Facebook Launches New Video Embeds

Facebook Launches New Video Embeds & Comment Syncing From Site To Page

Wed, 25 Mar 2015 19:25:24 +0000

Have you found the perfect Facebook video to illustrate a blog post? Now you can embed it directly on your site without its supporting post. Facebook also has a beta test that allows comments on publishers’ sites to sync to their Facebook Page and vice versa.
Facebook announced the new features today at its F8 developers conference in San Francisco.
Previously, if you wanted to embed video on your site, you had to embed the entire Facebook post containing the video. So like Twitter before it, Facebook is enabling YouTube-like video embedding. That will please publishers, journalists and the creators of videos who should see greater distribution of their content. It should also increase the number of Facebook video views, which are already averaging 3 billion a day according to the social network.
The new feature is active now:

The update to the comment plugin will affect fewer publishers — at least immediately — but it could prove to be a major development. At launch in 2011 and until now, the comment plugin gave publishers the ability to host a Facebook powered discussion board on their site, but the conversation there is largely siloed. Commenters are given the ability to post comments on their News Feed, but any conversation on a site’s Facebook Page is separate from the discussion going on within the comment plugin.
Now publishers will have the option to mirror those conversations. The discussion thread from any link posted on a site’s Facebook Page will automatically pull in comments from the plugin and vice versa.
“The value here is we can unify the conversation in multiple places,” said Simon Cross, a product manager on Facebook’s platform team. “We think that’s going to increase engagement on your website because there will be more comments there.”
The new feature is being rolled out in the next few weeks as a beta test with six publishers: BET, NHL, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Elite Daily and Fox Sports

Uplifting Instagram Marketing

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Uplifting Instagram Marketing: Soffe Apparel's Paul Anderson on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Paul Anderson is director of marketing at Soffe Apparel, an apparel company started in 1949 as a distributor to the military. Over the years, the company expanded into clothing and became known for its signature athletic shorts. The shorts, made for men, became popular among cheerleaders, who would fold down the band so they'd fit properly.
In the fall of 2014, Soffe conducted market research into the young, female market for athletic apparel that yielded some interesting insights. Soffe learned that women felt more motivated to work out as part of a group, and that that sense of belonging was key to success when pursuing their fitness goals.
I invited Paul to Marketing Smarts to discuss how Soffe used those insights to completely rebrand the company to reach the underserved demographic of young, female athletes seeking inspiration and motivation from one another.
Soffe's "Strength in Us" campaign is a complete turnaround from the brand's previous marketing message. The company's willingness to act on sound audience data has turned its social channels into a destination of choice for its target audience.
Here are just a few highlights from our conversation:

Don't be afraid to rebrand if you're not reaching your core audience (03:23): "The Soffe brand has been going through a massive revamp over the past 18 months.... We noticed especially on the women's side that there was this massive disconnect with our core consumers. So, one of the things we wanted to do...was to go out and actually listen to that consumer. That really prompted [us to conduct] research."
Invest in research so you can truly understand your audience (04:00): "One of the big things we did was to bring on a new agency of record...and they've got some pretty interesting proprietary tools at their disposal [that] allowed us to set the stage for the research that we did. Being able to, at scale, understand and listen on social and through search, we were able to get an idea of brand sentiment.... That then prompted us to dig into the specifics around our core consumer.... Young women were connecting through exercise and these group-based activities.... 80% of young women said they were more motivated to exercise with friends or a team. 92% said they were more powerful as a group... It wasn't that they weren't competitive—they were individually competitive—they just felt that there was something more."
Look for opportunities to connect with audiences your competition is ignoring (05:35): "As we looked at the activewear market in general, we saw a big opportunity there to tell our story, a story that had been part of Soffe for a long time: our roots in the military, our roots in cheerleading, and then how that evolved to how...young women approach active now.... We're a smaller 'fighter brand' as I like to say, but as you look at the big guys that are out there, it's all a lot of the same—advertises and talks about 'lone individuals' with big campaign slogans glorifying the single athlete. We thought that this was an interesting thing that we'd want to hang our hat on, and talk to our core consumer and young women in a more realistic and authentic way."
Once you've reviewed the data, use it to better serve your target audience (07:41): "We did some early segmentation work and really looked at the different groups around dance culture, around gymnastics culture, Zumba and cardio barre—all these sort of new exercise movements that really are based around groups, and they all sort of draft off of dance in a lot of ways. We're really concentrating on messaging around those activity bases where we're building product and merchandizing around those things. It started with segmentation."
Go where your audience is (like Instagram) and give them content that inspires (08:53): "What we wanted to do as we launched for spring 2015 was to put a break between the brand's old and new content. We wanted to be pretty stark about it. To launch the 'Strength is in Us' campaign, we released a 24-word manifesto in 24 separate posts, and each post featured compelling statistics around our study, and it really just captivated—the statistics around teamwork, around the power of collective strength. It was interesting to see our consumer who was used to our 'old' content, and then seeing the reaction from our new 'coming out' party.... It's just about being a content source for our consumer and really to inspire and motivate young women around this idea of 'the power of we' and 'the strength is in us....' We were on Instagram before, but we're being more strategic and more channel specific about it. It is our most engaged channel."

