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Pedro Gonçalves

The 3 Keys To Agile Content Development | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce - 0 views

  • When brands come to agencies for agile content development, the main criteria is usually that the content must be high quality, compelling, low-cost, high frequency, and quick-turnaround. But often their internal structure and processes aren’t yet optimized to embrace this type of approach. In agile content development, timing and efficiency is everything. Without it, there is no liftoff.
  • Brands can optimize themselves for agile content development by making internal adjustments that improve communication, the first of which should be to empower a small team to manage the process. This team should have the authority to secure and approve budgets, as well as weigh in creatively and strategically on content as it goes to market. Creating a nimble group that has real ownership of the process will make things more efficient and reduce the chances of unnecessary stress being put on your brand marketing team as a whole.
  • This exercise will also help your brand get into the right mind-set. Think of your brand marketing team as the police force, and your agile content group as the SWAT team.
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  • Agile content development is best executed by a partner that has strategy, production, and analytics under one roof, combining what agencies traditionally do best with what production companies traditionally do best.
  • When strategy, creative, and production teams can sit side by side and collaborate fluidly, agile content is the by-product.
  • A perfect example of this is Red Bull, which has even gone a step further to combine brand, agency, and production company into one. No one would argue that they are not one of the most successful agile content marketers on the planet.
  • The most important part of setting your brand’s agile content strategy is having a clear idea of why your brand is creating content to begin with.
  • Next, your responsibility is to make sure that the content you’re creating is meeting your brand’s overall objectives. Your selected content partner should be responsible for making sure the content you create is something that your target consumer actually wants to see.
  • Once your brand’s content strategy is set, it should be seen as a living framework that should evolve over time. Recognize that your brand and content both live in a dynamic world that changes constantly.
Pedro Gonçalves

Customers remember experiences, not content | Media Network | Guardian Professional - 0 views

  • Justin Pearse recently wrote a nice article on the state of digital content. He argues that content needs to be thoughtful, meaningful and well executed for it to be effective – it should be less about the brand, and more about the audience.
  • While his argument is absolutely correct, it pivots on the idea that engagement often begins and ends with a piece of content. The reality is that the failure of content marketing is in the belief that content exists in a vacuum.If you create a piece of content and don't support it, you're probably going to be disappointed. In other words, if we define experience as the beginning-to-end engagement with a brand, then content is simply part of the spectrum.
  • Digital content needs to be supported by great user experience (UX), solid digital strategy, attentive channel management and smart technology. To reiterate – it must be part of a system.
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  • Under this model, content strategists realise digital strategies and UX requirements as the things our users read, watch and play with. In other words, we are really the architects of experiences.
  • Most agencies look at content strategists as the guys who audit content, test its effectiveness and generally specialise in its strategic and editorial underpinnings.This needs to change.
  • Content works best when you define it as anything that occupies your brand's space. Content strategy therefore works best when it's the conduit between user experience, strategy, creative and technology.
  • I recently worked with a bank that wanted branded content to help bolster waning sales of a low-rate credit card. But when we looked closely at the entire experience, we realised that content would do little for card sales. The application process was complex, dated and unfriendly.My recommendation as a content strategist was "fix your website then look at content". We built out a strategy, but it focused more on constructing an ecosystem for content than content itself. Put differently, it laid out scaffolding for good, hard-working content.
  • users remember fun, exciting or informative experiences that go well beyond any single piece of content.
Pedro Gonçalves

Channeling Anna Wintour: When Creating Branded Content, Think Like An Editor-In-Chief |... - 0 views

