The Target Marketing Digital Blog

Target Marketing Digital is a full-service digital marketing agency that works with companies, brands, and mission-driven thought leaders to elevate their influence. www.targetmktng.com

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The What, Why, and How of Behavioral Marketing

Marketing, in essence, is about delivering solutions to those who might benefit from them.

Historically, marketers have had a difficult time using data to correctly identify and target their audiences. With minimal data to work with, organizations have used some less than ideal marketing practices: consumers are bombarded with unrelated ads, emails, phone calls, and other outreach that they inevitably ignore.

Behavioral marketing, however, is a robust method of gathering data on consumer behavior in order to segment and target audiences in a laser-like fashion. This type of marketing is focused on individual patterns of engagement and behavior in order to match specific intents, interests, and needs of the ideal market.

According to McKinsey, organizations that leverage consumer data outperform their competitors by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margins. However, the practice of behavioral marketing sometimes has drawbacks, particularly for the user -- for instance, Orbitz used behavioral marketing to display more expensive hotels to Mac users over PC.

Here, we're going to explore what behavioral marketing is and why it could make a huge difference for your business. We'll also include examples of behavioral marketing segmentation and its performance statistics to help inform your decision on whether or not this method is right for you and your marketing goals.

What is behavioral marketing?

Behavioral marketing is the method by which companies target audiences based on their behavior, interests, intentions, geolocation, and other metrics using web analytics, cookies, search history, and other insights. By finely segmenting audiences based on specific behaviors or definitive user profiles, organizations can provide truly relevant content and offers rather than sending a general message to all audiences.

Marketing Automation

Data is incredibly valuable to marketers, and as companies continue building out massive information caches, they can get better at generating and serving up relevant content to consumers.

As marketing automation and machine learning technologies continue to improve, businesses can leverage their incredible databases to forecast consumer behavior even months in advance. However, data collection is a complicated and nuanced issue, and online privacy is becoming increasingly important as audience listening tools become more advanced.

Consumer data can be used strategically to pinpoint audience preferences and deliver relevant outreach. Businesses can collect consumer data to truly create a more enjoyable experience for their prospects and leads, rather than a more obtrusive one. Banner blindness -- the consumer tendency to ignore any advertising they see as too aggressive -- is mitigated by behavioral marketing because consumers will only engage with content they're interested in, which is determined by their previous search patterns.

Keeping messaging and content individual-centric rather than channel- or product-centric is the most effective marketing automation strategy in combating banner blindness. Data, if gathered appropriately and used responsibly, can solve for needs on an individual basis.

Behavioral Marketing Segmentation

An important facet of the behavioral marketing method is thinly segmenting audiences. Consumer segments might be determined differently depending on your organization's marketing goals and ideal market. However, there are a few common ways that companies split up markets:

1. Geolocation

This measure is often very accurate due to the sensitivity of tracking. Organizations can tell which continent, country, region, and sometimes even which building a user is located. This can help with local targeting -- like selling the right type of clothing for the regional climate. Furthermore, you can also access device data to better understand how audiences are finding and engaging with you.

2. Visit data

This type of information tells an analyst whether a user is new or has visited you before. By segmenting visitors by number of visits, companies can offer higher-value options to repeat visitors, like better benefits or discounts that might push them closer to a purchase.

3. Benefits sought

Data on motivations and intent is gathered when consumers research products or services. Two unique users might appear to fall in the same segment in terms of their demographic or location, but differ greatly in how much they value various aspects of an offering.

4. Transactional data

This segment is particularly valuable -- customers who have made a purchase are not only aware of your brand, but they are likely interested in paying for another one of your products, particularly if they were pleased by their initial purchase. You can collect data on the number of purchases, average order value, product category, and time of purchase to better understand your brand's customer lifecycle.

5. Engagement level

Engagement is defined differently for different organizations, however, it is almost always positive when consumers are interacting with your brand. Data on consumer engagement implies that consumer trust, perception, and intent to purchase are increasing.

6. Occasion

Behavioral marketing will often consider the occasion or timing of a purchase of engagement. For instance, there are universal occasions like holidays that may apply to the majority of customers, or rare occasions that are more irregular and specific, like a wedding. Beyond this, marketers can target segments based on certain times during the day they are likely to buy.

Behavioral Marketing Examples

Target

Twitter

Orbitz

Zuji

Netflix

1. Target

The New York Times wrote a piece on Target's intensive data collection practices in order to gather detailed profiles on their customers. Target analysts were able to determine their customers' ethnicities, job history, whether they'd declared bankruptcy, whether they were pregnant, their political leanings, and a whole host of other "predictive analytics".

The retailer wanted such intimate insights to better sell to their customers -- which is convenient for the company, but also controversial in nature due to a lack of concern over their consumers' privacy. Behavioral research like this could lead to products that are better equipped to improve our lives -- so long as we're comfortable with corporations handling all our personal data.

2. Twitter

A smaller example of this is Twitter's interest targeting -- paid ads on social channels can be targeted to users based on their interests. Advertisers can choose from 25 interest categories and 350 subtopics provided by Twitter, and then let the social media platform publish your ad so only groups that are interested in that kind of content will see it. This can be even more targeted by selecting a geolocation or type of device.

3. Orbitz

Orbitz, as part of a controversial experiment, starting selling more expensive hotels to Mac users than PC users, since their research had demonstrated Mac users tend to spend more on travel.

While Orbitz sees nothing wrong with segmenting based on customer spending patterns, it's certainly a controversial move, and one business should be wary of mimicking -- especially since public concern is growing around online privacy and corporate data mining. However, Orbitz argued that the company isn't displaying different prices to their customers -- their customers could easily choose to rank results differently by price.

4. Zuji

Zuji, an international travel site, creates personalized display ads to visitors based on their past page performance. Zuji uses past searches, user profiles, and number of visits to push personalized offers to increase the likelihood of conversions -- they target only the most relevant users with personalized packages. The goal was to market to segments of just one individual based off their past behavior on their site, and by investing in this method, they generated a 100-fold increase in their ROI.

5. Netflix

Netflix -- the international media streaming and content creation company -- has built its success partially on the strength of its business analytics. The software company recommends media through a service called "Cinematch," which uses customer behavior, buying patterns, and feedback to best link users to clusters of content they might like. Netflix is looking to be a website that "adapts to the individual's taste," using their huge database and predictive algorithms to give their customers a delightfully personalized streaming experience.

Behavioral Targeting Stats

Lastly, we've compiled a list of behavioral targeting statistics to further demonstrate the growing popularity of behavioral marketing as a practice:

Open rates increased by 56.68% and CTRs increased by 147% when companies used an interest-based nurturing track.