Experiment, but not without a strategy; establish a baseline to measure against (12:18): "We can see Likes, comments; and as our audience grows, those things are all important. One of the things...we had seen through our initial research around the brand was digging down and understanding brand sentiment...and we're going to be paying attention, obviously, to that. We wanted to be a place to host the conversation around our positioning, sort of a content source of inspiration and motivation.... We want to be a brand publishing content that engages our consumer. It's one thing that we just didn't do when we lost touch with them.... We've established a brand-tracker base that we're going to use to measure yourself against quarterly, so that'll be really interesting to see where the needle moves there.... We have seen our followers increase at a rate that was higher than what we were previously doing, so that's a good sign."
To learn more, visit Soffe.com or follow Soffe on Twitter: @Soffe. And be sure to check out its Instagram feed: @soffegirl.
Paul and I talked about much more, so be sure to listen to the entire show, which you can do above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode!
This episode brought to you by CallidusCloud.

Special thanks to production sponsor Candidio, an efficient, affordable video production platform allowing marketers and communicators to collaborate and curate video content, with help from a team of professional, on-demand video editors for the finishing touches. Check them out!

Show opener music credit: Noam Weinstein.

This marketing podcast was created and published by MarketingProfs.

Kerry O'Shea Gorgone is instructional design manager, enterprise training, at MarketingProfs. She's also a speaker, writer, attorney, and educator. She hosts and produces the weekly Marketing Smarts podcast. To contact Kerry about being a guest on Marketing Smarts, send her an email, or you can find her on Twitter (@KerryGorgone), Google+, and her personal blog.

B2B Brands and the Super Bowl: How B2B Marketers Can Capitalize on Consumer Events

Often, the Super Bowl seems as if it's more of a season than a one-day event. It dominates consumer conversations for weeks and weeks before Super Bowl Sunday arrives. From the food to the entertainment to the ads and the big game itself, the public is more focused on the Super Bowl than on most national holidays.
Communications professionals typically see the game as a time for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers to capitalize on the benefits of all that conversation. But the truth is that business-to-business (B2B) companies can, and should, also take advantage of major consumer events.
Conversations from the newsroom to the living room and even the conference room are all about the Super Bowl. It's natural for companies to want to engage in that conversation—and they can, and they should.
As with any "trend intervention," brands must tread cautiously to make sure that their interactions are appropriate and valued rather than inappropriate and unwelcomed interruptions of the conversation.
B2B marketers can take advantage of the opportunity to reach a portion of the 180 million spectators expected for this year's Super Bowl—or the audiences of other major events traditionally considered B2C marketing opportunities.

