Mobile content distribution platforms like Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP are helping publishers bring their content to audiences, especially on mobile platforms. But many publishers are still wary of publishing on third party platforms. Here are the pros, cons, and everything else you need to know about mobile content distribution platforms.
Posted Jul 11, 2016
This spring, I found myself sitting in several conference sessions about social streaming video--think Facebook Live and Periscope. According to the experts, viewers will watch live streaming video for 20 to 30 minutes on average. Compare that to just 3 minutes or so with prerecorded video, and you understand why content creators are excited. I got excited about it. I wondered how I could use this to engage our Facebook fans. (The consensus seems to be that Facebook is winning in the social streaming space.) I left the conference, which was filled with online video enthusiasts, and went home--where I quickly realized I had never seen a single one of my friends--even the most "socially" active friends-use Facebook Live. Ditto for Periscope.
Posted Jul 05, 2016
What is the value of a social media follower? This question has been asked countless times and the answer keeps getting smaller and smaller. With an explosion of branded content being pushed on social channels, individuals are receiving too much noise. Even though you may have a large list of Followers fewer people may be seeing your content than ever before.
Posted Jul 01, 2016
The divide between the physical and digital world is diminishing very quickly. Consumers are constantly mobile and have various devices to cater to a "live-in-the-moment" type of world. As people become more mobile, the channels and ways of interactions are multiplying quickly. E-commerce capabilities available on third-party platforms such as Snapchat, Google, Pinterest and more allow brands to more easily have conversations in the consumers' own environment. It is no surprise that social platforms have become common marketing tools to reach the connected customer. But, not all social media platforms are alike, and neither should the marketing campaigns be that utilize them.
Posted Jun 24, 2016
Trapit, a platform for authentic social selling and employee advocacy, announced the launch of an all-new account-based sales offering for their social selling platform. The account-based sales package allows salespeople to create custom dashboards to track content relevant to target accounts including individual decision makers, products, trends, industries, policy, and more. Trapit's artificial intelligence (AI) is then able to surface relevant content--including social media updates, insights, trends, analysis and news from over 100,000 curated sources--that will help salespeople tailor their approach to the specific account they're targeting without any manual research.
Posted Jun 23, 2016
Crowdynews, a social media curation platform, announced the availability of Crowdynews Free, a pre-packaged version of its Breaking Burner solution. Crowdynews Free enables both small and large publishers to bring the voice of the crowd from the social web directly to their websites quickly and easily.
Posted Jun 21, 2016
Skyword Inc., a content marketing technology and services company, was awarded a patent for PeopleRank, a technique for identifying and measuring a person's influence within a community or on a topic or specific set of topics. Through PeopleRank, marketers and advertisers gain greater insight into the conversations and influencers that are important to their customers and audiences, allowing them to build a digital brand experience that meets their needs.
Posted Jun 16, 2016
LiveRamp, an Acxiom company, announced a new integration with Facebook that allows clients to connect Facebook advertising campaigns with offline sales transactions taking place in stores, branch offices, contact centers, and other brick-and-mortar locations. Building on existing capabilities to onboard offline first- and third-party data for targeting through Facebook Custom Audiences, LiveRamp can now enable clients to securely onboard their sales transaction data and perform closed-loop measurement analysis.
Posted Jun 16, 2016
In a post on its website, Microsoft announced its intentions to acquire LinkedIn for an all-in purchase price of $26.2 billion. Jeff Weiner will reportedly remain the CEO of LinkedIn, and the deal is expected to close in 2016. Microsoft pointed to a number of upgrades, acquisitions, and more as evidence of LinkedIn's success.
Posted Jun 13, 2016
Now the Associate Dean for Innovation, Research/Creative Activity and Graduate Studies Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University, Dr. Ferrier's primary research focus is how best to address the specter of online harassment. She is also the founder of TrollBusters, a digital tool to combat online harassment against women journalists, bloggers, and publishers.
Posted Jun 10, 2016
Briggs & Stratton, similar to all companies, depends on customer satisfaction to succeed. As such, it was looking for a better way to get feedback from the users of its products.
Posted Jun 08, 2016
Innovation never rests, and in the past decade, the way users discover content has continued to change rapidly. First Google and other search engines allowed a user to target specific topics and go right to related content, bypassing a site's homepage. Social media then developed completely new routes for users to discover content. It makes sense that marketers are now focusing on these other channels. But, does that mean they can completely ignore the homepage?
Posted May 13, 2016
Facebook recently announced the newest update to its network, and make no mistake, this is nothing short of a 180 degree shift from its previous position. By completely revamping its Branded Content Policy, Facebook not only opened a door back to influencers who migrated away from the platform following the previous change that limited their reach, but also gave marketers and influencers a clear message about what they need to do in order to flourish on the platform. Along with the policy change, Facebook will be introducing tools for brands and influencers to run successful campaigns together.
