Category Archives: digital media

March 24, 2015 · 12:13 pm

It’s A Mobile World

Some new numbers from the eMarketer folks caught my eye this morning. They released their projections for digital ad spending for the next few years and they show that in 2015, mobile ad spending in the US will increase 50.0%, reaching $28.72 billion and accounting for 49.0% of all digital ad spending. By 2019, mobile ad spending will rise to $65.87 billion, or 72.2% of total digital ad spend.  As they put it:

Next year will be the tipping point where mobile ad spending surpasses desktop. And while desktop advertising will remain a significant portion of marketers’ budgets—approximately $25 billion in each year throughout eMarketer’s forecast period—mobile will continue growing in the double digits to gain more and more market share while desktop spending remains flat.

If you’re doing business outside of the US it’s pretty safe to say that mobile has already passed desktop since most populations outside of North America don’t really have desktops/laptops and rely almost solely on their mobile devices for internet connectivity.  Why is any of the above important to you?

If your business model relies on selling audiences of your content and you haven’t optimized every touchpoint for your content, you are going to be missing the boat.  If your mobile experience is inferior or if you’re depending on mobile web as opposed to investing in an app, you probably ought to revisit your thinking.  Now!

Google has recently updated the search algorithm to rank pages by how mobile friendly they appear. If all you’re doing is porting your desktop experience to mobile, you’re not being smart.  In mobile emphasis needs to be on performance and speed.  Get rid of large header images and use minimalistic design with flatter images.  OK, I won’t get too wonky but the point is you need to ask about this stuff if you’re not the technical expert.

When 3/4 of a market sits in one sector, I want to do everything I can to be participating in that segment.  I’m one of a lot of people who have written before about the need for mobile-first thinking.  Have you been paying attention?  What have you done about it?

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March 23, 2015 · 10:08 am

Willie Sutton And TV

Let’s start this week with a little history lesson. You probably haven’t heard of Willie Sutton. According to Wikipedia, William Francis “Willie” Sutton, Jr. (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980) was a prolific American bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison.

English: Willie Sutton (1901-1980) Source http...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is a famous quote attributed to Sutton (he swore he never said it) who reputedly replied to a reporter’s inquiry as to why he robbed banks by saying “because that’s where the money is.” I’ve always remembered that because it’s a great way to stay focused when shiny new business options emerge.

One shiny new option these days is the plethora of Over The Top video services. You have probably heard about the one forthcoming from Apple, and HBO, CBS, Sony and others are already in the marketplace. The short version of why these things exist is so one can cut the cable cord, freeing oneself from the “bundle” of unwanted but paid for TV networks. If I’m a cable TV provider – most of whom are also internet service providers – I’d welcome these services with open arms and some of them are. Cablevision, for one, is offering the new HBO Now online service to its internet customers, even though the service could persuade more people to drop their cable TV packages.

Keeping the Sutton Rule in mind, where the money lies is in providing high-speed bandwidth at a reasonable price.  It costs the ISP pennies per gigabyte.  Charging a customer $50 a month for something that costs you maybe a tenth of that is a pretty good business.  Compare it with providing cable TV where you’re charging a little more but your margins are much smaller due to having to pay most of the networks you provide a monthly fee per customer.  You still pay ESPN $8 a month for each of those grandmas with cable who never tune it in.

I’m assuming for a moment that the customer service and install/repair costs are a wash.  You’re going to have those techs and phone banks no matter which service you support.  The real question in my mind is when will some cable company get out of the TV business and go ISP only.  Will that kill the content providers?  Nope.  One could argue they will come out ahead too since many of them receive far less on a per user basis from the cable guys than they might charge direct to the consumer albeit to a smaller but more engaged base.

The interesting times keep coming, don’t they?

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March 16, 2015 · 11:44 am

Don’t Be Boring

One of the constant challenges in using social media for a brand is building and maintaining your user base. In addition to your website, social is owned media and like any medium a bigger megaphone is better. OK, so not really an appropriate metaphor for social since we’ve talked repeatedly about the need to converse and not lecture in social, but you take my point. We don’t want people leaving the party before we have a chance to meet them and chat them up.

So why do people unfollow brands in social? Glad you asked because the folks at Buzzfeed and Fractl surveyed 900 social media users to find out why users unfollow, and what behaviors companies should avoid.  The short answer is you’re boring:

21 percent of survey participants said they unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content. 19 percent say they would unfollow a brand on Facebook if the brand posted too often – more than six times a day. Other activities that cause users to unfollow are offensive activity by brands, and content unrelated to the brand.

That’s from the Social Times report on the study.  It’s a fairly widespread issue.  Over 25% of people report unfollowing a brand on Facebook in the last month and 12% of Twitter users did so in the last few days.  I’m not sure that this should come as a great shock to any of us.  No one likes to be bored or offended or badgered, whether in social media or at a cocktail party.  The problem is that many of us who manage content in those channels (social, not cocktail parties!) aren’t even aware that we’re being unfollowed.  But there are tell-tale signs.

Do you monitor engagement?  Every social platform gives us analytics.   Has there been a change in how people are reacting to your content?  Fewer shares?  Users tend to be quiet about their activities – they may just block you from their news feed or remove you from a Twitter list so you don’t get noticed.  When was the last time you looked at these data points to see if there has been a change?

Whether it’s social media or email (which suffers from a lot of the same issues according to the study), we have to converse and engage.  We can’t be boring or soon we’ll be speaking to an empty room.  That’s not our goal, is it?

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