Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Fri, Feb 03, 2012
Everyone is talking about social sharing site Pinterest – The New New Thing. It is a very fast growing site with over 11 million visits in December, a 40X increase in six months. You get the feeling it’s starting to hit critical mass and will go mainstream and big time in 2012. The demos of the site skew heavily to women 25-54 and have a higher concentration in the Midwest, where the site has roots. Pinterest is a layer on top of the existing web and social graph as it links easily with Facebook and Twitter in addition to any website.
Pinterest provides a visual medium to display items of interest and more importantly for purchase. This new data is going to open a lot of eyes: Pinterest now drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. That is staggering for a relatively new site.
From a commerce standpoint, Pinterest falls in line with the idea that every platform can be a storefront for a retailer. The advent of social media and tablets has opened up new avenues to engage customers and sell products. Several retailers (Nordstrom, Lands End, Etsy) have taken notice and begun to open up shops on the site
In some respects, Pinterest could be more powerful than Facebook for commerce for the following reasons:
Facebook is built around personal profiles while Pinterest is built around common interests. The true utility of Facebook is social networking; and while many people follow brands it is estimated that only 1% of people interacts with brands on FB. On the other hand, Pinterest boards are built around common interest i.e. home décor, fashion, gardening, parenting, etc.
When potential customers are looking at boards they are in the mode of being interested in that category of product vs. scanning Facebook for a variety of social reasons. Pinterest may build more of a permission based relationship with brands than Facebook or Twitter (which is not visual) or Google Plus. And, sharing is easier and more encouraged on Pinterest. For any retailer targeting women it makes sense to begin to build boards of product images and begin to encourage sharing. This can fit in nicely with an integrated campaign that incorporates the web, mobile and social platforms. As always, you need to be where you customers are spending time to immerse them in your brand. Based on the new referral numbers, the interest and sharing on Pinterest is translating into action.
More Information:
http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-networks/pinterest-demographic-data/ Demographic Information
http://mashable.com/2012/01/29/pinterest-retail-infographic/ How retailers are using it
http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/293314/how-do-people-use-pinterest/1 How people are using it
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Wed, Jan 04, 2012
I recently finished the Steve Jobs biography and have had some time to reflect on what marketers can learn from his time at Apple. He took over a company on the verge of irrelevance and built it into the most valuable brand in the world according to a recent study. Here are some key lessons from his time as CEO:
1. Don’t set up artificial divisions and multiple P&Ls because it creates walls and competing agendas. Apple smoked Sony in the music business because Sony could not get their entertainment business to work with their consumer electronics division. Internal walls stifle creativity and synergy while generating conflict.
2. Keep decision making groups small and nimble and never manage by committee. There is a reason no one ever built a monument to a committee. Empower people to make decisions swiftly and keep debate and consensus building to a minimum. Key product feature decision for the iPod and iPhone were made by a small group who trusted their instincts.
3. Encourage smart risk taking, nothing great ever came from putting off a decision. It is ok to fail on occasion. Failure builds character and you’ll learn something valuable in the process. Unless you work in public safety or healthcare a mistake will not be fatal, so go for it.
4. View everything from your customer’s point of view. It’s about them, not you. At the same time, don’t over rely on market research; it is only a data point. Research tells you more about the past than the future.
5. Keep it simple, and once you have, simplify some more. This is especially true for designing a user experience. Work towards the least amount of screens, menu items, buttons, switches etc. If something is overly complex it usually means it was not well thought out.
6. You don’t have to be first, just be the best. Apple did not invent the PC, portable music player, Smartphone or tablet. They made each one better by making them easy to use and accessible
7. Challenge the status quo by pushing for new solutions. There is a great anecdote in the book about how Jobs pushed Corning to compress the production schedule for “Gorilla Glass” for the iPhone. He never took no for an answer and if a solution didn’t exist, he’d make one happen by sheer force of personality.
8. Build a team of A players, and work with best partners possible. This seems obvious, but how many companies and/or marketing departments are stocked with B and C players? If you want to accomplish great things, you need great people. While Steve Jobs get much of the glory, he surrounded himself with brilliant people from every discipline – design, software development, marketing, manufacturing, sourcing etc. Good thing happen when talented people work together as a team.
