A whopping $8.4B is going to be spent on Halloween this year. So, check out these tips and tricks to capture those treats (and to plan some tricks for next year). Read the full article at MarketingProfs
Trick or Treat Your Way Into Halloween Sales [Infographic]
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Saturday, 29 October 2016
Trick or Treat Your Way Into Halloween Sales [Infographic]
Friday, 28 October 2016
Shutterstock Editor, Adobe Spark Post & Canva: A Side-by-Side Comparison of Social Media Image Editing Tools
Creating stellar social media content used to require not only paying for Photoshop, but the graphic design skills to go along with it.
This used to create a big challenge for SMBs and smaller brands that did not have a graphic designer at their disposal, but thanks to the emergence of some incredible tools, businesses small and large alike can now create professional looking social media imagery within minutes.
There are many options available now, so we're going to dig down into the differences between each of the most prominent platforms, including the newest addition to the pack: the Shutterstock Editor.
Let's get ready to create!
Shutterstock Editor
As a natural extension of their core stock photography business, the Shutterstock Editor is a free tool for Shutterstock users that was created “to give businesses a fast, simple, and streamlined tool that helps them create with confidence.”
Meet the Shutterstock Editor!
The Shutterstock Editor allows you to customize your social imagery in a variety of ways. First, choose a layout by social platform and function:
Choose an image size by network and function.
You can also set your own custom dimensions, or choose a template. I'm going to make an Instagram post, and since I love this quote from Walt Disney, I'm going to go with this one:
Select a template by social network and function.
You can also search Shutterstock's library of millions of images in order to bring life to your creation. I searched “flowers” and got more than 5.4 MILLION images to choose from. I picked one with a turquoise background, and the Shutterstock Editor placed the image into the background of the template.
Search Shutterstock's massive library of imagery.
Or, upload your own imagery. You can also upload your logo(s) for use within your design, as I did here:
Upload your own imagery and assets, like a logo.
Add text, shapes or filters to further customize the graphic.
Choose a filter, text or a shape to customize your photo.
When you're done, simply download for later use, or share directly to your social platforms.
Final Product & Review
My final image by Shutterstock Editor
The Shutterstock Editor has a really straightforward and easy-to-use interface. For Shutterstock users, it creates for a seamless experience of purchasing a photo, editing it for use and publishing it. Though it lacks some bells and whistles that Canva and Spark have, the experience is clean and fast. The biggest downside is that it's only available for Shutterstock users, but it's an absolute added bonus for those using the service, or considering using it. I would definitely recommend using the new Editor tool regularly given how quick and easy the entire process is to create your own awesome graphics. Here's a link to Shutterstock's subscription plans.
Adobe Spark Post
Adobe Spark is one of my favorite visual content tools. It's a fabulous three-in-one multimedia tool that allows you to create stunning posts, pages and videos in minutes. And it's entirely free!
There are many options with Adobe Spark!
Once you login, you're given the option of what you want to create. The Spark inspiration categories are really wonderful in helping to create goal-driven content.
Choose what you want to create.
We're going to create a post, and the first prompt asks you to include what you want your graphic to say (if anything), and this is also where you pick a graphic size. We're creating a graphic that reads “Let the sunshine in” for Instagram.
Tell Post what to say and what size.
From here, are presented with our image, and can do a wide variety of edits. I selected a new theme that made my text look AWESOME, then I uploaded a new background photo, which I downloaded from Unsplash (a great free photo site!), but you can also find photos to use from Creative Commons within the tool, or import them from a variety of tools. I also added a filter.
Lots of great options for customization!
Now that my image is ready, I can download it for use within my social images, and I can also share it with the Adobe creative community.
Share and download your Adobe Spark post.
Also, Adobe Spark Post & Spark Video come as a mobile app (the latter is in private beta for now), and whatever you create on desktop is available on mobile and vice versa. The Post app is very stable and you might be in the middle of creating your masterpiece and you get called away or distracted, but not to worry – your design is instantly saved where you left off and you can resume editing on mobile or desktop.
