Create an Ad on Facebook Fast

Here's how to quickly create on ad on Facebook.

Go to facebook.com/manage

Click on "Create an Ad" button at top right.

Advertise on Facebook:

-Page Post Engagement

for business page to run post as ad that shows in News Feed

-Page Likes
See Ads on Facebook Using Page 'Likes'

-Clicks to Website

Insert a photo of something happy or pleasurable

-Choose Mobile News Feed

70% of FB ad traffic comes from mobile users and is cheaper

-Click Remove from Desktop News Feed

-Type in headline that is clear and descriptive

-Insert text that is conversational and explains where it goes

AUDIENCE:

Target your visitors age...

-Create New Custom Audience by uploading an email list

Run split campaigns to test ads

-Interests

Think of your competitors. Target and narrow.

-Categories

Don't use as they are too broad

Bidding:

-Bid for clicks

-Pricing: Manually set maximum bid

Even bidding $1, may pay much less with good ad

(usually $.10-.30 per click)

7 Unbelievable Mobile Marketing Success Stories

Mobile is opening up a whole new landscape of communication that we can use to reach customers.

Have you thought about how your company can leverage mobile marketing to increase sales?
When the sky is the limit and the opportunities seem endless, it can be difficult to develop an initial strategy. Reading blog posts and reaching out to thought-leaders is a good way to gain knowledge, but how will you use that knowledge to craft a killer mobile strategy? Learning by example can help get you started.

Here are 7 mobile marketing success stories that will inspire your own mobile marketing efforts.

Google Unveils Tool to Help Beat Data Caps

By Brad Reed

Google unveils new tool to help you beat AT&T and Verizon’s data caps

Data caps are one of the wireless industry’s least popular concoctions and they figure to get even less popular as mobile applications become more bandwidth intensive.

Google, however, is trying to help you stay ahead of the curve with a new tool that it’s launched for its mobile Chrome browser for iOS and Android that it says can help you reduce your data consumption by up to 50%. The new feature is powered by an SPDY proxy connection that runs on Google’s servers and that Google says “optimizes and transcodes all images to the WebP format, which requires fewer bytes than other popular formats, such as JPEG and PNG.”

To enable it in your Chrome mobile browser, first make sure you have the latest version of Chrome, then click on “Settings” and then “bandwidth management.”

From there you’ll see an option that reads “Reduce data usage” that you simply have to switch to “on.”

Why Short Videos Are Wildly Popular Over Social Media

BY Michael Miller

When it comes to marketing your brand or business online, can you tell your story in 15 seconds? How about six?

That's all the time you have when you use one of the new short-video sharing apps available for iOS and Android devices. Vine was the first of these video apps, enabling you to shoot and upload videos no more than six seconds long and loop over and over. Not to be left behind, Instagram recently added video sharing to its digital photo app, and upped the time limit to a whopping 15 seconds per video. Instagram videos don't loop.

Then there's MixBit, which lets you shoot short videos but also enables editing of multiple clips into longer one- and two-minute videos.

All of these services are mobile-only, with videos shot and shared from iPhones and other mobile devices. Vine and Instagram video, especially, are proving to be immensely popular. Vine, which is owned by Twitter, amassed 13 million users in its first four months on the market. Instagram Video was immediately available to the service's 130 million users, who uploaded more than five million videos in the service's first 24 hours.

But, let's be serious: What is up with the short videos? Are six seconds and 15 seconds arbitrary amounts of time? Or is there some method to this madness?

The short-video approach is designed to offer viewers a much different viewing experience than with traditional longer-form videos. Case in point are Vine's six-second videos, which are immediate and without pretense. They're also short enough to upload and view quickly, even on slower mobile connections. Instagram went for slightly longer videos that enable companies to upload new or existing 15-second commercials.

In practical use, Vine's shorter videos tend to inspire more creativity. 
Since you can start and stop recording for multiple shots, many companies are creating interesting stop-motion animations that showcase their products. The looping nature of Vine videos can also result in interesting effects as videos circle back into and through themselves. The "summer up" roller coaster video from Target is a perfect example of Vine's stop-motion and looping in action.