9. Keep PowerPoint use at a minimum. Jobs hated when people brought out a slide deck in a meeting, he felt it was a sign that they didn’t have mastery of the topic. The format makes people think in bullet points and headlines and stifles creativity. Powerpoint can be a great tool for presenting to a large group, but is a snoozer in an internal meeting.
10. Design matters to consumers and can be a powerful differentiator. Even the packaging from Apple feels cool and sexy. How many other companies put that kind of effort into a box? Every detail of the consumer experience is an opportunity to impress and build a relationship. Consumers don’t stand outside a retail store all night for the latest Motorola or Samsung phone, but they do for the iPhone.
In the spirit of keeping it simple I can describe the secret of his success to one thing – Think Different.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Wed, Dec 21, 2011
Here is our annual take on the year ahead:
Mobile (Smartphone and Tablets) will become main stream and the primary way many consumers interact with brands. Morgan Stanley is projecting that Apple will sell 190 million iPhones and 81 million iPads in 2012. Companies must have a specific mobile strategy with content optimized for the format and integrated with your broader marketing initiatives. Mobile can no longer be treated as an isolated channel or a “nice to have”; it will become a primary way to speak to customers and prospects.
Email marketing will lessen in effectiveness over time as spam and list overuse begins to wear on consumers who have inbox fatigue. Because it can be cheap to deploy, email is often a marketer’s main tool to get out their sales messages. However, many of the messages contain little relevant value for customers.
Consumers’ attention span for content is getting shorter and shorter. This has broad implications for anyone producing online video, webcasts, blog posts and white papers. Content needs to be of high quality and quickly get to the point where it delivers value to the viewer or reader.
Social media content will come under greater scrutiny from companies looking for a tangible financial return. Much effort has been expended distributing content over Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Linked In etc. Companies will be taking a harder look at the payback from these efforts. Managing social media content and engagement will become a more formalized job in many organizations; and social media analytic tools will become more valuable.
Apple will release a TV before the 2012 holidays that will incorporate iTunes and AirPort WiFi and be controlled through your iPhone or iPad. It will be the first step towards reinventing the device. They will need to work with existing cable/satellite providers as they do with the record companies/studios to offer programming.
The war between Google, Apple and Facebook to control the web/mobile experience will heat up even more in 2012. Google will release a Droid version of Siri, and both platforms will not work as well as advertised.
Facebook will start to struggle after their monster IPO as it becomes clear they are a one trick pony in terms of revenue. After much fanfare Google + will become a niche service used by social media “experts” who will use to tell each other how much they love Google +.
So called “new media stocks” will continue to struggle, especially Groupon. The daily deal model will look much less lucrative by the end of 2012. Vendors will grow weary of offing deals and consumers will turn off from offers that are not relevant to them.
Celebrity culture and reality TV shows will only get stronger in 2012 as scripted shows struggle to gain a wide audience. NBC will continue to struggle with the exception of America’s Got Talent. The addition of Howard Stern as a judge will make it a consistent top ten show.
The economy will improve steadily throughout the year with the Dow hitting 13,500 by September, though unemployment will stay above 8%. By mid summer the Occupy movement will be long forgotten though occasional protests may pop up at the national political conventions. The Tea Party will run out of steam and have much less influence in the 2012 elections.
Mitt Romney will win the GOP nomination and beat Pres Obama in a very close election. The Republicans will also win the Senate and hold the House completing a reversal of the 2008 election. After all the bluster about social media, the election will be mostly played out on TV with a barrage of negative and misleading ads from both sides and interest groups. Romney will attack Obama’s record and some of the claims may actually be true, though not many. Obama will blame all ills on the Republican House, rich people (not including those in Hollywood), George Bush and Fox News ignoring the fact he has been President for four years. The final results will closely mirror the 2004 election.
The San Francisco 49ers will win the 2012 Super Bowl in February. They are one of the few teams that still plays defense and that will carry them to an unlikely championship.
Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Thu, Dec 15, 2011
A brand-new Wegmans Food Market supermarket opened up in Northborough, Mass., in October and the Northeast regional grocer has plans to open six or seven more across New England. Whole Foods Market, another high-end grocer, has a strong and growing presence, as do local CSAs. What’s their secret to success?
High-end grocers like Wegmans and Whole Foods have created strong relationships with customers by turning shopping into an experience for customers, while also offering those customers quality products. On the other end of the spectrum are low-price providers, such as Demoulas Market Basket in Massachusetts, whose value proposition is being the lowest price in town. The vast majority of chain stores fall in the middle and are in danger of being squeezed out because they have neither market position nor identity.
