfie videos), tutorials (that require a full body to fit into the frame and maintain the viewer’s attention), and other promotional content such as walkthroughs.

It also allows for a more natural feel in the footage, almost making it feel like the user is listening to a friend describe a product, for example.

And the best part?

Vertical video can be shot easily from a phone, meaning brands don’t need to invest in expensive equipment or always get videos made from pros.

So whether it is influencer marketing or other kinds of promotional content, IGTV is the way to go as marketing and advertising trends become more and more personalized.

3. Influencer Marketing

Did you know that 81% of people find information from blogs reliable?

There is also a 71% more chance that someone will make a purchase on the basis of a referral they got on social media.

Which is where influencer marketing comes into the picture – something that Instagram takes the cake in.

Before we move on, what is an Instagram influencer?

Influencers are Instagram users that have a large following, as well as the ability to persuade people to make certain choices because of how these people view them.

They know how to create uniquely creative content for Instagram that is attractive and even glamorous, yet believable and authentic at the same time. And judging by the numbers we just shared, it works!

Brands, of course, leverage this power influencers have over the thought process of their massive fan followings for their own gains (selling their products and services)!

Marketers will likely continue to indulge in influencer marketing in the years to come because of the natural, positive impact on their brands.

4. User-Generated Content

With a rise in the number of people using Instagram, as well as an increase in the popularity of influencer marketing, user-generated content is something brands will leverage now more than ever before.

User-generated content is no rocket science – it can be as simple as a video testimonial by an influencer or a tag in a post.

By using this content, brands achieve three things.

First of all, they gain the benefit of what is the social media equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. After all, if so many people are using a product or expressing how much they like it, there must be something there, right?

Secondly, brands get ready-made content that is deemed authentic by consumers because it consists of the public’s unbiased opinions and views.

Thirdly, on top of sales, brands build trustworthiness and credibility – their image and reputation witness a boost.

And all of this through very little effort of their own!

5. AR Filters on Instagram Stories

Augmented Reality (AR) is the future of marketing and advertising as we know it.

It has already started to change the world.

Imagine you want to buy a shirt but can’t choose between two options you’ve narrowed it down to.

Wouldn’t life be easier if you could somehow try on the shirts from the comfort of your home and see which one looks better?

With AR filters in Instagram stories, you can!

Brands now have the ability to create interactive AR filters to give users a close-to-real-life experience with their products – all without moving from the couch!

Find out more about Instagram’s AR innovation here and you will understand why we think it is an element that has the potential to revolutionize the platform.

Heck, it has the potential to revolutionize e-commerce in general!

The Future of Instagram – Hit or Miss?

So, where is Instagram headed?

Will future years see it as a platform adapting to emerging trends and fulfilling users’ needs? Or will it fail to remain up to speed and lose its value?

We definitely believe the former. Brands should explore creative ways to market and sell on Instagram because guess what? Their competitors are already doing it. And they likely won’t stop and miss out on opportunities that seem too good to be true.

Which brings us to a very important question:

Do you want to know how to build a brand on Instagram? Are you interested in learning more about how to promote your business on Instagram?

Let us know in the comments section below and we’ll come back with a detailed post on how you can get started!

In the meantime, check out our Instagram marketing services and see if you may need our assistance!

The post Instagram – The Power of the Social Network in Coming Times appeared first on Canz Marketing.

While brands do use Facebook to connect and interact with their consumers, advertising is not far down the list of aims they want to achieve through the platform.

After all, Facebook ads can potentially reach 1.9 million people, according to Hootsuite.

But can you really leverage the full potential of advertising on Facebook if you don’t know the ins and outs of the tools Facebook has created for the purpose?

Facebook Ads Manager and Facebook Business Manager let you take charge of all your advertising and digital marketing efforts on the social media platform.

Whether you are a small business owner or a digital marketing agency, you should know every function of these tools backwards.

And once you are done with this blog post, you will!

We have split the blog post into four modules so you know just what to expect:

Let’s begin!

Module 1 – Creating and running a Facebook Business Manager Account

You can run ads as an individual, absolutely, but let us ask you a question:

When you see Sponsored posts on Facebook or Instagram, are they usually posted by individuals or business pages?

That’s right – it is business pages that run campaigns in their name.

And that is what you need to do.

To make your life a little easier, we will start off by showing you how you can create a Facebook Business Account, as well as a Facebook page for your business.

Then we will move on to the core elements of Facebook ads manager.

a. Creating a Business Manager account

Setting up a Facebook Business Manager Account is no rocket science.

But people find themselves a little apprehensive when it comes to giving it a go because it seems to them like it will be too technical.

Quite the opposite, in fact. A Facebook Business Manager account helps you take charge of your business pages, ad accounts, and all other marketing efforts from one place – as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Here’s how you create the account.

Step 1: Search for business.facebook.com in your browser.

On the page that appears, click on the Create Account button.

Add your Facebook Login details to move the process further.

Step 2: In the following few steps, you will be asked to add certain important information in the pop ups that appear.

This includes the following:

• Your business account name

• Your name

• Email address

• Address

• Website

When you click the Submit button after having added all this information, you will be given the option to add a cover photo to the account.

Next, you can add your pages and ad accounts among other things to the Business Manager account to get it up and running.

But before that, let’s look at how you can modify the Facebook Business Manager settings at a later time, if you choose to do so.

b. Staying on top of Facebook Business Manager Settings

The account is all set up and you’ve added all the information that works for you right now.

But what if you want to edit some information in the coming days?

What if you want to add or remove people from the team and modify their permissions?

There are a number of things you may want to change in the account. And you can do all that from the Facebook Business Settings page.

To go to the Business Settings page, go to Facebook Ads Manager or Business Manager and click on the drop-down menu in the top left-hand corner of the page. From here, click on Business Settings.

The settings page menu basically has four sections, which are then divided into multiple other categories you can play around with. We list them all here for you:

1. User permissions
   1. People – Add or remove team members, assign assets, and change roles
   2. Partners – Add or remove partners
   3. Requests – Manage requests that have been sent and received, as well as the invitations your team has sent to people to give them access to certain of your assets
2. Business assets
   1. Accounts – Edit settings for pages, ad accounts, apps, Instagram, accounts, and lines of business
   2. Data Sources – Add and delete data sources, and modify permissions associated with them
   3. Integrations – Control who can download your leads
   4. Business Asset Groups – Organize the assets of your business by creating group
3. Business account
   1. Info – Edit all core business information
   2. Payment Methods – Add or modify billing information
   3. Security Center – Set up two-factor authentication, add a back-up admin, and verify your business
   4. Notification settings – Select which notifications you want to see
4. More
   1. Brand Safety – Manage your domain and block lists
   2. Registrations – Register affiliated news pages

If you want more detailed insight into how you can play around with the settings in Facebook Business Manager, we have just the blog post for you!

Give it a read now:

Business Manager Settings – Taking charge of Facebook Business Manager

c. Making sure Business Manager stays up-to-date

Technology is always changing. Whether it is an app on your phone or tools within Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll notice something new every other day.

And if you want to get the most out of the tool, you need to be on top of these changes – only then will you be able to leverage its full potential.

At the bottom of the menu on the left-hand side of your Business Manager homepage, you will see an icon (a question mark inside a circle) for the Help Center.

Click on this button and you will be led to the Help Center. Here, under the Additional Resources section, you will find Ads Manager Updates.

Within these updates, you will find feature releases, updates, and announcements. They will be in chronological order, and divided into weeks so you can easily keep track of them.

Clicking on the Older and Newer button will help you navigate the updates.

Be sure to focus on the updates that have an effect on your operations.

Well, that was quite the detour!

Coming back to the point…

Once you have created a Business Manager account, you will see a screen that looks something like this:

The page can also look like this if you have updated the settings:

You can now get started with your Facebook Ads activities by adding an ad account under the Ad Accounts section.

We will discuss that with you in detail so all your questions are answered.

But before that – above the Ad accounts section, you will see a section titled Pages.

Here, you can do two things – you can:

• Add a page

• Create a page

There is a reason why these options are presented to you first thing after you’ve created a Business Manager account.

Having a Facebook page for your business isn’t merely a choice in these uber competitive times when an online presence is a must – it’s a necessity.

90 million small businesses are already on Facebook, making using of the platform to reach their customers. Can you imagine being left behind in such a scenario?

So it’s decided – you need a page.

And it just so happens that adding a page is quite simple – just click on the Add Page button and follow the on-screen instructions.

