This document summarizes alternatives to using Facebook for digital marketing. It discusses using Instagram stories and profiles, influencer marketing on Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Messenger bots, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcasting, voice assistants like Alexa, and email. It acknowledges Facebook is still important but recommends focusing on groups, live video, and stories. The document provides tips for increasing engagement on Facebook and argues high-quality, meaningful content and interactions will be prioritized over meaningless viral videos. It promotes attending upcoming workshops on these topics.

1. Alternatives to Facebook
for your Digital Marketing
Chris Snider

2. HELLo. I’m Chris snider.
• Associate professor in Drake University’s School
of Journalism and Mass Communication
• Teach classes on multimedia, social media, digital media,
visual communication, storytelling and web design
• Also teach a variety of classes on those topics in our new
Online Master of Arts in Communication program
• Formerly of the Des Moines Register and Juice magazine

3. • I’m passionate about how businesses can use social
media
• Formerly in charge of social media accounts for Juice
Magazine and the Des Moines Register
• Continue to run social media accounts for freelance clients
and several related to Drake University
• Survey students each semester on social media habits

4. Who are you?
• Name / Where you work / Favorite alternative to Facebook

5. Zuck admits Facebook is broken

7. Great news for seeing
more content from your
Aunt Edna.
Bad news for your small
business that relies on
Facebook for customers.

8. The FACEBOOK marketing
community was…

9. Devastating!
No idea!
LIAR!
Quite unhappy!

10. Perhaps we rushed
to judgement

11. Perhaps we’ve
had it FAR too easy
for far too long

12. Let’s be honest.
Our social media strategies
rely way too heavily on

13. “Get out there
and do your
job better!”

14. 10 alternatives to
FACEBOOK for your 2018
social media strategy
(I promise we’ll talk about Facebook)

15. warning: the days of just
COPY/PASTING a link INTO
social media are over

16. 1. Instagram stories
Instagram Stories went from
ZERO to eating Snapchat’s
lunch in less than one year.
(Now 191M)

18. Instagram stories
• 300 million daily active users as of
Nov. 2017
• It’s much easier to build a following
on Instagram than Snapchat (and
likely you already have one)
• Adding hashtags and location
tags get you into bigger stories
and extend your reach

19. Use location tags Create templates for your followers

20. Show off your
best Stories
on your
profile page!

21. Adobe Spark Post
Add animated effects
to your photos
Hype Type
Add text overlays to your
photos and videos
InShot
Convert horizontal videos
to vertical videos.
Tools for creating Stories

22. 2. Instagram
• If your biz/organization is not yet using Instagram, sign up now
• If you have an Instagram and aren’t using it to its full potential,
get going!

23. Instagram
• Used by 35 percent of U.S. online adults
• Used by 71 percent of online U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds
• 800 million users / 25 million active business profiles
• Users younger than 25 spend 32 minutes a day on Instagram
• Users 25 and older spend 24 minutes a day
Sources: Pew Research/Instagram

24. Instagram is the place for
inspiration and recreation

25. 3. Influencer marketing
• We live in a world where one post by Rihana or Kylie Jenner can send
Snapchat stock tumbling
• Instagram influencer marketing is a $1 billion business
• “The best (value), beside Facebook ads, in the world are influencers on
Instagram.” - Gary Vaynerchuk
• Influencers are people first and content marketers second. This means the
algorithm doesn’t hurt them.

