Online video is becoming more pervasive, and as it grows in popularity, the more we’re learning on what works best. Thanks to a new study from Nielsen Catalina Solutions, we know of one more thing that is true with video.
Creativity matters.
Read MoreAdvertisers love engagement. Likes, comments, shares, retweets and more are all readily available for reporting. They’re part of an plethora of metrics that are at our fingertips, but their value is questionable at best.
The challenge with engagement is it doesn’t tie back to true business results, and if at the end of the day you aren’t investing in driving business results, you’re not investing wisely.
Read MoreSocial media marketing allows us to do a lot of reporting. We can measure endless data points, but it can fall short of being meaningful. Likes, comments, shares and so on are great, but they mean little without context.
First and foremost, the goal of any program is ROI. ROI may be calculated in terms of individual tactics (e.g., a Facebook ad campaign, coupon program, blogger outreach effort, etc.) and their ability to drive sales, or it may be evaluated based on a series of micro conversions like site traffic where people can actually convert. But ROI isn’t always what is being measured or what needs to be measured for marketers to understand how things are performing. That’s what this post is about.
Read MoreFacebook made waves when it revealed that it was optimizing the News Feed to make brand Page content less likely to reach fans without some kind of paid support. Advertisers were understandably frustrated. After all, one of the primary objectives of social media marketing was to increase fans, so that the brand could then share content with them organically. The time for growing fans to deliver what was essentially free advertising has come to an end.
This is a very good thing. The future is bright for social media marketing because it's success is now defined by what all elements of the marketing mix are: reach, awareness, click-through, brand lift, sales, purchase intent and beyond.
Fans, likes, retweets, comments, shares and other metrics that have come about in the age of social media marketing are all vanity metrics until marketers can answer what they indicate and why they're important to measure.
Read MoreIt happens every year. Black Friday passes by and the headline 'Social Media Doesn't Drive Sales' gains traction across the industry, but I'm not here to argue with this finding. It's true.
Read MoreGoogle was recently granted a patent for what it calls "pay-per-gaze" advertising that will, if created, charge advertisers if a user looks at an ad (online or offline) while wearing Google Glass. The patent would allow Google to collect analytical data, such as how long they viewed the ad and emotional response, and then charge advertisers for that data. There's no guarantee any of this will become a reality, but the premise is fascinating.
Read More