Following on yesterday’s Research Brief on connected TV ad preferences, a new study from Harris Interactive on behalf of MediaBrix shows that only 28% of Facebook users prefer to see standard banner ads in Facebook apps and 72% prefer to see immersive and interactive ad units. Additionally, 40% of smartphone owners prefer to see standard banner ads in mobile apps while 60% prefer to see immersive and integrated ad units. Immersive and integrated ad units include those that offer people virtual rewards or currency and interactive video ads that occur during natural breaks in the app or game. The survey findings, says the report, indicate that there are inadequacies in the way that social and mobile developers are monetizing, and reveal that the digital advertising industry needs new creative advertising formats for social and mobile platforms to meet consumer preferences. According to the report, 33% of Facebook's one billion users say they have used an app on Facebook in the past twelve months and 65% of Facebook app users say they have played a game on Facebook in the past twelve months. According to recent figures from The Wall Street Journal, more than 45 billion apps have been downloaded, with free and paid apps for the Apple and Android platforms registering explosive growth. The survey results also reveal consumers' preferences towards video advertising in social and mobile apps. According to the survey:
37% of Facebook app users prefer to be shown pre-roll ads in Facebook apps
63% prefer to either initiate the video ad or have it shown during a natural break in the game or app
38% of smartphone owners prefer to be shown pre-roll video ads in mobile apps
62% prefer either to initiate the video ad or have it shown during a natural break in the game or app
Tamara Bousquet, executive media director, MEA Digital, says "... people are turned off by standard online advertising... in social and mobile environments... " Social and mobile app users prefer free apps that are ad supported. According to the survey:
87% of Facebook app users prefer free Facebook apps versus 13% that prefer paid apps that contain no advertising
Of those Facebook app users that prefer free Facebook apps, 83% prefer to keep apps free with relevant advertising that appears during natural breaks in the game or app, while 17% prefer to keep apps free by making in-app purchases
Also according to the survey:
61% of smartphone owners prefer free mobile apps and 39% prefer paid apps that contain no advertising.
Of the smartphone owners that prefer free mobile apps, 88% prefer to keep apps free with relevant advertising that appears during natural breaks in the game or app and 12% prefer to keep apps free by making in-app purchases, including virtual goods or virtual currency.
The report concludes by suggesting that since “... social app and mobile app developers cannot continue to rely on standard advertising patterned after web-based models as a way to monetize their apps... they should incorporate immersive advertising units to monetize and... to engage consumers... (in keeping) with their preferences... “
David Cohen on August 14, 2012 10:30 AM Facebook began offering advertisers using its sponsored stories a new metric to help them analyze their campaigns: average news feed position. 22squared Senior Digital Strategist Justin Oh tipped off sister blog Inside Facebook about the launch of the average news feed position metric, which was first discussed with Facebook Preferred Marketing Developers in June, but did not appear on the social network’s ads application-programming interface until late last week. Inside Facebook pointed out that while the new metric will allow advertisers to see separate news feed data for each placement, desktop and mobile are not broken out. Screen shot courtesy of Justin Oh, via Inside Facebook
With more than a decade of digital media experience, I’ve seen plenty of bad ideas posing as innovation. For example, a few weeks ago I noticed a QR code that was incorporated into a mobile display ad. I stared quizzically at the screen on my mobile device and thought: How the heck am I going to take an image of that QR code when my camera is on the opposite side of the screen? It’s baffling to me how someone could think that was a good idea. Not all such efforts are as obviously laughable. For years now, marketers have spent countless dollars and man-hours urging consumers to download mobile apps using solely mobile display ads. Think about it: How often have you seen an ad encouraging you to “DownloadMobile App Now”? Now ask yourself how often you’ve actually clicked on the ad and rushed to download that app. Not often, right? The reason mobile display ads don’t work at the top of the marketing funnel is because they don’t give consumers any indication of the app’s value-add. Your iPhone is already cluttered with dozens of other apps, so why should you respond to a display ad that doesn’t provide any insight into the benefit of adding this particular app? According to recent study from mobile ad network xAd, click-through rates for typical mobile display ads are only 0.6%. A 2011 MediaMind study tells a similar story, revealing that click-through rates for mobile ads on iPhone are 0.37% (higher than any other smartphone, if you can believe it). With these numbers, it’s clear that consumers have responded to mobile marketing by simply not responding. So if mobile marketing doesn’t work, what are the alternatives for those of us tasked with driving mobile app downloads? Believe it or not –a comprehensive content marketing program that is driven by earned media is a powerful, but often-overlooked strategy for driving mobile app downloads. Instead of largely ineffective mobile ads, why not let your app’s fans – particularly those in media – do the talking? Here’s a three-step approach to get you started:
1) Get your app in front of the media
This may sound daunting, but there is an entire segment of media – from tech writers to mommy bloggers – dedicated to rating and reviewing mobile apps of all kinds. And if you have a great product, it’s just a matter of finding the right audience for it. If you don’t have a dedicated PR team, you’ll need to do your homework to figure out which outlets to send your app to. A service like TestFlight makes it super simple to send apps that are still in beta or aren’t yet available for download (and ideally, you should be pitching your app to media before it launches). Once a review is published, it becomes a valuable piece of evergreen content. And perhaps best of all, positive earned media will ultimately be more reliable to consumers than any ad copy your creative minds can conceive.
