Monthly Archives: August 2015

Next to Now: Social Media Edition

 

TWITTER AD OPTIONS EXPAND

Twitter expands its ad products to drive video views and Tweet engagements beyond the Twitter platform.

#social

 

FOOD AND PINTEREST

57% of Pinterest users have browsed food content on Pinterest while in store. For cookbook publishers, that sounds like an opportunity:

DIY and crafts, home decor, food and drink, design, and hair and beauty were the leading content categories for which users considered Pinterest a “go-to” source”

#social

 

 

GREAT POETS STEAL, BAD POETS BORROW . . . 

But if you’re a marketer for McDonalds you need to be a little more careful with where you get your images.

#advertising

 

THE SIX BEST PRACTICES OF VIDEO SHARING:

(1) Front-loaded excitement, (2) Gifs tied into cultural moments, (3) Audio-agnostic experimentations, (4) Creator collaborations, (5) Brands as live broadcasters, (6) Content with a cause. Now you don’t have to click the link.  

#video

 

HOW CLOSE ARE WE TO MAINSTREAM VR?

Unprecedented marketing opportunities are coming soon when social, engaged marketing practices meet virtual reality. Mainstream VR devices are coming soon from Valve, HTC, Facebook’s Oculus Rift and more. While that doesn’t mean they’re going mainstream for another 5 years or so, it’s worth starting to get to know the possibilities now.

#VR

Next to Now: Hot News Edition

WHO’S HOT?

“July’s Most Tweeted Sites” in order: BBC, NYTimes, Mashable, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NBC, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, Business Insider

via The One Thing Issue 15

#placement

 

HTML5 IS GOING MAINSTREAM

IAB updates the industry standard to HTML5, finishing the job on Flash that Steve Jobs started when he wouldn’t let it work on iPhones. Verso is ready for the switch.

Related: Amazon announces it will no longer accept flash ads on its site, starting in September

#adtech

 

THINK ABOUT *WHEN* YOUR VIDEO IS SERVED

This chart reveals mobile video consumption by daypart. Currently only “6% of US digital video campaigns served on (the Videology) platform during Q1 2015 used daypart as part of their targeting criteria.”

#video

 

THE COLOR OF INNOVATION

is chartreuse.

#design

 

LISTEN OUT FOR NEW SPOTIFY AD OPTIONS

Spotify is changing its privacy agreement to give it more access to personal information. It seems likely that this is in advance of new ad products on the platform.

#audio

 

PROMOTED VIDEO ADS COME TO GOOGLE

Google is testing promoted video ads on the search page. Yahoo and Bing search teams are also developing the technology to make this happen.

“‘What used to be narrowly defined as search is being turned on its head,’ said one digital marketing executive. ‘Google is finally getting away from just having three lines of text. Video ads have taken over mobile, Facebook and YouTube, and Google is thinking about how to integrate them into search.’”

#video #search

 

CAN LOCAL PRINT MEDIA “OUT TV THE TV”?

Print newspapers are using video and platforms like Roku to serve local communities with the news their local TV stations are ignoring.

#video

 

REWIND, AUGUST 2013: “IT’S THE CREATIVE, STUPID”

In the August 2013 MacTaggart lecture, Kevin spacey talked about the changes to the creative industry, and the importance of nurturing emerging talent.

via The One Thing Issue 15

#creativity

 

Next to Now: “Everybody in the Pool” Edition

PERISCOPE UP

Periscope now has 10 million users who watch 21 million minutes a day.

#social #video

FACEBOOK ADS OUTPERFORM OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS

More marketers say they’re satisfied with Facebook ad performance than say the same about LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube. Those platforms all serve very different functions so it’s a little disingenuous to put them all together in a group as if it’s a single horse-race, but it’s worth keeping in mind. As is this tidbit in the last sentence of the post:

“The report also said paid advertising now accounts for 83% of marketers’ social spending, as it becomes harder to reach users on those social platforms without paying to do so.”

#social

NEW FACEBOOK AD PRODUCTS

The recently launched Carousel unit is already one of the best performing Facebook ad units and the Dynamic Product Ads are sure to be the same (though they are more relevant to retailers than to brand advertisers).

#social

MORE ON AD BLOCKING

Four charts that say ad blocking is something we need to face.

#adblocking

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

One way around ad blocking is increased native options, including new campaigns that target ads to specific real-time moments based on hundreds of factors, from biometric data collected by your cell phone to real-time events such as when your favorite team wins or if you attain a new level in a video game.

#mobile #native

“I AM VERTICAL / BUT I WOULD RATHER BE HORIZONTAL.”

That’s what Sylvia Plath wrote in her poem “I Am Vertical.” It’s a sentiment that applied to video shot for the Web–at least until recently, when platforms such as Snapchat, Periscope, and Meerkat definitely prefer vertically shot video. (Really? Turning your phone to the side to watch a video just takes too much time.)

Farhad Manjoo weighs in on vertical video orientation for the New York Times: “not a crime.”

#video

WHAT’S THE RIGHT MEDIUM FOR YOUR MARKETING: INSTAGRAM OR PINTEREST?

This ClickZ article does a good job outlining the pros and cons of each platform. But what it really comes down to is knowing the ins and outs of whatever platform you’re using to promote your books. Interact using each platform’s native trends, tools and tendencies.

#social

DON’T SLEEP ON VINE

Everyone has been focused on Snapchat, but meanwhile Vine continues to develop a healthy, responsive audience.