Plus, the mobile Spark Post app has the option of adding animated effects to your graphics in order to create short video files! Perfect for sharing on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Final Product & Review
My Adobe Spark Instagram post
My Adobe Spark post came out beautiful! As you'll notice, there is an #AdobePost hashtag in the corner of the image. In order to remove that, you must share your image with a link back to Adobe Spark. You also can't upload your logo like within Canva, Pablo and Shutterstock Editor, so that makes creating branded imagery a little more tricky. The tool is beautiful, easy-to-use and most importantly, free, but it can feel a little more limiting when it comes to the branding aspect.
Canva
Canva is the Swiss Army Knife of social media imagery creators. It has the majority of features that are featured in the other two we shared above, and then some. The user experience of Canva is not as smooth and seamless as both Shutterstock Editor and Adobe Spark, but it has more options for customization and branding. Canva for Work is an even more robust tool, allowing you to save branded elements like brand fonts, colors and more and use the “Magic Resize” feature all for only $12.95 a month (or $9.95/mo if paid yearly.)
Get ready to have some fun in Canva!
There are a lot of options in terms of what you want to create. Search by functionality, and the templates are broken apart by network. You can also add custom dimensions.
Select the image you want to create.
We're going to create another Instagram post for comparison's sake. I selected a template with a cool quote, but I want to change the vibe.
Choose a template or layout for your design.
Among the many customization options in Canva, you can search photos, just like in Shutterstock Editor and Adobe Spark. Canva offers a vast range of paid images at only $1/each or there are also plenty fabulous free images. You can also select patterns or solid colors for your background, or upload your own photos.
Select a free photo to add to the background.
Next, I changed the font to one I use regularly within my social media imagery to keep my branding consistent.
Plenty of options for your font and it's styling, including spacing and capitalization.
At this point I wanted to change up the graphic a bit, so found a different image that was more fitting. I resized the image, adjusted the text and it's positioning, and popped in my logo, which I had saved in my uploads.
Changed my image again, and added my logo!
At this point, I'm ready to download my image. It allows me the option to choose file type and quality. Here, I can share the image directly to socials, or I can do so elsewhere.
Final Product & Review
The final product from Canva.
My Canva image had the most ability for customization. I'm a long time user of Canva and particularly like the ability to overlay several images and tap into the many options for customization.
In Conclusion
There are some really awesome options available now for creating custom social media imagery, that include both desktop and mobile apps. The newest to the bunch, Shutterstock Editor, is a great tool for existing and potential Shutterstock customers to create professional social media imagery on desktop.
Adobe Spark is super easy-to-use on both desktop and mobile, and is the best choice for also adding animated effects and video, too. The Adobe Spark team is continuously adding new features. (Btw, I'll be at the annual Adobe Max Creativity Conference in San Diego coming up November 2-4 and am excited to share new goodies with my audience.) Canva is the workhorse of the three, and is a great one-stop-shop for creating the imagery you need for your visual social media content. They also have a mobile app although personally I haven't found it as simple and intuitive to use as the Spark Post app. My guess is it won't be all that long before Shutterstock brings out a mobile app version of their Editor.
I know we're bound to have overlooked many fabulous image editing tools, both desktop and mobile – do let us know your favorites in the comments below. Also, if you're a fan of any of the three tools I've mentioned here, let me know of your own experience.
#SocialSkim: Twitter Kills Vine, Instagram Tests Live Video, Facebook Bulks Up for Businesses
Twitter, Pinterest suffer cyberattack; Instagram's live-streaming foray; Microsoft's challenge to Slack; Facebook's newest features for businesses; Twitter's plans for big layoffs; Snapchat's viewership dip; how B2B marketers can use Facebook. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
#SocialSkim: Twitter Kills Vine, Instagram Tests Live Video, Facebook Bulks Up for Businesses
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Facebook Reach Objective: Cap Ad Frequency While Maximizing Reach
I love my Power Hitters Club community because members often stumble on new features before I do. Case in point: Reach Objective.
Way back on June 23, one of our PHC – Elite members shared the following screen shot…
He said it was for the Brand Awareness objective, but it allowed him to cap frequency. I didn't have it. Very few people - if anyone - had it. I completely forgot about it.
Four months later, another member stumbled on the Reach objective…
I still didn't have it for my main ad account. But after poking around, I realized that I do have it for one of my other ad accounts.
