Artificially inflated ads? The Dark Side of Paid Engagement

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If you’re running artificially inflated ads and your client is unaware, we need to chat. Today, we’re talking about the risk many ad companies are taking to boost engagement on their clients’ ads. Some see this as a risk worth taking, but we’re here to tell you, artificially inflating engagement on an ad can harm the client’s business. Still don’t believe us, well we’re about to burst your bubble. Keep reading and we’ll tell you why. 

What are artificially inflated ads?

Let’s start by breaking down artificially inflated ads. Artificially inflated ads are purchased advertisements injected with fake engagement by third-party apps. Advertising companies are paying third-party apps to engage with client advertisements for a more significant return on their cost-per-click metrics. Other examples of artificial inflation are fake followers, likes, and comments. 

What does Facebook think about this? 

What does Facebook think about this? Well, they hate it. Facebook is taking legal action; here’s the tea. Facebook filed a lawsuit against two app developers, LionMobi and JediMobi, over ‘click injection’ fraud against Facebook ads. These app developers allegedly created fake user clicks on Facebook advertisements giving the impression that users were engaging with the ads. The Facebook advertising system, known as the Facebook Audience Network, would then pay out cash to these apps thinking real users had clicked on the ads. As a result of this click injection scheme, Facebook refunded money back to advertisers who paid to have their ads on the Facebook Audience Network platform and had their ads clicked on via this fraudulent scheme. 

Now, Facebook and Instagram are cleaning up artificial activity by putting a stop to third-party apps, bot accounts, and influencers from engaging in such inauthentic behavior. If Facebook or Instagram discover purchased engagement such as shares, likes, comments, or followers on accounts, they will remove all inorganic content. If that doesn’t stop users from purchasing engagement, Facebook will ban accounts and permanently restrict user’s IP addresses from accessing the Instagram app or website.  

Now, if the possibility of getting banned from Facebook or Instagram for artificially inflating ads or engagement doesn’t scare you, we’ve got some more reasons why you should stop this practice asap. 

Use Artificial Engagement At Your Own Risk

Now, here is what ad companies should consider: the risks of running inflated ads. When engaging in artificial engagement or artificially inflating ads, you risk losing brand credibility, no actual monetary return on ads, and Facebook banning you. 

First, let’s touch on brand credibility. With so much inauthentic engagement, inflating ads won’t do brands any good. When running inflated ads for clients, brands are looking for a return on their investment and real engagement on their advertisements. This strategy is not only a copout to fine-tuning the type of ad that works best for the brand, but this strategy also threatens the reputation and economic growth of companies by putting companies at risk of losing out on real engagement, sales, and consumer loyalty. 

Next, if it’s not real, you won’t see a return. Fake engagement is not real business. Think of it this way: When measuring the click-per-cost return on investment, the sales won’t reflect the amount of engagement the ad reached. It would be impossible to measure how well an inflated ad organically connected with an audience based on fake engagement. 

 

We’re here to tell you that although artificially inflating ads may sounds tempting, think twice before doing so. It could cost business, valuable partnerships in the future, and could run the risk of having your social media accounts shut down. If you’re looking for a ad agency to run ads for you, send a message to info@itscreativelabel.com. We’re here to help! 

Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency, What You Should Know!

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Earlier this summer, Facebook dropped its plans to launch Libra- a new global cryptocurrency. Libra states that 1.7 billion adults currently don’t have access to a financial system or bank, so Facebook believes that a new, stable cryptocurrency could be the solution to this, and other related problems. 

What is cryptocurrency?

The long and short of it is cryptocurrency is money. Much like cash, you can use cryptocurrency in exchange for goods and services. Cryptocurrency is best understood like casino chips, you’ll still need to exchange real currency for the cryptocurrency! Make sense?

How does it work?

All cryptocurrencies work using a technology called blockchain. What’s a blockchain? We don’t know. LOL Best explanation is that it is a secure technology that tracks and manages all the transactions made with the cryptocurrency.

Facebook has its own cryptocurrency? That’s cool! 

Yup! Back in June, Facebook announced Libra, its cryptocurrency. According to Facebook, it should become a global currency for billions of people. How will they make this happen? Our guess is making it mandatory to buy and sell with cryptocurrency on Facebook. So Facebook Market Place and Facebook Ads manager will all be governed by Libra.

How does the govt. feel about this?

