Tag Archive for: Marketing

The Top Brands On Twitter Are Tweeting 12 Times a Day

, ,
Source: Shawn Campbell

Source: Shawn Campbell

It is no secret that nearly every big brand is on Twitter these days, and plenty of smaller businesses are learning to take advantage of the platform every day. But, there are plenty of ways you can mess up when trying to connect with your audience on one of the largest social media platforms around. As a new study on how top brands use Twitter shows, the biggest mistake you can make is simply neglecting your account.

The study from social media analytics firm Simply Measured showed that 92 percent of brands are tweeting an average of 12 times a day, and 98 percent of the top brands in today’s market are regularly active on Twitter.

In fact, consumers seem to be downright eager to follow brands on Twitter, as audiences for the top brands have grew by 20 percent in the last quarter of 2013. Over half of the brands have more than 100,000 followers each.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how often you tweet if you aren’t sharing things that excite the community and encourage engagement. As Marketing Land notes, the tweets with photos or links are more likely to receive activity than the traditional 140 character updates. But, it might be a surprise to see just how much better they perform. Simply Measured says tweets with photos or links see 150 percent more engagement than the brand averages.

Twitter-Links-Types-That-Generate-Engagements-Simply-Measured-600x330

Images see even more engagement than links by a large amount, with an average of 210 engagements per tweet. That absolutely dwarfs the 27 engagements on average for a bit.ly link.

You can download the full report from Simply Measured’s website.

/0 Comments

Facebook Says They Aren’t Targeting Memes, Instead They Judge Quality By The Source

, , ,

Facebook MemeWhen the news broke of Facebook’s updates to their News Feed, advertisers everywhere scrambled to analyze the changes. Well, it appears we got it a bit wrong. One of the most reported elements of the updates aimed at “rewarding high-quality content” focused on the supposed removal of memes from user feeds, but it doesn’t appear that is actually the case.

Facebook really is revamping how they judge the quality of the content they deliver to users, but Facebook’s News Feed Manager Lars Backman gave some insight to the changes and denies there is an attack on memes during a recent interview with AllThingsD. Instead, Backman says it is a broader effort “to provide user value” in the News Feed.

The most interesting aspect of the interview actually says Facebook isn’t differentiating different forms of content for the most part. As Backman told Peter Kafka:

Are you paying attention to the source of the content? Or is it solely the type of content?

Right now, it’s mostly oriented around the source. As we refine our approaches, we’ll start distinguishing more and more between different types of content. But, for right now, when we think about how we identify “high quality,” it’s mostly at the source level.

So something that comes from publisher X, you might consider high quality, and if it comes from publisher Y, it’s low quality?

Yes.

However, while this sums up Facebook’s approach overall, Backman did say there is a specific type of content they are trying to do away with, but it isn’t memes. Instead, Facebook is attacking the types of content that blatantly begs for likes or shares, such as Like this if you are having a good day!

So, when the text or photo has a call to action, those posts naturally do much better. And in a traditional feed ranking, where we’re evaluating just on the number of likes, those things all did very well.

In a way, Facebook is simply leveling the playing field, because those types of content offered very little to users aside from surface level interaction, but they were consistently doing very well on likes and shares which were making them more visible. However, if your user base responds well to the average meme, you shouldn’t be afraid to use them as a part of your content.

/0 Comments

Bing Ads Lists The Most Searched For Ad Campaigns and Brands of 2013

, ,

OldSpice BabyEvery brand wants their commercials to go viral, but how do you connect with viewers on the internet? It might seem like common knowledge, but the best way to get users searching for your commercial is comedy. At least, according to Bing Ads’ list of most searched for ad campaigns it is.

Just as with their recent list of 2013 search trends, Bing Ads has put together the most searched for ad campaigns of the last year, as well as the most popular brand searches on Bing in 2013. Perhaps unsurprisingly Old Spice took top billing with its “Baby” as starring Terry Crews, as well as their more surreal “Watermelon” ad, viewable below.

http://youtu.be/hfiiWGWhB9g

Despite mostly dominating the top 10, humor wasn’t the only thing internet viewers looked for in commercials. The third most popular commercial was from Skype’s “Stay Together” campaign, and GoPro’s “Fireman Saves Kitten” also closed out the list. Notably, two of the ads – Chrysler Ram Truck’s ad and GoDaddy’s “The Kiss” – originally appeared during this year’s Super Bowl.

Bing Ad’s Most Searched Advertising Campaigns of 2013

  1. ‘Baby’ and ‘Watermelon’ – OldSpice
  2. Baby & Me – Evian
  3. Stay Together – Skype
  4. Show Your Joe – Kmart
  5. Hump Day – Geico
  6. The Kiss: Bar Rafaeli’s Perfect Match! – GoDaddy
  7. ‘Grandma’ and ‘Werewolf’ – AT&T
  8. Test Drive – Pepsi MAX
  9. The Year of the Farmer – Chrysler Ram Truck
  10. Fireman Saves Kitten – GoPro

Bing didn’t stop with just the most popular ad campaigns though. They also collected the most searched for brands of the year, organized by their market. Ebay was the most popular shopping network, followed by Amazon, while Ford came out the winner for automobiles. You can see the rest below:

Most Searched For Brands 2013

/0 Comments

Survey Says Online Shoppers Are Looking For Well-Known Brands

, ,

The holiday shopping season is currently at a fever pitch, where it will likely stay until Dec. 26th, and more and more consumers are using the internet to aid their purchases. Online shopping isn’t new, but the prevalence of smartphones has made it easier than ever to turn to the internet to find what you need and shoppers aren’t shy about consulting the web before any purchase.

