Social media platforms have changed significantly since the early 2000s and beyond when MySpace reached 1 million monthly active users in 2004. Facebook is now the top social media platform, with 2.375 billion monthly users – Twitter has 3.36 million, and LinkedIn has 1.06 million.
That’s a large audience of potential customers that your dealership could be reaching through social media advertising.
However, it can be overwhelming to keep up-to-date with changes in social media ad structures and policies across the various popular platforms. Consider the following ways you can stay current on the changes:
Stay Current with These Tips
Technology is constantly changing, and with those advancements, you’ll have to get used to new updates in social media ads. You can acclimate to the changes more easily if you have a plan in place to keep up with what’s going on.
1. Work with a Digital Marketing Provider
A simple solution is to get connected with a Digital Marketing Provider that can help you adapt to these changes and provide you with an optimized social media ad strategy. You can work with a team of professional marketers that pay attention to the constant changes and are ready to help your dealership deal with them.
2. Read Trustworthy Social Media Magazines
Subscribe to social media magazines like Social Media Today and Social Media Examiner. These trustworthy online publications have a huge following because they provide relevant information, news, and updates on social media.
You can download the Alexa Rank Toolbar extension for your laptop or download the app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. You can check their Alexa ranking to see how popular the site is, which can give you an idea of its trustworthiness.
3. Continually Check Your Social Media Accounts
It’s important to log in to your social media accounts often so you can see how well your ad campaigns are performing and to identify if any changes with the ad platform occurred.
For example, if you’ve checked the Ad Manager on your Facebook account recently, you might have noticed that as of October 2019, they removed some outdated metrics. They replaced them with more concise and actionable ones.
They also changed the names of other metrics to provide users with enhanced clarity. When you log in to your account, you can read more to learn about the replacement metrics and then transition to them as soon as possible.
In November 2019, a second change is going into effect where the description only shows when relevant. They made this change in the hopes of improving performance for new and active ads. Now, the description text will only be visible if it could resonate with the user who sees the ad.
When Facebook, for example, makes changes to their advertising policies, they will notify you when you log in to your account and go to the Ad Manager. For further details on Facebook advertising policies, you can visit their policy page.
4. Subscribe to Social Media Platform Blogs
If you want to stay informed on changes, go directly to the source. Subscribe to blogs for the various social media platforms where you have accounts and advertise:
You can find invaluable information regarding any changes to the platform or advertising on these social networks by simply reading their blogs.
5. Schedule Google Alerts for Social Media Ad Changes
If time is a factor, and you cannot visit all the various social media sites every day, schedule Google Alerts to receive notification of any changes in social media advertising. The process for setting up alerts is simple.
Enter your keywords – such as “social media advertising” – into the search box, and then create an alert. You can set options such as the following:
- How often you receive email alerts – once a day, once a week, or in real-time
- Sources – automatic, news, blogs, web, video, books, discussion, and finance
- Set the language you want to receive the alert in
- Set the region you would like to get alerts from
- Set if you want the alert delivered to your email or via RSS feed
If you use the news aggregator tool, Feedly, you can have your Google Alerts sent there for easy review on your desktop or with their mobile app, along with other RSS Feeds you read. You can copy the RSS feed URL of any social media blog, and new posts will show up in your Feedly dashboard.
6. Use Twitter to Your Advantage
Many social media publications and influencers tweet on Twitter and post links to relevant news articles or blog posts pertaining to the industry. Create a private list on Twitter and include these accounts that you follow.
Their tweets will show up in the feed for your dealership Twitter account. However, if you want to check only relevant social media accounts quickly, look in the list you created to see what’s been posted.
Again, you can follow the Twitter accounts for the two online publications mentioned earlier – Social Media Examiner @SMExaminer and Social Media Today @socialmedia2day.
If you want to find other social media influencers on Twitter, do a search – on the platform – for those keywords. Profiles for people using those keywords in their bio will show up.
Read them carefully. Stick to blue, check-marked accounts for more reliable content.
Search the hashtag #socialmedia or #socialmedianews to see if any relevant information displays for articles on changes to social media ads.
7. Subscribe to Social Media Podcasts
There are a variety of social media podcasts that you can subscribe to so you keep up with the industry and any news that might relate to how you are marketing your dealership to the billions of people active on these platforms.
The Social Media Marketing Talk Show by the publication Social Media Examiner is “the longest-running weekly, live video talk show and audio podcast” that shares news and commentary on the popular platforms.
If you are working with a digital marketing provider, check with them to see if they host a podcast or know of any good ones to recommend.
8. Subscribe to Online Tech Publications
Many online tech magazines, like Mashable, publish technology news. However, they also publish articles on social media news. Subscribe to stay up-to-date on the latest news.
Some other technology magazines to follow include Wired, PC Magazine, and PC World.
9. Pay Attention to Notifications
This notion sounds simplistic, but it is very important. Make sure you read any notifications that show up from the various social media platforms you’re on.
Sometimes people tend to click “ok” without actually reading the policy update, or they only skim it and don’t get the full details.
10. Participate in Discussion Groups on LinkedIn
LinkedIn can be a great resource for your dealership sales team to make connections and find leads.
Since your team is likely already using this social networking site, it will be easy for them to join discussion groups where other social media enthusiasts participate and share experiences, news, and updates on these platforms.
A group called Digital Marketing shares information on industry reports, social media trends, white papers, and discussions with other members.
Again, if you are working with a Digital Marketing provider, check with them to see if there are any LinkedIn discussion groups that they recommend for your dealership.
Changes to Facebook Advertising
As mentioned in tip #3, you should continually check your social media accounts to see if there have been changes to their advertising policies. Two changes were discussed: removal of the outdated metrics and descriptions only showing when relevant.
Search Ad Placements Open to All Advertisers
Facebook rolled out a new type of ad for its platform after almost a year of testing ads in Marketplace search results and the News Feed. They started testing these ads in December 2018 and allowed more accounts to participate in July 2019.
With these new search ad placements, now all advertisers can bid to enable their page to be displayed in relevant mobile searches that users complete on Facebook.
Your dealership can now reach Facebook users who are actively completing searches for pages like yours because of these new search ad placements. You currently have the opportunity to benefit from demand capturing rather than only demand generation.
More details on these search ad placements include:
- Layout – These ads have the same layout as News Feed ads, with the same type of headline, copy text, and image.
- Image – You have the option to use the same image formats – single, carousel, video, or an ad format collection.
- Goals – The same supported campaign objectives apply with these search ad placements, including metrics for sales, conversions, and traffic.
- Audience – You still have the option to set detailed criteria for the target.
- Keywords – Facebook chooses the keywords for these ads, not the advertiser. The algorithm accounts for various factors like text, category, title, description, and product when identifying relevant search term keywords.
These ads are currently only rolling out in English and Spanish and are not yet available in other languages.
Stay Current on Changes to Social Media Ads Today!
Make sure your dealership stays ahead of the competition and understands the continual changes in social media ads – particularly the recent changes with advertising on Facebook.
Keep up-to-date with these changes by contacting the J&L Marketing team today, and let us help your dealership maximize your advertising efforts on these social media networks.
