SEO Werkt!

De koppositie van Facebook als hét leidende sociale netwerk lijkt door zijn omvang onaantastbaar. Toch is de jongere generatie er steeds minder van gecharmeerd. Sociale nichenetwerken schieten sinds enige tijd als paddestoelen uit de grond. En niet zonder succes. Het begin van het einde of schijn bedriegt?

Sinds een paar maanden gaat het verhaal dat steeds meer jongeren Facebook de rug toekeren. Dat is lastig voor te stellen bij een profielensite met meer dan één miljard gebruikers, waarvan de helft dagelijks inlogt. De grootte van een bedrijf dan wel een grote trouwe gebruikersgroep alleen bieden geen garantie voor een succesvolle toekomst. Online platformen als Cu2, Sugababes, Hyves en Partyflock weten daar alles van. Het waren ooit serieuze grootheden in hun domein en niet weg te denken uit de digitale levens van miljoenen Nederlanders. Ook in het buitenland zijn de voorbeelden legio. Neem Orkut, MySpace, VZ Netzwerke en Hi5. Allen zijn nu, voor zover ze nog bestaan, een schim van hun roemrijke verleden.

Kort
Hoewel het voortbestaan van Facebook niet direct in gevaar is, deponeerde de financieel directeur begin 2013 wel een alarmerend bericht in het jaarverslag. ‘Een deel van onze gebruikers, vooral de jongere groep, wendt zich actief tot andere producten en diensten die vergelijkbaar of concurrerend zijn met Facebook.’ Om iets verder te vervolgen met: ‘een deel van onze gebruikers is de profielensite minder gaan gebruiken ten faveure van diensten als Instagram’, de sociaal georiënteerde applicatie waarbij het delen van foto’s centraal staat.

Vluchtig, kort en sterk visueel georiënteerd met een timeline en weinig tekstuele mogelijkheden zijn hot. Niet verwonderlijk dat Facebook in april vorig jaar Instagram overnam, dat door kenners vooral als een verzekering voor de nabije toekomst wordt gezien. Amerikaanse jongeren tot een jaar of zeventien lijken overigens Instagram alweer te verlaten. De echte hit van vandaag is Snapchat. Een applicatie waarbij je niet uitvoerig in gesprek gaat met anderen, maar fotoberichten deelt met een select groepje vrienden of bekenden. Het fotobericht, dat indien gewenst bewerkt kan worden, is voor de ontvangende partij slechts tussen de een en tien seconden zichtbaar, waarna het weer van het web verdwijnt. Voor eeuwig. Kiek, kijk, weg.

Verandering
Cijfers van mobile analyticsbedrijf Distimo laten eenzelfde beeld zien voor ons land. Zo steeg Snapchat in het eerste kwartaal met zes posities tot de ‘nummer twee meest gedownloade foto- en videoapp’ op de iPhone hitlijst. En moet het hierbij alleen YouTube voor zich dulden. Facebooks Instagram daalde, net als in de Verenigde Staten, in die periode van positie twee naar drie.

In de rubriek ‘Social Networking’ staat Facebook Messenger bij ons nog wel op nummer één en de Facebook-app zelf op de vierde plek. En alternatieve varianten op de ‘plaatje met een praatje’-app, zoals SimSimi en MessageMe, bezetten respectievelijk de zesde en achtste positie en zijn de snelst stijgende nieuwkomers. Op Android bezetten Facebook, Twitter en Instagram in de Social-rubriek nog wel de top drie, maar schoot Snapchat in het eerste kwartaal met maar liefst zestien posities omhoog naar plaats acht. Hiermee staat het nu boven Pinterest, Badoo, Google+ en Tumblr. In de schaduw van de sociale hypes is dus wel zeker een kentering gaande.

Betekent dit het einde van de Facebookachtige omgevingen? Garry Tan, een van de oprichters van het bedrijf Posterous, een blogdienst die in maart 2012 door Twitter werd gekocht, deed er onderzoek naar. Een steekproef onder duizend Amerikaanse jongeren laat zien dat zij inderdaad minder frequent gebruikmaken van Facebook ten gunste van blogdienst Tumblr. Tans onderzoek geeft echter geen blijk van substitutiegedrag: de twee platformen worden gebroederlijk naast elkaar gebruikt, door zo’n vijftig à zestig procent van de jongeren. Snapchat, Twitter en Instagram slechts door tien à twintig procent. “Het heeft een tijd onwaarschijnlijk geleken, maar nieuwe sociale gedragingen kunnen en zullen zich aandienen”, aldus Tan. Nederland is daarop, gezien de Distimo-cijfers, geen uitzondering.

