Mediaboss Marketing

LinkedIn has come a long way since being a CV portal, with the platform claiming its own importance as a business-to-business sales avenue.

This even comes from the horse's mouth, as the platform pushes through its content marketing agenda.

However, for Nicholas Kontopoulos, global vice president of fast growth markets marketing, SAP Hybris, the platform serves as an avenue to have conversations with like-minded peers.

For me LinkedIn is more about a content platform to create and share with like-minded peers, who I happened to be connected with. It has the benefit to be able to connect with individuals across the globe and have conversations with them, said Kontopoulos, who was LinkedIns most engaged marketer in Singapore in 2015.

The platform thus serves as a knowledge broking platform and is a great barometer for whether an idea will fly or sink like a lead zeppelin, according to Kontopoulos.

The idea for me is I will create and share content and hope that I am adding the body of content around that topic. The community will decide if thats good or not, whether they like it and share it, or tell you the idea is one that is too early or not great, he said.

As such, selling on the platform via connections will require a focus on the social aspect rather than just selling Kontopoulos cautions.

If you are adding to that body of content and knowledge, people will start to show an interest in what you say, theyll connect with you, and I have seen as a result of that, my ability to then to go on present to customers. I have been invited by global brands to present in their internal kick-off sessions on the topic of customer experience, said Kontopoulos.

That started through me sharing a slide share presentation on one of the talks I delivered, which then led to a conversation on LinkedIn, which then led to me presenting to something like 200 technology professionals. Thats fantastic and thats gold dust if you think about it from a marketing and sales perspective, that ability to secure those engagements, he added.

Approaching this is the correct way will see the sales come, claims Kontopoulos, rather than having sales as the key element, which is the biggest problem with social selling.

People making money off of it [social selling], they are focusing on it as a quick way to make money. In some respects sellers, sale professionals and leaders are making the same mistakes that marketers made when Facebook and Twitter first burst on the scene, said Kontopoulos.

Marketers when LinkedIn and Twitter first came around, thought, wow, now I can talk about myself, at scale! The content was pretty much around the brand and not about the individual, and that took some time, marketers took four to five years to figure out that actually it is about listening, he added.

LinkedIn thus presents marketers with a listening platform, and enables SAP to listen intently to what people are saying, according to Kontopoulos.

To me its about listening versus spamming those executives straightaway, in some cases whats happening when they [sales] access these tools and are told to sell socially, so they start emailing and linking with all these executives requests to have a conversation, without any clear benefit or outcome thats beneficial to the brand, which is a big mistake, said Kontopoulos.

As a marketing leader I spend money through vendors, and I have a lot of vendors reaching out to me through LinkedIn, but often they basically connect with me, they almost want to go straight from dating to getting married type of things. Hang on, lets get to know each other first, how about before I have that conversation, how about you find out more about me through my LinkedIn profile, he added.

For Kontopoulos, who is a heavy user, he claims that people will be able to get a sense of him, something which he rarely sees.

Whats happening is a lot of sales guys are being told, heres a tool, you got to social sell, thats the new thing so go for it. Then they start spamming, this is the challenge, there is more focus on the selling than the social element of it, he said.

Connecting and building along brand values

For Kontopoulos then, social selling requires connecting with people with a social context and creating value for them. This leads to the point about creating and sharing content over time rather than spamming people with it.

I want to be mindful with how often Im sharing, so Im not filing their feeds with Nicholas Kontopoulos. Sometimes that content shared leads to me actually having an exchange of conversation with someone that leads to a blog, which is a great way of generating new ideas for new content, said Kontopoulos.

Theres a lot of people who are just sharing for sharings sake, thats a problem, if you havent really read the article and someone does, you can damage your own brand. You should really read the article you share, because it may outline an opinion that you or your company doesnt share, and you got to be mindful on LinkedIn youre representing your brand.

Thats why I say to sales guys on LinkedIn, dont have in your profile, looking for new opportunities. Thats really bad, because you want me to buy from you, but youre happy to go to a competitor tomorrow. There is still a lot of learning to be had, he added.

While these sales reps are out there on LinkedIn looking for sales, each of them represents the brand in their interactions, which can be risky. Thats where education comes into play according to Kontopoulos.

