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A travel company has managed to stir up a lot of viral traffic with their hashtag. Watch and learn, people.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

What do a dream wedding in New York, an adventure through the mountains of Sri Lanka and a family’s search for their roots in Scotland all have in common? All saw a hospitality professional going out of their way to make or save someone’s trip. And a holiday booking company use this mushy sequence of events with a hashtag to fire up social media views and get a great repsonse from them.

Booking.com call themselves the global leader in connecting travellers with the widest choice of incredible places to stay. Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com B.V. has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest travel e-commerce companies in the world. Part of The Priceline Group (NASDAQ: BKNG), Booking.com now employs more than 17,000 employees in 198 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

So, what are they doing with their social media marketing? They are riding hastags like a showjumper would a prize horse.

They have had some great success with their recent hashtag #BookingHero. They asked people to share their travel stories using the hashtag. The best story won travel prizes and big kudos online.

Following thousands of submissions via social media, Booking.com selected the three most touching and inspiring accounts of hospitality professionals going above and beyond to create unique and unforgettable travel experiences for their guests.

The customers were then flown back to say thank you to the person who saved their trips. Here are the stories.

 

 

The point isn’t the stories though. The point is that real people’s journeys made the hashtag come alive and generate traffic for booking.com. In fact, the call out for submissions via social media has been so successsful that Booking.com is now using the hashtag to extend the social media campaign with long-form video content that extends the #BookingHero message, with TV to follow.

According to recent research conducted by Booking.com across 25 markets in 2017, a personal connection is essential for many travellers with 29% saying that an accommodation feeling like home is key and 24% sharing that a welcoming host is a make or break factor during the first 24 hours of their trip.

Said Pepijn Rijvers, Chief Marketing Officer, Booking.com. “These stories beautifully demonstrate that an amazing trip is about more than simply finding the right destination or the perfect accommodation– it’s also about the people you meet along the way which truly make for an unforgettable journey. And that’s what travel is all about.”

And for the company, it is about finding the right hashtag and getting it to go viral.

 

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This handy app can help you create ads with impact but with very little effort.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An app called Plotaverse helps marketers to create great ads without the dreaded and costly content creation process. Quickly bypassing established app giants, the young startup’s iOS app made the list of Facebook’s top 10 mobile apps.

The photo app’s animation features allow businesses of any calibre to create impactful ads fast and on a budget. More or less, you can choose from many artistically appealling gifs and put your message over them. The artwork on the site is truly eye-catching.

But how did Plotaverse’s 8 months old mobile app manage to disrupt visual advertising, going up against 8 billion video views a day on Facebook alone?

Images animated with Plotaverse, formerly known as Plotagraph, are the key to its success. The app ads movement to any single still photo. This creates ads that stand out in saturated media feeds.

 

Brands like Coca Cola, Wella, Chevrolet and Red Bull were seen boosting their brand with captivating Plotagraphs. There is no need for video, multiple photos or video editing skills to turn a photograph into a Plotagraph. Users of any skill level can quickly animate and post uniquely moving images to their business and social page.

On Instagram and Facebook, Plotagraphs have proven to attract up to 5 times the amount of views and engagement than surrounding images.

Every day, 4.5 million business pages on Facebook are trying to cut through 1.32 billion daily active users according to WordStream. As expected, Adobe’s titan apps, Photoshop Express and Spark Post head Facebook’s list of Photo Enhancing apps. But the tiny startup’s photo animation app has unexpectedly spearheaded the looping content industry.

To check it out, click here

 

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It could be sending the wrong message to your intended audience.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An academic study has found that women wearing heavy makeup are less likely to be perceived as leaders. Of course, it depends on what you are selling and to whom. But if you want your model to portray leadership, then stay away from the make-up kit.

The research from Abertay University found that women wearing heavy makeup were less likely to be thought of as good leaders. The study was led by Dr Christopher Watkins of Abertay’s Division of Psychology, and published today in Perception journal. It revealed that the amount of makeup a woman is wearing can have a negative impact on perceptions of her leadership ability.

Study participants were asked to view a series of images featuring the same woman without cosmetics and with makeup applied for a “social night out”.

Computer software was used to manipulate the faces and the amount of makeup was also manipulated in the face images.

Each participant completed a face perception task where they judged sixteen face-pairs, indicating how much better a leader they felt their chosen face to be compared to the other face.

It was found that both men and women evaluated women more negatively as a leader if the image suggested she was wearing a lot of makeup.

