Today, I want to walk through one of the major changes that happened on social media recently and that’s having a huge impact on business owners, and entrepreneurs, and how they generate leads for their businesses using social media.
Just for context, this blog / video went out live on the INfluence podcast this week as episode 99, hence the title – so here it is ‘99 problems but the FB IOS update ain’t one!’ (thanks and sorry Jay Z!)
Fact: Business owners have problems, we’ve got challenges, we’re struggling with this, this is an issue, there are always things that we’re working through as entrepreneurs, as business owners.
There’s always something that we need to overcome and work through. But the one thing that I don’t want to be a challenge for you, is the new changes with Apple, and specifically, iOS 14, and the impact it’s having on Facebook ads.
But Jake, why are you talking about Facebook!
Well, Facebook owns Instagram, so it impacts on Instagram ads as well.
First of all, you may or may not have heard about the changes. You might not know what any of those words even mean! What is iOS, what does 14 mean? What are the issues with the ads? Well, let’s keep it real simple first of all and just give a bit of a kind of high level overview about what this means.
Then I’m going to share with you a couple of ways you can work around this.
This change has directly impacted our business and so we are now focused on workarounds and looking at other alternatives and other options to continue to grow and scale the business.
The one thing I would say just before I dive in, is that, initially I thought that this was a problem, a really big frustrating problem, because I can no longer as easily identify people, target people or find the type of clients and customers that are going to be ideal for me to help, and are going to be the right type of people for me to work with.
But, the other thing that I thought was, well actually, how do we work around this because there’s always a work around and having looked at this in a lot of detail we now have an action plan going forward.
I’m actually excited because it means that we have to get even better at what we do. First and foremost, people that are better at what they do will thrive, not just survive but they will thrive, it also means that as we get better at what we do, as we learn more useful tools, tricks and ideas and systems, we can share those with our clients, and it’s going to improve their results as well.
As frustrating as it may be; and when people say they don’t like change, remember the only constant is change.
I’m excited because, as we move away from Facebook ads or as we shift how we run them, it means that we need to get better and even better at generating leads through different sources, and as we do that, of course, we can share those ways with clients.
Let’s just give a bit of context about iOS 14.
Well, the major conflict (or difference in interests shall we say) is between Apple™️ and Facebook™️. Some of the largest companies in the world.
It’s pretty well documented that Facebook has an incredible volume of information on us. There was a documentary that came out, I think last year, maybe the year before, called The Social Dilemma, which talks about the amount of data points, and the amount of information that Facebook has on us, and it’s something crazy like 5,000 different data points.
Of course, we can get angry, upset or frustrated about that, or we can say well that is the situation as it is right now, how do we use that for our business? How do we actually use that? How can I best use this to find my audience? .
The Social Dilemma set alarm bells ringing, it certainly brought it to the public eye and the public forefront, that there are companies out there that have a seriously large amount of data on us and information about us, and how are they using it, how can we trust them with it, and such.
Apple now has made changes to its operating system, which means that as you either use apps, or download new apps onto your Apple device, when you download apps or when you use apps that perhaps you’ve not used for a long time, it will now ask you if you are ok for advertisers to track your activity on this app.
Are you okay for ‘people’ to track your activity when using the app?
Yes or no?
Previously, it was automatic that people could track your app or that Facebook could track how you use different apps on your phone. Now, Apple is asking you ‘Do you want to be tracked? Yes or no?
We anticipate that the majority of people will say no. I’ve got to be honest, I said no, because I don’t want to be tracked! But if I’m saying no, then how can I expect other people to say yes.
That means that suddenly, from all these different data points that Facebook has on you, all this information that Facebook is able to learn about how you search, fine detailed information about your major interests, things that you enjoy, doing topics of conversation, anniversaries, birthdays and things that might be coming up, all of this, that they may be having you is starting to get weaker and weaker, and they have less of that type of information on you.
So what does that mean?
If Facebook has less information on you, it means that when they are running adverts, and when they are creating or giving people the opportunity to run ads, then it is more difficult for those advertisers to target the ideal client specifically.
If you’re giving less information to Facebook, it becomes harder for advertisers that want to get in front of you to find you, because Facebook doesn’t have as much information on you.
That’s where the challenge comes, and this is where the biggest kind of discrepancy and the kind of head to head has come about between Apple and Facebook.
Facebook ads are now no longer having the same impact, it is proving harder to reach people than it was previously.
What does that mean for us? And what specifically can we do about that?
1. Go Organic
Immediately this puts a huge emphasis back on organic.
I’ve talked previously about organic versus paid traffic.
The basis being that the content that you share, the posts that you put out, the direct messages that you send, the engagement that you have on other people’s content, and other people’s posts without any paid advertising, without any pay promotion that is organic.
We actually teach the importance of building a large audience on Instagram, and we don’t really talk much about advertising, so that immediately puts a smile on my face, because we need to be focused on organic.
If we can’t accurately target people through advertising, certainly on Facebook at least, then we need to look more effectively at our organic strategies.
- How are we creating content, sharing content, distributing content that speaks directly to our ideal audience?
- Are we building our brand and building our credibility and such in a way that speaks directly to our audience as well?
- And are we nurturing those relationships and engaging with people the right way so that they want to do business with us, either immediately or later down the line?
Organic is making a return, bigger and stronger than ever.
2. ‘Own the Racecourse’ James Scramko
The second thing is something which I’ve borrowed from James Schramko. James talks about owning the racecourse, and what that means is that right now is that we need to be very aware, and constantly reminded that we are building our business on somebody else’s land.
What we do with Facebook, what we do with Instagram, what we do with Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, all these different platforms. We’re building our business on somebody else’s land.
We don’t own Facebook, we don’t own Instagram, we don’t own any of these platforms, and with the flick of a switch or a click of the fingers, you could lose your Instagram account, you could lose your Twitter account, your Facebook account, and there’s not a lot we can necessarily do about it.
We’re playing on somebody else’s land, where they get to decide the rules.
3. Build Your List
James Schramko talks about owning the race course – the importance of moving people off the social platforms, off Instagram, off Facebook, or Twitter, and building an email database.
Now as you build that email database and build that email list, you have direct control over how you connect and reach with those people, through direct email marketing to build and nurture your community.
Every day I speak to people who say I don’t love Instagram and at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you like Instagram or not, Instagram probably doesn’t particularly like us, it really doesn’t matter!
What matters is that it is a tool you’re using to connect with your ideal client.
The reason that we use Instagram, and the reason I teach Instagram, is because I fully believe that Instagram is the best platform right now for you to get in front of the biggest audience possible. An audience who are ready to start doing business with you, who know that you’re the right person because the way that Instagram is set up, allows you to build and strengthen great relationships with your audience.
It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, but if you want to actually find people that are suitable for your business and help people, then you need to find and use the best tools to do that. For us, right now, that is Instagram.
We might be having a very different conversation in five years and 10 years 15, 20 years time, as these platforms come and go, and different things change, and that’s okay.
The goal we focus on is ‘owning the racecourse’ so that we can build an email database that we can come back to again and again and again with our marketing offers, programmes, products, and services.
Final Thoughts
So you may well have 99 problems in your business (hopefully not that many…. Seriously I do genuinely hope that there’s not that many!) but I definitely do not want the iOS 14 changes to be one of them!
Focus on organic, own the racecourse, build an email database, and continue to have, and strengthen great relationships with your audience.
I hope that was useful, and I look forward to speaking with you very soon.
