At the current trajectory, social media will eat up 22.4 percent of companies’ marketing budgets within the next five years. One of the reasons marketers are dedicating more money to social media is that they’ve realized the networks are gold mines for customer interactions – and customer service in particular.
Despite marketers’ desire to turn social networks into valuable customer service channels, most brands are doing a lousy job delivering on that potential.
Locowise conducted a study of 900 Facebook Pages over the course of a month to find out how brands were handling customer service requests. It discovered that 87 percent of customers’ posts (including customer service requests) go unanswered.
Only 13 percent of companies that allow users to publish on their Timelines ever get back to their customers.
You wouldn’t ignore a client who was in your store with questions, concerns or complaints, so why do it online? It’s actually worse for your reputation to overlook these responses because they’re posted on your public profile, where prospects are going to learn about your business. What kind of an impression do you think that practice is going to give?
There’s room for response improvement as the study determined that timely answers are pretty rare:
33% were answered within 1 hour
12% were answered within 1-2 hours
15% were answered within 2-4 hours
9% were answered within 4-8 hours
10% were answered within 10-12 hours
21% were answered within 12-24 hours
Compare these response rates to customers’ expectations. According to The Social Habit, 24 percent of Americans expect to hear back from a company within 30 minutes and 42 percent expect an answer within the hour.
Buyers who don’t receive adequate acknowledgment are going to chock it up to poor customer service and defer to your competitors. Brafton previously reported that 38 percent of people form a negative opinion of a brand that doesn’t respond to them in that window.
On the flip side, people who receive a timely answer are more likely to recommend a company to their own social circles.
Social customer service is challenging because it takes time and attention to catch brand mentions and respond to them promptly. The benefits are there, if only companies develop the strategies – and more importantly – the teams, to provide good customer service on social media networks.
A good strategy entails:
1. Fast responses – Get back to someone within an hour with a message that at least acknowledges their comment
2. Follow up – If you don’t have an answer right away, get their contact information so you can follow up when you do
3. Short & sweet interactions – Respond, but remember you can always take the conversation offline with private messages and email. There’s no need to drag it out on your feed.
4. A direct line of communication – Provide a link to your customer service line or email address so they know where you reach you if they have a question
5. Positive reinforcement – Acknowledge the people who are saying good things about your company – not just the ones who have complaints.
Handling customer service on social channels can be challenging. To be successful, you need to have clear customer service processes in place. Also, listen carefully to community feedback to support your business goals—from introducing new products based on customer demand to creating a positive brand perception.
What do you think? Have you tried any of these customer service strategies on your social channels? What tactics have worked for your business? Leave your feedback in the comments below.
Understanding Micro-Moments and Consumer Behavior And How to Win on Mobile
The mobile landscape has completely changed consumer behavior. Over the last few months Google released new research that has major implications for brands who want to win in an increasingly mobile world.
There’s no doubt that mobile is becoming more popular every year. In fact, mobile searches now outpace desktop searches in 10 countries, including the United States and Japan. In order to understand this trend we need to look at specific user behaviors.
Tens of millions of sites around the world use Google Analytics, and opt in to allow their data to be aggregated and used for research. After analyzing all of that data, a few remarkable patterns emerged:
Mobile sessions (visits to websites) have increased by 20% in the last year
The amount of time spent per visit has decreased by 18%
Yet at the same time, conversion rates on mobile have increased by 29%
That means our old mental model of web behavior is out-dated. People no longer go online for long sessions of research and browsing. Instead, they go online in short bursts of activity (and do it more often). They find information in small, bite-sized chunks along a larger customer journey, and they make decisions faster than ever before.
Think about your own life: When you want learn, find, do, or buy something, you reach for the nearest device to you—it’s like a digital reflex. This is what we mean by “micro-moments.” In these intent-rich moments, we’re actively reaching out for information to help us make better decisions.
The Implications of Micro-Moments
UX designers really need to pay attention to micro-moments because, like Google’s Director of Performance Marketing Matt Lawson said, in these moments we’re “open to having our preferences shaped, and open to help with decisions we need to make along a journey to accomplish something.” The brands that are there to help us in these moments are the ones who are going to win our hearts, minds, and ultimately our dollars.