You have to have a clear strategy on how you educate, and this is where SAP has invested heavily into, to position itself and SAP in the right way, in a way that creates value for both. As I said before if someone is sharing something on LinkedIn, if it is negative, it not only has a negative impact on the person but on the brand, he said.

One of the challenges is how social selling has been approached by lots of people out there, [to them] its a quick fix to get your quota up, get yourself plugged into LinkedIn, no real training provided to the sales rep, beyond maybe a 40 minute webinar with no real resources for them to tap in to. That to me is destined to fail, because you get people running off executing without any coherent strategy, he added.

B2B brands thus need to invest in understanding the positives and negatives of social selling, Kontopoulos cautions.

Very much about the old adage, people, process, technology, LinkedIn is a technology platform, but unless you invest upfront with the people and process element, theyll probably not deliver the returns of investment on that tool, or see the negative impact from bad experiences, said Kontopoulos.

A bad sales rep before, he or she impacted maybe 10 to 50 customers out of a 1,000. With LinkedIn, the bad behaviour of a sales rep is amplified on a global scale, thats the risk element. Doesnt mean you should avoid it, just got to be mindful of it, without risk there will be no innovation, no ability to get a step ahead of your competitors. You need to look at how you are moving beyond the status quo, they [brands] shouldnt be fearful of it, just mindful of what the challenges are, he added.

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Marketing and selling effectively through LinkedIn requires focus on social than selling - The Drum

Sina Weibo has partnered with digital marketing agency IH Digital to provide advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services to businesses within Southeast Asiain its capacity.This is a new appointment made by Sina Weibo for the region.

Both services will be offeredconcurrently through IHs offices inSingapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. According to IH, each of the services will have their respective set of conditions and duration periods.

Founded in 2006 with a presence in Southeast Asia and Greater China, IH is currently the official agency for Google, Baidu, Sina Weibo and Meituan-Dianping.

Sina Weibo, Chinas largest microblogging social media, offers a wide range of advertising and marketing solutions, ranging from social display ads and promoted feeds, to event-based ad and activity solutions. Its services have been adopted by businesses for social marketing since 2011.

George Foo (pictured), chief operating officer for IH Digital, emphasised that businesses outside China should have a specialised team to support advertising campaigns on Sina Weibo due to the countrys unique digital landscape.

According to him,while Chinese messaging app WeChat allows enterprises to providecustomisedservices to individual stakeholders, Sina Weibo is more suitable for businesses lookingto driveawareness, engagement, and leads among Chinese consumers.

In particular for businesses who do not have established operations in China, but are looking to reach Chinese consumers, Sina Weibo is the best Chinese social media platform for them to build awareness and credibility, Fooadded.

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Sina Weibo partners digital agency IH Digital to target SEA businesses - Marketing Interactive

A lot of people talk aboutinfluencer marketing,but few understand how it is priced.

Influencer costs can range from a couple of hundred to millions of dollars on one platform or across social networks, because of all thefactors that go into it, including exclusivity, engagement rate, following size and usage rights.

Pricing influencer posts is part art, part science, said Henry Langer, lead account manager for influencer search platform Hypr. [In some cases,] terms such as CPM and CPC dont tend to apply.

While there isnt a well-developed pricing structure behind influencer marketing, we asked agencies, talent agents and social stars themselves about some general guidelines that brands can refer to when they write influencers a check for their endorsement deals on Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Instagram: $1,000 per 100,000 followers Chelsea Naftelberg, associate director of content and partnerships for social media agency Attention, estimates how much her team should pay an Instagram influencer based on$1,000 per 100,000 followers. Then she negotiates the deal from there, adjusting the price up or down based on other factors like engagement rate, campaign length and the client budget. If I have a great brand offering, sometimes we will pay no fee because the influencer is excited about the product or experience, said Naftelberg. Also, if you are working with a talent agent instead of directly with an influencer, expect to pay a little more to take their fee into account.

Langer thinks that brands can start with $250 per Instagram post for social stars with less than 50,000 followers, then add roughly $1,000 per 100,000 followers per post. For well-known celebrities, the price has to go much higher. Kim Kardashian, for instance, reportedly charges over $250,000 for an Instagram photo.

