Snapchat for Business

                                                                                                                                          photo: Snapchat

Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing social networks. I would say that it’s certainly in a business’ best interest to hop onboard with the snapchat obsession to use it to their advantage. Some ideas for businesses to use snapchat are:

• Get your own Geofilter. This is great for users to e able to tag their location when they visit (if you have a physical location)
• Use it as a focus group. Ask questions on your story and measure responses/outcomes by providing calls-to-action such as “screenshot this photo if you want this option!”, for example.
• Go Behind The Scenes. Show customers a look into your workplace, a sneak peak of new items, etc. to make them feel like they know you a little better.
• Give exclusive offers. Give out promo codes and other deals on your snapchat story. It’ll be time-sensitive and exclusive to those who follow you!

 

I have partnered with a company, 27th Star Co., to create a Snapchat story for them (follow them at: the27thstarco). We decided that we were going to go the “behind the scenes” route and give a sneak peak at some items that were being added to the shop soon. This is great because we want to build some anticipation for the shop and get people excited to visit and buy some items. When customers get a sneak peak, this makes them feel special and like they’re in on a secret. They feel included. Who doesn’t like that? Even big-budget companies love to give followers a look at “the man behind the curtain”, so to speak. Jessica Maslin, directing partner at DayDream Cinema, a multimedia marketing agency, says, “Snapchat is a glimpse into the lifestyle of your company.” It’s another way to give your company more personality and a taste of the essence behind the brand.

27th Star’s snapchat story looked like this:

 

Overall, i’m a big fan of snapchat. I use it both personally and professionally, and it’s a blast every time! I think it’s important for companies to not only use it, but also know how they can use it properly: to build a brand identity and boost traffic/sales.

The platform itself is so fun and genius because of the time-sensitive nature. This creates excitement and urgency and gets people to log on often. Also, Snapchat has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other, because it allows people to let their guard down and be a bit more carefree since nothing is permanent.

 

A Closer Look at Klout

What is Klout?

Klout is a social media influence measurement system.

What Klout Does:

Klout is a service that gives everybody on social media a way to measure your social media influence. Klout is “a website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rate its users according to online social influence via the ‘Klout Score’, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100. In determining the user score, Klout measures the size of a user’s social media network and correlates the content created to measure how other users        interact with that content” (Parr 2011). It’s similar to the way that celebrities are given Q Scores.

Klout determines a user’s score based on activity and engagement on these social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Bing, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Wikipedia

The History of Klout:

Klout founder Joe Fernandez got the idea for Klout in 2007, while recovering from jaw surgery where he couldn’t speak to anyone for months. He realized that social media could be used to influence people, and he liked that some people were more influential than others.

After spending months in Singapore with a coding team he’d hired, Fernandez was back in his hometown of New York City and had launched Klout via a single tweet on Christmas Eve 2008.

By 2009, headquarters were relocated to San Francisco, CA in order to be closer to the rest of the social media giants.

In 2011, users were able to connect their Facebook, foursquare and LinkedIn.

In 2012, Klout launched a feature that showcased user’s biggest moments on their profiles. Also in 2012, Microsoft invested in Klout, and eventually led to a partnership with Bing, making Klout scores part of search results.

In 2013, user’s got to showcase their biggest Instagram moments on their profiles.

In 2014, Klout was acquired by Lithium Technologies, and most of the “perks” programs were diminished from there along with the popularity of the company in general.

Klout’s Target Audience:

While anybody and everybody with at least one of the featured social media accounts can use Klout, only those who are truly interested, dare I say obsessed, with social media and the power of being considered “influential” are the core demographic. “Klout matters today for those who are influencers or those who want to be influential. This is particularly true for people like authors, professional speakers, actors, marketing professionals and other thought leaders” (Palermo 2013). This means Klout is great for brands to find influencers to promote and endorse their products. Those with a high Klout score often received freebies (aka Perks) from brands in exchange for posting them on social media.

Amount of Users On Klout:

Klout has scored over 620 million users and over 200,000 businesses have used Klout, as well (“About Klout”).

Klout’s Growth:

Klout went from being a tiny little Internet start-up to an Internet sensation in a matter of just a few years. After the initial excitement about the opportunity to tangibly rank your influence on the world, people come out in droves to see how they matched up. It didn’t hurt that it was free and linked to social media that people were already extremely active and familiar with. After receiving support from Microsoft (who hadn’t given money to another social startup since Facebook five years prior), Klout was on top of the world. The company quickly grew to about 70 employees and had hundreds of millions of users.