72% of US adult internet users were concerned about the extent of information websites were collecting about them unless they were assured that the collected information was anonymous and non-personally identifiable.

86% of companies with high ROI reported that personalization made up 21% or more of their marketing budget.

Businesses with a full or partial personalization strategy experienced revenue growth 78% of the time.

93% of businesses with an advanced personalization strategy experienced revenue growth

Ultimately, when done appropriately, behavioral marketing can be an opportunity for your organization to better meet your customers' needs by using data on your audience's behavior to inform your business strategy. However, it is critical that you are cautious when implementing behavioral marketing strategies, particularly with the rising concern of privacy for online users.

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FOUR SACRED SECRETS Debuts as National Bestseller!

Congratulations to Preethaji and Krishnaji, the founders of the revolutionary O&O Academy! Their new book, The Four Sacred Secrets: For Love and Prosperity, A Guide to Living in a Beautiful State is a national bestseller debuting on USA Today’s list at #101.

About The Four Sacred Secrets

The Four Sacred Secrets combines proven scientific approaches with ancient spiritual practices to take you on a journey that will open your mind to an extraordinary destiny. Drawing on the power of our untapped consciousness, brilliant insights will help you find solutions to long-held challenges. The easy-to-follow meditations included in this book will transform your experience of reality and open you to the power of creating a beautiful life for yourself. Including ancient fables and modern stories that will speak intimately to your heart, this life-transforming book fuses the transcendental and the scientific, the mystical and the practical, to guide you to consciously create wealth, heal your heart, awaken yourself to love, and help you to make peace with your true self. The Four Sacred Secrets will cast its spell on you from the first page and guide you to life in a beautiful state.

Learn more at pkconsciousness.com.

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LATE BLOOMERS by Forbes Publisher, Rich Karlgaard

Congratulations to Rich Karlgaard, on the publication of his new book, Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement. 

A groundbreaking exploration of what it means to be a late bloomer in a culture obsessed with SAT scores and early success, and how finding one's way later in life can be an advantage to long-term achievement and happiness. We live in a society where kids and parents are obsessed with early achievement, from getting perfect scores on SATs to getting into Ivy League colleges to landing an amazing job at Google or Facebook - or even better, creating a startup with the potential to be the next Google or Facebook or Uber. We see software coders becoming millionaires or billionaires before age 30 and feel we are failing if we are not one of them. Late bloomers, on the other hand, are undervalued - in popular culture, by educators and employers, and even unwittingly by parents. Yet the fact is a lot of us - most of us - do not explode out of the gates in life. We have to find our way. We have to discover our passions, and talents and gifts. That was true for author Rich Karlgaard, who had a mediocre academic career at Stanford (which he got into by a fluke), and after graduating, worked as a dishwasher and night watchman before finally finding the inner motivation and drive that ultimately led him to start up a high-tech magazine in Silicon Valley, and eventually to become the publisher of Forbes magazine. There is a scientific explanation for why so many of us bloom later in life. The executive function of our brains doesn't mature until age 25 - and later for some. In fact our brain's capabilities peak at different ages. We actually enjoy multiple periods of blooming in our lives. Based on several years of research, personal experience, and interviews with neuroscientists and psychologists, and countless people at different stages of their careers, Late Bloomers reveals how and when we achieve our full potential - and why today's focus on early success is so misguided, and even harmful.

Learn more at latebloomer.com. 

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OPI Co-Founder Publishes Her First Book

Inspiring women to pursue their own colorful dreams, I'm Not Really a Waitress tells the story of how Suzi Weiss-Fischmann transformed a small dental supply company into a #1 beauty brand around the world Today, OPI is known as a global beauty brand, famous for its trend-setting colors, unforgettable shade names, and celebrity collaborations with the biggest stars from film, television, music, and sports. But behind all the glamour is the little-known tale of OPI's unlikely origins-an intimate and inspiring story of a timid schoolgirl who arrives in this country with little money and no English and becomes the business leader and industry game-changer known worldwide as "Suzi, the First Lady of Nails." In I'm Not Really a Waitress--titled after OPI's top-selling nail color--Suzi reveals the events that led her family to flee Communist Hungary and eventually come to New York City in pursuit of the American dream. She shares how those early experiences gave rise to OPI's revolutionary vision of freedom and empowerment, and how Suzi transformed an industry by celebrating the power of color-and of women themselves. 

Learn more at 1stladyofcolors.com.

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Social Media Marketing: What to Expect in 2019

Posting, tweeting, sharing, instant and easy connections with friends, family and brands – these are what makes social media such a popular platform for millions of people each and every day across networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Social media is also much more than making connections – they’re also incredibly effective platforms for businesses.

Whether social media marketing is something you already do or a channel you’re considering investing in as part of your advertising strategy in 2019, there are some trends and techniques that can help you find success. As we kick off the new year, let’s look at some of what we expect to be important for promoting your business or brand on social networks this year.

Video Killed the Social Media Post

Writing posts is so 2015. Today, video is all the rage on nearly every platform, offering a visual way to share ideas, information or events with audiences. Facebook Live videos are among the leading ways that brands can engage with their followers. Introduced in 2016, these videos are shot on the scene and stream instantly to Facebook, often alerting followers to tune in and see what you’re sharing.

The videos are incredibly popular, as well, with Facebook reporting last year that at the two-year mark, more than 3.5 billion live videos had been shared through the network. Social Media Today also reports that these videos are also much more engaging, with audiences interacting six times more with live content than with traditional video uploads. Live videos are also available on Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, meaning that you don’t have to limit yourself to Facebook as your primary engagement platform.

Whatever network you prefer, shooting a video is easy with a smartphone with a camera. You don’t have to go live, either – you can create a video and upload it later if you have poor signal quality or a limited data plan. Live or canned, video is a surefire engagement tool, but do yourself a favor and shoot it in the orientation appropriate for the platform. Snapchat videos and most “stories” posts should be in portrait orientation, whereas traditional timeline posts are best shot in landscape.

Moving on from Millennials

While the Millennial generation continues to be a major demographic for companies to target (even if they are being blamed for “killing” everything from Applebee’s to yogurt), 2019 marks a big milestone as the earliest members of “Generation Z” are now coming of age and entering the workforce.

As Reuben Yonatan writes in Business2Community, this up-and-coming age group was born and formed amid the technology revolution, growing up with laptops and tablets, social media and instant access to information. This means that to succeed, your brand needs to reach out to them where they are. Being active and engaging on social media can help you find success with this younger crowd, and reaching them on platforms they use like Snapchat, Twitter and especially Instagram – with 70 percent of its more than 800 million active users under age 35 – can bring these customers to your business.