There were three insights from Google’s ethnographic research that really stood out: the importance of designing for immediacy, relevancy, and loyalty to needs. Let me explain:
Immediacy of Action — Because smartphones allow us to act on any impulse at any time, we do. We reach for our devices any time we want to learn, find, do, or buy something. And as a result, our expectations for immediate gratification have risen to a new high.
Demand for Relevancy — When we grab our phones and act on our impulse, we have high expectations and our patience tends to be low. Since we don’t have much time to browse and research, we immediately abandon anything that’s not relevant to us and move on to something else.
Loyalty to Personal Needs — When you combine the heightened expectation for instant gratification and relevancy, people tend to be more loyal to their own personal needs and desires than they are to the brands they know and love.
The Customer Journey Has Changed
Mobile has fractured the customer journey into hundreds of micro-moments along the path to a buying decision. When people are on their mobile devices, they’re subconsciously wondering, “Am I getting what I want right now? Am I getting it in a way that’s accessible and useful to me?” And the brands who are there to satisfy the wants and needs of consumers are the brands who will win those moments.
Whether you’re a UX designer or a marketer, if you want to leverage these moments, you need to understand the larger context that your users operate within. The full customer experience doesn’t start when people land on your site or start using your tool. It starts when they’re sitting on their couch, riding on the train, walking down the street, and they have an idea.
Focus on Mobile Behavior
When we talk about mobile, most of us tend to focus on technology: responsive sites, apps, etc. But as UX designers and marketers we need to take a step back and become digital psychologists and anthropologists. We need to get inside the heads of our customers and understand their behavior on mobile. This approach will get us the insights we need to create great experiences that get results.
In this article I’m going to break down four micro-moments that Google discovered in their research. Each moment plays a decisive role in a much larger customer journey, and my goal is to give you insights you can use to gain a critical advantage on the mobile battleground.
Note: Keep two things in mind: First, this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are plenty of micro-moments that still haven’t been identified yet. Second, none of these moments are mutually exclusive. Sometimes user behavior demonstrates the characteristics of two or three micro-moments at the same time. Ok, let’s get started.
1. “I-Want-to-Know” Moments
This is the moment when someone wants to know the answer to a question or find out a new piece of information that will help them make a decision. People make progress toward their big goals in small moments. Research shows that 90% of people who own smartphones have used them to make progress on a long-term goal or multi-step process while they were out and about. These “I-want-to-know” moments are often bite-sized pieces of research that are part of a much longer customer journey.
For example, when my wife and I first got married we were trying to decide which bank to use. There were so many options, and we wanted to know the difference between them all so we could make the best decision for our future. So we spent a month researching the details of credit cards, checking accounts, and savings accounts at a bunch of banks.
But we didn’t sit down and spend an entire weekend doing our research. Instead, we used “stolen moments” throughout the day: while we were waiting in line at the grocery store, riding the train, etc. After a long, considered process we decided to use one bank for our credit and checking accounts, and another bank for our savings account.
In their ethnographic research, Google interviewed a young woman named Erika who also used stolen moments to make progress toward her dream of buying a home in the near future. One day she was sitting in the airport waiting for her flight and decided to do some research. So she pulled out her phone and searched for “mortgage calculator,” where she found a site that helped her figure out what she could afford.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. Similar to my bank research, it was just one moment in a larger customer journey. Over a span of a few months she used her stolen moments—like when she was waiting to pick her kids up from soccer—to research a variety of homes, contractors, school districts, neighborhoods, and financing options, until she ultimately found the right choice for her family.
Key Takeaways for “I-Want-to-Know” Moments
What do your users need to know? What are the questions that they’re asking?
How can you be the most helpful to your users in the moment when they need to know something? How can you help them along their journey?
It’s important to build a relationship with your audience throughout the entire customer journey. Do your research to understand what your users need, and create resources to meet those needs.
2. “I-Want-to-Do” Moments
This is the moment when someone wants to do something and is looking for tools and resources to help them do it. 91% of smartphone users turn to their devices for ideas while doing a task. In “I-want-to-do” moments, people are open to help and your brand needs to be there for them.