Creating a Facebook page for business isn’t a difficult process either, but there are some best practices you can follow.

d. Creating a Facebook Page

All you have to do is follow these simple steps:

a. Choose whether you fall into the Business or Brand or the Community or Public Figure category, and click on Get Started.

b. Next, add your business’ name, category, and other core information.

c. Add a profile picture that best represents your brand (your logo is your best bet here).

d. Add a cover photo that gives your audience some additional information about the brand.

With this, you have created the core template for your Facebook page.

Now is the time to add more information that will help your customers and potential consumers learn more about you and understand the brand better.

Remember, the point of the page is to inform your customers, communicate with them, and make it easier for them to interact with your brand.

Keeping that in mind, add this information to the page:

• A description of what it is that you do, your Story, and your About Us section

• Where you are located

• The hours you are operational

• Where and how people can contact you

• An easy-to-remember username

You can then modify the settings of the page and add people to the team among many other things.

For a complete guide on how you can do all these things in the best way, check out this blog post!

Creating a Facebook Page for Business – An A-Z Guide

Now that we have that covered, let’s head on over to creating Facebook ad accounts and exploring Facebook ads Manager.

Module 2 – Creating Ad Accounts and getting them to work

Before you can start getting the most out of Facebook Ads Manager by running top-notch ad campaigns, you need to create an Ad account.

While this may seem daunting, it really isn’t.

The main reason for that is that it’s not set in stone. While you do want to choose the most ideal settings, you can easily change them later if you find that they are not working for you.

But we’ll come to that later.

First, how do you create an ad account?

Let us walk you through it.

a. How to create a Facebook Ad account

Step 1 – Initiate the Creation Process:

Let’s go back to the page you come to when you have finished creating a Facebook Business Manager account.

Here, click on the Create Ad Account button in the Ad Accounts section.

Consequently, you can click on the Business Settings button at the top right-hand corner of the Facebook Business Manager page, head on over to Ad Accounts in the menu on the left and add an account from there.

Step 2 – Add Important Information:

As part of the creation process, you will be asked to add the following details:

• Account Name

• Time zone

• Currency

• Who you are creating the account for (yourself or another business)

Step 3 – Add People and Permissions:

You will be also be asked to add people to the team (this, of course, is entirely up to you) and assign them permissions.

If they have Standard Access, they will be able to Manage Campaigns and View Performance.

Consequently, if they have Admin Access, they can manage the entire ad account. Needless to say, if you are going to be running the Ad account primarily, give yourself admin access.

Once you have added the permissions, your ad account is essentially set up.

But you’re not done just yet! Which brings us to our next step:

Step 4 – Add Payment Details:

Seeing as this is an ad account, you can’t really get anything done unless you have a payment system set up.

That is why the next step – which you can’t really progress without – is adding the billing information to the account.

a. Coming back to the Business settings page, click on Payment Methods in the menu on the left-hand side of the page.

b. Click on the Add Payment Method button.

c. In the pop up that appears, add all the information that is required.

(You can find a second method to do the same thing here!)

Next, you will have to add a spending limit, which is the amount you do not want to cross before an ad stops running. This can, of course, be changed later if your budget or preferences change.

b. Adding a Page to an Ad Account

Before you can start running ads for your business, you need to add your business page to the ad account.

In Business Settings, under the Accounts section in the menu on the left, click on Pages.

Click on Add Page (you will be given the option to add an existing page, request access to a page, and create a new page – which we have discussed above).

Click on Add a Page, insert the URL of the page you want to add, and you’re done.

c. Giving a third party access to the ad account

You aren’t always going to be running your ad campaigns yourself – as you grow, you may decide to outsource to a digital marketing agency, for example.

To give someone else access to the account, go the Business Settings menu once again and click on People.

From here, you can follow the on-screen instructions and add the individual, as well as assign them the relevant permissions.

We discuss the entire process of creating an Ad Account in detail in this blog post – give it a read!

Creating Facebook Ad Accounts & getting them to work

d. Taking charge of Facebook Ad Account settings

We’ve already discussed Facebook Business Manager settings with you and how you can select your preferences in a way that suits you best.

Now let’s come to Facebook Ads Manager settings.

In the drop down menu in the top left of your Facebook Ads Manager homepage, select Ad Account settings.

You can also go to the page by clicking on the Settings icon in the top menu in Facebook Ads Manager.

Now, on the settings page, you can select the ad account for which you want to modify the settings from a dropdown menu in the top right corner of the page.

You will come to a page that looks something like this:

Here, you will have four categories:

a. Ad Accounts – Change ad account name, time zone and currency, business information, and ad account roles; you can also deactivate the ad account from here

b. Pages – View and manage your pages

c. Payment Settings – Add or modify a payment method, as well as your account spending limit, and view your billing and receipts history

d. Notifications – Select which notifications you want to be able to view

For more details on how you can modify the settings and get the most out of the tool, check out this blog post:

Taking charge of your Facebook Ads Manager account settings

e. Core Components of the Facebook Ads Manager Dashboard

This is what the dashboard of your Facebook Ads Manager account looks like:

So what are the core components of the Ads Manager? Well, we have discussed them throughout this document in the form of the most useful tools and features you can get the most out of when advertising on the social media platform.

But here are a few of the major components of the Ads Manager dashboard that will help you understand the tool better:

• Account Overview – This tab gives you a glimpse of the overall picture when it comes to your ad accounts, campaigns, and performance. It basically provides you with a summary of everything that is happening.

• Campaigns – The campaigns tab has a list of all of your campaigns, as well as the specifics relevant to each such as Reach, Cost per Results, Amount Spent, and so on.

• Ad Sets – Here, you have a list of ad sets, as well as data that informs you of how each one is performing.

• Ad – In this tab, you have a list of each individual ad, as well as data specific to how it is performing.

You have the ability to create ad campaigns from the dashboard by clicking on the Create button on the left side of the page.

Module 3 – Facebook Ads Reporting, Analytics, and Attribution

Reporting and Analytics are a must when you carry out any business activity.

Why?

Because you want to have a handle on the results your activities are having – all the more so when you are investing a good amount of money in carrying out those activities.

Seeing as we are talking about Facebook Ads Manager, let’s take an ad campaign as an example.

You spend a certain amount of money to run an ad campaign, whether you outsource it to an agency or run it yourself.

You now need to monitor the campaign and determine whether your ROAS (return on ad spend) is sufficient.

When you know what is performing well and what is not, you will be in a better position to decide future plans of action. You can tailor your strategies and campaigns based on that information.

So how does Facebook Ads Manager come into all of this?

Let’s discuss that in detail.

a. Facebook Ads Reporting

The Facebook Ads Reporting tool is part of Ads and Business Manager.

Here is what it allows you to do:

• Creation of reports (auto and manual)

• Customization of reports

• Scheduling of reports

• Export of reporting data

• Sharing of reports with various recipients

But where do you find it?

In Facebook Ads Manager or Business Manager, go to the main dropdown menu present in the top left corner of the page.

In the list of features and tools that will be displayed, you will find Ads Reporting. That is where you need to be headed.

In the left column, you can see certain breakdowns, based on which you can have the report displayed to you. These include:

• Level

• Time

• Delivery

• Action

The metrics you can choose from are:

• Performance

• Engagement

• Conversions

• Custom conversions

• Settings

You can also add filters from the drop down menu in the column just above the reports window. The filters include:

• Ad Account

• Name/ID

• Objective

• Creative

• Audience

You need to use all these options and go for the selections relevant to the report you are trying to generate. They basically narrow down the criteria and set parameters so that Facebook can show you just the data you need.

Once you’ve made the selection, the relevant report will be generated.

You can then study the data that is presented to you and derive meaningful conclusions about the performance of your ad campaigns.

Once you have the report in front of you, these are the actions you can take:

• Export any table report by the date

• Create a custom report

• Share a report using an online link

• Save the report in the Reporting section

• Choose and view data about a standard report

We understand that this is not nearly enough information for you to get the hang of the Ads Reporting tool and how you can use it.

But we have discussed it at length in this blog post – do check it out!

Facebook Business Manager – Ads Reporting: A Complete Guide

b. Experiments

Experiments is a great tool within Facebook Ads and Business Manager that helps you literally run experiments to see what works for you and what doesn’t.

Also know as Test and Learn to users who prefer the older version of Facebook Ads Manager, it lets you gain insights, which you then apply to grow your business.

There are four main options that Facebook provides you when it comes to the Experiments tool (you’ll see the fourth one by clicking on the More button under the A/B Test section).

• A/B Test

A/B testing, also known as Split Testing, is what you go for when you have two ad campaigns that have the same objective.