Identiteit
Volgens een anonieme Tumblr-gebruiker is Facebook minder interessant geworden door de directe koppeling met het echte leven. “In plaats van dat ik word geassocieerd met mijn naam en mijn echte leven, kan ik op Tumblr een nieuwe, zelf gecreëerde identiteit aannemen. Niemand weet dat die pagina van mij is, op mijn vrienden en bekenden na die ik zelf kies en die ik zelf volg.” Tumblr gaat wat hem betreft niet om het volgen van wat zijn echte vrienden doen, “maar is een middel om nieuwe dingen te ontdekken en een portfolio van postings te maken die mijn identiteit weergeven.”

Die laatste opmerking is in deze essentieel: het ontwerp van Tumblr en sites als Pinterest, The Find, The Fancy – en het onder tieners populaire Wanelo – zijn een manier voor gebruikers om een publiek ‘plakboek’ van en over zichzelf te maken. Een verzameling korte berichten, verhalen, foto’s en video’s waarmee anonieme gebruikers zonder sociale rem kunnen mixen, creëren en delen. Anonieme contentcuratie als uiting van een deel van iemands echte identiteit. Eenzelfde trend is al enige tijd zichtbaar bij het delen van muziek via Last.fm en afspeellijsten in Spotify.

Sites als Snapchat, Instagram en berichtendiensten als WhatsApp, XMS, Line en Kakao Talk spelen hierop in en zijn daarmee precies het tegenovergestelde van profielensites zoals Facebook. De chat- en berichtentools staan los van een sessie op Facebook of Google+ en dus wordt niet iedere gebruiker zomaar benaderd zodra hij online is. Het publieke karakter van een sociaal netwerk ontbreekt hier. Evenals de eindeloze timeline. Korte berichten genieten de voorkeur.

Omslagpunt
De marketingmanager en businessdeveloper van Hyves, Maarten Naaijkens, onderkent de trend van ‘versplintering’: “Jongeren en beïnvloeders zijn altijd op zoek naar het nieuwste van het nieuwste. Hun interesse vlakt simpelweg af na verloop van tijd. Zeker in een omgeving van hyperinnovatie.” Hij vindt het een interessant fenomeen dat vooral jongeren steeds minder vaak vastzitten aan één digitale identiteit. “Dat staat eigenlijk haaks op bijvoorbeeld de klassieke waardering van een gebruikersaccount of een sociaal profiel.” Gebruikers stappen hierdoor net zo gemakkelijk over op een ander netwerk. “Bij Hyves hebben we dit natuurlijk van dichtbij meegemaakt. Zij het niet in de jongerengroep, maar bij de groep beïnvloeders, de doelgroep 20-34-jarigen. Zij maakten medio 2010 en 2011 vooral een overstap.”

Wat is gezien deze ontwikkeling dan nog het onderscheidend vermogen tussen de verschillende sociale netwerken? In essentie zijn het platformen die op geraffineerde wijze onderlinge communicatie tussen personen en groepen faciliteren. Meer niet. Naaijkens: “Inderdaad. De platformen zijn daardoor vervangbaar. Sterker nog, ik denk dat ze steeds uitwisselbaarder worden. Jongeren accepteren dat ze hun digitale identiteit zo weer inruilen en opbouwen voor iets nieuws. De lock in en switching cost zijn er voor hen in feite niet meer.” Een interessante ontwikkeling, maar lastig voor de ondernemers, aldus Naaijkens. “Het wordt daardoor lastiger om je investering terug te verdienen.”

Bij Hyves lag de ommekeer rond 2011 toen de gebruikerssessies korter werden en er minder werd ingelogd. Hierbij nam het aantal pageviews niet af en bleef het aantal unieke gebruikers in eerste instantie gelijk. “In retrospectief waren dat de eerste signalen die een omslagpunt aankondigden”, aldus Naaijkens. Eenzelfde trend zou zich nu aftekenen onder Amerikaanse jongeren op het gebied van sociale netwerken in het algemeen.

In onze zoektocht naar empirisch bewijs voor de dalende interesse in Facebook in Nederland heeft Yes2web via zijn Pagemonitor.nl de Nederlandse gebruikersaantallen van het platform geanalyseerd. Ondanks het kritische sentiment en de opkomst van nieuwe diensten lijkt er echter weinig aan de hand. Marvin de Reuver, accountmanager bij het internetbureau: “Als we kijken naar de afname, dan zien we wel dat er procentueel meer mannen dan vrouwen in de leeftijd 13-17 zijn afgehaakt. Kijken we naar de leeftijdsgroep 18-24-jarigen, dan zien we alleen een percentuele afname in de maanden januari en februari dit jaar en een stijgende lijn voor de maanden maart en april. De vermeende daling blijkt in feite dus een beginnende stijgende lijn te zijn.”

