social media

More FaceBook Changes Impacting Businesses

Monday, March 19th, 2012

Most already know about the coming March 30 deadline for FaceBook’s Timeline implementation. There are some other changes in the pipeline that will have some effects on how the social media agency runs business.

This column has already discussed the new cover image. It’s large and also includes four buttons that are immediate calls to action. In a similar vein FaceBook is changing the formatting of photos and videos. They will now appear larger and more immediate to the viewer. FaceBook is concerned about the way businesses can tell stories, so this will help. It is also possible (click the star icon in the upper right corner) to have a post span both sides of the Timeline.

FaceBook is also now allowing brands to post milestones. These will appear as special moments on the Timeline and draw attention to the growth of the brand. This will also be helpful as a way to draw attention to certain events and thus possibly downplay the attention given to others.

FaceBook is expanding its FaceBook Offers. More brands than the current few will have access and it will help businesses offer deals to its fans. New offers will be sent through the newsfeed of fans. FaceBook will also be emailing the offers to subscribing viewers. The business will not be given access to the users email address, but the offer will at least be out there.

These are some exciting changes. Businesses will be able to have a much more dynamic and engaging presence on the social network after they roll out. There will be much for the social media agency to play with.

Facebook Expands and Changes

Tags: Facebook, facebook timeline, milestones, social media, Social Media Marketing
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

Online Consumer Reviews Are Well Trusted

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

The social media agency should be encouraged by the results from the 2012 Local Consumer Review Survey. Only 15% of respondents had said they did not use the internet to find a local business and 16% said they use the internet every week to do so. The ratio of that split was similar to the split when asked about using online reviews to determine if a business is a good one to visit. 27% regularly use online reviews and 24% never use online reviews. Most consumers, 67%, read between 2 and 10 reviews each week and only 7% said they read more than 20 each week. The final result is that 58% of customers trust a business that has an online review of it posted and these reviews are trusted by 72% of people as much as they trust personal recommendations.

Social media agencies need to be more focused on cultivating positive reviews than ever before. Part of this mission will require the social media agency to be more attuned to being present on sites that easily collect reviews and allow them to be searchable. Brands will then need to encourage customers to leave reviews. It may be possible to offer discounts or some exclusive item for reviewers. The temptation will need to be resisted, however, to leave fake positive reviews or to encourage positive reviews. A rumor of deception will take any good will among those that have had positive experiences and prevent any gains from positive reviews. Positive reviews only gain such a premium in a world where they are trusted.

Trustworthy Customer Reviews

Tags: advertising, consumer reviews, online reviews, social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
Posted in Customer Serivce, Online Shopping, social media | No Comments »

Blogging Continues To Grow

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

By the end of 2011 there were over 181 million blogs of enough prominence to be tracked by NM Incite, which is a Nielsen/McKinsey Company. That number is a significant bump from the halcyon days immediately before FaceBook took over the internet. Blogging has shown a steady rise not only in publisher but also in the numbers of people that read them. Even with a FaceBook domination, blogging is still on the rise.

NM Incite also has some data about who these bloggers are. Most of them are women and most of them have graduated from college. Mothers are one out of every three bloggers and over half of the bloggers have children younger than 18. They are also most likely to post and share on social media sites and to share content on those networks and not just on their blogs.

Blogger, owned by Google, is the second largest social networking site second only to FaceBook. This is important for the social media agency because it is easy to overlook or even forget about blogs in the craze of social network growth. FaceBook, Twitter and, now, Pinterest are fantastic outlets, but they still lack a comprehensive hold on how people share their preferences on the internet. This is especially important because Blogger is owned by Google and many Wordpress blogs offering advertising are partnered with Google’s Adwords. Reaching out to bloggers can still be a valuable marketing campaign, possibly even more so than the services measured by Klout and other metrics.

Blogging on the Rise

Tags: Blogger, blogging, Facebook, google, pinterest, social media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
Posted in Facebook, google, social media | No Comments »

A Window For Advertising on Pandora

Friday, March 9th, 2012

Pandora, one of the most powerful music streaming devices for mobile devices, announced on Tuesday that it will not meet revenue expectations. The root of the problem is a lack of advertising partners. Pandora has more inventory than advertisers. Pandora’s need for advertising might just present a lucrative moment for social media agencies, as special pricing options might be agreeable. The problem with Pandora advertising is the audio and lack of a visual aspect to them, so new ads will need to be made. Regardless, a reduced price on Pandora’s end might just make it viable.

May people might be afraid to approach Pandora because of doubts about its future. This is not a valid concern. The obvious reason is because of mobile’s growth. More and more people are buying smartphones and better smartphones, which means a larger pool of potential Pandora users.

