Instagram Stalls, Time to get Worried?

As Instagram rolls out it’s battle tank to increase revenue, usage statistics are tanking. Which is sort of ironic since the whole idea was to innovate and get more advertising money.

The dearth of technology is tied to innovation. Instagram has been slow to the finishing line since it was purchased by that behemoth, Facebook. People are sharing less on Facebook and for Instagram, people spend less time on it than in previous year.

Advertising on Instagram got a whole lot easier in 2016, namely, anyone with a Facebook account can buy adverts now on Instagram. It is basically the same way you buy Facebook advertising. No different except that you get to put your adverts up within a user’s newsfeed.

Not long ago, Instagram started to ditch its show me everything newsfeed to adopt a tuned algorithm. They will show you more of what you like….or suggest users that have similar post which you like and at the same time, take into account the number of likes and views of your particular post and tell the world where you stand. What do you make of it? Well, it is really to justify what you pay for. If your advert or post get shown to an audience, you get to see how many times it has been viewed. It cuts both ways.

Metrics are everything but results are a wee bit subjective.

Instagram is Spreading its Wings

If you happen to like posting stuff, Instagram now helps you to get discovered. Content consumers may not have an idea on who to follow so this clue might be helpful when users who have similar post you like are often suggested. Herein lies the problem.

With 80% of its users now from outside the US, up from 75% last fall, Instagram’s growth has relied heavily on its popularity in overseas countries like Japan, Germany, France and Indonesia.

Marketing overseas got easier but not all of them speak English. So Instagram has introduced instant translations for post for users to read. 

This two prong approach sort of solves the problem but it doesn’t quite solve the engagement problem. People are using Instagram less as it is so yesterday, and this has gotten Instagram worried of course, and as a brand advertiser, you should be too.

If you don’t catch enough eyeballs, then where should you be?

Time to Get Worried?

Instagram has also hit 300 million daily active users. While 300 million is impressive, CNBC reported that Instagram usage has actually dropped 23.7% between this year and last . So even as Instagram is reaching a wider daily audience, its users are spending less time in-app. Less time means less revenue for Instagram and this is how it plays out.

The immediacy of an advertising campaign doesn’t mean you should be throwing more dollars at Instagram but to spread that reach wider on both traditional and online advertising and not rely on social media alone.

That’s because the Daily Usage has tanked for Facebook and Instagram. People don’t post as much anymore or for that matter share or check their newsfeed to the point Instagram has to send you suggestions on who to follow and what to follow in terms of interest and pages.

Since the adverts are targeted, advertising can be directed at a particular profile but this will not stop ads from running meaninglessly when users scroll pass them. Do I recall what I just saw that was inserted into my news feed? Nope. Nor do I care since whatever advertising that was directed at me wasn’t of interest to me.

Videos got Longer on Instagram

Posting video is being extended to a whole 1 min. However Twitter has countered this allowing videos up to 140 seconds long with Vine. Wow. Would you be bored?

The fight for video time is apparently getting longer for these two competing platforms but Twitter still lacks punch. Instagram is more social media while Twitter is more conversational. Even when Twitter can stand up on its own with the combination of Vine and Periscope, it can be a bandwidth hog if you’re not too careful with your mobile data.

This is what is keeping people from streaming on mobile. Data is expensive and viewers would rather watched the saved videos on Wifi.

Collective Engagement is the Key

The only reason why Starbucks would set up another shop a block down the road from the first one is location. If that is the case, then a collective engagement is what you are after should you have a social media strategy.

I find it pointless to pit Instagram with Twitter and Vine, or Google+ with Facebook. It is a collective engagement (the sum of its total) that you are interested in because duplicating content on all your social media platforms bores the hell out of people. Why should I follow your Instagram feed if you post the same stuff on Twitter? Or for that matter on Facebook or Google+.

Return on Investment Explained

ROI is very simple to explain in advertising terms. The aim is always thrice the amount of return on whatever you have spent in promotional activities.

The amount of time spent, and the effort put it has to justify the results. The rough advertising reach model is three times the cost in terms of ROI. So if you calculate all your social media time and effort to a daily rate, and if you multiply that in terms of dollar value by three times, this is the actual benefit you should be receiving from this collective engagement on social media for a weekly or monthly expense. If you are not getting that in ROI, then it is pointless to continue social media activities.

This justification is what doomed Facebook’s stubborn approach to organic reach and would happen the same way to Instagram if it is not careful. If an advertising or promotional effort is costing more than what it returns to brands and businesses, then the money would be better spent elsewhere.

 

 

 

How Facebook is spamming you…on your Newsfeed

Everyone at some point would like to buy girl scout cookies to support the outfit. Imagine if you did, then automatically a whole bunch of them would descend on your neighbors to ask them to buy into it as well.

This is what is happening with Facebook’s new Newsfeed algorithm. During the conference, a warning shot was fired on the new Newsfeed algorithm where you are shown content from which your friends have liked. What they didn’t tell you was that the liked items were in fact sponsored adverts.

The powers that be in Facebook decided that well, we need to target these sponsored adverts and here is a great way to do it, asking you directly if you would want to see it in your newsfeed. As these are adverts and not content, you get the idea where they are coming from.

 

When I read the Improve your News Feed content box, I was actually thinking, hey, maybe there are some contents that I missed since I don’t want to see so many adverts on the time line. It is no secret that Facebook tracks the cookie trails left from your visit to Amazon, Aliexpress and any shopping portal and targets you with adverts.

So each time you see an advert on your timeline with the same item which you had searched for on a shopping site, you know it is them.

