Category: Paid Social

Social Commerce 101: What Marketers Need to Know

Posted on by Allie Haupt

During your leisurely afternoon scroll through social media, you may have come across a post with a shopping feature prompting you to purchase a product within the app. This is social commerce at play – the ability to buy and sell a good or service within a social media platform. 

Why Is Social Commerce Important?

The pandemic permanently changed consumer shopping behaviors. 62% of US consumers are shopping more online now and 48% of US social media users have bought something on a social platform. 

Brands, now more than ever, should explore social commerce to meet the consumers where they are. Let’s explore ways you can leverage social commerce by platform to meet campaign objectives and business goals.

Meta: Facebook and Instagram

Meta makes it easy for brands and consumers to engage in social commerce. In Facebook Business Manager, a business can upload and manage their inventory and even provide customer support via Commerce Manager. To get started, create a Commerce Manager account where you’ll be prompted to link your business account, set shipping options, create a return policy, and assign a bank account for payouts. You can upload as much inventory as you desire to the Facebook catalog because there is no limit on product uploads.

Facebook also introduced in-app shopping features in 2021 including: Shops in Groups and Product Recommendations in Group. 

Likewise, Instagram added Shopping from Creators which allows users to purchase products that influencers tag in their posts. Users can also research and purchase products on the Shop Tab which is located on the Search and Explore Page in the Instagram app. Instagram is really driving the user experience and optimizing the algorithm to become the go-to hub for product discovery. 

Twitter

Twitter recently introduced a new shopping feature, Twitter Shops, that allows brands to create an inventory list of up to 50 products that can be displayed on their profile. Users can then peruse the brand’s products and click a “View Shop” button that will direct them to the brands website to complete the transaction. 

It is important to note that the transactions do not directly take place in the Twitter platform. This means users will be driven to your external site and your brand does not need to develop a new transaction process for payouts.

Pinterest

Pinterest was one of the trailblazers for social commerce, introducing shoppable pins in 2019. Within the platform, there are a plethora of ways a consumer can engage with a brand and purchase products. This includes the Shopping List feature, which automatically saves all of the product pins a user has pinned in one location so they can easily come back and shop. It also notifies a user when a product price has decreased to entice them to purchase. 

Additionally, Pinterest has an AR shopping experience that allows users to virtually try out products, such as placing furniture in their home, before purchasing. Check out this article for more Pinterest advertising tips. 

Snapchat

Snapchat may not be the first platform that comes to mind when thinking about social commerce, but it is helping brands drive efficient sales. Through Snapchat’s AR lens product, Try On, brands’ product catalogs are pulled into the platform to allow for user interaction. 

Major makeup retailer, Ulta, has seen significant success using the AR lens feature. They generated $6 million in sales by allowing users to virtually try on makeup in the app.

TikTok

TikTok is also beginning to enter the social commerce space. Brands can promote their products in the app by adding a Shopping Tab to their profiles. This allows users to look at products and prices, and then redirects the user to the website once ready for checkout. Two prominent brands successfully utilizing the Shopping Tab are Kylie Cosmetics and Sephora. 

If you’re unsure how to adapt your marketing to fit on TikTok, follow these Do’s and Don’ts of TikTok Advertising. 

Which Social Commerce Platforms Should You Use?

When planning a social commerce strategy, first define who your target audience is and identify which social platform(s) can help you reach them efficiently. Also consider the different social commerce offerings and capabilities each platform provides and how they can best meet your brand needs. Use this information to choose the platform(s) that can most effectively promote your brand’s products and create a positive user shopping experience.

Social commerce is a great way to align with shifting consumer shopping behaviors and meet the next generation of shoppers where they are active online. The volume of new shopping tools we’ve seen roll out in the first half of 2022 alone indicate this is only the beginning. Now is the time to get familiar with and start testing different social commerce applications to find what sparks the greatest results for your brand. 

For more on social commerce and other emerging topics, view our top 5 Social Media Trends for 2022. 

