Understanding Facebook from the People to the Bigger Picture
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UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE NOVEMBER 2015 FAMEHOUSE.NET UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK | FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE 1 INTRODUCTION BY ERIC HAHN FIVE YEARS AGO, WHEN FAME HOUSE first got its start as a digital Fortunately for our sanity (and the success of our business), we’ve seen marketing agency in the music industry, we were a bit of a hard sell. firsthand a dramatic shift in the industry’s approach and perception of At the time, there was a sense that what digital people did was smoke digital through the everyday conversations we have with managers, artists, and mirrors, like we had hidden knowledge of secret tactics to blow record labels and many other key stakeholders in the music business that shit up for people. Except for a select few early adopters, the majority we are fortunate to call our clients and peers. In a world where the industry of sales conversations with prospective clients revolved around what has now caught up to an ecosystem where discovery, consumption and stunts or “crazy shit” we could do for people to get them hockey stick engagement happens primarily online, our vision for how digital strategy viral growth overnight. But our vision as a company was to provide should be approached is finally coming of age. a much more practical, effective approach to digital that paralleled the same tried and true marketing fundamentals of telling great stories and connecting artists to fans. TO EXPLAIN THIS APPROACH, IT’S EASIEST TO EXPLAIN THE TWO CORE PROMPTS WE ALIGN OUR WORK AROUND. 01. The first challenge is identifying how we transpose an artist, label, or from Pinterest, etc. Ignoring this results in an ineffective method to event’s brand to a digital engagement strategy that allows for a holistic reach and cultivate a relationship with fans. conversation with their fan base. Often times, the challenge we have is to identify ways our clients can expand the communications to go These tactics all funnel up to one mission we have for our clients: beyond promoting tours, albums, etc. So how do we build a brand- To build and maintain connected audiences for them. This backbone driven content strategy derived from the client’s story? We believe is a driver for branding, exposure, monetization—everything that’s in the need to drive fan relationships before consumer relationships. fundamental to an artist or music brand’s core business objectives. Furthermore, we see this approach as a necessary vehicle to drive year-round engagement, no matter if a client is on or off cycle. Often times, clients ask us why we advise to focus on certain platforms. In this white paper, we wanted to take the time to explore 02. After we define these story threads, part of our expertise is Facebook. Our team does a tremendous amount of research and tailoring the architecture of the content to work specifically for analysis that informs both overarching best practices and individual, individual platforms. That is, how do we get the most out of client-specific insights. To give a better understanding of our the audience a client has on each platform by paying attention methods, but also to open up the conversation to all of you, we had to the unique consumer behavior specific to a channel? For our team put together a collection of deep dives into varying topics example, why and how people use Instagram is very different related to the Facebook platform. FAMEHOUSE.NET UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK | FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 01. SECTION I Audience 04. SECTION II How to Effectively Reach People on Facebook 08. SECTION III The Dominance of Video 12. SECTION IV The Bigger Picture 16. CLOSING FAMEHOUSE.NET UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK | FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE 3 SECTION I AUDIENCE Despite industry rumors, Facebook remains strong with Millennials. Across our clients, we see that well over half of the users who we reach—and more importantly, who engage with our content—are under 25, and the great majority (usually over 80%) are under 35. While this definitely has something to do with many of our clients attracting a younger, Millennial audience, it is also a clear indication of one very important trend on the platform. Although younger users may prefer platforms like Instagram and Snapchat for a truly “social” experience, they are very actively consuming and engaging with content from artists, brands, and other Pages on Facebook. The volume of data that Facebook has on these users is unprecedented in the digital space. Increasingly, Facebook is sharing that data with marketers, enabling us to make better decisions than ever before about what will work best for each audience and objective. Here, we explore some of