Twitter Creates New Short Video Ad Option

, , , ,

Twitter is launching a new video ad option which allows advertisers to create and run short video ads (under 15 seconds) and only be charged if the ad is viewed for at least six seconds. 

The company describes the new ad unit as a “flexible option for advertisers who care about the completed view metric, but are ready to lean into the mobile-first paradigm and develop short-form assets optimized for in-feed viewing.”

What You Should Know

The new ads are similar to YouTube’s short bumper ads which typically run before pieces of content or as an ad-break during videos. As such, the ad is believed to be highly effective for driving high view rates.

For example, Alice Oliveira, the CSB Brazil marketing director for Dell, says “this six-second video ad solution, paired with compelling creative, increased our view rate by over 22%.”

Oliveira and Dell were one of the select few given early access to the ad bid option. 

Last Notes

  • The new video ad option began rolling out on Monday and is expected to be live by the end of the week. 
  • It is available for Promoted Video, In-Stream Video Sponsorships, and In-Stream Video Ads that are 15-seconds long or less.
  • Instagram considers a video to be viewable if at least 50% of its pixels are on-screen.
/0 Comments/by

Snapchat Launches New ‘Instant’ Ad Creation Tool

, , ,

Snapchat is launching a new advertising tool, called Instant Create, which promises to do all the heavy lifting of creating a Snapchat-optimized ad for you.

With the tool, you can create ads that can be published across the platform in just three steps:

  • Select an objective, such as web visits, app installs, or app visits
  • Enter your business website
  • Target your audience

From there all you have to do is review and publish your ad!

At the same time, Spachat has introduced an “Advanced Create” option which is intended to help generate multiple ad sets at a time. 

What Do The Ads Look Like?

As most of the process is automated, you may have some concerns about how your ad can be unique for your brand. 

With Instant Create, you can choose to upload your own images for your ad and work with the platform’s most popular ad template. Or, you can simply input your company’s website URL and the tool can pull photos directly from your website to fill your ad with. 

While the tool makes it easier than ever for brands with limited means to explore the idea of Snapchat advertising, brands with more experience advertising on social media will likely prefer the less restricted traditional ad creation tools.

/0 Comments/by

Facebook Changes Image Sizes and Text Lengths in Mobile News Feeds

, , ,

Facebook is changing how videos and photos appear on mobile devices, with new aspect ratios for visual posts and less accompanying text in the mobile news feed. 

This means you’ll have to make some changes when optimizing for Facebook’s mobile news feed if you want everything to appear properly in your posts.

What’s Changing

In the past, images on Facebook were optimized for a taller 2:3 aspect ratio to a more square 4:5 aspect ratio. 

Anything taller than that will be cropped out in preview images within the news feed, only actually viewable to those who tap to see the full image. 

At the same time, the platform is reducing the lines of text accompanying these posts – going from 7 lines of text to just 3 lines. 

Anything longer than that will be hidden behind a prompt to show additional text. 

Both of these changes will be put into effect starting on August 19th, giving you a few weeks to make adjustments to your upcoming posts. 

According to a spokesperson from the company, the tweaks are “designed to simplify our formats and improve the consistency of our mobile experience.”

In turn, the company says the new post format will increase the impact of mobile ads and make it easier to use the same content across both Facebook and Instagram.

/0 Comments/by

4 Ways to Start Growing Your Brand on LinkedIn Today

, , ,

When it comes to growing your business on social media, everyone automatically starts thinking about Facebook. That’s great if you have a brand which suits that platform, like a clothing brand, athletic equipment company, or content publishing website. 

For B2B companies, though, it may not be the most useful. 

In fact, you might be better served by another platform entirely: LinkedIn.

Despite its reputation as an “online resume site”, LinkedIn has proven itself as a powerful platform for connecting businesses, finding leads, and increasing sales. 

It is so powerful that one study found that 92% of B2B marketers agree that LinkedIn is the best place to win leads and 64% of corporate website visits come from the platform. 

If this has got you intrigued, I want to share a few quick tips you can use to start improving your LinkedIn presence today:

1) Your Personal Profile is as Important as Your Business Profile

This one might seem a little odd to those coming from other social networks like Twitter or Facebook. 

On those sites, you can typically keep your personal profile completely separate from your professional pages without any issue. 

On LinkedIn, you are expected to interact as a representative of your current company. As such, it is important for you to put just as much, if not more, effort into maintaining your personal profile compared to your company’s profile. 

2) Share Content

If you want to engage with the community on LinkedIn and make a name for yourself, you have to start speaking their language. Coincidentally, the language of LinkedIn is content. 

Passionate business owners and representatives use the site to talk about their experiences, share tips, and otherwise “talk shop”. 

If you want to stick out, you have to start sharing your own tips and information, commenting on theirs with your own thoughts, and start being a part of the conversation. 

