Magic Coast’s new Skeen social event planning app has been released into beta testing phase.

Audience and ROI both biggest draw and downside of online video advertising

Data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) shows agencies and marketers are looking to take advantage of online video advertising for its audience targeting capabilities and higher return on investment (ROI).

When choosing online video ad placements, channels or providers, the most important determinants are audience targeting capabilities, results—also defined as ROI or campaign performance—and audience reach. Among agencies, targeting was the most important factor: 88% rated it “very important.” Results (85%) and reach (84%) were also important. Interestingly, marketers valued ROI and targeting as much as their agency counterparts, but they placed less emphasis on reach, perhaps indicating marketers tend to demand quality over quantity, but agencies expect both.

Data from Break Media echoes the importance of audience targeting and ROI, with advertisers slightly emphasizing targeting capabilities over ROI metrics. The Break Media and IAB data sets differ on the importance of reach. Directionally, agencies appear to place far more importance on reach at present, as depicted above. However, more data might be required to determine just how important reach is for agencies or marketers.

Although advertisers are finding success with digital video ads and are keen to make placements based on targeting, reach and ROI, they also see these areas as obstacles to boosting online video advertising budget and expanding programs.

Advertising decision-makers in North America are challenged to increase their use of video advertising; 41% find it difficult to measure ROI for digital video ads and 33% are hindered by lack of standardized metrics, according to Break Media. About a quarter (27%) also said they find it difficult to get enough reach, thereby limiting available video advertising budget.

According to the IAB, ROI measurement and lack of standard metrics were both reported roadblocks to increased use of digital video advertising. Compared to agencies, marketers were 20 percentage points more likely to see ROI measurement as the top obstacle.

Were the industry to improve ROI measurement, 56% of marketers said they would increase their use of digital video advertising, perhaps reflecting the need of in-house marketers to prove advertising value and ROI for each channel before receiving additional budget, compared to agencies who often have more budget fluidity within ad channels and formats.

Without a doubt, the targeting capabilities and ROI of online video advertising has agencies and marketers looking to open their wallets in the coming year. But just how wide their wallets will open—and for which channels and placements—depends on both the industry’s ability to standardize metrics and measurement and the individual provider’s targeting and reach capabilities.

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Companies should consider the day, time and content when writing posts.

Buddy Media analyzed the Facebook posts and engagement rates for more than 200 clients over the course of two weeks in January and February 2011. The agency measured engagement by looking at comments and “likes,” and factored in fan base size.

According to Buddy Media, 60% of posts were published between 10am and 4pm. However, many Facebook users prefer to log on to the site before or after work, and their engagement with company posts is higher during those times.

By timing content to post when consumers are poised to be on Facebook, companies have a greater chance of being seen in a fan’s newsfeed. Additionally, the study found that engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursday and Friday than the other days of the week.

But that isn’t to say that marketers should only post on those days. Amy Morgan, public relations and social media manager at ConAgra Foods, is part of the team that oversees a Facebook page for Chef Boyardee’s Club Mum program targeting moms. The company posts several times a day.

“When you talk about building a community and building engagement, you need to have a consistent conversation,” Morgan said in an interview with eMarketer on February 22. “As far as Facebook, we post usually once or twice a day. It ebbs and flows, but once or twice a day is usually good.”

While the timing of posts often determines how engaged fans will be, their content is also important. Buddy Media found that shorter is better, as posts with 80 characters or less have a 27% higher engagement rate. Certain words also encourage engagement, particularly those that are instructions such as “like,” “post,” “take” and “comment,” as does asking a question at the end of a post.

For the Club Mum Facebook page, Morgan said that asking fans about their children is an easy way to get them to comment on a post. She said, “It’s about making this personal and really allowing the community to help build that conversation.”

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But content creation can be time- and labor-intensive

According to February 2011 research from content curation firmHiveFire, nearly half of US marketing professionals surveyed are now curating content as part of their strategy, and another 42% are familiar with the practice but not participating. Even among that group, 85% had done at least some content curation, for example by sending an article or other content to a prospect, but were not aware of it.

The main objectives of content curation, according to the survey, were establishing thought leadership and improving brand buzz.

Earlier research conducted by Junta42 and MarketingProfs in May 2010 found that brand awareness was the top goal of content marketing for business-to-business marketers in North America, cited by 78% of respondents.