These mid-market chains keep promoting themselves in the same old way with tired TV spots and print circulars. How many different ways can they show us a “mom on the go” making dinner for her family with the supermarket logo and jingle in the background? In many ways, these marketing efforts have remained unchanged since the 1970s.
Mid-market supermarkets can change the nature of the conversation by creating original content for customers to help them plan meals, improve family health and enjoy holidays -- and distribute that content across multiple platforms. The content needs to be where the customers are: online, print, mobile and social.
Today’s shopper has an infinite number of media and information choices at her fingertips. Ultimately, media content is self-selecting, as consumers seek out and gravitate to the information that best suits their needs. Creating content-rich, permission-based relationships is the goal for any supermarket focused on establishing an emotional customer connection. This connection leads to a long-term relationship built on affinity, trust and action.
To connect with their customers, supermarkets need to move beyond the price-promotion relationship to a deeper relationship based on innovation and trust, by surrounding their customers with inspiring content. This content should motivate customers to sample new products, ingredients and recipes while establishing an underlying emotional connection over time. The content should also address the interests, time demands and budgets of all segments of consumers to create a brand proposition that’s not exclusively dependent on price and promotions.
It’s important to use all available media platforms to distribute this content. This strategy takes advantage of the built-in audiences and influential customers who can evangelize the brand experience through social media. It’s imperative to have all platforms working together to ultimately drive customer engagement and action -- more frequent visits to stores, sampling new product categories and increasing average cart size. Here are some suggestions for supermarkets looking to connect with content marketing:
Print Magazine: Print builds an emotional reader connection, and is a vehicle that drives brand purchase decisions. In an age of e-mail overload, print gets attention and has staying power in the household. Wegmans and Whole Foods produce sleek, ad-supported magazines that bolster and extend each brand.
Web Content: The store site should be the repository of all content, and be updated on a weekly basis with fresh content. The site should give customers the ability to:
* Sign up for text or e-mail alerts for deals and specials
* Opt into e-mail newsletters
In addition, the site should also have:
* Regular bloggers and subject matter experts: This would include an active comments section for users
* Video content: Not advertising, but real vignettes that introduce humor and honesty -- elements likely to be forwarded within women’s groups
* The site would be heavily “socialized” with easy-to-use share features to social media sites, the integration of Facebook’s “like” button, and Twitter feeds of subject matter experts and bloggers.
* A crowd-sourcing function to allow customers to submit their own tips, ideas, opinions and recipes to allow customers to interact and share
All of this valuable content should be shared via the supermarket’s social and mobile channels. The addition of good, original content adds vibrancy to your social efforts and gives customers a real reason to follow you and share your content.
Consumers and the media environment are undergoing rapid change. Now is the time for supermarkets to start helping customers long-term rather than selling them the deal of the day.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Mon, Dec 05, 2011
The new Apple 4GS iPhone is one of the fastest-selling devices of all time—they’re simply flying off the shelves at Apple Stores and other retailers. While it doesn’t look much different than the iPhone 4, the new iPhone has some significant differences that may make it a game changer for Boomers and the marketers who love them.
According to the Pew Research Center, 35% of American adults own a smartphone, but the ages are not distributed evenly. Over half (52%) of Americans between 18 and 29 own them, while only 24% of people between the ages of 50 and 64 and 11% of people 65 and over have made the leap. There are a few reasons this new phone could start to move Boomers into the ranks of Apple iPhone devotees:
- iCloud and over-the-air updates makes them easier to use. No longer do you have to store vast amounts of music and video on your computer or be connected to iTunes to update. Also, the 4GS is available on multiple carriers and considered a “world phone.”
- The dual core process makes the 4GS as fast as web browsers at a time when more companies are creating mobile web sites to take advantage of the speed.
- An improved point-and-click camera – users can now combine the following devices into one: music/video player, phone, email, text, web browsing/content reader, GPS, camera and gaming device.
The biggest leap forward, however, is Siri, the voice-activated, artificial intelligence assistance that comes with the phone. Officially still in beta, there are still many kinks to work out but the potential is vast.
I have been testing it over the past few weeks, and it’s hit and miss when making commands and asking questions unrelated to your phone. It often defaults to a Google search, but because it doesn’t work as well as Google’s own native voice search app, those who are in it for the voice-driven searches are better off using Google’s app than Siri.
