Google+ Engagement Is Low

May 16th, 2012

Google+ claims to have 170 million users and to be growing by leaps and bounds. RJ Metrics was skeptical about this number, possibly out of a sluggish response to Google+ branding or based on personal experience, and conducted a study about engagement on the newer social network. The study was only able to measure posts that are made public, so there is some possibility it is not indicative, but the numbers are sobering.

Google+

Of users that make a public post, only 30% of Google+ accounts will ever make another public post again. This compares to an average of 70% across all social networks. That is a staggering difference that should make the social media agency hesitant to spend any money or effort on Google+. The average public post on Google+ is also seeing less than one +1 and less one reshare. This makes it nearly impossible for a post to go viral on Google+. Brands need to instead focus on other social networks for widespread sharing and engagements. Post decay is also an issue for Google+. When a new user signs up, then the statistics predict a public post, but the time between posts is long.

It seems possible that enthusiasm for Google+ is only in the beginnings, when an account is new. People then either give up on learning how to use the network or they abandon it for the networks that are already trafficked and seen by a user’s own circle of friends. Google+ might be gaining more traction as a forum for controlled posts, posts that are not made public and only shared among a small circle of friends. The study does not measure these uses. Whether or not that caveat if true makes Google+ a valuable platform for the social media agency is doubtful.

Google+ having trouble retaining users

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FaceBook Releases Internal data About Brand Engagement

May 15th, 2012

FaceBook conduced a month-long study of 23 brands, which measured more than 1200 posts. The study was looking to see what sorts of posts produced the most engagement, measured by likes, shares and comments.

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“By far, the biggest predictor of engagement was that the post was on a topic relevant to the brand,” is the ultimate conclusion of the study and a common-sense approach. The brand was, after all, liked for a reason and sticking to that message is already proven to be important to viewers. Other methods that have shown success, even thought the finding says they are not necessarily predictive of engagement, is to ask viewers to comment. The prompts for comments work best when it is posed as a question that begins with why, where, when or how. Without those words the prompts are seen to be less effective.

To propel a post into a user’s timeline, and hence seen by that user’s friends, is to post photos or videos. Those posts are more likely to garner likes or shares, which is a necessary step for the elusive ‘going viral.’

While this is not a conclusive list for the social media agency, it is helpful. The study is careful to elaborate that some brands have more success going into unusual areas, the Skittles campaign for example, than other brands. The social media agency will need to play with its clients to see which work for them.

FaceBook reveals data that offers insight on rules of engagement

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Detroit Networking Events for Women

May 15th, 2012

Inforum brings together Michigan business women to help lead and succeed. Inforum offers women in the Southeast Michigan area the opportunity to grow their professional and personal networks. Inforum members can participate in Detroit Networking events for women through Affinity groups. Affinity groups allow professional women to network while engaging in mutual interests such as arts and culture, wine or cooking in a relaxed environment. Inforum also offers professional networking events and groups in a more professional setting. Detroit networking events for women help enhance women’s personal and professional potential.

Inforum - Networking for Women

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FaceBook Adds Functionality to Third Party Apps

May 7th, 2012

As the mobile revolution spreads to new people and becomes more normalized among those with smartphones, FaceBook has increasingly tried to capture them as part of the social network. Foursquare is a great example of this trend. Foursquare now allows its users to check in and then have that check in posted to FaceBook. Twitter is also functional with Foursquare, but FaceBook has just improved third party app interactions with it.

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Normally a third party app would appear in a user’s timeline and like a regular status update friends could comment or like that update. FaceBook is now allowing apps to have added functionality. A check-in on Foursquare will allow users to “save this place” instead of just like or comment. That place would then move onto the other user’s Foursquare app. And there will be other modes of interactions, which are not geography dependent.

This is a huge development for the social media agency. Foursquare, Yelp!, Urban Spoon and any other app that businesses use to attract people will now be able to use FaceBook for more than just information dissemination. By leveraging the world’s largest social network to also create actions on a person’s mobile apps the brands represented on those apps will have an increased ability to drive traffic to their stores.

