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Targeting Teenagers with Your ads? Here are the Four Personas to Appeal to

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Academics have identified four distinct personas of social media user that teenagers describe as shaping how they behave on social media.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Young social media users are categorised as either acting like the Geek, the Internet Celebrity, the Victim or the Lurker depending on their levels of online activity and visibility, University of Sussex academics say.

The categorisations are based on interviews the researchers conducted with children aged between 10 and 15-years-old for a new book, Researching Everyday Childhoods, published by Bloomsbury last month.

The interviews revealed many youngsters were increasingly savvy about maintaining their privacy online, often being motivated to protect themselves by unpleasant past personal experiences or negative incidents that affected classmates.

Dr Liam Berriman, lecturer in digital humanities at the University of Sussex, said: “Our research found that concerns about staying safe online created an atmosphere of intense anxiety for young people, even if they had not directly experienced any problems themselves. The young people we spoke to felt a great weight of responsibility for their safety online and were often motivated by the concern of being labelled a victim.”

“While there has been a lot of negative media coverage around teenagers’ interaction with social media, our findings are more hopeful that teenagers are responsible users of social media, are very conscious of the dangers and make considerable efforts to protect themselves against those risks.”

Teenagers navigate between the desire to be praised and recognised online and anxieties over the risk of opening themselves up to criticism and trolling. Among the four personas is the Internet Celebrity who is able to best use the latest trends and increasingly values “visibility of the self” through Instagram, Snapchat, the selfie and YouTube vlogging.

The internet celebrity

But academics also identified how young people are experimenting with and enjoying invisibility online. They describe the Lurker as someone able to avoid peer dramas arising through platforms such as Facebook, whilst still engaging in fun peer activities such as stalking their favourite music bands online.

The lurker

The Geek, meanwhile, uses invisibility to anonymously share and promote their amateur media creations online, such as music videos or fan fiction writing. The academics described how the Geeks’ long hours of labour on projects risked parental concern that their behaviour was obsessive or addictive.

The geek

Professor Rachel Thomson, professor of childhood and youth studies at the University of Sussex, said, “What is distinctive about these active social media users was the entrepreneurial character of their practice, with ‘play’ re-envisaged as a form of economically rewarding work. By gaining an audience, young people are aware that they could capture advertising and corporate sponsorship. The dream is to ‘go viral’, establishing a career as a cultural creator.”

The research also highlights the risks contained in a world dominated by personal visibility with the Victim left to suffer personal exposure and shame following the creation and display of intimate material such as sexting and the loss of control of this material.

The victim

The Victim’s high visibility is often out of their control with their presence and heightened without their consent as private material is extracted from them and exchanged under false premises.

This can vary from the frustration of being tagged in photographs and the creation of an unflattering digital footprint through the activities of others to the more invasive techniques of fraping, where a person’s online identity is hijacked without their permission, or sharing of intimate photographs.

Dr Berriman said, “These examples reveal the impossibility of non- participation in the world of social media. A teenager does not necessarily have to create an online persona, it is something that can be created by others.”

This is great food for thought for anyone trying to catch the attention of teenagers online. You may even need to consider four different approaches when targeting the teen market. Thanks, science!

 

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You Might be Paying too Much for ads on Google and Bing

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Before you dish out money to bid for a top-ranked ad position on a search engine, you may want to pause and make sure it’s actually going to pay off.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

New research out of Binghamton University, State University of New York suggests that instead of just spending to get that top spot, advertisers should be considering other factors as well to ensure they are getting the best results from their sponsored search advertising campaigns.

Sponsored search advertising involves paying search engines, like Google and Bing, to bid for placements on the search results pages for specific keywords and terms. The ads appear in sponsored sections, separate from the organic search results, on those pages.

“The common belief in sponsored search advertising is that you should buy the top ad position to get more clicks, because that will lead to more sales,” said Binghamton University Assistant Professor of Marketing Chang Hee Park. “But the fee for the top position could be larger than the expected sales you’d get off that top position.”

