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How To Use Facebook Audience Insights To Discover New Targets

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In our last blog post about how to use Facebook Audience Insights, we blew the lid off how to understand the treasure trove of data available.

Today, we are building upon that to show you HOW to actually use the tool 🙂

How To Set Audiences in Facebook Audience Insights

  • In the navigation, go to Audience Insights

  • Select ‘Everyone On Facebook’
  • Set the audience Age, Gender, and Location

  • Set any interest targeting

 

3 Audience Insight Pro Tips

#1 – Under the Advanced audience settings, you have access to eight other types of audience filters. Use this to get into people’s lives. Leverage information such as their relationship status, parental status, or even political leaning for deeper targeting.

You can pick out and analyze very precise targets

#2 – Get insights into your own Pages by adding in the Page connection filter. Please note you won’t be able to get data if the page doesn’t have enough Likes. Use this to find natural affinities between your business and other brands.

#3 – If you find an audience you want to run some ads at, use the Save button to create an official Audience asset.

Now, you not only know how to read the data, but also how to create your own audiences that can be used in your ad campaigns. Remember, this isn’t limited to the targeting either. Take what you have learned and use it in the content of your ads as well!

How To Use Facebook Audience Insights To Understand Targeting

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If data is the future, Facebook is sitting on a whole mountain of it. Smart business owners can actually mine for insights all they want, for free. The only cost is your time and brain power.

There is a tool called Audience Insights, and not many people know HOW to use it.

My goal for this article is to share how you can leverage this robust data sifting tool to find new and exciting targeting opportunities. One can also use this tool to validate customer avatars as well, if they are so inclined.

In over-simple terms, Audience Insights gives you a looking glass into the corpus of user data available. Not all the user data, but certainly enough to do the job. 

On the left of the tool are your audience settings (which we will dig into in another blog post). On the right of the tool, are all the tasty data available in different slices. Should you find an audience slice you really like, you can create a formal Audience to run ads at the top of the tool.

Facebook Audience Insights gives you access into four distinct views of the Facebook users you’ve chosen in the audience settings. Later we will dive much deeper into how these views work. The four views you can see are:

  1. Demographic information such as age, gender, relationship status, education level, and job title.
  2. Page Like information such as top categories and relevant pages.
  3. Location information available by city, country, and language.
  4. Activity information such as how often the selected audience comments or likes a page; also see device usage in this view.

For some of these views, you can also see how your chosen audience compares to the average Facebook user.

As an example, when you look at people who like Coca-Cola in America, they are 27% less likely to be married than the average Facebook user. A simple insight such as this can help you refine your ad targeting. A competitor soda might exclude married people from their ad targeting to try and take some of Coke’s market share.

I believe that most people get confused about Audience Insights because they aren’t sure WHY they are using the tool. The various ways you can tune and select audiences leads to nearly limitless possibility, which can add to the confusion.

To demystify things, let’s look at how to read each view once you have selected an audience (which we show how to do later in the article).

 

#1 of 4 – How to Understand Demographic View of Audience Insights

The Demographic view shows your audience, the blue bar, and how it stacks up against the average Facebook user. You can hover over the bars for more information. You can even click the bar to add those audience filters to your existing selection.

For those who like Coca-Cola, they are generally younger and not married.

Scrolling further down shows the Job Title and industry information. The bars work the same except they are horizontal. The compare column shows how much more likely your selected audience is to be in that industry. Running ads that are segmented by industry is a great test to see who is really responding to your content.

Food and restaurants employment are 52% more likely than the average Facebook user for people who like Coca-Cola.

 

# 2 of 4 – How to Understand Page Likes View of Audience Insights

The Page Likes view shows two main chunks of data. First, you can see the top page categories liked by your selected audience. The tool will show 10 categories by default, and you can show more than 30 if you click ‘See All’. Second, you can see related pages and their audience affinities.

Coca-Cola fans really love Hershey’s and Steak ‘n Shake. Targeting these brands might be good for top of funnel awareness if one were a soda competitor.

