How to make native ads a big deal
May 22, 2013 Mobile, News, Social Leave a comment
Earlier this week following Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr they announced that they would begin integrating native ads ” sponsored content” into news streams. This type of advertising fits naturally on sites where people can post anything. Think Twitter, Facebook, and now Tumblr, Flickr. It’s a great opportunity for brands, but the content needs to be much more than a banner. This is especially true if a brand is sponsoring content to appear in newsfeeds of people who aren’t already following them. So here are some of my thoughts on native advertising.
- The content should be unique “think beautiful images captured with a Nikon camera” versus the traditional yellow banner ad
- The content should fit the crowd, if animated gifs are popular on Tumblr then explore that opportunity with unique cinemagraph images
- Offer something of value, a free app download or Tumblr only clips from an upcoming episode or book sample
- Ask for user content as part of a contest or sweepstakes, share examples
- Take advantage of the excellent targeting tools these sites offer
We also see these native ads to be ideal for mobile advertising as they are generally appearing in stream versus small banners. These in stream ads have done well on Facebook to date and boosted mobile revenues significantly.
A great tool for brainstorming
May 10, 2013 Mobile, Social Leave a comment
We’ve been looking for something like Trello for a long time. Trello Is promoted as a project management system. As a digital marketing agency we’ve got that down. What was really missing was a global collaborative space to share ideas and brainstorm. At the core of Trello are cards that are used to share and organize ideas. People can collaborate using tablets, smart phones and traditional browsers. This is ideal when trying to brainstorm with folks in different locations and time zones. People can also vote and share ideas outside of the group. As more of the best creative’s in the business ditch their commute and learn how to work from home apps like Trello become very valuable. Think of it as a digital whiteboard that doesn’t end up a scribbled mess, or have the words “do not erase”, scrawled above it. I’ll let you know how it goes.
More here https://trello.com/
Engage Your Consumers on their Mobile Devices
March 28, 2013 Mobile, Social Leave a comment
Photo sharing contests are a great way to connect with your consumers and prompt them to engage with your brand. And, using Facebook as the vehicle to bring awareness and participation to your campaign is fantastic … unless those consumers are primarily using a mobile device to access the Facebook platform. Currently, Facebook desktop and Facebook mobile operate like two completely different platforms. Facebook is in the midst of optimizing the mobile newsfeed to engage their mobile consumers, but that doesn’t expand to facebook apps.
Your brand spends money to advertise to and engage your consumers on Facebook; it’s affordable and effective to build your Facebook community and social media presence. The number of active daily visitors visiting Facebook on mobile devices (680 million active users) now exceeds the number of traditional desktop users.
What happens to your brand’s consumer promotional engagement on a mobile device? Is that Facebook Like-Gate page collecting mobile fans or the Facebook Photo Sharing Contest App even reaching your consumers? Currently, on mobile devices like smartphones, it’s not.
Think about it. What device do you use most frequently to check Facebook? Are you satisfied having your brand top-of-mind only from the comfort of a desktop computer? Let’s face it – your phone is a social device. You have it with you at all times. By the end of 2013, there will be more mobile devices on Earth than people. (Source: Cisco, 2013)
Don’t despair, ApolloBravo makes Facebook Apps mobile! Apollobravo builds mobile-friendly apps allowing your fans to access, view and interact with your Facebook Desktop version of the contest or sweepstakes app.And the best part is that the mobile app and the facebook app are seamlessly synced. Advertise your promotion in a Facebook Ad or simply post to your fans’ newsfeeds with the confidence to drive awareness and increase participation …. Even on a mobile device!
Check out our current Jagermeister Brother in Your Corner Photo Contest apps.facebook.com/jagercode … from your desktop OR your mobile.
Food and beverage brands lead on Twitter
March 7, 2013 Mobile, News, Social Leave a comment
A recent UK study shows brand mentions for food and beverages more prominent than music, celebrities or news updates. This points to a great opportunity for brands to develop and invest in growing their presence on Twitter. Mentions can be further enhanced by running photo contests and prompting consumers to use hashtags to be automatically entered in sweepstakes. It’s much easier to engage a brand this way then filling out a form online or even worse a mail-in sweepstakes. When integrated with mobile marketing, analytics and contest management tools Twitter can make a great primary means of entry for your next promotion or sweepstakes.
Via WARC Brands in the food and beverage, clothing and retail sectors generate the highest number of direct mentions among Twitter users in the UK, according to a report.
Drawing on a sample of 10,000 tweets made by 1,000 members of Twitter, the social media monitoring firm BrandWatch revealed that 3.6% of posts referred to a brand by name.
“This made brand names almost as prominent as television, film and sport, and more prominent than music, celebrities or news updates,” the firm’s study said.
Members of the food and drinks category yielded 32% of these messages. McDonald’s and Nando’s, the restaurant chains, Tesco, the supermarket giant, and Cadbury, the confectioner, led the charts here.
The technology sector was the subject of 11% of tweets referencing brands. Apple, and its iPhone handset, topped the category rankings, with Samsung, Microsoft and Orange following next.
While 80% of content about technology brands was generated by men, women were behind 89% of tweets in the clothing category and 73% for food and drink.
“Equal numbers of products and services were mentioned, suggesting an even split between secondary and tertiary sectors,” the study said.
“Brands ranged from large, established names including Amazon and Ford to smaller companies such as Azendi and Micro Scooters.”
