Today's Guide to the Marketing Jungle from Social Media Examiner... | Presented by |  |
It's Treat Yo' Self Day, Alluser! Want a blow-up 🦖 dinosaur costume? Go get it! Want to eat 🧇 waffles for lunch? Do it! It's all about you, today!
In today's edition:
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Today's 👉 Tip of the Week is about iOS 17 privacy updates
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UGC in Facebook ads that convert 🛍
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🧾 Putting a price on your marketing services
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🧩 Hiring talent for your own social ads team
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Filtering for Meta Verified 💬 comments
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YouTube 👥 community posts tab on mobile
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Focused Instagram Stories 🗣 sharing
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🔎 Search ads roll out to TikTok
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⁉️ Questionable ads now showing on X
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Facebook ads ☎️ calling
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One tap 👆 Reels sharing to Instagram
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🔘 Post to TikTok from 3rd party platforms
In June 2023, Apple announced new privacy features that would appear with the rollout of its iOS 17 update. Two features immediately caught the attention of marketers when the update was released on September 18, 2023: Link Tracking Protection and Private Browsing.
Link Tracking Protection (LTP): The Facts
Per Apple, "Some websites add extra information to their URLs in order to track users across other websites. Now this information will be removed from the links users share in Messages and Mail, and the links will still work as expected. This information will also be removed from links in Safari Private Browsing."
Don't Panic
LTP will not remove UTM parameters from your URLs. Your links will continue to deliver traffic to the destinations you originally intended.
LTP will strip tracking parameters such as the Facebook Click Identifier (FBCLID) and Google Click Identifier (GCLID) from URLs. This means you're no longer able to track the activity of individual users who open links in Safari Private Browsing or Apple's Messages and Mail.
If a large segment of your customers are Apple users, you can track and measure ad attribution via Private Click Measurement.
When seeking out UGC for use in Facebook ads, it's tempting to only leverage your happiest, most vocal customers. However, just because someone loves your product doesn't mean they can create great marketing content.
By tapping into a pool of creators who truly know your niche, you get passion, production prowess, and a potential audience all in one. Focus your efforts on cultivating win-win partnerships with relevant creators who can inject authenticity while also effectively communicating your brand story.
Before you reach out to a single creator, do your homework on your brand and creators. This research will pay huge dividends by ensuring the content you receive matches your campaign goals.
Conduct Extensive Creative Strategy Research
Here are three research activities that should form the foundation of your UGC video ad strategy:
Mine Customer Reviews: Comb through online reviews, social conversations, survey data, and other sources to uncover your ideal customer's pain points and desires. Identify the precise language they use to describe their motivations and goals. This will come in handy when writing creative briefs for your creators.
Study Competitors' Ad Creative: Head to the Facebook Ad Library or TikTok's Top Ads section to see what ads your competitors are running on Facebook and Instagram. Analyze and look for trends in concepts, creators, hooks, and video styles that could inform your own UGC strategy.
Conduct a Brand Reputation Analysis: Google your brand name and related keywords to assess your reputation across forums, reviews, press articles, Reddit, and other corners of the web. Make note of the sentiment, common questions, misconceptions, praise, and critiques. This 360 view will reveal how your brand is perceived and where there are gaps you can fill with thoughtful content.
Craft Highly Detailed Creative Briefs
With your research insights in hand, you're ready to brief creators on the exact type of content you need them to produce. Avoid vague, generic briefs—get highly specific in order to get ads that hit the mark.
Include the following details in your creative briefs:
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Example Scripts: Provide 2-3 sample scripts with different hooks that align with your campaign goals. Outline your ideal narrative arc.
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Shot Lists: List the exact angles and framing you want for b-roll footage. Identify ideal use cases and scenarios to depict.
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Guidelines: Give clear directives on preferred wardrobe styles, ideal lighting, backgrounds, logos to avoid, etc.
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Deadlines: Be clear on your schedule and expected turnaround time. Rush fees may apply for expedited timelines.
