While attending PR News’ Facebook Boot Camp & Social Media Summit, James Nickerson, lead instructor for digital marketing at General Assembly, caught my attention with his opening comments at the conference.
“Everyone in this room is the top one percent,” he said.
At first I thought he was referring to finances. Sure, I was living on a budget, socking away savings, reading some personal finance blogs and trying to learn how to make money work for me instead of the reverse. But top one percent? That couldn’t be right.
I felt somewhat deflated, but my feelings quickly shifted once I discovered I had joined a different group of one percenters.
“We are the one percent of people on Facebook who are end users but also use the platform for advertisement,” Nickerson stated.
He’s right.
As PR pros, we literally see Facebook differently. While most of the public view this social media platform through the lens of a consumer, communicators observe Facebook from multiple vantage points – constantly finding ways to create value for our clients as well as ourselves. Companies can benefit from our personal experience as users to determine which Facebook features and messages will resonate with audiences.
With clients increasingly concerned about their social media strategy and engagement, what’s required from us is a desire to explore and experiment on Facebook and other social media platforms, to “test” the latest tactics and trends.
To give you a head start, here are five takeaways from the Facebook social media summit:
- Don’t be left behind the Facebook Live bandwagon. Users are spending nearly three times the amount of time watching Facebook Live video compared to video that is not live.
- Make video content short and to the point. Keep the length under two minutes and focus on how to pique the viewer’s interest within the first six seconds.
- Measure the right things, not everything. With large amounts of Facebook data at your fingertips, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and distracted. Instead of attempting to capture all Facebook data, stay laser-focused on a few metrics that align with your client’s objectives, e.g., click-through rates and cost per click.
- Use Facebook split testing to create the most effective ad campaigns for your audience. When conducting tests, pay close attention to these ad elements: audience, image, headline and copy.
- Focus on Facebook’s relevance score when determining how well an ad is performing with your audience. This score is important because it determines both your cost per click and how frequently Facebook shows your ad. The higher an ad’s relevance score, the less it will cost to be delivered to your audience. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest possible score, securing a score above six is a great benchmark.
While many of us may never reach the financial one percent, all of us are capable of being the top 1 percent of PR practitioners in our firm, market and industry. If we value our clients and ourselves, investing time to stay on top of new tactics and trends is well worth the time and effort.
As design director at Cookerly, Tim serves as the creative lead in the development of branding campaigns, print collateral and digital media for clients across a broad range of industries, including consumer, professional services, healthcare and technology.
As a senior vice president at Cookerly, Mike Rieman is a strategic communications leader specializing in media relations and reputation management. With a proven track record of securing high-profile placements in top-tier outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and USA Today, he excels at crafting compelling narratives that resonate across print, broadcast and digital platforms.
Mike Touhill is vice president at Cookerly Public Relations, where he helps lead traditional, social and digital media programs for B2B and B2C clients in packaging, telecommunications and technology, among other industries. As a communication leader, he develops and executes public relations strategy, provides proactive and reactive counsel to C-level executives and secures earned media coverage for client initiatives and product.
Andrew Agan is a vice president at Cookerly Public Relations, overseeing the agency’s internship program and leading media relations, content strategy and social media initiatives. He provides counsel and executes campaigns for clients across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, hospitality, technology, automotive and many others. Andrew excels at crafting compelling stories and building media relationships, resulting in clients being featured in notable outlets such as CNBC, Associated Press, Business Insider, Fox Business, HBO, Inc. Magazine, Sirius XM, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, among others.
As vice president of Cookerly, Sheryl Sellaway uses her extensive corporate communications background to lead consumer PR efforts, deliver strategy for marketing programs and share expertise about community initiatives.