Study: Mobile ads increase user engagement… these days

Mobile advertising seems to be the rock-star among banners these days. For marketers it is becoming an essential digital marketing tool for the future due to its ability to achieve an essential audience reach everytime and everywhere.

The latest global MediaMind study “The Comprehensive Guide on How to Leave an Effective Message” suggests to increase engagement levels and pay-per-click rates through the location where the advertisement is displayed, the time when users see it, and the size of the banner seem to be crucial. For the study MediaMind surveyed about 21 billion impressions, from the second quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011.

The study finds that telecom advertising is the second highest vertical for user engagement. It is just surpassed by sports, still ahead of electronics, travel and retail though. This comes as no surprise as the telco spendings are increasing as of the high competition in the market place. In 2011, US Telecom advertisers are expected to spend over $4 billion on online advertising.

However, awareness is high, click activity still lacks engagement. From one million impressions web users would “dwell” on 70,000 adverts but only click on 1,800. The old question reamins: If we could only measure the final impact of banner awareness before people click banners.

The success factors in a telco advertising campaign: timing and location. Seen from a conversion point of view, telco ads achieved the highest conversion rate after the first impression, generating about 5000 conversions every one million impressions. Users were most likely to convert within the first three exposures to commercials, claims the study. And users converted with a higher probability when telcos targeted them with the most effective ads early in the campaign.

“Out of every one million impressions that are served, 70K impressions are Dwelled, and 1,800 impressions are clicked on. Overall, every million impressions generate 5,300 conversions.” Study Conclusion

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In the future, will the high clickrates from mobile banners stay high (0.6% average CTR compared to usual banners reaching not even 0.1% CTR)? A former MediaMind study has also found that users convert at a much higher frequency when exposed to mobile ads. We will see what the mobile evolution of the user brings. In my eyes, it is still the creative aspect and the first message that goes out to the user that makes the change for a great campaign, followed by an “intelligent creative optimisation” which Gal Trifon, MediaMind General Manager obviously suggests.

PS… At dmexco I will be moderating the panel: “Mobile rocks! Strategies and Challenges in Mobile Advertisment”. (21.09.2011, 2.45pm, Congress Hall, Cologne). The keynote will come from Greg Stewart, CEO of the MMA. The panel will focus on opinions and answers from the international mobile market. Which strategies should be implemented to build up a successful communication via the mobile channels and which successful case studies are there? Come and join us!

Any further findings on mobile advertising you can add?

LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook? Study finds leading social network from journalists…

What’s your guess? What is the leading social network for journalists? And what does this mean to business decision makers, managers and PR professionals?

The answer by far is LinkedIn with 92% – with a remarkable increase of 7% compared to 2009. However, this does not mean that it is their main source of information. At least, this is what the latest study tells us which is called 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside BtoB Media Usage of Social Media.

For me it was a bit of an eye-opener as I thought journalists might prefer to use Twitter to monitor sources for trending topics and breaking news. Probably, the statement has some value still. For Mike Neumeier, Pricipal, Arketi Group was not surprised…

“It comes as no surprise more BtoB journalists are participating in social media sites, especially LinkedIn. (…) LinkedIn provides an online outlet for them to connect with industry sources, find story leads and build their professional networks.”

The second largest still is not Twitter. It is Facebook. 85% of journalists are on Facebook (increase by 30% to 2009). However, Twitter comes in nearly at the same result (84%) and with the highest growth of 60% to 2009. And nearly half of the responding journalists (49%) say they blog or read blogs regularly.

“When compared to the 2009 Arketi Web Watch Survey, this year’s results show significantly more journalists are using social media tools (…) This means companies have more online channels through which they can reach media targets. This is both a blessing and curse for today’s PR professionals.” Dr. Kaye Sweetser, associate professor of PR, University of Georgia’s Grady College

Findings where journalists have their news sources…
- 80% via public relations contacts
- 77% rely on news releases
- 74% turn to newswires (i.e. BusinessWire or PRNewswire)
- 71% get from email pitches
- 56% from blogs
- 44% from micro-blogs (such as Twitter), and
- 39% from social networking sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace).