Park, with the help of Binghamton University Professor of Marketing Manoj Agarwal, analysed data collected from a search engine and created a model that can forecast the number of clicks advertisers could expect in sponsored search markets based on four factors:

  • Rank in the sponsored listings
  • Website quality
  • Brand equity
  • Selling proposition

The model gives advertisers a way to quantify the expected clicks they’d get by adjusting these four factors, while also taking into consideration how their competitors are managing these four factors. This could enable advertisers to find a perfect blend of the four factors to ensure they are getting the most out of what they are paying for their ad positions.

It may also indicate that they should be spending more money to bolster their brand or website rather than amplifying their offers in top ad positions.

“Using this model, you may find that paying less for a lower ad position while investing more in improving your website is more effective than spending all of that money strictly on securing top ad positions,” said Agarwal.

This applies especially if your competitor has a poorer-quality website, but is spending more than you on securing top ad positions.

Their model found that poor-quality advertisers that are ranked higher in ad positions drive consumers back to the search results page, leading consumers to then click on advertisers in lower ad positions to find what they are looking for.

In contrast, they also found that a highly-ranked good-quality advertiser results in significantly less clicks for all the advertisers ranked below them.

“It’s more likely that in the top position, all advertisers being equal, you’ll get more clicks. But depending on these four factors, as well as the quality of your competitors, you may find that you’ll get more clicks in the second or the third position,” said Park.

“Conceptually, this is not a new idea, but now the model can help determine this by accounting for multiple factors at play at the same time.”

Advertisers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this research.

Park and Agarwal’s model found that simply reordering the listed advertisers could result in significant changes in overall click volume (the total number of clicks across all advertisers) for search engines.

“Because they often charge on a pay-per-click model, search engines can now simulate which ordering of advertisers in a sponsored search market results in the most overall clicks and, therefore, most revenue” said Park. “Search engines may want to consider charging advertisers in a way that gives the search engine more flexibility in determining the order in which the ads in sponsored sections are displayed.”

 

 

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Buyer Behaviour: Love Trumps Budget When Your Customer is Buying Sentimental Items

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People will always pay more when being led by the heart and not the head.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Brides and the bereaved beware: You, like many shoppers, may have a tendency to reject thriftiness when your purchase is a matter of the heart, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

People are reluctant to seek cost-saving options when buying what they consider sacred – such as engagement rings, cremation urns, or even desserts for a birthday party – for or to commemorate loved ones. The paper, published in Judgment and Decision Making, is the first to examine the implications of this phenomenon.

Even when they identify a less expensive alternative to be equally desirable, people choose the more expensive of two items. They also avoid searching for lower prices and negotiating better prices when the goods they’re buying are symbolic of love.

“People’s buying behaviour changes when they’re making purchases out of love because it feels wrong to engage in cost-saving measures,” said Peter McGraw, associate professor of marketing and psychology at CU. “People abandon cost-saving measures when it comes to sentimental buys because they want to avoid having to decide what is the right amount of money to spend on a loving relationship.”

The findings highlight how wedding, funeral and other industries can exploit consumers, said McGraw.

In one part of the study, which involved nearly 245 participants, the researchers asked attendees at a Boulder wedding show about their preference between two engagement rings. The attendees nearly always chose the more expensive ring when deciding between a more expensive ring with a bigger carat and a less expensive ring with a smaller carat.

“It’s important to be aware of this tendency not to seek cost savings because, over a lifetime, consumers make many purchases that are symbolic of love — whether for weddings, funerals, birthdays, and anniversaries,” said McGraw. “The loss of savings can really add up and put people in compromising financial situations.”

So how can we apply this to a marketing situation? If you are selling goods or services for sentimental events, play up the quality, not the price.