As this column has stated previously, Pandora offers a unique experience to the other music streaming services. Spotify is great if the user knows what he wants to listen to. As for a discovery service, however, Pandora is the leader. This position will bring in more listeners. Pandora is also increasing their spending in marketing and will reach out to people that may not currently know about its services.

Maybe its current troubles are reasons to be timid about approaching the service. That seems to be, however, precisely why some special pricing can be agreed upon which makes the investment into audio ads and the reaching out to the new service profitable.

Pandora Advertises

Tags: advertising, Digital Marketing, Internet Marketing, Pandora, social media, spotify
Posted in Internet Advertising, advertising, social media | No Comments »

Pinterest Teaches About Marketing to Women

Monday, March 5th, 2012

Pinterest is the hot new thing in social media and digital marketing. As discussed in this column earlier, Pinterest has added almost 10 million new active users from September 2011 to February 2012. Besides the growth there is other interesting data coming from the nascent social network. Just over 80% of those active users are women. More women than men use the other social networks, but the ratios are significantly more even than Pinterest. Because of this heavy ratio Pinterest offers a unique place to learn about marketing to women.

There are two general strategies brands have taken to market to women. The first is to explicitly display products and to try and sell them. In all of social media women, 85% to be exact, do most of the purchases made. Pinterest seems ideally situated for this model of marketing because of its heavy reliance on images and little written content.

The second model is about creating positive associations with the brand and not an immediate primary focus on selling products. One of the main differences here is that the brand will build community by engaging with others, which also means the brand has preferences and likes other brands and other users. Links back to a site for sales are present, but the main focus is about engaging and making users associate with the brand as if it were another user.

Pinterest and its growth are still too new to develop comprehensive strategies and have them validated by statistics. Pinterest represents an opportunity for brands to break the strategies into different approaches on various social networks. There is no reason why a brand ought to be forced to rely on a single strategy across all social networks and Pinterest’s image focus allows perfectly for those different approaches.

Pinterest Marketing to Women

Tags: Digital Marketing, pinterest, social media, Social Media Marketing, women
Posted in Digital Marketing, advertising, social media | No Comments »

Most Valuable Follower Is Active

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Yesterdy this column wrote about Twitter’s coming new analytic tools. The social media agency should be excited about those, but Tuesday saw the launch of a helpful tool that is for free and run by a third party. Most Valuable Follower is an app created for fun. The app will show the top five followers of a Twitter account and hos large their follower base is.

A feed that has 5,000 followers is a healthy and popular feed, but it only reaches a very small percentage of the Twitterverse. Measuring how many followers those followers has opens up the Twitterverse in new ways. That is preceily what this app allows the social media agency to do. There is also an opportunity to tweet congratulations about the MVF. Some brands can use this mention as a way to build a desire for more followers, akin to FourSquare’s mayorship.

While MVF does not offer a very important tool in the arsenal, it helps some. It is also emblematic of what makes twitter so valuable. There are numerous third party apps out there which when combined can provide some useful ananytucs for the digital marketer.

Who is Your MVF?

Tags: social media, Twitter
Posted in Twitter, social media | No Comments »

Facebook Insights Pared Down

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Amy Porterfield, a successful Facebook marketing coach, has an essay where she offers some advice for the digital agency overwhelmed with Facebook metrics. She argues that there only three of the available metrics that really need observance.

The most important new metric is People Talking About This. Unlike the other metrics it is visible to the public. This metric is simple: it measures any engagement. If a person comments, shares, likes or links to a post then it is counted in the measure. The metric operates on a weekly basis and shows the percentage change from the previous change. This is easily the easiest way to measure engagement and it is easy to know when a post needs attending.

Another metric is Engaged Users. This measures every time in the past 28 days when a person has clicked anywhere in the post. The metric will also reveal where people clicked, so the digital agency can see what people are responding to.

The other invaluable metric is External Referrers. It measures every time a page is landed on from an external site. This is helpful to measure of the social media marketing agency is adequately performing outside of Facebook. It also helps reveal how to better reach people outside of Facebook.

Facebook Metrics

Tags: Facebook, Facebook metrics, social media, Social Media Marketing
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

Social Media Director - Ann Arbor, MI - Job Opening

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Leading digital agency seeks endearingly persistent and oddly charismatic candidate for opportunity in social media marketing. The Social Media Director will create and implement comprehensive social media strategies across a variety of platforms, in accordance with individual client needs and broader media trends. The ideal candidate must have a demonstrated passion for social media, digital culture, and college sports.

Responsibilities

The Social Media Director will coordinate with our digital team to provide cohesive and consistent branding strategies for a variety of clients utilizing platforms including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Youtube. In addition to monitoring current social media trends, the Social Media Director must possess the ability to analyze these trends and think critically about the possible ramifications for the social media landscape and, ultimately, for our clients.

