Social Marketing

Influencers are taking an increasingly large chunk of the digital ad market, and many individuals with hefty, engaged social media followings are charging top dollar to work with brands to spread the word about their products and services.

Seven in 10 US internet users will use social media regularly in 2017, according to eMarketer’s latest forecast. However, the ways in which social media users connect with friends, family members—and, of course, brands—vary greatly depending on the user’s age.

An October 2016 Influenster survey, which polled US influencers who are heavy users of at least two social networks, found that 93% of respondents ages 14 to 18 watch product reviews on YouTube, compared to 86% of overall influencers.

Picture the scene: you’re trying to share a video with a couple of friends to illustrate a point you’ve been arguing about for the last half hour. As the video loads, an ad pops up at twice the volume of what you’ve been playing before. You groan and turn the volume down, but you’ve missed the chance to skip the ad and get bounced to your browser as the brand site loads. You switch back to YouTube but the conversation has moved on and your friends have lost interest. Advertising has ruined the moment.

We’re over a decade into the social media era and it’s still the Wild West out there, with all kinds of criminal activity going basically unchecked.

As Facebook develops an ever-more diverse portfolio of businesses, questions arise of whether it risks diluting its core identity.  Put another way, will the future of Facebook look like Google? Or, will it look more like Yahoo?

“What’s next?” That question drives our industry every day. Answering it isn’t easy. You don’t get there using conjecture or assumptions—you get there using passion, precision, experience and rigorous science. And when it comes to measuring the breakneck evolution of social media—answering the question can be as difficult as it is vital. But when you take a closer look at up-to-the-minute social media data, the direction forward snaps into focus.

Third-party verification can’t come too soon to digital media, as the combination of bot fraud, fake news and audience restatements has 50% of marketers saying they will no longer place advertising on a platform they consider risky

Last week, the Doomsday Clock was moved from 3 minutes to midnight to 2.5 minutes to 12. Scientists believe that the chance of the world going up in a thermonuclear puff of smoke is the highest it’s been since 1953. This in the same week that Marc Pritchard, the global brand building officer from P&G, made waves by announcing that P&G, in effect, had moved the hand of the ad-spend doomsday clock to 12. High noon!

Interest in influencer marketing continues to increase—and prices are rising in tandem—but measurement capabilities haven’t kept pace.

Part of State Farm’s Hispanic social presence, Alma also developed a mini online sitcom rooted in Hispanic insights called Los Asegurados or The Insured in English.

With the proliferation of influencer content and the increased scrutiny of the FTC on disclosures, one of the critical elements is maintaining authenticity. In a time where so many CPG brands are investing in influencer marketing due to the abounding opportunities, do too many sponsored posts mean death to an influencer’s credibility, audience and engagement?

Pointing not only to an influx of fake news and spam, but also an ongoing challenge to distinguish what’s real and what’s not, Google took down 1.7 billion ads last year that violated its advertising policies—more than double the amount it removed in 2015.

In order to gain the credence of a wary audience, we have to stop selling and start communicating. Advertisements have become invisible to most and for those who still see them, skepticism has replaced intrigue.

The grandfather of the digital video space is still looking pretty youthful. Despite an increasingly competitive digital video space that is packed with new (and successful) properties, usage of YouTube remains strong and the unit continues to be an important part of parent company Alphabet’s portfolio.

Throughout history, we have devised the means to ensure our voices are heard—from the telegraph to telecommunications satellites roaming the orbit. Over the last decade, however, social media has changed the way we communicate in a way that has been revolutionary. It has, literally, given those with just a voice the power to speak to the world and has provided consumers with a platform to break news, start dialogues and share views about content.

As influencer marketing evolves from a buzzed-about effort to a proven technique, marketers need to take stock of what they know is effective. Here are five important changes coming up in 2017, and experts’ advice about what to do about them.

72% of marketers consider data analysis more important than social media skills  [REPORT]

Over the past decade, Pew Research Center has documented the wide variety of ways in which Americans use social media to seek out information and interact with others. A majority of Americans now say they get news via social media, and half of the public has turned to these sites to learn about the 2016 presidential election. Americans are using social media in the context of work (whether to take a mental break on the job or to seek out employment), while also engaging in an ongoing effort to navigate the complex privacy issues that these sites bring to the forefront.  By Shannon Greenwood, Andrew Perrin and Maeve Duggan

According to UBS Evidence Lab, 54% of 18- to 34-year-olds visit YouTube at least once per day, making it the third-most popular social media platform for daily usage among this age group.