editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Jump-Start Your Social Media Efforts In 2020

January 14, 2020 No Comments

By Christina Hager.

It’s the beginning of the new year, and not only that; it’s 2020, which has a particularly daunting — or awesome — ring to it, depending on how you look at it. At the start of the year, everyone is certain to rally around the traditional resolutions, like eating better, exercising more and going to bed earlier. But it’s also the time when marketing professionals, business leaders, brands and startups decide they need to get serious about their social media efforts.

Unfortunately, in their enthusiasm to get going, far too many people charge ahead without the proper strategy and support, and find themselves either without the return on investment they expected or burned out on their efforts come April.

To keep you from making those mistakes, here is a checklist for how to jump-start your social media efforts this year:

1. Start with your business goals.

What are you looking to accomplish in the first quarter? By year end? In five years?

Don’t think about what you want to accomplish on social media, but for your actual business. I find that too many organizations focus on what they want to get out of their social media, and don’t start by examining their business goals. Without articulating your business goals, you won’t know the proper next steps to take with social media.

2. Define your audience and which channels they use.

One of the biggest mistakes brands and individual thought leaders make when it comes to social media is that they think they need to be everywhere. Wrong! You don’t need to be on every single channel.

Once you’ve defined your audience (if you say your audience is “everyone,” you’re off to a bad start), you can use best practices to learn where, when and how they use social media. Don’t go to the newest channel just because it’s the latest thing — have a strategy on why you need to be there.

3. Develop a social media strategy.

Most people skip over this step, but a warning: It’s the most important part!

After you articulate your business goals and identify your target demographic, it’s time to develop a social media strategy that addresses your goals, utilizes the best channels for your demographic and articulates what you want to accomplish on each channel. Examples might include building brand identity, elevating brand awareness, distributing thought leadership or driving traffic to a website.

4. Learn best practices for each channel.

Besides knowing where your target demographic “lives” and how they use each social media channel, you must understand the best practices for each channel. This means knowing the best times to post, how to optimize a post for a particular channel and how to best use the channels.

For instance, if you are going to use Twitter, a few tweets a week won’t cut it. You will likely need two posts a day at a bare minimum — but optimally, you should aim for 10 or more! You must also use hashtags, engage with your audience and with other accounts, participate in “tweet chats,” and post a variety of content.

5. Create campaigns and build your content.

Develop social media campaigns that align with your goals. Then create pieces of content for your campaigns — and go beyond text. You’ll need photos, videos (which you can film in batches), polls, Instagram stories, etc. You should develop content that addresses your target demographic and is right for the given channel (this is something I’ve written about in a previous piece).

6. Don’t forget about curated content.

So many people get scared about social media because they think they don’t have time to create all the content they need. But don’t forget about curated content! This means content created by people you trust that is valid for your audience and their needs.

This could be YouTube videos, articles, graphics, blog posts, etc. If you are going to share it, just make sure it is relevant for your audience — don’t share it just because it’s the latest meme to go viral.

7. Create well-planned social media campaigns.

Build campaigns based on your social media goals for each channel, and include clear calls to action (CTAs). One channel might have a brand awareness campaign going, while another has a thought leadership campaign. Be deliberate about what each campaign is designed to accomplish.

8. Create a distribution schedule.

You can’t post content whenever you feel like it and hope for the best. The easiest way to keep track of your content and campaigns is by creating a content distribution schedule.

You might use an Excel spreadsheet or create an editorial calendar. Create tabs for all of the pertinent information, such as the asset or content, copy (with hashtags), date and time, channel, and image. Include both your original and curated content on this schedule.

9. Choose an execution point person.

You might utilize someone in your office, an agency or a freelancer. You can also save money by finding a savvy social media user, such as a marketing student, who will follow your content distribution calendar and post it all for you.

If you are using social media for extended customer service (which many clients expect), you will need a point person monitoring your channels and a plan for what to do when there is customer interaction on the channels.

10. Don’t forget about metrics!

All of your social media efforts can be measured. Your initial strategy should clearly define what can be measured. Decide when you are going to take those measurements, who is going to do it and which metrics are important to you.

This doesn’t just mean counting “likes.” Focus on engagement metrics like shares and comments, as well as responses to your CTA, such as a click to a website. All of this can and should be tracked for each campaign and each channel.

With these strategies firmly in mind, you’ll head into the new year on your social media A-game!

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Christina Hager

As Head of Social Media Strategy at Overflow, I help transform individuals and brands into industry leaders.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

In charts: 9 trends that will define media in 2020

January 14, 2020 No Comments

By Damian Radcliffe.

As we begin a new digital decade, what are the key developments that will shape publishing in the next 12 months?

Here are nine trends and issues that will influence publishers, content creators, media companies and brands in 2020 and beyond.

1: The Streaming Wars Commence

Are these the SVOD Services you are looking for?

In 2019, both Apple and Disney+ entered into the Subscription VOD (SVOD) services arena. They did so with substantial budgets.

The Hollywood Reporter stated that Disney’s Chairman, Bob Iger, “invested $2.6 billion to acquire the necessary technology, shuffled his executive ranks to create a new direct-to-consumer division, forgone $150 million in annual income by ending the studio’s output deal with Netflix and even spent $71.3 billion for the 21st Century Fox assets to beef up Disney’s production capabilities and content library.” They also noted “Disney is sparing no expense on programming, projecting a 2020 original content budget short of $1 billion.”

Meanwhile, “Apple is reportedly spending $6 billion on its initial lineup of TV shows, documentary series, and other originals,” The Verge said. “That’s about $5 billion more than what Apple was originally slated to spend,” they observed, citing a Financial Times report. “It’s also about 25 percent of Disney’s entire 2019 content budget.”

As Quartz reveals, these new entrants are pushing up production costs of tentpole shows to new levels. “The age of the $15-million-per-episode TV series has already come and gone,” they wrote. “We’re now entering the era of the $25 million show.”

