Category: Insights

Best Practices for Facebook Audiences: Part 2 – A/B Testing: When in Doubt, Test it Out!

Posted on by Laura Kraay

If you’re worried your social media ads are getting stagnant, an A/B test can provide a needed refresh. Running two ads that have only one varying element can offer valuable insights about what is working (and what’s not!) as well as inform strategy for future social campaigns.

A/B testing can be particularly helpful when determining audience. For example, if your goal is to grow your audience base, you could try targeting a lookalike of website traffic against a broad/detail targeting audience. The broad audience will help you continue to establish your customer base and the lookalike will help ensure some of your ads are also directed at users similar to your best customers.

Perhaps you’re still waiting for your Pixel data to gather? Try testing media and move to the audience later. In a world of endless customization, A/B testing offers a low-pressure scenario to freshen up your campaigns and learn more in the process.

Online retailer Sole Society wanted to compare how the square image format performed compared to a traditional landscape format. The ad featured the same pair of black boots. They learned that the square image outperformed the rectangular one and delivered a 27% increase and sales and 32% increase purchased products. For future campaigns, they could now feel more confident in selecting square images.

When trying to decide what to test, focus your goal on what you ultimately want to learn. Perhaps you want to sell more products, get more in-store visits, or simply want to more fully understand a particular aspect of your business. Stepping back like this can help you examine which of Facebook’s tools may work best for your needs.

Stay on the lookout for our next post in my Best Practices for Facebook Audiences series. I’ll share how to create audiences that comply with Facebook Special Ads Categories. Miss the first article in this series? Check it out here.
In the meantime, check out our Resources Page for Part 1 of the Best Practices for Facebook Audiences series and other social advertising best practices. 

Laura Kraay is a marketing services specialist for Tiger Pistol. She got her MFA in creative writing. Outside of work, you’ll likely find her doodling, reading, or spending time with family.

Global Analysis: Tracking Facebook and Instagram CPMs Alongside Covid-19 Active Cases

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Several weeks ago, Tiger Pistol’s Paul Elliott, CEO, began tracking a global analysis of the weekly growth of active COVID-19 cases in eight countries to determine how they correlate with the average Facebook and Instagram CPMs during the same time*, all to discover if CPMs could be a leading indicator of economic recovery.  Since then, we’ve been closely monitoring the trends outlined in Paul’s original publication and will be offering weekly insights.

Updated July 2, 2020

A few days ago, we hit 10 million global COVID-19 cases, a milestone we didn’t think we’d see a few months ago. Now entering the third quarter of 2020, we might begin to see some fluctuations as governments enact long-term plans for the safety and well-being of their citizens.

Overall, we’re seeing cases spike in the United States and a continued rise in Brazil.

In other countries, a slight uptick in cases, but the same sort of fluctuations in CPM from week to week. Within July, we may also begin to see effect of #StopHateForProfit on Facebook advertising, but this might only affect US CPMs. 

Curiosities:

  • Italy has made the biggest comeback, with their CPM regaining strength this week to the highest level since before we began tracking.
  • Canada & Spain are also seeing CPM strengthening.
Updated June 26, 2020

This week’s overarching message can be stated in a word: Instability. Some countries are trying to decide “is this over?,” while others are clearly not out of the woods. 

We’re still in Wave 1 in most places, and a case could be made for Wave 1.5. Studies are showing that being in enclosed places (restaurants, bars, etc.) increases the likelihood of contracting the virus, which leads to a lot of businesses having to make the decision whether or not to reopen or stay closed. Through the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2, it’s clear there was stability in most of the countries.

United States/Canada: Three of the largest populated states in the USA have begun experiencing a rapid spike of cases within the last week, leaving governors to decide to continue or halt phased openings. June as a whole saw an increase in overall CPM, after an initial dip at the start of the month, but with the uncertainties surrounding freedom of movement during the summer, we’re predicting CPMs may drop again in July (as seen in the last week). 

EU: The EU ramped up opening its borders, with most of the countries listed below open to travelers on the continent. Spain has seen a resurgence in cases and while they reopened their borders, a mandatory quarantine is in place and CPMs – while overall had steadied, plummeted the first weekend of reopening. Italy, similarly to Spain, has seen a sharp rise and fall of CPMs in a 3-week period, but have not seen a rise in cases (except for a new set of cases in the southern part of the country). Germany is all over the map, with sharp rises and drops, garnering attention as while the country was set to reopen fully, officials were forced to put that on hold due to a case flare up.

