More on Brand Engagement

Just quick post about a topic I've written about quite a few times.

Instagram is the ‘best platform for brands’ in 2013, beating out Facebook, Twitter, and Google+

When Instagram announced sponsored posts, I suggested that it might work out really well as long as the brands fit well into the overall esthetic of Instagram.

This report shows, that even if it's not an ad, there's a lot to be said about how people interact with brands on Instagram. I don't know that it's strictly because instagram forces more simple, visual messages, but I do think photos have a much bigger impact than words especially when they take up 80% of your mobile phone screen. I believe twitter sees this with them recent changes to auto-display photos in the stream. Facebook has long seen this with utilizing bigger photos. Heck, even Medium just announced changes including a much more visual interface. It'll be interesting to see how the various social media sites adjust their visual impressions and how brands will leverage these abilities to connect to and engagement with their customers and fans.

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Ads, ads, everywhere...but do you care...or even notice them?

Every time a web service decides to include advertisements on their screens, people seem to get up in arms. It happened to Facebook with Sponsored Posts, it happened to Google with Shared Endorsements. It also happened with Instagram when they indicated that ads would start appearing in the stream of photos.

Typically, the way this goes is that people scream and holler about how free services are getting overly commercial and messy with all of this marketing content. After a week or two things die down. After a little bit longer, people even stop noticing the ads.

Which, I guess, is a good thing for users if they can easily just ignore the marketing on a given page.

But from a marketing standpoint, the easy ability for someone to ignore ads is a bad thing. So much time and effort is spent to get a marketing campaign noticed. So much work goes into finding ways to place ads in the "right" spot on a webpage.

Well, there are a few ways to help avoid this pattern of users simply ignoring ads:

1. Make the ads relevant and/or useful. I've written about that a number of times so I won't belabor that point.
2. Make the ads really interesting. There are some TV ads that you just want to watch. You'll even pause/rewind your DVR to watch them. Believe it or not, those types of ads can even exist online.

And Point #2 is where I think & hope Instagram marketing is going. Take a look at some ads that Instagram hopes will pique its users interest and draw attention (and taps) to the sponsors:

This Is What Instagram Ads Look Like 

Skimming through the featured images, I think they fit well with what Instagram users are used to seeing. I mean they fit REALLY well. They look great in the square composition. They're thematically similar to what people tend to post on Instagram anyways (eg, vacations, food, fashion, selfies, or just cool lines/angles). Granted these are just initial examples and not every ad is going to fit so well, but I'd say that if Instagram works with marketers to help ensure this fit for the service, then users WILL notice them and they WILL care about them.

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Twitter fight!

We're all too familiar with people picking fights online. The latest iteration of that is twitter fights with people trading short jabs with each other.

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin Durant and Dwyane Wade traded barbs over the Top 10 players in the NBA right now:
http://mashable.com/2013/09/25/dwyane-wade-kevin-durant-twitter-feud/

This was barely a feud, but it did cause some waves. Personally, I thought it might be related to some Gatorade marketing campain since both Durant and Wade were in a Gatorade commercial last year.

The whole idea of twitter marketing campaigns is really interesting since, well, it's happening! I've listed a few great examples of online marketing, but the idea of using twitter to create a more interactive campaign seems to be gain hold.

The latest has to do with the latest Honda Odyssey minivan which features a built-in vacuum that's meant to pick up all those crumbs that kids leave behind after eating their snacks. Their TV ads have been kind of lame actually:

But the twitter fights have been much more fun! Honda's twitter account tweeted at other snack or food brands...the types of brands that are commonly eaten in the car. Here's a nice summary:

Honda picks Twitter fights with snack brands to promote new in-car vacuum

The best thing about this is the replies from the other brands. That's what makes twitter a very different environment. It's easy to create an open dialog. And especially when smart brands are doing it, it turns out to be a fun thing which can create a little buzz in a very different way than can happen through TV ads.

Have you seen other good examples of this type of online marketing? I'd love to see more of it.