But, how does this affect shopping patterns and what are these consumers looking for exactly? If your brand is online, chances are you want to capitalize on the huge amount of online shoppers both at home and those using their smartphones while they shop. Unfortunately, a new survey from Search Engine Land and SurveyMonkey suggests this may be harder for smaller brands to do than anticipated.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that many online shoppers are looking for well known brands, but it might raise your eyebrows to learn it is the most important factor to many shoppers. The survey conducted on November 21-22 of this year shows that 70% of shoppers are focused on finding brands they are already familiar with. The only other factor which received over 50% of the response was free shopping.

The good news is this doesn’t spell the end for local businesses trying to grow their brand during the commerce season. Location and reviews still made a strong showing in the results, as did sales. Many shoppers also focused on retailers who offer images and easily viewable prices for their products.

Smaller brands can also take some solace in knowing the survey was limited to a relatively small sample size of roughly 400 Americans using SurveyMonkey Audience. You can see a chart of the results below.

Online Shopping Survey Graphic

Source: Search Engine Land / SurveyMonkey

/0 Comments

Bing Reveals The Most Searched Terms for 2013

, ,
Beyonce in Montreal 2013

Source: WikiCommons

It’s that time of year yet again! Time for all the lists reflecting and analyzing the past year! This year Bing is one of the first sites to begin looking back at the past year, as it has released its most popular searches for 2013 lists. If you want to know who the most searched for sports stars, entertainment systems, or public personalities are, Bing has got you covered.

The big stand out this year is Beyoncé who topped two lists, winning the No. 1 position for most searched person of 2013 as well as the most searched musician. As usual, females dominated the list for most searched person, with the top five spots all going to women. The only men to make it onto the list were Justin Bieber (6) and President Barack Obama (10).

The more interesting information for marketers comes from the lists for the most searched for social media sites, most searched streaming sites, and the most searched entertainment electronics.

Facebook still has a strong grasp on the top spot on the most searched social media sites, but Pinterest has raised its profile considerably this year, making its debut on the Bing list in second place. The rest is as you would expect, with Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram rounding out the top five. For social media marketers, this gives insight to where you should focus your energy, but remember that your marketing approach should always cater to the social platform you are engaging.

It is also notable that while the new iPhone has faced significant public criticism, it still came in second on the list for most searched entertainment electronics, falling behind the Xbox. Android was close behind, coming in third.

There are many more lists from Bing to look through, including the most searched for memes, foods, and travel destinations of the past year. While some of the lists are more anecdotally interesting than useful, you are sure to gain some insight into the public’s concerns and needs.

/0 Comments

What Does Facebook’s New Meme Policy Mean For Marketers?

, , ,

No More MemesYesterday Facebook announced some pretty major changed to their News Feed. Specifically, clicking an article may not show up to three related articles, and new comments on a story you’ve already seen can “bump” that story back into your feed as it is made relevant again. Lastly, they are going to begin policing the “meme” content to an extent, especially on mobile.

While the first two changes have received significantly more attention by marketers, the new meme policy will likely have the biggest immediate impact for companies still using the image marketing practices widely preached just a year ago.

Image marketing on Facebook refers to the practice of sharing content by posting a picture with a link in the comment, rather than using the more standard link post. This lead to many marketers using lighthearted and sometimes confusing memes while underhandedly also sharing their content. This type of practice has been slowly being dismantled for the past few months, ever since Facebook changed how prominently Link posts were shown in the News Feed. Before that update, image posts were shown with much more prominent display size, so it was a ripe target for abuse.

Now that Facebook is targeting memes it is pretty clear that the old image marketing practices are outdated and it makes more sense to simply follow the more common link marketing practices. Not only is it a more honest approach to serving content to your visitors, but Facebook is going to show you favor.

As Greg Finn from Marketing Land explains, Facebook has gone “all in” regarding turning their social media platform into a more focused news source. A recent study has shown that 1 out of 3 Americans now use Facebook as a news source, and Facebook seems determined to put a heavy emphasis on that mode of usage for their site. Looking forward, the only way to stay ahead of their changes is to focus on delivering your audience the best quality content you can create.

/0 Comments

Google Finally Lets You Undo Changes In AdWords

, ,

Maybe Google really is listening. At long last, they have finally added one of the most requested features for AdWords by implementing the simple “Undo” function. It is exactly what it sounds like, basically backing up settings for all aspects of your account and keeping track of the changes you made. If you click the button, your campaign will return to the state it was at the specified time.

The most obvious benefit of the new feature is that it will make testing in your campaigns easier. If your newest test results in a lower click through rate (CTR) or cost per action (CPA), all you have to do is undo the changes with a single click.