Australia: Australia managed to deal with the outbreak pretty swiftly, with a short spike and then drop off of cases. This has led to a steady rise of CPMs for the region.

Late outbreaks:

Brazil – Brazil as a country is really struggling, drawing eyes not only from a public health crisis perspective, but also from a “discount” perspective. CPMs remain steady since their drop in Q1, as the country has yet to see a drop in cases.

For continued updates, be sure to bookmark this page. To learn more about Tiger Pistol and social advertising at scale for SMB resellers, agencies, and global brands, contact us today!

Best Practices for Facebook Audiences: Part 1 – Creating Audiences

Posted on by Laura Kraay

Creating the perfect ad leads to the next step — who are you doing to show it to?  Here we’ll go over terminology and best practices for creating audiences for your social ads. If you’ve been asking questions about audience size, detail targeting, or Facebook custom and lookalike audiences, this is the guide for you.

Audience Size

When creating audiences, keep an eye on the Potential Reach. Facebook ads can run with a minimum audience of 1,000, but if an audience is too small, Facebook may have trouble finding users to show your ad to. This means your ad might underperform or be shown at a high frequency, causing ad fatigue among users seeing the ad over and over again! While there is no real “sweet spot” for audience size, we recommend trying to create an audience of at least 50,000. If you’re really in a pinch and are creating an audience in a lower populated area, try and keep the size to at least 10,000.

Detail Targeting

When adding detail targeting options, you can select from a variety of Facebook interests. Use OR targeting instead of AND (also called narrow) targeting when you want your audiences to be larger. Let’s talk Dogs, Cats, and Pets to illustrate the point.  In OR targeting, you would fall into the audience if you liked any one of those options (dogs, cats, or pets), but for AND targeting, you have to like all three. That’s why AND targeting produces a smaller audience. You can see the remarkable difference this can make in this illustration, where the audience difference between OR and AND is 590,000 people!

In general, it’s best not to overuse detail targeting. A broader audience may lead to potential new customers — you never know who may be interested!

Curious about detail targeting but want to use it to greater purpose? Learn how the conversions objective optimizes the delivery of your Facebook Campaign specifically towards a conversion event, rather than driving general traffic to your site or for brand awareness. This means you can still use detail targeting, but also further optimize for those people more likely to take a specific action on your page like “Add to Cart” or “Sign Up.”

Custom Audiences

Looking to apply remarketing strategies? That tactic begins with custom audiences. To create a custom audience, you will need to provide Facebook with identifiers about your customers (like email addresses or phone numbers) or have a Facebook Pixel installed on your website. Whether the uploaded identifiers or the data from your Pixel, this information is compared with the information on Facebook profiles. The overlapping group becomes your custom audience! To ensure the Information remains secure, it undergoes a hashing process before it’s sent to Facebook. (Hashing turns the information into randomized code.) After the custom audience is created, Facebook deletes the information.

This is a great way to show your ads to people who may have already interacted with your business. For example, having a Facebook Pixel installed means you could create audiences from your website traffic. Specific pages or events can also be used. A retail location who wants to focus on their summer shoes could select users who visited the “Sandals” section of their website.

You can also use custom audiences to exclude people from viewing your social ads. A fitness center whose objective is to get new members might exclude a custom list created from membership email addresses and names. This would ensure that their current customers aren’t in the ad’s audience, ensuring the business doesn’t waste its precious ad dollars.

When Beekeeper’s Naturals wanted to increase orders for its product sampler box, they showed video ads to a Custom Audience of people who had visited the Beekeeper’s Natural website within the last 30 days, added the product to their cart , but did not purchase it. In return, they saw a 39% increase in sales of a specific product bundle. They also had a 4.5X increase in return on ad spend. Custom audiences offered them the ability to show their ads to users who had already shown a demonstrated interest in the product.

In order to upload a list successfully, you’ll need at least 100 matches. This means your list might have to be a bit larger than 100 because it’s matching the information you’re providing with that on a user’s Facebook profile. If your list is uploaded, but you worry it’s a bit small for retargeting just yet, a lookalike audience might be more suited to your needs.