Dr Watkins said, “This research follows previous work in this area, which suggests that wearing makeup enhances how dominant a woman looks. While the previous findings suggest that we are inclined to show some deference to a woman with a good looking face, our new research suggests that makeup does not enhance a woman’s dominance by benefitting how we evaluate her in a leadership role.”

The study was carried out by Abertay graduates Esther James and Shauny Jenkins and used a measurement scale common in face perception research, which calculates the first-impressions of the participant group as a whole, working out an average verdict.

Dr Watkins has carried out previous high-profile studies including work looking at how women remember the faces potential love rivals and the role of traits related to dominance in our choice of allies, colleagues and friends.

To view the full study click here.

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Facebook is now the most popular places that advertisers are putting their video ads, even beating YouTube.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Top marketers know that digital video is one of the most powerful tools to increase consumer engagement and brand loyalty. In fact, according to a new study from Clinch, brand marketers are ramping up their production of digital videos with an emphasis on creating campaigns specifically for Facebook and YouTube.

The study found that 78 percent of marketers plan to increase their production of video ads in 2018, while only 43 percent of marketers plan to increase their production of static banner ads this year.

Social is Video

When it comes to digital video campaigns, Facebook reigns supreme, representing 46 percent of all video ads produced. When adding Facebook-owned Instagram into the mix, this number leaps to 74 percent. YouTube comes in a close second at 41 percent.

Says Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch, “It’s no secret that Facebook and YouTube dominate the digital media landscape and we don’t expect this to slow down, particularly with the Facebook algorithm change which requires brands to pay in order to be seen. In 2018 brands will increase spend and leverage the rich data that these platforms provide. However, the data and platform are just two pieces of the puzzle. Creative is the critical third piece. If brands aren’t uniquely tailoring their creative specifically for each platform and by audience, opportunities will be missed and ROI will be lowered.”

Nearly three quarters of marketers are adopting online video from their TV commercials. 44 percent indicated that they don’t shorten commercials for each platform’s suggested length. While TV ads remain a critical source of video content, the user experience of each social platform is very different than traditional TV. For example, TV ads are 15 to 30 seconds long but Facebook and YouTube recommend six-second videos.

Etzioni continued, “We were really surprised to learn that marketers were taking a one size fits all approach to video. In 2018, marketers will awaken to the fact that investment in creative will increase ROI and personalisation at scale, and will become the norm for digital video as it has become for static ads.”

Defining Social Personalisation

While 50 percent of respondents say they personalise their video campaigns, brands can be doing a lot more. Those that are personalising their creatives based on data are seeing big results. Nearly 90 percent of respondents who have customised Facebook or YouTube video ads reported seeing benefits. Furthermore, 70 percent of those who customise said that they have seen improvements in their key performance indicators (KPIs).

According to Etzioni, in the next few months, the definition of personalisation will change. “Rather than creating a handful of versions – one for men, one for women, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast, we expect brands to be using data insights to personalise at scale. This means hundreds if not thousands of versions of videos where the message and creative is tailored to their specific needs and interests. This will create a more meaningful experience for the consumer and transform video campaigns from simply brand awareness to direct response opportunities,”

The full report, “How Leading Brand Marketers are Using Personalised Video to Drive Sales,” is available for download here.

 

 

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It’s all about the reviews, so make sure yours are good.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

More than three quarters of travellers use review sites such as Yelp and Trip Advisor to conduct research prior to booking services.

This is according to a survey conducted by The GO Group, an international ground transportation provider.

Travel GIF by Evan Hilton - Find & Share on GIPHY

The respondents were asked about site usage for accommodations, activities, events and ground transportation.

When asked about use of sites for hotels and other accommodations, 13% of respondents said they always check sites; 31% said they do so frequently, 34% said sometimes and 22% said never.

Fifteen percent said they always check sites for reviews about tours and activities; 25% and 34% said they do so frequently and sometimes, respectively. The results for checking on attractions and venues were similar were about the same.

Fewer people use review sites for ground transportation. Only 10% percent said always they did so; 23% said frequently and 40% replied sometimes.

The survey also asked how many people post on review sites. Just three percent said they always posted on the sites, nine percent do so frequently; 40% post sometimes and 26 % responded they have never posted on a review site.

“In addition to or even in lieu of obtaining information and referrals from close friends and family, more people are opting to use content generated by strangers as a guide for booking travel experiences, says John McCarthy, president, GO Group. “As reliance on online review sites continues to grow, it behooves all of us in the travel-related industries industry to regularly review and respond to posts, and monitor them for potential customer services issues.”

Angry Always Sunny GIF by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Find & Share on GIPHY

The GO Group LLC is the nation’s largest airport transportation provider, offering shared rides, private vehicles, sedans, charters and tours, serving some 90 airports in North America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe and transporting more than 13 million passengers per year.