In 2020, the streaming pantheon will be joined by a number of notable entrants including NBC’s new streaming service, Peacock, (rumored to be a free, advertising paid-for service,) HBO Max, which will cost $14.99 a month when it launches in May, and Quibi, a mobile-based service launching in April, and costing $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without.

Whether consumers can afford all of these services (or the ones they want, especially when other media is also increasingly subscription-led), have the time to watch the content on offer, or if this will cannibalise our consumption of other media, remains to be seen.

2: Publishers may already have hit peak-paywall

The willingness of audiences to pay for content, especially news content, has long vexed media executives, researchers and policy makers alike.

Last year’s Digital News Report found “only a small increase in the numbers paying for any online news,” observed Richard Fletcher, a Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. “Some in the news business worry that, even though subscriber numbers remain low by some standards, we might already be close to reaching an upper limit,” he added.

As we shared last June, the report found: “Growth in online payments of any kind – including subscriptions, memberships, or donations – has grown slightly in Norway (34% up 4%,) Sweden (27% up just 1% from last year). The number paying in the US (16%) remains static.”

Since then, more publishers, such as The Atlantic, have (re)joined the paywall-fray. Some outlets – such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Washington Post – may continue to grow their subscriber numbers, especially in an election year, but others may find the going a little tougher.

Audiences only have a finite amount of money to spend on their media. And news media – compared to other mediums – does not come cheap.

*Chart from: Pay Models for Online News in the US and Europe: 2019 Update, by Felix M. Simon and Lucas Graves, for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism*

3: Making the case – why audiences should pay for news media

As Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton has commented:

“News consumption used to be about daily habits — reading the paper every morning, watching the 6 o’clock news every night. Now it seeps into our days as much or as little as we want it to. Civically useful journalism is competing with every other form of media, content, or diversion on your phone. In that context, many people decide, as rational economic actors, they’re better off without us. How can we convince them otherwise?”

This problem is especially acute at a local level. Despite the fact that 1,800 local newspapers have closed in the U.S. since 2004, according to the Pew Research Center, 71% of Americans “think their local news media are doing just fine financially.” This may be one reason why only 14% of them financially supported a local news source in the past year.

With more media choices than ever, publishers must make a better case to their audiences for the value of their work and why it needs to be (financially) supported.

4: Overcoming news avoidance

A further challenge in convincing audiences to pay for content can be seen in the high levels of news avoidance.

Abstinence, the Digital News Report suggested, “may be because the world has become a more depressing place or because the media coverage tends to be relentlessly negative – or a mix of the two.”

To address this, it will be incumbent on news outlets to do things differently. This may involve telling stories in fresh and innovative ways, changing the tone of content, engaging with audiences online and offline, as well as exploring new beats and approaches to storytelling (such as solutions journalism).

With the political climate in a country seeming to be a key determinant in news avoidance, it’s difficult to see much changing unless these types of shifts take place. Doing things the way they’ve always been done is unlikely to shift the news avoidance needle.

5: Rebuilding trust

Publishers must go beyond changing formats and their approaches to the work they produce, they also need to communicate what they are doing (and why). Arguably, this is essential if trust is to be rebuilt with audiences.

The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed that globally, people were much more inclined (75%) to trust “my employer” to do what is right, than NGOs (57%), business (56%) and media (47%).

In the States, one component of this issue is seen in Pew’s finding that half U.S. adults say “made-up news” is a big problem, ranking this concern about violent crime (49%), climate change (46%), racism (40%) and illegal immigration (36%).

“U.S. adults blame political leaders and activists far more than journalists for the creation of made-up news intended to mislead the public,” their research discovered. “But they believe it is primarily the responsibility of journalists to fix the problem. And they think the issue will get worse in the foreseeable future.”

*Image: via 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer*

6: Mobile matters more than ever

Alongside these attitudinal and philosophical considerations, content creators also need to keep in mind continued shifts in consumer behaviour.

Of paramount importance in this space is the role of mobile.

For the first time, in 2019 “US consumers will spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV,” eMarketer reported during the summer. “As recently as 2014, the average US adult watched nearly 2 hours more TV than they spent on their phones.”

And as a further sign of how quickly this market has evolved, Mary Meeker’s annual data deck showed that mobile now accounts for 33% of ad spend, up from 0.5% at the start of the decade.

By 2018, mobile accounted for both a third of our media time and of advertising spend. Compared to print, radio, TV and desktop, mobile has been the only platform to grow in terms of both time spent and advertising revenue, since 2010.

7: Stories are the format of today. And tomorrow.

An essential part of the mobile experience, especially for younger audiences, is the stories format.

These ephemeral (they self-destruct after 24 hours), vertical pieces of content, were pioneered by Snapchat, but are now omnipresent across all the major social networks. More than 1 billion stories are shared every day across the Facebook family alone.

In 2018, Facebook’s chief product officer Chris Cox shared his view that “the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.”

And it’s not just friends who are embracing this format. Brands, marketers and media organisations (including more establishment brands such as The Telegraph and The Economist and Penguin) are all actively investing in Stories.

As the “swipe up” functionality of this format continues to develop, so we can expect publishers to further explore the possibilities for eCommerce, subscriptions and other forms of engagement, that Stories may help unlock.

8: Podcasting’s popularity keeps growing

The past year saw a slew of crystal ball gazing about the continued rise of podcasting.

In November, the market research company Forrester, in its Predictions 2020 report (paywall), suggested that podcasts will be the next $1 billion media market, which “would be pretty sharp growth,” MediaPost noted.

However, Forrester weren’t alone in their optimism. Earlier in the year, the third annual Podcast Revenue Report by IAB and PwC predicted that the American podcasting market would hit the $1 billion milestone in 2021, which is all the more striking given that they anticipated companies will spend $479 million to advertise on podcasts in the U.S., itself up from $314 million in 2017.

One reason for this optimism is the investment in this field from major media companies, celebrities and platforms. Alongside this, podcasting’s share of audio listening has more than doubled in five years (+122% since 2014,) according to Edison Research’s “The Podcast Consumer 2019.” Overall, around 90 million Americans, akin to just under a third of those aged over 12, listen to podcasts each month.