 

Facebook monetizes you as a commodity. So only advertisers will be spammed to your time line each time you click a preference of the sort of adverts to show up on your newsfeed. To avoid this, click at this spot to give them the run around.

How to deal with Adverts on your Newsfeed

Each time you see an advert on your newsfeed and scroll pass it, Facebook algorithm thinks you may have missed it. So it keeps popping up over and over again. To banish them, you should do the following.

When you click on HIDE ADVERT,  a new pop up box appears.

All you have to do is click any of the advert options. I usually selected the third as I find it offensive that Facebook is showing me adverts on my timeline.

Adverts are now OVER Whelming!

It is high time users demand useful content versus paid ones. The sidebar is already full of adverts in the PC browser window. The migration of users to mobile apps is what made Facebook turn to Newsfeed adverts.

Over 80 percent of any FB Page views are now on Mobile devices, and if you don’t claw back some of that space from your newsfeed, it will get worse as more and more adverts will start to appear on you FB mobile app Newsfeed, so that means you see less and less of actual content.

Actual content are those which takes you to the article hosted on a news or blogging site. These Facebook Newsfeed adverts just takes you to another shopping site.

If this case, bloggers and content creators are no longer needed since Facebook already started testing out Instant Articles, which may give some bloggers the eyeballs but not necessarily the traffic you need to sustain your blog. This clandestine way or selling adverts to FB users is another nail in the coffin for bloggers and content creators.

Content creators are being squeeze out of the picture while users of Facebook have to bear the brunt of increasing data traffic to your timeline that are….adverts.

So let’s all put a stop to it before it gets any worst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Live takes aim at Periscope and Meerkat

Have you downloaded Facebook Mentions? It’s an app for would be celebrities, news and media organizations and just anyone who is remotely famous.

Why is Facebook pulling a stunt like this?

Well, you may have heard of Periscope and Meerkat, two live streaming apps but there are a few more that does similar things….like Twitch, which is opening up to non gamers and smaller players like Mobli, which has a Live Stream option for you to broadcast to an audience.

Facebook clearly thinks it is big enough to game this. So they hired a bunch of famous people and paid them a lot of money for them to live stream their day to day chores for your entertainment.

This is not the end of it. Facebook Live is technically in Close Beta, meaning only people who are truly celebrities will be given a chance to go Live.

The option is also available to brands who wish to connect LIVE with an audience and any Facebook Business Page will qualify but it has to be vetted. So if your FB Page only has 1,000 likes and sells designer aprons, chances are you get booted to the end of the queue if you ever attempted to register for FB Live.

After spending many months researching Periscope. I have found a ton of caveats.

Unlike Snapchat, where a select few gets invited to broadcast a feed that you can view before it disappears into nothingness, FB Live follows closely on the heels of Periscope and Meerkat. The chart below will give you an idea on who is watching what on both Meerkat and Periscope.

The FB Live stream plays to all your followers, and followers will be informed of a Live broadcast as it happens. This is probably one of the most difficult media channels to master as people have to be subscribed to your notifications and at the same time be able to flip open the mobile app at the shortest moment of notice to watch you do dumb or entertaining things.

This recorded LIVE feed will be kept on your Page timeline forever, but people outside of your FB Page won’t know it exist.

Plans are afoot to make those recorded Live feeds available in Facebook search itself though I haven’t found out how they are going to do this without charging someone for the privilege. All recorded video streaming will be available through the search but knowing humans and their weird taste for entertainment, no one is going to watch a Donald Trump  speech no matter how entertaining it is. What’s more, any search now in FB will yield ZERO recorded live broadcast on your browser search, so the Video search isn’t exactly working at the moment except maybe for the overloaded Facebook app for mobile. Why would you watch video streaming on mobile is beyond me unless you have unlimited mobile data plans.

The close beta will probably become an open beta before going global. How is FB going to monetize this is beyond me but as a content developer, you should be aware of this before doubling down on that spiffy new mobile device and mobile data plan just to go Live.

Streaming right now is only restricted to chosen Facebook Mention celebrities. Each video segment is restricted to only 30 mins. Any more than that means you need a second FB Mentions account or are incredibly famous that FB will bend over to lick your boots.

Moving on to a Live broadcast is pretty easy. You can see the steps here.

One of the other problems with Live Broadcast is the poor quality of the videos. Both Meerkat and Periscope suffer from this. Facebook Live is no different. As for the follow-ship. Those voyeuristic folks who follow you aren’t really that large a number for now.

If you look at the above chart, you’d soon realize that FB Live subscribers will be dependent on your followers of your FB page. For Periscope and Meerkat, these platforms can be independent of Twitter followers and this means if you have a million Twitter followers doesn’t mean you will automatically have a million Periscope followers.

Bandwidth is dependent on many environmental factors and since you don’t have a good connection, your videos will be cutting out, jumpy and highly irritating. Even if you broadcast often, you’d might be able to increase the number of followers on your Periscope or Meerkat account without the same number of followers to your Twitter account. The above chart says it all, over a 8 day period, the number of videos you have to produce to keep up the frenzy is pretty high. And because of time zone differences, you won’t be discovered unless you are broadcasting something that is already trending on social media. Unlike FB Live, Periscope only keeps the stream you follow and kept about one day before it disappears. Meerkat on the other hand allows followers to keep the stream by hitting a record button. This means followers who like your stream have the ability to store it forever…until Meerkat gets bought out or closes down.

For FB Live, your only option to increase followers is to double down on FB advertising to increase your Page Likes or Followers. There is no other option. FB Live isn’t stand alone and is tied to your FB Page account.

Going forward, you have to ask yourself as a content creator/producer, would people be keen to watch you Live or maybe keep it real with a recorded broadcast on YouTube.