The relevant pages and affinity section can be sorted by relevance, audience size, and affinity. This can expose other potential targets for advertising.

People who like Coca-Cola are 1,097x more likely to also like Gold Peak Tea- another member of the Coca-Cola brand.

Sometimes, you can find unexpected targeting opportunities. For example, a soda competitor would probably have good luck targeting a specific brand given the data above. That might not be super obvious before one looks at the data.

 

#3 of 4 – How to Understand Location View of Audience Insights

The Location view allows you to view your selected audience by top cities, countries and languages. This one is pretty self explanatory.

Fun tip: use this to sleuth out popular local places because you can click on the bars. Again, another rich source of potential targeting opportunities.

Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas are the biggest states for Coca-Cola.

I clicked on the Indianapolis bar and went to the Page Likes. These are all popular local places that are enjoyed by people who like Coca-Cola. One might consider geo-targeting these locations for highly targeted ads.

 

#4 of 4 – How to Understand Activity View of Audience Insights

The Activity view allows you to view your selected audience’s behavior on Facebook as well as some device information. While you can’t click on any of the bars in this view, the behavior data is still highly valuable.

Compared to the average Facebook user, Coca-Cola fans are much more inclined to Like a page, like a post, leave a comment, share a post, or click on an ad.

The only thing notable about American Coca-Cola fans, are that they are 19% more likely to use an iPhone/iPod than the average Facebook user.

There is a setting to change to the Primary Device usage in the upper right of the pane. This means that you are looking at the most used device by a user, rather than the combination of devices (i.e. phone, computer, tablet).

However, if we are only looking at the primary device, a Coca-Cola fan is more likely to be an Android user.

Now that you understand how to read the data, hopefully you can see how this information would be valuable to your business.

Again, there is a LOT of information here. Don’t get overwhelmed. Pick an idea and go with it.

Want to split test Apple vs. Android users? Try it out. Want to only go for single people because the data says so? Give it a shot.

The best part about running social ads is that you can take many shots on goal. By gleaning insight from this tool, you should be able to take more educated and profitable shots at goal.

In a future article, we will show you the best part of this tool…setting audiences!

For now, play around and see what you can discover 🙂

How to create, edit, share, and boost a WHY video

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Do you have a WHY behind what you do? People are more likely to buy from someone who has a story or mission that they identify with. We believe that the best way to share your stories or mission in an engaging way is through the use of a WHY video. A WHY video defines your reason, or your passion, and it is important to utilize the power of video content and social media to effectively share this with your desired audience.

Video is the most powerful ingredient of your personal brand, starting with your story and amplified by the stories of your ambassadors. It starts with you. Whether you’ve been regularly creating content for 10 years or have never written an article in your life, you’ll be able to easily create a WHY video by following this step-by-step process.

Before filming your WHY video, it is important to consider what your strategy is. There are three main components that make up your strategy: your goals, content, and targeting. When you go to produce or distribute a piece of content, think about what your end goal is. What type of content do you need to produce to achieve this, and what demographics or audiences should see this content? This is the idea behind Goals, Content, and Targeting, or #GCT. By considering these components for your own strategy, you will be able to produce and distribute much more effective video content.

Once you have an idea of what content you’d like to create, it’s go time! There are 4 main components to filming your video. The first is to begin with a hook, or something to quickly capture your audience’s attention as they scroll through their feed. This could be done by movement or something you say. Once you have their attention, you must retain it by bringing them along a journey that will ignite pain or pleasure for them. Here you could tell a story, show a success or failure, or clarify a benefit. At this point, the audience is ready to be presented with a solution or resolution to the story, and you can show that what you offer is that solution. Now the audience is ready to be given a call to action. What should they do as a result of hearing your message? Although these 4 components are more general to any one-minute video you make, they can be applied to producing a WHY video and should be considered when making your own.

