Tag Archives: podcasting

Next to Now: Fresh Tips for Book Advertisers

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TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO SHARE, BUT NOT TO READ

Click Z reports on a study that reveals that most shared items are never read:

“In news that will embolden some, depress others and possibly surprise nobody, a new study by computer scientists at Columbia University and the French National Institute reveals that 59% of links shared on social media have never actually been clicked.”

At least for advertising purposes, web sharing still shows an increased level of engagement. But it’s not necessarily as complete a transaction of enthusiasm as we would like. The ClickZ article does a good job of going in depth into engagement numbers across several platforms and reveals why huge follower counts are often inversely proportional to click through rate. So we really do think you should click on this link and read it!

#social #sharingiscaring #butnotnessarilyreading

REDDIT IS BUILDING SAFE (WELL, SAFER) TOOLS FOR ADVERTISERS

Reddit comment streams have been difficult waters for advertisers to navigate, since the flow of talk can turn negative very quickly. Recently, Reddit has been working on some advertiser-friendly tools that are encouraging big brands to start exploring, gingerly, paid ads on some of the site’s threads. Adweek reports:

“In March, Reddit poached Google engineer Toby Segaran to build out an ad-tech platform. In his first three months, Segaran has launched programmatic buying and a search-based targeting tool akin to Google’s AdWords that lets marketers zero in on chatter surrounding specific keywords. Given the site’s volatile nature, there are also some clever workarounds with Reddit’s technology that avoid negative chatter altogether in subreddits.”

#reddit

TWITTER OFFERS MORE VIDEO DATA FOR ADVERTISERS

Starting this week, Twitter is offering increased engagement metrics for all advertisers that use their Amplify program. The announcement is part of Twitter’s recent overall emphasis on video advertising:

“Twitter and video company Innovid have announced a partnership that gives Amplify advertisers—Twitter’s premium offering that runs preroll ads before video clips from 300 media partners including AOL, BuzzFeed and ESPN—viewability stats and numbers about who is watching their ads. Amplify is a revenue-sharing program that splits ad money between content creators and Twitter.”

#twitter #video

CUSTOM PODCASTING

As podcasting continues to grow with the success of shows like Reply All, Death Sex and Money, and Serial, some podcasting media groups are starting to create stand-alone podcasts for brands. While we continue to believe in the benefits of advertising on podcasts with existing highly engaged audiences, it is worth considering a custom podcast to help boost a book series with an established brand to help grow its dedicated audience.

#podcasting

INSTAGRAM IS GETTING MORE FEMALE

A chart released by eMarketer shows that Instagram’s proportion of female users has been growing since 2014 and is set to continue to grow in the near future:

instagram userseMarketer comments:

“More than one in four people in the US will use Instagram regularly this year, making it the second most popular social network in the country after Facebook. According to recent research, women are more active than men on Instagram and prefer the platform more than other social networks for engaging with brand content.”

Since the book buyers are predominantly female, that makes Instagram a player to watch for book advertising going forward. The link to the eMarketer article works for subscribers only. 

#instagram #targeting

 

photo at Union Square Market (c) Martha Otis

Next to Now: Winter Solstice Edition

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Our last post before the end of 2016 is a meaty one.

 

WHAT BROUGHT WATERSTONE’S BACK FROM THE BRINK?

A great—and optimistic!—article in Slate about how the future of chain bookstores might be shifting, with a focus on the refurbished Waterstone’s.

#bookstores

 

DESKTOP EMAIL OPEN RATES STILL HIGHER, BUT DECLINING

According to eMarketer, more and more customers—B2B and B2C—are opening emails on mobile devices. So we need to design for that.

“According to the Q2 2015 data, 48% of all emails sent by Experian clients were opened on desktop devices and 40% of emails were opened on mobile phones and ereaders. Some 12% were opened on tablets.”

#email

 

THE RETURN OF “MAILKIMP”

The second season of Serial means a new round of ads for MailChimp. The ad creative from the first season had Serial listeners eager for the new round of ads (when does *that* happen?), the other two advertisers saw mixed results:

“On Twitter, MailChimp saw an 81 percent spike in mentions from Dec. 9 (the day before the premiere) to Dec. 10. Audible had a 19 percent increase, and mentions for Squarespace actually decreased.”

#podcasts

 

THE WASHINGTON POST MAKES DIGITAL PROGRESS

Ad Age reports that the investment of time and energy is starting to bear fruit for Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post. Two months after garnering more uniques in a month than the New York Times for the first time ever, the Washington Post is beginning to debut new native advertising units. They are undoubtedly beyond the budgets of book publishers at the moment, but worth watching to see what we might be able to use downstream.

#adtech

 

AGAINST IDENTITY

A new study (sponsored by Google, of course, so caveat emptor) suggests that targeting by intent is more effective than targeting by user profile:

“Researchers found that the people actually doing the searching aren’t always who marketers think they are. One example: video games. According to research conducted during the first half of this year, the majority of video-game shoppers are not millennial men. In fact, only 31 percent of mobile users searching for video games were men ages 18 to 24. The target market gets smaller when looking at YouTube demographics, which found that only 29 percent of searches came from men in that age group.”

The article goes on to suggest that this doesn’t mean we should throw demographic information out altogether, but it’s a useful reminder that demographic profiles are not the sum total of anyone.  

#adtech #targeting

 

THE MYTH OF THE EVERYREADER

In a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Rebecca Faith Heyman does us the service of pointing out the benefits of targeting and reminding us that even the biggest “cross-over” titles of recent years (John Green, Suzanne Collins, J. K. Rowling) were written with very specific audiences in mind. Everything started with knowing the audience, and built from there.

(Via Digital Book World Daily)

#targeting

 

WHY BOOMERS MATTER

Advertising spends a lot of energy studying the habits of millennials, and as intent readers of advertising news we link to more articles about millennials than any other generation. But it’s worth underlining that boomers are the biggest market for book buyers and should earn an equivalent share of our marketing attention. An article on HubSpot reveals the larger buying power of the Boomer generation in 25 marketing stats. Including the following:

  • Baby boomers spend the most across all product categories but are targeted by just 5-10% of marketing. (Source)
  • 70% of the disposable income in the U.S. is controlled by baby boomers.(Source)
  • Boomers outspend younger adults online 2:1 on a per-capita basis, and they spend more than other generations by an estimated $400 billion a year.

#boomers #demographics

 

PINTEREST LIMITING AD FOCUS

This article in WSJ reports that Pinterest is pulling back its focus on advertising for all but its top categories: retail and consumer goods.

#pinterest #social

 

INTEGRATION OF OUTDOOR AND REAL-TIME ADVERTISING

Canon’s outdoor campaign in NYC is a great example of using creative that shifts in real-time in the “real-life” environment of outdoor. We love this blend of digital capabilities with physical space.  

#outdoor #digital #creative

 

TOP BRANDS EXPERIMENTING WITH PERISCOPE

The movement of corporate marketing attention to Twitter’s Periscope is coming at the expense of Twitter’s Vine (not to mention Meerkat).

#social #streaming

 

ANOTHER BILLIONAIRE DIGITAL GENIUS INVESTS IN PRINT

Alibaba’s Jack Ma buys the South China Morning Post post: another sign (pace Bezos purchasing the Washington Post) that traditional journalism with a healthy mix of significant print presence and fleet digital platforms is seen as valuable by many of the most forward-thinking minds in business.

#print