Shifting market share in Digital Marketing - in favor of social

Digital Marketing is becoming more social. That is conclusion suggested by new data from eMarketer, which was published this week.

In short, Facebook and Twitter are gaining market share (with Facebook's increasing to 25.2% from 23.8% and Twitter's increasing from 3.7% to 5.0%) while traditional, non-social market share is declining. The declines span across all major non-social players, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.




A further interesting consideration is that social media is expected to continue growing its share of digital marketing spend quite aggressively over the coming years. Specifically, Facebook and Twitter are expected to grow their combined share to 34% by 2017 (from 27.5% today).

However, lost share at traditional (non-social) players does not mean that their digital marketing revenues are declining. In fact, the overall market is growing at such a rapid clip that even those companies losing share are still growing absolute digital marketing revenues at a healthy clip. For example, Google should see compound annual revenue growth in the low double digits for the next few years.

The growth rates are even more pronounced in mobile - as shown below. 



See more here: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/emarketer-digital-marketing/617758

Digital Marketing Madness

March Madness - the perfect time of year to think about Digital Marketing! Not exactly, but given that most of us try to keep up with our brackets and discuss them while on the go, March Madness presents an excellent case study of digital marketing in action.

Business2Community (B2C) has an excellent infographic on the topic, which I have included below. The key stat when it comes to $$$ is that ad spending has increased 64% over the last two years during March Madness, which B2C ascribed primarily to the growth of social media. The most popular social media platforms for discussing the Madness: Facebook and Twitter.

To get a sense of how important mobile is, take in these stats:

1.  Almost 70% of people watch games on their phones (and >25% use mobile as their primary source for game viewing)
2. Almost 3/4 of people use two devices at the same time for March Madness  
3. Almost 90% of people use their mobile devices to access game info

RIP Google Plus: Google splits social after missteps

It looks like Google has finally come to realize that Google+ has not hit the tipping point for adoption and use (this video is a great summary of the developments: http://for.tn/1M1R02C). The specific event that suggests this: Google's announcement at last week's Mobile World Congress that it is splitting Google+ into Photos (which a lot of people use) and Streams (which is mostly ignored).

An important aspect of the marketing here is that neither Google Photos nor Google Streams reference the "Plus" label which has become synonymous with Google's failed attempt at establishing a foothold in social.  As evidence of this failing, Business Insider points out that only 9% of Google Plus users actually post content - suggesting that the overwhelming majority of Google Plus accounts merely serve as a forced sign-on for other Google products.

Its not clear what Google will do to revamp Streams, but for now, it looks like it is conceding that its mainstream social offering, Google+, was not picking up enough users to serve its purposes (advertising revenue, data). As a lukewarm Facebook fan, I am excited to see Google's next attempt at Social.

Check out this Fortune article for more detail: http://fortune.com/2015/03/02/google-photos-plus/

Who wants mobile payments? Everyone but the customer

A question I have long had and wanted to explore is this: Why are mobile payments not taking off?

By mobile payments, I am referring to the use of smartphones to pay for items directly without the presence of a credit card or the explicit entry of credit card data.  It seems to me that the technology has been around for some time (in the form of NFC - or near field communications - chips), that big companies have made a push in the past (e.g. Google Wallet), and yet I hardly ever see people using phones to make payments. Of course, Apple Pay is relatively new and might drive a lot more mobile payments. But, for now, it does not look like mobile payments are taking off.

From several articles I have read (most recently, a NYTimes Bits report that Google is getting more aggressive http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/google-guns-for-apple-in-mobile-payments-race/), it sounds like there are many benefits of mobile payments for everyone but the customer. For example, retailers who use mobile payments can provide the customer with targeted promotions based on their geolocation to drive customers to try new products or to push them into a store they are close to. Internet companies like Google would benefit from having more data about purchasing decisions.

But, to me, it looks like the benefit to consumers is still not large enough  to make us switch. For example, the last time someone tried a mobile payment in front of me at Starbucks, it took a long time and everyone waiting in line got upset. I personally am not excited about turning in my credit card because dependence on a phone for payments and emergency calls seems to concentrate downside risk in times when I lose things. With all these downsides, I need to see more upside for me to switch.

Company culture is shifting the way of digital

I found an interesting article about the growth of digital marketing budgets based on data from econsultancy (https://econsultancy.com/blog/66135-77-of-businesses-plan-to-increase-digital-marketing-budgets-this-year/).

The trend is obvious (i.e. more ad spending is being directed to digital marketing, with 77% of respondents in 2015 saying they plan to increase their digital marketing budgets, versus 1% who plan to decrease them).....


Q: What best describes your plans for your digital marketing budget in 2015?




