meclabs presents at unf social media and analytics class: social media strategy

Social Media Strategy

1. Use a significant offer to attract attention

2. Ensure you can track from social to in-store

3. Build on previous success to develop an audience

Case Study: Hesselson’s Sporting Goods StoreChallenge: Small family-owned business that operates only as a brick-and-mortar, wanted to reach customers online.

Campaign: Hesselson wanted to see how much a small business could benefit from social media by creating a coupon campaign hosted on the store's existing Facebook page for three weeks.

Steps:

Source: http://bit.ly/Hesselsons

Creative Sample: Facebook Coupon

http://bit.ly/Hesselsons

Coupon



Coupon

Results:• A 23% increase in online-to-offline conversion

• Over $5,500 generated in net store sales

• A 1,100% boost in ROI



About MECLABS

MECLABS is a research institute focused on discovering what really works in marketing.

We conduct real-world experiments with companies around the world to understand why people say “yes”.

Our scientific approach provides the basis for education and training resources that help create exceptional, customer-centric marketing organizations.

Ken BowenManager, Editorial Content

MECLABS

Daniel BursteinDirector of Editorial

ContentMECLABS

Kylie DavidsonManager, Academic

CurriculumMECLABS

1. Methodology2. Discovery3. Application

1. Methodology Overview

Attract Attention

ea = 2at + I + as

• Attraction has the highest coefficient because if the banner ad does not capture the attention of the viewer, the likelihood of the ad achieving it’s objective is significantly diminished.

• A banner ad can attract maximum attention with positional and creative elements.

• Positional elements: eye path, placement on page

• Creative elements: color, size, shape, motion, text

Attract Attention

ea = 2at + I + as

• Attraction is has the highest coefficient because if the banner ad does not capture the attention of the viewer, the likelihood of the ad achieving it’s objective is significantly diminished.

• A banner ad can attract maximum attention with positional and creative elements.

• Positional elements: eye path, placement on page

• Creative elements: color, size, shape, motion, text

Build Interest

ea = 2at + I + as

• One of the best ways to build interest in something is to create a need.

• Create a need by identifying the problem/match the customer’s need.

• I want to look responsible• “Help us: Every time you use you X card, we donate $X to the X Foundation”

• I want to be special• Provide a customizable or exclusive credit card

• Every ad has its own value proposition.• If you don’t demonstrate a value, you may get a click, but you

likely will not get a sale.

Build Interest

ea = 2at + I + as

Ask for the click

ea = 2at + I + as

• Online users need to be guided to an action.

• Use a clear, simple, clickable button on the banner ad.

• Establish credibility on the ad to minimize anxiety about clicking through.

Motivation

• Motivation has the highest coefficient because it is the most important deciding factor in the sales process. It consists of 2 components:

• The nature of the customer’s demand for the product (why)

• The magnitude of the customer’s demand for the product (want)

• To understand a user's motivation and design relevant web pages to their need, you must analyze the behavior of both online and offline traffic channels.

• Keywords, page depth, time on page, button clicks, new/returning, demographics

Motivation

Initial questions to ask ourselves using available data:

• What do I know about this person?

• What assumptions can I make about this person?

• Can I predict what they are looking for based on these assumptions?

• Can I provide what they are looking for in this medium or do I need to redirect?

• Am I offering something relevant to the visitor?

• How much is the visitor interacting with my content?

Clarity of Value Proposition


• Especially on social media, we need to be able to execute a strong value proposition.

• Appeal (“I want it”) – Three factors contribute directly to a prospect’s degree of “want”: relevance, importance, and urgency.

• Exclusivity (“I can’t get it anywhere else”) – Exclusivity is related to the number of competing options. The lower the number, the better.

• Credibility (“I believe in it/you”) – 3 ways to intensify credibility are: specificity, quantification, and verification.

• Clarity (“I understand it/you”) – Is the message clearly articulated and can the prospect easily find the message.

Friction

• Friction is the psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process. It is composed of two components:• Length – this might be the number of fields or the number of

steps from Point A (desire to buy) to Point B (purchase).

• Difficulty – this might be the nature of the fields, a disruptive eye-path, or page elements that cause visitor annoyance.

• The objective is to minimize not eliminate friction. If you eliminate all friction you, necessarily, eliminate "the sale" (visitors may be forced to log-in in order to view your social media page).

Friction

Anxiety

• Anxiety is the psychological concern stimulated by a given element in the sales or "buy" process.

• You must seek to relieve and/or correct for anxiety at three different levels:

1. Specificity – corrective measures address the precise source of anxiety.

2. Proximity – visitor experiences corrective measures at the same time and place as anxiety is experienced.

3. Intensity – amplify corrective measures to overcome irrational fears.

Incentive

• An incentive is an appealing element such as a discount, a bonus, or special offer introduced to stimulate a desired action.

• Incentive is used to “tip the balance” of emotional forces from negative (exerted by friction elements) to positive.

