Facebook disabled one of my ad accounts. They said it violated a policy. Maybe the problem was that I did not pay in Rubles. I don’t know. They won’t say what policy I violated. They also won’t tell me what ad was in violation. Kafka would have had a field day with this.
I suggested they made a mistake or attributed someone else’s ad to my account. They just replied with the same form letter they sent initially. And then they stopped responding altogether. It is not a tragedy, just an annoyance. Still, it is a reminder not to be dependent on any one social media platform. Those environments can change or even disappear (remember Vine?) at any time. Focus on creating good content that can work on multiple platforms, including your own website. On Fridays when I look to boost a post for myself or a client on Facebook, the default dollar amount is always more than I usually select and more than the default it gives me every other day of the week.
I can only guess that they are hoping I won’t notice the change and will accidentally spend more money than usual. Mind the details. Failure to do so can be costly. It can be good to geo-target posts about a band’s upcoming concert. For instance, if they are playing in San Antonio, Texas, on Facebook you can have a post about the concert shown only to people who live in a 25-mile radius of the city.
However, for several of my clients I find that when I push out a post about a concert to all followers, people in one city will tag friends in a second city to make sure they know that artist is coming to their town. Also, if the city is a popular vacation destination, such as New Orleans, you never know who already has plans to travel there the weekend of the show. And some die hard fans might use the concert as an excuse to take a trip. Many businesses and bands treat social media as an afterthought. And it shows. Their content is an expression of apathy.
For a band it is the equivalent of saying, “We will figure out the guitar part for the song when we get on stage.” Or it is like a business saying, “No need to plan for that meeting with the venture capitalists. We’ll think of something when we get in the room.” Yes inspiration strikes occasionally, but that is not a reliable game plan. And when it comes to social media content, odds are inspiration is not going to show up five days a week or more. With social media content, you kind of have to shrug your shoulders when it is comes to the competition. After all, you are competing with everyone. You are competing with the latest superhero movie and its effects-filled trailer and you are competing against a friend who just posted a photo of her new kitten. And in terms of stats, odds are they will both crush you. Shrug your shoulders, don't worry about the stats, and create something of quality. Just as Facebook needs to convince people that it is not a division of the Kremlin's Marketing Department, Twitter needs to convince people that it is more than just a repository for the world's hate.
From the New York Times - "Facebook began testing a new design for its news feed. In this version, which is being tested in six countries, Facebook posts from pages were removed from the regular news feed. They were placed in a separate section called 'Explore Feed,' where they appeared less prominently.
"This change caused tremors in the Facebook publishing world. Several publishers from countries included in the test complained that their Facebook traffic had plummeted overnight." One of the big myths perpetuated by the social media sites is that the stats they provide are the only measure of your content's effectiveness and value.
No matter how adept you are or how sophisticated social media targeting becomes, Facebook advertising will always be a game with diminishing returns.
To have impact you need to cultivate genuine fans. You can use the Facebook pixel to track who visits your website, find their corresponding Facebook profiles, and then target those specific people with your ads.
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AuthorCris Cohen Archives
March 2021
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