Spotify’s moves into podcasting remain one to watch. “Apple Podcasts played a pivotal role in the development of the industry and remains the dominant app for listening,” wrote Li Jin, Avery Segal, and Bennett Carroccio at az16. Their analysis, which was published in May, commented at the time that “Apple’s share of the podcasting market has slipped from over 80% to 63%, while Spotify has quickly grown to almost 10% of the market.”

In February, Spotify bought Gimlet Media and Anchor for around $340 million. As Stratechery’s Ben Thompson, observed: “Spotify is still a distant second to Apple in podcasts, but they are growing fast. Just as importantly, Spotify already has a strongly growing advertising business — again, larger than the entire podcast market — that it can extend to podcasts.”

Early indications seem to suggest that this move is paying off. The company reported “exponential growth in podcast hours streamed (up approximately 39% Q/Q) and early indications that podcast engagement is driving a virtuous cycle of increased overall engagement and significantly increased conversion of free to paid users,” in an October 2019 letter to shareholders.

9: Will we still be talking about TikTok?

TikTok was arguably the app of 2019, having surpassed 1.5 billion global downloads in November, a mere seven months after hitting (in February) the 1 billion mark.

A report by Activate Consulting noted that, in the USA, users of TikTok spend an average of 10 hours a month on the platform. This was the most for any single social platform. Yet, interestingly, India is the largest market – based on downloads – for the app, ahead of China and the USA.

The rapid uptake of the app (security concerns aside) has sparked considerable interest from brands and media companies, given TikTok’s creative potential, large youth audience and the ability to engage with audiences in fun, innovative, ways.

Will it still be garnering as much attention this time next year?

By Damian Radcliffe

Sourced from WNIP

In News

Google Career Experts Say That to Get Your Next Job, Your Resume Should Always Have These 5 Simple Things

January 14, 2020 No Comments

By Peter Economy.

Former Google senior vice president Laszlo Bock reviewed more than 20,000 resumes while he was at the company.

You may have all the experience and achievements in the world–but if you can’t effectively communicate your successes, you will have a hard time convincing others you deserve a job or position.

It is obvious that any résumé or material you submit with a job application should be read and reviewed by you enough times to spot and take out all errors or mistakes. But knowing what to take out from a resume can be easy. What’s harder is knowing what kinds of information or descriptions you should put in.

Google sometimes fields more than 50,000 applicants each week, so if you’re in need of résumé advice, it’s a good idea to listen to what Google’s recruiters have to say–when it comes to résumés, they’ve definitely seen the good and the bad. Here are the 5 simple things these career experts say your résumé absolutely needs.

1. Focus on impact.

An accomplishment is impressive, but what really makes potential employers pay attention is what kind of impact that accomplishment has left. Has your work resulted in an improvement in sales? Can you confidently say an initiative you led to increased client acquisition?

2. Data and examples.

Not only should you highlight your accomplishments and their impact, but you need specific data and examples with these achievements as well. Use numbers–quantifiable examples of success–to let hiring managers know you’re the one for the job.

3. A clean and consistent format.

Your résumé should be legible and look pristine. Use black ink on white paper with half-inch margins, and make sure all columns are aligned. Keep fonts, sizes, and spacing consistent. And keep your résumé tight. Says Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of people operations at Google, “Once you’re in the room, the résumé doesn’t matter much. So cut back your résumé. It’s too long.” Craft a concise and focused résumé that prioritizes the most important information. Save the life story for later.

4. Relevance to the job description.

If you’re desperately seeking employment, you might think it’s a good idea to send the same résumé out to 50 different employers. But if you want to actually advance to an interview round, you need to read individual job descriptions and tailor your résumé specifically to that job’s duties and requirements.

5. Be fearless.

As you describe your previous job experience, let recruiters know what kind of selective process you endured in order to be chosen for a role or project. Don’t be afraid to brag— your résumé won’t be the best it can be if you choose to be shy.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Peter Economy

Sourced from Inc.

In News

The Year Ahead: Are You Ready for Next Generation Social Networks?

January 13, 2020 No Comments

By BoF Team and McKinsey & Company

As traditional engagement models struggle on established social media platforms, fashion players will need to rethink their strategy and find ways to maximise their return on marketing spend.

This article appeared first in The State of Fashion 2020, an in-depth report on the global fashion industry, co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. To learn more and download a copy of the report, click here.

LONDON, United Kingdom — The collective reach of the social media giants is staggering. Facebook reported 2.5 billion monthly active users in September 2019, and both Instagram and WeChat have more than a billion users each. Yet, growth seems to be slowing and users are spending less time on some of the major platforms: in the US, average daily time on Facebook fell to 37 minutes a day from 41 minutes in 2017.

Stagnating enthusiasm has not stopped advertising rates and revenues rising at the big platforms. According to one report, the average digital ad cost has risen 12 percent in two years, but digital ad expenditure rose 42 percent, helping analysts forecast Facebook’s revenue in 2019 above $69 billion at the time of writing, up 70 percent from 2017 and equal to all print media ad spending. However, visits to those advertisers on social media have risen only 11 percent.

The challenge is that advertising overload might be hurting engagement. Global consumer-goods giant P&G discovered that people spent less than two seconds on average looking at its ads on mobile feeds — and that those ads appeared too often. Chief brand officer Marc Pritchard explained in the Wall Street Journal, “We’re trying to reduce the amount of times we reach the same person over and over again.”

The data suggests that it is time for brands to rethink their social media strategy. Specifically, they need to re-evaluate how to exploit existing platforms more effectively, capitalise on the rise of new platforms and understand how to generate direct sales through social platforms.

The typical route to reach a large audience on existing platforms such as Instagram is to either build followers organically or borrow followers using influencers — both these routes are starting to wobble. UK cosmetics company Lush realised that its organic newsfeed content reached only 6 percent of its online followers and became tired of fighting the platforms’ own advertising algorithms. It decided to shut down its social media accounts to regain ownership of its communication by relying on brand-owned channels instead. While this may be an extreme step to take, it demonstrates the lengths that some brands are willing to go to try to overcome current challenges on social media.

