Conducting a Successful Social Media Campaign

If you're running a business in 2014 then you have likely thought about a social-media campaign. It is a trend that businesses are increasingly adopting as part of their overall marketing campaigns, but it can be daunting. In fact, just because social-media is becoming ever more ubiquitous doesn't mean that everyone is using it successfully.

Many social-media campaigns make the mistake of just chasing likes and follows. This is an easy trap to fall into when creating a social media campaign, after all there are studies that claim a Facebook like is worth $174. It seems reasonable then, that earning as many likes or follows as possible is a worthwhile goal for a social media campaign. So how valuable are your likes really? If your follower isn't buying anything or performing an action that actually means something to your business, that follow doesn't matter. The only thing that a like or a follow means is that someone knows you exist.

Don't set out on your social media campaign with the goal of just getting as many likes as possible. If you get 10,000 likes on Facebook but no one visits your website, it was a wasted effort. A successful social media campaign doesn't end at gaining likes or follows, but focuses on how to utilize your followers. A successful social-media campaign starts with social media but ends with some sort of measurable action like a visit to your website, a request for more information or a purchase.

When creating your social-media campaign, it is important to first figure out what an actual, worthwhile task is that you want people to do. What kind of engagement are you looking for? What are your marketing objectives? You need to clearly define your goals in order to make your likes or follows worthwhile, if you do nothing with your likes they are not helping you. Figuring out what your goals are and what you are trying to get out of social media are important to creating your campaign. So what does success look like? Suppose you are a non-profit group and your focus is on raising awareness. Success may look like more people being aware of your cause, media hits, good stories in the media, people visiting your website or more people requesting information.

After you've decided on your marketing objectives your next step is figuring out how to use social media to help you accomplish your objective. Suppose again that you are the non-profit group who is trying to raise awareness and one of the goals of your social-media campaign is to get people on your website requesting information. The next step is to figure out what you should post on your social media platforms to get people interested in your information. It could be trivia, interesting facts or a compelling image that viewers will want to click on and share. Start posting your content and looking at the analytics for all of your posts. With your goal in mind, measure how successful each post was in reaching this goal. Use what you've learned to create more posts like the ones that work and stop posting what didn't work. This is a trial and error process, so don't be afraid to try something new or creative.

So how do you measure your posts? It is important to define your metrics early on in your campaign so that you know how to measure whether you have met your goals or not. Since you will be using your metrics to analyze your posts and guide you on your campaign, it is very important to look at quality metrics that provide you with relevant information about how you are meeting your goals. It is easy to fall into the trap of just idly watching your likes go up, but since you haven't accomplished anything with likes alone, try not to focus on these metrics. Instead, try looking at your Facebook page with Google analytics to see how high your referrals are or to monitor traffic and click-through rates.

If this all seems familiar it is because these are basic marketing principles that have been applied to digital marketing, but is important to not loose sight of these.  In order to create any successful marketing campaign it is necessary to define your goals, figure out how to reach your goals and then measure your success.  Conducting a social-media campaign is no different.

How has Digital Technology Changed the way Modern Companies Do Business?

Introduction

A marketers job is to carefully manage all of the elements of the marketing mix: product, place, promotion and price. It is a delicate balancing act and the rapid evolution of internet technology has added a new variable to each element of the marketing mix. These changes are happening so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up with and to understand how each element is affected by change. This has undoubtedly made the marketers job more difficult. In order to cut through some of the fog, this post will look at how the internet has affected the marketing mix. It will then look at the newspaper industry as a case study in order to provide a real world example of how digital marketing has thrown a wrench in the industry's marketing mix.

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/evolution-of-digital-marketing

How the Internet Changed Marketing

There are four elements of the marketing mix (product, place, promotion and price) and while it is evident that the internet has changed the promotion part of the marketing mix, it is worth considering how it has also affects product, place and price. 

 Broadly speaking, the internet has affected the prices of many marketplaces because it allows for greater efficiencies in production, a larger number of possible competitors and an increase in transparency of prices, all of which are factors that put downward pressure on prices.

Today, eCommerce allows consumers to choose from a much wider variety of products. For example, if you were to purchase a new shower curtain you can choose from the products offered online in addition to what is offered in your local retail outlets. So instead of having a couple dozen shower curtains to choose from, now you can choose from hundreds. This increase in product selection puts pressure on companies to differentiate and specialize their product to a greater degree, affecting the product element of the marketing mix. 

Lastly, the internet has affected the traditional distribution models of the past by allowing companies to reach consumers who would have been out of reach without the internet, and vice versa, altering the place element of the marketing mix.

Case Study: A Look at the Newspaper Industry

Arguably, the current difficulties faced by the newspaper industry are born out of a misunderstanding of what product they were selling. It is easy to think that newspapers are in the business of selling the news to its subscribers and this is undoubtedly the impression that many major publications were under. They are also, however, in the business of selling ad space to advertisers. This isn't a small part of their business either, as advertising revenue accounts for 80% of newspaper's income.  

