Mediaboss Marketing

PHOTO:Sundry Photography

No doubt the Elon Musk acquisition bid for Twitter is unprecedented.

Also unprecedented is division among marketers if they should be concerned about the potential impact of the Musk/Twitter acquisition on their social media strategies.

I tried a poll of my Twitter and LinkedIn audience to see if people were thinking of changing their social media strategy. A small number of people responded just over 50 with half saying no.

But for those saying yes or maybe and for those who share that sentiment being concerned on the deal's impact is warranted. Social media has long been an enabler for a brand to connect with customers. The acquisition is increasingly seen as a disruption among Wall Street analysts. The stock price for Twitter has been somewhat muted since the news. Tesla stock price dropped in value as Musk's financing of the deal using his shares was revealed.

Marketers may soon join that chorus, discovering that the deal will not really move the needle for Twitter to compete with other social media platforms.

Musk's Twitter acquisition deal presents an opportunity for Twitter's business model. When a publicly traded company turns private, its management team gains a capacity to focus on developing new products without distraction from quarterly investor demands for new revenue-generating services and driving the share price higher.

That may be a timely benefit given a current downturn in ad spending that is impacting the revenue for social media platforms. The stock market's response to Snapchat's earning report is an example of marketplace sentiment; CNBC and other finance news sources reported that stock prices for Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media companies tumbled as a result of market fears that Snapchat's losses from advertising reflects the entire social media sector.

But Musk brings no innovative perspectives to Twitter's real challenges. He instead directs attention toward tactics that appear strategic but are shallow in scope. His call to "open the algorithm" during a TED stage discussion following the bid announcement overlooks a key development fact: algorithm models are created from data, a development process radically different from that for software. Open sourcing any algorithm without agreement on what data is used to test and train the algorithm displays a serious omission of insight into how social media feeds operate.

The same kind of overlook applies to Musk's comments about bots. Political bots with false comparisons and bad messaging do play havoc on Twitter's feed. The same can be said for memes and fake video on other social media platforms, for that matter.

But bots, when applied judiciously, do serve a content marketing purpose. Bots allow more people to review tweets, increasing the reach for the associated content. Many subgroups within Twitter use bots to see tweets they missed when the tweet was first sent. This helps with ensure information is not overlooked.

For example, developers view bot retweets to see news on JavaScript Python, R and other programming languages. This helps in everyone seeing information ranging from new techniques to conferences. In addition, Twitter guidelines require bot profiles to indicate themselves as a bot and list the bot creator in their profile description.

The concern Musk raised about bots really must be directed at the type of content being reshared, not just the mechanism. When political organizations started using the same tactics, pundits and experts raised solid concerns raising amplification of misinformation. Bot misuse is a result of human misbehavior, not just bad technology.

CMSWire Managing Editor Dom Nicastro caught up with social media consultant Lauren Kozak on the potential impact of Musk and Twitter on marketers in a LinkedIn Live last month:

Related Article: Evaluating Elon Musk's Plan to Fix Twitter

Musk's comments about Twitter suggest that the issues are unique to Twitter. In fact, the real technical challenges for Twitter are like those for each social media platform.

Every social media platform is struggling to maintain user interest and maintain features that offer a competitive advantage. Platforms can rapid duplicate competitor features as a countermove. Programming frameworks have eased developers creativity so that functions and variants can be quickly deployed.

This means marketing countermoves to new, programmatic features can quickly occur. For example, Clubhouse immediately saw competition in the live chat space from Twitter and Spotify, with LinkedIn soon offering its version of a live chat feature.

Quickly chosen countermoves do not guarantee success. Take Twitter Fleets. Introduced in November 2020, Fleets were meant to compete against Instagram stories. They existed only 24 hours on a Twitter stream. Twitter discontinued Fleets August 2021 less than a year after it debuted.

The technological challenges of social media are also occurring at a challenging time among tech companies that retain audience interest. Overall online usage has piqued. Because people host profiles on several social media platforms, the competition for user attention has intensified, tested further by work-at-home online behavior due to the pandemic.

This makes audience engagement a crucial part of a platform's viability. The audience size of a platform limits the potential reach of content, diminishing strategy and impacting downstream analysis such as share of voice (SOV), a measurement of the amount of advertising presence for a particular brand, product or service.