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At the right time, in the right place

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about different ways that touch screens are being introduced to and used by kids. Along the same line, I see new and interesting ways that people in general are using their smartphones. One of the key trends is about having the right information presented to you without having to hunt for it or even explicitly ask for it.

Google Now was one of the first big things that came to my attention where a person doesn't have to ask things, but is presented information that will likely be helpful. It has been available on Android for a while and it'll automatically pop up notifications about traffic, meetings, flight status, etc based on context of time and place. It's more than just neat, it turns your phone into a really helpful tool without having to dig around in different apps. The iOS version of this just added notifications so it should become similarly useful for iPhones.

With the recent launch of iOS7, there are some similar features built in which will automatically add in useful info about traffic, weather, etc. I see similarities with what Google Now is providing, but perhaps not as useful. It was definitely nice to see traffic info pop up on my lock screen over the weekend telling me how long it would take to get home.

The area where I think we'll start to get a little creeped out with "Right time, right place" info is when "factual" info is mixed in with customized marketing. The movie Minority Report was famous for taking the idea of "predictive info" and presenting it in a jarring way. We all remember when Tom Cruise was confronted with dozens of customized ads as he walked down the street. While marketers may not be planning to confront us with such over-the-top ads, the day is not far off where we can quickly get customized real-time marketing without having to check for it. Groupon, Yelp, and Foursquare have all implemented some sort of notifications alerting users of deals nearby, but you frequently hear about how those notifications are more annoying and mis-guided.

So I think the charm in this is going to finding the right balance of presenting this info when people are more likely to want to see it or find it useful. Just like search ads on google or paid ads on facebook, if the ads are relevant to what the person might already be interested in, then the marketing message will go over a lot better.

Now all that being said, here's a really interesting piece about where this might all be headed:

MLB’s iBeacon Experiment May Signal A Whole New Ball Game For Location Tracking

This piece really talks about the smarts and planning that needs to go into location based info. In this case, Major League Baseball is taking a hardware and software based approach and it seems like it could be a real winner. It relies not just on people who are likely interested in the info...everyone at a ballpark is likely interesting in baseball, obviously. It relies on figuring out what the person might actually want and turn that potential desire into a transaction. It's a marketers dream in that sense. Find people who might want to buy a team sweatshirt, and get them to actually buy it by giving them a small discount. Or get them to buy an extra hot dog or soda when they might not really want it.

This isn't just about building an app. It requires connecting a lot of dots between the marketing department, the app builder, as well as the network and other hardware.

I'm really interested to see how this plays out. If this is done well, I fully expect to see this implemented at shopping malls throughout the country. There are already apps which different mall owners have, but I've never seen a reason to download them. If these apps turn into shopping services which can not only help guide shoppers around the mall, but point them to great deals, it can be a win-win. Again, the charm here is going to be in finding the right balance between the marketing message and the non-marketing, but useful information that shoppers may need. And that balance will be different for each shopper young, old, window-shopping, or ready to buy.

What do you think about this stuff? Is it heading too fast to that Minority Report marketing hell? Is it something you'd find useful?

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Brands relying on their community for create content

The slow march of creativity in the social media realm into the corporate marketing realm continues!

Food & Wine's Unconventional Tumblr Strategy

I've written about this twice before, but I'm really happy to see well-thought out plans which don't simply place ads on a social media site or just use photos taken by fans for the purposes of advertising.

Food & Wine's strategy is a bit different than what we've seen before in that they're not just relying on fans. They've chosen three photographers for different reasons, but none of them are known for being foodie or food photographers. I think this is great since there's still a lot of expertise being applied to who would provide a good eye, but take photos which will likely be very different from what traditional food or event photographers take. That alone is a great approach, in my mind.

Plus, they're not just placing their photos on a single site, they have plans to place these user generated photos not just on Food & Wine's tumblr, but also the photographers' sites and as an ad on Radar. It's a great way to get visibility not just to a larger audience, but to a wider variety of people.

