This article originally appeared on CoreyPadveen.com.
There are a few important changes LinkedIn needs to make in order to save itself from a disastrous fate.
If you happened to catch a glimpse of LinkedIn’s stock price over the last week or so, you might have noticed a straight line downwards on Friday February 5th. That wasn’t a glitch; LinkedIn’s stock price has fallen by over 40% (at the time of writing) since it announced lower-than-expected earnings and lowered projections for the coming year. Investors are losing their patience.
Despite having a great core product (which LinkedIn very much still does) many of the efforts of the professional network to expand have not yielded strong results. In fact, in a lot of respects, those expansion efforts have rather resulted in an almost ‘worst case scenario’ outcome.
This is not to say that LinkedIn has missed the mark every time it has done something; the acquisition of SlideShare in 2012, for example, was a brilliant move and continues to be among its best. But some of the more universal oversights have cost the network dearly, and there are a few pain points that need to be addressed as soon as possible in order to end the slide into penny stock status (though that’s still a long way off – we hope).
Spamalot Central
Facebook is consistently working on its algorithm in order to ensure that the content you see is what is most relevant to you. The result has been quarter-over-quarter growth in average session time, engagement per post, engagement per user, and more metrics that have come into existence since the advent of social media in the world of marketing.
LinkedIn has taken a slightly different approach.
In order to encourage engagement among its users, InMail exists (which guarantees a user will see the message). Of course, users pay for that privilege, but is accommodating the users who pay for mass (spam) messages like that really worth the detriment that does on the user experience as a whole?
How often do you receive unsolicited messages on LinkedIn offering to sell you traffic, invest in a business opportunity, or, in some cases, enlarge or enhance something? In the last month alone, I’ve been included on over a dozen chain-style message threads (another issue) from users (and including users) with whom I’ve never connected. I pay close attention to who I allow into my professional circle, but all that seems to factor into is my feed content, and has no influence on what kind of trash I’m sent from peddling affiliates.
A better spam filtration system needs to be put in place by LinkedIn and it needs to be put in place fast. More and more users (as exhibited by time on site and people I’ve spoken to) are using LinkedIn for little more than a place to host a resume and highlight some skills, rather than a network where actual business can get done. These filters don’t need to be all that complicated either for them to work (and improve the experience).
First, these kinds of promotional messages (and chain messages) should be restricted to second or third points of contact. Introductions (with character limits or standard content set by LinkedIn) should be the ONLY content that non-connections are allowed to send at the outset. If someone send me something along the lines of, “Thanks for connecting, I look forward to talking to you a little bit more about how we might be able to work together!” I’ll be significantly more likely to look through his or her profile, see what it is they do and, if I see potential, engage with the user and open up a professional dialogue.
I wonder what kind of horrific return these affiliates and marketers see when they purchase InMail packages and generate nothing. That might be a nice short term gain for the network, but as we have seen with this year’s earnings reports, it’s not a solution.
Improved Ad Dashboards
Advertising is any social network’s (even a professional one’s) bread and butter. So, as we’ve seen with Facebook – the shining example of social advertising that marketers love – constant improvements should be made to a dashboard in order to make it simpler, more effective and more evolved. This is an area where LinkedIn has really struggled.
As someone who has been involved in social advertising for years now, it is not hard to tell which network (of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) has seen the slowest evolution in its ads platform. As Facebook and Twitter have introduced new capabilities and made the management of campaigns and creative much more efficient, LinkedIn has done little to evolve its dashboard.
It has certain undergone some aesthetic changes, but ad campaigns function in an archaic fashion. It is almost as if marketers are publishing magazine ads and hoping that they work. Why do I say this? Well, ads can be created…but that’s about it. Editing is a nightmare (if not entirely non-existent) and as you create varieties of your creative, your campaign become overwhelmingly populated with different variations. For a network that is built on professionalism, the ads dashboard is far too disorganized.
A simpler, more tasteful segmentation, like that of Facebook’s setup (which modelled itself after Google) would make life much easier. Moreover, the ability to edit ads and feature proper creative to populate a link preview (as opposed to a tiny window with a fraction of what’s actually on the ad) would go a very long way in driving marketers to use LinkedIn ads more frequently.
Improved Ad Placements
And again with the ads.
Most marketers can agree that the age of the banner is dead. And yet, the right-hand side ad lives on. Granted it is a viable bit of real estate, and LinkedIn has done a better job than Facebook of optimizing the appearance of the RHS ad (instead of several ads scrolling, one appears in a noticeable box at a time) but for advertisers the value is in sharing content to a targeted user’s feed.
