Tag: Facebook

  • The Average Cost of a Like on Facebook

    What’s the average price for a Facebook like using Facebook advertising?

    Below are some real examples from ads I’ve ran on Facebook for three different Facebook pages. The first is an example of a poor (expensive) rate. It averaged $1.12 per page like.

    2014-04-08 08_26_26-Ad Set Summary

    There are several reasons why this rate was high:

    1. The pictures I used did not match the value proposition of the page I was asking them to like. They were randomly selected images.
    2. The ad copy I used was vague. It simply asked the user if they liked to learn online and if so, to like the page if they liked “learning online”.
    3. The page itself had little content. There were 4 posts over 3 years and one had to do with learning “how to make Mexican food”.
    4. The target audience and the content were out of sync. I was targeting business owners. They might not like to learn online.
    5. The budget was too small ($10/day). I have seen a lower rate for likes when the budget is higher because it is shown to more people.

    Next is an example of a low (good) rate. The goal is to get down to around $0.10 (10 cent) likes. This one got down to $0.16 per page like with a budget of $7.00 per day.

    2014-04-08 08_37_21-Campaign Summary

    There are several reasons why this rate was low:

    1. The target audience was clearly defined. I used marketing data from magazines to create a target demographic.
    2. The image used matched the audience. I used a picture of a woman that looked like the target demographic holding the product.
    3. The message matched the page. I asked people if they liked coconut oil and the page was about coconut oil.
    4. The page had a lot of content. Once visitors landed on the page they could see that it was about coconut oil.
    5. The page already had a lot of likes. People like to back winners (like attracts like).

    What’s the average cost of a Facebook like?

    $2000 was spent on multiple campaigns for multiple Facebook pages to get new likes, boost posts, and experiment with website ads (links from Facebook to outside Facebook) and so I now have an idea about what things should or should not cost. The average Facebook like costs $0.44. That’s the average cost of a like. The value of a like is another story.

  • Facebook: The Journal of Our Times

    Before Facebook, unless you kept a diary or wrote a blog, there was little recording of day-to-day events in most people’s lives. Some people made baby books for their children, but mostly just for their first or second child. But now, the combination of smartphone cameras and mobile apps, documenting our lives has never been easier and never before have more people done it.

    Enough time has passed since the mass adoption of Facebook in 2009 for us to see how people are using it long-term. We know what people like and what they hate. We know who their friends are. We know when they start relationships and when they end them. We know what they looked like when they were younger and what they look like now. We know everything someone is willing to share.

    Suzanne's Blog

    Before Facebook, my wife used to blog about what was going on in the house, about her pregnancies, and about milestones with the kids. Now that’s all on Facebook. If I wanted to create a story of our last 5 years together, that’s where I’d look. And our baby books are on there, too. We still have real-life baby books, but we certainly aren’t printing any of our pictures.

    What will become of this information?

    As a society we’ve all invested so much into this platform. While Facebook’s Timeline feature helps to sort through it all and services that help you print Facebook help, there is still a general anxiety I feel about how we will overcome the White Album Problem. Most people don’t remember Collegeclub.com, but that was a platform like Facebook that one day just disappeared.

    And the other side of the coin is that this information will never be deleted and we will always have a perfectly searchable memory of everything that’s ever happened. Nothing will ever be forgotten. No friend is ever left behind. That’s not how the mind works. That’s not how life used to work. We used to forget, move on, and get on with life. Now it’s all just a click away.

    Why do I still blog in a post-Facebook world?

    I own this domain. I pay for this hosting account. I control what the website looks like and when it changes. I control my own backups. I am not subject to Facebook’s rules. I can download my data whenever I want. I can make my content look like whatever I want. In short – it’s my own platform where I can tell my own story over time regardless of what Facebook is or does, but that’s not the only reason I blog.