...but the drivers behind the trend are less obvious. For example, there seems to be a real lack of talent/knowledge (termed "staff" below) to carry out digital marketing, and this is becoming a bigger problem. I had thought that more people are becoming skilled in digital, which should have alleviated the problem. Importantly, though, it looks like companies' cultures are becoming more open toward digital marketing. A big win!


Q: What is preventing your company from investing more money in digital marketing?

Get more intimate with customers using Podcasts

So far, a lot of what we have studied is the way to visually engage with your customers. Recently, though, I have been reading more about a Podcasts as a tool for engaging with customers. Podcasts provide a new medium of engagement as they can be customized to a customer's preferences (i.e. the customer shows their intent), but continue to engage with the customer even when they are off the web. The relationship formed is often quite personal given the prevalence of spoken language.

One important consideration highlighted by the Podcast gurus at Google and Forbes, however, is that Podcasts should generally be about something a customer does with a product, not an advertisment for the product itself . Check our more details on how to get your Podcasts going here: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/create-podcasts-with-google-hangouts-on-air/


I have generally blogged on some of the risks of digital, and don't want to break that trend today. In honor of Valentines, day, here is my favorite (but maybe twisted) tweet from the day. Good luck protecting your privacy!

More detail: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/14/8039201/nsa-tweet-valentines-day-police-every-breath-you-take

 

Digital trolls and Costolo himself on the new partnership with Google

I wanted to get more info on the developing relationship between Twitter and Google, and found two excellent five minute videos videos on these topics:

1. Growing total audience: One of the major goals of the Google partnership is making tweets searchable so that more people who are not on Twitter get exposed to Twitter and potentially see its benefits.
2. Cleaning out trolls: A second major goal that Twitter has right now is protecting against user abuse (e.g. abusing tweets to user accounts), and the Google partnership will apparently make verification of accounts easier.

The interesting part of the second point is that Twitter is currently developing automatic ways to detect and clean out trolls using algorithms. Presumably, these could be fed by data retrieved from Google to verify identities.

I wasn't too familiar with trolls, and wanted to share a great background article from the Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/18483765

Supercookies, anyone?

Image source: http://www.operationroi.com/2013/11/search-engine-optimization/googles-latest-rule-changes-will-impact-online-business

I found a NYtimes Bits blog post this week very interesting, as it highlighted the struggles consumers have been facing with Verizon's supercookie policy. Supercookies have been so named because they are essentially undeletable identifiers of customers - which allow mobile phone companies (and third parties) to track our activity on the web coupled with location information.

According to this article from Friday (NY Times Bits), Verizon has finally caved in to consumer demands for the ability to delete supercookies. It looks like regulators forced Verizon's hand, as Verizon's policy change comes less than a day after several members of the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology wrote to Verizon's CEO with their concerns.  AT&T had given consumers the ability to opt out of supercookies in November.

Should we be worried about artificial intelligence?

These days, technology helps in ways I didn't even think I needed help. For example, when I step out of my apartment, my phone automatically shows me the weather, what time the next train will arrive, what the score is in my favorite team's game, and reminds me that a package has arrived from Amazon. Amazing efficiency - but can it be too much?

There are some people who believe that Artificial Intelligence - not far from what Google does for us today - could ultimately spin out of control. These worriers aren't just old-fashioned people, but include some of the most respected technological minds - such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates. This week, Gates voiced his fears in an interview and reported on by the Daily Mail...

‘First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well... A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned.’

Bill Gates thinks we should be concerned about Artificial Intelligence

Although its tough to picture exactly how things could go awry, there are many possibilities. One such possibility, which also demonstrates that AI could get dangerous even if computers aren't deliberately trying to hard us, is from Philosophical Disquisitions....

THE DANGERS OF AI

'Suppose that the programmers decide that the AI should pursue the final goal of “making people smile”.

'To human beings, this might seem perfectly benevolent. Thanks to their natural biases and filters, they might imagine an AI telling us funny jokes or otherwise making us laugh.

'But there are other ways of making people smile, some of which are not-so benevolent. You could make everyone smile by paralsying their facial musculature so that it is permanently frozen in a beaming smile.

'Such a method might seem perverse to us, but not to an AI. It may decide that coming up with funny jokes was a laborious and inefficient way of making people smile. Facial paralysis is much more efficient.'

Source: Philosophical Disquisitions

The Internet will Disappear

That was a provocative statement from a surprising source: Google’s Eric Schmidt speaking at Davos. Taking a closer look though, his argument really is that the internet, as we know it, will be replace by a much smoother experience where our physical lives are seamlessly augmented by information stemming from digital connections between us. We will live in a world where we essentially won’t choose when to be online and when not to be online. This is a worrisome proposition for those focused on security, although it could increase the importance of digital marketing given the ability to target very specific people based on their actions.  Here’s another view on it… http://www.cnet.com/news/the-internet-will-vanish-says-googles-schmidt/