That can still be done on LinkedIn, but where both Facebook and Twitter have the network beat is in how to drive traffic from these ads. As noted above, the tiny image that populates a link is completely worthless. A large, eye-catching piece of creative with a clear call-to-action and a different visual structure than a regular post or update is what makes an ad worth the marketer’s budget. LinkedIn needs to make changes to how creative we can get with those ads.
There is no denying the viability of the audience on LinkedIn. Barring those users that are simply sharing spam (I’ll get to that again in a second) there is the most targeted group of people active on the network than any other social platform. So it would make sense that LinkedIn charges a little bit more than other networks for its ad space, but you’re paying five, ten even twenty times as much per click (trust me I’ve done the comparisons) for an ugly, boring ad that can’t be changed once you click ‘Start’.
Ads need to be more visually stimulating if marketers are to see results from them, and their placements need to be more apparent in the timeline than simply allowing users to create Sponsored Updates.
User Purge
LinkedIn has registered about 414 million users. Based on the content I mentioned above that floods my inbox, I wouldn’t flinch if you told me half of those were spam.
OK – maybe not half. But you get my point.
It’s time for LinkedIn to clean up its network. Hitting that critical mass is exciting, and it means charging more for advertising, but as more bots and tactless affiliates join the network, the value of that ad space goes down. Now, the cat is out of the bag as far as how people are using the network. Several are using the online space to store a resume. Others are using it to share content and find a new job. Recruiters are using it to find those users. And so, so, SO many are using it to tell me about an amazing business opportunity that I need to act on or sell me traffic.
To rebound from this devastating hit, LinkedIn may need to sacrifice a huge portion of its user base. That might seem counterintuitive, but one theme that has been apparent in a lot of what LinkedIn has done has been short-term thinking. This is looking at the value to marketers in the long-run.
Conclusion
Nothing here is vastly complex. I’m not suggesting a paradigm shift in how the network functions or what it offers. These are existing models that simply need a tweak.
Of course, this won’t happen overnight. It will take time and it will take just as much (if not more) time to see the effects of this working. But I really do believe that in order for LinkedIn to survive this downward spiral, it needs to look towards simplification, rather than expansion.
As Wall Street begins to shake and the memories of 2000 start to creep back up in their minds, they are taking good hard looks at what is working and what is not. Right now, there is a lot about LinkedIn that scares them. But the potential is certainly there and the product is fantastic. Taking heed of a few of these suggestions might just help it get back into the good graces of the powers that be (and drive up active advertiser numbers as well).
What do you think LinkedIn needs to do to come out of this mess?
The Most Important News from Facebook’s F8 Keynote
/by Corey PadveenThere is a lot to look forward to in Facebook’s future, as evidenced by the Facebook F8 keynote.
Last week, Mark Zuckerberg delivered the keynote address at the Facebook F8 summit and shed some light on what the future has in store for the social networking giant. (It should be noted that at this point Facebook is a giant in many – if not most – respects, and not only when it comes to social networking.)
The Age of Spiritual Machines
So maybe we haven’t yet reached that fateful period that Ray Kurzweil has prophesied, but Facebook has certainly taken a step in that direction by embracing bots (and a form of artificial intelligence) when it comes to brand engagement on Messenger.
The idea behind automated interaction like this is to improve the distribution and engagement with brand content (and other content from around the web). At first – as with all things that are unfamiliar to us – it will likely feel like an intrusion. As these bots adapt to your tastes and mold to your Facebook engagement habits (not to mention the improvements that will surely come) it will certainly reach a point where it passes a Turing Test.
Following the announcement, two big content distributors – Business Insider and The Wall Street Journal – announced the launch of their bots, and those brands using this service has only increased since then. We can surely expect to see brands (of all sizes) start to embrace this service in the near future, if for no other reason than to test its capabilities.
Sharing Text Just Got Easier
You’re reading a book, you see a quote that inspires you, it’s time to share. Now, that process (which was pretty easy to begin with) just got easier.
Now when you see text in an integrated app (Amazon Kindle will feature this soon) that you would like to share, you can simply highlight it and choose to share it to Facebook. Sure, the aesthetics of a beautiful sunset setting the backdrop for some inspirational text might still be preferable, but who knows where this option might go from a creative angle. That might be phase two.
For now, sharing text is a click away.
Streaming Coming Up in a Big Way
Facebook is making an even bigger play in live streaming content. In their ten year roadmap, their connectivity focus includes plenty of drone, 3D, 360 and live streaming elements.
There has been a lot of excitement and hype around the live streaming space. That’s exacerbated by the fact that Facebook has been putting plenty of weight on content that is live streamed in its News Feed algorithm. But if we were to imagine live streaming on the Gartner Hype Cycle (shown below) where would it fall?
