Mediaboss Marketing

As platforms become more creative, establishing whole new ecosystems and new artistic movements of their own, it also becomes harder for brands to tap into the next big thing, and showcase their products and services in busy social feeds.

TikTok is a great example on TikTok, if you want your promotions to stand out, you cant simply re-purpose your latest TV commercial or blast a blatant promotion across peoples mobile screens. The key to TikTok advertising is aligning with user trends, and making your content look as organic as possible, so that it fits into the broader platform experience.

The same goes for Instagram or Snapchat Stories, or promotions on Reddit. Over time, as platforms become more defined in their audiences, the best way to reach them is to learn user trends and habits, and communicate with them in the language that they prefer, whatever that may be.

Which takes time, and investment on various fronts. Which is also why more brands are now leaning into influencer marketing, as means to utilize the creative skills, communication styles and audience reach of people who already speak the right language, and can get your brand in front of an engaged, active audience in each app.

It can be a great way to maximize reach, and boost brand awareness.To provide more insight on this, the team from AmericaNoize has put together this overview of the key benefits of influencer marketing. Worth considering in your process.

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12 Benefits of Influencer Marketing that Every Brand Should Know [Infographic] - Social Media Today

The playbook is changing for some small businesses and digitally native brands looking to get in front of shoppers via social media platforms.

Apples iOS14 data privacy crackdown impacted mobile advertising, making targeting capabilities more difficult because of the update. Now, users are notified of which apps are tracking them, meaning they can opt out and thus shrinking the data pool for advertisers.

Knowing that, some newly launched brands say theyre hesitant to spend big on paid social media ads, and are diversifying media spend sooner than planned. Instead, theyre relying on organic strategy, leveraging brand partnerships and content creators to acquire customers and build brand awareness.

Without the data being fed back, its more challenging to identify customers and leverage digital marketing to scale brand awareness, said Elaine Choi, president of haircare brand Crown Affair via email.

Crown Affair launched last January, relying on organic strategy by way of digital word of mouth and influencers to build its core digital community and online shopper base, layering in some paid ads on Facebook and Instagram soon after. With the iOS 14 update, weve lost the paid efficiency wed been working towards, which we had planned to leverage to scale across paid channels, said Choi.

Had iOS14 not impacted targeting capabilities, Choi said Crown Affairs paid ad strategy would have sooner become a bigger piece of the media budget pie. For now, organic strategy will continue to be a priority as the haircare brand looks for alternative ways to measure performance, like revenue against spend.

With the update, Facebook and Instagram are no longer primary marketing channels for sustainable toilet paper and paper towel brand Cloud Paper, said co-founder Ryan Fritsch. The new data privacy updates have hindered our ability to have insights into new customers which has led to lack of attribution, Fritsch said in an email, noting that the changes have led to an inability to optimize ad content and an increase in cost-per metrics across the board.

With a shrinking data pool, these small advertisers are turning toward newsletters, in-house digital content platforms, influencers, brand partnerships and other organic strategies to build brand affinity and re-target online shoppers.

At present, at least half of beauty brand Kulfis marketing dollars goes toward content creators and influencer relationships with the other half dedicated to in-house content creation and public relations. To scale, theyll double down on their efforts like their in-house digital content platform Bite, hoping to layer in paid ads on Instagram next year after, said Priyanka Ganjoo, founder and CEO of Kulfi.

[iOS14] means when we do get into paid, we just have to have a lot more of our own data, said Ganjoo. When we do, well build that attribution because its going to be harder than it was before.

Its a similar story at clean beauty brand Ami Col. Ahead of its launch in May, the beauty brand built up a newsletter with 6,000 subscribers, building its online community via email in hopes to sidestep iOS14 changes, said founder Diarrha NDiaye. Still, the brand spends on social, especially Instagram, regularly tweaking ad spend to maintain its presence on the platform.

Id be lying to you if [I said we] think we have the answer just yet, NDiaye said. Right now, were just trying to figure out what is actually working.

And that is the million-dollar question, marketers say, as its getting harder to justify customer acquisition costs on social media platforms with limited targeting capabilities. Youre talking about locking in like $10,000 a month for multiple months without knowing what the return [on ad spend] would be, said Kulfis Ganjoo. For a small brand, thats a huge commitment.

Theres more crackdown on the horizon with iOS 15 expected to impact email marketing by way of mail privacy protection and Hide My Email features, meaning advertisers will need to continue to diversify their media mix sooner rather than later. Advertisers will need to broaden their target audience and find alternative ways to monitor social performance as new audiences replace the lookalike and retargeting audiences of pre-iOS14 days, said Phil Lewicki, media supervisor at full-service creative agency Dagger.

Agencies and advertisers who have taken a proactive approach to these privacy changes will be on the forefront of creating new segments and strategies to develop or maintain high conversion and engagement rates, he said.