Let’s suppose you want to sell a new service but you want to experiment (see what we did there?) with different audiences to see which one responds to it better. A/B testing is the way to go – you can try modified versions of your ad to see which one performs best.

• Holdout Test

As part of the Holdout test, your audience is divided into a test group (is shown your ads) and a 10% control group (is not shown your ads).

As a result, you can monitor and measure your conversions for better insights.

• Brand Survey

This, as suggested by the name, is – wait for it – a survey!

You basically conduct a survey and ask your audience what they thought of your ad. In this way, you can determine the kind of impact your ad is having on your brand.

• Campaign Budget Optimization Test

This test basically lets you observe whether budget optimization has an effect on your campaigns by way of comparison.

Intrigued to know more about how the Experiment tool can help you take your ad campaigns to the next level? Give this blog post a read – we discuss testing and learning in great detail here:

How To Test And Learn In Facebook Business Manager?

c. Facebook Analytics

Analytics is yet another spectacular tool within Facebook Business Manager.

What it basically does is to make you aware of the people who are using your event source (such as your Facebook page, website, or app) and learn more about them.

It also lets you view the actions they are taking on your website, Facebook page, or app to understand how they interact with these platforms.

The best thing about this tool as that it allows you to set filters and parameters so that you can get highly specific metrics you can then analyze.

So how do you begin using the tool and understanding your audience better?

First off, you need to access it by going to the main drop down menu in the top banner of Business Manager and choosing Analytics from the list.

Here are the top actions you can take once you land on the Analytics homepage.

See an Overview of the Data

In the Overview section of the tool, you have the analytics for the following metrics laid out for you visually:

• Highlights – New users, unique users, revenue, purchase conversion rate, and so on

• Growth Metrics – Active users (last 24 hours), user activity, and so on

• Engagement Metrics – Active users (by hour), user retention, top reacted posts, and so on

• Page Metrics – Post reactions, post shares, and so on.

View Funnels

Your Facebook ad funnel is basically a system of campaigns that takes your consumer on a journey that ends in a desired end point or action (for you, of course).

Facebook Analytics helps you understand the effectiveness of these campaigns by analyzing the actions of your audience at every level.

View other trackable activity

You can see and analyze the results of various marketing efforts you are indulging in and use that data to determine your future course of action.

d. Facebook Attribution

When we’re talking about analytics and reporting, we have one major aim: to understand the way our processes have performed.

We want to see what has worked for us and what hasn’t – that is the best way to modify and optimize our campaigns in the future.

The Facebook Attribution tool is another tool that helps us with this.

Attribution allows you to observe and understand the path your consumers took on their journey of conversion, as well as the various steps or touchpoints (the interactions of the customer with the ad, for example) along the way.

What does this do?

It gives you data to help you track and determine the precise touchpoint that can be credited for the conversion.

You future marketing and strategic decisions, thus, can be based on these observations about consumer behavior.

The two tracking methods Facebook uses are:

• Cookie-based tracking

• Multi-touch tracking

So where can you find the Attribution tool?

Simply go to the main dropdown menu in the top banner of Business Manager (you must be familiar with this menu by now).

The elaborate on-screen instructions will guide you through setting up the tool by creating a Line of Business, and selecting the relevant Ad Account, Pixel, People, Time Zone and Currency, and Line of Business Name.

You can then use one of the various Attribution models that Facebook offers to get started:

• Last Click

• Last Touch

• Equal Credit

• Promotional 30%

• Promotional 40%

• Time decay (1 day)

• Time decay (7 day half-life)

Do you want to learn more about each of these models and how you can put them into play?

This is the perfect read for you:

Facebook Attribution Tool – A Complete Guide

Module 4 – Additional tools and features worth a mention

There are many tools within Facebook Ads Manager that you can use to benefit you in one way or the other.

Depending on what your business goals are, as well as other elements such as your professional description, business and advertising strategy, and more, you can choose which of these tools can bring you the most value.

As far as we’re concerned, we think a few of these tools definitely deserve a mention because of what they can do for your business.

Let’s take a look at them!

a. Facebook Business Manager Assets

If you use the newer version of Facebook Ads and Business Manager, you are likely confused right now.

What are Assets? Where can I find them?

Fret not – we will clear your confusion in a jiffy.

The older version of Facebook Business Manager groups some tools together and names them Assets. These are:

• Audiences

• Images

• Catalogs

• Shop Locations

• Brand Safety

• Videos

You can find each of these tools in the newer version, just as standalone tools that, respectively, go by the names:

• Audiences

• Images and Videos

• Catalog Manager

• Store Locations

• Brand Safety

Let’s discuss each one in detail! We will use the terms present in the newer version of Facebook Business Manager but you can use the alternative name if you use the older version.

Audiences

The main purpose of this tool is to help you reach the ideal audience for your brand. You can create audiences that you want to reach and save them for use later.

The three types of audiences you can create are:

• Custom Audiences

• Lookalike Audiences

• Saved Audience

Images and Videos

This feature is basically a library for all the photographs and videos you have uploaded to the account, used and unused, along with their specifications.

You can add and delete videos to this library as and when you please.

The benefit of the tool? When you are creating an ad campaign, you don’t have to struggle to find the perfect image – you already have a bunch of relevant images stored and waiting to be used.

Catalog Manager

In this section, you can create and manage catalogs for your business.

In simpler terms, it is basically an inventory platform where you add the products that you want to sell.

Once it has been set up, your catalog can be connected to ads, Page shops, Instagram Shopping, and so on.

Store Locations

Online is not the only place you may be conducting business – you may have a brick and mortar setup too.

If you do, this tool is for you. You can promote your shop (or other relevant place of business) and get people to give it a visit.

To get started, you need to:

• Add the details of your store

• Draft ads for the store

• Optimize your ad campaigns for a greater number of visits and sales

Brand Safety

The Brand Safety section of the Facebook Business Manager is where you can control where your content is posted.

In other words, businesses can stop their ads from “appearing within or alongside content that is not conducive to their brand.”

With Inventory Fillers, you can select which kind of content you want your ads to appear near. On the other hand, with Block Lists, you can choose places where do not want your ads to appear.

Overall, Publisher Lists give you an idea of where your ads may pop up, whereas Publisher Delivery Reports tell you where they HAVE appeared in the past 30 days.

We discuss each one of these tools and how to operate them in a lot more detail here – check it out:

What Are Facebook Business Manager Assets And How To Cash Them?

b. Commerce Manager

Facebook is primarily seen as a social media network that can be used by businesses to connect with their consumers and let them interact with the brand in real-time.

But that’s not all you can restrict Facebook to anymore.

More and more businesses are using the social network to sell their products and services online.

And that is the right approach to take, seeing as, in 2018, there were 1.8 billion digital buyers (Source: Statista)! Buyers are making the shift toward online buying – and that is where you need to be.

Facebook wants to make it easier for you to manage your e-commerce activities on the social media platform.

Which is why it has created a tool just for that purpose: Commerce Manager!

It lets you take care of the ins and out of online selling, including finding and reaching customers, as well as managing inventory, payment, and delivery.

Do you need the tool?

You can be someone who uses a Facebook business page shop to sell to customers online as a small business or a massive enterprise that uses Shopify stores for the management of their inventory and orders on Marketplace, Instagram, or Facebook page shops – the tool can benefit everyone selling online.

With it, you can:

• Gain insight into your customers.

• Let your customers browse your products or services and purchase them from Facebook.

• Give your consumers confidence by providing them with Purchase Protection.

• Manage your orders.

• Take control of your finances.

• Contact your customers directly for efficient communication and potential problem resolution.

• Make it a team effort and let your employees pitch in.

Now that you’re convinced this is the way to go for you, how do you start using the tool?

Here’s how:

1 – Set up the tool

2 – Choose your channel

3 – Set up your checkout options

4 – Assign roles and permissions to your teams

Looking for information on all the features Commerce Manager offers and how you can use it to your advantage? Give this blog post a read!

Win at Facebook E Commerce with Commerce Manager

c. Events Manager

Facebook Events Manager is one of the most important tools you can make use of in Facebook Business Manager.

In Facebook’s own words, you can use it to:

“Connect, view, manage and troubleshoot data from your website or app or offline interactions.”

Among other things, it uses data from the Facebook Pixel and allows you to track the activity on your website so that you can use it to define your re marketing lists and ensure optimum conversions for your Facebook ad campaigns.

As evident from the description, it can also track data from app and offline conversions – data which you can then use to enhance your targeting and conversion.

So, what does the Events Manager tool look like?

How can you use it to your advantage?