How Does Klout Work?

Klout determines a score on a scale of 1-100 using an algorithm (which they have kept quite mysterious) of many different signals, based on your social media engagement. To determine a score, Klout uses:

“more than 400 signals from eight different networks to update your                                     Klout Score every day… The majority of the signals used to calculate the Klout Score are derived from combinations of attributes, such as the ratio of reactions you generate compared to the amount of content you share. For example, generating 100 retweets from 10 tweets will contribute more to your Score than generating 100 retweets from 1,000 tweets. We also consider factors such as how selective the people who interact with your content are. The more a person likes and retweets in a given day, the less each of those individual interactions contributes to another person’s Score. Additionally, we value the engagement you drive from unique individuals. One-hundred retweets from 100 different people contribute more to your Score than do 100 retweets from a single person” (“The Klout Score”).

Basically, Klout looks at your followers, how often you post, how often you and your “friends” respond to each other, likes, shares, re-posts, and much, much more.

photo: Klout

Social Media Channels Related to Klout:

As mentioned before, Klout determines users scores based off of their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Bing, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Wikipedia accounts and/or contributions. Some major social channels that Klout is missing out on would be Snapchat, YouTube, Periscope, and Vine (when it was around and in it’s prime).

Is Klout Mobile Friendly?

Yes, there’s an app version of the site available for both iPhone and Android, as well as the desktop website is easily viewable on a mobile device.

Public Figures/Brands That Are Using Klout To Their Advantage:

Klout is not a social media meant to actually post much on, nor it is really even a social media that most share links to.

At it’s peak, Klout scores were considered by many employers as a qualification to get hired: low score, no job. Brands looked at candidate’s Klout scores either before or during an interview to determine whether or not they would hire, because their Klout score was an example of how influential and trustworthy they were.

One marketing professor at Florida State University even graded his students based on their Klout scores after he learned that may employers were looking at applicant’s scores before/during interviews (Popper 2012).

The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas even used guests’ Klout scores to, in turn, improve their own. “Clerks surreptitiously looked up guests’ Klout scores as they checked in. Some high scorers received instant room upgrades, sometimes without even being told why. According to Greg Cannon, the Palms’ former director of ecommerce, the initiative stirred up tremendous online buzz. He says that before its Klout experiment, the Palms had only the 17th-largest social-networking following among Las Vegas-based hotel-casinos. Afterward, it jumped up to third on Facebook and has one of the highest Klout scores among its peers” (Litsa 2016).

Many companies either parternered with Klout, like Virgin Airlines (and the others mentioned previously) did, or took it upon themselves to reward influencers with high scores some perks. “Virgin America has offered free flights, Capital One has dispensed bonus loyalty points, and Chevrolet has loaned out its new Sonic subcompact for long weekends” (Stevenson 2012). Klout was also used by websites such as Salesforce.com and Gilt Groupe to monitor the scores of their customers, giving perks or higher priority to those with higher Klout scores.

Some examples of public figure’s Klout scores would be:

Barack Obama: 99

Justin Bieber: 92

Oprah Winfrey: 90

Lebron James: 90

Anderson Cooper: 86

Kevin Hart: 84

And just for fun… Dr. Selepak: 46

A cartoon featured in The New Yorker

Criticisms of Klout:

One thing to know about Klout is that there is a lot of crisiticism surrounding the company. Complaints include easy fabrication and inflation of scores, social media influence vs. real life influence, and the stress involved with having another number attached to one’s name.

“Despite its growing business success, you would be hard pressed to find a more loathed startup. In the “criticism” section of its Wikipedia page the company is described as a “evil” form of “internet herpes” that preys on user’s social anxiety. There are clearly still a few kinks in the system” says Ben Popper of The Verge, “On Klout, where my score is 65, I’m cited as influential on the topics of Forbes, Branding, Boats and Manhattan. In reality I write for The Verge about technology, was born and raised in Brooklyn, and couldn’t tell the difference between a sloop and schooner to save my life” (Popper 2012). Another example of skepticism surrounding the Klout score involves an infamous situation where “Klout Scores indicated Justin Bieber was more influential than the Dalai Lama and the President of the United States” (Nathanson 2014).

