WebProNews

Category: Marketing Strategies

  • Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP

    “It’s really about customer experience,” says Nirosha Methananda, VP of Marketing at Bombora. “I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.”

    Nirosha Methananda, Vice President of Marketing at Bombora, discusses the challenges of marketing without annoying your potential customers by bombarding them with marketing messages in an interview with Logan Lyles on the B2B Growth Podcast:

    Marketing Is Really About the Customer Experience

    As a B2B marketer, I get marketed to a lot. It’s something that I have increasingly noticed and I’m probably not the only one. That’s just becoming part of the experience in terms of being inundated with different messaging and different calls and this, that, and the other. Use this, do this, buy this, whatever it is. It’s really not a great experience. It doesn’t necessarily provide value. Marketers are so busy as it is, and I know that is applicable across the board with everyone we are marketing to. Being able to cut through the noise and having an understanding of all these different things is very challenging. 

    Having on top of it being inundated with this constant flow of messaging like meet me, meet me, meet me, is not very helpful. That’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. It’s really about customer experience. I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying

    It also leads to this annoyance and irritation which leads to distrust of brands and that’s not great for this industry. From a customer perspective those bad experiences, unfortunately, more than good experiences, they stay with you for longer and you remember that. Another thing that we don’t necessarily think of is that it’s wasteful. It’s wasteful of time and it’s wasteful of money especially for marketing and sales where money is a precious resource. It’s not something to be wasted. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.

    As an example, our Intent Event was our first flagship event that we did last year. It was a closed event so we did have limited numbers and we were limited as to what we could do with promotion. What we did was try to have mindfulness around what we were sending out and ensuring that it was helpful. Making sure that the recipients, the people that we invited, were given all the relevant information, but there was brevity in the communication as well as encouraging them to participate without forcing them to be there. 

    There was certainly some urgency around some of our communication but it wasn’t you need to attend this and this is why you must attend this. It was more about being a bit more subtle in presenting them the idea and the concept of what it was, why it would help them, and exactly the information that they needed. What that meant was not sending out multiple emails, being very controlled around it, really thinking about what the experience was before the event, to during the event, to after the event. We were really focused on the customer and making sure that all of the content and communication was educational and helpful.

    Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying, Says Bombora VP Nirosha Methananda
  • B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Ultimately Conversion

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Ultimately Conversion

    “We co-create content with (B2B Influencers) in concert with brand messaging,” says TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden. “So now instead of people just ignoring the press release we actually have storytelling happening with these different voices. You have this intersection of one or two or three or four influencers talking about this topic and those audiences intersect and cross. Your customer is hearing this credible message not only from the brand but also from people that they trust in different channels. That all adds up to yes. That all adds up to nurture and ultimately conversion.”

    Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, discusses how B2B influencer marketing can be a highly effective force in driving leads and conversions for companies. Lee was interviewed by Tim Washer at the 2019 Content Marketing World Conference & Expo:

    Influencer Marketing Is Powerful Because Of Influence Itself

    Influencer marketing is powerful because of influence itself, not about the people. Influence has always been a factor in being persuasive and being effective as a communicator, as a marketer, and really being able to tap into the dynamics of that. The psychology and sociology of that is something that is everlasting, it’s evergreen. While there are trends in terms of tactics that come and go, there’s this consumerization of B2B. B2C influencers are misbehaving and have fake followers, etc. and some of that’s leaking over into B2B. But I think that’ll reconcile a little bit and kind of clean itself out. In the future brands are going to be looking at influence as a really key component of their holistic marketing strategy internally and externally.

    A lot of people when they think of influencer marketing they think of a Kardashian or some people think of something like Baddiewinkle, a 90-year-old woman who wears hip-hop clothes and now has her own makeup line on Sephora versus someone like Tamara McCleary interviewing an executive at Dell about the right IT infrastructure for doing edge computing. That’s really what it’s about in B2B.

    B2B Influencers Actually Have To Have The Main Expertise

    One of the big differences between B2B and B2C influencers is that in B2B you actually have to have the main expertise. You actually have to be knowledgeable and have a depth of that expertise in what it is that you’re influential about. It’s also important to have a network for distribution and a place to publish your content. It’s great to have a personality and that’s less common in B2B, where you have charisma. Well, lack of personality is a form of personality I suppose. 

    The good thing is that we’ve figured out ways to coach folks that have that domain expertise and an active following but they’re not necessarily used to being social. We are coaching them in how to activate themselves and to pull out the best of what they have to share in a way that’s very promotable. Many of them start to open up a little bit after we show them how to do it.

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Conversion

    In the planning stages (with a client looking to promote something) we’ll look at the topics that are important around the announcement and how it affects customers and how customers will think of that news and how it’ll affect or change their lives. Those topics are then what we want to be influential about. We’ll use those keywords or topics to search our network using influencer marketing software to find who is influential around those topics, who’s publishing content, who self-identifies around that topic, and whose audience is actually activated around that topic. We find those people who have trusted voices with an active community and we invite them to collaborate on content and give their opinion about the announcement. 

    We co-create content with them in concert with brand messaging. So now instead of people just ignoring the press release we actually have storytelling happening with these different voices. You have this intersection of one or two or three or four influencers talking about this topic and those audiences intersect and cross. They intersect across channels too. Your customer is hearing this credible message not only from the brand but also from people that they trust in different channels. That all adds up to yes. That all adds up to nurture and ultimately conversion.

    B2B Influencer Marketing Adds Up To Nurture and Conversion – TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden
  • Conversational Marketing Closes the Gap Between B2C and B2B, Says Drift Marketing VP

    Conversational Marketing Closes the Gap Between B2C and B2B, Says Drift Marketing VP

    Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales, says Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift. “We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people,” he says. “That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.”

    Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth podcast by John Rougeux who is VP of Marketing at Skyfii. Gerhardt discusses conversational marketing as a new B2B product category and how it is changing marketing from reaching out to you later to a conversation that is happening now:

    Conversational Marketing is About Connecting You Now

    Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales. The traditional way of doing marketing and sales is all about later. Come to my website and fill out this form and somebody is going to reach out to you later, when it’s convenient for them. The big shift that is happening in marketing and business over the last five to ten years is customers have all the power today. You can’t make people wait. Information is free now.

