A New Game: Social Media 2015Jim Tobin, President, Ignite Social Media

@jtobin

Facebook Has Changed The Game

We were told to build a fan base, to be human on Facebook. We were even told to invest $$ to build our fan base.And then Facebook changed the rules. Dramatically.

Twitter May Be Next

Now Twitter is going to move from a pure feed to an algorithmic feed, meaning they’ll have the ability to control brand reach as well.

Instagram Next?

While many of our clients are currently seeing explosive engagement on Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to monetize Facebook assets. That could include an algorithm for Instagram at some point in the future.

Lots Wrong Since 2007

But that’s just today. We started in 2007 with a lot of promise how social media could reinvent marketing. I still agree with that, but we’ve had a lot of missteps along the way. And by we I mean the platforms. Like Facebook, as well as the marketers, like us. Let’s look at what’s gone wrong first.

We’ve Gotten It So Wrong

When I wrote Cocktail Party in 2007, advertising opportunities were limited, so we spent time figuring out how to get anyone to care. As advertising options proliferated, too much money has gone to too many bad ads. Advertising can be effective, it’s not as effective per exposure as organic marketing we were doing.

We’ve Gotten It So Wrong

From a platform perspective, Facebook promised us that their algorithms would be so smart that they’d be able to serve us ads we cared about. That was 2008. By 2013, even Facebook had given up on that. They never mention that any more. A lot of people lost faith when that promise went unrealized.

We’ve Gotten It So Wrong

We all raced to grow our fan counts. Facebook and Twitter share some of the blame here, as they sold that concept to us. But as marketers, too many of us abused it by buying likes, either through like farms or, more often, through poorly considered media buys. Brands killed their own organic reach and engagement.

We’ve Gotten It So Wrong

When Facebook got rid of the default landing tab about 2.5 years ago, a lot of us stopped doing social promotions and too many brands think that social media marketing and content marketing are the same thing. They are not. Content marketing is a subset of social media marketing. Promotions can still drive results.

We’ve Gotten It So Wrong

And finally, Facebook and the other social platforms have hired countless reps. Their job is to sell and I don’t begrudge them that. But for client after client they couch their sales pitch as a “strategy session.” They try to sell the positives, but often don’t know or don’t share negatives of using their platforms certain ways.

Why It Happened

Money

Of course, Facebook went public. Their priority now is their shareholders and by that measure they’re doing great. The stock was at $78 recently. Revenue is up. They bought Instagram as a hedge. They bought WhatsApp as a hedge. So I give them a lot of credit as a business. Just not as social media marketing strategists.

It’s Also Hard

Their plan for social ads failed because it’s too complicated. They had to walk away from that. Edgerank is gone and the new algorithm reportedly considers 100,000 variables. And it’s pretty terrible still. So what they’ve done is Atlas. Beautiful idea for Facebook and ads, but not the real potential of social media marketing.

It’s Also Hard

The other thing that is hard is content. Producing interesting content day in and day out is really hard. These are all client examples and internally we produce hundreds of pieces of content every week. It’s hard. A lot of people got the idea that “free to post” was the same as easy. Good content takes an investment.

It’s Also Hard

Source: Kelly Mooney

I’m not sure the funnel on the left was ever accurate, but today is more like “the fish” on the right. It makes it very hard to track results. One of our clients does it with a sophisticated media mix modeling and shows very strong ROI, but for most people tracking all this is still too difficult. That’s different than “not working.”

It’s Also Hard

Social isn’t one thing, like email. It’s a tool box that can be assembled differently for different purposes. Different platforms have different likelihood of being first touch, last touch, etc. One of my client’s data gave search all the credit. But that discounts activities that got people to search initially, including TV, social, etc.

So What Do We Do About It?

A lot of this can sound discouraging, but I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a couple years. In a lot of ways, this is a brand new industry. Advertising is over 100 years old. Social media marketing is somewhere under 10 years old and the technology has changed so dramatically that turbulence shouldn’t be a surprise.

Be Realistic

Source: 140 Proof & Media Lab

The first thing to do is be realistic. Not every brand has great content to share on a regular basis. Not every brand has the same sales funnel. Not every brand sells through the same channels. So our approach has to vary based on not only the industry that we’re in, but our own capabilities to participate in the space.

Marketing vs. Advertising

What do people trust when they buy: the kind of content that gets produced from really good social media marketing. When you get people showing uses for your product, that’s the trusted stuff. What’s the least trusted? Ad… ad… ad…. It’s not that ads don’t work. They don’t work as well as great social media marketing.

Organic vs. Paid

76%

Lift

28%

Lift

Seeing organic content on Facebook leads to a 76% lift in likelihood to visit that brand’s website than those who don’t. Paid exposure leads to a 28% lift. Advertising works. Organic works better. Why? The psychology of “Discovery” and the Momentum Effect.