When the internet began selling banner ads in 1993, a major competitor to the newspaper stepped onto the stage. Advertising on the internet offered some major advantages over the traditional newspaper ad. Banner ads are generally less expensive than the traditional ad and they have detailed return on investment (ROI) measurements and analytics, which allow advertisers to track the success of their ads in a way that was not feasible before. Additionally, newspaper advertisements offer a shorter shelf life than banner ads. Daily publications would only last for a day, while advertising on a website lasts significantly longer. Another advantage of the banner ad is that online content has a higher younger market readership than newspapers, which is important as many companies target the coveted 18-25 demographic.   

The internet also proved to be a serious competitor to newspapers in providing information to readers. Classified websites like Kijiji and Craigslist provided a more intuitive and free version of the paid classifieds offered by the newspapers while eHarmony rendered the personals obsolete. This is in part because the internet eliminated the barrier to entry that had previously prevented competing publications from emerging. The internet eliminated the need for expenses related to starting a newspaper such as printing equipment, input costs, fixed costs, labour, space, and distribution costs. Now, costs that would have been prohibitively high for a new publication to emerge no longer existed and rival online publications were nipping at the heels of the newspaper giants.

The newspaper industry suffered a major blow from these shifting market forces. From 2005 to 2009 newspaper advertising revenue dropped by 44%, and during this time period we begin to see the decline of the newspaper. From January of June 2009 alone, 105 newspapers were shuttered, 10,000 jobs were lost and print ad sales fell 30% in the first quarter of 2009 alone. The newspaper industry was in free fall. Meanwhile, the internet was seeing record breaking growth in advertising revenues. In 2004 the internet advertising revenue in the U.S. alone reached $2.69 billion in the fourth quarter, which was the highest revenue quarter ever reported. In 2005 internet advertising was up 34% and in 2006 had increased another 37%.

If newspapers had been more intuitive, they would have entered the digital marketplace more convincingly. An early adoption of and investment in websites that offered the same content as their printed medium would have allowed newspapers to translate their offline readership online, shifting their offline advertising space and allowing them to maintain their important advertising revenue. Many newspapers, comfortable in the monopoly they had enjoyed for so long, and under the wrong impression that they were just selling the news didn't view the internet as a serious threat to their business. Instead, newspapers went online late, if at all, and they did so grudgingly. Today, newspapers have shifted online to varying degrees of success and many are still struggling to monetize their websites.   

Buzzfeed

In light of these technological developments, many onlookers consider the industry a lost cause, thinking that newspapers will go the way of the dodo. However this new climate isn't entirely uninhabitable to news publications. To illustrate this point consider the publication Buzzfeed. 

Buzzfeed is emerging as a media giant of the modern age, however it is commonly dismissed as a superficial website that provides viewers with the latest LOLcats, listicles and memes and is often dismissed as lacking in journalistic integrity. For this reason news providers may be overlooking a successful business model that serves as an excellent example of the opportunities provided by digital marketing.  In December of 2013, Buzzfeed had 130 million unique visitors, 92 million views on their Youtube videos and 2.7 million Youtube subscribers.  Much of Buzzfeed's success is credited to a savvy digital marketing campaign.

Jonah Peretti, the founder and CEO of Buzzfeed, caught on to the idea that would lead to Buzzfeed success when he began creating content and tracking it to learn the way viral content spreads. Peretti applied what he learned in Buzzfeed's early days by using early analytics tools to track which headlines weren't working and would then rewrite the headlines. While Peretti was also interested in search engine optimization, his main focus was in how people shared content, and catered Buzzfeed's content to social sharing.

“Instead of making content that the robots like, it was more satisfying to make content that humans want to share.”                     -Jonah Peretti

Buzzfeed's strategy is now based on this type of obsessive measurement. Buzzfeed uses machine learning to anticipate what content might spread. Each of Buzzfeed's stories has it's own dashboard, and every story is carefully monitored. It tracks how many seed views the content gets as well as social views. This helps Buzzfeed learn what is successful in addition to knowing how to adapt content for more social sharing by tweaking the headlines or boosting under-performing stories with higher visibility.

Not only has Buzzfeed learned how to create optimal content for social sharing, it has made a very profitable business model based on native advertising. Native advertising is paid-for content in the form of stories with a “featured partner” label. This has proved very successful for Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed's native advertising boasts impressive traffic numbers in addition to being content that viewers engage with and share. A Motorolla campaign called “10 places you need to visitonce in your life” had an impressive click-through rate of 6.1%.  A Virgin Mobile campaign “27 Cats That Just Can't Handle It” generated 9.7 million engagements.

Buzzfeed's form of native advertising faces some criticism from the journalism community.  Wall Street Journal managing editor Gerald Baker said,

“The clear delineation between news and advertising is becoming more blurred. We have to resist that.” 

Andrew Sullivan, writer for The Dish and an influential blogger and commentator said, 

“If journalism is not understood to be separate from advertising, then it has lost something incredibly important in a democratic society.”