For example, Danielle recently purchased a new baby carrier that she’d never used before. It didn’t have any straps or buckles, and she had a hard time figuring out how to get her kid into it. The day she was trying to figure it out, her internet connection wasn’t working so she couldn’t use her laptop. On top of that, her house was hot, her baby was crying, the dog was barking, and she really just needed to figure out how to safely get her baby into the carrier.
In this moment of chaos, she pulled out her phone and searched for instructions. She found a “how-to” video that showed her exactly how to put the carrier on, and how to safely put her baby in it.
Over 100 million hours of “how-to” content has been watched on YouTube so far this year, and YouTube searches related to “how to” are growing 70% year over year. More and more people are looking for how-to videos to help them with projects of all shapes and sizes. In these moments, they are actively asking for help and open to hearing from your brand.
Among the most popular “I-want-to-do” topics are home improvement, cooking, and beauty. Heidi Petz, VP of Marketing at top paint brand Valspar said, “Mobile is increasingly becoming the dominant way consumers access our content.” In order to win “I-want-to-do” moments, The Home Depot has built a content strategy to offer a wide range of home improvement videos.
Key Takeaways for “I-Want-to-Do” Moments
Identify moments where users have a need and want to do learn how to do something.
Talk to your customer support team to see which questions they get asked most frequently. If your brand consistently gets asked the same question, you need to answer it proactively.
Provide helpful content to your customers even after the sale. The customer journey doesn’t end after the purchase, it’s an on-going relationship and they still have needs you can serve.
Offer instructions about how to do something difficult or confusing. Be there for customers in critical moments after the purchase. It can go a long way in building loyalty and driving advocacy.
3. “I-Want-to-Go” Moments
This is the moment when someone decides that they want to go somewhere. So they pull out their phone and search for the location. People might search for a specific business, or they may just search to find what options are nearby.
After analyzing their analytics data, Google noticed that “near me” searches spike during the holidays and over the weekend—when people step out of their normal workday routines. Here were some of the most popular weekend location searches:
Top Weekend “Near Me” Searches
What’s interesting about this data is that most of the top search terms are generic.Instead of searching for “Marriott hotels near me,” most people tend to search for “hotels near me.” It seems that convenience and instant gratification are more important than being loyal to any specific brand in these moments.
But here’s the thing: these moments are incredibly valuable. 50% of consumers who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a store within a day. And 18% of those searches lead to a purchase within a day.
So even though brand loyalty might not be the top priority for consumers in these moments, the brands that are there to serve them with an experience that’s fast, relevant, frictionless, and gives them what they want, are the brands that are going to win “I-want-to-go” moments.
Key Takeaways for “I-Want-to-Go” Moments
How do users interact with your brand or category when they’re near your store?
If they use generic search queries, do they find? Are you the go-to resource to in that moment? If not, what would make you the absolute best choice?
Does your site or app make it easy for users to find local information such as directions, inventory, and pricing?
Do you take the context of the entire customer journey into consideration when you make UX decisions?
4. “I-Want-to-Buy” Moments
This is the moment when someone decides that they want to buy something, and they reach for their phone to make a purchase right there on the spot. These online purchases tend to happen in unexpected places. In fact, 39% of consumers have used their phone to make a purchase in their kitchen.
Google interviewed a woman named Cathy who broke her milk frother while she was doing the dishes. Without hesitation, she pulled out her phone and searched for “bodum milk frother” to find a replacement.
She found it on Amazon, read a few reviews, and made the purchase within five minutes. Just like that she had taken care of her problem and was able to move on with her day. She didn’t wait until later in the day to get on her desktop or go to the store.
Another interesting nuance of “I-want-to-buy” moments is that they can be influenced. Out of 4,468 online consumers age 18-34, one third of them say they found information online that caused them to buy a more expensive product if that product was more effective.
For example, Giana needed something at the pharmacy and had two choices. She opted for the more expensive one because she found a review on her smartphone said that it worked better.
One more micro-moments: one fine morning while getting ready, Mabel was bored with her hairstyle and decided to try the trendy “wet hair look”. She picked up her smartphone while in the bathroom and searched for “how to achieve the wet look hairstyle.” She visited a couple of different websites and used the tips and images to apply the look. She left the house that morning feeling confident with a new style.