26. Influencer marketing
• Pay them money to be on your account
• Pay them money to borrow their reach and post on their own
accounts
• Better yet, build sincere personal relationships with influencers
and share useful, unique, exclusive or early information

27. 4. Facebook messenger
• 1.3 billion monthly users
• Customers prefer this to phone calls and text messaging
• Live chat has the highest satisfaction level of all customer
service channels
• You already have an account

28. • Add a “Message Us” button on your website.
• Respond quickly to get a window to pop-up when
someone visits your page

29. 5. Messenger bots

30. Messenger bots
• Services such as Manychat and Chatfuel simplify the process
of creating Messenger bots (even offering free options)
• Why use a chat bot: available 24/7, can handle thousands
of customers at once, saves money, automates repetitive work
• Once people subscribe, you can broadcast messages to
them via Messenger
• You get their full name, profile photo, time zone and gender
from Facebook

33. Get social media news via Messenger at my bot:
m.me/chrissniderdesign

34. 6. Linkedin
• Stop. Underestimating. LinkedIn.
• 50 percent of Americans with a college degree use LinkedIn
• Popular among high-income households
• Content: company news, culture, industry trends, blog posts
• Anything you would post to FB page could go on LinkedIn
• Give your employees things to post

35. What if I told you there was a social network
that’s more popular than Facebook?
And you were ignoring it.

36. 7. Youtube
• YouTube is used by more
Americans than any social
network
• 70 percent of teenage
YouTube subscribers trust
influencer opinions over
traditional celebrities
• YouTube is consistently at
the top of my survey of
incoming college students

37. SXSW 2018 blog post by Mark Schaefer…

38. 8. Podcasting
• 44% of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast
• 80% of listeners listen to all or most of each podcast episode
• Three ways to approach podcasting…
• Create a podcast
• Be a guest on a podcast
• Advertise on a podcast

39. Anchor makes it easy to get started podcasting

40. My fav podcasts
• Reply All
• The Science of Social Media
• The Digiday Podcast
• Planet Money
• Startup Podcast

41. 9. Voice-FIRST
• 1 in 6 Americans own a smart speaker.
• There are skills to check your bank
balance, ask about wine pairings, get
drink recipes, guide you through a
workout, play Jeopardy and more.
• If you haven’t yet asked yourself, “What
is your company’s Alexa skill going to
be?” now is the time.

42. 10. EMAIL
• You are 6x more likely to get a click-through from an email
campaign than you are from a Tweet
• You own this list, so no need to worry about Facebook
algorithm changes
• Use this list to target people with Facebook Ads
• If you already have a list, try to bring more value to people

43. UMMM… What about
Twitter and Snapchat?
• 45 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use Twitter
(overall 24 percent of U.S. adults use)
• 78 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat
(overall 27 percent of U.S. adults use)
• Use Twitter if you’re funny or political
• Use Snapchat to reach young people

44. ?What about Facebook and
it’s 2.2 billion users?
Are we giving up on them?

45. WHAT WE KNOW…
• Fewer posts and videos from publishers and businesses will
be shown.
• Reach, video watch time and referral traffic will go down.
• Priority will be given to posts that spark conversations and
meaningful interactions.
• Viral videos are pretty much dead already.

46. What to do on FB in 2018
• Fewer, better posts
• Focus on getting meaningful comments and interactions
• Use live video - gets 6x more interaction than other videos
• Groups - start them, join them, participate in them
• Stories - Zuck says they will overtake News Feed on all apps
• Have individuals from your company post on their profiles
• Master Facebook ads

47. Fewer, better posts
• It’s helpful or useful to the audience
• It’s rooted in specific, real customer problems
• It looks like what real people post to Facebook
• You would be proud to share it with your friends

48. How to increase engagement
• Share quality content
• Learn from your successes and failures
• Use compelling visuals
• Ask your audience questions
• Have a call to action

49. Facebook groups

50. Final thought on Facebook…

51. Facebook killed off
meaningless viral videos.
Our “friends and family”
still suck at making
Facebook content.

52. So yes, we can still do
very well on Facebook
Thank you!

53. UPCOMING WORKSHOPs
Intro to Podcasting: May 22, 2018
Social Media Beyond Facebook: May 30, 2018
Both run 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Drake University
Details at chrissniderdesign.com/workshops
Use code NEWSLETTER to save $50 on each

54. QUESTIONS?
Follow Chris:
@chrissnider
chrissniderdesign.com