Social Media Advertising

MATT:

All right, Greg. Next on our agenda is social media advertising, which we’ve been forced into using over the past few years.

GREG:

Do we have to make them richer than they already are? I’d prefer to focus on organic content. You know, the posts, videos, and photos that users, businesses, and brands share with each other on their feeds for free.

MATT:

Yeah, that’s a great point. At the conferences we attended years ago, I remember people saying, “You have to be on Facebook. You have to be on Twitter. You have to be on Instagram. You have to develop your organic presence.”

And then the organic reach of these platforms started declining. Now, this didn’t happen suddenly. The trend started in 2014 and continued year after year. But today, all that investment into creating an organic presence on these platforms needs to be written off.

And if you didn’t see that coming, then you were blissfully blind.

My friend, they were going to monetize all of this because what the platforms had was an audience and data on the audience. And, so now your organic post is maybe reaching 1 percent or 2 percent of your audience.

Decline of Organic Reach

GREG:

Well, according to “The Digital 2022 Global Overview Report,” from We Are Social and Hootsuite, the average organic reach on Facebook is 5.2 percent and the average organic reach on Instagram is around 1.0 percent. Other research has found that Twitter’s organic reach is only 0.045 percent.

MATT:

I think that’s still overestimating organic reach on Facebook.

GREG:

Well, that’s average organic reach. But that’s not the average engagement rate. According to the “Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report 2022,” the median engagement rate on Facebook has been dwindling steadily to less than 0.1 percent, and the algorithms of most social platforms are actively discriminating against posts made by business users.

MATT:

And this doesn’t factor in fake engagement by fake accounts that are run by bots. In the first quarter of 2022, Facebook removed 1.6 billion fake accounts.

GREG:

Well, I wouldn’t mind if the declines in organic reach were entirely driven by purges of fake or spam accounts. But there’s something else at work.

Earlier, I mentioned that SparkToro and Followerwonk had conducted a joint analysis of Twitter accounts. And they found that 18.4 percent of “active” accounts are fake or spam.

But they also took a rigorous look at Elon Musk’s Twitter account and found that 23.4 percent of his 26.8 million “active” followers were fake or spam.

But Mr. Musk’s Twitter account had a total of 93.4 million followers at the time. That means 66.6 million were “inactive” accounts. In other words, they were older profiles that hadn’t tweeted in the last 90 days.

And as we’ve learned about Twitter’s algorithm, nonactive accounts are far less likely to see Mr. Musk’s tweets. And that’s an even bigger reason why organic reach is declining.

Now, this isn’t nefarious, but it’s still problematic.

So, one of the things that social media marketers need to focus on is metrics. And I know we’re going to spend a lot more time talking about measurement at the tail end of this.

But whether you’re trying to increase your organic reach, or you’re buying advertising to promote your posts because you’re trying to beef up your numbers, one of the things that you really need to think about long and hard is, “How are you measuring your results?”

And if you are only using the metrics that the social media platforms provide you, then you can get in trouble fast.

MATT:

I think you’ve nailed it right there. If I’m just using the platform numbers, then all I’m doing is measuring “platform reach and engagement.”

GREG:

And you’re getting sucked into what the platform wants, which is to sell more ads. And so the metrics are all built around, “Do you need more? Okay, you’ve got to spend more.”

MATT:

Oh, absolutely. And it also means buying more reach and engagement on the platforms, which may or may not drive more people to a destination.

Marketers need to view social media as a way of building their community, not on these platforms, but driving people to a destination where they become yours, where they sign up for something and you get their email address.

GREG:

Right. So, one of the things that social media can teach us is what works and what doesn’t—whether you’re creating organic content or crafting an ad.

And one of the things you learn quickly is that “corporate propaganda” doesn’t work. This should be obvious, right? But, I can’t tell you how many brands and businesses are still using social media to push out their corporate propaganda.

Avinash Kaushik, the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google, lamented this tendency in a post entitled, “Stop All Social Media Activity (Organic) | Solve for a Profitable Reality.” It was posted back on June 17, 2017, on his blog, Occam’s Razor.

Avinash said, “Businesses of all types, including Google, got on amazing platforms like Facebook and started pimping. All that their collective imagination could manifest in a Utopia‐possible environment was: ‘LOOK AT ME! I AM SO PRETTY!! BUY NOW!!!’ Stuff that is a turn‐off.”

So, that doesn’t work. What does?

Creating and Targeting Social Media Ads

With a video ad, start by getting the viewer’s attention. Hook them right from the get‐go. Of course, there are many ways to do this. You can open with a close‐up or start in the middle of the story.