In making any video, the key is not to overcomplicate it. No need for fancy equipment– have a friend film you on a cell phone camera, or if you’re by yourself, you can take a selfie video. We have found that vertical or square videos with captioning often perform best due to the fact that they fill most of the screen on mobile devices, which is where the majority of social media users will be. This style of video also comes across as more feed-like and personal, and something people will be much more inclined to stick around and watch as opposed to a professionally-made advertisement.

The biggest issue we see people run into in making their videos is camera shyness and overthinking what they’re going to say. These can both be overcome with repetition and practice, but our biggest piece of advice is to allow yourself to speak from the heart. We believe that sharing your authentic self is much more natural and powerful, because people trust people. As our CEO Dennis Yu says, “Being real is more important than being perfect.”

If necessary, you can edit your video with a headline, captioning, lower-thirds, etc. These help to optimize your videos for views even when people don’t have their sound on.

Once you have the final version of your WHY video, you’re ready to share it. You can upload your video to multiple places, including your Facebook public figure page, LinkedIn page, Twitter, etc. We call this process of sharing a piece of content to multiple platforms “cross-posting”, and by doing this, it will help you to reach more people. Write compelling copy, add automatic subtitles if you don’t already have captioning, and click “Share”.

After publishing your post, the final step we recommend is to boost your post on your Facebook public figure page using the Dollar a Day strategy. (If you have not already created a Facebook public figure page for your business or personal brand, we highly recommend doing so). Boosting is when you put some spend behind a post to help it reach more people who you’d like to see your content. By spending as little as one dollar per day, you’ll be able to gain enough information after several days to help you determine if the post will be a likely winner, based on how it compares to the Standards of Excellence. This low-spend strategy also allows you to test multiple posts and audiences at the same time without breaking the bank, so you can then determine which is receiving the best engagement and should continue to have spend put behind it.

Congratulations! You’ve just successfully created, edited, shared, and boosted your WHY video. This same step-by-step process can be applied to creating any one-minute video, and we highly recommend following this process of determining your goals, content, and targeting and amplifying your video using the Dollar a Day strategy in order to effectively produce, publish, and distribute content going forward.

(P.S.– To see examples of WHY videos, be sure to check out the many videos we have on the “Why” section of our website)

How To Write For Facebook Dynamic Creative Ads

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How To Write Facebook Dynamic Creative Ads

If writing is a challenge for you, the prospect of having to write multiple headlines and texts for a Dynamic Creative ad may stress you out. Fortunately, the more you write, the better (and faster) you’ll get.

To help out, here are 13 angles you can try in your Dynamic Creative campaigns:

  1. The “New” Angle – Brand New Burger Truck Open Now! Vegetarian-friendly too.
  2. The “SHOUT” Angle – RED OWL BURGERS AND BREW NOW OPEN! FRIES! BEER! VEGANS LOVE THE IMPOSSIBLE BURGER!
  3. The “How to Yay w/o Boo” Angle – How to satisfy that burger and beer craving without messing up your kitchen: Red Owl Burgers and Brew ??
  4. The “Inclusion” Angle – Join your people and feed yourself burgers and beer amongst friends.
  5. The “Exclusion” Angle – Burgers! Beers! Red Owl! No wimpy drive-thru burgers allowed!
  6. The “Benefit” Angle – Red Owl Burger and Brews. Enjoy the mouth-watering smell of our craft burgers.
  7. The “Logic” Angle – Don’t you love a high-quality burger AND beer. So do we. That’s all we sell. Why not come by tonight? Have you eaten yet?
  8. The “Man on a Mission” Angle – Paul Benson was on a mission to deliver world-class burgers out of a food truck. Not only did he nail it, but he also nailed it for vegetarians. Mission accomplished!
  9. The “Newsjack” Angle – This angle is about taking any of these angles and hooking into a topical event. Right now, as I write this in early May 2019 as an American, I could talk about the Mueller report and somehow connect it to food and burgers. Or beer, for a fun spin on things (i.e. ‘Sorry for the Mueller Report everyone, they got hammered at Red Owl Burgers & Brews first…’).
  10. The “Gain” Angle – You know that satisfying feeling when there is a burger and some beer in your belly? You can have that. Right now.
  11. The “Dog Whistle” Angle – Burger and Beer Lovers! Come to Red Owl Burger & Brews ??
  12. The “Touchstone” Angle – If you were in the kitchen with Paul Benson in 2018, you witnessed the evolution of today’s notoriously good burgers. While that part is history, you can benefit from all that hard work and testing now.
  13. The “Fear of Missing Out” Angle – The smell of cooking burgers..the crisp, refreshing beers…you wish you were here.

