Instagram to open up it’s ‘stories’ feature for select brands

Importance: (For Social Media Managers)
Recommended Source: Instagram Blog

Instagram has just announced it is beginning the processes of letting advertisers make use of the large audience its newish ‘Stories’ feature has been able to generate since its launch back in the summer of 2016. Again taking the lead from Snapchat, it is introducing the ads in a mid-roll format- that is they will appear between stories the user has elected to see. In a way this is not dissimilar from TV advertising, where the user accepts the ads between content he or she wants to see. The format will however allow for the skipping of ads, so as to not degrade the user’s experience.

Instagram reports that over 150 million people view stories content every day. Combine this with the fact Instagram users tend to be young, tech savy and have higher than average disposable incomes, and it starts to look like a very tempting prospect for advertisers. Instagram have announced the ads will initially only be from a select few partners such as ASOS, Louis Vuitton and L’Oréal. However this is only to test the system, and they will soon let brands of all sizes buy ads, probably through Facebook’s Ad Manager.

If you aren’t aware of Instagram stories, below is our coverage from their announcement back in 2016:

Instagram may not have mentioned Snapchat as their inspiration for their new ‘stories’ feature which has just been released, but for anyone who uses both platforms it is more than a little obvious where they got the idea from…

On the face of it, the decision to try and ‘Snapchatify’ (It’s a word if I say it’s a word) Instagram may seem a strange one. Instagram has grown incredibly rapidly to become one of the largest social networks in the world, with a focus on stunning visuals which tend to convey the kind of ‘aspirational lifestyle’ which defines the archetypal users of the social network. It’s such a well-known phenomenon it’s even created spin-off TV shows like Channel 4’s ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFHp39tD-Nj/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=7

Snapchat on the other hand, is all about quick, 4-second videos of you pulling a stupid face or pictures of your cat doing something funny – see Snapchat filter campaign example. The fact the videos are instantly deleted once they are viewed rather than being left for posterity means the channel lends itself to stupid, day to day funny moments, rather than trying to show off.

People seem to like Snapchat’s more relaxed vibe, which is about not taking life too seriously. Snapchat has exploded in popularity in recent years, surpassing Twitter and growing to 150 million users in just five years. Video views on Snapchat are up 400% this year and an e-marketer study found 60% of US Smartphone users under 34 used the platform.

Snapchat’s success has not gone unnoticed. Instagram has clearly realised that people like to post content on their main feeds which are seen by everyone that shows them in a good light. But how often do you get a picture of you which you think looks great? Most of the time you just want to share with close friends that you’ve just accidentally spilled tomato sauce all down yourself or your cat just sneezed on you. So for Instagram the key to getting people to use the platform for is to make it more like Snapchat; relaxed, unserious and care-free.

That is exactly what the new ‘stories’ feature tries to do. New drawing tools to scribble over your pictures are almost exactly the same as Snapchat’s. Photo’s and videos will disappear after 24 hours, never to be seen again (Again, just like Snapchat stories). The fact stories aren’t posted to the feeds of your followers, and only people coming to see a users’ stories will see them means users won’t have to worry about overwhelming their followers by overposting. This means users will be more likely to post lots of content, thus boosting their time spent on Instagram.

The implications for brands

Stories are another way for marketers to use Instagram to connect with their audiences. Posts to Stories won’t get as many views as posts to the main feed as they are only seen by people actively looking for your story. However they also won’t affect your organic page reach, so you can post as many stories as you like without worrying that you’re diluting your reach. If you can come up with really engaging stories that get fans coming back, you’ve got yourself a powerful medium that lets you reach fans as much as you like at zero cost. If you already have a Snapchat channel and strategy, a lot of it will be applicable to Instagram stories, as the features are remarkably similar.

Snap Chat To Open European HQ in London

Many feared that post Brexit could lead to a mass exodus of companies from the UK but as yet this does not seem to be the case. In fact Google and Facebook are creating thousands of jobs in the UK and now Snap Chat have announced that they will be opening their European HQ in the capital. So there is a lot to be optimistic about especially in the digital world.

You can found out more on the story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38567898

Analysis: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC technology correspondent

It’s a great boost for London’s global reputation as a hub for creative industries – but the economic impact of Snap Inc’s decision to base its international hub in the UK may be limited.

