Not everyone is going to like this
If you run a business – and it doesn’t really matter what kind – you’ve probably got a Facebook Page. And just yesterday, Facebook announced some major updates to Facebook Pages, including the elimination of likes.
Let’s dive in:
- Likes are going away, in favor of follows. On the old version of Facebook Pages, people could separately like and follow your page. On the new version, likes will be gone completely. Anyone who hasn’t followed your page in the past won’t be transferred over as a follower, unfortunately (even if they’ve liked the page).
- There’s now a dedicated News Feed. Pages can now discover and interact with trends on the News Feed with the new functionality, an opportunity to better connect with audiences.
- Text-based Q&As, improved tools, easier navigation, and more. We weren’t kidding when we said this was a major update! You can check Facebook’s full announcement for all the details if you want to read more.
Until now, likes on a Facebook Page have been the most visible support metric. Now that they’re on the way out, encourage your audience to make sure they’re following you, so you don’t lose out on credibility when likes go away forever.
E-COMMERCE
Valuable lessons from a copycat
People often say that good artists copy, while great artists steal. And while ‘stealing’ an idea for yourself is a fun concept, sometimes copying will do in its place.
There’s a recent Twitter thread by Kobe Gatsby, who says he made his first $30k in e-commerce by copying a more successful brand. It sounds cheesy on the surface, but there are some good insights to be found:
- Kobe saw the success of The Ridge Wallet, a portable wallet brand with products selling for more than $100. Then, he found a $10 carbon fiber wallet on AliExpress. From there, Kobe’s copycat business was born.
- The cool part, though, is how he made sales. Anybody can copycat a brand – but it still takes good marketing to make sales. To reach interested customers, Kobe looked at what type of people tagged The Ridge Wallet in their Instagram posts. He discovered that these people liked hiking, guns, and jeeps.
- Jeep pages abound on Instagram, so Kobe took advantage. He took a cool photo of his wallet in front of a Jeep, and paid Jeep pages to promote his product. By doing this, he racked up thousands in sales.
The Crew’s take: Most of you out there probably aren’t trying to start a copycat brand. But, Kobe’s thread offers some insight into the value of knowing your audience and reaching them in creative ways.
SPONSORED BY OUTBRAIN
This month, marketers from all corners – agencies, brands, affiliates, performance – reunite at Unveil 2021
Let’s start 2021 the right way… At least the right way for marketers. What is ”the right way” you ask?
By banding together at Unveil 2021, a free virtual event! This is a unique opportunity to get a good grip on the state of the industry, predictions for the digital space into 2021 and to learn about how native ads solutions can help you.
Yes, 2020 was no normal year but 2021 brings its own unknowns. Many businesses are still under pressure and us marketers are still expected to do more with less.
You’re not alone! Here is who will join Unveil 2021 (alongside you, we hope):
- David Amrani (Chief Strategy Officer) and James Cooper (Editor-in-Chief) from Digiday will discuss the state of the digital marketing industry in 2021.
- Faye Liddle-Moore (Commercial Director) from Outbrain will give you a first look at Outbrain’s product roadmap.
- Veronica Gonzalez, Salma Echahly, Ayal Steiner and more will join host Lauren Pica to make sure you get all the information you need to step into 2021 feeling ready!
Marketers at agencies, at brands, freelancers… whether you call yourself a brand marketer or a performance marketer, let’s all get together at Unveil 2021 – a free jam-packed 45-minutes event to get us ready for the coming year.
PS: If you can’t attend live, register to get the full recording for free!
MARKETING
How to put on the oldest marketing tactic on steroids and gain 1.5M subscribers
Back when Tyler Denk joined Morning Brew in 2017, the daily newsletter only had 100k subscribers.
Eighteen months later, Morning Brew had 1.5M subscribers.
How did they do it?
The short answer is with a referral program. The referral program accounts for 30% of Morning Brew’s subscribers, but it’s the “secret sauce” that makes their growth flywheel spin.
The beauty of a referral program is that it leverages the simplest form of marketing: word of mouth. And it’s not limited to newsletters:
- Dropbox gave free additional storage to those who referred others.
- Harry’s Razors created a milestone-based referral program providing free products before they even launched.
However, as Tyler puts it, you need a validated product before launching a referral program. Word of mouth is incentivized by the great experience your product provides. If your product sucks, no referrals…
If your product is worth it? Then a referral program can be a hell of an acquisition channel!
When a reader refers Morning Brew to 15 readers, they get Morning Brew stickers. Their cost to produce and ship the stickers is roughly $1.25. That means a $0.25 CPA ($1.25 divided by 5 referrals).
Morning Brew’s average CPA of their Facebook campaigns? Between $3 and $5.
Tyler Denk explained everything about Morning Brew’s referral program in his post. And while it’s an old one, it’s still useful. Here are the main takeaways:
- Ask your audience the rewards they might like: Morning Brew gathered tons of feedback from its audience to come up with the right rewards.
- Educate and motivate: First, you need to tell your people that you have a referral program. And, explain to them how it works. Then you need to motivate them to share. Morning Brew, for this purpose, provides a real-time counter that tracks how many referrals someone has.
- Test the referral landing page: Depending on the source, site visitors respond to different messaging. This means that an opt-in page that is working well with Facebook Ads traffic, might not give the same results with users coming from the referral system.
- The biggest obstacle is getting a user to share for the first time. So, Morning Brew sends an email to all subscribers who have 0 referrals exactly 7 days after they subscribe.
Time to wrap this up. But you can find more here if you’re interested.
Oh, and do not forget to spin our flywheel as well, if you’d like some sweet rewards.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
FACEBOOK: A CEO spent more than 46M on Facebook Ads over 14 years, and he’s claiming his ad account was suddenly disabled. Unfortunately, he’s joining a rather large club.
WORDPRESS: There’s a new website building service launched by WordPress, and it’s got some freelancers worried about business.
MARKETING: Search Engine Journal just put together a great breakdown of a recent Harvard paper, discussing the effect of pricing on user ratings.
WHATSAPP: There’s a new in-app privacy prompt on WhatsApp, and it’s not good news for those of you who value privacy. You’re no longer able to prevent WhatsApp from sharing your account information with Facebook.
INSTAGRAM: The company released a short video on the do’s and don’ts of Reels. It’s basic, but useful if you’re just getting started.
TWITTER: Struggling to hone your brand voice? Twitter has some practical tips that should help you tweet like a pro.
DOMAINS: Over 80k .eu domains owned by UK registrants have been suspended due to Brexit regulations.
BRAIN TEASER
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Feeling nostalgic?
We’re living in crazy times, and there’s no better way to take a break than a blast to the past.
If you’re yearning for that blast to the past–and you’d like it to be during the 90s–there’s a site called My 90s TV that’ll help you do just that.
You can check it out here. Basically, the website pulls 90s videos from YouTube from a variety of categories (you can turn them on and off on the side), and displays them with a 90s TV aesthetic.
Just don’t forget to turn on the power! (It did take a few minutes for one member of The Crew to realize that…)