Targeting Tourism Audiences With CTV Advertising Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A state tourism client tapped Coegi to implement a CTV advertising campaign with the primary goal of driving awareness. We used a test-and-learn bidding strategy to identify optimal bid numbers across platforms. This allowed us to allocate the client’s budget across the most impactful CTV channels. Using this strategy, we achieved more even spend, higher unique views, and improved cost efficiency.

Highlights

2.75MM
Total Views

470,867
Unique Reach

$0.31
Cost per Unique Reach

Challenge

In programmatic CTV advertising campaigns, platforms will often optimize spend distribution towards total views. This oversimplification causes premium placements like Hulu to consume a disproportionate amount of the budget.

That risk was actualized when early reporting showed 99% of campaign spend going to Hulu and only 1% driving views on other high-indexing channels. As a high-impact platform, Hulu was important, but we wanted to ensure we were using other channels to expand the audience reach and maintain cost efficiency. 

Solution

Our specialists manually adjusted and optimized bids across different channels to create an even spend distribution. The goal was to identify the “sweet spot” that would give each strategic channel an appropriate amount of the budget.  Once the optimal channel mix was identified, the spend evened out to be 60% in Hulu and 40% distributed among other channels.

By serving ads to more niche channels such as Travel Channel, HGTV, and Discovery, we were able to reach key audience segments and boost overall ad performance. This generated 2,750,490 total completed video views, a cost-per-view of $0.05, a unique reach of 470,867 and a post-per-unique-reach of $0.31. 

Premium CTV channels can consume a disproportionate amount of budget. Correcting these standard optimizations with a manual test-and-learn strategy is necessary to find the ideal budget spend and maximize cost efficiency.

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Drive Travel Consideration by Leveraging Local Collaborations

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A travel and tourism client proposed a collaboration with a local chef to boost traveler consideration for their location. Using a cross-channel social media strategy, our teams saw strong results across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest with below benchmark CPAs for this co-branded campaign.

 

Highlights

126
Tour Guide Downloads

800K
Instagram Post Engagements

2.47%
Facebook CTR

Challenge

Our travel and tourism client tasked Coegi with executing a co-branded, mid-funnel campaign to boost website traffic as well as increase awareness. We were given high quality ‘how-to’ video creative from the popular chef. By presenting this to targeted audiences in mid-funnel campaigns, we were able to drive travel consideration among key audience groups.

Solution

We used a multi-channel paid social media strategy to target each platform’s specific audiences. Pinterest encapsulated the ‘foodie’ audience, while Facebook and Instagram’s goal was to drive the large travel audience to their site. Both platforms included look-a-like and retargeting segments to reach engaged users. Success was based on key website actions such as landing page views and post engagement.

This multifaceted strategy provided strong results. The Instagram and Facebook campaign achieved a CPLPV of $0.67 that came in well below our benchmark of $1.83. In addition, we also saw a 2.47% CTR, well above the 0.90% benchmark. The Pinterest campaign, despite having a smaller percentage of the budget, generated nearly 1.7MM impressions with a post engagement rate of 1.27% including 1,365 pin saves.

Key Learnings

  • Well-curated and professional creative catches eyes. This pushed our audience down the funnel quicker than most – generating 126 Tour Guide Downloads.
  • By partnering with an authentic, trusted figure such as a local chef or celebrity, travel brands can boost their image and drive audience engagement. 
  • Using “how-to” style Pinterest posts have a higher likelihood of being saved. This ultimately drives site traffic and brand awareness.

Emerging Social Platforms: Advertising Beyond Facebook

Posted on by Coegi

When marketers think of social media, they often default to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Although these platforms are important, there are other emerging platforms that may be a better fit for your target audiences. TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, and Tumblr are five high potential emerging social platforms to consider in your marketing channel strategy.

TikTok Advertising

This is a key social media platform for creating, sharing, and discovering short-form videos. TikTok gained over 1 billion users since its launch in 2016 and is among the top ten most used platforms today. Despite its massive popularity, many marketers are uncertain on how to engage with its unique audience and format. TikTok is important to consider for its incredible algorithm and mass exposure opportunities.