    I can find anything I want to know about a company without ever having to go to your website. It’s crazy to think that you are going to force people to go to your website, fill out a form, wait three days to hear back from your sales team, and then get a demo. Conversational is all about connecting you now with the people who are ready to buy now while they are live on your website.

    B2P – Marketing to People

    It’s not about buyers. It’s not about sellers. It’s not about sales. It’s not about marketing. It’s about people. That’s how people all communicate online today. I pressed one button in my car and I got a list. I ordered something from Amazon while I was here this morning to send back to my house and it’s going to be there tomorrow when I get home. There are countless examples of that. That is how we all behave online in our real lives today.

    But then something happens weird happens. We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people. That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.

    What Ties Our Products Together is Conversation

    We have an email product and we have a landing page product. Black and white versions of those people would say everybody has email, everybody has landing pages. The thing that ties those together is conversation. That forces us to think about what is conversational email? What is conversational landing pages? What is conversational whatever? That one word forces our product team to think about how can we change this? If our fundamental stance as a company is that the internet should be one conversation, then how does that weave into everything that we build?

    Ultimately what we care about is that email becomes a conversation. Meaning, the way that marketers have had to use email the last decade is a one-way channel. Email is meant to be a two-way channel. Marketers have been using it as, “John come to my webinar.” What happens if you actually respond to that email? Most of the time you can’t because it’s donotreply@ or it just goes to some inbox where nobody is answering it. That is a terrible experience. Our belief is that if you reply, “Hey actually I can’t make it. Can you reregister my colleague?” That should get handled. We are thinking of that from an evolution standpoint.

    The same thing with landing pages. Most landing pages today are static. You go to the landing page, put a bunch of info in and you are gone. What if that was a real-time conversation on the page? That one topic has to weave itself into everything we do from a product perspective.

    >> Listen to the complete interview with Drift Marketing VP Dave Gerhardt on the B2B Growth podcast.

  • Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile, Says Justuno CEO

    Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile, Says Justuno CEO

    “Conversion optimization is the same as it’s been for a while,” says Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen. “People still don’t want to focus on the last mile. We’ve kept to the same message that retailers should be investing in their current website visitors. There’s always low-hanging fruit to improve your business. How do you take one marketing dollar and stretch it as far as you possibly can? It’s all about creativity. That’s what marketing is and that’s what retail is.”

    Brand growth expert Austin Brawner of Ecommerce Influence interviewed Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen about conversion optimization:

    Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile

    Conversion optimization is the same as it’s been for a while. People still don’t want to focus on the last mile. Finally, in 2020, we saw that shift when advertising got so expensive. Everyone is like, okay, we have minimal budgets, how do we stretch them? Finally, with all the competition from COVID where everyone’s shifting online everyone, they are saying that we can’t keep just throwing money at this. We’ve got to come up with the real problem.

    When we first launched we had to pivot immediately because when we mentioned the word coupon or the word pop-up people just ran the other way. It’s been ten years of education and we’ve kept to the same message of investing in your current website visitors. Our main job still is to educate the online retailer about the basics. We ask most businesses, as you know with email, are you doing a 30, 60, 90 day, the basics? Are you doing a cart abandonment email? You cover the basics and you get so much further ahead.

    There’s always low-hanging fruit

    Everyone thinks businesses are run perfectly but most businesses are just a mess. What I’ve been trying to do is challenge my team to look at the basics. There’s always low-hanging fruit to improve your business. When it comes to retail, where’s the low-hanging fruit? Let’s break out your business to the basics like new visitors versus repeat. With the new ones, how many are there? What percentage of emails are we capturing? Are we sending those emails to your ESP? Are we putting in the basic workflows? There’s so much low-hanging fruit.

    Then, you’re sending these emails, are you reinforcing those campaigns on-site? You spend so much time designing the email, sending it. Then it comes to that shopping cart abandonment. Do you even know how many people come to your cart each day? Do you know how many carts get abandoned and the dollar value? What can we do? The basics are still very much there in terms of opportunity to help people increase their sales lead capture and sales. How do you take one marketing dollar and stretch it as far as you possibly can? How do you also get creative? It’s all about creativity. That’s what marketing is and that’s what retail is. Retail is retailing and getting your hands dirty.

    Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile, Says Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen
  • TrenDemon CEO: We Connect Content Marketing to Sales

    TrenDemon CEO: We Connect Content Marketing to Sales

    The CEO of TrenDemon, Avishai Sharon, says that they created their cloud-based software solution in order to help companies prove that the marketing content they produced also achieved business goals and sales. In order to show this correlation, the TrenDemon software analyzes all of the different touchpoints the customer has had over his lifecycle and then reverse engineers those successful journeys in order to find out what content is working.

    Avishai Sharon, Co-founder & CEO of TrenDemon, discussed their software on ILTV:

    How Do You Connect Content Marketing to Sales?

    My personal background was heading a marketing agency for many years and one of my biggest struggles was how do I prove our value and our effort to our customers and how do you connect the impact of what we call content marketing to business goals and to sales? When we couldn’t find an easy way to show that correlation three and a half years ago we went ahead and founded TrenDemon to help companies do just that.

    We connect their marketing efforts, which today rely mostly on content, you want your audience to consume valuable content, as opposed to just advertising. The big challenge is how do you attribute those efforts to sales? There’s actually a prior problem, how do you actually map the customer journey? How do you track those different touch points into one picture?

    Reverse Engineering Successful Customer Journeys

    The first thing we do is look at all the different touchpoints that a customer has had over his lifecycle. We ask the question, not just where do they come from, but how deep was their engagement? Did they actually watch the video? Did they actually read the article? Then you can start reverse engineering those successful journeys and say what’s common about all of these successful journeys.

    What we found, and this is the interesting thing, we’re working with over 90 companies today worldwide and the vast majority of content the companies produce, over 90 percent, is ineffective at driving business goals. As you guys know it’s very expensive to create quality content and it takes a lot of effort.

    If People Read the Right Content They Will Covert to a Sale

    The second interesting thing is that if you do manage to find those 10 percent and you find a way to get it in front of the right people you’re actually able to improve dramatically your results. So there’s not just a correlation between what buyers did beforehand, there’s also a causation, a causal relationship, that if people read the right content at the right time they’re more likely to follow a path. We’re not probably as sophisticated as we believe that we are.

