George Carlin's bit on the Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say on Television is still a hilarious classic. And yes, he actually says the words. (Fair warning on profanity if you watch the video above. It will also make you laugh until your sides hurt!) If you manage a Facebook page, you've likely seen these seven words and probably dozens more. Internet trolls derail productive conversations, spread misinformation and sometimes make you wonder if social media is worth the effort at all.

Did you know Facebook has a built in profanity filter including one that you can upload your own seven dirty words to and more? Currently, our filter list contains more than 100 words that we tailor accordingly for each client.

If you'd like help protecting your page from trolls and other attacks on your brand, schedule a consultation today! We can help you take the steps necessary to safeguard your Facebook page and also position you to have the tools needed to successfully weather an unexpected social media crisis.  

Hurray! Facebook is making it easier to mobilize your followers around community issues. Facebook is now in the process of rolling out a new feature called Community Action. If you haven’t received an email yet, Facebook should soon be sending your page notification inviting you to try this new advocacy tool.
 
According to Facebook, here’s how it works:

​More accurately, the latest Pew Research study finds an estimated two-thirds of tweets linked to popular websites are generated by automated account. If bots rule Twitter, is it still worth the effort to try and break through the noise?

Yes! Twitter has become our defacto newswire service. Did you know that less than three percent of news stories are picked up from traditional wire services these days? The good news is that Twitter still holds the attention of influencers and opinion makers vital to your brand.

So go ahead and make some noise. Just make sure you repeat yourself or in the case of Twitter, retweet yourself. According to Nonprofit Tech for Good, being heard means placing your message in the pipeline more than once. Post your tweet and retweet it a few days later. Use HootSuite or another scheduling platform to repost your content during nonbusiness hours including late evenings and weekends. 

Remember, the average shelf life of a tweet is just 24 minutes. The more opportunities you create for your message to be seen, the more likely your brand will be heard.

​What is Facebook Live? 
A new feature introduced in December, Facebook Live allows you to broadcast live video using your cell phone camera. As Facebook is heavily promoting this new feature, your Facebook Live videos will be ranked higher than your other posts. Your followers will receive a pop up notification each time you start a live broadcast making this an effective tool to share breaking news and stay top of mind with your core social media constituents. Even if your followers can't join you live, they have the ability to watch a recording of your broadcast whenever it is convenient for them.

How Does Facebook Live Work? 
Presently, Facebook Live is a feature that is available through your personal timeline and also can be accessed by verified organizations. Learn more about Facebook’s verification process here.
 
To start a live broadcast from your personal timeline:

    1. Log into the Facebook using your smartphone.
    2. From either you news feed or timeline, tap the icon that looks like a square with a pencil inside. 
    3. Tap the icon that features the outline of a person with two surrounding rings.
    4. Write an enticing description for your broadcast.
    5. Tap Go Live to begin your broadcast. When you want to end your broadcast, tap Finish.
 

Smart advertisers can spend as little as $5 or $10 a day and still achieve results advertising on Facebook. Protect your advertising budget and generate results faster by avoiding these six common mistakes:

1.     Caving into the temptation of “Boost Post.” This function may appear to be an easy way to dip your toe into Facebook advertising, but it’s a major waste of money. You may gain a few new clicks, but this function isn’t designed to help you achieve an actionable end goal.

2.     Skipping Over Research. Every ad you run on Facebook or otherwise should be thoroughly tested before investing your precious advertising dollars. Our evidenced-based primer on conducting this type of research will help protect your return on investment (ROI).

3.     Focusing on Likes Instead of Results. Likes don’t necessarily translate into sales, mailing list sign ups or other measurable responses. While having a certain amount of likes can add credibility to your Facebook page, your primary goal when advertising on Facebook or across any other platform whether digital or print should be conversions. Facebook allows you to set your conversion goal to ensure your ad appears on the screens of people most likely to take the action you want to elicit.

4.     Operating Without a Clear End Goal. Facebook allows you to optimize your campaign so that you can secure the most conversions for the least cost per noted action such as donations, sales or mailing list signups. This is by far the most advantageous way to utilize Facebook. Purchasing Facebook ads to raise awareness or heighten brand recognition is inherently more difficult to measure and therefor not a prudent budget expenditure.

5.     Failing to Use Available Technology to its Fullest Advantage. Facebook has a feature called pixil, which is a line of code that can be placed on your website that allows your organization to build custom audiences for marketing purposes. With the pixil in place, Facebook is able to collect the user data of anyone who visits selected pages of your website where this hidden line of code has been placed. With this data, you can run ads targeting an audience who has already shown interest in your organization. 

6.     Withholding Valuable Audience Data. Advertisers can upload their customers' or donors' email addresses directly into Facebook. Ad costs are typically 50 percent lower when this type of defined, direct targeting is used.

