Monday 30 March 2009

Data Driven: Video 8 :1 over Banner Ads

The data is in from Adtech. 10 billion clicks were counted from across Europe and what early analysts predicted is now being proven true. Banner advertising is on the decline in effectiveness and video is on the rise. Banner advertising CTR has fallen from .4% approximately a year ago to .2% at the end of 2008. Whereas video continues to gain the consumer's attention with an average CTR of 1.7% and climbing. This is 850% better than traditional banner advertising.



http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006969

The Latest Ad Click Count - eMarketer via kwout


Additionally, video use on commercial websites is quickly approaching 100%. A recent survey of vertical sites showed that, on average, 79% of sites surveyed where using video. 59% had it placed on their home page. A number of factors is motivating this movement. The first is technology. Streaming video no longer places a burden on infrastructure and many SaaS provide hosting often for free. Second is that video is a powerful communication tool. It captivates and engages more effectively than print or still images by engaging several senses at once with the attraction of movement.




It should not come as a big surprise that people enjoy video. We have been captivated by movies for a very long time and most of us were raised by TV. It only stands to reason that it would become our online communication tool of choice.

Friday 27 March 2009

Social Media: Playing to the strengths of People

It has been long known that different people learn in different ways. In university psychology these "different ways" were called modalities. We all know that some of us prefer to read while others can listen with precision and others prefer waiting for the movie to come out. This is one of the great flexibilities of social media; it can be all of these and more. Additionally, improving the impact of a message can be greatly enhanced by delivering the message in different ways at the same time. Example: mixing pictures and text or video and subtitles. In a recent study a huge increase in viewing time of videos was demonstrated by adding subtitles, mixing video and text.


When we think about it, most of us know this makes perfect sense. Demonstrating once again, that going back to our psych 101 text books can give insight into the workings of social media. Much can be gained by understanding people. After all Social Media is about "Social". We as an industry do not need to be Psychologists or University professors to figure this out. It usually is no more complex a problem then looking to our friends, family and ourselves to see what they "are doing". Often we will find a discrepancy between what we want to believe people will do and like and what is the real situation. After all we all want to believe that the work we produce is the best. However, in real life, probably only our mother will love it without question and for everyone else the jury is still out. Pragmatics is the success to Social Media. KISS.

Much Success,

Doug

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Social Media Example: Global Real Estate Investment

IP Global's Managing Director is very charismatic and knowledgeable when it comes to international real estate investing. It was a logical fit that he should utilise video to fully capture his compelling delivery of current real estate investment insights.

IP Global has a long standing in Asia as a premier real estate investment group by creating wealth through sound real estate investments for their clients. With ever increasingly geographically diverse investment opportunities and an increasingly mobile investor group, moving their messages online seemed the right choice. Starting with a redesigned website that provided deeper information was a first start. But to relay timely information to clients a podcast was recognised as a highly effective tool.

IP Global is looking to produce regular updates of their investor podcasts to keep their savvy investor base up to date with economic and invest information in a manner that is quick, concise and portable.

Below is the first podcast released to the public. It was posted across a large number of strategically targeted Social Media sites to ensure that what sites their investors are most comfortable viewing their information they will be readily available to them.




Sunday 15 March 2009

Social Media Monetisation and equivalent media buy

There has been much talk on how to monetise social media marketing techniques. The amount of speculations does seem warranted based on the industry figures associated with social media marketing and the vast amount of money that potentially is up for grabs.

  • Growing at a rate of 2:1 over other internet activity
  • Second most trusted source of brand information
  • Video growing at 50% year on year
  • Video based marketing enjoys higher CTR
  • Digital budgets grow while print, radio and TVC shrink
If you operate a social media platform (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) the answer may be a bit foggy. But if you are an social media marketing agency the answer is clearer; equivalent media buy!

When discussing the costs and advantage of social media compared to other online strategies it is often about comparing apples to oranges. Social media is about engagement and consumer content, whereas paid search and display ads, SEO and SEM work differently. Making the argument for the benefit of social media can sound a bit esoteric when the bottom line is at stake.

However, if you engage in a results based discussion
  • Search engine results
  • CTR
  • Conversion
then an apple to apple comparison can be made against existing SEO, SEM, paid search and display ad budgets. So sell social media's clear advantage over traditional and familiar online marketing strategies where you can capture existing budget by proving equal or improved results instead of attempting to sell the "unknowns" of social media. Once the sale has been made then the additional value of social media will become immediately clear and evident and will sell itself going forward.

Prosperity Research has activated hundred's of social media campaigns and a summary of the finding shows a cost comparison against paid search and displays ads as:

Social medial campaigns average about US$ .12 per view/ click
Industry rates of .1% CTR for display US$ 1.25 per click
Average cost of key search term in 3-6 space US$ 1.00

In summary, our survey of campaigns based on apple to apple comparison of results show that social media costs can be significantly less than traditional forms of online marketing.

Friday 6 March 2009

Social Media meets Public Relations

Are you in PR and wonder what Social Media's impact is? Well Douglas White and Simon Taylor shed light on this hyper hyped area from very different backgrounds. Learn what they believe is the factor for success. the Hong Kong PR Network hosted this event February 2009.



Monday 2 March 2009

Social Media predicting human behaviour

One of the great advantages to social media is that it is social. The rules, norms and activities are similar to our everyday life. It is about meeting, sharing, building relationships and generally following basic forms of etiquette. This provides social media experts a wealth of established scientific information to draw upon from the fields of psychology and sociology. Coming from a behavioural psychology I immediately picked up on this in the early days. Whereas, human behaviour appears to be somewhat unpredictable it, in fact, can be very predictable. At a minimum we have well established guidelines to follow that allow us to manage expectation on what people may or may not do.

What I see for many social media campaigns is unrealistic expectations towards consumer contributed content. It appears that many establish their campaigns around having lots of consumers upload, comment, rate or do some other activity. When in fact research holds true that, in general, people are not that participatory unless pushed. The chart below of a recent study reinforces that only about 9% of consumers contribute as much of 80% of the content and the rest tend to watch.



Social media is able to create impressive amount of consumer interest. However, people will be people and setting expectations realistically will help both consumers and business achieve a more satisfying experience.