Lookalike Audiences 

A Lookalike Audience offers a way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your best existing customers. How does it work? Like a custom audience, you need to upload a data source. (It undergoes the same hashing process mentioned above.) Facebook then finds users with similar characters or qualities to that of your source.

In the “Power of the Facebook Pixel” Chris Mayer explains how this works in the case of a Lookalike Audience created from website traffic:

“A golf related e-commerce website might have a lot of users visiting their website, who also like the PGA Tour Facebook Page, and/or are “interested in” golf. The Lookalike Audiences will account for this. Facebook will literally find more people who like the PGA Tour Facebook Page, are also “interested in” golf, and share similar traits and demographics as the website visitors.”

Although Facebook doesn’t reveal which traits are generated, the value lies in its ability to optimize your audience. Clothing retailer Trina Turk was hesitant to turn to Facebook advertising because they were unsure if they could target enough people willing to spend money on a luxury brand. They first ran a dynamic campaign for broad audiences. Utilizing that campaign’s learnings “the team created and reached out to lookalike audiences based on the new shoppers who clicked through to the website from the dynamic ads.” Their year-over-years results for the following period speak to the power of the Lookalike Audience:

  • 75% increase in return on ad spend
  • 33% decrease in cost per purchase

These results are dramatic, so it’s important to highlight the two-part campaign here. Running a broad campaign helped them first get more website traffic. Just like with custom audiences, having an ample amount of data helps produce better results. If you’ve just installed your Facebook Pixel, first try running a broad or detail targeting campaign to further establish your base audience.

Hungry for more? Coming soon – how you can utilize A/B testing to find your most effective audience. In the meantime, check out our Resources Page for more social advertising best practices. 

Laura Kraay is a marketing services specialist for Tiger Pistol. She got her MFA in creative writing. Outside of work, you’ll likely find her doodling, reading, or spending time with family.

On-Demand Webinar: The Critical Role of Local Social Advertising in Economic Recovery

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Tiger Pistol’s Casey Zaffin, VP of Client Management, discusses why local social advertising is a must have for your economic recovery and revitalization efforts, the role of local social advertising in the economic rebuild, and how facilitating connections can be done at scale, whether you are a large multi-location brand, and agency, or an SMB reseller.

During this webinar, you will learn:

  • Companies that invest in local social advertising with precise targeting, refocused and flexible creative and messaging will capitalize on recovery opportunities and dominate in 2020 and into 2021.
  • With store visit optimization still off the table in many areas, we’ll define what measurements can be used to define social advertising success. ○ How engaging with consumers and the community on a personal level will establish a long-lasting connection and how ads can be dynamically scaled for localization.
  • How SMBs should take advantage of conversational commerce ○ Best practices in social advertising through the lens of three industry-leading companies:
    • A Global Fortune 500 beverage company using social to reach into communities to support local bars and restaurants
    • A Fortune 500 real estate company that’s enabling its agents to make critical connections at a time when human interaction is limited
    • A leading SMB reseller that’s empowering their customers with new and innovative tools to enhance personal connections.

Watch The Critical Role of Local Social Advertising in Economic Recovery 

UPDATED: Global Analysis: Using CPMs as a Leading Indicator of Economic Recovery

Posted on by Paul Elliott

Can CPMs be used as a leading indicator of economic recovery?  Tiger Pistol’s Paul Elliott, CEO, and Chris Mayer, Solutions Engineer, put this question to the test. Check out their global analysis of the weekly growth of active COVID-19 cases in six countries and how they correlate with the average Facebook and Instagram CPMs during the same time, based on a cross-industry sampling of 4 billion ad impressions.

What they found was a formula that brings a level of certainty to these uncertain times.

Read the Report

Paul Elliott is the Chief Executive Officer of Tiger Pistol. He is a recognized thought leader in integrated marketing and customer engagement, with more than 20 years of experience helping global brands and their local outlets achieve significant results and return on marketing investments. Elliott was a recipient of Ad Age’s 40 under 40 and the Smart Business Smart 50 honor.  

Chris Mayer, a Solutions Engineer at Tiger Pistol, specializes in helping digital agencies, SMB resellers, and global brands build scaled Facebook advertising solutions with an emphasis on local activation.

