Tag Archive for: Social Media Marketing

Facebook May Start Hosting Content On Their Site, Could Be Bad News For Content Marketers

, , , ,

Facebook has long been the favorite social media platform for sharing content, but if a report from the New York Times is any indication content creators may soon be looking for a new platform to share their content while still attracting users to their own websites.

According to the report, Facebook may be considering hosting linked content directly on its own site, and serving ads on that content, rather than linking directly to content creators’ sites. Not only does this mean a drop in traffic from Facebook users, the change could outright cause the site owners to lose revenue from declining traffic and ads on their own site.

The change is supposedly going to be limited to mobile devices, but it has already stirred up quite a controversy with content creators and marketers.

Facebook seems to believe the change could be more convenient to users, but those who create content see it more closely in line with content syndication or even content theft. No matter the convenience to users, many content creators depend on revenue from page views and ads which would be significantly impacted if Facebook does end up hosting content.

In the wake of the controversy, Facebook has even opened a discussion on the possibility of sharing revenue to websites that own the content being hosted. In the New York Times article, Facebook explained its profit sharing proposal:

Facebook hopes it has a fix for all that. The company has been on something of a listening tour with publishers, discussing better ways to collaborate. The social network has been eager to help publishers do a better job of servicing readers in the News Feed, including improving their approach to mobile in a variety of ways. One possibility it mentioned was for publishers to simply send pages to Facebook that would live inside the social network’s mobile app and be hosted by its servers; that way, they would load quickly with ads that Facebook sells. The revenue would be shared.

That kind of wholesale transfer of content sends a cold, dark chill down the collective spine of publishers, both traditional and digital insurgents alike. If Facebook’s mobile app hosted publishers’ pages, the relationship with customers, most of the data about what they did and the reading experience would all belong to the platform. Media companies would essentially be serfs in a kingdom that Facebook owns.

The real question appears to be if there will be an opt-out option available. There has been no mention of an opt-out or the potential for the hosting of content to be optional. Even if it is up to the publisher, the change could still negatively impact content creators who choose to host their own content on their page, as content which is hosted on the social platform is likely to look more attractive and convenient.

/0 Comments

Snapchat’s First Paid Ad Appears To Have Been a Success

, , , ,

Snapchat, the popular social image sharing app, recently ran the first ad on their platform since its inception. If Universal Pictures, the movie studio who bought the ad, is to be believed, the results are already showing the advertising exercise was a great success.

It is hard to tell how the format will work for smaller brands, but Universal vice president of digital marketing Doug Neil said “millions” of viewers have seen the 20-second trailer for the horror movie “Ouija”.

However there has been some fallout from the ad tests, especially on Twitter. Some users were surprised by the ads or confused by their disappearance after playing. For big marketing ventures like “Ouija” this isn’t much of a problem, especially as the platform perfectly attracts their demographic, but it could be an issue with more niche or localized brands if Snapchat ever expands the ad platform.

Snapchat’s ad medium does offer one unique benefit from the plethora of other monetizing social media platforms. While Facebook’s videos autoplay for anyone who happens to scroll by, Snapchat’s ads have an incredibly wide reach while only playing for those who actively engage the ads. While a huge range of people were shown the ad’s presence, only those who wanted to view it actually watched.

“It was a lean-in experience,” Neil said. “The people who watched the ad were ones that pressed to play so they were focused on actually viewing the content. As it turns out there were a number of people who screen captured it and it’s actually moved beyond the Snapchat window. But our goal was to get exposure in Snapchat and that was accomplished.”

/0 Comments

Untargeted, Disappearing Ads Will Be Coming To Snapchat “Soon”

, , ,

SnapchatLogoSnapchat has quickly become one of most popular apps and certainly the most popular temporary photo and video sharing network, but thus far they have yet to find a way to monetize their service. CEO Evan Spiegel says that will change very soon, as untargeted, disappearing ads may begin showing up in the near future.

The ads will appear directly within the Snapchat Stories section, between photos and videos from users, but most importantly for marketers they will not be targeted individually. “They’re [the ads] not fancy. You just look at it if you want to look at it, and you don’t if you don’t,” Spiegel told the Wall Street Journal. He also said there is not a set release time yet, but they would be here “soon.”

The decision to make the ads untargeted is fairly surprising as most would agree the ability to refine demographic and behavioral traits to target audiences is one of the most unique and powerful aspects of social advertising.

You can find out more in the piece from the Wall Street Journal.

