Chapter 4
In This Chapter
Understanding the need for mobile visibility
Investigating Facebook’s mobile presence by the numbers
Optimizing posts for Facebook’s mobile News Feed
Getting your Facebook presence found by mobile searchers
Using Facebook mobile ads to draw new customers
Measuring your results
As mobile platforms — tablets and smartphones — become the devices of choice for millions of users, marketers have no choice but to take notice. Among various mobile properties, Facebook now has high visibility for both its mobile applications and its advertising, in spite of its well-publicized early stumbles.
In this chapter, we look at the importance of expanding your Facebook presence into the mobile environment and how that may affect your posting and search strategies, as well as your advertising tactics. We pay particular attention to the value of using Facebook for mobile advertising in a highly competitive environment. In addition to providing directions for implementing your mobile ad campaigns, we look at how to measure the results of your efforts.
There is no question that mobile devices — including tablets, smartphones, and cellphones — are becoming more popular than desktop computers. In many parts of the world, there are now more mobile devices than people. Facebook, like many other Internet companies, has profited from this rapid growth in mobile adoption. Figure 4-1 indicates this rate of growth.
Mobile users are particularly active, as shown in Figure 4-2, with lots of smartphone users searching for local information, comparing products, and making purchases.
Regardless of whether you’re a Facebook fanatic, as a marketer you can’t ignore the mobile environment for your company’s website and social media. You need a presence where your prospects and customers are.
Assuming that all these facts and figures have convinced you to pay attention to marketing in the mobile environment, what do you need to do? First, optimize your Facebook presence for mobile consumers with a few simple steps.
Users can view your Facebook Page and posts from their mobile devices in two ways:
In any mobile environment, your posts look different from how they appear on a desktop. Photos will be downsized, and long posts may be truncated to fit. The appearance of posts also differs between m.facebook.com and the Facebook app.
The left image in Figure 4-3 (left) shows a News Feed on m.facebook.com (browser version), while the right one shows how a News Feed post appears to someone using the Facebook app.
Pinning special offers or content from your desktop ensures that customers who come to your page on a mobile device will see key information right away. Scrolling is time-consuming on a small screen.
Because of the limited real estate on mobile devices, pin an engaging, visually appealing post or special offer to the top of your Timeline.
Here’s how:
The News Feed is the first page you see when you log in.
A drop-down menu opens.
Your page on your mobile site should now refresh with the post you pinned at the top; the pin is indicated by a little ribbon in the upper-right corner of the post, as shown in a mobile display on Figure 4-4 (right side).
Take pity on your mobile users! Less is more when it comes to mobile posts. Keep posts concise and to the point, leaving out unnecessary details. Use graphics when possible — small files, please! — to make your pinned post more visually appealing.
Pinning special offers or content ensures that customers who come to your Page on a mobile device will see key information right away. Scrolling is time-consuming on a small screen.
The News Feed isn’t all that changes. Other parts of your Facebook Page will look different to mobile users, too, depending on whether they use the Facebook app or come in through their mobile browser.
If you don’t already have it, download the free Facebook app from facebook.com/mobile.
To adjust your Page from the Mobile Browser:
To adjust your Page from the app:
When you preview your page, you may see a map of the business location, contact information, reviews and ratings, check-ins, and/or Likes based on the activity of your Friends.
When you first created your Page, you selected a page type such as Local Business or Place, or Company, Organization, or Institution. The details you will see in the mobile preview depend on the type of page you created. For example, there won’t be a map for an artist, band, or public figure.
Constant Contact’s blog (http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/facebook-mobile-tips) recommends tagging pictures with your business address as well as encouraging customers to upload photos while they’re checked in. The blog is full of other good tips.
Check out your Facebook Page on a mobile phone and on a tablet often. How can you improve it?
You’re hungry. What’s good? Look online. In fact, lots of people use Facebook to find local businesses online. These tips will help:
To make your mobile life as a page admin a little simpler, download the free Page Manager app from the iTunes Store or Google Play Store. With the app, you can review page activity or check mobile analytics directly from your own mobile device.
Many mobile Facebook aficionados prefer to use Places Nearby (Facebook’s own app for mobile search), as shown in Figure 4-6 (left). Users not only can search for your business name or category, but also see what’s around them on a map. Unlike a more neutral search on Google or Yahoo!, Facebook organizes search results by the actions taken by a user’s Friends, including ratings, reviews, personal preferences, and check-ins.
When users tap on a business name, they are taken to the business Page, as shown in Figure 4-6 (right).
To get to Places Nearby on the app, tap the More button in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Under Favorites, select Nearby. In the browser version, tap the three-bar (More) button in the top-left corner of the screen. Under Favorites, select Nearby Places.
Because the results in Places Nearby may not be the closest by distance as they are in other mobile search engines, you can leapfrog your competitors by having more Facebook user engagement than they do. Encourage visitors to check in on Facebook whenever they’re in your store. Use calls to action on the Page itself, on signs, or even considering offering an incentive to check-in. Free cookie, anyone?
It’s worth paying attention to your search presence. With your smartphone, you can use major search engines and Facebook Places Nearby to regularly look for your business.
Facebook has come a long way, baby, from the early days of scorn for its mobile offerings. As we discuss earlier in this chapter, its mobile site is second only to Google as a mobile destination, and its mobile revenues are growing apace.