2. DiscoveryWhat can we find out about our customers?

Data sources

• Web analytics can tell us about visitor motivation and points of friction/anxiety• What kind of visitor behaviors or characteristics correlate with conversion?

C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) - 2a©

What kind of visitor behaviors or

characteristics correlate with conversion?

Where did they go before leaving the site?

How did they reach the site?

Have they been on the site before?

What did they view?

MotivationFriction/Anxiety

Value Proposition

Data sources

• Social media

• Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs, YouTube

• Generates 3 billion data points per day according to a recent DataSiftwebinar

• Influencers’ screen names

• Metadata available depends on platform, user settings

• Gender

• Age

• Language

• Location

• Profession/role

• Challenging to connect social media to specific customers/prospects

• Freeform and non-text data can be difficult to process

Definition

Metadata: Data that provides information about other data.

Data sources

• How can we use this data?

• Which types of customers generate the most revenue?

• What is frequently ordered together?

• How frequently should I contact customers?

• After what length of time should I give up on a lead?

Social media and data analytics in practice

In a survey of marketing professionals, more than half tracked Social Reach, and almost half tracked Referrals by Social Media Channel

• Few tracked ROI or Sales by Social Media Channel• Relative difficulty of tracking

Social media and data analytics in practice

Social reach

Traffic referrals by social media channel

Conversions by social media channel

Conversions by social media channelWhat it looks like:


Where it comes from:


Where it comes from:What it tells us:

Engagement per post

Top influencers

Tweet Deck

3. ApplicationCase Studies, Stats & Strategies

General Social Media

• Testing will improve your ROI over time• Tracking post performance and adjusting regularly can increase your ROI exponentially

• If you have a poor performing campaign don’t be afraid to turn it off and try again

• If you have a well performing campaign try tweaking it and continue to track

• Best practices, assumptions, and marketer’s intuition are unreliable; Data is KEY

#WebClinic

Assumption: Responsive design will always increase mobile clickthrough

#WebClinic

Experiment: Mobile side-by-sideResponsive

54%In Clicks

Unresponsive

#WebClinic

Assumption: Upfront costs scare off prospects

#WebClinic

Experiment: Sex offender registry

$6 a month for full access

Control

$6 per month+ $20 activation fee

Treatment

X No Differencein conversion

99%In Revenue

#WebClinic

Assumption: The call-to-action should always be placed “above the fold”

#WebClinic

Experiment: Call-to-action placementControl

• Call-to-action placed “above the fold”

Treatment

• Call-to-action placed “below the fold”

220%In Conversion

#WebClinic

Assumption: We should leverage our unique brand design whenever possible

#WebClinic

Experiment: Local newsletter sign-up

Control

• Simple, traditional typeface

• Standard form field

• Brand-specific typography

• Branded design for sign-up form

Treatment51%In Conversion

Facebook: Mellow Mushroom Case Study

• Posting often is good but relevance is great• In a recent Marketing Sherpa case study pizza giant Mellow Mushroom

revealed their strategy to effectively harness both post frequency and post timing

• Use your current followers to get more• Large companies often request their followers submit content and

participate in campaigns to spread awareness. Asking followers to upload photos with products or write reviews is a good first step

• Shoe company, Gravity Defeyer, sends product samples to fitness bloggers in exchange for socially linked reviews. This has created a 450% ROI on their social campaigns

• Calls to Action are key• Providing followers a clear way to interact with every single post increases

engagement and will increase your audience

• Be Succinct• Followers decide if they want to engage within seconds. There’s no need to

put all the info in the main post. This is a great place to leverage the heuristic.

Twitter: Myrtle Beach Case Study

The Myrtle Beach Tourism Group made four key changes for incredible results

• Event tweets• The team started sending out even related tweets to increase

engagement with interested audiences

• Promotions• Twitter is a great space for giveaways because retweets can increase

your audience in leaps and bounds. There are programs like Lead Generation Cards that allow users to enter without leaving the platform

• Clickable elements• The team used new video cards on twitter to share lots of information

with users via an interactive page element

• Segmentation• The team segmented their audience and worked to target core groups

based on interest

Results: A 5% engagement increase with video cards, a 225%increase in video views, 11,000 new followers in 2 months, a 30% decrease in CPA (cost per acquisition)

Pinterest

• This is the shopper’s social media• 67% of people on Pinterest use it as a consumer; people want to buy

• The entire structure of Pinterest is skewed to users who want to save and clickthrough on products and content

• One company in a MarketingSherpa case study saw a 5% increase in sales and 77% increase in sales traffic due to simple Pinterest campaigns

• Producing content increases clickthrough and sharing• Pinterest users are trained to clickthough to read content which can

increase site traffic

• Pinning of an article not only increases your follower base but can also increase SEO of your sites content

• Leverage collaborative boards• Find users who already post in your space and segment and team up or

find users who are interested in your topic and build on their base

• By using collaborative boards wallpaper company, Murals Wallpaper, has seen a 700% lift in Pinterest impressions

• Know your audience• 68% of Pinterest users are women

• Need to target men, try manteresting.com

Instagram• Facebook-owned photo sharing site launched in 2010

• With over 300 million users, Instagram recently surpassed the much older Twitter in users

• 70 million photos and videos shared daily

• 2.5 million “likes” per day

• Arguably the most powerful marketing platform for the 18-34 demographic

• 90% of Instagram’s users are under the age of 35

• Most attractive platform for many apparel, entertainment, and media brands focused on the 18- to 34-year-old age bracket.

