Meerkat & Periscope: What is all the buzz about?

This week I attended an event in Santa Barbara, California...from the comfort of my college dorm room in New York. What is more, it did not cost me a penny! All thanks to live streaming, I watched the event on Periscope.

None of this would have been possible a few months ago. Most events were not live streamed, most people did not watch live stream, most marketers and advertisers were not interested in live stream but all that has changed due to the rise of live streaming apps Meerkat and Periscope. No wonder there is such buzz about these live streaming apps!

Many brands have become early adapters of these live streaming apps including CNN, Red Bull, Spotify, Madonna, MTV and DKNY. From Red Bull live streaming extreme sports to Spotify broadcasting live streams of musicians like Irish folk singer Conor O'Brien from the band Villagers. These brands are doing Periscope/Meerkat really well tying their brand image right into these live streaming apps.

Spotify's live stream of Villagers Conor O'Brien on Periscope (From: Adweek)

While the views these brands and others are getting is not huge, the people that are watching are loyal fans. A lot of the time the live streams are not announced in advance which means the viewers that tune in are willing to drop everything to watch the live stream. They are devoting their time and attention to the live stream at the drop of a hat, if that is not a loyal fan I don't know what is.

Just over eight thousand tune in to the premiere of Madonna's new Ghosttown video on Meerkat.

What I really like about these live streaming apps is that they allow for a two way conversation between the streamer and the viewer. Many brands regularly engage with their viewers, answering questions they have or remarking on comments. Someone who does this well is Dave Kerpen CEO of Likeable Media. 

Dave regularly uses Periscope to live stream Likeable Local webinars, presentations he gives or a discussion dedicated to answering the questions of his almost two thousand Periscope followers. He even runs some competitions via Periscope where he gives away free copies of his books as well as other Likeable Media merchandise, mainly foam thumbs!

I highly recommend tuning into Dave's Periscope live streams where he discusses social media marketing. They are always very interesting!

Who knows what the future of live stream will hold, I can only see it getting more popular with both brands and users. Brands that have just started live streaming will invest in it further as it gets more popular, I feel we will see an increased number of brands coming on board and even new personalities emerging out of these live streaming apps.

One thing is for sure, these live streaming apps mean your event audience can now not just be a local one but a global one. Although in the past events have been recorded and  posted online live streaming is very different. There is more of a buzz watching something live whether it is a sporting event or the original airing of a television programme. Which is why there is such a buzz about these live streaming events - it is natural.

The live streaming space will be very interesting to watch over the coming months and year! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or via twitter.

The Switch: From T.V. To YouTube

Advertisers love T.V. but the future of the T.V. industry will determine the future of T.V. advertising. The advertisers have to go where the viewers are and what we are now seeing now is a shift from T.V. viewing to YouTube viewing particularly for younger audiences. 

Media Storm recently explained that people viewing T.V. online is not a problem for them or advertisers now or in the future because the majority of T.V. viewing is done live/same day. According to them the problem is people watching other videos online that is not T.V. content. For example YouTube videos. See the video below (you need sound):

Through monitoring the viewing habits of six people; two teens, two young adults and two people above fifty years over a seven day period I found that teens and young people are watching Youtube and other online digital content heavily. The fifty plus demographic watched television on some catch up player sites it was mainly via traditional television. These findings back up the data already provided by YouTube below.

YouTube reaches 67% of 18 to 34 year olds and 59% of 35 to 48 year olds in the US. With many YouTuber's getting millions of views per month it is no wonder advertisers are getting more and more interested in striking partnerships with the individuals behind them. Many vloggers are paid for native advertising or making videos that include a segment about a particular brand.

The future of television advertising is in the hands of the views and as viewers use digital more and watch television less companies need to make sure their digital strategy is working. It is well worth investing in a YouTube channel or even in their TrueView advertising if your target market falls within that of YouTube's market and it will for most companies.

If you have any questions about this post or the video above feel free to comment below or contact Sarah or myself directly.

10 Reasons Why You Have To Include Instagram In Your Marketing.

If you are not already including Instagram in your marketing now is a good time to start and you probably won't need any more reasons to after these ten!

