By Kathy Williams

Matt Preven, sales engineer at Sizmek, absolutely delivered a home run with his workshop presentation on the importance of engagement in social media on opening day of RCC’s joint convention with Associated Church Press (ACP) in Chicago.

This ten-year veteran of digital media and advertising’s overall message was, “Let’s focus on the good that social media can provide to our organizations.”

Preven focused specifically on Facebook and Instagram in his talk. He stated, “In 2019, you need a social media strategy. Shared experiences define our lives, and social media makes it easier to share these experiences.”

He walked attendees through step-by-step on how to build brand awareness via paid advertising on these platforms. This advertising on Facebook and Instagram allows one to customize who sees these ads via targeting by demographics such as age, interests, and “look alike” audiences (those that are similar to your current audience), and engagement.

There are several different ways to advertise on these platforms including carousel ads, story ads, video ads and static image ads. One should look at it as first trying to woo new followers, then finally motivating them by a call to action – whether it be donation, signing up for a cause, subscribing to, or purchasing something.

Preven also advised to take advantage of auto-optimization of your organization’s ad budget on these platforms. Allow the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram to do their job. They want to make your job easier!

He concluded with the message: Test, Learn, Optimize and Observe. Take one or two ideas that are realistic to your organization and put them in place. The audience was engaged and responsive in this very informative workshop.