Kudos to these marketing teams who are leveraging social media, but blending this into broader plans around how they are marketing their events or their brands.

Here's F&W's tumblr in case you want to see their yummy photos :)

http://foodandwinephotos.tumblr.com/

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Ads, ads, everywhere

So you think my discussions about monetizing social media interactions are esoteric?

Well, the ad execs at Google, Facebook, and Twitter certainly don't :)

I've written in the past about how users of search sites and social sites react differently upon seeing ads. I've also written about how Facebook is working to connect online ad views & interactions with offline purchases.

Well, here's a very interesting panelist dialogue about how Google, Facebook, and Twitter want to measure the success of ads.

Facebook, Google Ad Execs Spar Over The Value Of A Click

It's not surprising to me that Facebook's Rajaram is focusing very heavily on offline interactions as a result of online ads. As I wrote before, users of Facebook may not click on ads and directly buy products they see in banner ads, but the visibility of these ads at the right time and place can help guide them to purchase. As I called it back then, these mid-funnel users are key to Facebook's monetization of  its userbase.

Twitter is focusing on engagement metrics such as tweet responses or retweets. Google, unsurprisingly needs to look at a wide swatch of metrics including engagement (for social aspects such as on Google+), but also views, clicks, and ad forms (for ads based on search or context)

I suppose I'm overly enamored with this, but to me, these companies are finding new ways of growing their businesses. From the perspective of ads, they're finding new ways of getting people to react to the ads they see and eventually buy. People say Google is not really a search company, but an advertising company. I'd say that the way social media is evolving, Facebook and Twitter are as much about ad & media engagement as they are about social engagement.

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Insta-Market-Gramming

As you may know, I've been following a lot of interesting tidbits about how social websites make money off of their users and how companies are using social media to their benefit.

One kind of interesting wrinkle in this has been corporations finding people who are very active in social media and having them become sort of brand ambassadors. Not by wearing their logo, but by giving "insider access" to these people and having them use their social media presence and prowess to show a new side of the company. I wrote about this how this was done for the US Open last summer.

I think this is a pretty cool way for companies to provide unique access and reward people who really love their products or to take nascent individual talent and apply it to their brand.

Well, Business Insider has written an article about 15 Instagrammers who have taken their talents and converted them into some pretty cool work for big companies. The companies range from Nike and Volvo to Johnnie Walker and Samsung. (The article is a bit difficult to follow to be honest since it mixes photos of the individuals with photos they've Instagrammed for the companies)

I see this not just as corporations taking advantage of a potential new marketing stream, I see it as recognition of the way in which media itself has changed to a much more two-way, grassroots thing. Just like the internet has allowed people to connect in so many different ways, I think companies across the world have recognized that their marketing and connections with the customers needs to change.

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Is Facebook following you to the supermarket?

Are you paying attention to ads
like these on Facebook?

I've been trying to get back to documenting some of my thoughts and one of the things I keep coming back to is about the engagement that users have on social media sites is turned into something more for the company itself. I wrote before about how Facebook is looking to monetize user engagement on their site and how Facebook gets "mid funnel" users to act on things they see on the site. 

I read a really interesting article by Farhad Manjoo about the very structured analysis Facebook has done to determine how users are actually responding to ads they see on the site. They may not be clicking the ads, but they seem to definitely making buying decisions based on the ads they see on Facebook? Don't believe me? Well, read the article to learn more:


Facebook Followed You to the Supermarket: Even if you never click on Facebook ads, they are making you buy things.


What do you think? Do you pay much attention to the ads? Even if you don't pay attention, do you at least notice them?

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Facebook's Money Engine - "Mid Funnel" Users

Back in March, I wrote about ad placement on social versus search sites. I was basically trying to break down some of the differences in a person's intent when they go to a search or social site and what they might do with ads. It seemed pretty clear to me that someone going to a social site isn't likely to just click on ads and immediately purchase something, but that much of the marketing on facebook is to build awareness.

