Tag Archives: Messaging

Next to Now for Nov 17

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What’s the best way to use hashtags on every social network?

Facebook is not Twitter is not Instagram is not Snapchat. This Click Z post helps you craft your voice to the social network you use.

#social

 

10 Creative Exercises That Are Better Than Brainstorming

Creativity is crucial to advertising (duh). But classic brainstorming methods don’t always bring out the best in your team. Especially if you have a good number of super creative introverts in the room (cf. Susan Cain’s Quiet). Hub Spot posted several good and different ways to generate new ideas.

#creative

 

LinkedIn Opens Up In-Mail Targeting

Combining LinkedIn’s targeted business readership with the power of email marketing makes the new in-mail targeting option a very interesting one for reaching the business audience.

#business #social

 

Facebook Continues to Reveal Problems with Its Reporting

Caveat emptor: campaign data is crucial if it’s accurate, but there remains a good amount of question about how accurate the numbers are. The most powerful companies in the world also have a worrying tendency to be walled gardens re: their data. “Just trust us” is not a line that should go very far with any responsible media buyer.

#facebook #data

 

Speaking of Facebook: Ads Are Coming to Messenger

We saw this coming. And despite our concerns about measurability (see above), we welcome ads that reach readers wherever they are—and a lot of people are using Messenger.

#facebook #messaging

 

Photo of this week's Union Square Subway Station post-election post-it wall (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Next to Now for August 25

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IS THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISING A BOT?

Venture Beat details how messenger bots in services such as Facebook Messenger, Kik, and more are changing the nature of how we can advertise, bringing the promise of 1:1 customized marketing closer to fruition. While current messenger bots are fairly crude, more nuanced bots are in development:

“A.I. bots with advanced brains . . . will change the advertising industry — both online and offline — forever. They can create and deliver completely measurable advertising campaigns that bring together all the elements of integrated marketing: video, mash-ups, voice, music, images, photos, personalization, and mass coverage on an individual basis. They do this by automating their analysis of ‘conversation logs’ generated in the code’s back end when you interact with a bot — with your permission, of course.”

#bots #messaging

 

INSTAGRAM KEEPS UP THE PACE OF INNOVATION (OR IS THAT COPY-CATTING?)

On the heels of introducing its version Snapchat Stories, Instagram introduces a new channel called “Events” that will live within its “Explore” tab and allow for live video. Innovation or high-speed copy-catting, either way it will prove a serious entry in the live video market with Periscope and Facebook Live.

#events #streaming #video

 

IN HOLIDAY EMAIL MARKETING, IS GREEN THE NEW BLACK?

A study from Yes Lifecycle Marketing suggests that the best time to send a holiday marketing email might be December 12, 2016—a date dubbed “Green Monday.” A retail industry-created holiday like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, Green Monday  falls on the second Monday of December:

“Only 10% of retailers deployed Green Monday campaigns in 2015, according to Yes Lifecycle Marketing, indicating that competition for the inbox may be lower than more popular retail holidays such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Green Monday saw an average email open rate of 14.5% in 2015, while open rates for Cyber Monday email campaigns has an average open rate of 12.9%. In addition, Cyber Monday open rates fell year-over-year while Green Monday open rates have increased.”

#email #holiday

 

THE STATE OF FACEBOOK (FOR MARKETERS)

eMarketer posts seven charts about the current state of Facebook: over-35-year-olds v. millennials, mobile v. desktop use, and more.

#facebook #userdata

Corn at Union Square Market photo (c) 2016 Martha Otis

Next to Now: Communication

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This week, the news was all about communication: innovations in messaging, email rates, attention spans and more.

 

F8 INTRODUCES SPONSORED MESSAGES

Facebook’s F8 conference introduced their latest updates to messaging—now including sponsored messages. The announcement marks a significant opportunity for paid advertising in the U.S. messaging business.

