A tectonic shift in how brands connect with customers and drive sales is currently taking place. By 2017, the internet will overtake television to become the dominant advertising medium, earning 36 percent of total ad spend compared to TV's 35 percent, as reported by Digiday. With an average return on investment of $6.85 for every $1 invested in digital influencer marketing work, it's easy to see why brands are diving headlong into this space. It's where the smart money is going, so it's imperative that you familiarize yourself with this vast world before actually taking the plunge.To date, four specialties have emerged among influencer companies: talent agency, technology/SaaS, content network, and influencer agency. Here's a helpful guide to understanding the differences between them.
Modeled after traditional talent agencies, this group of companies focuses on the creator. They have a broad roster of creators they can tap when an advertiser knocks on their door.Pros: Talent agencies are a one-stop shop for a brand to access top influencers. This is very much the traditional Hollywood model. Casting a film? Call Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Need an influencer for your brand? Also call CAA -- if you can afford it.Cons: The talent agency's allegiance is to the talent. It's their job to sell their collection of influencers for the highest price possible. They also usually lack the technological capabilities to successfully track and report on campaigns. When 75 percent of influencer marketers report struggling to "find the right influencer," and 25 percent report having a hard time automating their campaign management, these cons become worrisome.
Software as a Service (SaaS) companies provide the technology for you to manage influencer relationships and steward individual campaigns. For the data geeks among us, these tech platforms (like Socialix, TapInfluence, and Traackr) also provide a wealth of analytical tools that allow you to find and manage influencers and drill down into campaign performance and measure ROI. When most companies are using Google to find influencers and spreadsheets to manage campaigns, SaaS companies automate the process and create efficiencies that save time and money.Pros: To increase efficiency, brands need powerful technology. It's simply the only way to reliably manage influencer campaigns and grow your business.Cons: They are first and foremost tech companies. Campaign strategy and management simply aren't their strong suit. They rarely understand the intricacies of identifying the right set of influencers based on campaign goals, or coming up with big creative ideas to mobilize those influencers.
If "content is king," then these guys are the royal court. These networks support their legion of influencers with substantial creative resources to produce the most compelling content. By combining the work of like-minded influencers, they build a network of editorial they can monetize. They are churning out great, high-quality content at a breakneck pace.Pros: You'll pay a premium, but when contracting with a content network you can rest assured you'll be getting high quality content for your brand given the resources these companies are investing in development.Cons: Content networks have an inherent bias. They're best served when brands buy into specific channels of content that they've spent significant time developing. Like talent agencies, they are most loyal to their core roster of influencers and will sell those options much more aggressively than other influencers who may be more relevant for the brand. Most importantly, there's the issue of fee transparency. Many of these networks make it almost prohibitively expensive. These networks intermingle media revenue with influencer revenue. So you're charged for the influencer and you pay premiums to run ads. In the end, network markups are very hard to ascertain.
The influencer agency exists to serve the brand's interests. They're the umbrella organization that corrals all of the moving parts and aligns them with the brand's goals. They let the talent agencies worry about the creators, they own or license the technology tools, and they tap into the content network when the audience and opportunity make sense. They're able to focus on the brand and offer end-to-end campaign management. They'll define campaign goals and develop unique multi-phased campaigns integrating core messages. Good agencies will curate a database of influencers across multiple talent agencies and networks, and they'll manage the campaign from ideation to execution.Pros: Because they're unburdened by obligations to talent or tech, this segment of influencer companies has the freedom to focus on the marketer, and to build custom campaigns that fit the individual needs of the client. They can provide transparent fees and performance guarantees. As a brand, it's critical to have somebody in your corner whose economic interests are aligned with yours (whether that's through a retainer relationship or a transparent agency fee). They're also marketing specialists who understand the value that these influencers bring to a brand, and will work to establish long-term relationships as well as develop an overarching influencer strategy that evolves with the brand.Cons: Not all influencer agencies are created equal. Some aren't even agencies at all, but rather PR firms who dabble in influencers and have conflicting interests at play. When selecting an agency, insist on one with robust technology, transparent fee structure, and creative minds managing your account.Of course, this overview of specialties is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. There's a lot of differentiation -- and conversely, overlap -- from company to company. The right decision for your brand requires careful consideration. If there is one takeaway here, let it be this: When selecting an influencer company, keep a watchful eye out for possible competing interests. Influencer marketing is a great investment -- when you do it wisely.