Realistically, we would probably see live streaming between the Peak of Inflated Expectations and the Trough of Disillusionment. Yes, there are undoubtedly applications and yes it is an exciting new field as far as content delivery goes, but it still has yet to find a balance. That said, it is easy to understand why Facebook is putting a lot of weight behind it.
Better Bookmarking
Lastly (at least lastly for this article, but there is plenty more to catch up on) Facebook is venturing into the bookmarking space in a more robust way. Every day, more and more people are using Facebook to digest news content. A lot of what was discussed in Facebook’s F8 keynote was news-related.
Bookmarking is another way that Facebook is trying to extend its value to consumers. Bookmarking and better segmenting the content you see is an area where Facebook offers little right now. That’s going to change as they extend how bookmarking on the platform works, and what benefits there are to using it.
Conclusion
A lot was announced by Facebook, which is nothing new. Every day, there are plenty of great innovations coming out of the social networking behemoth. It’ll be exciting to watch how they approach (and adhere to) their ten year roadmap.
Understanding Attribution Models in Google Analytics
/by Corey PadveenGet a better understanding of attribution models in your Google Analytics dashboard.
As a marketer, one of the most important parts of the job is knowing what channels and media are leading to conversions on your website. Attribution models in Google Analytics make that job a whole lot easier.
In the latest video in our Google Analytics series in conjunction with the Social Media Strategies Summit, we cover the different types of attribution models that exist within your Google Analytics dashboard. We could easily spend a significant amount of time going over the intricacies of this component, and we will certainly be covering this topic in more detail, but in this first video we simply cover the basics of the system.
Enjoy!
Facebook is Strong and Getting Stronger [New Marketing Data]
/by Corey PadveencomScore recently released new marketing data reports identifying the strength of Facebook and the increasing growth of Snapchat.
It’s official: we spend 20% of our digital time on a social network. Take into account email and instant messaging, and we’re nearing a third of our time devoted to engaging with others in the digital world. As the report points out, “The strength of this [social networking], along with Email and IM, highlights that one of digital’s primary functions is for communication – now more so than ever with the rise of mobile.”
With so much time spent engaging on social media, marketers are left to wonder where exactly audiences are spending the majority of their time, and how best to reach them. Some of the more interesting data in this report has to do with the (still) unstoppable juggernaut that is Facebook, and how earlier rumors of its demise were quite exaggerated.
Facebook is Still in Charge
For quite some time, people have been talking about the ‘death of Facebook’ and claiming that younger audience (read ‘millennials’) are ‘fleeing’ from the network. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, there has been plenty of expansion onto other networks. Snapchat has risen through the ranks quickly to become a fan favorite. (Though its value as a marketing tool remains to be seen.) But users spreading their time across multiple networks does not mean that the incumbent powerhouse is falling from grace.
As you can see in the two charts above, the comScore marketing data shows that in terms of reach, not a single player comes even close to Facebook. What’s more, the more narrow age breakdowns see Facebook holding a strong distribution. With a global audience hovering around 1.5 billion users, that means that you can find an audience for virtually any business on Facebook. While the same can’t be said about (virtually) anyone else, Snapchat does have something going for it in terms of audience makeup.
The Value of Snapchat
Again, we come back to the conversation about millennials. Prior to getting into the conversation about Snapchat’s hold on this coveted market, it should be noted that there are far too many misconceptions about the term ‘millennials’. Marketers think about the age demographic as moving in unison like a herd of buffalo. In order to effectively reach and activate this demographic, marketers need to think about them from the perspective of a personality, regardless of age. There are certain traits that define the term millennial that extend far beyond the age range. That said, what does this report uncover about Snapchat?
Of the 100 million+ daily active users on Snapchat, 76% of them are between 18-34 years old. In terms of the younger side of that group – namely audience members between 18 and 24 – 46.8% of Snapchat users fall into this age group.
There is clearly opportunity in terms of tapping the audience available on Snapchat, but whether or not that is an opportunity that will be afforded to the masses (and whether or not a tangible return can be calculated from this opportunity) remains to be seen.
Conclusion
The long and short of the story is that Facebook is continuing to see growth and dominance in the social networking (and mobile) markets, and it is still a very, very viable play for marketers. Snapchat still has quite a ways to go in terms of providing economic (calculable) value to marketers, but no one can doubt that there is something there.
There is lots of great information in this report, and it is certainly worth a read. You can download a copy of your own here.
There Are More Marketing Technologies Than Ever!
