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LinkedIn Acquires SlideShare

linkedin slideshareNews that LinkedIn acquired SlideShare for over $118 million broke this week (along with a SlideShare presentation explaining the news) — an acquisition that gives LinkedIn access to a lot of content created, shared, and discussed by its target audience of professionals. In March 2012, the SlideShare website received over 29 million unique visitors, which means it’s one of the most trafficked websites for professionals.

Over 7.4 million presentations have been uploaded to SlideShare since it debuted in 2005, and since then, those presentations have been embedded in over 1.4 million unique domains. All of that content represents opportunities for LinkedIn to connect with a larger audience and get access to valuable information about its users.

In a press release, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner explained, “Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity. These presentations also enable professionals to discover new connections and gain the insights they need to become more productive and successful in their careers, aligning perfectly with LinkedIn’s mission and helping us deliver even more value for our members. We’re very excited to welcome the SlideShare team to LinkedIn.”

Information is valuable these days, and the SlideShare acquisition certainly gives LinkedIn information. The acquisition represents what appears to be a turning point for the direction of LinkedIn as a company. Undoubtedly, the LinkedIn strategic direction goes far beyond the SlideShare acquisition. Simon Sharwood of The Register speculates, “The [acquisition] could mean ‘this is our cloud storage play’ or ‘our members were spending a fair bit of time using Google Docs and Office 365 and we wanted that time-on-site’.”

One thing is certain, what started out as a simple social networking destination for professionals might just be turning into something far more comprehensive. Let’s just hope that “something” really is useful.

Image: LinkedIn

Some Executives Really Do Believe in Social Media Marketing

For most marketers, getting senior level buy-in on social media marketing investments is an uphill battle, but new research by PulsePoint Group and the Economist Intelligence Unit (as reported by eMarketer) shows that some North American senior executives are starting to figure out just how effective social media marketing can be.

Most of the 329 senior executives who responded to the survey are quick to note that social media marketing is still lacking in objective metrics, but there is no denying that it does have a positive effect on brands. Executives who claimed their companies have an extensive social engagement presence reported a return on investment (ROI) twice as high as those companies with a limited social engagement presence and four times higher than companies with no social engagement presence.

While much of social media marketing is still analyzed subjectively, executives reported a variety of positive benefits of investing marketing budgets into social media initiatives. For example:

  • 84% reported improved marketing/sales effectiveness.
  • 81% reported increased market share.
  • 68% reported improved product/service quality.
  • 67% reported improved brand or stock value.
  • 65% reported improved speed to market/innovation.
  • 65% reported improved collaboration with partners.
  • 58% reported improved talent retention.
  • 37% reported decreased costs.

Senior executives are also realizing that the long-term brand building value of social media comes from developing relationships that lead to brand loyalty and brand advocacy and a form of word-of-mouth marketing that’s extremely powerful. 69% of executives stated that customers speaking out via social media (even if those conversations were negative) increased sales. 67% of executives said that suppliers connecting via social media raises their games, and 54% said that employees speaking out helps them attract talent.

These are the types of benefits that lead to long-term, sustainable, organic brand and business growth. Short-term tactics are an important part of a social media marketing plan, but a brand’s integrated marketing strategy should focus on building brand awareness, advocacy, and ultimately, equity that can survive through any macro- or micro-environmental problem.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the study.

Image: Denis Dervisevic

Does Your Brand Need a Mobile App?

iphone mobile appsIt seems like only yesterday that brands were scrambling to get Twitter profiles and Facebook Pages. Now, those things seem ancient as brands are realizing that mobile is the future (a future that’s already here).

Brands in every industry are launching branded mobile apps, and executives are demanding that brands get on board the mobile app train because it’s the cool thing to do. It doesn’t matter if a mobile strategy has been developed for a brand. Everyone else is doing it so few brands are confident enough to ignore the mobile movement.

But does your brand really need a mobile app? Is developing a mobile app where you should be investing your budget today?

At its core, the answer to those questions is very simple. If you can create a mobile app that provides meaningful or interesting information in a manner that is useful to your consumer audience, then a mobile app can help your brand. However, simply creating an app to say that your brand has one is a mistake that’s unlikely to deliver positive results in the long-term.

Of course, it could be argued that in order to stay relevant, brands need to have mobile apps because consumers expect them in 2012. While it’s true that brands should have a mobile presence since that’s where consumers spend more time every day, it’s not wise to make the leap to investing in a mobile app without doing your legwork first.

For example, you need to conduct some research and find out what consumers want from your brand when they’re on-the-go. Are there specific types of information or content that you can deliver via a mobile device that can add value to consumers’ lives? A mobile app isn’t an ad. In other words, don’t use a mobile app to regurgitate marketing messages and sales pitches.

Furthermore, you need to analyze your competitors and understand what they’re doing in the mobile space. You certainly don’t want to fall behind or launch a mobile app that’s not unique. Spend time analyzing brands beyond your industry as well. Your mobile app should be creative and innovative. While such an app might not exist in your industry yet, you can find inspiration from brands in other industries that have found creative ways to bring brand experiences to mobile consumers.

Remember, mobile apps are focused on delivering content to an audience whenever and wherever they want it, but branded apps should also leverage the real-time nature of mobile devices. Deliver something valuable and timely via a branded mobile app, and you’ll be on your way to driving positive returns.

What do you think about branded mobile apps? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: renatomitra

The Evolution of Influence in 16 Minutes

For brands, influence matters. It really matters. But how does a brand gain influence and develop an audience of influential brand advocates?