With Live streams, it’s just you and the audience. You cannot do any splicing, cleaver editing, add creative effects or cut to music if you wanted to. So for branding purposes, the scope for content developers is restricted.

What’s more, the experience for your followers is mostly restricted to a talking head (meaning you just doing the talking). So unless you got plenty to say within 30 minutes, which is relevant to your followers, you’re better off not saying anything and just answer questions they might for you, like….your success or failure as a celeb or on the new Portaloo that you are helping to endorse.

Don’t even count the chickens before they are hatched. Live streaming doesn’t automatically guaranteed 150,000 strong audience. I would think you’d be lucky to have 15. Recorded repalys might give you a further 100 to 200 eyeballs but that’s normally how far it goes when you’re not a member of the Kardashians.

Even with Live event broadcast, you might get a few stragglers who would ask you questions on the fly. But in any Live stream, it is just you and your followers where the interaction is via a keyboard. You get to speak to them of course after reading their questions on your mobile device display but I don’t think you should try getting philosophical about it.

Lastly, beyond looking at some famous celebs going Live and chatting to them, you can already engage most of them via Twitter directly. Facebook Live hasn’t got any real benefit except for FB asking money for you to get more followers for your Page. What’s more, with the new emphasis on Video, your YouTube videos will definitely be more interesting to watch.

As a precursor to bigger things to come, Facebook’s investment in Occulus Rift may be the eventual goal. By Live Streaming VR videos, be it in 360 or 180 degrees, you will be giving a new experience to people watching you. This is unfortunately only for the future and isn’t applicable to Facebook Live just yet.

So what is Facebook Live good for now? Nothing much….until Virtual Reality or VR Live videos take off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook wants you to Double Down on Instant Articles

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Come April, the F8 conference will bring news on how Facebook will partner with WordPress to channel a curated list of content called Instant Articles which you can use on your Facebook page.

As a content creator, you are not going to get advertising payment from FB or WordPress for this but it is for ‘self promotion’.

I know, the terms has been abused with much amusement to the point it isn’t funny anymore. Content creation is hard work but people at Facebook think they have a right to pillage your content, give it to others who in turn pay Facebook to boost their post.

Why Facebook Page Post is in Trouble

Think about it. You have to scrap content from a site, mask it as your own and pay Facebook to boost that post to your followers.

Too much work.

So what better way to do this than to get a free newsfeed from Facebook, that is curated and approved by Zuckerberg himself, and then just pay him for boosting that content to your Page followers so that they would stick around.

It has become apparent that FB Page reach has tumbled to all time lows of 2 percent in 2015, but in 2016, it might go all the way to zero.

How does Facebook Instant Articles Work?

First you need a WordPress CMS with WordPress’ Automattic plugin enabled for your blog.

Got that up and running? No sweat.

Then you have to download and install the Instant Article Plugin which is only available from WordPress after April 8, 2016. It won’t be available before this date.

Once you have both installed on your blog, you need to enable and notify Facebook HQ of your willingness to allow your content to be prostituted for free in exchange for eyeballs. This can be done from your FB Page settings.

You will NOT be paid any commission for this. If you already have a WordPress site linked to your FB profile, you still cannot specify it for use only for your FB Page only.

When you apply to submit your content feed to Facebook,  the Facebook folks will go through your blog to see it fits their submission criteria, and contain no extreme stuff like Dump the Trump cartoons or ISIL rhetoric. Once you make it on the green list. You are literally syndicated to everyone who has a FB Page.

All means a helluva lot of cheap people who have no idea for content will reuse your content.

What Automattic does is that your content will be formatted to fit mobile screens on Facebook Pages. In other words, it’s a form of content scrapping which you readily submit to. It is a bit like public floggings but with your approval.

Facebook Content Marketing with your Content

Your content, when you agree to the Facebook terms, remains yours but everyone else will be free to use it.

Would it benefit you? Only you believe if whoring your life’s work is kosher.

The possibilities are endless. People will have great content from your hard work while none of the ads you put up will ever appear on the Facebook Page that uses it.

Sounds like a sham doesn’t it?

I think so too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft fluffs its Content App Sprightly

If April came early, this would have been a nice joke. Microsoft released a content creation app called Sprightly on the Google Play store.

Initially I was mildly surprised that Microsoft Garage would incubate the concept for this app and release it as it is.

Now, it is billed as a really a tool for creating flyers, pricelist, catalog and eCards.

After I took it for a spin, I didn’t know what to say. I had to drown myself in absinthe and feast on rotted cheese to clear the memory of that experience.

I do not know what to say.

Microsoft isn’t the most creative company in the world. After a string of misses, they still do not understand what people want. Which makes me wonder if they are at all serious about content creation.

These are the folks who set the bar for Microsoft Office. Since then, they have wallowed in the mud, stepped on a few landmines and followed a sure path down hill.

Real World Applications

Why is Sprightly so bad?

Let’s say you wanted to create a catalog, of say four items to showcase on your instagram or Facebook page. The first thing you will realize is that you have no control over the cropping of your images, you have to crop your photo to the correct shape before using it on the template.

There are no tools to beautify the image either. So if you didn’t enhance your photo before you took it, you are pretty much fucked.

Then you have no creative control over the fonts used. It is as if the 21st century never happened. It has only ONE font option and you can have any color for that font as long as it is black.

Then you have the sad lack of creative layout for template choices.

I know. Microsoft is as creative as a culinary chef from McDonalds. They recycle ideas from the last century and hope you don’t notice but no one told them they got found out.

Content is all about Catching your Eye

This is where Microsoft gets it all wrong. By coming out with a vanilla grey Sprightly app, they think you should communicate in black and white.