Autobots, Roll Out

Social media itself is a product of modern technologies and the interconnected world we live in, so it’s only natural that other technological advancements are being implemented to help make social media even more social. There has been a lot of excitement around digital assistants with the explosive popularity of amazon Echo Speakers and Google Assistant, but a different type of digital assistant is making a big impact on social media markets – the chatbot.

A chatbot is an automated messaging software that is programmed to understand basic inquiries, provide answers and execute tasks, mostly for customer service purposes. In the context of social media, they can be implemented into messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger to automate certain promotional and customer service messaging. For example, as Digital Trends reports, Whole Foods used a Facebook chatbot to allow users to ask for recipes directly on Facebook that would then lead them to their website, with no human interaction required by Whole Foods’ employees.

This rise of the machines is likely to continue through 2019 and beyond, and it’s entirely possible that chatting with an automated assistant will become the standard on social media within a matter of months. However, for those not ready to praise our new robot overlords quite yet, automated message response tools like those offered on Facebook can provide a hybrid solution, responding quickly to let a user know that their message has been received and giving you an opportunity to get to it during normal business hours.

It’s All About the Money

In the early days of many popular social media platforms, posts, videos and other content was delivered to users chronologically. You followed your friends, family members and businesses and when they posted something, it popped up on your timeline – simple as that. That all changed when Facebook and others started monetizing their platforms with ads.

To incentivize businesses to utilize paid products like boosted posts and paid advertising, Facebook implemented an algorithm that determined what type of content was shown to users and when. This algorithm prioritizes user-generated content above brand generated content. This means that posts from organizations, brands and businesses reach fewer people, regardless of how many followers they have.

The solution for brands to get around these new limitations is with paid social media advertising. This is not exclusive to Facebook by any means – and is nothing new for 2019 – but it’s a significant trend that will continue to drive performance on social media for brands. Based on previous updates to Facebook’s algorithm, official and unofficial announcements from Facebook and general industry consensus, it’s even believed that content from brands will continue to receive less and less organic exposure, as Social Media Examiner reports. That means that for any business to reach audiences on social media, a paid strategy won’t be simply a recommendation – it will be a requirement. While this trend is most notable on Facebook, it’s also an indication of what’s likely to become the norm on other platforms.

The good news is that pay-to-play doesn’t necessarily mean pay-a-lot-to-play. Even a modest social media budget can go a long way toward growing your audience, increasing engagement and building brand awareness, especially compared to a completely organic strategy. The other bright spot in the seemingly dark social media future is that most social media platforms offer very sophisticated tools to advertisers with robust targeting capabilities, presenting advertisers with opportunities to reach specific and narrow audiences in ways not possible with traditional media.

Adapt and Change – The Constants of Social Media Success

The social media landscape and the habits of its users are ever-changing, making it nearly impossible to predict its future. For all anyone knows, an entirely new platform could emerge as a leader in 2019, just as Snapchat did not too long ago and Instagram before it. The only certainty is that the way people and brands use social media is ever-changing.

With the sheer amount of competition in the social media space, popular platforms are routinely shifting their focus to emphasize more personal connections, making advertisers work harder – or pay more – to make connections as users clamor for new features and unique, engaging content like live videos and AR.

The brands that succeed in this changing landscape are the ones that change with it. Don’t end up like MySpace or Google Plus and find yourself left in the dust.

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LOONSHOTS by Safi Bahcall

Washington Post's "10 Leadership Books to Watch for in 2019," Adam Grant's "19 New Leadership Books to Read in 2019," Inc.com's "10 Business Books You Need to Read in 2019," Business Insider's "14 Books Everyone Will Be Reading in 2019" “This book has everything: new ideas, bold insights, entertaining history and convincing analysis. Not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand how ideas change the world.” ―Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? What can we learn about human nature and world history from a glass of water?

In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.

Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.

Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, Bahcall shows how this new kind of science helps us understand the behavior of companies and the fate of empires. Loonshots distills these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.

Over the past decade, researchers have been applying the tools and techniques of phase transitions to understand how birds flock, fish swim, brains work, people vote, criminals behave, ideas spread, diseases erupt, and ecosystems collapse. If twentieth-century science was shaped by the search for fundamental laws, like quantum mechanics and gravity, the twenty-first will be shaped by this new kind of science. Loonshots is the first to apply these tools to help all of us unlock our potential to create and nurture the crazy ideas that change the world.

Learn more at loonshots.com.

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5 Powerful Social Media Visual Content Trends

The race for attention on social media has, in many ways, led to extra noise as people and companies produce even more content. However, as organic visibility on social media platforms has declined, the solution to the problem ultimately lies in asking the right question.

Instead of asking, “How can I stand out on social media?” perhaps a better question is, “How do I connect with my target audience on social media?”

While finding your audience is part of the answer to connecting with them, you need to gain their attention and keep it. In other words, you have to focus on topics that are of interest to your audience.

To capture attention and gain the recognition, awareness, and engagement required to get ahead, your social media visual content is critical. Given recent social media visual content trends, it will be hard to ignore them if you want to boost your marketing results.

Video

According to Social Media Examiner’s influential 2018 report, 66% of those interviewed use Instagram, up from 54% in 2017. One word⎯visuals—sums up its popularity. However, it’s not just about images; the use of Video has only increased over the years and the statistics below support the continuation of the trend.

70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video.

72% of businesses say that the video has improved their conversion rate.

52% of consumers say that watching product videos increases their confidence in online purchase decisions.

IGTV is only the latest development in the rise of social TV and vertical videos. These developments only serve to encourage more brands to become broadcasters that cater to users via their mobile devices.

On Instagram, a video can be up to one hour long. In many ways, this trend in increasing video length is reflective of traditional TV channels; however, on Instagram, different channels are for Instagram users. Features like these will continue to boost Instagram’s popularity among users in 2019, and this will certainly be the case with similar social media platforms, thereby opening new avenues of social media marketing.

Home Depot, a popular home improvement brand, uses video as part of its overall strategy to drive traffic to its main site. They post eye-catching videos on Facebook that feature products in each video, which includes a web link in the caption so viewers can explore each product further, like in the example below.

When using video, consider several of the following tips to increase your engagement:

Use captions: Most viewers watch Facebook videos without sound, so add captions to ensure viewers receive the message.