What are the Facebook Advertising Best Practices for Scaled Local Video Ads?

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

People are drawn to video. It’s just a super simple way to get information without exceeding the average person’s effort threshold. So it’s no surprise that video consumption has grown at a staggering rate, especially on mobile devices. Consider these stats from Social Media Today: 

  1. 100 million hours of video per day are watched on Facebook.
  2. 1200% more shares are generated by social videos than text and images combined. 
  3. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. 
  4. 80% of users recall a video ad they have viewed online in the last month. 
  5. 50% of users take some kind of action after viewing a video ad. 

Considering video as part of your scaled social ad strategy? You’ll want to be sure to use Facebook’s best practices to get the most out of your video ads. Check out this infographic for six tips to increase your viewership and drive action. 

Learn how Tiger Pistol enables video advertising at scale.  

Why Paid Social Advertising is Better than Organic Posting

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Facebook’s algorithm can have a big impact on how many people actually see your posts. With more and more content created on Facebook every day, organic reach continues to steadily decline. Still on the fence about the value of Facebook advertising?  Check out this infographic to understand how Facebook advertising extends your reach and drives real business outcomes. 

Ready to get started with social advertising at scale? Contact us today.

How Local Ads from Local Pages Increase Relevancy and Decrease Advertising Costs

Posted on by Chris Mayer

There is much talk in social media marketing about the importance of “local” social. But what does that really mean in practice? Put simply, localization drives ad relevancy. 

When we look at the factors that make an ad more relevant, it boils down to two modifiers on your advertiser bid: Estimated Action Rates and Ad Quality. It’s the combination of these modifiers that underpins the ad relevancy calculation, and more relevant ads “win” out over less relevant ones in bidding. 

So how can you bump up your scores on these modifiers, thereby making your ads more relevant? It’s a combination of things across your campaigns structure:

1. Use a Local Facebook Page over a Corporate One

“Local” Pages can mean different things. For example, a CPG brand that relies on channel partners to sell their products might consider their channel partners’ individual store Pages the most local option, as it allows them to tie their products to a specific local point of sale. Whereas a real estate brand might consider their agent’s Business Pages as the local Page. For franchise groups, this is often local store Pages over a single corporate branded Page. In either case, ads that come from local pages tend to be considered more relevant. Whatever the flavor, you want the page you publish through to be as close as you can get to your consumers and where they transact. 

2. Localized Creative 

Creative that is locally aware is also important. This means having both copy and media that references the local area, whether by calling out the location or neighborhood in the copy or even by differentiating media content by region. The more your creative can literally speak to your local audience, the more relevant it will be to them (See: Ad Quality).

3. Hyper-Local Targeting 

Especially when it comes to marketing for local businesses, you want your campaigns to always be reflective of their true sales area. This is another case where vertical is important, as some businesses have naturally large sales areas. The logic is simple; an ad is going to be less relevant to a user if they see travel time as a blocker.

4. Strong, Focused, Calls-to-Action

It can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to do too much with your campaigns, wanting to promote multiple products or key selling points, Yet another paramount factor in ad relevance that Facebook also notes is, Estimated Action Rate. – “an estimate of whether a particular person engages with or converts from a particular ad” Put simply, if you focus on a singular campaign goal, which Facebook Objectives by their nature are intended to do., you also want your copy to explicitly direct the user based on the campaign objective, i.e. “book an appointment online”, “click to sign up.” This encourages interested users to take the exact action of your campaign’s objective.

These items may all seem small on their own, but they all come together to produce a more relevant ad. The challenge often comes with adapting to vertical-specific needs, as well as how to juggle so many local elements at once. We have seen in our data that a locality-focused campaign structure can even work at scale and with many different types of businesses. 

Our Data Proves this Time and Again


A CPG client used Tiger Pistol for distributing brand-approved campaigns to hundreds of restaurants and bars worldwide. They saw 60% lower CPMs across the local campaigns compared to their national brand efforts. The secret? More relevant ads. Comparing the national effort, which targeted the same consumer base, vs. the local campaigns, the differences are night and day. The distributed framework of the local campaigns meant the client had more exacting control in only geo-targeting the sales areas where consumers could get to the point of purchase. Additionally, unlike the national campaign, having local campaigns in-market meant that the creative could be region- or even hyper-specific.