    We’re a SaaS company, a cloud-based solution. We’re working a lot in the US and one of our biggest markets and growing markets is Japan. They’re investing a lot of content and a lot on technology. Essentially, because we look at the customer journey and not necessarily specific languages we can operate in any environment which allows us to grow pretty much anywhere. As long as they have content, which means that they’re producing something other than just advertising, they want people and audiences to actually engage with what they’re producing and they do have some business outcomes that they’re looking to measure.

    About TrenDemon:

    Founded in 2013, TrenDemon is the world’s leading content marketing attribution and optimization solution, helping marketers prove and improve their content’s impact.

    TrenDemon insights can help you uncover your content marketing ROI, impact on business goals, and engagement to help guide the content strategy. Our optimization units will help you increase conversions and shorten time to convert on your owned assets.

    TrenDemon proudly serves a wide range of customers, from Fortune 500s and brands to SaaS, B2B, and financial companies and is backed by leading VCs.

  • Consider These Five Things for Your Company’s Marketing Strategy

    Consider These Five Things for Your Company’s Marketing Strategy

    One question remains top of mind for every business owner: How do I reach my target audience? They try to find the answer in the next-best marketing trends and ever-evolving advice for boosting social media engagement and Google search rankings. While staying on top of customer behavior and needs is essential, some marketing strategies consistently expand your brand awareness and generate leads.

    Incorporate User-Generated Content

    All companies have to face it: customers are no longer simply consumers. They are active participants and content creators and are impossible to ignore in your marketing strategy. UGC content serves as social proof for your brand reputation and product quality. New customers are more likely to purchase your product or service when they discover positive reviews.

    You can capitalize on formal or informal UGC. You might (with the creator’s permission) repost pictures or videos demonstrating customers using or raving about your products, or you can solicit active participation through company-sponsored contests and giveaways. You also have the option to access UGC regularly through partnerships with influencers.

    Brand partners and influencers allow you to set the terms for the content that will best serve your brand, and they allow you to reach a large audience through influencers’ trusted advice. Whatever direction you take, incorporating UGC into your marketing strategy is essential.

    Create Quality Content

    The content you release should reflect your specific audience’s needs and preferences, but one thing remains true for every brand. Your content must be of high quality.

    Your long-form content, such as blog posts and research articles, should be grammatically correct, engaging, and contain optimized keywords to boost their SEO performance. Using tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, you can edit your work to increase your readership and add value to your customers.

    Video content should also hold an esteemed position within your marketing plan. Videos quickly capture viewer attention and increase accessibility by utilizing audio, visuals, alternate text, and subtitles. While every company battles for customer attention, you can set yourselves apart through quality videos that present them with information quickly.

    When you make or solicit videos, you should ensure they have high-quality visuals and audio, show multiple angles, and keep the product, creator, or customer within the frame. You must engage viewers through authentic and relatable stories.

    Conduct Market Research

    You might have the most impressive, trusted marketing practices in your toolkit, but they are only effective if you know your target audience. While many consumers share similar needs and preferences, you find business success in identifying their unique qualities and niche groups.

    You must center your marketing strategy around your niche audience. Whether you’re launching your business or updating your previous marketing strategy, you must identify and narrow down your target audience to provide more personalized content and outreach. Build consumer personas and perform SWOT analysis tests to determine what calls to action, color schemes, and information your customers respond to.

    When you conduct market research, stay on the lookout for trends that work for your industry and specific audience. Though trends come and go, incorporating some of them into your marketing techniques will help you stay relevant and generate excitement. Additionally, you’ll want to study your competition’s marketing strategies to take stock of their strengths and weaknesses. You can adapt what they do well to meet your business needs and avoid their pitfalls. Comparative market analysis will help you stay on budget and stand out from the crowd.

    Outline Your Objectives

    Developing a marketing strategy requires goal-setting. You need to know what specific results you’re working towards and implement measurable KPIs to reach them. When creating or updating your marketing approach, select a few long-term goals and outline short-term objectives.

    Setting goals will help get your team on the same page and allow you to track your progress and adapt to unforeseen challenges. Actionable market plans increase brand awareness, generate leads, and boost revenue.

    Take SEO Strategies into Account

    You can’t overlook search engine optimization when creating and sharing content with your target audience. Including optimized keywords and generating backlinks to your website in other off-site articles boost your search engine rankings and allows you to share your credentials and expertise with a larger audience.

    SEO also helps you improve the customer experience. By adapting your content to reflect what your customers are looking for, you make it easier for them to find solutions to their problems.

    Conclusion

    You can improve the results generated from your company’s marketing strategy by incorporating user-generated content, conducting market research, and outlining your objectives. While it might seem like the marketing world is an ever-changing landscape, if you base your marketing techniques on your target audience’s needs and preferences, you’ll find success.

  • Microsoft Advertising Adds Target Impression Share Automated Bids

    Microsoft Advertising Adds Target Impression Share Automated Bids

    Microsoft has released its August product updates, including Target Impression Share automated bidding.

    Manually managing a search campaign can be a tedious process, especially when trying to stay at the top of the results. Microsoft’s August update aims to help address that with Target Impression Share automated bidding.

    “A new addition to our suite of automated bidding strategiesOpens in new window is the exciting new Target Impression Share strategy, now available in Microsoft Advertising online and Editor,” writes Kevin Salat, Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft Advertising. “With this strategy, you set your budget, where you want your ads to appear, and your Target Impression Share, and Microsoft Advertising automatically sets your bids.”

    Microsoft is a distant second to Google in search market share. Nonetheless, rolling out features that continue to make it easier for customers to use its services can only help it gain ground.

  • Hotel Marketers Are Turning to TikTok…and You Should Too

    Hotel Marketers Are Turning to TikTok…and You Should Too

    Hotel marketers are increasingly turning to TikTok in an effort to attract guests, setting an example others should follow.

    TikTok has revolutionized the social media industry with its short-form videos. Countless influencers’ careers have started on TikTok, with short-form videos that have gone viral. Hotels are now using short-form videos to show off their properties, attract guests, and tap into people’s desire for something unique.

    “TikTok is no longer considered a dance-trend app for teenagers,” Richard Hyde, managing director of Small Luxury Hotels, told Skift. “The platform is rapidly aging up. We’ve seen engagement from users of all ages on our Small Luxury Hotels of the World account.”