Many people, including those at The Verge believe that they idea of being labeled with more numbers in too daunting, “When online influence becomes something that can be quantified, boiled down to a two digit number like a Klout score, it inevitably turns into a double-edged sword… Do we really want another number, along with our blood pressure and our credit score, that we need to worry about improving?” (Popper 2012). Those on Klout’s side will just argue that is the opinion of somebody with a low score. A company being labeled with a low score could damage their customers’ perceptions for a silly reason.

Another major criticism of Klout is the premise of the company in general. “Klout wanted to force accountability on the social world. That’s a legitimate premise. But in execution, Klout got everything backward. Its system created a selection pressure for frivolity at the expense of truth… The whole approach just doesn’t make sense. Klout’s existence defeats its purpose.” (Nathanson 2014).

Brands beware of these criticisms. These can go to show how Klout scores may not be the end-all be-all when it comes to finding spokespeople.

Overall…

Klout is great because for once, we all got to see just how far our voices can be heard, personally and professionally. It’s great for brands extremely active on social media and those looking to make a (personal branding) name for themselves via the Internet. Klout made it possible to give companies and regular people the chance to collaborate in a way they never had before, and it was a win-win situation for both parties.

 

 For more information, check out my Prezi here. 

 

---

SOURCES:

Klout, Inc. “About Klout.” Klout.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.

Klout, Inc. “The Klout Score.” Klout.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.

Litsa, Tereza. “Remembering Klout: how ‘influence’ has changed over the years.”

SearchEngineWatch.com. Search Engine Watch, 30 Mar. 2016. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Nathanson, Jon. “Klout Is Basically Dead, but It Finally Matters.” Slate.com. Slate

Magazine, 01 May 2014. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Palermo, Elizabeth. “How to Improve Your Klout Score and Why You Should

Bother.” Business News Daily. N.p., 21 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Parr, Ben. “Klout Now Measures Your Influence on Facebook.” Mashable.com.

Mashable, 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.

Popper, Ben. “Your Klout score must be greater than 35 to read this.” TheVerge.com.

The Verge, 08 Oct. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Stevenson, Seth. “What Your Klout Score Really Means.” Wired. Conde Nast, 24 Apr.

2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

A Blog about Blogs

Blogs are a great for both personal and professional reasons. They’re cost-efficient and easy to start. Professionally, blogs are an amazing way for a company/brand to get more personal and give a voice to themselves.

Let’s compare two types of blogs, both small and large scale.

 

1. Adderall and Compliments

Adderall and Compliments is a blog run by comedian and writer, Annabelle DeSisto. This blog is for recreational purposes, as it is more of a side-project for her and a way to share her opinions on her favorite TV shows, past-times, and to promote her Podcast. She also posts more sporadically instead of being more structured or scheduled.

What makes her blog unique is her voice, and her lack of filter. She is not afraid to tell her readers how she really feels about certain characters on TV, political issues, etc. She doesn’t hold back and she uses this blog as a platform to share her views, whether you agree or not. In turn, this is also a reflection of her “Adderall and Compliments” brand, which is all about women who share the same love for pop culture and standing up for themselves, with a comedic twist. Plus, a large part of her brand is her Podcast (also named Adderall and Compliments), which is heavily promoted on the blog.

Most people find the blog through Annabelle’s podcast, or when Annabelle is a guest on another person’s podcast. Her blog is also promoted by other popular lifestyle/recreational blog(ger)s such as The Skinny Confidential, The Bitch Bible, and Stassi Schroeder, to name a few.

Some aspects of Adderall and Compliments, which qualify it to be considered “successful” are: presence on major social media (especially Twitter), original content, and easy to subscribe/follow. One major point where this blog could use some improvement, though, would be consistency of posts. Right now, Annabelle only posts about 1-2 times a month. I think that by increasing post activity to once a week would be extremely beneficial because it drives traffic to the site that much more often.

Currently, there are no advertisers for Adderall and Compliments. While Annabelle has a running joke that she would love to be sponsored by Adderall or one of the infamous “diet teas” that Instagram-models promote, I think a good sponsor for her would be a clothing retailer, a makeup brand, or even a subscription service (such as Texture) that would resonate with the demographic: Females age 18-30.