While Libra doesn’t launch until 2020, lots of people, are not happy about it. Just look at what Trump had to say.

Yikes. But there are some companies that are on board, however. Take a look at the list of companies backing Libra.

Outside of the government and banks, people simply don’t trust Facebook. One of the biggest worries amongst us regular folk is that Facebook is going to use payment data to target advertisement. They’ve promised that they won’t. But we’ll see. Now that you’ve got a brief understanding of Libra, what are your thoughts? Will you use it? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook’s New Ad Format, What You Need To Know!

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We know, we know, social media is always changing and it can be hard to keep up. We want to provide you some relief by breaking down important social media updates for you. If you’re currently using Facebook to run ads or plan to, then you should definitely listen up. On August 19th, the mobile newsfeed is going to be compressed in order to match the style of the new Facebook design that was introduced earlier in the year.

But it’s not all just about having a matching aesthetic. Facebook has stated that the changes will “drive increased ad effectiveness and make it easier to use the same assets on Facebook News Feed and Instagram feed”.

Here are some more useful tidbits of information for you to quickly and easily be aware of what these changes mean.

Fewer Lines of Text

Fewer lines of primary text will show on the mobile news feed. Now, only 3 lines of primary text will show on Facebook mobile news feed, after which people will be prompted to click to view additional text.

New Maximum Media Height

Maximum media height for photos and videos will reduce to 4:5 on mobile News Feed – The tallest supported aspect ratio for images without links and for videos is now vertical (4:5). Media taller than 4:5 will be masked on Facebook mobile News Feed.

Projected to Improve Effectiveness

Let’s be real, we have short attention spans. This is especially true when we’re on social media with billions of pieces of content competing for our attention. Brands have recently been complaining about less ROI from the Facebook platform. By creating ads in a more brief format, Facebook believes it’s in a more skimmable format, therefore, it’s instantly understandable. It’s expected that conversions will improve by better expressing an idea quickly. It’s a valuable skill to have any way to know how to be direct in as little verbiage as possible.

The change, in this sense, is largely related to establishing more presentation uniformity across Instagram and Facebook, in order to maximize cross-promotional potential. 

In short, from August, if you’re looking to maximize your Facebook ads, you’ll need to make those first three lines super-snappy, while you’ll also need to keep the image height change in mind in your formatting to ensure optimal presentation. Luckily, we do this all the time here at Creative Label so if you need us to give you a hand just reach out to us in an email to info@itscreativelabel.com.

 

The New Rules for Using Instagram Hashtags

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Ever feel like hashtags are this super magical mythical creature everyone is raving about yet you still don’t get how to find them, much less use them?

We feel you. Let us explain.

While hashtags alone might not save your entire social presence, you certainly shouldn’t neglect using them. Think of hashtags like your brand’s personal cheerleader helping you get seen or like a google search helping you get discovered. We’re going to break it down for you with 5 essential tips to own your hashtag strategy with every single post from now on. Let’s go! 

Using enough quality tags

Every time someone forgets to hashtag their posts, our social media manager cries a little  #facts. Ok, ok, maybe we’re kidding but we just want you to know how important they are. Posting without hashtags or just one tag is basically like placing an ad in the middle of the jungle. We suggest using as many tags as you can that are relevant to your business. 

Ask yourselves the following:

  • What might your dream clients be obsessing over on Instagram that you can tag?
  • What tags are similar pages using that have a good-sized following?
  • What are some keywords that your brand could fit under? Make sure the keywords are relevant to the image being posted to prevent getting flagged

Every time you type up a tag you’ll see a little dropdown showing you the number of posts using that tag. The sweet spot for hashtags is those that fall under 500K uses to have better chances of being discovered without gambling on too small of an audience.

Switching up tags to avoid spammy behavior 

Sick of those “nice one” or “great photo.” You know, those spammy emoji comments? Ugh, we hate them too! You can’t always eliminate them but you can definitely reduce the amount you get by switching up your tags.

When you use the same exact groups of hashtags every single time this can signal to the mysterious Instagram algorithm that your behavior is “spammy”. You want to avoid falling under this umbrella even if you’re not actually doing something considered spammy. When it comes to hashtags, the best way to avoid this is to have different sets of tags. Put simply, don’t use the same ones for every post.

Also, important sidenote, avoid cheesy tags like #likeforlike or #follow4follow. These are typically used by spam bots so avoid them to keep your account in good standing.