 

Remember, you can also use these for headline ideas too.

Don’t overthink it. People are reasonably forgiving of bad writing. Over time, you’ll improve. And thanks to Dynamic Creative, you’ll be able to see which kinds of angles work for your audience (and, more importantly, which don’t). You can always write variations of the same aspects. The same goes for images when using Dynamic Creation: you can find similar or modified versions of working ones.

Age Doesn’t Matter: Why Age Restrictions on Your Facebook Page Won’t Hurt Your SEO

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In an effort to keep young people safe, Facebook now requires you to add an age restriction to your page if you are displaying content related to subscription services, student loan services, or dating apps.

In other words, anyone under the age of 18 will not be able to view your Facebook page.

Setting an age restriction is often necessary to comply with Facebook’s guidelines. Obviously, this will restrict how many Facebook users are able to view your content.  The question is this:

Will setting an age restriction on your Facebook page impact the organic results you get from people doing Google searches?

Believe it or not, the answer is no!

Here’s why:

  1. Google only identifies Facebook home pages in its search results, not individual posts which may have restricted content. A comparison of Facebook pages with and without age restrictions shows that the organic traffic sent over from Google follows the same pattern for both types of page.
  2. If we’re being honest, then we’ll admit that Google isn’t too interested in displaying Facebook content in their search results anyway.  In the same way, Facebook isn’t too interested in displaying Google content (including YouTube videos) in their feeds either. So restricting views in one area really doesn’t have much of an effect on the other.

Bottom Line:  When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and online visibility, age really doesn’t matter.

Don’t waste your time going through every old post and scrubbing out every reference to guns or other 18+ content – it won’t impact your search engine activity and just isn’t worth the time or the energy you’ll spend!

Nor is it worth agonizing over how to get more Facebook organic traffic results from Google searches. This is a waste of time. It will not help you keep your marketing priorities in line, grow your business revenue, or increase your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).  

When it comes to optimizing your search engine results, age really doesn’t matter!

Why Most Small Businesses Fail on Facebook

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Most small business owners are terrified to press the red button.

Not because it’s going to initiate some catastrophic event or set off the emergency alarm, but because they are paralyzed by the camera.

Small business owners that can’t make videos are like sprinters trying to win a race with shackles around their ankles

Facebook is a film to play platform. [Read more…]

How to Become World-Class at Digital Marketing in 2 Years

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To master a skill and become world-class, we all know it takes 10,000 hours, a rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. That gets a little bit old though doesn’t it?

Is there a way to truly master Digital Marketing in short amount of time?

For the most part, probably not.

Especially if you consider the definition of a master: someone who acquires complete knowledge or skill on a focused topic. Even world-class performers won’t consider themselves “masters” having the humility in knowing there’s an infinity of nuances to learn and hone.

But is there a way to become good?

A way to become great?

A way to become world-class?

Hell to the Yeah.

Logan Young: The King of Facebook

Take my friend Logan Young who was coined the King of Facebook by StartCon, Australia’s Largest Startup & Growth Conference.

He’s the co-founder of BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that implements social campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the world like the Golden State Warriors, Nike, and MGM.

He’s an internationally known speaker and speaks at some of the largest stages in Marketing like Social Marketing World, VendastaCon and Growth Marketing Conference.

You know how people say they’re good? Try this one for size.

One time Mark Zuckerberg came up to Logan and asked him for a picture.

