Nicole Harrison

About Nicole Harrison

What to Look for in a Social Media Agency

Nicole Harrison · November 13, 2019 ·

So you have determined that hiring a social media agency is the right step for your business. But how do you go about choosing the right agency? Where do you begin? As an experienced social media agency ourselves, we have been around the block a time or two. We have spent years honing our skills to be the best agency we can be for our clients, so we know what your company deserves and should keep an eye out for in a social media agency.

We have put together a list of the top characteristics to keep in mind when considering the future of your social media marketing. From the technical skills necessary to execute great social media strategy, to the proven results of past work, to the importance of having common values with your business, look to our must-haves as you go about selecting the best social media agency for your business.

Social Media Agency Must-Haves: Technical Skills

There are a few technical skills that you should absolutely look for when choosing a social media agency to work with your business. These skills range from creative writing and business writing, to strong editing, to precise number-crunching and data analysis–which are all crucial to running a successful social media presence.

Writing and Content Creation

What most people think of when they think of social media is the content: what appears on their screens; in other words, the face of the business online. The majority of this content is going to be written content, so whether it’s a 280-character tweet, a lengthy blog post, or the “About” page on your website, you want this content to be good.

That’s why we recommend looking for a social media agency with skills in writing and editing. Depending on the nature of your business, and what your needs are in hiring an agency, you may require creative writing skills or more technical business writing skills. Our advice is to look for a social media agency that can do both well because most businesses need a bit of each. Additionally, make sure the agency has ruthless editing skills. You don’t want your online presence to be riddled with avoidable grammar errors that can make your business look unprofessional.

Dive deep into the agency you are looking to hire–look at their own web presence, blog, and any other materials you can get your hands on. Since content is so outward-facing, you should easily be able to find examples of the agency’s work that can tell you whether or not the agency has the necessary skills.

Actuarial Skills and Attention to Detail

Content may be the face of the business online, but what is behind the scenes is equally important to the success of your business’s social media presence. By that we mean the numbers, the hard-data, and the details. Look for a social media agency that is every bit as skilled and proficient in their actuarial skills as they are in their content creation.

The truth is, behind every successful social media campaign, there are detailed plans, spreadsheets tracking the results, and someone crunching the numbers to make sure they all add up, as well as analyzing them to learn from them. In your search for a social media agency, look for one that has skills in these areas, as well as data to back them up. While it may take a bit more digging to access than their blog posts or writing samples, it will be well worth it if you can find an agency that has this very important part of the job down to a T.

Social Media Agency Must-Haves: Creativity and Flexibility

While it is important to look for an agency with technical skills, you will also want to look for an agency with right-brained creativity and big-picture thinking. This is the aspect of the social media agency that will keep your business growing, progressing, and moving forward through its social media.

Big-Picture Thinking and Creativity

A good social media agency will have the capacity and the systems in place to brainstorm for the future of your company and to plan for growth. Rather than just doing the day-to-day management and overseeing of your business’s social media channels or campaigns, this social media agency will be looking for ways to change, improve, and progress your business through its social media. This will help keep your business’s social media from getting stuck in a rut, and to stay fresh and relevant through all the changes that may come your way.

Jacks-of-All-Trades

Similarly, we advise you to look for a social media agency that can be described as a jack-of-all-trades–an agency that is full-service, that can take care of all of your website and online social needs. Look for an agency that has trained experts for each specialty: a social media manager, a web developer, a content creator, etc., so you have all your bases covered. In addition to this, look for a small agency that is nimble and well-connected so they can bring in other experts as needed. This will help your business get all its online and social media needs met in one place, which is both simple and cost-effective.

Social Media Agency Must-Haves: Proven Results

A social media agency worth being hired by your business will have the results to back up what we’ve listed above in regards to their skills and the way they operate. It is invaluable to find a social media agency that has proven results of their leadership skills and team approach, the references and reviews from other or past clients, and a portfolio of work that you can view. You should see the evidence of their good work showing on their clients’ social media in the form of more engagement and higher follower counts over time.