From a marketing perspective, it’s hard to beat the numbers for Facebook mobile advertising, as shown in Figure 4-7. Facebook mobile ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) and lower cost per click (CPC) than Facebook Ads on desktops. If you’re trying to reach an audience using Facebook, it’s important to factor the mobile option into your marketing mix.
Use your precious advertising dollars only in environments that your target market uses. For instance, you might not want to bother with Facebook mobile ads if you’re targeting teens, whose attention has shifted to other platforms. As always, keep close tabs on the demographic and interest profiles of your users. You can take advantage of the Facebook and third-party analytics tools described in later in this chapter and in Book IX, Chapters 2 and 3.
Facebook mobile ads appear only in users’ News Feeds, unlike desktop ads, which also appear in the right column. As a result, Facebook mobile ads have less competition than in the traditional desktop format, and your ads always gets prime real estate when they do appear. Hence, their better performance.
Optimize your Promoted Posts and Page Post Ads for mobile users as well.
You can configure all types of ads to display in a mobile environment. You can use standard product ads, event ads, offers, or even ads to promote Likes or Page views. Ads can also promote downloads of a proprietary custom app. For example, a custom app might allow mobile users to order a pizza for pick-up from a specific business right from their smartphones. The left image in Figure 4-8 shows a typical mobile product ad in context, and the right side of Figure 4-8 shows an ad that drives users to install a custom app.
Because apps can be expensive to program and maintain under multiple operating systems, custom apps aren’t recommended for most small- to medium-size businesses. Franchise operations are one exception, however. But, all a franchiser may need to do is advertise a custom app developed by the parent company.
Similar to Facebook Offers on a desktop, Offers ads show up in users’ mobile News Feeds. Basically, they perform as a coupon that users can claim right from their smartphones or enter as a promo code when buying from your online store. Figure 4-9 on the left shows an offer for Coastal.com within the context of a News Feed on the Facebook app.
Mobile ads aimed to getting viewers to like a page are designed to increase your Like count. As with the equivalent ads on the desktop, these ads have a built-in Like button for one-click action right from the user’s mobile feed. A typical Like ad appears in Figure 4-9 on the right side.
Mobile users account for one in three new Page Likes! Don’t be shy about asking for a Like.
Similar to Page Post ads on the Facebook desktop, these ads appear can be created as links, photos, text, or video posts, depending on your marketing goals.
Generally, photo, text, or video posts are used to create brand awareness, and Like ads are used to get website conversions (sales or leads).
To make it easier to track results, set up a new, separate campaign for your mobile advertising. At the very least, create separate ads for mobile use within your existing campaign.
You create mobile ads in the Ads Create tool the same way you create desktop ads.
Review Book VII, Chapter 2, to learn more about creating a mobile ad using the Ads Create tool.
You can also create a mobile ad using the Power Editor (see Book VII, Chapter 3), following a similar process.
Continue through the ad creation process. As with other types of ads, you can select CPC or CPM bidding, or bid by objective within the Bidding and Pricing section of the Ads Create tool.
As of this writing, Facebook mobile ads are cheaper than their desktop counterparts.
As with any advertising campaign, it’s important to measure how well your mobile Facebook Page and mobile ads are doing. You can use Google Analytics to view mobile traffic and conversions on your website, and the Facebook’s Ads Manager to measure ad results.
Facebook Insights (discussed in Book IX, Chapter 2) doesn’t differentiate traffic from desktop users versus mobile devices. However, you can see whether visitors to your website have arrived as a referral from a Facebook mobile or Facebook desktop source. You must have Google Analytics installed on your website for this to work. Google Analytics is particularly helpful for comparing traffic and conversion results from Facebook to results from other social media or Google AdWords mobile ads.
For more on Google Analytics, check out Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies by Jan Zimmerman and Deborah Ng (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).
After you have Google Analytics set up on your website, it takes a few steps to see which platforms best deliver referrals to your site: desktop, mobile, or tablet. For more on using Google Analytics, see Book IX, Chapter 3.
When you log in, you should automatically be on the Reporting Page. If not, select the tab on the top, as shown in Figure 4-11.
For statistics on paid mobile ads, use the Facebook Ads Manager the same way you measure your desktop ad results. For more information, see Book VII, Chapter 4. This is easier than Analytics if you need to view only Facebook mobile results independent of other ad sources.
Either set up a separate campaign for mobile ads, or label your mobile ads with the word mobile in the title so you can easily distinguish them.
To see mobile ad results, simply follow these steps:
Figure 4-12 shows a report in Ads Manager that distinguishes between ads that appeared on desktops versus ads that appeared on mobile devices. You can quickly compare the Reach, Frequency, and Impressions for mobile versus desktop ads to see which platform performs better.
Exporting the data into a spreadsheet and generating a graph may help. No matter what the overall published statistics say, the statistics that matter are the ones for your own business.
There’s a sneaky way to measure the results of Offers or Page Promotion posts in Facebook Insights; see Book IX, Chapter 2. If you create an Offer or Page Promotion post using the Power Editor, promote that offer or post only on mobile devices. Under the Posts tab, Facebook Insights will then display how much of the reach for that particular past was paid and how much was organic.