 

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Small Businesses Use Social Media Instead of a Website, Despite Risks

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A new survey indicates that 1 in 5 small businesses use social media in place of a website. Many assume a website is cost-prohibitive and may not consider the risks of not having one.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

 

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base. However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

“Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else’s basket, it’s risky,” said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. “If Facebook changes their algorithm, there’s nothing you can do.”

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritise posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses – as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. “You don’t necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website,” said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. “Maybe just start small.”

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard
Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimised for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimised for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimise for mobile in 2018.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, click here.

 

 

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The Media is Now the Least-Trusted Institution Globally

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So, which citizens trust their media the most? And the least?

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Let’s start with the USA. The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that trust in the U.S. has suffered the largest-ever-recorded drop in the survey’s history among the general population. Trust among the general population fell nine points to 43, placing it in the lower quarter of the 28-country Trust Index. It is now the lowest of the 28 countries surveyed, below Russia and South Africa.

The collapse of trust in the U.S. is driven by a staggering lack of faith in government, which fell 14 points to 33 percent among the general population, and 30 points to 33 percent among the informed public. The remaining institutions of business, media and NGOs also experienced declines of 10 to 20 points. These decreases have all but eliminated last year’s 21-point trust gap between the general population and informed public in the U.S.

“The United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman. “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue or catastrophe like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and employment rates in the U.S. at record highs. The root cause of this fall is the lack of objective facts and rational discourse.”

Conversely, China finds itself atop the Trust Index for both the general population (74) and the informed public (83). Institutions within China saw significant increases in trust led by government, which jumped eight points to 84 percent among the general population, and three points to 89 percent within the informed public. Joining China at the top of the Trust Index are India, Indonesia, UAE and Singapore.

For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally. In 22 of the 28 countries surveyed it is now distrusted. The demise of confidence in the Fourth Estate is driven primarily by a significant drop in trust in platforms, notably search engines and social media. Sixty-three percent of respondents say they do not know how to tell good journalism from rumour or falsehoods or if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organisation. The lack of faith in media has also led to an inability to identify the truth (59 percent), trust government leaders (56 percent) and trust business (42 percent).

This year saw a revival of faith in experts and decline in peers. Technical (63 percent) and academic (61 percent) experts distanced themselves as the most credible spokesperson from “a person like yourself,” which dropped six points to an all-time low of 54 percent.

“In a world where facts are under siege, credentialed sources are proving more important than ever,” said Stephen Kehoe, Global chair, Reputation. “There are credibility problems for both platforms and sources. People’s trust in them is collapsing, leaving a vacuum and an opportunity for bona fide experts to fill.”

Business is now expected to be an agent of change. The employer is the new safe house in global governance, with 72 percent of respondents saying that they trust their own company. And 64 percent believe a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions in the community where it operates.

This past year saw CEO credibility rise sharply by seven points to 44 percent after a number of high-profile business leaders voiced their positions on the issues of the day. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say they want CEOs to take the lead on policy change instead of waiting for government, which now ranks significantly below business in trust in 20 markets. This show of faith comes with new expectations; building trust (69 percent) is now the No. 1 job for CEOs, surpassing producing high-quality products and services (68 percent).

“Silence is a tax on the truth,” said Edelman. “Trust is only going to be regained when the truth moves back to centre stage. Institutions must answer the public’s call for providing factually accurate, timely information and joining the public debate. Media cannot do it alone because of political and financial constraints. Every institution must contribute to the education of the populace.”

Other key findings from the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer include:

  • Technology (75 percent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by Education (70 percent), professional services (68 percent) and transportation (67 percent). Financial services (54 percent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 percent) and automotive (62 percent).
  • Companies headquartered in Canada (68 percent), Switzerland (66 percent), Sweden (65 percent) and Australia (63 percent) are most trusted. The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 percent), India (32 percent), Brazil (34 percent) and China (36 percent). Trust in brand U.S. (50 percent) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.
  • Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.
  • Exactly half of those surveyed indicate that they interact with mainstream media less than once a week, while 25 percent said they read no media at all because it is too upsetting. And the majority of respondents believe that news organizations are overly focused on attracting large audiences (66 percent), breaking news (65 percent) and politics (59 percent).

