Instagram starts putting Stories, but not Story ads, on its website

With 250 million people checking out Stories in its app every day, Instagram is extending the product to its online audience that skews international.

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What Launching a Facebook Live Show Taught Me About Media

I recently rolled out a Facebook Live news show that I create using a great Facebook Live for Mac software called Ecamm Live. I did the project because I wanted to get the word out about that software for the guys who create it, but something has really clicked with me. I’m really loving the process of creating the show.

What’s really cool, though, is that it’s opening up new lines of communication and reconnecting people with my business and also bringing more people back in touch with me. I wanted to give you all the lessons I’ve gathered (so far) about creating my Facebook Live news show and maybe even encourage you to create your own show, too!

Continue Reading

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Marketing Day: Real-time attribution, location modifiers & AdSense User First beta

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

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Your account structure might be hurting performance. Here’s why (and how to fix it)

Oversegmentation is often the enemy of automation. Columnist and Googler Matt Lawson talks about how a fussy account structure can tank AdWords performance.

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Why real-time attribution is (mostly) irrelevant, and what to do instead

To get the most out of your marketing attribution, contributor Alison Lohse believes right-time insights are far more important than real-time data.

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Lookalike modeling breathing new life into old channels

Columnist Jordan Elkind explains how a mainstay of the ad tech industry is opening up new possibilities for online and offline targeting.

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Give Influencer Content Programs a Promotional Edge with Digital Advertising

It happens almost every single time. I’m finally settling in to stream a few episodes before I go to bed for the day. I fire up the old Netflix machine and there it is… options… lots of them.

There are shows I’ve seen before that I might want to watch again. Genres that I’m interested in. Highly rated shows. Maybe I watch one of those trending shows that everyone is talking about? I mean I’ve never seen that Making a Murderer show… did I miss out on that one? My mind continues to jump around with the unlimited options in front of me.

When you have virtually unlimited options in front of you it’s almost impossible to make a choice. This is probably why I’ve watched the American version of the Office about one million times (either that or it’s a really good show).

As marketers we consistently run into situations like this. We are asked to promote a product or a service or a piece of content and when we sit down at our desk we are hit with so many options. We have to choose the right channel, the right audience, the right messaging, the right offer, the right image, the right… Anyone else getting cold sweats just thinking about this?

I want to help you with this problem. Specifically as it relates to influencer content (because that presents a whole new set of challenges that need to be addressed).

Promoting Influencer Content With Digital Advertising

Why focus on influencer marketing? In my opinion influencer marketing is one of the most challenging thing to promote with paid digital advertising. Many people look at influencer marketing and content marketing in general as some magical piece of content that, when published, turns prospects into customers in a completely organic way.

In reality, simply creating great influencer content is not enough. Right now, as I write this, there are over one billion websites (in fact the number grew by about 500 in the time it took me to finish that sentence).

So what does that mean? In very broad and simple terms you aren’t the only one that has to make a lot of choices. So when it comes to influencer content you have to help your audience find it and help them choose it.

5 Steps to Promoting Influence Content with Digital Advertising

The 5 steps below will help you successfully promote your influencer content with digital advertising in a way that attracts and entices your target audience.

Step 1. Change How You Think About Influencer Content

Often marketers don’t change their approach to promotion when deploying an influencer driven content campaign. Instead of thinking of your influencer content as a part of your standard marketing mix think of it as a product.

This is really important. You are not promoting content, you’re not boosting a post, you are selling influencer content. That is your job.

Step 2. Know Your Audience

It seems simple, but is often overlooked. But did you know that now you can really know your audience. For example, if you are using Twitter you can gather awesome insights with Twitter Analytics.

I mean… take a look at this.

The top lifestyle type in my organic audience is “Online Buyers.” I can make assumptions from this. For example, one thing that is often debated is how much info do I ask a prospect to give in exchange for a gated asset? Well an online buyer is comfortable giving over name, phone number, address, credit card info, and more in exchange for goods.