Geloof
Dus er is geen probleem? Toch wel. Er is namelijk één groep belanghebbenden die het lastig krijgt met de verdere versplintering van het sociale medialandschap, dat zijn adverteerders en e-commercianten. Webwinkeliers hebben sowieso nog niet goed in de smiezen hoe ze met die nieuwe social kanalen moeten omgaan. Een en een blijkt voor hen geen twee te zijn. Op profielensites vinden ze weliswaar een geëngageerde groep mensen die elkaar kennen, aangeven van welke merken en bedrijven ze houden en die gewend zijn om op internet te winkelen. Maar de winkeliers slagen er maar niet in om hen op de juiste manier aan te spreken. Consumenten erkennen Facebook gewoonweg niet als shoppingkanaal. Of andersom: de verkopers weten niet de juiste vormen te vinden om consumenten tot aankopen te verleiden.

Dit blijkt ook uit onderzoek van The E-Tailing Group. Die laat zien dat het aantal Amerikaanse webwinkels met een Facebookwinkel vorig jaar met 63 procent afnam tot zes procent. Dat betekent niet dat retailers hun geloof in het sociale netwerk an sich zijn verloren. Het is eerder een van de standaardcommunicatiekanalen geworden nu 97 procent van de onderzochte bedrijven op de homepage linkt naar de bijbehorende bedrijfspagina op Facebook. Het probleem zit in de optimalisatie van het klikpad van de geïnteresseerde bezoeker naar een kopende klant. De vorm van het kanaal moet anders zijn dan zoals webshops nu opereren.

Adverteerders op hun beurt weten dat niet goed, omdat meer dan de helft van de Facebookgebruikers de site alleen op zijn mobiele telefoon gebruikt. Hoewel een derde van hun bezoek afkomstig is van mobiele dragers, is maar negen procent van de campagnepagina’s geoptimaliseerd voor mobiel gebruik.

De grootste winst voor adverteerders en webwinkeliers is dat ze in de afgelopen jaren op Facebook – maar ook op Twitter en andere gevestigde sociale kanalen – ervaring hebben kunnen opdoen. Hierdoor hebben organisaties wel hun marketing- en salesafdelingen kunnen aanpassen op deze nieuwe retourpaden. Ze weten nu hoe ze overweg moeten met feedback, klachten, vragen en wensen. En hebben relevante KPI’s leren definiëren om de processen op te sturen.

Daarnaast zijn er allerlei tools bij gekomen die het monitoren en managen van de social feeds faciliteren. Zodra er nieuwe social (of andere) media opstaan en massa krijgen, zullen de directies en operationele afdelingen voldoende strategisch en instrumenteel zijn uitgerust om met deze vernieuwing aan de slag te gaan. Op dat moment is het nog maar van ondergeschikt belang of dat een oudere consument op Facebook is of een puber op een voor hen nog relatief onbekende social app.

Auto-delete, een killerfunctie
Er zijn twee werelden: die van Facebook en de echte offline wereld. Alles wat in de een gebeurt, eindigt als tekst of foto op de ander. En daar zit niet iedereen op te wachten. De mobiele app Snapchat laat gebruikers foto’s maken van intieme en vluchtige momenten. Ontvangers kunnen een paar seconden kijken en daarna wordt de foto voor eeuwig vernietigd. Auto-delete is een killerfunctie. En dat slaat aan. In oktober vorig jaar werden er dagelijks twintig miljoen foto’s verstuurd, afgelopen april al honderdvijftig miljoen.

Zonder een zichtbaar verdienmodel haalde het bedrijf onlangs in zijn eerste grote financieringsronde maar liefst veertien miljoen dollar groeigeld op. Facebooks eigen Snapchat-kloon, Poke, moest kort na lancering in Snapchat zijn meerdere erkennen. En leidt vandaag de dag een bestaan ver buiten de hitlijsten in de downloadwinkels.

*) Dit artikel is tevens gepubliceerd in het meinummer van Emerce magazine (#122)

On April 21 around 1:07 PM, @FlyColony tweeted, “KMCXKMCXKMCXKMCXKMXKMXKMXKMKMK8MKI8MKI8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK8MK87

MK87MK87MK87MK87MK87MK87MK87KU87KU87U87U87U87U87U87U87U87U87U87U87.”