Front-load your key messages: if a user notices your video, the most critical moment to capture their attention is during the first few seconds. Deliver key messages early and make the first part of a video compelling enough to earn more extended views.

Try live video: Many of the largest social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, give brands the opportunity to go live anytime, and those features are delivering results for marketing teams. 81% of marketers who used Facebook Live found it to be an effective strategy. You can use these features to promote events, capture authentic moments, and share your brand’s personality in an informal setting.

Experiment: Several variables can make a social video resonate with your audience, including the length of the video, subject, platform, copy, and more. Regardless of how much you know about videos that perform well for your business, trying new content and formats—and measuring the results⎯will only help you better your campaigns.

Analyze your data: With so many social media analytics tools available, it helps to look at the data to identify what is working well for you and then build content based on that.

Personalization

To capture your audience’s attention, you need to create experiences and messages that speak directly to them.  Personalizing your content on social media is key; in fact, 96% of marketers believe that personalization advances customer relationships.

Businesses like Netflix and Amazon are already leveraging the power of personalization. Logging on to your Netflix account, for example, immediately shows you the evidence of personalization; they tailor the banner, carousels, order, artwork, text, and search to you. Personalization could, therefore, be summed up as:

Personalization = Maximize enjoyment + Minimize search time It can be difficult to implement but implementing personalization in your content can be well worth the effort.

Highly relevant, targeted ads enabled Lexus to reach over 11M unique Facebook users and increase engagement by a whopping 1678%. Take a look:

How to make use of personalization:

Know your customer segments well and produce content for each group

Implement the use of re-targeting ads

Use personalized quiz results in videos or visual formats

Turn social media polls into action

Encourage users to personalize the content they produce

Celebrate holidays that are relevant to your geographic area

Follow up with a targeted landing page

Personalize your messages both online and offline like Coca Cola’s #ShareACoke campaign

Creative provocation

The key to capturing your audience’s attention usually starts with a visual. Research has shown repeatedly that, for most people, visuals are more engaging and are more effective at conveying a message than non-visual content like a text-based ad in a newspaper.

However, since there is more visual content what types of visual content will help you stand out from the crowd?

Higher quality visuals are part of the answer, but consider the growing trend of producing bold, memorable, and creative visuals that generate conversation about your brand, cause, or product. Take this one, produced by Y&R Prague, for example, which appeared in Reporter Magazine.

The idea behind creative provocation is to help people to move beyond the usual mental models and tracks, allowing the person to come up with solutions they would usually not think of to the problem at hand.

The visual notes explain the concept in some detail.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is much like word-of-mouth marketing that leverages the audience of influencers in a field to deliver your message to a broader audience.

Since people generally trust consumer opinions over corporate statements, frozen food retailer Iceland decided to use an influencer marketing campaign that tapped into a dedicated community of micro-influencers ”like “real mums” as opposed to celebrities.

After partnering with Channel Mum, Iceland’s approval ratings skyrocketed from 10% to 80%, which was a 72% increase above the agreed digital KPIs.

Use influencer marketing by:

Determining your objectives and target audience

Identifying what type of influencers you need

Deciding on general content, brand guidelines, and goals

Developing a budget and compensation

Recruiting influencers who actively engage with your target audience by reaching out personally and privately

Following the rules when it comes to advertising and sponsoring

Showing willingness to give up most of your creative control to your influencers

Boosting your credibility with influencer messaging on your channels

Measuring campaign results

Social media stories

This accessible format of content first came to prominence as Snapchat released its “My Story” feature. Instagram and Facebook stories, as well YouTube Reels, soon followed this format. According to research by Statista, over 400 million Instagram users use Instagram Stories each month and this number has grown steadily since 2016. With millions of daily views across Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and other social media platforms, it is evident that the stories format is likely to become the primary social sharing feature, overtaking the News Feed layout.

Mobile usage and shorter attention spans will continue to fuel the popularity of Stories in 2019, especially among the millennials and Generation Z-ers who thrive on their relationships with brands being authentic and meaningful.

For businesses, it will become a necessity to establish a robust video strategy for ephemeral content, utilizing content that allows the user to engage with the brand but that also leverages FOMO (fear of missing out) much like soap operas on TV.

Content ideas could include featuring your employees in Stories, showing behind-the-scenes interviews or the making of a product, or asking for reviews. It may be time to get creative like Travel + Leisure, who creates guessing games to stimulate and entertain their audience like in the example below (image source: Tubular insights).

How can you use stories as social media content to build your brand? You can:

Consider using Instagram Stories, especially if you are new to social media; they are growing the fastest and have a range of tools to help with your story creation.

Ensure your stories evoke emotion so that your audience will more likely act on your call to action

Use polls within Instagram Stories to extend or enhance existing experiences like sports events

Add links to your stories to drive traffic and conversions

Repurpose your stories for use on other platforms

Use geofilters to engage your audience

Add location tags to help others discover your business

Mention your fans and give a shout-out to other brands on Instagram Stories to show your appreciation

Try live video when creating stories, which can create more engagement and appear more authentic to viewers

Add calls to action (CTA’s) to encourage your audience to take the next step and do something

Conclusion

Creating visual content for your social media marketing can be challenging. Having said that, trends show that it is a critical element for capturing your audience’s attention and engaging with them. Using visual content is not a guarantee for success. But, it does have the potential to achieve massive engagement if used correctly. The strategies and tips outlined in this article can help with using visual content in your social media channels; however, testing how each post performs is critical. Monitor your social media analytics and use the data to see what type of visual content works with your target audience and what content you need to discard from your social media strategy.

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National Bestseller—NINJA FUTURE by Gary Shapiro

Congrats to Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association. His newest book, Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation, hits the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and LA Times bestseller lists.

In Ninja Future, Shapiro explains the evolving technological landscape, breakthroughs underway now and those we can only envision. New innovations such as self-driving vehicles, blockchain, 5G, the Internet of Things, and countless others will forever change the economy as we know it. Drawing on the insights he has gleaned as a martial arts black belt, he shows how businesses can move to succeed in today’s turbulent environment by adopting the mindset of “ninjas”—adapting to technological change to capitalize on opportunities at lightning speed.

Ninja Future is an essential read for businesses and individuals striving to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving world.

Learn more at ninjafuture.com. 

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Martin Ford Publishes ARCHITECTS OF INTELLIGENCE

Today, Martin Ford is a prominent futurist, and author of Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Rise of the Robots. publishes his newest book, Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI From the People Building It. 

The book contains a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews where Martin uncovers the truth behind important questions from some of the brightest minds in the Artificial Intelligence community.