In a world of so many self-proclaimed Marketing “experts” and “gurus” out there, it’s easy to lose sight of who has real credibility. Those who get unsolicited praise yet alone get asked for pictures from guys like Mark, now that’s true authority.

Another way to see if someone’s truly an expert is to ask if they’re someone who publishes their knowledge freely and openly.

Logan has written extensively on his blog and gives world-class value on Facebook Marketing.

Did I mention he’s only 27 and he started 2 years ago?

Hard to believe but everything is true.

So how did Logan become a “master” at Digital Marketing and how can you become a master as well?

Not so long ago, Logan was a high school student working at a Subway getting paid minimum wage. One time as he was working he was even held-up at gunpoint.

Just several years later, he became a student at Brigham Young University and studied advertising.

It wasn’t until he reached out to Dennis Yu, a Marketing Pioneer, that he started his apprenticeship and quickly closed the gap to become world-class in the span of two years.

He found a true Master.

To Master Digital Marketing, Identify A True Master

Dennis Yu is an internationally renown speaker on Facebook Marketing. He’s keynoted for the Biggest Stages in the Industry such as L2E, PubCon, and Conversion Conference.

Dennis has over 50,000 hours of Digital Marketing experience and it’s taken him a lifetime to get there.

Through mentorship, Dennis quickly handed the keys of the kingdom and taught Logan everything he knew about Digital Marketing.

The only way this was able to work was Dennis systematized his decades of experience through a collection of checklists and documented processes.

Logan went through a phase of Learning, Doing and Teaching.

At the start of his Marketing Career, he was working on his foundation and drank the water hose of knowledge and technical expertise Dennis was throwing at him.

Then once Logan grasped the material, he began Doing and working with clients like the Golden State Warriors and Ashely Furniture.

Eventually, he gained the competency to teach upcoming young-adults and now manages and is head-trainer for the 53-person company he co-founded with Dennis, BlitzMetrics.

All along the way, Dennis offered him the guidance and mentorship but at the end of the day, it was Logan who implemented.

Hard-work was critical to the recipe.

In fact, the first time Logan met Dennis, Logan drove 13 hours to meet Dennis and every minute along the way, he studied the marketing materials Dennis gave him.

When it comes to mentorship, Dennis was Logan’s Yoda.

It was as much as Dennis mentorship that helped Logan become a master but also Logan’s diligence and relentless work ethic. So let’s say you have the discipline and work-ethic.

How do you identify your Yoda?

How to Identify a True Master

Unfortunately, without some skin in the marketing game, it’s very difficult to identify who’s truly a pro and who’s a fake.

Amateur Marketers get away with just knowing one new feature or one new tool to stay ahead of the customer but that doesn’t mean they’re true experts.

Here are some guidelines for identifying a true master:

  1. Do they have a track record of case studies that are published for anyone to see?

    1. Look at what AdWeek had to say on how Dennis helped the Golden Warriors boost Ticket Sales.

  2. Do they publish their knowledge and expertise freely?

    1. Read the hundreds of posts Dennis has authored over the years talking about Digital Marketing at Dennis-Yu.com

Consider these two factors, and you’re well on your way.

Shortcut Your Time

Logan started off 2 years ago with minimal knowledge in digital marketing. (The guy was working at Pizza Hut 2 years ago!)

Today, he is at the forefront of Marketing Innovation and just this past weekend was asked to be on the Board of Advisory for Mobile Monkey, the top Facebook Messenger platform company, founded by Larry Kim of WordStream.

Follow Logan’s footsteps and seek out a true “master” at Digital Marketing. Do that and you’ll be able to take a shortcut your time.

You never know, you might be on CNN one day weighing in on Facebook.

This weekend I talked to Dennis and he said it took him 20 years to get to the point where he’s at and in just 6 months through his training and mentorship he can get guys like Logan and guys like me to that stage.

If you want to learn more about the processes and checklists Dennis has spent 20 years on, start by following our BlitzMetrics Facebook page and bookmarking our BlitzMetrics Blog.