SOV is an indicator for comparing to how people are responding online to that of competitors. Its strength lies in people discussing content online with positive and negative experiences. Twitter is among the best platforms for this analysis. The frequency of consumer discussions is hindered if the platform is a ghost town as a response to a looming presence.

Related Article: What Happens to Twitter After Elon Musk's Takeover Fails

Musk's acquisition casts an overbearing shadow over Twitter's user base, rather than over a segment in which people can opt out by simply avoiding engagement. One can make a comparison of Musk's Twitter usage to that of Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook. But Zuckerberg, best known for launching Facebook, has a social media usage that is periodic less frequent than that of Musk's interactions on Twitter. Although Twitter was designed for sharing real-time events, the difference in ownership places a new light on how much ownership influences an overall community.

That looming presence can be a significant impact to some analysis that require large audiences to generate statistical sound insights. A campaign using a hashtag will be likely be unaffected by any large shifts in the number of overall platform users. But a platform with a diminishing audience would begin to limit the kinds of nuanced analysis marketers need to validate innovations.

Twitter has been very instrumental in raising marketer sophistication in cultural marketing appeals to diverse segments such as Black, Hispanic and LGBT consumers. That increase in marketing quality and discussion of inclusion would not have happened if Twitter did not index highly for those segment populations, creating a space to measure and respond to true sentiment through sentiment analysis, share of voice and social listening.

So, with all of this in mind, what should marketers do to protect their strategy?

For starters most social media strategy is based on a focused intention in the content. Focusing on the number of people who engage and the people who convert will minimize controversial topics dialog from entering branding discussions online.

Marketers should also pay attention to trending audiences from their social media. Understanding referral traffic from the social media platforms can help organize decisions on whether to invest more into a platform. That understand can help assess if a platform's decline is leading to less conversions. No one wants to market on the next Google Plus.

Related Article: Twitter's Frankenstein Moment

It will be fascinating to see what comes of the Twitter deal. Twitter is a particular precursory platform for interest for Web 3.0. The platform just allowed NFTs to be profile images, while live discussions about cryptocurrency occur frequently in Twitter Spaces.

Social media was meant to be a distributed system, its value linked to being a gateway to substantial benefits for retail and event commerce. For Musk to make the changes he thinks are needed means having a broader viewpoint that incorporates advertising concerns, a deeper perspective of algorithm, and an appreciation for the various groups who use Twitter many of whom are not using it for amplifying ideology.

Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a small business digital analytics consultancy. He reviews data from web analytics and social media dashboard solutions, then provides recommendations and web development action that improves marketing strategy and business profitability.

See the original post:
The Impact of the Musk Twitter Deal on Social Media Strategies - CMSWire

Brands want to deliver multichannel marketing strategies and personalized content at scale.

By Jo Hamilton Published: June 1, 2022

Marketing automation tools are being embraced by brands to help them deliver the customized and seamless experiences expected by their target audiences.

The global marketing automation market is expected to increase from $2.75 billion last year to hit nearly $4.71 billion in 2028, rising at a compound annual growth rate of 7.9% during that period, according to a report by Valuates.

The report reveals that email marketing automation will take the largest slice of market share at just over 32% and, geographically, North America will dominate with an almost 54% share of the global market.

There are several factors influencing the automation boom, per the report, and these are rising internet penetration, industry digital transformation and increased use of mobile devices.

The digital shift during the pandemic is spurring marketers, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business, to invest in tools to help them deliver multichannel marketing strategies and personalized content at scale, the report states.

Automation can simplify processes across multichannel strategies, such as social media messaging, lead generation and nurturing, customer experience management and email marketing.

Automation is one of the must-have marketing strategies for your business if you want to work smart and grow, advised Attrock founder Gaurav Sharma in a recent SmartBrief article. Automation can not only boost your teams productivity but also supercharge your conversion rate, Sharma wrote.

The report provides a list of the key players in the industry, such as HubSpot, SAP, Salesforce, Marketo, Adobe Systems, LeadSquared, IBM, Oracle and Infusionsoft.

Marketing agency executives offer their tips on useful automation tools in this Forbes article, including Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Bambu for social media automation and LinkedIn automations to drive B2B connections.

