One of my friends who does most of her business through Facebook recently called me to ask why her marketing on Facebook is no longer effective and what she should do about it. Siam is a terrific promotional marketer, with great insights, who over the years has developed a real niche that she continuously mines for clients and new strategies. Although she regularly uses various social media platforms, I have occasionally wondered when considering her significant Facebook presence if she somehow had a Facebook gene imprinted on her DNA.
And yet, Facebook was no longer working for her. The reach of her newsfeed had dried up and the many responses and shares she had received from her posts had dried up to a handful of mostly meaningless acknowledgements. So we talked.
In a recent article, I discussed how Facebook has yet again changed its search and newsfeed algorithm in search of greater profits through paid advertising and how companies must adapt their strategies to this changing environment. This is what I discussed with Siam.
Social media is a rapidly changing environment in which something that works really well can very rapidly become ineffective while relatively new sites can rapidly grow in importance. Here”™s a very limited but illuminating example. On Sunday mornings, I teach Sunday school to 20 sixth-graders. They are really great kids who exhibit a lot of insight and candor (and energy). One day, I asked them what social media sites they regularly use. Most of them said they don”™t use Facebook ”“ they may not yet be allowed to by their parents ”“ but they almost unanimously stated that their favorite social site was Instagram, which is owned by Facebook and is rapidly becoming a major social power.
One way companies are starting to adapt to these social changes is through the creation of native advertising. Native advertising is a means for brands to speak more naturally with their target market than through traditional advertising. It attempts to merge advertisements and content in a way that will generate interest and entice its audience to take action. Sometimes referred to as in-feed advertising, it differs from traditional advertising in its use of quality content and desire to cleanly mesh with the content of the page. This content is also search optimized and can be placed on both traditional and mobile sites.
Key aspects of native advertising involve how well the ad fits in the overall page design. Does it stand out? Does it provide a similar content experience as the articles on the page? Since a native advertisement can even be a video, if it is an informational video ad, it would probably mesh well with a page containing video content. Of great importance is the location of the advertisement on the page; it will greatly affect its response rate (i.e. its measure of effectiveness). However, since these are advertisements, despite some possibly interesting content they do require a disclosure that they are indeed an advertisement.
Twitter, Facebook and Amazon are prime examples of websites that use native advertising to promote services and products, but there is no reason why local websites and services can”™t also perform the same function.
So now the question for Siam remains: Where should she place her ads and what content should she provide in them? The obvious answer is wherever her target market is and what is of interest to them. So, if she were to do an advertisement on Facebook, she would be best served by understanding what her audience is responding to. Since she was already successful with her news feed, I would use that as a basis for the start of her campaign. I also suggested she redouble her efforts on LinkedIn, particularly since the owners of LinkedIn decided to further emphasize the importance of content to its responsive content-centric audience. After all, no one is wedded to any one platform. If one platform ceases to be as effective, we can readily shift our efforts elsewhere.
In this rapidly changing online world, it is important to realize that what worked last year may not work this year but that there is always a need for highly effective content and strategizing in both postings and native advertisements across most platforms.
Bruce Newman is vice president at The Productivity Institute L.L.C. and a regular contributor to the Business Journal. He specializes in content creation and digital marketing. He can be reached at bnewman@prodinst.com.