Martin has wide-ranging conversations with twenty-three of the world’s foremost researchers and entrepreneurs working in AI and robotics: Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Geoffrey Hinton (Univ. of Toronto and Google), Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics), Yann LeCun (FaceBook) , Fei-Fei Li (Stanford and Google), Yoshua Bengio (Univ. of Montreal), Andrew Ng (AI Fund), Daphne Koller (Stanford), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley), Nick Bostrom (Univ. of Oxford), Barbara Grosz (Harvard), David Ferrucci (Elemental Cognition), James Manyika (McKinsey), Judea Pearl (UCLA), Josh Tenenbaum (MIT), Rana el Kaliouby (Affectiva), Daniela Rus (MIT), Jeff Dean (Google), Cynthia Breazeal (MIT), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute for AI), Gary Marcus (NYU), and Bryan Johnson (Kernel).

Learn more at book.mfordfuture.com. 

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Social Media Trends to Prepare for in 2019

As a business leader, you likely have a solid strategy when it comes to social media. But because social is always evolving, what works now won't work forever. It already seems like an eternity since Facebook only had one "like" option and tweets were capped at 140 characters. Growing audience engagement becomes impossible without keeping up-to-date with social media trends and changes.

Fortunately, you've still got a few weeks to get your marketing tools in order and build a plan for audience engagement and content distribution before the new year. To stay ahead of the curve, keep your marketing fresh, and make the most of your content distribution efforts, keep these social-media trends in mind as you prepare for 2019:

1. Social CEOs will become the new norm.

One of the most prominent changes in the digital age is how we perceive a company's leaders. The stereotype of the enigmatic CEO working away in the corner office has (thankfully) lost a lot of its appeal. The public's trust in institutions has diminished enough as it is, and with all the resources you have at your disposal, a lack of online transparency with your audience is inexcusable.

In 2019, CEOs and other company leaders need to use social media to share their insights, connect with their community, and listen to their audience. They may be busy running a business, but part of doing business in 2019 is being active on social.

2. User-generated content will make brands' efforts more authentic.

Instead of spending hours crafting original social media content in hopes that your audience will like it, you can rely on user-generated content from your actual audience members to do the heavy lifting—and engage more authentically.

Start looking for the best content from your followers, and consider showcasing that content (and giving credit to the creator) on your own channels. It can help grow your base and give your audience a sense of connection. At a time when organic social reach is on the decline, sharing authentic content straight from your audience members themselves can help you connect with your followers and build a stronger relationship with them.

3. LinkedIn Dynamic Ads are making ads more personal.

One thing that never changes in the social media world is the ubiquity of advertisements. In fact, recent research says 66 percent of B2B marketers used paid methods to distribute content last year, and 80 percent said they used them to reach a new audience. The last thing you want to do to new audience members, though, is turn them off with impersonal, invasive ads.

That's why news that LinkedIn is rolling out new ad features is so important. With LinkedIn Dynamic Ads, you can personalize paid ad content and foster more authentic communication. Personalizing content from the beginning breaks down trust barriers early enough to make an impact.

4. Social listening will give brands an edge.

Engaging with your audience is Marketing 101. But too many marketers forget the importance of listening to those audience members in that engagement equation. Social listening involves analyzing specific conversations, phrases, and other details on your brand's and even competitors' social media pages, and it's a growing component of competitive social strategies.

Rather than just glancing at posts and making your best guesses, social listening tools allow you to identify patterns and collect meaningful interpretations of their data. Using these interpretations to your advantage can greatly benefit your marketing campaigns in the future and give you an edge over other brands that are using social to blast their message instead of engaging followers.

5. The Instagram Stories feature isn't slowing down.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, perhaps the most valuable content is short-lived. While only temporary, Instagram Stories have become a popular way for users to consistently update their profiles, keep followers engaged, and, in some cases, even increase followers.

What makes the Stories feature so valuable for brands of pretty much any kind—aside from the fact that it's about twice as popular as Snapchat -- is that you don't need to invest a ton in video to make the most of it. You can share pictures or behind-the-scenes videos that give your audience a glimpse of your values and culture without spending a dime. And you can do so as frequently as you want without overwhelming your followers with half a dozen posts in a day.

6. Chatbots aren't going anywhere.

More people are using messaging apps than social-media platforms to connect with friends and brands, and limiting your social strategy to updates on Facebook and Twitter means missing out on valuable opportunities to be a helpful resource. Thankfully, chatbots offer a great way to use these platforms' messaging features to your advantage.

Chatbots make it easy to quickly interact with your audiences in a way that feels personal. You can customize your brand voice and send personalized content directly to users based on their prompts. Chatbots help you deliver more customized content at the exact right time, provide better service, and increase engagement—and the barrier to entry is still pretty low. Consider testing out chatbots of your own in 2019.

7. Dark social will prompt marketers to look beyond social share counts.

The downside of messaging apps' popularity is the rise of dark social. With more people sharing content privately, it's become increasingly difficult to accurately track social share counts.

Does that mean no one is sharing your content or that shares are now a totally useless metric? No, not quite. But it does mean the ways people are sharing your content are changing -- and that it's probably a good idea to adapt the ways you measure success. Ask yourself what goal you're really trying to achieve and look for ways to measure that goal that paint a more complete picture of your progress.

While the goal is to adapt to these trends by next year, each of them is already in style. Pay attention to what different social-media speakers, other leaders in your industry, and other content sources are saying and doing so you can be prepared for budget planning for 2019. It's never too early to overhaul what was once a killer marketing strategy and rework it to best the competition. That way, when your competitors are ringing in the New Year reminiscing about this year's success, you'll already have an exceptional social-media strategy for 2019.

[targetmarketing]

LEADERS: MYTH & REALITY Debuts at #4!

Congratulations to General Stan McChrystal and his co-authors on the publication of their new book, Leaders: Myth and Reality. The book debuted on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list at #4! 