Well, the tool essentially has these sections:

• Data Sources – In this section, pick where your data is coming from. View, manage, and add data sources.
  • Pixels – The pixel tracks your website activity and tells you whether your ads resulted in conversion on your site, as well as the actions people take on your site among other things.
  • Offline Events – Track your offline results; i.e., whether your ads resulted in traffic (literally!) to your brick and mortar store.
  • App Events –Monitor and track the actions people are taking on your site and use the data to drive more conversions.

• Custom Conversions – Create custom events by adding unique rules and parameters to track consumers’ behavior and activity.

• Partner Integrations – Integrate partners for customer purchases, interactions, and management.

Luckily for you, we have discussed each of these sections in a great deal of detail to address any questions you may have.

Check out the following blog posts and learn everything there is to know about Facebook Events Manager:

Getting Started With The Events In Facebook Events Manager

The most powerful section in Facebook Business Manager: Events Manager

d. Audience Insights

If you have even a little bit of experience with advertising, you know that you can get nowhere without a perfectly defined audience.

You can have the best message, the most creative copy to get it across, and graphics that would wow the entire world – but if you aren’t targeting the right demographic with these messages, there really is no point.

And that is where Audience Insights comes into the picture.

But what exactly does this tool do?

Well, to put it in simple terms, it is an analytics tool within Facebook Ads Manager that helps you better understand your audience, in turn assisting you with the targeting of your ads.

Before you start off, you likely know your ideal customer’s age, their gender, marital status, education, career interests, and so on. In other words, you’ve got the basics covered.

But do you really know what their interests are?

Do you know what they like or dislike?

Do you know what kind of pages they like on Facebook and the kinds of interactions they have with posts on the platform?

All these elements play a massive role in you:

1. Understanding who your audience is, and
2. Tailoring your message to reach them more effectively.

So, how does the tool work?

Well, you specify and study your target audience on the basis of some characteristics, namely:

• Demographics

• Location

• Age and gender

• Interests

• Connections

• Advance characteristics (e.g. education, work, life events, etc.)

You can understand their likes, gain an understanding of language and location specifics, and the activities they enjoy.

The best part?

You can save the audience you end up creating in Facebook Ads Manager and use them when you actually start creating your ads.

Learn all about the tool and how to use it in this blog post:

Leveraging Facebook Audience Insights in 2020 and beyond

e. Creative Hub

Creative Hub is an extremely helpful tool that lets you play around with how your ad looks before you even run it.

Why do need that?

Let’s break this down.

What are the most important elements of a Facebook ad (from a visual point of view)?

• Graphics (whether these are in the form of a photo or many, GIF, video, or any other options under the Sun)

• Ad copy (the headline, description, and caption)

• Format (are you going for a simple ad with one image or a carousel or collection ad?)

Creative Hub lets you put all these elements together and get a preview of the end product.

Here’s an example:

Once you see what the target audience will see, you will be able to decide whether the ad is likely to be effective.

You could change the image, edit the copy, even go for a completely different format – it is a dream come true for anyone responsible for running effective Facebook ads.

Here are some of the benefits of using the tool:

• Create Facebook ad mockups (which we just discussed in detail).

• View what the ad would look like on Desktop and Mobile.

• Create ad mockups for Instagram (and view them in the app too!).

• Ensure you are using images that will run AND be effective.

• Try out a number of different ad formats (namely: photo, video, carousel, collection, among many others).

• Work with other teammates for creative galore.

• Share ad mockups with higher-ups, clients, etc., and get feedback.

• Learn from big businesses and how they ran successful ad campaigns in the past.

Who needs it?

• Creative manager

• Marketing manager

• Digital marketing agency owner

• Small- to medium-sized business owner

This list can go on, but you get the point.

A great resource for your social advertising needs, Creative Manager is a must try.

Wrapping it Up

Running ad campaigns and managing all your marketing efforts on Facebook (and Instagram) as a newbie can be challenging.

We aren’t going to deny that.

But you don’t need to make it harder on yourself than it already is.

And we want to help make it easier for you to find your way around the Facebook Ads Manager and Facebook Business Manager tools.

If you are unclear about something or have any questions, let us know in the comments and we will get back to you.

In the meantime – here’s to you making your mark in the world of Facebook advertising and marketing! Best of luck!

The post Navigating Facebook Ads Manager and Business Manager – A Complete Guide appeared first on Canz Marketing.

Are you a fan of testing and learning to proceed cautiously (yet confidently) in general?

Well, actually, that would have been an excellent point to start, if we did. However, we never were in that habit until about recently when Facebook rolled out a great new tool to TEST and Learn it! 

Keep following to find out what’s the story all about!

Many of our marketing folks are always bursting with fresh ideas; Ideas to make their paid marketing a huge success.

You have no choice but to agree that not every idea is worth your precious bucks.

While some ideas might actually turn out to be a great way to discover new grounds and turn them up into your successful Market, others might just be a total wastage of your time, money, and efforts.

Imagine this:

You have 2 new advertising ideas to target your audience for the promotion and sale of the same product. Would you go on investing $500 a day each on both, for an ongoing time in hopes of getting something out of them both?

That was the only way of doing things around in Facebook business manager, until very recently. 

But, not anymore!

Not after Facebook has rolled out another feature: TEST & LEARN, it is!

As for the details, stay with us for a while longer. Let’s begin!

Test and Learn

Test & learn feature in the Facebook business manager is a great new way to replace the guessing part with experimentation & learning. That’s how you can invest only where you are sure to pass with flying colors.

And this is a brief introduction to the tool. 

Facebook has a great explanation of what the tool is actually capable of:

We’ll keep revealing more valuable details along the way through the end

Where is TEST & Learn in the business manager?

As you click that Business Manager tab on the left side of the screen, the second option down the third column *Measure & report* is the option we’re talking about today.

What next?

Click on that, dude!

Wasn’t that obvious?

What does Test & Learn do in Ads Manager?

A brief – we know already.

Let’s dig into the details:

As you click on the click and learn, you’ll see yourself looking at the following screen in hopes of something as complicated as a college-level maths sum.

To your surprise, it is just a simple yet helpful screen – with no mathematical equations, just details of the possibilities it can help you with.

Let’s discuss them each, one by one:

Test and learn is a great way to test what works for your business the best. As you hit that gold mine, dig out all the gold you can.

How do you do that?

1- A/B test

This is the first option that the test and learn section offers you. Facebook A/B testing is also called Facebook split testing. 

Why? 

Keep reading and you’d figure it out soon.

When you have 2 or more campaigns with the same objective, this is your go-to option. For instance, if you want to run different campaigns for selling the same product to a cold audience, you’ll use A/B testing to see which one performs the best for your business. If you want to test different interests, demographics, age groups, or even copy variables, this is the option for you. The idea is to keep all the values constant in up to 5 campaigns and while testing one variable. 

Setting up A/B Test in Test and Learn

You’ll find Facebook to be your guide at each step. But, you want a heads-up, this is what you should expect while setting up an A/B test in the test & learn section on Facebook:

• Click on *Get Started*.
• To run an A/B test, you should not necessarily create new campaigns. The existing campaigns can serve the purpose equally well. You are given the option to pick the existing campaigns right here. Alternatively, right here, you can create the ones too with the *Go to Ads Manager* option on this screen.
• Pick a schedule for running the test. Ideally, the schedule should give Facebook enough time to learn from the stats and pick out the best option/s. 
• Give your test a name.
• Pick the metric by which you want to measure success. These are your options:
  • Cost per result.
    • The results you can check with this are:
      • CPC (Cost per Click)
      • Cost per 1000 people reached
      • Cost per Purchase
• And a huge number of other metrics
  • Cost Per Conversion Lift.
    • If you are testing cost per conversion lift, you’d have to add the pixel for your events – offline, online, or app pixel.
• Hit *Review Test Details* when it is ready for review.
• After review, enter *Create Test*.

When you want to create a new A/B test, click on the *Learn* option on the top right next to *test*.

2- Holdout Test

In a holdout test, your audience is divided into a test group and a 10% control group. The control group is withheld from seeing your ads, while the test group is shown the ads.  

The purpose is to analyze the impact or effect of your advertisement in drawing conversions – leads, sales, app installs, etc.

Here’s the best part: 

This test can be applied to all of your advertising, or you could pick a single campaign.

Setting up the Holdout Test in Test and Learn

Here’s how you run a Holdout Test in the Test & Learn section of your Business Manager.

• Click on Get Started.

• Pick the account or the campaign you’d want to be tested in the handout test.
• Pick the schedule for the test. Make sure to give Facebook enough time to learn and predict how you should carry out the advertising in the future.
• Add event/s (up to 10 events- to see the results of each one separately) – Facebook Pixel event, App event, Offline event.
• Submit the details for review and hit *create test*.