At the moment, the firm’s UK workforce is just 75 strong, and although that will expand, it’s hardly the equivalent of a car plant in Sunderland – though baristas in Soho will be grateful for the opportunity to sell a lot more decaf skinny lattes.

But this does signal that post Brexit London, with its skilled workforce, its strength in advertising and its relatively low tax rates will remain a very attractive location for tech firms, especially those that aren’t moving physical goods across borders.

And, as the EU cracks down on sweetheart tax deals in Ireland and Luxembourg, the UK may look even more attractive.

But there is one clear message from today’s announcement – it really is time for ageing technology correspondents to get to grips with how Snapchat works.

The messaging app has been expanding its London operations, growing its office in the city from around six staff last year to more than 75.

The company says it has 150 million daily active users around the world, with 50 million in Europe.

Many US technology companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, have set up international headquarters in countries with lower corporate tax rates than the UK, such as Ireland.

However, a number of authorities, including the European Commission, have been investigating those deals.

In August last year, the European Commission said that Apple should pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn) in back taxes, a ruling Apple is appealing against.

Digital Marketing Trends 2017

CONTENT TO BE KING IN 2017:

The Top 14 marketing techniques in 2017?

Let’s now drill down into the key tactics and marketing technology within each of these tactics which will be important in 2017.

1. Content marketing trends

Content marketing has been in the top 3 for the last 3 years we have run this post, so we focus a lot on how to create an integrated content marketing strategy through advice in our content marketing toolkit.

Our research with HubSpot, illustrated in the Competing on Content infographic, shows that more businesses are now using a strategic approach (40%), so this is a trend we can expect to see continuing in 2017. We can also expect that there will be more focus on Measuring Content Marketing ROI as the cost and competition within content marketing increases.

At a practical level, Martech Guru Scott Brinker has talked about the 4th Wave of Content Marketing and I’m seeing more and more examples of interactive marketing apps – like our capability graders and also personalisation tools recommending content. Read his article, introducing it, a great read and you can check out the ionInteractive examples of interactive content marketing.

4th_wave_content_marketing_600

2. Big Data

As defined in our question, Big Data marketing applications include market and customer insight and predictive analytics.

The 3Vs of Big Data show why this is a key trend selected by many, who have experienced the increase in volume, real-time data and data formats in their business and want to exploit the value to increase sales through personalisation on websites and through email marketing through predictive analytics – a topic we have covered many times on our blog. It’s also closely tied into machine learning where Big Data is mined to identify propensity to convert given different customer characteristics and behaviour.

Image original source from Diya Soubra in a Data Science blog – The 3Vs that define Big Data

3. Marketing Automation (including CRM, behavioural email marketing and web personalisation)

Like content marketing, marketing automation has been in the top 3 for the last 5 years we have asked this question. Many businesses still have potential for improving their automation as our research on the State of Marketing Automation shows.

To help with this knowledge gap, I think I have given more webinars and talks on Marketing Automation than on any other topic in 2016. The most common questions at the end are ‘where do we start’ and ‘how do we get to the next level’. These questions are answered in our Email marketing and marketing automation toolkit which includes a free interactive capability review to score your use of email marketing automation. As businesses progress up the learning curve I expect more businesses to be putting lead scoring in place, or refining it and learning the best places on the journey to feature content through predictive analytics.

4. Mobile marketing (Mobile advertising, site development and apps)

Mobile was in the top 3 three years ago, but as more companies have adopted mobile responsive web design and email templates they have seen less need to focus on it, or at least there are fewer opportunities for growth.

However, research shows that retail conversion rates are significantly lower on smartphone, so there is work to be done for many businesses to optimise conversion on mobile, although they will likely always stay lower than desktop.

Mobile also has a large impact on search marketing as Google vigorously follows its mobile first mantra. To me, it’s a somewhat misleading mantra, since the reality is that many web users are still using desktop, laptop and tablet devices and there is a danger with mobile responsive designs that conversion on higher resolution screens may fall if mobile optimised. Instead, leading companies are looking at adaptive mobile design approaches which have the benefit of serving more relevant, contextual content and CTAs for users and reducing load times.