  • These days, developing a successful online presence requires approaching traditional digital efforts like link-building, web traffic, lead generation, and sales from a decidedly more editorial, content-rich approach: a hybrid marketing and storytelling strategy that drives customer actions by creating, documenting, distributing, and optimizing content. Some companies have created their own internal content development departments or are working with agencies to create everything from infographics to documentaries that highlight where the values, interests, and personality of brand and customer overlap. Coca Cola believes so strongly in the power of content that they are relying on this approach to help them double the size of their business by 2020.
  • While your office probably looks a lot different than a newsroom, approaching content strategy by thinking like a magazine publisher or a television producer is an effective way to approach content development and promotion. Utilizing influential voices to develop and promote content can help ensure that you meet the first requirement of securing readership and viewers--be interesting.
  • The people who already create for you: We often hear “write about what you know” because it comes easiest. Identify the talented storytellers within your own walls. Those with an intimate knowledge of company activities are primed to create impactful content, even on a tight deadline. Identify employees who are weekend filmmakers, amateur photographers, poets, and guitar players and invite them to bring these talents to the table.
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  • The people who use your product or service: The voice of the customer is the most influential of all. Provide loyal consumers with an opportunity to get involved by sharing their stories. Identify digital influencers that fit your brand aesthetic and explore partnership opportunities. This approach is heavily evident in the fashion industry, where brands routinely work with fashion bloggers on everything from Twitter chats to advertising campaigns.
  • The people who support you: Why not collaborate on content development with partners or vendors? By working together, budgets become more manageable and both parties can benefit from the potential PR story. By working together, you can deliver deeper impact and cast a wider net. 
  • With more brands developing more and more content, we will naturally reach a point of over-saturation where only the very best stories will make an impact. As such, it is absolutely crucial to begin to refine and optimize current content marketing practices. Also, with the line blurring between marketing or brand managers and content developers, it’s worth noting that those best suited for positions in content marketing have a rare combination of business and marketing acumen, digital savvy, as well as journalism, public relations, film, and even creative writing. For those with this mega-mix, employment opportunities abound.
Pedro Gonçalves

Only 30% of Brands' Pinterest Engagement Come From Own Pins | Adweek - 0 views

  • Seventy percent of brand engagement on the social scrapbooking platform is driven by users—that is, users pinning brand content outside of brands' own Pinterest accounts—versus only 30 percent generated by brands pinning something that users repin, comment on or otherwise interact with.
  • fashion/retail brands that see 82 percent of their engagement come straight from the community. Meanwhile, auto brands saw 75 percent of their engagement from the community, and electronics brands saw a more even-keeled 53 percent engagement from the community.
  • Brands that want to join those conversations should create images that users will want to share.
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  • fashion brands have always understood storytelling in a way other brands haven't." That might explain why the fashion/retail brands examined averaged 46 repins for their every pin, whereas user-generated fashion/retail pins usually only notch 6 repins. On the other hand, auto brands typically see only three repins versus 10 repins for users’ auto-related pins, and electronics brands average five repins compared to their users’ 14 repins.
  • best day and time for brands in each vertical to pin—3 p.m. ET on Friday for fashion/retail, noon ET on Friday for auto and 10 p.m. ET on Monday for electronics—but both Bitterman and Gupta said it's hard to decipher how marketers should view those findings. Bitterman inferred that Friday afternoons make sense for fashion/retail and autos because many people shop or take test drives over the weekend and begin planning those outings on Friday. "Electronics kind of stumps me," he said before inferring that Pinterest users interested in electronics may be a relatively smaller population whose prime Web browsing time correlates with prime-time TV.
Pedro Gonçalves

Chinese Viewers Flocking to Brands' Online Mini-Movies - 0 views

  • In China, he said, online branded content is "the only thing that makes sense in advertising." 
  • Sirena Liu, founder and president of Filmworks China, an agency that also specializes in assembling content for brands, doesn't think the branded content in its most recent form will necessarily last forever. "The trend of mini-movies will continue to be popular for a while, but probably not for too long," Liu told brandchannel.
  • DiIanni said Chinese audiences want stories and "want to engage with content and social media." But he cautioned that "brands need to be flexible and open to new ideas" in content. Too often in his experience, he said, brands do not see the opportunity in some roles offered in content. 
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  • Liu reasons that the high costs of production and promotion make branded content one of the riskier propositions. "The brands will soon realize that it makes more sense to do placement in a high-profile film," she said. "Less cost, more exposure."
Pedro Gonçalves

