Facebook has been around since 2004 and nearly everyone and their mother (and grandmother) has an account. We’ve all grown to love posting about our day, sharing our favorite memes, and griping about political issues on our favorite social media platforms. We post about heartbreaks, update friends and family about new relationships, and check in to our favorite places. As we scroll through our news feeds after an update or just to check in, we see countless promoted posts from businesses we trust, or sometimes from ones we’ve never heard of. Most of the time these posts go ignored, but every once-in-awhile they capture our attention just enough to stop scrolling. Seldomly, the ad piques our interest and converts us into a loyal customer.

In today’s social media world, it’s easy to forget that the ads we see were built by trusted social media managers. Managers that a company hired to properly represent their brand and grow their bottom line. The ones we scroll past are quickly forgotten, likely created by the company’s receptionist or a hiree off Fiver. The ones we pay attention to, likely carefully created and expertly crafted to target you (yes, you) based on your location, income, most visited websites, favorite TV shows, job title, if you’re connected to wifi, or even your IP address. Your demographic was chiseled out from a marketing plan that they spent countless hours on, the image or video they used was the topic of several marketing meetings, and the copy re-written and optimized for results.

To create engaging and witty content that converts requires a certain level of expertise. Would you trust a high school student to do your root canal? Would you trust a Youtuber to fix your 1969 Chevy Camaro? So why trust Joe Shmoe with your company? It’s common to think: “Why pay an expert if it’s something that anyone with a computer and social media account can do?”

To better understand the complexity of what’s behind creating social media posts and targeted social media advertisements, we are going to look into the basics of what an expert social media managers consider and think of with every post they create.

Facebook Algorithms

Did you know that just like Google, Facebook has it’s own set of algorithms? Facebook picks and chooses which pieces of content it thinks is valuable and engaging to the consumer. Every rule you break within this algorithm jeopardizes your organic reach. Facebook isn’t this big, bad, jerk who only wants you to spend money on advertising (okay, maybe a little). They want to make sure that the content they show is what people what to see. With so many people and businesses online, if it didn’t do this people would probably jump ship. The rule of thumb is that if you follow all the algorithms, your organic reach will be around 10%, but if you don’t, you’ll reach around 2% of your audience.

So what are the algorithms you ask? Much like Google, Facebook doesn’t make a huge announcement every time the algorithm changes or updates, it happens quickly and quietly and as experts it’s our job to keep an eye out for these changes. Here’s a list of the most common algorithm rules that are frequently broken.

1. No more than 10% text in your image (yes, 10, not 20% — This is the algorithm not the old AD requirements). Not sure how much text is in your image? Use this tool: https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay

2. No stock images. Yes, just like Google, Facebook knows when you’re image is a stock photo. Your followers aren’t following you to see a generic picture unrelated to your brand. They are following you to be social with your business. Not only do stock images decrease your reach, they promote a terrible image of your brand online. Hire a photographer and get creative.

3. DON’T YELL in your posts. Not only is it rude, it’s unprofessional. Using all caps may seem like it’s a good way to capture the attention of your audience, but it’s not. You wouldn’t yell at a customer at your location, don’t do it online.

4. Title Caps Are Meant For Titles, not your entire post. It’s hard to read, ultra annoying, and again misrepresents your brand.

5. Don’t tell people what to do. A call to action may seem like a great idea but it significantly decreases your reach and makes you seem bossy. Instead you can be creative with how you say it. An alternative to “shop now” is to add a shop now button to your post. This way your engaging text does all the work and the psychology behind that engaging text makes them want to click the “shop now” button. One of the biggest offenders to the calls to action is telling people to engage with your posts. Most often businesses will say “tag a friend” with the goal to give away a gift to one of the random taggers. Although this used to be a social media managers favorite way to gain followers, this tactic is now off our radar.