Leadership

Look for a social media agency that has good leadership in place and one that uses a team-approach to its work. Within the agency, there may be a hierarchy of roles from the social media director, to the social media lead, to the social media managers, preferably with a dedicated manager who is in charge of your business’s account within the agency. This team should be made up of actual agency employees–hired, trained, and managed by the agency– not third-party subcontractors who will not be as well-trained, focused, and dedicated to your brand.

Additionally, even the president or CEO of the agency should be directly involved in both your account management and employee management. This is the personal touch and commitment that small agencies boast, which is often lost in a large agency. When you hire a small agency, your business will be a priority to that agency, even if you are the smallest business they work with.

References

One of the best ways to determine whether a social media agency is worth hiring is to look at the references and reviews of current or past clients. It typically isn’t hard to find online reviews for an experienced agency, and if possible, speak to others who have worked with the agency to find out what kind of experience they had. Look especially for long-standing client relationships and clients who have hired the agency repeatedly because they liked working with them so much.

The world of social media management and marketing is small, so do some digging and you will probably be able to find someone who has worked with the agency you are considering. Just as you would when hiring an employee, seek out references and talk to others who have been in your shoes.

Portfolio

Another way to determine whether you should hire a social media agency is by looking at a portfolio of their work. This can be tricky, as some agencies (like SocialNicole) do not publish portfolios due to client privacy. When you contact the agency you are considering, ask if they have any sort of portfolio of their work that you can view.

Another way to look at their work before you decide to contact them is to check out the agency’s own online presence. Look at their blog. Do they blog often? Are they experts who know what they are talking about? Is the writing consistently good and error-free? Look at their website. Is it professional, well-written, and easy to navigate? Look at their social media presence. Are their pages up-to-date and relevant? Are their posts creative and informative? Basically, is what you see from this social media agency online the kind of content you would be happy to have on your own business’s website, blog, or social media channels? Make sure the answer is an emphatic “yes!” before you decide to hire.

Social Media Agency Must-Haves: Common Values

When you hire a social media agency, you are signing on to work with this company and these people pretty closely. You should look at it similarly to how you would look at hiring an employee. You will want to make sure that the agency shares common values with your business.

Ethics, Morals, and Passions

If you find a social media agency that shares your ethics, morals, and passions, then the agency will really be able to care about your business, get excited about your work, and stand behind the mission of your brand 100%–which is what your business deserves and needs in order to thrive.

Avoid awkward conflict of interests by looking for an agency that matches your business in values. This doesn’t mean you have to line up exactly on every world-issue, but on issues that may come up or are relevant to your business, you will want to make sure you hire an agency that you can trust to represent your business just like you would. Both you and the agency you are working with will be happier, more comfortable, and more excited to work together if this is the case.

Customer Service

Another place where your values should line up with those of the agency you hire is your approach to customer service. Although it may require minimal face-to-face interaction with customers, social media is just that: social. It actually involves a lot of customer service, and these are your loyal and important customers that you are entrusting to this agency when you hire them to engage with your online community. Make sure the agency treats your customers the way you would.

As you begin your search for the right social media agency for your business, remember to look for an agency that has the necessary technical skills, the big-picture mindset, the positive reviews, recommendations, and portfolio to back it up, and is on the same page as your business in terms of values and customer-service practices. These are important characteristics that will hopefully lead to a happy and long-standing relationship between your business and the social media agency you hire.

As an experienced, full-scale social media agency, we at SocialNicole have spent years becoming the best social agency we can for our clients. We have the technical skills and proven results, and we would love to work with you to see whether we have common values and could be the right choice for your business. Contact us today!

What Is Content Marketing?

Nicole Harrison · June 21, 2018 ·

It’s been around for a while, taking on endless disguises and aliases, and it’s now one of the key tools being utilized in modern business: Content Marketing. But what is content marketing?