How small, digitally native brands are navigating iOS14 changes across the paid social media landscape

Excerpt from:
How small, digitally native brands are navigating iOS14 changes across the paid social media landscape - Digiday

Just like other forms of marketing, the social media landscape is changing at a quick pace, and in the last three years; it has been revealed that the number of Google searches on influencer marketing has increased by 1500 per cent.

This also indicates that social media influencing is already becoming an industry of its own with stiff competition among its industry players.

It is said to have made over $10 billion in 2020 globally, so ideally there has been a huge investment in the space.

Musa Kacheche, the president of Rotaract Club of Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), says this industry is dominated by people under or in their late 30s, its clear that it could become a key source of income for youth start-ups.

With the acceleration in the use of digital platforms and emerging new digital trends globally, he believes that we are bound to see more and more investments from youth in this industry.

And the youth are the future; so ideally, influencer marketing is definitely going to be key for all industries in the marketing arena, he says.

Kacheche goes on to note that influencer marketing has become popular on social media very quickly. It has even beaten print marketing in terms of popularity on Google Trends, as people with thousands of followers can leverage their audiences and collaborate with brands.

This is because as modern consumers become more and more averse to traditional advertising, influencer marketing emerges as a promising advertising channel, he adds.

Enock Momanyi, an entrepreneur and marketer in Kigali, says influencers can deliver multiple benefits to brands in the form of enhanced visibility, engagement, credibility, and revenue.

Also, he says, it is now known that these influencers also turn out to be more cost-effective than paid advertising, trade shows, and exhibitions.

According to different studies, as the influencer industry becomes more regulated and streamlined, more brands are making it the mainstay of their marketing by formulating always-on campaigns.

Momanyi says the influencer marketing industry is new with opportunities for those who are ready to adapt quickly to the evolving industry trends.

Prince Aime Murara, the deputy secretary-general, Education for Nations and Humanitarian Africa (ENHA)-Girubuntu, says through social media influencers, brands can boost their visibility, reputation, and credibility by collaborating with relevant influencers in their niche.

He also believes that these social media influencers can drive sales by writing product reviews, recommending products, and sharing discounts with their fans and followers.

In a nutshell, he says social media influencer marketing is an advertising strategy for brands of all sizes and scopes.

What to look into

Kacheche says social influencers are quite cost-effective compared to traditional advertising, trade fairs, and exhibitions.

However, he is of the view that the real question to companies using social media influencers to market their products and services will be around ROI (Return on investment).

For instance, he notes that this could be on how do they measure it, where do they capture such data, and how can they use such data to make decisions?

Another thing to look at that may come into play, he says, is regulation.

Like most industries, the influencer market will at some require regulation. One thing about regulation is that it can frustrate innovation and start-ups or it can be a driver of these two, he says.

However, Nkeeto says finding reliable influencers can be quite a challenge given the number of fake accounts on social media.

For this reason, he advises that there is a need to thoroughly analyse each profile and figure out if its genuine or not.

This, according to Nkeeto, can be done by using influencer discovery platforms, as they can make the entire process of finding an influencer simpler.

With the rise of influencer marketing, Nkeeto says, there have been many fake influencers too, as most of them fake partnerships with brands to promote themselves and become real influencers.

Analysing influencers to figure out their authenticity is important. Meanwhile, in a time when it can become difficult to trust influencers, employee advocacy will rise, he says.

Its also ideal for organisations to encourage their employees to talk about the companys brand on social media to promote it among their own groups.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com

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Are social media influencers the future of marketing? - The New Times

Livestreaming has certainly grown in popularity during the pandemic and a report by App Annie titled "The Evolution of Social Media report" found that US$78 billion is expected to be spent in social apps through 2025. Consumers are expected to spend US$6.78 billion via social apps this year, rising to US$17.7 billion in annual spend in 2025, a five-year compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29%.

The increase in consumer spend has been propelled by livestreaming features such as real-time chats, multi-guest rooms and virtual "gifting" have paved the way for creators to boost engagement within social apps. According to the report, livestreaming apps increased market share of consumer spend by 24 percentage points from 2018, forming 76.24% of consumer spend now compared to chat apps (18.81%) and photo and video apps (4.95%). Meanwhile, social apps that offer livestreaming as a prominent feature accounted for US$3 of every US$4 spent in top 25 social apps in the first half of this year.

At the same time, the total time spent on the top five social apps with an emphasis on livestreaming are predicted to surpass half a trillion hours on Android phones alone, outside of China this year. According to App Annie, this is a three-year CAGR of 25% compared to 15% for chat as well as photo and video apps.

