Many who were working before the pandemic are choosing to put a pause on returning to the workforce full time combined with the temporary halt of immigration due to Covid-19 also caused a dip in the labor pool. Another reason is just simple demographics. Our baby boomer population is aging and most have moved into retirement age or have choose to retire early.
The lack of a workforce for businesses is causing burnt out staff, reduced holidays, cancelled orders and in some case loss of business when they cant operate during the intended hours that they would normally. Throw in the pandemic over the last year and a half and the mix is almost impossible for some businesses to keep their doors open.
What can you do on social media? Employer branding is more important than ever during this time. In fact 68% of Millennial’s, 54% of Gen-Xers, and 48% of Boomers indicated they visit an employer’s social media properties specifically to evaluate the employer’s brand. Ensure that your company is present on social media profiles that will attract job seekers. As an employer we all like to glance at a potential employees LinkedIn profile. As a company you should be present on the profile and going beyond that as well with Facebook and Instagram.
Using social media apps to share behind the scenes in your business and workplace fun is a great way to share with potential applicants what a great workplace that you do have. Consider speaking with your employees and letting them share on social media what they love about working within your company. If you truly have a great culture then they will want to speak about it.
Once you have established your culture and your platforms you can create a social media strategy. Remember to stay consistent with your postings and always stay true to your mission and values on social media. Want more information about social media management services for your business? Send us an email at hi@annelise.ca or visit our services page.
Yes, it’s true the Facebook game has been getting harder! A few years ago it was much easier to get results to your Facebook Page. In fact, all profiles and sites were created equal showing you the content that was published most recently at the top of the page. This game has changed and the algorithm is the deciding factor of who gets their content shown more. However, how can we blame them? There is more content than prime space making news feed real estate more competitive than ever. Facebook continues to make the platform more friendly and personalized for the user, showing content that peaks their specific interests. So how do you increase traffic to your Facebook Business Page?
Do you need to invest in Facebook ads or continue to rely on organic traffic? Facebook ads are great for a quick return but not everyone has the budget and the process in place for Facebook Ads. When you start to run ads to cold traffic it can eat up a budget quickly. If you can bring in more traffic from organic sources you can further down the line invest in paid traffic. Let’s take a look at a few methods of gaining organic Facebook Traffic.
Post At The Right Time
There is a reason why the rush hour radio ad time slots cost more. Well luckily with social media we don’t pay more to post at a prime time. If you post during prime time. There are some rules of thumb such as 7-9 pm and 12 pm-1 pm that typically shows spikes however the best way to determine your audience’s prime time is to look at your own data. In your “Facebook Insights” tab under “Posts,” there is a section that shows the engagement for each day of the week as well as the reach for each hour of the day. This will help you to determine when to schedule your posts.
Avoid Engagement Baiting
When we talk about engagement baiting we mean posting as then asking your audience to like, comment, share. Facebook did make a decision to decrease rankings with these types of posts. With enough craft though you can reword your posts to inspire others to comment without using keywords that Facebook may bump your post down.
For example instead of saying:
“Here is Andrea enjoying her favorite flavor, the mint chocolate chip. like and comment with your favorite flavor.”
Use this version instead:
“We have a variety of amazing flavors. Andrea one of our power scoopers can’t stay away from the mint chocolate chip. Which flavor makes your taste buds dance?
Never Use Clickbait Material
Clickbait content tends to withhold information or create misleading titles pertaining to the actual content on the other side. Always make sure that your title, subtitle, and article all have common titles and end goals of what the user will be sent to. Creating a link that misleads your audience will likely deter them from visiting your page again.
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Use Link Posts
A link post uses the photo in the link instead of uploading a photo or video and adding a link. Link posts will show a preview of the page that they will click on with image, heading, and subtitle. This is much more comforting to click on than a foreign link, especially if you have used a URL shortener.
Reach out to those in the article
If you are mentioning other businesses in your article you can tag them through the Facebook Post. If you currently have a lack of sharing it could just be that others are unaware that your content is there. Once they see it, especially when shining light on their business in a positive way it can be reshared easily. The number of shares from other accounts can lead to an explosion of organic growth.
Upload Videos Direct To Facebook
According to a Quintly Study videos that are directly uploaded to Facebook show an average 168% higher than for YouTube or Vimeo video links. This could partly be due to the fact that Facebook Native Video Uploads play directly in the feed and do not require another link click and upload outside of Facebook making them much simpler to view.
Reach out for Contributors
More often is not always better when it comes to posting on Facebook. If you are struggling to get content out on daily, it may be more efficient to go for fewer posts that provide more value instead of throwing content out for the sake of it. Consider going with quality over quantity. A helpful article or post a couple of times a week will have readers diving into your posts and engaging with them much more if they are helpful.
