Promoting & advertising your blog via social media Tim Liew Slouching towards Thatcham

Transcription

1 Promoting & advertising your blog via social media Tim Liew Slouching towards

2 In this session Why do I need to promote or advertise my blog? Getting the basics right Promoting your blog for free Advertising on Facebook Advertising on Twitter

3 The The internet is full is full of of content And And it s getting it s getting busier busier with with every every passing passing second second

4 Why do I need to promote or advertise my blog? Content is king but is the truth still as simple as that? Good content remains fundamental but the biggest challenge facing bloggers is how to be seen when there is so much content competing for readers limited attention. 1 billion Hours of video watched by YouTube users every day 6,000 Tweets per second 24 Half-life of a tweet in minutes 1,500 Posts that could appear on an average Facebook user s News Feed per day 16% Average reach of a post to a Facebook page in % Average reach of a post to a Facebook page in 2016 Promotion enables you to reach more of your existing audience - advertising enables you to reach new, targeted audiences 1.7 seconds The average time a Facebook post is visible on a phone as a user scrolls

5 Get the basics right first Facebook page (not personal profile) Distinctive, consistent branding Unique voice Why you need a Facebook page Separate blog from personal audiences Native scheduling capability Access advertising Access to post insights (organic & paid) Promotion drives readers to your blog Relevant, quality content brings them back

6 How do I promote my blog for free? Scheduling tools Facebook invite to like Tricks of the trade Like-minded communities SEO (Yoast) Headlines Facebook groups Linkies Pods & tribes Twitter chats Timing How many is too many? Subscribe & SM buttons After the hour Calls to action LinkedIn & StumbleUpon Hashtags & mentions Competitions & giveaways Share & engage lists

7 Top tips for promoting your blog Don t over-promote Tag other pages and users Share, not repost Share other people s content Dates & milestones Time zones

8 Advertising on Facebook Basic requirements How it works Other considerations Facebook page Advertising account Credit card / PayPal Boosts (also adverts) Can promote post or page Objective-optimised campaigns Minimum 1 per day Standard image size Minimise text on image Embedded content > external links Avoid ToS violations

9 Setting up a Facebook advertising account

10 How to boost a Facebook post

11 Targeting your audience Demographics (gender, age, geography) Top tip: restrict countries Interests Places & events Behaviours (e.g. charitable donations, recently travelled)

12 Narrowing down your target audience

13 Set budget and duration Ignore Facebook recommendations set your own Define total budget: minimum 1/day Note estimated reach and potential audience (varies) Set desired campaign length And boost!

14 Understanding your post insights Reach data (as displayed on post) Click here to access post insights Engagement data (includes image & video views where relevant) Split between organic & paid reach (hover to see numbers) Negative actions

15 Promoting your page for new followers Same setup as a standard boost Focus on quality, not quantity Top tip: Target selected countries avoid the farms!

16 Top tips for Facebook advertising Good targeting maximises reach and best chance of beating Facebook s algorithm Use short videos and strong images with few words pay attention to size/shape Experiment with different targeting (e.g. broad vs niche) Avoid external links where possible Use post insights to learn for future boosts Adverts Manager for A/B testing and different objectives/calls to action

17 Advertising on Twitter Basic requirements How it works Other considerations Any Twitter account Credit card Promoted tweets Can promote post or page Standard image size Up to 4 images Objective-optimised & images no longer count in 140

18 Twitter advertising setup & analytics

19 Audience targeting options Target followers of specific

20 Budget & creatives

21 Top tips for Twitter advertising Good targeting maximises campaign performance and bang for buck Experiment with different targeting (e.g. broad vs niche) especially the follower targeting mentions and hashtags (but don t overdo #s) Use campaign analytics to learn for future boosts Set up different promoted tweets for A/B testing

22 Summary Increasing content online makes it difficult for audiences to find blogs Promotion and advertising can help drive reach and follower growth Free promotion can be effective and easily automated Simple, guided processes for creating adverts to meet different objectives Advertising offers the ability to highly targeted audiences without costing a fortune Valuable insights available that can help refine future activity 3M confidential 3M All rights reserved.