With the Twitter IPO leading the pack, a flood of important and interesting stories and reports has surged across the digital and social space. Here are some you might have missed. You’re welcome to explore the collection of all the stories from which I choose those appearing here in the Wrap. I save them at my link blog at LinksFromShel.tumblr.com.
It’s time to amp up your use of Google+ hashtags
Those who paid attention to Google’s Hummingbird update have been making significant adjustments to the SEO practices that support their social media marketing strategies. In a guest post for Duct Tape Marketing, Lauren Hogan points to a particular need to increase your reliance on Google+ hashtags. “Using hashtags with your Google+ posts helps optimize your content to display in search,” she says. While Google+ may not be a primary channel for you at this point, Hogan argues that it has become the number two social platform with “just over 50% of the global Internet user market.” She offers five ideas for using hashtags in your content strategy, including simply throwing in “a few hashtags to help support the reach of your post.” She also advises that you connect the dots between your blog, Google+ account and SEO strategy, add tags to photos, add hashtags to comments you make to others’ posts, and to use hashtags pertinent to your business.
YouTube introduces royalty-free music library
Looking for music you can use in your video? YouTube has launched Audio Library, open to everybody, offering a selection of 150 royalty-free tracks you can add to a video production. In a Search Engine Watch story, Carly Page cites a YouTube blog post noting that the video sharing site wanted to make it easier to find great music for your videos. You’ll find the library at here.
Native advertising is coming to AP
Even as scrutiny of native advertising (also known as sponsored content) intensifies, some of the biggest news organizations find themselves unable to resist the allure of revenue that never materialized from paywalls, licensing and other approaches they hoped would offset losses from more traditional forms of advertising. Now, according to Josh Sternberg in a Digiday article, Associated Press will introduce native advertising “into its stream of news and features on mobile apps and hosted websites.” The first native ads will appear in 2014 in the form of text, video and photography. The ads won’t look like AP content—a different approach than some publishers are taking. Instead, “the sponsored content will sit alongside AP material.” Sternberg quotes AP’s vice president of digital advertising strategy and sales, Ken Detlet: “We’re not trying to make people think this is something AP produced. They’ll know it’s something the brand is bringing to the table.” AP will also maintain final approval over stories that appear in its pages “to make sure there are no conflicts of interest.”
Google+ communities can now be private or invitation-only
I host a Google+ community for listeners of the podcast I co-host with Neville Hobson. Anybody can join it, just as anybody has been able to join any Google+ community. On Tuesday, though, Google announced a new feature that lets companies set communities on the number-two social network as “restricted,” allowing organizations if a community can be limited, for example, to just employees. Writing for The Next Web, Emil Protalinski notes that you can also create communities that are open “to people outside of their domain, so clients, agencies, or business partners can join in the discussion. Once a community is created, an employee can share files, videos, photos, and events from Google Drive. Community owners can change settings, manage membership, or invite other team members to join.” Clearly, Google is looking to make Google+ relevant to the enterprise.
What are you doing to nurture your brand ambassadors?
Every marketers dreams of increasing the number of fans who talk up the company, share its content, and recommend its products and services. And well they should, considering 38% of connected consumers “post brand-related photos every day, while 31% post branded-related videos daily,” writes Joe McCarthy at Luxury Daily. Citing executives from Expo Communications and Geometry Global, speaking at ad:tech New York 2013. What’s more, “25% of consumers are brand-connected consumers (BCCs), who post to and about brands at least once a week, shop more frequently and with bigger carts than others and have brand interactions that influence the decisions of ordinary consumers.” Yet most organizations aren’t taking proactive steps to nurture those critically important fans. The speakers—Ken Madden from Geometry Global and Daphne Kwon of Expo Communications—explained that brand advocates are eager to interact with brands, “but also expect brands to seek out such interactions.” Eighty percent of brand advocates believe the brand should acknowledge their contributions; 40% of consumers will buy more from a brand when they’re satisfied with an exchange, versus only one in four who will stop buying from a brand when they’re not happy with the interaction—and 70% will stop buying when a post “venting a dissatisfaction goes unanswered.” With 56% of such complaints getting no responses from companies, that’s a lot of lost sales. Meanwhile, positive interactions “reverberate to other consumers and influence their paths to purchase.”
Online and mobile are key to B2B success
New research from Forrester found that online B2B customers are easier to influence and build loyalty with than offline-only customers. The study, commissioned by SAP subsidiary hybrid, also found that “B2B players that fail to embrace online and mobile as leading channels risk losing market share in the short and medium term, and sustainable competitive advantage in the long term.” The study, appearing in Supply & Demand-Chain Executive, quotes Brian Walker, senior vice president of strategy at SAP subsidiary hybris: “B2B companies must implement effective e-commerce strategies sooner rather than later or risk losing customers to competitors who are already doing so. By recognizing the potential and market value of selling online, B2B businesses will come to find that e-commerce is a goldmine for retaining customers and building loyalty.” The research produced three key finds, including the fact that selling online and on mobile devices represents a major new opportunity in the B2B world. Those that procrastinate are assuming a huge risk, the report found; the research also determined that self-service tools are changing the way in which B2B customers interact with companies. And yet I still keep hearing from B2B communicators that social and digital media just isn’t for them. I wonder what jobs they’ll be doing in five years.