Unlike other platforms, content is shown to users by a curated, algorithmic system known as the ‘For You’ Page. The ‘For You’ page generates a continuous feed of primarily organic content blended with sponsored content. This element grants every video the opportunity to go viral. This is beneficial for small businesses looking for low-cost awareness and for larger businesses wanting to maximize engagement. Our post The Do’s and Don’ts of TikTok Advertising offers greater insights on building effective advertising campaigns on TikTok.

Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat is a mobile messaging platform to share photos, messages and videos. Unlike most platforms, Snapchat uses disappearing content. Users connect with others by expressing themselves and living in the moment, and marketers should to do the same.

Snapchat ads are essential for brand engagement. Advertisements show up between friends’ stories and people can easily swipe up to interact. According to insider data, 319 million people use Snapchat every day and 75% of Snapchat users are Millennials or Gen Z. Snapchat ads are extremely successful for ecommerce brands as fashion, novelty items, and impulse purchases perform well. However, advertisers in all industries can find success by delivering authentic content that makes users feel connected with your brand.

Reddit Advertising

Reddit is a social news website and forum where users participate in discussion and rate content. As of 2021, the platform has over 430 million monthly active users and 130,000 active communities. The interface consists of subreddits about topics where users have the opportunity to engage in valuable conversation. Marketers can leverage the platform to reach niche audiences in these specific interest groups. Some popular subreddits to consider for your marketing strategies include college admission, agriculture, health & wellness, telecommunications, or public health. For more in-depth tips on reaching niche audiences on Reddit, check out Advertising on Reddit: Reach Your Niche Audience. 

It is important to consider users’ hesitancy toward having branded content in the Reddit environment. Users dislike overly promotional language and are likely to skip over it. Content with a UGC creative feel is extremely beneficial. Users are more likely to engage with content specific to the community. 

Pinterest Advertising

Pinterest is a social media platform for sharing visual content, discovering new interests, and deep diving into passions. With over 431 million monthly users, the platform allows users to share posts, also known as “pins,” with other users and find communities with similar tastes.

Although over 60% of their users are female, Pinterest appeals to an increasingly diverse audience. Male and Gen Z user categories are gaining traction with 40% year over year growth. These users have strong purchase power with 45% having a household income over $100K. Users treat the platform as a source for inspiration; therefore, creative and innovative posts tend to have high performance. Promoted posts are part of the expected user experience. This makes Pinterest a great place to drive conversions with shoppable ads, while initiating brand awareness among key interest groups. 

Tumblr Advertising

Tumblr is a microblogging platform where users can post multimedia content. It is extremely versatile with media formats including text, photo, link, chat, audio and video. Although the platform peaked in popularity in 2014, it is still ranked among the top fifteen social media platforms with over 500 million active users. Tumblr presents many unique advantages for brands. For example, Sponsored Posts are useful ads visible to users through their dashboards. They blend in with organic content and are strongly welcomed with Tumblr creators. In fact, 70% of consumers perceive a brand more favorably after seeing a Sponsored Post and over 50% research the sponsor afterward.

The platform skews slightly younger with Gen Z accounting for over 61% of new Tumblr users and 48% of active users. Ads with comedic, dramatic or informational tones typically perform best on the platform. Brands looking to resonate with these users should strategically consider their creative messaging to align with these audience preferences. 

Choosing Your Best Paid Social Media Channels

As you are considering social tactics, consider these emerging social platforms and the opportunity they can provide. Many of these channels are well established, however much of their advertising capabilities are largely untapped. This means you can capitalize on whitespace where your brand can cut through the noise and reach enthusiastic audiences. When selecting which emerging social platforms to leverage, be sure to consider the campaign objective and if the platform aligns with your goals. 

Additionally, it’s critical to have a holistic understanding of the audience demographics and their sentiment around ads on the platform. Ensure your creative strategy results in a positive experience that drives results and increases learnings. If you want to stay up to date with the newest trends on social media, be sure to check out Nine Easy Ways to Stay Up to Date Social Media.

How to Drive Job Applicants for Healthcare Recruiting Campaigns

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

A hospital client tasked Coegi with developing a digital healthcare recruiting campaign to drive interest and qualified website traffic for open job positions. Using a combination of social and display tactics, we were able to generate a significant increase in website visits and drive new job applications from a niche audience. 

