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Top 5 Internet Marketing Insights for 2017

“Google will buy Twitter for tens of billions of dollars. Twitter won’t change much, but there will be more ads. The ROI for buying advertising in Twitter will go up.” This is a quote by Andy Crestodina who is the co-founder of Orbit Media and is considered a leading industry expert.

2017 seems to be the year of substantial increases of innovation in the Martech and Adtech industry. Understanding these new market trends will help teams as they begin to plan a 2017 budget even though some of the new technologies they will need are still on or just leaving the drawing board. Many industry professionals are interested in seeing how Microsoft will utilize the big data they have to create a stronger ad program within their recent acquisition of Linkedin. The thought of combining a huge social network of over 400 million users with one of the largest search engines in the world is every digital marketer’s wet dream. That goes without saying the endless possibilities that will emerge with combining those resources with Windows, Office, Dynamics, and Cloud. Can you imagine writing a blog post or article on Office 365 and being able to just right click to find an expert quote from Linkedin?

Trend #1: Double down on Automation and Social analytics

I’d like to remind everyone that Social Media is still in its beginning stages even though some of us feel that large companies such as Facebook and Twitter have been around a long time they are still in their infancy stage. Such as the beginning of any relationship, martech and social media are still getting to know each other, but social media advertising is projected to generate $11 billion in revenue by 2017. It is one of the largest opportunities of marketing exploration for the upcoming year, and as I mentioned before some of these social websites still have many ideas on the drawing board that will greatly benefit Internet marketing. A DMA research study showed that 70% of companies are still not collecting data from social media channels, so it is important that budgets are allocated towards social media analytics. Many companies are still unable to create and implement a robust social media automation that actually works. Different platforms and tools are still growing to help with prospecting and delivering content to the right customers in the moment they need engagement. Industry experts agree that a more valuable concrete solution is desperately needed to take advantage of this relatively untouched resource. They hypothesize the best solution is some sort of a collaboration between apps, networks and platforms all integrated with a marketing dashboard for end to end reporting of the impact social analytics has across the customer journey.

Trend #2: Invest more in the video and podcast bandwagon

These avenues are and will continue to become the best ways to engage audiences using visuals, colors, sounds and/or music. This also works in tandem with trend #1 because a great video will help build brand loyalty and trust by enriching a prospective customer’s journey. Convenience and sometimes necessity are enabling more video and podcast use, especially among those with a preference of “watching the movie” or “listening to the audio book” rather than actually “reading the book.” According to the newest edition of the DMA statistical fact book, 4 times as many consumers prefer digestible video content to plain text. Even Nicola Mendelssohn from Facebook says it will “probably’ be “all video” in 5 years. There is also an Edison research study that revealed approximately 46 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly, and the average user listens to six a week. Huge corporations are already taking advantage of this such as GE and Netflix who each have their own podcasts with registered listeners. As for future video content, Yahoo is a pioneer and has begun to allow you to take out full-screen auto-play video ads on their homepage. You may sometimes even see pop up type movie previews before accessing their main site.

Trend #3: Becoming as ‘human’ as possible in a digital world as fans want to know the people behind the brand and feel that they are understood.

It is widely accepted that the Internet knows more about you than the coworker sitting 2 feet away from you, so it is easy to understand the increase in paid searches and pay-per-click type of advertising over the last several years. Unfortunately, this strategy can become expensive if you do not have a flawless keyword strategy, and not to mention that there many flaws ranging from generating irrelevant site visits to making people feel they are being spammed in their web searches. Reaching your target market in a more organic type of way using blogs and user reviews has been the best way to establish legitimacy in your respective industry. Focusing more on the journey of a prospective customer and painting a perspective of helping them to buy rather than just selling them is something to look forward to in 2017. An excellent method of establishing this is through a more interactive mobile app with innovative sales and promotions geared towards making a consumer feel like they are part of an exclusive group. For example, the T-mobile Tuesdays app has an offer every week from free dominos pizza to a free Samsung Galaxy phone. There is also Target’s rewards app which uses advanced beacon technology to put offers directly in the hands of their customers as they walk through the store.

Trend #4: Focus more on the Pragmatic approach to building your brand

Stay consistent and make sure your message is always clear through all channels on what your brand is and what it is not as this vision will be your guide towards sound decision making. The right message at the right time can guarantee success where as bad timing or the wrong message will incur a huge setback or even total failure. Take care of your employees and empower them to carry on the clear and compelling message to all customers and stakeholders. The pragmatic approach will continue to increase faster than content of audience-based advertising. Most of the successful companies in the upcoming year will deliver this seamless, relevant user experience to drive true outcome-based results.