 

2. Coca-Cola Unbottled 

Coca-Cola Unbottled is the blog for Coca-Cola, of course! Unbottled is where Coca-Cola shares articles and other news about the company and their affiliates. It is of a professional nature, as the posts are business-related, and intended to share company news and garner revenue by letting customers know about new products and broadening their perspectives about Coke and their other brands. Coke says, “We champion our culture, humanize our company, and find fresh ways to tell our sustainability and innovation stories. We celebrate our past, present and future. And we capitalize on pop culture moments and real-time opportunities”(source). Many different authors contribute articles, which are posted multiple times a week.

What makes Coca-Cola’s blog unique is the fact that it’s very community-based, compared to many other company blogs. Also, the structure itself sets them apart. Coca-Cola says it best about their vision for their blog:

“The Coca-Cola Company dove headfirst into the unchartered waters of brand journalism by reimagining our corporate website as a dynamic digital magazine and owned media channel. Inspired by leading online publishers and powered by social media, the pioneering storytelling brings the compelling stories behind our company and brands – who we are, what we do and why we do it – to the forefront through a digital publishing experience designed to inspire, educate and provoke action”(source).

They have an even mix of human-interest pieces, spotlights on certain employees and company news. This reflects the Coca-Cola brand because Coke is all about community, i.e. their “Share a Coke” campaign.

Traffic is driven to the blog in two main ways. The first is by simply typing “coca cola” into Google, the blog is the fourth result, just under their main website and their Twitter. Another is by the link to the page in the footer of Coke’s website.

This blog can be considered “successful” because blogs are posted many times a week, there is original and interesting content, and Coke’s social media presence is large and is linked on the page. There is also a sense of longevity and commitment to creating great content. Overall, the blog is pretty great, but if I had to make any improvements, I would focus on two things: promoting the blog on their Twitter more and adding some sort of subscribe/email notification button for new posts.

As for advertisers, it’s pretty obvious: The Coca-Cola Company sponsors and supports this blog.

The Power of Carousel Ads

In 2014, Facebook released carousel ads. The purpose of carousel ads is to allow brands/companies to show a variety of photos and/or links in the same amount of space that usually only one photo can take. Think of it as a horizontal Instagram feed meant for branding. There are many benefits to Carousel ads:

1. They save space on users’ newsfeeds.
2. There’s a “30-50% lower cost-per-conversion and 20-30% lower cost-per-click than single-image link ads” (“Improving Ad Performance with the Carousel Format” 2015).
3. Images are at the forefront, therefore appealing to the Instagram-obsessed generation.
4. The format allows for different products, or different angles/features of one product, to be displayed side-by-side (up to 10 for desktop and up to 5 for mobile).
5. They are mobile-friendly.
6. Demographics and Budgeting are built-in to the design center.
7. Call To Action Buttons are provided at the bottom of each card.
8. Insights are available, allowing you to tweak your ads to improve performance.
9. There’s “increased web traffic – you are giving the customer more options to click and buy resulting in better click through rates” (Lay 2014).
10. You are able to upload that ad to Instagram simultaneously via Facebook.

 

While this advertising format may be new to some, it is important to hop on board and utilize this new feature on your company’s Facebook page. Adobe’s Digital Marketing blog says, “Through multi-product ads, advertisers can offer a user more than one product to choose from, reducing the amount of clicks necessary to get from an ad to an order – which is great for direct response objectives”(Lay 2014). As you can see, it can really pay off!

Now, an example. A company that I am partnering with, 27th Star Co., allowed me to create a Carousel ad for them. 27th Star Co. is a small, homemade goods company looking to boost traffic to their site. Since 27th Star is a small startup, their budget is very tight. A carousel ad is perfect for them due to the lower costs-per-click and ability to showcase a few of their products available for purchase all at one time.

For their campaign, we decided to keep it simple, as it aligns with the simple theme of the company and website. We decided to showcase three of their most-loved products and then to promote the custom ordering option for the last card. The company tagline was added in the text box to give customers an idea of what 27th Star Co. is all about, short and sweet. Here is what it looks like (the header was cut off during preview, but it is visible throughout the carousel slideshow):

For those of you who are wondering, the mobile-friendly version looks like this:

The photos were chosen to make sure they fall within the patriotic and earth tone theme of 27th Star Co., and so that the photos looked good together. Visuals are just as important as the links and information you’re providing. There is a link to the website provided in the header to complement the ‘Shop Now’ button next to the photo’s caption. That way, users have an extra opportunity to click over to 27th Star’s site and shop around.

