Jeff Stanislow, Chief Internet Marketer's CEO spends time with Mason Hill from Shareful Media on Facebook Advertising.
Learn about some of the changes in the industry which impacts your complete digital marketing strategy including:
- Working Facebook Advertising into the entire Digital Marketing Strategy
- Benefits of Facebook Advertising
- Why you can build a whole business just in Facebook
- Some of the challenges to avoid in Facebook Advertising
- Thoughts on where the future for Facebook Advertising is going
If you are interested in becoming a professional social media marketer, you may want to look at getting certified in Social Media.
Click on the SoundCloud Audio file to listen or read the full transcript below.
Enjoy! And remember to #BeTheChief!
Jeff Stanislow, CEO - Chief Internet Marketer
Mason Hill, Founder - SharefulMedia.com
Transcript from the Podcast: Facebook Advertising with Chief Internet Marketer
Jeff: 00:00 - Hello, this is Jeff Stanislow, the chief at chief Internet marketer, and today we're talking to Mason Hill, the CEO of Shareful Media. How are you doing today, Mason? Doing good. How you doing, Jeff? Wonderful. Thanks. Thanks for sharing your time with us. I guess that's kind of a pun in itself. Shareful, Shareful Media, and sharing your time. I appreciate that.
Mason: 00:23 - Yes sir.
Jeff: 00:27 - So tell me a little bit about Shareful Media and what you do Mason.
Mason: 00:32 - Well, we are a company that's focused on social media. That's kind of where we got started was, it was mainly focused on Facebook ads and then we've expanded that into social media management services on the multiple platforms. You know, and always looking for a new industry to kind of go into and expand the type of services that we offer?
Jeff: 01:01 - Yeah, that's great. What... The industries and how things are changing. I mean, the Internet grows really fast and you know, put your car and drive and went down the social media pathway which is great. And why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself first before we kind of dive into some more of the social medias?
Mason: 01:26 - Yeah, definitely. So, I actually have a pretty long background in different types of customer service roles as in the automotive industry for quite some time. Worked with Land Rover, which was a great car company, and then I also had a background in doing comedy, which is what ended up steering me towards social media because I ran a comedy brand and we produced shows, we created videos and, got those videos over a million views on Facebook and we're running lots of different types of ads on Facebook for that. And then I transitioned that into work in a more, you know, business to business instead of I'm in the entertainment side and that's what led me to start in a circle media, kind of how I got my start there.
Jeff: 02:18 - That's amazing. So you did comedy, Huh?
Mason: 02:21 - Yeah, yeah, I did. I did stand up comedy for a number of years. Uh, never got to the point where I had a special on comedy central, but I thought I was pretty funny. There's a few other viewers that I did to. So, it was definitely a good time, good experience. I really, really critique my writing skills, that kind of stuff. It's funny how all your life experiences kind of pulled together and lead you in a direction because it's everything I've learned from all the different jobs I've had, the comedy and stuff has really, really helped me be successful starting the marketing company that I did
Jeff: 03:01 well. That's great. I think a lot of times, even in social media itself, you have to have some wit and some humor in there to grab attention. Mason: 03:09 Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Jeff': 03:11 Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Being a guy from Detroit, it's kind of ironic that you were a comedian because when I first started off my career, I got to, it was long time ago, probably shouldn't say it, in the mid nineties, I worked for a company called Online Marketing Company at the day and we build websites and we did a lot of work in the automotive industry, as well. And, one of the proprietors actually is now a stand up comic. So okay. We have a car brand lover in yourself with Land Rover and then we have the comedy tie in. So this is great. This is great. Sorry. Anyways, let's talk a little bit about Facebook and Facebook advertising. You know, obviously Facebook has been around a long time, obviously a lot of, you know, billions of users on the platform, but talk to me about a Facebook advertising, you know, for our audience sake maybe kind of top level and then we can dive down a little bit more.
Mason: 04:14 Yeah, definitely. Well, Facebook advertising is definitely one of my favorite types of advertising, which is why I kind of stuck closely with it all this time. The great thing about Facebook is you are really strengthened in your, your brand. You can get a much clearer message for who you are as a company. When you're advertising on Facebook, then you can on a lot of other different platforms or other different ways. There's a lot of different techniques you can use which I learned when I was promoting videos and then I'm doing those types of styles of ads and then now when I'm working with companies and then you can also do on the same platform, do lead generation and that kind of stuff. And then you can also do the other different type style ads where you're driving sales. So, there's just so many types of ways that you can represent a company on one platform, Facebook. And even though it's definitely gotten a little bit more expensive as it goes over time and it gets more competitive it's still one of the best places you can spend your advertising money.
Jeff: 05:35 No, that's, that's interesting. I mean, you know, Facebook Is with 2 billion users is large enough on its own that you can just be dedicated to that platform and build a successful marketing campaign. So that's really interesting in itself. What type of ads are you seeing that are most effective now, in that platform? As you mentioned, you know, the costs have gone up, but there's a reason for that. Costs have gone up because they're getting better and better and they're getting results. So that market is driving that. But you know, when you're doing your creative, maybe a tip or two on what type of creative works for you.