/by Corey PadveenThis article originally appeared on CoreyPadveen.com.
Every year (since 2011) Scott Brinker of ChiefMarTec.com releases the marketing technology landscape supergraphic, and this year was the most impressive one yet.
In 2011, there were about 150 marketing technologies categorized by Scott Brinker’s supergraphic. A lot has changed in the last five years. Now, as you can see below, there are over 3,500. That’s almost double what we saw last year (~1,800) and a market that has grown more than twentyfold since Brinker and his team started taking stock of what’s available on the market.
One of the more popular questions I am asked by clients and at conferences (and one of the questions I hear most often when sitting in on a session or webinar) has to do with these marketing technologies. More specifically, “What is the best tool for [INSERT TASK HERE]?” I always answer that question the same way: There is no one perfect tool. Simply put, the perfect tool(s) for you will depend on your objectives and whole host of other variables.
With a market that has grown as significantly as the marketing technologies space, you would think that by now, one of these clouds or suites would do it all. That couldn’t be further from the truth. As more of these technologies sprout up and claim to solve the last of your problems, the more difficult it becomes to identify the diamonds in the ever-expanding rough.
Some Positive Realities
It is encouraging to see that the largest categories in terms of available technologies (by volume) are also the ones related to the hottest topics of the day:
We’re seeing data make its way to the top of everyone’s must-have list, and the tech market is responding accordingly. No longer are these tools reserved for the largest of the large, and the richest of the rich. Data and business intelligence are crucial to businesses of all sizes, and the supply is starting to catch up to the demand.
Another bright spot is the fact that we are starting to see a trend of openness, as opposed to the Oracle model, which has long aimed to close off its acquired technologies to other Oracle products alone. Now, technologies are being built with the pseudo- or custom-cloud in mind, whereby marketers develop their own suite of tools as opposed to relying on the Salesforces and Microsofts of the world. So while the perfect savior tool might not yet be available, marketers can now have an easier time building a version of their perfect tool, once again rooted in their needs, capital and time.
The Future of the Industry
In a market where the number of active players has nearly doubled in a single year, watching tech stocks face valuation slashes (see my articles on LinkedIn and Snapchat) can’t be something anyone is too excited about. And while there are plenty of categories from which to choose, anyone can tell you that in the next few years (my estimates put it within 24 months) there won’t be enough room for 186 social media marketing companies, for example.
Every one of these spaces is becoming increasingly crowded. Most of them, at this point, are probably already overflowing with waste. It won’t be long before we start to see significantly more consolidation (something we have already started to see) and significantly more of these houses closing shop. The good ones (for the most part) will stick around, as they so often do, but as the market starts to balance, the best will be absorbed while the rest are extinguished.
So, while I would strongly advise testing and piloting everything that you think might be the perfect product for your needs, now is a time to approach newcomers cautiously, as you’d hate to invest your resources (time and money) into a product that only has a few months or a year on the market.
Looking Towards the Future of Twitter
/by Corey PadveenWhat exactly is in store for the future of Twitter? With a lot of changes, there are a lot of possibilities.
Twitter has been put under the miscroscope since they released some troubling numbers back in February. Sure, revenue and profits were up, but user growth had stagnated. (Not decreased, but not grown, either.) This led many to start questioning whether or not Twitter has a future as an independent, public company, or if a takeover is inevitable.
Since then, some significant changes have been made with regards to the structure and functionality of Twitter. A lot of these changes, one in particular, impacts how brands and businesses (small ones especially) can benefit from the use of the network.
Algorithmic Updates
Many brands have been enjoying significant organic reach and engagement for a very long time. Now, similar to what Facebook did, Twitter has changed its free-for-all structure (where everything you see in your timeline is ordered chronologically) and implemented an algorithmic structure whereby the order of your tweets runs according to their relevance and popularity.
This is great news for brands with a highly engaged audience – your content will be shown more often. This isn’t such great news for brands and individuals currently in the process of trying to build an audience. That just became significantly more difficult.
Slowly but surely, social networks are moving towards the pay-to-play model (as Facebook has and as Instagram is beginning to do). What does this mean? It means that in order to see your content reach more people and generate the engagement (and clicks) you’re hoping to receive, you’ll need to be willing to make an investment in advertising. This won’t necessarily be true to all brands, but it will be a universal law for the little guys trying to get content and accounts to appear to targeted networks.
How Algorithms Impact Twitter
As far as how these new algorithmic ordering updates will impact the future of Twitter, there is both a positive angle and a negative angle. On the negative side, users are not particularly pleased. That’s a pretty obvious one because they can read between the lines; they now know that an algorithm like this one means a lot less organic reach and a greater need to invest in advertising. For businesses, when something goes from free to paid, there’s a lot of tension.