The creative option is as rigid as adamantium. You can’t add borders, or for that matter use a different paper color. It is also is unable to make things attractive to the eye with creatively curated fonts.

All you do with the Sprightly app is to drop in a picture, fill in the descriptions and maybe the price and leave it at that. There is really nothing else you can do with it.

Is it simple to use?

Yes. If all you want is to drop a pix and add a price, yea. But that’s not to say that you can’t do this on other apps.

The multipage feature may sound brilliant but is hardly useful.

The flyer option is dead boring. How would you want an flyer that bores the hell out of people when you send it to them?

I suppose the idea behind this app is to integrate a host of services that Microsoft offers online but this addition is by no means cohesive.

You don’t fetch files from your skydrive or import excel files into your Sprightly document.

Maybe I am being harsh here after all, it is Version 1.0. Who knows what might happen with Version 2.

For now, I think that the app is probably suitable for the more geriatric members of Microsoft  who probably think that dropping a picture and adding a description is probably all you want to do when sending out a sales list or catalog.

As insane as it sounds, they might be right but I can assure you, the rest of us will disagree.

 

Epic fails on Content Creation for Facebook Post

 

It is no secret that Facebook seems to be the place every brand wants to get into especially when it comes to eyeballs. Every time you send out a post from your page to followers it only gets a 1 percent organic reach. The one percent organic reach is for pictures and links. Video on the other hand gets you more, maybe to the tune of 4 percent in a day.

Facebook defines organic reach in terms of unpaid post that pops up on your newsfeed. This means that you may have a truckload of followers but they won’t see your post unless you paid Facebook to reach out to them.

During my 2 year observation on Facebook post, I run a page which I use to obtain metrics. I have managed to get a 10 percent reach in two days using a very sly method of commenting on other Page post using my Page persona. This is very hard work and for a 10 week old post, I am able to hit a 50 percent reach of my followers.

Recently I took the global car brand from BMW to task.

Obviously they haven’t a clue on what works and I told them to create content when posting instead of just putting up a picture.

Engagement counts to each Posting 

When you post a picture, like the above, telling followers hey, custom job for you mini, why not do this? Then the picture stands alone, without a link or a FB content, then you are in trouble.

Facebook measures each post with an engagement. So if people liked it and clicked on it, then it gets shown to more unpaid followers. This grows and grows but it tops off at 50 percent. When people leave comments on it, it also gets circulated around for longer period. And this is what creating meaningful content is all about.

Brands who are not serious about this should only post pictures only content to Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram. Pinterest is a bit iffy here as its quite nebulous. People collect pins which are pictures with content links but you don’t know if they get viral like herpes when you pass it around. Once you take into account that females like Pinterest more, then you could have more gender specific content created.

Brands like Mini should know this. If they give ideas to people with no wear to start, then it is useless. The picture stops there and without the content to keep it going, it dies. The top picture illustrates this.

Mini should ask itself what the picture is suppose to generate. Eyeballs, likes or Clicks?

• There is no URL to lead to a content page but the picture entices you.
• The introduction creates a expectation that you can get a custom job.
• It ends with a question, “how would you customise your MINI” without even telling people how it can be done.

This is why brands must have partners.

For the above Mini campaign, it makes sense for Mini to partner Avery Dennison for car related vinyl wraps or Dupont Standox for a full custom paint job.

Once the content is created, both Avery Dennison and Mini can share in the Facebook post, giving the content a longer life span instead of a one off, emotional Like on a page. Facebook isn’t Instagram and vice versa. If your goal is to get people to like the image, then it is in the wrong place. The FB Page algorithm has already killed it for you whereas for Instagram, there is still a chance of getting unpaid eyeballs if the person is already following your Instagram page.

The Difference in Gaining Followers versus Boosting Post

Thanks to the money grubbing ways of Zuckerberg, you have to differentiate between paying for new followers or just reaching out to existing followers.

Reaching out to existing followers of your FB page is through boosting your Post, while gaining new followers is like putting up Ads for your Page to attract new followers. Both are very different and you should never confuse the two.

Boosting a page is crucial if you want to get content out to the open for all to see. But gaining followers is just the act of getting people to Like your page, and hopefully in the process, get them to subscribe to ALL your notifications. This is secretly hidden away within the Like button and by people who Like your Page doesn’t mean they will get all your notification on content. This is a secret that Facebook doesn’t want to share with you. If you knew how many were subscribed to your Content notifications, you won’t be paying FB to show it to your followers.

This is why it is important for Brands to reward followers with physical items. It could be a keychain, a unique sticker or even a goodie bag.

 

Good Content means a Long Shelf Life

 

In difficult economic environments, the first thing big brand budgets get cut are those in advertising. It makes sense because like brand advertising, no one is going to notice when the economy faces difficulties. Selling to a exhausted market is like selling ice boxes to eskimos. This is where meaningful content comes in because of its long tail nature.

Useful content gets recycled and used for a very long time. And for Facebook post, this is perfect. It is a slow burn process. Since Facebook algorithms work in the way that you only pay for what you are getting, it makes perfect sense to engage people with such post if you don’t intend to pay for them.

What’s more I am all for featuring unique content.

People are not going to be grateful if the SAME content they see appears in their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds. This is another bad habit that Brands do partake in.

For the follower, what good is it to follow your favourite brand page on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram when they see the same stuff all the time? Makes no sense. Followers could just subscribe to just one and leave the rest out. But here, you need them to follow you because….you have unique content for each social stream.

On Facebook alone, you need to have at least 35 content Likes or Comment Engagements before Facebook gives you another 1 percent organic (unpaid) reach. This is a tough proposition.