2) Put your earned media front and center
After you’ve received a positive review from a reputable media outlet or blogger, utilize this asset and make sure to drive as many people as possible to it. You’ll get some traffic from search and social shares, but you probably also need to help people to discover those reviews. Sending traffic to these reviews via a content recommendation platform can help you get your earned media in front of readers when they’re already in content consumption mode.
3) Use mobile display ads to seal the deal
When awareness for your app has reached its pinnacle, your display ad can go from a nuisance to a value-add. Reminding consumers to download an app after they’ve read a positive review will save them the time of having going to the app store to search for it. Be sure to stay away from generic copy like: “DownloadMobile App Now.” Fine-tune your messaging by citing a sentence from earned media that explains the value and capabilities of the app. Place your logo next to the quote and consumers will intrinsically understand that the next action is a click-to-download. By leveraging the earned media in your display ad, you’ve given consumers a clear window into value they’re going to get out of downloading the app. Companies that employ content marketing and earned media as the foundation of their campaigns are witnessing double digit (!) conversion rates. Marketers must test all mediums to assess what’s right for them, but rarely will running a mobile display ad campaign without first making sure people know your true value-add be enough to drive the results you need.
Miller Medeiros and David Vale of digital agency Firstborn discuss the principles of responsive web design and how brands should be thinking and creating beyond the desktop.
The interactive world is constantly changing, and the number of different devices that connect it all is growing every year. The problem that arises is that there are no rules for the game. As big corporations create new products with different systems and technology, it’s inevitable that we’ll have to come up with creative ways to adapt. Responsive Web Design is not a new concept, but it has gained people’s attention in the past couple years as a good alternative to designing for different screen sizes and aspect ratios for all desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Put simply, responsive design is the creation of a single website with a fluid proportion-based grid that automatically adapts to users’ browsers and the devices they are using. This is not a trend—it’s the future.
"Rather than tailoring disconnected designs to each of an ever-increasing number of web devices, we can treat them as facets of the same experience." (Ethan Marcotte)
This means that brands now have more control over how users access and interact with their content. These are huge changes. Most brands focus on desktop experiences only and leave the other devices aside. Now, more than ever, consumers are interfacing with brands from anywhere and everywhere; often they are using mobile as a way to augment or enhance another branded experience. By compromising content accessibility, brands position themselves negatively. Access is good, but it’s not that easy. As we are dealing with multiple platforms, we have to plan ahead and prioritize the content as well as the format that it will be displayed in, to users. In our opinion, that’s the biggest challenge for brands--prioritization. The next step will be to take all that information and adapt it to a single template using the simplest code possible, making sure that it will be displayable on devices that have fewer capabilities. This is not a simple task for huge brands with countless products and services, but some brands like Starbucks and Sony are already catching up. They’ve both launched new responsive websites that adapt to all formats and devices, thus maintaining a great user experience. Miller Medeiros Another good case of responsive web design, created by Firstborn, is the new Mountain Dew website. We designed a site that brings together assets from across the Dew universe: action sports, music, promotions, product lineup and social channels. Beyond just making the design responsive, we created a personalized experience where users can also filter the content and display only what is most relevant to them. During the design and development of previous projects at Firstborn, we learned some simple rules that should be taken into consideration if you want to target multiple platforms.
In order to create an efficient and responsive design, we must plan things properly. The design process is a little bit different than what we usually have with a traditional website, especially because we can’t base the layout on a fixed viewport size and there is no simple way to design to every single size. We’ve found that it’s easier to design as few breakpoints as possible and then interpolate the layout between these breakpoints.