And storytelling works. People will remember your stories long after they’ve forgotten the three key reasons why they should buy your product or service.

And don’t think of your viewer as passive. Work to educate, inspire, or entertain them. Humanize your story to help them relate. Lean into emotional levers with storytelling techniques, such as humor or surprise.

Then, it’s okay to work your brand identity into the story. And ask them to take action.

MATT:

One of my first lessons in social media advertising was on YouTube.

We developed a video campaign on YouTube for a library levy. And it wasn’t too popular in the community. So we decided, “Let’s go to YouTube. Let’s start informing people.”

This was one of the earliest campaigns I did. We targeted women with children because women with children were much more sympathetic to funding the library. But older people, who don’t have children, did not want their taxes to go up to fund a library that—in their mind—they don’t use.

So, we created a video ad campaign that targeted women with children. One of the things I loved about YouTube advertising was I could see what video people were watching when our ad appeared.

But as the data started coming in, I started seeing a lot of ABC songs, learning the alphabet, and Minecraft walkthroughs. Having children that same age, I realized, “Oh no, the kids are watching YouTube on mom’s account. They’ve got the iPad in their lap and they are being entertained. Kids are watching the ads that we wanted their mothers to see.”

A more recent example that I’ll never forget was when I turned on my connected TV and immediately saw a video ad on YouTube TV that grabbed my attention. It was about pets and dogs specifically. And I watched this 3‐minute ad well past the skip button. I was hooked.

A great hook made me stay past the skip button. And a great story. The only way they could have done that was by targeting me, what I searched for, my interests, my behavior. That showed me right there that this legacy 30‐second ad thing? Throw it out the window.

GREG:

Oh yeah. And believe it or not, before the legacy 30‐second ad, there was the legacy 60‐second ad. The whole arbitrary “You have to tell your story in 60 seconds.”

Oh, wait. Nobody could afford that anymore. So, then you had to tell your story in 30 seconds. Oh, wait. You can’t afford that anymore. So, 15 seconds is the new standard.

When you’re selling television time, everything had to be arbitrary in order to fit into the hour‐long or half‐hour‐long programming concept.

On social media, your story can be as long as it needs to be until it gets boring. Right? And people will watch it as long as it’s interesting. And as soon as it gets boring, they’re out of there, which is not television behavior, but it is social media video viewing behavior.

It’s interesting that a lot of people in social media advertising think, “You’ve got to keep it short.” Why? “Because the attention span of a goldfish is only 8 seconds.”

If your target audience is a goldfish, then that’s great. But guess what? There are people who will binge‐watch episode upon episode of TV shows for hours, if they’re interested.

To be an effective producer of social video advertising, don’t ask, “How long should my video ad be?” It should be long enough to reach a point.

If you need examples, look at the organic video content being produced by YouTube stars, Instagram influencers, and TikTok creators.

They’re making videos worth watching. They’re creating content worth sharing. Now, they often make short‐form videos, but many of them also create long‐form content. But no matter what the duration of their videos are, their content is entertaining, inspiring, educational, or enlightening. And that is changing people’s hearts, minds, and behavior.

And if you can even come close to doing what they’re doing, then you can be successful. And if you can’t come close, then maybe you need to move some of your social media advertising budget into influencer marketing. Why? Because sponsoring people who can create enchanting content may get you further, faster than running more social video ads.

Targeting by Intent, not Demographics

MATT:

What I like about social media advertising is the ability to target by needs. Or to set up my targeting regionally. I use those options instead of targeting demographically.

Dr. Augustin Fou was on the show a couple months ago, and I loved it when he said, “Why would you target men instead of women? You’ve already excluded half your audience.”

And the more you target by age, you’re excluding more and more people. So, you’re excluding people who might need and want to buy what you offer.

I love that aspect of targeting, especially on Google and YouTube, which are built on behavioral targeting, because they know what people are looking for. They know what people have searched for in the past week.

I’m targeting based on need or behavioral aspects because this is what grabs your audience much more than focusing on their gender, age, or all that demographic stuff.

GREG:

Gender and age was the only data that television could provide marketers back in the 20th century. So, that’s why most traditional marketing is focused on demographics.

And, that’s okay. If that’s the only data you have, then as Erasmus observed back in 1500, “In the land of the blind, the one‐eyed man is king.”

