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SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Simply Measured, the pioneer in social analytics, today announced the release of its third annual State of Social Marketing report. This comprehensive piece of primary research expands on prior reports by providing insights from more than 2,700 social media professionals in 111 countrieswith the perspectives of both brands and agencies.

At the end of the day, your job as a marketerany kind of marketeris to sell. This is true even if you are tasked with increasing brand awareness and cultivating a community on social, as three-quarters of our survey respondents are, said Scott Fallon, vice president of Marketing, Simply Measured. It just means that your target market is closer to the top of the funnel. As more budget is devoted to socialsocial spending is expected to rise to 17.3 billion by 2019 social marketers will be pressed to make the link between engagement and conversions. Social marketers wont stop paying attention to engagement and amplification metrics, but they will be asked to set and meet conversion goals, too.

There is a severe gap here today: 90 percent of marketers surveyed struggle to measure ROI and/or tie social to business goals. The report positions 2017 as the year of contradictions, with social ad investment increasing, but a lack of industry-wide goal-setting, and more than half of brands saying that influencers are vital to the success of their social programs, but over 76 percent of brands saying they have no dedicated budget for influencer marketing. Brands are saying one thing and doing the opposite in multiple categories covered in this report, whether due to unsubstantial resources, lack of expertise, or both.

Agencies, however, are pushing for results from social more than brands: 73 percent of agencies set goals for either web traffic or conversion goals, while only 57 percent of brand marketers do. This indicates that social marketers at agencies have stronger goal-setting (and achieving) baselines than social marketers within the brand environment.

Whether brand or agency, social media is a foundational marketing strategy thatif properly tracked and analyzedhas the ability to impact the buyers journey at all stages in the funnel, explained report author Lucy Hitz, head of Marketing Communications, Simply Measured. However, marketers still find difficulty quantifying the impact of social media and are unsure of how to distribute resources to generate the most value from their social campaigns.

In-house marketing teams and agency professionals experience unique challenges and are offered different opportunities. If youre an in-house marketing team, youre focused on a long-term, constantly evolving brand. If youre an agency, youre brought on to achieve specific goals and have to show your value in a specific amount of time or your clients will go elsewhere, Hitz commented. We wanted this report to reflect both sides.

The third annual report highlights findings to pinpoint how marketers can fully leverage the power of social media.

Key Report Findings

The report compares the results of brands and agencies to gain perspective on the unique experiences of these two sectors, and the challenges and successes that accompany different sectors of the marketing industry. 64.8 percent of respondents were brands and 35.2 percent of respondents identified themselves as agencies.

Summary of report findings:

The report was expanded this year to include the global marketing community. Responses were collected from marketers in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Vietnam, and more.

The report findings reflect a global perspective about changes in social marketing staffing, the universality of budget constraints, and how social marketings role is evolving in the minds of business leaders, commented Fallon.

Download the full report here.

About Simply Measured

Simply Measured is the worlds leading social analytics provider, offering the industrys only full-funnel social analytics platform. Simply Measured helps marketers measure everything from conversations to conversions, so you can prove socials impact and improve performance.

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Simply Measured Research Finds Increase in Social Marketing's ... - Business Wire (press release)

As a small business with limited time and money to get your brand out to your customers, its critical to focus on the strategies and tactics that will deliver the greatest impact. But where do you start and what should your playbook be?

In my experience, an aggressive combination of social media, email marketing and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising is a powerful and effective marketing mix for small businesses.

Social media marketing is, for the most part, completely free. It will require consistency and time to stay dedicated to putting out a unique blend of meaningful content that is engaging to your audience on a routine basis. Not only will that serve your customer base, it will teach you to think outside the box of just constantly asking for the sale. You will need to keep your audience engaged with a variety of interesting tidbits and nuggets sprinkled in with the occasional offer that they can opt into. While you are doing this, you are establishing brand equity, reputation, and a strong social media presence. According to Arch Digital Agency CEO Ahna Hendrix, getting social media marketing traction requires consistency as it is a marathon, not a sprint. Youre building brand equity over time. Once youve built out your social media marketing program, you will be ready for Step 2: email marketing

Email marketing is a terrific mechanism for staying top of mind (and top of inbox) of your customers who have opted into learning more about your business or products as well as those you feel could be candidates to become future customers. Remember, you have slowly and steadily been building your online presence and reputation via social media so now you can link all your profiles to all the email marketing campaigns you send out. Your email marketing messages should be just as engaging and well thought out in terms of content so as to not come across too salesy. You also will need to segment your email list depending on where your audience is in the funnel, to better target your email marketing campaigns. Everyone knows you are here to make a sale, but its critical that you add value first and when your customer needs what you have to offer, they will seek you out. Unless you have enough meaningful content or a specific reason to do so (such as a major product or service announcement) try not to send more than two mass emails per month, lest you end up being caught in your prospective customers spam filter abyss.

All of that leads us to our third and final point: now, you are ready to scale up and put your brand on the map with digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising.