The harsh reality is that it is increasingly hard to excite and inspire audiences who are overwhelmed and overstimulated.

While an incredible 86 percent of companies use influencer marketing, the engagement rate for such sponsored posts on Instagram dropped from 4 percent in Q1 2016 to 2.4 percent in Q1 2019. Facebook’s and Twitter’s numbers are even worse at 0.37 percent and 0.05 percent respectively. The harsh reality is that it is increasingly hard to excite and inspire audiences who are overwhelmed and overstimulated. Going forward, a static image displaying a product with a model or influencer will no longer cut it. Industry executives believe that the top trend shaping the fashion industry within the next 12 months will be a rise in the importance of “storytelling” and marketing strategies that resemble media productions.

Arnold Ma, chief executive of creative digital agency Qumin, suggests players should move up the influencer funnel, partnering with individuals or other brands who truly live the lifestyle and can tell an authentic story, rather than blindly paying popular more generic influencers to promote their products.

Ralph Lauren adopted this approach when it worked with fashion publication Highsnobiety for its 50th anniversary. The published advertorial followed the impact the brand had on designers, collectors and the fashion industry from the Ivy League to the streets of Brooklyn.

Another tactic to grab consumers’ attention is to use social media to tap into the drop culture typically associated with streetwear labels. Consumers’ desire to be in the know and to have an exclusive product drives a large part of the purchase. Last year, for example, Burberry released a limited-edition Ricardo Tisci T-shirt available only on Instagram and WeChat for 24 hours. The company used the hype around this drop to release more limited-edition designs available on social media or exclusively in its London flagship store for just 24 hours.

As data shows, it is getting harder to stand out in established social media. Fashion players need to understand how to gain traction on newer platforms. 70 percent of fashion executives believe that increased exploration of and spend
on new media platforms versus more “traditional” platforms will be crucial to their companies. At the same time, executives are showing hesitation, and only 8 percent are choosing to increase spend on TikTok, the biggest emerging platform with more than 800 million downloads and a user base skewed under 30.

Creating convincing content is critical on a platform like TikTok: the landing page is a constant stream of short videos sourced globally and compiled by artificial intelligence.

This approach challenges the traditional view of the need to build an audience, but does require extremely high-quality content to stand out. Not that brands always need to create this content themselves. Uniqlo appealed to TikTok users to upload videos of themselves wearing their favourite item from the company’s UT line. The best videos appeared on monitors in Uniqlo stores around the world.

There are many other emerging social media networks, including those focused on gaming such as Fortnite or Tencent’s mobile game Honour of Kings, which have fast become integral to youth culture. Fortnite has more than 200 million users and is free to play, but made a sizeable chunk of its $2.4 billion in revenue last year by selling avatar skins. Nike was quick to see the potential and started selling branded skins on the platform. In China, brands such as Mac Cosmetics, L’Oréal and Hong Kong jeweller Chow Sang Sang have all partnered with Honour of Kings, which has more than 200 million registered players of whom more than half are female (and women mobile gamers are 79 percent more likely to make an in-app purchase).

Ultimately, all the content creation needs to lead to sales, and social commerce is growing fast. By 2023, it could account for a fifth of all online sales in China — a staggering $166 billion. Brands are cooperating with social-media messaging super-apps such as WeChat, livestreaming platforms such as Yizhibo and Kuaishou and social-commerce platforms such as Xiaohongshu
to introduce and sell products.

Ultimately, all the content creation needs to lead to sales, and social commerce is growing fast.

Other social media platforms have been progressively incorporating commercial functions. Pinterest has its catalogue, while Instagram has evolved its checkout and augmented reality functions, letting customers “try-on” Ray Ban glasses or Mac lipstick. A wide range of messenger apps use chatbots to generate direct sales rather than just serving as a customer service channel. Nowhere, however, is as advanced in social commerce as China.

One app that may offer us a glimpse into the future is Douyin, TikTok’s counterpart in China. Douyin, which is extremely popular with young people, has just launched a game-changing in-video search function through which users can zoom in on clothing, or other items in the video, and link through to related content and even directly purchase products — all from within the app. These are not videos that are actively selling or promoting products, but rather regular user generated content — any post from anybody could become a potential sale.

Overall, in light of consumers’ growing apathy — and sometimes antipathy — towards traditional social media advertising models, we expect fashion brands in 2020 to significantly re-evaluate their strategies in a quest for meaningful returns. This means having a deep understanding of which platforms and networks their target consumers are engaging with, both in terms of region and demographics. Brands will start to establish content creation as a discipline within their organisation, focusing on engaging and tailored content that can work across a range of channels. Brands must also be prepared to exploit the new sales-orientated functions of platforms, as well as develop chatbots in combination with messenger apps to generate more immediate online sales.

At the time of writing, TikTok was said to be under national security review in the United States.

By BoF Team and McKinsey & Company

Sourced from BOF

In News

Nine Things To Know About Google Analytics

January 13, 2020 No Comments

By Peter Boyd

Of all the business analytics tools used today, the most popular one is Google Analytics, which is a data-tracking tool offered by Google. If you’re a business owner looking to optimize and better understand how visitors use your website, here are some things you should know about Google Analytics and how to make it work for your business.

1. Google Analytics is free.

There are no subscription or monthly fees for the standard version. More features are included with the paid version, but they really aren’t necessary for running a small business. When your business has grown, you can simply upgrade when you have more resources available.

2. It’s easy to set up.

There’s minimal technical know-how involved to get started. You just sign in with an existing Google account and follow the instructions. You will be asked to provide basic information, such as your website and domain name. Lastly, you will need to add a tracking code to your website’s code for Google Analytics to start capturing data.

3. There are five reporting options.

The ABCs of Google Analytics include Audience, Behavior and Conversions. These reports provide an overview of who your visitors are, what they do on your site, and what activities they complete. The other two reports are Real-Time and Acquisition, which show real-time activity on the website, as well as how traffic reaches it.