It’s a brave new world, and we as marketers must realise that placing any marketing cash with distrusted media outlets could mean a very big waste of our advertising spending power.

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Strategies Most Marketers Misunderstood In Influencer Marketing

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By avita dcosta.

Many brands are also switching from celebrity endorsements to influencers, as it becomes and increasingly powerful marketing channel for marketers. But it’s easy to make mistakes, so how do you avoid them?

Influencer Marketing has become one of the most powerful tools in a marketing teams’ toolkit today. In 2016 Salesforce’s Paradot claimed thay 86% of marketers are already using some form of influencer marketing to reach consumers. And research shows that is probably going to continue, why?

People no longer trust the brands. A lot of us are no longer influenced by these traditional marketing techniques and increasingly we are more likely to turn to people we trust and respect – our peers.  Truth be told, 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions, and influencer marketing can be a highly effective way to drive sales. It is no wonder that marketers are increasingly embracing it to achieve their business’ goals and objectives.

I’ve outlined the most common influencer marketing mistakes I’ve seen that you should steer clear of in order to be successful:

Fail to understand the audience

Your audience is your critic, if they want your product, they will be your customers. You will never be able to create a long-term and effective influencer marketing strategy if you don’t know your audience/customer. Marketers who have not yet flourished a genuine marketing personality are suggested to place their programs on hold until they understand who are their customers and what are their interests in order to achieve and interaction with the brand. It is to be noted that marketers need to understand purchasing habits, demographic information, pinpoints and psychographic information in order to create a marketing persona and conventionally, all of these statistics can be gathered through customers’ reviews.

Using Influencer Marketing in the wrong influencers/channel

Your marketing would not work unless you are working with the right influencer for your campaign. Influencer marketing is not identically effective across all channel, niche, and the target audience. If you are promoting a beauty product, much recommended working with YouTube Influencers since it is much effective in videos than a plain picture of your product and a post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Expecting results in a short period of time

If you have just started doing the influencer marketing, you cannot just expect a good result in just one snap. In some cases, for a powerful influencer, marketing campaigns can produce results overnight. But mostly and especially for brands and companies that are not using E-commerce, Influencer Marketing should take time to effect. Trust and patience are advisable. It is to be noted that effective influencer campaigns help the improvement of brand awareness. When a candidate is aware of your brand, they will still need to undergo the process of your marketing funnel, the consideration and decision making stages before performing the purchase. So yes, it takes time to get the results.

Forgot to use the Analytics

Using analytics is one of the most accurate ways to get updated and determine whether your influencer marketing is effective or sat to say, ineffective. Monitoring and measuring the performance of your campaign is required in all types of platforms, from there, you will be able to know which part of your marketing campaign needs to be improved. You can find lots of platforms online that can help you measure your campaign insights and progress.

Failure in conveying expectations with your influencers

Upon working with influencers, it is much important to construct your expectations clearly. You should give your influencers a summary that includes the goals and objectives of your campaign. Collecting and including the marketing personal you have collected will help your influencers to become more successful. You may also want to include analytics information that you find valuable when marketing to the target audience.

Focused on the wrong KPIs

Influencer marketing is a powerful marketing method, but everything in this world has its own limits. Marketers need to ensure that they are using influencer marketing the right way. It is advised to focus on the KPIs which fits your brand, product, and activity, don’t just focus on getting sales, start being genuine! An influencer marketing campaign designed to influence KPIs related to bottom-of-the-funnel behaviors is not generally perfect.