It's not clear whether this feature remains a test or if it is now being rolled out globally. But let's take a closer look at what we know…
Reach Objective Defined
The tip Facebook provides for the Reach objective is simple:
Choose this objective if you'd like to show your ad to the largest audience for your budget.
That sounds fair enough. But we could already do that before - or at least something similar. Using one of several different objectives, you could optimize for impressions within the ad set. Facebook would then “deliver your ads to people as many times as possible.”
Okay, so there's a slight difference there. If you take that definition literally, Facebook is focused more on volume of impressions than the number of people reached. On one hand it's controlled on the campaign side and on the other, the ad set. But the results - in theory - shouldn't be much different.
So why is Reach objective a big deal? Frequency capping.
This Isn't Reach and Frequency Buying Type
I know what you're thinking: “Come on, man. This isn't new. This is the Reach and Frequency buying type.”
While 99.9% of advertisers (don't quote me on that number, but it's A LOT!) use the default “Auction” buying type at the campaign level, Reach and Frequency is an option. But it isn't an objective. When Reach and Frequency is selected, only seven objectives are available (including the new Reach objective).
Yes, the Reach and Frequency buying type does allow you to cap frequency. But the entire ad set creation process is different…
You can't target Custom Audiences. You can't use manual bidding. You can't do a lot of things. And you need a minimum audience size of 200,000 people in a single country to use it - typically with a rather high minimum budget.
Hands On With the Reach Objective
The Reach objective, though, is like selecting any other objective. You may have it either within the Ad Create Tool or Power Editor…
Even using Quick Draft campaign creation in Power Editor…
From the ad set, you can target Custom Audiences and multiple countries at once - just as you'd target normally.
The only eligible placements for this objective are News Feed (desktop and mobile) and Instagram.
No right hand column or Audience Network for you.
Within Optimization & Delivery, you can choose between optimization options, manual or automatic bidding and frequency capping…
And the big key here, of course, is frequency capping.
This is a pain point for advertisers who often run into frequency issues. You can set a minimum number of days that need to pass before someone will see your ad again.
Within optimization options, you can also select Impressions…
We talked about this earlier. There's a minor difference, but here Facebook is focusing on volume of impressions as opposed to volume of unique people reached.
And as you can see here, there's no frequency capping in this case (which makes sense)…
Advertisers only have the option to be charged for the impression. This would again be obvious. The focus here is on impressions, not on clicks.
Your ad creation options for this objective are as follows:
- Promote an existing post
- Promote a single link from scratch
- Promote a carousel
- Promote a video or slideshow
- Promote a Canvas
Compared to Daily Unique Reach
Up until now, advertisers could minimize frequency by using the Daily Unique Reach bidding option.
It's actually something I've used quite often - and recommended - when targeting a very small and (extremely) relevant audience. When targeting 500 people who opted in to a specific offer for an up-sell, for example, you wouldn't want Facebook to optimize and reach only some of those people. But you'd also probably want to control your frequency.
One of the issues with Daily Unique Reach, though, was that while you wouldn't reach the same person more than once per day, you still may reach that person every day for a week. And that may not be preferred.
That's why Reach and Frequency was a disappointment to me and many others. I wanted to use it in place of Daily Unique Reach to give more control without changing my budget and targeting strategies.
Use Cases for Reach Objective
And that, my friends, is the beauty of the Reach objective using frequency capping. I will prefer this over Daily Unique Reach going forward.
So if you have a highly relevant audience and you want to reach all of them without bombarding them with ads every day, this is a tremendous option. I'll likely cap it at somewhere between 3 to 7 days. Onced a week may not be enough, and three three times may be too much. Ideally, I want to aim for twice per week.
But of course, you won't be optimizing for an action. I still wish Facebook would allow me, for example, to optimize for website clicks and cap the frequency.
As a result, I personally wouldn't use this for cold traffic. I wouldn't even use it for what most people would consider very relevant and targeted traffic. For me, it's got to be a specific case where the audience is small and incredibly valuable, and I want to reach every single one of those people.
That said, it doesn't mean that advertisers won't find reason to use this for larger audiences. It can be used as a Reach and Frequency substitute when targeting broad audiences that aren't allowed with R&F (more than one country or Custom Audiences, for example). There will be awareness value here, too.