Organic vs. Paid

55%

Lift

No

Lift

Similarly, seeing organic content on Facebook leads to a 55% lift in likelihood to search for branded search terms than those who don’t. Paid exposure leads to no statistically significant lift.

Marketing vs. Advertising

Source: Vision Critical: From Social to Sale http://www.visioncritical.com/sites/default/files/pdf/whitepaper-social-to-sale.pdf

Over 30% of

Facebook, Twitter,

and Pinterest

purchasers noted

social was how

they discovered

the product.

Over 25% of these

received more

information on the

product within

socialThe more data that we have on social related to purchase decisions, the more proof we have that people discover products this way and buy as a result. Is social the only piece of the new fish-funnel thing? Of course not, but it is without a doubt the most credible piece and, increasingly, a piece that contributes to sales.

Marketing vs. Advertising

People connected with brands on social, have the highest likelihood to buy again

Source: Facebook 2012 Survey

We also know that our fans and followers on social channels are better customers. Chicken or the egg? Who cares…The people who have opted to engage with us on social are more likely to recommend and more likely to buy again. Regardless of how or why they got there, they are your best customers. Talk to them.

Move Beyond the Embassy

We all have to think about content first. What do we have to say? Who cares? Where are those people gathering? Does the content fit with the platform? Can we produce it regularly? That’s the strategic discussion. It may end with on how to use Facebook versus Twitter, but we can’t start with an embassy mentality.

Content Facilitation

Organish™ Media: A two-pronged approach to targeting audiences that combines the power of natural, social media connectivity, and efficient paid efforts with each one leveraging the other to provide a unique, branded experience that influences purchase behavior.

Yes, we need a paid media budget for social today. But the best way to do is “Organish.” Creating content that is designed to perform well organically and then boosting the best content drives fantastic results for our clients. Dramatically lower costs and big increases in reach.

Organish™ is a trademark of Ignite Social Media

Content Facilitation

Source: Zuberance, 2013

Influencers Matter

• Blogs were found to be the third-most influential digital resource when making overall purchasing decisions, only behind retail sites and brand sites. (Technorati, 2013)

• Advocates tell 2X as many people about their purchases than non-advocates. (Comscore)

• Word of mouth recommendations are the primary factor behind 20-50% of purchasing decisions(McKinsey)

• 74% of marketers report they will deploy “influence marketing strategies as part of their marketing mix in the next 12 months. (SenseiMarketing)

Since content is hard, we need to think more about content facilitation. What content can our fans create? Customers? Influencers? Internal folks? Various agencies? Influencers also bring tremendous credibility with their content. They’re another form of native advertising.

Content Creation

A lot of people work with influencers to get content created on their channels. There are all sorts of influencer networks out there. The surprising part of working with the right folks, however, can be the quality of the content that you get. This is something we did for Apothic White.

Content Syndication and Aggregation

But too many influencer programs leave the content sitting there. Our program involves content aggregation, syndication, secondary syndication and content repurposing. Locking content on a single influencers blog is leaving half the meat on the bone.

Content Everywhere™

Search volume has flattened as people discover content on social. A leaked New York Times internal

report showed that the home page has lost ½ of its traffic, although total site traffic is flat.

Content Everywhere™

Content is now discovered. And Discovery leads to the Momentum Effect. Here are two programs we did. Tens of millions of impressions, but we’ve also got Content Everywhere. So whether on the influencer site, social channels, brand channels or more, we dramatically increase the likelihood of this content being discovered.

It’s Up to Us

We Can Make Ads

Again, ads can work. Jon Loomer had a great piece on what Copyblogger should have done instead of shutting down their FB page. And FB ads were a big part of it. Sometimes a bad Click Thru Rate is enough to generate Positive ROI. Just don’t call it social media marketing. It’s basic retargeting.

Or We Can Reinvigorate Marketing

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6991-native-advertising-tips.html http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/08/17/consumers-trust-branded-content-much-they-trust-editorialOur corporate vision is “to reinvent marketing through social media.” Advertising is broken. We have banner blindness. We measure impressions for ads that surround good content. But if marketing IS the good content, people trust it more. We can do better as marketers, and get better results.

Involving New Models

We have to do two things: 1) we have to leave room for trusting our gut, as not everything that matters can be measured; but 2) we also have to work together to create new models for measuring the real impact of social. It won’t be easy, but if social really touches on all the stages of the McKinsey Loop, we need to show that.

Involving New Models

Source: Gigaom

At Ignite Social Media, we’re also working to build a new model that quantifies the attention paid to various marketing efforts. Because marketers don’t want to buy CPMs, or buy likes or shares. They want people to pay attention to their brand. For 2015, we’re working hard to be able to quantify that.

The Path Winds

When people say “social isn’t working,” my question is, “Compared to what?” Our programs drive results, and have steadily. But the programs we did 3 years ago, we wouldn’t necessarily do today. The path winds and that can be exhausting, but it’s also exhilarating. The journey is worth the trouble.