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Checking out a Facebook business page, the other day, I was struck by the randomness of the adverts on the right hand side of the page, the place where everyone is paying to attract my attention. Two things came into my head - the first was "spam": the second was more considered - just who was paying for those adverts and why did they think I would be a good target?
One of the great joys of the web is its randomness. Like a good thesaurus, you start by looking up destiny and end up by reading about staring someone in the face (a genuine example taken from the Penguin Thesaurus). And that is when it came to me: most keyword search is like a giant thesaurus, and about as accurate for the user. Despite Google's, Facebook's and Microsoft's billions, search is still premised on some incredibly crude criteria.
Humans, it seems, have an infinite number of ways to be distracted, and it seems that Facebook advertising is working like a random billboard, which thinks that waving a flag in my direction will drag me away from what I meant to do, which was to drive along the road. As the example I encountered showed, in fact, I was driving and I didn't care for your advert. It's not good enough to attract me, and it's premised on metrics which don't know me at all.
There are some lessons in this about targeting your customer.
Even in the internet age, some things about advertising are constant.
- Are you seducing a customer or just standing waving a flag hopefully?
- Do you have a billboard in a desert? This is the worst example, as it essentially means noone sees you - nobody drives past.
- Do you even have anything interesting to say? Sorry, we call that poor content on the web.
- Will your audience even be interested? The right advert, but on the wrong road, a poorly constructed message, bad timing.... There are a whole load of criteria that can affect the result.
- Is your advert the smallest advert in Times Square? So traffic is good, but they are all walking past because your message is drowned out by brighter neon.
The power of seduction
The least you can do is to follow some simple rules:
- Know your audience and where you are likely to find them.
- Create seductive headlines that appeal to your client's hopes and fears.
- Keep it simple (stupid - KISS). Don't confuse people with many messages. One at a time is fine.
- Be as clever as your audience. Or put another way, make it easy for them to understand.
- Be urgent. Encourage them to act now.
- Write clearly and concisely.
- Be trustworthy - be sure you can back up your message with the facts
The role of social media
I could be wrong here, but social media is not about direct selling (yet anyway). It is about building the soft elements of your brand. It seems Facebook plays a dangerous game if it promotes poor quality advertising. The audience is less likely to come there to begin with and certainly less likely to trust adverts if they are no good.
Where it has a great pull is in the power of the instant - the special offer or the viral advert. Once you have used social media to build an audience and to create trust in the brand, then you can make the offer. Your audience heard you; they stayed with you; now they are happy to be sold to.
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