    I know there is some benefit to me in the short term to be able to flesh out ideas and some value in the long term to be able to look back on what I was thinking or working on, but I didn’t know if it was actually of value to other people. I considered my blog a ‘failure’ because it doesn’t get that many visitors for the posts I care about, there are little to no comments, and little to no email newsletter sign-ups.
    It turns out that those metrics aren’t the only ones that matter as people have reached out to me in other ways to let me know they’re reading. You don’t always know what effect you’re going to have on people and you may never know, but if you don’t put yourself out there, you’re reducing that chance. This small bit of encouragement helps. I’m glad you also read my blog.
  • eCommerce Blueprint 2.0

    I started writing this in January of 2013 in response to the original E-Commerce Blueprint from December of 2012, but now, 2 years later, I have more perspective after having helped several e-commerce companies get started.

    In 2013 I wrote a basic outline of things I felt were important ways to market an e-commerce business: pounding the flesh (pounding the streets and pressing flesh) as well as magazine adverts, Google Adwords, and trade shows.

    Here was my eCommerce Blueprint 2.0 from 2013:

    • Rough Plateau map
    • Buy the domain
    • Build Twitter and Facebook
    • Finalize design request / brand identity document
    • Hire a designer
    • Research product manufacturers
    • Buy a few products
    • Hire a video company
    • Do a Kickstarter campaign
    • Order original inventory

    I recommended Shopify but thought it was worthwhile to mention Squarespace. Lately, both are still fine platforms, but let’s dive into why the list from above is nearly worthless. First of all, what does “Rough Plateau map” even mean?

    Instead of going through them one-by-one, I’m just going to say that this list assumes you have a) a clear idea of the problem you’re solving, b) a known business model (i.e. I do X and I get paid), c) someone to actually do the work.

    Setting up a business in 2015 is incredibly easy. Creating a company that makes money is still hard.

    What Problem Are You Solving?

    There has to be a raison d’être (reason for being). How are you moving someone away from pain or towards pleasure? Do your customers love your product or service? It’s very easy to build a brand, but it’s very hard to build one people care about.

    How Will Your Business Make Money?

    How will you do “X” to get “$” in a repeatable fashion? Discovering the process for acquiring a customer for less than their average customer value (ACV) is called a “business model” and means you actually have a business.

    Who Will Do the Work?

    Even if you have a solution to a legitimate problem people have, customers love you, and you’ve found a way to acquire them for less than ACV, you still need to have someone to actually do the work.

    While at first it may sound obvious, ‘actually doing the work’ is quite complicated. It’s not a hard problem like ‘discovering a business model’, it’s a wet problem because we’re dealing with humans.

    Building a company in 2015 still requires human capital. Somebody has to do the work. Even if you hire someone to do the work for you, they have to actually do the work. No one wants to do the work.

    Who Has the Time to Work?

    It starts with an idea (1,2). You have the best intentions. You’re pumped. You’re excited. You start working on the problem. You get some traction. People are interested. People are buying. It’s time to hire.

    At an e-commerce business, typically the first person you hire is a person to help ship orders. Next, you hire someone to help with customer service issues. Third, you hire a salesperson to get more accounts.

    As you add more staff, you need more income so you decide to hire a marketing person, who then needs to hire a graphic designer to help create content for the website. Soon, you’re spending all of your time in meetings.

    Meanwhile, the first person you hired to ship orders has worked there long enough and seen enough new people hired that they feel entitled to either become a manager, move on to another organization, or hire someone under them to do what they do.

    “I need to get things off my plate so I can ‘X’,” you might here someone say. Or “I just need someone to help me do ‘Y’ so I can do my job.” These are all signs of humans trying to get out of the thing they were hired to do: work.

    But it’s not just employees. You’ll do it too. You’ll say to yourself, “I can’t ship boxes or write a blog post because I’m the CEO. I need to be out there pounding flesh and signing deals. I need to be leading my people to greatness.”

    All of these things can be true and still be wrong.

    There is a time to hire new people and there is a time to lead instead of produce, but make sure it’s not out of a place of selfishness or entitlement. It’s human nature to want to be doing less work and get paid more.

    How to Manage Your e-Commerce Staff

    Let’s say you have already figured out what people want, how to get customers, and you’re profitable. You’ve created a lifestyle business, but you want to scale it into a bigger company. You need to take things to the next “Plateau”.

