Mediaboss Marketing

Kristina: So, you are not just adding up the social mentions as a measure of brand performance?

Sree Nagarajan, CEO, Affinity Answers: No, in fact Affinity Answers pioneered a brand interaction metric that indicates the strength of active, mutual engagement between two brands' audiences over time and approaches the concept of social-affinity uniquely, recognizing that only mutual affinity - your brand's fans liking a TV show, for example, and in turn, enough of that TV show's fans liking your brand - as the key to identifying a brand's most qualified addressable audiences. We do this by measuring the level of reciprocal, highly interactive social media activities (such as commenting, posting photos, retweeting, hash tagging or replying) between two brand audiences showing which fans of one brand have the highest affinity for the other brand. In doing this we track 60,000 brands across 400 million users worldwide.

Kristina: What is a typical use case?

Nagarajan: Our data can be used for activation, planning and measurement applications. Activation provides addressable, brand-specific audience data in programmatic platforms. Planning enables the matching of contextually relevant media with brands, as well as insight-driven strategies based on brand affinities. Quite often, audience extensions are built off of demo-based lookalike models, which tend to underperform compared to audience extensions built off of social affinities or what we refer to as "act-alike" modeling. By scoring any cookie- or device ID-based audience according to social engagement (aka "act-alike" modeling) we can predict which audiences will be receptive to your brand and are therefore more likely to respond favorably than the average consumer. We enable branding at scale through these high-performing "act-alike" segments for programmatic video and display, social, or TV advertising.

Kristina: Can you identify a brand's best "influencers" in social media?

Nagarajan: Our BrandPlanner app allows users to observe changes in brand affinities and gain a quick understanding of the strongest and weakest affinities across all 60,000 brands. So we can help brands clearly identify which social influencer (or music performer, celebrity, athlete, etc.) has the strongest relationship with their brand. We rank them by the strength of their affinity scores providing a roadmap for brands to ID who to hire for promotions or perhaps sponsor in their athletic endeavors. Moreover, our dataset is a cross-channel recommendation engine that informs marketers about their audiences' preference for thousands of TV shows, websites, apps, movies, and other consumer brands. This is actionable data that goes well beyond demographic targeting.

Tags: Affinity Answers, social marketing, social marketing ROI, social marketing trends

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Expert: 'Likes' aren't the value of social - BizReport

At first a way for families and friends to stay in touch, social networks have become a place for consumers to also stay in touch with brands, find new products, and share favorite items from birthdays and other holidays. All that use is making social media a must-have for brands. One of the more recent social additions is video-based SnapChat, which is showing steady growth not only with teens, but in the Millennial demographic, as well.

In the SnapChat infrastructure, more than half of branded content (61%) is in video format, that is a 5% increase since Q1 2016.

"Snapchat is unique because it allows businesses to connect with people in the moment and offer a different brand experience," said Thomas Cilius, founder and CEO, Snaplytics. "It's the only social network where marketers aren't seeing a decline in reach. With 161M daily active users on Snapchat, brands are quickly learning this is the go-to outlet because it allows them to engage their brand ambassadors and deliver content that really resonates with people, in real-time."

Other interesting findings from the report include:

Snapchat stories average 11 snaps each On average, brands post to Snapchat 2x/week 88% of Snapchat users are completing videos/snaps, up 4% QoQ

The full report can be found here.

Tags: SnapChat, SnapChat tips, Snaplytics, social marketing, social marketing tips

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Study IDs best practices for brands entering SnapChat - BizReport

Many marketing executives at IT service companies will tell you that marketing strategy development is a lot more complicated than it used to be.

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As IT service providers make plans to prioritize their marketing efforts in 2017, they are finding that not only has the explosion of social media created more channels to broadcast their message, but some say the variety of platforms being offered has complicated their decision to find the right place to air their message effectively.

The growing use of YouTube, Facebook and other social media marketing outlets, along with the rising importance of blogs, content marketing, case studies and webinars have joined the more traditional marketing approaches such as networking at trade shows, lunch and learns, telemarketing campaigns and direct mail outreach as formidable ways to reach new clients.