I can’t promise you’ll be the King of Digital Marketing in 2 years but I can guarantee you that you’ll be taking the fast-track.

____

Kenny Hoang is an Entrepreneur, Speaker and Mixed Martial Artist. He is the Manager of Optimization at BlitzMetrics and Founder of Adapt Modern, a boutique agency servicing MMA Gyms and Martial Arts Schools.  He publishes thoughtful essays and practical how-to’s on the topics of growth and impact, marketing fundamentals, and artificial intelligence at kenny.app.

Our leader was accused of exploiting third world labor — a view from one of the “exploited”

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A few months ago, the social media community had been on fire about a comment made by Mark Williams, an executive at LiveWorld, Inc., on a post of Dennis Yu, Chief Technology Officer at BlitzMetrics, saying that hiring offshore at $3/hour rate is exploitation.

Ironic isn’t it? Considering his role at Wal-Mart was managing the negative social comments about how they mistreat their employees.

This statement gained a lot of comments and reactions from different people. 

 

 

Standard wages are relative to the national economy.

John Jonas, Founder of onlinejobs.ph commented “The original trolling was actually about the ethics of paying someone a different amount than what a job was “worth”. That argument doesn’t hold up even in the USA as companies move from expensive places (San Fran) to less expensive places (Utah) to save money. Sometimes the moves are necessary just to stay in business.”

More of his comment are shown in the image.

The standard cost of living varies from country to country, and so does the standard wage. A dollar in the Philippines goes much further than a dollar in New York City. Ten dollars will pay for much less stuff in America than its equivalent in peso will buy in the Philippines.

As such, paying someone a wage based on their economy is in no way exploitation – this is what Matt Plapp, Head ROI Expert at Driven Media Solutions said in his comment; giving examples of how his friends in Kentucky, New York and L.A. have the same job but all paid different wages based on the economics of that region.

Outsourcing gives growing businesses a competitive edge.

The natural outcome is for businesses get labor from less developed countries because they can hire at a lower cost than they can locally. Thus, reducing cost but not compromising the quality of work.

Outsourcing benefits not just the clients but the employees as well. John Huntinghouse, the Digital Content Manager for Epic Marketing, said, “Outsourcing a great team = better results for the clients and improved living wages for employees. This is a main driver of how countries grow, economically speaking, to allow them to thrive and have higher standards of living. Every life matters and efforts in improving the lives of families in other countries shouldn’t be constantly viewed as a negative.”

 

Let’s take a look at some of the comments made by other business owners who outsource.

John remarked on the pains of hiring locally and expressed how VAs in the Philippines helped him achieve his mission.

Julia McCoy of Express Writers shared her thoughts on hiring offshore.

Chris Ducker, also known as the the “Virtual CEO”, a serial entrepreneur who owns and operates three businesses in the Philippines, also made his comment about his incredible Filipino staff.

Jeff Hunter, an Outsourcing Tycoon  said he does not discriminate when it comes to talent.

And the accused, Dennis Yu, who actually treats his VAs like family.

There is no doubt VAs can make reliable, cost-effective employees for businesses, but how do they feel about their wages?

Here are the comments of some of BlitzMetrics VAs that are paid with a starting wage of $3/hour.

Ping agreed that the same job in New York won’t get you the same pay in another state and that $3/hour is just the right rate for new hire.

“I don’t feel exploited.” Alain said. He believes he is receiving a fair rate as the cost of living in the Philippines is lowered compared to the Western countries. And, as his skill set grows, so will the pay.

While having time to enjoy his family and hobbies because of the flexible schedule, Tom is okay with his pay as he gets to work with awesome brands. “Exert more effort if you want to rise faster,” he said.

G’Ralz explained why $3/hour is way above than the minimum wage in the Philippines. He values the relationships built and the opportunity to create impact more than a few extra dollars per hour.

Kim feels that she gets more than what she contributes right now. The training and guidance from the company helps her improve everyday. Besides, nobody said it’s going to be $3/hour forever!