    You decide to hire more sales staff and you ask the person shipping to help post to social media. On a whim, you decide to have a sale. Someone suggests a new product idea and you okay the development. Things are starting to hum.

    But then salespeople start fighting about one person stealing their leads or who gets credit for what. They don’t like the CRM they are using and not everyone is leaving contact activity notes leading to some embarrassing interactions.

    The warehouse specialists says he needs an inventory system to keep track of all these new products, but since he’s the one who has to ship out the orders, he’s subconsciously sabotaging marketing efforts with his blog posts.

    You decide to hire an outside IT consultant to come in and help implement and train your staff on how to use the new systems, but despite all the upgrades, sales begin to flatline, all while productivity and culture declines.

    People > Processes > Technology > Marketing > Sales

    Your people are your most important asset. It matters greatly who you hire. People affect culture, marketing, attitudes, and product decisions. Early hires have more impact, but every person impacts the company in some way.

    Processes built on the right people can be used with better effect, but bad processes don’t help the company. Be sure that the processes you have in place are known, are useful, and are being used. Ask them to do it and ask if they did it.

    Technology is a multiplier of people and processes. If you have good people in place with good processes, then invest in technology to support them, they will be happy, productive, and may actually enjoy doing the work.

    Once you’ve got all of those things in place, you can focus on marketing because you know with confidence that you’re not throwing good money against people who will turn customers away either consciously or unconsciously.

    A good marketing campaign supports a sales team – and if you’re going to take your e-commerce company from a lifestyle business to a large company, you need a great sales team. Sales will help you grow more than marketing.

    A good manager asks people to do something and asks them if they did it.

    What is My eCommerce Blueprint for 2015?

    If I were starting an e-commerce business in 2015, here’s what I would do, in order, if I were one person with no capital:

    1. Research trends in Google Trends, eBay, Yahoo Answers, Quora, and Google Autocompletes
    2. Pick a trend and research a vertical/niche that has the problem and cash to buy the solution
    3. Pick a vertical/niche and then start calling people in that niche to see if they have the problem and would pay for the solution
    4. Research a solution for the problem and how much it would cost to buy or manufacture
    5. Call people in your vertical/niche and ask them to buy the solution you found for more than it costs
    6. If they agree to buy it, give them a way for them to buy it (i.e. a PayPal button or Square on your phone)
    7. If they buy it, then use the money to buy or build the thing and then deliver the product to the customer
    8. Get feedback from the customer on the product, ask for testimonials, get pictures of people using the product
    9. Use the materials to create a website to sell the product on either Shopify or Squarespace
    10. Setup social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Youtube, and Google+)
    11. Setup email list on Mailchimp and add the signup form to the website
    12. Write blog posts that answer people’s questions and post out on social media
    13. Reach out to relevant bloggers and offer to write blog posts for their sites
    14. Social bookmark from sites like Reddit, Delicious, and Digg
    15. Call prospects in the vertical/niche and ask them to buy
  • Why Google and Facebook Might Not Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years

    Forbes recently wrote an article about Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5 Years, which had echoes what Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in Outliers, when it said, “Your long-term viability as a company is dependent on when you were born.”

    The author (and Forbes) were getting ripped on this article on Hacker News – but no one can predict the future – we can only look at the past – and even though the timeline is short (15 years), history says Facebook and Google will fail unless they [can] pivot. The gist is that they can’t pivot. It’s not in their paradigm to accept what’s next. Can you?

    But the statement, “X will fail unless they can pivot” is true for every company. The companies that make up the Fortune 500 don’t have a long life on the fortune 500. To say that the web will die out and vanish is reaching, and to say that it will in the next five years is really reaching.

    Does the author (or any analysts) really expect mobile usage to dry up the well of search advert dollars or that mobile apps will eliminate the public/customer need for search?

    The anti-trust lawsuit that is being dredged up against Google will do more to slow them than anything else in the next five years.

    And, to say that Facebook can’t have staying power because MySpace didn’t is far from an analysis.