DOOH advertising is a unique form of advertising available on high definition digital billboards and digital signs and screens. From highway digital billboards to screens at the gas pump and digital signs inside bars and restaurants these screens serve as a perfect way to elevate your brand image and create that subconscious brand recognition that major corporations pay billions of dollars per year to obtain through traditional TV advertising. Thanks to technology, DOOH is more accessible than ever. You can launch a digital billboard campaign within a specific geofenced area, e.g. the San Francisco Bay Area, with a weekly budget that works for you and for whatever date range you desire to reach a large segment of your local target customer base.

Your creative for these billboards should be simple, large and brand focused. You are trying to get peoples attention for just a few precious seconds and make that lasting impression that causes them to want to pull out their smartphones and search you out for more information or drive straight to your location.

This Pinterest page for sample effective digital billboard ads. Your DOOH advertising campaign will connect the dots between both your offline and online marketing efforts.

In summary, in order to make your small business grow into a large business, the right marketing playbook for success includes a healthy combination of social media advertising, email marketing, and digital out-of-home-advertising.

Also Read: AdSemble is a marketplace for the digital OOH industry

Link:
The Local Marketing Playbook From Social to DOOH - MarTech Series (press release)

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Ever since the founding of Facebook in February of 2004 and Twitter in March of 2006, marketing has completely changed. Brands that once built campaigns to push market awareness through standardized marketing channelsare now using social media to drive brand awareness and sales.

A prime example is the streetwear industry, which does a great job of using social media to control supply and demand. Instead of focusing on pushing a lot of low-priced items, these brands sell out a limited number of extremely marked-up items, which are fueled by social media hype and promotion. Combining social media trends and viral content allows them to leverage the hype and causes the demand to far exceed the quantity available.

I absolutely love this business model, which led to me connecting with Elie Neufeld, founder of DHTK. After identifying streetwear as a major trend in fashion, he launched the brand to merge a variety of major trends, creating one lifestyle brand. By leveraging trends in sports, fashion and other facets of youth lifestyles, DHTK demonstrates the end result of correctly executing on marketing trends. While talking to Neufeld about his growth strategy for DHTK, he shared his gameplan for viral growth, which is universal and can be applied to any industry.

Related: 8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful

Being active on social media gives you a glimpse at whats popular in todays society. In recent years, LeBron James has grown from being one of the top basketball players, into a worldwide cultural icon. Between appearances in blockbuster films, brand alignments and switching from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat and back again, James has become a larger than life on and off the court.

DHTK accurately identified sports as a cultural trend with a number of top performers -- LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry all push culture forward with their massive following and influence. Turning to social media can provide you with the insight to clearly identify the major trends that people are talking about.

Many brands and entrepreneurs are able to spot major trends, but simply following them is not enough. You need to be able to understand what the cool factor is and leverage it to grow your brand. If you are able to associate your brand with a trending cool factor,you ride that wave, drawing attention to your company, which is fueled entirely by that trend.

For example, when Drakes album If You Are Reading This It Is Too Latedropped, DHTK combined hip-hop trends, Drakes growth, unique album design and typeface styles, which resulted in the release of the first It Is Too Late-inspired designs. It was a success because it combined the unique album design with the company'sown brand style.

Related: 5 Habits of the Wealthy That Helped Them Get Rich

Building brand awareness requires you to identify content that will work with the specific trend you are going after. It doesnt matter if we are talking about a brand in the fashion, music or sports industry -- each requires a unique style of content the consumer demographic wants to consume.

DHTK understands it fits into both sports and fashion, so it creates social media posts that work with both niches. Determine relevant trend niches, identify the prominent hashtags, and spend time determining what content styles your target audience enjoys interacting with. When you do this correctly, the outcome is more engagement and more potential customers discovering your brand.

Influencer marketing is one of the most promising trends -- consumers want to be able to relate to the people they follow on social media. Associating your brand with influencers can result in consumers automatically relating with you, based solely on that relationship with someone they follow on social media. Its important to make sure an influencers brand story aligns perfectly with your brands narrative.

You do not need to necessarily establish a paid relationship with influencers in order to associate with them. DHTK, which stands for Dont Hate The King, has clear associations with the common phrase people recite when referencing LeBron James (also known as "King James" in basketball circles). This association combines the respect and power of LeBron with the power and aesthetic of the DHTK brand story without any formal partnership.

Related: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

No matter what industry you are in, leveraging marketing trends can help you boost viral engagement and increase brand awareness and revenue. Pay attention to what people are talking about, thenfigure out how to do something interesting to get people talking about your brand.

Jonathan Long is the founder ofMarket Domination Media,a performance-based online marketing agency, blerrp, an influencer marketing agencyand co-founder of consumer productSexy Smile Kit&trade...

More:
4 Ways to Leverage Marketing Trends for Viral Growth - Entrepreneur

China's top cyber authority ordered the country's top tech firms to carry out "immediate cleaning and rectification" of their platforms to remove content deemed offensive to the Communist Party and the country's national image, it said on Wednesday.

The watchdog held a meeting with representatives from firms including Tencent Holdings ( tcehy ) , Baidu ( bidu ) and Sohu.com , on Tuesday where it gave them a list of specific errors, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement on social media.