That being said, Siri works great when working with the iPhone’s functions. It was nearly flawless at sending emails and texts, calling contacts and creating and recalling calendar items. These tools are key when you’re in the car, or for those who have trouble typing and seeing on the relatively small screen. So, despite its flaws, it’s clear that it will improve over time and become a major component of the mobile user interface.
The addition of the upgraded camera, faster Internet access and Siri pushed my young Boomer wife over the edge to becoming a smartphone owner. And it’s only a matter of time before mobile commerce is within her sights. This is not to say that just because my wife made the switch, millions of others will, too. Hardly. That assumption can easily be made based on the clear trends emerging in the marketplace.
The updated iPhone is taking beyond its fair share of the overall smartphone market share. This means that carriers are aggressively selling Android phones and almost giving away the iPhone 3GS, which eliminates cost limitations that once existed. My prediction is that many Boomers will be upgrading from their feature phones over the next 12-15 months. And, the long-awaited iPhone 5 will likely be released during that general time period.
Of all implications for marketers, the most important is going to be the elimination of the excuse: “My audience isn’t on mobile.” Consider this your official warning. It’s time to brush up on mobile best practices for the iPhone and beyond.
As for Siri-specific implications? The most obvious are going to be search-related. Siri inevitably links into established databases like Yelp and Google. Basically, if your business isn’t there, you’ll be left out. Since this makes CPC ads and search ads less effective, you may consider reorganizing your search budget to parallel mobile usage by your audience. Additionally, marketers will really need to rethink their keyword and content strategies to make sure they appear high in Siri’s results. Users may go a few pages deep on a large desktop/notebook screen, but not so much on their phones.
Companies targeting Boomers need to jump into the mobile game now. Get a head start—you’ve got a year or so to get good at it. Consider both apps and mobile sites. Make sure they’re optimized and that they speak to your customers. And then address your search results and online listings. Be everywhere that Siri wants you to be. She will rule the mobile world very soon.
Boomers may be lagging a bit, but they are about to start catching up.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Tue, Nov 29, 2011
By Kimberly Jackson, Editorial Strategist, King Fish Media
I’m a big shopper—the type most marketers would like to count among their market share because not only am I buying, I’m influencing others along the way. I shop often, which makes me to go-to source among my friends for recommendations on everything from kids’ stuff to vacation and ideas, restaurants to handbags, and so on. Knowing that my mom friends are looking for these types of recommendations, it’s obvious to me that there’s quite a bit of opportunity for marketers to intercept them and present them with a good recommendation before they come to me.
One segment, in particular, stands out to me as the perfect candidate: daily deal sites. They’ve got the technology and formula down for the masses, but now it’s time for them to home in on the Mom market (and, I’m sure, other specific groups).
Don’t be so transparent. Yeah, yeah, I know—for the last few years, “transparency” has been a big buzzword. But there are two types of transparency: the kind that reveals that you have nothing to hide (good) and the kind that reveals that you’re manipulative and don’t care about your customer (bad). Let’s discuss the latter.
In addition to the regularly scheduled daily deal emails we all receive from sites like Gilt, Groupon, ideali, Rue La La and others, we’ve also come to expect regular “flash sale” updates. Each of these panic-inducing, limited-time email events has its own brand of call-to-action—attention-grabbing lines of copy meant not only to lure you in, but to guide you along the buying process and into the shopping cart. There’s the classic and gentle “buy now,” the urgent “ONLY one left” and the competitive, “This product is now in another shopper’s basket.” But my favorite has got to be the desperate, demoralizing and false-demand creating, “Sold out…but click here if you still want it?”
These kinds of tactics are transparent in a bad way; they reveal motives based on trickery, distrust and disrespect for the customer. They insult our intelligence and put us on the defensive. Don’t get me wrong, this kind of transparency serves the customer well—it simply tips us off to where we don’t want to shop. After all, none of these sites are selling something anything unique that we can’t find elsewhere. This being the case, they need to sell a unique experience. One that is not insulting.
Create a loyalty program. All women may be created equal but all shoppers are not! Can those of us who shop frequently and spend a lot get some preferential treatment, please? Hotels, airlines and even coffee shops have figured out how to reward loyalty (well, kind of), so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Show us that you care. Show us that you value our business. Show us that you don’t want to lose us to your competitors. (See above re: “you aren’t selling anything unique, so give us a reason to buy it from you.”) Offer us incentives, upgrades and other excuses to aspire to loyalty status with you. Lock us in. We are very loyal once we’ve decided to be.