Trend #5: Stay Mobile friendly and start becoming wearable friendly

This is a bit of old news but just in case you haven’t heard, make sure Google thinks your site is mobile friendly. It is surprising that many companies are still dragging their feet on this as well as on increasing their Google ranking, but this should be a top priority for any and all brands. It is also very important that content be coded extremely well for customers to be able to transition smoothly not only from a desktop to mobile, but also from any of those 2 to a wearable device. In 2017, it is projected that 1 out of ever 4 U.S. consumers will be using a wearable device, so be sure to take this into consideration when planning a future budget. This means there will be even more data on every move the specific target market is making, and we must be prepared to produce and distribute content to fit each individual target buyer accordingly.

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Macro Social Influencer’s True Value

Macro Social Influencer’s most of the time are celebrities, professional athletes, & musicians that have a vast following outside the internet. The macro influencers following on the internet, is vast and crosses over a larger age range, geographic target, & has influence covering multiple industries.  The question many companies come to when evaluating the value of a macro influencer, is will cost of the macro influencer provide a positive ROI.   This article is for companies that can afford macro influencers.  If a company cannot afford to pay an influencer $3k + per influence, then the company would not have to strategize over a macro influencer’s ability to produce a positive ROI.  This is an overview to help strategize looking into the value of a macro influencer.

Being that a macro influencer has a much larger demographic base, the most important variable to be evaluated is the base (entire following), broken up to see how many target markets are touched and the total of the following for each target separated. A cost cannot be put on the macros total base (altogether). Different groups have different values because they are harder to be influenced. It is important that the value placed on a macro influencer (digitally), is done through separating the entire following into the appropriate target markets and then auditing their values (separate line items) together. By separating the target markets by line item with individual values, this is the only way to get a true value on a macro influencer.

Following the paragraph above it is important to deduct the target market that is not of value. With macro influencers crossing over into wider ranges of demographics, there’s a certain percent that does not match a company’s target market. However, when valuing a macro influencer, the value tends to be paid on the entire following, even the percentage of the following that a company does not need.   By deducting the total amount of target market that is not needed against the target markets that are, a true value can then be determined. A true value will give a company a number to negotiate from that is real for the company. If a company does not develop a formula like this than often the value of a macro influencer is not correct and a premium is then paid that is not justifiable. Sometimes a premium gets paid because the target markets a company wants to influence, are at a level that places the macro influencer in an exclusive category (positioning). When that happens a company often overlooks the markets that are not of interest and will pay a premium to the macro influencer regardless. Most of the time this is not the case and true market value is an important number to justify the macro influencer’s value. The importance of the true number often plays an important role on the company receiving a positive ROI. It’s the starting point of macro influencer risk (influencer risk will be discussed in another article).

With macro influencers touching a much larger demographic, which leads to a much larger cost to have them influence, more research needs to be placed into the demographics of the macro influencer. Larger does not always mean better, exposure. This is a big mistake that many companies make. It is extremely important to look into this figure especially when the cost is of an amount that is substantial. Many other variables play into the selection of a macro influencer but the influencers true value, should be the number point of interest as discussed in this article. Regardless if the influencer is a macro or micro, it is always important to all companies to ask themselves the question: If a company cannot see its product, service, or message genuinely being used, appreciated, or promoted by the influencer; Then the Influencer, most likely may not be the right match for the company.  Keep in mind the influencers following will see right through it, & the company will not get the ROI its looking for.

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What is Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become the new talk of the internet marketing realm.  Influencer marketing isn’t as new as one would think, however the results of it’s success have begun to turn heads with in big corporations.  This article’s purpose, is to be a brief overview of what Influencer marketing actually is. 

Influencer marketing’s main goal is to get back to the root of social media’s authenticity.  This is where people post organically about something that is near and dear to them (photos, commentary, videos. etc.) & the message comes through as genuine because it is. Whether it’s about fashion, weight loss, parenting, etc., the people posting tend to have a large niche following, because other like-minded people have interest in what they’re posting, blogging, or videoing about .  These people doing the posting, blogging, & videoing are called “influencers”.

Now, the goal of the company doing the marketing, is to find these “influencers”, that may have some type of connection to their product, service, or message that they’re marketing, & have the “influencer” post , blog, or video about it to there specific following.  The better the influencer, the better results (engagement, shares, interest, etc.).   

Influencer marketing is not for every company.  It takes a lot of work to set up the influencer network properly, with a unique budget allocated to the system, campaign, & management.  There is no short cut with influencer marketing, which is great because it keeps the marketing authentic.  Companies like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Twitter, & Yelp have been talking about how they work hard to keep reviews found on their search engine or platform authentic. If influencer marketing is done correctly, the potential to push a market, product , or message genuinely is massive.  

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Influencer Marketing Ethical or Deceitful?