More than nine out of ten journalists responding (96 percent) say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they know, and 95 percent of business journalists say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they don’t know but are in industries they cover.

Journalists get crucial information regarding breaking news from the following sources…
- 85% Industry experts
- 81% Company website
- 80% Industry website
- 80% Other interested parties
- 57% Industry blog
- 53% Company blog
- 41% Industry Twitter feed
- 33% Company Twitter feed

Spot On!
Although LinkedIn is very popular among journalists, it does not seem to be the centre of attention to get a big story. Still, the direct contact and company websites have massive power and as they are probably the most trusted sources, they still lead. Still, social networks make it easy for journalists to get in touch with relevant people for good quotes. It should assume that investigative journalism is on the rise. Reading newspapers and websites today, I personally get the feeling that blogs have far more to offer.

What is your view?

LinkedIn – The future of career advertising goes social…

About one and a half years ago, the guys from Mediamind asked me if I want to write a guest post on the future of banner creatives on their blog. Well, I flashed back to find the future – the old strategic approach… What came out was a headline called “Engagement creatives reloading the future”. Seeing what was happening on LinkedIn in the last months, it seems I had quite a good feeling on what the future might look like.

In the Mediamind post, I focussed on the response banner functionality of Facebook creatives and how the referential potential of social graph marketing intelligence let the personal network get engaged. One individual creates buzz just by being integrated with a linked name in one line of the graphic. So, people know your name and get dragged into campaign activity, just by curiosity, just by wanting to know why, what and how. Just by … you name it.

In the last weeks, LinkedIn came from being just another platform selling space to opening the potential for intelligent career online advertising, and leveraging the network potential with clever display advertising. Companies were focussing on personalization, the social targeting opportunities and the API potential to enable innovative campaigns creatives on the business network.

While some social media marketing companies (funny right…?! see picture above) use the traditional way of banner creatives, Volkswagen identified the evolution of the pick-a-boo effect and the competitive aspect of having more contacts, more recommendations and better education. Just the things that make up a career…

Another example is AMEX. They took their social advertising career campaign even a step further by not spoting you, but the person next to us that helps successful managers, the teams and you: the administrators. People could nominate their business supporters, and by voting promote these “second liners” to have a chance to win a gift card courtesy of 2.500 USD.

In the end, the most convincing career social display campaign is when you find yourself in the middle of a personalized creative. When I checked one of my contacts from SAP today, a rectangle banner appeared next to the SAP contact profile of the person I am linked with. Now, guess what happened? I got offered a job from SAP. Well, maybe not the job I wanted but still a great approach.

The banner was personalized using my LinkedIn picture and my name. It was really somehow talking to me. It detected I could be in the software industry, I could be a consulting sales person, and yes, the creation is clever in terms of straight interaction and sharing. Don’t you think…?

Spot On!
We are still early stages with these new (career) display advertising opportunities. Still, the advertising evolution is happening, and publishers need to have a close look at the opportunities if they don’t want to loose the battle to social networks. These examples might be geeky – however, they are engaging, personalized and conversational. Just what traditional banner cannot offer far too often…

Will Millenials cause a headache for IT in the future?

Just a few days ago, I have written about the challenge for IT departments that millenials will want to use their own private devices at work as employees in the future. If this is causing CIO’s and their IT managers headaches then better get some iboprofen now, as there is more to come…

An online study along with in-depth interviews of 400 “Millennials”, ages between 20 through 29, and 200 IT managers the U.S. from mid-sized to large corporations gives some interesting insights in the expectations of the Millenials when it comes to IT. The study was conducted by Isurus Market Research and Consulting with analysis by GigaOM Pro, and underwritten by Bomgar.

Millenials are growing up in an “instantaneous world” of social web conversations, mobile phones, and almost permanent WiFi access. This brings new challenges for IT departments in the future as expectations are these young people are high. Millennials expect more or less immediate answers on IT support questions and all options of multi-channel communication. However, the worst is: Ideally, they could solve their technology issues themselves.

