News & Blog - Page 5 of 21 - Spinnaker Marketing

December 5, 2014

Facebook, Social Media Or Advertising Platform

Facebook just announced that starting in January it will begin limiting the number of “promotional Page posts” in the news feed… unless they pay for it. Facebook is now officially an advertising platform.

So, what is considered a “promotional” post? In short, anything that looks or feels like an ad, that includes the reuse of advertising material brands may have paid for. You probably think “a little vague”, well most terms with Facebook are rather vague and give them a lot of latitude to interpret.

Over the past few months, brand reach on Facebook as dwindled to about 2.73% according to Forrester Research, the new policy is likely to reduce that substantially and force brands to pay for play for more content, until they have to pay for every post to have any reach.

Facebook is now officially an advertising platform in the traditional sense of the term leveraging their massive user base to generate display advertising both in and off the feed and that after charging brands for ads to develop a follower base they cannot reach anymore.

What should brands do? There is not much of a choice, they should consider Facebook as any other advertising platform and develop their communication in a way that they can pull their now paid audience away from Facebook and other social media platforms and towards platforms they own and use social media to attract traffic to their websites and use their website to build their database.

Yes, we have come full circle, the website is becoming what it should have always been, the center of the digital strategy and social media, a way to build traffic to the web properties owned by the brand.

Brands will still be able to build relationships and interact on social media but email will take on a new dimension and allow brands to further build their database and/or drive consumers to owned communities versus communities owned by third parties

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014

Disclosure Is The Key

Recently an advertising agency learned a hard lesson about social media promotion: Disclosure is the key.

The FTC recently settled with Interpublic’s Deutsch LA advertising agency and Sony over claims the companies engaged in deceptive marketing during the launch of Sony’s hand held PlayStation Vita gaming console.

The lesson should not be lost on any marketer.

According to the complaint, one of the agency’s assistant account executives sent an email asking the agency’s staff to help promote the PlayStation Vita ad campaign by posting positive comments about the console on Twitter using the hashtag #gamechanger.

Deutsch LA employees posted tweets promoting PlayStation Vita without disclosing their connection to the agency or Sony.

According to the FTC these tweets were misleading because they didn’t reflect the views of actual consumers-users.

Agencies have to exercise a lot of caution when talking about a client’s work on social media, though best practices in that area aren’t always well codified, said David Berkowitz, chief marketing officer at digital agency MRY.

“This will be a wake-up call for agencies in terms of how they communicate work they have in market and what they encourage employees to do,” Mr. Berkowitz said.

It’s not the first time the FTC intervenes against agencies for deceptive marketing and it’s not likely to be the last and they will not stop at tweets.

The FTC is clear o that matter (and further clarified recently), marketers when they post on social media must disclose and consideration whether financial or in products and must disclose their connection to the agency, client or marketer.
What that means is that the poster must disclose if they work for the agency or the brand, they must disclosed if they have been paid or received free products or have received the service for free as a consideration to write and post about the product or service

In social media more than any other form of PR or advertising transparency is the key to keeping regulators at bay, to ensure brand integrity and to keep consumers trust.

November 18, 2014

What Worries Compliance Officers?

When it comes to regulated markets, compliance is a major issue, especially when it comes to social media, it worries compliance officers and has held back the use of social media in regulated markets.

So, what keeps compliance officers up at night and what do they do about it.

In short, anything posted on social media is amplified and can have an impact on the brand and the reputation and once the cat is out of the box, getting it back in the box is rather difficult.

As Warren Buffet said:“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Of course, there are ways to mitigate risk. For one thing, a social media policy explaining who can post on social media sites, how they post and what they can or cannot say, what requires compliance approval before posting. Yous social media policy should also define the steps to follow in case of crisis

The other challenge is what employees post about the company on their personal social media accounts. Their post can be perceived as representing the views of the companies and can have an impact on the company reputation and/or have repercussions from the regulatory authorities

What makes it even more challenging is that be it in healthcare or financial services there are no set social media rules. The regulatory authorities (FDA, FINRA, SEC, OCC and others) have not created a framework to regulate social media, they have only issued guidance on how to apply traditional communication with the public regulations to the electronic era and social media. The guidance seems to be a lot clearer though in the financial markets; in the medical market, the FDA is still going back and forth and the guidance can be confusing at best.

In addition, social media platforms are diverse and so are the posting modes and the number of character allowed creating challenges especially when it comes to disclosures.

November 12, 2014

Warren Buffett On Reputation

“When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Warren Buffett

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014

Seven Reasons Businesses Lose Customers

A May 2014 online survey conducted by Harris Poll points out seven reasons businesses lose customers.

Poor customer service is costing American consumers 30.8 work hours which translate into $108 billions a year in missed work time and productivity

Poor customer service costs a lot more to businesses and brands when you take into account that 35% cancelled their service or stopped using the brand or business and factor in a customer’s long term value (LTV), lost referrals or worse, since 13% have taken to social media

What frustrated them the most?

44% waiting for a service rep
43% being put on hold
38% feeling that service representatives didn’t know how to fix problems.
35% service rep did not understand their problems
32% having to call back because the problem wasn’t fixed
21% billing issues
12% trying to schedule an appointment

“These service frustrations are significantly impacting service businesses today because consumers are becoming more and more likely to demand not just a great price but a great service experience,” Timms said. “Companies that offer the best experience in all parts of the service process will be the ones that retain their customers, grow, and succeed.”

October 17, 2014October 17, 2014

Focus On Internal Metrics to Measure Social Media Marketing ROI

There is no denying marketers, businesses and brands are sold on social media marketing, the same cannot be said of executive management still looking for hard figures on the effectiveness and the impact on the bottom line. The big contention point remaining: how do you measure social media marketing ROI

Nearly nine in 10 US marketers are using social media marketing. It is clear they consider it a necessity for doing business. But there is still a sense of unease about what works and doesn’t work as well as how best to manage the effort, according to a new eMarketer report, “Social Marketing Update: Eight Trends to Help Prepare for 2015.”

For as long as social media marketing has been around, marketers have struggled with how to determine return on investment (ROI). Despite a multitude of available metrics, the question still tops the list of challenges marketers face with social media.

In a June 2014 study of marketers’ usage and attitudes toward digital marketing conducted by Gigaom and Extole, more marketers said they would increase spending on social media marketing than on any other type of marketing. At the same time, 52% said it was difficult to prove ROI. That led the researchers to conclude that “marketers may be buying on faith with social.”