On the positive side, brands and individuals are now much more willing to pay for these kinds of services. There are now over three million advertisers on Facebook. That’s not a huge number when compared to the total number of users, but it’s significantly higher than the number of Twitter advertisers. A move like this all but guarantees that Twitter will start to acquire new advertisers. But the thing they will need to keep in mind has a lot more to do with whether or not this comes at the right time.
When growth has stalled, you ask yourself whether or not you’ve reached the critical mass necessary to stay relevant for an extended period of time, and the answer to that question determines how viable a point it is to be making these changes.
Based on a recent interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, he doesn’t see Twitter going anywhere.
Twitter’s Plans
It’s all about ‘live’.
We’ve seen several instances where Twitter reported more accurate news on current events faster than most mainstream news sources. That combined with products like Periscope makes it a real contender for top dog in the live events and streaming business (if you don’t already consider it to be in that position).
According to Jack Dorsey, “Twitter has this amazing ability to make the world feel a whole lot smaller, even though you’re not physically next to someone, and you’re actually experiencing the same thing, even though you’re not aligned. It feels like true, true connection.” That connection is something Twitter is looking to make the most of moving forward, and the focus seems to be largely on improving the experience of the users that are already there rather than focusing solely on user acquisition.
Whether or not this plan works remains to be seen, but optimism and an apparent road map are good signs.
4 Social Media Metrics that Connect to Your Business Goals
/by Corey PadveenThere are certain ways to leverage social media metrics in order to drive results when it comes to your business.
There are plenty of great measurements that marketers can (and should) pay attention to when it comes to efforts on social media. But in order to really capitalize on the economic value of these social media metrics, it is important that the majority, if not all of them, are tied to business goals. Social media should be used as communications tools, and like any aspect of your communications strategy, they need to be measured in relation to how they are helping your bottom line.
Lead Generation
Of course, lead generation is key. But too often when marketers or social media managers share content to different networks, there are no tracking mechanisms in place to track leads. Moreover, the lead generation features available on networks like Twitter and Facebook (often through advertising) go underused.
Link tracking and site tracking (using urchin tracking in your links, for example, or behavior flow/goal analysis on your website) matter. While you can rely on your website tracking software (e.g. Google Analytics) to do the work for you, you’ll want to ensure that once those social-driven visitors have made it to the website, you create goals and track those leads in order to better your content strategy and improve the way in which you leverage social media in order to acquire leads. In terms of advertising, making a small investment in things like boosting your Facebook Page call-to-action, create Twitter lead gen cards and taking advantage of Facebook’s new lead gen ad option are great ways to go about driving that financial return from your networks.
Inbound Social Links
The growth of your inbound social links and subsequent traffic are key to the growth of your business from several angles. As your inbound links from social grow, it is indicative of the relevance of your content (particularly the content being shared to the respective network). This helps you improve the investment you make (both from a financial and time perspective) in your content strategy. The second reason why this is a hugely important metric has to do with search.
Here are the correlative data of social with respect to the rankings of some of the most powerful sites on the web:
Though Google says that these social signals do not directly change search rankings, the reality is that the correlation between this social clout and high rankings is on par with traditionally (and still) important metrics like number of backlinks and click-through rate. High rankings are good for business.
Customer Service Capacity
With Social Care (customer service on social media) one of the many benefits is the increased capacity that your customer service representatives can now handle. That increased capacity means that the 75%+ of consumers that want their issue addressed by an agent within 60 minutes have a higher likelihood of seeing that happen. Considering 80%+ of those simply want to be heard by an organization (and don’t necessarily care if the issue is resolved, as it oftentimes can’t be) it means your brand’s reputation stands less chance of being hurt by any issues and a good chance of actually improving in the public’s eye.
From an economical benefit standpoint? That has to do a lot more with money saved than money earned (directly, though improved brand reputation is a factor to consider). With a higher volume that can be handled by your customer service team, it means there is less need to employ such a significant customer service staff. Of course, this works best if you are just getting started, but in terms of transition, it could mean becoming a leaner team down the road as these improvements make an impact.
Conversion Tracking
Just as with lead generation, you’ll want to take advantage of all of the opportunities that come with conversion tracking. Simple pixel tracking or social integration with your eCommerce or CRM are readily available and make your ability to track socially-driven conversions infinitely easier. Apart from tracking social conversions from the obvious reasons, why else would you want to look at this metric? Again, this has just as much to do with money management as it does with money making.
