March Social Media Updates You Need Know About

This coming March is going to be filled with plenty of new developments in the social media world for internet marketers.

Some have been in the works for months, and some have seemingly come out of the blue; regardless, these are the March social media updates you need to know about. 

Facebook introduces WordPress plugin for Instant Articles.

Combine the powers of the leading social media network and the reach of a blog platform giant, and you have the WordPress plugin for Instant Articles on Facebook.

This upcoming April 12^th, Instant Articles will be available to all publishers via a WordPress plugin. The plugin has already been tested with “a small group of publishers” on WordPress, and will allow publishers using standard WordPress templates to activate the plugin off the shelf. Consequently, users who prefer further customization will be able to extend the plugin to support any other element they want.

Pinterest Ads Manager opens up businesses of all sizes.

Pinterest Ads Manager is now available to all small and medium sized businesses, allowing all to schedule Promoted Pins.

This announcement made such big waves due to the fact that Nipoon Malhotra, an ads product lead, shared that companies who have already used Pinterest Ads Manager have seen a 20 percent increase in clicks, all within a month of starting their campaigns. Pair Pinterest Ads Manager with interest, keyword, and customer database targeting, and you have a game-changing social media update on your hands.

Facebook’s Atlas adds video-ad serving and two new measurement tools.

Video-ad serving and two new measurement tools are being added to Facebook’s Atlas, their new ad serving and measurement platform.

According to Dave Jakubowski, Facebook’s head of advertising technology, video ad serving via the Atlas platform will be “broadly available” by the end of the month. With this, advertisers will be able to understand if their online ads are influencing offline purchases through two new measurement tools. The first measurement tool from Atlas, offline actions, will tie offline sales to online ad spend. Path to conversion, the second measurement tool, will provide insight into the multiple devices that users see ads on before pulling the trigger on a purchase. 

Facebook coming in hot with mobile growth

The hits just keep on coming for the Winklevoss twins.

Facebook just released its fourth quarter and full year 2014 financial results revealing a modest $12.47 billion in revenue for 2014.

Earning an all-time high in quarterly ad revenue - $3.59 billion – Facebook surpassed all expectations for Q4 ad spend.

Zuckerberg can say thanks for much of this leap in revenue to continued growth in advertising, more specifically, mobile advertising. Case in point: mobile ads contributed to 69% of Facebook’s total $3.59 billion in ad revenue for the year. And oh yeah, mobile ads brought in a record high of $2 billion in quarterly revenue.

And it’s no surprise that none other than Facebook continues to lead the pack with the growth of mobile. Facebook now has 1.39 billion monthly active users; of those, 890 million users access the social network on a daily basis. More than half a billion users now only access Facebook from mobile.

A report from We Are Social recently released that web traffic from laptops and desktop computers grew 13 percent, while traffic from mobile devices and tablets grew 56 percent.

Further asserting their dominance in the mobile growth and innovation, Facebook silently introduced Facebook Lite to eight countries last week. A lightweight Android version of the full app, Google Play describes the app as “fast to install – the app is less than 1 MB.” Countries benefiting from the new app “designed for 2G networks and areas with limited connectivity” include Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. While Lite takes up less than 1 MB of space on phones, the full app uses 27 MB.

"We got a lot done in 2014. Our community continues to grow and we're making progress towards connecting the world," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.

Social Media Checklist for Business

Social Media is a very powerful marketing platform for any business, but how do you know what to do? The typical business owner ask the same questions when social media is recommended for them. How do I blog? How many tweets do I send? What should I do on Facebook? What about LinkedIn? 

This is a very simple social media checklist to help any business owner with what they should be doing at minimum for these different platforms. 