So when it comes to a bull market, advertise. In a bear market, you create content with a long shelf life. That way, you brand stays in shape for the long haul and when the bulls come around again, you have your long tail content to thank. People will remember the brand and that’s what counts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epic Fails in Social Media Content Marketing

There was a time when Content for Social Media Management platforms like Buffer, Hootsuite and even Klout made sense in its hey day but not anymore.

The amount of effort (unpaid) that goes into creating content and then having no eyeballs to appreciate them is a reality we all have to deal with some day. You now have to get on board with all social platforms, be online 24/7 to answer queries and find the time to manage your real business while at it? That’s true too. Forget the hired hand who blogs for you. He won’t do it for free so that in itself is a cost factor.

All social media platforms will give away some freebies but these freebies do not always justify the effort you put into creating content for your followers.

Your efforts are bound to fail if you don’t want to understand that content marketing is like any other advertising or advertorial campaign that is backed up with plenty of ad spend. Here’s why.

Facebook Organic Reach is a Costly affair

Facebook is like the high class hooker from New York. If you don’t have the money then there is no honey. Social Media Management platform gurus will always tell you that you have to decide on your objective and strategy for Facebook but NEVER tell you that you need to budget lots of cash for this effort.

Yes, creating content takes effort. But signing up to a Social Media Management platform is not going to get you the eyeballs you need for branding of conversion success. The platforms cautiously omit telling you this as they want you to take the bait, hook, line and sinker before you realize that your budget isn’t enough for a year long campaign. How much does it cost? Let’s assume you are doing this on your own for a small business, spend probably US$100 a week on promoted post to your followers on Twitter and Facebook. That’s US$400 a month, and let’s throw in that package from Hootsuite, which at the lowest is US$120 a year. That’s about US$5,000 a year, excluding the cost of a hosted site. And this is just for a a small business. Let’s factor in a 3 fold ROI to justify that return on investment. You need to pull in US$15,000 in revenue returns to your small business to spend that sort of cash.

Facebook has zero organic reach. Twitter won’t give you the time of day too if you are not going to pay so signing up for a promoted tweet is a must.

People who start on Facebook do not understand that each post cost them money to show to your followers. These are the same blokes who liked you page in the past but come back to play candy crush with their online pals on Facebook. Do they notice the notifications on their menu? Nope. So the best way to reach them is to force feed a post onto their timeline.

Here is how Facebook wants your moolah.

Every FB post (unpaid) to your followers will yield roughly 1 percent reach. That means if you have 1000 followers, you post will reach about 10 people per 1000 followers. To get your post on all their timelines, you have to spend money. Lots of it…and this is just to build awareness.

All FB post to your page is best suited for branding and awareness building. It does not help you get more followers. To get more followers, you need to promote your page which is actually a subset of their advertising master plan. You have to advertise either on the timeline or on the sidebar [sidebar advertising isn’t available on mobile platform].

If you are interested in a straight out conversion from your advertising budget, you need to advertise to a regional or country specific audience. This is where you measure ad spend versus return on investment (ROI).

In old world advertising terms, if you spend US$100, you should get at least US$300 return in investment (3 fold ROI). This unfortunately doesn’t quite gel these days in any social media marketing plans if you take into account the money you have to spend on FB or Twitter, and at the same time sign up with a Social Media Marketing Platform [at a cost of over US$120 to US$600 a year depending your requirement]. So once you go down this path, you have to take into consideration the amount of money you have already spent without even going into the advertising details of each social media platform.

Facebook is not responsible for the quality of eyeballs you get on their platform. In the old world advertising, you advertise with a magazine like Tatler or Monocle because the people who read it are…well, are your specific target audience who would buy a whole wine cellar as a hobby. That means these eyeballs command a premium if you advertise with them. FB and Twitter is by no means a quality platform as any Tom, Dick or Harry can start multiple profiles as seen in the Click Farm business. Instead, you are given a choice of location, target age and probably some of their more fanciful hobbies as a potential audience profile.

Getting followers for you blog, Pinterest board, Instagram, Facebook and even Twitter can be done in only two ways. The paid way is to get people to click a link to your content and become a follower. The other is the splatter method.

The splatter method is when you follow people to get them to follow you back. It is like a follow for follow tag currently popular with some folks hoping to break into to the social circles. I call this a splatter method because you have no idea who you are following most of the time, except maybe that they like what you like or live within the same locality as you do. This is not quality advertising for your content as people who have similar interest as you do may not live within a 1000 miles from you. So unless you are running a brand awareness campaign, or offer online shopping, chances are those post will be ignored. But all this takes effort on your end to search and add them.

Videos give you Better Reach on Facebook

Here is another clue. Video is the next big thing on FB. They have even tried to introduce self streaming videos to the annoyance of mobile users.

Posting videos to your FB page will automatically give you a 5 percent reach as compared to a link or text post. So for every 1000 followers, you have a chance to reach 50 of them for free. You want more eyeballs? Sign up for their Premium Video Ads for ROI.

But before you say it’s a good deal, let me ask you, how much time and effort did you spend on shooting, editing and planning for that short video? Is 50 eyeballs enough to satisfy that need? Go figure and write Santa a note about getting some Facebook credits for next Christmas.

Twitter is no different than Facebook

Yes, unfortunately that is true. You pay for what you get and in the end, you just gotta justify your ad spend. Twitter’s organic reach is hovering at an all time low. It just fails to suck up those eyeballs and convert that into measurable ROI.

That’s why these folks are betting big on ‘live’ streaming since that is a buzzword they can still use to justify their dollar denominated advertising plan. Vine videos haven’t taken off in a big way except with college kids and people with too much time on their hands. Instagram has video to further add to the basket of eyeballs wanting moving images and finally, there is live video which could be the future for Twitter on Periscope.

