Category Archives: Helpful Hints

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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Filed under digital media, Helpful Hints

March 10, 2015 · 10:48 am

Dark Social

I will admit upfront that today’s screed is a little wonky.  You might want to stay with me though – you might just figure something out about your business as we go.  Ready?

The topic today is what’s been called “dark social” traffic.  No, these are not teenagers cruising Main Street late at night.  It refers to people coming to your website based on a link that’s been shared to them socially.  In other words, when I see an article I like and share it with a friend via email or messaging, most web analytic systems don’t really get how the recipient got to the website (although some are beginning to).  Since they clicked on a URL and went directly to the site (not from another website), it’s reported as direct traffic which is a big dumping bin of mostly unknown sources (even though it’s supposed to be users who came by typing the URL or via bookmark).  With me so far?

I did a little exercise on one of my client’s site traffic.  I looked at direct traffic which didn’t enter the site on the home page, an indicator to me of dark social traffic since people don’t generally type in long URL’s.  11% of their traffic was dark social.  With another client it was 34%.  I did some research and it turns out that those numbers are pretty typical – The Atlantic Monthly, which receives 5M monthly uniques, reports 60% of traffic from dark social.  Smithsonian Magazine realized it was 82% of their shares. Why is this important to you?

If you’re spending time analyzing your data to make better marketing decisions – which audiences to target through which channels, which content is socially relevant, etc – knowing what’s being shared and by whom is important.  The client I checked usually has a somewhat older skew and we use that in marketing.  The dark social traffic, however, demonstrates not only a higher rate of sharing of content among younger (18-24) people but also a higher conversion rate.  Very interesting and actionable data point.

The broader point is one you’ve heard before.  We need to spend time thinking about how our customers and potential customers come to and interact with our brand.  We need to formulate good questions and try to answer them with the data.  Data for data’s sake is useless.  Using data to drive actionable business decisions is where we are right now in marketing and business, at least where I and my clients are.  You?

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Filed under Consulting, digital media, Helpful Hints

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February 27, 2015 · 12:11 pm

The Real Thing

The topic is syrup this Foodie Friday – maple syrup specifically.  You might know that I’m a fan of the work done by the Cook’s Illustrated folks.  Despite their incessant hawking of yet another Cook’s product, the work they do is always spot on and I’ve never made anything using one of their recipes that hasn’t been delicious.

Grades of Vermont maple syrup. From left to ri...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They do product tests as well and one of them concerned maple syrup.  To me it also contained a business lesson.  I’ll let them describe the test:

Sold side by side, genuine maple syrup and so-called pancake syrup (made with high-fructose corn syrup) can range from more than $1 per ounce for the real deal to a mere 14 cents per ounce for an imitation. But, price and product names aside, which tastes best? To find out, we pitted four top-selling national brands of maple syrup against five popular pancake syrups, hoping to find the best one for pouring over pancakes or using in recipes.

As you might guess, there was no comparison.  Genuine syrup was easily distinguishable from imitation and was universally preferred in the taste test.  As the Coke people learned a long time ago, consumers can spot and usually prefer the “real thing.”  Fake brands taste “off” even if they are more friendly to the consumer’s pocketbook.  Not only does authentic taste better but it sells better too.

The concept of authenticity has been researched.  A recent paper in the Journal Of Business Research found that quality commitment, sincerity and heritage all contribute to consumers labeling a brand as authentic.  Many brands ranging from food products to vodka to shoes use this notion to market their products and it works.  As a story in the Times reported:

Several studies have shown that authenticity — real or perceived — can affect the bottom line. Brian Wansink, a marketing professor at Cornell University, found that when menu items had geographical or nostalgic labels (“traditional Cajun” red beans with rice, “Grandma’s” zucchini cookies), diners bought them more often and said they tasted better.

The real maple syrup just tasted better.  Isn’t that something we’d want for our businesses too?  We can get there by being real in all of our communications with consumers and holding our products to high standards, even if it means they cost a little more.

Make sense?

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