Target Open Graph actions in your Facebook Ads

Facebook recently added a new feature to the beta version of their ad service allowing you to target Open Graph user actions as well as the usual demographic and interest areas.

The Ads API has been opened up to effectively allow you to target users (and friends of users) who read a particular news article or listened to a song.

Facebook campaigns will inevitably become far more focused. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Facebook Ads are quick to put together, easy to start running, and highly targeted campaigns often produce vastly superior ROI than blanketing tactics.

My advice? Keep an eye on the news for related items, stay up to date on Facebook actions available for targeting (when will someone develop an app with Donate as an action?!) and prepare a set of creatives that can be adapted and run at short notice.

Social gaming continues to grow

We all love a chart at beautiful world, and I expect that anyone working within the social gaming sector love this particular one more than us. By 2015, social gaming is set to have driven $5 billion in revenue. Pretty impressive. Now, if only there was a charity adventurous enough to co-develop a great money-making game! There is enough proof to suggest that it would be very worthwhile.

via Business Insider

Churnalism

After posting last week about Twitter being first off the mark to announce the death of Whitney Houston, we started wondering what the point of actual journalism was any more. Is it just becoming a regurgitation of information we’ve read two or three times before?

A prime example this week comes from Wired (US version). Someone felt it necessary to write a post about the number of times the same rumors about the upcoming iPad 3 had been posted around the web, and then unceremoniously wrote about the same rumors they were talking about in the first place.

It seems to be a clear attempt at boosting pageviews as the article doesn’t add any value by posting further insight. Is this what the web is turning into? Hundreds upon thousands of sites posting the same content in an attempt to drive traffic, and presumably, ad revenue?

A simple lesson can be learnt here. To stay relevant, produce timely, original content that people are really interested in, offer real insight and be the place that people go to get that information.

Charities are ideally placed to fulfill these objectives, often being leaders in fields of research or providing previously unpublished case studies. We have the content, now lets put it to good use!

A Pinboard to get you started on Pinterest

Not hugely charity related, but I saw this in the week and really enjoyed it – an ingenious Pinterest board that makes digital rhyming slang out of celebrity names. It’s a nice change from the usual ‘set of inspirational words, designed nicely’ type post I’m increasingly coming across on the social network.

Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to see how many you can get away with in your next department meeting before anyone questions them!

Until next week,

Ash

Tags: beautiful bytes, Facebook Ads, Facebook Open Graph, Pinterest, Social Gaming, social media