/0 Comments

Are You Optimizing For Pinterest?

, , , ,

SEO and social media marketing have been interconnected for several years, but they are also typically treated like separate efforts that influence and benefit from each other rather than being entirely coupled. That is why one of the most neglected features of Pinterest is Guided Search.

It is no secret that Pinterest is quickly becoming an upper tier player in social media and marketing because it touches on our aspirations and desires. To paraphrase Tailwind CEO Daniel Maloney during SMX East this week, Pinterest is about who you want to be.

Pinterest_Sticker_Icon1“When you look at what people are pinning, it’s more about who they want to be in the future,” Maloney said, “which from a marketer’s perspective is a dream come true.”

That made the social media platform ripe for harvest then when they introduced Guided Search early this year, but surprisingly few marketers took advantage of the opportunity to optimize their presence on the site.

Was Guided Search forgotten because it wasn’t high enough on the list of marketing priorities or because it slipped through a crack directly on the line between SEO and social media marketing? It is hard to tell, but Anna Majkowska, a software manager on Pinterest’s search team, has been encouraging brands to optimize for the platform so that they are able to get their content in front of the more than 50 million users who frequent the site.

Majkowska shared tips for optimizing your site on Search Engine Land, but the important thing is to not be intimidated. Pinterest SEO isn’t near as complicated as trying to optimize for Google, so the learning curve is notably less steep.

/0 Comments

Survey Says Small Businesses Choose Facebook For Social Media Marketing

, , , ,

Facebook-for-Small-BusinessIf you believe everything you read online, you might believe Facebook is only a viable marketing platform if you’re already a big brand. But, a new report suggests small businesses across the country recognize the potential in advertising themselves across the site.

The study from advertising research firm BIA/Kelsey says small businesses are marketing on social media more than any other form of advertising. Specifically, their data suggests nearly three-fourths of all small and medium-size businesses are investing in some form of social media marketing, whether it be paid advertising or organic outreach.

For small businesses, Facebook was easily the most popular choice for social media marketing. More than 55 percent of the businesses surveyed reported having a dedicated business Facebook page, and another 20 percent have run a Facebook ad or promoted post.

Many businesses showed that social media marketing doesn’t have to be restricted to just one platform, as several businesses also cited using other sites including LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Notably, the researchers did say LinkedIn is likely not being used for promotion but for recruiting and general HR purposes.

“We were impressed with the strength of the whole social media category, not just Facebook,” Steve Marshall, director of research for BIA/Kelsey, said in a statement.

The study, originally published on Business News Daily, was based on surveys of 546 small businesses with less than 100 employees.

/0 Comments

Reports Say Facebook Will Launch a New Advertising Platform Soon

, , , ,

facebookadvertising

For many advertising platforms, the rising use of mobile devices to browse the internet has been both a boon and a relief.

While the greater number of people accessing the internet on-the-go means advertisers have a better chance of connecting with potential customers close to the point of sale, but it has also created a schism where online advertising is either mobile or desktop based.

Some advertising platforms such as Google have been able to unify their platforms in many ways, but other services are still struggling to come together. Soon however, Facebook will be making big moves to bring their advertising into a cohesive platform.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is closing in on the launch of an entirely new advertising platform which will allow marketers to more effectively reach target audiences across the plethora of different devices used to surf the web today.

The new platform is rumored to be a reworked adaptation of the Atlas Advertising Suite, an ad-serving platform purchased from Microsoft last year, and will supposedly be rebranded to just ‘Atlas’.

Beyond just improving ad targeting across devices, Atlas will also supposedly be able to help marketers see which ads are being viewed and which are drawing clicks or influencing purchasing decisions.

Current reports say Atlas will work by collecting data from Facebook and other third-party applications and services that serve Facebook ads. It will also come equipped with an automated ad-bidding tool which will facilitate the ability to buy targeted advertising space.

The Wall Street Journal cites an unnamed executive who claims to know Facebook’s plans as their source. The executive is quoted as saying:

The biggest impact of this will be in mobile. People spend more time on mobile than on desktop, but marketers don’t spend there because cookies don’t work. This could finally enable us to spend more money in mobile.

/0 Comments

YouTube Crowned The Most Effective Paid Advertising Social Media Platform

, , , , ,

YouTubesYou might assume that the largest social media platform would have the most effective paid advertising platform, but Facebook’s platform doesn’t hold the title according to a report from VentureBeat.