    “Authenticity is quickly becoming the new cultural currency,” he said, speaking of the popular “behind the scenes” approach. “Our hotels are experiential, entertaining, spontaneous, enriching, and fun – like Tik Tok. The platform doesn’t require polished content. Users will sniff out professionally made videos and they won’t perform as well. Our TikTok strategy is based on showing our beautiful hotels from a guest’s perspective.”

    As Skift points out, TikTok is an especially valuable resource for hotels and companies with limited marketing budgets. Savvy marketers can tap into existing trends and then tie in their products or services, thereby benefiting from the wealth of user-generated content.

    For example, the report highlights The Retreat Elcot Park in the English countryside, which tapped into the popularity of Netflix’s Bridgerton.

    “With the Bridgerton tag trending on TikTok, we entered that cultural conversation in an authentic way,” Hyde said. “Using a soundbite from the new series, we framed the hotel as a place that Bridgerton fans must visit.”

    “The TikTok reached an audience of 50,000 — 86 percent of whom discovered the video via the ‘For You Page’, meaning they were not following us yet,” Hyde added. “The comments were filled with friends tagging each other saying that they must visit the property.”

    “As well as discoverability, ‘saves’ are an important metric for us,” Hyde explained. “Users are now saving the destinations they would like to visit in the future.”

    TikTok has clearly evolved far beyond its roots and is now playing a major role in many companies marketing campaigns. With a little effort and even less budget, your company could benefit from this phenomenon and reap the rewards of engaging with user-created content.

  • How HubSpot is Using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to Drive Sales

    How HubSpot is Using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to Drive Sales

    “There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas,” says Scott Tousley of HubSpot. “He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website.”

    Scott Tousley, Senior Team Lead of User Acquisition for all products at HubSpot, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth Podcast by David Kelly, General Manager at Sumo Dojo. Tousley discusses how HubSpot is using Surround Sound Marketing Strategy to drive leads and sales:

    Surround Sound Marketing Strategy Starting to Take Off

    There is a very smart individual at HubSpot named Alex Birkett based out of Austin, Texas. He is working on this concept that is really starting to take off called Surround Sound Strategy. Essentially what that means is that it runs with the notion that marketers are selfish. All we care about is how do we drive more traffic to our website. I don’t care where it comes from. Whether it comes from search or social or referral traffic or email, it doesn’t matter. You’re always looking at how do I get more traffic to my website? The reality is that when we are trying to buy something you don’t go to one website. You go to multiple different websites when you are trying to make a purchasing decision.

    For example, I’m in South Lake Tahoe right now. One search I just did recently was “best bars in South Lake Tahoe.” I wanted to see a list and I wanted to see some reviews from a couple of different websites. I also like to surf, so let’s say I’m in the market for a new shortboard. So I search for “best shortboards 2019.” First, I’ll read a listicle, then I will go back to Google and I will click on the next list. Then I will go back again and click on the next list. Then I will start to narrow my decision based on seeing the same thing over and over. Once I narrow it down I will do a versus search such as “lost puddle jumper” vs. “channel islands average joe.” I’ve narrowed my decision at that point.

    We Want To Be At All Stages of the Purchasing Decision

    What we are trying to do at HubSpot right now is figure out how to be everywhere. We want to be at all stages of that purchasing decision when people are searching for “what is the best blank that exists today.” Well, there are a ton of lists that are out there and a ton of review sites and HubSpot’s B2B software (has to be there). There are a lot of review sites just dominating search engines right now like Capterra, G2 Crowd, and Software Advice. A lot of those are pay to play. You have got to pay to get listed on what appears when you land via search. Most of them are.

    But listicles are free. Not only are they free to get added to, but they are free to create. That’s one of the biggest things we are working on right now. How do we change our mindset from being so obsessed at driving traffic to our website? How do we make sure that HubSpot’s brand is everywhere when you are doing your product research and you are on many different websites? We actually sometimes prefer that we drive traffic to multiple different websites where we are listed versus just to our own. It’s good for social grouping.

    Listen to the full interview with HubSpot’s Scott Tousley.

  • Marketing: the Fledgling Artists’ Secret Weapon

    Marketing: the Fledgling Artists’ Secret Weapon

    If you ask anybody in Hollywood, in the music industry, in the publishing world or in any economically-viable, artist-led business, what is needed to make it, they will tell you it’s a combination of talent, luck, hard work and marketing.

    It seems obvious when you see it written down, but few people understand the implications of this.

    There is little you can do about talent: you either have it or you don’t. I can take dance lessons all my life, eat healthy, sleep early and train obsessively, but if I lack the raw talent, I will never make it. It’s as simple as that.

    There is also very little you can do about luck. Actually, there is something you can do about it – more on this in a minute. Luck is being in the right place at the right time, being seen by the right person, feeling the zeitgeist before everybody else does, and expressing it through your art. You have little control on any of this.

    If this is the case (and this IS the case), then what differentiates you from the hordes of aspiring actors, singers, writers, dancers, photographers, painters… It’s hard work, surely? Well, yes, hard work is key. It’s what nourishes the seed of talent and grows it to its full potential, it’s what allows you to keep going until you are at the right place at the right time, but it’s not enough. All successful artists work hard. Extremely and obsessively hard. It’s the only way to make it. And yet it’s not enough.

    Marketing Becomes the Great Equalizer

    But when your competition is just as talented and is working just as hard just as you are, only marketing can set you apart. Well, technically there is also luck: enough luck can make up for lack of talent, hard work and marketing, but you cannot direct luck.

    Think about it: why do you think Hollywood keeps pumping out so many book adaptations, sequels, prequels and spinoffs, rather than creating original stories? Because audiences would rather pay to see something they know, something they believe to be good, rather than take their chances on a movie they know little about.

    In a world where there is an abundance of art (songs, books, photographs, music, paintings, poems…), the only way to be commercially successful is to have a loyal following. Re-read this and understand that this applies to all artists from New York Times bestselling authors to aspiring bands practicing in their garage. To all of them.

    I would argue that all aspiring artists need to dedicate a serious amount of time to creating a base to push them through (unless, that is, they have a massive amount of talent or luck – no, hard work doesn’t cover for marketing).