The Audience report allows you to confirm and/or discover how well your marketing is working from different standpoints. The report can confirm if visitors are coming to your website from a specific location you are marketing to, or help you make further discoveries about new locations to put forth efforts toward. Also, if the goal of your website is to have repeat visitors, data within these reports can confirm the percentage of returning visitors to your website as a key performance indicator (KPI).

4. Google Analytics helps improve website usability.

With data on user behavior, you can better understand how visitors use your website. For example, you can identify the types of content potential customers look for, as well as gain insight into how they navigate your site and the pages from which visitors exit. All of this information can help you modify website navigation and improve overall site performance.

A hypothetical data point that can be used to make a website usability decision would be the bounce rate of entrance pages into the website for core content (not blogs). If the bounce rate for these entrance pages is above 70%, has a low average session duration and results in no conversions for the session, that can be an indication the page is not properly engaging a visitor to explore the website further and ultimately result in an outreach conversion.

5. It identifies devices used to access websites.

GA also gathers data regarding the types of devices used to access your website. If the data shows that many of your visitors use mobile devices to reach your site, take steps to ensure that it is mobile-responsive and user-friendly.

6. Google Analytics can help to optimize online campaigns.

GA tracks information about the location, profile and behavior of your visitors. Such data can help identify your user segment, which enables you to modify your content marketing, promotions and offers to match your target market.

Segments can be used to home in on specific traffic sessions that resulted in a conversion or other KPI metrics. As a result, you can reverse-engineer this data to see what traffic mediums or locations most commonly occur for conversions and leverage those data points. For example, you may want to initially cast a wide net with different types of paid advertisements, but you can later determine which mediums perform best. Then you can cut ties or reduce spending with the channels that are unsuccessful and put more spending toward the paid channels that work.

7. Google Analytics has a campaign tracking feature.

Google Analytics shows how your marketing efforts are working. You can identify how your emails, social media messages or paid ad placements are performing. It enables you to measure campaigns and identify those that actually convert to customer engagement.

8. It can help you understand your target audience.

The tool provides user-specific information including their age, gender, location and even interests. By understanding who your target audience is, you can determine what type of content or product lists should be featured on your site.

This user-specific information in GA can help you create personas for your website and marketing. For example, if the majority of visitors coming to your website are females between the ages of 55-64, a designer could optimize the site experience in the future to have a softer touch, use certain graphics that appeal more to women and make sure usability is at the forefront for an older population. The same could be said from a content generation perspective and what topics might resonate with certain audiences and ages.

9. Other Google products can be integrated with Google Analytics.

Google Analytics has an easily usable interface where you can integrate other tools and platforms, such as Google Adwords and the Google Search Console.

The integration of Google Adwords and Search Console simply allows you to have all your marketing data in one central location within GA. For example, GA by default doesn’t include much information regarding the queries that send traffic to your site. But when integrating Google Search Console, that supporting information can be readily available, which includes clicks, impressions, CTR and average position. Overall, this helps you streamline account reviews and be more efficient with your time.

A Great Tool For Business Growth

Google Analytics offers plenty of benefits to businesses. We hope this information helps you gain further insight into its additional features — it can help take your analysis and usage to the next level to make more actionable decisions to help with your website and marketing.

By Peter Boyd

Peter Boyd is a Florida attorney who founded PaperStreet. He has helped over 1,000 law firms with their websites, content, and marketing.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

In 2020, marketers will find a middle ground between agencies and DIY

January 13, 2020 No Comments

By Kristina Monllos

In recent years, marketers have been on a tear to take back control of their brands. Much of that has been in the form of taking various agency functions in-house — creative, social, programmatic, even media buying — in the hopes of not only saving money but becoming more nimble. But doing so isn’t a quick fix, nor is it as simple as it may seem. As marketers start to wake up to that reality, they will start to work with agencies again — albeit in a hybrid model.

The CMO’s pitch to taking marketing in-house to CEOs and CFOs will certainly be more difficult next year as the challenges of handling marketing services in-house are no longer theoretical. As more and more major marketers have tried it, the difficulties of doing so have become clearer, especially for programmatic. There are myriad issues. Staffing is chief among them. Marketers not only have a hard time finding talent but retaining that talent. Others find that it’s not the cost-saving solution they thought it would be. And with former in-house success stories such as Intel’s Agency Inside and Thomson Reuters’ GSC dismantling their in-house teams as well as major marketers like Uber reducing their internal marketing headcounts, the question of long-term viability of in-house teams is starting to come into focus.

Marketers all year have voiced some of the issues with in-house teams. “If you want to take something in-house, it takes a lot of work and eventually you’re going to need the amount of headcount you have at your agency,” said one marketer.

“Whatever you do [in-house or agency], you get the best work when you’re working with a team who will tell you no or that your idea is bad,” said another, adding, “sometimes bigger corporations need an agency to step in to tell them that something is a bad idea, that they don’t have the pulse on culture.”

Another put their in-house issue bluntly: “Agencies will always do a quick turnaround. We can’t reach in-house talent on weekends.”

That doesn’t mean the business will shift fully back to agencies. Instead, marketers and agency execs believe that a new hybrid model will rise. Work will likely be split between in-house teams and external agency partners with those teams working together at times so that marketers get the best of both worlds. Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest brewer, is already running a hybrid model of sorts. Over the last year or so, A-B InBev built out its own in-house team but doing so hasn’t been with the aim of reducing its agency relationships. Instead, the company has looked to build out a new hybrid model with its in-house and external agency teams so that it “frees up time for the big creative agencies to focus on big things” like Super Bowl, A-B InBev CMO Marcel Marcondes previously told Digiday.

That model of agencies taking the lead and in-house teams handling the day-to-day will likely become popular among marketers, said Sandra Duff, svp of strategy, activation and operations for consulting firm Jackman Reinvents. That may be especially true for marketers that have in-housed creative functions as over time those teams can lose their original intent and become more like a production house. “So the cycle may be turning in 2020 with agencies taking the lead creative role once again, delivering bold thinking for brands and using a smaller scaled internal team for smaller executions,” per Duff.