But one of the more powerful ways to tap into what your audience is actually, already interested in can be discovered with a free tool that YouTube offers. It’s called Find My Audience. Now, that’s a cryptic name. And it helps you find in‐market segments—people who are actively researching or planning to purchase products or services like yours.

How does YouTube know this? Like you said, they know what you’ve been searching for on Google. They know which videos you’ve been watching on YouTube. Oh, by the way, they know what websites you’ve been looking at on your Chrome browser. So, they know that you’re in the market for a car. They know when you’re planning to travel. They know if you’re in the market for 20 other products and services.

They can serve up that audience, so you can advertise to people whom you don’t have to take from “0 to 60.” They’re already traveling at 55‐miles‐an‐hour on their customer journey. So, you just need to accelerate their pace the rest of the way.

YouTube’s Find My Audience also helps you to target affinity segments—people whose interests and habits relate to what your business offers.

You can target travel buffs—people who enjoy traveling for pleasure and planning vacations. They often spend a considerable amount of time online, researching the locations they want to visit and planning their trips. While traveling, they immerse themselves in the cultures of their destinations and love experiencing the local cuisine, entertainment, history, and sites. They often come to YouTube to scout their next trips.

They may not have traveled for pleasure or vacations during the global pandemic. But they’re already planning to do a lot of “revenge travel” as soon as it’s safe.

The planning process may be a little longer and interest in travel insurance is higher than it used to be. But guess what? Whether you’re advertising air travel, hotels and accommodations, or trips by destination, you can target travel buffs even before they start researching or planning to purchase travel‐related products or services.

You can see what videos they watch, which channels they visit. You can target those specifically with your advertising. You now are leveraging what customers want to do anyway. You’re just helping them complete that journey by providing them with information about your brand or your service.

MATT:

One thing I love showing people is Google Ad Settings. And I’m amazed how many people don’t know this is there.

If you go to adssettings.google.com, you will see how Google sees you as a consumer. There will be some basic demographic information there, but you’ll find probably 30 to 40 behavioral categories.

This is based on your activity on Google services, such as Search or YouTube, while you were signed in. Greg, if your ad personalization is on, and you use Google Search to find the results of “The Game,” or you go to YouTube to watch the highlights often enough, then Google estimates that you are interested in American Football. Then you will be included in the American Football affinity group. Now, you’re going to see ads that target this affinity group on Google services, such as Search or YouTube, as well as on websites and apps that partner with Google to show ads.

It’s not always completely accurate. It’s based on your activity.

For example, Google Ad Settings had me down for cats, but I don’t like cats. I can’t stand cats. But we were trying to find a home for a cat, and because I was on cat adoption sites, the next thing I saw was ads for cat stuff. It’s because I was visiting these sites.

So, I go into Google Ad Settings. I say, “Ah‐huh, they think I like cats.” And I can turn that off. But it is amazing sometimes that, based on your YouTube watching, they’ll just assign you to a group. And, then all of a sudden, I notice I started seeing ads for horror movies.

And it’s because I watched a clip from an old movie years ago that I was showing to someone. And because of that single activity, it said, “You love horror movies.” So, it’s not always accurate, but it might answer some questions.

GREG:

I have looked at my Google Ad Settings and, yes, American Football is one of them. And I have no problem with that whatsoever.

But it also told me that I’m “35 to 44 years old.” Heck, I have kids who are that old. So, how could they possibly make that assumption?

Well, I also have grandkids, who come over and watch YouTube Kids on my laptop. So, is that the behavior you were talking about earlier, Matt? Does Google think I let my grandkids watch a little too much stuff on YouTube? Does Google think I behave like an irresponsible parent, when I’m actually an irresponsible grandparent?

MATT:

Greg, I think the age is from when you signed up on Google. You had to give your birthdate. So, did you put the wrong date as your birthday?

GREG:

No, But, here’s another possibility. Back in 2011, my Google+ account was created by someone who is a generation younger than I am. Maybe he put in his birthday.

MATT:

Let’s go with that.

GREG:

Okay. I like that explanation better than being considered irresponsible by Google.

MATT:

But things are constantly changing tactically on these channels. The biggest anticipated changes are the rise of TikTok and short‐form video content. These changes are pushing other channels, especially Instagram, to announce new features, new ad formats, and new layouts on a weekly basis.

When you look at all the changes in advertising on social platforms, it’s on you to keep up with the latest tactics. But from a strategic standpoint, it’s all about your objective. And you really have to plan a series of ads to tell your story because your average social media user doesn’t want to watch the same ad over and over again. So, you need to prepare a progression of ads.

That’s really the more strategic view.