Working is never about JUST the pay.

More than just receiving great pay, we, employees seek more — satisfaction, good work relationships, and training and development. We are all human beings, after all.

Being treated as family is what really counts. That’s why I am just so blessed to be part of BlitzMetrics! We are not machines, we are a team working together from different parts of the planet, coordinating online and in person.

                                                                                                                         

And, we don’t just work and learn, we also love to have fun!

   

                                                                                                        Pardon the crappy picture. ☺

So, to sum this up:

  • The value of a dollar varies from place to place, and so does the standard wage. A $3/hour rate in New York is way too low, but it can feed a family in the Philippines.
  • Outsourcing helps businesses grow as it is cost-effective, efficient, and strategic. At the same time, it gives life-changing opportunities to offshore employees.
  • $3/hour is just a STARTING rate, which means, you’ll get a raise based on your performance. Your pay depends on the effort you exert. Plus, you’re not going to do it on your own, you have mentors and teammates to help you out!
  • Working is more than just the pay that we’re getting. It’s a big check to be in a company that offers respect, provides opportunity, extends appreciation, and above all, remains open to feedback on how the company could do better to serve clients and build the team.

A $3/hour STARTING rate to work from home with a flexible schedule and a very supportive team is definitely a great catch for us here in the Philippines. You see, I’m a full time mother and a full time employee at the same time. Others may see the pay as exploitive but believe it or not, I earn more than my husband gets from working locally!

If exploiting can help build a family’s future, then I’d love to be exploited! LOL

That’s my take. How about yours?

 

P.S.

The power of the community has turned Mark Williams around to see his error. He said that it was not his intention to hurt anyone’s feelings or disparage anyone and he apologized to everyone he has offended. Now, he is studying the programs of BlitzMetrics and sees the awesomeness of the VAs —  loyal, joyful, hard-working people.

The Real Story of the Latest Facebook Scandal and Zuckerberg’s Hearing

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The media continues to contort this Cambridge Analytica-Facebook story. I was just on CNN International to shed some light on this “scandal.”

This is what you need to know about the Facebook Fiasco.

1) Facebook cannot solve this problem.

There was no data breach. It was never possible for Cambridge Analytica to use that data for personalized targeting.

This is a user education issue disguised as a security problem.

2) Almost everything you hear about this situation is horribly misinformed.

Cambridge Analytica, the self-proclaimed experts, and the media are not engineers, so they manipulate the public for whatever story sounds best to them, regardless of the facts.

3) Government regulation isn’t the answer, either.

These smart, underpaid lawyers, some who have data science backgrounds, understand that “something must be done”, but don’t have a technical solution when the masses willingly give away their data to any app, social network, manufacturer, or retailer.

4) The situation is only going to get worse.

Holding attention is the primary goal for Facebook, since more attention means more ads served. The algorithms of Facebook and Google use Relevance Score and Quality Score to seek the highest engagement rate, so incendiary content naturally wins.

5) People will gradually see Facebook as the obvious scapegoat.

Facebook will be the lightning rod, while the massive network of companies that have truly scary data powers (I’ve seen what they do first-hand and you have never heard of them) will quietly keep growing.

6) The thing that will perhaps kill Facebook is their reaction to regulation and public outcry, not the actions themselves.

In the midst of their crisis, which they have only finally admitted is a problem, they ignore advocates like us who understand the system and have 3rd party, objective authority to educate the public about how to behave online.

Here’s my take from my recent segment on CNN.

HOWELL: From an insider perspective, an industry inside or like yourself. I’d like to get your thoughts about Zuckerberg’s apology, saying that they didn’t do enough at the time.

YU: George, it wasn’t much they’d really could have done because there is no way that by sharing someone else’s data that they could have used that for targeting… the data was only available to the particular app that collected it.

They didn’t have a security or a privacy breach… Someone shared data that wasn’t even really usable, right? So, Facebook had to apologize for breach of trust, but there wasn’t a privacy issue. So, they are trying to apologize for something where there’s not a clear problem or issue to solve.