A national quick-service restaurant chain was continuously looking for insights and performance advice to improve social advertising campaigns. The client was running multiple brand-level campaigns off of the corporate Facebook Business Page, targeting by DMA across multiple locations. Tiger Pistol ran social advertising via local Facebook Pages, and the results were clear: local store Pages generated better results, with 35% more impressions and 30% lower CPMs than running the same campaigns through the national brand Page. 


A Fortune 500 real estate services company engaged Tiger Pistol looking for a partner to help build a scalable, social advertising workflow solution that enabled their agents to promote their listings with auto-configured, best practice Facebook and Instagram campaigns. Tiger Pistol’s platform gave agents the ability to publish campaigns directly from their own agent-branded Facebook Page. While other real estate marketing platforms support Facebook ads, such ads are usually rudimentary, driving impressions around the listing, with little room for the agent to generate leads. Our platform leverages the most relevant Facebook Ads Objectives to drive the results that matter, increasing agent awareness, increasing agent website traffic, and increasing lead generation, all while significantly decreasing the cost of advertising.

Local Advertising Just Makes Sense

It’s intuitive the more you think about it. Are you more interested in buying a product or service from a brand located across the country (or even a business located across the county?), or would you rather purchase the same product or service from the business down the street? It’s understanding holistically how all the different elements of a Facebook campaign can work together to create locality: it’s targeting, creative, and the very framework that unlocks reliable efficient delivery.

Find this article insightful? Check out Are Facebook CPMs Rising? Depends How Local You Go. 

Chris Mayer, a Solutions Engineer at Tiger Pistol, specializes in helping digital agencies, SMB resellers, and global brands build scaled Facebook advertising solutions with an emphasis on local activation. 

Posting and Advertising during Quarantine: 50 Small Business Social Tips for 50 Industries

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

While there may be a downturn in customer spending, there is an increase in customer touch points and attention. With Facebook usage up 50%, it is more important than ever for small businesses to turn to social media to maintain relevance and build relationships in their local communities.

As one of our client’s put it,

“Relationships built in times of crisis are ones that last.” 

We asked our team of social specialists to come up with 50 social content tips for 50 industries – complete with some real-world examples of best-practices they’ve found. 

Here’s what they recommend: 

1. Antique Stores or Resale Shops 

Share video and blog content on how to up-cycle in your own home (furniture or clothing). Leverage Facebook’s Marketplace to sell your antiques on Social. Facebook Marketplace is used in 70 countries by 800 million people. 

2. Art Studios/Painting Places

Promote sign-ups for virtual lessons with a pre-order list of supplies with product links. Utopian Bizarre got creative by offering take-home paint kits of pre-drawn canvases with curbside pickup. 

3. Bakeries

Offer delivery/curbside pickup and drive sales through social. Birthday, anniversaries, and the like still take place, even if customers are homebound. Take pictures and post special highlights of customers purchasing cakes/treats to celebrate their special occasions. If you’re feeling creative, think about hosting a virtual baking class, with users purchasing a ticket online.

4. Banks and Financial Advisors

With so many out of work, it’s important for banks and financial advisors to ramp up content to share on Social. Some ideas include saving/budgeting tips, online banking for beginners, and saving for retirement in a recession. Build your mailing and email lists with signups for webinars, which could be as simple as a live Q&A. 

5. Bars

Teach a virtual cocktail-making class. Promote with sign-ups to collect customer information for email offers or invites to your “Grand Re-opening” party. 

6. Beauty Brands and Salons

Offer tutorials or instructions for keeping hair, nails, and skin healthy at home. Encourage gift card purchases for use at a later date, and drive consumers to your website through social advertising to boost online sales. During Q1 of 2019, 37% of beauty  buyers stated they typically found out about beauty brands or products via ads on social media, and 33% stated that recommendations or comments on social media led them to discover a new product. 

7. Book Stores

Offer virtual story time for kids and virtual book clubs for adults. Encourage signups for these events so you can use contact information at a later date for promotions, events, and offers, plus drive consumers to your website through social advertising to boost online sales

8. Breweries

Use video or virtual classes to educate your community about different beer styles or your brewing processes.  Depending on the state you’re located in, offer delivery or curbside pickup of crowlers to go. Just like with bars, be sure to promote classes with sign-ups to collect customer information for email offers or invites to your “Grand Re-opening” party. 