Tumblr isn’t for Everyone

The young of heart may be your next target niche but no one told you that Tumblr is still a very American centric social and content discovery platform. You are not going to reach out to that same age group in Japan, Korea or for that matter Vietnam using Tumblr.

Even though Tumblr maybe way better than WordPress.com in some ways but in the end, you still have to pay to get discovered.

Ever since Yahoo bought them out in May of 2013, featured ads has been appearing in user’s content stream. This is both good and bad news.

The good part is that hashtags can still be used a strategy to find your future or potential customers and generate the sort of brand awareness you need to start. However if you want a straight cut ROI on your ad spend. You probably have a better deal signing up with Tumblr to show those ads.

Pinterest is Instagram on Steroids

Let’s face it. Starting a board on Pinterest is a time consuming affair. You can either curate or create content for each board. Who gets to see these boards? Only fellow users who are out to get more pins.

Since Pinterest is image centric. You can’t help but draw similarities between them and Instagram. Both require User inputs and that’s you I am pointing at.

Both work the same way and since each board is in itself the description of the pins, you can’t help but think that the board itself is a hashtag of sorts to categorize content.

Pinterest also has promoted pins, and with it an advertising plan to suit your target audience. The same can be said of Instagram when they started to introduce promoted content (advertise content) to specific region of users.

There is no such thing as a Free Lunch

I like to call social media campaigns as a Freemium Advertising Gateway as you have to ante up on those dollars to find some sort of success.

The only free social platform that is devoid of any advertising right now is Google+. That’s because Google has much grander ambitions than to charge you for your post as they have the search engine to back that all up.

Getting a ROI on investment on any social media marketing campaign will cost you money. Don’t think it is cheap as even Americans feel it is far too expensive.

If you can spend the time to crate content but can’t spend the money to promote it, you are doomed. At every level, you cannot think for one moment you are getting a free lunch. That’s why Social media has become a Freemium platform. Once the social media networks hooks you, they hope you get dragged under the water with their advertising masterplan.

Success in any business can only be measured by ROI. How much you aim to get out of it in the end to sustain your business empire is crucial. It’s not just about eyeballs but quality eyeballs. This sad fact, unfortunately, is lost in translation as one grabs onto social media…thinking it was the elusive pot of gold to their online success.

Start with a Web Presence

A web presence is a web site. If you haven’t got the time of day to do one then social media marketing isn’t for you. There are plenty of free hosting sites which can of course establish your de facto web presence. My own recommendation is strikingly.com, which gives you a free web page for your product, company, portfolio in the simplest design terms. It has easy to use templates and you just key in the text and fill in the pictures. I will give you my reasons why this should be the first step towards establishing your own web presence first before any social media marketing can take place, but you already know that having an actual web site speaks volumes about your online dedication. So take the first step. Start your web presence with a site before attempting social media.

No Brainer Web Presence with Strikingly.com

I get asked a lot about having web presence and technically speaking, it is one of the most boring and common question that I face.

People often think that for the time spent of Facebook, that should be enough. Well, technically that is a social presence and it’s not entirely the same as having your own website.

A web presence is really about having a website that says it all. It can be for your book, company, service or nanny services in which you provide real hookers for menage a trios outing.

You can call this an online brochure and for those who have no idea on what to do and where to start, there is always those free web sites on blogspot or wordpress.com which caters to your varied content needs.

But many of you do not need a CMS to have a web presence. There are so many alternatives to this, like in the case of wix.com and squarespace virtual real estate packages that come preloaded with templates for you to switch to.

Strikingly Dot Com

I have a site here and don’t pay a dime for it. But my site is my own calling card of sorts. I have test driven a whole load of these other hosting sites in the past and I have to admit, these dudes at strikingly have done a good job. And no, I have not been paid by them to say otherwise.

First, you have those clean templates which you can use for almost any type of site for any web presence requirement. Some are so well done that you’d only find it as a paid CMS template on WordPress.

Test driving it is free, and you can also have a free site as well so no hidden sign up fees for those who do not know if they would end up liking it.

For those who want to customize their needs to suit, say their books, seminars, portfolios, etc. You have to option of paying for an annual plan which to me, cost as much as you would in setting up a paid hosting service on WordPress.

Strikingly also offers great design options that are also mobile friendly. The templates have improved in time and today, you even have the option of adding a blog space to your site if you so wish.

Not everyone blogs. That much is true.

Some might not have much to say while others will wear you to the bone with their text. To create a successful web presence, it’s a toss between the two but people ultimately are visual creatures.

This is where the Template organization and usage comes to play. If the User Experience (UX) for the site sucks. You can be assured your visitors will opt out faster than they found your site link.

LinkedIn with Strikingly

Here is another good reason to build your own resume/CV without the confusing and often badly designed UI of LinkedIn.

I am not a fan of LinkedIn because the UX feels cluttered. Even if they sell themselves in a social manner, I never found the value of browsing someone’s LinkedIn file unless I was looking for people to hire.

Strikingly has a auto-import feature that will layout your LinkedIn profile into a proper web portfolio. Just import your profile and key in the missing details. It looks far better than the jumble mess you find in LinkedIn.

Cost Versus Effort

For as little as US$96 a year, you can have your own domain and email forwarding plus 50GB of traffic. Now, ask yourself….how the hell would you exceed 50GB of web traffic unless you are running a porn site?

And let’s not forget about the cost of having a designer or a webmaster of sorts to set up a CMS if you don’t already know how. Strkingly is a snap to set up as its visually designed templates allow that freedom to not hire someone who has better brains than you to set it up.