"I am seeing the best-of-breed service providers using a combination of everything to get their marketing message across," said Stuart Crawford, CEO at Ulistic LP, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based marketing firm that represents managed service providers (MSPs). "Companies are using lunch and learns, virtual seminars, trade show and speaking engagements with executives in various vertical sectors, but they are also getting engaged on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to get their message across."

Crawford's observations reflect the findings of The CMO Survey's research which found that spending on social media has more than tripled, from 3.5% to 11.7% of marketing budgets from 2009 to 2016.

One company that has made the decision to use social media marketing platforms as the main delivery mechanism for its communications strategy this year is Foursys Ltd., an IT security servicescompany based in the United Kingdom. Still, Andy Wool, marketing manager at Foursys, told SearchITChannel that his company will continue to invest in traditional activities that have yielded results in previous years, such as events, webinars and outbound marketing.

"In 2017 we'll be spending equal amounts of resources, and more than we have ever invested before, on content marketing, specifically video, search engine optimization and paid content promotion across social platforms," Wool said. "YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world and we plan on utilizing that platform in the coming 12 months."

While companies are deciding what tools they'll use to get their message across, marketing executives also have to contend with the dynamics that come with the introduction of new technology and the trickle-down impact that forces channel companies to offer new products and services to stay competitive. This, in turn, affects how they'll market themselves for future growth.

Whether they are providing platforms for the internet of things market, offering cybersecurity offerings in the age of ransomware, scouting for potential clients looking for artificial intelligence solutions, hoping to win new customers with cloud computing or exploring blockchain technology, convincing clients that their company is the best IT service provider to do the job can be a tough sell in a crowded market.

The biggest challenge a value-added reseller faces is the breadth of products they have available to market. Andy Woolmarketing manager, Foursys Ltd.

For many IT providers that offer a variety of technologies, developing a message that clearly states how all the products and services being offered will work to solve a customer's business needs adds another layer of complexity to marketing strategy development.

"The biggest challenge a value-added reseller faces is the breadth of products they have available to market," Wool said. "They could literally send a marketing message a day and that still won't be enough to cover all areas of service. Devising a VAR marketing strategy that's most optimal for the goals of the business and minimizes opportunity cost is a challenge even the most experienced channel marketer will struggle with -- unless they're very specialized."

The ability to convey what an IT provider can offer has given rise to what Crawford describes as educational marketing, which calls for IT service companies to educate the business community on how to cost effectively implement technology, how the technology will align with their business goals and what they can expect the return on investment to be in the months after a technology implementation is completed.

"It's not a sales approach, it's an educational approach and that takes longer," Crawford explained. "Sometimes it takes three to six to eight months for a business to understand how the technology will improve their operations. The immature managed service company will throw in the towel long before they start realizing the true benefit of an effective educational marketing strategy because their patience runs out or they just run out of cash."

For Stanley Louissaint, president of Fluid Designs Inc., who is also the sole marketing executive at the IT service provider based in Union, N.J., the top item on the agenda this year is face-to-face networking events and speaking engagements, which will allow him to convey his message to smaller audiences.

But there's also a social media component to Fluid Designs' marketing strategy development effort. This year, Louissaint said he'll continue to use Facebook's advertising platform, which can locate companies in the vertical markets he wants to reach, identify the names of executives he wants to connect with and geographically locate businesses that are in close proximity to his office.

Facebook will be particularly helpful, Louissaint said, in supporting his plan to target law offices that have between five to 100 employees.

"With Facebookyou can drill down and select the audience you want to target and that gives you the ability to control how your marketing dollars are spent because you are not casting a wide net," Louissaint said. "Facebook also provides helpful metrics. For example, if somebody views or clicks on my Facebook ad that activity is tracked."