Sweden's Advertisers Warm to Content Marketing - eMarketer - 0 views

  • A majority of Sweden’s advertisers now use some form of content marketing to enhance their brands
  • While 69% of those polled said they knew what content marketing was, nearly one-quarter (23%) said they had heard of it but didn’t know about it.
  • Among marketers who had content strategies, 80% said that form of marketing was at least somewhat effective at strengthening their brand, and a similar number said it nurtured existing customer relationships. More than half said it was effective for finding new customers. It was less good at generating direct sales, according to this sample.
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  • Nearly all the advertisers polled (92%) said they aimed content marketing at their customers, and 54% targeted prospects. Six in 10 also created content designed for journalists or others in the media. The most popular approach—mentioned by 65%— involved placing content on both print and digital platforms, while 43% used only digital channels.
  • Facebook was the runaway winner when it came to distributing branded content; 84% of advertisers said they had used it, and a further 11% planned to do so in the future.
  • More than three-quarters (78%) of those polled said they had produced newsletters, and 12% intended to do so, while 74% had posted content on properties such as partner websites. Pinterest was one of the least compelling propositions for these advertisers. Just 8% said they had used it to post content, and 3% planned to do so; 73% said they weren’t even considering it at the moment. Despite the growing enthusiasm for content marketing, content-related budgets remain rather low, judging by this research. More than two in five respondents (42%) reported that their company spent less than SEK1 million ($147,711) on these initiatives, and 24% spent between SEK1 million and SEK5 million ($738,552). Yet only 6% said they had no funds at all for content marketing. In another vote of confidence for content, 53% of advertisers said their content budgets would increase in 2014.
Pedro Gonçalves

With Online Video, You Have 20 Seconds To Capture Your Viewer. Go. | Fast Company - 0 views

  • The social media generation puts accessibility above almost all else, and nothing is more accessible than the world wide web. As a result, a new type of viewing experience has emerged--quick views over your breakfast cereal or during your lunch break. But video producers often fail to cater to this type of viewing experience, instead focusing on what has been successful over the past half-century.
  • the current online environment calls for video and content that is made specifically for online audiences. Meaning short-form video with a quality that matches the production level of offline content. Not spinoffs or originally discarded footage, but shows and content made specifically for online viewers
  • Online video doesn't have the luxury of longer-form shows that a viewer schedules time to watch. More likely, they stumbled upon your video by chance on their Twitter or Facebook feed. They haven't committed to watching their video, but their interest is piqued and they've pushed play. Don't waste that chance. The video must grab and engage them nearly instantaneously--if not, you'll lose potential longterm fans. Unengaging, ported-over content won't survive in our ADD environment.
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  • But for curators to surface awesome content, there has to be awesome content to begin with. Original content, from inspirational marketing videos (like Nike's below) to an online-specific show, will continue to rise in popularity. While user-generated content will exist as long as users exist, and can often be very successful, the next five years will see viewers putting curated quality over random quantity.
  • Now the online market is over-saturated with tons of low-quality, unpredictable content. As a result, the next stage the web's evolution lies in curation and original content.
  • in an attempt to push the brand, marketing videos often forego authenticity in favor of an over-markety tone. This disengages the viewer and separates them from the brand. Online users don't wanted to be sold to, they want to be engaged.
  • Brand loyalty stems first from producing the best product possible, but once you've captured a user's attention, it's about engaging that user and making them feel special. Because of their loyalty (whether that's liking a brand on Facebook or signing up for their newsletter), they want to feel as if they are in on a secret that non-followers don't have access to.
  • Brands should create a movement they believe in--and match their videos to it--rather than slamming their brand down their viewers’ throats. Be authentic and engaging and the viewers will come.
  • Like Pinterest did for online photography, a new startup will emerge for curated video content.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Engagement Project: Connecting with Your Consumer in the Participation Age - Think ... - 0 views

