As we approach the first anniversary of the 2016 election and contemplate the recent expose by 60 Minutes about the Trump's campaign use of Facebook to activate sympathetic voters, this is a good time for marketers to reflect on the changing world of media.  Granted most marketers do not have a $70million budget and the production engine to create 100,000 ads a day to harness Facebook with the scale of the Trump campaign.  Nonetheless, there are lessons that even small marketers can gain about Facebook targeting capabilities.  

First, the obvious:  Facebook is today's juggernaut in mining potential buyers.  A lot has changed in this century.  Before the internet and the rise of social media, direct marketers tapped into all kinds of lists that revealed possible affinity to their products - what magazines consumers subscribed to, what cars they bout, what information they filled out on warranty cards.  Plus, elaborate household databases with aggregated data and models profiled lifestyles and psychographics, offering resources to discover prospective customers.  

Introduce Facebook and its 2 billion global users, targeting opportunities are now on steroids.  Facebook knows what you post, what posts you engage with , which pages you follow and the websites you have visited and more.  Add in the overlay from data aggregators with data from financial services companies, court records, federal government documents, spending habits and transaction data from retailers and you have a powerful database to build profiles for targeting a relevant message.  in the case of Trump, the targeted messages evidently swayed voters.  

Second the Trump campaign's success on Facebook was apparently powered by RNC's proprietary database.  The lesson:  leverage your internal data to ensure targeting success on Facebook.  Take your own database and match it to Facebook users, and meaningful targeting and messaging is greatly enhanced.  This point collaborates our previous blog: one of the powerful sources of targeting is your own Data Custom Audience.  In the case of Trump, RNC's database apparently revealed insightful information that fueled the messaging; a widespread interest in infrastructure among the Republican 'Possibles" proved to be a hot button.  That insight translated into ads that grabbed some voters by the heart strings and evidently worked in driving them to the polls.  

Third, Facebook's dynamic and complicated platform requires expertise to manage properly.  Facebook itself is a resource.  60 Minutes disclosed that Trump's digital team received live onsite instruction.  In our case at Hyphen, we too interface directly with Facebook.  Working with a client with a small budget this year, we spent hours on video conferences with Facebook, gaining additional insight on the best way to execute our campaign.  And, for many clients, we work with our partner social media expert team to go deep into social media channels to achieve our targeting objectives.  So big or small, Facebook is a resource key to our clients marketing.  

Let's talk about how we can help you build your digital marketing plan.  Email me at beth@hyphen3.com .....and keep reading our blogs.