An explanation of why Edgerank matters to Facebook marketing - Part 1
So you’ve got a great piece of content all ready to go on your Facebook page. You post and wait expecting the likes and shares to come rushing in. You’ve got several thousand fans but you appear to have generated online tumbleweed moment. Why?
Well, research from allfacebook.com and Edgerank Checker shows that, on average, 83% of your fans may not even be seeing your posts. Facebook suggest as few as 16% of fans are actually reached. That might explain the tumbleweed feel you can get on Facebook.
Data from Pagelever at Inside Facebook suggests the situation is even worse, and the larger the number of fans, the less likelihood of the post being seen.
Whatever the actually figure, getting your…
Many businesses are now looking to use mobile apps to encourage customer interaction and loyalty. Fortunately, this seems to fit with the preferences of mobile users; recent research from Comscore showed the popularity of apps compared with mobile sites: 82% of mobile media time is spent with an app. So how do you get users to start using an app rather than a mobile version of the website?
Popular app discovery methods
A good place to start your plans for app promotion is to look at how apps are commonly discovered by mobile users. For popular apps from well known brands like those for Facebook, Twitter, eBay and Amazon, gaining adoption from an existing user base is relatively straightforward it seems. But what about everyone else, how do you encourage adoption of your app from existing and new customers?
This research on…
Only one month from today to comply with the new law
Value/Importance: [rating=5]
Recommended link: Ecomplished survey
We’re getting close to the deadline for compliance with this law, it’s a month away today.
In previous posts we’ve alerted readers to the latest guidance from the ICO on implementation for the cookie law and different solutions (Solution #1, Solution #2 and Solution #3).
With a month to go, here is a timely survey of 100 retailers’ response to the directive published by Ecomplished. The survey suggests:
29% of UK retailers believe on-site 3rd party cookies are someone else’s problem
34% plan to use compulsory pop-ups for opt-in
47% believe their cookies are non-intrusive and therefore exempt
Implications of the survey results
The Ecomplished survey suggests if you…
The latest data on UK retail search volumes
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: BRC-Google Q1 2012 monitor - Published April 16th 2012
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Google produce a regular Online Retail Monitor (ORM) that measures changes and trends in the growth of retail search terms over time. The latest version has some interesting data on the growth in mobile search which also has implications for all site owners. Since it’s direct from Google, using their data on searches for retail terms, it’s a reliable source, although it only gives relative changes not the absolute % of searches that are mobile.
The headline figure is a 132% year-on-year growth in mobile search for retail broken down as follows:
Search volume variation through time
The data is also useful for top-level benchmarking…
A breakdown by country of the most popular app download services to help make the business case
As you hear so often, “there’s an App for that”. Yes indeed. Around 1 million, with 500,000 available on Apple’s iTunes App Store, and a similar number on Google’s Android Market at the last count, and multiplying at breakneck speed.
Apps are a truly global phenomenon, with mass consumer appeal. Apple’s App store has now reached 25 billion downloads, tracking at 1 billion downloads a month, a figure nine times greater than McDonald’s sells burgers. Apps have made a healthy contribution to Apple’s revenues, generating an estimated $6 billion, comprising the 30% Apple takes in the cost of App downloads, charges from in-App payments, and revenue from iAd, its in-App advertising business that is still finding its feet.
Android to over take Apple soon
If we…
Which are the most popular search engines I should target in each country?
Its not often I look at trends data but its good to do every quarter. The popularity of search engines does change and within this blended search like video, images, local search is becoming more important.
My comments below focus on how this data has search implications but the links also show popular social networks & entertainment sites. This data is always useful when justifying time & effort for channels or campaigns. Another tool not mentioned below is Google's Adplanner (& its top 1000 sites report), this is a great tool when you need data / demographics on categories or specific websites.
Data on most popular UK search engines - Hitwise
March 2012 update - Hitwise have just published a simple infographic summarising UK search behaviour. The main insight which prompts questions about how we target through SEO and paid search…
How engaged are users of different social platforms?
Back in June 2011, we shared an infographic showing what happens in 60 seconds in social media, now we're updating it with a new infographic from Social JumpStart. This one has some additions including Pinterest showing that for all our current interest in Pinterest it's nothing compared to YouTube. It's a pity they haven't included Google+ either.
It certainly summarises the challenges we face today as marketers and consumers of content today!
How do you find this - exciting? or scary? I find it both - to be involved in such a dynamic area, but which presents huge challenges in being first and getting cut-through. I created a companion post taming the social media firehose which shared ideas on tools I used to keep up-to-date.
Here…
Interesting online media trends for 2011 & 2012
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: eFrontier
Our commentary
A fantastic report from eFrontier, looking back over 2011 and with an interesting outlook on 2012. The report covers, in great detail, the spending patterns globally and across multiple platforms (Google vs Facebook for example) for their client base. It certainly sounds like Q4 2011 was the big spending month with regards to YoY growth, with US retail spend up 18% YoY. The key trends for you to consider from the report are:
Mobile spend (specifically tablets) is becoming increasingly important, likely to make up 16-22% of all paid clicks by the end of 2012
Facebook advertising spend will reach 5% of all spend by end 2012
Overall media spend will grow 15% by the end of 2012
You can view the full report here, or checkout the top level…
New Global survey reveals variation in Facebook ad clickthrough rates and cost per click
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: TBG Digital UK
TBG Digital are one of the largest agencies managing Facebook advertising campaigns worldwide, so it’s interesting to see their summary of trends in effectiveness in Facebook advertising across different sectors. This new research, released today, is based on 326 billion impressions for 266 clients across 205 countries.
Facebook advertising clickthrough rates
Although we only have an index rather than absolute clickthrough rates, it’s interesting to see that clickthrough varies dramatically across sector:
As would be expected lifestyle-related sectors are highest, but transactional sectors like Retail, Travel and Computer and Electronics aren’t significantly lower. As might be expected Finance is at the base of the league table.
Facebook advertising cost-per-click (CPC) rates
Again it would be good to have…
Are your customers sunny sharers or walled worriers?
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: McCann London Facebook Page
Our customers are understandably worried about how the data they provide online is used and protected. But how worried are they really? How do their attitudes to privacy vary and how can we reassure them? This should be a concern to all marketers who collect and use data online, which must be the majority of marketers today.
I thought this was a really useful piece of global research based on a 6,525 sample in the US and five other markets with qualitative research from twelve markets.
Which are the main consumer privacy concerns?
The study has a lot of rich detail about specific consumer concerns and the actions they take. For example, this data shows that a sizeable proportion of customers prefer to closely control their online privacy.
…