Snapchat: Starting at $500 per campaign in 24 hours Audiencesize is not available on Snapchat, so social stars on the platform typically negotiate an endorsement deal based on active views. Since repeated views only count as one view and views are more intentional on Snapchat, rates on the platform could be higher than other networks, according to Snapchat influencer Cyrene Quiamco.

Quiamco shared the following rates given by brands and agencies based on conversations with roughly 35 Snapchat influencers in her circle. (View numbers are only valid for 24 hours.)

An anonymous influencer said that pricing often falls on the agencies. Shops specializeon Snapchat marketing typically pre-decide their budget per influencer and book social stars for content by bulk. The agency would sign them up for 20 campaigns with minimal turnaround time, for instance. And then after 20 campaigns, the agency will pick up a new round of social stars and continue the cycle.

This is really taxing on the influencer but really helps the agency cut down on cost, said the influencer. The agency then upcharges each influencer campaign, sometimes up to 90 percent.

YouTube: Roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers Influencer pricing on YouTube is much more fragmented than that on Instagram and Snapchat because YouTube allows marketers to drill into specific audiences and video content requires much more effort than image- or text-based posts.

For YouTubers with more than 50,000 subscribers, marketers can add roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers per video, up until around 1 million subscribers, at which point a dedicated video could cost upwards of $25,000-$50,000, accordingto Langer.

Super successful YouTubers like Bart Baker or TheGabbie Show could easily cross the $100,000 mark, he said.

Of course, that is just a general pricing guideline for influencer marketing on YouTube. For instance, a Redditor posted that a very popular YouTuber with a few million subscribers offered an endorsement deal for a rate of either $17,600 for two to three talking points or $22,000 with an additional description link in the video.

AdamWescott, partner and co-founder for talent agency Select Management, saidthat pricing of endorsement deals on YouTube can run from $200,000 to half a million per video, depending on if it is a 30-second brand mention, a customized promotion video or other format.

Pricing is also based on subscriber count, time watched on the video and the industry the YouTuber is focused on, said Wescott.

And aYouTuber like Gigi Gorgeous who has accumulated over 2 million subscribers can earn more than $100,000 per video for dedicated brand integrations, he said.

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What influencer marketing really costs - Digiday

Baked nachos served right inside a Doritos bag? A burger sandwiched between two quesadillas instead of a bun? How about a Caesar cocktail containing a skewer of jumbo shrimp and other garnishes, meant to be a meal in itself?

If you've ever wondered about the quirky and bizarre concoctions sometimes served at Milestones, Montana's or Kelsey's, Dave Colebrook is happy to explain.

Colebrook is the vice-presidentof marketing for Cara Foods, the conglomerate that owns all of those restaurants, along with Harvey's and Swiss Chalet. When he and his associates sit down to sample new menu items these days, they don't only consider the taste, cost and value of the dishes.

"We want to see the wow factor," says Colebrook."We ask ourselves, is it Insta-worthy?"

In other words, the dish needs to be so visually striking that diners can't resist taking a picture to post on Instagram orSnapchat, Facebook or any of the other popular social networks.

"Whenever we launch something, we always track it on social media to see if it's creating buzz,"Colebrookexplains. "Usually when you create buzz, you create traffic and sales, and it all works."

Cara is just one of many Canadian companies embracing a new form of promotion, where special products and experiences are created with social sharing in mind. Not only will happy customers do that for free, but it can attract more attention than traditional advertising.

The simple truth is that these days, people are much more likely to look at a post from a contact in their social networkthan they are to look at a sponsored ad.

And customers are always searching for Insta-worthy material themselves, according to marketer Tony Chapman, who helped clients create viral campaigns during his years as CEO of his own firm, Capital C.

Marketer Tony Chapman says Starbucks recent Unicorn Frappuccino was a strategy to attract social media posts and attention for the brand. (Starbucks)

"Consumers every day are meeting at campfires and those campfires are happening online," he says. "They need stuff to put online, they need logs to put on that fire. They need to talk about how interesting they are, what they discovered 'I heard this incredible independent artist, or look at this picture of me, I'm hanging off a tower, I'm riding a bike around the seawall in Vancouver.'"

While having lunch at a Montana's restaurant in a Toronto suburb, Crystal Hunter explains why she decided to take a picture of her Los Doritos Nachos.

"It's fun to share," she exclaims, adding that novelty is a factor, too. "I haven't seen something like that before. And also it's so colourful. What I like about social media is it's very visual."