“The ability to undo changes in AdWords will be a valuable feature to advertisers,” Lisa Raehsler of Big Click Co. told Search Engine Watch. “Sometimes changes will have a different impact on an account than what was intended. Simply using ‘undo’ will save time and ultimately money.

“But remember that account edits influence one another,” Raehsler said. “Some optimization edits are interdependent, so a change on Monday may have forced another change on Thursday. Now the ‘undo’ button is something to consider as a change in and of itself.”

There are still some kinks to be worked out, as it currently doesn’t appear that all changes are being documented, and it is unclear whether multiple changes are being grouped into a single undo.

For business owners this means you can more easily control and target your advertising campaigns. You don’t have to undo your changes by hand any longer, which saves you time to invest in other more important tasks.

The “Undo” feature isn’t live for everyone yet, so it may just be an experiment Google is running. But, hopefully they decide to work out the bugs and make it a universal feature. We have certainly been asking for it long enough.

/0 Comments

Google Starts Testing New AdSense Front Page Layout

, , ,

The gradual remodeling going on over at Google has made its way to AdSense. After subtly redoing their homepage and their logo, as well as those for select other Google products, the search engine is testing a new home page design for the AdSense publisher console.

The new design can be seen immediately by logging into google.com/adsense. You will be presented with an option to try out the design or continue using the older style for the moment. They also clarify that you can return to the original home page if you decide you aren’t enjoying the new layout, which intends to help you “focus on key day-to-day information.”

This is what you will see when you login:

AdSense Layout Prompt

Here is a screenshot of the new layout:

AdSense Layout Screenshot

/0 Comments

Widespread Reports of CTR Dropping in Google AdSense

, , , ,

Google AdSenseIt seems something odd is happening over at Google AdSense. While there is always a pretty much constant stream of complaints coming in about drops in CTRs (click through rates), they are usually isolated cases. Most often, an individual is simply experiencing a problem and their issues are easily resolved.

But, over the past week there has been an unusually large number of people complaining at both the Google AdSense Help and WebmasterWorld forums that their CTR have declined significantly in the past weeks. As Barry Schwartz noticed, not only is the number of threads enough to raise an eye, but there are some who are saying this is having a big impact on their earnings. Clearly something is afoot.

Some quotes from commenters include:

My blog traffic still increasing but adsense earnings dropped from three days. I have a message from adsense help as “Your earnings were 76% below our forecast”.

and

At the risk of getting screamed at for asking this question (yet again). My ctr went down the last 3 days (Sunday,Monday, Today) a whopping 75%!

Not everyone is experiencing the drop in CTR (Schwartz himself has seen an increase), but this appears to be a widespread enough issue to cause some alarm. The world isn’t ending, but you should probably check out your own CTR to make sure everything is alright.

/0 Comments

The Best Metrics For Successful Marketing

, , ,

Metrics are an essential part of every online marketer’s life. They are an absolute necessity for knowing exactly how your campaigns are performing and how you can best make improvements. It may be of some surprise however that these metrics can be broken down and separated into four basic lifestyle stages of marketing: attracting, engaging, converting, and renewing. Everyone has their preferences, but Noran El-Shinnawy has some suggestions for the best metrics for each stage in your process.

Stage 1: Attract

  • Impressions

In the first stage, it is best to simply let yourself be guided by a set of three questions, metrics aren’t necessarily as important as ensuring your are communicating the right message to your audience. If you can say yes to the following three questions, you’re on the right track.

  • Is this the right message?
  • Is this the right audience?
  • Is this the right time?

For PPC, getting these three questions right relates to how you are handling techniques like keyword choice, targeting, and bidding.

Stage 2: Engage

  • Clicks
  • CTR

Creating the ads is the fun part of marketing. You get to be creative and finally engaging your creative side of your brain is a welcome relief from data and graphs. The metrics will help you measure how others are relating to your copy, but you can also check out these five tips for writing better ads.

Stage 3: Convert

  • Conversion
  • Cost
  • Cost Per Conversion
  • Conversion Rate
  • Revenue Per Conversion
  • ROI
  • Average Position
  • Average
  • CPC

Most often we find ourselves thinking about ROI purely in terms of dollars and sales. But, not every business benefits from that model. For others, ROI could be better informed by being associated with the value of page views, leads generated, and other such considerations.

Start out by installing a conversion tracking and analytics tools. This will open your eyes to the other possibilities for determining your ROI, while keeping you in-tune with the important numbers like total revenue and advertising cost. If you invest in your metrics, you can make smarter bidding decisions, and keep your focus on the most profitable ads for you.

Stage 4: Renew

  • Returning Visitors
  • Returning Visitors Revenue

The end phase is where you make improvements and complete the cycle. After the third phase, visitors have two options. They can convert, or they can choose to not convert. In both cases, there is valuable information to be gathered.

If they didn’t convert, investigate and find out what kept them from converting. You can go after them with targeted remarketing campaigns, or you can analyze their path to determine why they weren’t convinced to convert. Was there a technical problem on your site?

Did they not find your products or services compelling? Were your prices too high? Finding out these answers tells you what you need to do in the future.

/0 Comments