FaceBook is letting developers add customizable action links to posts that come from apps.

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Pinterest Is Still Valuable for Brands

May 5th, 2012

Not only is Pinterest growing in popularity, but it also boasts a better conversion rate than when a customer finds a product on a different social network. The reasons are still not entirely known, but there is speculation. The social media agency needs to take its clients onto Pinterest and possibly even use that as the main social network as its platform. Users are able to use Pinterest to share onto FaceBook and Twitter, so a focus on Pinterest does not leave the other networks in the cold.

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One of the concerns with Pinterest is the domination by women. That number is changing though. From January to March the percentage of men on the service rose from 20% to 28%. Most of these users are making a decent income. Almost half make between $25k to $50k each year. The next largest group resides in the $50k to $75k income bracket. One thing to note, however, is that a product’s pin is twice as likely to be shared if it does not include a price.

The most important data to consider is about the percentage of internet purchases derived from the main three social networks. FaceBook is still dominant but its dominance is slipping. From the second quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012 the percentage of referrals from FaceBook fell from 89% to 82%. Twitter’s relevance dropped precipitously from 10% to 1%. Pinterest seems to be the network stealing those numbers as its share rose from 1% to 17% of all purchases referred by a social network.

The social media agency needs to develop a Pinterest strategy. This strategy would also help on the other networks as images become more and more important to a brand’s attempts to recruit sales and conversions.

Measuring the interest in Pinterest

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Pay Per Click Under Criticism Again

May 4th, 2012

Research from BloomReach puts the bounce rate (the percentage of viewers that leave a website without making a purchase) after a non-branded paid click at 55%. Over half the time a click on a paid ad goes through it fails to produce a conversion. Other studies put the bounce rate anywhere from 10% to 90%.

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Raj De Datta, who runs BloomReach, has a recommendation for this abysmal failure of the main (across all channels only 2.5% of a site’s visitors convert) way the social media agency does paid advertising. De Datta suggests big data is the saving grace for the social media agency. Big data, which is able to see where customers are also looking and what the demographic and past search histories have been, is able to measure exactly what the customer is looking for. The context surrounding what the customer wants is better predicted by the digital marketer.

Big data can navigate the twin polls of scale, the number of people being brought in by an ad, and profitability, which focuses on making a sale to each customer. There are an increasing number of big data apps that can offer instantaneous results about what each customer is looking for. Ideally, the ad would be creative and draw in as many people as possible and then landing page would then, via the big data app, be tailored to that unique visitor matching what that customer wants.

The main problem with the big data apps is their cost. Because most of the content on the internet is still about two years old, access to the data and mining it is still nascent and difficult. This puts successful big data apps well within the purviews of large brands. But as more time passes and the as the social media agency focuses more and more on the data that economy of scale is slipping. De Datta argues for pursuing these apps and helping to drive down the costs. Until then even the small firm can act like a big data purveyor by testing with ads and testing with landing pages narrowing to smaller and smaller distinctions among a websites users. It’s labor intensive, but the only way to combat the 55% bounce rate that plagues digital advertising.

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Handbook For Buying Brand Keywords in Search

May 4th, 2012

Brand names receive a higher CTR on search results than a generic equivalent (think ‘Kleenex’ instead of ‘facial tissue’) and so it is a common practice to input a brand’s name (even if that name is not the advertiser in question) as a keyword when buying ads. The FTC does have some rules governing mentioning a competitor by name in an ad, but the keyword buying method does not broach those rules. There are however, some best practices to follow when engaging in this method. Ted Ives is an SEO expert and he has some suggestions for the social media agency that engages in this practice.

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There is some fuzziness about what qualifies as a trademark. Google has an unwritten policy that it does not investigate the issue as long as the potential trademark is not used in the copy of the ad or if there is not a complaint filed. Despite the haziness it is a common practice to keyword a brand name, a competitor’s product name, a website and model numbers of a competitor. One error often seen though is that brands do not double-check their keywords for alternate meanings. This double entendre will create impressions that have zero chance of being clicked on, a waste of resources.