According to the report based on a study by AoL Platforms, YouTube is actually the champion of paid social media advertising platforms in more than a few key areas, including introducing new products to customers, and helping consumers make purchasing decisions.

The report examined data found within 500 million clicks and 15 million conversions during the first quarter of 2014, using Convertro’s attribution technology to track social purchase interactions. This data was then used to determined which platforms had affected online sales and at what point in the purchasing decision they had influence on the consumer.

Jeff Zwelling, CEO and co-founder at Convertro told VentureBeat:

We believe that YouTube does well in both of these important purchase funnel areas for a number of reasons. YouTube’s own search volume and preferential positioning on Google’s results help drive large amounts of traffic, of course. But when you get to YouTube, the content is rich, descriptive, and usually helpful.

I’ve done this myself. I recently bought a coffee machine. I had the decision down to three alternatives and couldn’t decide which one was best for me. In the end, I watched videos on YouTube of people using all three machines and chose the one that matched my idea of a good coffee maker.

YouTube is the best platform for both introducing new products and helping to close sales, while Facebook comes in second in both of those areas. Google+ consistently came in third.
You can get more information from the full report available here.

/0 Comments

Twitter Opens Analytics Dashboard For All Users

, ,

Twitter has grown from a small social media platform to one of most popular ways to share and interact with everyone from friends and family to celebrities and clothing brands. But along the way Twitter also got a reputation for being one of the most highly efficient marketing tools possible.

While Twitter isn’t the first social media platform to allow brands and public figures to interact with their audiences, it has continuously been one of the most powerful and easy to use platforms available. The only thing holding it back was a lack of analytics tools.

Last month, Twitter took the first step in rectifying this issue by launching an analytics dashboard similar to Google Analytics that specifically focused on Twitter. The analytics dashboard did everything from measuring the performance of your tweets to monitoring how many people are seeing each tweet. Too bad only advertisers and verified users had access to it at the time.

Thankfully, everything changed yesterday when Twitter engineer Ian Chan announced the wide release of the analytics dashboard via a tweet.

https://twitter.com/chanian/status/504712774321074176

Twitter also added a new page to the help center which explains everything you could want to know about using the dashboard and familiarizing yourself with the layout. To get access to the analytics dashboard, you only need to have an account that has been open for more than 2 weeks and primarily tweets in English, French, Japanese, or Spanish.

/0 Comments

Facebook’s New Cross-Device Reporting Makes It Easier To Track Conversions

, , , , ,

With its ever decreasing organic reach, Facebook is putting a lot of attention into their paid ad platform, especially the ads shown on mobile devices. Now, the reporting side of Facebook’s paid ad is getting improved to reflect the huge increases in mobile ads in recent times.

One of these improvements is the launch of cross-device reporting for Facebook ads. Now Facebook advertisers are able to see how users move throughout their sales process, even if they move across devices. The announcement described just how advertisers may benefit:

Imagine seeing an ad for a product on your mobile phone while in line at the bank. Do you immediately make a purchase on your phone? Probably not. But perhaps you go back to your office later that day and buy on your desktop computer. Such cross-device conversions are becoming increasingly common as people move between their phones, tablets and desktop computers to interact with businesses.

Cross-device reporting allows advertisers to be able to see which devices ads were viewed on, and on which devices conversions subsequently occurred. That means you can see how many people clicked an ad on iPhone but then later finished their conversion on desktop, and vice-versa.

In a recent analysis of US Facebook campaigns, it was found that of the people who show interest in a mobile Facebook ad before converting, over 32% converted on desktop within 28 days.

You can view the cross-device conversions for campaigns by going to your Facebook Ad Reports, where you will click Edit Columns, and select Cross-Device on the left-hand menu.

/0 Comments

Facebook Has Given You 90 Days To Shut Down Your “Like Gate”

, , , ,

New ImageCountless businesses have 90 days to make significant changes to their Facebook strategies and pages. With an update to its Platform Policy, Facebook killed the so-called “like gate” which required users to Like a Page before they could be gain access to content, apps, rewards, or be eligible for contests.

The new policy is set to take effect on Nov. 5 and any page that doesn’t comply will have the gates disabled. New apps made after the announcement will also be unable to create new like gates.

Here’s the explanation from the latest developer blog from Facebook:

You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.

Like gating isn’t as popular as it used to be, but it is still a relatively common Facebook fan-building strategy.

It is important to note that it is still acceptable to use incentives. You simply can’t use incentives that require a user to Like a page to gain access to content.

faceboo-like-gate-600x358

/0 Comments