6. Don’t share links unless it’s directing to your website, blog page, or a press mention. Your brands social media page is not meant to be an obnoxious news billboard; it’s meant to drive traffic to your website. If you want to share valuable information with your followers, share that article on your website where the person viewing can then poke around on your site. All posts that contain a link should direct to your website. If you’re getting press and want to brag about it make sure that you’re only sharing about high-level press and you are doing it in a tasteful way. No one wants to see you vomit your press metions all over your page like an excited school girl. Keep it classy and share the press mention (ideally from their social media pages). PS Links don’t work on IG — Sign up for linktr.ee or use a more professional platform like SproutSocial.

7. Don’t over post. Unless you’re a major brand with over 200K followers, there’s no need to post more than once per day. Ideally, we suggest posting around 3 times per week. To reach more people and to ensure your followers are seeing the post, we then suggest boosting the post a few days after the post is made. Also, keep the content you share relevant and valuable to the viewers. The last thing you want to do is seem “braggy” or spammy. By keeping the content you post relevant and valuable, you keep the algorithms happy and you’ll reach more people. The algorythms are more unhappy about posts with low engagement than they are about posts that are less frequent with more engagement.

8. Keep it short & sweet. Your copy should be short and sweet. Ideally you will want to keep your copy under 240 characters. However, it should still be engaging, creative and unique. Ideally with one or two emoji’s.

9.No hashtags. Hashtags are dead on Facebook. Not only are they obnoxiously overused, they are pointless. Facebook and Twitter now use keywords if people want to find your content so as long as you have the term you want people to see in your post, a hashtag is pointless. If you want to bring attention to a word like #newrelease then use a hashtag. Othwise keep them off Facebook.

Use hashatags on Instagram, but as of 10/26/21, don’t use more than 10 (ideally 5–7) and keep them in the copy. Use hashtags that align with your current followers. Unless you have 10M fans, you’re not ranking for #food. Use tools to determine hashtags that are more in alignment with your followers or do this manually. Look up the hashtag you want to use, see if you would rank in the top section, and if not, move onto the next idea.

10. No Shares. Never share a post from another social media platform. IE: clicking “share to Facebook.” You’ll reach less people and the formatting of the shared post is terrible. Take the extra few seconds and upload it individually. Our favorite tool for scheduling posts on different platforms is Sprout Social.

11. Custom links. Use custom links to track website clicks. Although Facebook does a pretty good job at their reporting, you would be surprised at how inaccurate the data can be. Make sure the custom links you use (we use bit.ly or SproutSocial) are branded and not just auto generated.

Facebook Pixel & Retargeting

Much like setting up Google Analytics, Facebook has its own tracking code that will help you learn more about your customers as well as retarget those customers in the future. If a person didn’t complete the action that you wanted (ie: completing a purchase) you can set up a specific campaign for the product they left in their cart. Not an e-commerce business? You can also retarget people if they didn’t visit particular pages on your website (such as the one that holds your appointment form). Not only can you do all of this, you can also create custom audiences from the people that visited your site. Your highest converting customers can now become a lookalike audience where Facebook will take all the data from those customers and find more customers like them.

Installing this pixel is easy, setting up the audiences, properly targeting and creating sales funnels like the one below is time-consuming and requires a lot of strategy as well as daily attention.

Engaging Copy

Some of the most successful companies have strong brand voices. When you think of Apple, Nike, and Starbucks their brand voice is clear and concise. This isn’t a coincidence, this came from strategic planning and strict brand guidelines. Their copy matches their brand voice on every piece of content that they create. Thus, they are speaking to a particular demographic and keeping consistency, which we all know (or should know) is key. It’s more than just posting a cute saying or quote with an emoji, it’s about creating consistency in the voice that is engaging and speaks to the audience. These brands have documents called brand content guidelines that strictly outline their brand voice and tone. Any great social media manager will ask for one, and if you don’t have one, in one way or another, this should be created for you.

Psychology

A key part of being an expert marketer is understanding how and why people think. What compels them to pay attention to something and to make a purchase. Social media should not be about throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, it should be craftily created content with the target demographic and goal in mind. To better understand the psychology behind what converts, we must first look at the principals of psychology that marketers use.