    I do agree that the web is not dying – all apps need a website even if they think they don’t. Facebook will do (and has done) better than Myspace because they are a software company first, ran by programmers who have kept Facebook constrained, which has helped it grow.

    The problem is that Google only got into social because they were chasing Facebook, just like Microsoft went to the cloud to chase Google. And Facebook only got into mobile because the people demanded it – but they were (and are) late to the game. They are buying Instagram because they are scared of it – not because it will help them grow.

    I read something from Seth Godin today that said basically that not all companies can grow. Some do better when their small and can’t scale across that middle “dead zone” to be a big company. Some companies don’t work as a big company either (like web or graphic designers – at least not using the business models in place now).

    “Perhaps getting a little bigger isn’t what you want, and it might not even be possible.” -Seth Godin

  • Facebook Cover Photos

    Unless you act before March 30th, Facebook will automatically change your Facebook Page to the new Timeline layout. This means that your business page will no longer look the same and therefore any custom tabs or images you created for your Facebook Page will move or be changed. The biggest change is the addition of an optional “Cover” photo which is 850px wide by 315px tall. We’ve designed some Facebook Page covers for several of our social media management clients that we’d like to showcase here.

    Please let me know what you think about them in the comments below.

  • Google+ for Business

    Pages for Google+

    Different people are interested in different parts of your business. Whether it’s breaking news, updates, promotions, links, photos – even talking face-to-face with groups via easy-to-use video chat – Google+ lets you easily share the right things with the right customers. And unlike Facebook, Pages for Google+ can actually help your SEO efforts.

    Google advocates putting the +1 button anywhere you’d like people to be able to recommend your business, products or services to friends and contacts all across the web. Google+ makes it easy to learn more about how your followers’ interactions on your page affect your brand, and your business.

    We’ve been testing Pages for Google+ for a couple of months now. We ran into one instance where we couldn’t add more pages for our customers, but we found that we were just in a waiting period before being able to add more. This is probably a built-in protection against spamming.

    Need help setting up your Google+ Page for your business? We can help.

    About Google+

    Google+, the search giant’s new social network and answer to Facebook features a new friend list function called “circles”, which has been very positive overall. Users have commented that it’s the easiest system on the market for putting friends into groups, making it easier to share posts with just your business colleagues or your family. We are really interested in the circles option, but it needs more people on there so it doesn’t die like Google Buzz. We like the idea of circles and the integrated video chat/hangout function. They’re not really inventing anything new, just putting things like Facebook groups and Skype-like chat front and center. It becomes a more cozy place to hang out online. Facebook will start to look more stuck up and sterile over time, the same way MySpace started to look more trashy.

    We have noticed there are less people requesting to be friends and less friend requests being answered. We think Facebook peaked in 2009 and started to decline after that. But even though numbers are down, they are still number one, for now. It has to do with elasticity, which used in this context means peoples ability to want and except change. In the beginning, when things are new, people are more lenient and will try new things, but over time, ideas harden and change becomes harder. It works with friendships, departments, new businesses, and even social networks. We’ve got high hopes for Google’s inventiveness. The on-demand video chat feature called “Hangouts” is a great idea. Considering it’s 2011, We’re suprised that’s not a feature that we take for granted already.

  • Facebook Book Printing Companies Review and Analysis

    Back in June, Mashable wrote an article on 7 Facebook book printing companies. As Christmas is now approaching I remembered that article and wondered if any of the companies let you print other people’s Facebook walls. Not everyone wants a book about themselves for themself, but if someone else gives it to them – hey, that’s a gift.

    Facebook Friend’s Wall Book

    Out of the seven Facebook book printing companies, only two let you print a friend’s Facebook information: Book of Fame and Ego Book. I also added Social Print Studio, which doesn’t print books, but does make posters and photo albums of your or one of your friend’s Facebook pictures. Between Book of Fame and Ego Book, the biggest difference is not price, but layout. Book of Fame will print one status message per page, essentially making a customized notebook for someone, while Ego Book is more of what you would expect in a Facebook book: pictures, wall posts, and comments of you and your friends. You’ll pay more for Ego Book, but you get what you pay for.