The Social Media Director will work with the Ingenex team to create clever and effective campaigns to garner positive attention for our clients in accordance with their business objectives and brand strategies. The Social Media Director will develop manageable, cross-platform campaigns that will deliver measurable results, with a focus on creating and cultivating relationships between client and consumer.

The Social Media Director will also have the opportunity to attend and use social media at industry related events (TEDx, SXSW, LA2M, ETC.) representing Ingenex and its clients.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate is ambitious, enthusiastic, and innovative, with both the willingness to collaborate with a team and the ability to be autonomous. The candidate must have an intricate knowledge of the technical aspects of social media usage as well as the ability to use various platforms to successfully market products, build brand equity, and interact with consumers. Our ideal candidate is a leader, a listener, and a highly social person.

Rather than a specific number of years of experience, we seek in our candidate an eagerness to continually evolve with the medium. The ideal candidate must be able to adapt and react to an ever-evolving digital landscape quickly and effectively. Must be team-oriented and recognize the value of strong customer service. Our ideal candidate is flexible, confident, and communicative. Ability to recognize linguistic trends and utilize rhetoric to effectively market preferred, but not required. Client must be willing to work hard and have fun.

To apply, please send resume and cover letter to Derek Mehraban derek (at) ingenexdigital (dot) com @mehraban on Twitter. Applications will be accepted until Friday, January 20 at 5 PM. Thank you. Salary commensurate with experience.

About Ingenex

Ingenex is a full service Digital Marketing agency with offices in Ann Arbor and Chicago. Our mission is to be the world leaders in engaging digital media users in highly enjoyable experiences that deliver break-through results for our partners.

Ingenex Digital Marketing services include mobile application development, Interactive Branding™, web site design, search engine optimization, pay-per-click management, optimized public relations, direct marketing, new media training, social media marketing, email marketing, web-driven event marketing, generational marketing, podcasting and blogging.

Tags: Ann Arbor, Community, Digital Marketing, google, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing, digital agency, google, social media | No Comments »

Facebook Sets Up a Political Action Committee

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Facebook must be feeling defensive lately. Their latest small business initiative is a way to secure and increase their advertising base as well as to increase the use of their options for brands. Facebook has also announced the creation of a Political Action Committee, otherwise known as PAC, whose purpose is to lobby Congress about the importance of social networks and Facebook particularly.

According to The Hill Facebook has already spent $550,000 this year on lobbying efforts. That number has been increasing every year for a few years now. The PAC will allow employees and the company itself to contribute to the political campaigns of candidates that support social networking and digital innovation.

As long as Facebook represents the single largest and most influential online destination, this move is good for the digital agency. Congress has yet to settle the privacy concerns in digital advertising and the PAC may help promote pro-advertising opinions in Congress. Of course, there is concern this influence may not work for the industry but instead specifically for Facebook as Google’s anti-trust concerns increasingly comes to Congressional attention. The big payoff, with few of the risks, lies in devoting the PAC to the future of the industry and not in the issues specifics of Facebook competitors. The digital agency can probably breathe a little easier as it looks ahead to Congressional involvement in the industry.

Facebook’s PAC

Tags: congress, Facebook, google, Social Networking
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

About How Men Share Recommendations

Friday, September 16th, 2011

AskMen.com and Ipsos OTX Media CT conducted “The Great Male Survey” and asked men how they tell their friends about purchases and other recommendations. The data is broken down by the answer given and by the age group of the men. Most men, regardless of their age, prefer to do the recommendations through non-digital means: in person or on the phone. If a face-to-face encounter is not an option, then older communication channels are preferred, such as over the phone or email.

Even though the preferred channels are without advertising potential, or at least represent a small advertising potential, the digital agency should still be excited. 5% of the younger age group prefers to make recommendations over Facebook, with other social networks falling behind Facebook. That number, while small, still represents a significant number of men. The percentage also reflects a preferred method of communication, so the low ranking options are still often accessed, as preferred methods are not necessarily available.

The preferred methods reflect an ease of use. It’s easy to mention a certain lawnmower when talking to a friend about lawn care or everyday life. It is possible for the digital agency to inflate these preferences by making a digital recommendation more convenient or to imbue the recommendation with a status gain. Given the preference for email recommendations, ads need to be try to capitalize on this desire or to incentivize the public recommendation more than the private recommendation.

What is really encouraging about this data is the success rate. The most likely answer to “how effective is a Facebook recommendation from a friend?” was “somewhat” at 42%. 18% of respondents find Facebook recommendations more effective than “somewhat”. Men pay attention to what their friends are saying. Channeling into this sort of engagement needs to be a high priority for the marketing firm.

How Men Share

Tags: Digital Marketing, Facebook, internet, social media, Social Networking
Posted in Internet Advertising, advertising, social media | No Comments »

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