1. The first is priming (Pavlov’s theory). In a famous episode of The Office, Jim primes Dwight by restarting his computer then offering him a mint. This is done countless times over an extended course of time which primes Dwight to then put his hand out expecting the mint from Jim. His mind subconsciously expected the mint due to priming. So what exactly does this have to do with a social media post? Quite a bit actually, Using subtle priming techniques, you could help your visitors remember key information about your brand — and maybe even influence their purchase behavior.
2. Social Proof. Social Proof is the theory that people will adopt the beliefs or actions of a group of people they like or trust. Think back to an awkward middle school dance. When the dance floor is empty, few people want to be the first one on the dance floor, but once a few people are there, everyone else wants to join in. So with a social media post what constitutes as social proof? It’s the number of engagements on your post as well as the number of followers on your page. By having engaging content that reaches more people, you’ll get more engagements, as you get more engagements you get more followers. This is a snowball effect that allows you to have more “social proof.” One of the best ways to get social proof is to get your customers to write a review, check in to your business, or share your post to their personal pages.
3. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. This phenomenon is when you encounter something for the first time, then you start noticing it everywhere. All of a sudden you start seeing the product when you’re watching TV, shopping at the grocery store and visiting your favorite websites. According to PS Mag, this phenomenon (also called “the frequency illusion”) is caused by two processes. “The first, selective attention, kicks in when you’re struck by a new word, thing, or idea; after that, you unconsciously keep an eye out for it, and as a result find it surprisingly often. The second process, confirmation bias, reassures you that each sighting is further proof of your impression that the thing has gained overnight omnipresence.” For marketers, this phenomenon is precisely why nurturing is incredibly important. Once someone starts noticing your brand (aka clicking around on your website), you’ll want to help them start seeing you “everywhere.“Send them targeted nurturing emails and retargeting ads based on their behavior, and you could increase the possibility of them converting to a customer.
4. Make them want it. Put yourself in the viewers shoes. If you were to see the post you created on your news feed, would it capture your attention? Furthermore, would it pique it enough for you to click? Make sure that the content you post is inspiring, mouth-watering, funny or at minimum makes them go.. huh? I must see more!

Attention to Detail

Great marketers know that attention to detail within the images they post although subtle can make a noticeable difference for conversion rates. A great example of this is when marketers will use an image where the subject is looking in the direction of where you want the viewer to look. If you have text overlay, the person will be looking in the direction of the text, if you want them looking at the post copy, the person will be looking in that direction.

There are countless tricks like these and others that great marketers use to ensure that you’re set up for success. Is your brand using them?

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Climate change isn’t something that most of us think about on a regular basis. We are too wrapped up in our 9 to 5 jobs, caring for kids, or busy worrying about passing our final exams to think about the future of Mother Earth.

Climate change can also be emotionally unsettling and quite mentally taxing. Unfortunately, ignoring the problem won’t make it go away, like it will when you hide under the covers as a kid. Climate change is real, it’s here, and the puzzle needs to be solved. So, what can we do as a nation, as businesses, and as individuals to start making a difference?

First let’s take a look at the current ways climate change is being tackled:

Carbon Offsetting

Carbon emissions are inevitable. Unfortunately, it’s unrealistic to think differently. Corporations are working to fight climate change by choosing greener alternatives, but the transition isn’t happening quick enough, and that’s why offsetting is vital. Individuals are working to fight climate change by changing their daily behaviors and purchases, and nations are fighting the change by creating regulations.

Let’s take a deeper look at the different types of carbon offsetting.

Legal Reasons for Carbon Offsetting

In compliance markets such as Europe and Japan, governments have set caps on their national emissions to help regulate and keep these emissions under control. Certain industries which must then offset those caps. Most commonly, these industries are heavy carbon emitters such as utility and transportation companies. When these companies go over their allowances (aka pollution permits) they must then complete in an open market to make a purchase. If there are fewer permits than projected amount of emission caps, the price goes up basically making it a market based tax.