In an age of optimized consumerism, businesses are always looking for ways to attract new customers and maintain the existing ones. Today’s customers are increasingly online and looking for information to make informed decisions before they buy. A recent study by Havas Group found that 84% of consumers look for brands to provide meaningful content that provides solutions, entertainment, experiences and events. Given that 47% of consumers will view 3-5 pieces of content before making a purchase decision or talking to a sales representative, content marketing is an essential part of any marketing plan.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and sharing relevant, consistent content to educate, engage and move potential customers through the sales pipeline to become customers and advocates of a business.

It’s important to note that an effective content marketing strategy does not pitch to customers and prospects, instead a company is providing useful and quality content that potentially helps to solve issues.

Businesses research their audiences and create intentional content to engage and inform consumers. Content marketing is a way to appeal to potential customers and keep current customers interested. It is rather sneaky because, on the surface, businesses aren’t actually selling consumers anything. This marketing method simply informs customers about the area of business, educating them on the specifics of their inquiry and encouraging them to build trust in the company or brand that they are researching for that area of business.

Content marketing is creative and inventive. Leveraging content marketing means businesses look for ways to get customers interested in the brand, affect their decision making process towards a purchase and build deep connections that will last beyond a purchase of a product or service. Several leading content marketing tactics are blogging, social media and case studies, but the list of content marketing tactics is extensive and includes: videos, webinars, white papers, podcasts and more.

Why Use Content Marketing?

Understanding why content marketing is important for your business is perhaps more important than understanding what content marketing is. Some reasons content marketing is essential for businesses include:

Brand Awareness – Great content can create a buzz or awareness with prospects and customers. You want your customers to be talking about your product or services, recommending them to others and helping to build your brand. A well-executed content marketing program can do this.
Establish Industry Influence – Being recognized as a thought leader in your industry can be a huge boost for any business. If you are running a successful business then chances are you ARE an expert in that industry, but how do others know you are an expert unless you get out and tell them? Content marketing can help you gain the attention of reporters, bloggers, videographers and other industry experts who may call on your expertise and feature you in a story or mention you.
Increased Website Traffic – One of the most important benefits of content marketing is generating website traffic. Creating useful and compelling content will bring people to your website where they can find out more about your company, your products or services and hopefully they will choose to engage further with you and eventually choose to become a customer. Traffic also helps your overall ranking with Google for organic searches.
SEO Enhancement – Search engine optimization, what you do to make sure your website is seen by Google and that you show up in organic Google searches is greatly affected by new, unique and high quality content. The Google algorithm loves new content as it shows you are staying relevant. This means your blog is very important. All content that drives people back to your website is valuable and cannot be understated. Content marketing is essential for your SEO and should not be overlooked as every piece of content is not only driving brand awareness, expert status and increased website traffic, but it also drives people to link to your website, visit and increase your ranking in Google.
Direct Customer Conversions – Driving customers to buy your service or product is the goal of every business when marketing and content marketing can play a part towards this direct customer conversion. People are looking for solutions to their problem, and businesses can help provide those solutions through well-executed content marketing. If an average consumer reads 3-5 pieces of content to make a decision it is imperative that businesses create content that will become part of this research and could help land the final sale.

Content Marketing: Selling Without Selling

Content Marketing allows businesses to relate to consumers without openly vying for their business. It doesn’t interrupt a consumer in their quest for making a decision, but rather, it informs and guides the customer. Great content marketing builds trust and a relationship with the customer and guides them on their path to making a decision.

Creating compelling content that is valued by customers is essential for serious businesses and brands. While it can seem overwhelming and somewhat daunting, consider this – you are reading this blog post and learning about content marketing from SocialNicole Digital. We are engaging in content marketing right this minute with you. While this post took time and resources to write edit and publish, it was well worth it to help advise our community, potential customers and advocates about a topic they want to know more about. This post and all of our posts help create trust and build relationships, which helps lead to business growth for SocialNicole Digital.

Our blog posts help increase the chance for those searching for social media and digital marketing advice to find out more about the services we offer. Our blog posts also serve as content we can share on our social media channels and through ads to help build our reputation as thought leaders and experts in social media marketing. The value of one simple blog post cannot be understated and this is what is great about content marketing – if done well it creates ongoing value for a business and for potential customers, too.

