Lindsey Edson Spills the Beans on Why Marketers' Content Is Not Being Seen

Liindsey Edson of Hailey Sault

This past Friday Lindsey Edson from Hailey Sault, aka the agency formerly known as Klatzky & Associates, made a presentation titled Why Your Audience Isn't Seeing Your Content at the March Twin Ports Social Media Breakfast. Edson, who started in traditional advertising with a New York agency, talked about Facebook changes, ad blockers and fake accounts. Here is a brief re-cap of the salient points of her talk.

She began by noting that social media is a fast changing industry so it can be a challenge staying current. Citing Darwin, she stated that survival is dependent upon your ability to adapt to change.

FACEBOOK
The numbers are quite astonishing. Facebook alone has 2.2 billion users. For marketers it's important to know that it's the Facebook Algorithm that determines what users see. As most in the room were likely aware, on January 11 Facebook changed the rules again. Their purported aim is to help users find relevant content. Most marketers were not happy with the changes.

What they (FB) said and what really happened are two different things though. Maybe we will see less fake news. And (maybe) local publishers will be able to break through with more success.

Engagement Baiting and Reaction Baiting and Share Baiting will be demoted, she said.

How Will This Affect Your Brand Page?
Brand pages will see a decline in reach but the true impact won't be evident for brand pages. "We've all survived algorithm changes in the past. We'll make it through again."

Edson addressed some of the things Facebook dislikes (as do users) and admonished companies to NOT do the following:
Clickbait
Like Baiting
Spammy Links
Frequently Repeated Content
Posts That Ask For Likes.
Overly Promoted Content

Instead, she said do these: 
Video
Groups
Quality over Quantity
Content that creates conversation
Targeted ads
Posts with Links
Posts with high engagement
Posts that are timely
Pages with complete profile info

And: BE HUMAN MORE THAN EVER

Edson's advice on this score:
Tap Into Live Video
Prioritize Your Ad Budget
Up Your Influencer Game

Groups are the New "Pages."

AD BLOCKERS

Ad blockers were developed because ads became increasingly more annoying. 92% of people have considered using ad blockers, she said. After sharing some stats she told us about the top 8 types of annoying ads.

Edson noted that Google is leading the charge, bringing an ad blocker feature to Google Chrome.*
"We want to create a more user friendly experience," is Google's rationale. The Chrome browser is used by 60% of all web surfers..

There are a variety of ad types that violate Google's guidelines, not the least of which are those that play audio and are annoyingly frustrating to turn off. She shared several other examples. She indicated that there are currently 615 million devices using Ad Blockers or 11% of all devices. (I went to another source to see how current this was and according to the 2017 PageFlair Adblock Report that number was dead on.)

There are a variety of reasons ads can be annoying besides screen takeovers and auto-audio. These might include exposure to viruses, interruption, slow website loading time and the visual interference of too many ads on web page.

People especially dislike ads on mobile devices. And it isn't just young people using ad blocers. They're being used across all age groups.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
According to Edson, the threat of ad blocking is not as drastic as studies may suggest. More people are paying for content now and want it. Therefore marketers should take the following steps:

1. Play by the rules.
2. Request to Whitelist.
3. Make your ads matter.
4. Use native advertising integrated into the editorial content.

FAKE ACCOUNTS
Edson stated that there were 69 million fake accounts now on Facebook, 24 million on Instagram and 48 million on Twitter. Bots are blamed for many of these fake accounts.

Why does it matter?
Fake Accounts = Fake News
Fake Accounts = Fake Ads
Fake Accounts = Fake engagement

Social media platforms have been cracking down on fake accounts, she said.

Lindsey's RECAP
Why Your Audience Isn't Seeing Your Content
1. Algorithms
2. Ad Blockers
3. Fake Social Accounts

* * * *
Ed's PostScript
*In his book BadMen, ad contrarian Bob Hoffman's gripe that is not that people are using ad blockers. The bigger concern for consumers is that Google, Facebook and Amazon exist to scrape all of our personal info and sell it back to marketers for personal gain. For this reason, Google's rationale to incorporate ad blockers into the Chrome browser are designed to keep users trusting Google so they can continue to track behavior and gather information on us. It's not altruism, he says.

RELATED LINKS
Marketing Week: Marketers undervalue the impact of traditional media channels 
Facebook Group Social Media Breakfast Twin Ports