This was no ordinary tweet, it was delivered by a colony of houseflies living in an acrylic ball with a keyboard. The Twitter handle @flycolony was a record of their movements. Tweets went out whenever the keyboard recorded 140 characters of movement or when the flies triggered the return key. Their raison d’être was the work of artist David Bowen.

fly tweet from david bowen on Vimeo.

The “art” piece has its critiques. Design Boom user Paedra said:

THE END
a can of insecticide for the creators of this intellectual BS
LET THE FLIES OUT !!!!!!!!!

Twitter Art has a bad reputation for being unacademic, uninspired, and banal, but it’s unfair to hold tweets to the same criteria as say, oil painting, sculpture, or architecture. As a medium, Twitter is approximately 9 years old, but it’s already being used by overused by over 500 million users to express mundane, ridiculous, and even newsworthy words. It’s usually not artistic. At least…not yet.

As an interactive installation with thousands of followers, I find the premise of tweeting houseflies intriguing and possibly beautiful. I know that others do not share this opinion because a housefly colony doesn’t lend itself easily to any aesthetic criteria. What made the piece intriguing and “artistic” enough for me?

I found its execution was thought provoking – what is Art and what is a tweet? I know tweets can be no more than 140 characters, but they can also be 1 character. I know tweets are sent by human actions, but now they can also be sent as a series of data sets of housefly movements. When is a tweet no longer just a tweet but Art? How does one judge the quality of its artistic quality?

I love these theoretical dilemmas and I think great art projects aren’t necessarily comfortable or beautiful but provocative and engaging. Art helps me to see something about a medium or subject in a way that I haven’t seen before. Seeing houseflies tweet definitely falls into this category. Also, the acrylic bubble looks gorgeous.

At the last count, the flies have managed to accumulate nearly 3,700 followers (more than I have). The flies have also managed to send out 96,000 tweets. (They move around a lot?) The flies have since stopped tweeting – presumably dead since their lifespan is about 15-30 days.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Consumers are more active on social media than ever before, and not surprisingly, many marketers are struggling to keep up. It seems that, with an ever-evolving sea of data and technology, marketers don’t know where to start. Marketers are told what they need to do, but no one’s telling them WHY these tactics are important or HOW to execute a campaign around them. The WHY is just as important as the WHAT and WHERE.

In order to dominate, we have to remember the basics of social media marketing and management. So let’s get back to the basics:
 

1. Optimize Campaign Performance

Most successful marketing campaigns running today have one thing in common: they include consumer touch- points that cross multiple channels. And in today’s consumer landscape, the one channel you cannot afford to ignore is social media.

• Build a social brand presence on Facebook by publishing Pages that facilitate consumer interaction and then ask for that interaction.
• Offer Facebook fans and Twitter followers a reason to engage via social channels and drive conversions with fan-gated promotions and coupons.

2. Grow Your Subscriber List with Facebook

Data collected via social media, combined with CRM and behavioral marketing data, has proven to increase overall campaign effectiveness. After all, the more you know about your consumers, the better you can deliver relevant, timely messages.

• If you want consumer data, you have got to ask for it. So start by promoting a branded lead form on Facebook that requests email addresses along with basic demographic information.

3. Engage Loyal Customers by Using the Timeline

In order for a brand to be successful on Facebook today, they must see engagement from their fans. While it does require more strategy and higher-quality content, it also provides a greater opportunity to engage with previously idle fans, turning them into customers and eventual brand advocates.

• Gather your most engaging content and draw attention to it by “starring” and “pinning” it to your Timeline. For your brand, this may include - Video footage, Commercials, Event promotions , and Special announcements
• Use Value-Add messaging to engage your customers. Ensure that they get the most out of their like and/or purchase. Publish tips and tricks that maximize the value of their engagement with your brand on social media and work toward nurturing a positive brand experience.
• Whatever content you decide to “pin” or “star,” make sure it’s capable of enhancing your Facebook presence. Your network of Facebook fans should find it interesting, relevant, and be eager to engage with you because of it.

4. Remember the Mathematics

We must get better at analyzing and using data to create personalized and relevant messaging for our future and current customers. This could be as simple as keeping track of names, addresses, and past purchases via a spreadsheet. It could also be as complex as managing millions of different data points. Only the data relevant will survive.

Remember, that the lifeblood of any company is measured on our ability to create happier customers. We are reaching the point in social media where we must become more responsible with data and measuring the ROI of every channel.