1. It's Where The 'Young Ones' Are.

There are so many people now on Instagram you just can't ignore it as part of your social media. A Pew Research survey conducted in the US released earlier this year showed that over half of those aged between 18-29 years and a quarter of those aged between 30-49 years are on Instagram (right). In addition they are are also very active on Instagram with almost half using the social network on a daily basis and almost three quarters using it weekly. Ireland is no exception. Ipsos MRBI research released research (below)  just last month that showed 47% of Irish people use Instagram daily which is a larger amount of active users compared to Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or LinkedIn. Therefore it is a social network that in my opinion business owners and marketers can't ignore.

The percentage of Irish people who use particular social media sites daily (Ipsos MRBI research).

2. High Organic Reach (that marketers love!)

Percentage people actually seeing each of your Facebook posts. (Buffer/Social@Ogilvy) Instagram organic reach is higher as posts are shown in real time. 

The major advantage of Instagram for businesses is it has a much higher organic reach compared to other social media sites so you'll get far more exposure. Since Instagram operates in real time you don't need to worry about your post not appearing in your customers feeds.  Unlike Facebook and now Twitter, Instagram does not use algorithms to determine what content is the most engaging and therefore appearing in peoples feeds. Instead Instagram displays the most current photos from those a person follows.

Buffer/Social@Ogilvy claim that a mere 6% of those that liked your page will actually see each of your Facebook posts. The figure is dropping all of the time and Facebook have never been afraid to admit how low it is. Way back in 2012 Facebook for Business stated that "Pages organically reach about 16% of their fans on average. To make sure your fans see your stories, sponsor your posts to increase the reach of your content." In other words you have always needed to pay for a decent number of your Facebook fans to see your content. With Instagram this is not the case, for now. Your photo will appear in all of your followers feeds, of course they won't all see it because all of your followers won't check their Instagram at the time you post a photo. While there doesn't seem to be as much research to show the exact percentage of Instagram followers that see each of your Instagram posts you can be guaranteed far more than 6% will see it.

3. High Engagement (that marketers and customers love!)

Not only will you get a higher reach on Instagram but you will also get higher engagement rates from your customers. You will find numerous examples of this but here is one I noticed over the past few months. This month Fedex shared the photo below on Instagram and they also shared the exact same photo on Facebook. The engagement for each post is very different - much higher on Instagram:

Fedex Facebook:

Facebook Likes: 1,000,431 

Facebook Post Likes: 833

Facebook Post Comments: 32

Post by FedEx.

Fedex Instagram

Instagram Followers: 14,500

Instagram Post Likes: 511 

Instagram Post Comments: 8

Every day is our lucky day because we get to work with you! #stpatricksday 🍀

A photo posted by FedEx (@fedex) on Mar 17, 2015 at 6:45am PDT

What this shows: Instagram engages fans far more than Facebook. Fedex has almost sixty-nine times more Facebook page likes than Instagram followers but they got far from sixty-nine times their Instagram engagement rate on Facebook.

On Instagram 35% of Fedex's following engaged with the post by liking it whereas on Facebook not even 1% of their fans liked the post.

When it comes to comments Instagram also did slightly better considering they have far less of a following compared to that of their Facebook page. We are talking in very tiny percentages since there were so few comments. The comment engagement rates are: Instagram = 0.006% v Facebook =0.0003%.

The bottom line is Instagram engages followers far more than Facebook.

This example was updated from Ben & Jerry's to Fedex. The Fedex example listed is more accurate and applies globally.

4. Get A Head Start Over Competitors.

Right now Instagram is the fastest growing social network but only 34% of B2C marketers are using it in their marketing. With less marketers/businesses on Instagram it means you can start building your following early and you'll be an old-timer before your competitors  have even joined! B2B marketers are using Instagram less with only 19% using it as part of their marketing efforts. This is hardly surprising because it is much easier to target consumers on Instagram compared to businesses. Without a doubt Instagram marketing is much more important in B2C marketing right now. You can learn from the businesses who are doing B2C Instagram really well in my past blog post '10 Businesses Who Are #Winning On Instagram'.