Did you know that 75% of Americans access their mobile devices in the bathroom. Meaning, consumers have their micro-moments even in the bathroom. Micro-moments happen everywhere. Check out on this article on Pulse LinkedIn.
People are often willing to pay a premium for higher quality products that get better results. And they also tend to look for product reviews to help them make the best purchase decision.
Key Takeaways for “I-Want-to-Buy” Moments
When your customers search for product reviews to help their purchase decision, what information do they find?
Provide relevant and useful information (like product reviews) when users are ready to make a purchase.
Make buying on mobile fast and frictionless from start to finish. Get user feedback to make sure product pages are easy to find, and that your checkout workflow is painless.
Micro-Moments: The New Battleground for Brands. Because we don’t go online anymore – we live online. And that means customers might be trying to engage with your brand at any moment, expecting an immediate answer. These moments happen all the time and all along the consumer decision journey. And they’re becoming the new battleground for brands – where hearts, minds and dollars are won. Watch this interview with Matt Lawson, Director of Performance Marketing at Google.
Final Thoughts
When people want to learn something, do something, go somewhere, or buy something, they reflexively reach for the nearest device, which is usually a smartphone. Instead of going online for long sessions of research, people browse the web in many short bursts of intent-rich activity. They do bite-sized pieces of research during “stolen moments” throughout the day—when they’re riding the train, waiting for their flight, or waiting in line at the grocery store.
Micro-moments are so important to UX designers and marketers because users have high intent, they’re open to having their preferences shaped, and they’re also open to help with making decisions.
The brands who win these moments will be the ones who understand user behavior and deliver experiences that meet their needs. Here are some big picture ideas to help you craft your own mobile strategy:
Identify the micro-moments that matter to your brand — In the context of mobile, when do consumers reach out to your brand and why?
Deliver on user needs — Focus on people’ specific needs and behaviors within each micro-moment, and ask “How do we solve them?”
Measure the moments that matter —Think about all the different paths that people can take to convert. They could begin the journey on one device and end it on another. They might convert on an app, or call your business. Or they might do some research on their smartphone and then walk into your store to make the purchase.
Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.
Sophisticated digital stories can be interactive movies that include highly produced audio and visual effects, but a set of slides with corresponding narration or music constitutes a basic digital story. Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective. The resources available to incorporate into a digital story are virtually limitless, giving the storyteller enormous creative latitude.
New York-based filmmaker Tim Sessler was able to capture the calmness of New York streets. Watch this inspiring and emotional ‘Streets’ to check out how effective storytelling could be. You can even capture serenity in one of the “craziest” cities in the world. Film by @TimSessler
Do join a conversation by using the native hashtag
As a brand, make it a point to join the conversation with the most organic hashtag your users are already using. This can be a chance to strengthen your brand loyalty and have your followers and fans feel acknowledged;
Do use Hashtags on all platforms
It’s not just a Twitter thing; honest. Developing a hashtag that can be used on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, for instance, can help you widen your reach, while also continuing the conversation across all platforms. So, instead of pushing away your audience you’re encouraging them to continue the conversation wherever they feel the most comfortable doing so;
Do use hashtags to engage with your fans and followers (signal and noise quote)
“Social media is a source of a whole lot of noise, use [hashtags] as a way to create signal… not add to the noise,” said Decker.
And it makes sense. You don’t want your brand to become an annoyance to followers, you want to guide the conversation and encourage engagement;
Don’t add hashtags to every single word
Adding as many hashtags to your sentence doesn’t add in any extra value for your follower. Actually, it does the opposite by making your dialogue on social media feel forced and too marketed.
Don’t use inaccurate hashtags (#spam)
It’s social media’s version of spam. Really, it’s one of the ways to isolate current and potential followers all at once. Use relevant hashtags that are in line with your voice on social media and one your followers will acknowledge.
Just in case you haven’t seen this funny (and also very helpful video), here’s how you sound if you’re using hashtags the wrong way:
In the U.S., and increasingly worldwide, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on laptops or desktop computers.
