Facebook has been testing a major change that would shift non-promoted page posts out of its news feed (i.e. standard posts from businesses that are not a paying ad). The test moves all non-promoted posts over to a secondary feed, leaving the main feed focused entirely on original content from friends, and adverts. If this is implemented permanently it will mean your followers will have to look at a different feed to see ‘Page’ posts. In other words, Facebook wants you to advertise your business through promoted posts, and argue that users are tired of seeing useless page posts in their ‘Feed’. Since this test went live there has been much debate about this move, in response Facebook have released a guideline handbook for publishers that describes the company’s principles for journalism and other tips on navigating the platform. Read more in this Mashable article - http://mashable.com/2017/10/24/facebook-news-feed-publisher-guidelines-cuny-event/#4AQbDXZGIEOH
Last night Facebook admitted that up to 270 million accounts are fake or duplicates, significantly more than it had thought. Facebook said improvements to the data used to identify fake accounts was behind the increase, rather than a sudden surge in fake users. As marketers using this platform we have seen the impact ‘fake users’ have on a business in both promoted posts and news feeds. We encourage our clients not to rely solely on Facebook for their advertising, but instead use a mix of Social Media platforms, Google AdWords, blogs, print & other media. Here is the NZ Herald article about Facebook’s third-quarter earnings report – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11940024
A few months ago we discussed a new feature in Google My Business (GMB) called ‘Google Posts’. Posts can include updates, events, offers, sign-ups etc posted on your GMB page (this is your business location page. Posts show on the RHS of the search page when somebody searches on your business, as shown in image below (this is shown when searching on company Tripindigo. Unlike other social media posts, they have a limited time to show so you need to post regularly. This article shares the results of a case study to see whether Google Posts help with local search rankings. The results do look positive so we encourage you to use this feature when possible – https://searchengineland.com/google-posts-impact-ranking-case-study-28566
Another good article about the benefits of having online customer reviews. This article shares some tips about how to get a customer to leave a reviews, such as automated post-purchase emails and a printed review request in shipped orders – https://www.smallbizdaily.com/online-reviews-customer-small-sellers/
Yes it’s that time of the year for our Five for Friday… here is our first Christmas marketing article from Marketing Mag Australia – “It’s getting to the pointy end of the year and most retail marketers are experiencing the pre-Christmas campaign rush. We know marketers are short on time and budget. Even if you haven’t been planning since March for the Christmas rush, I’ve pulled together the top five things that every marketer needs to be wary of this Christmas campaign season” – https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-c/adroll-christmas-ugtxmasplanning/