Mason: 06:17 Yeah. Well, one thing that you should always, always be testing different images, different creatives, different copy. One technique that I've used is it's trying not to make my ads look so much like an ad. Your ad or sponsored posts is going to be showing up in a feed with the viewer, the audience, their family, their interests, all that other sites can be mixed in there. So you don't always want it to necessarily stand out as so obvious that this is an ad because it's just going to cause people to scroll right past it. So you want to find different ways to stop them in their feed and make them want to see it. You always want to keep in mind that people are on social media for entertainment to pass the time and stuff. So, you want to think about that when you're doing your creative. There's a company out there, the Harmon Brothers, they really produced a lot of funny videos commercialize if you've seen it. They made the video for the squatty potty. I don't know if you have you seen that Jeff?
Jeff: 07:30 ah, the squatty potty? Yes.
Mason: 07:32 Yeah, they did that video. The mattress, the company that did the purple mattress. They did that video, but they, they've done a really great job on making creative videos that are for companies, but they're humorous. And what happens is the reach that those videos have is huge because people see them, and they think they're funny entertaining. So it makes them want to share them to their friends and family. And just by doing that, it's the amount of organic reach you're getting just from having a creative, funny video is it's huge, much better than just posting the product and say, this is an awesome product, you should buy it.
Jeff: 08:17 Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. You mentioned kind of competing for the user and you know, whether they're looking at family things or they're doing just, you know, passing some time or entertaining themselves. What type of mark target marketing can you do inside of Facebook? How powerful is it because you definitely want your creative, which hopefully is catchy and viral, to resonate. And maybe we can talk a little bit about some of the tools or the targeting capabilities and Facebook.
Mason: 08:53 Yeah, they're targeting is really powerful. I mean you can go really specific on entries. They brought back some different income options to demographics, all that stuff. Those are really useful. And then the retargeting options are awesome too because once you do start having some ads run Facebook is always learning, especially if you have their tracking code installed for where you're sending their traffic. The more ads you run the longer you run it, the more money you invest in it. Your ads are naturally going to get more targeted, and then you can go back in and create specific audiences, get your ads back in front of the people that were shown a lot of interest and that's where you're going to start seeing great, great results. So you can retarget people based on their engagement with the posts, based on the website views. You can throw out a long form video and then retarget people who got halfway or 75% watching that video because obviously if they watched that much of your content, they're going to be super interested in what you say. So, you want to get back in front of those people so they have a lot of options for targeting.
Jeff: 10:12 I didn't realize that they look at the length of the video time and I know the data is available, but that's really cool that you can actually segment a list of people who watched the video for a certain amount of time and then retarget to that to them. That's amazing. Mason: 10:28 Yeah, it is. It's really awesome.
Jeff: 10:31 Yeah. So kind of off the wall question here, Mason, what's your favorite marketing campaign of all time? Doesn't have to be digital. It doesn't have to be anything that you kind of you remembered.
Mason: 10:45 Well, believe it or not, I actually mentioned it. The squatty potty was one of my favorite ones. You know, before I even got into social media marketing. I saw that video as a consumer and then went and shared it to my page and then like, now that I'm in the industry looking back on it, that's when I realized, I'm like, man, that is huge. I just for free re-advertised their video to all my people and I did that because of just, I thought it was creative. It was funny. I was doing comedy at that time and made my own videos so I can really appreciate what they created. And one of the things that you saw is bothering me was I would see so many commercial videos and so many of them that were written poorly, they're really dull, really boring, you know, and then you see companies like them and they released these videos that are pretty funny on their own and I just have a high appreciation for that.
Jeff: 11:53 Yeah. I really think they did capture the power of sharing in essence the root of like social media is a core strength and you know, recognize that if you give someone some content that's worthwhile talking about that, you know, the platform or technology to be able to share that as just a couple clicks away and then you have created this whole viral component, we can build a brand right off of it. Well that's awesome. Kind of wrapping up here, Mason, I just wanted to ask you what's the best advice they you can give to our listeners here today?
Mason: 12:33 Definitely you're going to hear it a lot, but definitely testing your creatives constantly. Just try new things and always learning because the thing is social media, all these things, they change so often they'll change little features, give you new ways to strategize and always just be seeking for that, for that edge, and just focus on the audience, the consumer, you know, look at it from their perspective. You know, when you're creating your ad, just imagine yourself. You're on your phone scrolling through Facebook and how you're gonna react to it.
Jeff: 13:18 That's some good advice. I often talk to clients and people that I'm doing some consulting with and I said, well, it's not like it used to be where you got to pay $5,000 to change your billboard. You can change creative on the digital space for low costs and you can get a lot of great info information back and test 20 ads and find out which one's working the best for you and gets the best return. And then move forward with that theme. So I hear you on that comment and agree with you wholeheartedly. So, hey, tell me a little bit about how someone can get ahold of you Mason.
Mason: 13:54 Yeah, definitely. Our website is sharefulmedia.com and as always shoot me an email, which is masonHill@sharefulmedia.com and our social media handle is sharefulmedia, for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.. So definitely go on there, connect with us, you have any feedback, questions on social media, I'd love to hear from you.
Jeff: 14:20 Well, listen, Mason, I appreciate your time and you know, thanks for the insight and until next time and then good luck on keeping that comedy stuff going, because I always think that you need to have that in your heart.
Mason: 14:33 All right, I appreciate it. Thanks Jeff.
Jeff: 14:35 All right, take care.