Desktop has finally ceded its throne. But does this development really surprise anyone?
The ascent of smart devices — phones, watches, wearables etc. — has ushered in a new era for marketers. This is the era of the “micro-moment” as Google recently branded a unit of time.
According to Google, a micro-moment occurs “when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something.”
These moments may be brief, but don’t underestimate their impact.
Brands that learn, adapt, and practice will earn relevance and loyalty. All it takes is connecting adding value to each micro-moment,”
Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter Group, thinks that brands need to be constantly learning about how their audiences connect.
These are the moments of truth of the digital age. Micro-moments occur frequently throughout the day, but each is the product of an instinctive response to a particular time and impulse. Each of these moments have a repeatable pathway to satisfying the impulse. For example, when some Mac users want to search something, they open their Safari app and type a subject in the browser bar. This is an easily repeatable pathway — one that quickly becomes habitual.
Solis noted the habit void that your content should be filling.
If a micro-moment happens and you’re not there to engage a consumer, then that consumer can only act on what he knows.”
The goal for any marketer is to become an essential element of “what he knows,”the habit pathway to achieving an impulse goal. Habit saves us time, concern, and consciousness. The channels that work best are those that are native to our understanding of the mobile devices we use, capable of doing significant work in short order.
In essence, these are bathroom-accessible channels. And these are the channels marketers have to target.
In Love With Connecting – Even In The Bathroom
People are now enabled by technology to do things they wouldn’t have otherwise conceived – it’s not as if technology was there, and people aspired to achieve what we’re able to do now. You can find like-minded people, and you can trade ideas, tips, secrets, and techniques. And it’s fascinating, which is probably why so many people are glued to their electronic mobile devices.
People are not in love with the technology or their devices. What they love is that they have found a personal connection to someone, either across the room or across the world – with whom they share a common bond. People are actually in love with the effect they can have by connecting with people.
That’s why people are glued to their mobile – even in the bathroom. Well, so reaching your audiences in the bathroom might not be the most romantic way to envision targeting, but it’s an effective one.
In fact, 75 percent of Americans bring their phone to the bathroom, and 70 percent of mobile searches lead to timely action. Meaning, distribution is just as important as creating content. To maximize these moments, your business should be distributing content on channels consumers can access while cleaning, cooking, waiting, shopping and, yes, even using the restroom.
Get to know your audience/community. Know where your community spontaneously spends time. Create mobile-friendly content that lives there.
Here are three questions to ask yourself when crafting your own content:
2. Is your content helpful to your community? Don’t get caught up in controlling the message. Instead, do things that are worthy of passing along. Show, don’t tell;
How do you plan to utilize connections when crafting content – turning these micro-moments of interactivity into macro-moments of magic? Please, share your thoughts.
Please, follow me on Twitter to get visual insights on digital marketing, content creation, and content distribution. Also, have a look at what we have been creating for our happy customers.
Click on this image if you would like to take a look at some more statistics.
As marketers continue to adopt social media as an integral part of their marketing strategies, we’ve been exploring how psychology can be used to improve social media’s impact. Since social media is comprised of people engaging in personal conversations and interactions, it should come as no surprise that many psychological principles can also be applied to these channels. In this post, I’ll share four ways to use psychology to maximize your social media marketing. Let’s get started:
1. Understand the Halo Effect
In 1915, researcher Edward Thorndike discovered the Halo Effect, a psychological phenomenon that causes positive bias. He found that if an evaluator believed that a person had one strong positive trait — like being intelligent — this bias would automatically lead the evaluator to believe that the person’s other qualities — like work ethic or helpfulness — were also positive.
The Halo Effect applies to brands and companies as well. This explains why social media marketing works so well. If you have a reputation for producing high quality, helpful, and thought-provoking articles, your audience will be likely to believe you are excel at other things as well—like providing goods or services. Marketers who understand the Halo Effect can wield social media to extend their halo, shining the public’s light on their thought pieces and other positive brand builders.