Highlights

1,496
LinkedIn “Apply Now” conversions

10,000
page views from Display

0.63%
Facebook CTR

Challenge

The ultimate goal was to drive maximal website traffic. But Coegi understood it was critical to ensure the visitors were qualified potential applicants. Due to restrictions on employment-based ad campaigns, the team was creative with data usage across platforms, especially Facebook. Additionally, the client was recruiting for multiple positions, each with different qualifications. This resulted in separate creatives and messaging for each job position, adding a layer of complexity to campaign execution. 

 

Solution

We identified three primary channels for this healthcare recruiting campaign: LinkedIn, Facebook, and programmatic display. 

LinkedIn:

Linkedin was chosen to reach the job-seeking audiences while they were searching. Plus, because they could use job title targeting to be confident the intended audience was being reached. This tactic led to the highest number of “apply now” conversions.

Results: 1,496 application form submissions

Display:

Display was chosen to drive site traffic. Data segments allowed the team to reach niche job titles relevant to the target audience. Using custom data segments allowed for granular job title targeting, while also reaching a larger number of likely users. We ran all job titles in one campaign. Each ad set was targeting a specific job field driving users to unique landing pages. 

Display Results: Nearly 10,000 recruitment page views

Facebook: 

With Facebook, we navigated targeting limitations since employment is a special ad category. This forced a more general targeting strategy focused more on consideration, driving scale for the campaign. Like display, this was primarily used to drive site traffic and make job seekers aware of open positions. 

Facebook Results: 0.63% CTR, 5,650 interview page views, 8,783 career page views

This cross-channel strategy allowed us to target niche job titles and drive high site traffic, despite limitations. Healthcare and pharma brands often defer to brand awareness campaigns due to restrictions in targeting sensitive audiences and compliance laws. However, this campaign showed how health-focused brands can shake that mold and achieve out of the box, lower-funnel goals, such as recruitment, using strategic digital media plans.

Advertising on Reddit to Reach Niche Audiences

Posted on by Coegi

Reddit is not always the first platform that comes to mind when advertisers are thinking about paid social, but it should not be overlooked. Reddit is a fast growing platform that allows advertisers to reach a very niche audience at a reasonably low cost. The Reddit platform does have some downfalls though, such as a less advanced reporting platform as compared to competitors. Here, we discuss the benefits and challenges of advertising on Reddit and some helpful tips to create a successful campaign.

What Is Reddit And Who Uses The Platform?

Reddit is a network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies and passions. It is a discussion-focused platform and is often referred to as “the first page of the Internet.”

There are 52 million daily active users, which represents a 44% increase from October 2019. The platform sees 430 million monthly active users.

  • The vast majority of Reddit users are in the United States. 221.98 million users are in the United States, followed by Australia with 17.55 million users and India with 13.57 million users.
  • Two-thirds of Reddit users identify as male.
  • Reddit is most popular among the 25 to 29 year old age group. 64% of Reddit users are between the ages of 18-29.
  • The majority of Reddit users have a college degree or some college education.

Benefits Of Advertising On Reddit

  • Reddit ads can reach very niche audiences. There is a community for anything you can think of on Reddit. Ex: If you are selling liquor, you may consider targeting the r/cocktails or r/Bartenders communities.
  • Because Reddit has such a large number of users, CPMs are more efficient than some other social platforms.
  • Audience targeting is not only based on interests like other platforms, but also based on communities, also known as subreddits. These communities are often made up of very engaged users, so it is important to learn about the communities you are targeting and tailor your creatives to these communities.

Challenges Of Advertising On Reddit

The Reddit platform reporting capabilities are not as advanced as some of its competitors. It offers basic metrics, but does not go into as much detail as some of the other platforms, specifically with regards to engagement.

For example, users upvote and downvote on Reddit to express their approval or disapproval on a post, but this data is not available to view on the Reddit dashboard unless you are an admin. This would be important information for hands-on keyboard execution partners to have.