Here are just a few of the tactics that B2B marketers can employ to get in the game.
Keep your eye on the ball
Even B2B advertising content and marketing collateral can jump on the Super Bowl bandwagon. When the public is so focused on a major event, tying it to your marketing efforts may help increase awareness and message retention.
Perhaps a football-themed infographic, whitepaper, email campaign, or tradeshow booth can help you garner a few new fans for your company.
Be a super fan
The Super Bowl is practically a religious holiday. Just as your organization might wish folks a great holiday celebration or perhaps share something about the culture of your organization, you can demonstrate the excitement of your employees for the game.
From creating a special homepage banner to posting photos of your decorated office on social media, you have many subtle ways to show your organization is full of loyal fans.
Select winning tactics
Consider adding giveaways or a well-designed contest to your marketing mix. On the low end, you could provide customers with a care package to enjoy the big game, and on the high end you could give actual tickets to your best customers.
If planned well, a contest leading up to the event could serve as a lead-generation tool as well as garner goodwill with your current customer base.
Know the score
For most sports fans, knowing the stats of every game and player is a badge of honor. Is there a way for you to dig into the data to support your customers or inform your industry? Perhaps your company sells products or provides services that may be affected by the game.
It's not just sales of chicken wings, beer, and giant TVs that spike before the Super Bowl. This is the first year that the game can be streamed live to a device without the need for a cable subscription, so we may see spikes in everything from wireless router sales to computer and mobile device upgrades.
Share such knowledge with your customers to help them plan accordingly.
Coach your team
A major consumer event could be an opportunity to help your own customers succeed at their own game. If you can offer them solid advice or guidance on how they can use this opportunity or other trends and breaking news events to their advantage, they will appreciate the gesture. If you can weave your product or service into that story, you might be able to spur sales at the same time.
Alternatively, you could just incorporate a "playbook" approach to your business advice and turn it into anything from a simple blog entry to a longer-form e-book for more in-depth coaching. One of the easiest analogies to make is between scoring on the field and scoring in business. Pick a theme, own the cheese factor, and score a touchdown.
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As any good fan knows, overindulging at the pre-game can wind up hurting more than helping your brand; so... everything in moderation. But when done well, adopting a major consumer event as part of an overall marketing effort can help B2B communicators have a positive impact on engagement with customers through public relations, social media, and traditional marketing efforts.
In the end, businesses are composed of individual consumers, and when something is capturing the hearts and minds of the general public... that public also brings it to work, including at B2B firms.
Careful planning and thoughtful program development that takes advantage of large-scale consumer and cultural events can lead to a win-win for your company and your clients.
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Elements of a Successful Creative Pitch

Elements of a Successful Creative Pitch [Infographic]

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You've one shot to dazzle your audience with your idea, service, or product. Here are some tips to make sure you rock the presentation.
Get your audience prepared for your presentation by setting the stage. Be sure to include walk-in music, a printed itinerary, welcome videos, and light refreshments.
Also, consider the best format for your presentation. "The presentation hould be well-organized with key point logically building on each other," states the following USC Annenberg infographic.
Another key element is the content, so take time to plan your content around your goal. Don't use hyperbole or create infodumps. "Streamline the content," suggests USC.
Find out more about creating a successful creative pitch in the following infographic.


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Veronica Maria Jarski is the Opinions editor and a senior writer at MarketingProfs.
Twitter: @Veronica_Jarski

Know Where Your Ads Are Running, Whom They're Reaching, and How Much You're Paying?

Most advertisers today are going in blind and getting deceived in online advertising. Amid the rise of programmatic online media buys, somehow transparency has deftly managed to slip through the cracks.
Brands and agencies at a recent Digiday event were asked to identify their single largest concern regarding online advertising. Once all votes were in, ad fraud and viewability emerged as the top industry issues keeping execs up at night.
With bots, suspect placements, and cost-transparency issues looming large, heads of digital are beginning to take a closer look at exactly where, when, and what their agencies and ad tech partners are running in their ad placements.
The opacity of the online advertising industry hasn't been adequately scrutinized until now. New technology in the form of placement quality monitoring and video-by-video location databases is beginning to force the realization among advertisers that the somewhat sketchy way things have been so far may not be the way they'll always have to be.
As an advertiser, you have the right to know where your ads are running, whom you're reaching, and how much you're paying. You need clear reporting that boils down to the KPIs that matter for your business.

