Archive for July, 2016
Social Platform Ad Updates You Need to Know About
Jul 27
Social media ad updates can change the way you market your products or services.
Social media is constantly becoming more business-friendly. Social advertising efforts seem to be springing up from just about every service. Here are some of the most recent ad updates from some of the most popular platforms so you can make sure that you haven’t missed a new offering that is critical to your brand.
Facebook Ad Updates
Facebook is constantly adding updates and staying in the forefront of social advertising, so we can’t address every update in this article, but these are a few important ones. First of all, Facebook’s lead generation suite has added video. Video is also now a part of the Atlas platform, and the Your Business Story tool that lets you share the tale of how your brand came to be. In short, Facebook loves video.
Instagram’s New Offerings
Owned by Facebook, Instagram is never far behind in the social advertising revolution. Some upcoming features for Instagram will include business profiles, more analytics for a brand’s posts (without having to pay for a sponsored post), and mobile access to Instagram ad purchases.
Twitter’s Efforts to Keep Up
Twitter may be struggling, but it’s still a huge player in social media. Maybe some of these updates will help the giant to recover a little. The first big change is an update to the news feed algorithm. Twitter is also trying to team up with Google. They even plan to offer some better services, like direct-response ads and improved metrics.
Other Social Platforms
LinkedIn continues to set precedents in B2B marketing. Sponsored ads are the method of choice, along with sponsoring posts from company pages.
Pinterest is making it easier to target the right audience by increasing the number of interests and keywords that an ad can target.
Finally, Snapchat—which technically isn’t social media as much as it is instant messaging—has teamed up with Nielsen to improve both sponsored ads and how audiences are measured. This may add some legitimacy to their ad services, as currently Snapchat is not considered a long-term marketing solution by most companies.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 27, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Social Media. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
E-Commerce — How to Personalize User Experience
Jul 20
Personalizing the user experience of your e-commerce site can help increase your sales.
It is easy for everyone to agree that the number one player in e-commerce is Amazon. They figured it out and ran with it. They developed the concept of an online store that literally sells just about everything. And yet they don’t make that concept seem too overwhelming, even for a customer who wants to buy only some Styrofoam cups and a package of stirrers for the break room at the office.
What is Amazon’s secret? Personalization that leads to solid product recommendations.
So how can your e-commerce site follow suit? Here are 3 simple rules about personalization for an e-commerce site.
1) Know Your E-Commerce Platforms
Plenty of technology is available today for online stores when it comes to personalizing your site for consumers. Getting to know the different management platforms can help you see which ones provide the specific user experience that you want customers to have on your site. The key is to be willing to invest the time to go over each platform and its features so that you make the right selection the first time.
2) Know Your Customers
Don’t forget that the client who prefers your site to a giant like Amazon does so for a reason. So you don’t need to provide the exact same experience that Amazon does. Instead, with your specific industry in mind, focus on providing a better experience than your direct competitors—since most online stores do not have the diverse product list of a site like Amazon.
3) Know Your Boundaries
There’s a fine line between recommending a good product to go along with what is already in a person’s shopping cart, and sounding like a drive-thru employee asking everyone, “Would you like fries with that?” Making recommendations should feel like a natural part of the shopping and checkout process. However, it is possible to go too far and infringe on a consumer’s privacy. For example, some expectant mothers were surprised to get maternity coupons from Target due to a campaign that was based on the shopping behavior of customers. Keep suggestions helpful without scaring off consumers.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 20, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Online Personalization. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Marketing to Influencers to Improve Mobile Campaigns
Jul 13
Using influencers is an important aspect of marketing to customers on social media.
Businesses are seeing the importance of getting on the good side of industry influencers as a marketing tactic. Benefits include, but are not limited to, achieving business goals and improving brand perception. Engaging with influencers can boost everything from subscriptions to installs.
How important are influencers to the success of your app?
What Makes Someone an Influencer?
The simplest version: an influencer is a person who exerts a great deal of influence in an industry. This can simply be from the sheer number of followers the individual has on social media—assuming those followers are actually relevant to the industry and not just random people.
Burst Campaign Vs. Influencer Activity
Burst campaigns involve using low-quality content to engage as many people as possible for as little overhead as possible. While this may produce some results through sheer volume, it certainly does not improve brand perception.
On the other hand, the activity of influencers on social media has been able to provide businesses with the same degree of benefits, but with the added benefit of a positive light being cast on the brand. There’s really no way to compare the benefits of a burst campaign to how much good an influencer can do for your brand.
How Influencers Affect Lifetime Value of Customers
You also have to recognize the effect on the individuals who become a customer as a result. When a person is reached by some mass marketing campaign, the lifetime value of this individual is only one-half to one-third that of a user who installs your app organically. People trust influencers every bit as much as they would a trusted friend, which means better engagement. Metrics show that they can drive installs and improve the value of your users.
Platform Is Key to Influencer Selection
Remember, some influencers hold sway only in a certain domain. A vlogger may rule YouTube but have limited influence on other platforms such as Twitter or Instagram. Be sure to wisely choose the influencers you seek endorsement from so that the audience who learns about your app includes the people who will use it most.
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 13, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Digital Advertising. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
Banner Ads Are Not Just Yesterday’s Digital Advertising
Jul 6
Consider the benefits of using banner ads to market digitally. They provide a great way to advertise your next campaign.
Most of us agree that using banner ads as a form of digital advertising is a very flawed system. However, there are solid reasons this form of advertising has become entrenched and is not going away anytime soon. Let’s consider a few of these reasons.
They Get the Job Done
Before you cry foul on this statement, it’s important to look at the research. Banners show an increase in meaningful KPIs. Everything from brand awareness to purchases its improved. Be aware that these statistics refer only to viewable banners. Running into a problem with banners that are not viewable is just one of the many issues with banner ads on the whole.
Do You Have a Better Idea?
This is one of the problems in breaking away from banners. Digital marketing campaign values can fluctuate as much as the stock market, but the value of banners seems to stay relatively the same. Since we haven’t come up with anything else that is so consistent, it’s tough to kick the banner habit.
Banner Ads Have Been a Part of Digital Marketing From Day One
There’s really no way to predict what technologies will take hold while others fade into obscurity. We’ve seen the battle time and time again with things like Beta vs. VHS and HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. You never know which tech will win, and sometimes the reason for one rising above might not even be clear years later. This is basically the story of banner ads. They arrived before any other form of digital marketing, and that has given this form of advertising a foothold that has stood the test of time in an ever-changing industry, regardless of the flaws.
They’re Budget-Friendly
Marketers have to count every penny budgeted to digital advertising, and banners can be at a lower price than many other marketing avenues. When it comes to non-media spending, it quickly becomes easy to make a case for continuing the use of banners.
Is the banner a great way to advertise in the modern digital world? Probably not, but do you see anything else replacing it anytime soon?
| No comments | This entry was posted by EIC Social Media Team on July 6, 2016 at 11:00 am, and is filed under Digital Advertising. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. |
