Social Media

Paid Social Media

near Maria Island, part of the Pointe Sables Environmental Protection Area (PSEPA) in the Caribbean.
School of silversides near Maria Island, part of the Pointe Sables Environmental Protection Area (PSEPA) in the Caribbean. © Tim Calver

Three fundamentals of paid media:

Content is Always King

Right Audience, Right Context

Optimizing Increases ROI

Facebook Ad Policy Changes & Webinar

On November 14th, Matt Whatley hosted a webinar with Julia Amato and Philip Rudolph on the Facebook ad policy changes. 

You can view the recorded webinar here

IF YOU DO ANY FB PROMOTION - PLEASE READ MATT'S MESSAGE BELOW

Takeaways:

  1. Facebook updated its ad policy guidelines and it comes with a lot of new requirements for TNC
  2. As a result, the Global Digital team jumped through a whole bunch of hoops to get TNC verified on FB so you don’t have to!
  3. But! This ad policy has a few requirements attached to it
  4. Shoot a note to Matt Whatley and Julia Amato about joining our global Facebook Business manager (using your TNC email address)
  5. We’ll get you added and create a shiny, brand new ad account with the verified disclaimer all with the same admin rights you currently have
  6. Global Digital will be hosting a webinar next week to walk through this in more detail + answer any other questions

Important Message from Matt Whatley, Director of Digital Channel Strategy: 

As you may have seen, Facebook has recently rolled out a new advertising policy that has direct and immediate impact on TNC. The new policy is meant to create more transparency in ads on the platform. In almost all cases, Facebook classifies promoted content from TNC as “Environmental Issues” content which has required an extra level of review and approval before it can be used as advertising. All promoted issues based ads are archived on Facebook’s Ad Library for up to 7 years.

 

Here's what Happened

As of November 7th (yesterday), advertisers on Facebook are now required to include a new “Paid for by” disclaimer to continue running ads about “environmental” or “social issues”. Promoting content without this disclaimer will not be possible under Facebook’s new policy now in effect.

The Global Digital team has successfully gone through Facebook’s verification process and has applied the approved disclaimer to all of TNC’s Facebook pages. You do not need to go through the disclaimer approval process, it has been provided to your page under the Global TNC Facebook page.

Immediate Next Steps for TNC Social Admins

As a result of this new change and the disclaimer application, there are some immediate actions required by anyone who plans on promoting content on Facebook.

All social media admins that manage a TNC Facebook page must be accounted for in our Global TNC Facebook Business Manager with their TNC email address (personal accounts will not be accepted). This is a very simple process that is quick and does not change how you currently promote content. Your Business Manager account with TNC email address will be connected to the corresponding TNC Facebook page you manage - there will be no disruption in your ability to manage the page.

Note – Centralizing all of our TNC Facebook pages into one Business Manager is an industry best practice and comes with many benefits that you can immediately take advantage of. I have included a brief rundown on Business Manager, what it is, how it operates and what benefits it includes available to you below.

Once you have been added to our Global Facebook Business Manager, the Global Digital team will create a new ad account that includes the required disclaimer to promote content. The Global Digital team will not manage the ad accounts, they will be the responsibility of the appropriate field staff to maintain. If you have an ad account that you are using for TNC, you will need to delete it from Facebook once all payments have been made as it no longer will include the required disclaimer information.

If your promoted content is managed by an agency or other partner, we can bring them into our Business Manager and apply the appropriate credentials to the specific social accounts. Please reach out to me if you have an agency you’d like connected.

If you are currently running Facebook ads that have bene paused due to the ad policy change you will need to rebuild them in the new account provided by the Global Digital team. That said, please remember that you likely will have two invoices to pay at the end of the month if you have ads on two different accounts.

Once this initial setup is complete, your paid media workflow should be identical to how you manage things now.

I realize this is a lot of information all at once and the stakes are high. That said, Global Digital will be hosting a zoom meeting on this next Thursday to walk through he process and answer any questions. If you have any immediate questions, please let me know.

TLDR:

  1. Facebook updated its ad policy guidelines and it comes with a lot of new requirements for TNC
  2. As a result, the Global Digital team jumped through a whole bunch of hoops to get TNC verified on FB so you don’t have to!
  3. But! This ad policy has a few requirements attached to it
  4. Shoot a note to Matt Whatley and Julia Amato about joining our global Facebook Business manager (using your TNC email address)
  5. We’ll get you added and create a shiny, brand new ad account with the verified disclaimer all with the same admin rights you currently have
  6. Global Digital will be hosting a webinar next week to walk through this in more detail + answer any other questions

 

Twitter

Also note, on October 30th, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that Twitter would stop all political advertising and ad content that features “issues of national importance such as climate change” globally. New policy around Twitter’s ad platform will be rolled out on Friday, November 15th. We’ll be watching this closely as it may impact TNC as well.

International Markets

Guidance on ad policy outside of the US is still a bit unclear. If you plan to run ads on Facebook targeting audiences outside the US please reach out to me and we’ll connect with our Facebook reps to learn more.

As is always the case, details are hard to come by and the policy updates have been a fast-moving target so we’re learning as much as we can on the go. I’m happy to address any questions you have.

Cheers!

Facebook Business Manager Details

Leveraging a centralized service created and maintained by Facebook is an industry-wide best practice and provides a wealth of benefits that we can take advantage of immediately. Below, I have detailed our rationale for this migration and included a set of proposed next steps. 

Benefits of Business Manager:

   Benefit

   Rationale

User Administration

Business Manager provides much more efficient governance on page admin access. Business Manager allows much better controls on who has access to a Facebook page, ad accounts and other TNC data stored on Facebook.

