Twitter's Redesign Speaks to Brands and Users With Emojis, Vine Messenger, Video, Ads

Twitter’s new look is rolling out more widely today, and it has some users saying it looks similar to Facebook. The messaging service is making changes to solve its most pressing issue—how to obtain and keep new users—as it looks to grow.

Twitter has been evolving as a media, advertising and social platform, but the big criticism leveled at the company—and which Twitter executives acknowledge—is that it needs to connect with everyday Internet users, not just nerds who get hashtags.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said on Stephen Colbert’s show just last week that he never thought insider jargon like the pound sign would catch on. Becoming mainstream meant teaching sometimes non-tech-savvy users how to communicate in 140 characters or less.

The redesign advances part of Twitter’s game plan to relate more widely beyond its 240 million monthly users to try to catch Facebook and its more than 1.2 billion base.

Now, the platform is more “media forward,” with video and photos larger and displaying right in the user feed. User profile pages look like Facebook’s timeline page, and more changes have been spotted that could eventually simplify the language of Twitter.

Here’s a look at the redesign and other changes that Twitter is making for advertisers and users:

Profile page
Now it comes with a Facebook style large photo at the top and a profile picture inset.

 

Tweet size

Tweets with more engagement appear larger than ones with less engagement, giving brands—and people, of course—an opportunity to stand out if their tweets connect.

Pinned tweets
Users can choose their favorite tweet to appear at the top of their profile feed.

Video
Twitter’s Amplify program has allowed media partners to share exclusive video and other content on the platform and find sponsors for that content. Amplify has been fairly rudimentary, though, mostly with links to video. That’s been changing, as The New York Times first reported: Amplify partners are starting to display their video clips right in the Twitter stream. It’s a format Twitter calls “media forward” and it's showing up more frequently. More media partners and advertisers are sharing video that plays with one click right on Twitter.

Emojis
Talk about speaking the language of the people. Twitter introduced the smiley face, and it's not just users who want to express themselves in cartoon characters. Already Wendy’s is promoting tweets that translate: “burger plus burger equals happy.”

Photos
Twitter introduced its variation of the slideshow, allowing users and brands to upload more than one photo into tweets and share them as a digital collage.

 

Retweets, faves and views

Reports are coming out that Twitter is testing how to simplify some of the lingo like “RT” and”@.” Instead of retweet Twitter could go with “share.” Even thehashtag is said to be threatened. Also, to give users a better sense of how many people see their tweets, Twitter could share an overall views number, presumably more satisfying than when a newcomer sees no one interacting with messages.

Vine
Twitter’s short-form video service unveiled a messenger feature just last week—following the path of Facebook’s Instagram—that started allowing members to more personally communicate. Brands are watching messaging potential closely as they look for new ways to connect one-on-one with social media users, some of whom can help lift marketing campaigns. A number of messaging services are starting to intrigue advertisers who could connect more intimately with fans, respond to customer issues and talk individually with consumers.

Ads
Twitter has been preparing advertisers for more direct-response ad formats that allow consumer actions like app installs, click-to-call and e-mail signups right from the app. The new ads already are starting to show up with companies like SalesForce and Square pushing app downloads on Twitter. The Wall Street Journal reported there could be up to 15 varieties of such performance-based advertising.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/twitters-redesign-speaks-brands-and-users-emojis-vine-messenger-video-ads-156876

Facebook Ad Prices Are Rising Amid Organic Reach Squeeze

Photo: Getty Images

It turns out that, far from fleeing Facebook, brands are willing to pay more to advertise on the social network after their pages started reaching fewer fans with unpaid posts. Indeed, Facebook ad prices have increased following the recent outcry over diminished “organic reach,” according to industry analysts and marketing experts.

“We’re seeing pricing from Q4 [2013] to Q1 up 10 percent across the board,” said Dan Slagen, svp of marketing at Nanigans, a Facebook partner that helps companies execute social ad strategies. Slagen held a call with investors Tuesday hosted by analyst Robert Peck of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Facebook sales had been tracking poorly at the start of Q1, but Peck said that ad revenue could end up flat compared to Q4, which would be a triumph of sorts—maintaining sales from the super-charged holidays. Increased ad prices and level spending indicate there were fewer but higher value impressions, Peck said.

Ad prices were trending up, in part because Facebook has not increased the frequency of ads. Facebook said in Q3 that it would keep ad inventory level at about 5 percent of all posts in the News Feed, the most coveted space for advertisers.

News Feed also is where brands saw lower organic exposure as Facebook prioritized personal news in users’ streams like weddings and births over click-inducing viral content or unpaid messages from big-name sponsors.

There has been a steady drop in how far posts from brand pages circulate without a paid strategy. Brands have seen their posts reach less than 5 percent of fans, and in some cases approaching 0 percent, when they used to see 25 percent reach or more.

Facebook says the diminished exposure is simply a reality of ever increasing content competition. That’s small comfort for companies that invested heavily in promoting Facebook pages, accruing Likes and fans with hopes of communicating freely with those audiences.

In December, when Facebook acknowledged that brands would connect with less of an audience on unpaid posts, many reconsidered their strategies on the platform, Peck said.

“They were not leaving Facebook. Some were disgruntled, but more were just trying to read through the data and see what sort of reach they were losing organically and see if they want to therefore spend to offset that,” Peck said.

However, these stalled ad budgets accelerated toward the end of Q1 when marketers realized they need Facebook-level returns to meet goals, Peck said.

“What could have been an ‘organic’ hindrance to the quarter now looks beneficial to the quarter,” Peck said. The four times return on investment completely justified more spending for advertisers, he added.