For another example of content marketing, go to SocialNicole.com and sign up for our email updates on the home page. You will see we promise you a Facebook Marketing Guide when you sign up. This is a great example of content marketing. You give us your email and we will give you a great piece of content. In this case, you will also be on our email list for future updates from SocialNicole Digital.

Content Marketing: Cultivating Community

One of the main pay-offs of content marketing is that it helps to build a community within and around your brand. This community is made up of individuals that are more than just customers – they are supporters, followers, and advocates for your business. Not everyone who participates in your community will become a paying customer, but many people will remain advocates in your community and support your business growth. Your online community helps you by sharing your content, giving referrals to others looking for services you offer and by engaging with you and your brand. Providing quality content that is helpful to your community, regardless of whether or not they are paying customers, is a cornerstone of content marketing. Every member of your community is valuable.

In order to build a community through content marketing, it’s important to come up with a plan of action. Knowing your target audience is a key component of building content that will resonate with the people you want to connect with. You want to speak directly to your ideal target audience, which requires you to narrow in on exactly who that audience is and what they need. Don’t worry about appealing to the masses. The goal is to fit into the niche that fits your ideal customer and create content for that niche audience.

By creating quality content that resonates with your ideal target audience, you will be forming valuable relationships that will build your business for the long-term. By building strong connections and trust within your community you will strengthen your relationships and this will help to grow your brand.

Content Marketing: Telling a Story

One of the most well-known rules of writing is “show don’t tell.” This is a great way to describe content marketing as well. With content marketing, you are telling the story of your brand… or should we say showing the story of your brand. Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer of the Content Marketing Institute, once said, “Traditional marketing and advertising is telling the world you’re a rockstar. Content marketing is showing the world you are one.”

Through content marketing, you are showing the personality of your brand, the quality of what you can do, and the creativity it takes to do it. For instance, at SocialNicole Digital, we say we are social media superheroes, but we show you that we are through our social media channels and blog posts – this is content marketing. It’s yet another way of building trust with your community – words only mean so much if there isn’t proof of action to back them up.

Content Marketing: A Must For Growing Your Business

Few businesses can ignore the importance and power of content marketing as it is quickly becoming a part of all communications and sales for any business of any size. If you are trying to be found by potential customers, you need to be participating in content marketing. The concept is broad and covers many types of content and outreach. The opportunities to express oneself in a way that works for individuals is massive and it is all about figuring out how to master content marketing within your own business budget and resources. Fortunately, there is an entry point for any business at any size.

So, now that you have a little taste of what content marketing is and why it is essential for businesses that are looking to remain relevant and grow, it’s time to get busy and build a content marketing strategy that works for your business. This may seem overwhelming and it can be a challenge to get started. Stay tuned as we will be talking more about getting started with a content marketing strategy that works for your business and budget. Sign up here now to make sure you get all our great digital marketing blog posts in your email inbox.

10 Must Read Social Media Marketing Blogs for 2018

Nicole Harrison · June 13, 2018 ·

Social media is constantly changing, updating and developing. It continues to change how we receive information and it’s revolutionizing the way we work. There is an abundant amount of information in cyberspace about social media, but the question remains: where is the best place to look for social media help? Which blogs are the best social media blogs?

At SocialNicole we read a wide variety of resources to stay up to date on the trends and happening in social media marketing. The list is long and is more than most people have time to read or need to read to stay in the social media know. We have pared our list down to a group of 10 blogs that we recommend for those wanting to stay up to date with what’s happening in social media marketing without making their heads spin. These blogs are presented in no particular order and include a mix of social media only blogs and general business blogs as well.

1. Social Media Examiner

This blog has great content to introduce new users to all the different social media sites. Social Media Examiner helps with staying on top of trends and the latest news on any changes in social media channels.

2. Buffer Social

I am an avid fan of the Buffer app and we use it religiously as part of our social media tool arsenal at SocialNicole Digital. And this company practices what they preach with their content marketing. Their blog is packed full of great advice, useful tips and strategies to help any business succeed at social media marketing.

