The future of mobile is here now with the recent update to our apps: the ability to customize how you look. On mobile! It’s truly an amazing time to be alive, and to be a brand.
We’ve already seen some really well made, super creative designs. Because what’s the point of even having a social presence in the bright gleaming future of the mobile age if your brand looks the same as everyone else? There is no point. You might as well pack up and go home.
So if you haven’t already, pop on over to Settings (on the web or on your device) and customize your brand appearance for the mobile future happening now.
Where are all the dudes on social? Not Pinterest, apparently.
This coming from a new analysis of public data by RJMetrics, and recently expounded upon on Forbes.com. If you compare against Facebook and Twitter, which are both 50/50 men and women, and Instagram (about 2/3 women), the 4:1 ratio women/men on Pinterest is a pretty glaring gap. I believe this data is effective in its own way, and may prompt brands that skew more male to reconsider their investment in the platform, and look to more male-dominant platforms such as Reddit.
The Jewish Museum taps a graphic design firm known for irreverence to overhaul visual identity, asking the question: "How do you honor its ancient roots while expressing its continued relevance?" See the transformation on Fast Company.
Museums are increasingly focused on measurable outcomes, and looking at ways big data can feed their understanding of how programming affects the public. However, some worry that this emphasis on metrics gathering and bottom-line ROI could move museum practitioners too far from prioritizing "the big, ambitious hard-to-measure good that lies at the heart of our missions." Read more about the intersection of big data and cultural engagement here.
ADAGE: "Tumblr Study Says It Has More Social TV Activity Than Twitter"
"[People aren't] coming just to check in," said Lee Brown, Tumblr's global head of brand partnerships. "They're coming to dive deeper into the characters, create their own storylines, put text over static images -- to create content with a much longer shelf life."
"For me, Tumblr sits in this place of really interesting emerging platforms for brands, like Snapchat, which no one's really figured out a way to use regularly," said Rich Guest, president of Tribal Worldwide's U.S. operations. "It's still not a regular part of the brand-marketing toolbox," he said.
Altering practice & perceptions with content success metrics
The Content Strategy recently published an enlightening article about 10 charts that are altering the way we think about measuring the success of content. Their post is definitely worth a read, particularly to challenge content and social strategists to constantly challenge how we're reporting on success as well as educating our clients on what success means on social channels, sites, blogs, etc.
Contently included links to a few equally compelling posts along this line of thinking that are worth a read as well.
How Our Brains Decide What We Share (Fast Company)
4 Myths About the Web (Chartbeat)
Metrics That Matter - Reading Time (Medium)
How Buzzfeed Wins the Internet (The Content Strategist)
The world of marketing as we know it is a constantly changing beast. Privacy issues dominate the news headlines at the same time we see brand journalism taking a greater role in the proliferation of news, and newspapers starting to offer promoted content (ahem, New York Times). Recently, I sat down with several of our department managers to ask them about where they saw our industry heading this year.
TREND #1: NATIVE ADVERTISING
Julie Yamamoto, a veteran PR leader and managing director of the earned media department, believes native advertising will make a bigger splash than ever. Last year, both The New York Times and the Associated Pressannounced native advertising platforms, and Altimeter Group released research and guidelines for publishers and brands. She says, “Watch for more formats and options as publishers continue to experiment.”
Advertising will continue to impact how brands use social media. “We’ll see limitations on the ability for brands to grow their content and following organically,” Julie said. “The major social networks will all convert to or improve self-service advertising platforms in a rush to demonstrate revenue for their investors.”
TREND #2: NEWSROOMS ARE BACK
While the trend away from traditional newsroom models has been well documented over the past few years, the lessons they hold for brands are here to stay.
That’s because quick-turn, high-quality content and better storytelling is the secret sauce brands need to try to capture if they are going to become trustworthy thought-leaders.
Journalists have always understood that to appeal to audiences, news must be timely, tangible, in sync with a larger trend, have human interest and be entertaining or educational. It also must be credible. Brands are learning these lessons too, and organizational structures are starting to shift to better mimic the newsroom model. We’re now seeing marketing departments designed after newsrooms, with managing editors and assignment desks to help plan and assign; content creators and “reporters” skilled at multi media creation designed to capture maximum audience attention and produce under tight deadlines; and publishers who master the fine art of amplification across social, digital and traditional avenues.