When you want to create a new Handout test, click on the *Learn* option on the top, right next to *test*.

3- Brand Survey

The brand survey is a unique concept of asking your target audience about the impact of your ads.

In the brand Survey, you again deal with a test group that is shown your ads and a holdout group, that is kept from seeing the ads. The idea is to measure how helpful your ads are in your brand awareness, perception or recall, etc.

Setting up Brand Survey in Test and Learn

To run a brand survey test, here’s what you need to do:

• Click on *Get Started*. 

• Click the account (a whole account) or the campaign whose incremental brand awareness effect you want to measure.
• Alternatively, click on *Ads Manager* to create a new campaign.
• Pick your official page, region, and vertical.
• Add a schedule for running the survey and give it a name.

•  In the next section, create a poll with one to multiple questions.
  • Pick a language.
  • Create a question with the available options. The question would be based on the ads of your campaign to see if the target audience remembers a particular aspect of the ad.
• If you want to add a conversion event (to measure conversion lift), add the online, offline, or app event.
• Enter the survey to *Review* mode. 

• Hit *Create test*. 

When you want to create a new Brand survey, click on the *Learn* option on the top, right next to *test*

Point to remember: This test has certain minimum budget requirements and is specific to certain regions, as of now.

4-Campaign Budget Optimization Test

If you remember the first screen you saw right after clicking the *Test & Learn* section on the scroll down in *Business Manager* tab, you might have seen a *More* option right under these 3 sections.

Click more, and you’d see the 4th option – Campaign budget optimization test.

CBO test is a measure to see if Campaign budget Optimization has any effect on your cost per result.

In case it is not clear already, Campaign budget Optimization is basically allowing Facebook to use your budget to brand maximum quality results instead of setting a budget for each adset yourself. 

When you set the budget at the adset level, some of the ad sets might not be able to use the whole budget. Other high potential ad sets might run short of budget, failing to deliver as per their full potential. Using Campaign budget optimization ensures that your dollars are spent where they have the potential to bring more results.

Setting up the Campaign Budget Optimization Test in Test and Learn

Getting back to CBO Test, here’s how you can set one up:

• Click on *Get started*.
• Choose an existing campaign that is using CBO and has at least 2 active ad sets.
• Pick a variable to test from the list:
  • Image
  • Video
  • Ad text
  • Age and Gender
  • Saved Audience
  • Campaign budget optimization.
• Hit *Next*.

• Give your test a name (or Facebook gives it an auto name – Campaign budget optimization test [Chosen Campaign Name] ).
• Add a scheduled date for the test (or Facebook will give it an auto date for 4 days, starting the next day).
• Fix your campaign budget such that estimated test power is at least 80%. 
• Here’s what Facebook says about ETP:
• “Power is the likelihood of detecting a difference in your ads if there is one to detect. We recommend using a budget that gives you a power of at least 80% to improve your chances of completing a test successfully.” 
• Pick the metric you want to measure in order to pick the winner.
• Hit *Create Test*.

Now, here’s the most exciting part:

As your test is created, Facebook pauses the existing campaign and creates two duplicates. For one of the campaigns, it turns CBO on, and for the other one, it is turned off.

How to get the results?

You’d be able to see the results coming to the *Test and learn* section while the test is going on. As the test finishes, you’d be sent an email with the test results.

Other important information about Test & Learn

In case you do not consider Test and Learn an important feature in Facebook Marketing, we have proof to validate our opinion.

In a fantastic list of 7 advanced tips to improve your Facebook Marketing tip on Social Media Examiner, Charlie Lawrance has a surprise for you at #5.

Spoiler alert: It is about the use of Facebook’s Marketing feature – Test and Learn.

However, you’ll find the information in Charlie’s blog dated and the interphase unknown and strange.

And there’s a reason behind that.

Ever Since the inception of the idea of *test and learn* and it’s practical experimentation, Facebook has been making changes to the way test and learn works and looks.

Test and Learn then and Now

Shortly after Facebook rolled out the Test and learn tool in 2018, here’s what looked like and was capable of:

Jon Loomer’s guide on Test and learn – January 18, 2018.To begin with, Facebook used to test your marketing performance with 2 questions:

• Which campaign causes the lowest cost conversion to occur?
• How many conversions are all my Facebook ads causing?

To answer each of the questions, Facebook would set up a test each scientifically back the results.

Fast forward to 2020 – you just saw Facebook now offers you four types of tests to check different features and performance of your campaigns.

What Next?

Knowing everything about this marvelous tool, what should be your next move?

Head right next to the Test and Learn tool in your Business Manager. See the performance of your existing campaigns, setting up relevant tests. Create new campaigns to check the quality of your ideas and assets. 

The idea of these tests is to lower Facebook advertising costs of the sponsored ads at an improved results rate. With multiple types of available tests, you can refine your Facebook ad targeting. When Facebook analysis your advertising and brings you results, you are at a better point of devising an amazing advertising strategy.

So, what are you still waiting for?

Keep the ball rolling and see how your performance and output soars through the sky.

But before that, what do you want to test first? Which of the Test and Learn tests do you want to run first to test and learn it?

Is it A/B test, aka split test, or the holdout test? Would you like to check your target audience with the Survey test, or is the campaign budget optimization on your list first?

Hit us up with your questions and let us make the process even easier.

Are you interested in learning more about Facebook Business Manager?

You’d find the following reads a useful addition to your cravings to learn more on the subject:

Creating a Facebook Page for Business – An A-Z Guide
How To Create A Facebook Business Manager Account?
Creating Facebook Ad Accounts & getting them to work
What is Creative Hub? Does your business need it?
Keeping Up with Facebook Business Manager Updates
Leveraging Facebook Audience Insights in 2020 and beyond
Facebook Attribution Tool – A Complete Guide

Happy Reading

The post How To Test And Learn In Facebook Business Manager? appeared first on Canz Marketing.

You go home and you Google it. Heck, you may even bring out your phone as your friend is making the recommendation and search for it there and then.

You know you’ve done at least once, if not multiple times.

Now, jog your memory back a little. What is the first result that comes up on the search engine results page?

You will likely be shown a website of the business.

If they don’t have a website, you’ll see a link to their Facebook page.

Sometimes, the Facebook page will be on the top position regardless.

You’ll browse through their posts, see if anything sticks out to you. You’ll check out their reviews, see what their consumers have to say about them. And so on…

Now put your customers in that position.

Imagine they whip out their phone and search for your brand and do not come across a page where they can learn all about you.

They won’t waste a second moving past you and onto your competitors who have an online presence on Facebook.

Don’t believe us?

Let us prove it to you.

This is what you will need to know:

Why a Facebook Business Page is a Must in 2020

1.49 billion people are active on Facebook on a daily basis.

eMarketer found that 87.1% of US marketers will make use of the social media platform for marketing purposes this year.

But wait, there’s more.

Do you know how many small businesses there are on Facebook? A whopping 90 million! Can you imagine how many of these are your competitors?

We aren’t trying to intimidate you with these numbers. All we want is for you to understand the importance of having a Facebook page – a digital presence on social media is a must these days!

If you ignore all the signs and stick to your old ways, your competitors will outrun you in no time. Heck, they may already be way ahead.

If you don’t start catching up now, it’ll be too late!

So, without wasting any more time, let’s get right into how to create an attractive, useful Facebook page.

We will walk you through the steps, one by one.

1. Create a Facebook Business Page.

If you are new to marketing on digital platforms, it is perfectly okay to be a little apprehensive about getting started with a new Facebook page.

You might be tired of hearing “create a FB page” from you friends over and over again but actually getting started can be intimidating.

Before you’ve gone through this blog post, of course.

We’re about to show you how to create a page step by step – it’s as easy as eating pie.

Let’s begin!

Step 1:

First of all, go to https://web.facebook.com/pages/creation/.

You will come to a page that looks like this:

For the purposes of this blog post, we will go with creating a page for your business or your brand.

Step 2:

Next, to create a new Facebook page, click on the Get Started button in the Business or Brand section.

Two fields will appear. Add your Page Name and Category to the fields.

To add the category, add a keyword that is related to your business.

In this example, we pretend we own a shoe store that goes by the name, Shoes for Blues. Keeping in line with this, we typed “shoes” in the Category field and a drop-down menu showed us a list of categories relevant to shoes.

We selected Footwear store, which for us was spot on!

You understand your business best – when you type in a keyword, you will be shown a list of related categories. Just select the category that is most relevant to your business.