  • the brands that win will prioritize engagement over exposure. They will flip the traditional approach of using mass reach to connect with the subset of people who matter on its head. They will super-serve the most important people for their brand first and use the resulting insights and advocacy to then broaden their reach and make the entire media and marketing plan work harder.
  • This generation has grown up living digital lives. This has fundamentally changed their relationship with media and technology — and with brands. They don’t want to be talked at, but they do want to be invited in to the discussion. They thrive on creation, curation, connection and community. As a result, we call them Gen C. The behaviors of Gen C have less to do with the year they were born and more to do with their attitude and mindset. For example, while 80% of people under 35 are Gen C, only 65% of Gen C is under 35 [1].
  • Gen C cares more about expressing themselves than any generation before.
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  • More than half of Gen C use the internet as their main source of entertainment, and 66% spend the same or more time watching online video as watching television [2].
  • Conversation drives Gen C, especially when it’s aligned with their interests. They are hungry for content that they can share and spread, no matter where it comes from: other people, content providers, brands.
  • The majority -- 85% -- of Gen C relies on peer approval for their buying decisions [2]. The under 35 set will be 40% of the population by 2020. But more importantly, by then, we’ll all likely be Gen C.
  • Gen C has a camera in their pockets, so the stuff they capture and curate looks more common, ordinary, even pointless at times. But the ordinary-ness of it all is what is extraordinary. Pictures of the everyday-ness around them allow them to find new meaning, as if they are seeing things for the first time.
  • They record every detail and then curate that content to reflect their personal values and how they see the world. In fact, 1 in 4 upload a video every week and nearly half upload a photo every week [2]. It’s their way of controlling how they want to be perceived by others
  • Giving them a way to add their own uniqueness to an experience gives them a reason to add it to the collage of their lives.
  • Giving them content that matches their definition of quality has become their expectation, not a nice to have.
  • Well-thought-out, useful and interesting branded content has more opportunity than ever to contribute meaning to people’s everyday lives. But there is also greater risk than ever from messaging that doesn’t feel authentic, relevant, personalized, and participatory.
  • Gen C wants to give us signals of their interest. They are looking to connect directly with brands that create experiences that offer something relevant and valuable, and they expect that we’ll be ready and willing to act on those signals and continuously improve the quality of our interactions with them.
  • Rather than starting by thinking about how to reach or broadcast to as many people as possible to get to those who matter, what if we began with engaging those who matter the most. We could prioritize surfacing the 5% — and make our entire plan better by learning from their interactions and leaning on their advocacy to expand our reach in a smarter way. We wouldn’t be abandoning “reach”; we’d be reorienting our thinking towards greater “engaged reach”?
  • By turning the reach-driven funnel upside down, we’re in effect creating an ‘engagement pyramid’. The engagement pyramid isn’t just about retention and growth of our existing customer base. It’s about starting with the 5% who will be most interested in what we have to say and most willing to speak for us. This group not only includes current customers, but also those most likely to influence others toward your brand.
  • you need to be “always on” because Gen C is “always on”.
  • Prioritize content, beyond commercials
  • Some of today’s most successful brands realize the power of their fans to help generate content that they in turn surface to a broader group.
Pedro Gonçalves

Twitter Says More Than Half Its Users Follow Six Or More Brands | TechCrunch - 0 views

  • Twitter users follow at least one brand, and that more than half of users follow six or more brands.
  • Twitter also studied the reasons why someone follows a brand, and as you might expect, freebies and discounts are definitely a factor. But according to Lunenfeld, people also said they were interested in getting access to exclusive or promotional content.
  • The big message of Lunenfeld’s talk was to encourage advertisers to understand that advertising on Twitter isn’t separate from regular content. Brands should think of conversations on Twitter as a canvas where “you can paint some amazing stories,” he said.
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  • unenfeld said that some of them are still working to understand “the conversational aspect,” both on Twitter and in general, but he noted that Twitter also works well as a broadcast medium for other types of content, like a promotional video. A campaign on Twitter, he said, is “the ultimate complement to a TV buy.”
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    "Twitter users follow at least one brand, and that more than half of users follow six or more brands."
Pedro Gonçalves

Facebook Insider Offers A Hint For Brands Looking To Increase Reach - 0 views

  • the typical page had reach of 26%  prior to the Sept. 20, meaning that, on average, 26% of a page's subscribers would see messages posted on the page. That reach has dropped to 19.5% since Sept. 20.
  • In short, according to the Facebook source, if brands are seeing less engagement and reach on their Facebook pages, it’s because they’re not creating engaging content. “If a brand is continually putting up low-quality content that no one is engaging with, that content is going to be optimized out of the Newsfeed,” the source said. 
  • Facebook measures the quality of content through engagement: number of likes, clicks, shares and comments. Typically, a post’s reach is between 15% and 20%.
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  • Facebook charges brands less to promote content with high engagement rates than it does for sub-par content. “Content that doesn’t get any play and is optimized out of Newsfeeds is more expensive to promote to more people,” he said. “That’s good for [people] because they are seeing relevant content, and it’s good for brands because we’re encouraging them to create engaging content.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Brand Journalism Enhances Your Social Media Strategy « Radian6 - Social media... - 0 views