According to Darcie Meihoff, VP/executive director, CMD Earned Media, it’s a model CMD has refined over the past few years for clients such as Microsoft, Intel and Expedia – from reporting “live” at key events where content is created and published right from the show floor, to building ongoing content models to support deeper community engagement.
“At its core, the emphasis has to be journalism, not marketing,” she said. “The goal is to look at it as objectively as possible from the audience’s point of view while also being willing to tell and share not only the wins, but also the challenges and lessons learned. It sounds simple, but for corporate marketers trained to focus on telling their brand story in the most positive light possible, that kind of balanced, straight forward and quick turn storytelling can be tough to master.”
TREND #3: DIGITAL SOLUTIONS FOR EVENT SUCCESS
By connecting the dots, digital solutions are recreating the way we plan and design event experiences for clients. Jon Agee, our associate director of events, sees digital solutions for event registration, navigation, attendee engagement, content presentation and real-time feedback via social channels sharply increasing.
“Event marketers are discovering new ways to provide optimal environments,” Jon says. “Event experiences will grow richer in opportunities for face-to-face interaction to match the rise of peer-influenced perceptions in social media, inspiring digital both during and after the event.”
TREND #4: CONTENT MARKETING
Just when you thought “content marketing” was a buzz term soon to go the way of “ROI” and “optimization,” think again. Gary Rubin, earned media account director, predicts:
“Content marketing will continue to become more important as companies look to make deeper connections with potential customers.”
The rub? “Companies need to get better at creating engaging content that accomplishes their objectives.”
Content marketing will fragment as two very different strategies emerge. According to Kevin Murphy, director of digital strategy, the first will be thinly disguised advertising and a lot of syndication, while the second will be truer to corporate journalism, where the people creating the content are in it as much for the consumer as they are for the marketing message.
TREND #5: MOBILE ADVANCES
Mobile, of course, continues to have a huge impact across all industries, its success propelled by what Matthew Douglas, integrated production director, calls the continued personalization and customization of content. As people are more willing to share their data, the messages and content will become more tailored. He says, “Mobile commerce is still a small part of total sales, but mobile research—either before an online purchase or while in-store is a growing trend.”
“Conversion of a mobile researcher into a mobile buyer means companies need to provide better contextual offers. For example, if someone is researching small personal electronics, getting a relevant offer for accessories or batteries – makes sense and may drive them to make a mobile purchase.”
At a conference of 300+ industry folks, you quickly discover that most of us, from in-house marketing pros to agency wonks, are facing the same strategic challenges. How do we show the value of social media? What does being a social media expert mean these days? Does my content resonate? Am I making an impact on consumer spending decisions? Thankfully, many of the panelists at Spredfast Summit provided great insights into how they’re currently thinking about and solving these questions.
In part 1 of our Spredfast Summit coverage, my colleague, Gabriel Rosenberg, elaborated on Arianna Huffington’s keynote, discussing how “the greatest value of social media is that it encourages and amplifies relationships.” Likewise, I’ve outlined some of the additional overriding topics the panelists discussed as important takeaways for big and small brands managing B2B and B2C campaigns.
Humanize and Develop Trust
Blake Chandlee, vice president of Global Partnerships at Facebook, made a blunt but poignant observation during his panel: “People don’t hate advertising. They dislike bad advertising.” He went on to discuss how important it is to humanize content, translating the human touch for social, because as humans we crave interaction with people and not things.
A good example is REI’s 1440 Project, a campaign that celebrates every minute of every day spent in the great outdoors, through user-generated content displayed across an interactive timeline. The photos and videos collected are prominently featured on REI’s social channels. Paulo Mottola, on the REI social team, says that the planning process involved questioning whether the brand was the best mouthpiece for REI’s products or if someone could say it better, specifically, REI members. The decision was made to tell the brand story through people who love REI, giving the outdoor brand and its products a human element that otherwise may have been diluted.
Give Meaning to Messages
It’s crucial to remember that when it comes to your message, one size doesn’t fit all. Segmentation can be a social media marketer’s best friend. This could mean restructuring targeting on Facebook and A/B testing parallel posts for similar audiences but with slightly different demographic profiles. Understanding who your audience is and on which platforms they best consume messages can also help lend meaning, and ultimately context, to your social posts, and paid and sponsored advertising.
