An Entirely New Facebook Ads Experience

Posted on April 27, 2021 by brent

This comic I am about to share below is funny but it also has pretty good timing…

This Non-Sequitur comic strip ran this past weekend.

Okay, I know that is probably tough to see for many of you. The comic depicts souls reaching the entrance to Heaven. St. Peter suddenly proclaims Good News! The line should start moving a lot faster now that I’ve learned how to search your browser histories.

Of course we all know what is implied here. But to be honest, I would argue you don’t even need to look at their browser history. Instead, just take a glance at the ads they are being served on social media. That should tell you enough about what their online activity. Well, at least until now.

I said the comic had good timing because this week the long awaited/dreaded IOS 14.5 update started to roll out. Besides new emojis and a host of other things, the major draw with this significant update is that Apple users can now opt out from being tracked. Called App Tracking Transparency, people with iPhones will now have the option upfront to tell their favorite apps whether they can track their online activity or not.

Won’t be a difficult decision for many.

IOS 14.5 will change paid social media.

Although some might like being bombarded with Disney World ads on social media after doing a quick Google search for Orlando hotels, many others find it creepy and annoying. With the new IOS 14.5 update, apps such as Facebook must now ask users via pop-up prompt if it can continue to track their online journeys. Again, we all know where this is headed.

So while this development is welcome news for many, Facebook and other apps aren’t the only losers here. Those of us in the digital marketing business who have taken advantage of social media advertising over the years are losing some of the main instruments in our tool box. Audience sizes for paid social campaigns will undoubtedly dwindle as people opt out. The specificity with which we were once able to serve ads will no longer be as refined. The whole concept of retargeting is going to take a huge hit.

Just as damaging, the update will make ad analytics reporting much more of a guessing game than ever before. Because of tracking restrictions, Facebook had to reconfigure its entire conversion reporting system which will result in the loss of so much critical information.

The only consolation is that we weren’t blindsided by this update. I have known about the changes since late last year. Over the past couple months it has been a mad dash to help WSU campuses and departments prepare for IOS 14.5 while also working with our various agencies to pull their custom events underneath our web domain.

We still don’t know to what extent IOS 14.5 will impact paid social advertising but it certainly won’t be doing us any favors. However, I still choose to be optimistic. It is now time for the social media giants to make a move—one that will hopefully return the upper hand to advertisers while at the same time respecting the privacy of users…if that is even possible. Don’t Blink.

Our Moment in the Sun

Posted on November 13, 2019 by brent

It was an experience that surpassed all expectations.

As I sit on this plane and reflect on the past few days, all I can really say is wow. On Sunday I flew to Las Vegas feeling nervous and excited; tonight I return home feeling relieved and empowered.

It was a great three days wearing this credential.

Lindsi and I made the most of our moment in the spotlight. Vegas was the temporary higher education marketing capital of the world this past week and we made our mark. Not only did we get the chance to network with the more than 1,400 higher professionals who attended the conference, we got to present to a large portion of them.

After earning the right to present via our successful proposal, we spent eight months preparing for our presentation. We were able to build something that adequately described Coastal Carolina University’s creative and innovative Generation Z-optimized Instagram strategy. With many rehearsals under our belts, we also developed the speaking confidence required to supplement our ideas.

We presented “Stop Posting, Start Collaborating: Digital and Gen Z.”

But, just to be sure, you could find the two of us rehearsing our presentation once more in a random hallway of Caesars Palace on Monday morning at 6 a.m. When we concluded, we looked at each other and said we got this. Although still nervous, we knew we had done pretty much all we could do.

At 1:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019, the stage was ours. For the past 20 minutes we had watched person after person filter into our conference room, taking up every single chair and crowding around the sides and back. The room was overflowing with conference attendees either standing or literally sitting on the floor.

People filled the conference room for our American Marketing Association presentation.

There was no turning back.

We hit the audience with our special intro and then we aced each of our initial speaking moments. It was at this point that the jitters went away and we could simply do our thing. To be on that stage was exhilarating and we couldn’t have asked for a more engaged crowd; they laughed at the appropriate times, asked questions throughout the entire presentation, and stuck around long after we finished to chat with us face-to-face.

Me presenting on Monday.

The 60-minute opportunity allowed Lindsi and I to represent Coastal Carolina University but more importantly to really credit our incredible University Marketing and Communication team for providing the necessary talent and support to implement the tactics of our Instagram strategy. You see, the most repeated question we received during our session and throughout the entire conference was this: How are you able to do so much?

Simple. It is because we have the best team.

After we finished the presentation, Lindsi kept saying Oh my gosh, Brent. Oh my gosh. The adrenaline was still pumping through our veins as we tried to contain our excitement after presenting in front of a capacity crowd made up of the brightest higher ed marketers in the country. We were on Cloud 9.

We wouldn’t step off that cloud for the rest of the conference. As Lindsi described it, it was as if we were celebrities. Throughout the next two days we were stopped not just inside the conference but in the elevators as well. People wanted to compliment our presentation and engage with us about our social media strategy. To develop so many new connections based off our presentation was really cool.

I wouldn’t have wanted to present with anyone more than Lindsi Glass. As our associate vice president for marketing and branding (and my supervisor), she has allowed #CCUSocialMedia to do what we feel is necessary to successfully connect with our audience. As I mentioned before, we make a great team and it was evidenced again this week.

It was an honor to present with Lindsi.

It will be tough to forget this week. We took the ideas we came up with in little Conway, S.C., and presented them in LAS VEGAS at CAESARS PALACE in front of lots of people. I am thankful for this career highlight but even more appreciative to everyone at Coastal Carolina for making it possible. Don’t Blink.

A Career Moment in Las Vegas

Posted on November 10, 2019 by brent

In just a couple hours, I will be hopping on a plane bound for Las Vegas with my supervisor so we can go do something we have worked hard on for the past eight months.

In March, Lindsi Glass, our associate vice president for marketing and branding, asked if I wanted to work on a proposal with her to present at a conference. But it wasn’t just any conference. She wanted to submit to the American Marketing Association in hopes that we would receive an invitation to present at the 2019 AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education.

Lindsi and I will be presenting at the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education on Monday, Nov. 11.

Long shot? Perhaps. But we had a great presentation topic and we drafted an intriguing proposal. A couple months after we submitted, we received word that our proposal had been accepted! We took a day or two to celebrate the achievement and then we started the process of mapping out our presentation. Little by little it started to come together. Lindsi and I are both Type A personalities so we set deadlines and objectives to make sure our prep was productive and that we would be in a position to succeed come tomorrow.

Ah yes, tomorrow. In front of higher education marketing executives and staffers from all across the country, we will take the stage at Caesars Palace to represent Coastal Carolina University the best way we can. We will present “Stop Posting. Start Collaborating. Gen Z and Digital.” Using research and examples from our #CCU social media strategy, we will explain how we optimized our Instagram account (@ccuchanticleers) for Generation Z. We will provide six tactics we used to formulate our strategy and the research that inspired each one.

Monday afternoon will be a career highlight for me. This will be my first time presenting at a national conference and to have it come at one of this stature makes it even sweeter. But this milestone isn’t just about professional growth, it is about personal growth too. I probably took too many trips to Las Vegas in my early and mid-20s simply to have fun. Six years after my last visit to the city, I will return to Vegas not as a young, immature know-it-all but as a higher education professional.

I can’t thank Lindsi enough for allowing me to work with her on this. We make a good team and it has been a pleasure watching everything come together. Cross your fingers that it all pays off tomorrow! Don’t Blink.