Facebook allows advertisers to take this feature one step further and can create what is called a “lookalike audience,” which scours the platform to find other users who essentially mimic the behaviors and demographics of the email list you've provided, thereby greatly expanding your target audience. Know that Facebook cannot resell any lists you input into the system.

If you’d like more information on creating a Facebook advertising campaign that supports your organization’s conversion goals, please schedule a complimentary consultation.

Facebook is the most comprehensive database of consumer data we have at our fingertips today. Based on the information you share, pages and comments you like combined with the matrix of friends in your network, Facebook has developed a complicated and constantly evolving algorithm that can predict both your offline and online behavior.

In the market for a new car? Chances are, Facebook already knows the model you are most likely to buy and is using your data to help its advertisers reinforce your purchasing decision. From romance to political ideologies, there are few secrets between you and Facebook also making it one of the most cost effective research and advertising tools we have at our disposal.

You can harness Facebook’s data to discover what messages, products and/or ideas resonate most with your prospective donors or customers. Until recently, focus groups, which can cost upwards of $30,000 were used to help organizations conduct message testing and other similar type market research. Not only is this method costly, the results cannot be scaled to provide statistically significant data.

Facebook, however, provides a testing platform for advertisers seeking scalable data that focus groups fail to provide. Here’s an overview of how to use Facebook's "Ads Manager" to test campaign messages:

1.     Upload three very different pictures and assign the same ad copy to each.

2.     Run the ad until you are able to collect a statistically significant sample. Typically, this should cost           you between $50 and $100 but may vary depending upon the scope of your intended audience.

3.     You’ll typically find that one photo performs better than the other options you selected. Take                   the top performing image and create another set of ads with three different copy options all using            the same, top performing image.

4.     Again, you will want to run the ad long enough to gather a statistically significant sample.

5.     Once you have identified the winning photo and copy combination, you can select to run your ad             applying your full budget or continue to test to identify more narrow, niche  segments of your target         audience to generate sales or other conversion goals at the most effective cost per click rate.

This data needn’t necessarily be used to inform the selection of ads your organization runs on Facebook. The data you collect can and should be used to help you develop campaigns that utilize other paid platforms extending beyond the digital landscape.

Sunny Orlando recently played host to the annual meeting of the Florida Public Relations Association. This gathering of the top thought leaders in our industry underscored how less is more in this constantly shifting digital landscape we now find ourselves.

From press releases written entirely in emojis to Instagram being flooded with 58,000,000 new photo uploads every day, it was predicted that we’re headed toward an impending contentpocalypse—a future where images have greater value than the written word. Considering Microsoft researchers have recently confirmed humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish thanks to our heavy reliance on smartphones, the fast, visually dominated future seems already to be here.

Over the course of the next few days, we’ll share with you brief summaries of trends, insights and tips gathered from this meeting of the nation’s oldest association of public relations professionals. With our eight seconds to hold your attention already waning, we promise to keep it brief and focused only tactics that can enhance your communications toolbox today.

If you’re more concerned about what you say on social media than what your followers are seeing, you might need to shift your priorities. The emphasis on sharing photos and video has well surpassed the demand for written content on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

It’s also no wonder that the image-focused Vine and Snapchat are among the most favored social media platforms for Millennials. Pinterest attracts 1,090 visitors a minute who stay engaged on the site for an average of 15.8 minutes.

The bottom line is this: demand for the written word is waning. In order to make the most of your social platforms, it’s time to invest in generating the kind of content your audience now wants and expects.

That doesn’t mean you have to spend a ton of money producing expensive videos or hiring a photographer. Your smartphone is your friend.  The pictures and videos you can shoot on your own are more than sufficient. These days, authenticity trumps slick, overproduced creative.

Where to Begin?

Invite your colleagues to begin documenting life at the office. Select and post images that best reflect your organization’s culture and unique personality.

Keep in mind that images that invoke a sense of emotion, whether that is humor or empathy, tend to attract the most attention. Once people are attracted to your image, they are more likely to read and share your message, tweet or post. 

It’s also okay to sprinkle in stock photography here and there to emphasize your message when original photographs are not readily available. Here are some of our favorite free and low cost purveyors of striking stock images:

• 123rf
• New Old Stock
• SplitShire
• Stock Snap 
• Gratisography
  
• Focus Fitness
  
  

Set Measurable Goals

While increasing the volume of visual content you share on your social media platforms is considered a best practice tactic, sharing photos and video without purpose is a waste of time and valuable resources.  It’s important to set goals. Identify the return on investment (ROI) you ultimately want your efforts to yield.

Are you looking to drive more traffic to your website, build brand awareness or generate support for a cause or campaign? Ensuring everyone on your team understands your mission objectives will help guide you in selecting the right visual content to achieve your end goals.