Help us make better and more informed decisions. This is easily accomplished through good and thoughtful content. I’m not talking about super witty, snarky or cool copy on every page—in fact, that’s just icing on the cake. I’m talking about some real-world advice; the type we expect from the good girlfriend who tells us that the dress isn’t flattering or the honest personal shopper who will lead us away from a bad decision and toward a good one. (Haven’t you noticed that we always shop in pairs? Now you know why.) Here are some examples: “These boots run big.” “The model is wearing a size 4 but she normally wears a 2.” “Order one size smaller/larger.” Basically, give us a hint—some indication about the special nuances that characterize the product we’re buying.
Not only will it stop us from returning every purchase we make through your site, it will instill trust and promote loyalty. We notice and appreciate these things. We also notice the lack of these things, and quickly stop trusting your site.
Improve your geo-targeting. You have our locations; why not put them to good use? I have to review every offer that comes to me to make sure it’s geographically applicable. I don’t care about an upper lip wax 38 miles from me. Groupon just sent me an offer for 54% off a massage 90 minutes from my home. There’s nothing relaxing about that. With even just a couple mistargeted offers, you train customers to expect a lack of relevance from you. We start deleting, and then we start noticing the fact that we’re deleting, so we simply unsubscribe.
An example of good geo-targeting, on the other hand, is restaurant.com. This site uses my zip code to target my offers. Very simple. And for the record, their deals really are deals! Keep ‘em coming.
Smart retailers who put themselves in the shoes of their shoppers are likely to be rewarded. Rewards come in the form of market share and positive reviews—online and off. We act on really good deals and then we tell our friends about our experience, good or bad. Empathy is a powerful emotion and Moms appreciate when companies understand and recognize our power to choose and be part of your community—or not.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Thu, Nov 17, 2011
As marketers, the information we deliver to a prospect is much different than what we provide to an existing customer, or a dormant customer that we’re trying to re-activate. To that point, we are releasing a free downloadable Ebook to help content marketers maximize their return on content investment.
A prospect researching a product category seeks information that is distinct from the content needs of someone who’s about to make a purchase. A lapsed customer may need different types of content to reactivate them and get them buying again. The challenge for marketers, then, is how to deliver the right content, at the right time, through the right channel to generate real returns. This eBook examines content-based integrated programs from a purchase cycle perspective, as well as the role that analytics play in helping marketing teams to identify and target the right segments with the right content.
This ebook will cover:
- The right content for each phase of the buying process
- How to identify the content needs of your customers
- How to match the medium to the message
- A discussion of content marketing analytics
Click here to download the free King Fish Media Ebook
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Tue, Nov 01, 2011
Guest Post from Anna Goldsmith of the King Fish Media Content Strategy Team. Follow Anna's blog at http://www.thehiredpens.com./blog/
I'm about as far as you can get from being a "numbers person," but as a professional copywriter, here are a few I live by. And if you’ve ever needed to write any marketing collateral — or even a decent sentence — you’ll commit them to heart. Trust me: They’re way easier to remember than a quadratic equation.
A Copywriter’s Guide to Perfect Numbers
• Sentence length: 15-20 words. Sometimes you need to go over, but once you hit 30 — even 25 — you are pushing your luck and better have a darn good reason not to throw down that period.
• Headlines: 8 words or fewer. Emphasis on fewer.
• Paragraphs: 30 to 60 words. Another way to think of it is two to three sentences. More than that is overwhelming. People sigh and turn away when they see large blocks of text, particularly on the Web.
• Web pages: 250 to 350 words. Write as concisely as possible. Ideally you don’t want to make people scroll.
• Keywords per Web page: 1-2. Try to optimize for too many words and search engines — not to mention users — miss the point.
• Tweets: 140, right? Wrong. According to Twitter experts, it’s 124. Here’s why: Use up all your characters and no one can retweet without cutting what you wrote. And since retweets are the whole point anyway, make it easy for your followers.
• Facebook status updates: 1-2 sentences. Sure, you’ve got 420 characters to play with, but don’t use them all. People don’t read status updates as much as they scroll through them, often digesting several per second. So unless you have a major fan base hanging on your every word, pithy is best.