    Self promotion has always been possible, but it’s always been scorned – as if talking about your work meant that it had to be mediocre – and it’s incredibly distracting. It’s as far away from talent, inspiration and discipline as it possibly can be. And yet it’s the reason for so many successes.

    Based on a True Story

    The Blair Witch Project and Papillon chose to go the “it’s a true story” route. It worked and it made them hits in their time. Arrival of the Gods went a different way. They claim to be creating something new. A self described video novel, this is an audiobook with an original music score and ambient animations (not too different from lo-fi music videos). If we can agree that books are going to line our shelves for the foreseeable future, then this might represent a trend we will be seeing a lot of.

    There is a strong appeal to claiming that intriguing facts really happened, and I’m not sure that video novels are a new idea (it sounds very similar to a visual novel to me), but what Arrival of the Gods is doing right is their focus on social media and creating an audience before the actual video novel even goes live.

    Their Instagram channel is a 101 on how to launch a project when you’re nobody. They have teased, released dozens of visuals from the upcoming video novel and even published a few chapters as an ebook. There are bios about the team, videos where they explain what a video novel is and there are even a couple of teaser trailers. And they’re not only on Instagram, they’re on YouTube, Facebook and they have a full website on which a handful of influencers praise the virtues of the book.

    In Conclusion

    If there is an example to follow for fledgling artists this is it. It’s going to take work, a lot of work, and it’s going to distract you from becoming a better artist, but it’s going to be worth it. What editor, label or gallery is going to pass on an artist with a hundred thousand (real) followers on social media?

  • How Do You Measure the Success of a Content-Driven Marketing Strategy?

    How Do You Measure the Success of a Content-Driven Marketing Strategy?

    Content marketing is reshaping ecommerce for companies large and small. That’s because marketing is about trust first and foremost and marketers are realizing that quality content builds trust quicker than traditional advertising. Tim Turner Forman of a new startup called The Tot and Matt Osias of Hawke Media recently discussed how to start a content-driven marketing strategy.

    Why is it important to resist the urge to have your content do the selling?

    Tim: What we do at The Tot is provide trust and advice and mindfully curated products. For it to be considered trusted advice it needs to come from a credible real place. It needs to be authentic and it needs to come from experts, people who know what they are talking about. At The Tot we work with a network of experts around the globe to create parenting content. What first-time parents are looking for most is information and they are just as likely to turn to a website as they are to go to a doctor and they are even more likely to go to a website than to ask their own Mother. If we are able to develop and curate content of moms sharing to other moms, that develops a relationship and provides values for them.

    How do you measure the success and performance of a content-driven marketing strategy?

    Matt: When you consider measuring in general, there are so many different formats that are out there that people can leverage. Oftentimes, people are saying… well I want articles for my blog. What type of article are you looking for? What is the goal of that piece of content? Are you trying to drive organic search and bring in new audiences so they can learn who you are or are you trying to engage them a bit more with videos and infographics? Every single format has a very specific measurement.

    Beyond that, your measurements are somewhat different than your basic media buying for example, where you spend a dollar and hope to make back three, or some version of that. When we are looking at content marketing, especially when it is brand agnostic, the real important ideal there is to think about how can I actually give something to my audience that resonates with them, teaches them and solves a problem. Then ultimately, your brand is there waiting for them.

    Awareness, Engagement, Advocacy

    The three things that I look at are awareness, engagement, and advocacy. The first thing you would want to do in building a content marketing strategy is to consider the idea of awareness, giving awareness to the people you are working with. Then having intent-driven content. People are asking questions in Google all the time and they are getting answers. If your site has the answers in its content, especially if it’s early stages, then that’s going to do something that most (ecommerce) sites aren’t doing, which is to put eyes onto your site, without the brand and product coming into play at first.

    With this brand agnostic content, the bulk of your content is primarily text-based content. With measurement I look at eyes on site and what they are doing when they get there. Are they jumping around to different pages or are they bouncing right away? When you bring in somebody to your site where it is solving something you have to have something that is engaging to keep them there and keep them coming back.

    Tim: We definitely watch inside of Google Analytics to be able to see the pageviews, what people are doing, and how they move from the editorial side of the site to the product side of the site. We also use content as part of our marketing program. It’s definitely an upper funnel prospecting piece.

    Quality Content is Just as Important as Ad Spend

    Tim: As somebody who came from an ad agency working with clients who had large ad spends and then coming to a start-up to help them grow and find customers, we didn’t have a large ad budget. What we did have though is this wonderful bank of content. This quality content has become just as important as the ad spend. Every month we put together a new prospecting campaign with a variety of articles and then we keep some evergreen pieces of what performed and that gives us a really good indicator of the type of people we are able to draw and attract to the site. It’s very contextually targeted so somebody that is clicking and looking at an article titled, “9 Ways to Prepare for a New Baby,” is probably going to be our customer.

  • Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

    Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel

    If you avoid these seven online marketing mistakes and you follow these tips you’re going to generate more sales, says popular digital marketing expert Neil Patel. A common theme of Neil’s tips is creating a brand. “Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands,” he says. “There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else.” Patel says that if you follow these tips you’re going to crush it!”

    Neil Patel, digital marketing expert and founder of Neil Patel Digital, discusses the seven online marketing mistakes in his latest video release:

    Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes

    I’m going to break down seven online marketing mistakes that you need to stop. You’re probably wondering you’re doing all these things but why aren’t you seeing results? Even if you’re doing the right things, if you’re also doing the wrong things at the same time it’s going to hurt you and it’s going avoid you from getting the results that you deserve.

    Mistake 1: Not Collecting Emails

    The first mistake you are making is not collecting emails. It doesn’t matter how good you are with SEO or marketing only a very small percentage of your visitors are ever going to convert into customers. By collecting emails not only can you get people to come back to your site but you can convince them to convert over emails.

    The moment someone gives you their email address think of that as a micro-commitment. They’re much more likely to convert into a customer because they committed, they already gave you something. That’s why you want to collect emails. You can do this through sliders or exit pop-ups. You can do this for free using tools like Hello Bar.

    Mistake 2: Not Collecting Subscribers Through Push Notifications

    The second mistake you’re making is you’re not collecting subscribers through push notifications. There are free tools like Subscribers.com that’ll make it easy. Just add in a JavaScript or a WordPress plug-in and then when people come to your website they will automatically subscribe through the browser. Then anytime you have new content or products or services that you want to sell then you can notify them through Subscribers.

