Laura Forer says, “Facebook ad targeting allows marketers to carefully select an audience. It’s a powerful way for Facebook advertisers to hyper-target very specific groups. But ad targeting can also be overwhelming, because there are so many options to choose from. An infographic by Facebook ad agency Advertisemint brings clarity to the ad targeting choices by breaking them down into five categories: 1. Demographics: Targeting options include age, gender, interest, and language, among many others. 2. Connections: Targeting options include people who liked a brand’s Facebook page... [...]

Hope Horner says, “Finally! You can now make real money using Facebook videos. This mega-platform is clearly taking video seriously as an advertising resource — as it should. Historically, Facebook videos have been free of advertisements; but then came last year’s announcement that pre-roll ads would play before videos within Facebook’s Audience Network. And that started brands exploring new ways to leverage video on the platform. What’s become popular over the last year, for example, is in-article ads appearing between paragraphs of text on mobile; they begin playing silently... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “Influencer marketing platform Mavrck has published a many informative statistics for marketers who are using Facebook to speak to their audiences, particularly with how the algorithm has affected user engagement with branded content and general user posting behavior. Using Mavrck’s dataset, which culled data 25 million Facebook posts, they’ve been able to learn quite a lot of what we can expect in the future. Engagement is down In 2016, user engagement went down when compared to 2015. A 15.14 percent decrease in engagements per post compared to 2015 might make marketers... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “A single Facebook page is no longer enough for many big brands or publishers. Neither it seems, is two or three. Now an increasing number are creating numerous Facebook pages in order to reach the biggest audience possible. Of course, it’s not always appropriate or realistic to do this, with some arguing that it can dilute quality and even damage brand perception. So what’s the answer? Here are a few pros and cons to help weigh up the argument. Pros Greater impact While Facebook pages used to be a destination – the place users went to be able to consume content... [...]

Chris Kerns says, “Likes are so yesterday. Don’t get me wrong — I love Likes. They continue to serve as a simple way for people to show support for a thought, product offering or opinion, and they have provided marketers with a valuable tool to measure media effectiveness. Unlike the one-way nature of other media, social feedback mechanisms allow you to see how your audience is responding to different types of content with one lightning-fast, simple metric. But ever since Facebook Reactions were introduced, things have become a bit more complicated. A Like has always signified support... [...]

Tim Peterson says, “In an effort to rebuild advertisers’ trust following a series of measurement errors last year, Facebook has moved to make its ad measurements more transparent and give advertisers more control over what they are buying. Facebook has agreed to let the media industry’s independent measurement monitor, Media Rating Council (MRC), audit the measurements it provides advertisers, the company announced on Friday. The news, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, follows talks between the company and industry watchdog in December that were fueled by an industry increasingly... [...]

Kerry Flynn says, “You may scroll through something so fast on Facebook that you don’t notice it. But Facebook wants every moment to count — at least in what it presents to advertisers. The company announced Friday they will provide millisecond-level data for ads on Facebook, Instagram and its online ad ecosystem Audience Network. Now, for the first time through Facebook, advertisers can see how long their ads were seen by the millisecond. That includes how many milliseconds overall the ad was on a screen and then broken out into how many milliseconds 100 percent of the ad was on... [...]

Bloomberg team says, “Facebook Inc. agreed to submit to audits by the media industry’s measurement watchdog, the Media Rating Council, a move that could appease some advertising executives who had become skeptical of the social network’s metrics. Facebook had come under fire recently after a series of missteps in which it disclosed several mistakes in reporting metrics to partners and advertisers. The company conducted its own review of practices and vowed to be more transparent about errors in the future. According to plans for the next year laid out in a statement Friday, Facebook... [...]

Antony Maina says, “Should you be using Facebook Live for your business? Is it worth your time and effort? According to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), videos (live and otherwise) are viewed more than four billion times per day. And with Facebook giving priority to live videos in the news feed, you certainly may want to consider this service for getting your business message out. So how can you make use of Facebook Live to engage with the platform’s over 1.1 billion active daily users, or at least those users who are likely to be customers? Here are a few tips. Ways to Use Facebook Live for Your... [...]

Tamar Weinberg says, “Late last year, Facebook committed to updating its ad targeting practices to prevent discrimination for housing, employment or credit-related ads. Today, the company is putting its ad discrimination policy into practice with policy updates, tools and further education. Policy updates Facebook is strengthening its stance with clearly defined prohibitions against ads with discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, disability or medical/genetic condition. Education Facebook... [...]