Adding hashtags to stories for increased discovery 

Ok, people! All our tips here may take a little effort, but this one here is a simple and super effective one that sooo many people ignore or don’t even know about!

Use hashtags on stories!

You can use up to 10 hashtags for your stories and apply the same principles from our first tip with making sure they’re quality tags. This way not only will your posts be discoverable but you’re opening up even more opportunities through your stories. Getting featured on a story for the hashtags used is the jackpot here.

Using insights to pinpoint best tags

Have a business account? Perfect! If not, you need to go switch on over like yesterday. Take a look at your top-performing posts on your business page insights and save the hashtags used for these top 9 posts. This is a great way for you to start curating groups of tags with a more strategic angle to them. If you have social media scheduling software, such as Later, chances are you also have access to analytics showing you which tags are associated with popular content.

We know data can sound scary but it’s about to become your brand new business bestie, we promise

Using 3rd party tools to search and save tags 

We love making our workflow as efficient as possible. So we’re definitely using a variety of tools to help us achieve that.

In addition to the tip above on using insights, we highly suggest picking a social media scheduling software with analytics. You’ll be able to search for tags without having to go on Instagram as well as build out groups of tags. How cool is it that at a click of a button you can auto-populate a full set of 30 tags that you’ve tested and loved?

Woah, so this was a whole lot of golden tips that we really hope you’ll put in action and find helpful. For those of you who are just too busy to keep doing it all yourself and are ready to hand over the responsibility to a team of experts, you know that Creative Label is the one for the job. Shoot us an email at info@itscreativelabel.com and we’ll help you get started on putting together your hashtag strategy.

Instagram’s API and Everything You Need to Know!

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We know what you’re thinking. So we’ll get straight to it: What is an API? And why does Instagram have one?

Read more

The FTC Won’t Let Me Be

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Everything You Need To Know About Paid Partnerships On The Internet

You’ve seen it before, it’s an aesthetically pleasing photo or video, with great product placement, posted by an Instagram user with high engagement, followed by a caption with the hashtags, #sponsor or #ad on the post. This is influencer marketing. Before we get into how the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) plays a roll in all this, a little background on influencer marketing and its rise is helpful.
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Influencer marketing is rapidly taking precedence over traditional marketing forms like print and video advertising. Why is this you ask? A recent study by Tomson Blog answered that. Followers of Instagram users with high following and most importantly, a high engagement rate, have all bought into and can relate to that particular Instagram users and the products they’re endorsing. Brands are noticing. The return on influencer marketing is high, according to Tomson Blog, “51% of marketers believe they acquire better customers through influencer marketing,” and because of that “59% of marketers plan to increase their budget over the next twelve months.”
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Brands and marketing agencies are all privy to this new wave of marketing, so it’s no wonder why the FTC is in on this too. The FTC conducts investigations and brings cases involving endorsements made on behalf of an advertiser under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which generally prohibits deceptive advertising. Put simply and among other things, the FTC regulates paid social media posts to ensure users are truthful in their posts. FTC Rules – Advertising & Marketing.
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After taking notice of this new wave of marketing, the FTC not only issued guidelines, but also charged individual social media influencers for neglecting proper disclosures on paid posts. To help keep the FTC from knocking at your door, we’ve compiled four important takeaways from the newly issued guidelines.
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If it will affect your credibility, disclose.
If the gift or incentive would affect the weight or credibility of your review the chances of you posting it for your followers to see, then it should be disclosed.
 
Disclosure should be clear and conspicuous.
To make a disclosure “clear and conspicuous,” the disclosure should stand out, and you should use plain and clear language. Disclosures should be
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  • close to the claims to which they relate;
  • in a font that is easy to read;
  • in a shade that stands out against the background.
  • for video ads, on the screen long enough to be noticed, read, and understood;
  • for audio disclosures, read at a cadence that is easy for consumers to follow and in words consumers will understand.
Running a contest? #contest or #sweepstakes is required
Because it is likely readers would understand the hashtags “contest or #sweepstakes to mean the post(s) were made as part of a contest, you need to use those hashtags to make it clear.
 
#ambassador, #thankyou or #partner is not enough disclosure
The use of “#ambassador” or “thank you” is ambiguous and confusing to a consumer, who is not up to speed with influencer marketing.
 
 
If you’re an influencer, a brand, or marketing agency, be sure to familiarize yourself and apply these guidelines to your practice.

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