Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

June 30, 2016 · 11:15 am

You Need To Own It

Since today is something called “Social Media Day” (when is it not?), I’d be remiss if I wrote about something other than a big topic in social media. Depending on your perspective, Facebook announced something yesterday that will either have you jumping for joy or throwing your hands up in frustration. As they put it in their announcement:

Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’ve heard from our community that people are still worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about. For people with many connections this is particularly important, as there are a lot of stories for them to see each day. So we are updating News Feed over the coming weeks so that the things posted by the friends you care about are higher up in your News Feed.

Can’t get enough of those pet pictures, I know.  But if you’re a publisher who has carefully cultivated a Facebook community over the last few years, this is really bad news. It decreases the likelihood that your audience will see your posts. When Facebook has become the source of a significant portion of your traffic (research says in the 40% range for many publishers), that’s not good. As an aside, there is more good information on this here.

Of course, the cynic in me wants to remind you that one can always purchase traffic from Facebook via ads and that despite Facebook’s statements that this is only to serve users who want to see those pet photos, it’s really a move to generate more ad activity. That’s fine. Facebook is there to serve its shareholders and it’s a business.

What this should also serve to do is to remind us that we need to own the audience and the platform. We can’t rely on third parties such as Facebook or Google to keep our communities (and content) front and center.  History tells us that the rules will change and that those platforms will come and go (Friendster, MySpace). Your community isn’t a bunch of bedouins who will decamp and follow you anywhere.

I’m always amused when a client asks if they should invest less on their own website and more on building a presence on third parties. You can guess my answer: own it! Do you?

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June 29, 2016 · 11:50 am

Snapping Up Value

The hottest platform in social media these days is Snapchat. I’ve been a user for quite some time and I’m not sure I completely get how to use it yet. I’m amazed by the stories of those who do even if I’m discouraged that they all seem to be under 15.

As with all things eyeball related, advertisers are flocking to Snapchat because FOMO. Snapchat recently surpassed Twitter in terms of average daily users and even Facebook is feeling the heat as evidenced by their development of a Snapchat-like product. When you’re hot, you’re hot! Of course, heat has nothing to do with the success of a business unless it’s translated into revenue and profit, and so the Snapchat folks are actively selling themselves to marketers.  It’s therein where lies today’s business thought.

Advertisers are complaining about both the pricing and investment level needed to gain access to the Snapchat audiences. This from the Digiday folks:

Snapchat started selling ads in late 2014, and early products — one that went to every user and disappeared within 24 hours — cost about $750,000. In 2015, Snapchat brought down the price for video ads to 2 cents a view, or $20 for 1,000 views. This year, prices were back up with premium animated lenses that could cost millions depending on how many an advertiser bought in a given day, and interactive ads, where users can swipe up for more content, cost about $55 for 1,000 views.

I’ll agree that the level of investment required here is steep, even for big brands.  Other than special events, most unit investments in various media don’t require close to a million dollar outlay.  Obviously, and perhaps by design, the pool of advertisers becomes rather limited as well. Providing an API that will let marketers serve ads through third-party technology companies with a smaller outlay makes sense.  But that’s not the business point.

Where I disagree with Snapchat’s thinking is in dropping the CPM. We can’t ever allow price and value to become confused, whether we’re selling media or anything else. This platform has tremendous value – which I measure by both reach and engagement – and to drop pricing is a mistake. It’s the same thinking we faced in my TV days when trying to sell Super Bowl ads. High CPM? You bet. Tremendous cash outlay? Uh-huh. But the value of that exposure is unlike anything else in media, and in the nearly 20 years since I sold my last Super Bowl ad the value has only gotten higher.

The cost/value equation is one everyone in business needs to learn. Have you?

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June 27, 2016 · 11:09 am

An Hour More And Less

More and less? A typo right off the bat? Nope, not a chance. That’s a statement about time, which as I think we all know is a zero-sum game. Even if you don’t sleep there are still only 24 hours in a day. Why this is of note today is a report from the Nielsen folks and the implications the findings hold for you.

The results come from Nielsen’s Q1 2016 Total Audience Report, which you can read here. There is also an excellent summary on Adweek’s site. As the latter states: 

The total media consumption across all devices and platforms jumped one hour from the first quarter of 2015, to 10 hours, 39 minutes. (A year earlier, there had only been a seven-minute year-over-year jump in daily media consumption.) That’s mostly due to smartphone use, which has soared 37 minutes, and tablet use, which has increased 12 minutes. Internet on PC jumped 10 minutes, while multimedia devices, including Apple TV and Roku, were up four minutes. Video game consoles and DVR use was flat, while DVD use dipped one minute and live TV dropped three minutes year over year. Nielsen’s data indicates that consumers aren’t pulling away from linear TV, but instead are making additional time for these new devices.

An hour more each day with media sounds wonderful if you’re in the media business. The real question this raises with me is from where are consumers getting that extra hour? Do you think they’re sleeping less? Leaving work early? Maybe they’re watching on the job (so much for productivity). No, I suspect they’re just not doing something else. Shopping, dining out as much, going to other recreational activities. All this means is that as selective as consumers were in allocating their time to your non-media business they’re going to be even more so. That reinforces the need for all of us to provide value every time we have a consumer interaction or we won’t be having as many down the road.

As an aside, I’ll remind us that most of us, even if we make package goods, are now in the media business. Social sites, home base (your website!), and content we provide to others are all media, so it’s not a lost cause. Obviously, it’s fiercely competitive out there, and the hour more each day that consumers are spending in the space doesn’t mean they’re any less frugal with the time they spend. The job for each of us is to make up for the hour less they’re outside of media where we live and capture their attention within the extra hour they’re spending inside. We can do that through great content, content which is focused on providing value and solving their problems.  Make sense?

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