And while lead generation and search engine optimization fell toward the bottom of the list in the HiveFire results, content marketing can do much to improve results in both areas. Inbound marketing solutions firm HubSpot has reported on the effectiveness of customer acquisition via blogging as well as how content created for social media efforts can boost search rankings.

But content curation is not a low-touch activity, and according to HiveFire the greatest challenges are creating content that is original and compelling, and finding the time to do so. It was much less of a challenge to find quality content from third parties, but still, nearly half of marketers reported that was difficult as well.

The survey results also found content curation was growing in importance, with nearly seven in 10 respondents saying that finding, organizing and sharing content was more important than it was last year. The same number believe it will be still more important in 2012.

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Social activity ads outperform banners and rich media

According to a comparison of cost and engagement across online ad types by social media advertising firm appssavvy, “social activity” ads outperform static banners and rich media, though not paid search, in ROI. Social activity advertisements include those served to social media users as an integral part of consuming content on the sites. For example, ads can be an item in a social game or appear after a social network user fills out an online poll.

appssavvy created a “Social Activity Index” to compare different ad formats with respect to pricing and interaction rates. Engagement rates and the weighted cost of various ad formats, compared to display clickthrough rates (used as a benchmark), translate to “equivalent display impressions.” In the case of social activity ads, they outperform static display ads by more than 11 times, controlling for cost.

Social ads performed nearly twice as well as rich media placements. But paid search ads did best, equivalent to 12.2 display impressions.

Within the realm of social ads, those served during social gaming functions performed best. Virtual gifts, for example, had a rating 37 times higher than the display ad benchmark.

The report attributes high levels of engagement with social activity ads to the fact that the surrounding social content is already highly interactive and engaging, as well as to the variety of calls to action available. Users can engage with social ads by clicking through to a website, viewing a video, taking a poll or sharing the ad or other brand info with friends.

These engagement metrics go far beyond the clickthrough rate, which is typically low on social networking sites. According to appssavvy, both share rates and video interaction rates surpass clickthrough rates on its platform.

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More viewers, watching more content

According to the measurement firm’s “State of the Media: Mobile Usage Trends: Q3 and Q4 2010” report, the number of US consumers watching mobile video increased 40% year over year in Q3 and Q4 2010. That brought the total number of US mobile video viewers to just shy of 25 million by the end of the year.

Nielsen also found mobile video viewers were spending more time with the medium. Viewers ages 13 and older spent an average of 4 hours, 20 minutes per month watching mobile video during the second half of 2010, up from 3 hours, 15 minutes in Q3 2009 and 3 hours, 37 minutes in Q4 2009.

Survey data from mobile video solutions provider QuickPlay Media also reflects increasing consumption. More than half of mobile video viewers surveyed for the company by MarketTools had been using the medium for less than a year. And 77% said they were now watching more mobile TV and video than they had been a year earlier.

Viewers were also 9 percentage points more likely to say they were weekly mobile video viewers and 10 percentage points more likely to watch daily vs. a year earlier.

The most preferred method of paying for both TV and video content was via a subscription service, though QuickPlay did not ask about possible ad-supported options. Sports and TV episodes were the most popular types of mobile content watched, suggesting brand-safe opportunities for marketers in the space.

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I was reading a article the other day that confirmed for me what I had always suspected.  Twitter is like a b-list celebrity.  Famous for being, well, famous.  No other reason.

According to this article, Twitter has way more media visibility than actual use or relevance.  Surprised?  Me, not so much.  After all, how can a service that’s no more important as a circus side-show really expect to be relevant?  Answer: It can’t.  Unless or until Twitter starts providing a valuable service or delivers a serious marketing return for it’s corporate adopters, it will shortly be in the dust bin of the Internet, along with the BeOS WebPad Tablet.

While I’m on the subject of media over hype (that’s what Twitter and the Cloud have in common, BTW), let’s debunk the latest in a long history of exciting “new” technologies and service models:  ”The Cloud”.  Since I love acronyms, let’s call it TC for the rest of this article.

TC is a marketers dream!  Not only does it sound somehow magical, it’s also impossible to define.  While Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Apple are touting TC as the second coming of Jesus (or Mohammad, or the King of Karma, or whoever is in fashion), a local data center operator here in Ann Arbor is claiming to have one.  They have two locations, count them, two.  That’s more like a humid day, not a cloud.  Still, they’re offering to teach you everything you need to know about TC and, I’m sure, offer you their services so you can take advantage of this new miracle of the Internet.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re a fine company, doing what fine companies do.  Sell their stuff.