3. Marketing Tech Blog

This blog combines the ever-changing technology and the world of social media. Learn how technology and social media work together to be most effective in marketing.

4. Sprout Social

This is another tool we use at SocialNicole Digital every single day and their blog provides an abundance of advice and updates on social media, brand building and more. What I like about this blog is that they research the topics extensively and their advice is sound. I typically read more than one source when I am trying to validate my own theories and Sprout Social is never wrong.

5. Hubspot

Hubspot is known far and wide for their all-in-one marketing software that will make your marketing automation dreams come true. And while their product is not for everyone, they do an excellent job showcasing what they do with their own content marketing. They provide some of the most relevant, cutting edge social media and content marketing advice you can find both on their blog and through their many white papers, guides and resources that they happily provide you for free. If you want to see a content marketing program that works, this is the company and blog to follow.

6. Mashable

Mashable is a very popular blog that provides a wide variety of news, ranging from social media to celebrity gossip. It has a mix of content that provides information about trends in technology, science, entertainment and more. While the content is more varied than some others on this list, it is the place to be if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what is happening in the technology world (including social media marketing).

7. Socialnomics

From their about page:

Socialnomics.com spawned from Erik Qualman’s #1 bestselling book of the same title. Our mission is to keep you in-the-know on the latest biz and buzz of tech. Think statistics, studies, stories, and surprises. Because of your efforts we have been able to reach over 25 million and growing.

Enough said. This is a must read blog.

8. TechCrunch

This is a large international news site, with topics ranging from startups to apps and everything in between. They have a social media category that is kept updated multiple times each day with all the latest social media news and advice.

9. Social Media Today

Social Media Today offers a wide mix of help for any social media confusion you may have! They offer details on content marketing, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and strategic ways to use social media. The authors’ backgrounds are diverse which gives this blog an advantage as they are able to bring many expertise and perspectives into one central location. If you are going to read just one blog on social media this would be a great choice.

10. Inc.com

This is another blog with a magazine approach similar to TechCrunch that offers a diverse range of business-focused topics, I really like their entrepreneur advice and of course they have a stellar social media category that is both useful and sometimes quite entertaining. For an-all around great business blog that also focuses on social media marketing – Inc.com is an excellent choice!

These blogs can get you started and help you with your social media questions. And don’t forget to subscribe to SocialNicole’s RSS feed for easy to follow social media marketing advice which includes do it yourself tutorials! Happy Reading! Photo Credit

5 Tips For Starting A Successful Business Blog

Nicole Harrison · June 4, 2018 ·

Wow! It’s been more than 8 years since the SocialNicole business blog was launched. It’s been exciting an journey building this business blog and growing SocialNicole Digital into a leading social media marketing agency that services individual influencers, small businesses and large brands. The SocialNicole business blog has been a catalyst to growing our agency. Our business blog is the cornerstone to our own business model for growth through our insightful and helpful posts and building an ever-increasing presence on Google search. We cannot emphasize enough the SEO value of a blog and how long-term consistent efforts can pay off.

Here are some helpful tips and advice for businesses looking to start a business blog as part of their content marketing and SEO:

1. Select a blog platform that can grow with your business

There are many free blog platforms out there, but not all blog platforms are created equal. Going for a free blog platform such as Blogger, WordPress.com or Tumblr comes with risks. On these platforms you are “stuck” with their templates with limited ability to edit. You are tied into their SEO specifications and your content and blog are not in your control. If the platform website goes down (CLICK HERE FOR AN EYE-OPENING ACCOUNT OF SUCH AN ORDEAL) you are out of luck until they get it going again. And what if the service goes away or a mistake is made and your content is lost? Well, they pretty much “own” your content, so you’re up a creek without a paddle.

My advice: Setup a WordPress.org blog on a private server. There are many options, and though you’ll have to pay for this, it will be worth it if you are serious about your business. WordPress is currently being used by approximately 33% of all websites in the world and what is great about it is that while it was originally a blog platform, it is now a powerful content management platform for all kinds of websites.

