Social media essentials: Facebook Watch, Instagram and Facebook to be redesigned for readability, and WhatsApp set to allow money transfers

There haven't been many platform changes in social this week (August is a quiet month typically), but these are the top ones we've seen announced, plus our top tips to help with your social media marketing strategy.

Spotlight story: Facebook are launching 'Watch' a new video platform

Facebook has introduced a hub for original video content called 'Watch'. According to Techcrunch, Watch will allow you to view personalized recommendations of live and recorded shows. You will also have access to your own 'Watchlist' where you can subscribe to updates on new episodes of your favorite shows. This exciting new feature will generate opportunities to push more advertising before and during programs. It will only be available for partners and will roll out to a…

New report download - the Definitive Practical Guide to Influencer Relationship Management

Influencer marketing has grown in importance in recent years as the popularity of content marketing has grown. Influencer marketing is an exciting strategy with “84% of marketers worldwide saying they would launch at least one influencer campaign within the next 12 months” according to eMarketer For the lack of a better analogy, if influencer marketing were to take human form, it would be an awkward just post-pubescent teenager. It’s growing up yet not quite mature; it’s gaining a voice but isn’t always taken seriously. But teenagers do eventually mature, they just need some guidance along the way. The exact same goes for influencer marketing.

What is influencer marketing?

You'll know that influencer marketing is not a new concept. Word-of-mouth, social influence, PR and Public Affairs are all closely related. Influencer marketing has many different definitions and forms as you would expect in such…

What is event tracking and how you can use it to improve micro conversions and macro conversions

According to the definition given by Google: 'Events are user interactions with content that can be tracked independently from a web page or a screen load. Downloads, mobile ad clicks, gadgets, Flash elements, AJAX embedded elements and video plays are all examples of actions you might want to track as Events’. In plain English, for those of us who aren't coders, we can give this example: When we have a video in our site and once a user clicks the button for the video to play, an event will be triggered. At the same time, when this event is triggered you can see the result of this action on Google Analytics Events are then grouped in this report in the 'Behaviour' section of Google Analytics.

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Facebook launch 'Watch' a video hub for shows and original video content [Smart Insight Alert]

The amount of video being consumed across Facebook has increased dramatically over the past couple of years. Facebook has reported that the number of videos posted per person increased by users increased by 75% in 2016. Video posts now have a  135% greater organic reach than photo posts, generating around 8 billion video views on average per day. Facebook has seen this need and created a new video platform for its users. 

Facebook has introduced a hub for original video content called 'Watch'. According to Techcrunch, Watch will allow you to view personalized recommendations of live and recorded shows. You will also have access to your own 'Watchlist' where you can subscribe to updates on new episodes of your favorite shows.

…

Chart of the Day: Finance, Manufacturing and Travel Industries reach the email inbox 9 out of 10 times

For email marketers, the prospect of your emails not reaching the inbox has been a consistent worry. Email services for consumers (Gmail, Outlook etc) are always trying to do the best for their users and have protection in place so spammy looking emails don't clog up their inboxes. This level of protection means that 1 in 5 emails don't reach the intended recipient. In a recent report by Return Path the email delivery experts on average, 85% of emails from all industries globally ever reach the recipient's email inbox. Banking & finance, distribution & manufacturing, and travel marketers are achieving the best inbox placement rate with 90% or more emails hitting the inbox On the flip side, automotive, education/nonprofit/government, and social & dating industries are having a harder time reaching their audience with inbox placement rates of less…

Offline in an Online world - making DM work

DM is certainly not dead. Research amongst cross-channel marketers undertaken by the DMA and sponsored by Ricoh UK shows that over 70% of respondents are using mail as it's proving to be effective and giving ROI. According to Gareth Parker, Strategic Marketing Manager at Ricoh UK, 'In order to create cost effective DM campaigns that will engage target audiences, marketeers need to look to create direct mail packages. Effective campaigns encompass digital and print - and when print comes in to play, so do things like paper stock and image quality. With testing now part of the psyche of every marketeer, and KPIs a major concern, technologies such as Clickable Paper can help demonstrate ROI on the print segment and generate a fast return.' Their Infographic publishes some of the findings from this research and the…

Generate revenue online from Facebook, Instagram and YouTube live streaming

Social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube have reoriented their services towards video streaming to great success. 

In the last few years, each company has developed live streaming opportunities that have enabled users to monetize their feeds in a variety of ways. The following article will highlight various ways to monetize live streaming using each platform.

Facebook

Facebook first offered their 'Live' function almost two years ago. It enables users to post streams as well as one-off videos. Since then, video has become one of the most used features on the site.

In February 2014, prior to launching video streaming, only 1/4 of all videos posted to the site were uploaded directly while the rest came from YouTube or similar sites. One year…

How to use digital to boost revenue from your franchise

A franchise business is like a tree – the tree trunk is the parent company, and each branch coming out from the tree is a franchised location. Each franchise is unique, and just like the branches of a tree all have the ability to absorb enough sunlight without competing with each other, each branch of the company is in a unique position to market their location without competing with the other locations. Because search engines like Google favor local businesses in terms of providing relevant results to users based on their zip code (thanks to personalized search), it’s much easier for franchise owners to reach their local market without having to compete with their corporate parent.

Why own a franchise?

Owning a franchise can be a great path to financial independence for those who want to start a business, and the benefits are…

Chart of the day: Businesses are either fairly responsive or it simply depends on the channel or situation.

Research by CMO Council has found that 45% of businesses are fairly responsive to customer feedback and customer needs, whilst 36% say it depends on the channel or situation, though they do try to respond quickly. Speed is essential and businesses are focusing on responding as quickly as possible. The research also found that over 4 in 10 (43%) respond to complaints about marketing within 1 day and most (36%0 intend to make changes within 90 days based on customer feedback. Key takeaways: Businesses are responding as quickly as they can They are trying to make physical changes and marketing campaign changes as quickly as possible but will always be restricted by cost of doing so Businesses are actively making changes to their business, products and services…

These easy steps will make you reconsider your brand strategy

a brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that last, taken together, account for a consumer's decison to chose your product over another - Seth Godin Seth Godin's definition – listed above – summarizes exactly the true meaning of a branding performance. If consumers choose your brand over the competition’s, you win the game of business. Branding is complex. However, for your company to experience success, the branding strategy that you adopt must be carefully planned, tested, and ultimately optimized. But, if you have never done it before, it can be harsh in the beginning. We have collected several key factors that many big-level brands actively seek through their branding strategies. Success leaves clues – if we’re smart, we’ll pay close attention and adapt. If we’re not, we’re ought to spend some more time failing at what others have already failed before,…