3) Follow Up With Real-World Connections

How often do you meet someone who seems like a great prospect, exchange business cards, and then let that person disappear into the ether – never to be heard from again? 

Whether it’s a guest at a networking event you recently attended, a friend-of-a-friend, or a prospect you spoke to the other day, there is always a good chance you can find them on LinkedIn. 

This will not only give you the ability to touch base with a prospect you let fall away not too long ago, but it will help you constantly prove your value to potential customers until they eventually need you. 

Make a practice to connect with any professional acquaintances you make to keep in touch with them and keep your brand in their mind. 

4) Join or Start Groups

Another great way to get in on the discussion with other people interested in your industry is with LinkedIn Groups. 

This is where people have a more focused conversation, asking for help with problems or sharing the latest news in your market. There are tons of groups out there for you to join in with pre-established audiences of other professionals in your industry, or you can always choose to start your own group and really position yourself as an authority. 

LinkedIn has grown a long way from the small little resume listing site it may have started as. These days, it is a central hub for both businesses and professionals from all industries around the world to connect and establish their reputation. Most importantly, it has also shown that it can be a reliable source of leads and revenue.

/0 Comments/by

Pinterest Launches New Video Tools For Businesses

, , , ,

Pinterest has launched several new features aimed at making it easier for businesses to share and manage their videos on the platform. 

Businesses now have access to a new video upload tool which simplifies the upload process, a new tab within their profile solely dedicated to videos, and a new analytics tool which gives a long-term view of how your videos are performing. 

On top of all of this, Pinterest has also expanded its Pin Scheduler tool to allow businesses to schedule posting video content in advance. 

The Big Picture

While these new tools signal Pinterest’s devotion to improving its video offerings, it also signals a larger shift for the company. 

Pinterest has typically lagged behind other social networks when it comes to tools or features aimed at businesses. Over the last year, however, the company has paid significantly more attention to these areas by expanding its advertising tools, launching new e-commerce features, and, now, making video content more feasible. 

In the announcement of the new features, CEO and founder of Tastemade, Larry Fitzgibbon echoed this sentiment and expressed just how effective sharing videos on the platform can be:

“As early adopters to video on Pinterest, Tastemade has successfully driven over one billion video views and 200 million engagements year-to-date, while growing our following 100% year-over-year,” said Tastemade CEO and Founder Larry Fitzgibbon, “It’s clear that Pinterest users are hungry for videos that are both entertaining and actionable.”

Pinterest also says that videos on the site outperform videos on other social networks because their platform is more likely to resurface content over time.

/0 Comments/by

Facebook Updates How It Ranks Comments

, , , ,

Facebook is making some changes to how it handles comments in its algorithm to better promote real discussion.

Everyone knows that Facebook uses an algorithm to help sort which posts get shown to users, but you may not be aware that the social network uses a similar system to help rank comments.

With the new update, the company says it will do a better job or highlighting comments with specific “positive” quality signals, while demoting low-quality comments.

Comment Quality Signals

According to the new announcement, Facebook will be using four types of signals to analyze comments:

  1. Integrity Signals
  2. User Indicated Preferences
  3. User Interaction Signals
  4. Moderation Signals

Integrity Signals

Facebook’s “Integrity Signals” are designed to assess the authenticity of comments. Specifically, it will be looking to see if comments violate community standards or qualify as “engagement-bait”

Engagement Bait is a practice which involves either explicitly encouraging users to react, like, share, subscribe, or take any other form of action in exchange for something else. This can even be something as innocuous as asking followers to do push-ups.

User Indicated Preferences

User Indicated Preferences are established through Facebook’s direct polling of users. By doing this, the social network is able to directly ask users what they want to see in comments and what they think promotes real discussion.

User Interaction Signals

These are pretty self-obvious. User Interaction Signals are indications whether a user has interacted with a post.

Moderation Signals

Moderation Signals are based on whether other users choose to hide or delete comments made on their post. Facebook explains this practice in a bit more detail, saying:

“People can moderate the comments on their post by hiding, deleting, or engaging with comments.

Ranking is on by default for Pages and people with a a lot of followers, but Pages and people with a lot of followers can choose to turn off comment ranking.

People who don’t have as many followers will not have comment ranking turned on automatically since there are less comments overall, but any person can decide to enable comment ranking by going to their settings.”

Why Facebook Ranks Comments

As with Facebook’s post ranking algorithms, the primary goal of Facebook’s new comment algorithm update is to promote the best quality content within people’s feeds while hiding spammy or low-quality content. As the company says in its announcement:

“To improve relevance and quality, we’ll start showing comments on public posts more prominently when:

  • The comments have interactions from the Page or person who originally posted; or

  • The comments or reactions are from friends of the person who posted.”

You can read the full announcement from Facebook here.