2. Stay positive
As humans, we intuitively seek out things that make us feel good. When creating a social media plan, focus on sharing content and using language that’s positive. In a recent analysis of 10,000 of the most shared stories across the web, researchers found that articles were more likely to be shared if they evoked awe, laughter, and amusement in readers, while articles with “negative” emotions like sadness and anger were only shared 7% of the time. This aligns with a New York Times study on online sharing, which found that the number one reason people share information online was “to bring valuable and entertaining content to others.”
3. Understand your audience
Before you post, understand your audience. Have a thorough understanding of why they spend time on their social networks, and what they are hoping to obtain. For example, the folks here at Hootsuite found that Google+ users want to learn about a specific topic, while Facebook users check in to connect with friends. Over at LinkedIn, according to Quicksprout, 60% of users are interested in learning about industry insights, while only 38% are interested in new products and services. The culture and audiences of the different social platforms should inform all of your content creation.
But understanding who uses the different social networks is only the first step. In order to know what kind of content to produce and share, you need to develop a deep understanding of the ultimate end-user: your business’ client or consumer base. The only reliable way to understand your specific audiences is through research. You may not think it’s worth the effort, but the rewards are quite substantial. In fact, a recent study found that firms that conduct systematic research on their audience and competitors grow almost 12 times faster than, and are almost twice as profitable as firms that don’t conduct research.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask
Research shows that the number one reason why buyers do not refer their service providers is simply because they have not been asked.
Asking for help evokes a powerful human response—whether in person or on social media. In fact, according to social scientist Dan Zarrella, tweets with the words “please retweet” garnered 160% more retweets than average posts, with other variations of that request also performing remarkably well. Of course, you don’t want to overuse it, but simply asking your network to help you spread valuable content will yield powerful results.
Never sell out
While each social network has its own nuances and best practices, there is one huge no-no that applies to all social media marketing. Here it is: Don’t sell. And if you’ve heard it before, it still bears repeating: Don’t sell. It can be tempting to use social media to sell your products or services. After all, you’ve got free access to a huge audience—what’s to lose? But just as people find door-to-door salesmen and phone solicitors annoying and intrusive, they also feel that way about salesy social media posts. Focus on sharing valuable, positive content that is relevant to your target audience, and watch your brand—and profits—grow. Original post by Lee Frederiksen
A new report estimates 1.4 million new homes in the U.S. have cut the cord this year, which means more video content is streamed on a regular basis. It also means the same for music.
The term cord cutters describes people who have moved away from traditional cable and satellite subscriptions for their television viewing pleasure. Instead, they are relying on streaming content over the Internet from the likes of Netflix and Hulu, plus are accessing their local channels using an antenna.
Seeing as they have already embraced a wire-free life, it should come as no surprise cord cutters also like to stream music. Streaming music is already popular with those that are still connected to the cord, but based on the latest research, cord cutters are 27-percent more likely to stream music — which is now easier and cheaper than ever before. A few years ago, the only options available were for desktop computers or mobile devices, but now there are a slew of TV set-top boxes that can get the job done. For example, Spotify, one of the most popular streaming music providers, can be accessed from over 300 devices through Spotify Connect.
To better understand what cord cutters like to listen to, Spotify worked with Experian Marketing Services, a provider of consumer insights, analytics and marketing technology to over 10,000 brands. Here’s what the research revealed:
Cord cutters like:
Techno
Electronic
Latin Hip Hop
Tejano/Banda
Latin (Alternative) Rock
Teen Pop
Grunge
Salsa/Merengue
Latin Ballads
New Age
Children’s music
Classical
Cord cutters don’t like:
Religious/Christian
Gospel
Easy Listening
Adult Contemporary
Related: Over 40 and love Top 40? Spotify says that’s your ‘musical midlife crisis’ kicking in
Spotify and Experian also looked at just connected home streamers vs. other listeners. Connected home streamers are people who primarily stream their music to devices such as Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, or something else that connects directly to speakers. This also includes both traditional cable and satellite television viewers, as well as cord cutters. Other listeners are those that get their music from cable, satellite, or a traditional radio.