 If you leverage an agency or contractor to support your Facebook/Instagram efforts, they can easily be added to your page with specific admin rights

Better Reporting

Centralizing all our Facebook pages together will give us significantly better reporting capabilities. For the first time, we’ll be able to report and share out a holistic report about how TNC as an entire organization is performing on Facebook. 

Improved Accountability

Roles with specific access can be assigned as follows:
  1. Admin: Can manage all aspects of the page including sending messages and publishing as the page, creating ads, viewing insights, and assigning Page Roles 
  2.  Editor: Can edit the Page, send messages and publish as the Page, create ads, and view insights 
  3.  Moderator: Can respond to and delete comments on the Page, send messages as the Page, create ads, and view insights 
  4.  Advertiser: Can create ads for the Page and view insights 
  5.  Analyst: Can view insights

Shared Data Resources

Business Manager will allow us to share data across different pages seamlessly. If you are running Facebook ads, our team can quickly share pixel tracking data to help your ads perform better.

We’ll also have much better control and consistency around audience targeting and can share audience targets for more effective ad-targeting.

This is significant and should not be overlooked. Sharing data resources will prevent us from creating redundant information that only serve a singular purpose which could potentially slow down our website. 

Separation of Personal/Professional Accounts

Using Business Manager allows users to create a separate profile, independent of their personal Facebook profile so you'll never have to worry about mixing business content with your personal content.

Efficient Resources

The Global Digital team or Centralized Service Team can support your needs better! With a centralized service, we can quickly help address any potential problems or troubleshoot an issue.

What is Facebook Business Manager?

A centralized service that provides improved transparency, governance and user management for all Facebook activity across different pages and ad accounts.

How will this impact my own work on Facebook?

  • This process will not prevent any social admin from doing anything that they were previously able to do.
  • Facebook Business Manager is not a replacement for Khoros. 

Who will need to be aware of this?

Anyone that is a social admin of a TNC page. Once integrated into Business Manager, we can define access based on specific role on team/agency/contractor.

When should this happen?

As soon as possible! Once users are added to the TNC Global Business Manager account, the entire process does not take long at all. The sooner we have everyone in the same system, the sooner we can begin sharing best practices and learnings from each other.

Why is this happening now?

 As Facebook continues to evolve its platform, we should expect to see requirements on tighter governance of brand/organizational pages. New ad policy requirements from Facebook now enforce tighter governance of Facebook pages.

The Paid Media Process

Stage 1: Opportunity & Discover

  • Define Business Goals and Objectives
  • Review Brand Research & Insights
  • Identify Audiences 
  • Identify Budgets 
  • Review Content Assets 
  • Identify Campaign KPIs

Stage 2: Strategy & Planning

  • Research Channels and Audience Targets
  • Determine Platform Mix
  • Develop Media Strategy
  • Identify Creative Needs 
  • Create Media Plan 
  • Create Flighting Schedule

Stage 3: Creative Production

  • Develop Creative Variations by Goal & Platform
  • Produce Assets and Copy

Stage 4: Launch & Optimize

  • Set-Up Ad Accounts
  • Set-Up Campaigns
  • Traffic and Test Creatives
  • Ongoing Optimization

Stage 5: Content Reporting

  • Report Development
  • Establish and Assess Benchmarks
  • Determine Learnings and Forward Recommendations 

*Build on Learnings by Returning to Stage 1 and Looking for Further Opportunities 

 

Stage 1: Opportunity & Discover

  • Define Business Goals and Objectives
  • Review Brand Research & Insights
  • Identify Audiences 
  • Identify Budgets 
  • Review Content Assets 
  • Identify Campaign KPIs

 

The objective(s) of your paid social media strategy should by one or more of the following: 

Increased Reach: Your aim is to drive brand awareness and interest. You can measure increased reach through impressions. 

Increased Consideration: Your aim is to educate, inform, and inspire your audience. You can measure consideration through website traffic, engagement, video views, and leads generated. 

Conversion: Your aim is to encourage your audience to take an action. You can measure conversion through donations and actions taken. 

 

Stage 2: Strategy & Planning

  • Research Channels and Audience Targets
  • Determine Platform Mix
  • Develop Media Strategy
  • Identify Creative Needs 
  • Create Media Plan 
  • Create Flighting Schedule 

The type of targeting you use and on which channels depends on the audience you are trying to reach. Once you have determined your target audience, consider how you plan to gert in front fo that audience. There are three main types of targeting used with social media. Interest-Based, Custom, and Lookalikes. 

You can target your audience on social channels based on specific characteristics, noted in the chart below

Stage 3: Creative Production

Once you have determined your audience, goals, and platforms you can design and tailor your creative assets to your strategy.  

  • Develop Creative Variations by Goal & Platform
  • Produce Assets and Copy

The twin pillars of successful paid social are Reach and Relevance.

Reach is simply getting in front of your audience. Relevance makes it more likely that the post will catch the attention of your audience and possibly drive them to further engagement. 

Stage 4: Launch & Optimize

  • Set-Up Ad Accounts
  • Set-Up Campaigns
  • Traffic and Test Creatives
  • Ongoing Optimization

You can elevate your content through Boosted/Promoted Posts or Ads. 

Stage 5: Content Reporting

  • Report Development
  • Establish and Assess Benchmarks
  • Determine Learnings and Forward Recommendations 

For help with benchmarks, goals, and analytics you can reach out to the social media team and the analytics team by submitting a digital request.

After Stage 5: Build on Learnings by Returning to Stage 1 and Looking for Further Opportunities 

 

Coordinating with NA Marketing & Global 

You should reach out and coordinate with North America or Global marketing on social when you believe it is warranted based on the: 

Audience

Scale

Relevance

Contact Julia Amato (julia.amato@tnc.org) about North America social campaigns and contact Monica Ardaya (monica.ardaya@tnc.org) about Global social campaigns.