Hosting a Twitter chat is an excellent way to increase your value as an expert and set yourself apart in your industry.

Before launching a chat, it’s important to develop a Twitter following. Fill out your Twitter profile completely, including profile and header photo. Follow those in your industry, and tweet and retweet relevant content, and they will follow you back.

After you have a handle on your Twitter account, it’s time for the good stuff.

Here’s how to start and manage a Twitter chat.

1. Attend Twitter Chats. Learn how Twitter chats work from an attendee standpoint. Also, volunteer to be a guest – or cohost – on a peer’s Twitter chat; that will give you valuable experience.

2. Research Twitter Chats. Choose a hashtag for your chat that is relevant … and not already in use. Note what other Twitter chats are out there, especially those in your industry and demographic. Keep a list of Twitter chat schedules, so you can add yours when you are ready.

3. Plan your Twitter Chats. Whether it’s weekly or monthly, make sure your chat is at a regularly scheduled time … and is not in conflict with any other chats in your industry. Then decide the format: Will your chat be 30 or 60 minutes? Will it be Q&A? Are you going to have guests? A co-host?  Set up a tentative calendar of topics and guests.

“Make sure to have a defined topic for each Twitter chat, typically something related to current trending news or hot topics in your industry,” suggests Kristine deGuzman, Digital Marketing Manager at LEWIS Pulse. “Draft a few questions in advance in order to get the discussion going and to help fill in gaps when the conversation wanes.”

4. Promote your Twitter Chat. Use all channels available: email, newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can also consider using promoted posts and tweets.

“Participation is key to a successful Twitter chat,” adds deGuzman. “Create an outreach list of influencers in your industry and send them personal invitations, whether by DM or @reply, letting them know that their industry insight would be appreciated. Doing so can not only help boost the number of participants in your chat, but it can also help your organization establish long-term relationships with these influencers.”

5. Manage the Chat. During the chat, use the hashtag with all tweets. Keep an eye on it, and respond to your audience as best you can.

“Use a platform like TweetDeck or TweetChat.com,” suggests Ashley Evens, Director of Digital Strategy at Creative Media Marketing. “In TweetDeck you can set up individual columns for mentions, hashtag use, retweets, etc. That will make the whole process much more manageable and help you prioritize your responses.”

“We include Q1 at the beginning of the Tweet and then put the hashtag at the end,” shares Anum Hussain, Inbound Context Expert and Social Media leader at Hubspot.“Then the expert responds with “a1″ and includes the hashtag at the end. We don’t include the moderator’s Twitter handle in every answer, but we do include specific handles if they relate directly to the question or topic at hand.”

6. Thank – and Tweet to – your Audience. Post a transcript, if you’d like. You can do a Storify or Paper.li recap and tweet it out … using your hashtag, of course.

“It’s also important when doing Twitter chats to do more than one to test the market,” recommends Hussain. “Don’t just try one and call it a day – it’s important to test, learn, and apply your lessons learned.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

 Click here to receive the Morning Social Media Newsfeed via email.

Foursquare Licenses Trickling Firehose of Check-in Data to Gnip (SocialTimes)
Foursquare has tapped the social data reseller Gnip to be the exclusive distributor of its check-in data, the companies said on Thursday. Each time a Foursquare user checks in, Gnip will see the name of the venue the time of day and the gender of the user. CNET The companies announced the partnership in separate blog posts that celebrate the possibilities for “data nerds” who can now use Foursquare’s data pool for their cool research products. But advertisers and marketers are obviously desired buyers. The Next Web Details of the financial arrangement were not disclosed. That being said, we do know Gnip will charge its customers for access to data from Foursquare, which in turn will get a percentage of the sales.

At Long Last, Interactive TV Advertising Has Arrived with Twitter’s Latest Product (LostRemote)
Twitter has just announced a new advertising product, powered by recent acquisition Bluefin Labs, that enables an advertiser to target promoted tweets to viewers who have watched its ads on TV. It doesn’t happen instantaneously — think of it as an interactive extension of the commercial that lives on Twitter for hours or days to come. AdAge The sell here is to allow TV advertisers — already spending a lot on their TV spots — to message those consumers again. Twitter is also targeting past viewers of shows on the assumption that if they’ve watched a show in the past, they might be watching again, even if they’re not posting about it. The Verge Thursday Twitter also announced a raft of new partners, including A&E, Bloomberg Television, Clear Channel, MLB and several others who will be using the company’s Amplify program to push clips, extras, and other goodies to Twitter users who are watching live. For Twitter, it’s a sign that its still-young advertising business has been a success, especially around live events.

