Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

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Cross Channel Analytics Need To Be Implemented

Wednesday, 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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Posted in Facebook, Internet Advertising, advertising | No Comments »

Yahoo Slashes 2,000 Jobs

Monday, April 9th, 2012

Scott Thompson was named CEO of Yahoo three months ago. He came from the world of PayPal and was supposed to be a signal that Yahoo was looking for a reorientation. It’s a no-brainer that Yahoo has lost the battle over search and social to Google and FaceBook, but not necessarily the battle over display advertising. On Wednesday Thompson announced that Yahoo would be slashing jobs as it also slashes its offerings in an effort to be really good at one thing instead of mediocre at 1,000.

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It appears that Yahoo is going after video content and the display advertising panacea that comes along with it. This is not to say that Yahoo is looking to displace YouTube. Rather, Yahoo wants to be instrumental in cord cutting as the destination people go to for their usual TV content.

Yahoo has already inked a deal with ABC News and hopes to do more. There is also original video content in the works. More content, especially original content, will help drive more people to Yahoo and the ad inventory Yahoo displays. The social media agency that advertises with Yahoo should, in time, see improved numbers. There might also be opportunities for the creative agency to help with the original content and drive more people to conversion sites independent of the Yahoo networks.

Thompson’ experience with PayPal, a service more focused on partnerships with other brands instead of the usual stand-alone orientation of Yahoo, should also help the social media agency. We can expect to find Yahoo much more cooperative and interested in helping out partners. It will take time for Yahoo to revamp that orientation and make products more suitable, but the payoff should be nice.

Yahoo Makes Slashes

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Posted in Internet Advertising, Internet News | No Comments »

Google Will Launch a Commenting System

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

The FaceBook commenting system is found on millions of websites. Google has decided that it does not want to miss out on the action and is launching its own service. It will be just like the FaceBook version, where third party sites host it and the comments then track back into Google’s network. It’s the deeper integration that makes it possibly better than FaceBook’s system.

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Google will be able to combine its already large data pool with what people are saying on third party sites. Once Google also finishes its semantic data engine, then measuring what people say will be immediately testable against what they also buy and where they go online. The commenting system will also have some serious implications on Google’s search business.

The social media agency will be able to have a much more comprehensive understanding of their potential customers once this system goes into place. It might also be helpful to begin testing products and brands on different platforms so the commenting system will immediately begin accessing that information.

Google Battles Facebook

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, google, social media | 1 Comment »

Swaylo Offers Normally Hidden FaceBook data

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Swaylo is a new third party app for FaceBook. Users sign in to it and if they earn high enough influence scores, then Swaylo offers them free gifts and reduced items. The catch is that the user must give Swaylo access to not only his data but also to friends’ data. Swaylo then offers users a range of data about their impact and their audience on FaceBook. It is a unique service Swaylo offers not only to individual users but also to brands and social media agencies.

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Swaylo sells the collected data. There is some disagreement about if this violates FaceBook’s terms of services, but Swaylo management has an argument that might protect them. Even if the argument does not stand up to eventual scrutiny that is possibly a reason why firms should consider contacting Swaylo while they can.  An executive from Horizon Media says Swaylo’s data is much better than what FaceBook’s Insights offers. Horizon Media has decided to pass on partnering with Swaylo until FaceBook reviews the app and potential blowback has been assessed. It’s a prudent course of action and one that social media agencies need to consider.

The payoff for a well-sorted data set is not a secret. There is room for blowback, although it might be directed at the user who allowed an app to access his friends’ data. Regardless of what does happen brands need to take a look at the service and evaluate if it is for them. Aside from purchasing the data, using it as a platform to offer discounts for a brand’s goods might also turn out to be lucrative once its user base widens.

Swaylo Reveals Facebook

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | 2 Comments »

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.

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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

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, 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.

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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

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Posted in Facebook, google, social media | No Comments »

Facebook Opens Up Sponsored Ads to Third Party Apps

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Brands that have a Facebook page have been able to turn a user’s actions on their content into a sponsored ad. The action, a comment or a ‘like’, would then appear on the sidebar of friends of that user.

Until this moment though the range of actions that qualified for this turn was limited to engagements on the advertiser’s Facebook page. Facebook has changed those restrictions and now allows sponsoring of engagement through third party apps using Facebook’s Open Graph. For example, The Rolling Stones are now able to sponsor when a user listens to them through Spotify and have that action show up as a sponsored ad.

Open Graph applications are seen as the future for Facebook’s efforts. The internet marketing agency can ride this wave. Anytime a brand’s content is read it can then be turned into a sponsored ad. Brands need not limit themselves to just their content though. Content that is similar or has some connection with the brand can also benefit from sponsored ads. There is ample room for creativity in this new allowance Facebook is providing.

Sponsored Stories

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Posted in Facebook, advertising, digital agency | 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.

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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

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media | No Comments »

Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft Team Up Against Facebook and Google

Friday, November 11th, 2011

The three dinosaurs of internet advertising have decided to cooperate in an effort to take on the growing shares of Facebook and Google in display advertising. The partnership will begin in early 2012 by integrating their real-time bidding systems. All three publishers have some display advertising which is considered reserved and these reserved ads will not be part of the integration. Some of the non-reserved space is still considered premium and the integration should help make it easier for advertisers, especially younger advertisers, to push their ads with better visibility and lower prices.

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AOL may be the biggest winner in this merger. There was rumor that some AOL clients might be leaving because of dwindling numbers, but this integration should stymie that flight. This merger will also help AOL reach advertising spaces outside of its own media properties.

A concern for advertisers is the further consolidation of the publishing side of advertising. However, the integration of three separate payment options and methods will provide an immediate help to the digital marketing agency. The scale of the three publishers once merged is also quite staggering and might just be large enough to make a dent in the growing domination of Facebook and Google in display advertising.

Partnership

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, Microsoft, advertising, digital agency | 1 Comment »

Sociable Labs Offers E-Commerce Sites a Social Option

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Sociable Labs emerged from its building phase on Tuesday to announce some potentially lucrative new products for e-commerce sites. The company has been dark for the past few years as it perfected its quest to bring social sharing and data mining to e-commerce sites. Sociable Labs claims its products, Sociable RSVP and Purchase Share, are 20 times more effective than a simple ‘”Like” or “Share”.

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The formula for how Sociable Labs is meeting these numbers is not disclosed. They do claim to use a combination of social apps, A-8 Testing (their proprietary models for driving traffic and conversions) and social expertise (a phrase usually notable for qualitative assessments and not quantitative computations). Whether or not it will be able to sustain these expectations remains to be seen. For now, however, Active.com uses the products and is experiencing 300% higher return rate than on Facebook Fan Page. Sociable Labs does have some other high profile clients, but they have not been as forthcoming about gains.

The internet marketing agency may be able to tap into Sociable Labs products or at least monitor them to learn something. The products for offer are probably beyond the range of the small e-retailer but with enough interest they may offer a scaled down version that the digital agency can also use to help clients.

Sociable Labs

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Posted in Digital Marketing, digital agency | 1 Comment »

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