‘Mobile first’ is also misleading if we look at the overall customer journey since often different devices may be involved at different points. So a better vision for mobile strategy is treating it as part of a multiplatform or multichannel strategy. As this data from comScore highlighted in our mobile marketing statistics research shows, the multiplatform ribbons for all countries are much broader than users who are mobile only or desktop only.

5. Social media marketing including Social CRM and Social Customer Care

When I meet marketers at events and training I find there is still huge interest in social media, thanks to its reach and options to engage audiences and encourage advocacy or ‘social media amplification’ to give it the full treatment.

Our social media research statistics summary shows continued growth in social media usage overall, but with reduced popularity of some social networks in some countries. For example Twitter and Facebook are in decline or plateauing in many western markets while Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest are still growing in usage.

Trends in social media marketing are often controlled by the efforts of the social networks to monetise and this has seen Facebook and Instagram, in particular make changes such that businesses now need to ‘pay to play’ to get the reach needed to have an impact. They have continued to innovate in their targeting and remarketing options. Jason DeMeyers has these interesting views on social media trends for 2017.

6. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) / improving website experiences

This is the technique I selected a year ago as the way Smart Insights would see the most growth from in the year ahead. It’s higher in popularity than previous years, but I still wonder whether many businesses are missing out on a more data-driven approach to increase leads and sales from their websites.

I saw this chart of the volume of structured tests presented by a major multichannel retailer who wanted to scale the number of tests they were running. It a great way to show the need to test extensively since only a third have a positive test. It also shows how competitors may be getting ahead if they are testing more extensively.

7. Internet of Things (IoT) marketing applications

IoT is one of the most important marketing technology applications of the last 2-3 years, but it is of most relevance to devices makers and retailers, so it is relatively high-up in this ranking of priorities.

There are expected to be 75 billion connected devices by 2020, meaning there will be ten times as many devices able to talk to one another as there will be people on the planet! The implications are huge and far ranging. All this sharing of data will transform the way we live our lives.

Our article covering opportunities and examples of marketing applications of the Internet of Things has this useful summary of alternative applications:

8. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO or organic search)

Mobile marketing SEO techniques will be particularly important in 2017 with Google’s recent announcements about the mobile index and AMP. We have seen huge increases in AMP smartphone traffic since September 2016 when Google rolled AMPs out beyond Google News. AMPs are targeted at publishers, but should be considered by businesses with an active blog too in my opinion.

We have been covering these announcements and improvements in our other alert posts:

9. Wearables

Wearables are one of the hottest consumer consumable commodities (e.g. Apple Watch, activity trackers, augmented reality)

10. Paid search marketing

Google AdWords is the most important form of Pay Per Click and here Google has been pursuing their ‘Mobile-first’ strategy by building out these features.

11. Online PR (including influencer outreach)

Online PR today is inextricably linked with Content marketing, SEO and Social media, or it should be. But this doesn’t get a top rating since the others are important.

12. Communities

These are branded niche or vertical communities.

13. Display advertising

This includes banners on publishers, ad networks social media including retargeting and programmatic.

14. Partnerships including affiliate and co-marketing

A neglected aspect of digital marketing, perhaps unsurprisingly unsexy.

Other trends

This is an interesting category since readers can tell us what we’re missing. Suggestions here include:

Account Based Marketing (ABM) – relevant for B2B marketers targeting large accounts we have a new guide in our B2B toolkit on this early in the new year.
Digital OOH (Out-of-home) – A surprising one for the number one technique
Employee advocacy and feedback – interesting to see the internal marketing perspective – again surprising to see as the main growth point
Machine Learning – as mentioned at the top of the article
Omnichannel and multichannel attribution – both good for reminding us that it is the way that these channels work together to support each other that is often most important – the reason why many members are looking for advice on an integrated marketing strategy

Latest YouTube Stats

I got this completly wrong. The stats prove otherwise:

The Latest YouTube Stats on When, Where, and What People Watch

When it comes to the latest trends on how people are watching YouTube videos—when, where, and even what—there are plenty of misconceptions. Here we break down the latest stats on YouTube watch behavior and bust some common myths.