    Mistake 3: Not Building a Brand

    The reason tip number one on collecting emails and tip number two on getting more push notifications subscribers are really important is because you need to build a brand. This gets you into the third mistake. Google doesn’t want to rank sites that aren’t brands. Why is this? There’s an issue out there called fake news and that’s why they’re pushing brands over anything else. It’s not just going to be Facebook and in Google. Eventually, it’s going to be Twitter and LinkedIn and all the sites out there.

    When you get people back to your site seven times you’re much more likely to build a brand. It’s called the Rule of Seven in marketing. So with your site, you want to provide an amazing user experience. When you provide an amazing user experience, create a great product, create a great service, it’ll help you build a great brand over time.

    Mistake 4: Not Interlinking

    The fourth mistake you’re making is not interlinking. You may notice on Google I’m ranking for terms like online marketing on page one. You’re probably wondering how do I do this? A lot of it comes out to interlinking. In my sidebar, I link to my most popular pages of content. When I write blog posts related to online marketing I link back to the online marketing guide that talks about what online marketing is. By having all these links it helps me rank higher.

    Mistake 5: Just Focusing On Text-Based Content

    The fifth mistake I have for you is just focusing on text-based content. The future of digital marketing is moving to video. It doesn’t mean you should stop doing text but it means you should also be doing video. When you do video you’re going to get more traffic because everyone’s lacking it. LinkedIn wants it right now. YouTube wants more of it. Facebook wants it. Instagram even wants it.

    Why is this? They want to crush the television networks. You look at things like the Oscars or traditional movie theaters and they’re not doing as well. You look at traditional TV and they’re going to get crushed. Why? It’s because of Facebook. It’s because of Google. It’s because of Netflix. If you’re there creating that video content you can be part of it and you’re going to get extra traffic. They want as much help as possible to crush these big old-school companies.

    Mistake 6: Sticking To Just a Few Marketing Channels

    The sixth mistake that you’re making is you’re really sticking to just a few marketing channels. Marketing is competitive. People raise venture capital hundreds of millions of dollars just so they can compete in marketing and sales. You need to do more than one or two or three marketing channels. The more you do the better off you’re going to be.

    Mistake 7: Not Asking For the Sale

    The seventh mistake I have for you is not asking for the sale. Whether it’s a lead or whether it’s getting people to buy your product, there’s nothing wrong with asking people to buy from you. If you don’t you’re not going to generate any sales. Everyone’s like I get all this traffic through my online marketing but no one’s converting. Why? Because you’re not asking for a sale.

    Stop Making These 7 Online Marketing Mistakes and You Will Crush It, Says Neil Patel


  • Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    “Our ads on Reddit have gotten a lot of traction and puts a big smile on people’s faces,” says 1-800 Flowers CEO Chris McCann. “That’s what we’re trying to do is just make sure we’re relevant and create that cognitive speed bump when people think about our company. They see something different and I’m thrilled with the creative team for coming up with something like that.”

    Reddit Ad That Went Viral for 1-800-Flowers.com

    As usual, some opinionated Redditers expressed their thoughts on the ads:

    1-800 Flowers CEO discusses the company’s growth that was accelerated by the pandemic:

    Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

    What we’ve seen is an acceleration of growth in our company that began back in 2018 and really then accelerated even further in 2020 with the pandemic. It’s driven by the need for us as people to connect and express ourselves. As a company whose vision is to inspire more human expression, connection, and celebration, and as an ecommerce leader, we’re well-positioned in the trends that we see coming out of this pandemic. We think these trends are sustainable going forward.

    We started out as one flower shop many years ago. What we’ve done is created this e-commerce platform for growth, a platform for expression, connection, and celebration. It starts with this all-star family of brands that we have led by Harry & David, 1-800-Flowers, Cheryl’s Cookies, Shari’s Berries, and our recent acquisition just this past August of Personalization Mall. You see us now as a company in the expression and connection business with a leadership position in floral, a leadership position in gourmet food gifting, and certainly now leadership and position in expressions and personalized items which is a fast-growing market.

    You’ll continue to continue to see us grow by organic product development of products that help customers express and connect. And as we’ve done through acquisition, adding to that platform and leveraging that platform that we’ve built.

    Need To Express and Connect Is a Lasting Trend

    Hopefully, the vaccines accelerate and we turn to some sense of normalcy sooner rather than later. As we look at our business, the momentum we saw began in 2018 and 2019 and then accelerated with the pandemic. We’ve been on a good momentum growth even before the pandemic and we really see ourselves now as a bigger stronger company than we were prior to it. We’ve acquired Personalization Mall just this past August and by putting it on our platform and leveraging our digital marketing expertise we accelerated the growth of that company. It grew by 50 percent this last quarter.

    A year ago August we acquired Shari’s Berries and took a business that was stagnant and losing money to now one that’s got a nice growth rate and is generating a nice contribution margin as well. If we just keep our focus on what the consumer is looking for to help express and connect then we’ll be continuing to see double-digit growth for some time to come. That trend that we’ve all learned from being isolated, our need to express and connect is a lasting trend coming out of this pandemic along with the shift from offline to online.

    1-800 Flowers Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

  • LinkedIn Killing Stories, Revamping Videos

    LinkedIn Killing Stories, Revamping Videos

    LinkedIn is killing off its ephemeral Stories features but plans to use what it learned to improve videos across its platform.

    LinkedIn introduced Stories last year as a way for professionals to share short videos that would disappear after 24 hours. Liz Li, Senior Director of Product at LinkedIn, says the company was surprised to learn that some people wanted their videos to have more permanence than Stories provides.

    You wish videos could live on your profile, not disappear. In developing Stories, we assumed people wouldn’t want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting. Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality and expertise. 

    Feedback also indicated that many users wanted tools to create more engaging videos.

    LinkedIn appears to be listening to the feedback and plans to kill off Stories by the end of September. The company will then take the feedback and lessons its learned, and roll them into a new and improved video experience.

    We’ve learned a ton. Now, we’re taking those learnings to evolve the Stories format into a reimagined video experience across LinkedIn that’s even richer and more conversational. We want to embrace mixed media and creative tools of Stories in a consistent way across our platform, while working to integrate it more tightly with your professional identity.