Regulatory Reasons for Carbon Offsetting:

Companies can buy carbon credits to satisfy the increasing vocal moral requirements of investors to help garner higher investment ratings by reviewers that take sustainability into account (ESG Ratings) or to hedge against their future legal carbon emission requirements.

These credits are usually sourced as voluntary credits like the ones that InfiniteEarth Produces (learn more here).

These kinds of credits are generated under standards that were developed by the UN and administered by NGOs. Unlike the compliance credits, these credits function as long-term hedges since they have long-term expiration dates (30 years).

Corporations are already trading carbon credits; but the process is messy. The “emissions desk” of the “environmental products division” of BP and Shell are the two largest and most active carbon traders in the world. However, much of the carbon credit trading is done over the counter (OTC) through brokers.

Voluntary Reasons For Carbon Offsetting:

As climate change heats up, the more people are looking at personally offsetting their own carbon footprint. Some people have gone vegan or vegetarian, some are investing in cleaner technology for their homes by using solar, and some are even transitioning away from gas by investing in electric vehicles. However, the true activists want a way to really help offset those emissions and they are doing it by offsetting their purchases as well. Companies like UPS are adding in the option to offset emissions at checkout (carbon neutral shipment).

“UPS’s carbon neutral option supports projects that offset the emissions of the shipment’s transport. UPS has supported projects that include reforestation, landfill gas destruction, wastewater treatment, and methane destruction.”

Since most corporations haven’t included this as an option, consumers can now choose to offset their emissions by purchasing these credits directly. But why isn’t there a way to automate and offset automatically for both corporations as well as individuals? That’s the very question Veridium has set out to solve.

Looking to learn more about how Carbon Credits work? Check out our other article here: https://medium.com/veridium-labs/carbon-credit-markets-101-bc986eedabfa

We invite you to take action. Learn more about what Veridium is doing in partnership with IBM and Stellar to change the carbon credit industry by visiting veridium.io.

Loved this article? Please make sure to share or give us a few claps!

2014 report on Mitigation of Climate Change Page 4

The Global Cost and Consequences of Climate Change was originally published in Veridium on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Facebook has updated their ad policy (as of June 26th, 2018) to allow advertisements on their platforms that promote cryptocurrency and other blockchain related content.

The catch? Advertisers for blockchain related startups must apply to advertise. Companies looking to promote binary options and initial coin offerings will not be approved.

What You’ll Need:

1. Company Name
2. Company Address
3. Company Email
4. Domain Name (They will be reviewing your website content)
5. A Brief, general description of the products, services, or other cryptocurrency-related content you intend to promote.
6. Non-confidential documentation of your compliance program.
7. Do you currently hold any required licenses or regulatory certification? (If yes, you will be required to attach such documents).
8. Is your company traded in any public stock exchanges? If yes, you’ll have to provide your name, description, or upload non-confidential documentation.

Given these restrictions, not everyone who wants to advertise will be able to do so. Consider reaching out to a professional to have them audit your website and social media content for possible “red flags.” Having an audit and making a few minor changes may increase your chances of getting approved.

Submit an Application

We’ve all been wondering, we’ve all speculated, and finally, we have an answer to the long-awaited Security vs. Utility debate.

To keep things simple, I’ve pulled the prominent quotes and a simple checklist to help you answer the long awaited question, Token or Security?

What are some of the factors to consider in assessing whether a digital asset is offered as an investment contract and is thus a security?

“Primarily, consider whether a third party — be it a person, entity or coordinated group of actors — drives the expectation of a return.”

“Central to determining whether a security is being sold is how it is being sold and the reasonable expectations of purchasers. When someone buys a housing unit to live in, it is probably not a security.[6] But under certain circumstances, the same asset can be offered and sold in a way that causes investors to have a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others.” — In this case, it’s a security.

“The digital asset itself is simply code. But the way it is sold — as part of an investment; to non-users; by promoters to develop the enterprise — can be, and, in that context, most often is, a security — because it evidences an investment contract.”