Instagram, on the other hand, is attracting more traditional promotional videos.
You don't have to be as inventive to fit your message into a 15-second container and many companies appreciate the extra time to tell their stories and showcase their products. For example, a Starbucks video gives a short tour of the company's original Pike Place store.

Since both Vine and Instagram encourage social sharing, the most interesting videos can quickly go viral. It's not unusual to see popular Vine and Instagram videos popping up in Twitter and Facebook feeds. The sharing nature of both services offer the potential for significant customer engagement.
If you want to see how the different services require different approaches, search for Gap's stop-motion videos on Vine and Gap's more traditional customer testimonials on Instagram.

Key Ingredients to a Winning Mobile Content-Marketing Strategy

BY Jayson DeMers

When you think about the different ways customers land on your company's website, mobile is most likely a growing driver of traffic. According to the latest statistics from Pew Research, 56 percent of Americans own a smartphone and 34 percent own a tablet. Then consider that 63 percent of smartphone owners use their devices to go online.

Does your content-marketing strategy take these trends into account?
Plugging new channels or technologies into your existing content strategy isn't enough. As a business owner, you need to consider how your site and your marketing are being delivered over the devices people are using. If you're not delivering your marketing messages in a way that's tailored specifically to the experience of a smartphone or tablet user, chances are you're turning customers away.

Here's a closer look at some critical points to consider about your company's mobile content-marketing strategy:

Mobile isn't just about the device.
Don't just look at the mobile channel as a series of devices. It's true that your content needs to be optimized and look great across different brands of tablets and smartphones. But mobile is also about the context and behaviors of your customers while they're on those devices.

What are they doing on that smartphone?
Are they accessing content relaxing at home, or glancing quickly during their commute? Your content strategy needs to represent a deeper understanding of your users' mobile context and what that means for both your content and experience creation.

For example, I recently bought a new home theater system. As I was setting it up in the living room, I realized that I lacked a particular part to enable the wireless rear speakers. I needed to figure out how to buy that part while I was next to my speaker system so I could examine their part numbers and other information printed on the speakers. I pulled out my iPhone and began searching the web. Plenty of suppliers had the part available, but I made my purchase based on what I needed at that moment: Assurance that it was the right part, trustworthiness of the supplier and a reasonable price. I purchased from the supplier that was able to convey each of those things in the easiest, most efficient manner on my smartphone.

Base your strategy on how your audience really uses mobile.
An effective mobile content strategy demands an understanding of your audience's mobile usage. Marketers like to imagine they know their customers. But the reality of mobile usage may differ from your perception.

Part of your audience profile should focus on how mobile fits into your customers' lives.
What devices are they on? What kind of an experience are they looking for from you?
Data from your existing website analytics program can give you mobile insights, as can targeted surveys, to form the foundation of your mobile content strategy.

Think before you shrink.
The old model of content creation was to adapt content from other formats, usually the web, to a small screen. Text was chunked differently, visuals updated and overall layouts simplified and made more "tappable" for touchscreens.

Instead, look at all of your content through a mobile lens at the point of creation. Copywriting and visuals should be as short and minimalistic as possible, while effectively conveying your message. Then adapt your ideas from there to the bigger screen. Scale content creation up, rather than down.

Rethink your user experience through design.
Every business needs a website that looks great and functions well on mobile devices. If information is hard to find or your site is impossible to navigate, you'll lose customers. But mobile design goes beyond basic functionality. Ask yourself if you're providing the right experience in terms of content, look, feel, functionality and tools to help your customers achieve their end goal.

Going back to my example about buying the part for the home theater system, during my search for suppliers I found several that had awful mobile design. One in particular wouldn't even let me add my item to the cart. Needless to say, I didn't make my purchase from that supplier.

Focus first on the experience, and then optimize the visuals.

Expand your understanding of conversions.
In the mobile universe, conversions go way beyond the sale. Signing up for a newsletter, sharing your content or downloading a white paper may be valuable customer touch points. Think about the range of mobile conversions with value for your business and develop mobile content to support that funnel.

Take advantage of location.
Geolocation technologies are giving businesses creative ways to engage customers, from sending market research surveys to customers nearby to offering discount codes to drive sales. Examples of these technologies include Apple's Siri, Google Now and GPS-enabled apps for iOS and Android.