  • “PR is about pitching the brand to the media.  You help shape the story, but you don’t craft the story.  Brand journalism is about creating the actual content, finding the best ways to share it, and telling the stories of your people, customers, and brand.” You’re skipping the middleman, essentially. You’re no longer hoping for a third party to tell your brand’s story, you’re doing it yourself.
  • “Brand journalism is the use of a journalistic approach to storytelling on behalf of a brand.  It is the mindset of assembling and delivering a compelling story, but it is not impartial.  It presents the brand’s messages and perspectives.”
  • A brand that is creating and sharing terrific stories and entertaining content, however, will get noticed and those sales leads will come as you establish yourself as not only a source of information regarding your particular industry but a place to regularly stop by for good reading material in general.
Pedro Gonçalves

Note to Yahoo!: Tumblr not a Platform for Brands, Yet | Optim.al - 0 views

  • Of the 10,600+ brands we examine on a daily basis (see optimalsocial.com/portfolios for more on these across 100 sectors), we see about 2,400 (just less than 25%) have a tumblr presence.
  • 25% of these are mostly empty and many appear to be brands squatting on their own names and planning to get to it later when they have time, perhaps. About 588 of these brand pages have fewer than 10 items of lifetime activity. Some brands like Pepsi are quite active, though the activity levels ebb and flow quite a bit, but others are far less so. The mean number of total engagements per brand on tumblr is 224 but the median is just two. Tumblr hasn’t yet figured out how to get users to engage with brands, yet, and it doesn’t seem that users are falling over themselves to engage with brands.
  • Tumblr’s content distribution model still needs to be sorted out, in order for brands to truly achieve viral distribution and authentic connections with consumers
Pedro Gonçalves

Making the Most of Social Media Analytics - 0 views

  • The impact of social media is harder to measure than, say, the effectiveness of banner ads, because social media are often used to build brand loyalty. A person may see an ad or promoted social media message but choose not to click through, then search for the product later, and finally make a purchase on a third, fourth or fifth visit to the company's website. While social media didn't have a direct hand in the click-through and sale, it did have a hand in how the brand made a conversion.
  • Too many brands - GM included - rely on likes (which can be artificially inflated) and direct click-throughs (which don't always result in sales). And while the industry is making strides to help brands better measure what they get for their social media buck, there is still a ways to go, Chou said. Social marketing by brands "is just terrible right now," he observed. "I can't tell you exactly what it should be, but I can tell you it sucks right now. People just shout."
  • Right now, marketers can’t easily measure a follower who doesn’t click on links or interact directly with a brand’s Facebook page or Twitter feed. That will change as social media tracking gets better.
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  • Chou calls the number of followers a “vanity metric” that doesn’t say much about how effective a social campaign is. Marketers can, after all, pay for followers. For now, the best way to measure the effectiveness of a social media campaign is to figure out which messages posted to Facebook, Twitter and other sites result in the highest levels of interaction.
  • A message that does not work is more dangerous than a message that doesn’t spur action: It can cause followers to lose interest. “Content turns into spam at some point,” Chou said. “At some point, if I'm posting a ton of crap to any network, someone might choose to unfollow me.”
  • Chou outlined four ways social media managers could measure the effectiveness of their posts: Virality: Good content gets shared. A viral video is cheap to make and can bring your message to new eyeballs. “Other mediums don’t have that,” Chou said.
  • Engagement: The 80/20 rule applies to social media, Chou said: 20% of the people generate 80% of the sharable content. “The more granular you can get... the better understanding you have of what's going on,”
  • Advocacy: Social media lets brands get endorsements from everyday people, so brands should pay attention to posts that get retweeted. “If my friend posts something, it means more to me than if some random brand posts something,” he said. Retention: Every message needs to be measured for its retention value. Every new follower is an additional member of the audience for your next message. 
Pedro Gonçalves