Advanced numbers for non-math geeks.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about in the below section, you’ll probably never need to.
• Web page title tag: Google displays up to 66 characters, Yahoo up to 120. But come on, who uses Yahoo? Stick to 66.
• Web page meta description: 155 characters long.
There — that is the last you’ll hear from me on the subject of numbers.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Tue, Oct 25, 2011
A new content marketing site named Content Strategy Hub has recently launched and kicked off with a great series. They asked nearly 30 experts to share their thoughts on three specific questions related to content marketing. I was lucky to be included with such people as David Meerman Scott, Joe Pulizzi, Robert Rose and Ann Handley among others. Below is a recap of my responses to these questions – click the links to see what the experts had to say.
The site is the creation of Eugene Farber, follow him at @EugeneFarber
Follow me at @gordonplutsky
29 Brilliant Minds Discuss Business Publishing
“I’ve always aligned with the idea that all businesses are in the business of marketing. Are most businesses now in the business of publishing?”
My Response: Yes, that is true. Every company is now a media company in the sense that they need to produce credible, original content to attract new customers and retain current ones. Content is now being used as a vital customer relationship management tool in many venues: on company web sites to enhance SEO, through social media channels and via mobile apps and web sites. To build a true interactive relationship with a customer, content is far superior to traditional advertising. Content allows a company to build a relationship of affinity and trust with customers, and is actionable.
29 Brilliant Minds Share Uncommon Content Strategy Advice
“Share one uncommon piece of content strategy advice.”
My Response: Every content plan should have an overarching goal that ties back to a sales and marketing objective. While you don’t want the actual content to be too promotional or self serving, it is important for the content to lead the customer or prospect to a specific action. That action could be anything to opting into an email list to an actual purchase. The main point is to have a clear goal and path for what you want the content strategy to accomplish, and measure it. No company should be creating content just for the sake of jumping on a trend. It has to fit with your overall integrated marketing and sales goals.
29 Brilliant Minds Share Common Content Strategy Mistakes
“What is a common content strategy mistake that business owners make?”
My Response: Producing or obtaining low quality content just to get something up on their site, or because they think it will help them with search engine optimization. For content marketing to work, the content needs to be authoritative, authentic and credible. Without those attributes, you won’t create a relationship of trust that leads to action. To develop quality content you need to work with subject matter experts (SME) and someone with a background in professional writing and proofreading. There are many places to obtain cheap content, but that is generally not written by a SME with years of experience in the field, but rather a generalist who cranks out cheap copy by the word. The cheap route may get you clicks and traffic, but don’t count on it transforming your customer relationships. Like anything in life, you get what you pay for.
Posted by Gordon Plutsky on Mon, Sep 26, 2011
Last week, Facebook unveiled some major changes that will have far reaching implications for users and marketers. The following is our point of view for companies using Facebook to engage customers and prospects.
Users have already noticed changes to Facebook such as the running stream of posts in the right column called the ticker and a new ranking of top stories and recent stories. Also, users can now “subscribe” to aspects of friends’ feeds or to people who are not their friends — a nice feature for following bloggers or content producers as you would on Twitter. The biggest changes in last week’s updates include a reimaging of user profiles and the use of apps to interact with companies and your friends in real time. With this POV is a summary of recent articles and analysis that will give you specific details surrounding such changes as well as insight to Facebook’s strategy.
Market Landscape
Before looking at the recent changes it is instructive to review the financial and competitive landscape. Google+, Twitter and FourSquare, among others, are gaining momentum and competing with Facebook for user attention, online time, and marketing dollars. The Financial Times recently reported that Facebook is delaying their IPO until later next year. This is not just any IPO, as it has been valued at least $66.5 billion with many investors (including Goldman Sachs) and employees looking for a payout. Financial Times reports that 2010 revenue was around $2 billion and reportedly $1.6 billion for the first half of 2011. The recent changes are likely tied to the IPO plan for the following reasons:
- Facebook is looking to fend off other social networking sites and capture a larger share of user time and online engagement. The stronger they cement their hold on end user time and online commitment, the higher the share price.
- The increased amount of personal data and activity generated from users will give advertisers greater opportunity to run behaviorally targeted ads. Again, more revenue streams mean a higher initial price.
- Create a possible revenue stream from apps developed by companies seeking Facebook users.