"The grid, like any other instrument in the design process, is not an absolute. It should be used with flexibility, and when necessary it should be modified or abandoned completely for a more workable solution." (Allen Hurlburt)
If the layout is based on a grid, make sure the grid still makes sense on smaller/bigger screens and that the size of the grid can be easily adapted. Most people agree that it’s best to start your grid structure from the mobile version, focusing first on the smaller screens with as few features as possible. That way it’s possible to have a "bare bones" version of the site that works on the oldest phones/tablets, and an "enhanced" version for the most capable browsers. On this project, we worked on both dimensions (desktop and mobile) simultaneously as we wanted to ensure the best experience for each view. The relationship that a user has with a desktop is different than with a mobile, and therefore it shouldn’t be treated as the same. Priorities change, content needs to be much more clear and concise on a mobile version than on a desktop. A good example is if you access the Chase mobile site, it only gives you three options that are very clear and probably all you need. Review your priorities and only deliver the user what they’re most likely to want. Remember that on tablets and mobiles there are no "roll overs" and most of the navigation elements that were designed for the desktop version will not work with gestures. Lately I have been noticing that we are blending some usabilities from across platforms. For example, the new mouse from Apple utilizes the scrolling references from the iPad and iPhone. This is a good trend, as sites should adapt to us and not the other way around.
Prototyping is really important for testing, validating the grid size and making sure the whole structure will scale to multiple pages. Since we won’t be doing designs for all of the possible widths, it is much easier to set some of the breakpoints on the prototype itself. Prototypes are also a good tool to introduce the project to the client. They show how the design will adapt to different screen sizes and help determine the content priorities that lead to an enhanced user experience.
The simpler the site is, the greater the chance that it will work across multiple devices. Simple blogs are much easier to adapt than a complex interactive site. Technical limitations should always be taken into consideration if you want the best experience on the broadest range of devices. Sometimes we need to simplify the interaction and complexity of the layout to improve accessibility.
The amount of breakpoints should be kept to a minimum, since each new breakpoint makes the system harder to test and maintain--especially if each breakpoint changes the design drastically and relies heavily on JavaScript to work.
It is important to understand why a rule was created and if it really applies to your project. Sometimes a remarkable experience is the most important thing; don’t let these rules bind you.
Anjali Mullany (Fast Company's social media editor) exposes social media consultants.
If social media consultants are doing their jobs, they should put themselves out of business. I speak as one of their kind. Before joining Fast Company last spring, I was the social media editor at the New York Daily News. So I'll say it even bolder: At some point, Fast Company should fire me. (Just not too soon, please!) Your company will never be truly social if you silo social activity within a consultant or a staff manager. To facilitate proliferation, your consultant should learn how your company works, then create a strategy to spread social throughout your organization. But in the meantime, here's what you should be hearing from your consultant: 1 "What's your goal?" Some social media gurus think the big prize is community. That's a fine start, but for a business, it's also a means to an end--which is whatever your company's larger goals are, whether they be sales, brand awareness, or traffic. Your social strategy should not end with the creation of an online conversation. 2 "Here's the ROI." Consultants may tell you that social investments can't be justified in a quantifiable way. Wrong. The data is out there. If they want you to spend $75,000 on a Foursquare badge, they should explain how that investment will help you reach your goals. 3 "I don't care about follower counts." Companies obsess over how many followers they have, and consultants play to that. But Facebook ads and "Like this page" contests often don't boost consumer engagement. Rather, you should be courting influencers--trusted insiders with engaged followers (such as bloggers, niche celebrities, or active tweeters), who can help spread your message. 4 "Facebook and Twitter are only a start." Consultants should know which platforms are best for your businesses. For example, if you are a fashion designer and your consultant isn't talking about collage platform Polyvore, they're doing something wrong. 5 "Let's look at data." Your consultant should find smart ways to interpret data that platforms provide, and track down new data sources as well. She should also identify the best social measurement, management, and listening tools for your company's needs, so you can look up those data yourself after she's gone.
Follow Fast Company's roadmap to social media: surefire rules, data, and expert wisdom guaranteed to show why this market is completely unpredictable.