Looking more broadly, the analysis showed that 38% of posts were “solo tweets”, where the user did not link with other Twitter members using tagging or a direct exchange.
A further 36% were replies to messages, while 22% were retweets, the analysis added.
Data sourced from Brand-e.biz/BrandWatch; additional content by Warc staff, 7 March 2013
Note to Chief Marketers: Get in the social currency game.
December 7, 2012 Social Leave a comment
This survey shared by socialmediatoday is another in a long string of data pointing to the fact that among consumers interacting with brands it’s more about social currency then social media. The study points out the disconnect between brands and consumers. Here are a few of highlights.
- 65% of consumers connect with a brand for the games, contests and promotions
- 79% to take advantage of special offers and discounts
- People are connecting with brands via social media because they expect something in return
- Consumers see this as social currency
- When CMO’s or asked this same question they believed that these consumers were looking for content and only 27% of the same CMO’s believed that consumers were seeking special savings, experiences or rewards.
That’s a big disconnect. So the challenge for marketers is to engage consumers as the first step in starting a conversation. Pony up your social currency at the front door. This is especially true with new product introductions or brand extensions which 55% of consumers want to hear about.
From the looks of things not many CMOs and marketers are putting enough weight to the idea of social currency…
And one more chart just in case the message is not loud and clear. Read more about the study here http://goo.gl/rc3ev
Social media explained with beer
April 18, 2012 News, Social Leave a comment
Our official entry into the social media explained with, craze. We think it’s best explained over a cold beer.
Inbound Marketing versus Outbound Marketing
November 2, 2011 News, Social Leave a comment
This is a great info-graphic visualizing how inbound marketing stacks up against traditional outbound marketing. We call inbound marketing, consumer engagement primarily because we see it as two-way communication where marketers provide value and are rewarded. See more about inbound marketing and our consumer engagement services here
Via Mashable
Thanks to the Internet, marketing has evolved over the years. Consumers no longer rely on billboards and TV spots — a.k.a. outbound marketing — to learn about new products, because the web has empowered them. It’s given them alternative methods for finding, buying and researching brands and products. The new marketing communication — inbound marketing — has become a two-way dialogue, much of which is facilitated by social media.
Another reason why inbound marketing is winning is because it costs less than traditional marketing. Why try to buy your way in when consumers aren’t even paying attention? Here are some stats from the infographic below.
- 44% of direct mail is never opened. That’s a waste of time, postage and paper.
- 86% of people skip through television commercials.
- 84% of 25 to 34 year olds have clicked out of a website because of an “irrelevant or intrusive ad.”
- The cost per lead in outbound marketing is more than for inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing focuses on earning, not buying, a person’s attention, which is done through social media and engaging content, such as blogs, podcasts and white papers. This content is interesting, informative and adds value, creating a positive connection in the eyes of the consumer, thus making him more likely to engage your brand and buy the product. So it costs less and has better a ROI.
This infographic from Voltier Digital highlights the differences between the two kinds of marketing. Let us know your opinions in the comments below.
Access to social networks via mobile devices booming in US.
October 24, 2011 Mobile, Social Leave a comment
Latest Comscore data shows rapid growth of consumers accessing social networks via their mobile devices. This is important for companies that want to share offers or drive traffic to their mobile website utilizing Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Linked in, Google and a variety of other social networks popular on mobile devices. Reach out to ApolloBravo for a mobile readiness evaluation and creative solutions for integrating Mobile + Social.
via WARC NEW YORK: Over 70m consumers in the US now access social networking sites through their mobile phones, a study from comScore, the research firm, has revealed. According to the company’s estimates, 72.2m people – a third of the entire mobile audience – logged on to these platforms via a handset in August 2011, a 37% increase on an annual basis.
More specifically, 39.9m individuals engaged in this pastime “almost every day”, a total which had expanded by 58% during the last 12 months.
Facebook led the field in terms of usage, reflecting its dominant position in the market as a whole. Some 57.3m of its members signed in from a wireless handset in August, a 50% lift year on year.
Twitter was in second place having attracted 13.4m mobile subscribers across August 2010, equating to 75% growth on August 2010. LinkedIn attracted 5.5m visitors in the same way, a 69% surge.
At present, the most popular activities undertaken by the mobile social networking audience are viewing comments from their friends on 80.3%, and posting status updates, on 69.5%.
Elsewhere, 53.2% of people had followed links to websites, and 52.9% read posts from brands and organisations.
This was ahead of the 44.8% that looked at material from celebrities and other public figures. Another 34.8% of netizens posted links to websites.
Turning to more commercial matters, 33.3% of consumers had received coupons and offers on these web properties, and 27.7% clicked on ads.
When considering the means via which mobile subscribers access social networks, comScore reported 42.3m did so through a browser, up 24% year on year, and 38.5m utilised an app, a 126% annual improvement.
Some 60% of smartphone owners logged on to social networks on these gadgets, nearly double the overall average, Mark Donovan, comScore’s senior vice president for mobile, said.
“Knowing that fans and followers engage with branded content on mobile devices opens the door to a world of opportunity for location-based services,” he added.
Data sourced from comScore; additional content by Warc staff, 24 October 2011
Socialnomics
October 6, 2009 Social Leave a comment
A 5 minute pitch on social media – Socialnomics
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