Mastering How It Works To Promote Your Brand
It used to be that every brand had to have a Facebook page, which is still a good idea. But what's all the rage now? What's the absolute must for a brand that wants to leverage social influencers? That would be Instagram.
But there are a lot of things a brand can do that will absolutely guarantee less chance of success with either of these two social platforms, and it really all boils down to algorithms and how the platforms view your brand. In this blog, Hollywood Branded shares how Instagram may be Facebook's greatest gift for millennial targeted marketing, and what brands need know to succeed.
First Encounters Of The Facebook Kind
Remember 2012? You know, back when This Is Us fans had yet to be emotionally nourished. It was also the same year that Kony 2012 convinced millennials that bumper stickers ended global terrorism.
2012 was a year of many ups and downs, flops and victories, and deals that left the digital world questioning the state of social media. This deal, of course, was the Facebook-Instagram merger!
The acquisition of Instagram was considered by many to be a courageous move. Others considered it to be rather ill planned. How could a social media giant like Facebook find an app like Instagram, with a mere 13 employees and bulky aesthetic, so appealing?
Now in 2018, the sea of doubtful chatter has subsided and it is indisputable that buying Instagram was a smart move.
The platform has over 800 million monthly users, making it the third most popular social media channel. That’s a very good look for both Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram is now worth more than $100 billion dollars, which is 100X what Facebook paid for it. So it's safe to say Facebook made their money back.
Instagram has with no doubt gained in popularity, but it’s still only a part of the chess team. Facebook’s two billion monthly users still manages to make Instagram’s follower base look non-threatening.
The Facebook Of Eli - Prophetic Or Lucky?
With that in mind, why would Facebook pour out a billion of its hard earned cash to acquire another company? Couldn’t they maximize their already dominating machine with an even fatter marketing budget? It’s a fair question, and a good one at that. If Facebook would have invested those dollars into themselves, the benefits could have been huge.
Facebook could have became the superman of social media. Sitting in their own sun of money, getting stronger from its life force quarter to quarter, and forgetting about us earthlings who made it who it was.
But perhaps there is more to this game than who has the biggest budget. Sometimes, a well placed rain drop can make the biggest waves; and in this instance, those waves represent quality impressions.
First Impressions: Understanding Social Algorithms
When campaigning for president, a megaphone is a very handy tool to have. It amplifies the voice and can help carry a message across thousands of listening ears.
Unless of course you mistakenly arrive in Wisconsin, and you’re supposed to be delivering a speech in Maine. Neither the microphone nor your message will be seen or heard, and you’ll soon be calling the airline company to complain about something you should have been made aware of previously.
Metaphorical airline companies aside, gaining impressions is not just about your visibility or being heard. It’s about your exposure to the right people and the right place at the right time. Each piece must be strategically be implemented for success.
The algorithm for a social channel's feed is to the code that determines what posts are seen, by which users, and in what order. You may remember that older algorithms prioritized posts by the time they were posted but this is no longer the case.
Though nostalgic, chronological feeds were a bit, sloppy to say the least. If you only had ten friends, the algorithm worked seamlessly. Once you became an official clam chowder influencer who followed hundreds of soup pages and had thousands of soup enthusiasts following you, you would’ve noticed that the algorithms organizational structure sacrificed relevancy for chronology. It could take hours to finally arrive at content that mattered to you. Now it is commonly held that relevance is the factor that brings in quality impressions in social media.
In conclusion, social media channels use algorithms to filter the content most relevant to your interests in your feed with fewer flicks of the wrist. Hip hip, hooray yourself to an eternity of consumer first market places!
Second Date: Getting To Know The Inner Complexities Of Algorithms
This algorithm does more than make your thumb less tired, but rather creates newer opportunities for advertisement. It builds unique marketing challenges for each social media channel. Here is where Facebook and Instagram’s relationship begins to become a bit clearer.
According to Alfred Lua of Buffer, Instagram's algorithm can be separated into seven distinct categories of approval.
- Engagement - The amount of likes and comments on each post.
- Relevancy. Are the genres of the post relevant to the user?
- Relationships. Posts from accounts that the user interacts with more frequently are ranked higher.
- Timeliness - Recent posts are ranked higher.
- Profile searches - Posts from accounts that users search for regularly are ranked higher.
- Direct shares - Posts from accounts the user directly shares with others are ranked higher, and the person who receives the shared posts gets a rank boost on their own posts.
- Time spent on post - The time spent actually looking at a post (not scrolling).
graphic provided by bufferapp.com
For kicks and giggles, the same source also outlined Facebook’s new algorithm...
- Friends and family. Posts from people the user knows personally are ranked higher. In other words, it means posts from brands are sadly demoted.
- Engagement. How many likes, comments and shares the post receives, factoring in time.
- Encouraging engagement. Posts likely to start to a conversation are ranked higher.
- Images and videos. Visual posts are ranked higher and text-only posts are ranked lower.
- Bait is demoted. Posts that aggressively bait for likes, shares, comments, votes or tags are ranked lower.
- Promotional posts are demoted. Posts trying to push people into buying a product/service or join a contest are demoted. Also, Facebook checks text against known advertisements and demotes unofficial ads.
Creating Your Own Ally
At this point, you’re most likely contemplating what this could mean. WOAH WOAH WOAH FACEBOOK! Posts from brands and anything promotional are demoted? What are you thinking!? (Head explodes).
The purpose of the Facebook update was to negate fake news stories and encourage more personal conversations. They also have consequently limited exposure to brands and the public sea of content. Without this feature, Facebook has left a void for many who desired that type of content...a void that can immediately be filled with the reliable cement of Instagram. Lightbulb!
Did Facebook plan this all along? It’s a clever strategy if they did. By reducing third party exposure on Facebook, they can safely return to their comfortable nest of family first social dynamics. Advertisers will still be able to promote their ads on the platform without noticeable difficulty. Additionally social media marketers will still be able to freely advertise on Instagram with even greater results.
There Is More To Come!
In part two of this blog, we’ll show you how to pivot your marketing attention from Facebook towards Instagram to maximize both social media platforms. Can’t wait until then? You can check out our library of over 700 blogs that will teach you all there is to know about influencer marketing. We’ve got tips, tricks, and case studies all created with you in mind.
- How To #7: 5 Steps To Tell If An Influencer Has Fake Instagram Followers
- 9 Tips To Organically Market Your Brand on Instagram
- 7 Secret Social Acronyms Brands Need To Know For Influencer Posts
- How To #13: 10 Ways To Create More Successful Instagram Posts
- A Brand's Guide To Kourtney Kardashian Instagram Posts
And check out our course on celebrity and influencer marketing! It'll provide you with the information that you'll need to keep you in tip top marketing shape!