Once you do that, two additional fields will pop up where you can add your address, as well as your telephone number.

While it is mandatory for you to add the address – it won’t let you proceed unless you do, we tried! – whether you add a phone number is up to you.

Whether or not you make this information public is also in your hands. You can tick the “Don’t show my address” box to only make the city and state visible to the public.

All that is left to do now is click on the Continue button to proceed to the next step.

Note:

Just before you click continue, a statement will inform you that the Pages, Groups and Events policies will become applicable once you create a page.

Giving them a read is a good idea.

Step 3:

You will now be redirected to a screen that asks you to upload a profile picture for your Facebook fanpage.

You can skip this part but only do this is you intend to add an image later – don’t publish your page without a profile picture.

Just click on the Upload a Profile Picture button and select a photo from your device.

But how do you know which picture to choose for your page?

Here’s something to keep in mind:

The best picture to use here is your business logo. That is something people automatically link to your brand.

Facebook itself provides some tips for choosing a profile photo that will really stand out to your audience. Click here to view these details.

Step 4:

Once you’ve uploaded the profile picture, you will be asked to upload a cover photo. You can use this Facebook banner photo to tell people a little more about your brand – even if it just what your physical store looks like or what your best-selling products are.

Again, you’ll find more information about this from Facebook (in the link we shared in the previous step).

Use the same steps to upload the cover photo.

This step may not seem essential but keep in mind – your Facebook cover page has a direct impact on your Facebook page likes. Do not ignore it!

Before we move on:

We found a great resource to help you choose the right images for your page. Click on the link below and read all about it:

How to Make Your Facebook Business Profile Imagery Stand Out

And voila! Your page template is ready. At this point, you should see something like this:

What Next?

If you look at the bottom right-hand corner of the page, you will see a pop-up that is highlighted.

This is the next logical step – although you can leave it for later if you wish.

This pop-up allows you to invite friends to like your page. It gives a list of some of your friends, as well as an option to see ALL your friends.

We’ll discuss this a little further into this blog post.

For now, let’s go back to what you need to do next.

2. Add more information about the business.

Ask yourself this: Why did you create a Facebook page?

To put up a few fancy pictures of your products and get the attention of your potential customers?

Well, yes, that too.

But your motivation behind setting up the fan page was for people to find out more about your business.

And that is what you want to work on once you have the page set up.

To do this, click on the Edit Page Info button in the menu bar near the top of the page.

You will be redirected to a page that will allow you to add important information to the page.

Let’s go through these points quickly so you know what you are dealing with.

Description

This is a very small summary of the page (the limit is 255 characters so you can only write a few sentences). It should give the reader a gist of the business and what it is about.

Once you’ve added the description, click on the Save Changes button.

Category

You have already added ta category for your business. But you may be limiting the number of people that the page can reach by assigning only one category to the page.

In this section, you can add other categories too, so your page reaches a much wider audience that could benefit from your products or services.

The method to add the category is the same as we described above.

Once you are done, just click on the Save Changes button.

Contact Information

Next, you can add contact information for your business so that it is easy for customers and potential consumers to get in touch with you.

You have the option of adding your:

• Phone number
• Website
• Email

For each of these details, you can either add the specifics or you can tick a box saying you don’t have a phone number/email/website before you click on the Save Changes button.

In our case, that is just what we have done:

Location

This only applies if you have a physical store or office, the location of which you want to make public so people can reach you.

The location section has two components:

• The actual location of the physical presence
• The service areas

Firstly, you can specify the location on Google maps to help people locate you easily. You do have to tick the “Customers visit my business at my street address” box, otherwise this location will not be shown to the public.

You can also add specific details, for example, if your office is present inside another building.

In the Service Area section, you can add the areas you provide your services in.

In our example, we have added Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, and Dewsbury to the Service Area, specifying that we deliver to these areas.

Once again, when you are done, you need to save all the changes.

Hours

In this section, you need to specify when you are open – what time on what days.

You can choose the timings separately for each day of the week, or you can select a bulk option by ticking one of the boxes at the top of the section.

Make sure you are accurate with this. You don’t want to tell people on Facebook that you are open on Sundays, only to be closed when they turn up outside the shop on a Sunday.

Additional information

The More section allows you to add the following information, if relevant, to the page:

• Impressum
• Price range
• Privacy policy

As always, click on Save Changes to make sure none of information or selections are lost.

About tab

The About tab is another place where you can add and edit information about the business.

Some of these details are the same as the ones we just discussed whereas others are different.

But before, let’s see how you get to the About section.

There are a number of options on the left-hand side of the page under your profile picture. Click on About from this list.

You will be redirected to a page that looks something like this:

As you can see, a lot of the information that can be added here is the same as we have already discussed. Some things, though, are different.

Here are two examples:

Facebook Story

You’ve given people an idea of what you’re about and what you do. But it is in this section that you truly get to share your story with your audience.

Tell them how you started out. What motivated you to get started. How you aim to fill a gap in their lives. What they can expect from you. The list can go on.

This, in short, is where you are going to convince potential consumers to not only like the page but become loyal customers. So make sure it is compelling.

Once you have added a Title and a picture to the actual story, you can click on the Publish button to share it with the world.

Team Members

You can add yourself, an employee, or any individual who manages the page (or more than one if you want) as a team member here.

This person will be visible to the general public as part of the team for your business.

This builds their trust and confidence in your brand, as well as gives them a point of contact if they want to reach out to someone directly.

3. Come up with a Facebook page username.

A very important part of setting up a Facebook business page is to devise a username for the page.

The aim of the username is to help people search for and find you.

It is pretty obvious, then, that you want it to be as similar to your brand name as possible. Using your brand name as is may work perfectly. If you don’t think that’s your best bet, go for a slight variation but nothing major.

But how do you do it?

Under your profile picture on the page, click on Create Page @Username.

A pop-up will appear where you can add a username.

Note:

You won’t always be able to find the username you want. It is the same as creating an email ID for yourself – you have to go through at least a couple of variants, adding a dot here or a hyphen there to find one that isn’t already taken.

In our example, @shoesforblues was not available. Simply adding the digit “1” at the end of the username did the trick, though.

Create a username that reflects your brand persona/name and click on the Create Username button.

Once you’re done, Facebook will show you links using which people can connect with you.

4. Adjust the page settings to your preference.

The Facebook settings page is your next stop.

This is where you can play around with the settings of the Facebook page.

Simply click on the Facebook tab named Settings in the menu bar near the top of the page and you will be redirected to the Settings menu.

This is an elaborate menu with hundreds of major and minor things that you can adjust based on your requirements and desires.

You can see all of the sub-sections of the Settings page on the left side of the page. Clicking on any of these sections will open up the details on the right side of the page.

While there are too many details for us to cover in this blog post, let us discuss some of the more important ones so you get an idea.

General

The General settings tab allows you to control a number of things such as post visibility, various restrictions, updates, content specifics, and more.

Notifications

The Notifications tab allows you to specify your preferences regarding when you choose to be notified about certain activities on the page and when you can do without.

Page roles

Page roles allows you to assign new roles (you can choose from Admin, Editor, Moderator, Advertiser, and Analyst) when you want someone to help you run the page. You can also modify existing roles.

Instagram

From this tab, you can link the Facebook page to Instagram without a hassle. When you link Instagram to your Facebook page, you make sure that you reach more people.

Page Management History

The Page Management History tab lets you view all the actions carried out on the page by anyone who has been assigned a role.

There are many other settings you can control from this tab, such as page moderation, Facebook page messenger settings, and much more. You can play around with the detailed settings once you have the basics in place.

5. Invite people to Like the page.

I want people to open my Facebook page and interact with my content.

That’s a given.

But before that, I want to tell people that the page exists and invite them to like the page.

Facebook gives you the option to do that on the right-hand side of the page.

Invite friends you would want to like the page.

Remember: The more people that like your page and are a part of your community, the greater the chances you can manage to increase Facebook likes overall.

So encourage as many people as you can to like the page.

Once you’ve built somewhat of an audience for the page from within your own circle, you can begin to promote the Facebook page to strangers through immaculate content strategies and other means.

6. Don’t hesitate to reach out for help!

When you create a Facebook page for the first time, there will be many instances where you will have questions that will need answers.

And no guide will be able to answer these very specific questions.

That is when the Help tab comes into the picture.

Simply click on Help in the menu near the top of the page. A drop-down menu will appear, which is a help center in the truest sense.

The Help Center will provide you with resources and links that should help you solve any problems you may be having.

It also gives you a list of frequently asked questions so you may get specific answers without having to dig too deep.