Social Is the New Front Page
Arianna Huffington touched on this point in her keynote speech, which resonated in many of the other panels. Arianna mentioned that her reporters package their stories for social. They’re trained to focus on wider consumption beyond the front page of the site, and how to most effectively use all the channels at their disposal to amplify awareness and action.
That means making sure the content can work across platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet), and equipping all in-house content creators with the know-how to understand how their content can and should resonate. This relates somewhat to being platform agnostic, a term bandied about for years, but also understanding the ever-evolving role social plays in dynamically shaping how a piece of content is broadcast, consumed, and shared.
Predicting the Future Is the Future
As marketers, we’re constantly tasked to forecast the future, to circumvent the same ol’ same ol’ and instead, anticipate and intercept consumer behavior, delivering our brand message right to where they’re sitting. We want to develop content that relates to what our audience wants and needs at that moment in time.
It’s our job to ensure our content is interesting and relevant for the audience, and that the stories we’re creating and telling are authentic and timely.
Looking Ahead …
One, agencies and brands alike need to ensure social media people are stronger business people and more clearly articulate how social impacts the sales funnel. Two, as Adam Kmiec (head of digital/social worldwide for Campbell’s) declared, we must continue to help battle the notion that social media is in its infancy and thus, tolerate mediocrity. And three, it’s time to stop thinking that social media teams have the only keys to knowing how a message should work on social media channels. Rachel Caggiano, VP at Social@Ogilvy, stated that everyone on her team owns the message in one way or another, from the account team to the creative director. Focus more on better training and equipping members of the team to develop content for the front lines of social as part of their job.
New study finds Facebook fans worth $174+ to brands
New study results find that a Facebook fan is worth $174 to a brand, up 28% since 2010, according to Syncapse, a social media marketing firm. Data was collected from more than 2,000 U.S. panelists earlier this year. According to Mashable, "The study compared Facebook fans and non-fans based and their corresponding product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity to arrive at the figure."
$174 is the average but varies across brands with a higher average purchase price (what you'd spend on a product) making a fan more valuable.
How could you make your work space look more like your dream office? Embrace a better work environment and make it yours. You live there for 8+ hours a day, after all. Here's some Wednesday inspiration for you.
Twitter rolls out new advertising based on relevancy
"UNTIL TODAY, THE CONTENT OF TWEETS HAS ONLY BEEN ONE FACTOR AMONG MANY IN SHAPING THE INTEREST GRAPH. TODAY, IT BECOMES A FIRST-CLASS CITIZEN."
Twitter is finally targeting based on relevancy. Get your read on over on Twitter's blog to find out more.
Some good insights from the Fast Company coverage:
Keyword-based advertising will allow Twitter to take advantage of the endless troves of data shared and aggregated on the platform from third-party services--from other social networks, news outlets, and so forth--creating a centralized hub of opportunity for advertisers
Twitter's new ad product can take advantage of these aggregated data sets--a huge advertising opportunity for the company.
It's an important new capability--especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent--because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context.
Girl powah! Fast Company on how Jenna Lyons transformed J.Crew into a cult brand
Fantastic cover article courtesy of Fast Company on retail's power lady, Jenna Lyons, who, since helming the brand as prez, tripled the revenue. Take a read. Here are some of my favorite lines from the article:
"Managing creative people--not so easy," she says. "A lot of emotion, a lot of stroking. Some people need tough love. Some people need a lot of love."
Above all is the challenge of managing in a subjective realm. "There's no right or wrong answer," says Lyons. "When someone creates something and puts it in front of you, that thing came from inside of them, and if you make them feel bad, it's going to be hard to fix, because you've actually crushed them."
Giving primacy to design involves more than a shift in the power structure. It means running the business in a completely different way.
Lyons believed that to create a coherent brand and drive the business forward, every piece of the creative organization--from retail to catalog to web--had to be unified.
What makes a social network valuable? (According to Wall Street)
“What makes a social network valuable? Facebook, with more than 1 billion active monthly users posting photos, sending messages, and updating their status, has an impressive market capitalization of $65 billion, or about $65 per user. But Wall Street has assigned a valuation of almost $18.5 billion, or $92.50 per user, to LinkedIn, the professional networking site that offers its 200 million members arguably more crucial services, such as help finding jobs.”
Interesting stats from an article about the intersection of social media and healthcare on CNN Money.
