Facebook has over 2 billion users worldwide. It’s where you go to catch up on the latest news from your friends and family, but it has also been an integral place for businesses and advertisers to show relevant content to you. On January 11, 2018, Facebook announced that they plan to change their algorithm to focus more on friends and family interactions. Their goal is to increase the quality of your time spent on facebook, and reduce the quantity.

You may have seen the issue of ‘Net Neutrality’ back in the news this week. On Thursday, December 14, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed the internet neutrality rules that were put in place in 2015. 

You’ve probably heard of Pokémon Go -- it would be hard to miss news of this popular new social app. In fact, you’ve probably noticed a strange trend recently of people walking with a sense of purpose all around you while glued to their smartphones. I have seen this in my own neighborhood, where suddenly neighbors I’ve never even seen before are out walking and staring at their phones, almost like they're in a trance.

If you’re not familiar with Pokémon Go, it's basically an app for your smartphone that allows you to “see” Pokémon in the real world (your local streets based on your location), capture them, and train them to battle against other people’s Pokémon.

Pokémon Go and Your Marketing

So how does this relate to small business marketing? Clearly this game is the craze of the moment, but in my opinion it is always good to watch trends and see what people are interested in, especially with the rapid speed of technological change.

In a recent Adweek article, Tod Loofbourrow and Eva Barbier give us 5 things to learn from the success of Pokémon go:

You've probably heard of Snapchat -- that all of the "young kids" are using it. If you haven't heard of it, in simple terms it's a photo and video sharing service where the pictures and videos disappear within seconds of being viewed. You can also message friends with a text message type of format, although the platform is much more photo and video focused. What you may not know is that some consider Snapchat to be an important up and coming marketing platform. 

You may be wondering to yourself what exactly a “persona” is and how is it a secret weapon? It is critical to be aware of your prospects' personas along their buyer’s journey with your company. As an inbound marketing company, you will see someone go from a stranger, to a lead, to a customer, all the way through to a promoter and the persona comes into play every step of the way.

Creating the Persona 

To put it simply, personas are representations of ideal customers you create to help your team develop focused content formation and nurturing strategies. To create personas, you will use information you already have about your target market or current customers. There are several aspects you need to consider to make a comprehensive persona. Here are some questions you can begin with followed by examples:

Co-branding is a popular tactic within the marketing and advertising world and is something that your small business should take advantage of if you see an opportunity. This common practice has positive reasons why you should consider this strategy. But let’s start with the basics.

One of the biggest obstacles businesses can face is a poor relationship between the marketing and sales teams. Historically, the two sides have had little nice to say about each other; in fact, 87 percent of marketers and salespeople describe the others negatively.

There’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday – but do you know about #GivingTuesday? After two days dedicated to shopping there’s a day dedicated to giving back. On Tuesday, December 1, 2015, charities, families, businesses, community centers, and students around the world will come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give.

Facebook has updated its targeting capabilities for advertisers that allow for much more specific targeting than before. If you're running paid ads on Facebook as part of your social media marketing efforts to get traffic to your site, this is great news. Details are below, but a quick note – you have to be using Facebook’s Power Editor presently to access these capabilities.