Creation for Facebook comes of age
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2025 6:31 am
But precisely because it is so easy, it seems as if advertisers do not find it necessary to pay attention to the creation (Art). In addition, many advertisers have never used Facebook's sophisticated targeting options, multivariate testing and campaign optimization (Science). While Facebook has made that very easy too.
At the same time, advertising on Facebook has become increasingly important. The number of advertising products has increased and the competition for organic and viral exposure is so fierce that brands have to advertise to be seen
As a result, we still too often get irrelevant and unattractive advertisements disguised as stories in our newsfeed. But that will probably come to an end soon.
Facebook forces advertisers to invest in art & science
The solution to the problem is that Facebook will force advertisers to professionalize in both creation and analysis.
The science of Facebook
Nanigans recently published an article describing Facebook as a performance marketing medium instead of a social marketing medium. The ROI cases are flying around your ears.
Yet many Dutch advertisers complain that Facebook is an expensive advertising medium. This has two causes. Firstly, they often attach the wrong KPIs to the medium and secondly, as previously indicated, they do not use all the options that Facebook advertising has to offer.
Facebook advertising may seem easy at first glance, but if you don't use it properly, it is indeed expensive. (This applies to all media, by the way.) Facebook advertising is about strategy, testing, (big data) analysis, qualitative research and technology. You can't get away with a spray and pray strategy. This requires an almost scientific approach.
There is a clear parallel with Google Adwords : anyone can set up an Adwords campaign, but to get better results from it continuously is a different story. The big difference is that incompetence on Google is pretty invisible, while on Facebook it is very visible (unfortunately).
Advertisers who do not invest in optimizing their Facebook campaigns will get (too) little ROI from Facebook and will ignore the platform. Others will further professionalize. This will make incompetent advertising disappear into the background and relevance will increase.
The art of Facebook
And the best news today is that Facebook is going to give a helping hand to every advertiser who invests in creativity.
Facebook is becoming increasingly visual. Visuals are getting bigger. The accompanying copy of the post is placed over the visual (which is why it better be short!) And a post may not consist of more than 20% text to be promoted. All developments that increase the importance of images.
Images-with-Text-in-the-New-Facebook-News-Feed
In addition to the increased importance of the visual aspect, the limitation of viral and organic reach on Facebook has made it necessary for advertisers to attach more importance to creative quality on Facebook. And I don't mean the one-off viral post but structural quality. I would like to illustrate this with the following practical example:
At the end of 2012, the viral and organic reach of the posts we develop for our advertisers appeared to be under pressure. We suddenly reached far fewer consumers with the same quality of content. Very good posts achieved a small percentage of extra viral reach through interaction, but because the initial reach was too small, the net viral reach was also too small. This caused the Edgerank to drop and a downward reach spiral was created.
It turned out not to be an incident but structural. And because the KPIs of many of our customers start with reach, we had to intervene.
Because our clients did not have an extra pot of media budget for Facebook at the end of the year, we decided in consultation to reduce the post frequency. Sometimes by more than 50%. This saved creative hours (and therefore budget). Part of this budget was used to promote a number of posts per week. The reach of the posts increased significantly as a result. The chance of interaction was greater and with that the viral reach and the Edgerank increased.
And because the reach went up, the client demanded even better posts and we still got more creative time per post (the other part of the saved budget).
A win-win-win situation: the advertiser and the consumer get better creation and the advertiser gets bottom-line more reach and more engagement. All for the same money. Facebook itself states:
“Facebook is a paid medium and your engagement is the discount you earn on your reach.”
Via Likeconomics I came across an article where the most creative Facebook posts of brands are collected. Here was under the following post of Lego:
Lego
With the following quote from Ted Royer :
“It's great that Facebook can really bring back what was so nice about print, before vietnam mobile phone number list people stopped caring about print.”
Facebook is the platform where micro-creation – saying a lot with very little – becomes the ultimate challenge. The role of creation, namely to stand out from the crowd in the overcrowded newsfeed, becomes more important. Creation for Facebook is therefore no longer something to do 'on the side' as an advertiser.
If the reach and impact on Facebook is just as great, or greater, than a print advertisement, then as an advertiser you can demand at least as much as in Viva or de Volkskrant.