Some key findings what Millenials do…
- 71% state to have done a Google search for a solution finding at least once.
- 61% don’t turn to company support first to solve problems, while 71% say they have done a Google search for a solution at least once.
- 58% prefer to communicate in chat or text messaging, not the phone.
- 40% use a mobile device for work “on a weekly basis.”

So, if Millenials are responsible for their own technology, as it is their private device, IT could get away from the omnipresent IT support issue as they will have less responsibility, costs will decrease for IT, and it is a sustainable Green IT approach. Or who wants to carry around two mobile phones, two tablets, two notebooks, and so on?

The challenge for company bosses? Millennials say that their job satisfaction is “strongly affected” by the type of mobile device their employers provided. Isn’t this great? Just ask them what they want and you can increase personal productivity and work efficiency. Correct?

“Our research highlights the biggest challenges for IT departments: Millennials expect immediate responses, prefer a wider variety of communication channels and, when it comes to problem solving, often turn to Google and outside resources before contacting support,” David Card, Research Director, GigaOM Pro.

Millenials will become difficult to handle though. 60% think that good support time for a technical problem to be solved is less than 10 minutes. Compared to IT managers who think that a reasonable time frame for solving tech problems was an hour or more, this calls for problems between the work forces in the future. No wonder, 80% of IT managers see Millennials as “different or very different than their older peers in terms of technology expectations”.

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However, these two studies might sound like a massive IT change process for companies in the future. It has to said that 75% of Millennials rate their IT departments a six or seven on a seven-point scale. Maybe IT should think about setting up IT knowledge wikis instead of letting their employees loose time surfing on Google for a solution. Millenials are not expecting something outrageous, they might just be brighter in terms of technology handling, and show us that collaboration on social networks and in communities works when they are solving their issues without the IT department. They are just another generation. The transition managers need to rate that aspect, too…

What is your view on these new challenges for it?

Hyperspecialization – The future of work 3.0?

All people engaging in the Social Web are eager to pull, push and share all kinds of specializing topics in different areas of thoughts, interests and visions. In some way these people define a new development where the work of generalists is being cut into workload of networks of narrow experts or specialists. At least, Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the Harvard Business Review article “The Age of Hyperspecialization,” sees this trend and explains in an HBR video why breaking jobs into tiny pieces yields better, faster, and cheaper work.

Malone sees the key “trend” behind this movement in “cheap communication technology” brought to us all over the world – more or less instantly and costlessly. Having said that, Malone’s illustration of scambled eggs being made ready to eat via the locations, Boston, China, Moscow, Paris and Singapore shows the limitation in the theory. For “brain workers”, it definitely makes sense and is a valid and applicable theory. Managers need to figure out how to break up traditional single job descriptions into pieces of hyperspecialist work and maybe rearrange their business processes if they want to make use of hyperspecialization.

What I definitely see is greater flexibility for employees in this movement. The development offers also some massive opportunity for freelancers being integrated into different projects. Thus, I would ask, whether the work of employees, sitting in office, could not easily be outsourced to even more specialized freelancers. Or if it will be more difficult to coordinate these specialists? Or would this be the work of a hyperspecialist again?

Is this really a new trend? Is this the normal evolution of worklife and business? Is this another step towards workplace 3.0, the mobile workplace? How do you see that…?

The mobile workplace is growing (and maybe three reasons still against it)…

There are only three reasons left why we might have a small workplace or personal roll container in the future (although most UK workers seem to see no reason for having an office by 2021)…

1. Controling still store paperwork as lawyers and tax consultants recomment it (fear of data loss).
2. HR wants to take control of how much time you spend in the office (productivity check – employees check employees).
3. A boss that fears to loose control over your work productivity (better see than hope, hierarchy could change).

However, I have stated in many interviews lately why -except for the three reasons above- I love to work mobile, in hotel lobbies, lounge bars, at the airport or in restaurants as well as coffee shops. And I have not ever thought about my past and how co-workers might have a killing impact on my lifetime. Thanks for sharing the Tel Aviv University study insights, Wired!

OK, I have to admit, I have found bars that call themselves “News Bar” and still don’t offer any WiFi connection for their guests – but hundreds of print magazines. It somehow fits my theme “Talking is Online, Silence is Print!” but business is challenging if you want to work in your mobile office.