Automated marketing solutions will develop at a fast rate due to the huge demand from marketers, the report predicts.

Chatbots in particular are expected to see a surge in popularity due to their ability to capture customer data and as technological advancements facilitate easier integration.

In addition, marketing campaigns will get a boost from new forms of big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence that will help to forecast trends.

Subscribe to our free newsletter to get the latest marketing news and insights direct to your inbox.

Read the original here:
Marketing automation to close in on $4.7B globally by 2028 - Smartbrief

There has been a significant shift in how audiences expect to connect with brands online, pivoting away from the traditional model of social media and into the world of digital entertainment.

Dash Hudson's Co-founder and CEO, Thomas Rankin, describes digital entertainment as "the product of the collision of technology and culture". In this new dimension, reach is no longer capped by the size of one's network and is propelled by the strength of the content that's shared. This paradigm grants marketers permission to get back to what they do best: being creative and Dash Hudson is the only solution in market to bridge creativity and data.

"TikTok is entertainment. It has fundamentally transformed how digital marketers engage consumers and is top-of-mind for the CEOs and CMOs we work with. Dash Hudson's sophisticated insights give brands the confidence to continue to increase their investment in short-form video," says Thomas Rankin, Co-founder and CEO, Dash Hudson. "TikTok is an opportunity for brands to get back to their best, be playful and build new communities. We are thrilled to be working alongside the team at TikTok to help top brands and retailers create videos that entertain and bring joy to consumers around the world."

Designed specifically to unlock the magic of the entertainment platform, Dash Hudson has leveraged TikTok's API to launch Insights, Video Publishing and Community Managementfeaturesthat deliver the solutions marketers need to drive performance. Beyond the API, Dash Hudson is also announcing the launch of three revolutionary and proprietary tools for brands to further deepen engagement and discoverability: Entertainment Score, Trending Video Notifications and Trending Sounds.

Entertainment Score

Dash Hudson's exclusive Entertainment Score allows brands to measure how well their TikTok video is entertaining their audience, enabling them to double down on what's working so they can drive the most value for their business.

Trending Video Notifications

Exclusive to Dash Hudson, Trending Video Notifications will enable brands to develop a deep understanding of which TikToks are gaining momentum so they can quickly take action on high-performing content across owned and paid.

Trending Sounds

A game-changing feature that curates the most popular and up-and-coming sound trends on TikTok, Dash Hudson's Trending Sounds empowers brands to get ahead of their competition by sourcing the most relevant and opportunity-packed moments to flex their creativity. In this feature, brands are also provided instant context on how a particular sound is being used by other creators, equipping them with the intelligence required to act quickly.

With the industry's notable shift to video-first feeds and society's increasing preference for short-form, mobile-first video, brands have a rare opportunity to re-think their marketing efforts. Today's announcement of Dash Hudson's partnership with TikTok has enabled the social marketing software leader to build innovation to support the world's largest brands in their transition to entertainment-first content creation.

To learn more about how the globally-leading social marketing software is ushering the world's most important brands into the era of digital entertainment, please click here.

About Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson was founded in 2015 with the mission to empower brands to deepen engagement through photos and videos. Today, the global leader in social marketing software helps companies like Cond Nast, Apple and Unilever unlock their creative superpowers and elevate their strategies at the speed of social. Dash Hudson takes it to the next level by predicting the performance of photos and videos, analyzing trends and accelerating brand growth across social media, entertainment and e-commerce marketing channels.

To learn more about Dash Hudson, please click here.

About the Marketing Partners Program

The TikTok Marketing Partners Program is a community of carefully selected and innovative 3rd party technology and service companies that enable marketers to get started, grow their strategy, and find repeatable success. TikTok badges Partners who have a diverse range of industry expertise and a proven track record of success on TikTok in Creative, Measurement, Campaign Management, Effects, Sound and Commerce categories.

To learn more about the TikTok Marketing Partners Program, click here.

SOURCE Dash Hudson

Read more:
Dash Hudson Joins the TikTok Marketing Partners Program - PR Newswire

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (PRWEB) June 01, 2022

Influence Weekly has reached the milestone of 20,000 subscribers to its weekly newsletter. Known for its editorial coverage of the influencer marketing space, creator economy and social media platform, New Monaco Media has grown the Influencer Weekly Newsletter 300 percent since its acquisition of the newsletter in September 2020.

