Re-think your Facebook advertising

Facebook took the mighty leap from just connecting people with others to connecting them with businesses - a leap that completely revolutionized what disruptive thinking is all about and gave power to marketing content creators.

Its inspiring to know that you and me can start a business without necessarily thinking of setting-up shop costs. All we have to do is open an online Facebook page at no cost and engage with our potential buyers. If you want to increase traffic to your website and increase conversions while still maintaining a favorable cost per conversion and return on investment, Facebook is your best bet. A no-charge platform that comes along with ready market, is manna from heaven if you ask me.

Using the colloquial scenario of man not really appreciating the garden of Eden until he was thrown out, I feel that we are not tapping into this strong marketing tool well enough. So before its too late, lets re-think things over with this list of 7 deadly sins of Facebook advertising we should avoid.

Sin 1: No purpose or Strategy:


You will be surprised how many times big money is put into Facebook advertising without a solid advertising strategy, which mostly results into what I would like to term as "misplaced" results. For every campaign, objectives must be outlined. Otherwise you will end up getting more page likes with no business at all.

What are your objectives:

• Do you want new registrations and more conversions?
• Do you want to drive your online unique sales?
• Do you wish to have increased site traffic?,
• Is it to grow your brand presence and awareness?

Objectives should help you curve your campaigns-what date you will launch it, what time, to which target audience, with what message and call to action.

Work with that to objectively create a memorable, unique and realistic marketing campaign to fulfill your objective. Strategy will have you capitalizing on critical holiday seasons and tapping into the power of emotional advertising.
Sin 2: No details: Add life


It can be challenging to managing a large number of campaigns and re-market thousands of products. Ensuring consistency and depth in detail in what you are selling, be it a product or a service is the core of face-book or online marketing.

Examples:

• You are selling a pair of shoes. Would it hurt to add the sizes you have the shoes in?
• You are selling an art piece. Canvas size and whether it is framed or not and whether the price is inclusive of this is important information for any buyer
• You provide a service but do not specify the hours you are open, your delivery process and how people can contact you 
• Still on all the above, no contact information!?
• No price details

At the end of the day, your post to your audience should show them what you see, 

Sin 3: No photographs: Good looking content sells


Did you know that articles/posts with photos get 95% more total views than posts with no pictures at all? We are at an age of visual culture where photo sharing apps such as Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest have made buzz-worthy hype and an ad without an image just wont cut it. .

Its in our nature to seek for information with the least of effort, and also to get attracted to dreamy visualized content. With the rise of mobile popularity, people are more inclined to choose content that is easy on the eye. Whatever industry you represent, pictures will always help in sparking conversations and increasing your posts shareability and engagement.

Some things to note when it comes to choosing photos:

• Context is crucial-the simple aim of the photos should be to visually relay information that may not possibly put to words. 
• Quality-put some effort in posting high definition photos, that speak your story well. Make it a rule to put pictures that you could share, if you happened to view them on your timeline
• Variety-never stick to having the same photo or sharing the same style of photography
• Consumer insight- tap into it to know what your audience likes and what will move them, then take them on that visual journey.

Sin 4: No targeting:

Precision targeting and segmentation of your advertising to demographics you think will be in need of your product or service not only helps your business clock in higher conversion rates , but also increases the number of unique purchases. Targeting helps you draw out the noise, so that you communicate with a selected few, people who can buy into your product.


Many marketers, with an attempt to increase brand awareness will fail to segment, rank in numbers of likes and fans, who care less about the product and rarely convert to clients. Its a matter of quality Vs. quantity, your pick.

Sin 5: No testing or analysis:

It is trivial that you constantly monitor your campaign performance so that your future campaigns are fully optimized. Measuring engagement will allow you to see if you are reaching the objectives you set. If the performance is not impressive, get back to the drawing board, dig deeper into your consumer's preferences, create a campaign and test it with a segment of your demographic. Note how they respond to it and polish your campaigns constantly to make them unique, frequent and above all DIFFERENT.

The testing process doesn't have to be so theoretic:

• Test what day of the week and times your users will most likely be on Facebook and capitalize on this. Is it through the lunch break hour? Just after work on their commute home or early in the morning. Figuring this out will help you know the best time to launch your post
• Test your headline and see which has the greatest CTR. 
• Test your content length. The shorter and more precise a post is, the better
• Test your cover photo and profile picture

When you want to take a more serious approach: 

• Determine the metrics you want to analyze, are you measuring engagement, awareness, traffic driven, number of fans, or your brand's share of voice
• Determining the metrics helps you to choose the best tools for analyzing your campaigns
• Do the analysis in real-time so that you can update and make changes on the go

There are many tools to help your testing like Hootsuite, Kissmetrics, Simply measured, Sprout social

Sin 6: No engagement:

Social Media is a tool for educating, engaging and helping influence an organization’s population. Engagement is creating content that sparks conversation between you and your audience, it is dialogue. And for Facebook, it is shown through comments, re-shares, likes, clicks per post and impressions that your post generates.Engagement helps you increase your reach, and allows you to showcase your brand's voice.

How do you react to negative feedback for instance. Are you quick to find an excuse or you blatantly show no disregard? Do you answer to queries made by your audience immediately or do not answer at all? Creating an engagement strategy revolved around fun, immediacy and memorable customer experience will go a long way in creating a strong and trust worthy brand presence.