Nevertheless, smartphones, laptops, tablets and WiFi offer us a complete new workplace freedom and leverage mobile productivity. We use those devices to finish more and more work from whereever we are.

The wrong use of the mobile workplace is exaggered and extreme mobilie efficiency. Quite often I see people in cars, using the time when commuting to and from the office efficiently (and in a very dangerous way, see the “Don’t text and drive!” Facebook page) checking emails during two red traffic-light periods.

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I am happy that companies like Gist create infographics that put together data explaining the rise of the mobile workforce. It gives insights on device popularity and and the preference of where people love to work mobile.

Managers should start thinking about how they could make the mobile office a flexble solution for their employees, don’t you think?

Study: Social Media and Advertising – What is the next hype for marketers…?

When you do Social Media marketing seminars and trainings (and I have done many in the last 24 months), most of the times marketers want to know everything around Facebook and Twitter (maybe Google Plus these days). However, according to the Pivot Conference that released their study “The Rise of the Social Consumer”, with the response of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals yesterday, some new hypes from marketers can be seen. Just check out the platforms that marketers are planning to invest in…

Although the big players on the market dominate at present, the next wave is already approaching marketers mindset. YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Zynga have made their popularity in the Social Media market and might get the future attention of the marketers. The second column shows an increase of those four platforms between 13-26% which obviously have some good business value if seen from the right customer service and customer relationship management spot.

For B2B companies LinkedIn got some great assets, not only with their special groups. YouTube is some higly underated platform in my eyes. It can be used for different visual aspects in B2B, but also viral topics and campaign opportunities in B2C. If restaurants, service providers or entertainment brands want to head for local promotions, Foursquare (and Gowalla in some areas – also 5% increase forecasted) offers some fantastic buzz potential. Whether Zynga is really so powerful for marketers to promote their offerings, needs to be seen and proved in the future. I would rather recomment and elaborate on reward advertising models.

The study also showed that 84% of brands encourage user involvement with social advertisement campaigns. This is interesting as very often the perception of marketers was that people don’t really see the ads next to their streams. The intention of marketers why they invest in Social Media advertising is manyfold…

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Over half of respondents of the study (see full report) said they were shifting money away from other forms of marketing towards Social Media. 23% of respondents even stated that social advertising delivers a greater ROI than other forms of advertising. Although this sounds great, the strategic approach to every social advertising and Social Media engagement needs to be double-checked. The development of the results need to be aligned with the expectations and targets set before the Social Media activity started. At least if they don’t want to lack business credibility in front of their bosses…

Study: Why most mobile brand apps don’t work…

The hype about mobile apps is still omnipresent. In which marketing meeting you are, people get mad about creating the next killer app. A recent study by Deloitte gives insights what makes a mobile killer app and why most of the developed apps don’t work.

Last year, the average Apple user downloaded 51 Apps, and it is expected to grow up to 83 of the approximately 400.000 in 2011. And although the app industry is growing as of the increasing tablet market, just a few apps become killer apps.

The study states that less than 1% of apps published by global consumer and healthcare brands were downloaded more than a million times. Whereas, 80% of all brand apps found less than 1.000 people who downloaded it. However, chances are high that people download your app. The study findings say that 45% of consumers with a smartphone download an app at least once a week.

So why is it a challenge to find the rock star app? What makes it so difficult to leverage the brand impact through an app in the mobile market? What are companies doing wrong?

Well, basically most companies don’t think about the value add and the service that these brand apps are meant to provide. Deloitte states that if you obey the following criteria then the chances increase that your brand app reaches the top apps…

- Portability– 81%
- Accelerometer – 77%
- Sophisticated touch screen use – 61%
- Location-based services – 61%
- Camera – 59%

“The app market has some way to go before it rivals TV or the web for penetration, but it is of growing importance for brands. Brands view apps as a golden opportunity to communicate directly with consumers and in a more meaningful, long term manner. When brands get it right, the returns can be huge.” Howard Davies, Media Partner, Deloitte

Which leads us to the question how to make things right, right?