Connected home streamers like:
Hip Pop
Modern Uplift
Intelligent Dance Music
Dance Rock
Gauze Pop
Indietronica
Neo Mellow
Progressive Electro House
Stomp And Whittle
Trap Music
Minimal Dub
Stomp Pop
Connected home streamers don’t like:
Post-Grunge
Country rock
Metal
Movie tunes
Christian hip hop
Grime
World music
Tech House
Jazz
Classic rock
Gangster rap
Classical
When it comes to data like this, you might find that you match up exactly or not at all. It’s certainly not meant to tell you to stop listening to whatever you love listening too. It’s just a chance to have a little fun, and who knows, maybe you will find a new genre that you didn’t know you were supposed to like. Original article on DigitalTrends. By Robert Nazarian
Social marketing has always seemed dangerous for brands, and that’s simply because things can go badly in real time. We’ve all seen the #fails.
And now enter two live-streaming video apps that have everyone talking—Twitter’s Periscope and Meerkat—which present even greater challenges, legal and otherwise, when compared to merely tweeting or posting Instagram photos. Industry observers advise caution with this new type of high-wire marketing.
“From a branding standpoint, livestreaming is an absolute train wreck in waiting,” said Alan Chapell, a lawyer and head of his marketing consulting firm Chapell and Associates. “Somebody is going to screw up.”
Indeed, what could happen when an alcohol brand shoots live video from an event or a marketer sets up a prank promotion capturing the unsuspecting public? What may occur when a celebrity’s image or a copyrighted song is used? These have been constant questions for brands using social media and digital advertising in recent years, but the stakes are higher when video is involved, according to Chapell and other experts.
So, here are five things marketers should know to help them avoid accidentally wandering into a social-video disaster.
1. Celebrities could sue you
Ronald Urbach is an attorney focused on advertising and marketing and a co-chair at the firm Davis & Gilbert. He was reminded of actor Katherine Heigl’s lawsuit against Walgreens for tweeting a picture of her at one of its Duane Reade stores. It was a $6 million lawsuit,settled out of court.
So what happens when a brand wants to livestream at an event attended by celebrities? The damages could be even larger than Heigl’s demands when live marketing video is involved, Urbach said. “If it’s a $6 million lawsuit over a photo, imagine what it would be for video content,” the attorney said. “Video by definition has a broader audience.”
Urbach said he’s worked on lawsuits where celebrities have sued after becoming part of brands’ social media efforts at live events like the Oscars and Grammys. So Urbach said marketers should be cautious filming at places like the red carpet or parades—or White House visits, for that matter.
2. Yes, you still need people to sign a release
Michael Krivicka is the co-founder of Thinkmodo, a marketing firm specializing in big stunts that surprise everyday consumers on video. So he has to deal with some of the legal issues that arise when putting regular people in your marketing. “Always get a release,” he said. “You can’t just put someone in a video or feature them in a closeup. They have to sign off.”
He admits it would be tough to do his company’s style of marketing on live video apps, because of the need to alert people that they are participants in real time. Since putting random people in your video could lead to trouble, and legal release forms are needed, marketers should plan ahead, so anyone who shows up knows they’re being filmed, Krivicka said. So, before anyone pops into the frame, it’s best to alert them, or avoid areas where random people are seen.
3. Frame your shot and control the situation
You need to be careful filming out in the real world, Krivicka said. There could be billboards for rival brands in the background or copyrighted songs blaring. “It should be a controlled environment,” he said. “When you’re live, anything can happen and anything becomes part of the stream.”
4. Err on the side of caution
Now that anyone can be a digital broadcaster, they should know the rules, Urbach said. “Think through some of the issues that may exist like defamation, libel and slander, who owns the content, the copyright, the trademark,” he said. “If you’re a brand marketer and this is commercial communication, you have to worry about the same things you have to worry about when you’re doing a TV spot.”
It’s safe to say that we like to share content with the online world. On the off-chance that you need any convincing, take a moment to consider this: In a single minute, we send out 277,000 tweets; share 2,460,000 pieces of content on Facebook; post 216,000 new photos on Instagram; and upload 72 hours of new video on YouTube.
As always, psychology is interested in finding answers to questions of why we behave the way we do. When it comes to social-media sharing, five main explanations dominate the discussion.
1. To convey our identity
Perhaps one of the strongest forces driving our motivation to share is based on our sense of identity — more specifically, the desired version of ourselves that we want to project onto the world.
