There are a ton of social media channels that exist and new ones are sprouting up every day, but the end all be all is the behemoth we know as Facebook and Instagram. Currently, Facebook has roughly 2.06 billion users worldwide, Instagram with approximately 700 million active users every month.

Platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter and others have huge user bases as well, but the flexibility and powerful marketing features that Facebook is equipping users with has paved a way for in-house marketers and organization leaders to get their message in front of their audience in the most effective way possible.

Now organizations have an incredible opportunity to help lead out and strategize their non-profit’s online marketing campaigns by becoming better users of Facebook.

This isn't to say that a volunteer can replace the resources or knowledge of an agency - if you want professional results, trust and partner with an agency to help you get there -  but rather, for smaller projects, maintaining your online presence and supporting your business or non-profit’s efforts using social media.

Becoming a Facebook Power User also means that you are able to vet the people who you plan on working with and bring your valuable insight to the strategy being developed.

It might take some time, some practice and some studying, but becoming a Facebook Power User is not impossible and with a little bit of sweat equity you can start developing, launching, executing and measuring your own campaigns!
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Let's get started - the first step is to...

If you have a website or blog, you need to have your Facebook Pixel setup. Having Facebook Pixel setup on your website or blog is as essential as setting up Google Analytics - it's just a must!

Not only you can see incredible insights on how your audience behaves outside of Facebook, but you can retarget the ones who interact with your content more often.

This is excellent for a number of reasons - that's pretty obvious - but often times business and non-profit marketing leaders will miss this crucial step in their strategy and go months, dare I say, years without having any of this information.

Don't miss this step, setup your Facebook Pixel. 

Here is a comprehensive guide on how to do it. 
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And here is the kind of information you can get from having it live...

By default, Facebook provides Page Administrators (people who own or operate a Facebook Page) a ton of insight into how the page is performing and audience reach at a granular level. With Facebook Page Insights you can not only see how far your Facebook Page reaches, but also when your audience is the most engaged, what kinds of content they like the most and more. 
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Your Facebook's Page Summary dashboard for example provides a bird's eye view on what is going on with your Facebook page. You can see how many Actions, Page views and Page Likes are happening as well as how far your posts are getting to your audience (Post Reach).

From the insights I can see when my audience is the most active, what post types they are most engaged with, and which of my posts they interacted with the most organically vs. paid.
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Even with a quick glance, you can see how powerful looking at this information can be. Making content and posting it without any idea of what your audience is responsive to can result in lost time and energy, not to mention money if you're spending money on content creation.

Knowing your audience is one of the most important things you can know as a leader in your organization. Whether you are looking to nurture your current audience or reach new people to bring them into your organization or get your message in front of them, you need to know them and understand them intimately.

Before I start any campaign, whether social media marketing or not, I always do as much research as I possibly can so I can understand who I am speaking to and what they need to hear.

Using Facebook's Audience Insights tool, you can do just that. Their incredible suite of features allow you to do a deep dive into your audience with powerful information about;

• Audience demographics
• Geography
• Interests
• Education
• Household income
• Employment status
• Device usage
• Spending habits
• Relationships
• Facebook advertiser/admin info.
• etc.

Let me clear this up, using Facebook Boost isn't a bad thing and can actually be a great tool. However, that tool is too often a crutch to Facebook Page Admins looking to pump out a quick advertisement to get results or at least the illusion of results. 

If you want to launch a Facebook Ad Campaign, start with the Ad Manager, not with boosting a single post.

Boosting a post can have a lot of advantages if your content is performing well, but if you want to have a strategic approach to how you spend your advertising dollars, setting up a Campaign, Ad Set and Advertisement within Ad Manager is your best bet.

First, some basics on boosting... 

When you boost you are limited to the audience (unless you are intentional about setting one up) the placements you can use (more about that in the next point) and the content that you can promote. 
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If you ever boost a post and then look in Ad Manager you will also notice that it is linear once it is setup: Campaign, Ad Set and Ad are all the same thing, a straight shot all the way through.