The social media platforms used by marketers - Blue = B2B Green = B2C (Social Media Examiner)

5. It's "Free".

Instagram doesn't have any direct cost which is great - people actually see your content without you having to pay Instagram a penny to sponsor your posts. At least for now. Of course there are indirect marketing costs that have to be taken into consideration like the time and effort that goes into planning, creating your images, monitoring and analysing performance. In my opinion it is well worth the effort if your target market are using Instagram.

6. Ads Are Coming.

An example of Levis advertising on Instagram.

Just over a year ago Instagram announced they were introducing advertising to the platform. Since then a few select advertisers have been invited to come on board and test Instagram's advertising in the form of sponsored posts, similar to Facebook. Once they roll out their advertising fully I think we will see more businesses showing an interest in Instagram. The down side of coming on at this point is that many companies will have already got a solid following on the site. They will know what works for their followers on Instagram and what does not and as a result it will be much easier to nail Instagram advertising. That is why it is important to jump on the Instagram 'band waggon' right now if you haven't already done so. If you have, you should probably spend more time on Instagram marketing, it is powerful marketing platform as explained above. 

Let's hope that Instagram doesn't go the way Facebook went, making it extremely hard to reach their customers organically. I feel part of the reason for Instagram's rapid growth is because there is little advertising and since posts are shown in real time.

7. Drive Traffic To Your Website.

Instagram is a great way to drive traffic to your website or other relevant content. You can add your website under each Instagram post, in your profile and even in the location the photo was taken. So if the photo you post on Instagram is of a product you can link to that particular products web page driving sales, leads or what ever you you want to drive. Red Bull have a link to their website on their Instagram profile and they often add calls to action under their posts referring to the link in their profile. The disadvantage is that links under each photo won't be hyperlinked. This is probably why Red Bull ask you go to their profile rather than posting a link directly underneath their photo - well done Red Bull.

8. It's Simple To Use.

Instagram is one of the easiest social media sites to use. It is simple to set up an Instagram page for business - you set it up the exact same way as you would set up a personal Instagram profile. Daily use is also as easy as taking a photo, adding an optional filter, some text, hashtags and your done. I find posts with numerous hashtags are generally more engaging than those without hashtags. All you have to do then is monitor comments and make sure to reply to users comments and questions. Instagram have a great business blog full of case studies and examples of great Instagram profiles. You can find it on Tumblr here.

9. Powerful Analytics.

Now that there is powerful Instagram analytics and monitoring software available it makes having a business Instagram very manageable. The best software for Instagram marketing I have come across is Iconosquare. It offers not just analytics but also monitoring in real time like tracking comments users make on your posts and noting the ones you have replied to and those not replied to. Below is an image explaining their scoring analytics. They have a "Love Rate" based on how much your followers like your media. The "Talk Rate" is based on comments and the "Spread Rate" is based on likes gained from non followers.

10. It's Picture Perfect.

Instagram is all about photos and so using it you get a great bank of images to use in future marketing. Whats more is your customers are probably already doing Instagram marketing for you. Try hashtagging your business name and see what comes up. I'm surprised when I hashtag small, medium or even large businesses who are not on Instagram and find numerous pictures from their customers - leverage them.

You can get your customers to help you with your Instagram marketing simply by asking them and reposting their images. Olloclip do it a lot of the time which means they don't even need to take their own photos, how easy is that! Here are some recent photos they posted to Instagram, all taken by their followers. Some Social Media Managers have it easy!

#ImagesSpeakLouder - "that thin line between what you love and fear most is usually where you find life's greatest joy." Photo shot by @chrisburkard. #olloclip #telephoto

A photo posted by olloclip (@olloclip) on Mar 9, 2015 at 10:47am PDT

#ImagesSpeakLouder - too much fun with old friends and new. Photo captured by @kaylavava. #olloclip #fisheye

A photo posted by olloclip (@olloclip) on Mar 7, 2015 at 4:09pm PST

Now that you have all the reasons in the world to start using Instagram in your marketing you might want to check out who is doing in well in my other blog post '10 Businesses Who Are #Winning On Instagram'. Feel free to comment or reach out to me where ever you want and if you want me to cover something just comment bellow or tweet @oconnorpadraig

Thanks for reading, I hope to see you on Instagram!