For example, to use forms, you have a visual interface to create it. No more having to install a plug-in on the CMS to get it running. Plug-ins will crash and depending on their security compliance code, can let hackers break in. But you wouldn’t know that unless someone told you about it.

Now Squarespace offers you loads more in terms of blog, e-commerce and stuff you probably won’t end up using for the same price. However there is no free ‘site’ option like in the case of Strikingly where you can create micro-sites to link to your own personal web presence.

Visual Content Matters

For me, having a visual web presence is far more important as people normally do not know what to write or say on a web site. I am sure you can pen a few words about what you wish to communicate to your visitors but trust me, having the right pictures to go with the site is all that matters.

The human attention span of the average web surfer is about 100 words. If you don’t hook someone for the next 100 words, he will click the nearest link to a porn site.

Visual marketing plays an important part of that psyche. It has to flow well. Look nice and the colors have to gel too.

A pure white and minimalist template often times do not work (sorry square space but you suck) and people might say that’s the safest option for your pictures to stand out. Going one up the ladder would be to be attractive than to be safe. How a UX is designed becomes important if you want to hold those eyeballs.

People on the Internet have a truckload of choices in which to spend their time on. Trying to be Zen in your layout just isn’t one of them unless they suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder.

So start your web presence in baby steps. I know you hate to jump in and realize that you can’t swim. That’s how it happens sometimes so you have been warned. To build your own site with strikingly, start here.

Hidden Secrets of Facebook Organic Reach Algorithms

For the last 12 months, I have been working on proving some of the theories on Facebook’s Page algorithm reach and I think it is time to unveil them.

In 2015, Facebook organic reach was pegged at about 2 percent. It is a ballpark. So how this is measured is pretty simple. If you have 1000 followers on your FB Page, that means only 2 percent of them will get shown your post. This is in all technicality a penalty to get you to ante up on some advertising credits.

Facebook advertising is like a blackhole that will suck up all your cash without giving you the ROI you’d expect. But at the same time, some Facebook pundits want to prove that you can beat the low organic reach on Pages with a few tips and tricks, many of which don’t actually work.

In some of my previous post, the only ones that are true so far are the following:-

• Short Videos uploaded to Facebook increase organic reach by 4 percent
• Post that generate comment and sharing generates 3 to 4 percent increases
• Facebook organic reach for non paying post tops out at 1 percent of your followers
• Followers will see your post more often only if they subscribe to your notifications

These are the rules so far that has brought results. And here are the rest that has to be dispelled before you hit that steep incline and fall off a cliff.

Posting Often on your Page will generate better Organic Reach

False. This is where the Facebook algorithm kicks in. It gets the idea that you want to reach more people and you will incur a penalty for this. It starts with one post every few days, two at most for a week. Anymore and the penalty kicks in. This penalty reduces the visibility of your post to your followers.

Posting at Odd Hours so that your post will appear on your Follower’s Feeds

False. I have scheduled post to reach people at odd hours of the morning and the organic reach fell off a cliff. What I did was to schedule some news post during the morning hours between 1am to 6am, and did this every two hours. It didn’t work as the Facebook algorithm penalty kicks in once they detect you are posting more and more often.

Boosting your post with a paid fee will generate Better Organic Reach

False as the amount of budget you have allocated is dependent on the amount of followers. I now owe Facebook 20 bucks for testing a few post to see if they grow organically within a 935+ strong followers of my page. What happens when you boost a post is that more of your followers who have not turned on their notifications from your page will see them, how much more? It is about 1 to 3 percent more over the 2 percent average. This means if you have 50 dollars to spend, that would only be for one post served up for about 100 followers.

So if you multiply the number of followers you have just to maintain that 80 percent average for 1000 followers, you have to be spending big bucks for boosting each post. The catch here is that the moment you pay Facebook to boost your post, you don’t have to do anything but sit back and see the organic reach grow. This is only for ONE chosen post so it’s not cumulative for all other post.

Difference between Organic Reach and Organic Growth

Organic reach refers to post that you make to your own FB page that is viewed by your followers which you did not pay Facebook to show on their timeline. Organic growth however is about the followers you gain for you FB page which you didn’t pay for.

Organic growth during the test period conducted only improved by about 3 people, meaning it is minuscule for a Page with 930 followers. So that’s less than 1 percent, so with it you can assume that organic growth is dead.

Organic views is limited to 2 percent by default for post you make every two days. Make anymore than that and that, then you will be penalized by Facebook. This 2 percent organic reach is free to you…but you got to earn it if you want that 2 percent reach per say. So if you want more, then you gotta pay for the eyeballs.

What’s the Best you can do for Organic POST Reach?

Here’s my take on it. If you post often like three to four times a day, your organic reach falls below 1 percent of your total followers. This means you’d be hitting around 0.3 or 0.1 percent of the total crowd. So NEVER post often. In fact, it is better to stagger your post to a maximum of 2 a week. This is where the Facebook algorithm gets worried and start to knock on your door to see if you’re still alive. 

It is a chicken or egg issue when it comes to getting your post served up to your followers and having them liking it in the process. If your followers do not see your post, then your post becomes irrelevant. Don’t even hope to see your page promoted to those outside your followers unless you paid for it.

You can spend hours crafting a post but when it doesn’t get liked by your followers, then it gets pulled.

However you still get your 2 percent organic within a 24 hour cycle. 

Using Comments to maximize a 2 percent reach in 24 hours

This apparently works but it takes a lot of work and is not worth you time. During my test period of 4 weeks, you need to show that you are actively posting comments on other Pages with your own FB Page’s altered ego or persona.