The Reddit dashboard only displays six months of data, so you are unable to see spend and performance for campaigns longer than 6 months ago. Because of this, we recommend Reddit campaigns run for less than 6 months.

Best Practices For Advertising On Reddit

  • Utilize community targeting and interest targeting in each ad set. When testing interest targeting vs. community targeting, we have found that community targeting tends to perform more efficiently when it comes to CTR than interest targeting, but combining interest targeting and community targeting in one ad set outperformed both.
  • Conduct research on the communities you would like to target. Look to see if these communities have many active members and what they discuss. Use this information to tailor your creatives to these users’ interests.
  • Use creative that feels authentic to your audience. Users of Reddit appreciate advertisers to meet them where they are.
  • Utilize both placement options (conversations and feed) at the ad set level in order to diversify where your ad will be seen.

Reddit is an excellent platform for reaching niche audiences at a relatively low cost. The platform is not as sophisticated as some of the others, but the ad performance on Reddit speaks for itself. If you are looking for a new platform for paid social, do some research on subreddits that your target audience may identify with and give Reddit ads a try.

Snapchat Swipe-Up Ads for Retargeting Teens

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi developed a social strategy for a higher education client using Snapchat swipe-up ads to target potential students. Despite tactical challenges of targeting restrictions, this social campaign resulted in benchmark-breaking performance.

Highlights

1.88%
Peak Swipe-Up Rate

0.91%
Avg. Swipe-Up Rate

6,345
Total Swipe-Ups

Challenge

For colleges and universities, advertising to potential students can be a tactical challenge. Most social media platforms allow targeting of individuals under the age of 18, but some severely limit advertisers’ ability to retarget to this key demographic. Potential students spend their time across several platforms. So determining where to most efficiently invest marketing dollars for this age range is not always clear.

With these challenges, higher education advertisers often pivot to target parents instead. While this can be effective, our client wanted to reach the students directly. 

Solution

After completing a strategic review of our options, we determined that Snapchat was the best option for two reasons. First, the platform allows advertisers to retarget the under 18 demographic, removing that tactical hurdle. Secondly, the target audience for our higher education clients are highly active on Snapchat. Beating out TikTok and Instagram, 35% of teens say Snapchat is their favorite social media app. With 87.3 million US monthly users, almost 30% of total internet users and 69% of teens and young adults, Snapchat quickly became the clear choice for this consideration campaign.

Snapchat swipe-up rates were the primary KPI. The benchmark for success was a swipe-up rate of 0.5%. With a budget of $3,300, the campaign generated 6,345 swipe ups, for an average rate of .91%. At its peak, the campaign generated a remarkable 1.88% swipe up rate. 

Part of this success was due to our use of lookalike audiences. This allowed us to scale and reach a broader audience and achieve a swipe-up rate of 1.05%, once again outperforming the 0.5% benchmark. 

Takeaways for Snapchat Swipe-Up Ad Success

An analysis of these high-performing campaigns leads us to believe that a significant portion of the success is attributable to the tactical strategy. The ads were being served to the right audience, at the right place, with the right technical execution. Both campaigns had different approaches to their creative design. This leads us to believe the visuals contributed less to performance than tactical execution. We hypothesize that with optimized creative strategy, similar campaigns would see even greater success.

To get started with Snapchat campaign optimizations, we recommend the following: 

  1. Focus on strong, front-loaded storytelling to hook the attention of the viewer. 
  2. Keep videos short. Snapchat recommends 0:03-0:05 seconds long. 
  3. Place your branding, offer and CTA in the first few seconds to ensure it is seen.
  4. Catch viewers’ attention with movement at the beginning of the video. 

 

Nine Easy Ways to Stay Up to Date on Social Media Trends

Posted on by Coegi

Social media is an ever-growing and evolving landscape with new platforms launching and new features being released on a frequent basis. Being able to reach your target audience on the right platform with the right feature or placement is crucial. It may feel overwhelming to try to keep up with the continually changing social media advertising trends without committing significant time – these nine tips will help you stay up to speed without sacrificing too much time.