And when you're given data, double-check them. I once worked with an agency that presented steep graphs to convince me their engagement efforts had scaled. A close inspection revealed the numbers were actually low--but after repeated requests, the agency was unable (or unwilling) to provide me with specifics about the best times to post, best content to post, and who was most engaged with us. That shouldn't happen. 6 "Your website should be social." Don't just rely on other platforms. Your consultant should optimize your own site for sharing and data collection. To start, connect to Facebook's Open Graph and measure social activity--including "likes"--within your domain, in addition to measuring that activity within Facebook itself. 7 "I'm not a social media guru." Good. Because if she says she is, she probably isn't.
The Experts, Translated
How well do brands really understand social? We heard a lot of buzzwords--and a lot of uncertainty.
WHAT THEY SAID "We like to listen." WHAT THEY MEANT "We hired a 24-year-old to stand in front of a firehose of complaints."
WHAT THEY SAID "That data isn't available yet." WHAT THEY MEANT "That data is embarrassing."
WHAT THEY SAID "We're inspired by Coca-Cola's social media strategy." WHAT THEY MEANT "Everyone taks about Coca-Cola's social media strategy. By referencing it, we sound informed."
WHAT THEY SAID "Our strategy is in line with our values." WHAT THEY MEANT "We talk about ourselves."
WHAT THEY SAID "We're doing something very different." WHAT THEY MEANT "We're doing something very different from what we were doing in 1980."
WHAT THEY SAID "We're building community." WHAT THEY MEANT "We promoted a hashtag once, and it was a little scary but seemed to work out fine."
WHAT THEY SAID "We're being authentic." WHAT THEY MEANT "We're extremely on-message."
WHAT THEY SAID "We're meeting customers where they're comfortable." WHAT THEY MEANT "Nobody visits our corporate website."
WHAT THEY SAID "Social media allows us to understand the pulse of the customer." WHAT THEY MEANT "We all get into a room and freak out."
WHAT THEY SAID "This is all very new and exciting." WHAT THEY MEANT "Do you have any advice? We could really use some advice."
Square has announced a partnership with Starbucks that will have the company processing all of the coffee giant’s credit and debit transactions, starting this fall. The deal will not only bring Square into Starbucks, it will also bring Starbucks into Square. Starbucks is investing $25 million in Square as part of its latest round of funding, and Howard Schultz, Starbucks’s chief executive, will also join Square’s board. “It’s amazing to think that Starbucks began as a single coffee shop in Seattle. The concept of taking a good idea and helping it grow is not foreign to them, and Starbucks doesn’t just view Square as the simplest way to accept payments.They see an opportunity to extend and accelerate a model they grew up with: the idea that business is local and that community plays a vital role in job creation and economic vitality, “ Square CEO Jack Dorsey said in an announcement letter on Square’s website. “When Starbucks builds the Square Directory into their apps and in-store Digital Network, it gives Square new visibility, driving more customers to opt-in to Square. And with nearly 7,000 Starbucks stores soon accepting Square, these new payers will be able to find your business (including coffeehouses) and pay with their name, building community and creating value.” Square’s card readers are currently used by a large number of merchants, ranging from coffee shops to food trucks and local merchants.
The company is now processing an astounding $5 billion in payments annually, increasing its payment volume by 25% since March of this year, with more than 1 million using the service to accept payments. Funds from sales made before 5 p.m. are available in the merchant’s bank account the very next day -– much quicker than the several days or weeks of processing required by other payment processors. In March, the company took mobile payments a step further and launched Square Register. The full point-of-sale system for businesses allows merchants to accept payments, track store inventory and share information, such as their menu, with customers via Square’s mobile app. Customers can open a tab on their mobile phone wherever they want, or have a tab auto-open when they arrive at businesses they frequent. Merchants can then tap that person’s photo and name on the checkout screen to charge a purchase. Ultimately, Starbucks customers will be able to take advantage of that feature and charge purchases by simply saying their name when they reach the register, rather than forking over a credit card. “As the largest retail mobile payment platform in the U.S., we’re excited and proud to accept payments with Square,” said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman, president and CEO in a statement. “The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business. Both Starbucks and Square take a similar approach when building products and running our businesses, and together we can bring the best possible payment experience to Starbucks customers.” Starbucks currently offers in-store mobile payments via the company’s mobile app and a virtual version of its Starbucks Card. Using the app; however, requires you to hold a balance on a Starbucks Card rather than simily debit your purchases from a credit or debit card.
If social media consultants are doing their jobs, they should put themselves out of business. I speak as one of their kind. Before joining Fast Company last spring, I was the social media editor at the New York Daily News. So I'll say it even bolder: At some point, Fast Company should fire me. (Just not too soon, please!) 