Video Success and the Right Metrics – Best of March

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Lamb of March

Lamb of March suju / Pixabay

March is going out like something like a lamb here in the Pacific Northwest…but the turmoil online with data protection concerns, Facebook revelations, and announced data breaches (apps, sites, phones….seems to happen everywhere….) draws more and more attention. Turning from these concerns a bit, this month’s top articles put some focus back on tips and opportunities for entrepreneurs and small businesses in the digital marketing world.

The Right Metrics?

The Right Metrics?

Thankfully, a lot of companies have moved past the “vanity metrics” problem of a few years ago. Still, to move past that to the numbers that truly reflect your online goals and move the needle for you business requires some research and work with an expert. Doing so will REALLY PAY OFF, so don’t shirk this….

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Listening: Attention or Intention?

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Attention Listening

Listening

“PAY ATTENTION!!!!!”

In your life, how many times have you heard that phrase, either from someone else or your internal voice? Shutting out distractions like noise, devices or the torrent of thoughts and imagination that the Buddhist tradition has termed the “monkey mind” seems nearly impossible. We slap ourselves internally in some fashion, and try to refocus on the speaker. This can be just as jarring as the distractions themselves!

Mindful Listening is really not about attention. It’s about intention. Let me explain how I understand and experience the difference.

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Listening is Hard

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Listening

Listening

As an intelligent business owner and entrepreneur in the 21st century, you are already very aware of the importance of listening to your customers, prospects and audience (your Visitors / Audience / Customers / Community (VACC): you can read more about what this looks like here …..). “Listen” is, however, a word that is subject to as many interpretations as there are ears…
Going a bit deeper, what kinds of listening are there that you can leverage?
Definitions of types of listening are as varied as there are authors of articles, books and consultancies whose purpose is to guide you to a solution that works for you and your business….a solution that results in the kind of success you’re looking for: that loyalty-balance of relationship quality and profitability, with credibility overall. It’s kind of like a combination of “the right tool(s) for the right job” and a high-wire balancing act.
  • listen-to-understand
  • listen-to-reply
Since every conversation only has 100% of the time allotted for it, whether it’s 20 minutes or 2 hours or more, more listening requires less talking.
So what does more listening actually do for this relationship you’re trying to build?
It is the key to building trust.

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Facebook Live Video and the Point – Best of February

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Live Streaming Video

Live Streaming Video

 

In the face of the January announcement by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, a LOT of brain power has been focused on just what this means for business. One of the early analyses posited that live video, already a big player online, will become even MORE important. Hence the Video heavy listing with this month’s edition of the BEST!

Start that LIVE VIDEO!

Start that LIVE VIDEO!

Like any valuable effort, you need to plan and prepare. Making streaming video is no exception, especially when it can be portrayed as “point-click-talk” by casual users. Your resources are valuable, and you need to spend a BIT MORE up front to GET MORE in the return!

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Facebook Live video – “Hit the Button, Buddy!”

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video live button

VIDEO – GO LIVE!

It’s Live Video Month! This article is the second in the series in which I’m going over:
  • Strategy and Planning
  • Processes and How-To
  • …and include a few examples.
This week is all about what happens when you push the “GO LIVE” button and what you do through to the end of your video, and what you do afterwards, too.

But first, a quick recap:

My earlier article, “Facebook Live Video – Getting Everything Ready To Go!” is all about Strategy, Planning, Content Format ideas, and the Hardware / Software you can use. If you haven’t read that yet, follow the link and it will take you through the pre-process, getting you to…..

How To Start
 
Actually, you start before you start, so to speak.

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Facebook Live video – Getting Everything Ready To Go!

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Start that LIVE VIDEO!

Start that LIVE VIDEO!

It’s Live Video Month! This article is the first of two (for now….) in which I intend to go over:
  • Strategy and Planning
  • Processes and How-To
  • …and include a few examples.
This week is all about the Strategy and Planning, along with a little “Why do this video thing, anyway?”