This information can help you determine what to “charge” or how much information you should ask for in exchange for content.

You can gather similar information using tools such as  Google Analytics Demographics and Interests and the Facebook Audience Insights tool.

Step 3. Segment Your Audience

Knowing your audience is important. Segmenting your audience is even more essential.

Don’t make the mistake of lumping everyone together into one audience when promoting your influencer driven content. While this tactic may be necessary if you are working with a really small audience, a larger audience that you can segment will allow you to tailor your message to a smaller, specific group of people.

For example, let’s say that you have created influencer content to target HR professionals. It’s possible that you could segment that audience by tenure in the HR industry.

With an audience like this you could tailor your call to action like so.

• Tenure of 0-5 years – Jumpstart your HR career with….
• Tenure of 5-15 years – Bring your HR career to the next level with…
• Tenure of 15+ years – Learn from the top HR professionals…

Segmenting your audience can help you tailor your sales pitch. Remember, you are selling your content not promoting it.

Step 4. Challenge Your Assumptions

What’s the one thing I have heard more than anything else when it comes to promoting B2B influencer content with digital media? Give up? It’s this, “we are a B2B company so we only want to promote this on LinkedIn.

Well first of all, we are selling the content not promoting it. Second of all, you don’t think those same professionals have a Facebook account?

Facebook is on pace to hit 2 billion users. I’m willing to guess that some of those 2 billion users are in the market for B2B goods and services.

Challenging your assumptions has it’s rewards. Currently I am running a campaign for a B2B company and the results look like this…

Challenging assumptions and running a campaign on Twitter was a great bet!

Step 5. Don’t Fall in Love With Your Bets

It’s bound to happen. You’ll do all of the tips above. You’ll create a segmented audience on a social network that sits outside of your assumptions. You’ll create tailored calls to action and you’ll fall in love.

Then it happens… nothing happens… it fails.

When it fails, one of two things normally happen.

1. Marketers ignore the failure in disbelief
2. Marketers say, “just give it more time. One more conversion will make this look better.”

Neither of these are going to change anything. In this situation only one thing will work.

Make some changes.

Change your ad copy. Broaden your audience. Change your bids. Try to identify why it isn’t working and fix it.

The Keys to Promoting Influencer Content With Paid Digital Advertising

So there you have it, 5 keys to promoting content with digital advertising. Below is a quick recap that you can use of a checklist of sorts to begin guiding your influencer content and digital advertising journey:

1. Remember you’re selling your content not promoting it.
2. Know your audience. Use tools to understand their online behavior.
3. Segment your audience. Tailor your message in a way that speaks to the individuals in your audience.
4. Challenge your assumptions. Try something new. Run tests.
5. Don’t fall in love. Make changes quickly and don’t wait for a campaign to turn into what you want it to be.

I know you have over a billion options to choose from when it comes to internet content. Thanks for choosing this piece. I’d love to hear about any time you challenged an assumption and won or when you fell in love with a campaign. Feel free to share your insights in the comments below.

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Google says we don’t need no stinking location modifiers… or do we?

Google recently stated that users are beginning to drop location qualifiers when searching for local businesses. But is it time for local SEOs to stop focusing on these terms? Columnist Andrew Shotland discusses.

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Google launches AdSense User First beta to test if fewer ads & better targeting can make more money for publishers

The beta is aimed at publishers who prioritize user experience.

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How to Build a Social-First Thought Leadership Program

Thought leadership is a strategy that can lead directly to brand equity enhancement and offers an incredible return for the time and effort that you put into developing this program. While you would like to think that you could pour some water on your thought leadership tactics and they instantly bloom, that's not how this works.

My own thought leadership program has grown over time, which is what you should expect yours to do if you build it strategically and continually manage its development. In implementing it over social media platforms, it's gained additional momentum thanks to influencers who share the content I've produced. Once your program is launched and getting traction, you will need to continue overseeing it, but it will pay you big dividends for doing so.