This study shows just how much babysitting and care you need to put into your online reviews. Like you don’t already have enough to do!

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Nearly 90% of retail marketers will increase marketing spend this year.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

RetailMeNot has released result of a study showing how retail marketers will expand their content, use their marketing spend and what they are planning in 2018 to better engage and convert consumers.

This year, 9 in 10 retailers will increase marketing spend, and marketers will spread their increased budget almost evenly among marketing channels such as social, mobile, brand and display. This move reflects the need to ensure that every customer is receiving information in the channel of their choice. Interestingly, 93% of mid-sized retailers (between US$500 million and US$1 billion in annual revenue) are increasing their budget compared to 86% of large retailers (more than $1 billion in annual revenue) indicating an increase.

“Retail marketers are no longer thinking in channel silos. They are approaching commerce holistically with an understanding that consumers are channel-agnostic,” said Marissa Tarleton, CMO, RetailMeNot. “Delivering an experience that meets the consumer in the moment across the shopping journey will be the pathway to success for brands.”

Tackling New Trends and Challenges

While trends like virtual reality are still an exciting frontier, most retail marketers have their sights set on more realistic forward-looking trends. More than half of retail marketers surveyed believe improving mobile web checkout capabilities (52%) and offering exclusive promotions for mobile app users (51%) will positively affect sales growth in 2018. Additionally, voice-assisted shopping is an area that 39% of retail marketers plan to implement, with many retailers hoping to capitalise on increased use of smart home systems and smart speakers.

About 50% of retailers indicated they will use multi-touch attribution in order to better monitor the quality of traffic from their advertising investments. Further, retailers will become more bullish on advertising fraud as they look to ensure that their marketing is reaching the highest quality audience. More than 6 in 10 retail marketers (63%) will increase their direct media buying in 2018 in order to better monitor the quality of their traffic from advertising investments.

Holistic Approach to Increasing Sales

Retail marketers are wisely embracing mobile as a conduit for sales both on the phone and in physical retail stores. Based on our survey, retail marketers believe mobile is the key priority for positively affecting sales growth, and 72% will use mobile marketing to drive in-store sales. Further, 82% will rely on mobile marketing to drive in-app sales.

As marketers look to increase revenue in the coming year, their team structures and channel approaches will evolve to become more cross-functional. In fact, 50% of retail marketers say that their mobile marketing team falls under digital marketing within their organisation, up from 41% in 2016.

Finally, promotions continue to be top-of-mind for driving sales. Most retailers (76%) plan to increase the amount of promotions they are offering in 2018, and 86% will partner with websites and apps that focus on deals, cash back and loyalty programs.

“The convergence between physical and digital shopping will blend even further this year,” said Tarleton. “As retail shifts continue, delivering seamless shopping experiences—be it in-store or online—are critical to success.”

RetailMeNot is a savings destination connecting consumers with retailers, restaurants and brands, both online and in-store. The company enables consumers across the globe to find hundreds of thousands of offers to save money while they shop or dine out.

 

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Social media preferences differ by generation, but most users spend their time consuming – not creating – content on social media apps.

More than half of millennials (53%) say they check Snapchat daily, which is three times more than Generation Xers (18%) and eight times more than baby boomers (7%), according to new data from The Manifest.

Baby boomers prefer Facebook over Snapchat, and they check Facebook more than millennials. More than 9 out of 10 of baby boomers (93%) open the Facebook app at least once a day, compared to 85% of millennials.

The findings indicate that preferences for certain social media apps differ by age group. However, Facebook’s overall dominance – with nearly 90% of all social media app users saying they check it at least once a day – demonstrates how Facebook made its platform appealing to a variety of users.

“Facebook invested considerable resources over the last 10 plus years in making an experience where everyone can find value in the platform,” said Josh Krakauer, founder and CEO of Sculpt, a social media marketing agency.

In contrast, Snapchat’s emphasis on short-lived content and the camera as a communication tool attracts younger users, and millennials in particular, who want a more personalised and unfiltered social media experience.

Snapchat appeals to younger generations who are used to getting the specific information they want, when they want it. Older social media app users may be more comfortable consuming content television-style, where what you see and when you see it is partially decided for you.

“As Facebook has catered to everyone in the world, Snapchat has doubled down as being a place that still feels raw, unfiltered and personal,” Krakauer said.

What Are Smartphone Users Doing on Social Media Apps?