Run a Giveaway
Running a giveaway can help increase your organic Facebook reach. It can result in more likes, shares, and of course, follows of your page. While asking others to share your post in order to be entered is against Facebook rules, you can always ask them to, for example, says “consider sharing this contest for your friends and family to enter now. ” There is the cost of the prize that will be offered, however, if you have a juicy prize and a sense of urgency to enter the campaign it will be sure to bring in a crowd of contestants which results in more attention to your page. Do remember to state the rules clearly and follow all guidelines from Facebook when running your contest.
Looking to schedule Facebook posts lately but can’t find the scheduler lately? Facebook has made some changes with regards to how we schedule posts.
This has been replaced with the Creator Studio. Facebook is essentially asking us politely us to use Creator Studio or they wouldn’t keep us from using the scheduler on our Facebook Business Pages. As you can see below the Facebook Scheduler is not working anymore and you only have the option to Backdate or Save Draft.
Creator Studio adds more posting options to your Facebook Page. Included in the Creator Studio is the Content Library, Insights, Message Inbox, Monetization, Rights Manager, Sound Collection, and Pages. This allows you an easy to access platform for all of the Facebook Pages that you manage. You can view all of your pages results on one dashboard or you can open up each individual page to look into their individual analytics.
Once you are into the platform and want to schedule a post, you just have to do the following to start posting:
Select Create Post.
Choose what to post.
Selecting Create Post to publish non-video content.
Select Upload Video to upload and compose a video post.
Select Post Video Across Pages to upload a video and crossposted it.
The Go Live option will start a live broadcast.
Choose a Page to post to.
Compose your post and select Publish.
You can even batch upload weeks of content at one time using Creator Studio.
Creator Studio for Instagram Scheduling
Facebook Creator Studio is also available for Instagram. The option to schedule Instagram posts in advance was not available previously through the Instagram platform. A third party such as Planoly was necessary. Now that this option is available it is a game-changer for Instagram Planning. It has most of the same features that are available for Facebook such as a content library, messages, and analytics.
The bad news…
You won’t be able to use it on your mobile phone. Instead, the Facebook Business Page App will allow you to schedule posts on your mobile.
Overall the Creator Studio is a valuable tool for managing your Facebook Pages, Insights, and Scheduling all in one manager. The best part is it’s free to use!
There is nothing worse than started a new Facebook Ad campaign only to found out your rejected. It can be upsetting to those who are trying to run an honest campaign or maybe are just not aware of the common rules when it comes to Facebook ads. Facebook typically doesn’t give you a clear answer of why you ad was rejected, throwing it your court to find the reason. You will then need to troubleshoot what went wrong make the necessary chanecs.. Another bummer is that it may take an extra 24 hours on top of the 24 hours you already waited until the ad got rejected.
Facebook states that “Typically most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, although in some cases it may take longer.”
The truth is we really don’t know what goes o behind the scenes but what we do know is there are actually humans in a Facebook ads department and with a combination of technological automation and human eye ads are reviewed every day. For example those ads that use certain keywords may make your ad go under a specific review process before they can be approved.
Here are a few key points to remember when posting Facebook Ads:
Images With Text
The case used to be that any images that contained more than 20% text would get rejected. This is no longer the case
BUT….
These types of ads will actually cost you more. This means that your dollar will be stretched further causing you to reach less people.
Try to keep your images to just a title and small tagline.
A great tool is the Facebook Image Text Check Tool which allows you to upload a photo and determine if the image as too much text.
Ads will either be labelled: High, medium, low or Ok and you will want your ads to all fall int the “ok” category to avoid having your dollars stretched when it comes to accounts reached.
Before and After Photos
You cannot run an ad that has an image of a “before and after.” These types of images come up often on in industries such as weight loss industry, home renovation industry and in the hair and makeup industry.
False Promises In Your Facebook Ads
Whether it is related to weight loss or making money you cannot make false promises or unrealistic claims.
For example, instead of stating – “With this product you will loose 10 pounds in 10 days.” say “Learn about the journey that helped me loose 10 pounds in 10 days or instead of saying, “Make your first $1000 in 3 days.” you could say “Learn the specific steps that will help you gain more clients in your first month.”
It is not realistic to make a claim that all who use this product will have these results. These examples remove the specific time frame that you are promising and just claim that you can help them achieve more.
Prohibited Content
When referring to prohibited content ensure that you do not have any of the following:
-Content that includes drugs, alcohol or gambling in a negative way (Also important to keep in mind if you are selling in this industry and have crafted an ad that is within policies that you target the right age groups. For example although the drinking age in Canada is 18-19 in the United States it is 21+ and showing up in the newsfeed of those under the legal drinking age will also get your ad rejected.)