Boy Scouts Lift Ban on Gay Members: How Twitter Reacted (Mashable)
The Boy Scouts of America’s governing council voted on Thursday to allow openly gay scouts to join local troops for the first time in the organization’s 103-year history. Big-name celebrities and ordinary citizens alike took to Twitter to voice their support or opposition to the decision — as well as, of course, to crack jokes.

What I Have Learned from Writing 2,000 Articles About Twitter (AllTwitter)
Here are some Twitter lessons from AllTwitter’s Shea Bennett. A snapshot, if you will, of what he has learned from writing about the bird and its ecosystem, broken up by topic into bite-sized sections.

How Tumblr is Reviving the Animated GIF, David Karp Explains [Video] (The Huffington Post)
The animated GIF, those quirky, short moving images introduced way back in the day by CompuServe in 1987, are making a comeback, thanks in large part to the easy conversion from video to the GIF format explains David Karp, founder and CEO of Tumblr. In this interview with Beet.TV, Karp explains how Tumblr has become a popular platform for sharing GIFs by allowing files uploads of up to 1 MB.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Visits Poland (AllFacebook)
When does a “spontaneous” one-day holiday to Warsaw, Poland, turn into a meeting with the country’s minister for administrative affairs and digitization? When you happen to be Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Pandora Stock Jumps as Revenue Beats the Street, Grows 58 Percent to $128.5M; Mobile Ad Revenue Hits Record High (TechCrunch)
Pandora’s first-quarter earnings report Thursday reflected a flurry of activity, as the company saw GAAP total revenue increase 97 percent year-over-year to $83.9 million (with non-GAAP mobile revenue of $86.7 million), which outpaced mobile listener hour growth at 47 percent year over year. Meanwhile, total revenue came in at $125.5 million, representing 55 percent year-over-year growth and non-GAAP total revenue of $128.5 million.

Evernote Announces Reminders as Forgetful Everywhere Breathe Easier (VentureBeat)
Note-taking and organization-solutions provider Evernote announced Thursday that reminders are now part of its product offerings. The update, according to a press release from the Redwood City, Calif.-based company, combines its three most requested features: in-app and email alarms, quick note-based to-do lists and pinning notes to the top of your note list.

HTC First UK Launch Postponed Because Facebook Home is No Good (ars technica)
For now, Brits will be spared HTC and Facebook’s collaborative smartphone, the HTC First, according to a report from Engadget. The device is notably a prominent showcase for the Facebook Home experience, but given the amount of negative feedback Facebook’s Android overlay got after its US launch, the company plans to overhaul Home before trying to get other countries interested in it.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Twitter today launched a new advertising product that will target promoted tweets to users who watched TV programs during which related television commercials were aired.

The ad product continues to show Twitter working hard to dominate the second screen marketing experience. Last year, 32 million people in the U.S. tweeted about TV programming.

“Synchronized Twitter and TV ad campaigns make brand messages more engaging, interactive and measurable,” Twitter said.

The product builds on the technology the company acquired with Bluefin Labs. Twitter can now more intelligently monitor shared content for references to ongoing television programming, even when users don’t explicitly reference the title of the program. It uses this data to display promoted tweets to users who have likely just seen commercials for the same products on TV.

If a user has tweeted about a television show during which a Trident commercial has aired, for example, Twitter will serve that user Trident’s promoted tweet. (And, as of yesterday, Trident can invite the user to share his or her email address within the Twitter stream as well.)

TV ad targeting is currently available only to a select group of companies in the United States.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Twitter today made the latest push in its bid to cozy up to Madison Avenue and the world of big-budget advertising, by tapping more into the kind of mainstream mediums where advertisers like to spend their money. Today the big focus is TV and your living room. In New York, the company announced Twitter Amplify, a way of bringing real-time video into the site, with initial partners including the broadcasters BBC America, FOX, Fuse and The Weather Channel. And it also announced TV ad targeting, one of the first fruits of the company’s acquisition of BlueFin Labs.

Twitter ad targeting works like this: an advertiser or media buyer uses a special dashboard that Twitter has created for the service, which lets a brand monitor when an ad has aired on TV. Through this, the campaign manager can then send out Promoted Tweets that coordinate with them. They synchronise, Twitter says, using “video fingerprinting technology to automatically detect when and where a brand’s commercials are running on TV, without requiring that advertiser to do any manual tracking or upload media plan details,” Michael Fleischman, one of the co-founders of BlueFin Labs, and now a product manager for Twitter, notes in a blog post.