Spend Time on Social Media Every Day

Try to set aside 10 minutes every day to scroll through your brand’s social media feeds. This is a great way to see what people are talking about, what’s trending today, and what changes are happening.

Social media tips to use your time efficiently:

  • Customize your feeds so that you can easily see relevant and trending content/topics.
  • Save articles to read for later so you can revisit when you have more time.  
  • Ask your team to also spend 10 minutes a day on social media and then share interesting findings regularly.
  • Familiarize yourself with new social platforms in order to understand new consumer trends

Use SEO to Find Places Where Your Business Could Fill a Market Gap

Use tools like SEMrush, Keyword Hero, Screaming Frog, or SEOquake to see what your customers are searching for in your industry and vertical, analyzing their behaviors at various stages in the funnel, and understanding nuances between various types of consumers.  Using keyword and search research will not only help you stay on top of trends, but can also help guide your brand’s content creation and create best practices.

Utilize Customer Feedback

Solicit customer feedback via surveys and customer interactions on your business’s social media pages. Surveys and feedback will help you to better understand your audience, their needs, and their interests, allowing your team to provide even better customer support and service. Additionally, feedback from your customers and social media followers helps you identify what type of content resonates with/performs best. 

Ideas of questions to ask:

  • What’s one feature/product/service you’d like us to start offering?
  • What [BRAND/COMPANY] product can you not live without?
  • What kind of [BRAND/COMPANY] content would you like to learn about?
  • What’s your struggle with _________?

Of course, once you receive feedback, you need to apply it

  • Your customers have the best pulse on your products and services and may think of things you didn’t. Listen to their suggestions of how to improve current offerings, things they’d like to see, or new ideas.
  • Don’t ignore negative feedback. Negative feedback is an opportunity to understand pain points, make improvements, and improve customer service.
  • Incorporate feedback into your product roadmap.
  • Thank your customers who provide positive feedback. These people will become positive advocates for your brand.

Keep an Eye on What Your Competitors Are Doing

Set aside 10 minutes a week to look at what your competitors are posting and promoting. Ensure you derive inspiration regarding emerging trends in your industry, or even some of your personal favorite brands, but are not copying content. Share your unique POV and showcase the expertise of your brand.

Subscribe to Trade Journals, Publications, Newsletters and Magazines

Schedule time on your calendar weekly to read through your subscriptions to keep on top of the latest trends and changes.

Some good publications that frequently share the latest and greatest on social trends include:

Join LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are a great way to network with other business owners and social media enthusiasts. You’ll be able to ask questions of your peers to learn from their experiences and discover new social media sites/trends. Some great groups to join include “Social media Marketing Group by Connect365.io”, “Digital Marketing: Social Media, Search, Mobile, & more”, and “Digital Marketing.”

Attend Conferences Monthly or Quarterly (whether in-person or virtual!) 

Get the most up-to-date and relevant information about social media trends and advice from industry experts. Conferences are a great way to network and interface with other professionals in the social media industry who have different backgrounds.

Stay Current with Twitter and TikTok Trends

Twitter and TikTok function differently in terms of the type of content and algorithms than the other social media platforms. Here are some tips to help stay on top of what’s trending in both platforms:

Twitter

  • Create a stream on Twitter with hashtags such as #socialmediamarketing, #smchat, or #TwitterTip to help understand what to expect in the coming weeks.
  • Follow social media marketing influencers on Twitter and LinkedIn (sometimes discovered through hashtags!) and spend time reading their content.

TikTok

  • The “For You” page is a great place to start to see trendy and viral videos but this should not be the only place to look for trends.
  •  Hashtags help people find relevant content (think #mentalhealth, #prank, or #taylorswift). The most-used hashtags in video captions are the best place to see what is trending on TikTok. Many users will often use hashtags relevant to their niche in addition to one or two trending hashtags to help boost their content organically.
  • Keep an eye on challenges on the platform. Users are actively creating and engaging in challenges, which can create new trends. Many challenges include lip-syncing, dancing, or skits.
  • Observe what influencers on Tik Tok are posting. Influencers and celebrity posts on the platform will be popular in addition to clueing you in to what is trending.