About the Book

Stanley McChrystal, the retired US Army general and bestselling author of Team of Teams, profiles thirteen great leaders to show that leadership is not what you think it is—and never was. Stan McChrystal served for thirty-four years in the US Army, rising from a second lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division to a four-star general, in command of all American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. During those years he worked with countless leaders and pondered an ancient question: “What makes a leader great?” He came to realize that there is no simple answer. McChrystal profiles thirteen famous leaders from a wide range of eras and fields—from corporate CEOs to politicians and revolutionaries. He uses their stories to explore how leadership works in practice and to challenge the myths that complicate our thinking about this critical topic. With Plutarch’s Lives as his model, McChrystal looks at paired sets of leaders who followed unconventional paths to success. For instance. . . · Walt Disney and Coco Chanel built empires in very different ways. Both had public personas that sharply contrasted with how they lived in private. · Maximilien Robespierre helped shape the French Revolution in the eighteenth century; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi led the jihadist insurgency in Iraq in the twenty-first. We can draw surprising lessons from them about motivation and persuasion. · Both Boss Tweed in nineteenth-century New York and Margaret Thatcher in twentieth-century Britain followed unlikely roads to the top of powerful institutions. · Martin Luther and his future namesake Martin Luther King Jr., both local clergymen, emerged from modest backgrounds to lead world-changing movements. Finally, McChrystal explores how his former hero, General Robert E. Lee, could seemingly do everything right in his military career and yet lead the Confederate Army to a devastating defeat in the service of an immoral cause. Leaders will help you take stock of your own leadership, whether you’re part of a small team or responsible for an entire nation.

Learn more at theleadersbook.com. 

[targetmarketing]

How Hashtags & Keywords Can Boost Your Social Media Presence

Your digital marketing campaigns are driven by SEO and social media, and it may be a tough decision whether you’ll spend more time on one or the other — but it is increasingly becoming the case that these two elements of digital marketing may be even more effective if implemented together and correctly.

You know that hashtags can bolster your social media posts, and you may also know that keywords are vital to your SEO efforts — the next logical step would be to use the two together for a well rounded digital marketing campaign. Be careful, however, as hashtags can be misused and improper keyword research can make your hard work almost useless. Read below to understand how hashtags and keywords can be used to boost your digital marketing presence while at the same time bolster your SEO efforts.

Hashtags vs. Keywords

To understand how you can implement both for a successful digital media marketing campaign, you must first understand the differences between hashtags and keywords. Both can be used, on their respective platforms, to drive organic traffic to a company website or social media page. Where they differ is in the particular ways you will use them, the different channels you will use them on, and time spans of their effectiveness.

Hashtags

Essentially, hashtags are just keywords with a number-, or “pound-” sign (#) in front of them, such as #SocialMs. Now, hashtags won’t be very useful in traditional SEO efforts, but they will be extremely beneficial for social SEO and boosting your social media presence. Understanding how to optimize your Tweets and other social media posts will yield better results. The hashtags you choose to implement at the end of your social media posts will associate your post with other trends, conversations, and content with the same hashtags.

Overall, hashtags are a way of labeling your content so that it is presented with posts containing related content. When people search for a particular hashtag, your content will be seen along with it. Along with #SocialMs, you might want to include general hashtags – such as #SocialMedia, #ContentMarketing, and other things related to your business.

Keywords

Whereas hashtags can boost your social media presence immediately, keywords will increase your SEO efforts, yet more gradually. However, keywords and SEO should not be put on the back burner. If you post a piece of content on your website, such as a blog post, it can take weeks for a search engine such as Google to index and rank your content and its keywords on the SERPS (search engine results pages.) However, where social media followers will read your content and ideally move on to find other new and exciting posts, Google will bring it up whenever any similar words are searched — bringing your website more traffic. SEO is very valuable to your digital marketing efforts and will be well worth your time. After all, how else are you going to get your company website and content to pop up when people search for related terms in Google?

It is important to note that you can overuse hashtags and keywords. It can be much more effective to use 1-2 quality hashtags as opposed to trying to cast a wide net and using many. Similarly, using too many keywords — also known as keyword stuffing — is not a best practice, and can cost you your ranking in the SERPS. Instead, just write what would be most informative to your readers naturally, providing the user experience that Google takes into account when ranking web pages.

Although keywords and hashtags are related, it is important to know that they differ regarding what platforms they are used on, and the immediacy in which they will be useful. When looking to boost your social media presence, try using both for an extremely effective digital marketing campaign — getting you noticed both on social media and in the SERPS.

How Social Media Marketing and SEO Compliment Each Other

In compiling hashtags around #SocialMs — #SocialMedia and #ContentMarketing — you should start building a seed list for keyword research by researching terms used by your audience — as recommended by Andrew Dennis, a content marketing specialist at Page One Power. One of the ways to start finding your base keywords is by analyzing social media posts and groups to understand the language and terminology of your audience. In this way, an examination of trending hashtags can help you start a strong keyword seed list to include in your content, or even include as topics for successful blog posts and articles.

Keyword tools such as Moz and SEMrush can help you expand significantly on your keyword research. These tools reveal what searchers are looking for on the web, and your keyword research for website content and SEO can illuminate useful hashtags to use in your social media posts. Searchers of the web are commonly interested in the same thing they look for on social media channels. Just put a # in front of your newly researched keywords for a hashtag that will bring your content up when the same is searched in a social media platform. In the same way, understanding trending hashtags can reveal keywords to create topics for blog posts, as well as revising them to keep your content up-to-date.

For instance, when you type “social media” into SEMrush, one of the most searched phrases including the keywords social media is “social media marketing.” For your SEO purposes, you can create a blog post about social media marketing. However, as described above, it will take a while for Google to index your web page. What you can do now is make a social media post revolving around your new blog article with #socialmediamarketing included at the end of your social media post. Social media will now instantly include your social media post alluding to your new blog piece, including it when people search for #socialmedia and #socialmediamarketing on social media channels. In this way, we can see how hashtags and keywords compliment one another for social media awareness as well as SEO efforts.

Additionally, keyword research will help you pinpoint the most effective hashtags to use if you analyze search volume to find trends and conversations. Not only can this assist you in finding relevant topics for your posts, but it also helps in minimizing the contemplation of which hashtags to use as well as leaving less chance to overuse. But this is not the only way in which hashtags in keywords complement each other.

Let’s say for example that you wrote a terrific, keyword rich blog post. As Google won’t index the web page immediately, your social media post — with the proper hashtags — can make your blog post an immediate success. Then, after a couple of weeks when things on social media have cooled off, and your post has been shared through social media channels, anyone looking for that post — or anything related — can find it quickly with a simple Google search since Google has had time to index your content. In this way, using hashtags and keywords will double your exposure and success of any piece of material.

There are many similarities and differences between hashtags and keywords. With the information above, you can use these similarities and differences to your advantage. SEO and social media are critical for any digital marketing campaign to keep up with the trends and conversations, and understanding how they operate is key to today’s digital marketing. Knowing when and where to use hashtags and keywords, as well as how to research for both will not only save you time, it will significantly boost your SEO and social media presence.

[targetmarketing]

Howard Marks Publishes MASTERING THE MARKET CYCLE

The legendary investor shows how to identify and master the cycles that govern the markets.