Mobile video’s importance is growing
Instagram’s 15-second videos now represent between 15-30% of Instagram’s total traffic on mobile networks, six times more than Vine, Twitter’s six-second video sharing platform, according to a report from Citrix. Andrew Burger, writing for Telecompetitor, sayd three apps—Media Player, Mobile Browser, and Google Play—account for 83% of Android device mobile data volume, with media Player allow accounting for more than half. Eighty-two percent of data volume is consumed through four apps on the iOS platform: Media Player, Safari, the App Store, and Facebook. Facebook generates “substantially less traffic on Android devices than on iOS devices,” representing 1% of Android traffic and 3% of Android transactions, compared to 5% and 6% respectively on iPhones. The reports also notes that, “Since 2010, we’ve seen a shift from FLV, a laptop-centric format, to MP4 and DASH, which are smartphone-centric formats.” The report reinforces other studies indicating a shift to mobile viewing of videos.
Pinterest is the fastest growing content sharing platform
While many marketers—particularly those outside of the fashion, food and home furnishings industry—continue to put Pinterest low on their lists of social networks to incorporate into their strategies, its importance is only increasing. Business Insider‘s Alison Griswold cites a report from ShareThis that finds Pinterest is “the fastest-growing platform for online content sharing…Content sharing on Pinterest jumped 19.2% in the latest quarter, and LinkedIn sharing grew 15.1%.” Sharing on Facebook rose 14.7%. Twitter—whose IPO yesterday should be deemed a success by any standards—saw its sharing tumble by 7.6%. “The more advertisers understand how consumers are using all social channels — beyond Facebook and Twitter — the more effectively they can use social media to augment and improve campaigns,” ShareThis CEO Kurt Abrahamson says of the report. Interestingly, a Simply Measured report notes that Instagram is the fastest growing social network among marketers. Writing for Inside Facebook, Sonja Hegman notes that ” 71% of the world’s largest brands have adopted Instagram, which now rivals the brand adoption of Google+ and Pinterest.” While marketers may be missing opportunities with Pinterest, the shift toward social visual communication couldn’t be clearer.
Are freelancers’ livelihoods at risk from Google Helpouts?
Google Helpouts, which the company introduced on Tuesday, let users learn from experts about nearly any topic you can imagine. Using live video chat, vendors can establish a cost (by the minute or by the session), or offer Helpouts for free, based on an appointment time or even on demand. Google is offering Helpouts initially to only 1,000 companies, but it will eventually roll out to anybody, with Google taking a 20% cut of any fees organizations charge. Mashable‘s Chris Taylor, though, wonders if the $25 being charged for help with SEO or the 48 cents per minute for help from a strength and conditioning specialist is a threat to people who sell these services for more money today. “Every time you introduce a marketplace for some kind of skilled piecework, the average price goes down,” Taylor writes. “If we’re fine with learning guitar from a guy on a screen—if that’s preferable to getting in the car, driving in the rain, and showing up at some guitar-wielding stranger’s house—what then? Does that mean the death of offline amateur teaching?” It’s a question worth pondering, just as the opportunities for new revenue from Helpouts—and the opportunity for larger organizations to better serve customers—becomes a consideration.
Nestle sets up shop in Silicon Valley
News outlets are closing bureaus, but Switzerland-based food giant Nestle has opened one—or, at least, the equivalent of a news bureau. The company has established an office in Silicon Valley “to enable the company to be closer to digital product developments that may allow the company to better connect with consumers through digital technology and social media,” writes Keith Nunes in Food Business News. I sense some influence from Nestle’s social media chief, Pete Blackshaw, in this very smart decision. I wonder if other companies may follow suit, especially following the tremendous awareness and reputation boost Nestle achieved in its partnership with Google to name the next Android update after the company’s KitKat candy bar.
Is your company missing out on the benefits of collaboration?
Companies that support collaboration across the enterprise achieve impressive results, according to a new study from Oracle; more than two-thirds of the 900 marketing and IT leaders responding to the study—conducted in partnership with Leader Networks and Social Media Today—agreed that collaboration makes them more effective. However, Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog reports that “only 36% of marketing respondents and 26% of IT/technology respondents report collaborating with each other “frequently” on projects. Sixteen percent say the collaboration is non-existent. Interestingly (or, perhaps, not surprisingly), marketers were more likely to report a higher level of collaboration than their IT/technology counterparts. Some 66% of respondents said collaboration, when it works, produces “stronger and more compelling marketing messages, faster speed-to-market, greater product adoption, project cost reductions, and fewer defects in products and services.”