Amplify created a short film called FanCulture that explains how the relationship between brands and consumers (i.e., fans) grows and how that relationship evolves into increased influence. The video features branding experts and academics as well as “superfans” of brands. Amplify says that the video is intended to help brands learn how to move from logo to cultural icon by cultivating a powerful relationship with consumers.

The video is also a great example of effective content marketing through online video storytelling. As you watch the video below, consider how you can create similar content related to your brand and business to offer useful, interesting information to consumers, clients, vendors, and so on. That’s what content marketing is all about.

The concept of superfans and brand influence isn’t a new one. The Amplify video talks about brands as diverse as The Beatles to Nike. Regardless of the industry a brand is in or when it debuted, consumers can become emotionally involved in that brand, develop loyalty to it, and ultimately become powerful brand advocates. Their influence can create a form of word-of-mouth marketing that money can’t buy.

As Sheila Shayon wrote on BrandChannel, “Engaging enthusiasts and brand ambassadors should become more than just buying “Likes” on Facebook.” Getting people to like your brand is just the first step. In fact, likes are meaningless if the people who like your brand aren’t emotionally connected to it. Look beyond likes and you’ll see your brand advocates increase and your brand influence grow.

Real Impressions Drive More Display Ad Conversions than Clicks

click throughFor years, marketers have relied on two primary ways to track the ROI of online display ads — clicks and impressions (based on how many times the ad loaded regardless of whether or not a person actually saw it). New research from comScore and Pretarget suggests that relying on clicks and traditional display ad impression measurement is a bad idea.

According to the research report, these metrics don’t account for the number of people who convert to a sale or a request for information after hovering over a display ad or engaging with it without actually clicking on it. In other words, traditional display ad ROI measurements are inaccurate because it’s missing critical data related to conversions absent of clicks.

A comScore press release explains the following findings:

“The research findings indicate that the traditional way of buying mass impressions and hoping for conversions (aka “spray and pray”) is not the most effective approach. The results showed that ad hover/interaction (correlation = 0.49) and viewable impressions (correlation = 0.35) had highest correlation with conversion, while gross impressions (correlation = 0.17) was significantly lower. Perhaps most interestingly, clicks (correlation = 0.01) had the lowest correlation with conversion, far under-performing all other metrics analyzed in the study. These findings suggest that advertisers and media planners ought to break their addiction to clicks and instead look to more meaningful metrics for evaluating campaign performance.”

This isn’t the first study to find that clicks don’t correlate to conversions at a rate as high as hovers do. In its 2009 Benchmark Report (released in July 2010), MediaMind reported that, “on average, increasing Dwell [hover] from 5% to 15%, increases conversion rate by 45% from 0.4% to 0.6%,” and Casale Media reported in its 2011 Ad Visibility Report that ads displayed above the fold were nearly 7 times more effective at driving conversions than ads displayed below the fold.

Bottom-line, relying on click metrics is selling your campaign short. You won’t get the full story, and it’s highly likely that far more conversions are being driven by hovers and engagement with display ads placed above the fold than you realize. As Kirby Winfield, SVP of Corporate Development at comScore explained, “It’s time to start measuring the impact of campaigns using metrics that really matter, not just the ones that are most easily measured.”

Of course, until more brands get access to the tools that can measure hover engagement, clicks will remain the go-to metric for measuring display ad effectiveness. However, companies that invest in this type of advanced data collection and analysis will come out on top in the end.

What do you think? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Image: Ariel da Silva Parreira

Brands Focusing on Video in Content Marketing

Content marketing spending has more than doubled in the past ten years, and new research from ContentWise and the Custom Content Council reveals that North American marketers spent over $40 billion in content marketing in 2011. Print content still dominated content marketing budgets in 2011 with 58.7% of budgets directed at the print medium. However, within electronic content, video is a critical focus for many marketers in 2012.

Following are statistics from the study that provide insight into which content opportunities brands focused on in 2011 (via eMarketer):

  • Print = 87%
  • Website updates = 82%
  • Email newsletters = 71%
  • Branded video = 52%
  • Virtual events = 38%
  • White papers = 38%
  • Podcasts and other audio = 24%
  • Ezines = 15%

In 2009, just 37% of survey respondents were creating branded video. Two years later in 2011, 52% were creating branded video. If budget reports hold true, you can expect to see a lot more branded video over the course of 2012.

54% of respondents to the survey indicated that they plan to increase spending on video content in 2012. Virtual events are also getting attention (35% plan to increase budgets for virtual events), and podcasts and other audio will also get a bump in budget dollars (31% expect to increase budgets for audio content).

It could be argued that the interest in branded video content has little to do with marketing foresight and everything to do with cause and effect. In this case, the cause came from two sources — the need to reduce budgets and the consumer behavior shift to the online space. The effects were for brands to shift their budgets to the online space where their audiences now spent time. Since content marketing online is typically less expensive than print content marketing, budgets also decreased.

While branded video is the hot thing these days as more people use smartphones and tablet devices for more aspects of their lives, including watching video content, the smart marketers will be using foresight rather than reacting to cause and effect. Consumers are already shifting to the mobile space. Brands need to adapt their content marketing strategies to match that shift. Will your brand be leading the way in the mobile content space or still catching up with video content?

Video is certainly not dead, but if video were a teenager, it would already be losing its level of cool. Of course, marrying video and mobile is the ideal solution, and it’s what consumers are going to expect in the near future.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Boulanger Julien