“As advertisers get into the latter half of Q1, if they’re behind the ball not meeting metrics, then it's time to shift spend and focus on what’s working,” Slagen said.

Nanigans, which can project the strength of Facebook sales based on its clients’ spending habits, said advertising revenue looks to be flat compared to last quarter, when Facebook ads generated $2.3 billion.

Facebook said it doesn’t comment on ad pricing outside of quarterly reports, the next of which is set for later this month.

Realizing the need to pay to play, more advertisers are likely driving up prices in Facebook auctions to buy targeted audiences, according to industry watchers.

Anna O'Brien, head of strategy at social data firm Sprinklr, said marketers will get creative to reach their desired audiences and that could increase prices on what she called “relational terms.”

Auctions for obviously in-demand audiences already were competitive, but now advertisers need to get more creative bidding on less expensive terms that reach the same desired set, O'Brien said. "It could drive up the price of terms that maybe weren't as expensive previously—relational terms," she said.

Adobe said it also has seen ad rates rising on Facebook, but said better targeting leading to higher click-through rates is the cause—not diminished organic reach. Adobe said the cost-per-click for social media is "still far below other vehicles like search."

"Social media is still a bargain in every sense for brand marketers so increases in ad rates will come from new dollars flowing in,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Index.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-ad-prices-are-rising-amid-organic-reach-squeeze-156888

Why I Love Content Idea Generators by Maddie Russell

Coming up with new and quality ideas is one of the biggest challenges digital marketers face. Not only do you need a topic that you can produce at least a few hundred words about, you probably don’t want it to be something that you’ve written a lot about in the past.

Blogger’s block is something which you’ve probably had to deal with at some time or other whether you’re a content writer or you’ve just been tasked with coming up with some posts. You stare at a screen or a page, waiting for inspiration to come to you and it just never happens.

When you’ve been writing about similar topics for a while this can be particularly problematic. You think you’ve written everything under the sun which could even be slightly related to anything at all to with modelling agencies. You’re thinking about going way off topic, but then it can be a bit of a pain to try and get your key words in.

And will you still be appealing to your market?

It’s a minefield.

There’s a few excellent ways around it though, you just need to know where to look.

THE COSMO METHOD

One of my favourite methods is one which Brian Clark suggested on copyblogger. All you need to do is take a headline from a magazine (Brian suggests Cosmo, but really it would work with headlines from any magazine at all), and fit your keywords or subjects into that format. For example, Brian cites one of the headlines as ‘Get Ahead Faster: 12 Brilliant (and Slightly Badass) Ways to Do It’. When writing for a modelling agency, this could easily become ‘Get More Modelling Jobs: 12 simple (and slightly badass) ways to do it’. You might not be able to think of any badass ways, so you might want to change that to something more applicable. Slightly sneaky? Slightly tricky? Just insert which ever adjective works for you.

Gives you a starting point, doesn’t it?

CONTENT IDEA GENERATORS

Idea generators are marvelous. They’re a simple program which automatically generates headings for posts based around a subject you provide. This could be anything at all, and some sites even let you input whether that word is a noun or a verb.

The sites can’t actually determine what you’ve put in, so some of the results you get back won’t make sense grammatically or might be completely ridiculous for your industry. You’ll need to take them with a pinch of salt, but as a starting point they definitely have their advantages.

The heading of this very article came from a content idea generator, because I thought it’d almost be rude not to when I was dedicating an article to them. Other suggestions which came up might not have worked quite so well (show me a man who can write a convincing blog post entitled ‘Miley Cyrus and Content Idea Generators: 10 Surprising Things They Have In Common’ and I’ll eat my proverbial hat), but as you can generate more ideas at the click of a button, it’s worth having a look.

Portent’s Content Idea Generator

 

It took me a few goes with my modelling agencies subject on Portent’s Content Idea Generator to get somewhere useful (’11 Facts about Modelling Agencies Everyone Thinks Are True’), and to get passed some less useful options (’10 Things Spock Would Say About Modelling Agencies’), but I really like the layout. You’re given four parts of a sentence neatly woven into one snappy header. I mean no, The Beatles probably couldn’t learn heaps from modelling agencies, but change that to ‘drama students’ and you might be onto a winner.

Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator

 

Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator is another great place for catchy topics. You just type in three keywords you want to work with and click ‘GIVE ME BLOG TOPICS’ and your subjects will be molded into some nifty little titles. Again, not all the titles will suit all subjects, or be useful in all industries, but you can adjust them slightly to make them work for you. It’s so simple, it’s so quick, and if all goes to plan you’ll have five ideas which you might not have thought of before.

 

Link Bait Title Generator

http://www.contentrow.com/tools/link-bait-title-generator

 

Link Bait Title Generator isn’t my favourite out there, and I probably won’t use it much in future either, but if nothing else it certainly will give you a giggle. As with the others you need to type your subject in, and then you’ll need to select which sorts of headings you’re after. Controversial, fun, lists or shocking? You can always tick all four for even more options.

 

You’ll be given a huge list, some which work, others which don’t quite as well, but as there’s so many you’re bound to find something which will work on your blog.

WHY WE LOVE ‘EM

The content idea generators aren’t perfect. They’re not polished, sometimes their grammar leaves something to be desired, and sometimes they are so left field you’re not sure where you’re meant to go with them. There’s also a finite amount of words plugged into each algorithm, so if you try it a few times the same concept is likely to crop up again, but you could just think of this as a reminder that content ideas never die, and you can always get more out of them.

As there’s so many different ones out there, and it’s such a quick and easy thing to do in your hour of need, we will always be grateful, even if it’s just for the laugh they provide.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to write about what governments don’t want you to know about modelling agencies, and somehow try and get a Miley reference in.