Your Turn
Let me be clear that I don't know whether this is a test or a rollout. I don't know whether Facebook has immediate plans for it. But it does appear that more advertisers are getting access to it, which can lead us to some conclusions.
Do you have this feature yet? How do you plan to use it?
Let me know in the comments below!
The post Facebook Reach Objective: Cap Ad Frequency While Maximizing Reach appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.
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Facebook Reach Objective: Cap Ad Frequency While Maximizing Reach
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
How Social Automation Can Be Good, Not Evil
Social media automation has a dicey reputation, as many people believe that it robs social media of its humanity. I understand and appreciate that sentiment. I miss the days when Twitter was the best place to go for real conversation, and Instagram didn't have “stories” comprised of “look at me” mini-broadcasts. But my job-and the jobs […]
How Social Automation Can Be Good, Not Evil
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Instagram vs. Snapchat, Facebook Notes, Buffer Hacks & Personal Emojis – Bonus Episode [002]
We are super excited to share our second, very special bonus podcast episode with you!
Our bonus episodes offer a fun change of pace from our traditional “interview-style” episodes on The Science of Social Media. Get to know the hosts Hailley, Kevan, & Brian a bit better as they share some of the things they're working on this week in social media – complete with actionable takeaways and useful insights.
This week we're chatting all about Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories and how brands and people are using the platforms in very unique ways. We also discuss our Facebook Notes experiment, if it's possible to brand your own emoji, and how to build your own content hub within Buffer!
A huge thank you to all of you for joining us every week for brand new episodes of The Science of Social Media. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and for your amazing support over the last few weeks. We'd love to hear from you on iTunes or using the hashtag #bufferpodcast on Twitter.
This episode is available on:
Here's what we chat about in this episode:
- Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories and how brands and individuals are using the platform in very different ways
- Our recent experiment with Facebook Notes and how they performed in comparison to normal links
- If it's possible to brand your own emoji and what effect that may have on your social media
- We play a fun game called “Top 10” – We'd love for you to tune in to play along with us!
4 Key Takeaways from the Show from Hailley, Brian, and Kevan
Quotes pulled from the show!
1. Facebook Notes experiment & learnings
Within the Facebook composer there's a great feature called Facebook Notes which essentially looks like a Medium post directly within Facebook. There's a cover photo, you can format the post, and it posts natively within Facebook. The hypothesis going in was that Facebook would reward a native blog post with more reach and engagement. To our surprise, it did not perform as well as we thought it would.
Although the post didn't work, it sparked people's curiosity. I'd highly recommend that you all give Facebook Notes a try and see how it works for you. I would love to hear how it goes in the comments below!
2. How brands and people are using Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories
“The biggest thing for me, and I've been experimenting with this a lot, is testing and learning about Snapchat Stories vs. Instagram Stories. I'm coming at this from a personal user perspective and what I've been doing is using Snapchat as a 1-to-1 communication tool. Then I take the content that I used to put on Snapchat and post that to Instagram Stories because I have a much bigger audience there. Instagram is more of that one-to-many strategy. But for many marketers and brands it is quite the opposite. It's interesting to see how it is playing out in the social media world.”
3. Creating a hub of great content in Buffer and “can I brand an emoji?”
“I love to have some go-to Tweets and go-to Facebook posts when I'm out of content. So I've built myself a content repository within Buffer. What I've done is created a fake Twitter account for myself and connected it to Buffer. Every so often I will run through the Tweets from my main Twitter account, find the ones that are best performing, and then drag them over into the fake account. I also have a IFTTT recipe that connects my favorite Pocket reads into my fake Twitter account. From there, I can drag them from the fake account into my real account whenever I'm dry on content.”
4. Branding your own emoji
“I would like to brand my own emoji – the French Fry emoji
Social Media, CX, and Lessons From Working With Steve Jobs: LiveWorld's Peter Friedman on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]
Peter Friedman, former Apple vice-president, and founder and CEO of LiveWorld, shares insights on social media for brands, customer experience, and business. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
Social Media, CX, and Lessons From Working With Steve Jobs: LiveWorld's Peter Friedman on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]
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