Funny, weren’t all these guys talking about the last few miracles too?  What ever happened to the Application Service Provider model (ASP)?  How about the Software As A Service model (SaaS)?  What, you say?  ASP & SaaS are remarkably similar to TC?  No, you must be mistaken – or on drugs!  TC is soooo not like those things.  SaaS is where your applications and data are stored in a data center somewhere and accessible everywhere over the Internet.  And ASP is where your applications and data are stored in a data center somewhere and accessible everywhere over the Internet.  And TC, of course (read: You Ninny), is where your applications and data are stored in a data center somewhere and accessible everywhere over the Internet.  You are so wrong, it’s funny.  Ha.

Seems like every couple of years, someone comes up with a new name for the same ol same ol, and with it, a brand new marketing campaign.

Sure, there are real differences in all of these technologies, but really?  ”The Cloud”? if you just want media attention, why don’t you call it something cool like “BJ from Outer Space” or, to be more gender neutral, “Hi Tech Happy Ending”.

I’ll end with something that will show my age.  Does anyone remember “Time Share Computing”?   Look it up.  You’ll have to go back to the 1970′s and read about the HP 9000 computer.  It allowed you to do something revolutionary. It could store your applications and data in a data center somewhere and make it accessible everywhere over a phone line.  How cool was that!

William Dunning is CEO of Magic Coast.

Brands place value on insights and loyalty, not spending

According to a July 2010 survey of social media marketers by Millward Brown and Dynamic Logic, the most valuable aspects of social media brand fans go beyond anything with an immediate monetary value. Increased short-term and long-term spend on the brand were the bottom two results.

At the top of the list were the fan’s value as a source of insight and increased loyalty overall. Advocacy and engagement were also important to at least three-quarters of respondents.

This suggests that, despite the real need for return on social media marketing investments, marketers are largely not worrying aboutputting an exact dollar value on each Facebook fan or Twitter follower—as if such an amount could be accurate. And they are keeping in mind some of the less-obvious qualities of brand fans, like as a source of market research.

Still, these soft metrics can leave marketers unsure about their returns. Half of respondents to the Millward Brown/Dynamic Logic survey were uncertain about how much they were getting out of their investment in a social media fan base.

Less than a quarter thought ROI was good. Difficulties with these measures mean some marketers are still not trying to answer the question.

“The business question always comes up, but nobody can figure this out,” Maria Yap, director of product management at Abobe, told eMarketer about proving ROI for the company’s Facebook page. “For me, it’s about the value to the customer. I understand why companies want to focus on the business goals, but I put that aside. Let’s experiment. Let’s see what being here brings.”

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Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic

eMarketer estimates 78.2% of this cohort is online, nearly 60 million adults. Even as their numbers decline, that penetration rate will remain high through 2015. And they control more than $2 trillion in annual spending.

“The baby boomers grew up being chased by marketers and advertisers that tailored products and brands to appeal to them,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Digital Lives of Boomers: Reaching Them Online.” “Now the median age of this cohort is 55, and many boomers feel as if they have dropped off many marketers’ radar.”

Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic. Younger boomers (ages 47 to 55) spent an average of 39.3 hours online per month in 2010, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Older boomers (ages 56 to 65) averaged only slightly less, at 36.5 hours. A lot of that time was spent shopping—and buying. Forrester Research reported that boomers spent an average of about $650 online over a three-month period in 2010, compared with $581 by Generation X internet users (ages 35 to 46) and $429 by millennials (ages 18 to 34).

Boomers also stay connected on the go. eMarketer estimates 86.9% will have a mobile phone this year, and 16.9 million boomers will access the internet from a mobile browser or installed app. In 2015, that number will reach 25.4 million, or nearly 40% of boomer mobile users. This is a market that content providers, game publishers and brand marketers should not pass by.

Marketers who widen their messages to include boomers would be wise to make their efforts ageless, rather than targeted at an older set.

“Boomers are immediately turned off by association with old age, infirmity and decline,” said Phillips. “Most brands do not want to ‘age’ their products with blatant appeals to older consumers. The win-win is to create an overarching brand message that gives a nod to boomers, but also includes younger adults and even grandchildren.”

This often means turning a negative—fears about failing health, for example—into a positive, such as showing the benefits of products that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.