The US, Japan and China accounted for 60% of consumer spend in social apps during the first half of the year. The US, in particular, emerged as the top market for consumer spend in social apps, with a spend of 1.7 times more than Japan, which formed the next largest market. The US also represented 30% of total market fuelled by spend in support of content creators and live streamers.Globally, YouTube emerged as the top app with the most consumer spend followed by TikTok, Disney+, Tencent Video, Bigo Live, Twitch, HBO Max, iQIYI, Netflix and QQ Music.

According to App Annie, consumers are willing to pay content creators instead of having professionally produced content due to a shift towards authentic experiences. YouTube and TikTok both surpassed Disney+, which App Annie said is proof that consumers are "opening their wallets to the creator economy at a level [the industry] has never seen before". At the same time, TikTok, Twitch and Bigo live all rank among the top 10 apps by consumer spend, showcasing the rise in gifting.

Meanwhile, the number of social app downloads in Asia in the first half of the year was at 60%, forming the largest region globally. Within Asia, India emerged the top market with five times more downloads than other countries including the US, Indonesia, Brazil, China and Russia. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram were the top five most downloaded apps globally earlier this year.

Short-video, authentic content and livestreaming are key aspects to fostering deeper engagement with consumers and livestreaming, App Annie said, is driving growth in time spent. The number of time spent in social apps in India, for example, grew exponentially over the past three and a half years, shrinking the gap between India and China from 115% in 2018 to 7% in the first half of 2021. Pakistan became the sixth largest market for time spent in social media apps on Android phones, edging out Mexico. YouTube and Facebook emerged as the top two apps where consumers spend their most time on, followed by WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.TikTok, in particular, has overturned the streaming and social landscape, with an average monthly time per user surpassing YouTube in the US and UK. The app is also making significant strides in South Korea where YouTube currently leads by 2.5 times.

Lexi Sydow, App Annie's head of marketing insights, said livestreaming is the new frontier of social media. While heavyweight social media apps continue to command a sizeable portion of the market, new trends such as video, livestreaming and the creator economy are set to change the industry forever, Sydow said.

"Livestreaming is the new social language that facilitates real connections and authentic experiences with the community. We see livestreaming fuelling the boom in the social media space with the potential for tremendous growth in the next five years," she added.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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Excerpt from:
Livestreaming to push consumer spend on social apps to US$17.7bn by 2025 - Marketing Interactive

At a time where entertainers were forced to go on a hiatus due to COVID-19 preventing concerts and large-scale events, you were able to keep music going. When did you begin creating the song?

The song really isn't that old. Country Stuff (his album) was released June 4th. And I would guarantee you that Fancy Like was either written at the end of April or the beginning of May. We had finished Country Stuff and as soon as we finished we were like, all bets are off. Let's just break the rules, and so we wrote Fancy Like, I'm actually sitting in the room where we wrote it on a Monday and we knew it was going on the album that night.

The vocal that's on the track is the vocal that I cut at home that day. When you talk about bringing people together, when I think about creators, when the world is where it is right now, we all just desperately feel hopeless, but artists just want to help. You truly think to yourself How can I write something to help people? You don't think a song about Applebee's is going to be medicine that everybody needs, but you just want to help. I was home longer than I've ever been home in my life and that's what this song is about, it is what we do as a household, as a couple and I doubt I would have written that song if I had been gone doing shows. It came out of a special place and a special headspace. The song is a great distraction from all the division going on in the world.

Applebee's has hooked my family with some sick gift cards, so weve been putting those to use. I mean, why would I go anywhere else? Applebee's has been so gracious! The fact that they had a sense of humor and had fun jumping up and using the song in the commercial was like a consideration to be a part of their family, and we loved it. Applebee's is definitely who we are, so we'll take it.

This memory is priceless, it just wasnt calculated and thats a great lesson to me. My daughter is learning that there's no limit. She realized that that dance she created in a couple minutes with her dad can reach the other side of the earth in a moment and make somebody happy as they learn it with somebody they love. Lela is learning the power of music. I'll do a dance to every song if my daughter wants, to me its really about that. Sweating on the porch with her and laughing every time I mess it up. Were all just on cloud nine and were grateful.

(Laughing) No, I always see [social media apps] as an exciting challenge. You figure one out and then another one comes out. I love the fact that TikTok takes all gatekeepers out of the equation. Just like we did with Fancy Like we literally posted a video and it got to the universe and thats all you can ask as an artist.

As were coming out of it and this song is popping, Im having to say yes to really large exposures, TV spots and stuff. I have to remain true to my priorities and where this came from. This came from being with my family and so its really been challenging. I love the opportunity, but I want to be with my family.

Easy! It really is the Bourbon steak. My family is alarmed if I order something different. I love the quesadilla burger, its really a close second to the Bourbon steak. Always the Oreo Shake, it doesnt matter what I get, I always finish it off with that.

Go here to read the rest:
Walker Hayes on TikTok-inspired viral Applebee's ad - AdAge.com