Mobile devices are the lever these campaigns hinge on. Consider how location-based technologies could increase immediate engagement with your customers.

Leverage the rise of micro-video.
As visual content such as videos and infographics become the preferred form of content, specific opportunities are appearing for mobile. Short videos on Vine and Instagram have provided marketers another way to reach their audience. What part of your story can you tell in a micro-video? For some interesting takes on Vine campaigns check out Oreo's campaign and Lowe's six-second home improvement tips.

Make social engagement easy.
Is your content easy to share and easy to engage with? Simple like and share buttons encourage social engagement. If you're requesting information, avoid long essay questions and forms that are awkward to navigate.

With more opportunities to reach customers and prospects by mobile, companies can stay relevant by creating mobile-focused content marketing strategies. This can help you to concentrate on high-return mobile activities that drive website traffic, engagement, leads and sales.

How to Make Your Website More Mobile-Friendly

BY Barbara Findlay Schenck

Forget about designing your website for mobile devices. Instead, design your website for all devices, from tiny phones to huge living room flat-screens.

"Nearly every business needs to adapt to reach consumers effectively on any screen," says Janine Warner, a globally recognized digital design and Internet trends consultant who I caught up with on her way to Abu Dhabi, where she took the World Summit Award stage to share multiple-screen strategies before a vast audience of international mobile specialists.

"There are two basic strategies for building websites that display well on all devices: responsive and adaptive," she explains. "And responsive sites are the best bet for most small businesses." Following is a translation of what that lingo-laden sentence means, along with key steps your business should be taking.

At a minimum, adjust your existing site for today's Web users. No business can afford to ignore the fact that more than a billion people primarily access the Web from mobile devices. Even if you're not ready to rebuild your site for optimal display on all devices, at least take one of the following two steps:

Simplify your site design.
Pull up your website on a smartphone (or view it on the Google PageSpeed Insights) and you'll probably see the need for design changes. To display well on mobile, Warner recommends simpler page designs, large font sizes, critical information placed "above the fold," and big, touchable buttons that are fat-finger-proof. Minimally, she says, "You'll go a long way toward delivering key information on any device simply by putting your name, phone number and a link to a map at the top left of your home page where it is easy to find."

Create a mobile version of your site.
As an alternative to editing your website, you can create a parallel version, using mobile-site-design services, many of which are free or low cost. "But there are tradeoffs," Warner says. "If your mobile site has a second URL, such as one with a .m subdomain, search engines may or may not find it." Both Bing and Google advocate a one-URL approach for findability and search engine optimization. "Still, if you love your site or can't afford to rebuild it, creating a mobile site that links to your main site isn't the worst strategy," Warner says. "The worst strategy is to ignore your mobile audience altogether."

Better yet, rebuild your site for display on any device.
Here's where the terms adaptive and responsive site design come into play:

Adaptive design is the high end of website design. It's used by big companies that invest -- heavily -- to reach the largest possible online audience. "American Airlines is a good example," Warner says, explaining that adaptive design "detects and identifies the user's device and then generates a page matched to the device capabilities."

Responsive design is a more affordable solution that uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) technology to create a single version of a website that auto-adjusts to display properly on all devices except the oldest cellphones. "A responsive site allows you to reach the most active Web audience," Warner says. As an example, she pulls up the site of The Boston Globe, clicks on the right edge of the browser window and drags to the left, shrinking the page from full screen to an area the size of a smartphone. No matter how small she makes the display area, the Globe's responsive design looks good and is easy to read.

Commit to future-proof your website
As you prepare to make long-delayed investments in your business, put website redesign high on your list so you'll be ready to reach consumers via their phones, tablets, PCs, TVs or, soon, refrigerator doors, bathroom mirrors and more.

Even DIY platforms, ranging from GoDaddy.com to WordPress and many in between, are starting to offer designs that work on a variety of screen sizes. "Just be sure the theme you use is labeled responsive," Warner says.

Alternatively, she says that for a few thousand dollars or more, a professional designer can create a good custom website, "unless the designer doesn't know the term responsive, in which case you need a different designer."