Another issue that is significant is the use of a brand’s own trademarked information within a keyword. This does sometimes happen, but it is cautioned against because it eats away at the organic potential for returns in a search engine. If the competition is tight between, then it may be worth the hit to organic listings. If the brand in question is not well known or is in a saturated market (restaurants), then it is probably worthwhile as long as the other necessary keywords are covered.

It is a complex and interesting field about managing search ads and the social media agency needs to be aware of those complexities. While the Ted Ives essay is not quite comprehensive it is a fantastic starting place with links to other more comprehensive guidebooks.

Guidelines to bidding on competitor’s brands and trademarked phrases

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Inforum Brings Michigan Business Women Together

May 4th, 2012

Inforum is a professional women’s alliance that brings Michigan business women together. This group is an opportunity to network, to develop relationships, and to exchange ideas. Michigan business women are able to come together to create a unique community to further their professional skills.

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Not only are there opportunities to connect on a professional level, but there are also ways to establish social relationships as well. Members can interact more informally through Affinity Groups, a way of networking while exploring mutual interests outside of the workroom. Affinity Groups explore a range of interests and bring together different groups like those interested in literature or the outdoors, wine lovers, or mothers, to name a few. These networking groups and associated events vary across the state and are available in many locations like Metro Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Membership in Inforum is an influential step in a woman’s professional life, and involvement in an Affinity Group further enhances her relationships with other Inforum women seeking success in business.

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AdWords for Video Now Open To All

May 3rd, 2012

Google’s AdWords for Video is the service that brings video ads to brands. Until recently, however the service was available only to large brands, but now Google has opened the service up to anyone and is particularly interested in finding small businesses to begin advertising with the service.

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YouTube offers advertisers two methods of payment. One is that the advertiser only pays if the ad is watched. Viewers are given an opportunity to opt out of an ad after a certain amount of time has ben reached. The second charging option for advertisers is to be charged only if the viewer watches at least 30 seconds of the video.

AdWords is also updating its service to help brands, especially the smaller ones that are not as experienced with the new formats. AdWords will offer an estimate of views given a certain set of advertisement parameters. The platform has also been updated to look more like the normal AdWords platform, so there is less confusion when adopting the new service. The final update is an ability to see what the viewer does after the ad is seen. If the user moves on to the brand’s channel and subscribes, then that is reported.

All of these changes will help the social media agency. Video is an increasingly effective and lucrative form of advertising. The new changes not only open up the service to many social media agencies but also allow brands to see what other actions of value might be related to individual videos.

Google AdWords for video is now open to small and medium size businesses

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Cross Channel Analytics Need To Be Implemented

May 2nd, 2012

While more difficult than the standard metrics for digital advertising ROI, Cross Channel Analytics are worth the added effort and cost. It is not uncommon for an ad on FaceBook to be clicked and then on the next few pages the customer is led astray while eventually making the sale. Few customers click on an ad and then make their way directly to the page where the sale is made but, traditional metrics measure that click and then measure a sale and draw a line directly between the two.

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Cross Channel Analytics measure the intervening steps between the sale and the initial click onto the site. The metric will measure research the customer doe, and the distractions that the customer has to fight through on the way to the sale. These metrics will also better allow the social media agency to know where a customer went astray and how to combat that distraction. This notion is Funnel Analysis and it is necessary to know how to refine early funnel and late funnel pages.

A more comprehensive analysis will also allow brands to identify unnecessary links within the funnel. The question is one of attribution, which links are doing the best work and which are the least responsible for getting the customer to a conversion. The social media agency needs to look into who can best provide these metrics. Until a more sophisticated set of metrics is employed the old metrics, clickthroughs and impressions, will still lead the agency astray.

Too Many Clicks Can’t be Tied to Revenue

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