That’s not only the case for creative services handled in-house. “What we’re hearing from our members is that at the current level of in-housing many of them are finding ways to partner with these in-house resources and that the in-house resources are actually becoming clients themselves,” said Matt Kasindorf, svp of agency management services for the 4A’s, adding that he predicts it will “slow down” and that a hybrid model will likely be more popular going forward.

How agencies and brands will manage the hybrid model in the long-term is still yet to be seen. Of course, the looming threat of marketers moving services in-house doesn’t seem as bad if there’s still some work for agencies. “Movements in business may plateau or even perish, but a new synthesis nonetheless prevails. It’s no different with the matter of in-housing,” said David Rolfe, head of integrated production for BBDO. “I think we’re entering a new era of client-agency collaboration, optimized through operational co-dependence. And agencies will recognize that there’s opportunity on all fronts: responsiveness, proactiveness and complementariness.”

By Kristina Monllos

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

Three Ways To Make Your PR Campaigns More Data-Driven

January 10, 2020 No Comments

By Jodi Amendola

The marketing world has become increasingly data-driven. Just ask anyone who has innocently searched for a product online only to be inundated by ads for said product in their email, social media, visits to websites that accept advertising, and even in their dreams. (OK, the dreams part isn’t quite true yet — although I hear Google and Amazon are working on it.)

The one segment of integrated marketing that has been less cut and dry when it comes to measuring outcomes is public relations. While agencies have always tracked results, the ROI of media exposure that you earn (rather than buy) has never been as straightforward as measuring exposure and lead generation from marketing and advertising. With digital marketing, an email campaign and most other marketing strategies with a CTA, there’s generally an immediate, easily traceable action taken by prospects.

With PR, though, there is often no immediate action for readers to take (although sometimes readers are so impressed by a thought leadership article, for example, that they check out your website based on its inclusion in the “about the author” information).

PR is typically leveraged to build visibility and credibility — maybe you or someone on your executive team is quoted in an article or contributes a vendor-neutral thought leadership piece. The goal is to create awareness so when the time is right for a purchase, your company is included on the shortlist. But how do you measure that?

PR has always been difficult to quantify, let alone track. Fortunately, today there are tools to help measure, track and assess. Following are three steps you should take to leverage a data-driven approach to measure the success of your PR campaigns.

1. Align PR measurement with business goals.

In our data-happy age, there are all kinds of metrics you can track, but it’s a good strategy to focus on the ones most important to your business.

For example, you may want to measure how much media coverage you’re earning versus your competitors (“share of voice”). It’s important to not only grab more share of voice than your competitors, but to ensure it’s the right kind of attention.

Look for media monitoring and analytics tools to measure not only share of voice, but also the current sentiment — neutral, positive or negative — and whether it changes after launching your campaign.

If one of your PR goals is to reach specific decision-makers to increase awareness, you can track media outlets that mention your company/products/services. Multiply that media coverage by the total circulation of each outlet and weight by the importance of the media outlet by your target audience.

Another approach to see if your efforts are moving the dial on your business goals is to do a pre-campaign survey of your market, focused on brand awareness. Once the campaign is active, survey your market again to see if statistics are trending up.

If you start by aligning your PR goals to your business goals, you’ll get valuable guidance that can make a real difference in the business.

2. Establish what you’re going to measure before launching the PR campaign.

Nothing is less effective than setting goals after a campaign has launched. In PR, it’s particularly crucial because you don’t have as much control over when placements land. Unlike marketing campaigns, it’s up to reporters and editors when the thought leadership articles or quotes from interviews with your thought leaders will run in media outlets.

It’s just like taking a trip. If you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t want to start driving before you set the GPS. You could be starting out in the wrong direction entirely. Determine what you want to measure, and then put the mechanisms in place to do it.

3. Set your KPIs.

Once you know what you want to measure, you need to know how success will be defined. And you must be sure all stakeholders agree.

Some common KPIs include:

• Web traffic changes on days when PR materials (press releases, thought leadership articles, thought leadership quotes in articles) go live.

• Coverage by type of activity.

• Share of voice.

• Positive/negative/neutral coverage.

• Traffic to landing pages vs. engagement (e.g., a request for more information and/or downloads of high-value marketing materials such as a white paper or case study).

• Social media shares/retweets by month.

• Social media @ mentions or hashtag use.

It’s best to start by focusing on three to five metrics that most closely align with your business goals or that you believe will help you move the needle. You can always reevaluate and change them later.

Show Me The Data

If you’re not ready for a subscription-based media monitoring and analytics tool, Google Analytics has a lot of free tools. For example, you can use Google Analytics to measure web traffic when PR materials go live.

You can also use UTM codes to see how much web traffic a specific placement drove. To do this, simply create a custom URL to a homepage or product page with the UTM code embedded in a link, and include it as a hyperlink for PR efforts such as press releases and social media. Google Analytics will track where users come from if they click through to a page on your website using a link with the code.

Evaluate, Rinse And Repeat

The purpose of data-driven PR measurement isn’t to determine if PR is “right” for your organization. You should already have made that decision before the campaign launches.

Instead, its purpose is to help ensure your PR campaigns stay on track and that you’re optimizing your program to deliver the best possible performance based on your business goals and KPIs. If it is, great! Keep up the good work. If it isn’t, determine what needs to change, and then pivot.

Finally, remember that business goals change, as do audience perceptions. Evaluate the structure and performance of your program constantly, and you’re far more likely to create PR wins for the organization over the long term.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jodi Amendola

Jodi Amendola is CEO of Amendola, an award-winning healthcare and technology public relations and marketing agency based in Scottsdale, AZ.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

15 Smart Writing Tips For Crafting Copy That Sticks

January 10, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes.

In a fast-paced world consumed by digital media, it can feel impossible to grab someone’s attention. Companies often struggle to stand out among all the noise to busy consumers. Sometimes they only have a few brief words to gain someone’s attention.