After InfluenceWeekly joined New Monaco Medias digital portfolio of brands in 2020, our first area of focus was to establish the newsletter as the go-to outlet for all news in the Influencer Marketing space. Since then, weve worked hard to learn what our readers are looking for and to establish a trustworthy relationship with our subscribers. Our team has expanded our newsletter strategy to include content that is relevant to anyone in the influencer space, from CMOs at national brands, to creators looking to jump start their careers, said David Adler, Managing Director at New Monaco Media. The rapid growth of our newsletter subscribers is a testament to the work our team has done and has skyrocketed this digital platform into the top in the industry.

New Monaco Medias Influence Weekly newsletter is a weekly newsletter that accompanies its Net Influencer web property, the world foremost website that covers the influencer marketing industry. The company plans on expanding its editorial coverage of the space to include interviews with both creator economy business founders as well as creators providing a one shop stop on all things creator economy.

Share article on social media or email:

Here is the original post:
Influence Weekly Reaches Milestone Twenty Thousand Influencer Marketing Professionals to its Weekly Newsletter - PR Web

ATLANTA One look at the results of Georgias primary election last week led many Republicans to believe it was the product of Democratic meddling. Former President Donald J. Trumps recruited challengers lost in grand fashion in his most sought-after races: David Perdue was routed by Gov. Brian Kemp by more than 50 percentage points, while Representative Jody Hice fell to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger by nearly 20.

Mr. Trump and his allies pointed to so-called Democratic crossover voters as the cause of their shellackings. In Georgias open primary system, Democrats and Republicans can vote in the other partys primary if they wish, and more than 37,000 people cast early ballots in this years Republican primary election after voting in the Democratic primary in 2020.

Some Democrats, for their part, staked a claim to these voters, arguing that they had crossed over to strategically support candidates who reject Mr. Trumps falsehoods about the 2020 election. Most of the crossover voters, the Democrats said, would return to the party in November.

But a closer look at these voters paints a more complicated picture. Just 7 percent of those who voted early during last months Republican primary cast ballots for Democrats in that partys 2020 primary election, according to the data firm L2. And 70 percent of this years crossover voters who cast early ballots in the G.O.P. primary had participated in both Democratic and Republican primaries over the last decade.

These voters, data suggests, are less Republican traitors or stalwart Democrats aiming to stop Trump loyalists than they are highly sought-after and unpredictable swing voters.

I didnt want any of the Trumpsters becoming a candidate, said Frances Cooper, 43, who voted in Columbia County, two hours east of Atlanta.

A self-described moderate, Ms. Cooper said that she had voted in both Democratic and Republican primaries in the past, and that she could often vote either way. This time, she said, Mr. Kemp had been pretty good, and was the best of our options. She was undecided about the November general election for governor, but if anything leaning toward Kemp.

Voters like Ms. Cooper base their choices in every election on multiple variables: their political leanings, how competitive one partys primary might be or the overall environment in any given election year, among others. Some Democratic voters in deep-red counties opted for a Republican ballot because they believed it would be a more effective vote. Others, frustrated with leadership in Washington, voted according to their misgivings.

Many unknowns still remain. The current data on crossover voters includes only those who cast ballots during Georgias three-week early voting period, when the most politically engaged people tend to vote. In addition to traditional swing voters or disaffected Democrats, a portion of those who crossed over were indeed probably Democratic voters switching strategically to the Republican primary to spite the former president.

Yet the crossover voters who cast early ballots in last months Republican primary are not demographically representative of Georgias multiracial Democratic base, which also includes a growing number of young voters. Fifty-five percent of these early crossover voters were above the age of 65, and 85 percent were white, according to voter registration data. Less than 3 percent were between the ages of 18 and 29.

It is unclear whether a majority of these voters will return to support Democrats this November, as some in the party expect, or whether they will vote again for Republicans in large numbers.

I think theres a real danger on the part of Democrats in Georgia to just assume that they arent going to lose some of those voters from 2020, said Erik Iverson, a Republican pollster who works with Georgia campaigns.