Facebook Live Statistics that will convince you!

There are a ton of numbers out there that demonstrate the value of Facebook’s Live video streaming service even above that of “standard” video.  Here are a few:

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Get Ready to Smile – Live Video is Coming for You!

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You're LIVE on Video!!!

You’re LIVE on Video!!!

While we’re all waiting for the smoke to clear around Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement a few weeks ago regarding the BIG CHANGES taking place in the Facebook Newsfeed and how that will hit your marketing, one thing is pretty clear…

Video remains HUGE, and Live Video (Facebook Live, for this article…) is going to become something that all businesses are going to have to come up with a plan for.  This ties in directly with many things that Zuckerberg mentioned in his announcement (emphasis mine):
  • “…recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”
  • “We started making changes in this direction last year, but it will take months for this new focus to make its way through all our products. The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.  As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.“
  • “The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being. We can feel more connected and less lonely, and that correlates with long term measures of happiness and health. On the other hand, passively reading articles or watching videos — even if they’re entertaining or informative — may not be as good. Based on this, we’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”
  • You can read his entire post here.

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Best of January – “Facebook Zero”, Digital Strategy Tips, and Success

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"FACEBOOK ZERO!!????"

“FACEBOOK ZERO!!????”

So your 2018 has blown through the first month…how are things going? Out of breath yet?

There are constantly evolving things happening in digital and social media marketing (you HAVE heard of the big announcement by Mark Zuckerberg, right?!). This month’s round-up of the best-of-the-best includes a couple of terrific articles about the Facebook news, as well as thoughts on the importance of reviews, some thoughts upon analyzing a TON of LinkedIn profiles, and several others.

Freaking Out?

Freaking Out?

Many analysts and marketing gurus agree that the folks getting hit the most by this update are small businesses. While most also agree that we JUST DON’T KNOW how this is actually going to roll out, this article from Entrepreneur.com has 4 recommendations on what you can do now to help mitigate the impact of this.

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No Free Lunch: Pay-To-Play is Here to Stay

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No Free Lunch

No Free Lunch

We all learned very early on in this life that there is NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!

In the context of digital marketing, that is made evident in that you must invest resources (time, effort, money, etc….) to get results. There never was a “build it and they will come” (what I call the Field of Dreams fallacy) for online marketing. Sure, it may have been a bit easier a number of years ago when there weren’t so many companies and users online, all vying for attention. Certainly, on a platform like Facebook, things were somewhat more simple, or so they seemed. All you seemed to need was a lot of followers of your page and to post something every so often and it looked like you were successful (whether you were or not depended on how you defined success, but that’s another story…).

This has changed significantly…and in ways that require a lot more consideration on your part as a small business owner and entrepreneur.

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Stop It With the “LIKES” Already!

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The Ubiquitous LIKES

The Ubiquitous LIKES

For years you would hear it and see it:

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!!!!!
 
Looking at those numbers, particularly if they grew big and fast, could make you feel very good about yourself, and certainly gave you the kind of strokes you wanted if you were a marketer working for a company of any size.

Then the whole conversation shifted to, “What are all of those ‘likes’ getting us?“, which led to a number of uncomfortable pauses in the report. While getting the right kinds of measurements in place years ago was much more difficult, nowadays there isn’t the thrashing about there used to be around them. You still need to have a clear goal around what you’re trying to achieve online…of course, the end is to generate sales, but following the trail, building the relationships, etc. with your customers hasn’t changed. The platforms and practices have to a large degree, when executing a digital marketing strategy (as opposed to what your company might have done 50 years ago…..), but people are still people.

So what SHOULD you be investing in?

In a recent article in the American Marketing Association Journal of Marketing Research entitled “Does “Liking” Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes” (you may find the abstract here) I discovered a number of valuable insights to consider as a small business builds out their social / digital marketing strategy. The question that kicked the article off is this:

Does “liking” a brand on Facebook cause a person to view it more favorably? Or is “liking” simply a symptom of being fond of a brand?

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