In any case, never hesitate to reach out for help.

If you have a friend or colleague who runs a Facebook page, ask them for some assistance over coffee. If not, the Facebook Help center is always available to give you Facebook business page tips.

Now, before we conclude this post, let’s quickly see the most frequently asked important questions about the topic:

Most Frequent Queries 

1- Is a Facebook business page free?

Facebook has turned into a profitable marketplace for all kinds of businesses. Creating a Facebook business page, however, is still free. Irrespective of whether you have a hefty Facebook advertising budget or only rely on organic marketing, your Facebook page creation would always be free.

2- How do I create a Facebook account for a business?

Here’s a 7-step breakdown of how to create a Facebook account for any business:

1. Sign up on facebook.com/pages/create and pick your category.
   
2. Add your business or brand details, including name, address, and phone number, etc.
3. Upload the profile picture for your business. The more closely resonating this image is to your business – preferably the logo – the better.
4. Add a cover photo/banner that reflects your business.
5. Create a username that helps your prospects find you with ease.
6. Add other information in the *Edit page info* section, including:

• • Description
  • Page category
  • Contact information
  • Location
  • Hours
  • About 
  • Additional information
  • Facebook story

7. Adjust page settings to your preferences, including:

• • General
  • Messaging
  • Notifications
  • Page roles
  • Authorizations
  • Instagram
  • Cross-posting
  • Page management history, etc.

3- Can you have 2 business manager accounts?

Yes, according to Facebook terms, you can have up to two business manager accounts registered on one email id. 

4- How many business manager accounts can I have?

2 is the greatest number you can have for business mangers in your name (on one email id).

Therefore, when you need more accounts, you’d need access to a business manager account registered on someone else’s id from your organization.

5- How do you add a business manager to an existing Facebook page?

Often confused with the opposite case, you don’t add a business manager to a Facebook page. Here’s how you can add an existing Facebook page to business manager:

1. Get admin access to the business page you want to add to the business manager.
   
2. Acquire admin access to the business manager in which you want to add the business page.
3. Go to your business settings at business.facebook.com/settings/ (and pick your business manager to which you want to add a Facebook business page, in case of more than one business manager accounts).
4. In the settings tab, click on the “Pages” option under “Accounts.”
5. Click on the “Add” button and pick the “Add a page” option from the options bar that drops down.

• • You may also choose “request access to a page” to add a page to which you don’t have access yet.
  • If the page you want to add to the business manager doesn’t exist yet, you can create it right here, picking the “create a new page” option.

6. Add your page name or the URL of your page to the business manager and click on the “Add page.” As long as you are the admin of the page, your request would be approved right away.

6- Why are Facebook business pages important?

First off, you need a point of contact with your potential customers and your representation. Your customers and prospects hang out on Facebook, therefore that’s where you need to be to stay in their minds. That’s how they’d give you a consideration when they require your services or products. But there are other benefits of having a Facebook page as well, such as:

• Owning a Facebook business page gives you insights into your target market.
• Additionally, besides creating a physical name and place for your prospects to follow, it helps you create and nurture a community.
• Similarly, having a Facebook business page automatically boosts your SEO.

Wrapping it up

Setting up a Facebook page for your business isn’t the end goal – it is the beginning of a beautiful, tough, taxing, rewarding journey that can get you places.

But it all begins when you create a Facebook page in the best way possible and truly use it to connect with and assist your audience.

This guide will help you do just that!

As always, if you have any questions, leave them in the comments section below and we will get back to you.

Happy creating!

Oh and before we leave, once you have set up a Facebook page, we have a lot of resources that can help you win at Facebook marketing.

Here is a list of a few – you can find the rest on our blog!

Starting a New Company? How to Market Online for FREE

A Guide to Facebook Demographics, Age Groups & Age Ranges

7 Facebook Marketing Tactics You Should Know

Top 21 Facebook Marketing Mistakes [That Might Be Draining Your Business]

Creating Facebook Ad Accounts & getting them to work

5 Techniques to Generate ‘Clicks’ on Your Facebook Ads

Keeping Up with Facebook Business Manager Updates

The post Creating a Facebook Page for Business – An A-Z Guide appeared first on Canz Marketing.

How likely are you to believe us if we were to tell you that Facebook is a giant-wizardly-marketing-platform that doesn’t only predict your future but can track the history of your customers too?

Well, it wasn’t just blowing Facebook’s trumpet for no reason. We have a lot to say to validate this notion; we have many Facebook tools to talk about. But today, we’ll only speak of one magical potion; they call it the Facebook attribution tool. 

Here’s the deal:

Facebook had our back right from 2017 when they rolled out this new wizardry Fb Attribution Tool.

That’s right; we’re talking about the Facebook tools that track your conversion’s past. So, are you ready for a plethora of information simplified and structured for you?

Here’s what you’ll get to see, learn, and marvel about today:

Sounds perfect! But perfection is yet to come.

Let the drive begin:

Facebook Attribution Tool

Say you are a business running in the 21st century (or the lucky advertiser of one such business).

How are you most likely to market the business?

If you asked us the same question for the same role-play, the answer would have been:

“We’d research the business, and the audience meant to flourish it. Based on where the audience hung out the most, we’d design a strategic plan for multi-platform audiences to target them everywhere they are! “.

Now, that’s the right kind of strategy, we’d say. (And we are not alone in saying that; it’s a tried, tested & recommended approach by most of the still-somewhat-sane marketers (saying this in the context of 2020, you know)).

However, targeting the audience doesn’t always involve paid marketing. It doesn’t have to.

At times, organic results also contribute a lot to convert potentials into clients. Even if some of those channels do not directly contribute to the sales, they might indirectly do so.

How does *playing a substantial role in shaping the mind of the potentials to make the purchase* sound? That’s what all those channels do.

NO STRINGS ATTACHED!

But, what does the Fb attribution tool do?

The Role Of Facebook Attribution Tool In The Story:

All right, the story starts with you back to being the business owner (or the marketer, well!).

Running across different platforms IS a tricky job; you know it just as well as we do. Therefore, the rewards ought to be real good!

Yes, they are; like said earlier, this helps improve the conversions.

But how do you know what content, platform, ad, or effort has been the most useful? What exactly helped you in the process of a complete sale? How do you know what has been the most productive effort in your journey?

How can you really track that, if at all? And, based on the tracking, what would be a profitable future strategy for you? 

Well, that’s where Facebook’s brought a twist to the story. That’s where the platform’s wizardry comes in to play in the name of the Attribution tool. 

Facebook Attribution tool tracks all the touchpoints of a prospect on his way to becoming a client.

And that’s one of the top reasons we are a fan of Facebook Marketing.

Here’s what Facebook says about attribution:

“Facebook attribution allows us to see the full picture of cross-device measurement and make the right marketing decisions based on user behavior,” says Elina Prave, VP Marketing, airBaltic. 

Consider this example:

When a prospect first interacts with your ad – say a Facebook conversion ad – he might not necessarily buy right away (or at all). 

But why does it bother you? Why does it matter in the first place?

It matters because there still is a high chance of converting that prospect.

But how do you do that?

Remarket! Corner the prospect with your retargeting efforts.

You might want to send them some more ads; Facebook, Google, Instagram, every platform that might feel useful! When you notice some interest, you might want to use Email marketing. Throughout the whole process, you’d send some landing pages their way too.

And ultimately, you score one more!

Great. Right?

One more down, and that sounds great! But amid all your efforts running between multiple platforms, what has actually caused that sale? What media have helped the process? Which of your content have the prospects interacted with, and in what order before ultimately hitting the purchase? Which ads have actually made the mind of your prospects and converted them into your paying customer?

All of this is very important information.

Why?

Because, your future marketing strategies and efforts could use your past conversion tracking.

And that’s all that your Facebook attribution tool tells you.

But how does Facebook do it?

Well, Facebook has ‘2’ tracking methods!

Keep reading to find out what those tracking methods are!

1- Cookie-based tracking:

Using cookies to track the actions of your prospects is a standard method these days.

However, is this an appropriate method?

Yes, it is. Probably not the most appropriate one, however.

So, what’s wrong with cookie-based tracking?

You only get to track the steps that have cookies. 

But, there might have been other interactions too. Those untracked interactions might have been more decisive in the purchase process.

How about giving them their due credit too?

So, what’s the other option?

2- Multi-touch tracking:

Multi-touch tracking tracks all the actions and interactions between the first touchpoint and the converting touchpoint.

And nothing can be more valuable than that.

How or why is that important, you ask?