Doomies, a vegan restaurant in Toronto, hasn't spent a cent on print advertising, yet it does a bustling business with hour-long lineups out the door on weekends, says director of communications Cara Galloway.

"We have over 10,000 Facebook followers, over 15,000 on Instagram," she says proudly. "We've really capitalized on social media to get the word out there about the restaurant. We'd be paying upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to advertise, but really we've just gotten that free."

Two customers take a picture in vegan restaurant Doomies' specially designed 'selfie room'. (CBC)

The restaurant has even constructed what it calls "the first selfie room in Canada," decorated with vegan-themed cartoons, as yet another way to encourage social media posts.

The effort appears to be paying off. Several Doomies customers who spoke to CBC News said they had learned about the restaurant from a post on Instagram.

"Once you see the picture, you are really attracted to the place and you want to check it out, hop on the trend," says Carl Jarentio, while enjoying a late lunch with a friend.

Other businesses, such as ax-throwing club BATL and ice cream shop Sweet Jesus, have created special areas on site that feature their logoand are designed to be a perfect backdrop for a selfie or photo.

It's not surprising that marketers would make every effort to leverage social sharing. The glory days of advertising, when brands and companies could reach the mass market with high-circulation newspapers or weekly television series with tens of millions of regular viewers, are long gone.

The internet and an explosion of television options has fractured the media landscape, scattering audiences far and wide.

These days, businesses have to use every type of media availableif they want to send a message to consumers.

But what happens if people realize their fun-loving posts serve another, corporate purpose?

Tony Chapman says marketers risk a negative reaction from consumers if they're too heavy-handed in their approach to social media. (CBC)

"When consumers feel they're being used or abused by marketers, there is a push back," warns Chapman. "They're very negative on your brand instantaneously and they often vote with their wallet."

He says the trick with social marketing is a gentle touch.

"What you have to do with social media is just plant the seed, and hope that the consumer grabs onto it, waters it, grows it and makes it their own. And when they do that, it's because of their own initiative, it's not a forced initiative."

Dave Colebrook of Cara agrees. "I think people are very savvy," he says. "I think people are smart and they know what they're doing. And we're not forcing people to do it. It's just about being part of the conversation."

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How companies get customers to do their marketing for them - CBC.ca

Kinetic Social will access #HASHOFFs micro-influencer marketing platform to help brands reach out to the right target audiences

#HASHOFF, an influencer marketing platform, has partnered with Kinetic Social, a full-service provider of social advertising solutions, to provide better social media reach and engagement to Kinetics clients.

As part of the deal, Kinetic Social will have direct access to #HASHOFFs opt-in network of more than 150,000 influencers across all social media platforms to expand its social marketing capabilities.

Joel Wright, President, and Co-Founder of #HASHOFF

Joel Wright, President, and Co-Founder of #HASHOFF said Partnering with an industry leader like Kinetic in a complex landscape was a natural fit, bringing together two companies committed to pushing the envelope of whats possible on social. #HASHOFFs managed service solution is a leader in the industry, and were excited to see how this partnership can help bring even greater value to our brand partners and influencers alike.

Wright said that the companys objective is to bring a brands vision to life through the creative voices of influencers, delivering authentic brand engagement and measurement, and providing real ROI.

#HASHOFF will provide the required technology and expertise to enable Kinetic Social to identify and activate the audiences that matter most to their clients.

Our mission is to provide brands the most innovative and cutting edge solutions to engage the target audiences that matter most to them, and influencer marketing is a vital piece of the puzzle, saidJeff Thompson, SVP -Platform Partnerships, Kinetic Social. Influencers are providing a new and exciting way to combine the authenticity of a brand ambassador with the targeted focus of a digital campaign. Our partnership with #HASHOFF is another step toward ensuring our clients can engage us to design and execute all of their social marketing campaigns.

With 84% of marketers planning to increase their spending on influencer marketing, the segment has become the key channel for brands across social media. #HASHOFFs proprietary algorithms combine keywords, geography, and interest and past campaign performance to identify and activate the best micro-influencers for each brand in real-time.

Read Also:How Much Does Micro-Influencer Marketing Cost?

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Influencer Site #HASHOFF Partners with Kinetic Social - MarTech Series (press release) (blog)