Click here to learn more about why you shouldn't push the Facebook Boost button. 

With Facebook Ads you can customize where your advertisements will appear to your end-user. 

For example, you can choose to only display your advertisement on your audience's Newsfeed and Sidebar, or even limit it to the 'Audience Network' that Facebook makes available. 
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You can also exclusively limit your advertisement to Instagram or an Instagram Story even - really there are a ton of different options and customizations available that you can use to get your message in front of your audience.

Placements are often one of the most overlooked customizations that Facebook Ads have available, but can significantly impact how your advertisement appears to your audience and interacts with your brand.

Facebook also recently announced that their Audience Network is expanding and customization options exist for users looking to Exclude Audience Network members or specific categories that they don't want their advertisements appearing on.
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Here is a quick breakdown of the different Placement options:

• Feeds: These are your most common placements that you are familiar with and still some of the most effective ones. This placement will put your advertisement directly in your audience's newsfeed. While these are some of the most effective placements, they can also be skipped over very easily as users are scrolling their timeline.
• In-Stream Videos: These are the equivalent of video advertisements. When someone is watching a video on Facebook and an advertisement cues up, that is your advertisement that will be played. If you have ever used YouTube, this works similarly.
• Right Column: Similar to the 'Feeds' placement, this will put your ads in front of your audience in their newsfeed area in the right sidebar. Unlike the newsfeed area, the right sidebar is sticky and will follow your audience in the case that they scroll down the page. The placement itself is much smaller however and for me (historically) has not performed as well as the newsfeed placement.
• Suggested Videos: Based on the preferences set up in your Audience section, Facebook will suggest your video content to your audience through the videos that they are already watching. If your audience is engaged with content already and what you are bringing is great quality content that connects with them, they will watch your video based on Facebook's suggestion. I've seen video suggestions perform phenomenally well with the right budget and creative.
• Instagram Feed: You can place your advertisement directly in your audience's Instagram feed. This is similar to the Facebook Feeds option listed above. Each advertisement has the option for a Call to Action button as well, though it is not required. This is great for getting engagement for younger audiences who are frequent on mobile devices.
• Instagram Stories: The Stories feature on Instagram is relatively new, showing portrait styled videos and images similar to Snapchat. Facebook allows you to place advertisements directly into Instagram Stories - these have performed incredibly well for me in the past. It's not uncommon for a campaign to have .33 to .60 cents a click with low bounce rates and long session times (based on the website). Instagram and Facebook stories could be huge for engagement, don't miss the section below where I cover that in more detail.
• Native, Banner and Interstitial: These ads are often used within mobile applications and can be extremely powerful if leveraged correctly. I have never had the pleasure of launching a campaign that was aggressive with these types of advertisements, but in a nutshell - banner ads display a banner with a call to action button, native ads are typically rectangle ads that occupy space within an application screen and interstitial ads are full screen ads that cover the entire applications screen.
• Audience Network In-Stream Videos: This is the same as Facebook's option except within their Audience Network. If someone isn't watching videos on Facebook's platform directly, you can still advertise to them if they are on an affiliate network, which is great.
• Rewarded Videos: If you have ever played a game on a phone or mobile device, it's likely that you have seen a Rewarded Video. These are video advertisements that give users in-app purchases or premiums once they finish the advertisement. This is a great way to guarantee that your audience is actually watching your advertisement all the way through, although, that is no indication (truly) of engagement, these ads are great for brand awareness and remarketing/retargeting.
• Messenger Home: This placement puts your advertisements directly in front of your audience members who use Messenger. Messenger has now (mostly) become it's own standalone application with a unique newsfeed with content tailored for Messenger users. This means that a user on Messenger is not guaranteed to see the same content or the same advertisements as on their Facebook account. Users behave differently on Messenger than other apps as well, which is important to know and consider when developing your campaign.
• Sponsored Messages: This placement allows you to send advertisements directly to audience members who you have already engaged with on Facebook Messenger with previously. This is a great tool that you can leverage and keep conversations open and

While I say this with a grain of salt, not knowing every single market and industry, the fact still remains for many campaigns - Promoting on Instagram is a must for your campaign, especially if you're using images and video.
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I can cite countless examples where I've had the exact same image content on both Instagram and Facebook, and without a doubt Instagram performs much better with a smaller audience than Facebook. Considering that Facebook is becoming increasingly strict with how they show content to their audiences now. 