9. Builders/Carpenters

People are homebound, and they are no doubt evaluating their living spaces. Offer DIY videos for making organization items like bookshelves or shoe racks. When they’re ready to make big home improvements or build a new home, they’ll remember how you shared your expertise. 

10. Bed and Breakfasts

When people can get out again, they will. Right now, many may be researching options for a quick trip. Offer content on things to do in the area around your B&B and provide a way to purchase gift cards/gift certificates. Additionally, post video lessons on how to make the yummy breakfasts you serve. 

11. Car Dealerships

Post virtual tours of cars and their specs, and/or videos to show off cool new features on your latest models. Encourage people to purchase online using social media advertising. 51% of auto consumers aged 18-34 discover new automobiles on Facebook.

12. Caterers

Offer registration-only online cooking classes of dishes you can make with standard staples. Promote on Facebook to increase registrations and add those contacts to your email lists. 

13. Chiropractors

Share work from home tips like home exercises, and how to maintain good posture at your desk. 

14. Cleaning Services 

Lots of folks are looking to Spring clean while home-bound. Share tips and tricks for problem areas like grout, shower ceilings, rust stains, etc.  

15. Clothing Stores/Boutiques

Over 40% of US fashion shoppers who use social media to discover new retail fashion products and brands say that advertisements on social media help with discovery. Make sure to post your inventory on Facebook and Instagram with sizing and prices, then offer curbside pickup or delivery. Leverage Instagram Shopping so that people can buy your products directly from photos and videos. 

16. Coffee Shops

Offer to-go/drive-thru services, latte at home instruction videos, or Zoom a gathering for “open mic night.” Bitty & Beau’s of Wilmington, NC is one of the coffee shops across the country who made the choice to close its doors, yet it is offering online ordering of merchandise and ground coffees. Also super clever, Walkie Talkie, a local coffee shop in Ohio, has developed t-shirts to sell in collaboration with a local print shop and several other area businesses. The site linked lets you choose the local business to support with your t-shirt purchase.  

17. Computer/Tech Repair 

People may be skittish about bringing their computer in for service, even though remaining connected is more important now than ever before with so many working and educating from home. Offer videos to troubleshoot common problems and virtual consultations.  

18. Interior Designers

When people are stuck at home, they are bound to notice a lot of changes they would like to make. Be helpful during this time. Offer best practices for furniture rearrangement, color usage, and more. Build your email and mailing list with sign-ups for virtual design sessions.  Offer promotions for locking in future appointments now. 

19. Craft Stores

People are picking up new hobbies, and there is a craft for everyone! Offer tutorials and guides on popular crafts like embroidery, knitting, and more. As an added bonus, link the supplies for online orders. Keep the whole family entertained with “how to” kiddie crafts. Mask-making is a necessity now to help our medical workers. Offer video instructions on how to sew them and how to donate. 

20. Dance Studios

Provide online instruction for your students. Cultivate future business by posting fun dance tutorials to stay active while at home. Many students are at home now. Partner with your local school systems to drive traffic to your Facebook Page so students can use your posted dances for physical education credit. 

21. Dentists

While everyone is focused on ramping up good hygiene, remind folks that it extends to their dental care too. Post videos on proper oral hygiene that parents and teachers can show kids and health classes.

22. DJs

Have a setup at home? DJs and artists across the globe have been hosting shows and sets directly from their homes. Post a set time and where you’re streaming for people to tune in! In the US, 49% of concertgoers discover shows on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, making Facebook the top source of digital discovery. Just because you’re going virtual doesn’t mean people aren’t looking to hear from you!

23. Florists/Garden Centers

Offer videos on caring for useful plants and their purposes, growing your own gardens, and growing spices and how to incorporate them in home cooking. Offer delivery and post your inventory on your Instagram/FB stories to show off new arrivals. Pettiti’s Garden Center has created videos on how to start gardening indoors from seed, as well as posts on their new safety procedures and opportunities for delivery and curbside pickup. 

24. Furniture Stores

For a small operation, stage your inventory and post photos to your social pages. Special items should be front-and-center. If you want to stay on trend, offer curbside or contactless pickup after someone makes a purchase.