Technologically mediated communication has evolved into an alphabet soup of acronyms, abbreviations, and (my favorite) emojis. The Internet encourages the expression of ideas into the most compressed space possible. So it’s no surprise that emojis have become a central element of the Instagram lexicon. Approximately 50% of all Instagram captions and comments include an emoji or two. Knowing this, Instagram recently updated their app to allow users to hashtag their emojis, making them fully searchable on the platform for the very first time.This update has incredible potential for marketers. What Instagram has given us is a massive UGC photo library of how people are utilizing each emoji character, enabling brands to more effectively grow their followings and engage with existing fans.
The meaning of an emoji can be rather nebulously defined. So it’s important for brands to know how people are using them. Below you’ll find the top 100 hashtag emojis based on frequency of use.
The overall positivity of the most popular hashtag emojis suggests that users view Instagram as a place where joy abounds, a place where people came to share and consume beautiful, funny, and uplifting images.
When brands correctly use these hashtagged emojis they’re introducing themselves to new audiences, and increasing followers through this organic discovery.At Socialtyze we also quickly realized that there was an opportunity for brands to align themselves or their products with specific emoji hashtags. Despite this feature still being in its infancy, a land grab for emoji-brand association has already begun. A quick search of the High Heel Shoe emoji reveals over 23,000 posts, the most popular of which are almost all from various brands trying to stake their claim. And it works! The top posts on all of the most popular emoji hashtags include native brand posts.
UGC product validation is important to your brand because it’s been proven to lead to increased brand loyalty, and increased ROI from social media. So as brand penetration continues into the emoji world, brands will be able to collect and track UGC more easily, and engage with their customers. With the searchable emoji feature, Brands can filter results down to a much more manageable que of photos to identify user generated content for their brands. Searchable emojis are making the lives of community managers the world over a lot easier.
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
In June, Facebook revealed the Lead Ad that will simplify the sign up process by automatically populating contact information, like your email, from Facebook profiles. However, these ads aren’t available to all advertisers yet. For brands chomping at the bit, here are some alternative methods and best practices for successful email acquisition on social.Use Existing Ad TypesTypically, Facebook leads the way in advertising enhancements, but when it comes to email acquisition, Twitter revolutionized the space with their Lead Generation Card back in May 2013. Similar to the new Facebook Lead Ad, a person’s contact information is pre-populated into the card. The person can then easily submit their information with just one click. The emails are then saved in Twitter Ads to be exported, or it can be set up so that all incoming leads are automatically updated into your CRM system.However, in a recent test, Socialtyze found that the cost per email from Facebook Link Ads was 17x less expensive than Twitter Lead Generation Cards. When a person clicked on the Link Ad, they were driven to a lead form where they would input their information. With Facebook already being a more cost efficient platform, one can expect the new auto-populated Lead Ads to be a real game-changer for email acquisition.Leverage Data for Smarter CampaignsFacebook and Twitter Custom Audience ad targeting capabilities allow you to upload your current email list of subscribers and target people who are similar to those who already subscribe. This Lookalike targeting yields better results than Interest based targeting alone.Additionally, utilize tools that can provide you with insights about your current email subscribers and use those insights to run a smarter acquisition campaign. Facebook Audience Insights allows you to see the demographic make-up of your current email subscribers, what Pages they like, their locations and language preference, Facebook usage and off-site purchase activity. By knowing who your current subscribers are and what they like, you can write tailored copy and use affinity-based targeting to acquire new emails at a lower cost.Apps and SweepstakesIf you want a more engaging and creative way to acquire emails, you can always create an app that will collect a person’s email before they can play or run a sweepstakes to incentivize people to submit their emails.