While users spend a lot of time on social media apps, they don’t often publish content. The largest percentage of respondents (36%) say they most commonly use the “like” or “favourite” features on social media apps.

This finding correlates to the “90-9-1” rule of internet content, say experts. “[The rule] says that 90% of the time we just consume content, 9% of the time we interact with content, and only 1% of the time we actually share something,” said Sheana Ahlqvist, lead UX researcher at PhD Insights, a user research agency.

Simply liking or favouriting content on social media is a relatively seamless behaviour, requiring little motivation. The easier an online action is, the more likely a user is to complete it.

“The liking and favouriting is like saying ‘bless you,'” said Alex Levin, co-founder of L+R, a Brooklyn-based creative agency. “You can do it in an action that isn’t offensive.”

In addition to exploring app user behaviour, the survey helps businesses interested in building an app learn from the success of social media apps.

 

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If you have a sales event coming up, like the end-of-season sales, then here are the tips you need to know.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The actual benefits of designing commercial strategies around events like America’s Black Friday or China’s Singles Day improve market platforms and strengthen the domestic economic market because it’s a great opportunity to encourage consumption and sales.

On Black Friday, for example, thousands of companies from different industries tag along with the commercial event and offer large discounts on their goods and services. However, competition is rife. An offer can lose its meaning when another company offers a better one, and what’s more, businesses must not only participate in Black Friday, but really know how to stand out and attract consumers.

So how do you as a marketer get your business to stand out?

Here are some tips from Adext. They deploy and optimise online advertising campaigns on Google, Facebook, Instagram and thousands of websites to increase the sales of SMEs that have limited resources for the activities.

1) Plan a strategy: It’s not enough to offer irresistible discounts on events like Black Friday… You need a promotion strategy with a clear action plan and execution dates. You must be clear on what discounts and incentives you’ll promote, how you’re going to put them across, the digital platforms you’ll use, who you’ll target, when and why. The what, how, where, when and why questions are key to developing any action plan. Come up with answers to them while always keeping the goal you want to achieve in mind. In this case, it’s sales.

2) Research your competition and make sure to offer something really attractive: You could offer a 10% discount, but if your main competitor offers 25%… You can imagine the outcome. If you want to take the lead, look at what they’re doing and ask yourself how you can beat their discount and/or add more value (without affecting your profit margins). You could give your prospects something of value like a gift for their loyalty, or an extra incentive for them to buy more. Also, don’t forget to let your imagination roam and build your offer or promotion around a creative concept.

3) Build Anticipation: Teaser campaigns are wonderful for building your target audience’s curiosity. Don’t reveal your discounts, offers or incentives too soon… Let your prospects discover what they are as anticipation builds. They should be interested and intrigued to find out what you’ll offer them on your sales event day. There are several examples of clever, catchy strategies where they invite their prospects to go to Snapchat to discover what the 10 star products reduced to €10 are.

4) Send your prospects emails: You can send a few emails before the big sales day (to build anticipation), and other reminders before the day arrives.

Here are three tips to make your email marketing campaign a success:

  • Make sure to add an attention-grabbing title or subject line to your email. An email subject line you see all the time, like “Check out our discounts!” will go unnoticed. But if you can entice the reader with something like “I don’t want to freak you out, but you’ll regret it if you don’t take advantage of this” will definitely pique their curiosity and make your open rates go up.
  • Once they open your email, there must be something of interest for them to look at and read… The body of the email must be pleasant to look at, and easy to read and scan. Use short paragraphs, bold letters, headlines, subtitles, vignettes, images, and of course: good copywriting.
  • Add a CTA (Call-To-Action), where you specify what you want the reader to do once they’ve read your email. For example, you might write: “Our discounted products will be available in store until we’re out of stock. We’ll be ready to serve you when you arrive” or “Buy your Christmas gifts NOW and make sure you don’t get burned in January”. This action-oriented copy should stand out on the page. And if you have an online store, add a link to it.

5) Take advantage of the power of social networks: There is no doubt that you need to be where consumers spend most of their time. Where’s that? In this digital world, it’s on social media. Join the conversation and interact with your audience. Include the most relevant hashtags (e.g. #Black Friday or #SinglesDay or #Summersales) on your posts, so that prospects looking for discounts and deals can easily find you.

6) Let digital advertising bring you the clients you need: Digital advertising no longer has to be complicated. And it can give you the results you’re hoping for. Adext is the first Artificial Intelligence platform in the digital advertising space that can automate the entire process of creating, managing and optimising your ad campaigns on Google, Facebook and Instagram.