#messaging

FACEBOOK SHARING IS DOWN

One reason Facebook is going all-in with their messaging app is that overall sharing on their regular Facebook platform is down. According to the website, The Information:

Screen Shot 2016-04-15 at 10.04.05 AM

#facebook

 

EMAIL CLICK THROUGH RATES DECLINE

While email  remains one of our most powerful tools for marketing and advertising, the overall click-through averages are declining:

“North American email engagement fell again in Q4 on a year-over-year basis, reports Epsilon in its latest quarterly analysis of clients’ email activity. The click-through rate of 3.2% was down from 4% during the year-earlier period and from 4.4% in Q4 2013, maintaining this metric’s gradual descent. Meanwhile, the average open rate stood at 30.6% in Q4 2015, down from 32.2% in Q4 2014.”

#email

 

DO YOU KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE’S ATTENTION SPAN?

A new study suggests that millennials prefer very, very short videos (as in ten seconds or less) while older generations prefer slightly longer videos (but not tooooo long: just thirty seconds).

#video

Next to Now: News for January Edition

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POLITICAL HEAT BRINGS VIEWS TO THE HILL

For the coming round of political books, take note of this stat from AdWeek: “The election cycle is already paying off for The Hill. According to comScore’s December 2015 numbers, the politics site garnered nearly 10.6 million visitors, a 175 percent year-over-year increase.”

#politics

 

BRINGING ADS TO MESSAGING

It’s one of the continuing questions: as mobile messaging grows by leaps and bounds (even putting the fear of god into Facebook), how will advertisers reach users on these new platforms in a compelling way that’s authentic to the experience. Kik continues to innovate in this direction.

#messaging #adtech

 

A WORD BUSINESS IN AN IMAGE-FIRST WORLD

AdWeek looks at Merriam-Webster’s experiments with the new visual-first social network Peach. Will this one stick, or go the way of Ello? Either way, this is an interesting read for all of us in the word business.  

#social #visual #peach

 

MOBILE APPS VS. MOBILE BROWSER

According to Dec 2015 research cited by eMarketer, mobile users are as likely to prefer using a mobile app as a mobile browser.  In the “app versus browser” debate, one conclusion remains: That depends. 

#mobile #apps #browsers #targeting

 

CJR DOES A DEEP-DIVE INTO RADIO’S REINVENTION

In an article that focuses on WNYC, Columbia Journalism Review looks into the ways that radio brands are trying to avoid the pitfalls that print journalism has fallen into by vigorously working to reinvent themselves for digital transformation. It’s a hopeful story.   

#radio #podcasts #journalism

 

SNAPCHAT KEEPS UP THE PRESSURE

Snapchat enters 2016 just as they left 2015: talking about new ad products, better targeting, more opportunities.

#snapchat #social #targeting

 

PERISCOPE NOW AUTOPLAYING IN TWITTER APP

This is good news for getting your Periscope campaigns discovered in realtime.

#periscope #twitter #streaming

 

THE CASE FOR PRINT ADVERTISING

The continuing case for print advertising: it’s an oldie but a goodie, especially for book publishers: “The Ten Advantages of Advertising Books in Print Media” from Book Business magazine (via Digital Book World)

#print

 

PINTEREST: THUMBS UP OR DOWN?

A long-read from Business Insider about the prospects of Pinterest: ranging from what they’re doing right (audience engagement) to what they’re doing wrong (sales, basically). Mid-way through is a fact that should make publishers of Etsy-friendly books (lifestyle, crafting, food) pay attention, “It drives nearly as much traffic to the online marketplace Etsy as Facebook does.”

#pinterest #lifestyle

 

WHAT THE SUCCESS OF NATIVE ADVERTISING SAYS ABOUT CONTEXT

Digiday has a story about the success Time Out is seeing with their native ads. Implicit throughout is the importance of context for advertising. In the rush to programmatic targeting, context has been sold short the last few years. With the rise of native options, context is back.