  • Twitter Announces Shop Module, Its Foray Into E-Commerce

    Twitter Announces Shop Module, Its Foray Into E-Commerce

    Twitter is looking to help businesses bring e-commerce to their Twitter profiles with a new feature called Shop Module.

    Shop Module is designed to let businesses showcase their products at the top of their profile page. Businesses will be able to use the feature to create a carousel of their products for people to browse.

    Bruce Falk, Product Lead, Goldbird, described the feature in a blog post:

    The Shop Module is a dedicated space at the top of a profile where businesses can showcase their products. When people visit a profile with the Shop Module enabled, they can scroll through the carousel of products and tap through on a single product to learn more and purchase — seamlessly in an in-app browser, without having to leave Twitter.

    We’re starting small with a handful of brands in the United States. People in the U.S. who use Twitter in English on iOS devices will be able to see the Shop Module.

    Some see Twitter’s announcement as part of the larger evolution of the e-commerce industry.

    “Social commerce solves the agility challenges brands have experienced within other e-commerce platforms,” Eric Dahan, Open Influence CEO/Co-Founder, told WebProNews. “Moving forward, we don’t expect this evolution of e-commerce to slow down. 64 percent of small businesses plan to continue their new e-commerce strategies in 2021.”

    Twitter plans on rolling the feature out to a handful of US-based brands. English Twitter users in the US on iOS should soon start seeing Shop Module.

  • Target CEO Says Digital Performance Up 50%

    Target CEO Says Digital Performance Up 50%

    “Our digital performance was up 50 percent,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. Same-day fulfillment services now represent over half of our digital channel.”

    Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:

    Digital Performance Up 50 Percent

    We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.

    We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.

    We’ve Connected With The Consumer

    As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.

    We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.

    Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business

    When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.

    Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.

    Target CEO Brian Cornell Says Digital Performance Up 50%
  • Workday CEO: Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    Workday CEO: Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    “Digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic,” says Workday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri. “What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities.”

    Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday, discusses how the pandemic will drive digital transformation forward at an even faster pace:

    Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic

    The first three quarters during the pandemic were challenging. The vagaries of subscription accounting models are such that it is a lag indicator. We expect new bookings growth to accelerate this year and that is our primary indicator and the way we run the business. We’re very excited about where we’re headed. That acceleration will probably take at least a year to show up in subscription accounting numbers just because of the way the model works. 

    What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities. In many ways, companies like Nike that are just such great market-leading companies, recognize that they needed to move this capability to the cloud. So I think actually digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic. 

    Employee Engagement Rose To The Top Of The List

    It comes back to the flexibility and agility that that cloud solutions like Workday provide. We’ve been very fortunate. We’re so happy to have Laboratory Corporation of America become a customer. J&J is a customer. Visor’s a customer. AstraZeneca is a customer. I just feel honored to be able to support these companies who are doing the best they can to save our lives and are just doing amazing work with the vaccines and testing. We’ve always had a strength in the pharmaceuticals and diagnostics role. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they’re successful because they’re taking care of all of us.

    Coming back to what we learned during the pandemic, employee engagement just rose to the top of every CEO’s list and every head of HR’s list. In a remote work orientation, it was harder to really understand how do employees think about the company they work at, their engagement level, their comfort with their manager, and if they are feeling fulfilled at work. We were already down the path at Workday with something called Pulse Surveys. We recognized that this emerging trend was going to be critical going forward. 

    We Fell In Love With Peakon So We Acquired Them

    We concluded that we had to get in this market now, the market’s happening now, and Peakon is the well-known leader in this category. Peakon is a UK-based company with an amazing management team. We fell in love with the product and the management team so we made them part of Workday. They’re one of the new generations of companies that’s machine learning first.

    They really use machine learning in the right way to guide decisions and really give you insight into how employees are thinking about the company that they’re working for and how engaged are they. That is a supercritical set of information that’s going to drive companies going forward.

    Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic, Says Worday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri
  • Disney Accelerating Pivot To DTC-First Business Model

    Disney Accelerating Pivot To DTC-First Business Model

    During yesterday’s earnings call Disney CEO Bob Chapek said it has accelerated the company’s pivot towards a DTC-first business model. “Our recent strategic reorganization has enabled us to accelerate the company’s pivot, towards a DTC-first business model and further grow our streaming services,” says Chapek. “Disney+ has exceeded even our highest expectations, in just over a year since its launch with 94.9 million subscribers. ESPN+ and Hulu have also performed well, with 12.1 million and 39.4 million subscriptions, respectively.”

    Chapek attributes the company’s massive streaming growth to its huge collection of brands. “The wealth of IP from our unrivaled collection of brands and franchises provides us with an incredible breadth and depth of storylines and characters to mine for Disney+ and our other streaming services,” says Chapek. “We have the ability to interconnect these storylines and characters in unprecedented ways as we saw with The Mandalorian and WandaVision tying into the broader Star Wars and Marvel franchises. We’re excited to continue exploring the endless possibilities that this unique ecosystem provides.”

    DTC Results Improved By $650 Million

    “We believe that we’ve got a great price-value relationship,” says Chapek. “I think the best insulation we’ve got (to lower churn) is to keep the price-value relationship very high and there’s no better way to do it than powerhouse franchises cranking out regular new releases on a monthly basis.”

    Disney’s direct-to-consumer results have improved by nearly $650 million versus the prior year. “Last quarter, we guided to direct-to-consumer operating income declining by $100 million versus the prior year under our former segment structure,” says Disney CFO Christine McCarthy. “Our reported results are $750 million higher than that guidance.”

    Lower Disney Losses Attributed To Disney+

    Disney attributes their lower losses to the growth of the Disney+ streaming service. “A lower loss in the first quarter compared to the prior year was driven by subscriber growth partially offset by higher costs due to the launch and expansion of Disney+. With 94.9 million paid subscribers at the end of Q1, Disney+’s global net additions were 21.2 million versus Q4.”

    “Disney+ Hotstar subscriber additions continued their strong growth trend with Disney+ Hotstar subscribers making up approximately 30% of our global subscriber base,” said McCarthy. “We also saw strong additions to our subscriber base from our November launch in Latin America.”