What you don't need is a "trusted" ad partner charging you an arm and a leg for display ads running at 4 AM in countries where you don't do business or for ads that never get seen anywhere.
Moreover, Google's first-ever ad viewability report [PDF] revealed that 56% of online display ads are never actually seen by consumers. Are you 100% certain that you're getting all the views you're currently paying for?
Who ultimately is responsible for ridding the online ad market of deception and disappointment?
Here's what advertisers should at least consider as they continue to shift media budgets online and search for the perfect technology partner.
Strict Standards 
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) may define viewability as a minimum of 50% of pixels showing for at least one-to-two seconds, but that doesn't mean you have to. If a 60% video view-to-completion rate is important to you, communicate that KPI to your agency or ad tech partner.
Don't be afraid to get specific about what metrics represent success for your business. The more clearly you lay out what you want at the beginning, the more likely you are to actually get it in the end.
Relationship Economics
Money talk can be tough, but unfortunately, it's up to you to ask how much margin your agency or ad tech provider is making from each media buy. Paying a small percentage to ensure top-quality service, premium inventory, and continual campaign optimization is one thing. Getting practically robbed is quite another.
Finding the One
The same principle should be applied when serving your ad to relevant audiences online. Not all views are created equal, and your ad tech partner needs to spend your ad dollars targeting the right type of consumers for your brand.
Most people wouldn't feel comfortable paying for a lackluster meal at a Michelin star-rated restaurant. Make it clear that you are not willing to pay for low-quality or wildly off-target views either.
Placement Politics
Asking political questions may be taboo in most social situations, but having a conversation with your ad tech partner about precisely where your ads are running online needs to become the norm.
Google's 2014 ad-viewability report notes that above the fold placements have a 68% viewability rate, while below the fold ads have a 40% rate. If your partner can't produce a site-by-site or video-by-video list of placements, it's time to break off the relationship and find someone who can.
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The worldwide media-buying arm of WPP, Group M, has forecast that 50% of the UK's ad market will be digital in 2015. So, make sure you understand where your ads are running, who they're reaching, and what you're paying for.
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#SocialSkim: Facebook Topic Data, Where to Post Various Video Types, Why People Unfollow, More!

See the top brand video spreading across socnets, learn more about Facebook Topic Data, and find out why people unfollow brands—and what kinds of engagement to expect for your social media content. Skim to keep in tune.
A fitting end for a well-penned life. Prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett passed on after a long struggle with Alzheimer's, and users took to their socnets to pen tributes to him. But we were most touched by the memorial from his assistant, who shares Pratchett's Twitter account, @TerryandRob. In true storyteller style, Rob introduced the character of the Grim Reaper into Terry's last few tweets, concluding, softly but definitively, with The End. The father of Discworld would have beamed.
Love has no labels. At the top of the Viral Video Charts is the Ad Council's effort for Valentine's Day. A public panel shows two skeletons playing, hugging and kissing, after which their owners appear, breaking down stereotypes in the name of blind love. On Facebook alone, the original post was shared 1.3 million times.

Say hello to Facebook Topic Data. Facebook's opened a new analysis feature, Topic Data, to select partners. It "shows marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities, all in a way that keeps personal information private," Facebook says. If you're part of the trial, use this data to produce posts optimized by relevance and create more granular product road maps. It will also be easier to measure brand sentiment, decide what products to stock, and find out which demographics are discussing various facets of your product. Long live Big Data.


60 Twitter tools and tips. Hurtin' for a new cross-account programming platform? How about a link shortener or a trends analyzer? Here are 60 tools and tips made just for Twitter. A few we love: Topsy (for searching through and analyzing trends and tweets), Storify (for building a story that involves a lot of people—then sharing it), MyTopTweet (the 10 most popular tweets of any account) and twtpoll, for polling people who follow you. Tweet away!