In a social-media sharing study conducted by The New York Times, 68% of respondents said they share to give people a better sense of who they are and what they care about. The psychologist Carl Rogers provided a possible explanation for this, arguing that our personalities are composed of a “Real Self” (who we really are), and an “Ideal Self” (who we want to be).
According to Rogers, we are constantly motivated to pursue behaviors that bring us closer to our Ideal Self. On this basis, the content that we share could be seen as a reflection of the person we want the world to see. For example, we might endorse a political campaign to represent our views, a funny video to convey our sense of humor, or a music video to express our musical taste.
2. To nurture relationships
As inherently social creatures, we are naturally inclined to form and maintain social relationships. An additional motivation for sharing online may be driven by our desire to maintain and enrich these relationships. Given the busy nature of our lives and the limited time we have available to socialize, social media provides an easy and convenient way to stay in touch with friends.
Often, we stumble across content that we think will benefit a friend, so we share it with them online. Similarly, we like to share content that has a specific relevance to a relationship. For example, we often share content that captures a mutual interest, a shared experience, a private joke, or an idea for a future plan.
3. For an incentive
As mundane as it may sound, sometimes we share content because we have been bribed with a tempting incentive. For example, we may “like” a page or “share” a post purely to avail ourselves of a discount or to enter a competition. Another recent study showed that 67% of users who “liked” a brand page on Facebook did so simply to become eligible for special offers.
4. To feel a sense of belonging
Researchers also theorize that we are motivated to share content online in order to feel a greater sense of belonging. In a study conducted by the University of Queensland, an active group of Facebook users were told to engage in normal activity on the site. However, what they didn’t know was that they would be receiving absolutely no response or feedback for their actions. Every comment was left completely unanswered, and every shared post devoid of any “likes.” At the end of the study, participants reported experiencing significant negative effects on their self-esteem and sense of well-being.
Sharing content online often results in positive feedback from our peers, and most of us would agree that we feel happier if a post we share receives 100 “likes” as opposed to none. In effect, being engaged in an online community and receiving feedback for our actions can provide us with social validation and a greater sense of connectedness.
5. To advocate great content
We all appreciate really great content, and sometimes we want to share it to bring value and entertainment to others. In fact, in the New York Timesstudy, 94% of respondents said that they carefully consider how the information they share will be useful to the recipient.
Maybe it’s a video that made us laugh, or a beautiful image that inspired us, or an interesting article that taught us something useful. Sometimes, we simply want to share content with other people because we’ve found it really enjoyable and we think they will too.
Developing an understanding of how and why people share content is really useful for helping you to create appealing content. The better you grasp the motivation behind why people share, the more effectively you’ll be able to create content that reaches, engages, and ultimately gets shared by your target audience.
Ignore conventional marketing. Instead be memorable
Make your audience a part of the campaign
Distinguish your brand from the competition
Know your audience and cater ads to their interests
Use humor
Take risks
Play to people’s emotions
Don’t be afraid to put your product on the sidelines
Support a meaningful cause and share it with your audience
Try to start a movement with your brand at the center of it
Understatement time: Marketing has changed a ton in the last five years. Social media’s power to drive campaign success into uncharted territory has resulted in a massive shift in content marketing. The best campaigns have capitalized on the elements that make content shareable on social media.
Below, we’ve taken five of the best marketing campaigns, and have broken down key elements that contributed to their explosive success. Although some of these marketing campaigns were created by the biggest companies and agencies in the world, they succeeded not because of how much they cost, but because they understood fundamental truths about social media users.
In a rush? Having a busy day? The version of 10 lessons learned from these campaigns is above. If you want to read the article, click here. By Evan LePage
The Halo Effect applies to brands and companies as well. This explains why social media marketing works so well. If you have a reputation for producing high quality, helpful, and thought-provoking articles, your audience will be likely to believe you are excel at other things as well—like providing goods or services. Marketers who understand the Halo Effect can wield social media to extend their halo, shining the public’s light on their thought pieces and other positive brand builders.
Social marketing has always seemed dangerous for brands, and that’s simply because things can go badly in real time. We’ve all seen the 
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