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Hi everybody! Welcome to episode #63! Today we’re looking into paid social media – is that where we’re headed now? Has the ‘free lunch’ ended? People often ask us about getting ‘free’ traffic, but is this really still available?
What did Andrew and Heather learn this week?
Heather has been bombarded with scam emails! Many of them have been fake Paypal messages, wanting you to ‘click the link to secure your account’. Don’t do it! This takes you to what looks like a legitimate site, but it’s a scam to try and get hold of your login details. Always check that the URL is simply paypal.com – nothing added on to it, no spelling mistakes etc. When in doubt, one tip is to go and log into your Paypal account (in a separate tab) and get hold of Paypal via their contact function.
Andrew has recently been made aware of the Cryptolocker virus. This one is nasty! It gets into your computer and locks down all of your files, then asks for payment to unlock them. Make sure you have solid user names and passwords, and that your anti-virus software is up to date.
Paid Social Media
The free-lunch was great while it lasted, but with changes made to social platforms (such as Facebook’s heavy emphasis on advertising), businesses are really now needing to pay money to make effective use of them.
There are some powerful advantages though, we feel:
- You are able to target your ads or promoted posts very specifically.
- Ability to target is much more effective than traditional banner advertising.
- These are a very fast way to get traffic to your business.
If, as a user, the fact that so much information is available about you disturbs you, the only solutions are to either not be online or to severely restrict what details you do share. All of these things such as interests and demographic information are taken from your profiles online and the types of posts you are tagged in.
Your business could advertise in:
- YouTube
- Stumbleupon
- Pinterest is coming!
Google+ is the only social platform that is not currently directly advertising, but it is Google! Your information will probably be used in other methods…
What you should consider…
- We’re finding that as people know what an ad looks like now, the most effective ones are those which give some valuable piece of micro-content.
- On platforms such as Stumbleupon, ads for post that are considered to be too ‘salesy’ have been turned down. So what you should consider is whether you have included the next step within your blog or content (with subtlety! For example an opt-in within the post).
- If you’re getting started, Facebook is one of the simplest to get going with.
- When placing your ads, think of your targeted audience as a holistic person. Think about where they shop, who they are interested in and what they like. This helps you to drill down on your targeting and reach more of your ideal audience.
- Don’t ‘set and forget’! You need to measure and test what you’re doing – people get ad blindness as they see the same thing all the time. Check them daily to see whether engagement is dropping and tweak parts of your ad or targeting.
- We’ve found that after 3-4 days, you probably really need to change your ad around.