Where do you put that video? @TheBuzzer, a show created by Fox Sports network for social platforms, explains where it puts its videos and why. Twitter is for in-the-moment stuff: Instant replays, or stoking the fire around a given topic. Facebook is where "second-day" stories, or its analysis of recently broken news, live. And YouTube is for less topical, evergreen stories (whereas timely stuff is pushed to either Facebook or Twitter). If you're hunting for a social video strategy, this one's a good start.
What interactions will you get for your content? News Whip took a look at how content types affect interactions on Facebook. First discovery? It depends what kind of page you're running (celebrity news, politics, gaming, etc.). The headline also affects whether people will simply Like or actually click through, so be sure to A/B-test. For example, stories or titles for which the subject or outcome are clear, like celeb news or breaking news events, might get a Like but not a click-through. Political news generates lots of comments, as do long-form articles, especially paired with click-baitish titles (like the one below). Listicles and interactives? Total share-bait.

Want more e-commerce sales? Stack up on social reviews. A report (PDF) from Bazaar Voice demonstrates how more social reviews drive higher purchases. A hundred could boost conversions by up to 37%, whereas 200 could push that figure up to 44%. It also shows how different ratings can contain different insights: one- or three-star reviews can reveal product flaws, while three- to five-star reviews are rich fodder for new products or features. What's more, customer-written content keeps sites dynamic, boosting SEO. Dig in!

Why are people unfollowing me? Don't feel forsaken. Fractl and Buzzstream surveyed 900 social media users to learn the answer to this question. (See the full infographic.) 21% of users said they unfollowed because of repetitive, boring content; 19% because the brand posted too often (over six times per day). Unfollows can also result from offensive activity or content you post that's irrelevant to your service. Time to start cutting down on Caturday posts.

44 social tools for pros. Need to boost your social media game? This comprehensive list of pro tools covers everything from tying your networking back to social media sites (Discover.ly), creating social calls to action (Snip.ly]), and designing social media-friendly images (Pablo).

We'll wrap with some storytelling inspiration. On the heels of a Gap microseries, Comedy Central's launched the first episode of a short-form Web series via Instagram account @atmidnightcc. The cleverly-named "Plot Twistagram" is like a choose-your-own-adventure: Each week, producers ask fans to submit ideas for the next episode's plot in the comments section of the current episode. Showrunners produce their favorite one. Below you'll find the first episode. How can you use Instagram to flaunt your storytelling skills?

Plot Twistagram Episode 1 - Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Tell us what YOU want to see happen next! We'll choose our favorite idea and shoot it! This is a new interactive series exclusively on Instagram brought to you by the @atmidnightcc digital pod. Every Monday we'll release a new episode based on what you decided should happen. Leave your suggestions in the comments section below. Good luck and get creative! #PlotTwistagram

A video posted by @Midnight (@atmidnightcc) on Mar 9, 2015 at 5:54am PDT

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Eye-Tracking Study: Native Ads vs. Banner Ads

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 13:00:00 +0000

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Native ads in digital news feeds receive significantly more visual attention from consumers than banner ads do, according to a recent report from Sharethrough and Nielsen.
The report was based on data from a study in which mock banner and native ads from five advertisers were shown to participants in a video simulating the experience of scrolling through an editorial feed. Using a combination of EEG data—measurements of neural activity in the brain—and eye tracking, Nielsen quantified where and how the participants' focus was directed.
In-feed native ads in the desktop simulation received 25% more attention from study participants than banner ads did; on tablets, the native ads received twice as much visual focus as the banners.

Native ads and banner ads were also processed visually in different ways by study participants.

The banner ads displayed received little to no visual focus on the text; instead, study participants processed the ads in the peripheral field of vision, similar to how they viewed images.
With the native ads, visual focus was on the text rather than the thumbnail, similar to the surrounding editorial content. In other words, the native ads were read in addition to being seen.

About the research: The report was based on data from a study in which mock banner and native ads from five advertisers were shown to participants in a video simulating the experience of scrolling through an editorial feed.
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Ayaz Nanji is an independent digital strategist and the co-founder of Inbound ContentWorks, a marketing agency that specializes in content creation for businesses and brands. He is also a research writer for MarketingProfs. His past experience includes working for Google/YouTube, the Travel Channel, AOL, and the New York Times.
LinkedIn: Ayaz Nanji
Twitter: @ayaznanji