At SocialNicole, we develop and maintain WordPress websites and blogs for clients of all sizes and with all sorts of needs. This means your blog sits on a dedicated server optimized for WordPress, our tech team is available to solve problems ASAP without waiting on the phone for hours, we have secure backups offsite that ensure your content is safe and we have installed top level safety and privacy measures to help protect your blog from being hacked. You also own your website and all content, and because WordPress is open source it means you can move it to any hosting environment you want, meaning you are never “stuck” with one company or developer.

***A warning as you start shopping for a website development firm: If a development firm says it uses a proprietary platform but you own the content – what they are saying is “We are going to build you a custom website using a platform we own and while you own the content, it will have little value to you as you can’t move it without losing your entire website design.” In essence, you are stuck with that specific website development firm unless you rebuild the website from scratch. With a WordPress.org website the platform is available freely to everyone, so you own the content and can move the entire website at anytime.

Our preferred WordPress blog template company is StudioPress based on the Genesis framework (our customers have access to the templates for free) or we can build you a custom design based on the Genesis platform. StudioPress is a leading WordPress company that offers cutting edge technology and smart template designs for the budget-conscious business owner. We choose to use StudioPress because they are a premium company that has a reputation for building smart templates that will grow as your business grows. Contact us to discuss setting up a cutting edge, powerful StudioPress WordPress website/blog today.

2. Create an editorial calendar for your business blog

Determining how large or small your efforts will be depends on what type of editorial calendar you will create. There is no one size fits all. At SocialNicole, we customize editorial calendars to fit our clients’ needs. This calendar is what keeps you on target and on track. Many people will opt for something as simple as a Google Calendar for planning, but you can use custom templates that give you a broader view for planning. A simple search on Google for “blog editorial calendars” will give you plenty of options to get started.

3. Create a social marketing plan to help get the word out about your business blog

What does this mean? Simply put, map out all the social media channels you are currently using and make a plan on how to use them strategically. You want to make sure you have a social media marketing plan in place that is providing quality content that is useful to your audience, that is focused on building community and engagement and most importantly building relationships with your followers. You don’t want to simply “push out” your blog content and sales messages as that will do little to build a long-term community that will help grow your business. At SocialNicole Digital, we also focus heavily on using Facebook Ads to help build our customer’s audience and engage with them. While you can focus on organic social media and this will work with a lot of elbow grease, a carefully constructed and managed Facebook Ad plan can make all the difference in growing a community quickly and getting results.

Some things to consider when creating this plan:

Who is your audience (be specific here)?
Who are your “competitors”- friendly or not so friendly? This includes others doing what you are doing, writing about what you are writing about, etc. Determine what they are doing and how are they doing it (what works, what doesn’t) and test different approaches with your own audience.
What social media channels does your audience hang out on? Where do you want to hang out to meet them?
Is your blog set up to be social? Do you have email list opt-in’s, social connect buttons, commenting forms, etc?
How many times a day/week/month will you post on different networks, what will your content be?
How will you measure your efforts?
What is your budget?
Do you have the internal resources to run this on your own or do you need help?

4. Start considering SEO for your business blog NOW!

It’s better to do this earlier rather than later. Use an SEO WordPress plug-in such as Yoast SEO (this is our preferred). Learn how to search for Keyword Phrases on Google Keyword Tool, and then learn how to incorporate these keywords into your website. While business blogs are important to provide quality content to post on your social media channels and to provide expert status for potential customers, one of the most important parts of the blog is SEO. The more you optimize your business blog posts, the better chance you will have for your audience to grow, as people will be able to find you on Google. Business blogs are a cornerstone for any company that is actively looking to grow their SEO organically.

5. Consider hiring an editor for your business blog

Seriously, this is one tip that will make all the difference. Blogging is difficult. Writing, editing and posting can be daunting – let alone sharing and interacting with your followers. At SocialNicole Digital, we offer a full range of business blog management services. We can edit, publish, optimize, share and advertise your blog posts. The most successful clients have us doing most of the heavy lifting because it helps keep them on track and they don’t have to think about all the technical details needed to create and publish a successful business blog. Our customers simply write their blog posts and allow us to work the magic. It really makes a difference to have an experienced team working on your behalf.