#social

ARE VIDEO ADS PERFORMING GREAT FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS?

We know video ads work . . .

“When Q1 2015 polling by Aol queried US internet users ages 13 to 54 who watched video on a mobile device at least monthly about ad recall, more than eight in 10 remembered digital video placements on each option listed: 84% recalled those on tablets, 83% on smartphones and 82% on PCs.”

. . . .but do people remember them in the way because they’re particularly annoying? Maybe. That said, the problems cited in this survey are fixable: keep repetition down (not a problem for book publishers given our budgets) and keep the videos short (who’s going to tell the editor we can’t use *all* the quotes?).  

#video

EMAIL IS (STILL) NOT DEAD

Email marketing is not sexy but it has 3 things going for it: (1) ability to use big data to personalize communication, (2) ease of integrating with other marketing channels, (3) ability to measure and adapt every day

#email

INSTAGRAM, HASHTAGS, AND GOLDILOCKS

How many hashtags should you use in your Instagram posts? Three is too many, one is too few, two is *just* right.

#social

This week's cover art is taken from Ida Applebroog's recent show, "The Ethics of Desire," at Hauser and Wirth. It is from a series of scenes she painted on folding chairs.

Next to Now: Big City, Open Sky Edition

 VIRTUAL REALITY IS COMING TO A WORLD NEAR YOU

In terms of potential for book marketers, VR is not “next to now” so much as it is next to next to now. But it’s coming:

“So, what’s the SEO and general marketing upheaval linked to augmented and virtual reality? David Amerland, author of Google Semantic Search, states that ‘augmented reality uses semantic technologies to introduce a structured, information-rich layer into the real world environment.’ It must all be keyword-researched, and discoverable by search engines and the searcher. We also must give the user the ability to leave their own mark in the augmented world via content insertion.”

#VR

 THE NEW YORK TIMES TARGETS READERS BY TIME OF DAY

To be clear: The NYT has let us target readers by time of day for years now (something this article misses) but what’s new is updated and improved targeting information coming in via Mobile and new Times products such as “Morning Briefing.” This is a smart move by the NYT, and a great way to reach out to potential readers when they’re most open to new ideas.

#targeting

ARE MARKETERS READY TO THINK VISUALLY?

CMO Council members argue for the importance of new marketing through visual means — .gifs, videos, photos — but find most businesses ill-prepared for this shift in approach.

#visual

HERE’S ONE WAY MARKETERS *ARE* THINKING VISUALLY — WITH KIK

Messaging service Kik innovates in the advertising space, using .gifs on sponsored messaging for the movie “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials”:

“Like the movie’s story, the app’s messaging can go several ways. ‘It kind of feels like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books that you may have played as a kid but played out in a much more modern way,’ said Paul Gray, Kik’s director of platform services.”

#messaging

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

When it comes to ad recall, full-screen interactive ads beat both standard display and rising star units by 20%. (Of course, they’re also a lot more expensive to produce and serve.)

#data

HOW DO YOU REACH MILLENNIAL GUYS?

IMGUR is about to take promoted posts out of beta. With engagement rates of the beta ads at 1-4%, this is definitely a good source for an engaged readership for this demo. Imgur has more than 150 million monthly active users—a mostly young, largely male audience with a reputation for being commercially skeptical. Seventy-five percent of Imgur’s audience is under 35, and 60 percent is between the ages of 18 and 24. Whether they’re book buyers or not is a different question.

#mobile #visual

FASHION ADVERTISING AND INSTAGRAM: A MATCH MADE IS LUXURY HEAVEN

Fashion brands increase Instagram interactions by 77%. While fashion brands have obvious advantages in an image-centric environment, there are lessons here for all marketers.

Via Dark Matter 050

#mobile #social #visual

SOCIAL MEDIA STATS

Stats include: Data on Facebook fatigue real, one measure by which Google+ is out doing Facebook, and the top five activities on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook (which shows one reason why Twitter might be a better promotional vehicle for your message than Facebook).

via Only Dead Fish

#social

IF THERE’S A COMING AD-BLOCK ARMAGGEDON . . .

Here’s a thoughtful piece on the coming ad blocking revolution and what it means for advertisers, publishers, and journalists, and here’s another one, this from QZ.

. . . WILL MOBILE ADS SAVE US?

Maybe:

“Genesis Media, which surveyed more than 11,500 U.S. adults in late May and early June, found that while 24 percent of respondents installed ad blockers on either their home or work computers, just 3 percent did so on their smartphones or tablets.”

#mobile

MEASURING MOBILE AD EFFECTIVENESS:
  • POINT: WHY WE SHOULD WORRY ABOUT MEASURING MOBILE:

It still comes down to click-through rate and that’s not good enough.

“Marketers are saying, ‘I can’t drop a cookie, therefore I can’t measure.’ The reality is it’s just as easy, if not easier, to measure in mobile apps, because Apple and Google have given us advertising identifiers.”

#mobile

4 MARKETING TRENDS TO WATCH FOR IN 2016

A little click-baity for a headline, but it’s a decent list. Having just been to a demo for VR technology at an NYU lab, we can confirm that the future is bright and nearly here for VR technology through such devices as Oculus Rift. And we do think it will change what we mean about “live events” — and, by extension, what we mean by “live marketing.”

#trends #VR

INSTAGRAM TURNS ON ITS API

. . . and that means minimum spends will start dropping as it becomes easier to advertise through marketing partners like Hootsuite, instead of going through Instagram sales reps for colossal budgets.

#social #visual