Posted May 06, 2016
For the past few weeks, I've been super stressed out. It's not because of work or money or any of the normal reasons people lose sleep. I'm stressed because it's 2016-an election year-and it seems to me that the whole country has gone off the deep end. Given the current political climate and how messy the primaries have been so far, the 2016 general election is not shaping up to be a quiet or calm one, no matter who the candidates are. It'll be a spectacle. And, thanks to the social media generation, that's just the way we like it.
Posted May 05, 2016
Did you know that One Direction star Harry Styles is the happiest celebrity on Twitter? I have to confess that was news to me too. Data scientists at the semantics analytics firm Adoreboard used the text analysis methodology Toneapi ?to detect and interpret emotions in tweets from 100 celebrities, highlighting feelings such as joy, anger, surprise, trust, and annoyance. It found that Styles was the most chipper during an 8-month period.
Posted May 03, 2016
Nielsen announced that Facebook will offer its publishing partners Digital Content Ratings for measurement of its Instant Articles. With Instant Articles, publishers can create fast, interactive articles that are viewed directly in Facebook's mobile app, enhancing the speed and ease of accessing content. Digital Content Ratings - part of Nielsen's Total Audience Measurement framework --provides daily measurement of audiences across all digital content types and platforms, with metrics fully comparable to television.
Posted Apr 21, 2016
Lexalytics, a provider of cloud and on-premises text analytics solutions, announced that it is launching Salience for Android, a native text analytics package for a mobile operating system. With Salience for Android, application developers can now offer mobile users sophisticated natural language processing (NLP) and analytics to any app that uses text--email, SMS and chat, reviews, comparison shopping, social media, travel, hospitality, and more--to gain immediate insights and useful information to improve productivity and simplify day-to-day activities. By providing native text analytics, all processing stays local on the phone so analysis results never go back to the cloud, ensuring end-user privacy.
Posted Apr 07, 2016
This past weekend, I found myself in a Barnes and Noble in midtown Manhattan, strolling up and down the Self-Help aisle, browsing through hundreds of book titles. No, I wasn't looking for myself (although some of the books seemed really quite interesting), I was doing trend research for my day job (book publishing), trying to pinpoint which titles were attracting shoppers and which were getting overlooked. As you can imagine, the Self-Help shelf is a mix of topics ranging from relationships to mental health to inspiration. But there was one word that stuck out time and again, no matter the subject matter: mindfulness.
Posted Apr 07, 2016
You probably read Medium, but you may not know it. The blogging platform (of sorts) is the brainchild of Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Up until now, it has focused on giving anyone the free and easy-to-use tools needed to publish to the web--only without the pressure of maintaining and regularly posting to a blog. It also promotes interactivity from readers-letting them highlight passages, and become a part of the conversation in the comments. Now, though, Medium is taking aim at Wordpress-and other WCM systems--and trying to entice publishers to its service.
Posted Apr 06, 2016
At the end of last year, Laura Martin, senior analyst for entertainment, cable, and media at Needham and Co., LLC, authored a very interesting report on the future of TV. The report focuses on the continuously fragmenting video content landscape, which has made it increasingly more difficult for media companies to sustain the same level of profit per hour of content. In a world in which consumers' media attention is split among linear TV, digital subscription-based platforms, and digital ad-based platforms, media companies are faced with the increasingly difficult challenge of maximizing profits.
Posted Apr 05, 2016
Twitter announced via its blog that it will be working to make images accessible to everyone--even the visually impaired. People using the IOS and Android apps can now add photo descriptions, which will then be available to people using assistive technology.
Posted Mar 31, 2016
Turner Sports and Snapchat are joining forces for a multi-year content deal that leverages Snapchat's Live Story product with the goal of enhancing fans' storytelling and viewing experiences through Snapchat's coverage of major sporting events, including year-round NCAA Championships. The partnership will debut during NCAA March Madness.
Posted Mar 14, 2016
The Financial Times is working with Facebook to offer a business version of the popular social network to its staff around the globe. "We want to provide our employees with a place to interact with each other securely and easily, anywhere in the world. We hope Facebook at Work will help further foster a culture of collaboration and a sense of community across our global workforce", said Darcy Keller, SVP of communications and marketing at the FT.
Posted Mar 01, 2016
Sure, posting trip photos, tweeting links, and networking with old co-workers is fun. But online citizens want to tap into the pulse of the world around them, belong to a community, and be recognized. "Social media has evolved into a personal online identity. Before, it was used to connect with friends and update your status," says Jesse Till, social media coordinator for Chatter Buzz Media. "Now, it defines a persona. It's a chance for a person to express and broadcast themselves to the world."
Posted Feb 15, 2016
It's almost time for nachos, hot wings, commercials, and football. It's Super Bowl weekend, a good time for marketers to grab the attention of millions of Americans-even if you don't have $5 million for a 30-second ad. The sheer ubiquity of social media and, more and more, social video, make it possible for DIY marketers to get their fair share of Super Bowl attention.
Posted Feb 05, 2016