Recently, I was in the market for a curling iron; the perfect tool to transform straight, flat hair into the bouncing, beauteous locks of a Disney princess or a Kardashian.
In doing my research, I discovered there are many different types of modern curling irons, which can vary by diameter, material, shape of barrel and the type of handle. I also needed to know what type of curls I was going for: did I want tight, tiny twists that when brushed out would give my hair the look of a wild lioness? Or was I going for loose, dreamy waves that give me the beachy look? Upon narrowing down my selection of curling tools, I faced another conundrum: how to use the tool to get my desired look.
I searched Google for how-tos and found 21 year-old YouTuber “Made You Look By Lex,” a licensed cosmetologist and makeup artist with a brand (YouTube: 832,615; Instagram 169,000; Facebook 262,975). In the 4:30 video (118,000 views) she showed me how to use the “NuMe Magic Wand” to get my va va voom locks. I was thrilled, and I was sold.
This got me thinking about the power that influencers have over the marketing funnel.
The Phenomenon of Microcelebrity
Lex has created her brand by refining her identity, tone and voice using social channels and platforms that bring her authentic story to the masses. She knows what’s cool and has an engaged community the size of San Francisco to prove it. She is a microcelebrity.
Millennials grew up watching YouTube and reality TV stars, making it seamlessly easy to feel entitled to becoming a star themselves. Jon Murray, the creator of The Real World and Keeping Up With The Kardashians says that “seeing regular people celebrated on TV gives millennials confidence. They are going after what they want.” Kim Kardashian readily admits that she has no particular talent, but she also knows why she appeals to her peers. “They like that I share a lot of myself and that I’ve always been honest about the way I live my life. They want relationships with businesses and celebrities.”
This notion of blurring lines between celebrity and “regular people” is ubiquitous in social media. Millennials know how to turn themselves into brands, and for those who do this well enough on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, become microcelebrities.
The Impact of Influencers
In the New York Times article “Turning Microcelebrity Into a Business,” Oliver Luckett, CEO of the social-media publishing company theAudience, recognizes the massive power of micro celebrities. Pacing to do $30 Million in revenue, the bulk of theAudience’s business stems from some “6000 Influencers, ranging from Vine actors to YouTube singers to Instagram models.”
It turns out; the microcelebrities have just as much pull as the Charlize Therons, if not more. They create more engagement among their audience, and are more relatable and willing to incorporate a brand into their social media.
Lex represents the microcelebrity phenomenon at its best. In October, Lex’s Facebook page pulled in an average of:
In contrast, during the same time period NuMe averaged:
According to Socialbakers, the average post engagement for a brand with 100k-499k Facebook fans is 0.19%, well below Lex’s threshold.
This scenario underscores Lex’s ability to authentically captivate and connect with her audience at scale with far greater success than the brand, and it is for this reason Influencers are more valuable than ever.
HOW BRANDS CAN PARTNER WITH INFLUENCERS
Find An Authentic Voice.
For many brands, borrowed equity is critical. The recommendations and products they choose to align with mean something to their followers. Identify a network of Influencers that share similar passion points and interests and that best align with your brand. Understand their unique aesthetics, skillsets, and areas of influence.
Develop A Strategy.
In partnership with your Influencer, create content that is tied together by a common theme. The result is an authentic and naturally compelling campaign that resonates with the Influencer’s audience while delivering a big payoff for the brand.
Distribute Your Content.
Seed your Influencer network with beautifully curated content. You can share your content through pins on “Pinterest Storyboards” created by your Influencer. The Storyboard is a blend of unique pins that visually tell a story to your followers and the Influencer’s engaged audience.
Part 2: In part two of this blog, I will show a case study or two where an Influencer partnership campaign delivered successful results.
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Snapchat launched its first ad ever on October 17th for Universal’s movie, Ouija. The ad appears in recent updates and disappears after being viewed or within 24 hours. To see the ad, users press and hold the image, similar to viewing snaps from their friends. In their blog Snapchat seemed almost embarrassed and apologetic that they have started running ads "to make money”.“This is the first time we have done anything like this….it’s going to feel a little weird at first but we are taking the plunge.” Snapchat continued, "We want to see if we can deliver an experience that’s fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted."At this point, Snapchat has so much inventory and choice in advertisers that they can easily run ads that are valuable to both advertisers and consumers. Personally, I think they need to watch what they say now, as they will most likely begin to target based on users’ behavior so they can maximize inventory. I do, however, like their interest in placing “content” in the form of ads in front of users. Marketers that focus on creating entertaining, relevant content that happens to also build brand will be the most successful in social media.Below is a sample of the ad -
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
This past Wednesday 10/22 I had the fortunate opportunity of attending the Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer (PMD) Conference. Here’s a quick summary of the top 7 things that marketers can benefit from today.
