Digital Discourse

IAB Launches Social Media Framework

The IAB is a leading industry organization for marketers and they have recently offered an official POV on social success.  As social media become less of a flashy, fun tactic and is held more accountable, it's very reassuring to see that industry leaders are starting to take leadership on this subject of social success.  

• Internet Advertising Bureau’s Social Media Council (IAB SMC) launched a social media measurement framework in the UK
• The framework plays on the letters “I,” “A,” and “B” to stand for Intent, Appreciation, Action, advocacy, and benchmark
• Intent – all social media activity should be pre-empted by a set of objectives to help determine which KPIs are measured
• Awareness, appreciation, action, and advocacy – all KPIs should surround these four attributes of social media campaigns
• Benchmark – all activity should be based on the identified target, gleaned from competitor and industry data

What’s in it for Marketers:

1. Consider starting all social media tactics with “I,” “A,” and “B” in mind, beginning with benchmarks from case studies and industry best practices to determine the best objectives for the campaigns
2. Explore the different lifts due to social media and how it relates to awareness, appreciation, action, and advocacy to help determine the best set of KPIs to help determine success

 

VideoEgg buys SixApart

Video Egg is buying SixApart (this blog is on TypePad, which is a part of SixApart).  I thought it was pretty interesting to see a video network consolidating with a blog platform.  VideoEgg is an interesting ad network because of their Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) model and the fact that they can get a lot of the creative builds done right in-house (great for quick turn-around).  When I worked with them they were also very flexible about optimizations and creative updates on-the-fly.  With the blogging acquisition, VideoEgg will definitely have increased scale and also likely offer some social-oriented solutions.

If VideoEgg is broadening from a video ad network to a social ad network, they may start to look similar to a network like SocialVibe, now known as SVNetwork (although still distinctive).  In the case of SVNetwork, they established themselves as an ad network based on influencers and social channels.  Social media has always been challenged with the task of scale.  SVNetwork was always a unique offering in this regard.  It looks like VideoEgg (soon to be known as SayMedia) will be addressing this marketing need as well.

Additional reading:

NYTImes:  http://nyti.ms/cqWJsz    Mashable:  http://bit.ly/b4UC5y

And now, just for fun, I'll be dusting off a screenshot of the first media buy I ever did, which was for Samsung's NV24HD Digital Camera - one of the first pocket-sized cameras to shoot both stills and HD video.  Our task was to distribute video produced on the camera by emerging directors.  The execution of the media buy was really exciting because we were successful in connecting paid video distribution to social media sharing (big deal back in 2007!).  The network's CPE model did very well on delivery for impressions, engagements, video views and shares.  Ahhh, getting all sentimental about the good ole' days...

Google Permanently Integrates Real-Time Social into Dashboard

• Google revealed a new permanent home for its real-time search results at www.google.com/realtime.
• The new Google real-time search can offer marketers a quick snapshot of what's happening with their brand, as well as a way to track spikes in customer feedback.
• Sorting updates by date and geography is available.
• Snippets allows you to see all the follow up comments to a specific post.
• Watch the video about how to use Real-Time Search!  http://bit.ly/a1EADG

• What’s in it for Marketers?

1. This full integration of Social Updates into the Google platform reflects the continuing maturation of “social search.”
2. There are areas of social media and search that are complimentary, and optimizations can take advantage of this cross over of digital presence.  Like links, social media mentions also help with search engine indexing.
3. Search is a great tool for pulling qualitative research about content, conversation and coverage around a topic.
4. Seeing the spikes in posts around a particular topic allows for marketers to quickly identify the themes that resonate most with online users.