Why Brands Should Be Human on Social Media - 0 views

  • when a user comes across your Twitter handle or Facebook feed, she doesn't suddenly transform into a "professional-only" mode that consumes, filters and reacts to content based 100% on her company and career. No, her professional persona may take center stage, but her entire thought process is also influenced by the less apparent parts of her personality: the fact that she's a parent, enjoys rock climbing, is coming off a rough week or lives in a city. As marketers, we need to embrace this fundamental nature of user behavior; namely, that people act, engage, and respond not solely as professionals, but as nuanced human beings.
  • If connection needs to take place at a human level, then our brands must also become human
  • Being a humanized brand means learning the art of authenticity. It means being genuine, being passionate about whatever it is your brand is and does. Just like in everyday life, people respond most to others who are perceptibly and consistently real. And that's why it's an art, not a formula. Authenticity, in the long run, can't be manufactured or faked.
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  • Being human in social media, then, involves identifying all aspects of that personality — even the less obvious or less corporate ones — and embracing them as a whole. From there, the surface symptoms we referenced at the beginning of the column — tone, language, aesthetics — will be easier to define.
Pedro Gonçalves

The Rise And Rise Of Influence | Fast Company - 0 views

  • A new survey by Initiative questioned some 8,000 web users age 16-54 in Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, U.S., and U.K. to find out how they were influenced in purchase decisions by social media interactions. The results are kind of amazing: A huge 99% of the "top 10%" of influencers reported that their friends quiz them before making a big purchase. This top 10% has a disproportionate influence on the opinions of others--because 72% of them access content in print, online and mobile form more than once a day, compared to just 18% of the bottom 10% of influencers. 
  • A different study, by Market Force, underscored the fact that brands are leveraging social media to promote themselves. Embedded in the study were stats on the power of the average user to spread brand-related messages: 81% of U.S. respondents said posts from their friends directly impacted their decision on purchasing something, and 80% or respondents said they'd tried new things based on suggestions of friends.
  • This is a big departure from the static print ads and traditional TV spots of the past. Initiative's study even included advice for brands to move well beyond the thinking of a traditional 30-second ad spot, and push out additional material like behind-the-scenes footage...all to drive discussion and lead to more online chatter that will lead to brand discovery. It also suggests that brands build a team of "relevant social influencers" to spread new ad campaigns and stimulate dialog.
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  • Appinions, a company that analyzes data from five million sources to determine the influence of a brand, topic or person and promises to hook up companies with the most relevant influencers, earlier this month raised an extra $3 million in funding.
  • the "importance" of someone in a social network isn't simply how active or how many other people they're linked to--it's also a question of how well-connected and active each of these others are too.
  • Companies of all stripes are becoming aware of the power of high-value social media influencers, which is why they're signing up to campaigns like Klout's Perks. The idea is that via Klout, high-scoring individuals are "rewarded" with a physical gift or perhaps a discount voucher if they're influential in topics connected to the brand in question.
  • Klout is contentious to say the least, however, and its algorithm (not unlike Google's) is both mysterious and controversial--leading to debates like this extended thread on Google Plus.
Pedro Gonçalves

Do Native Ads Work? | Adweek - 0 views

  • say ads that are disguised as content have higher click-through and engagement rates than intrusive banners because they’re contextual and have quality conte
  • a new survey due out today by Harris Interactive for MediaBrix, a social and mobile ad firm, says otherwise. Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s promoted tweets, "Sponsored Stories" on Facebook, and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.
  • 45 percent found promoted tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about sponsored stories and video ads, respectively.
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  • There's no way to compare the results to people's views on standard banners, because Harris didn’t ask respondents about that format. It did, however, ask the same questions about infomercials and print advertorials, with similar results.
  • We’re not saying native doesn’t have a place in a marketing mix. We’re saying, that’s not the most effective way to build a brand.”
  • Of course, there are issues with self-reported surveys, especially one that requires participants to be honest about their views about something as divisive as advertising.
  • It’s also worth noting that Harris showed respondents generic examples of sponsored stories, not examples of actual sponsored stories people are served on their own Facebook news feeds, where the ads are aligned with their personal experiences and preferences.
  • “Engagement rates with sponsored stories are substantially higher than other ads on the site, and typically, [people] engage with things they find relevant and interesting,” Bruich said. “We do not see any evidence that they negatively impact people’s experience on the site.”
  • the results also conflict with joint research by Nielsen and Facebook that found that overall, social ads—those served to Facebook users whose Facebook friends are fans of, or interacted with, the advertised brand—generated a 55 percent lift in recall over non-social ads.
  • a new survey due out today by Harris Interactive for MediaBrix, a social and mobile ad firm, says otherwise. Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, Sponsored Stories on Facebook and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.
  • People had the strongest reaction to sponsored video ads, with 85 percent saying they
  • negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand. Sixty-two percent said the same of Promoted Tweets and 72 percent of Sponsored Stories. The survey also revealed that 45 percent found Promoted Tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about Sponsored Stories and video ads, respectively.
Pedro Gonçalves