Everything you’re doing with social media takes an investment. Whether you’re investing financially in something like ads or spending time and other resources making social work, there is an investment. When you minimize your investment only to those strategies that work, your profits are maximized. That’s the goal here. It’s not simply paying attention to those conversions to see how much money was made, but rather to pay attention to those conversions to ensure that whatever you are investing in is leading to increased revenues. You might love a strategy you developed, but if your target audience is not responding to it, or they are, but not in a way that you had hoped (for example, likes instead of signups) then you need to cut that one loose and focus on those efforts that are working.
Conclusion
There are a lot of ways to tie social to your business, but when it comes to what you’re measuring, these are some of the most important metrics out there. Of course, they are not always going to be black and white. You might (and almost definitely will) need to get creative with what you’re looking at, but there is always a way to tie economic growth to social communications, and it’s a must if you want to see social help you grow.
How Web Behavior Shifted in 2015 [Infographic]
/by Corey PadveenAddThis created a great infographic to showcase how desktop and mobile web behavior shifted across the globe in 2015.
It’s not too surprising to see that one major web behavior shift has to do with the continued rise of mobile. At this point, the numbers (though still very impressive) are not surprising. Mobile is becoming more commonplace, though this infographic from AddThis clearly shows that this trend is not universal. There are still several regions around the world where desktop is still largely favored, but the regions where this is true decreases every year.
What is perhaps most interesting (from a marketing standpoint) is the regional breakdown of the five most active markets for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn above the norm. This gives some important insight into where international marketing initiatives might have a higher impact, and how best to allocate some of those international resources in order to ensure that they provide the greatest return possible.
Take a look at all of these interesting facts and figures in the infographic below.
Properly Analyze Your Social Data [eBook]
/by Corey PadveenTaking control of your social data is easier than you might think.
In our latest instalment of our ‘How 2 with t2’ eBook series, we cover a topic that has long been a focal point of the marketing world: social data. For a lot of marketers, this is an intimidating topic. The industry has framed social data as an almost divine entity, far too complex and vast for any average marketer to comprehend. In this eBook, our goal is to simplify the concept and highlight some of the easiest ways any marketer can start to use these data.
The topics covered include the process of sourcing some of the most valuable data that exist for both the brand and industry, structuring these data in order to identify certain opportunities, and how best to execute campaigns that leverage these new opportunities.
Ultimately, the objective is simple: we want marketers to think small about BIG DATA!
Find out more by downloading the social data analysis eBook here.
What Is Exhaustive Audience Marketing?
/by Corey PadveenThe concept of Exhaustive Audience Marketing has the potential to save marketers big dollars on their advertising efforts – if they take the time to learn about the applications.
We have regularly written about the tremendous potential that exists when it comes to our proprietary Incremental Bidding System, and the potential that can be extracted through the practice of Exhaustive Audience Marketing is no less impressive.
When it comes to social advertising, budgets can go a very long way. We’ve conducted several studies internally to determine the value of a dollar on social media versus other media (primarily SEM dollars) and have found that when it comes to social, your money packs a punch. Sometimes upwards of a tenfold value punch. But to extract that value, there are certain practices that need to be observed. An Incremental Bidding System is a part of that, but the umbrella under which that practice is housed is referred to as Exhaustive Audience Marketing, a concept developed by t2 Marketing.
How It Works
Though the concept can extend to media outside of Facebook advertising, we’ll focus primarily on the social media giant for simplicity.
If you’ve properly analyzed your audience data, then you’ve likely developed hypertargted audience clusters made up of similarly defined users. Of course, this goes a step further than traditional demographics (especially when we’re talking about Facebook). A hypertargeted cluster, though smaller than, say, an email list, is made up of users that not only fit similar traditional demographics, but also follow similar behavioral patterns, interests and buying tendencies.
For each of these clusters, you’ll have created ad sets with tailored messaging based on the criteria mentioned above. Now it’s time to take those ads and push them to an audience with a significantly higher likelihood that they will convert. But you don’t want to spend more than you have to. How do you do it?
Let’s think of our audience as a series of ripples in the water.
Right at the center is your most relevant audience. These are the prospects (though few in number) that fit your targets almost exactly, and that have the highest likelihood of engaging with your content (seeing as how it was designed to appeal specifically to them). In that first circle is a group of prospect somewhat larger that come very close to that ideal audience, but aren’t exact.
As you move further and further out, the pools grow, and while the audience becomes somewhat less exactly targeted, the audience members are still relevant in some capacity, though not necessarily an audience that is apt for immediate engagement. They may take a little extra push, but they still fall under the umbrella of prospects.