Avoided this strategy because you failed “once”

Just because you failed once in this marketing strategy doesn’t mean you should give up. Marketers don’t just quit marketing because one of their marketing campaigns was not successful. Instead of quitting, if you have failed, use that failure to improve your marketing. You must understand why did the campaign fail so that you could implement better strategies and ideas the next time you set an influencer marketing campaign. Remember: Failures are one of the challenges you will face upon entering Influencer Marketing and learning from it is the key to success.

Neglected the call to action

Before you launch your campaign, make sure you have considered this question: Where should my audience click to take action upon engaging with my I.M. content?

If you planned to drive traffic to your website using I.M, make sure to construct a webpage that will allow your visitors to utilize the next action. Importantly, make sure to test the constructed web page if it is perfectly working and responsive both on mobile and PCs. Associating the call to action with an I.M. campaign and securing that it is optimized for your target are keys to success with I.M.

Chosen an inappropriate agency to manage influencer relationship

Influencer marketing has become affected and is on top of the line. Marketing agencies are also crawling and offer I.M. services. But guess what, not all of these agencies have valuable experience with I.M. strategies, I mean they do have a bit, but not on its deep understanding. Therefore, they can not make your marketing successful. Be sure to choose an agency that has experience working with influencer marketing methods that are related to your business.

Misapprehension of Influencer Marketing process

If you wanted to start influencer marketing, make sure to learn what is the process and activities involve on this strategy. This will guide you to your success.

On creating a successful influencer marketing campaign, it is important that you understand your audience. Make sure that you have properly given your influencers a summary of your expectations and think carefully on which steps to choose for your marketing campaign. Note: Success cannot be achieved immediately, hard work, perseverance is needed to taste the born fruit of your hard work.

By avita dcosta

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

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The Most Exciting Social Media Platforms Among Teens

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Musical.ly is currently the place for your influencer marketing money.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A new survey of teenagers age 13-17 finds that teens have shifted their favoured social media platforms to Instagram and Snapchat. But the most exciting breakthrough is that of Musical.ly.

A survey taken by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in the USA found that:

  • 76 percent of teens age 13-17 use Instagram.
  • 75 percent of teens use Snapchat.
  • 66 percent of teens use Facebook, down from 71 percent of teens using the site in 2015.
  • 47 percent of teens use Twitter.
  • Fewer than 30 percent of teens use Tumblr, Twitch, or LinkedIn.

Strangely, however, there is one contender that fails to be mentioned: Musical.ly, which is roaring into popularity, especially in Europe. And there are great opportunities for marketers to reach that ever-elusive teen and tween market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjf8tvnaIQs

 

Musical.ly was founded by friends Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang. They decided to target the US teenage market, as this market is characterised for being an early adopter of new trends. The main idea was to create a platform that incorporates music and video in a social network. The first version of musical.ly was officially launched in August 2014.

In 2015, the app began to attract millions of users and in July 2015, musical.ly climbed up to the number 1 position in the iOS App Store, becoming the most-downloaded free app in over 30 countries, including the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, Philippines, and Japan. In July 2016, musical.ly reached 90 million downloads, with over 12 million new videos posted every day.

So how does it work? To put it simply, “musers” lip-sync to their favourite tunes, by themselves or with a friend, and share it. That’s actually the main thrust of it. But the opportunities for marketers are strong. In June 2016, Coca-Cola launched its #ShareACoke campaign on musical.ly, which introduced musical.ly’s “User-Generated Ads” model.

Kids were making some seriously cool little ads for Coke.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LgMzMl9OFA

The hashtags that are popular on this social network usually make reference to bits of pop culture and trends among the internet world.

So, marketers, if you want to reach tweens and teens, it is definitely worth your while to check out Musical.ly. It has fast become a Go-To destination for influencer marketing. The app is still finding a way to monetise its platform.This means that they are a little more loose with restrictions or requirements in place for branded content, advertising, and influencer marketing campaigns. You never know, it might just be the perfect spot to place your influencer-marketing budget.

