Hey beautiful people
There has been a lot of conversation on the efficiency of paid advertising on Facebook, so prepare a cold drink (if you’re in Brussels and surrounding countries where it’s hot) or coffee as long post is incoming 
tl;dr: paid advertising cant deliver conversions and branding messages on its own. It only works if all other parts are working (landing pages are easy to understand, there’s a promo plan for promoting events, projects…). It isn’t magical when a person sees our ad, they don’t instantly convert (would be nice), it needs to be seen several times. Its a never-ending work in progress to reach the right audience for each post promoted.
It’s my responsibility to inform everyone on low numbers to everyone, not other people to me. Mea culpa on that.
I’ll start by posting a Q&A based on people’s woes that I hope will ease their worry on paid advertising.
Q: We’re getting some traffic from Facebook ads, but people aren’t converting. Why?
A: Facebook advertising isn’t magical, and people don’t convert from seeing the ad once or twice. In the NGO world, NGO’s spend on average over 300 dollars to get a new donor (couldn’t find an average rate for subscribers), but this varies of course (source: https://mrbenchmarks.com/words/digital-ads). This will be put to a proper test with landing pages.
Q: We’re getting traffic, but the numbers aren’t all that big
A: Only paid advertising on Facebook untill now were boosted posts (boosted post on Facebook means that a post that was posted on a Facebook page was promoted to a larger audience so more people see our content. Boosted posts usually generate comments, likes on posts, but people don’t usually click on those posts to visit the URLS promoted.)
Q: Why were the posts boosted and not promoted as a regular ad?
A: At the beginning, it was discussed in my strategy that we should promote the landing pages of wellbeing and IoH. But, very soon it showed that people who visit those pages on the platform don’t fully grasp what Edgeryders is, why should they care about it and why should they contribute. This proved to be a waste of precious advertising euros. This is should be resolved by finishing up landing pages for wellbeing (http://wellbeing-europe.surge.sh/) and IOH as there it will be more clear what Edgeryders is, why should people care, they will be able to see stories and then they can contribute to the discussion on the platform
Q: What will be done once the landing pages for Wellbeing are functional?
A: As the information on those pages will show to our target audience more clearly what Edgeryders is, what wellbeing is and showcase stories, to achieve maximum results, they will be set up as stand-alone, ongoing advertising campaigns to our target audience
Q: How will you make sure we get people we want and not random people that would click, leave a troll comment perhaps and leave?
A: Landing page for each native language will be pushed out to target audience we want to reach (what will be used in targeting, which interests, pages, portals etc. will be showed to the outreach team, but I can share here as well if you’re interested how Facebook advertising works). Campaigns will be re-targeted and monitored DAILY. Every two days, targeting will be adjusted to ensure we’re hitting the right audience.
At the end of each week, report on the numbers will be made (with Facebook and Google Analytics numbers. Bear in mind, Facebook and Google Analytics have a discrepancy in showing visits. Here’s why: https://boostlikes.com/blog/2016/08/facebook-clicks-google-analytics
Q: What can you do if a discussion starts on Facebook on the ad? we want that discussion to happen on the platform.
A: Here I propose a rule of 3. When a person comments on Facebook, he/she will receive an answer on their 3 questions. Fourth comment coming from Edgeryders will be an invite to join the platform and comment there. Fifth comment (if they don’t respond to the invite) can be a personal message to their inbox inviting them to join. Note: likely not everyone will be OK with joining.
Q: what to do with those that don’t want to join Edgeryders?
A: If they are active in a polite way (I propose anyone who starts calling people names, insults to be deleted without notice), they can become brand ambassadors and they can boost engagement on Facebook. The ad that has engagement is much more interesting than the one that has no engagement.
To finish this section, I’m attaching a report of Facebook engagement and Twitter engagement from the start of my role. You can see an increase in engagement and fans (note this is WITHOUT an ongoing campaign that will promote wellbeing and IOH). Note: lower number of posts were due to fluctuations of posting, now we’re back to daily posts. Visits here are only those measured by Hootsuite, paid ads aren’t measured.
Snippet 1 - Facebook
Snippet 2 - Twitter
Also, Here you can see see the average cost-per-click and average click-through rate for NGO’s.
You can see by seeing below that we’re well above average. This is a snippet from our advertising.
How to ensure that every cent used is spent as an euro in advertising?
By following a re-worked digital strategy (which will be discussed in detail with the outreach team), this is just a summary.
Edgeryders (from my understanding), has 3 main services through which people can join Edgeryders:
- Projects
- Events
- Stories of members
These three services are all gateways of converting people, but, they are also branding sources for people to get to know what Edgeryders is and what it does and why should they care and join in.
To get people to convert, they need to see what Edgeryders is, why is Edgeryders there, adjust Edgeryders so it provides value to the target audience (if possible, if its not a project summary or general Edgeryders news)
How to leverage stories on Edgeryders digital channels:
Stories
Stories need to be leveraged as:
- Facebook post updates
- Twitter posts
- Linkedin posts
- Instagram posts
Format of posts in which they can be shared:
- Text/URL with the image below
- Text/URL with GIF below
- Text/URL with quote image below
- Text/URL with the video below
Events
Events need to be leveraged as:
- Events on Facebook
- Facebook posts that educate and inform the audience about the upcoming event/s
- Twitter posts that and/or and promote the event
- Linkedin posts that educate and/or promote the event
- Instagram posts that educate and/or promote the event
Format of posts in which they can be shared:
- Text/URL with the image below
- Text/URL with GIF below
- Text/URL with quote image below
- Text/URL with the video below
Projects
On social channels: they need to be clearly explained what they are, why they exist and how can people contribute (if they can and if it’s expected of them).
Paid advertising
Paid advertising has a role to boost all above-mentioned services so they are seen by the right people, seen by a wider audience so they can see what Edgeryders is.
Not all stories should be boosted, only those that are considered important and those that are related to the upcoming event(s).
How to ensure that we get the right audience for events, projects, stories?
Event paid advertising
Outreach managers to contact Inge and me and tell us who is the target audience and key messages (Inge and I can help here)
Then I will research Facebook on how to get to that audience, together with Inge see how can we craft the message to get people on Twitter, adjust it for Linkedin and Instagram.
After this, a post plan will be made for ongoing promotion of the event and upcoming events to make sure that posts are relevant and that the audience gets educated on what the event is. Tasks for this will be made as a checklist for each event.
Project paid advertising
For the promotion of the project, a persona will be used as a base for online promotion (from sharing organic content to paid advertising). I or Inge will reach out the project managers to get the idea about the project, and key messages that should be promoted. after getting this, a detailed promo plan will be made so right people see info about the project.
Stories paid advertising
Every week, a promo plan is made with general stories (with the outreach team), and expanded by posts related to upcoming events and projects.
Reporting
At the end of each week, a side-by-side report from social channels and Google analytics will be provided to everyone so it can be discussed. At the end of each month, a summary post showing that month’s trend will be shared with everyone to see the overall performance.
@inge @nadia @noemi @alberto @natalia_skoczylas @johncoate and everyone else who wants to contribute to this