I just read an interesting piece on Wired about Facebook's advertising products (via @Lessien). The piece is actually an interview with the director of Facebook Advertising Product Director, Gokul Rajaram, and gets at some things which I find really telling. They seem to match with many of the ads or sponsored content I've been seeing on Facebook of late (both on the desktop and on mobile)

Here are some interesting tidbits which align pretty well with what I wrote previously:

Facebook’s advertising mission, then, is not to inject commercial messages into social discussions, but to amplify the messages that are already there. And it’s not to drive immediate purchases, as Google’s contextual advertising does, but to influence buying decisions a little further down the road. 

They use a term, "mid-funnel" which I find a little odd, but makes sense because a person on Facebook typically isn't ready to buy something that might be shown on an ad, but specific other things they see on Facebook may nudge them lower into the funnel to actually buy something (such as a gift for their friend's birthday or a Groupon type offer for a local restaurant that a friend loves.

To that end, here's a quote from Rajaram exactly on that point:

“We always think about, how can Facebook add that extra social, viral dimension to advertising,” Rajaram says. “We always think about stories and how, it’s not just businesses communicating to people, it’s businesses communicating with their loyal lists of fans and how then those fan’s interactions with that message can lead to their friends being impacted.”

It's nice to see that a research article posted recently aligns pretty well with what I wrote almost 5 months ago :)

I've been compiling examples of ads on Facebook over the past few weeks (again, both on the desktop and on mobile). I promise to post those along with my commentary soon!

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P'Oh My Gawd! - What you're obsessing about on Pinterest

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the differences in marketing to search vs social users and how Facebook is working towards monetizing user engagement. I thought I'd expand a bit more on this and talk about the hottest social/discovery site out there: Pinterest

If you're not familiar with Pinterest...well then, why are you reading this blog?! Go there and check it out now!

I'm not a huge Pinterest user, but in my several months of usage, I've seen a lot of Facebook friends begin following me on Pinterest as well. Since I don't pin very many things, those followers don't see much from me. But since I follow-back everyone, I see a lot of new pins every time I login. What have I noticed?

Well, safe to say that the stereotypes about Pinterest users are based on some fact :)

• Lots of female users
• Lots of pins about recipes, fashion, & home decorating

A series of desert recipes. Hmm...where to buy organic raw sugar?!

The more interesting thing I've noticed is that people seem to pin a series of items all about the same thing in a short period of time. It could be holiday dinner recipes or kids' bedroom designs or hairstyles, but people seem to obsess about really specific things. They may move onto other obsessions sooner or later, but pinning habits definitely show what users are thinking & obsessing about.

I'm not going to get into the pinning habits themselves, but I want to compare this with typical social and search usage:

• Social - Lots of random sharing about life, things you've read with a few specifics like check-ins or location-tagged photos. It's hard to really know what a social user is thinking at the time they login since the sharing is kind of random.
• Search - Lots of specific queries typically layered on with location specifics. It's easy to know exactly what a search user needs right at that moment, but the user will move onto different searches and may or may not come back to the topic.

Compare that with a Pinterest user:

• Pinboards are typically well-organized and if the "Pin-It" bookmarklet has been used, it's easy to link back the pin to the original site, therefore it's easy to build further organization based on where the pins came from.
• Users seem to focus on specific topics for a day...could be shorter or longer, but it's really clear what they're obsessing over during that time.
• Users may not be looking to buy anything at the time of pinning, but the pins are certainly things that inspire them or what they want to buy or re-create in the future.

So taking those thought onto the ad/marketing side of things...

There's been a lot of talk about click-through of Pinterest users where they end up on the original site from which the pin originated and maybe even buy. However, I think Pinterest as a targeted ad platform could be just as interesting. Afterall, pinboards are well organized and you can tell exactly what the user is thinking about. Not just randomly thinking about for a moment in time, but obsessing over.

Lots of wonderful decor ideas...time to get DIYing!