 

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Digital Ads Are Tired. Here’s What Smart Businesses Are Doing Instead

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By Quora

Brands are shifting more of their spending into things like experiential events, live social media campaigns, and influencer marketing.

How effective is Google AdWords? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Justin Rezvani, Founder & CEO at theAmplify, on Quora:

For the past decade, digital advertising has been on an exponential growth curve.

Big brands have shifted huge amounts of their advertising budgets (previously reserved for more conventional methods such as display, television, or print) into things like Facebook ads and Google AdWords.

And it’s clear why: digital platforms are now where people are spending their time.

However, in 2017, what we’re beginning to see is a peak to the summit. According to CNBC, brands are reported to lose $16.4 billion to online advertising fraud–meaning the digital ads you purchase aren’t being served to the customers you think they are (if at all).

On top of that, advertisers lost about $12.5 billion in 2016 due to invalid traffic–clicks driven by bots instead of humans.

These are huge issues for brands who expect to see a return on their marketing investments. And recently, CFO of P&G, Jon Moeller, made a strong move to cut spending on digital advertising, only to reach a substantial conclusion. “We didn’t see a reduction in the growth rate… what that tells me is that the spending that we cut was largely ineffective,” he said, according to Business Insider.

CEO David Taylor explained further, cited by the Wall Street Journal, that more than $100 million spent on digital advertising was largely ineffective.

For one of the biggest brands in the world to say their digital advertising efforts were not as effective as they had originally hoped for is certainly a shocking statement.

But I believe it’s a step in the right direction.

As more and more studies begin to reveal the underlying issues with digital, specifically programmatic advertising, we are now beginning to see brands shift more of their spending into things like experiential events, live social media campaigns, and influencer marketing.

Here’s why.

1. Ad blockers are tuning out the noise.

In 2016, the usage of ad blockers increased nearly 30%. That’s not something to be taken lightly.

To combat this rampant rise, brands like Jaguar, Absolut, and MasterCard, among others, are starting to invest more in real events interacting with consumers in real time. According to AdWeek, president of WME | IMG’s (now Endeavor) experiential agency IMG Live, Bryan Icenhower, said that “experiential is a uniquely fast and effective way to build brand awareness through one-to-one connections with consumers. It engages all five senses, sparking emotions that form lasting memories which have been shown to drive brand loyalty.”

This something we believe in strongly at theAmplify, whenever we are coordinating influencer campaigns for big brands. Consumers want to interact with influencers, see and meet their favorite influencers, and even create content with these influencers in real life.

A consumer or a fan will go to great lengths to be at an event with someone they follow closely online. And they will be far less likely to pay attention to an ad that tries to convey that same value through an eye-catching call to action or headline.

2. Live streaming is an unstoppable trend.

Live video is far more popular than you think.

In fact, nearly half of US internet users watch live video at least once per week. On top of that, Facebook Live videos are watched 3x longer than regular videos, proving that Live is a catalyst for engagement.

But one of the qualities that makes a great Live stream is the involvement of influencers. People want to watch people they recognize, they follow regularly, and they know will provide them with whatever it is they’re looking for: entertainment, education, news, etc.

Although Facebook Live has been ramping up speed for a while now, it’s worth giving credit to Snapchat for really bringing the value of Live mainstream, since Snapchat Stories gave viewers the feeling that it was Live. Stories led to influencer takeovers, and now we have influencers partnering up with brands to host award shows or perform branded stunts on social media live streams.

It’s only a matter of time before more and more brands realize the value of Live experiences over conventional digital ads.

3. Influencer marketing isn’t slowing down any time soon.

Why spend money on a text ad when you can spend that same amount on a relevant social influencer with a highly targeted following of loyal fans?

What makes influencer marketing so compelling for brands is the association that comes with a high-profile influencer. An ad will always just be an ad. But an influencer, because they are a human being, inherently brings a level of reliability and relevancy no programmatic ad budget can buy.

