Ginny Marvin says, “Facebook has long struggled to get an e-commerce hook to work on the platform. Users spend hours a day on Facebook, but the contention has been that users aren’t in the right mindset to shop while spending time on the social network. Just as Facebook’s attempts at making search a relevant piece of the user experience have failed to have any impact on Google’s search business, its e-commerce and product advertising efforts haven’t given Google or Amazon reason to pause. Until now. Facebook is getting poised to make real headway as a viable advertising competitor... [...]

Martin Beck says, “One of the knocks against Facebook video as a marketing tool is that because of autoplay it’s difficult to measure how your message is being received by the audience. Sure the audience is enormous — Facebook says videos get more than 3 billion views daily — but the social network counts as a view a person’s pause on a video for at least three seconds. How much of your marketing message can get through in three seconds? Plenty, according to a Facebook-commissioned study by Nielsen. The study found lift in ad recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration even... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “Facebook added a very handy feature in December 2014: the option to place a simple call-to-action button at the top of your Facebook Page. While only available to select businesses at first, Facebook has recently started to roll it out to the U.S. and the rest of the world. The CTA’s functionality is pretty simple: You choose from seven pre-made button options (“Sign Up,” “Shop Now,” “Contact Us,” “Book Now,” “Use App,” Watch Video,” and “Play Game”) and link it to any website... [...]

Allison Howen says, “It is rare to find a business without a Facebook presence nowadays, as the social network has cemented itself as a necessary communication channel across industries. With businesses typically leveraging Facebook multiple times a day to share updates with their audiences, however, it can be easy for social media managers to get comfortable with their posting routines and overlook many of the social network’s less-talked-about features”. 10 Facebook Business Page Features You Should Be Using Website Magazine  [...]

Martin Beck says, “Facebook’s relationship with small businesses is … complicated. Enticed since 2007 by the free marketing opportunity of Facebook Pages, many SMBs have counted on the social network to help them make direct connections with customers. So when Facebook began to throttle Pages’ organic reach in the News Feed in the last several years, eventually telling business owners that the best way to reach customers on Facebook is to pay for advertising, many SMBs felt burned. Pay to reach the community we worked so hard to build? Can you say bait and switch? Jonathan Czaja, Facebook’s... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Facebook today announced a new advertising targeting feature that gives marketers the ability to reach the 92 million expats on Facebook. The feature enables marketers to target expatriates living within a given country or people from a specific country who are living abroad. Such nationality-specific targeting is currently available for people from Brazil, Indonesia, China, South Africa and India. In a blog post announcing the new targeting product, Facebook said Middle East airline company Etihad Airways tested it last fall before the Indian holiday Diwali. There are... [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Facebook is set to announce an important new measurement tool for advertisers that could help it take on Google and propel its position even further up the mobile advertising market. The social network is set to announce, at its annual F8 developers conference that kicks off on March 25, a service that will enable brands to determine whether an ad actually caused a person to download an app,according to a report from The Information. The tool won’t just be able to determine how ads bought via Facebook performed, but ads served on other apps too. Business... [...]

The important thing about marketing messages, however well crafted, is that they need to be presented to people who have a need and a desire for what you are selling. Otherwise the effort (and expense) is wasted. New software, called Social Lead Chief 2.0, helps you find Facebook members who are looking for what you are selling, so that your sales message can be presented to them. It finds these people by inserting quizzes, surveys and polls in the Facebook newsfeed. In a nutshell, here is what it can do for you: ■ Run Viral quizzes in people’s Newsfeed. ■ Use the lead capture form for any... [...]

There’s a recent marketing concept called bridge marketing. The idea is that you build a bridge leading the customer from their current problem situation to the product that can solve the problem they face. It’s a bit of educational activity, You are “priming the pump” so that the customer understands why they need a solution and what a solution should look like, so that when you show them the product you recommend, they see that it is the solution they have been looking for. Today, there’s a new tool being released by Devin Zander and Stefan van der Vlag, called Social Lead Chief 2.0.... [...]

Jamie Garside and David Chamberlain, like many other marketers, have been experimenting with advertising on Facebook. The have found that Facebook video ads generate a lot more response than plain ytext ads, whether you are asking for a sale or for an optin. To take advantage of this phenomenon, they created Video Popper, new software that lets you increase your response without any coding, without any complex software to install and without resorting to underhanded sneakiness. Using this new software, you can create “pop-ins” for Facebook that include a video (from either YouTube or Vimeo)... [...]