We partnered with Southern Living to create an identity quiz that would measure “How Southern Are You?” However, before someone could even play, they had to authorize the application, thus giving permission to share their email. As a result, 400,000 emails were collected. With the growing popularity of identity quizzes, this not only is an effective way to gather emails, but it also created an opportunity to reward consumers with an engaging social experience.Additionally, hosting a Pinterest sweepstakes is a great incentive for people to sign up. Using a microsite, people could fill out a form with their Pinterest name and email address for a chance to win complimentary gift cards. This proved to be a huge driver for collecting emails, as half of all entrants opted in to receive emails from the brand.Although some might view Social as a new player for CRM, it has actually been offering unique and effective methods for years. Now that you have all the means in front of you, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be actively using your social sites as part of your CRM strategy.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
At Socialtyze, we’re constantly collecting information about everything we do. Whether it’s how well specific types of content perform on social or the various kinds of traffic our social applications receive; if it’s trackable, our data analysts are keeping an eye on it. All of this objective data helps us make smart decisions and adapt quickly to the ever-changing social spaces our clients live in. But this information is useless without understanding context. Just looking at the raw numbers doesn’t help anybody understand what’s going on. This is where data visualization becomes extremely important, by pulling together correlations and displaying the raw numbers in a way that’s easy to digest.
The first step in making sense of all this data is to know what problem we’re trying to solve. This helps our analysts figure out which pieces of data need to be looked at more closely to find insights. Even a general idea of what needs to be found helps, and will reveal interesting insights you might not have anticipated.
When digging into a data set, our analysts are looking for different metrics that might be driving others one way or another. This could be anything from growth-over-time, information on demographics, or types of content. The problem you’re trying to solve will help you understand which information is good to compare.
Take the image above for example. Brand X is running a short sweepstakes, and we’d like to know what their visitors over time looked like. We’d also like to know how many of those visitors also entered the sweepstakes. Since this information is directly related, it makes sense to compare them. By visualizing this information, we find our first lead to an insight; the large spikes. If we were looking at just numbers written out in an excel sheet, the impact of that sudden spike in traffic is lost. Data Visualization helps us (and readers) quickly and efficiently see what’s happening.
Seeing those huge spikes helps our analysts recognize a deeper insight is just around the corner. Why was there a sudden spike? What outside activity drove that traffic to nearly triple? It just so happened that we were running media for that week, which helped drive that spike in traffic and steady increase in sweepstakes entries.
Effective data visualization is telling the campaign's story; both big and small picture. If we look at the same chart as one piece of the story, it tells us that for this campaign, media spend drove traffic and entries. But this is just one part of the story. The next logical piece of information to present would be why did that media spend work. The next step is to look at more detailed information on the performance of that media spend. Understanding what did and didn’t work here will help improve performance during the next media spend. Our media team often runs multiple ads with the same goal. They’ll be different enough from each other (while maintaining the larger strategies) that we’re able to learn tactics to optimize content. Often we’ll find subtle things like darker images performing better than bright ones. It’s a simple discovery, but it helps us to make our next push even stronger than the last.
While comparing information, avoid presenting too much all at once. An image may be worth a thousand words, but don’t pack a thousand things into it. Use each visualization to say 1 thing with only a few sets of data. Then build on that information as you present each new visualization to tell the bigger story. Treat your overall presentation like one of those 5-Paragraph essays drilled into your head back in high school.• Present a thesis to frame your argument• Provide clear supporting facts to defend that argument• Conclude by reiterating the key-takeawaysBy the end, your reader should have a clear understanding of how the data we find translates to making gains towards their larger goals.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
We’ve all heard that saying, “There’s no such thing as a bad idea in brainstorming.” Well, I’ve got news for you, that’s just something your teachers told you in elementary school to avoid stunting your creativity. We’re not saying we don’t love your ambition and completely support the creative process, but when you’re pitching campaigns to your client, you need to recognize and weed out the bad ideas early. You don’t want to end up wasting your time, and more importantly the client’s time on ideas that aren’t realistic, or worse, find out an idea can’t be executed when the ball is already rolling.Spare yourself the pain, and be sure to ask yourself these questions while brainstorming...1. Is your idea within budget? There are a million great ideas out there that would make for an AWESOME marketing campaign. You could partner with Ray-ban and offer a free pair of sunglasses for everyone who signs up for your promotion. Caitlyn Jenner could love your product so much that maybe, you could ask her to make a 15 second Instagram video driving fans to your brand page. Or even better, you could just put your Facebook URL on the moon.All of these ideas would be a great way to drive people to your socials! You would get thousands of entries and tons of buzz from the press. But can they be executed? Unless your client has ample money to give away, a close personal friend of the Jenners or building a time machine with NASA, it’s probably not going to happen. Take those ideas, file them away on the off chance you end up with a budget to make them possible, and channel that creativity towards the attainable.
