Thanks to twitter for making me feel special by sending me a Twitterversary email today! Six years sure do fly by when you’re tweeting.
Happy Twitterversary!
You just turned 6.
Facebook Ad Sets are officially rolling out
In late February Facebook announced “A Simpler Way to Organize and Optimize Campaigns on Facebook“. See the chart below. In essence, they are inserting a layer between the Campaign and the Ad levels. As someone coming from the world of PPC this missing layer always dumbfounded me…
Well, now (and in my opinion at least 5 years too late) the New Campaign Structure is finally rolling out to Facebook Advertising. [Read more…] about Facebook Ad Sets are officially rolling out
2014 Amazon Prime Price Increase
It’s official: We have the first Amazon Prime price hike of 2014:
Well, I guess $8.25 per month isn’t too bad. However, since I already pay for Netflix (and they have a much better selection) and thus only use Amazon Prime for the 2 day shipping I’m not sure if it’s worth the investment moving forward…
What does “M.Adv.” stand for?
Recently I started a new job where it is customary to add your degree, academic title, or certification to your email signature. Seeing the following abbreviations after names are commonplace: M.S., D.O, F.A.A.P., B.A., C.C.L.S., C.I.M.I., M.D.
Well, since adding my own degree to my email signature at my new job people keep asking “What does the ‘M.Adv.’ stand for?” Well, let me once and for all answer what it stand for:
Master of Advertising (M.Adv.)
The M. stands for ‘Master’ as in ‘Master Degree’ and in comparison to other Master’s Degrees – especially in the marketing field – the Master of Advertising is very rare. This is because you can literally count the number of universities that award a real Master of Advertising (M.Adv.) degree on one hand. Want proof how rare the degree is? It’s not even mentioned in the Master’s degree article on Wikipedia! And, they even list the dangit “Master of Music (M.M. or M.Mus.)” degree…
This is because most universities do not treat Advertising as a separate discipline, but rather award a M.A. (Master of Arts) or M.S. (Master of Science) with a concentration in Advertising, but not the full M.Adv. (Master of Advertising) degree.
Please standby for a quick Gators shout out: I was lucky enough to attend the University of Florida where the M.Adv. degree is offered. And according to Google, UF is the best Master of Advertising program in the country. Why? Simple: Google “Master of Advertising” and the University of Florida is the first result you will find.
TL;DR
Most importantly, as you can find a M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration) on almost every corner my Master of Advertising (M.Adv.) degree in comparison is awesome.
The Future of “The Social Network”
What’s really behind Facebook’s new Paper app?
Facebook just announced a new app called “Paper” and while watching the intro video it hit me: Facebook is moving way from “The Social Network” (Yes, just like the tile of this post this is a pun at the title of the movie, but also a term that accurately describes what Facebook currently is).
We all know that Facebook won the “social networks wars” – there is no discussion here. Facebook has 1.2 Billion users and the closest competitor Twitter has almost 650 million registered users. In other words: Facebook has twice the user base of its closest rival.
Social is evolving
You can no longer lump all platforms and apps together into one “Social Network” bucket. People are beginning to use specific apps for specific purposes rather than using Facebook (or even Twitter) for everything. Using specific apps for photos, messaging, and videos is already happening as the adoption of Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine over the past year has shown.
This trend has allowed apps to take traditional services to the next level: SnapChat, for example, combines photos, text, and freehand visuals to create a more immersive messaging experience (see above). And the next kid on the block is Secret – an app that let’s you share creative messages anonymously with your close friends:
“A slight layer of anonymity is simply a tool to draw out this expression, while an emphasis on strong connections (via the address book) makes such expressions more valuable to both senders and receivers” – MG Siegler
Single focus apps will replace “The Social Network”
While Facebook has it’s fair share of successes and failures over the years, you have to give them credit for seeing a trend and trying to get out in front of it. E.g. hashtags, mobile, messenger. In this case the trend is the single-purpose app. The age of the great “social network” which Facebook won is coming to an end. People are now moving towards services that have a singular focus – people no longer go to an app to do everything “social”, they go to them to do one thing. And, the best of these services entice you to do that one thing over and over and over again.
The future of “Social Media”
As we are now entering the era of the great “unbundling” of services that have traditionally been behind Facebook’s great wall, services such as photos, videos, news, etc., are being let out to try to stake their own claims.
This of course creates quite a few opportunities for new services to rise to the top. None will probably ever reach the size of Facebook at its peak (which it has yet to reach).
Bootom-line: This is an exciting time in “social” with loads of opportunity, because the age of “the social network” is going to end soon.
P.S. Now, I just need to figure out what this means for social media marketing…
Conversions are as easy as 1-2-3
It has befuddled me many times how a simple conversion page is done incorrectly. It is not that hard and conversion page best practices are really as easy as 1-2-3:
- Make them trust you. are you going to spam me? are you going to sell my email address? is this an official site or page? how are you protecting my data? use any trust symbols you have. the more official looking the better. put your terms and conditions in plain english and easy to understand. don’t loose conversions because people don;t trust your site or page. #protip don’t submit a form unless the page starts with https instead of http. that’s the only way to know that the page is secure and protecting your data.
- Tell them what to do. as much as we have free will – humans still need to be told what to do. why does disney world have signs to tell people where to line up? simple: because we need to be told what to do. make sure you tell people, again in plain english, what to do on the page. if you want them to complete a form tell them to fill out the form below. do you want them to tell their friends? then tell them and don;t just put a share button on the page. #protip: make the conversion path as simple as possible – don’t let people “escape” or “bail” on the conversion.
- Tell them exactly what they are getting. this is the most critical piece. i’ve been on a form page numerous times and balked at giving my email address because it did not clearly state what will happen next. it is human nature to have questions and since you are not there to answer them in person make sure to preemptively tell people what to expect in plain english. are people signing up for a newsletter? make sure people know ahead of time who will be sending them the newsletter and how often will the will be receiving it and when they can expect the first one to arrive. in other words, make it clear what is going on. do you need something? what will they get in return? why should they do what you need from them?
And here’s the final bonus #protip: Get to the point and keep reading to a minimum. People want to do what they came to the page for and get on with their lives – not read a romance novel.
Armed with these conversion page best practices it’s now your turn: Increase that Conversion Rate!