But furthermore, influencers themselves are just as measurable, if not more so, than things like Google AdWords or even Facebook ads. A few years ago, influencer marketing wasn’t there yet, but we now have the software to be able to determine the right influencers, for the right campaigns, long before the first dollar is spent–and that’s powerful. Actually, since data is so important in making the right marketing decisions, we decided to build our own proprietary software and platform in-house, called Reach. And it has been the backbone of every one of our big brand strategies and influencer campaigns.

This question originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Quora

Sourced from Inc. 

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Which Metrics Should Your Business Be Using To Measure Influencer Marketing?

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Posted on .

In the past, it was often difficult to accurately measure marketing methods to determine which methods were driving the highest levels of traffic. Today, we have access to a wide array of online marketing methods, including social media and influencer marketing. In fact, a study conducted by SocialChorus found that an influencer marketer campaigns can drive up to 16 times the engagement of owned or paid media.

Compared to traditional forms of marketing, social media offers the ability to create incredibly targeted marketing campaigns while also measuring an array of metrics to determine which methods drive the greatest return on investment (ROI). The same is also true of influencer marketing. Even so, in order to ensure the greatest ROI, it is imperative to track and measure the right metrics. Below, we explore five metrics your business should be using to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaigns.

1. Total Investment

First and foremost, you need to determine how much you are actually investing in influencer marketing before figuring out how much of a return you are receiving on that investment. The cost of your investment could include a variety of expenses, including researching influencers and even setting up an influencer campaign. Other expenses might include the cost of providing free product samples to your influencer and your audience. In the event that you need to set up demos or test areas, you will also need to include those costs for your company to determine the overall investment cost of the influencer campaign.

2. Reach and Ratio

This could actually be two different metrics. It is important to understand the difference between these two metrics and their importance to the success of your campaign. One of the biggest challenges that many businesses encounter when setting up an influencer campaign is trying to differentiate influencers. Not all influencers are the same. More often than not, businesses make the mistake of focusing on the number of followers that an influencer has. While a high number of followers could be advantageous, it does not necessarily guarantee the results you want. For instance, suppose an influencer has a large following but that following is not engaged with the influencer. In this type of situation, the response your brand receives from your influencer campaign may not be as robust as you would like. By comparison, an influencer with a smaller but much more involved and interactive following could drive far better results. Due to these differences, it is important to make sure that you are focusing on the reactions that an influencer receives when sharing your marketing messages as the true gauge of the success of the campaign. If you need help in measuring this metric, a number of tools are available, including Traackr.

3. Sentiment

The main reason that an influencer campaign can be so successful is that it rests on the ability of the influencer to obtain buy-in from the audience. Consequently, it is vital that you measure the sentiment regarding your businesses marketing message.Through evaluating the way in which your brand is perceived by your target audience, you will be better positioned to identify areas that may not resonate as well with your target demographic and adjust your marketing message accordingly. Along the same lines, you can also see which messages receive the most favorable reaction, giving you the opportunity to increase awareness around that message the influencer is delivering.

4. Brand Effect

Of course, ultimately, you need to determine what effect the message had on your brand. As part of the process of measuring brand effect, you need to evaluate such metrics as the amount of traffic generated to your landing page or website, the number of times your product or brand was mentioned online, the number of new subscribers received, or the number of new followers or fans added on social networks.

5. New Sales

For most businesses, the ultimate goal of any influencer marketing campaign will be the number of new sales directly attributed to a marketing message or campaign. Keep in mind that this number may not be readily available immediately following the campaign. The purchasing cycle for your product or service could actually extend far beyond the duration of your marketing campaign, so remember to continue measuring even after the initial campaign has come to an end.

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5 Things to Understand Before Spending a Dime on Influencer Marketing

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There hasn’t been a shortage of influencer marketing buzz in 2017, and with the holiday season fast-approaching, it’s only going to increase. Most of the buzz is positive, but I’ll be the first person to say that influencer marketing isn’t for every brand.