the ways Facebook is leveraging this vast volume of data— as well as how we, as marketers, can take advantage of that data. CONTINUED.... FAMEHOUSE.NET UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK | FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE 1 The Audience Insights tool in Facebook. AUDIENCE INSIGHTS BRIDGING THE CONSTELLATION Unlocking Psychographic Data Across Your Owned Audiences How Facebook is Perfecting Audience Targeting Katonah Rafter, VP of Marketing Matt Chylak, Digital Strategy Manager ONE OF OUR FAVORITE TOOLS at Fame House is Facebook’s Audience Insights. AT THIS POINT, IT’S PRETTY MUCH ACCEPTED that Facebook knows everything While initially released to advertisers in 2014, the tool is one we find is still often about us. Whether we’ve locked down our security settings or not, their database has overlooked by marketers. Yet it is arguably the most powerful method we have to detailed information about every user in its system, from simple biographical data to understand who our audience is, what their interests are, and how they behave extensive behavioral data to geotagging features that essentially trace our every move. across Facebook’s vast universe. While this may be slightly alarming from a privacy standpoint, this consolidation of data is exciting for marketers, as it paints a clearer picture of who is—and who could Audience Insights sits within the Ads Manager section of Facebook. It goes beyond the be—engaging with our products. standard insights you see in your Page admin view to show psychographic data about your audience, such as common job titles, relationship status, education level, income Facebook is banking on finding the most effective ways to monetize these data and home value, device usage, retail and online spending behavior, top interests (both clusters for continued growth, especially as it continues to drive non-paying brands categories and specific pages), and activity on Facebook (e.g. total Pages liked per user, away from the platform. Precise audience targeting is a constellation of stars; the frequency of comments, shares, ad clicks across Facebook in the last 30 days). Across picture is there for us to connect if we look at the spaces between the data points. most of these data points, Audience Insights will show you not just your audience’s To fill this space, the social behemoth is constantly rolling out new features, and nearly data, but also how that compares to the broader Facebook user base. all of them are intended to improve their audience targeting capabilities. You can drill down deeper to filter the data based on a broad range of factors, such as ethnicity, age, gender, education level, language, and even “behaviors” such as “Expats in Brazil” or “Engaged Gamers - Simulation.” This gives us an unparalleled ability to understand specific segments of our audiences, and how various groups behave differently. “ THE MORE DATA WE SHARE WITH THE PLATFORM TO Most exciting of all, however, is what this tool can do for your owned data—not just the PERFECT OUR AD TARGETING, OR TO UNDERSTAND data generated by your brand on Facebook. Audience Insights can be used to analyze any Custom Audience that lives within Facebook, enabling us to perform this same OUR AUDIENCE, THE MORE INFORMATION FACEBOOK analysis on groups like your website visitors, app users, or email lists, and compare each group against each other. And because Facebook has user data on nearly 1.5 HAS TO FEED ITS OWN BUSINESS OBJECTIVES.” billion people across the world, the sample size we are looking at is significant. Of course, while providing enormous value to marketers at no cost, this tool plays right into Facebook’s own master plan. The more data we share with the platform to perfect FACEBOOK IS PERFECTING ITS VIEW OF USERS BY our ad targeting, or to understand our audience, the more information Facebook has 1. Timing messaging to historical data, to feed its own business objectives. It’s only a matter of time—if they succeed—before 2. Increasing the relevance of interest targeting, and Facebook is the Internet. 3. Refining its structure towards more of an app-in-app ecosystem. SECTION I | AUDIENCE UNDERSTANDING FACEBOOK | FROM THE PEOPLE TO THE BIGGER PICTURE 2 data will give the platform’s algorithm an even better idea of what users care about. A similar overhaul of web profiles in 2010 gave Facebook immense amounts of data on where people live, go to school, and work—data that has fueled the platform’s ad targeting functionality ever since. INCREASED IN-APP ACTIVITY The above updates are certainly interesting, but Facebook’s most exciting moves are the ways it is shifting to become more of an all-encompassing ecosystem, persuading users to spend more and more time within its mobile app. At its F8 developer conference this March, Facebook’s Director of Product Adam Mosseri admitted that the company tracks which users we’re messaging via its Facebook mobile Messenger app.