Closing the LoopTwenty years ago Internet marketers made the promise that the web would close the marketing loop from ad exposure to purchase. Facebook continues to show its commitment to answering this question. By working with an advertiser’s loyalty database, Facebook can create two groups: one that sees ads and another one that does not. By matching the email address used in Facebook and the loyalty program, marketers can then measure how much one group purchased versus the other. Digital media has always provided obstacles to such a test as users have multiple browsers on multiple devices (computer, phone, and tablet) so it’s been impossible to obtain a clean test of a non-exposed group.Click and CTR Don't = SalesIt’s no surprise that clicks don’t equal sales but the most interesting thing I learned is that optimizing to clicks is actually detrimental to sales. Clickers are 10x more expensive than non-clickers and 90% of the buyers of a product do not click on ads. . Brands should optimize toward known online conversions and/or to “Reach" of a highly targeted audience. Agencies and brands need to drop their addiction to clicks.Custom Audiences RulesUsing "owned data" is proving to be the best source to generate results, i.e. targeting groups created from website visitors, newsletters, app users, and loyalty databases, etc. The more marketers can expand their “owned" media databases, the better. The conversion rates for owned media and look-alikes are significantly more effective providing faster and more efficient results. The creation of App Campaigns with social sign on is one of the best and quickest ways to increase owned data.Reach & FrequencyOnce you identify your best customers, run reach plays to target them and people who look like them. Facebook’s Reach Tools have proven to be very powerful in maximizing ad exposure to core audience targets and delivering results.VideoVideo continues to be a major priority for Facebook. Video views grew by more than 50% on Facebook from May through July, and since June there has been more than 1 Billion video views per day. The new auto play feature is now available across all videos in the U.S. and is dramatically increasing the length of view, most likely because people can see the video playing before clicking on it to start the audio. In creating videos, the first 3 seconds is critical as people decide very quickly on whether to watch a video or to keep scrolling through their newsfeed.MobileMobile is hot and getting hotter. 85% of the time on Facebook is spent on mobile and about 50% of its users only use Facebook on a mobile device which explains why 1 in every 5 minutes on mobile is spent on Facebook. 66% of Facebook’s total ad dollars is from mobile and its new Local Awareness Ad units should be a major hit for brick and mortar advertisers. There is also a current dichotomy of time spent in mobile vs. dollars allocated. 25% of our media time is in mobile but only 11% of our media dollars are spent there, i.e, mobile is highly efficient as supply outstrips demand.
Pillars of Facebook Remain the SameFacebook is known for frequently changing direction, so it was comforting to hear that their three core pillars are the same from last year and they plan to keep them constant for several years. Those pillars are People, Deep Engagement and Proven Results. The core competitive advantage is: People. In other words, target ads to people and not to cookies. Cookies are dying mainly because they do not work on mobile devices. Summary of Actionable Items
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
The most exciting news in social last week was Facebook's formal announcement of its Audience Network, which now allows all Facebook advertisers to extend their ads to mobile App's. Advertisers will also be able to take advantage of the targeting intelligence of Facebook to reach potential customers.Facebook has essentially created a mobile ad network to generate higher reach and increase revenues. Think Google AdSense, which brings Google's Search Intelligence to publishers, and made up 22% of Google's revenue in 1Q14.Here's a quote from one of Facebook's engineers, Tanya Chen,
“The Audience Network shows people the right ads by extending Facebook’s targeting to third-party apps,” Chen goes on. “This means the ads match the interests of people, just as they do on Facebook. It also means people are more likely to engage with the ads.”
Current ads that are available to run are:
And, the ads can run in 3 creative formats:
I think the core benefit to advertisers is that the Audience Network extends the reach of a target audience. In essence, target audience segments should now have a longer life span and won't burn out so quickly. In addition, executing a buy across the mobile app network is also easy as it uses the same ad specs as newsfeed ads.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
In the first part of this series, Kyle showed you his process of taking mouth-watering images of food. With a little bit of retouching, we can turn these images into strong content for the social space.
FILE MANAGEMENTEach photo shoot produces more than a thousand raw images, making strong file organization during image editing an important step. Properly naming files and saving to relevant folders makes finding images simple, even years later. I organize into client folders, and separate my working files by RAW, Working, and Final.
EDITINGThe first stage of my actual retouching is done in Camera Raw. This is where I focus on getting the general look of my image where I want it. I start with general edits, focusing on white balance and bringing out detail in highlights and shadows. With food photography, I’ll often add a bit of contrast and clarity, to help the food or drink pop more from the background. This is especially helpful if we have a variety of colors and tones blending in the backgrounds from the restaurant environment.Once my image looks close to what I want in Camera Raw, I’ll export a full resolution PSD and save to my “Working” folder for more detailed edits.
My final editing phase is combing through each image to remove any distractions. Often, there won’t be much left to do, but this last phase nicely rounds out our images as professional content for social. When photographing food, we’ll often have to clean up crumbs and flaws in the table, and clean up excessive condensation on drinks. Our goal is to keep the food looking natural, but presented in a clean and appetizing manner.Once I’m happy with how the image looks, I’m ready to export. We save one for web at 72ppi and another in high resolution in case they ever need to be printed.
CREATIVE FOR SOCIAL POSTSA lot of the photo work we do at Socialtyze is repurposed in multiple social environments. We often pair these images with text for promotions, quote cards, Twitter chats and social covers.It’s important to design for the right social space. For Facebook, keep timeline posts in a square format to avoid content being cropped or shrunk down in newsfeeds. Similarly, design Twitter posts at 1024x512. This will ensure all content is seen, even when users don’t open the image all the way. You can view our sizing guide for all platforms here.Keep social posts simple and clear. Remember that users are scrolling through an endless feed of content, so you’re fighting for their attention. We aim to keep text short and bold to draw this attention. Give it room to breathe in the negative space, and use colors that feel natural to the image.Also remember that many people are viewing your work on mobile phones. Before I send an image off for approval, I check that it’s still clear on my phone.If an image is used for advertising within Facebook, be sure to keep any text under 20%. To be sure, create a 5x5 grid over the image, and make sure all the text fits within 5 of those boxes.At this point, your fans will surely be craving all that mouth-watering food.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
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