- Management likely wants to have all these changes implemented before the distraction of key employees concerned with shares and payouts begins. Anyone who has ever gone through and IPO knows that the focus becomes internal when the payout time comes close.
Implications for Users/Customers:
Users will have the ability to create a timeline which takes the profile concept to a new level by “telling the story of their life” to quote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It remains to be seen if this is a response to user needs or an opportunity to get more detailed information on users for marketers and advertisers. While we think this may appeal to a younger demographic, it is unclear how older professionals (the fastest growing segment of users) will respond. For many, Facebook is about connecting with friends in the here and now, not taking a trip down memory lane. Have users been clamoring for this feature to enhance sharing of personal data? This may be more spin than reality, but many users will take advantage of these features. Such new features may be aimed more so at younger users who have grown up using Facebook as a primary means of communicating with friends. When Timeline was being rolled out during the live streaming broadcast, dozens of viewers (including this one) were immediately reminded of MySpace, albeit it with a Word Press skin.
Users will also have a chance to engage with apps and share what they are doing in real time, i.e. eating, reading, searching, etc. This is what Mark Zuckerberg was referring to as making “Like” a verb. It is easy to see how marketers can create selling opportunities with this information. But, how users will feel about giving up this much privacy is an open question. There will be privacy and sharing controls, but it remains to be seen how much users will want to broadcast their web activity in real time. It is becoming clear that Facebook wants to be the layer on top of the web that connects your activities to your friends and the companies who want to engage you. We also see this as an age-divide as younger users will embrace the sharing while older users may not be keen on broadcasting their actions. However, they may selectively share special interests they feel passionate about.
Implication for Marketers
Fan pages are not changing for now, but will likely change into the Timeline format. If you have a fan page you need to be mindful of the new GraphRank, which “decides” what goes into “top stories” in users’ news feeds. Ranking will likely depend on the overall quality of the content and the level of interaction. It will be more important than ever to have a cohesive content strategy that can be distributed through your fan page. And, you will need to post somewhat frequently to become part of the algorithm behind GraphRank. It will be critical to generate comments, shares and likes with your post.
Apple proved how apps transform the relationship between company and customer, and now Facebook is adopting the app model — and many companies already signed on at launch (Nike, Hulu, Netflix). Companies will have an ability to distribute content and sell products within the walls of the Facebook community. And, activity will be broadcast to each customer’s friends when they take an action. The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have recently launched social readers on Facebook that have a Flipbook format (an iPad app feel). The influence of the iPad and tablets are having an effect on content distribution. In fact, the new Timeline has a similar graphic interface sensibility.
Next Steps for Marketers
Closely monitor your customers and prospects to see if their Facebook behavior changes in the near term. There has been a lot of negative user feedback to the newsfeed changes, the introduction of top stories, and the ticker. The feedback has centered on layout confusion, and a perceived lack of privacy in the ticker. Much of the reaction is dependent on the demographic profile of your customer.
If you have a fan page, it is time to reevaluate your content and engagement strategy to ensure you will still be seen in your fans’ news feeds. The content needs to be actionable to drive comments and shares. Additionally, consider developing an app that may integrate with your website and/or mobile app. Facebook is the most visited, viewed and searched website in the world, so your business should have a strong presence and an engaging store front if you sell to the general public.
If you advertise on Facebook, chances are the ability to target by demographics, interests and behaviors will get a lot better. For example, if someone shares that they are involved in a specific sport such as running, they can be immediately targeted for a host of running related products and services. The ads will hit them when they are in running mode. That brings advertising a long way from unrelated ads running on TV, radio or in a static magazine.
These changes will open up new exciting opportunities for marketers to create a direct channel to customers and prospects, and it should be considered a key part of an integrated media campaign. However, marketers should be wary about putting too many eggs into a basket that is being created for a monster IPO.
For any questions about this POV please contact Gordon Plutsky, CMO, King Fish Media: gplutsky@kingfishmedia.com or 978.832.1485. Follow Gordon @gordonplutsky
Resources
http://www.wonderoftech.com/2011/09/f8-facebook-changes-sharing-is-caring/
http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/facebooks-changes-marketers/
http://www.briansolis.com/2011/09/the-new-facebook-a-timeline-for-personal-discovery/
http://www.allfacebook.com/do-timeline-ticker-and-graphrank-break-facebook-marketing-2011-09