Hopefully these were some helpful tips to assist you in beginning your very own business blogging journey! Take caution, though. This guide was not for the timid or those sitting on the sidelines debating whether or not they can commit. These are tips for people who want to leverage a business blog to build their brands and their businesses and increase their overall revenue.

SocialNicole has become a premier social media company with expert blog strategists, writers, editors and publishers. Our success has been in doing things right from start to finish. If you are ready to take the plunge on building your business with social media marketing and blogging contact us today.

How to Optimize Facebook Conversion Ads

Nicole Harrison · October 24, 2017 ·

You may have found yourself wondering if you are doing something wrong when trying to run conversion ads. You have tried everything and just can’t seem to get the conversions to take place. You are not alone. Conversion ads on Facebook are tricky.

Let’s start with defining what a conversion ad is: a conversion ad is an ad that measures the action a person takes on your website such as adding an item to a shopping cart, viewing a particular product or even signing up for an email list. Any page on your website can represent a conversion. It is important to note that you will need to have your Facebook pixel code installed on your website in order for Facebook to track your conversions.

With over 1.6 billion active users on Facebook we at SocialNicole know that running Facebook ads is an effective way to grow your business. Conversion ads are one marketing objective that can yield results, but you need to figure out what works and what does not in order for this strategy to be effective.

Facebook needs high-quality data to properly optimize your ads for conversions. If you have a new product or service or only a few people have converted Facebook may no not have enough data to properly optimize your ad to yield results. However, the question still remains how do you provide Facebook with enough high quality data so you can start running Facebook conversion ads that get results?

How do I optimize my Facebook Ads for Conversions?

A great way to help Facebook gather more data is to optimize your conversion ads for link clicks. Follow the steps outlined below to set up a conversion ad that is optimized for link clicks. By doing this you first focus on link clicks and once Facebook has enough date you can switch to the conversion focus. It’s really quite easy just follow our guide below.

Step 1: Create your campaign.

Go to Ads Manager and create your campaign. Be sure to select the Conversion Ad marketing objective.

Step 2: Name your Facebook Ad Campaign.

We recommend adding more details so you can recognize the ad when checking ad performance. It’s a good idea to adopt a naming system so you can keep your ads organized based on their goals and objectives. An example Title (Something that tells you what the ad is)_Marketing Objective_Audience_Date Rang or additional info.

Step 3. Complete your ad set.

The first thing you will do is select your conversion event. A conversion event can be any action that is taken on your website such as: adding a product to your shopping cart, signing up for an email list or viewing a particular page. After you select your conversion event you will define your audience, edit placements or use automatic placements, and set your budget and schedule. If you are unsure how to set up your Facebook ad set, you can use our guide to setting up a Facebook ad here.

Step 4 Optimize your conversion ad for link clicks.

After you have scrolled through and defined your audience and set your budget and ad schedule, you will see the section titled “Optimization for Ad Delivery.” You will click on the drop down “Conversions” menu and select link clicks and hit continue.

Step 5. Create your ad.

Select your ad format, upload any images or video you would like your ad to contain, draft the ad text, input the link, set your “call to action” button, preview the ad on the right-hand side and place your order.

You have now set a Conversion ad that is optimized for link clicks. Once your campaign has gotten enough link clicks, Facebook recommends at least 1,000 link clicks, you can follow the steps above and optimize your ad for conversions. By the time your campaign has gotten 1,000 link clicks Facebook should have a higher amount of data to optimize your conversion ad and yield greater results.

This method is a little messy because it does require you to review your ad results and manually edit the campaign you are running, but if you are willing to do it you may maximize your ad results. There has been some talk about Facebook automating the optimization process. Stay tuned, we will update you when Facebook has rolled this out to business pages.

Managing Facebook ads for optimal results require expert focus to make sure you are getting the best results. At SocialNicole we help businesses everyday find success with their Facebook ads campaigns. If you would like help optimizing and managing your Facebook ads contact us today!