But in all these, remember that engagement is important, as a means to an end, a precursor to action and that it is not the final goal.

Sin 7: No manners:

How do you engage with your audience? How is their experience with you? Would they be a repeat customer? Would they recommend you to a friend? Your tone on Social media matters a lot when talking to your clients especially since you are not speaking to them face to face, Being kind, offering solutions and always keeping your cool even when a client is breathing fire under your neck will help.


You will spot a big difference when you talk to an employer vs when you talk to an employee, it is said. How true is that? Business owners know the value of clients and are always quick to create solutions around their needs. This is what the overall tone of your business should be built on: It will help salvage a bad client experience and will score you a great opportunity.Be a honey and don't be that boyfriend who does not buy his girlfriend flowers, okay?

Why I Hate School and Love Education - Suli Breaks

Having done my 8-4-4 (and not having the back-to-school-days), nothing eloquently summarizes my thoughts on how wrong the Society and System's concept of Education is, than this piece by Suli Breaks. 

Why I Hate School and Love Education

"So you want to get a degree, why?

Let me tell you what society will tell you:

increases your chances of getting a job,

provides you with an opportunity to be successful,

your life will be a lot less stressful,

education is the key.

Now, let me tell you what your parents will tell you,

make me proud, 

increases your chances of getting a job, 

provides you with an opportunity to be successful,

your life will be a lot less stressful,

education is the key.

Now let’s look at the statistics, 

Steve Jobs’ net worth: $7 billion R.I.P;

Richard Branson net worth: $4.2 billion;

Oprah Winfrey net worth: $2.7 billion;

Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates 

now here comes ‘the coup, de grace’.

Looking at these individuals, what’s your conclusion? 

Neither of them in being successful ever graduated from a higher learning institution,

now some of you would protest like, 

you know money is not the only medium by which one measures worldly success,

some of you even have the nerve to say,

I don’t do it for the money,

so what are studying for?

To work for a charity,

need more clarity?

Let’s look at the statistics, 

Jesus, Muhammed ‘Praise be upon him’,

Socrates, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa, 

Spielberg, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Jesse Owens, 

Muhammad Ali, Sean Carter,

Michael Jeffrey Jordan, Michael Joseph Jackson,

were either of these people unsuccessful or uneducated?

All I’m saying is that if there was a family tree, 

hard work and education would be related,

but school would probably be a distant cousin.

Because if education is the key, then school is the lock.
Because it rarely ever develops your mind to the point where it can perceive red as green and continue to go when someone else said stop, 

because as long as you follow the rules and pass the exams, you’re cool.

But are you aware that examiners have a checklist?

And if your answer is something outside of the box, 

the automatic response is a cross,

and then they claim that school expands your horizons and your visions.

Well, tell that to Malcolm X, who dropped out of school 

and is world renowned for what he learned in a prison.

Proverbs 17:16, 

It does a fool no good to spend money on education, why? 

Because he has no common sense.

George Bush, need I say more?

“Education is about inspiring ones mind not just filling their head”.

And take this from me,

because I’m a educated man myself,

who only came to this realization after countless nights,

in the library with a can of Red Bull keeping me awake til dawn,

and another can in the morn,

falling asleep in between piles of books,

which probably equates to the same amount I had spent on my rent, 

memorize equations, facts and dates,

write it down to the letter,

half of which I’d never remember, 

and half of which I forget straight after the exam,

and before the start of the next semester,

asking anyone if they had notes for the last lecture?

I often found myself running to class,

just so I could find the spot on which I could rest my head,

and fall asleep without making a scene, ironic because,

that’s the only time I ever spent in university chasing my dreams.

And then after nights with a dead-mind;

identifying myself in the queue of half awake student zombies,

waiting to hand in an assignment,

maybe that’s why they call it a dead-line.

And then after three years of mental suppression and frustration,

my proud mother didn't even turn up to my graduation.

Now I’m not saying that school is evil,

and there’s nothing to gain,

but all I’m saying is,

understand your morals and reassess your aims,

because if you want a job working for someone else,then help yourself.

But then that would be a contradiction, 

because you wouldn't really be helping yourself, you’ll be helping somebody else;

there’s a saying, which says: 

“if you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help build theirs”.

Redefine how you view education.

Understand its true meaning.

Education is not just about regurgitating facts,

from a book on someone else’s opinion on a subject to pass an exam.

Look at it, 

Picasso was educated in creating art; 

Shakespeare was educated in the art of all that was written. 

Colonel Harland Sanders was educated in the art of creating Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I once saw David Beckham take a free kick,

I watched as the side of his Adidas sponsored boot hit the playing level of ball at angle which caused it to travel towards the skies as though it was destined for the heavens,

and then as it reached the peak of its momentum, as though it changed its mind, and switched directions.
I watched as the goalkeeper froze,

as reciting to himself the laws of physics, 

and as though his brain was negotiating with his eyes that it was indeed witnessing the spectacle of the level swung that was sweeping towards it, 

and then reacted.
But only a fraction of a millisecond too late, and before the net of the goal embraced the FIFA sponsored ball, as there was the prodigal son returning home and the country that I live in erupted into cheers.

I looked at the play, and thought, damn.

Looking at David Beckham there’s more than one way in this world to be an educated man."