For example, if you are the owner of a page, start to comment as your FB Page identity in all your post. The Facebook algorithm assumes that comments that get Liked by others are a form of engagement and that means your FB post will be shown to more of your followers all for free.

Facebook assumes that as long as you did not pay for a reach, it will award you with a 2 percent organic reach as long as you get an average of 35 Likes for your posted comments in ONE day.

Wow, 35 post comments Likes per day. And this is only to extend your organic reach to the maximum allowable 2 percent a day…consistently. Facebook will NOT give you any more organic reach for your post above 2 percent a day unless it was a video post and one that is shared by your followers.

Beating the facebook algorithm on organic reach

Just remember that the Facebook algorithm will give you a two percent maximum organic reach a day provided you are actively commenting and getting those 35 Likes for these comments. If you add more than one post a day, say two…then your two post per day will have to share that 2 percent allowable organic view between them.

This is why you should not post often.

Conclusion, it’s not worth it

Once you work so hard, curate the best content or by creating them, the organic reach within your own fellowship is going to hover around the 1 percent average in a week without doing anything. For all your older post, there is no limit on how far this growth will grow. Right now, I am see a five week old post gaining over 20 percent organic reach.

Facebook’s own algorithm only detects engagements and sharing as signs of interest, so if someone indulges your post, chances are they will see more of it. If the majority of us like to sit back and read stuff without lifting a finger to say something, then those post will decline in importance and they won’t be seeing them anymore unless they have subscribe to all notifications from your page.

This insight is crucial if you are a small business operating in a social media environment. When your page stops engaging others (and I do not mean spamming them with links), you need to work around how to achieve your desired goal within the limited organic bandwidth Facebook allows without paying.

It’s different if you say you want an immediate reach to your followers by advertising say 100 bucks to boost a post. Even then the ROI is subjective since you cannot see who are your paying customers.

Within the Facebook ecosystem, you can already sell directly to your followers but for that to happen, you will need to spend money or in this case, milk that 2 percent organic reach per post a day. In five days, you’d have 10 percent organic reach, in ten days…20 percent. So if you are planning on a month long promotion. You could possibly get 80 percent organic reach using this formula.

So if you are a small business, plan well. Be active with your FB page persona, say the things which gets Liked and in return, Facebook will eventually reward you with the much deserved organic reach without you having to pay for those eyeballs.

Twitter doubles down on UGC with Moments

One of the conundrums of content development is that social networks don’t own them. Content is mostly user generated and passed around like herpes for what it is worth and when Twitter launched Moments in the USA, it has got to be some mistake.

I have avoided writing about Moments from Twitter for the longest time as I watched the announcement live on Periscope some time back. All I wanted to know is why now?

Twitter is for conversations. It has no content to offer except maybe a link to the content site.

Social conversations that are limited to just 140 characters is probably more Neanderthal than social. What Twitter does well is to give us a voice to reach out to those who have one. We don’t have a voice being a nobody but somebody with fame and influence could be of help.

This is why Moments just doesn’t make sense.

I know how Periscope fits into the whole scheme of things for Twitter and how Vine is half assing its usefulness with those short clips but the point is still Moments is pretty odd. It’s like going to a Mexican restaurant to order Chinese food. People have used social networks like Facebook and G+ for content distribution but when Twitter gets into the act….you sort of question the wisdom behind it.

What Moments is All About

In short, it is trending content on the news. Say that there is a big fire on the East coast of America, and people want to know more about it, that’s probably the one that fits the bill but to curate content for users to have a conversation is really out of place.

Twitter wants to provide the goto content you want to hear about with Moments. It wants your eyeballs and your voice. They want you to retweet about it. It wants you to discuss content in the news, and to that effect curate meaningful content that affects you.

For a start, Moments will have two centers for curation. One each on the East and West coast of America. It is not global as yet and as much as people want that to happen, Twitter prefers not to hire more heads but to focus on getting a UGC algorithm in place so that they don’t have to use a team of people all over the world. Right now, that algorithm isn’t yet working….but the idea behind project lighting is.

So if the news and users are trending a subject, say Elon Musk jumping off the San Francisco bridge to highlight his ailing Tesla car business, the underpinning interest would be decided by the content curators who feel that you should know about this and for some reason talk about it online. Once you do, then they have secured the eyeballs necessary to serve you some ads.

That’s the whole point of it. Moments is integrated right into the Twitter app so there is no need to have a secondary app installed to receive the curated content.

Will Moments work for You?

To be more precise, Moments aims to scrap treading content from news networks and if you are just running a blog, chances are you won’t be featured.

There is no reason to feature some Joe Blow who writes a rant on his blog on a product review. Such content has no merits.

But if you care to troll the news, you would realize that there is a lot of noise and unsubstantiated content coming from the likes of CNN, Washington Post and even the New York Times. So what constitute as credible news these days is pretty subjective.

Then you have breaking news where big name media companies do not have a correspondent in place to tackle the news and what you get are repeats from off media sources mentioned everywhere else.

Twitter can be used successfully to maintain contact with your customers and to get feedback on how you are doing. Some use it to start a war of words with detractors while others just talk about how bad Nicki Minaj was at the awards show.

For me, running an active Twitter feed is a lot of work. Stats for readership are pretty low for each post if you’re not famous or intelligible with 140 characters.

So don’t put any hope into Moments for it to change how do business online or in real time.

The truth of the matter is that Twitter is running out of ideas for innovation and since it’s platform is conversational, they are hoping you would put in your two tweets worth for all the curated news you read on Twitter Moments. Maybe someone will read them, respond to it and that would get those eyeballs Twitter wants to show ads to?