To help you do this well, 15 members of Forbes Communications Council gave us their tips for writing short, quick copy that will stick with your audience long after they’ve read it. Follow their tips to improve your marketing copywriting.

1. Add An Element Of Intrigue

“Bad writing transfers the burden of understanding onto the reader.” While I agree clarity is king when it comes to copywriting, sometimes an element of confusion provides the necessary hook for readers to inquire further. When you only have a few words, write to engage before writing to inform. Practice this method with caution, though — there’s a fine line between great hooks and clickbait. – Lucy Mehrtens, Templafy

2. Refine Your Key Messaging Hierarchy

Short copy is tough because you’re working with fewer variables and it may be more difficult to determine what is and isn’t working. One thing you can test, however, is your key messaging hierarchy. Whether you want to improve clicks or conversions, you can always test benefit messaging versus a call to action. Depending on what you’re selling, these copy elements will vary in appeal. – Daniel Lalley, Brondell Inc.

3. Effective Emotion

Effective copy is just that — it has an effect on its intended audience. First, determine your end-game emotion and make it specific: Will your readers be surprised? Seasonally delighted? Nautically inspired? Next, write five versions, then shut your computer. Like a fine wine, good copy has to breathe. When you return with fresh eyes, you’ll be able to discern the headline that just works. – Melissa Kandel, little word studio

4. Humor Consumers

Use humor. Do something that makes the reader crack up. Humor is a way to make a quick emotional connection with the consumer. It breaks them out of the rut of endless cookie-cutter copy and will make them remember you and your brand. – Seema Kumar, servicechannel.com

5. Use Everyday Language

I have said it before and will say it again: Use small words and short sentences. Everyday language helps to avoid confusion. Formulating brief, catchy, memorable copy that speaks to customers will capture their attention nearly every time. That is why Nike’s slogan, for example, stands the test of time. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, NCR Corporation

6. Be A Drama Queen

Humans have emotions and like drama — there’s no communication without storytelling and storytelling without drama. Create some drama and play with emotions. Too much copy out there is plain flat, has no substance and doesn’t trigger any emotion. Create some drama and intrigue in a way that itches in your audience’s brain. – Hugo Macedo, Unbabel

7. Speak To Their Pain

To get their attention, you must speak to the pain your customers are feeling. First, envision your customer. Who do they want to be, ideally? Second, identify their problem. What is it that’s keeping them from their ideal? Third, incorporate both of those things into a single line and then let them know how you can help. Be as clear as possible about their needs and cut out everything else. – Kate Barton, Clearview Advisory

8. Avoid Clutter

In our experience, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to copywriting. However, we see the most success with copy that’s concise and helpful to the customer. When guests are looking for answers, they don’t always want to dig through cluttered content. In this scenario, less is more. – G’Nai Blakemore, Mattress Firm

9. Crawl Public Social Media Data

Chances are your audience may already be talking about the topic on social media. Use topic-specific keywords to crawl public social media data, run word clouds and identify the most common words your audiences use while conversing about this topic. Draw some inspirations from sample social media posts driving these words. Now you get some inspiration to write the attention-grabbing copy. – Prashant Saxena, Isentia

10. Know What You Want Them To Leave With

Ask yourself and write down the answers: What is the audience thinking about my brand going into the conversation? What do I want them to think about us and/or what do I want them to do after seeing my message? And last but not least, what should I tell them to bridge the gap? Then read it out loud. This methodology forces you to write down the ideas and read them out loud to can check its effect. – Valentina Marastoni-Bieser, Cuebiq

11. Ride The Coattails Of A Trend

If your copy is intended for short-term (that is, part of a campaign and not your brand fundamentals like a tagline), try twisting a current pop culture trend or phrasing to your benefit. It will make an instant association in the reader’s mind which will help it stand out, strengthen their affinity and pique curiosity. Even better if you can twist it to be clever and tongue-in-cheek. – Ellen Sluder, RingBoost

12. Promise Solutions To Problems

The best way to attract and impact readers is by promising solutions to a challenge. Know your target audience and then write it in a way that solves their needs. It’s effective because people are hungry for answers to problems. They don’t want “fluff” but rather actionable ways to improve their experiences. If the headline follows best practices, people will not only read it but also tell others. – Stacy Sherman, Schindler Elevator Corporation

13. Show How You ‘Relieve The Pain’

The best copy means that it resonates with your audience and you are showing why their attention is valuable. If you write copy that highlights how you “alleviate the pain,” you are more likely to capture your target buyer’s interest. – Alyssa Kleinman, CipherHealth

14. Deliver On Your Value Proposition

Consumers are bombarded with messaging. One effective way to cut through the noise quickly is to deliver something helpful to your audience — a nugget of wisdom, a solution to a specific problem, an idea that will free up their time. Storytelling has become the buzzword of the day, but don’t forget the value proposition. – Eric Hadley, iHeartMedia

15. Get To The Point

Just like a brand elevator pitch, be short and to the point. Ask this question before you create your copy: What is the one thing I want to convey that is important to the person I am targeting? Then write your answer using direct and simple language. – Teri Llach, Krome Photos

Sourced from Forbes

In News

How top marketers will do their jobs better in 2020

January 10, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from AdAge

CMOs go on record about their New Year’s pledges

According to an oft-cited statistic from U.S. News and World Report, 80 percent of people will fail to stick with their New Year’s resolutions by February. But that did not stop us from getting marketing leaders on record. Our question—name one thing you will do better in 2020 than in 2019—was met with a variety of responses, from getting more sleep and meditation to “buy more brave ideas that move the needle.” What we did not tell our subjects is that we will be checking back with them in 12 months to see how they did. Pressure’s on.

Ed Pilkington, chief marketing and innovation officer, Diageo North America

Keep exploring new places! There’s always more to see, do and learn by visiting cities and states that are “firsts”—not only is it valuable for the job, gaining new insights and greater understanding of what makes our consumers tick, but it’s just great to travel and see new places. Also, in my line of work, it’s a great excuse to go to amazing bars all around the country!