    Disney Happy With Level Of Churn

    Disney is also very happy with its level of churn especially as it relates to subscribers who came into the Disney+ service via their Verizon partnership which helped power its launch last year. “We are very pleased with what we’ve seen so far on the level of churn,” said McCarthy. “And as our product offering matures and we put more content into the service and our subscriber base becomes more tenured, we expect to see our churn rates continue to decline.

    So in regard to the specific churn related to the anniversary of the Verizon launch promotion from last November 2020, we’re really happy with the conversion numbers that we have seen there going from the promotion to become paid subscribers.”

    100 New Titles a Year

    “With Disney+ originals along with the theatrical releases and the library titles, we’ll be adding something new to the service every week,” noted McCarthy. “We are very pleased with the engagement overall. We believe we’re going to reach that cadence of getting content on the service every week within the next few years. We’ve also set that target for 100-plus new titles per year. And that’s across Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo. And of course, we’ll continue to add more to our library as we go through time as well.”

    “Given the value of growing our sub base, we are continuing to invest in high-quality content,” says McCarthy. “We believe that content is the single biggest driver to not only acquiring subs, but retaining them.”

  • Instagram Unveils Live Rooms, Ability to Livestream With Three People

    Instagram Unveils Live Rooms, Ability to Livestream With Three People

    Instagram has introduced Live Rooms, doubling the capacity of its Live on Instagram feature.

    Instagram previously allowed creators to go live with a single individual, meaning a livestream only had a total of two people in it. With Live Rooms, creators can now go live with up to three people, bringing the total participants to four.

    We hope that doubling up on Live will open up more creative opportunities — start a talk show, host a jam session or co-create with other artists, host more engaging Q&As or tutorials with your following, or just hang out with more of your friends.

    Live Rooms is designed to help creators monetize their social media presence even more, building on existing features. The company recently made it possible for Live viewers to buy badges to support their favorite creators. Viewers can also take advantage of the Shopping and Live Fundraisers features.

    Instagram says it is working on additional options, such as moderator controls and audio features that it hopes will continue to aid content creators.

  • Twitter Works to Make Advertisers Feel Safe

    Twitter Works to Make Advertisers Feel Safe

    Twitter is taking steps to ensure advertisers feel safe on its platform, a vital step for the company’s long-term growth.

    One of the biggest challenges social media companies face is balancing individuals’ right to express themselves with companies’ efforts to protect their brand. Facebook ran afoul of advertisers in June when the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found many ads from high-profile companies placed alongside content that would be deemed racist and offensive. As a result, Coca-Cola, The Hershey Company, Levi Strauss & Co, Verizon, Mozilla, Upwork, REI, Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s, The North Face and Eddie Bauer were just a few of the companies that pulled their advertising from the platform.

    Twitter is working to prevent that kind of scenario, with a new focus on brand safety, according to Business Insider.

    “We want every brand to feel confident advertising on Twitter,” said Sarah Personette, Twitter VP of global client solutions, in an interview. “Brand safety is a critical component to that.”

    The company has committed to audits by the Media Rating Council. Certification by the MRC is considered the gold standard, providing some assurance the platform’s systems are operating without bias. Twitter is also planning to announce third-party partnerships in the coming weeks, aimed at promoting brand safety.

    At a time when Twitter is working to stay relevant amid the onslaught of newer platforms, and is trying to walk the moderation tightrope, this is a critical step for the company’s success.

  • Uber CEO Says ‘Eats’ Growing At Unprecedented Rate

    Uber CEO Says ‘Eats’ Growing At Unprecedented Rate

    “The Uber Eats business continues to grow at unprecedented rates,” says Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “Revenue has almost tripled year on year. That business continues to accelerate. It looks like the Eats business is sticky. I wouldn’t count on the growth rates we are having now post-pandemic. However, I do think that you are going to have big growth rates off of a much larger base as a result of everything that has happened.”

    Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says that Uber Eats is growing at unprecedented rates during the pandemic and he expects the business to do well post-pandemic as well:

    Uber Eats Growing At Unprecedented Rate

    On the Uber Eats side, it is an entirely different story where the business continues to grow at unprecedented rates. Revenue has almost tripled year on year. That business continues to accelerate. When we look at Eats we are seeing some great trends. The monthly actives on Eats are up 70% on a year on year basis. The trips are up 110% on a year on year basis. New orders, orders per eater, or basket sizes, all of these trends are up double-digit.

    We’ve taken a look at Eats’ performance in markets that are opening up such as New York City and we haven’t seen any kind of performance degradation in Eats. What that suggests to us is that there is a whole new class of consumer that’s experiencing the delight of being able to pick anything and have it delivered within 30 minutes and eat what you want how you want it. It looks like the Eats business is sticky. I wouldn’t count on the growth rates we are having now post-pandemic. However, I do think that you are going to have big growth rates off of a much larger base as a result of everything that has happened.

    As Cities Open Up Uber Opens Up

    It really is impossible to tell when the mobility business can come back. It depends entirely on the health situation on the ground. With markets that are opening up faster because of the health situation or the society, things are coming back. For example, we looked in New York City where the counts have been down relative to the rest of the country and in just October our volumes were 63% of pre-pandemic levels. This is materially higher than they were in the rest of the nation.

    You have week-day use cases of the service outside of commute that is now at pre-pandemic levels or higher. As cities open up Uber opens up as well. We actually think that we can be a beneficiary of certain trends that we’re seeing.

    We have invested in safety such as digital mask verification. We also have the No Mask No Rides advertising campaigns. People are feeling safer using Uber. Our reliability and predictability are absolutely unrivaled. While we look at share and we always want to make sure that we are competitive really what we focus on is the reliability of the service and safety of our drivers and hopefully coming back as the health situation improves.

    Vaccine Could Radically Improve Bookings

    There is a pretty consistent improvement in the mobility business as you go month to month to month. This is one of the benefits of having a truly global business. Within that steady improvement, there are all sorts of ups and downs. Hong Kong has had some openings and closings. Obviously, Europe is now going through another shutdown. US case counts are moving up. The individual curves are not smooth. But when you look at our global portfolio it smooths out.

    We are seeing a month to month improvement. For example, if you look at our last quarter overall gross bookings were down 50%. In September, the last month of the quarter, they were down only 44%. You just see this kind of consistent improvement. We think that the consistent improvement will continue into next year. We think a vaccine could radically improve the slope of that improvement.

    Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Says ‘Eats’ Growing At Unprecedented Rate