Because knowing the exact customer journey for every customer helps you optimize and redirect your efforts. It enables you to formulate a precise strategy that would convert for you in the future. 

And now that you know, you are dying to know how to set up the attribution tool. 

So, let us not keep you waiting and jump right into that.

Setting Up the Facebook Attribution Tool

Before heading that way, you need to have a Facebook Business Manager account ready. That, check!

Next, your Ads account in place? That, too, check!

Well done!

Let’s turn over to the set up in question:

1- Head to the *Business Manager* scroll down on the left top and click on the *Attribution* under the *Measure & Report* tab.

2- The next page gives a brief on your line of action from here. Hit *Get Started* if you are ready, or quit if you are not.

3- Based on who you are or what you do, you’ll pick an appropriate option from the next page. Hit next.

For holding personal business/es, the first two options define you. Say you are aspiring to be a marketing agency, the last option is for you.

4- Pick the right Ad account to connect the attribution to. Hit next.

5- In the next four steps, you’d repeat the same process for:

• Pixels
• People
• Time zone & Currency
• Line of business name

While the pixel and people could be changed later, you can’t change the time zone and people once you cross this stage.

Also, pick an appropriate name that defines your business line, so you don’t have to keep playing the guessing game when you have a long list.

This is where you’d find yourself standing now.

6- Hit finish And wait for as long as Facebook wants you to wait. 

Facebook just asked you to keep calm for the next few hours while it is collecting data.

As Facebook suggested, keep reading to find out more about the attribution.

7- On the next page, click on the *ad platforms* at the top.

You’ll see a list of 32 ad platforms (if you click on the *see all* option) that you can include in your attribution map. The window would also show you five platforms not supported by the publisher (including LinkedIn).

8- Hover over the platform you want to add to your tracking journey and hit *connect*. Hit *I agree* to proceed.

Depending on what platform you pick, you’d have to take different simple avenues, and you’d have all the ad platforms added to the attribution map. 

This means that once a prospect interacts with the ad on a chosen platform, you’d see that interaction (with its sequence in the overall events line) in the customer journey presentation.

Having added all the ad platforms on the map now is the time to seek peace in rest.

That’s all!

But you can’t make the anticipated greatness out of it without having good know-how of the related concepts.

Here are some of the basics you need to know:

Facebook Business Attribution – Understanding The Relevant Concepts.

Time for some short yet the most valuable information!

Attribution Models:

What are the attribution models?

The attribution models are the variety of models that show which of the interactions and touchpoints of prospects with our content have been the most useful in generating conversions.

These are the attribution models that Facebook offers:

• Last Click

As the name employs, whatever content got the last click gets the credit for the conversion.

You got it!

The whole concept of attribution points to the fact that a single click doesn’t lead to conversion. It is a process, so the last click doesn’t get the full credit – unless it is the last-click attribution model we are talking about.

• Last Touch

In the case of the last-touch model, the credit goes to the last interaction instead of just the click. It could be the last view etc.

And our disagreement with the concept doesn’t change here either.

• Equal Credit

Now, this might sound like a logical model to some, while most would still disagree with this.

As per this model, all the touchpoints get equal credit for a conversion.

• Promotional 30%

In the promotional 30% model, the first and the last touch points before each conversion get 30% credit combined. In contrast, the rest of them all get 70% credit, divided between them all.

• Promotional 40%

If you got the concept of the Promotional 30% attribution model, this should be a no brainer.

The first and the last touch points get 40% weightage while the rest divide 60%.

• Time decay (1 day)

According to this model, the efforts/campaigns/touchpoints closer to the conversion are more important in driving the conversion. Therefore the touchpoints closer to the conversion (towards the end) get more credit than the ones towards the beginning.

As per 1-day time decay, the touchpoints within one day before the conversion have 50% credit, and those within two days before the conversion get 25% credit of the conversion.

• Time Decay (7 Day half-life)

Like the last model, this model also gives more credit to the touchpoints closer to the conversion.

The difference between this model and the previous model is that the touchpoints within the last seven days of the conversion get 50% credit. The touchpoints 14 days before the conversion get 25% credit.

The result stats that Facebook shows you depend on the model you pick in the settings.

You can pick whatever you feel is better for you, but most marketers prefer the time decay models.

Facebook Attribution Windows

Attribution window refers to the time between someone interacting with your ad/content and taking a conversion action. Call it the time they take to decide to purchase from you after coming across your content.

When Facebook gives you the option to choose your attribution window, what does it mean?

It means you are given a chance to choose during what frame of time before a conversion do you want to give the credit of that conversion to the interactions.

These are the Facebook Attribution Window Options that the platform offers you:

• 28-day click and visit, 1-day impression.
• 7-day click and visit, 1-day impression.
• 14-day click and visit, 1-day impression.
• 28-day click and visit, no impression.
• 28-day click and visit, 4-hour impression.
• 7-day click and visit, 4-hour impression.
• 14-day click and visit, 14-day impression.
• 7-day click and visit, 7-day impression.
• 14-day click and visit, no impressions.

And so on. 

(The options continue to 90 days of attribution windows.)

What attribution window you choose depends mainly on the kind of ads you are running and your products.

For instance, you can’t expect your targets to buy your shirts 14 days after they saw your shirts-ad. For such production, you definitely want to keep your attribution windows short (or, rest assured, one of your competitors has successfully tracked him down before reaching you). Similarly, the impression based ads can only afford short attribution windows. In contrast, the interaction-based ads may go with the longer ones.

Information On Other Facebook Tools

People often confuse Fb attribution tools with other Facebook tools. Let’s take a look at some other tools associated with Facebook to have a clear picture in front of us:

How to use Facebook as a marketing tool?

There are more than one ways in which you can use Facebook as a marketing tool. For instance:

• Using a Facebook page as your virtual business shop or point of interaction.
• Using Facebook groups to interact with your potentials.
• Leveraging the power of Facebook paid advertising to build awareness or draw sales.
• Using Facebook chatbots to engage prospects and make up their mind to purchase from you.

What is a Facebook monitoring tool?

Like other social media monitoring tools, Facebook monitoring tools are used to measure your Facebook engagement and analytics. These tools help evaluate the success rate of your Facebook strategy through in-depth analytics.

Facebook Insights is one such in-built tool for trend mapping and giving you insights into your content’s progress. 

Do we have a Facebook keyword tool?

Unlike Google, people only search for people and pages, not information on Facebook. Therefore there is no point in having a Facebook keyword tool. 

However, if you need specific keywords to target your ads right, Facebook ads manager and audience insights tool help with that based on age, gender, location, and affinity level.

What is the ‘Facebook tool kit’?

Facebook tool kit, Facebook Social toolkit, or tool kit for Facebook are all the names of a Google chrome automation-extension for Facebook. 

It consists of several features to make the Facebook user experience better, improve your functionality as a Facebook marketer, and saves you time.

Here are a few tasks you can perform with ‘toolkit for Facebook’ – the chrome extension:

• Liking, unliking, following, unfollowing multiple pages at once.
• Accepting or rejecting all friend requests with one click.
• Unfollowing multiple groups at once.
• Deleting many comments with one click.
• Extracting ids.
• Inviting numerous friends to join a group or like a page or send multiple friend requests.
• Facebook video downloading

The premium version of the Facebook tool kit allows for a lot more functionality.

Wrap Up

In this blog post, we have tried learning about the Facebook attribution tool, cookie-based single interaction or non-cookie-based multi-interaction touchpoints, and setting up the attribution tool. We have also tried learning the relevant concepts, including attribution models, and attribution windows, etc. We have ended the post with a little information on other relevant Facebook tools as well.

So, how to use data from Facebook attribution tool?

For the tenth time, when Facebook helps you track the exact route of your conversion, you have a jackpot of data on the touchpoints that helped you convert. In your future strategy, you can boost your efforts and the outputs by focusing on those touchpoints more.

What next?

Knowledge is power. 

Knowing everything about the Facebook attribution tool and how to set it up, you are all set to set up your attribution tool.

Have you started yet? What seems like the most difficult step throughout the process, to begin with?

Shoot us a comment if you are still stuck anywhere. We’d love to help you carry out your Facebook marketing processes independently. 

But, it all starts with small steps. Lucky for you, we are working on creating guides on each small step for you.

If you are planning to master Facebook Business Manager, give these useful resources a quick read:

Keeping Up with Facebook Business Manager Updates

What is ‘Creative Hub’? Does your business need it?

Leveraging Facebook Audience Insights in 2020 and beyond

Happy tracking your efforts

The post Facebook Attribution Tool – A Complete Guide appeared first on Canz Marketing.