Finally, once you get the technology right, turn your attention to creating great website content. "Remember," Warner says, "that especially on mobile devices, people access your website for three reasons: to save time, to connect with others and to waste time. So give them quick and easy access, put your contact information front and center, give them links to maps and directions, and then add video or other amusements to keep them on your site for as long as they want to stay."

That's how to future-proof your site.

No Mobile Website? You're Probably Turning Customers Away

BY Jason Fell

If you still don't have a mobile-friendly version of your website you're most likely turning away potential customers without knowing it.

Consider the numbers: Nearly half of all U.S. adults use a smartphone, according to recent findings by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Ninety percent of those smartphone owners say they use the device to check email and surf the web. That's not counting people who use other mobile devices, such as tablets, to access the web.

With mobile internet traffic on the rise, you might think small businesses are developing mobile-friendly websites. But you'd be wrong. Only 26 percent of small businesses have a mobile website. That's a growing problem -- especially for local businesses.

Take, for example, a recent excursion I had with a friend in New York City's Upper West Side. We were on the move, smartphones in hand, looking for a particular restaurant -- which will remain nameless -- to grab a bite to eat. I used my Motorola Droid Razr to look up the restaurant's website but all I saw was a white screen with two links to download PDF files of the lunch and dinner menus.

No contact information. No hours. No easy-to-read menu. Sorry, no business from me.

With more people using their mobile devices to access information about companies, business owners need to think about how their website displays on smartphones and tablets. If content isn't easy to read and access on a smaller screen, customers might go to the next shop down the block instead.

When developing a mobile-friendly website, or a dedicated mobile site, here are some important things to keep in mind:

1. Display your company's most important information at the top in plain text. 
This includes your name, address, contact information and perhaps a brief description of what you do.

2. Don't include Flash-based videos on your mobile site!
Many devices don't support Flash. Plus, video eats up data and can take a long time to load.

3. Make information easy to read on a small screen. 
Don't complicate navigation across several pages, and don't make users download PDFs. The more straightforward, the better.

3 Steps to Creating a Killer Mobile Site

BY Amy Gahran

For many people, mobile devices, especially cell phones, are fast becoming the most popular route to the Internet. They want quick, easy access to information that will help them make decisions on the go -- including whether or not to patronize your business.

Unfortunately not every small-business website functions well on cell phones. Many fail to load quickly, prove hard to navigate and make key information difficult to find.

To make your website more mobile friendly, consider these three steps, which put a priority on usefulness, speed and easy navigation.

1. Test your site on a cellular network.
Turn off your cell phone's Wi-Fi connection so you're using your wireless carrier's data network. Then, launch your web browser and type in your business site's URL.

Now, start counting. If it takes five seconds or less to fully load your home page, that's pretty good. If it's 10 seconds or more, there's significant room for improvement.

If your site first displays a decorative splash page, video or a large image, it isn't mobile friendly. These items take extra time to load and get in the way of useful information. Also, if your home page features Flash animation, it won't display at all in many mobile browsers, and your site might appear to say nothing at all.

If your phone simply displays a miniature version of your complete website, that means mobile users must pinch, zoom and scroll to see what's there. That's more work, plus they're more likely to accidentally click the wrong link or button. Your business's most basic and vital information -- such as address, hours and phone number -- should be immediately visible when your site loads on a mobile device.

To get the most comprehensive results, repeat this exercise on several types of mobile phones. Consider asking your friends to access your site on their phones while you watch. Observe but don't coach them on where to scroll or click.

2. Start with easy improvements.
Depending on the results of your tests, your site may need a major overhaul or just some tweaks. If a redesign seems necessary but is more than you can manage at the moment, you can start with a quick and easy fix.

If it isn't already there, put the following information at the top of your site's home page:

    Business name
    Brief description, such as "tax accountants," "auto repair" or "fine French dining"
    Street address
    Hours of operation
    Phone numbers for inquiries or reservations
    Email address
    Link to the mobile version of your site (I'll explain this later)

This information should appear above any background or banner graphics so it loads first. After all, this is what most mobile visitors want to know.

There are several advantages to displaying this information as plain text rather than including it in an image. In most mobile web browsers, simply clicking a phone number starts the call. Similarly, clicking a street address launches the phone's mapping app, and clicking an email address opens the mobile email app. If you make it this easy for mobile users, they're much more likely to do business with you.