25. Galleries

For many gallerists, shows and fairs are the best way to gain exposure, gather new collectors, and interact with existing buyers. With major fairs being canceled and postponed until the fall, galleries are moving their business online. Check out Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston TX who started a blog series entitled Safe in the Studio, and will feature a new gallery artist each week and will be discounting three pieces for one week. This is both a great way to drive traffic to your website, but also gain new followers and potential collectors! 

26. Game Shop 

Highlight new games (especially educational games!) and work from home tech essentials. Offer curbside pick-up. 

27. Groomers

Hold a Pet Photo Contest and promote gift card sales. Offer curbside pickup of pet shampoos. Give DIY tips for cutting dog bangs and necessary areas until your pooch’s next appointment.  

28. Gyms

Start providing virtual classes and drive sign-ups through social. Champions Fitness Center in Cicero, NY offers videos of partner workouts fans can do with their kids. 

29. Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing, Pest Control, etc.) 

These essential services that would no doubt have to enter homes for emergencies should be sure to post safety measures they are taking to avoid the spread of Covid-19. DIY videos to troubleshoot common problems would certainly provide welcome relief for many homeowners. 

30. Lawn Care 

Offer tips to keep your lawn healthy and tips for spring cleanup. If you are still servicing customers, share what methods you’re using for online payment or pre-pay to minimize social interaction.    

31. Lawyers

Attorney-client privilege doesn’t stop with quarantine. Provided you and your clients secure networks, video consultations are a great option. 

32. Learning Centers

This is a perfect time for children to learn and grow. Help parents keep their kids busy with fun activities like coloring pages and science experiments they can do at home! Most parents are not certified educators, so we suggest offering virtual tutoring as an alternative source of income. 

33. Liquor Stores

With bars and restaurants being closed, now is a great time to encourage people to make their own signature drinks at home! Provide unique recipes and training guides to help amateurs become expert bartenders. 

34. Massage Therapists

Close-contact with clients is not an option in many states, especially where non-essential businesses have been forced to close. Promoting gift card specials is a popular option for therapy collectives. Are you a solo therapist? Posting quick and easy DIY massage techniques to your social pages, such as acupressure points, is a simple way to keep your community engaged and garner more followers. 

35. Moving and Storage

With folks at home taking the opportunity to organize, offer optimal packing tips for those cleaning attics and basements. 

36. Museums

Museum folk, you’ve got loads of content! Have an online collection? Drive people to your website. Is your catalogue or archive digitized? Have a curator give a mini-lecture on a piece of artwork or artifact. If you want to try something new, check out the Oklahoma Cowboy Museum’s new Social Media Manager. Are you following the #MuseumAtHome movement? If so, the Akron Art Museum will be providing something daily for the next several weeks for everyone in the family – they’re even launching a podcast!

37. Musicians

Online concerts or mini-sets are a great way to reach your fan base. No matter what your genre, posting a video to your Instagram or Facebook Page helps you stay top of mind. You never know when you could go viral – just look at the Colorado Symphony!

38. Nutritionists

87% of 18-34-year-old food shoppers in the US say they discover new food or recipe ideas on social platforms. Post helpful recommendations on what good, better, or best snack options those of us in quarantine should eat. If you have a knack for creating infographics, Instagram is a great place to post and gain new followers – you never know, you may get a new client!

39. Pharmacies

Local pharmacies should post drive-thru/curbside pickup or delivery options. Be sure to include hours of operation and any method of prepayment or online payment to avoid social interaction. 

40. Photographers

Showcase photo editing tips and posing tips. Austin photographer Courtney Rutherford of GypsySky Photography has been taking pictures of people – social distance maintained – to support Austin Hopes, a non-profit that ensures schoolchildren have meals on the weekends.

41. Physician Offices

Offer telemedicine evaluation sessions via Zoom and share your method for booking appointments. Be sure to share protocols if patients do have to come into the office to be seen. 

42. Professional Organizers

Now is your time. With many at home, potential clients are looking for sound advice on how to declutter. Share methods to book FaceTime or other virtual appointments to advise on spring cleaning. 

43. Psychologists/Psychiatrists

In-person office visits aren’t feasible during quarantine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get some face time through a virtual visit. Free services like Doxy are easy ways to reach your patients and keep connecting when they need it most. 

