Article Archive by Emily MacNair

Are Social Media Campaigns Worth It?

by Emily MacNair

This is a question that many companies raise as they manage the day-to-day Facebook posts, tweets, blogs, etc.  It’s a full-time job for large companies, and for smaller companies it often falls to the marketing department to manage or “test” to see its effectiveness.

While measuring results of every single post isn’t always possible, many studies point to the fact that social media is in fact valuable for brands.

eMarketer recently published data from a study about the immediate and prolonged results of social media campaigns.  What they found is quite astounding.

• After exposure to a social media campaign, the likelihood someone would recommend a product increased to 61% (up from 39% pre-exposure to the campaign).
• One year after being exposed to the campaign, their likelihood of recommending a product remained elevated at 55%.
• An individual’s purchase intent after being exposed to a social media campaign increased to 69% (up from 38% pre-exposure to the campaign).
• A year later the purchase intent was still as high as 61%!

More about this study can be found here. This data clearly indicates the importance of social media marketing and the profound impact that it can have on word of mouth marketing (via recommendations) and purchase intent.

Your company should be participating in social media, if you’re not already.  And if you are already participating, you should be developing social media campaigns.  Too many companies simply post content on a daily basis, with little thought to their overall goal.  Social media campaigns should be created throughout the year to coincide with your other marketing efforts (online and offline).  You should focus on creating meaningful campaigns – ones that will be remembered and shared.  They could include giveaways, contests and/or user generated content.  Social media lends itself to engage with potential customers and companies should leverage this it to its fullest potential.

Facebook Launches Subscribe Button

by Emily MacNair

Until recently you had to be “friends” with someone to be able to receive their updates in your News Feed.  Facebook rolled out a new feature recently which has now changed that.  You are now able to “subscribe” to someone else’s updates regardless of whether or not you are connected (i.e. “friends”). The idea behind this is to give Facebook users a bit more control over the type of information that fills their News Feed. Anyone on Facebook knows how quickly new information populates in the News Feed, and sometimes it’s not information you care to see. In the image below you will note that a user has the ability to select the type of information they’d like to subscribe to.

So if you have a friend who constantly posts updates related to games, you can opt out of seeing those types of updates if you choose.

There are a few things to note.  First is that all of your friends will have a subscribe button on their profile.

This is because you’ve already subscribed to that person’s feed by becoming friends.

Additional people can subscribe to your updates after you allow subscribers. Once you do this, a Subscribe button will show up on your profile and your public updates will appear in their News Feeds once they click this button. If you are interested in getting subscribers, you will need to follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Go to your profile and click Subscriptions on the left side of the page, under your profile picture.
2. Click “Allow Subscribers” at the top of this tab.
3. After you click “Allow Subscribers,” your settings appear. From here, you can edit who can comment on your public posts and when you’re notified about new subscribers. You can also see who subscribes to you.

To encourage subscribing to others, there is new a section that now shows suggestions of who to subscribe to when logged in (very similar to Twitter’s Who to Follow suggestions).

This subscribe option now can make Facebook posts more useful if you want them to be public, and particularly if you start gaining and audience. On the other hand, it also may add more confusion to the already confusion privacy options in Facebook.

Measuring Top vs. Side Ad Performance

by Emily MacNair

We all know that some ads receive more clicks than others depending on their position on the search results page. But until just recently, analyzing this information was a bit difficult.  On July 13th, AdWords introduced a new reporting method that enables advertisers to view metrics for their ads when they show at the top of the search results and when they show to the side of the search results. To view this information, click on “Segment” and then select the “Top vs. Side” option.  Here you will see metrics separated for your top and side ads. The metrics include clicks, impressions, CTR, Average CPC, Cost, etc.

In addition to Google top and side ads being included in this report, it also includes an “other” bucket as well. This “other” bucket will include metrics for other ad formats, such as Product listings, that don’t conform to the top and side positions. Other test ads by Google may be reported here as well.

When you apply this new segment, you will also see data from ads run on Google’s search partners.  It will show metrics for search partners’ top ads, and then everything else will be included in an “other” bucket.  This is simply due to the fact that Search partners show ads in a different manner, and “side ads” may not always be the best description for those. Lastly, the report also includes Google Display Network ads and associated metrics.

If you haven’t already, take the time to review where your ads convert best and make necessary adjustments to ensure you’re maximizing your visibility on Google, their search partners, and the Display Network.