3. Build a user-friendly mobile version of your site.
Creating a mobile version of your site can be fairly straightforward. If you built your site with tools that offer a mobile theme layout, then you simply need to select a theme and apply it to your site. WordPress, one of the most popular site-building tools, has many free and inexpensive mobile themes.

You also can build a separate mobile site. There are many inexpensive services that nontechnical people can use, including Mofuse.com and Landr.co. Both let you create and publish a basic mobile site for less than $10 a month.

Mobile sites have a slightly different web address than the full site. The mobile version usually starts with "m." before your regular web address, or ends with the suffix ".mobi" rather than ".com." If a mobile user types in your regular URL or follows a link to your site from a search engine, the mobile version should load automatically.

But that doesn't always happen on every phone. Include at the top of your website a link to your mobile site, and vice versa, just in case.

If you follow these three steps, not only will your business be more attractive and useful to mobile visitors, but you also may become more visible in mobile search results.

How to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly With 'Responsive Design'

BY Amy Gahran

Virtually every business needs a website, but these days the web isn't just about what you see on a computer screen. People are using the internet on an increasingly diverse array of devices, from smartphones to gaming consoles. Some experts predict that by 2014, most web traffic in the U.S. will be on mobile devices.

The trouble is, most business websites are still designed with only a desktop or laptop computer in mind. When you view a typical business website on the browser of mobile device, it usually requires pinching, zooming and scrolling just to see what's on the page. And interacting with the site via a touchscreen can be clumsy at best.

To compensate, more businesses are deploying one or more mobile-optimized web designs, or "themes," that the web server sends to a user when a mobile device is detected. That's a first step, but mobile devices come in many sizes and shapes. What looks great on, say, an iPhone may look and perform poorly on a Kindle Fire.

It is possible to create designs for each of the major screen sizes and devices types, but ultimately that's a losing game. New device types will outpace any designer's ability to spin off customized themes.

One solution is something called "responsive web design," which can make your website easier and cheaper to manage, while giving mobile users a better experience. This allows you to create one design that will fit almost any screen and device type, and can also enhance your search visibility. Additionally, it avoids the hurdle of expecting users to type in "m." before your site URL to access the mobile-friendly version.

When a user accesses a responsively designed website, the site senses the constraints of that user's device and automatically "responds" or reconfigures itself to display and function reasonably well. It reorganizes the layout, for instance, swapping out images and navigation features.

As new web-enabled device types become popular, such as Android-powered cameras, you'll only need to tweak your responsive design to accommodate them.

To create a responsive site for your business, you can either hire a designer or use a site-building tool that supports responsive web design. Either way, these five tips can help you make the switch to responsive design.

Decide when to make the change.
Responsive design is a radically different way of managing the elements of a website, which means it's hard to introduce responsive design to an existing conventional website. You'll probably want to wait until you're creating a new site or rebuilding your existing one.

Track your mobile traffic patterns.
Check your site statistics for the number of mobile visitors, plot how that segment of your online market has been growing and project it two to five years into the future. The steeper that growth curve, the more important it is to implement responsive web design sooner rather than later.

Check out competitors' sites on various devices.
Keep a list of URLs for businesses similar to yours. Periodically check them all out on a variety of computers, smartphones and tablets. Which are easiest to navigate and use, requiring the least pinching, zooming and scrolling? Use the best as guidance for your designer.

Hire web designers with responsive design experience.
Many designers serving small-to-medium business clients are still focused on designing sites intended for viewing on computers. Be sure to ask for recent examples of a designer's responsively designed sites. Don't just get screenshots -- ask for the URLs and check those sites on a variety of device types, paying attention both to how they look and how well they function.

Use effective, affordable tools if you do it yourself.
If you decide to create a responsively designed site on your own, consider trying the latest version of Squarespace. It's an inexpensive web hosting service that lets you create a responsive website via a drag-and-drop interface.

There are also many pre-made responsive themes (both free and paid, usually between $30 and $100) for sites built with WordPress, a popular open-source platform. The hosted version of that platform, WordPress.com, is starting to offer responsive themes, as well.

Check out the Beginner’s Guide to Responsive Web Design.