It has to be different
From experience I know that the creative bar of the work for Facebook is not as high at most social agencies and advertisers as it is at traditional advertising agencies. And that has to change. For example, by working with experienced advertising creatives. Pascal Boogaert wrote about it earlier, and I can only agree. Certainly given the recent developments at Facebook.
At the same time, advertising on Facebook has become increasingly important. The number of advertising products has increased and the competition for organic and viral exposure is so fierce that brands have to advertise to be seen
As a result, we still too often get irrelevant and unattractive advertisements disguised as stories in our newsfeed. But that will probably come to an end soon.
Facebook forces advertisers to invest in art & science
The solution to the problem is that Facebook will force advertisers to professionalize in both creation and analysis.
The science of Facebook
Nanigans recently published an article describing Facebook as a performance marketing medium instead of a social marketing medium. The ROI cases are flying around your ears.
Yet many Dutch advertisers complain that Facebook is an expensive advertising medium. This has two causes. Firstly, they often attach the wrong KPIs to the medium and secondly, as previously indicated, they do not use all the options that Facebook advertising has to offer.
Facebook advertising may seem easy at first glance, but if you don't use it properly, it is indeed expensive. (This applies to all media, by the way.) Facebook advertising is about strategy, testing, (big data) analysis, qualitative research and technology. You can't get away with a spray and pray strategy. This requires an almost scientific approach.
There is a clear parallel with Google Adwords : anyone can set up an Adwords campaign, but to get better results from it continuously is a different story. The big difference is that incompetence on Google is pretty invisible, while on Facebook it is very visible (unfortunately).
Advertisers who do not invest in optimizing their Facebook campaigns will get (too) little ROI from Facebook and will ignore the platform. Others will further professionalize. This will make incompetent advertising disappear into the background and relevance will increase.
The art of Facebook
And the best news today is that Facebook is going to give a helping hand to every advertiser who invests in creativity.
Facebook is becoming increasingly visual. Visuals are getting bigger. The accompanying copy of the post is placed over the visual (which is why it better be short!) And a post may not consist of more than 20% text to be promoted. All developments that increase the importance of images.
Images-with-Text-in-the-New-Facebook-News-Feed
In addition to the increased importance of the visual aspect, the limitation of viral and organic reach on Facebook has made it necessary for advertisers to attach more importance to creative quality on Facebook. And I don't mean the one-off viral post but structural quality. I would like to illustrate this with the following practical example:
At the end of 2012, the viral and organic reach of the posts we develop for our advertisers appeared to be under pressure. We suddenly reached far fewer consumers with the same quality of content. Very good posts achieved a small percentage of extra viral reach through interaction, but because the initial reach was too small, the net viral reach was also too small. This caused the Edgerank to drop and a downward reach spiral was created.
It turned out not to be an incident but structural. And because the KPIs of many of our customers start with reach, we had to intervene.
Because our clients did not have an extra pot of media budget for Facebook at the end of the year, we decided in consultation to reduce the post frequency. Sometimes by more than 50%. This saved creative hours (and therefore budget). Part of this budget was used to promote a number of posts per week. The reach of the posts increased significantly as a result. The chance of interaction was greater and with that the viral reach and the Edgerank increased.
And because the reach went up, the client demanded even better posts and we still got more creative time per post (the other part of the saved budget).
A win-win-win situation: the advertiser and the consumer get better creation and the advertiser gets bottom-line more reach and more engagement. All for the same money. Facebook itself states:
“Facebook is a paid medium and your engagement is the discount you earn on your reach.”
Via Likeconomics I came across an article where the most creative Facebook posts of brands are collected. Here was under the following post of Lego:
Lego
With the following quote from Ted Royer :
“It's great that Facebook can really bring back what was so nice about print, before vietnam mobile phone number list people stopped caring about print.”
Facebook is the platform where micro-creation – saying a lot with very little – becomes the ultimate challenge. The role of creation, namely to stand out from the crowd in the overcrowded newsfeed, becomes more important. Creation for Facebook is therefore no longer something to do 'on the side' as an advertiser.
If the reach and impact on Facebook is just as great, or greater, than a print advertisement, then as an advertiser you can demand at least as much as in Viva or de Volkskrant.
It has to be different
From experience I know that the creative bar of the work for Facebook is not as high at most social agencies and advertisers as it is at traditional advertising agencies. And that has to change. For example, by working with experienced advertising creatives. Pascal Boogaert wrote about it earlier, and I can only agree. Certainly given the recent developments at Facebook.