Social media marketing has long been touted as a fast, easy, and cheap way to advertise your business online. The most appealing aspect for small business owners has always been the user-friendliness, the ease of use, and the intuitive interface (especially as compared to other social media’s advertising platforms).
However, that’s all changing.
With the recent scandals that have rocked Facebook to its very core have come several aftershocks, many of which will (or already have) hit your social advertising, hard. In fact, we’d wager that you found this article while searching something along the lines of “how do I advertise on Facebook now?”
You don’t have to tell us if we’re right … just fill out the form at the bottom of this blog.
Although TechArk recently enjoyed its sixth birthday as a company, our employees are actually much older than six (we hear we look young, though). Our digital marketeers, in particular, have been advertising on social media since the dark days of 2009 (Myspace was still a BIG deal, Facebook was becoming A Thing).
Facebook recently pulled ALL third-party integrated data. That means that a lot of the targeting data you’ve relied on to find your customers is gone, wiped out, eliminated. What’s missing? Targeting by income, in-market behaviors (car shopping, etc) and any information not provided by the user directly to Facebook.
From now on, ad copy can refer generally to characteristics such as age or parenthood, but can’t imply anything about the age or parental status of the user seeing the ad. Nudity has always been heavily monitored on Facebook, but they’re getting even more granular now—even rejecting ads for linking to a website with nudity. If your destination URLs contain nudity (or even too many people in beige leggings) then your ads may be denied.
As a plastic surgeon, fashion brand, or beachy tourism company, this could be devastating for your current marketing strategy. You may be back to square one, my friend, but here’s the thing:
You are not alone.
Everybody was kicked back to the middle ages of marketing on social media, but only a select few have experience in that realm. TechArk’s marketing team has been placing ads on Facebook for almost ten years-and Facebook’s only been offering advertising for eleven. We know how to work without third-party data because it’s always just been a bonus to us anyways.
We’re happy to take on your Facebook advertising now that the guidelines have gotten so strict but in case you’d like to try to DIY first, here’s a few workaround tips:
- Install a Facebook pixel on your website and use it for remarketing
- Import any existing email lists, as long as you’ve received permission for marketing from subscribers
- Build detailed customer personas and target them via interests, demographics, and behaviors still available through Facebook’s advertising interface
- Diversify your online advertising budget to include Google Advertising and other social media platforms
We hope these expert tricks work out for you, and we’ll update our blog with any news from Facebook. Stay positive and stay online, small business owner. There is hope.
If it’s all Geek to you, don’t worry. We speak Geek & we Talk Tech, so we know how to help.
FB ads will never be the same again.
