Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Facebook Drops Sponsored Stories


Are you ready for more changes to Facebook’s advertising policy? Facebook recently made the announcement that starting April 9 of this year, the Sponsored Story ad option will no longer be available.

Sponsored Stories are social ads that use the influence of friends to determine when and to whom the ads are served.


Sponsored Story ads are triggered by a retargeting algorithm, so if someone visited a Facebook advertiser’s website, that would trigger a Sponsored Story ad that would be shown to that person on Facebook.

The biggest change is not the removal of Sponsored Stories, but the inclusion of the ‘social context’ of Sponsored Story ads. Including your friend’s name and their interaction with a page in your newsfeed are now going to appear next to all ads on Facebook.

Do not fear, marketers! There are still plenty of advertising options on Facebook such as custom audiences, campaign goals, and more detailed targeting.

To learn more about Facebook’s most recent advertising changes and strategies for using Facebook ads, download our most recent POV.

To download this POV please e-mail us an inquiry at: info@digitalbrandexpressions.com.

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Using Local Carousel to Improve SEO



Are you marketing a local business and trying to improve the performance of your SEO as part of the marketing mix? Have you optimized for Google's Local Carousel? If not, or you’re not sure, consider this:

According to research done by BrightEdge, the Local Carousel appeared as results for 14% of keywords across all industries. It appears more frequently for travel/hospitality and restaurant results: 33% and 27%, respectively.

And here’s a list of categories that trigger the inclusion of the Local Carousel in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) according to Mike Blumenthal. Is your category in there?

To find out how to make Local Carousel work for your business, download our “Local Carousel” POV (Point of View) for steps you can take to gain competitive advantage for your business:

And if you need help, you know where to find us.

To download this POV please e-mail us an inquiry at: info@digitalbrandexpressions.com.