    Ego Book – Choose who you want the book to be about.

    Your Facebook Wall Book

    For those interested only in printing their own Facebook wall, Ego Book is still a good choice, but you might want to compare it with Jot Journal and Year Bound. Jot Journal is less expensive, but offers fewer options. Year Bound had more options, but it’s software seemed buggy. I had to try it several times before it would stop ‘blueing out’ the screen.

    Jot Journal

    Life Tracking Stats

    For those interested in printing their stats for the past year, Social Memories is the only choice on the list. Even if you don’t choose to buy it, you can still create the book and post it to your wall as an album for free. To print the 25 page book it costs $27 US.

    Social Memories

    Here’s a link to the Facebook Book Printing Chart I created in Google Docs.

  • Facebook Buys Chai Labs’ for Semantic Search Technology

    Facebook has acquired online search company Chai Labs for $10 million

    As Facebook vies to compete with Google and expand it’s search functionality from searching Facebook.com to searching the world wide web, it has looked to a vertically focused company steeped in Internet glory including Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn chairman Reid Hoffman, and Google Ventures general partner Joe Kraus who are all investors and/or advisors at Chai Labs.

    Chai Labs specializes in a technology it calls “Semantic Search,” which “uses proprietary crawling, artificial intelligence and data mining technologies to analyze and extract insights from millions of real-time data points across the web,” according to the company’s website. The “Semantic Web” is a term coined by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which is a, “New form of Web content that is meaningful to computers.” The semantic web is gaining momentum as HTML5 includes more support for it.

    So what does Facebook want with the semantic web?

    Unlike when it has aquired online sharing sites like Friendfeed* and ShareGrove or purchased Web-based image-hosting companies like Divvyshot, Facebook’s purchase of Chai Labs does not have an immediately apparent value to users-the value it seems, is to Facebook who may be able to use the semantic functionality to hone search results based on a person’s profile, making results theoretically more accurate. While Facebook does have a built-in search engine that lets users search the entire Internet (which is basically just an embedded Bing engine), many users still use Google or Yahoo for search, but Facebook is trying to change that. While Google is trying to become more like Facebook by creating Orkut, purchasing Jaikut (and then abandoning it), rolling out Wave (and then pulling it back), and now Buzz (and possibly a Buzz/Wave combo called Google Me), Facebook is trying to become more like Google.  Why?

    Follow the Money

    Search engines and social networks both make money by selling ads and they are successful at doing so because ads are displayed to the users most likely to click on them (and purchase the product or service).  How they are able to do this has everything to do with the purchase of Chai Labs.  The more targeted search results are, the more likely users will find ads relevant, and the more likely users are to click, which makes Google and Facebook gobs of cash.  While Google makes some money from Google Apps customers, the majority of their revenue is from ad sales and Facebook wants a piece of that pie.  This is all part of the recipe.


    *FriendFeed’s executive team included Paul Buchheit, creator and lead developer of Google Gmail, and Bret Taylor, who was responsible for the launch of Google Maps. Taylor is now chief technology officer of Facebook.

  • Introducing a Brand New Way to Market Your Business

    Grow Your Business Organically

    A lot of SEO companies market how they will promote your business online using Internet marketing and online advertising techniques, but Erich Stauffer noticed a gap between where promotion stops and business begins and so we used social media management to not just promote your business, but grow your business.

    Digital Marketing Strategy

    We’ll work with you to create a comprehensive strategy to marry your business brand, vision, values, products, and services with traditional outdoor, radio, TV, and yellow page advertising alongside social networking and social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other technologies like apps for the iPhone and Android phones.

    SEO is Not Enough – Content Marketing

    It’s no longer enough to have a top-ranking website in Google if your web site is not converting traffic, your story is not consistent, and you are not creating lasting relationships with customers. Erich Stauffer can help you to do all three with content marketing.

    Social Media Management

    We are excited to offer social media management to help your business organize and streamline their marketing efforts with a consistent message that is in-line with their mission, vision, and values. We believe so strongly about this product that we would be happy to take you out to lunch to show you how it works in a one-on-one session. Are you interested in learning more?