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A few weeks ago, I attended Traffic and Conversion Summit and Social Media Marketing World in sunny San Diego.

I had a great time hanging out with clients, making new friends, and attending some awesome sessions. I even got to see several of my online marketing mentors and recorded two podcasts!!

Plus, I learned a ton about the future of Facebook and how it will be instrumental for entrepreneurs looking to improve their marketing and grow their businesses.

I feel that it’s so important for business owners to get out and attend in-person events! Networking allows you to build relationships with other people in your niche.

The key topics discussed at both events were related to Messenger ads and chatbots and live videos. And I have to admit, I was intrigued by what I learned and am excited to try some of these strategies out.

In my latest Facebook Live, I go into more depth about the key takeaways from both Traffic and Conversion Summit and Social Media Marketing World.

1. Video Content on Facebook (1:30)

I attended a session called, What’s Working Now on Facebook by Mari Smith. She talked about how Facebook is playing catch-up to YouTube with Facebook TV and Facebook Watch. She mentioned how Facebook video content is 5x more engaging, which is why I believe video advertising on Facebook is a winning strategy!

Mari also mentioned how Facebook TV is integrating ad breaks which basically serves as 5-15 second commercials in a video. You can put ad breaks into your content to boost revenue and literally create your own live or pre-recorded show for Facebook Watch.

If you’re already on YouTube, you can take your content and add it to Facebook as well. The best way to monetize your videos is with sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and product placements.

2. Messenger App (8:07)

This was a hot topic at the conferences due to the new cool features Facebook is rolling out for its Messenger app. I attended a session by Ezra Firestone called Facebook Messenger Fiesta.

Perfectly titled, this session was all about the huge opportunity business owners now have with Facebook Messenger. One of my favorite quotes from Ezra during the session was: “Messenger will become the world’s biggest marketing channel in the next 5 years.”

Kind of shocking to think about, right?

The truth is, there are more people messaging now than there are on social networks. There’s also a higher engagement rate than with email so you can expect better open and click-through rates when using Facebook Messenger ads.

As Ezra stated, the opportunity to start using Facebook Messenger ads is huge right now, because 95% of businesses have not adopted a Messenger marketing strategy.

Another thing Ezra talked about during his session was integrated social commerce for Facebook (13:55). Pretty soon, people are going to have the ability to make purchases within Facebook Messenger — without ever leaving Facebook!

Instead of sending your audience on a journey of clicking multiple links on your website and looking at different landing pages, you can be more selective with the offers you’re promoting. This feature will make it easier for you to sell products and services to our customers right on social media!

3. Chatbots (11:22)

Another key aspect of Ezra’s presentation was his recommendation for the use of chatbots within Facebook Messenger. He suggests ManyChat or Chatfuel, which allows you to reach out to subscribers and automate sending them your latest blog post or offer!

Using chatbots you can email existing subscribers and incentivize them to message you on Facebook. This will help build your list of Messenger subscribers!

Ezra also suggested creating a specific referral URL which will lead your audience to a specific conversation. For example, within every blog post you can have a specific referral URL for your lead magnets — directly within Messenger. Your subscribers will be able to sign up for a lead magnet via Facebook Messenger after reading your content.

If you’re interested in learning how to set up your first chabot, I attended a session at Social Media Marketing World with Andrew Warner from Mixergy (14:20). He explained how to properly set up and get started with your first chatbot!

Andrew shared that Facebook Messenger has roughly 1.3 billion users each month so the potential to reach new customers is definitely there!! It’s a great time to start using chatbots within Messenger because this is fairly new and the engagement is pretty incredible.

Customers and clients are more likely to open messages and click through links received within the Messenger app. So if you’re not using it yet, I encourage you to jump in and start using it for your business this year!

4. Facebook Ad Custom Audiences (15:12)

I attended a session called How to Use Custom Audiences to Get Better Ad Results and Lower Your Costs with Rick Mulready. Using custom audiences for Facebook ads is a strategy I like to use with my clients, and I explain how to do this in my course, Flourish With Facebook Ads.

And the end of the session, I was grateful to have the opportunity to ask Rick some questions and found out that he actually recorded the Q and A session for his podcast!

I make a brief appearance towards the end of the episode when I ask Rick about scaling with Facebook ads, which is a challenge I work on helping my clients overcome. There are times when my clients and I continuously increase the ads budget, but then it seems like the cost per result starts to creep up.

Rick had some really good advice for me on that topic! You can check out the podcast episode here!

5. Google Tag Manager (17:11)

I caught the tail end of Chris Mercer’s session on the different ways social media marketers can benefit from Google Tag Manager.

Google Tag Manager is a free tool that makes it easy for marketers to add and update their website tags including conversion tracking, site analytics, remarketing, and more.

This tool makes it easy to update website tags with just a few clicks instead of having to edit your website’s entire code. Some of my advanced marketing clients are already implementing Google Tag Manager to track and optimize their affiliate conversions.

You can add the Facebook pixel code to the Google Tag Manager to create new audiences for conversion ads. It’s a more advanced method than the traditional Facebook pixel but it could really pay off. I’ll be looking into it further to help my clients!

6. Live and Recorded Video (19:00)

Amy Porterfield, who I met previously and adore, was also at the conference talking about getting over your fear of live video. This topic really resonated with me!

I’m much more comfortable with doing regular Facebook Lives with my audience and sharing my strategies now. But it wasn’t always this way!

Thanks to Amy’s encouragement and challenging me, I participated in a 30-day Periscoping challenge that helped me overcome my fear of live video.

If you’re trying to get over your fear of live video, Amy suggests starting with Instagram stories since they’re only about 15 seconds long. Anyone can try something new for 15 seconds, right?!

She also recommends getting started with live video inside Facebook groups. This is where your audience already knows who you are and can be patient with you as you test things out. This is helpful in the event of tech issues, or if you have problems remembering what you’re going to say!

7. Simple Systems for Marketing (23:00)

I have met Steve Chou, from the site My Wife Quit Her Job, a few times at past industry conferences and I really enjoyed his session about making $1,000,000 annually with your business.

He talked about leveraging things like blogging, email, podcasting, Facebook ads, and webinars to boost business. He only has one product that he sells but told us about the different strategies and tools he uses to market it.

Steve uses a simple marketing funnel that boils down to getting people onto his email list to take his free course where they’ll receive an offer to buy his paid course — which is about creating an e-commerce store online.

I was also pleased to hear that Steve is incorporating Facebook Messenger ads with a chatbot as one of his marketing funnel strategies!

8. Website Notification Alerts (25:50)

I actually heard this bonus tip in several different sessions at Social Media Marketing World and Traffic and Conversion Summit! And it relates to having notification alerts set up on your website or blog.

If you’re not using a notification tool on your website, you might want to consider it! The two that I heard about most were PushCrew and OneSignal. They are both very similar but OneSignal is free.

You can use a notification tool to nudge people to sign up to receive notifications when you publish new content on your website. This is working for my clients, so I know it can work for you too!

Whew! 🌟 As you can tell, I learned a lot at both conferences and am so glad I went. I’ve already got my ticket for next year’s Social Media Marketing World!

If you enjoyed this Facebook Live, Let’s Connect!

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