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The new study highlights that the huge economic impact is just “tip of the iceberg” with independent creators.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

So here it is, another study from the USA about the power of the new economy. While it doesn’t feature what Europeans are doing, we can use the information to see just how fast the new creative economy is moving. Put it this way: that horse has bolted.

The new report released by the Re:Create Coalition finds that 14.8 million independent, American creators earned a baseline of almost $6 billion from posting their music, videos, art, crafts and other works online in 2016. The research is only a snapshot of the entire New Creative Economy, analysing just some of the biggest online platforms: Amazon Publishing, eBay, Etsy, Instagram, Shapeways, Tumblr, Twitch, WordPress and YouTube.

Despite the study being conducted in the USA, YouTube’s top earner is British. Daniel Middleton (DanTDM) brought in $16.5 million in 2017 alone. 26-year-old Dan, otherwise known as TheDiamondMinecart, posts daily reviews and gameplay videos plus some other silliness that kids love.

“Before the internet, a creator was forced to rely on traditional gatekeepers like movie studios and the recording industry to be successful. Today, anyone with a creative idea and a wifi signal can be successful and make money on the internet, reaching millions of people around the globe almost instantly,” said Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel. “This analysis is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the full economic impact of the New Creative Economy. However, its findings demonstrate that millions of Americans rely on the balanced copyright policies that support internet platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Etsy in order to earn billions of dollars from their creative work.”

Selena Gomez is the number one person on Instagram, with close to 70 million followers, more than any other celebrity.

Said study author Dr. Robert Shapiro, “The development of this multi-million user network and multi-billion dollar ecosystem for independent new creators reflects the power of the internet. Even with these highly conservative estimates, this study demonstrates the economic power of the new creative economy and its enormous potential for continued growth.”

For each platform, only a single component of how users can earn income was studied, due to limited public data and insufficient information. Independent creators earn billions of dollars each year online through website ads, sponsorship/influencer compensation, social media traffic, direct sales and other methods, but this study analysed only one revenue-sharing model per platform.

For the full report is here.

 

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If you are marketing anything in the tourism game, this is what you need to know.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

For those that are lucky enough to get away on holiday or go on an extended travel stint, we can predict what actvities you might be doing after a new study has been published by Hotels.com

The company have used a data-crunching bot to track what people are hashtagging the most on their sojourns. More than five million brags globally were analysed using a combination of Tweet data, Instagram posts and travel keywords and destinations mentioned on other social media. So here are the results.

Worldwide travellers are all about the culture: they enjoy musing around museums (300,000 brags), old-town charm (170,000 brags) and a spot of sunshine (130,000 brags), but they can also be found in floating restaurants, erotic museums and night markets.

TOP 10 GLOBAL THEMES

  1. Museum
  2. Rooftop bar
  3. Old Town
  4. Modern Art
  5. Opera
  6. Sunshine
  7. Olympic Games
  8. Cathedral
  9. Gallery
  10. Ballet

This travel bragging trend echoes the findings from the recent Hotels.com Mobile Travel Tracker report, which revealed that one in six travellers search social media before their trip to plan the photos they’ll take. And 56% of people surveyed admit to spending more than an hour a day on their smartphones while on holiday.

While travellers naturally brag about taking in the tourist hotspots and cultural offerings, more people than ever are sharing foodie ‘grams, shopping stories and luxe posts.

#Foodporn
You’re never more than an Insta-scroll away from #FoodPorn and the brag lists are brimming with culinary treats. Cakes in Stockholm and curry in Toronto spice up the brag lists, and New York steak and pizza both made the cut. Perhaps more surprisingly, enchiladas proved twice as popular as modern art in Mexico City, ice cream scooped 10% of all San Francisco brags and Jumbo Kingdom floating restaurant in Hong Kong took second place in the Hong Kong chart with more than 20,000 brags.

Shop ’til you drop
Shopping is a must-do for most travellers. Those visiting Paris brag more about the Rue Vieille du Temple, famous for its boutiques, than Le Louvre! Other top shop-spots included Bal Harbour in Miami, the Harbour City mall in Hong Kong, vintage shops in Melbourne and the stylish Cecile Copenhagen fashion brand made the Danish capital’s top 10.

Five-star luxury
When travellers check into a posh, luxury hotel they naturally want the world to know. The stunning 5-star Ritz Carlton in San Francisco topped the city’s brag list, the Four Seasons in Singapore proved brag-worthy and the Park Hyatt came in at number one in Seoul – most likely for its awe-inspiring rooftop pool.

Scott Ludwig at Hotels.com said, “Bragging about your travel experiences on social media has become the norm – if you didn’t get social kudos out of it, it didn’t happen!”

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