Commit to Learning

The world of social media is always growing and changing. By spending time daily or weekly on social media platforms and news, you’ll be able to have a firm grasp on trends and changes. 

Staying on top of social media trends can be a daunting task. Using these 10 tips can help you use your time efficiently and stay in the know.

 

Further reading:

How to Moderate Trolls on Facebook Ads

Posted on by Emma Beverlin

Trolling is the act of leaving frequent, offensive/negative comments on social media posts. This can be done by a single person (troll) or a group of people (trolls). Having moderate trolls on social media can be uncomfortable. Here are a few strategies to help eliminate trolls on your Facebook page. 

Utilize Facebook Filters

  • Community Standards –  Facebook automatically conducts moderation on the Facebook platform as a whole. In order to use Facebook, users agree to the Community Standards. These standards ban things like nudity, hate speech, excessive violence, and fake profiles. 
  • Profanity Filter – Any page admin can implement the Profanity Filter setting on Facebook. When using this filter, admins have the option to set the filter to either “medium” or “strong.” The difference between the two settings is the allowable offensiveness of the profanity. Facebook determines this criteria.  
  • Keyword Blocking – Facebook allows admins to block up to 1,000 keywords from appearing on their pages. This setting is not case sensitive and will block variations of the specified keywords from appearing as well. 
  • User Banning –  In the case of an individual or small group of trolls, it could make sense to simply ban the offending users from the Facebook page. The banned user(s) will still be able to share content from the page, but they will not be able to comment, like, or post on the page. The banned users are also blocked from sending messages to the page’s inbox.

Additional Considerations

While each of the aforementioned Facebook settings can be incredibly useful, those filters are typically preventative. When actively dealing with trolling, consider the following recommendations: 

  • Responding to the Troll – In general, it is best practice to respond to comments on your posts. The same applies when it is a troll commenting. If possible, address the frustration or concern of the commenter and provide a solution. This could be through encouraging the user to reach out via personal message or phone call. Other users generally react positively to a brand being responsive and helpful by commenting back. Alternatively, ignoring the troll can give credence to the troll’s complaints and even encourage other trolls to comment. 
  • Deleting Comments– If responding to the user’s comment is unsuccessful or if the user’s comment leaves no room for a solution, it is possible to delete comments from your posts. This should not be the first course of action as it can lead to frustration from the commenting user. Deleting a comment can provoke the troll to leave another, more offensive, comment. It is also important to consider the fact all comments (negative or positive) play into an ad’s engagement rate. A higher engagement rate leads to better performance. 
  • Resetting Ads– If there is one ad causing the trolling, it is possible to reset the ad. This is not ideal as every time an ad is reset, all of the data and learnings associated with the ad reset as well. After resetting an ad more than once, it is worth considering sunsetting the ad in question and replacing it with a new ad. Resetting an ad is an extremely manual process and is not something you can do for all live ads frequently. 

Ultimately, having a troll target your page be a nuisance. However, there are multiple strategies and resources to help stop a troll. Inconvenient as it may be, appropriately responding and reacting to a troll can be a positive reflection of your business.

The Power of Creative in Building Brand Awareness

Posted on by Coegi

The Brief

Coegi partnered with a powerhouse creative agency to launch a full-funnel digital campaign, building brand awareness as well as sales for a high-growth wine brand.

Highlights

10.6%
Lift in Standard Ad Recall

1.8%
Lift in Unaided Brand Awareness

1.4%
Lift in Purchase Intent / Consideration

Challenge

The brand tasked the team to produce a campaign that was not only effective in building brand awareness and emotional connection in a very cluttered, complicated category, but also drove trial and consideration across a broader set of consumers. 

Solution

The team executed a performance branding study on Facebook to evaluate brand lift as well as conversion lift for key website events. By comparing control and exposed audiences, incrementality was able to be evaluated. This blended approach allowed for valuable insights into multiple stages of the consumer journey, from brand awareness to purchase intent. 

The study showed positive lift across brand categories, surpassing CPG benchmarks. Ad recall was particularly pronounced, signaling that the creative was successful in driving memorability and that the selected audience resonated with the messaging approach.

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