You can also think of it in terms of a lead score, but with somewhat more of a social makeup. Your marketing efforts become a little bit more exhaustive as you reach the users on the outskirts of this pool, and therefore, the cost to acquire or engage these users might be somewhat higher.
Incremental Bidding Systems
It is here that Incremental Bidding Systems come into play. These individuals are all capable of being engaged with at different prices. For those prospects that fall exactly in the middle of the pool, you can acquire those audience members for next to nothing (if not nothing). An exceedingly low bid (possibly even lower than what Facebook recommends in some cases) still has potential. They key is to extract that potential fully before moving up to another increment.
When running a Facebook ad campaign, you may feel inclined to allow Facebook to set the ‘optimal’ bid for your ads, but you can rest assured that while you will receive clicks, you’ll burn through your budget much faster and receive a fraction of the potential clicks that could come.
Why would you pay $1.03 for a click that could be obtained for $0.24? When you know that there is an option to avoid that, you’ll certainly choose that option. Essentially, you’ll want to pay attention to the click-through rate and the click volume you’re receiving in the backend of Facebook on a regular basis (daily if not hourly, depending on the length of a campaign).
When you begin to see those two numbers dip (shown in red above), you’re likely reaching the end of the potential at a certain bid. At that point, it’s time to increase your bid (slightly) in order to extract the potential at another level. This process should continue until you’ve completed your budget. In other words, exhaust your audience potential at each bid level before increasing your bid.
If you run two campaigns side-by-side, one with Facebook automatically optimizing your bids, the other with a strategy like this one implemented, you’ll quickly see a difference. Although it might take a little more work, you’ll see exceptionally higher results.
Conclusion
Exhaustive Audience Marketing is not something that comes about easily. It requires an understanding of your social and audience data, the creation of hypertargeted audience clusters and associated content, and a good understanding of how Facebook’s ad system works. These are not skills that are developed overnight, but if you take the time to learn what can be done and implement these systems properly, you can expect significant results.
Look for more information on Exhaustive Audience Marketing and Incremental Bidding Systems on the t2 Marketing blog!
A Few Ways LinkedIn Can Turn Itself Around
/by Corey PadveenThis article originally appeared on CoreyPadveen.com.
There are a few important changes LinkedIn needs to make in order to save itself from a disastrous fate.
If you happened to catch a glimpse of LinkedIn’s stock price over the last week or so, you might have noticed a straight line downwards on Friday February 5th. That wasn’t a glitch; LinkedIn’s stock price has fallen by over 40% (at the time of writing) since it announced lower-than-expected earnings and lowered projections for the coming year. Investors are losing their patience.
Despite having a great core product (which LinkedIn very much still does) many of the efforts of the professional network to expand have not yielded strong results. In fact, in a lot of respects, those expansion efforts have rather resulted in an almost ‘worst case scenario’ outcome.
This is not to say that LinkedIn has missed the mark every time it has done something; the acquisition of SlideShare in 2012, for example, was a brilliant move and continues to be among its best. But some of the more universal oversights have cost the network dearly, and there are a few pain points that need to be addressed as soon as possible in order to end the slide into penny stock status (though that’s still a long way off – we hope).
Spamalot Central
Facebook is consistently working on its algorithm in order to ensure that the content you see is what is most relevant to you. The result has been quarter-over-quarter growth in average session time, engagement per post, engagement per user, and more metrics that have come into existence since the advent of social media in the world of marketing.
LinkedIn has taken a slightly different approach.
In order to encourage engagement among its users, InMail exists (which guarantees a user will see the message). Of course, users pay for that privilege, but is accommodating the users who pay for mass (spam) messages like that really worth the detriment that does on the user experience as a whole?
How often do you receive unsolicited messages on LinkedIn offering to sell you traffic, invest in a business opportunity, or, in some cases, enlarge or enhance something? In the last month alone, I’ve been included on over a dozen chain-style message threads (another issue) from users (and including users) with whom I’ve never connected. I pay close attention to who I allow into my professional circle, but all that seems to factor into is my feed content, and has no influence on what kind of trash I’m sent from peddling affiliates.
A better spam filtration system needs to be put in place by LinkedIn and it needs to be put in place fast. More and more users (as exhibited by time on site and people I’ve spoken to) are using LinkedIn for little more than a place to host a resume and highlight some skills, rather than a network where actual business can get done. These filters don’t need to be all that complicated either for them to work (and improve the experience).
First, these kinds of promotional messages (and chain messages) should be restricted to second or third points of contact. Introductions (with character limits or standard content set by LinkedIn) should be the ONLY content that non-connections are allowed to send at the outset. If someone send me something along the lines of, “Thanks for connecting, I look forward to talking to you a little bit more about how we might be able to work together!” I’ll be significantly more likely to look through his or her profile, see what it is they do and, if I see potential, engage with the user and open up a professional dialogue.