44. Real Estate

While face-to-face interactions may have decreased, now’s a good time for agents to build trust and their personal brands by offering content on home savings, home improvement, mortgage explainers, how to stage a home for sale, and virtual tours. Offer one-on-one virtual consultations to generate and identify potential leads. 

45. Restaurants

As a restaurant owner or proprietor, delivery service within 5-miles or curbside pick up is a surefire way to ensure your regular customers stay regular. If your restaurant has gift cards available, utilize your social pages to promote gift card purchases that can be utilized at a later time. An easy idea would be “buy a gift card with your meal, get a free dessert”! 

46. Retail Stores 

Drive sales with social promotions and instructions for drive-thru pickup or shipping possibilities. Be sure to highlight comfort items and clothing, and leverage Instagram Shopping so that people can buy directly from your Instagram posts. 67% of US fashion shoppers say they use Instagram for fashion-related activities. 

47. Test Prep Centers

This is the time that most students are finalizing their college plans, take advantage of that and promote any resources or virtual tutoring that your facility offers. Help students get excited!

48. Toy Stores

Offer a virtual Lego club. Request sign-ups for space on Facebook. Build an email list from these contacts to continue the club in-store once shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted. Sir Troy’s Toy Kingdom, a toy store that typically offers Lego clubs and mini-figure swap nights, is offering a Monthly Mini-figure Mailing Subscription! A great idea for folks who want to build their collection, and a great idea for Sir Troy’s to build their mailing list! 

49. Veterinarians

Share tactics for pet owners to keep their furry friends active and entertained. Offer recipes for DIY pet treats to make/bake while home.

50. All Businesses

As a general tip for all industries, use this time to create content – videos, blogs, social posts. Content will help with SEO and engagement on your social properties so you can remain top of mind not just now, but also as the world is able to carry on business as usual.  Facebook is also offering these downloadable post templates to communicate your message. Check them out now!  

Hungry for more local advertising content? Tiger Pistol’s Analissa Moreno gives a great overview of Local Advertising in a Time of Social Distancing. Check it out here. 
Looking for more local social advertising best practices?  Check out our Resource Page! 

Tips and stats contributed by Tiger Pistol’s Talia Wachtel, Katia Koerner, Analissa Moreno, Yanira Durant, Laura Kraay, Casey Zaffin, Amy Abell, and Christina Morello.  

On-Demand Webinar: Quality over Quantity – The Changing Face of 2020 Marketing

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Tiger Pistol partnered with the Incite Group and Reuters Events to share the tools and strategies of America’s biggest brands on how they are eradicating the “quantity over quality” mentality that has consumed marketing and redefined the role of the CMO. 

Throughout the webinar, you will hear how brands are quickly adapting their social advertising strategies to deliver more meaningful content to consumers during a time of crisis. 

From changes in content: 

To changes in strategy:

  • A Global Fortune 500 beverage company leveraging Tiger Pistol technology to support on- and off-premise trade customers
  • A Fortune 500 real estate services provider enabling their network of 200,000 real estate agents through Tiger Pistol to promote more relevant listing content like video and virtual open houses

You will also hear how Facebook has reinstated their role in keeping us all connected and informed in the midst of crisis:

Lastly, you’ll learn why taking a local approach to social advertising will drive better results for your brand. 

“Taking a national strategy and deploying it locally increases relevance and decreases ad costs. We’ve always known at Tiger Pistol that brands have an opportunity to see positive ROI through a global to local ad strategy. So, to all of the brand marketers out there, if you weren’t doing it before, I urge you to implement local social advertising now. Not only can you as a brand remain in the hearts and minds of your consumers, but you can also drive a positive impact for local businesses at the same time.”

– Talia Wachtel, VP Client Management, Tiger Pistol 

In the on-demand webinar recording below, you’ll hear from: 

  • Tim Rickards, Marketing Director, Acquisition & Engagement, Charles Schwab
  • Heidi Gracie, Executive Director, Strategic Marketing and Communications, Arizona State University
  • Talia Wachtel, VP Client Management, Tiger Pistol
  • Nicholas Zeisler, Principal, Zeisler Consulting

Watch the on-demand webinar now.

Ready to learn more? Have a question for Talia? Contact us today!