-Nudity or sexually explicit content, even if it is medically related, showing too much skin on Facebook is a big no no.
-Any images that contain violence or weapons.
-Any other images that are considered “disturbing” or gruesome.
-Multi level marketing, pyramid schemes or payday loan/cash advance services
When writing your ads you basically want to think of the main goal of Facebook, which is user experience. How is this contributing to the user and making their experience on Facebook better? This type of prohibited content is something the typical user would not want to see and will get your ads kicked to the curb.
Facebook Mentions
If you plan to mention Facebook in your ads you will want to follow their guidelines. They have policies that you must adhere to should you mention Facebook or Instagram in your advertisements. Here is a recap of their policy
You should:
Display the word “Facebook” in the same font size and style as the text surrounding it
Capitalize the word “Facebook”, except when it’s part of a web address
You should not
Pluralize the Facebook trademark, use it as a verb or abbreviate it
Use the Facebook logo in place of the word “Facebook”
Display URL
If the display URL doesn’t match the destination domain then your ad may be rejected. Again, this is to protect the user experience. If the ad that is displayed in your ad shows one thing and they end up on a completely different page then this is not entirely fair to the person viewing it and they may feel deceived.
Either leave the link in your ad blank or ensure that it matches your main URL like in the image above.
Addressing individuals Personally
Through Facebooks Discrimination policy it states that you cannot refer to someone directly when it refers to their:
religion
race
sexual orientation
age
criminal record/prosecution
financial situation/poor credit
disability
Therefore instead of stating “Tired of living like so many others overrun by debt” say “Learn how you can take control of your finances.”
You may be targeting a specific group with this ad but you are not referring to them directly as Facebook states not to use the word “other” which makes complete sense when it comes to this policy.
Can’t Find Anything Wrong With Your Ad?
If you have gone through the list of Facebook ad policies and still cannot find anything that could have caused the rejection you can actually appeal your ad. When you get your notice of rejection you will see that there is a link to appeal your ad in the manager. In many cases you may get a message saying that there was a mistake on their end and that the ad is now up ad running.
If it still doesn’t come back with a pass it would be best to ditch the ad and start new. Too many rejections at once can actually cause your account to get banned. Something you want to avoid at all costs!
If you are planning on running a lot of ads continuously I recommend you skim through Facebook’s policies so that you can understand this process a more in depth and what is and is not allowed on their platform. The also tend to change their policies multiple times a year so keeping in the know is really the best. Another tool you can use is Google Alerts which notifies you with articles on your choice of keywords such as “Facebook Ad Changes” or “Facebook Advertising Policies.”
On top of ad creation I also recommend ensuring that all your posts on your timeline follow the same guidelines to keep your page within Facebooks standards. If you have any other questions drop a comment below, I would love to hear from you!
Ever since the Facebook cover video rolled out this past year it has given users a chance to really captivate their audience. This free landscape that was normally only available for photos is a great piece of real estate to post your videos. The platform gives you between 20 and 90 seconds to capture your audience and showcase your best assets.
The Facebook cover photo is 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall. Note that if the dimensions are somewhat larger you can reposition it to display within the parameters. however if it is more than 90 seconds you will not be able to upload the video.
Uploading your Facebook cover video
Basically if you have uploaded a new cover video before you will be able to easily upload a video. Hover over the “change cover” button on your cover photo and instead of choosing photo choose the “upload video” option.
Facebook recommends a MP4 or MOV format however you can get a complete list of file formats here.
Since the new feature was laid out and a handful of accounts have some really great videos to capture their readers.
Here are some brands that have made stellar Facebook Live Cover Videos:
Just like Starbucks has seasonal drinks, they keep up with the content on social as well. Their latest video as shown in the photo above is set on a loop to continually play this short clip.
Shakr’s cover video rolls through their website, which gives insight into their product. This is a great way to showcase what you have to offer your audience.
Vimeo uses a simple, clean design which animates stand still images.
Add SEO Elements To Your Video
You can also optimize your video even further for SEO elements. Under your “Videos” tab you will see your cover photo video. Click on “edit video” and once this open you can add a custom title and tags. This is definitely important to keep your video in the ranks for popular searches.
ABOUT ANNELISE
Hey there I’m Annelise. I am a digital guru and lover of all things social! I work with businesses and other social managers to create strategies that convert online. I also provide resources and templates for those who want guidance with their marketing strategy. At the end of the day I am passionate about connecting with more than just accounts – but people!