• 68% of users are women

• Skews urban

• Instagram users favor quality over quality• Instagram accounts for only 7% of daily uploads among the top four most popular

photo sharing platforms

• Advertising Policy• Only from large companies with a history of producing engaging Instagram content

• Based off Facebook demographic data

• Less about conversion than spreading brand values and message

3 Instagram Lessons you can learn from Taylor Swift• Taylor on Instagram

• Over 37 million followers; among the highest in the world

• Relative other more elusive celebrities, Taylor Swift has facilitated much of her success by making fans feel like friends

• Hosts and personally appears at secret fan parties around the world for “all-star” supporters

• Uses Instagram as a Visual Storytelling Tool• Taylor uses her Instagram to make fans feel connected to her life

• Quirky photos of her cats, pictures of her baked goods, video of her hearing her song on the radio for the first time…

• Integrates across Social Media Platforms• Taylor shares her Instagram posts across Twitter and Facebook

• Allows her to reach different audiences depending on how they process content

• Chooses the right time to promote• Make promotion secondary to social engagement

• Fosters goodwill and gives promotion more impact

Instagram Success Story – New York Public Library

Watch the Video

https://vimeo.com/user38106083/review/125908733/4104ef09c9

Reddit• One of the most difficult platforms to effectively market on

• Readers do not want to be marketed to

• Any interaction that looks like marketing is unwelcome and/or deleted

• What marketers should know• Reddit is not a single community, but a platform to join or create sub communities

• Each sub community is started by a reddit user, who assigns rules and moderators

• It is vital to understand the policies of the subreddit you intend to submit your content to.• Certain domains only

• Articles must be a certain number of months old

• New users and domains are subject to strong anti-spam elements

• Voting system puts heavy emphasis on first ten votes• First ten votes carry as much weight as the following 100

• The following 1000 votes carry as much weight as the preceeding 100, etc.

• How you should post content• “The biggest question to ask when participating in Reddit is: Are you contributing? That’s essentially what you should

be asking yourself before beginning any type of ‘marketing.’”

• Before you even think about posting, spend as much time as possible in the subreddit, contributing to other topics and building credibility and relationships

• Avoid being too promotional when you do post. Moderators can swiftly ban content that is transparently salesy.

• Learn and use proper reddiquette

Reddit

Watch the Interview

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/irce2015/video/alexis_ohanian_reddit

Yelp• Yelp gets over 35 million hits per month, with over 25%

coming from mobile devices• 84% of people report that online reviews influence their buying

decisions (Nielson)

• Social media aspects allowed Yelp to overtake other rating sights, leading to a NYSE valuation of nearly $1 billion

• Elite Yelp reviewers have become the new restaurant influencers

• Encourage reviews• Create signage throughout the restaurant to encourage reviews (“Love

us on Yelp!”)

• Personally reach out to regulars and ask if they would mind leaving a review

• Creates momentum and positive word-of-mouth

• Reach out to influencers; South Beach’s MLT sandwich shopincreased sales, social media buzz, and word-of-mouth byholding contest.

• Involve your staff• Designate a social media/Yelp manager for the pub

• Hold contest among staff

• Reward staff members who get 5-star reviews

• Leverage other social media channels

YouTube• Highly Competitive

• 20 billion video views per month

• 35 hours of content uploaded each minute

• Stand out by creating compelling, relevant content• Videos should be helpful and valuable to prospects or customers

• The best videos address a specific need

• How To’s; FAQs; Expert Interviews, etc.

• Make your video findable• Use targeted keywords in first few works of title

• “iPhone 6 Screen Repair: How an iFixit kit and a 15 minute tutorial can save you $150”

• Using “Player View” rather than “Grid View” as your default view allows your video to autoplay, positively impacting your visiblity

• Brand your channel• Create a professional, custom, brand-specific background, and feature your best or most popular content in a prominent playlist

• Leverage Annotations, Bulletins, Ads, and other social media or content platforms• Annotations = Clickable calls to action (subscribe, links to other videos, etc.)

• Bulletins allow you to alert your followers that you have new content available

• YouTube ads operate similarly to Google PPC, but tends to be far less expensive; when prospects search for related terms, your CTA ad (which can be linked directly to your site) is returned alongside other results

• Learn from Analytics

1. Methodology2. Discovery3. Application

Questions?

meclabs presents at unf social media and analytics class: social media strategy

Education