We all know markets rise and fall, but when should you pull out, and when should you stay in? The answer is never black or white, but is best reached through a keen understanding of the reasons behind the rhythm of cycles. Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result.

If you study past cycles, understand their origins and remain alert for the next one, you will become keenly attuned to the investment environment as it changes. You’ll be aware and prepared while others get blindsided by unexpected events or fall victim to emotions like fear and greed.

By following Marks’s insights — drawn in part from his iconic memos over the years to Oaktree’s clients — you can master these recurring patterns to have the opportunity to improve your results.

Learn more at masteringthemarketcycle.com.

[targetmarketing]

AI Expert, Kai-Fu Lee Publishes AI SUPERPOWERS

Dr. Kai-Fu Lee—one of the world’s most respected experts on AI and China—reveals that China has suddenly caught up to the US at an astonishingly rapid and unexpected pace.   In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power. Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. 

Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee’s opinion, probably not.  But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most importantly, how we can provide solutions to some of the most profound changes in human history that are coming soon.

Learn more at AISuperpowers.com. 

[targetmarketing]

3 Thought Leadership Myths That Are Holding You Back

Ask any B2B marketing team whether they’re putting their efforts into thought leadership, and there’s a 99% chance you’ll get a “yes.”

Everyone wants to be a thought leader these days – and for good reason. According to research by LinkedIn and Edelman:

88% of business decision makers say their respect and admiration for an organization increased after engaging with thought leadership.

45% of business decision makers say that thought leadership directly led them to decide to do business with a company.

Thought leadership is key for companies that want to differentiate themselves with consumers in today’s digital landscape. After all, content has been king for several years now, and if a company isn’t consistently taking part in the online conversation in their industry, they’re liable to be pushed to the side by a competitor.

With all the attention thought leadership is receiving, it’s not surprising that there are myths floating around about what it is, how to do it, and how it works. Here are 3 prevalent myths that you need to stop believing right now.

Myth #1: Thought leadership is only relevant for B2B companies.

While thought leadership has traditionally been the territory of B2B business leaders, it can be just as effective a tool for B2C companies.

Take REI, the outdoor outfitters' company. They’ve developed the Expert Advice blog, a resource that offers expert tips and knowledge on a huge variety of topics that their customers care about: cycling, camping as a family, choosing the right backpacking gear, and much more. There’s video content as well, to help visitors learn specific outdoor skills.

In other words, it’s a comprehensive thought leadership campaign from a global B2C company. The reason it works is that REI has a deep understanding of who their customers are. They know what they’re passionate about, what they want to learn, and why they engage with the company. Then they deliver that information to them with authority and confidence.

If you’re a business leader at a B2C company, how can thought leadership work for you? The first thing to do is to research your customer, to find out the things that REI knows so well: What does your customer want to know? Why do they engage with you?

The best thought leadership will address those questions, whatever they may be for your company.

Myth #2: Thought leadership has to be serious.

There’s a misconception that thought leadership has to be serious in order to be taken seriously. It’s similar to the way that many beginning speakers, teachers, and others who are in the business of imparting knowledge to the public often think that sounding serious and authoritative will earn them more respect.

Of course, as these people become more experienced, they learn that it’s authenticity that truly earns an audience’s respect. And not every thought leader’s authentic self—or brand—is serious.

For an example, look at the flash-frozen ice cream company, Dippin’ Dots, which my company, Zen Media, worked with on a thought leadership campaign. Their thought leadership campaign was based around a core brand value—their belief in fun.

Your thought leadership will only resonate with readers if it delivers useful, engaging information and if it’s true to your voice and brand. If that voice happens to be funny, or arch, or fun-loving, then use that to your advantage.

Myth #3: Expertise is all you need to become an established thought leader.

While it’s true that you can’t become a thought leader without expertise, you need more than just that to become someone your industry turns to for insight.

There are three more crucial elements that are required to turn someone from a prominent industry voice to a true thought leader.

The first one: Trust.

You can’t be a thought leader without earning your audience’s trust. To do that, you must be authentic, as mentioned earlier, and that requires a degree of vulnerability. Having all the answers doesn’t necessarily mean people will trust you. You build trust by sharing your story, your journey, and even your failures.

The second: Relevance.

People want to hear what you have to say about current hot topics—and not only the ones that are particular to your industry. That could mean jumping in on the conversation about women in tech, for example, if you have an experience that’s relevant. It could mean relating an important conversation that’s occurring in your industry to a larger, mainstream cultural conversation.

And third: Amplification.

You have to have a strong platform from which to share your message. Starting with your own blog, a company blog or a Medium account is great, but you need to find additional outlets through which to share your articles, too.

Becoming a columnist for a widely-read media outlet, developing relationships with influencers, and connecting with other industry thought leaders are all strong ways to start amplifying your message.

Thought leadership is becoming an ever-more important part of building your brand online. By dropping these myths, and focusing on what works, you’ll clear your path to become a trusted, authentic thought leader.

[targetmarketing]

What’s Ahead for Marketers and Influencers in 2018?

A new year always brings about much speculation in the world of marketing. Recent years have seen a seemingly endless stream of new technologies, platforms and tactics that marketers and brands can leverage to stay ahead of the curve.

Throughout 2017, influencer marketing has maintained its value through the existing influencer-follower relationship, and it has continued to evolve.

While the end of 2017 brought with it new technologies and opportunities for brands that incorporate this marketing tactic, we expect to see some of these developments really gain their momentum and mature in 2018.

Below are a few trend predictions and tips for marketers and brands that want to start the year with strong influencer marketing strategies.

Influencer network as a service

By now, most marketers now know what an influencer is and have already incorporated these content creators into their marketing strategies and budgets. A recent survey revealed that 61 percent of brand respondents had worked with digital influencers within the past year.

As brands become more comfortable with the influencer marketing process and better understand the additional value that brand-tailored campaigns can provide, some are looking to take a more active role in establishing their own influencer relationships and managing the entire campaign process.

One way that brands are taking more control is through a new model known as influencer network as a service. This model gives brands the tools they need on an easy-to-use platform so that they’re fully equipped to manage their own campaigns and influencer relationships directly, making for a more streamlined experience.

Additionally, brands have the option to build their own custom-created networks from scratch, catered to a specific niche audience or designed for a select campaign.

These influencer networks as a service give brands a new way to create meaningful content by working with influencers whose values are aligned with those of the brand. This type of custom fit cannot always be achieved with a premade influencer network.