Here's a framework to build your own social-first thought leadership program, which delivers relevant, valuable, and insightful content that answers the questions that your audience is pondering as well as provides actionable solutions for issues that they are facing.

Study Your Audience

This tactic takes considerable time because you want to ensure that you know who they are, what they are asking and seeking, and how they want to engage with brands to get that assistance. Learn when and where they are having online conversations and study those to see how they respond and share with their social circles in a public environment. Also, pay attention to their values to see where you can align yourself based on your own belief system.

By arming yourself with this audience intelligence, you can figure out how to deliver the best answers as well as approach them with that information at just the right time. How do you find out the right time? Note when they are holding these conversations, including the day and time they frequent specific social platforms.

Identify the Social Platforms for Conversations

Go where your audience is spending their time. However, if you are not sure about all of these social platforms and how they work, start with just those where they are located and that you can already navigate.

Save the new social platforms for research before you announce your presence there. You want to make sure you do it right because there aren't any "do-overs" when it comes to social media. And, you don't want to blow it when it comes to trying to win their trust.

Craft Your Unique Thought Leadership Story

To stand out within your industry and even business segment, there has to be something memorable about you that people will be drawn to. Think about your strengths and what makes you the entrepreneur that you've become. How can what has shaped your evolution help your audience?

Or, what is it about your personality can you leverage to engage with others? For some, it's being completely transparent about their past and current startup experiences. Others may feel comfortable using their sense of humor to enhance what they are sharing to connect with the audience. Charisma, passion, and excitement on your part are definite musts when it comes to audience engagement.

As part of your leadership story development, research what topics related to your brand appear in your online search results. These topics will then shape the story you create on these social platforms.

Understand and Address Your Limitations

Just because you know a lot about a particular subject doesn't mean you know everything about it or other topics. Define the areas that you know and, if you want to know more, add talent to the team who can be your eyes and ears to extend that thought leadership library of subject matter.

You may also be limited in terms of the amount of time you can invest in creating the content. It's okay to bring in ghostwriters who can craft the best content that matches your voice from existing content so that they can "take over" to continue regularly publishing similar content that keeps the conversations going with your audience.

Uncover Unique and Relevant Content Types

When studying your audience, you most likely determine how various segments use the social platforms to get to content types they are interested in. If that's a silly video, live stream format, listicle or a combination, focus on delivering the content in their preferred way. This can simultaneously speed and deepen the engagement level.

Always use facts, statistics, and quotes to add leadership credibility to the content you are supplying. You can also consider curating content from other sources to further the belief that you are an expert in this subject area. The ability to know what everyone else is saying and apply your own perspective is one strategy that has really worked for me in boosting thought leadership.

Leverage Offline Opportunities to Enhance Online Awareness

You might be wondering what offline presence has to do with your social-first thought leadership strategy, but it is an important tactic that builds momentum for you. By looking for speaking engagements at conferences, trade shows, seminars and networking events, you are adding to the persona you are building online.

These offline opportunities can also be shared across your social platforms to illustrate your focus on developing personal relationships with your audience by also meeting with them, face-to-face. When you do have these meet and greets, you also get more insights into what your audience needs, which continue to feed you with the content themes to pursue.

Don't Sell

Whatever you do, steer clear of sounding like a salesman. Thought leadership doesn't involve a hard or a soft sell. Instead, it's just about providing education and specific information. It's through this assistance that you establish trust and credibility that can motivate your audience to delve deeper into what you offer and decide for themselves if they want to buy your product or service.

You know what mobile testing is and why it’s important. But do you do it well? Download the Mobile Testing Guide for Modern Marketers for the best advice from thought leaders and experienced mobile marketers.

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Buying a pre-owned domain? Check these 10 things first

Purchasing a previously owned domain can be risky, but columnist Stephanie LeVonne has some tips to help you vet the domain and ensure a smooth site migration.

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Survey: More consumers seeking to buy directly from brands vs. retailers

Survey of 1,000 US adults contains lots of findings and implied recommendations for both brands and traditional retailers.

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