Through this, the advertiser is able to measure how socially responsive people are to the TV campaigns and vice versa. Using Twitter handles and hashtags on the TV ads will be how those advertisers shuttle people to the social network.

Twitter says it will be able to determine where and when an ad ran on TV, as well as track those who have subsequently tweeted about the ad and the TV program that it ran against. “We believe a user engaged enough with a TV show to tweet about it very likely saw the commercials as well,” the company notes on its blog.

The company is banking on a crucial stat as the leap of faith that this will all work: it says 64 percent of mobile-centric users on Twitter use it in front of the TV at home.

For now Twitter’s targeting service will be available only in the U.S.

Broadcasting clips

Meanwhile, the instream broadcasting clips that are part of Twitter Amplify, starting with BBC America, FOX, Fuse and The Weather Channel, will be very closely tied to ads and video directly on the platform. This is something that Twitter has already been doing with partnerships with, for example, the NBA, where a video also features a link to an ad:

What’s interesting is that it looks like Twitter will be limiting use of this new kind of Twitter card to paying users, with Glenn Brown, director of promoted content and sponsorships, noting that they will be “powered by Promoted Tweets.” The idea appears to be that rather than replacing the TV experience (not yet at least!) these in-stream videos will be used as “spectacular, timely content that rounds out their TV experience or reminds them to tune in.” In other words, ways of getting people to the TV with teaser clips rather than simply offering them a way of seeing what they want on Twitter and cutting out the tube altogether.

Speaking at the New York event, CEO Dick Costolo talked about how the company has made advertising a more “frictionless” experience because of its emphasis of real-time updates. It’s clear that adding more broadcasting-like experiences into Twitter will further that concept.

The company during its event also threw in some fun ad-land perks: a Q&A session with Glee actress Jane Lynch and a Tweeting vending machine churning out swag.

Twitter has been making increasingly strong moves this year to get its platform to be more ad-friendly (and revenue-friendly). That kicked off in February with the launch of an advertising API so that larger advertisers can better manage their campaigns on Twitter; an improved advertising analytics dashboard; and Google AdWords-style keyword targeting (TC coverage here, here and here). Just earlier this week the company also unveiled the official launch of Lead Generation Cards, something Twitter had been testing for a while already, which lets advertisers include actions like requests for more information that users can get automatically by clicking a button in an advertising tweet. (You can see how this last one also sets the stage for Twitter making the leap into commerce, with one-click purchasing.)

While Twitter has not provided any official public guidance on how much it expects to make in advertising this year or in the future, there has been a lot of speculation about the number because many expect Twitter to go public, with a likely date in late 2013 or 2014, according to observers. A report from eMarketer in March noted that it was raising forecasts for the company to $583 million in 2013 and $950 million in ad sales in 2014, 60% coming from mobile.

The stats that Twitter’s president of global revenue, Adam Bain, provided last year shows just how much the company has grown over the last year. Bain noted at the time that Twitter had 140M+ active users; now that figure is estimated to be closer to 300 million.

Bain also had noted that 55% of users access Twitter on mobile, with 40% growth quarter over quarter, and that among Twitter’s active users, only some 60% actually tweet, but all of them “listen.” And in a sign that Twitter was always going to figure out a better way of leveraging ads on the platform, even a year ago, some 79% of people on the site were already following brands.

More to come.

Image: Jim Prosser

Have you seen the CTRL ALT Delete experience yet?

My latest book, CTRL ALT Delete, came out two days ago. In an attempt to create attention and interest, the team at Twist Image put together a very compelling story about business today. So far, the experience has been getting some rave reviews in places like Twitter and Facebook, but – for the most part – people are still misunderstanding what this all means. When you put things into context, provide the data to back it and present it as a story, you would think that the information would wake people up.

It rarely does.

It turns out that people still – wrongly – think that CTRL ALT Delete is a book about social media (it isn’t). It turns out that people still – wrongly – think that CTRL ALT Delete is a book about marketing (it isn’t). CTRL ALT Delete is a book about business life. We see facts, stats and data points all day long. We ‘re exposed to information, like we live in a world where more people have a mobile subscription than access to safe drinking water. We live in a world where Google‘s advertising revenue is greater than that of the entire print industry. But, beyond trying to catch our jaws as they hit the floor, what are we doing about it? We all struggle – deeply – to highlight companies that are handling this moment of business purgatory (as I call it) well. We can’t simple rattle them off. There are not a lot of great case studies (or simply not enough of them). Worse, each and every one of us struggles to figure our how to evolve professionally and bring the best "you" to work everyday. Will the company accept my new way of thinking? What will my clients and peers think? Is this too radical for our industry to handle?