Memes With Meaning: Why We Create And Share Cat Videos And Why It Matters To People And... - 0 views

  • We uploaded over half a million variations of Harlem Shake to YouTube in the past few months. Google searches for Cat GIFs hit an all-time high last month.
  • The research showed us that far from distracting us from more serious things, these viral pictures, videos, and memes reconnect us to an essential part of ourselves. And by understanding what’s at the root of our obsession with the visual web, brands can create the kind of content that resonates in today’s culture.
  • It may seem that all we’re doing is just capturing every mundane moment. But look closely. These everyday moments are shot, displayed, and juxtaposed in a way that offers us a new perspective. And then all of a sudden these everyday moments, places, and things look . . . fascinating.
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  • Neuroscientists explain that synapses occur inside the brain when we’ve made a connection between various different things. The more random the components connected, the more synapses occur. Synapses are the basis of creativity. In other words, synapses firing equals creative joy. As kids, that happens all the time because everything is new. Everything is unlike. And we aren’t constrained by the rules about what “goes together.” Why else was putting the Barbie in the toy car wash more fun than putting the car in the car wash? The visual web frees us to return to this childlike state, where we can adventure through a whole array of different, seemingly unrelated images and clips--be they old, new, from a world away or own backyard--sparking our all-important synapses and helping us come up with new combinations and ideas so easily.
  • The only thing better than going on this journey of discovery is sharing it with others. This “gift” of sharing contributes to an energy exchange that amplifies our own pleasure--and is something we’re hardwired to do.
  • start thinking like a creator, less like an advertiser. While posting the glossy photos from the photo shoot or :30 spots online may be part of your approach, it shouldn’t be your entire approach. Think content, not commercials.
  • Help us rediscover the beauty of a forgotten familiar. Find something familiar--in your product, brand, or from people’s lives--and help us see it in a fascinating new light. It could be as simple as taking a kitchen appliance and turning it into a science experiment or reminding people to capture just one second of their daily lives and compile a beautiful montage.
  • Search for your brand online. Chances are your fans are already mixing and mashing your brand with something seemingly unrelated. Build on it, fuel it, steer it, and help us make more with it.
  • Ditch the pitch. Instead, start an energy exchange. Create content that reminds us of our own capacity for excitement, happiness, and vivacity so we want to share in it with others.
Pedro Gonçalves

Before Big Data Comes Big Content | Fast Company | Business + Innovation - 0 views

  • Big data isn’t just a function of better data-tracking technology; it simply wouldn’t exist without the ever-expanding catalyst that is big content.
  • marketing content refers to any artifact with which a consumer interacts that relates to a brand. Content gets “big” via its amplification, iteration and dissemination across multiple channels, devices and platforms. When content “jumps the tracks” and is no longer controlled solely by the brand, but can be summoned and even manipulated on demand by consumers themselves, then it’s “big."
  • Based on a 2012 survey by Content Wise, marketers increased their total spending on content development by 45% from 2005 to 2012, when the percentage of marketers’ budgets allocated to content creation increased from 31% to 39%
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • story-centric rather than channel-centric approach
Pedro Gonçalves

Branded Content Is A Winning Part Of The New Marketing In Europe | Forrester Blogs - 0 views

  • Connect to consumers in context. Having great content is not enough. Consider the context in which it will be consumed. Are your consumers looking for quick-hit information on their smartphones, snackable content on Facebook, or in-depth information on your website?  Create visible value. What topics can you credibly provide value on, through information, education, or entertainment? Don't just create it; make it clear where the value is provided. Continuously measure and optimize results. Go beyond tracking data to measuring impact. Tie results like brand lift, content shares, and unaided recognition of the content to metrics that run the business like leads or sales.
Pedro Gonçalves

5 Brands That Understand Marketing on Instagram - 0 views

  • As you begin to create or amplify your presence on Instagram, focus on creating compelling day-to-day content. As with all of your social media platforms, make sure you’re posting often and with content that speaks to your audience.
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