2. Is your idea on brand and designed for your target market? When approaching a brainstorm, you need to be EXTREMELY clear on the brand image. Let’s look at Taco Bell. They recently launched a delivery service to much excitement from their fans. And depending on your age, you might be thinking… Who wants Taco Bell delivered? I will tell you who wants Taco Bell delivered…. poor, lazy college students who are probably too intoxicated to stumble to the nearest Taco Bell. Taco Bell has built an empire off of this by leaning into the “Late Night Munchies” demographic for years. They cater their tone on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to that crowd and the fans eat it up (literally). But, could any brand do something like this? ABSOLUTELY NOT. You might think the “stoner comedy” tone and a late night delivery service is funny in theory, but that doesn’t work for a brand like Tender Greens. They have worked to set the stage for a healthy, wholesome alternative to fast food and suggesting a switch in tone to something like “Late Night Munchie Meals” (especially delivery) would alienate and confuse the preexisting demographic.
3. Can this idea realistically be executed seamlessly? Ok, you have the budget, tone and it’s the perfect way to get your audience excited and drive new fans to your social platforms. Now, ask yourself, can this actually be executed? To answer this question, you need to factor in a few things…a. Do people understand it? I’m talking, your mom, your significant other, your crazy uncle in Nebraska? You want to make sure the general population understands the requirements of this promotion. They are the ones who will be participating, and you don’t have the time to be fielding 800 questions.b. Legally, are all of your bases covered? For any kind of promotion big or small you will need a set of rules and terms & conditions. This will protect your brand, in the event you have some sore losers.c. Do you have the man-power? If you want to put a Wheel-of-Fortune type wheel in every Islands Burger across the country and give fans an opportunity to spin it and win a free burger, you need to make sure that can happen. If you can’t be certain this can be executed, tweaks to your promotion are needed. If you can’t execute your plan 10 times out of 10, you are going to end up with a slew of complaints and problems.4. Is this idea appropriate or socially acceptable? This is the most important factor, because whether your idea is for the social space or not, if it is an inappropriate idea, it will go viral and become part of the social story. You need to remember when releasing content into the social sphere, you cannot control who sees it. Marketing materials are out in the world for public consumption, and if they are at all inappropriate or offensive, you will suffer the wrath of your consumers.5. Where should your campaign live? Now that you’re sure that you are within budget, on brand and catered to your target market, you need to consider the best place to showcase your campaign. Each platform caters to a specific kind of submission and you need to be aware of that.Let’s say you’re HGTV and want to run a giveaway where the Property Brothers will re-do your bathroom. Asking fans to submit a photo of their “before bathroom” using #HGTVBeforeBathroom should absolutely be hosted on Instagram. Why? Because Instagram is a photo driven, hashtag friendly social platform.
While users could enter a photo post on Twitter it is not likely to gain the same amount of traction there. Twitter is driven by 140 characters. This makes Twitter a great platform for word based entries. This kind of contest creates an even lower barrier to entry and should drive up submission.Now, you may notice we haven’t mentioned Facebook. A great Facebook campaign may require a little more oomph. Ideally, you may want to build an app (similar to the Honest Co. example to the left) in lieu of a microsite to give your fans somewhere to sign up and submit their entries. Building a “contest hub” on Facebook can allow you to house entries from any platform and give fans a nice landing page to find out all of the information they need.If you have answered a resounding “YES!” to all four of these questions, then there’s a strong possibility you don’t have a bad idea! Go forth and brainstorm your hearts out.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
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