What choice do we have?

In 2009, I published my first book, Six Pixels of Separation. It was a book that I wrote to demonstrate how technology, media our new inter-connected changes the very fabric of what it means to be a brand, create marketing and the relationship between consumers and these brands. It was a book that exposed the strategies we used at Twist Image to grow our business from a handful of employees and clients, to our current state of one hundred-plus full-time employees in two cities and working with some of the most iconic brands (we are one of the largest independent digital marketing agencies in North America). I don’t write this to brag, but rather as social proof that there was (and still is) alternatives to how to grow and market any business. In CTRL ALT Delete we have entered a world where the very fabric of business has changed forever (I break these out into five major movements in the business book), but brands are still not doing much about it. It didn’t end there. I felt that it would be unfair to write about these five movements without also spending a healthy chunk of time discussing us – the individuals – who are now entrusted to thrive in this new business environment.

Go through the CTRL ALT Delete story.

I encourage you to spend a few minutes going through the CTRL ALT Delete digital experience (you can do it online, on your tablet or smartphone). Keep a notepad nearby, answer the three questions that are a part of the experience and then think about two things:

1. Your business.
2. Your life.

Ready for a reboot?

What’s your take? How well-prepared is your business for this world that is not only constantly changing, but that has changed (dramatically)? How well-prepared are you, personally and professionally, for a world where we’ll no longer change jobs 4-5 times throughout our careers, but one where we will change careers 4-5 times throughout our lifetime? It’s funny, all of the staggering stats about the new reality in our world still triggers fear and anxiety. In reality, the feeling should be excitement and anticipation of a world that offers up a whole new layer of opportunity, wonder and amazement.

Do you still perceive this reboot to be something negative? You should not.  

Tags:

advertising

book publishing

business book

business life

business purgatory

career development

ctrl alt delete

digital experience

digital marketing agency

facebook

google

independent digital marketing agency

marketing

media

mobile subscription

print industry

reboot

six pixels of separation

smartphone

social media

tablet

technology

twist image

twitter

web

Today what about training Tsonga with your tweets ?

A nice initiative by BNP Paribas, the French bank which celebrates the 40th anniversary of its partnership with Roland-Garros. It gives you the opportunity to train Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before he starts the French Open tennis tournament, via Twitter. If your tweets are selected, they will command a robot to throw balls to Tsonga with the location, power and effect you chose.

You can follow a livestream of this event on the dedicated website : tweetandshoot.wearetennis.com

A fun project which shows how you can get from virtual to IRL by the French office of WeAreSocial

Call it the unicorn problem: beautiful, alluring, magical, and totally non-existent. Social commerce, according to the latest Monetate e-commerce report, is almost as elusive.

In fact, social media referrals represents just 1.55 percent of all traffic to major e-commerce destinations. And when that tiny trickle of traffic arrived, only .71 percent of it actually resulted in any kind of sale. Email marketing, by contrast, generates twice as much traffic as social media, and has four times the conversion rate to sales.

Those are not good numbers for social.

Source: Monetate

Conversion rates by traffic-referring sources

The darling of the omnipresent social media gurus on Twitter, social commerce was supposed to totally disrupt e-commerce. And, because people trust other people’s recommendations and spend a lot of time on Facebook where they meet other people and read what they say, social commerce was supposed to be huge, turning social media influence and shares into sales and revenue.

Unfortunately, there’s a problem:

“The challenge for social media — and for its big brother, word of mouth marketing — is that they are inherently additive pieces of the conversion funnel, rather than causative,” Monetate’s new report states.

But Monetate says that the problem isn’t in the social. It’s in how companies are using it.

Loyalty isn’t about clicking on an offer, report author Mitch Joel says, it’s about building a relationship. And a relationship goes far beyond “do you want to buy this.” Which means that social is not short term, social is not transactional, and social is not the same as direct response.

In other words: shocker, social media is, well, social.

Taken in that context, social can still be very valuable for brands, as marketing firm Syncapse found just a few weeks ago, valuing some Facebook fans at over $1,600. But it’s the relationship that’s valuable, not the episodic communications per se.

And that relationship can be very valuable. When an actual sale is made from a social referral, it’s often valuable, with the average Pinterest-referred sale clocking in at over $80, and the average Facebook and Twitter sales at about $70.

Source: Monetate

Average order value by social-referred sale

photo credit: zoomar via photopin cc

Filed under: Business, Enterprise, Social