Blog Post:

• Write 3 new blog post a week
• Have 3 targeted keywords that you include in every blog post
• Share the blog post link on:
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google +

Facebook:

• Find and Like 5 new pages a week
• Update company page status daily
• Post about 2 interesting topics related to your business
• Ask people to comment, like or share post

Twitter:

• Re-tweet 2 interesting tweets a day
• Follow 10 new people a week
• Send at least 3 new tweets daily
• Business related
• Promotional
• Fun & Interesting
• Circulating the blog post

LinkedIn:

• Update Company profile and status
• Connect with 3 – 5 new people per week
• Ask for 1 -2 recommendations per week
• Follow 3 new companies

Google + :

• Add 5 new people to your circle a week
• Offer a Google + Hangout session for a related topic in your industry
• Share content at least twice a day to your personal Google + profile and company page
• Host a monthly Google + hangout for a topic your industry

Pinterest:

• Each month, post product images and examples of our work from our company website as pins leading back to the site
• Follow 5 new interesting and inspiring pin boards each week from other users related to our field
• Add 1 new board that contains at least 6 new pins each week

YouTube:

• Find 3 new videos each week to share on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +
• Plan a video that showcases an area of our businesses expertise
• Have video capability at special events our business hosts or attends each month. Ask for brief interviews to post to YouTube.

This checklist should be used as a guide to help any business owner with their social media platform. These are the typical minimum requirements necessary to perform properly and see results. 

Super Bowl Sunday Marketing

 

With Superbowl XLVII two days away (February 3rd: San Francisco 49ers vs. Baltimore Ravens) it is not just a day that decides the new NFL Champions but it is the largest day in marketing as well. With an average cost of $3.8 Million per every 30 seconds of air time, this is an expensive figure for any company.

For the cost of 30 seconds of Super Bowl advertising, you could buy: 

1. Over a week of Homepage Advertising : AOL, Yahoo! and other larger publishers sell their day-long homepages for an average of $500,000 a day. So for the $3.8 million cost of airtime you could ensure 7+ days of full homepage landing on a large digital media site.

2. Over 100 Million Impressions on Hulu : Hulu sells its video ads for $30 CPM (Cost Per Millions).

3. 200 Pieces of Branded Content : Buzzfeed charges $100k for 4 - 5 pieces of branded content.

4. Be YouTube for a Week : YouTube's homepage ad cost $500,000 a day.

5. 1 Month of Twitter's Trend Topic: Promoting Trending Topics on Twitter sells for about $120k a day.

6. 50 Million Forbes.com Impressions: Forbes charges $80 CPM for ads, but even with 50 Million Impressions on Forbes this is still only half of the potential audience for a Super Bowl ad.

Although these would options would get attention and drive ROI for your brand, they do not deliver the success that has been measured from Super Bowl Sunday Advertising. 

A survey showed that 36% of Super Bowl Watchers will be using a Mobile Device or Tablet during the game to see sports news and behind-the-scenes commentaries, and that 52% will use social media throughout the game to talk about plays and commercials. 

So here are some ways that you engage an audience on Sunday without a $4 Million dollar invoice from CBS:

• Tell your audience something new about your company, some breaking news that has a strong call to action from your social platform to your website. Give your viewers something to do with their smart phones or tablets.

• Try driving your viewers to a "Facebook Contest" where they can engage in  a sweepstakes offered by your company. Giveaways are always a good way of engaging your audience and getting their attention with an incentive. 

• Use Sharable content; make ads and extensions easily accessible and shareable through Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. These social platforms will be seeing increasing traffic during the game and your brand should be part of the conversation!

• Focus on a long term connection with your audience. Your ads and digital campaigns should do more than just entertain, they should engage your audience by demonstrating your value for each customer. By valuing each person individually rather than as a group, you make their decision down the road to choose you easier. This can be achieved by sending them to a site with information about yourself and your brand/service. Strive to make them understand that you care about them, not just about sales.

Facebook and Microsoft Join Forces

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, has teamed up with Facebook to provide users with search results based on their Facebook profile (such as their interests, likes, and friends), to create a product simply called "Liked Results." Mediaweek explains it like this: If you search for a movie, you will get results back that will include which of your Facebook friends either liked or disliked the film, in addition to Bing's regular search results.
Of course, Bing will give you the option to disable the integration of your Facebook profile. Mark Zuckerberg, who needs no introduction, also went on record at the press conference to say that they will only be using information that Facebook users have made public. So, anything you specify as private stays that way. There is the question however, that even though people make things public on Facebook, are they willing to let it appear in search engines? Facebook is no stranger to ciriticism, and with over 500 million users, someone is bound to be upset.
Additionally, there will be a Facebook Profile Search Tool on Bing's page that helps you find old friends and reconnect, either by friend request or message. Search results will also utilize your friend circle to determine who you might be looking for.