I’ve been knee-deep in the influencer space since before it became mainstream, which eventually led me to spin off a sister company that is a stand-alone influencer marketing agency. When you pair the correct product with influencers and a well-executed campaign, it can be lucrative. When you don’t, it can be a complete waste of marketing dollars. Here are five things you need to understand before you spend money on an influencer marketing campaign.

1. The relationship must be authentic.

People follow influencers on social media because they have similar interests. The influencers with the strongest personal brands have followers that are very in-tune with their day-to-day life, and if something reeks of an overly promotional post, they risk major backlash.

Influencers don’t want to put the relationship with their followers in jeopardy, so many — the effective ones, at least — will only entertain partnerships with brands that closely align with what their audience is likely to be interested in.

A fitness influencer is going to consider working with a supplement brand but highly unlikely to consider partnering with a junk-food brand. It just isn’t something their audience is going to be interested in. The wrong influencer and brand pairing can lead to mass-unfollowing and low or no positive engagement.

2. Influencer marketing is a long-term play for most brands.

If you are in desperation mode and think a few sponsored posts are going to be the life preserver your business needs, you will be greatly disappointed, and probably end up worse off. Yes, a single mention by a mega-influencer can be extremely rewarding, but these occurrences are rare — and expensive. A sponsored post from a member of the Kardashian clan will cost you six figures. They are the unicorns of the influencer marketing world.

In most cases, long-term partnerships are necessary — you have to build trust before you experience results. Influencer marketing needs to be just one component of your overall marketing campaign. When someone sees an influencer they follow post several times about a product, it might entice them to explore it a bit more, but only a very small percent will convert on an offer immediately after it’s posted.

3. Be prepared to scale (and spend).

As mentioned above, influencer marketing isn’t a one-and-done game. The best results are going to be achieved by brands that have an adequate testing budget and the desire to scale. It takes a lot of split testing and data gathering — creatives, calls-to-action, influencers, posting times, etc. — to determine where your sweet spot is.

You should make sure the influencers you work with give you access to their analytics to see how many impressions and engagement each post receives. Also, consider using a trackable link to use in their bio to see how much traffic is driven to your offer by each influencer.

Everyone has the itch to try influencer marketing, but I would highly suggest waiting until you have a minimum test budget of $1,000 available before you get your feet wet. This allows you to test across several influencers, test multiple creatives and then grow your effort when you identify what works.

4. You need to leave the creative direction to the influencer.

You have complete creative control when it comes to Facebook advertising or any other traditional digital ad buy, but influencer marketing is a different animal. Many brands want to control the creative direction, but often times that results in posts that don’t feel natural at all. The influencer’s followers can smell a blatant advertisement a mile away.

If you really want quality engagement with your brand, give the influencer your product and let them do whatever they want with it. Nobody knows their audience better than they do. They will introduce your brand and product to their audience in the best way they see fit, giving you the highest quality engagement.

Al Davi is president and CEO of MobileWash, a mobile on-demand app for car washes and detailing understands the importance of influencer control. He says, “If we had influencers post a screenshot of our app or a graphic-based ad, the response would be minimal at best. Now, when an influencer posts a picture of his or her car being washed and mentions our app, it’s a more natural ‘advertisement’ and the response is much better.”

5. Audience size is irrelevant if it’s not targeted.

Audience size doesn’t matter — follower count is irrelevant. You can’t get blinded by follower count. It’s easy to think that paying an influencer with 4 million followers $5,000 to post about your brand is going to make your website server crash because of a flood of traffic, but that’s not how it works in the real world.

I’ve worked with brands that previously tried influencer marketing internally and saw two conversions come from a 3 million-follower account that cost them five figures, and then we show them the difference between proper targeting, and drive 10 conversions from a very small account that costs $50. It all comes down to targeting the right audience.

Feature Image Credit: vgajic | Getty Images 

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