Louissaint added that looking for an easy way to market his company is important and one of the reasons why he hasn't approached manufacturers for market development funds (MDF). He added that while securing MDF should be helpful in supporting marketing strategy development, the process required to secure these funds take a lot of time and effort and the money is tied to a set of requirements that may not always be beneficial to his company.

"Having to go out there and find marketing development funds takes a lot of work," Louissaint said. "Another problem is once you find MDF dollars you discover a lot of manufacturers have limitations on what you can do. They don't necessarily support every marketing idea you have to use those funds."

Crawford, who once ran an MSP, said scouting for MDF dollars often means that in order to demonstrate that you can sell their technology, vendors want to see that your company's IT staff possesses the technical skills to understand the applications and services vendors offer.

"That's a challenge for a lot of smaller MSPs that just don't have a sales volume," Crawford said. "Another hurdle is that many vendors want you to be an advocate for them and commit to saying that you won't sell any other solution but theirs. A lot of vendors have reservations that they are going to distribute marketing funds to solution providers and then they're going to shift that money to assist with implementing another solution."

As IT service providers seek the best way to fund their marketing plans, and drive an effective marketing message, one thing is constant -- all the marketing channels are not going away, Crawford said.

"Different people respond to different messages that are presented in different ways," Crawford said. "Marketing has to be painted with a very broad brush to hit all the senses. Some people like to read, some people like to visualize and some people like to hear your voice. But at the end of the day, no matter what tools you use to convey your message, effective marketing still involves talking to the client about how to achieve their business objectives and business targets and that hasn't changed."

Read our Essential Guide on partner marketing

Learn why channel marketing strategy development is important for partners

Find out how a SaaS vendor tapped channel partners for international marketing

Read more here:
Marketing strategy development: Partners ply social, traditional ways - TechTarget

Forbes

How To Target Three Generations With Social Marketing, Not Stereotypes Forbes Millennials don't exist, and neither do Baby Boomers or Gen Xers -- at least, not the way Time Magazine, CNN or any major news outlet depicts them. Generations, after all, are just groups of people. How they respond to historical events is how you once ... and more »

Link:
How To Target Three Generations With Social Marketing, Not Stereotypes - Forbes

For the past four years, myself and three other marketers have met frequently to talk shop. Weve celebrated a variety of milestones together -- promotions, an engagement, our childrens birthdays. What had originally begun as an opportunity to learn from other professionals, has grown into a valuable friendship.

While were all marketers, we each come from different industries. In the winter of 2014, I worked at a B2B software company. At the time, the other men and woman were involved in manufacturing, recruiting and higher education. On paper, our backgrounds were similar. As senior leaders, each of us had experience in recruiting and building cross-functional teams, implementing strategy, growing and retaining markets. One of the only significant differences we encountered was how each of our organizations approached social media marketing.

Related: 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

One week, over a drink, hummus and chips, Maureen began to tell us about a new initiative that was being proposed at the university where she worked. They had planned to launch a specific Twitter handle targeted at freshmen and transfer students. The goal was to help new students become more acclimated and increase involvement in extracurricular activities during their first semester. Through personalized blog content, a weekly Twitter chat and contests the marketing team hoped to both inform and retain students.

Are you guys doing anything to educate your customers? Maureen asked.

The table grew silent. Myself and the men in manufacturing and recruiting shook our heads.

No.

At the time, the B2B software company I worked at saw social as one of two things: an extension of its existing customer care efforts or an advertising channel. Whether it was a response to a negative inquiry or an announcement about an offer, everything we published was reactive or promotional. We werent proactively doing enough to retain customers or encourage brand loyalty. Looking back, this was a huge oversight that caused our ROI to suffer.

Shortly after that meeting, I left the software company I was at and became the chief marketing officer at Sprout Social. Still, Maureens question stuck with me. One of the first questions I asked our marketing team was, What are we doing to educate our customers? Unlike myself and the three other marketers from my meetup, the team had an answer. I knew I had a lot to learn.