I wonder what kind of horrific return these affiliates and marketers see when they purchase InMail packages and generate nothing. That might be a nice short term gain for the network, but as we have seen with this year’s earnings reports, it’s not a solution.
Improved Ad Dashboards
Advertising is any social network’s (even a professional one’s) bread and butter. So, as we’ve seen with Facebook – the shining example of social advertising that marketers love – constant improvements should be made to a dashboard in order to make it simpler, more effective and more evolved. This is an area where LinkedIn has really struggled.
As someone who has been involved in social advertising for years now, it is not hard to tell which network (of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) has seen the slowest evolution in its ads platform. As Facebook and Twitter have introduced new capabilities and made the management of campaigns and creative much more efficient, LinkedIn has done little to evolve its dashboard.
It has certain undergone some aesthetic changes, but ad campaigns function in an archaic fashion. It is almost as if marketers are publishing magazine ads and hoping that they work. Why do I say this? Well, ads can be created…but that’s about it. Editing is a nightmare (if not entirely non-existent) and as you create varieties of your creative, your campaign become overwhelmingly populated with different variations. For a network that is built on professionalism, the ads dashboard is far too disorganized.
A simpler, more tasteful segmentation, like that of Facebook’s setup (which modelled itself after Google) would make life much easier. Moreover, the ability to edit ads and feature proper creative to populate a link preview (as opposed to a tiny window with a fraction of what’s actually on the ad) would go a very long way in driving marketers to use LinkedIn ads more frequently.
Improved Ad Placements
And again with the ads.
Most marketers can agree that the age of the banner is dead. And yet, the right-hand side ad lives on. Granted it is a viable bit of real estate, and LinkedIn has done a better job than Facebook of optimizing the appearance of the RHS ad (instead of several ads scrolling, one appears in a noticeable box at a time) but for advertisers the value is in sharing content to a targeted user’s feed.
That can still be done on LinkedIn, but where both Facebook and Twitter have the network beat is in how to drive traffic from these ads. As noted above, the tiny image that populates a link is completely worthless. A large, eye-catching piece of creative with a clear call-to-action and a different visual structure than a regular post or update is what makes an ad worth the marketer’s budget. LinkedIn needs to make changes to how creative we can get with those ads.
There is no denying the viability of the audience on LinkedIn. Barring those users that are simply sharing spam (I’ll get to that again in a second) there is the most targeted group of people active on the network than any other social platform. So it would make sense that LinkedIn charges a little bit more than other networks for its ad space, but you’re paying five, ten even twenty times as much per click (trust me I’ve done the comparisons) for an ugly, boring ad that can’t be changed once you click ‘Start’.
Ads need to be more visually stimulating if marketers are to see results from them, and their placements need to be more apparent in the timeline than simply allowing users to create Sponsored Updates.
User Purge
LinkedIn has registered about 414 million users. Based on the content I mentioned above that floods my inbox, I wouldn’t flinch if you told me half of those were spam.
OK – maybe not half. But you get my point.
It’s time for LinkedIn to clean up its network. Hitting that critical mass is exciting, and it means charging more for advertising, but as more bots and tactless affiliates join the network, the value of that ad space goes down. Now, the cat is out of the bag as far as how people are using the network. Several are using the online space to store a resume. Others are using it to share content and find a new job. Recruiters are using it to find those users. And so, so, SO many are using it to tell me about an amazing business opportunity that I need to act on or sell me traffic.
To rebound from this devastating hit, LinkedIn may need to sacrifice a huge portion of its user base. That might seem counterintuitive, but one theme that has been apparent in a lot of what LinkedIn has done has been short-term thinking. This is looking at the value to marketers in the long-run.
Conclusion
Nothing here is vastly complex. I’m not suggesting a paradigm shift in how the network functions or what it offers. These are existing models that simply need a tweak.
Of course, this won’t happen overnight. It will take time and it will take just as much (if not more) time to see the effects of this working. But I really do believe that in order for LinkedIn to survive this downward spiral, it needs to look towards simplification, rather than expansion.
As Wall Street begins to shake and the memories of 2000 start to creep back up in their minds, they are taking good hard looks at what is working and what is not. Right now, there is a lot about LinkedIn that scares them. But the potential is certainly there and the product is fantastic. Taking heed of a few of these suggestions might just help it get back into the good graces of the powers that be (and drive up active advertiser numbers as well).
What do you think LinkedIn needs to do to come out of this mess?