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In this week's issue:
 Best Practices: The Value of Facebook Ads
 Spotlight on French Social Networks
 Digital President: How Government is Using Social Media
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2. Best Practices: The Value of Facebook Ads
As PR professionals, we tend to favor earned and owned media over paid media, but we recognize the value
in making strategic investments in paid placements on specific platforms. Facebook Ads and Google Adwords
continue to duke it out for domination of the search engine marketing market and are great platforms for
drawing attention to a new campaign or product.
Making an advertising investment isn’t a decision that should be taken lightly. However, for brands just getting
set up on Facebook and looking to do a quick promotion of their page, advertising within the medium is a great
option. But before jumping head first, consider the following about your audience and their reactions:
1. What type of action are you hoping to incite – do you want people to know the page exists and follow
it, or do you want users to like the page and participate in an activity or contest? The latter action –
though harder to encourage with just advertising – will yield better engagement in the long-term.
2. How will you sustain users’ interest after they’ve clicked the ad and started following your page?
Once you’ve evaluated your audience and considered the type of outcome your ad is helping to achieve, there
are a number of ways to evaluate the budget and time investment needed to maintain the project:
Ad campaign costs per day
 Facebook ads offer the opportunity to control how much you spend on a daily basis. Once your
budget has been met for the day, your ads stop appearing until the following day. To get an idea of
what type of budget you should set, create a dummy Facebook ad to receive an estimate of the cost
per click price based on the content of your ad and targeted demographics (you can segment
audience by gender, geography, interests, etc.). Then, multiply this number by the number of clicks
you’re aiming to receive throughout the life of the campaign and divide by the amount of days or
weeks you have to achieve this goal.

3. Cost per click vs. Cost per thousand impressions
 If you aren’t sure whether to choose to pay per click or pay per impressions: Cost per click (CPC)
works best when you want the ad viewer to take a specific action (register on a website, ‘Like’ a
Facebook page, download a certain file etc.), whereas cost per impressions (CPM) works best when
you’d like to simply inform the user of a specific activity (similar to a roadside billboard). In terms of
cost, CPC allows you to specify how much you are willing to pay each time a user clicks on your ad;
CPM allows you to identify how much you will pay for 1,000 views of your ad. In general, the CPC
model is favored by most Web advertisers because the goal is to incite the ad viewer to commit to a
certain action.
Time investment
 It’s best to experiment with Facebook Ads using the easy step-by-step process to get a hold of as
much information about your projected results before you enter into a formal engagement. While the
set-up process is simple to start and run, Text 100 clients report needing approximately two hours of
time per day to monitor the performance and improve ad content, targeting, etc.
Projected Results
The chart below shows the advertising results for a pilot campaign run in India. The brand ran advertising on
both Facebook and Google with a budget of about 780 Euros (approximate $1,125) for one month. Facebook
offered more variations at a slightly higher cost, however click-throughs and impressions were significantly
higher as well.

4. While these results are positive in the short-term, navigating the waters of Facebook Ads is tricky and needs a
solid integrated strategy to yield truly beneficial results for a brand. Getting people to click on an ad is just step
one. If your goal is real engagement with your audience, couple your ad campaign with a number of
communications and outreach tactics to further your message and keep users coming back for more.

5. Spotlight on French Social Networks
Last year, nearly 315 million people throughout the world used a social networking platform. While Facebook
and YouTube continue to dominate social networking on a global scale, every country has a number of niche
networks that have emerged equally as popular. Text 100 digital leader
Pierre Le Leannec shared with us the latest scoop on what’s most
popular in his home country of France.
One third of France’s population, or 20 million people, uses a social
networking site. In the U.S., that number is six times as much and
constitutes ¾ of the population. Americans make up 22 percent of
global Facebook users, while France makes up just four. Despite the
difference in numbers, what really sets France apart from the U.S. are
its social platforms that are virtually nonexistent there.
 Viadeo: Similar to LinkedIn, Viadeo is a professional social network. France makes up 55 percent of
its users, while the U.S. is just one. The site was founded in Paris in 2004 and has more than 35
million members worldwide.
 Copains d'avant: This is the French Facebook. It originated in France as a way to reach out to
friends, classmates and coworkers. Like Facebook, members can share photos and information
about themselves. 86 percent of its users are from France; zero are from the U.S. While there are still
about 4,000 more users in France on Facebook, Copains d'avant is an extremely popular platform.
 Skyblog: Also known as Skyrock, is considered the French equivalent of MySpace. The site lets you
create a blog and upload photos, articles, songs and anything else representative of who you are.
Skyblog is offered in the U.S., but only one percent of its users are American. In France, 3500 people
use Skyblog, which makes up 56 percent of its overall users.
Consider whether these platforms make sense for your clients and remember the cultural differences in social
networking as you plan your campaigns.
*all stats from Google

6. Digital President: How Government is Using
Social Media
If you were one of the most talked about figures in the media, how would you make a major announcement?
An exclusive in the New York Times? An interview with Katie Couric? If you are U.S. President Barack
Obama, you may forgo all those options and choose to be in total control of the message, announcing it
yourself using digital and social media methods.
Similar to announcing his plans to run for president in 2008, President Obama announced his plans to seek re-
election in the 2012 presidential campaign through a largely digital program. Knowing that many of his
supporters are online, active on Facebook, and general consumers of digital media, the announcement
consisted of an email and text message sent to existing supporters, a post on Facebook and a YouTube video
– posted simultaneously. The news spread virally and within minutes created more buzz than any traditional
campaign may have created in one day. And by making the announcement via social platforms, Obama’s
campaign was able to stay in control of the message while still receiving coverage in mainstream media. The
announcement even received coverage on social media ets like Mashable, which reaches a younger, tech-
savvy audience – a key demographic for Obama. By creating collateral like the campaign video, outlets had
multi-media components to use in coverage, increasing exposure to Obama’s message.
So how can government agencies and companies supporting government agencies leverage Facebook and
other digital and social media tools to their benefit? Below are three things to take into account when using
social media in government:
 Make it accessible: First, and perhaps most importantly – make sure social media platforms are
actually available for employees to use. Many government agencies block social networking sites for
employees, citing concerns about productivity and confidential information. The U.S. Department of
Defense is a great example of a highly regulated agency that embraced social media, completely
reversing a three-year policy banning the use of social platforms. In fact, the DoD launched a Social
Media Hub to share news and insight responsibly and effectively for both official and unofficial
business.
 Get to the point: In terms of content, consider your end goal – what is it you want to inspire followers
to do? Make sure the content has a call to action (donate, share, etc.) that incites a reaction in
followers. That said, some news or announcements coming from government bodies is difficult in
terms of readability, so be sure to take in to account how well your end-reader will understand the
content. Make your shareable content as direct and to-the-point as possible – users are much less
likely to share content they don’t understand.

7.  Inspire trust: Be clear about your organization’s mission and purpose
for being active on social networking sites, and be transparent about
who is running the show. The go.USA.gov URL shortener is available for
use by government agencies, and is a great way to back up the
credibility of your content.
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