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References: Share links to relevant ads or content that exemplify your desired look and feel.
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Creative Assets: Provide logos, graphics, images, or other building blocks for creators to incorporate.
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Contact Info: Provide email/phone contacts for creators to get real-time feedback.
By providing this level of detail upfront, you'll have a much easier time reviewing and selecting from the content your creators submit.
Give Each Creator a Customized Brief
Avoid the rookie mistake of handing the same generic brief to all the creators you're working with. Instead, look at each creator's existing content and aesthetic. Tailor each brief to play into their strengths, whether that's data-driven analysis, quirky humor, DIY tutorials, or inspirational storytelling.
Then, give them reasonable creative license to inject their authentic self into the content. As long as they communicate your core product benefits and solutions, let their voice shine through.
You'll end up with a content library full of diverse, engaging videos instead of repetitive ads that all feel the same.
Today's advice provided with insights from Dara Denney, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.
Most Conferences are a Waste of Time
Sitting in dark rooms and being lulled to sleep by speakers who shill their services is not a good time, right? That's why we committed to be different. When Social Media Marketing World was founded in 2013, marketing conferences were boring. We knew marketers deserved something better.
Our conference has no speaker application process and no panels. Instead, we take a quality-driven approach to speakers. We carefully recruit people who have a strong background in what they're teaching ... and who want to be there with you!
Check out our expert speakers.
Pricing your services is one of the most challenging aspects of running a marketing agency.
You want to charge enough to sustainably grow your business. But priced too high and you risk turning away potential clients.
Put a Number to the Value of Your Services
It can be tempting to just match competitors' rates. However, smart agencies develop pricing that matches their unique value proposition. Follow these steps to create an optimal structure.
Understand the Problems You Uniquely Solve
The first step is getting crystal clear on the specific problems your agency solves for clients. Exactly what pressing needs and pain points do your services address? By clearly articulating the business impacts you provide, you can align pricing accordingly.
Make sure your entire team can explain the tangible business value you deliver, whether it's increasing sales, decreasing costs, improving recruitment, etc. Pricing should directly correlate with the ROI you provide.
Find Hidden Value in Existing Work
Repackaging existing processes into new offerings is an easy way to capture more value without taxing capacity. Take time to objectively examine what high-value services your team already delivers that could be better leveraged.
For example, many agencies compile prospect messages and social comments into reports for clients but downplay this work as just "part of the job."
Research Competitors' Rates
While you don't want to simply copy others' pricing, carefully research what peer agencies charge for comparable services. Look at direct competitors in your local area or niche who offer similar services targeted at your client profile.
Also, consider in-house marketing teams as competitors. If a company can hire one internal person to handle social media for $60K instead of hiring you, that factors into your pricing strategy. Use competitors as a baseline, but make sure your pricing aligns with your positioning and capabilities.
Develop 3 Packages Levels
When structuring pricing, develop 3 clear packages at good, better, and best levels.
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Good: The entry-level "good" option should still be credible and profitable—don't underprice just to get clients in the door.
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Better: The mid-tier "better" package is where you'll get the most buyers. Include extra elements here that clients will find attractive, like competitive audits or accelerated turnaround times.
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Best: The premium "best" tier can be priced aspirational to demonstrate what's possible for top-budget clients, even if very few buyers select it.
Review and Refine Your Service Pricing Quarterly
Plan to review and refine pricing on a quarterly basis and assess whether current rates still make sense for each service.
Tweak your packages and services as needed to better reflect value, but avoid constant fluctuations that cause confusion.
While regular adjustments are healthy, limit larger pivots to 1-2 times per year.
Today's advice provided with insights from Beth Trejo.
You've put tons of hours into developing an amazing product, service, or course and it's selling well. But you know it could be selling better.
Here's the thing: expecting one person to handle everything for your paid social is unrealistic. You need a dedicated team if you want to scale.
