Facebook’s Newsfeed Principles: Part 2

This is the second blog as we discuss Facebook News Feed Principles. If you missed the first one, start here.

This is a continued look at the Facebook News Feed Principles. These are drawn from the Facebook website and I am going to talk about them to help them make more sense for you!

Publisher Principle 2: People on Facebook Value Accurate, Authentic Content

In other words, people don’t want Fake News. But do they really?

I think this point might be more aspirational than reality. People really like whatever happens to align with their world view, it’s a phenomena called “Confirmation Bias.” “Confirmation Bias” is that our brain sees things in the world and makes special note of the things that line up with what we already thought. It notices and engages with things that confirm our biases.

Facebook seems to be focused on being sure people do not share content that is misleading or “click bait.” Click bait is a style of content that that has an intentionally misleading title in order to get people to click on the story. Once someone arrives at the page, the content is not related to the title that got them to click. The title is used as bait for the user.

But on a positive note, if we focus on making authentic content, I believe people will be more interested. Authentic content could include your real staff instead of models. Food actually served at your restaurant instead of stock photos. Make your brand the feature of these programs rather than stock photos.

If you are posting links or sending people to landing page, make sure people are seeing what they would expect. You know, treat others like you want to be treated, do not treat them like you are a marketer.

Facebook’s Newsfeed Principles: Part 1

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to look at the Facebook News Feed Principles. These are drawn from the Facebook website and I am going to talk about them to help them make more sense for you!

Principle 1: People on Facebook Value Content that’s meaningful and informative.

Facebook has to say it; but we should already know it. Facebook users (really all internet users) want content that is informative and meaningful. The reason they have to say this is people want to treat it like traditional advertising. Let’s just post our boring sale message on the Facebook page and expect people to interact. While that is easier, it’s not how the internet works.

Facebook can tell if people are interacting with your content. This is good and bad for folks. It is bad for people who do not work on creating good content for their pages. It is bad becuase if you do not put out good content, Facebook knows this and restricts your organic reach even further over time. It is good becuase if you are willing to invest in creating useful content, Facebook will help you distribute it better over time. It is also good because we know the rules of the game.

You can monitor your own success by reviewing your page’s insights. This will help you look to see how many people were interacting with your media on Facebook.

Within this principle, Facebook also suggests you try putting different types of content out. Using different types of content will help you engage different customers and re-engage old customers.

How can you create this content? Start by making a list of your customers’ reasons for coming to you or buying your product. Use this list to help generate ideas for content. Brainstorm a few different ways to help your customers over each of their pain points.

This is one of the reasons we write this blog! We want to help you get better and at the same time help you think, if I need help, these are the people to call.

See what ads your competitors are running!

In one of the most jarring updates to Facebook in some time, you can now see what ads your competitors are running.

Previously, all the ads that a Facebook page was running were only visible to the Facebook Page admins and the people in the target audience that the ads were running to. Now, anyone at any time can go see the ads running in their country on any Facebook page.

How? Check it out:

On mobile, load a facebook page and look for a white oblong box to appear at the bottom of the cover photo. Click on that box to take you to all active ads on Facebook.

On Desktop, navigate to a Facebook page, look on the left-hand side menu and find the “Info and Ads” section.

This goes even deeper on political facebook accounts. On Facebook accounts that have political messaging, you can see all the ads that pages have run. This is largely due to the role of Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and foreign influence on the last election cycle.

You will also notice now that you can see who is running the ads, regardless of the name of the Facebook page on political campaigns.

These are with Facebook’s effort to make their ads more transparent to the community. I think in the instance of political marketing, this makes a lot of sense.

Election Season 2018

We had the pleasure of working with four different campaigns this election season. Each campaign showcased a different personality and, as a result, each had different needs for their work. We are very selective of the groups we work with in this arena and I (Kevin) was glad to work with these four people not only as clients but also as friends.

  1. Jay Bush for State Representative.
    We did a lot of work for Jay Bush. We launched a website, created a campaign video, recorded testimonials with the community, took photos of families supporting Jay, and ran social media ads.
  2. Shannon Stewart for School Board:
    The “Shannon for Schools” branding needed to match the bright personality of the candidate. We went with an untraditional angle for the signage and branding. We also took some family photos to use during the campaign.
  3. Shawn Daly for School Board:
    Shawn is a fantastic candidate for school board. We created a traditional brand and landing page to help him introduce himself more to the community.
  4. AJ Massey for School Board:
    AJ’s branding colors are modeled after his favorite school, Ole Miss, and have an athletic flair (I mean the guy did play college football!). AJ ended up not having an opponent in the election so we didn’t have much additional work for him.