Related: Why Every Marketing Channel Won't Work for Your Business

Working at a social media company taught me that social doesnt have an ROI problem; it has an attribution problem.Rather than a direct pipeline to profits, marketers need to think of social as a building block that has the power to support, inform and accelerate nearly every aspect of your business.

To help uncover ROI, we focus on three analytics that illustrate socials impact beyond marketingproduct development, customer retention and referrals. So, how do we do that?

Social democratizes and diversifies the feedback loop for brands. It widens your focus group from a small subset of people who have the time and willingness to give feedback to a large group of engaged customers who are invested in your brand.

While social is a scalable, cost-effective way to collect demographic data, that feedback is wasted unless brands learn to apply that insight to their business. A Kalypso study onSocial Media and Product Innovationrevealed that while 70 percent of brands surveyed intend to use social for research and development, only 33 percent have a plan in place that allows them to apply those learnings. Furthermore, if there isnt a solidified feedback funnel, the social media team loses its opportunity for attribution. Which makes it even harder for them to prove socials organizational value.

Quantifying socials impact on R&D isnt as difficult as you might think. AtSprout Social,our team tags all inbound social messages that contain product ideas or feedback. Were then able to run a report that aggregates those tagged messages and provides meaningful and actionable customer data to our product team. From there, our engineers can develop a product that is tailored for our users needs and addresses their pain points. And we all know that a better product leads to larger profits.

Related: How to Target the Right Audience in 5 Simple Steps

Maureens question reiterated that CMOs arent paying enough attention to retention. A recent study from Duke University corroborated that CMOs are more likely tofocus their resourceson customer acquisition vs. retention. Proving these efforts are misguided, Harvard Business Review has cited that itsfive to 25 times more costlyto acquire new customers than to retain existing ones.

Throughout my time at Sprout, Ive learned that social is a front line to customer retention. It provides a personality to a faceless brand. The two-way conversation that social provides allows even moderately engaged customers to feel like they have a direct line of contact to your business. As a result, brands that use social media to interact with existing customers generate a higher Net Promoter scoreby an average of 33 points and increase customer spending by20 percent to 40 percent.

But how can you translate that value into a measurable impact on your business? Frankly, it requires breaking down departmental silos and encouraging collaboration across internal teams -- two actions that are proven to be extremely difficult for even the most agile companies.

Your sales and marketing teams should work to collaborate and track increased retention among customers who engage with your brand on social. Sure, its not easy, but strategizing and mapping out a cross-functional plan with your digital marketing, email, database and sales team will allow you to correlate data and accurately attribute retention to social. From there, you can start to understand the full picture of your efforts and compare those customers with your average retention rates.

Related: Are Your Employees on Social Media? Here Are 4 Reasons They Should Be

Referrals are one of the oldest forms of marketing, and social casts a wider net on the act of simply telling your friends about a cool new product. Now you can turn on your smartphone and immediately send a Tweet to Virgin America that shares your thoughts with over 700,000 Twitter followers. Social is one of the most frictionless means of referral. It is scalable for a business and requires minimal work for the consumer. What other medium provides that?

One positive customer experience on social, amplified, could trump your million-dollar ad buy for the Super Bowl.Its a real-time, human-driven platform that can invoke the interest of a global audience or international media outlet in a matter of minutes. Its the best medium weve ever had for engaging with customers and, in many ways, its still in its infancy stages.Thats why organizations that are still using social as an extension of their traditional advertising tactics come across as stale and, quite frankly, lazy.

With the simple additions of UTM codes and by taking advantage of advanced tracking, your brand can quickly and easily launch and measure a social referral program that benefits your business and its customers. Unlike email, phone or direct mail marketing, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram enable a brands consumer base to become a massive word of mouth machine. And, sinceword-of-mouthis the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions, business shouldnt be ignoring socials impact.

Scott Brandt is the CMO atSprout Social, a leading provider of social media engagement, advocacy and analytics solutions for business.

Read more here:
What Working at a Social Media Company Taught Me about ROI - Entrepreneur