In the example above, we can see an almost 2000% better performance on Instagram when compared to Facebook for the exact same content. It's also worth noting that the Facebook page for this account has 17k+ 'Fans' and on Instagram there are roughly 3k+ followers. 

Instagram has about 17% of followers that the Facebook page has, yet it performs astronomically better.
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This isn't an uncommon thing - skipping out on Instagram could cost you valuable traffic and engagement if not done correctly. 

Something that is often forgotten, even with successful campaigns, is to measure your campaign's success (or failure) on a daily basis, gauging how things are performing. 

If you are aware of what is performing well and what isn't, you can improve on the areas that are giving you the most value while changing your strategy or approach on the things that aren't.

Here are some simple questions that you can ask and some basic formulas you can use to see how your posts are performing and how your advertisements are performing (these are subjective based on my experience, so take it with a grain of salt):

Page Posts

• What types of content are performing the best? (Insights -> Posts -> Post Type)
• What time of day are my users/audience members most active? (Insights -> Posts)
• Are we getting or losing 'Likes' (Insights -> People -> Where Your Page Likes Happened)
• What posts get the most 'Reactions', 'Comments' and 'Shares'?
• How are the responses to my content? Positive, negative?
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Advertisements

• What is my Campaign Objective? (There are a number of different objectives that you can choose from)
• What are my Key Performance Indicators? (Clicks, Cost Per Click, Click Through Rate, Reach, etc.)
• Which one of my Ad Sets is performing best?
• Which one of my Advertisements is performing best?
• What is my average Cost per Click?
• What is my Click Through Rate?
• What is my Event Response cost? (For events only)
• What is my Average View Time? (Videos only)
• How should I adjust my budget? More money, less money?

This is the shortest and most straight-forward point that I can make - constantly watch what you are doing and find ways to do it better.

Use data to drive your decision making but allow your instincts to have their place in the scheme of strategy - your gut feeling shouldn't be entirely discounted and the data will rarely give you 100% of a reason to do something.
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In summation...

Livestreaming is one of the most powerful tools that you can leverage for your organization's digital marketing strategy and approach. Engaging with your audience in real-time and providing them unique experience comes second to none with most content experiences. In the world of content marketing, livestreaming is quickly becoming one of the most common and powerful tools for organizations.

As powerful as it is, if done incorrectly, it can yield weak results or even hurt your brand!

One of the most common shortcomings of livestream content is the quality of the actual livestream. If you're looking to engage with your audience effectively and produce content that is Evergreen in nature, the quality of the livestream is vitally important.

After talking with several leaders involved in their organization's marketing and content strategy efforts, livestreaming can seem expensive and daunting. The truth is, it doesn't have to be.

You can get a livestream that looks like a million dollars on a tight budget. 
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In this article I'll cover 3 different ways that you can take your livestream to the next level.

Mevo is a complete livestreaming solution that allows you to setup and shoot wherever you are with great quality. They have a huge community of people that are willing and able to help, a dedicated support staff and a large user-base which is always a huge plus; big userbases typically means that new features and software will be considered with each release more often. Here are some of the most notable features that places it at the top of my list:

1. Multi-camera action (without multiple cameras): You can cut and edit your stream in real-time using Mevo's incredible mobile application. Prior to going live, you can setup the shots you want and cut to them dynamically while your stream is happening!
2. 1080p streaming and 4k native: Not only can you stream in hi-def, you can also shoot in 4k which can be saved natively to an SD card that is inserted into the camera. You can record events in 4k while streaming - this is the one of the best features about this product.
3. Livetracking subjects: Move around a lot? Mevo's dynamic live-tracking will actually allow you to track the individual portraits and shots seamlessly. It's not a perfect feature, but if your subject is making minor movements, Mevo will keep it framed the entire time.
4. Connect on Wi-fi, LTE or Ethernet: Use any internet connection you have available to shoot - imagine doing a livestream inside of a Starbucks, or on location at an event!