As I mentioned earlier, 27th Star has a tight budget, therefore the budget option would be set low. Also, we would make the duration short for the first round, in order for us to use this as a trial-and-error period where we can see which cards get the most clicks, so that we can change things up in the future.

Since 27th Star Co. is a home goods and accessories company, our demographic is both men and women of all ages. We would include almost everyone in our search range. Setting the Interests section to align with the basis of 27th Star helps to narrow down more potential customers, though.

 

To review, carousel ads are great ways to simultaneously promote multiple items or products at once, for the price of one ad spot. Plus, they are easily customizable and interchangeable based on the data that Insights provides for you. I highly suggest that all companies look into using Carousel ads to boost traffic.

 

 

---

Sources:

“Improving Ad Performance with the Carousel Format.” Facebook for Business. N.p., 11 May 2015. Web. 11 Feb. 2017.

 

Lay, Monica. “The Benefits of Facebook’s Multi-Product Ads | Adobe.” Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe. Adobe, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2017.

 

 

Analysis of 27th Star Co.’s Website and Their Competitors

Having an effective website is crucial for business. Not only does a website need to be aesthetically pleasing, but it needs to have proper tools in order to promote and boost sales. Here we will analyze and compare the websites for 27th Star Co. (a handmade home goods company) and two competitors, Minna Goods and Folk Fibers.

27th Star Co.:

Considering the fact that 27th Star Co. is a fairly small company, their website is pretty good! The web address is straight to the point, and as soon as you arrive to the homepage, you know what the company is about. The site is a very clean, simple design that is appealing and easy to navigate. All pages are available throughout the site. Product info is provided and is readily available within just 2 clicks away. Plus, the site is compatible with mobile devices, which is very important due to the ever-growing popularity of tablets and smartphones.

27th has done a great job at making sure their social media pages are linked prominently. Providing social media channels is a great method of pull marketing and gaining traffic to those channels. Users who visit their socials are then (re)directed back to the website in order to make purchases (which is easy and secure, by the way). Since it’s a start up, there isn’t much evidence of Push marketing campaigns, as it is not really in their budget at the moment. Once business starts booming more, that would be one of my first suggestions for 27th Star. I believe that implementing an email or newsletter for new items and promotions would be extremely helpful. Also, I would recommend that 27th Star adds a search bar and a sitemap to the site.

 

Minna Goods:

Minna Goods has a great website, as well. Their web address is simple, and the layout is very neat and easy on the eyes. The layout and theme is consistent throughout the site, which is great because it makes it that much easier to focus on the products. If you want to narrow down your search a bit, you can use the very convenient search bar. Minna’s site works just as well on mobile devices as it does on a computer. Upon seeing the homepage, you can tell that they are a textiles company, as the homepage displays featured items. The site, products, information, and contact page are all easy to find and only a few clicks away.

Some features on the site, which are also examples of Push and Pull marketing techniques, are a newsletter sign up and social media links. Social media pulls customers back into your brand, and the email newsletters are pushing information to customers on a regular basis. The discount incentive doesn’t hurt either! Speaking of discounts, once customers are ready to make a purchase, checkout is smooth and secured through Shopify.

I would make more suggestions, but this site really is pretty great. They even have a feed that automatically posts their most recent Instagram posts, which is another great branding idea for a website. My only “complaint” would be that there isn’t a home button, and while you can just click on the MINNA logo at the top left corner, I think a home button would be a nice addition to the navigation bar.

Folk Fibers:

Folk Fibers has a very, very simple layout. That’s okay though, because it goes along with the brand’s identity of being very simple and natural. The web address is direct, and the pages are easy to switch between. Like the other sites, this one works well on mobile devices, too. However, there is not a set home page. The current landing page is a combination of products for sale with blog excerpts.

Push and Pull marketing techniques are apparent here on the site, much like their competitors mentioned above, through social media links and a newsletter sign up. Folk Fibers also has an Instagram feed box that shows recent photos. These techniques are great for small goods companies because these are budget-friendly ways to keep customers up-to-date on new products and promotions.

My suggestions for improving the site would be to have a separate, simple home page that is your logo, a brief description of what Folk Fibers is, and perhaps a slideshow with photos of your products. I would also suggest that a more substantial contact system be in place via a Contact page, where customers can fill out a form directly from the site. I also believe that the “about” and “contact” sections on the footer can be moved to separate pages that can be navigated to when a customer chooses to seek that information out.