The violations include distorting Chinese history, spreading fake news, misinterpreting policy directives and failing to block content that subverts public stability.

"[The sites] must adhere to the correct political line and moral norms," the statement said.

Chinese authorities have recently cracked down on platforms that allow users to share media from outlets that are not sanctioned under state-issued licenses, amid a wider censorship campaign spearheaded by President Xi Jinping.

On June 1 the CAC ushered in new regulations requiring all offline and online media outlets to be managed by Party-approved editorial staff. Workers in the approved outlets must receive training from local propaganda bureaus.

Related: Chinas WeChat Is a Censorship Juggernaut

In the wake of the new regulations several sites have been targeted with fines and closures under the watchdog's orders.

In specific examples, the CAC criticized one platform that failed to censor articles that "seriously deviated from socialist values" by saying China benefited from U.S. assistance during conflicts with Japan during World War II.

Other examples included a story detailing alleged affairs by party officials, an opinion piece that decried China's death penalty and an article that urged readers to invest in speculative real estate projects.

The CAC said the firms were required to immediately close offending accounts and strengthen "imperfect" auditing systems to avoid future punishment.

Excerpt from:
China's Top Cyber Watchdog Is Making More Demands on Tech Firms - Fortune

Unlike most Western media platforms, including its parent company Facebook (FB, Tech30), the popular encrypted messaging app had managed to escape the attention of Chinese officials. Now it's firmly on their radar.

Multiple WhatsApp users contacted by CNNMoney reported they were unable to send images or videos on Tuesday. Cyber experts said they had seen further disruption on WhatsApp servers in China on Wednesday.

The servers were not completely blocked but are "largely unavailable," said Charlie Smith of GreatFire.org, a group that monitors internet censorship in the country.

"I have also conducted speed tests from China and these sites are not reachable," he told CNNMoney.

Nadim Kobeissi, an applied cryptographer at Paris-based startup Symbolic Software, said his team logged into the app via a Chinese server on Tuesday and were unable to send anything other than basic text messages.

"We realized that the servers that Whatsapp uses to exchange videos, photos and files were being blocked in the same way they would block Facebook, the BBC etc." Kobeissi said.

A WhatsApp spokesperson declined to comment when reached by CNNMoney. The Chinese government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has tightened internet censorship across the board in the run-up to the Communist Party's 19th Congress this fall, where a major senior leadership reshuffle is expected. A new cybersecurity law that took effect in June is expected to make it harder for foreign firms to operate in China.

"The combination of the new cybersecurity law, and the upcoming Party congress, in addition to restrictions on unregistered VPNs, all point to this being a concerted government effort to crack down on freedom of expression," said Peter Micek, general counsel at digital rights organization Access Now and a teacher of internet policy and governance at Columbia University.

A wave of politically sensitive news appears to have prompted an increase in Chinese censorship in recent weeks.

Related: Even in death, the Chinese government still censors activist Liu Xiaobo

In the wake of the death of Liu Xiaobo -- a prominent Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist -- last week, censors blocked people from posting the image of an empty chair to pay tribute. The Nobel committee put Liu's medal on an empty chair in the 2010 award ceremony because he was still in prison.

CNN's broadcast was blacked out in China every time Liu's images or story appeared.

Smith, of GreatFire, believes the WhatsApp crackdown is primarily linked to the activist's death.

"Censors are working overtime, trying to eliminate all information about him. They must have determined that Chinese were using WhatsApp to share pictures and videos of him and decided to crackdown," he said.

Last week, images of Winnie the Pooh were also reportedly censored on Chinese social media because internet users were comparing the cartoon bear to President Xi Jinping.

Related: Chinese internet censors crack down on ... Winnie the Pooh

On Weibo (WB), China's equivalent of Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), no results appear on searches for "Winnie the Pooh and Xi Jinping."

Related: Google's man-versus-machine showdown blocked in China

China has 731 million internet users, and 95% of them access the web on mobile devices, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Center.

Western media and tech companies have been trying to crack the market for decades but have largely failed.

Facebook (FB, Tech30), Google (GOOGL, Tech30), Instagram, Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), Snapchat (SNAP) and YouTube are among the Western services blocked in China.

The crackdown has given domestic companies such as Baidu (BIDU, Tech30), Youku, Sina (SINA) and Tencent (TCEHY) a huge advantage.

Experts say WhatsApp's appearance in the government's crosshairs may also be aimed at helping a local competitor -- Tencent's WeChat. Unlike WhatsApp, WeChat is unencrypted and thus far easier to monitor.

"The point of these attacks is to coerce the Chinese audience into using more open systems such as WeChat," Kobeissi said.

This week's disruption suggests the risk of a full-fledged ban is rising.

"A complete block is just a natural progression," said Smith. "Then gradually people will shift to WeChat."

-- Steven Jiang contributed to this article.

CNNMoney (Hong Kong) First published July 20, 2017: 12:01 AM ET

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WhatsApp is being targeted by China's censors, experts say - CNNMoney