#native #contextual

 

“LEGACY” NEWS IS CATCHING UP TO THE FUTURE

Conde Nast, Heart, The New York Times, The Washington Post and more “legacy” brands are getting their digital growth up to the speed of digital specialists like BuzzFeed. How? Bloomberg Media global head of digital, M. Scott Havens, says,

“If you’re doing what the startups are doing and you have the brand equity and resources to build and hire, I’m not shocked at all how well some of the older guys are doing.”

#legacy #digital

 

2016 DISPLAY AD SPENDING TO EXCEED SEARCH

The first truly successful ad model on the Web was search, but as people increasingly turn toward mobile, display ad spending is beginning to catch up.

#display #search #adspending

Next to Now: New Habits in Bloom

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This week, we peek into changing consumer habits in messaging, video viewing, marketing, and searching.

 

Instant messaging is on the rise and ready to overtake email as the primary communication tool by 2019. Get your marketing skills up to speed.

 

Who What When Where Why: The modern quest reveals itself across all our autocompletes (apparently we still really want to know “Who killed JFK?”):

via Dark Matter 

 

The rise and fall of persona marketing, continued: Why personas are like Marmite.

via Dark Matter

 

The decline of kids TV—now so much less popular than tablets it’s a punishment:

“Mobile devices are so popular with kids that nearly half of the 800 parents quizzed by Miner & Co. reported that they confiscate their kids’ tablets when they act up and make them watch TV instead”

via Dave Pell

Next to Now: The Week in Reading Links

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The Week in Reading Ending April 3
March 30, 2015

Digital natives would just as soon read it in print. 

March 31, 2015

Mobile messaging apps are the one category of app that retains its users. While current advertising options are beyond the reach of most book publishers. We’re watching this space closely for developments in ad products and lower prices.

Here’s another reason to think about messaging apps:  Over 50% of WeChat and Snapchat users are Mobile Shoppers. So get your mobile commerce on. (Via @PeterMcCarthy)

Here’s an interesting piece in the UK’s Bookseller about the potential connections between video game publishing and book publishing. Its insights about production and marketing are not applicable to all kinds of publishing, of course (no insights are true across a field as diverse as book publishing), but it’s worth thinking through.

As an advertising agency, we’re in the business of knowing as much about the users we’re sending ads to as possible. As an integral part of the book publishing ecosystem, we’re committed to both free speech and privacy.  In both those roles, we were keenly interested in this interview between two brilliant legal scholars with a literary bent. It serves as a strong corrective to the endless praise for Big Data, secret algorithms, and behavior-shaping policies. (via Alexis Madrigal’s Real Future newsletter)

This ad industry news reflects broader trends and also is good news for one of Verso’s ad partners: WPP keeps up the acquisitions, adds to Xaxis’s capabilities with mobile-first company Action X.

Is it time for the ad industry to lose its reliance on cookies?

Media buyers are planning on upping programmatic spend by 21% this year, but media suppliers (web publishers, etc) said they only expected to boost their programmatic sales by 4% this year. Something’s gotta give, and it’s probably the quality of the impression.

The New York Times is ready to boil down the news to one sentence to better fit new devices. How do you write a one-sentence news story, as distinct from a headline and a teaser? That might be a good new class to teach in J-School.

April 1, 2015

You should take notes by hand, not on a laptop. (Via everyone, but we saw it first from @timoreilly)

April 2, 2015

Eric Greitens gives a mid-air reading from his book Resilience, then helps an ailing passenger with techniques from the book. People, this is how you do an event.

Great interview with design star Michael Bierut. Love the 100-day project! (Via Dark Matter by Almighty)

“Capitalism is at its core a diverse, intimate network of human and non-human relations.” Doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way. Here’s a new perspective on what they heck we’re all doing at work every day from “A Feminist Manifesto for the Study of Capitalism.” (via Alexis Madrigal’s Real Future newsletter)

“I still read the newspapers and scream every morning.” Seymour Hersch thinks we’ll be OK in a world where BuzzFeed and Gawker are the future of journalism. Also, we’ll always have the New York Times.

“A team losing a game is not a ‘disaster.’” The AP Stylebook gets real about hackneyed sports cliches.