These criticisms touch on a key difference between Buzzfeed and the typical news publication. While traditional news publications are composed of almost entirely of hard news and legitimate journalism, Buzzfeed has a more eclectic mix. Buzzfeed's content is made up of various forms of stories, from puppies and kittens, entertainment, memes, lists and GIFs, to the forms of hard hitting news provided by traditional news outlets. Buzzfeed even has a prominent LGBT section, which covers important issues in LGBT activism, an issue glossed over by many traditional publications. This mix of irreverent and serious content is integral to Buzzfeed's brand and success.

"It's a complete failure of mainstream media that has disenfranchised the whole generation, they say young people don't give a shit about news. That's a bunch of malarkey. Because it affects their lives so much. BuzzFeed can be the next CNN. And quite frankly I hope they are, because news needs it."  -Buzzfeed CEO Shane Smith

The types of stories used for native advertising are never the serious news stories, instead they are made up of lighthearted and fun content. This clear distinction allows Buzzfeed to maintain its credibility and trustworthiness as a news provider. In addition, by lending focus to the more lighthearted stories, Buzzfeed is appealing to younger generations and creating impressive traffic on their site.

Buzzfeed serves as an excellent example both to other news publications and other businesses in general.  It success proves how powerful digital marketing can be and shows what opportunities can be afforded if one embraces the challenges of digital technology.

Sources

Taylor, C. . Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/internet-affects-newspaper-business-39364.html

Greene, F. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-advertising-newspaper-11746.html

Dumpala, P. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/the-death-of-the-american-newspaper-2009-7?op=1

Rowan, D. (2014, January 2). How buzzfeed mastered social sharing to become a media giant for a new era. Retrieved from http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2014/02/features/buzzfeed

Stokes, R. (2008). emarketing: The essential guide to digital marketing. (4th ed., pp. 4-6). Quirk eMarketing (Pty) Ltd. Retrieved from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52542864/eMarketing_the essential_guide_to_digital marketing_Single_Page_No_Vouchers.pdf

Gaylord, C. (2014, March 10). Buzzfeed introduces a writing style guide for the internet age. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech/2014/0310/BuzzFeed-introduces-a-writing-style-guide-for-the-Internet-age

Designing a Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign

Pay per click advertising, or PPC, is undoubtedly familiar to internet users. It is the “sponsored links” you see at the top and on the right of a Google search, the advertisements you see on the right when you log onto Facebook, and the banner ads you see on the content websites you visit, just to name a few. Pay per click advertising, or PPC, is a system in which an advertiser pays for the clicks on their advert. A PPC ad can be text, images, images and text or video. Where your ad appears can be based on keyword searches, demographics, behavior patterns or interests. This level of control over what customers view your ad, and where they view it presents a clear advantage over other forms of advertising. For example, purchasing ad space on a billboard is only catering to one criteria of your target market: location. On the other hand, utilizing PPC allows an advertiser to reach a much more specific target audience. Additionally, the cost of the campaign is much more efficiently used because the advertiser is able to directly reach their target. For these reasons, pay Per Click advertising can be a powerful tool and understanding how to effectively run a PPC campaign is fundamental to digital marketing. Outlined below are some tips for creating your own PPC advertising campaign.

1. Make a plan

Like any marketing campaign, it is important to outline a plan when launching a PPC campaign. This includes knowing your target market, your product, your industry and your competitors. It is also crucial to develop clear goals for your campaign. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness or drive sales? Outlining this will help you create an effective campaign.

2. Know your budget

Decide to cost limitations to your campaign. This will determine your bid price. Additionally, having a budget will help ensure that you work within your limitations.

3. Keywords are Key

Keywords are critical to an effective PPC campaign. Having a good grasp of the keywords that your customers are likely to use will ensure that you are targeting the correct audience and reaching your target market. It is also important to consider common misspellings of your keywords, or what keywords are not compatible with your campaign, such as “free” or “cheap”.

4. Design and Implement

Now you can design the copy for your ad. This part should be simple as you have done your research to determine who your target market is, what your goals are and what your keywords are. Make sure to write a compelling ad, use an appropriate URL for your landing page, and follow the rules set out by the hosting site. Based on your budget, decide the maximum bids for your keywords. Finding a balance between a high placement and cost efficiency can be difficult, but your budget will help with this decision making.

5. Evaluate

Your campaign is not over after you have implemented your PPC ad. It is critical to check back in and determine ROI, the effectiveness of your keywords, experimenting with your text and checking in on your networks.

The Importance of Digital Marketing

The internet has revolutionized the way people connect with one another and share information. From a business perspective, this presents both challenges and opportunities for the modern marketing professional. It has presented itself as a challenge as it requires companies to grow and adapt to a rapidly changing environment, which can be costly as well as prone to mistakes. It also presents many new opportunities to modern businesses. For example, companies can now reach consumers who would have been unreachable without the internet. It also provides marketers with a new brand new toolkit, which can enhance their efforts when used effectively. As a result, a thorough understanding of digital marketing is crucial to modern businesses who not only wish to use digital communications competently, but also strive to grow by harnessing digital media. The purpose of this blog is to examine topics related to digital marketing, with an emphasis on these goals.