Kim Kardashian and Marketing: 3 Surprising Things They Have In Common

Picture by: Eva Rinaldi

1. Social Media

NYC ✈️- glam today @joycebonelli @michaelsilvahair 💇💄

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Jan 7, 2015 at 9:21pm PST

Above: A recent photo of Kim Kardashian posted to her Instagram.

A very large part of marketing is now online through social channels. Social Media is something Kim is an expert on, I would go as far as saying she is obsessed! Kim has tweeted over eighteen thousand times. She might be disappointed though, she missed out on getting a place in the top ten most followed people on Twitter. At the time of writing Katie Perry holds the top spot with over sixty-two thousand followers, before Justin Bieber and Barack Obama. Kim currently stands at sixteenth place in the Twitter following leaderboard. Despite this Kim still gets paid $10,000 for a single tweet. The businesses that have the highest twitter following are all social media platforms. Youtube is the most popular business on Twitter followed by Instagram and Twitter itself.

While Instagram isn’t as popular with marketers, it is Ms.Kardashian West’s favourite social network. No wonder she has the highest following of all Instagram users with over twenty-three million followers in total. What an achievement! She normally posts several photos, almost every day on Instagram. While Kim gets top marks for her personal Instagram you can see what businesses get top marks for Instagram marketing in my past blog post here.

2. Loyal Following

One aim for marketers is to target their marketing efforts correctly so they get noticed by their target audience. They make potential customers fall in love with their product/service and hope they turn into a loyal customer. Kim Kardashian knows a thing or two about getting noticed. Last year she posed nude for Paper magazine who intended to 'break the internet'. The result over thirty-four million website hits for Paper and some serious publicity for Kim Kardashian. As if she didn’t have enough followers, she was about to get so many more and she knows how to treat her loyal followers well. Kim regularly answers her fans questions on social media. 

3. Branding

The Kardashian's Dash Brand. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia.

Branding is a vital part of marketing and marketers are always trying to build their companies brand. Kim is no different and her investment into the brand of Kim Kardashian herself, her Dash clothing brand as well as other lines has paid off. The celebrity is now worth $65 million. The moral of the story; you should always aim to extend your brand just as Kim has.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment below and don't forget to subscribe! 

Online Wording Is Key in Marketing.

Transport companies slipped up this week when it came to digital marketing and there is a lesson to be learned. The way digital marketers write online is hugely important particularly for global companies since the same thing is said very differently from country to country, more so than you'd think. It is something I've grown to learn over the course of my time in the states.

For example over there it is much more acceptable to say 'convenient' rather than 'handy', whereas in Ireland it is probably the opposite. That is just one example - over the course of the day you find many people looking at you with blank faces wondering what you mean by what you said.

Online writing offers far less context and tone than a video or in person communication as described above. Sometimes online writing can be misinterpreted, come across wrong or just look unprofessional.

On New Year's Eve Uber sent out an email marketing campaign to its US customers:

Hope @Uber dont have an Irish Marketing team - Could be misinterpreted very differently (outside the taxi context). pic.twitter.com/cBIdFRKNvi

— Padraig O'Connor (@oconnorpadraig) December 31, 2014

Now let's hope this wasn't sent out to the companies Irish customers or if it was that they don't have an Irish marketing department! While Irish people would know what the popular taxi hailing app means I'm sure an Irish company would have worded the email better, because the word 'ride', has two very different meanings in Ireland.

This happened after Ryanair was made a laughing stock of by comedian Ryan Hand when they misinterpreted a joke on twitter. 

I can't believe @Ryanair have just fallen for this joke LOL retweet!!! pic.twitter.com/WqQO1JtDmX

— Ryan Hand✋ (@RyanHand_) December 29, 2014

This comes over a year after Ryanair pledged to improve their customer service. Airlines in general have had terrible luck over the years since the rise of social media. Almost five years ago the band Sons of Maxwell launched a song entitled 'United Breaks Guitars', on Youtube which detailed their poor experience when traveling on United Airlines and saw the companies share price decrease significantly. 

Perhaps these companies and others should invest more of their marketing budget on Social CRM which I feel will become even more important in 2015.