Howell and I have discussed this several times on the air now. Here’s a video of another one of our segments.

Since that broadcast, Facebook has taken drastic action by removing data from the ads interface and rolling out a timeline for the removal of third party data from the platform.

Facebook is taking preemptive measures to get ahead of the regulators in Washington, as Zuckerberg goes to Capitol Hill.

Logan was just on CNN talking about what Facebook and its users can expect in coming weeks. We already know some of what’s coming.

 

We’ve seen the specific action plan Facebook put in place to remove third-party targeting options. Here’s a note from our Facebook rep at Blitz:

“Specifically, over the next six months, we will remove the ability to use Partner Categories, a targeting solution that enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While leveraging third-party data is a common industry practice and we’ve put good protections in place, we believe this step will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook.

  • May 10: After this date, you will no longer be able to create or edit campaign using Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France; however, they will be allowed to continue running until May 24.
  • May 25: We will no longer deliver to Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France, and these targeting options will no longer be available for use on our platform. You will be notified to update any targeting containing impacted Partner Categories before this date.
  • June 30: Last day for creating new or editing existing campaigns using non-EU Partner Categories; they will be allowed to run until September 30.
  • October 1: All other Partner Categories will no longer be available as targeting options on our platform and we will stop delivering against these audiences. You will be notified to update your targeting by this date.”

Things are getting harder for us advertisers.

They are banning ad accounts left and right with no appeal process—their judgment is swift, and their ruling is final.

Meanwhile, we see ads like this on LinkedIn.

If SnackNation were to try this on Facebook, they’d get shut down in a second.

While Facebook takes the heat, everyone else is quietly making ads on LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, Quora, and other places that have crazy good targeting and hardly any oversight.

But the average Facebook user isn’t privy to this, and good luck trying to explain to the media with their pre-formed bias.

Unable to educate, Facebook must APPEAR compliant, so they removed most of the publicly visible targeting options, which they acknowledge weren’t used heavily anyway. It was just a few people making noise to the media on something that could happen, but in practice never did.

And all of this noise when, in reality, the data and targeting under the hood only grows more powerful.

The Facebook money-printing engine hums along just fine, with advertisers hooking up their business via the Facebook IV and pressing the vending machine style buttons for the business result they want.

Besides, it seems that everyone forgot they have to delete Instagram too.

 

Publishing Your Unpublished (Dark) Posts on Facebook

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If you’re running ads on Facebook, you probably already know what a unpublished (dark) post is. Just in case you don’t know, it’s a post that is used to promote your message to people without being on your Facebook page. I wrote an article on the HostGator blog if you need more detail on what a dark post is and how to create it.

Dark posts are great because you can do many different things with them. One example is that you can run different ads to test how a message will perform in front of an audience. But after you’ve found the winning message, what do you do now? Recreate the post and press Publish?

Sure – you can do that. But then you lose the value of the ads you paid for, the social proof. All of the likes, comments, and shares are now gone because it’s a new post.

With this post, I’m going to show you how you can publish your post live to your page so that it can begin earning organic reach. Since it already has social proof from the paid reach, it will publish to the page with the same reach and hopefully gather more engagement.
Please watch this video for more details. If you are unable to watch the video, I’ve included the steps below.



Step 1 – In your ad manager, click the hamburger on the top left of the page.

 Choosing Page Posts in Power Editor

Step 2 – Hover over “All Tools” and then select the Page Posts option. This will show you all of your dark posts by default. If you need to, you can change your page on the top left.

Options Within Power Editor's All Tools

Step 3 – Select the post you wish to publish. You can use their search feature to help identify your post.

How To Get An Ad Post on Your Facebook Page

Step 4 – Next to the search feature is the Actions drop down. Click that and select Publish. This will publish the post live to your page.

Publishing An Ad Post

I hope you found this tip to be helpful. If you have any questions about these steps, or what you can do in Facebook in general, please leave a comment and we will be happy to give you more details.