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First of all, companies need to understand that handing over an app to the customer is like a promise to care for the customer. It is not just another marketing or communication channel that brand can play around with – at least if mobile apps are not meant to get out of essential impact for business and web strategy in the future. If you as a brand manager think about some strategic approaches, I would be surprised if you don’t find the right “app fit” for your customers. And if you bear in mind that the app shops are quite crowded already, you will not forget to promote the app. Otherwise nobody will find it…

Study: More companies succeed in recruiting via social networks

Social Media is becoming the new talent aquisition tool for companies. A recent study by Jobvite states that almost 90% of companies are planning to use social networks to find job candidates. This is an increase of 7% to last year. Two thirds of employers said they had successfully filled a job position via social networking.

The study that polled 800 human resource staffers and headhunters in the U.S also illustrates the importance of personal branding which I proclaim for years now – also with the vision of a personal scoring index. Job seekers should understand the importance of having an active profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. However, this is essential and career benefitial, the study also warns that what you say and do on those sites has an impact on your career.

Running the survey in their fifth year, Jobvite is seeing a steady increase by employers in the use of social media.

“Employee referrals are the highest quality hires. (…) They last the longest, have the best match with expectations, and churn the least.” Dan Finnigan, CEO, Jobvite

According to Jobvite’s own client data, 70% of companies examine candidates’ social media profiles after getting a referral. Which means you never know who is checking your latest party pictures and how much you ruin your reputation by updating embarrassing information

“Don’t post any picture, say any words or take any actions that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see,” advises Finnigan.

Some interesting finding shows that Facebook is not the main place to look for job candidates. However, LinkedIn went up from 78.3% to 86.6% (inclusive of all possible usage like search, job postings, etc.).

Having said that, Jobvite also asked their own customers how many actually hired staff using social referrals from various social networking sites. 43% of referrals that resulted in hires came from Facebook versus 41% from LinkedIn and 16% from Twitter.

Spot On!
For the Social Society in which we are living social engagement become an asset bonus but also a challenge for job seekers. Today, it is still difficult to understand for many recruiters why you have a personal brand. In the future, this will change and show your affinity to a topic, to brands and to modern business tactics. People might be addressed or recruited by younger hiring managers who are more tolerant of social media failures or side steps but the more senior a position gets, the pickier recruitment managers are getting.

How do you see the future of personal branding and how recruiters are checking your capabilities via social networks?

News Update – Best of the Day

Does social media activity during work distract employees from productivity? Shel Holtz knows why blocking social networking (48% of companies still prevent people from using Facebook and Twitter at work), is less distractive than email processing and switching windows (for further reading have a look at Social Engagement & Jobs). He quotes that email or answering a cell phone call account for 83% of in-meeting interruptions which I think is even worth, when you see people in meetings being engaged on their iPhones and Blackberries.

“There are issues with the study as well, which reports that the hour spent each day on distractions accounts for “$10,375 of wasted productivity per person annually,” which translates to $10 million per year for a 1,000-employee company. (…) It’s worth noting that today’s productivity levels are considerably higher, and that studies like the one from the University of Melbourne prove that unobtrusive breaks increase productivity by up to 9%.”

In the last three years, I have told many managers why productivity won’t get lost if employees use the Social Web during work. Just think about how much loss in productivity you have with Football World Cups, people smoking or chating during work. Well, I would rather prefer finding the eager Gen Y and Z generation, and having them engaged as brandvangelists in conversations…

Ever thought about the value of a fan? Of course you have as your bosses want toknow what ROI metrics your Facebook brings to the retail activities your business is engaged in. A study by Hitwise tells us…“1 Facebook fan = 20 additional visits to your website over the course of one year”. What sounds good for retailers, still does not mean that all Facebook Fanpage sites can rely and profit like those companies covered by the study. It is important to understand the metrics behind the figures, so you better read carefully before you start spending on advertising straight away…

If you think wireless technology is critical to our health, while music is good, then watch out for The Human Jukebox by Pause in Stockholm. No pain, no gain? Or just a great idea…?

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