Sure, the user may not be ready to re-decorate the living room as displayed in a pin from Martha Stewart's site, but targeted ads from the brands highlighted in the pin or from related vendors will have a step-up with the user since they're already engaged and interested in what they have to offer. It could be an ad from Ethan Allen for a current sale or from Lowe's for paint which matches the one in the pin. On the local front, it could be an ad from Whole Foods for the maple syrup in a recipe or from Target for the mixing bowls.

It may seem difficult to tie-back all of this to specific products for which ads can be placed, but the reality is that most of the details aren't that difficult to obtain. Martha Stewart doesn't always list out brands especially if it's a home tour, but many other sites already do. Recipes already have the details listed out and fashion is typically tied back to specific designers.

My point is that Pinterest is positioned well to monetize the user engagement they've developed. Clicking-through to the original pinned site is an obvious way, but targeted ads are another possible direction. Due to Pinterest user-behavior, those targeted ads would likely be way more relevant than  ads that Facebook users see. Additionally, users aren't at the stage of searching for something they want...they've already FOUND things they love.

It's the perfect opportunity to convert interested and engaged users into buyers.

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Ad placement on Social vs Search sites

After my last post about experimenting with the ads on Facebook, I had a hearty FB convo with a friend about how ads on Facebook are almost always less relevant than what could be presented to a user if they're doing a search (Google, Bing, etc). It's interesting, since I sort of had that in the back of my mind, but it didn't click until this friend mentioned it and then I couldn't get it out of my mind.

In fact, I asked others on Twitter as well as Facebook about this and EVERYONE said they avoid the ads on Facebook. The most common reason I heard is that they're just not interested in looking at them while on Facebook and many said that when they did look at the ads, they were usually not very relevant. This general marketing malaise is pointed to in this article about brands shutting down their Facebook stores since users don't seem to go beyond clicking 'Like'.

As I've thought this through, I broke this down as follows:

On Facebook (or any social site for that matter), the user is very casual. They're likely on there to share something about themselves (status, photo, check-in, etc) or see what others are sharing. While they may stay on the site for a long time, the casual nature of their usage means they're not there for any particular reason. So even if an ad is relevant, it may not be relevant at that moment in time. If that's the case, then it can be very difficult to convince that user to spend more than a moment even glancing at the ad let alone actually click on it.

My friend's comments about FB ads

It may happen sometimes, but it's rare. Just to note how rare it may be, I've provided a screenshot of a friend's status talking about the ads she sees on Facebook.

On Google (or any search site), the user is typically very transactional. They're likely there for something very specific and want to get the most specific answer or result. The search results may be what the user is after, but an ad with dead-on relevance can be very important for the user. So even if they generally try to avoid ads, the ad placed at that moment can be exactly what the user is looking for.

I've got some thoughts about why ads aren't relevant in the moment when on Facebook, but I'll get to that in a future post when I talk about "big data"

This all seems so obvious now that I've mulled it through, but it does make me wonder what kind of ads could ever work in the context of a social site?

Well, lo and behold in the last two weeks we've actually seen some glimpses on Facebook itself and at their Marketing Conference (fMC). I saw the first instance as is described in Ryan Spoon's post about a sponsored Macy's ad which shows up at the top of the news feed. When I saw this ad, I was actually kind of confused by what I saw, but I think it's something we should (and will) get used to seeing. Here's a liveblog of the fMC from last week which goes over a lot of the direction that Facebook's headed. In some sense, they're breaking new ground in the ways that ads are presented to users and the ways in which they allow brands to use the platform to build awareness and potentially even sell.

And that for me is the key thing. It's very clear that a brand can build awareness through smart usage of social sites like Facebook. Whether it's a specific ad placement or an on-going engagement with users, I do think users will pick up brand messaging while they're on Facebook for casual, social purposes. However, I'm still very much wondering if that casual user can be converted into a transactional user who will do more than click 'Like' but will also go on to purchase something. That conversion is pretty clear on search sites, but I'm keen to see how that plays out in the new social web.