/0 Comments/by

LinkedIn begins showing all your ads from the last 6 months in one place

, , ,

LinkedIn will begin showing all the sponsored content an advertiser has run within the past six months in an “Ads” tab on the associated LinkedIn pages.

The company announced the change this week as part of an effort to bring more transparency to advertising across the platform:

“At LinkedIn, we are committed to providing a safe, trusted, and professional environment where members can connect with each other, engage with relevant content, and grow their careers. Increased transparency to both our customers and members is critical to creating this trusted environment.”

When viewing an advertiser’s page, users will be able to click the “Ads” tab to view every ad that company has run in the past six months.

Users can also click on the ads as they typically would, but the advertiser will not be charged, nor will it impact campaign reporting.

Obviously, the tab won’t include any of the information behind the ads, like who they targeted or the budget for that campaign.

In my eyes, this seems like a reason to ensure your LinkedIn advertising is consistently high-quality, with the upside that high-performing ads have a chance to lead to sales without having to pay for those ad clicks.

/0 Comments/by

Half of Small Businesses Have No Marketing Plan

, ,

A new study focusing on small businesses in the US reveals that a huge number of small brands are working without any sort of plan for their marketing.

The survey from Outbound Engine asked 350 small and medium business (SMB) owners about a number of areas, including revenue growth, stress, their biggest hurdles, their marketing strategies, and more.

Of the business owners surveyed, approximately half of all SMB owners do not have a marketing plan for 2019 and are unlikely to create one.

Small Business Marketing Struggles

The lack of marketing plans in the survey is largely attributed to an increase in small businesses being overwhelmed or working with limited budgets.

According to the report, 62% of SMB owners say they are as or more stressed about their business this year compared to last.

Further, the study finds that:

  • 25% of SMB owners surveyed are unsure of how they plan to grow their business in 2019.
  • More than half (55%) of SMB owners spend less than 5% of annual revenue on marketing.
  • More than 58% of SMB owners spend five or fewer hours on marketing each week.
  • 86% of respondents say they prefer to spend their time on other business activities rather than marketing.

Small Changes Lead to Big Rewards

While the study shows that many businesses feel lost or unable to focus on their marketing, it also reveals that investing just a little more time or money can pay dividends and reduce business stress.

According to responses about last year performance, small increases in marketing investment led to more revenue growth for SMBs in 2018. Additionally, spending just 5% more time on marketing was tied to increased revenue growth.

This is reflected in the finding that 81% of respondents who invested between 5% and 10% of annual revenue into their marketing reported revenue growth in 2018. Meanwhile, only 50% of respondents who invested less than 5% of revenue into marketing saw growth.

The full report is available in PDF form here.

/0 Comments/by

Facebook Introduces Three New Ranking Factors For Videos

, ,

Facebook is making big changes to how it ranks and shows videos in the news feed and “More Videos” section of its platform with three new ranking factors for videos. 

While the changes shouldn’t impact the number of videos Facebook is showing overall, the company says it is hoping to better prioritize original videos and content that people are actively looking for.

New Ranking Factors For Facebook Videos

To better sort and rank videos, Facebook is implementing three new ranking factors for videos on its platform:

  • Loyalty and Intent – Facebook will begin boosting the ranking signals of videos that people return to and view repeatedly.
  • Video and viewing duration – Facebook will begin to prioritize videos that keep users engaged for longer periods of times. This will look at both how long a video is (with videos over 3 minutes long receiving the biggest boost) and how long viewers have watched the video on average.
  • Originality – In an effort to cut down on the presence of repurposed or stolen content, Facebook will begin to strongly limit the reach and monetization for unoriginal videos.

In the announcement, the company stressed that while the changes may hurt those copying content or stealing videos, Pages creating original high-quality content should only see positive effects:

“While there are numerous factors that determine video distribution on Facebook, these changes will benefit video distribution for Pages that create original content people want to watch and come back to.”

/0 Comments/by

The Complete Guide To Marketing Your Brand on LinkedIn [Infographic]

, , ,

LinkedIn isn’t like most social media platforms out there. You can’t just transfer the same strategies and types of content you post on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter over to LinkedIn and expect people to be interested.

This is because people don’t use the platform the same way they use other social networks. Obviously, they approach the platform with a more professional, reserved presence that speaks more to their career goals and market knowledge than personal photos from vacations or the latest memes.

Still, LinkedIn can be an incredible tool for growing your business, whether you are in a B2B industry or primarily provide services or products to consumers. The key is knowing how to change up your typical social media strategies for the new platform.

Thankfully, Leisure Jobs has created a detailed cheat sheet which breaks down everything you could need to know about how to do LinkedIn right. It includes every area you could imagine, including personal profile construction, business listing strategies, some quick secrets to standing out from others on the platform, and much, much more.

You can see the infographic below, or check it out here for the high-resolution version.

/0 Comments/by