No race has attracted more debate about crossover voting than the Republican primary for secretary of state, in which Mr. Raffensperger, the incumbent, who had rejected attempts to subvert the 2020 election, defeated Mr. Hice, a Trump-endorsed challenger.

Though Mr. Raffensperger won by almost 20 points, he escaped being forced into a runoff election by finishing with 52.3 percent of the vote, or 2.3 percent above the majority threshold that would have prompted a runoff.

Operatives on both sides of the aisle have speculated that crossover voting was a chief reason that Mr. Raffensperger avoided a runoff. But drawing such a conclusion ignores the many reasons for crossover voting in Georgia, and probably overestimates the number of true Democrats voting for Mr. Raffensperger.

That would be an awful lot of crossover voting, said Scott H. Ainsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, adding that Mr. Raffenspergers nearly 30,000-vote margin to avoid a runoff had most likely been spurred by more than just meandering former Democratic primary voters.

Still, that hasnt dissuaded some from pointing to crossover voters as a root cause of Mr. Raffenspergers success.

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a Republican who founded the group Country First, which supports pro-democracy G.O.P. candidates, cited the Georgia secretary of states victory as proof of his organizations effectiveness.

Why are these midterms so important? This years races could tip the balance of power in Congress to Republicans, hobbling President Bidens agenda for the second half of his term. They will also test former President Donald J. Trumps role as a G.O.P. kingmaker. Heres what to know:

What are the midterm elections? Midterms take place two years after a presidential election, at the midpoint of a presidential term hence the name. This year, a lot of seats are up for grabs, including all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 of 50 governorships.

What do the midterms mean for Biden? With slim majorities in Congress, Democrats have struggled to pass Mr. Bidens agenda. Republican control of the House or Senate would make the presidents legislative goals a near-impossibility.

What are the races to watch? Only a handful of seats will determine if Democrats maintain control of the House over Republicans, and a single state could shift power in the 50-50 Senate. Here are 10 races to watch in the Houseand Senate, as well as several key governors contests.

When are the key races taking place? The primary gauntletis already underway. Closely watched racesin Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia wereheld in May, with more taking place through the summer. Primaries run until September before the general election on Nov. 8.

Go deeper. What is redistrictingand how does it affect the midterm elections? How does polling work? How do you register to vote? Weve got more answers to your pressing midterm questions here.

I have no doubt we made the impact, Mr. Kinzinger said. His group distributed mailers, sent text messages and ran television ads in support of Mr. Raffensperger. The groups message to Georgia Democrats, who had largely noncompetitive races for governor and Senate, was to vote in the Republican primary instead. Mr. Kinzinger said the efforts helped Mr. Raffensperger avoid a runoff.

The organization has tried to lift candidates in states including Texas and North Carolina, where it successfully helped to oust Representative Madison Cawthorn. The group has plans to support candidates in Michigan and to defend Republican incumbents like Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Sometimes, the motivation for Democrats or Republicans to cross over into the other partys primary goes deeper than statewide contests. For example, if voters are drawn into a noncompetitive district, they will sometimes vote in the other partys primary if it will essentially determine the general election winner.

Take Clarke County in Georgia. Home to Athens, a Democratic-leaning city, the county is wholly contained in the 10th Congressional District, a decidedly Republican seat held by Mr. Hice (he did not run for re-election because he was running for secretary of state). In Clarke County, roughly 900 voters who cast early ballots in the Republican primary had voted in the Democratic primary in 2020, one of the largest county totals of crossover voters outside the Atlanta area.

Those voters, however, may not have been focused on the statewide races but on the closely contested primary election to replace Mr. Hice. Whoever prevailed in the multicandidate Republican primary was likely to win in November in a district that Mr. Hice carried by 25 points in 2020.

Theres a lot of Democrats in Athens and Clarke County who will have no meaningful voice in their choice for Congress unless they vote in the primary, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University. There are probably some Democratic voters who were just voting quite rationally in the sense that they wanted their voice heard in a House race, and that is their only meaningful opportunity to do so.

Nate Cohn contributed reporting.

Read more here:
A Georgia Mystery: How Many Democrats Voted in the G.O.P. Primary? - The New York Times