In future posts on this subject, I'm going to try and tackle the ways in which "big data" could be used to provide more relevant ads. I've got some thoughts on that, but I'd prefer to have further discussions with friends to help crystallize my analysis. For now, I hope you've found this interesting!

What are your thoughts on ad placement on social sites like Facebook? How do they compare to search sites? How does your mindset on either type of site affect your impression of ads?

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Facebook Ads and monetizing engagement

After the Facebook IPO filing, I got to thinking a lot more about what significant things Facebook would do beyond what we currently see on the website. Instead of thinking, as I normally would, about what functionality they would add, I figured I'd focus on how to better monetize what they have.

In my mind, what Facebook has is engagement. Whether it's "social" or not, they've got people scrolling, clicking, and moving their eyeballs all over their website. I didn't really see how they've actually made huge money except through deals with companies like Zynga. But what I had forgotten is that I had been blocking ads on Facebook for the longest time using AdBlocker.

So I turned off Adblocker and started seeing ads in the usual spots along the right-hand side. The odd thing is that the ads didn't really seem all that relevant for me in the here and now. I kept seeing ads for  products and services that professional photographers would use. This isn't surprising since I had a photography business for years and still run a photography site. But for the last 6-9 months, I've hardly said anything about photography.

So it didn't quite make sense. If Facebook was poised to make so much money off ads, how could they be presenting me with ads that haven't been all that relevant to me for the last year?

Then I started seeing ads for things related to internet technology and jobs. No surprise since I've been in the technology world in Silicon Valley for 12 years. Then I started seeing ad polls relate to the Lakers. Not surprising since I'm very active in a Laker Fans group on Facebook. This was getting better, especially as compared to the ads to buy Photoshop actions.

But then I kept seeing the same ads. Over and over.

What was going on?

The quick question I got after choosing to hide an ad

I finally decided to hide the ads using Facebook's function (to hide a specific ad or all ads from that advertiser). Then I started seeing where Facebook was taking things. Upon asking to hide the ad, I'd get a quick question about why I wanted to hide it. Then I was asked to help find more relevant content by telling Facebook what I liked.

Facebook as a site was basically engaging me with a few simple questions. And I didn't really have a problem answering them. The questions didn't confront me as pop-overs or cover up other content that I actually cared about. So I answered them and moved on.

The response after answering the above question

Very quickly I started seeing ads more relevant to my current interests. Like within an hour. Damn, they were already leveraging the simple questions I answered to provide me more relevant ads. That actually encouraged me to take a look at the ads (and hide them if I didn't like them along with giving them more knowledge about what's relevant to me). There are still a mix of photography & technology, but it's way more relevant and changing more often than it was just 2 weeks ago. Compare this with the weird ads I got years ago like a head-shaving razor (yeah, to shave my head), hunting camouflage, and pregnancy stretch-mark cream. Right now, I see an add for a business-technology conference, the Lakers, and Customer conversion through social engagement. Sounds on-point to me!

Of course, along this way, Facebook is learning more and more about me and is looking to make money off me. But the simple way in which they are getting me to look, click, and engage intrigues me. Amazon does a very good job with finding relevant content to show me on their home page (based on my previous buying and product research habits). Facebook is not nearly as good at providing me spot-on content, but I can already see it getting better. Given the amount of data they have on my habits & likes and my friends' habits, I expect the ad content to get more and more relevant.

So I'm leaving AdBlocker off and plan to look at the ads I'm presented every time I login. I probably won't click on them, but it's something I'm keeping a very close eye on this evolution. It's amazing to think it's still in its early stages, but given the speed at which I've seen improvement in relevancy, I can only see that Facebook will be making a lot more money (and very soon) off of the level of engagement its users have with each other and with the site itself.

BTW, as I finish off this post, I checked Facebook one more time and here's the ad I got. Relevant? Well, I love cooking and I'm Indian...so it MUST mean I need a tandoor in my life and kitchen! Right!? Let's just say it's not a perfectly relevant ad, but I see where it's coming from :)

I'd love to hear your experiences with ads on social sites...leave your comments here!

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