In the past year the authorship of articles having to deal with influencer marketing has sky rocketed. As more comments, shares, & engagements arise one statement finds itself to be most popular. Should companies be utilizing influencer marketing or is the internet marketing tool/strategy unethical.  In order to answer such a loaded question, the influencer, the follower, & the company need to be examined closer.  In the past, “certain companies” have used “specific campaigns” utilizing marketing tools & strategies that may have been seen by some to be misleading. However, to assume a specific tool or strategy misleads a consumer 100% of the time, regardless the company or influencer involved, may be a bit inaccurate or skewed.

When critiquing an influencer, the question that comes up: If an influencer is 100% genuine about a topic or subject matter, does their message become less genuine once they receive payment or free product from a company that they’re posting, videoing, or blogging about. The answer is no. Influencers do not just pop up overnight. Specifically, micro influencers spend a lot of energy creating quality postings. With quality comes credibility, with credibility comes traffic, & with traffic comes a regular following.  This does not come from deception it comes from genuineness & authenticity. Most micro influencers understand, the moment regular followers detect that they are not being 100% genuine, a credibility loss then occurs. A decrease in credibility, correlates to a direct decrease in regular following.  The regular following of an influencer is the most important thing an influencer has. They would never purposely do something that would result in a loss of followers.  With that being said, majority of the time the amount of company products, services, & messages that a micro influencer turns down, is at a far higher percentage than, of the ones that an influencer actually takes on.  Macro influencers have a little more wiggle room because of the vast following they have. However, they still take into consideration what they choose to influence.

When critiquing a follower, the question that’s comes up: How much does a follower need to know to ensure the follower understands whom he or she is following.  The time someone spends on the internet is very precious and internet browsing is nothing new.  The follower completely understands whom they choose to follow is a decision made, 100% by themselves. If a follower is not sure about a specific topic or subject matter discussed by an influencer, they have the ability to engage with question or comment directly with the influencer, and/or share the influencers post with friends and family to get perspective on what is being stated or shown.  When it comes to minors on the internet public and private filters are used to ensure influencers that post about adult subject matters are not easily accessed.  Followers ultimately hold the control pertaining to influencers.  If a follower has an inkling that an influencer is being disingenuous they have the ability to call out the influencer publicly, privately, & stop following them.   

When critiquing a company, the question that’s comes up: How much does a company really care if an influencer is genuine or not, when writing a post, video, or blog.  They care greatly. Why; because, the amazing thing about influencer marketing, is if an influencer is not speaking genuinely about a product, service, or message, the tool/ strategy will not work.  If you have read any of the past articles written about influencer marketing pertaining to companies, you will always see the same comment quoted here, “If a company cannot see its product, service, or message genuinely being used, appreciated, or promoted by the influencer; Then the Influencer, most likely may not be the right match for the company.  Keep in mind the influencers following will see right through it, & the company will not get the ROI its looking for”.    It’s very simple the product, service, or message has no short cuts when it comes to influencer marketing.

Companies should be utilizing influencer marketing as a marketing tool or strategy. Not only should it be used, it should be encouraged. If anything, Influencer marketing is bringing additional ethics to the internet, and we should embrace the tool & strategy, and build off of it.   

 

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Influencer Marketing: Micro Influencer’s are Different

When searching for social influencers for a influencer marketing campaign the big question companies ask themselves is: Should we go with a macro or micro influencer. The budget for the two are very different, as well as the type of influence.  A macro influencer is often a famous celebrity, athlete, or musician.   Also a macro influencer just like the name promotes, has a vast following that he or she influences.  On the other hand, a micro influencer has a very targeted following & is not famous amongst the masses.

Micro-influencers typically have genuine passion for a specific topic or industry, to which they work very hard to advocate this digitally. It’s an effort that comes with time and multiple postings, videos, pics, etc. At one point, the influencer’s popularity begins to (trend), within a niche market and the following then expects a continuation to read more, see more, & experience more of what the influencer is posting.   Again, micro influencers are not celebrities, & may only proclaim expertise, with passion towards a specialized industry or topic. This comes off as more trust-worthy to many followers. This is one reason why people like to follow these types of influencers.  In a lot of ways, it’s the perfect cocktail (1-part expert, 1-part average consumer, 1-part authentic, & 1-part genuine), mixed together to make a perfectly stirred individual to promote or review a product, service, or message to their following.

Micro Influencers may be able to get a product, service, or message out to a more defined following over a macro influencer at a better rate (CPE). This may work better for a company on a tighter budget or aiming at a more defined target market. However, It’s still important to remember regardless if a company goes with a micro or a macro influencer: “If a company cannot see its product, service, or message genuinely being used, appreciated, or promoted by the influencer; Then the Influencer, most likely may not be the right match for the company.  Keep in mind the influencers following will see right through it, & the company will not get the ROI its looking for”.