Allyson Witherspoon, VP of marketing communications and media, Nissan North America

In 2020, I would like to spend more time learning and testing the next round of consumer behavior and marketing trends so we can anticipate and optimize quickly instead of mostly reacting.

Colin Mitchell, senior VP, global marketing, McDonald’s Corp.

Get out and about more. I want to spend more time in our restaurants talking to our customers and our operators and our crew.

Michelle St. Jacques, chief marketing officer, Molson Coors

Buy more brave ideas that move the needle.

Martin Renaud, global CMO, Mondelēz International

Live our purpose by helping our brands take a stand on issues that matter to our consumers: sustainability, mindful consumption and diversity and inclusion.

Jenna Lebel, CMO, Liberty Mutual

In 2020, I’m focused on explaining the ‘why’ more so my team can more effectively build on the ‘what.’ I’ve quickly learned that my job is really to provide my team with context on our marketing strategy, our business and our category so they can be more empowered and inspired to innovate.

Vineet Mehra, global CMO, Walgreens Boots Alliance

My resolution is to continue investing in our people to cultivate and develop unicorn marketing talent from within.

Meredith Verdone, CMO, Bank of America

In 2020, I resolve to continue to advance diversity of thought and an inclusive culture in my organization, and require the same from my agency partners, so we can tell the stories of the people we serve across our businesses and communities.

Raja Rajamannar, CMO at Mastercard

Sleep for at least seven hours a day!

Diego Scotti, CMO at Verizon

My focus for the year is on scaling up ways to leverage these technologies, particularly those powered by 5G, to shape the future of our marketing and customer experience.

Stephanie Buscemi, CMO at Salesforce

Our team will find a way to top Dreamforce 2019. It’s like planning a music festival—you change the acts every year, but you get people to come back because they know it will be a great experience.

Matthew Anderson, CMO at Roku

Today, one in three Americans doesn’t have traditional pay TV; we expect that to rise to around half within five years. One of my 2020 goals is to attract the next generation of full-time streamers and help fellow CMOs reach this large audience that no longer watches linear TV.

Susan Vobejda, CMO at The Trade Desk

I want to increase my offline connections with my team in 2020, as I find that personal relationships generate the best global collaboration that our team needs to thrive. It’s critical to build that level of trust and transparency so that anyone can reach out to me directly when they have a great new idea or question.

Matt Staneff, executive VP, CMO at T-Mobile

As my 4-year-old constantly reminds me, I am not in control, great ideas can come from places you least expect and there’s always a path to ‘yes.’ You just have to be creative, committed and caring enough to find it. For me, 2020 is about applying those lessons at T-Mobile, listening to customers —whether that’s with sophisticated analytics or just talking over a beer—and giving them what they want.

Ann Lewnes, CMO at Adobe

In today’s hyper-intense world, you need to focus on the needle movers. To make the space for that, I need to be better at creating boundaries and saying no. When you’re an executive, you have a lot of demands on you coming from every direction—employees, customers, press, media companies and partners. I have a tendency to say yes to too many things and I’ve come to understand that I just can’t—and shouldn’t—do everything. That means resting more responsibility on my incredibly capable team and spending my time on what’s most critical to Adobe’s success.

Sherina Smith, marketing VP, American Family Insurance

In 2020 I want to work on being a better leader by focusing on more mindfulness, meditation and getting out of my comfort zone. Team dynamics are often a reflection of the temperament of the leader, and as we continue to challenge ourselves to be better, we have to be comfortable pushing out of our comfort zones. And that starts with the leader. I find when I set aside quiet time for meditation and mindfulness I’m better able to help my teams maintain focus and perspective on what matters most and help them navigate new and innovative solutions to solving business problems.

Lorraine Twohill, CMO at Google

Read more. Not only because it is good for me and I learn a lot. But because I discover different points of view and perspectives. And it makes the work we put out into the world way better. That, and my reusable water bottle.

Feature Image: From top l to r: Ed Pilkington, Allyson Witherspoon, Colin Mitchell, Michelle St. Jacques, Martin Renaud, Diego Scotti, Stephanie Buscemi, Matthew Anderson, Susan Vobejda, Matt Staneff, Jenna Lebel, Vineet Mehra, Meredith Verdone, Raja Rajamannar, Ann Lewnes, Sherina Smith, Lorraine Twohill. Credit: Submitted

Sourced from AdAge

In News

AAIToolkit – Breaking the Sound Barrier with Damian Loscher

January 9, 2020 No Comments

“Breaking the Sound Barrier”

AAI Nuts and Bolts of Advertising seminars form part of the AAI Advertisers’ Toolkit, an initiative to help advertisers and marketers keep up-to-date on important advertising topics and useful marketing questions.

Seminar Details

In a world where our choice of media has continued to explode, why do we still listen to more than three hours of radio every day? Radio has proven to be more resilient than we could ever have predicted, or imagined. But the challenge for radio has not gone away and new services like Spotify are nibbling away at radio’s franchise, and may have taken a small bite out of younger audiences.

Breaking The Sound Barrier is a wide and deep examination of listening behaviour in Ireland. Derived from more than 3,000 interviews conducted during 2019, the dataset is rich enough to delve into every demographic and explore audio consumption in all its facets. And because this is not the first time this data has been collected, we are able to trend behaviour, thereby adding a new dimension to our understanding of how our listening has changed and is likely to change in the years ahead.

About the Speaker:

Damian Loscher is Managing Director of Ipsos MRBI (Ireland) and a Partner in the Ipsos Global Network. During his almost 30 years in research, Damian has directed more than 1,000 studies, covering almost every industry sector, giving him a unique perspective on the marketing questions that seem to challenge every business. He has a particular interest in media research and is involved in ongoing projects in the TV, Radio and Out Of Home sectors.

Damian is Ipsos MRBI’s chief methodologist and pollster, and writes regularly on polling and politics for The Irish Times. He is also a former Chairman of the Marketing Society.

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Tuesday 28th January, 8.15am