Are your pre-utility investors expecting to make money? Are third-party efforts a key determining factor in the success of the enterprise?

“… when I look at Bitcoin today, I do not see a central third party whose efforts are a key determining factor in the enterprise. The network on which Bitcoin functions is operational and appears to have been decentralized for some time, perhaps from inception. Applying the disclosure regime of the federal securities laws to the offer and resale of Bitcoin would seem to add little value.[9]And putting aside the fundraising that accompanied the creation of Ether, based on my understanding of the present state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions. And, as with Bitcoin, applying the disclosure regime of the federal securities laws to current transactions in Ether would seem to add little value. Over time, there may be other sufficiently decentralized networks and systems where regulating the tokens or coins that function on them as securities may not be required. And of course, there will continue to be systems that rely on central actors whose efforts are a key to the success of the enterprise.”

It seems to be a little more complicated than just answering the question, “do investors expect to make money?”

What are some of the factors to consider in assessing whether a digital asset is offered as an investment contract and is thus a security?

The SEC has broken it down to these key questions to ask yourself (This list is illustrative, not exhaustive):

1. Is there a person or group that has sponsored or promoted the creation and sale of the digital asset, the efforts of whom play a significant role in the development and maintenance of the asset and its potential increase in value?
2. Has this person or group retained a stake or other interest in the digital asset such that it would be motivated to expend efforts to cause an increase in value in the digital asset? Would purchasers reasonably believe such efforts will be undertaken and may result in a return on their investment in the digital asset?
3. Has the promoter raised an amount of funds in excess of what may be needed to establish a functional network, and, if so, has it indicated how those funds may be used to support the value of the tokens or to increase the value of the enterprise? Does the promoter continue to expend funds from proceeds or operations to enhance the functionality and/or value of the system within which the tokens operate?
4. Are purchasers “investing,” that is seeking a return? In that regard, is the instrument marketed and sold to the general public instead of to potential users of the network for a price that reasonably correlates with the market value of the good or service in the network?
5. Does application of the Securities Act protections make sense? Is there a person or entity others are relying on that plays a key role in the profit-making of the enterprise such that disclosure of their activities and plans would be important to investors? Do informational asymmetries exist between the promoters and potential purchasers/investors in the digital asset?
6. Do persons or entities other than the promoter exercise governance rights or meaningful influence?
7. Is token creation commensurate with meeting the needs of users or, rather, with feeding speculation?
8. Are independent actors setting the price or is the promoter supporting the secondary market for the asset or otherwise influencing trading?
9. Is it clear that the primary motivation for purchasing the digital asset is for personal use or consumption, as compared to investment? Have purchasers made representations as to their consumptive, as opposed to their investment, intent? Are the tokens available in increments that correlate with a consumptive versus investment intent?
10. Are the tokens distributed in ways to meet users’ needs? For example, can the tokens be held or transferred only in amounts that correspond to a purchaser’s expected use? Are there built-in incentives that compel using the tokens promptly on the network, such as having the tokens degrade in value over time, or can the tokens be held for extended periods for investment?
11. Is the asset marketed and distributed to potential users or the general public?
12. Are the assets dispersed across a diverse user base or concentrated in the hands of a few that can exert influence over the application?
13. Is the application fully functioning or in early stages of development?

“While these factors are important in analyzing the role of any third party, there are contractual or technical ways to structure digital assets so they function more like a consumer item and less like a security. Again, we would look to the economic substance of the transaction, but promoters and their counsels should consider these, and other, possible features. This list is not intended to be exhaustive and by no means do I believe each and every one of these factors need to be present to establish a case that a token is not being offered as a security. This list is meant to prompt thinking by promoters and their counsel, and start the dialogue with the staff — it is not meant to be a list of all necessary factors in a legal analysis.”

Where does this leave the future of the ICO market? Will all blockchain based enterprises move into more traditional ways of fundraising? Will we see more Security Token Offerings? Weigh in below.

Source / Full Article: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/speech-hinman-061418