Each week, I compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, social media, mobile, communications and marketing in order to keep the wider team up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in their jobs. These are those links.
If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below or tag me in Google+. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links in my new This Week in Social Media Magazine.
This week, I've expanded the sections a bit to include a section on content and content marketing. While it gets plenty of play as a buzzword, there's actually much more to this area of the industry, and I thought it deserved its own section.
Industry News
- There's a mismatch between marketing spend and effectiveness in a few key areas. Two are mass media and customer support, which are being overspent on versus their return on investment. Alternatively, email and social are being underspent on while they have a more effective ROI.
- Further reflecting the analysis is a call from WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell, who says that advertisers should significantly cut back on the money they're spending on newspapers and magazines, as consumers aren't spending as much time with those.
- He called Google, Facebook and Twitter "media owners masquerading as tech companies"
- Canadian consumers are continuing to cut back on their subscription TV consumption: 8% of the population can be qualified as "cord-cutters" (up from 7% last year). But they're not giving up TV content; they're turning to the Web for more of their viewing.
- UK teens are putting US teens to shame when it comes to smartphones. Currently, 80% of UK teens have a smartphone, while only 50% of US teens do. The differing cost of data charges probably have something to do with that…
- In Australia, where more than half of the population is on social networks, 82% of them connect with brands via social media. Interestingly, their motivation for following brands differs from the U.S., where the leading driver is discounts or deals.
- Getting customer feedback has never been better, faster or cheaper; but we're too often stuck in the rut of the old fragmented model of data gathering and analysis.
- In the fourth of its Social Brands series, We Are Social takes look at the convergence of mobile and social, with specifics such as mobile subscription rates, device usage, location of use and more. They sum up some principles for mobile marketing:
- Deliver something of value, whether it’s utility, entertainment, or social interaction;
- Take advantage of context, using mobile devices’ portability to offer different experiences depending on where and when people engage;
- Keep things streamlined, with content that’s easily accessible and suitable across a range of different devices and connection speeds;
- Build in device portability, allowing people to continue their experience across phones, tablets and computers if they choose to, especially when sharing things with other people;
- Harness layers of detail, allowing people to enjoy a rewarding experience whether they’ve got just 30 seconds on their work break, or 30 minutes on the bus home.
Content
- Altimeter has a new report: Organizing for Content, which looks at models to incorporate content strategy and content marketing within your business.
- The first rule of Fight Club is "You do not talk about Fight Club." Some would have you believe that the first rule of content marketing is "don't talk about the brand." While that may not be literally true, it's not written in stone either. Some brands are breaking this rule - but are doing so in creative and engaging ways and talking about what they do, not what they sell.
- The creative process is no longer about the ego. With data, testing, web, mobile, social, local and personalization at our fingertips, we have untold resources at our fingertips.
- Mountain Dew is developing branded content through its portal Green-Label.com, which will replace several websites and YouTube channels.
The Platforms
- Tumblr's iOS app for mobile has added the ability to share Tumblr content beyond the platform itself, such as email, Facebook, Twitter and more.
- The White House has launched a Tumblr page, and yes, it includes animated gifs.
- Facebook has a new layout for Pages on its mobile app, meaning that for brands, pinned posts will appear higher and admins will be able to easily switch between public and admin views. For people, it's a cleaner look with more relevant information up front and streamlined ways to interact with Pages. This is a clear nod to Facebook's "mobile first" strategy.
- Facebook is buying Parse, giving it a set of back-end tools and services for mobile app development.
- Nestivity has put together a handy infographic based on an analysis of some 739,000 tweets to give us the the 25 most engaged brands on Twitter.
- For the data geeks among us: some visualizations from Wolfram|Alpha on data science of Facebook.
- Path, a more intimate social network that caps users at 150 friends, is gaining about 1 million new users a week.
- LinkedIn introduced LinkedIn Contacts, a feature that brings together contacts from all of your address books, calendars and email accounts, and combines them with your LinkedIn network, with the ability to program alerts and reminders for things like job changes or birthdays.
- Twitter has opened up its ad service to anyone in the U.S. who would like to pay for promoted tweets or promoted accounts - brands and individuals.
Measurement/Big Data
- The Annenberg School at USC is establishing a global hub dedicated to studying measuring the impact of media - earned, paid and otherwise. The goal is to move beyond views and likes; according to the new director Martin Kaplan, "Those measure how many people saw something. That’s not the same as an outcome."
- Big data isn't just for analytical geeks and product development engineers - HR can have a seat at the table as well: see how big data is playing recruiter for specialized workers.
- How 'social intelligence' can guide decisions: by offering decision makers rich real-time data, social media is giving some companies fresh strategic insight.
Legal/Regulatory
- Dozens of companies are taking advantage of the SEC's newly clarified rules on the use of social media. But none of them is using social media as the sole communications method - only as a supplement to other traditional methods.
Bookmarks/Read-Watch-Listen Later
- Rick Mulready is only six episodes into his Inside Social Media podcast, but he's had some heavy hitters on as guests to date: representatives from Citi, McDonalds, PepsiCo, the City of Chicago and more. Definitely worth a listen.
- Capgemini has released its 14th annual global automotive study: Cars Online: "My Car, My Way," which includes a variety of data such as consumers expect the same level of connectivity and function in their vehicles as in their everyday lives; more advanced personalized dealership experiences; and an increasing role of social media in the purchase path.
- How many of you have been told by a manager, "You need to be doing something in social media"? While you may dutifully do it, if the people on your team (those charged with making the strategy come to life) don't have the skills, passion, ability and belief in it, you may as well quit. As Mitch Joel says, it's like saying, "I have a store and I simply don't have the time or effort to turn the lights on, unlock the door and be cordial to those who want to come in."
- I found this one in the archives from October, but it's very much worth listening to. It's only 25 minutes long, but in this FIR interview, Shel and Neville talk to Jeanette Gibson, Charlie Treadwell and Nancy Rivas from Cisco's Social Media Listening Team. It goes well beyond the tool-centric and "command center" approach and involves processes, people, integrated systems and a unique global digital display system in 15 locations around the world, showing custom content to different audiences.
Commentary
GigaOm's paidContent Live conference had a number of interesting panels with brand representatives from LinkedIn, Tumblr, reddit, Vimeo and more. It was the panel on the state of digital advertising that caught our eye in particular ("Can brands evolve from digital advertisers to mass communicators?"). Jeff Dachis, CEO of the Dachis Corporation, took a bold stand as he challenged brands to go from one-way advertising to two-way conversation.
The crux of the argument is this: brands claim they get social media, but they're just using social platforms as channels to blast messages in front of people. We've taken the mass marketing practice and simply invaded another set of platforms with interruptive advertising. Inserting what are essentially billboards into people’s Facebook feeds doesn't count as true engagement and misses the point of social media.
It seems odd that we’re having this conversation in 2013.
Image credit: teresia (Flickr)
The crux of the argument is this: brands claim they get social media, but they're just using social platforms as channels to blast messages in front of people. We've taken the mass marketing practice and simply invaded another set of platforms with interruptive advertising. Inserting what are essentially billboards into people’s Facebook feeds doesn't count as true engagement and misses the point of social media.
It seems odd that we’re having this conversation in 2013.
Image credit: teresia (Flickr)