Social platforms catered to influencers

Brands aren’t the only ones taking note of the power of influencers. As more marketers plan to launch influencer campaigns or increase their influencer budgets, social media platforms are stepping up their games to provide a better overall experience when working with sponsored content.

In 2017, we saw social platforms create features and updates that simplify and enhance the influencer marketing process in an attempt to draw in more brand and influencer activity.

Big changes came to Facebook marketing, including a feature that allows brands to share influencer posts directly with chosen audiences and an option to select which influencer can tag the company in branded content.

Instagram rolled out a new way for influencers to identify sponsored posts, which make it easier for brands and influencers to comply with Federal Trade Commission disclosure policies, and it added a new polls feature giving brand and influencer followers a new and exciting way to engage with these accounts.

And Snapchat released a long-awaited, influencer-friendly feature that allows users to add external links to their videos.

Social media is the go-to place for many shoppers these days. A recent surveyfound that almost one-half (47 percent) of social purchases are made via Facebook.

Going into 2018, we’ll likely see more influencers and brands adopting these platform changes in an effort to engage their followers in new ways, while also streamlining their own efforts so that campaigns can become even more targeted to audiences.

Increased product involvement from influencers

More customers than ever are trusting influencer opinions on products. A recent survey found that 49 percent of consumers rely on recommendations from influencers they see on Twitter.

While many consumers are loyal to their favorite brands, loyalty to influencers is a bit different. You expect brands to promote their own products in sponsored posts, but influencers are real people who often choose to work with brands that they believe in and are connected to, so there is less perceived bias. Loyal followers notice this and are more likely to pay attention to an influencer’s recommendation of a certain brand, product or style.

As marketers catch onto this trend, many are offering their popular influencers a seat at the product-planning table. Influencers who are particularly engaged with their followers have their finger on the pulse of what the brand’s target audience is currently interested in. This information can be very valuable when the time comes to design new products and campaigns that will catch customers’ eyes.

So far, we have seen this trend emerge mainly for beauty and fashion brands, which are more likely to release special collections and lines tied to seasons or themes. However, as it gains traction, don’t be surprised to see a more diverse group of brands work closely with influencers for development in 2018.

Although influencer marketing is no longer a new tactic, it is one that will remain relevant as time goes on with the introduction of new tactics and best practices. In the new year, as consumers and social platforms evolve to capitalize on these changes, brands must also keep a keen eye out for trends and be ready to shift their strategies and make the most of influencer campaigns.

[targetmarketing]

Why Organic Is Dying and What to Do About It

Can your business realistically rely on organic reach alone? Probably not, although organic advertising still has an important role to play in conjunction with paid, the stats make for sober reading.

A recent experiment shows that only 4% of your brand’s Facebook followers could be seeing your organic posts.

That’s not a good return – especially considering social media’s ascent and social marketing was built on promises that shaped it as free, limitless and far-reaching.

In reality, most marketing channels are becoming pay-to-play. They’ll take you so far, but if you really want to make waves, you’ll need to pay for them. Social ROI is particularly evident of this, with 40% of CMOs stating that social media results are underperforming compared the rest of their marketing strategy.

New followers and shares have their merit, but if social ads aren’t translating into added revenue then it can mean very little.

Social has always relied on the idea that if you create great content then customers will connect with your brand – but this is flawed. Users need to engage with your content and marketing strategy and to do this, your brand has to pay more. Organic reach will keep going down.

It’s as simple as that.

Pay-to-play is here to stay

A few years ago, demand generation seemed to be about encouraging as many leads as possible into your sales funnel. If they’ve expressed an interest then cram them in the funnel.

But, brands would just end up with loads of unqualified leads and time becomes wasted on people that aren’t interested and it’s tough to differentiate and prioritize warm leads.

Fast-forward to today and there’s new tech, paid marketing automation tools that allow brands to track leads closely, create several funnels and mold data-driven buying personas. Your brand can then identify the devices i.e webinars, infographics, podcasts; you can use to boost conversions.

Tracking paid social ROI and leads aren’t just about throwing money at them, you have to be synced to analytic platforms and automation tools to target demographics and get granular. And to do this, you have to pay.

Paid to Influence

One strand of marketing that exemplifies the domination of paid advertising is influencer marketing. It captures the difficulty that customers have in distinguishing between traditional advertising, organic earned media and blended forms of the two.

A survey by Digiday found that 66% of their sample of marketers had influencer strategies in place.

Instagram is the most popular influencer marketing tool, where influencers effectively sell their reach to agencies and brands. Expertcity found that influencer’s recommendations had 22x more influence than traditional customers.

Customers are looking for likeminded individuals who endorse the products they’re looking at – they’re more distrustful of traditional marketing.

When you’re paying for your advertising, multichannel integration is essential now. Social media pretty much has to be integrated with your other marketing tools. So, if you’re employing an influencer on who’ll take-over your social media channels, you’ll need to be able to target users with their relevant content.

The issue is that customers might grow tired of obvious paid advertising with influencers. People are looking for authenticity in a digital age that sometimes seems superficial and disingenuous.

Striking the balance between honest, likable and trustworthy influencers and savvy products that make sense for them to advertise with is key. Paid advertising needs to be done in an intelligent way, driven by insights.

An appetite for Organic

Organic ads almost exist in a limbo state-space – if they’re not boosted with cash then the chances of them being seen by customers aren’t huge. But even if you’re cautious about paying for ads, a healthy amount of organic ads can still have an effect. It might not be a boost in conversions or sales, but having a presence and posting regularly still has its purpose in your marketing strategy.

Customers will still visit your social channels when they want to learn about your company or get a feel for the type of products you sell. You may not have used paid advertising on the photo of your office dog, but populating your social channels with posts and content can still show that you’re a lively, consistent company that has a personality.

Harnessing organic advertising in the right way can be successful for your brand if you tweak the results and objectives you’re looking to generate. Don’t have the same expectations for organic ads as you do for pay.

Striking a Balance

Most marketing and advertising are monetized and you need to spend to see results. This is the case with social media and influencer marketing in particular. Multi-channel integration means that even if you’re seeing results with some organic ads, somewhere along the line, you’ll need to spend to really make the most of the effort you’re making with your marketing strategy.

That’s not to say that organic ads have had their day, they still have a purpose if you manage your expectations. Yes, organic reach is decreasing and you need to pay to get in front of targeted customers, but having social channels that are populated with organic ads can still be a good brand building exercise for your business and boosts authenticity.

If you’re creating great content then it deserves to be seen – the quality of your content doesn’t guarantee success. Make the most of paid social and multi-channel integration to make sure your content’s seen and helps your business grow.