Mevo is one of my favorite products for livestreaming and I would definitely encourage anyone to consider using it if they are looking for quality AND value. 

The Logitech C922x webcam is a great, simple and cheap solution for livestreaming with really good quality. There are a few limitations, such as needing a laptop or computer to stream from and also lacking the ability to do multiple edits/cuts, but for the price-point, it is a great alternative.

The Logitech C922x also comes with a ton of accessories such as tripods, desk clamps, and other accessories to bring your livestream to the next level. 

The Logitech C922x has a few standout features:

1. Stream at 1080p with 30fps or you can stream at 720p at 60fps. Either way you are getting great looking video.
2. Great built-in stereo microphone for audio - not the best on the market, but again, for the price-point it is pretty stand out.
3. Setup and start streaming in minutes - One of the biggest benefits of the Logitech C922x is that you can connect it and start streaming almost immediately. Setup is plug and play and it works with Apple and Windows computers.

One of the biggest appeals of livestreaming is all about capturing the ‘now.’ Church marketers (Digital Evangelists) can leverage their audience in a completely new way that is real, relevant, and in the moment. The level of exchange and interaction that Digital Evangelists can get from livestreams, gives creators unique moments in time with their audience. 

There is something awesome about that.
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With all of the benefits of livestreaming being used in church communication, there is one that often goes unnoticed and that is the value of creating livestream content that is ‘Evergreen.’

Evergreen content is content that can be shown to new audiences over and over while retaining its intrinsic value. It doesn’t become less interesting or less relevant, in fact, it has the same effect for every new person that watches it. Some great examples of Evergreen content pulled from livestreams are often conference videos, Q&A sessions, and even live group discussions.

But take everything with a grain of salt; not all livestreams can be repurposed to be Evergreen.
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Sometimes the ‘now’ of the livestream is what it is – there is nothing wrong with having a strategy that isn’t Evergreen or having content that isn’t constantly repurposed at every opportunity for your digital  campaigns. Your church/ministry is unique - don't drown it out by trying to conform your communications strategy to what is considered 'better,' if what you're doing is working well. However, it never hurts to try new things. Test and see what works for your ministry, and keep trying. 

If you're wondering if something can be turned into Evergreen content, consider some of these leading questions;

1. Does my audience still care about what is covered in this video?
2. How in-demand is the information that I am presenting?
3. If I was a part of my audience, would I spend the time watching it?
4. What is the overall replay value of the video or videos?

Reposted with permission from DigitalPew.

​Livestreaming is a powerful tool that can be used to build up your digital strategy. But that is just what it is, a part of the strategy.

Livestreaming should not be your whole digital strategy.

Even if you follow every rule and best practice, your marketing efforts will fall short if you don’t have a solid foundation to build your livestreaming, and other social media efforts, on top of.
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More times than not, the basics of digital strategy are entirely missing, so when one strategy doesn't make up for what's missing, it's abandoned.

Notice the spike in reach that can be seen in November (below) when more engaging (video) content was used to reach their audience - it looks like a mountain range with an almost immediate spike! ​

​Leveraging video content isn't just beneficial, it's a must if you're looking to take your digital strategy to the next level.

Livestream video content can be used over and over again when turned into Evergreen content - videos don't have to age out just because they were livestreamed. There are opportunities to maximize what you are using and are already doing with your livestream content. Check out our blog on creating Evergreen content to learn more. 

Simply put, don't wait! Start using livestream to maximize your digital strategy efforts today. Comment below with your experiences or use #DigitalEvangelism. 

Reposted with permission from DigitalPew.