3 Roles to Build Your Own Social Ads Team
By hiring the right people and letting them play to their strengths, you'll see the results in your campaign metrics and bottom line. Here's how to take advantage of specialized expertise by dividing up responsibilities.
The Senior Media Buyer
First up, hire a senior media buyer who knows the ads side of your social platforms inside and out. You want a specialist, not a generalist.
Look for someone analytical who can take charge of media budgets, decide where money gets spent, analyze performance data, and deliver regular reports. This senior buyer should look at campaign performance on day 1, day 3, and day 7 to ensure any needed changes happen fast.
They'll also request creative assets from your team.
Hire someone in a similar time zone to you so they're easy to reach. Aim to pay this pro around $45-75k per year depending on where you're located.
The Creative Strategist
Next, think about bringing on a creative strategist totally focused on churning out winning campaign creative. This person will be laser-focused on softer metrics like clickthrough rate and "thumb stop" ratio, which show how well your creative performs.
The strategist will brief your multimedia content creator on what video and image edits are needed for your ads. Instead of buying media, they'll spend their energy on avatar research and coming up with new creative ideas to test.
Again, hire someone close to your time zone. You can hire this role for $15-25k per year.
The Multimedia Editor
The Multimedia Editor handles the actual ad creation and production.
Working with edit briefs from the strategist, they take content created for your organic channels and reshape it for paid advertising by cutting footage, adding text, applying filters, making GIFs, etc.
This role can be filled globally as long as assets are delivered on time and is usually affordably outsourced for $15-25k annually.
Reap the Benefits
Dividing up the work of paid social allows each expert to concentrate on what they do best. Together, they will quickly iterate creative concepts and media buying strategies, rev up optimization, and improve performance.
Today's advice provided with insights from Nick Shackelford.
🗞 YouTube Community Posts Feed on Mobile: The platform is testing a new "posts-only" feed on the Home tab for mobile users. If you're in the test group, you will see a "View all" button on individual Community posts. Tapping the button will show you more posts from channels you've engaged with before or from channels YouTube thinks you'll like. This test is limited to a small group of Android and iOS users for now. Source: YouTube/Google
🗞 Facebook Comment Filters: Meta is experimenting with a filter to surface comments from Meta Verified accounts first. Source: Radu Oncescu via Social Media Today
🗞 Instagram Stories Shares: The platform is testing the ability to share your stories to multiple audience lists in addition to the Close Friends list. Source: Adam Mosseri via Engadget
🗞 TikTok Rolls Out Search Ads Toggle: The new Search Ads Toggle automatically creates text ads using an advertiser's existing video ad content. The toggle is on by default for TikTok's In-Feed video ad campaigns and lets TikTok dynamically serve text ads matching user search queries. The text ads appear alongside organic results when users search on TikTok and drive users to the advertiser's regular video ad experience. Source: TikTok
🗞 Unlabeled Ads on X/Twitter: X is now serving a new type of ad that lacks transparency and user controls. These ads appear within feeds but have engagement buttons disabled so users can't like, retweet, or reply. There is no "Promoted" label to identify it as an ad, and the menu button to report or block the ad has been omitted. Additionally, users can't see who paid for the ad. Source: Mashable
🗞 Facebook Click-to-Message + Call Prompt ads: The new ad format lets brands prompt users to call them directly, via a voice call, right from the ad itself. Source: Meta
🗞 Sharing to Reels: Instagram has opened its Sharing to Reels integration to all developers so they can add a one-tap Reels button to let users instantly share short videos to Instagram Reels. Users can also customize shared videos with Reels editing tools like audio, stickers, and effects before posting. Source: Meta
🗞 TikTok Launches Direct Post: This feature allows creators to seamlessly post video content from third-party platforms to TikTok with one click. Creators can set captions, manage audience settings, and schedule posts, without leaving the partner platform. Source: TikTok
Did You Know?
When you open your eyes in the dark, you see a dark gray color named eigengrau.
Michael Stelzner, Founder and CEO
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