Making content for mobile?  Good, that’s very smart of you but that content will get a lot farther if you understand how people are using mobile, especially your Millennial target.   Invoca’s Amber Tiffany gives the results of a study they did and learned if you want Millennials’ total focus, uh good luck with that.  A big majority check their mobile often, even if they’re with friends & family.  38% check it even while out on a “good” date.  Such true passion, for the phone.  Messaging and calling are the top activities, which means yes that beats out social, videos, photos, and email.  In fact, when asked which method they prefer for contacting businesses, 66% said a phone call.  Only 22% said social.  52% of Millennials buy using their phones at least a few times a month so move toward one-click checkout if you can.  And 84% don’t mind you gathering their data, but they expect more relevant ads.

 

You’re not alone if you’re not quite sure whether or not your organization is organized best for today’s marketing.  There’s all this shifting to customer experience and that means integrating with other departments, some of whom may not even like you.  @CreativeKatrina gives us the rundown from a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and over 80% of marketing execs say yep, they need a restructuring alright, 29% say they need that like, urgently.  75% of marketers say in the next 3-5 years, they’ll be responsible for the whole customer experience across the whole customer journey.  The top skills for marketing people are marketing operations & tech/digital engagement, strategy and planning, and demand gen, in that order.  Creative comes in 5^th, you know, cause that just happens magically.  80% also think in 3-5 years, marketing will be classified as a revenue driver, not a cost center.

 

Ever been held hostage by an agency?  Or felt that way?  Sure you have, we all have.  They’re expensive and aren’t doing that great a job but you’re already in too deep financially and they have the creative assets.  Douglas Karr advises in MarketingTechBlog don’t make that deal.  Make sure you know right from the jump who owns the domain name because some agencies register it but keep ownership.  What happens if the agency is doing the hosting and you want to quit them?  Will you have to move your site somewhere else?  Then there’s the matter of the raw assets used to make media outputs.  If you don’t own or have the assets, you can’t repurpose them or have someone else do edits.  Again, it’s not that agencies are evil, but some will charge the lower prices you want in exchange for them keeping ownership of the assets.

 

Were you in social marketing 7 years ago?  Remember how thrilling it was?  It was a revolution that had the potential to change almost everything.  Back then 5.6% of marketing budgets went to social.  In the next 5 years it’s supposed to be around 20.9%.  As they say, whoo-hoo.  But you know how many marketing leaders say social contributes very highly to the company’s performance?  3.4%.  That’s it, 3.4% say social is doing anything big.  Christine Moorman and the CMO Survey offer up a few reasons why this might be happening.  1. Social efforts aren’t integrated with other marketing channels.  2. Social customer data isn’t being combined with other customer info.  And 3. Quantitatively proving social’s impact is STILL elusive.  There’s a feeling it’s doing something but…who knows?

 

You got some really swell content and now it’s time to distribute it on social.  Which network is going to do the best job of it?  The answer is always “it depends,” but TrackMaven did some analysis across 50M pieces of paid and organic content that will give you a little head start.  They learned brands got 3x the engagement for content they shared on Facebook as compared to what they put out on Twitter.  Amy Gesenhues goes on to report Pinterest took it right on the pin, or chin, with a 49% engagement drop over the course of last year.  The king of average engagement rate where brand content is concerned…Instagram.  Although, that ratio with Instagram videos and pictures dropped 31% and 36%, respectively.  LinkedIn pretty much was a steady Eddie, not much change.  Now, where are brands putting their content?  On the platforms that are falling in engagement!  Pinterest and Twitter are seeing the highest increases in content volume.

 

If you think new parents would be way too busy and pressed for time to spend a lot of time posting things on Facebook.  No, they’ve got plenty of time.  And the evidence is all those posts about baby that rival puppy content.  In fact, a Facebook IQ study with Sound Research and Ipsos MediaCT tells us Parents around the world post 2.3x more photos, 2.9x more videos and 1.8x more updates than the rest of us.  David Cohen writes that you know how you might think the public gets tired of posts about little grownups?  Well they don’t.  Those posts get 37% more interactions from relatives and 47% more from friends.  Friends care more than grandma does!  And here’s one for you “when is the best time to post” obsessives.  If you want to reach new parents, try 4am.  That’s when they start accessing Facebook on mobile and it peaks at 7am.  Some little fella isn’t seepy.

 

Instagram continues to be a big marketing power player, so if you’re posting videos on there you might like to know how many views they’re getting, and now you can!  Likes are great, you can Like photos and videos but there’s value in impressions.  Or bragging rights, value or bragging rights one or the other.  So content makers like brands will be able to see in a couple of weeks how many times their videos were seen.  If that sounds familiar, you get a cookie, because you’ve used YouTube and Vine.  Instagram’s internal data shows that in the last 6 months, eyeballers spent 40% more time watching videos on the platform.  And they’ve got 98 of the Fortune 100 using it so they’ve got to start giving them more and better metrics.

 

There’s nowhere I won’t look for content marketing tips and advice, and that includes the Medical Marketing & Media website.  Dammit Jim I’m a doctor, not a marketer!  Well recently they were talking about how to get people to share and amplify content…only they call it propelling content.  I mean if medical marketers can’t make something go viral, who can?  Philip Chin of Langland says it’s overly simple to think “good” content is “good enough.”  It has to be emotionally compelling and those opportunities are rare.  Rob Bean of Burns Marketing says if you empathize with your customer, you’ll know what content they want and need.  And John O’Brien, VP at Merkle Health, says connecting through and having the same personal values as your customer will have them propelling.

 

Let’s talk about my old industry of radio.  I know you’re getting ready to place that big broadcast radio ad buy for your brand.  But radio sells digital too, and a new report for the Radio Advertising Bureau by Borrell Associates says the industry grew digital ad revenue 11.4% last year, to $550.8M.  Digital Content Next reports the average station made $231,210 in 2015.  By the end of this year, digital ads should make up 6.5% of a station’s overall revenue.  And it’s not just banner ads and online stream audio ad insertions, they’re selling website design, SEO service, getting into all kind of things beyond traffic reports and bad seats at sporting events ticket giveaways.  Is radio a threat?  How much of locally spent Internet advertising does a cluster of stations pull in?  .26%.  And now you know, the rest of the story.

 

Facebook Instant Articles, they’re so instant!  They load so fast and look so good and clean that users are far more likely to click the link and read the content.  And they open in the Facebook app environment, not in a web browser.  You’re smart, so you know what they’re doing, keeping people on Facebook.  But they’re protecting the user experience because ads have to be separated by at least 350 words or can’t exceed 15% of the content.  Josh Constine points out that also, the design prohibits links that do things for publishers like recirculate traffic and get people to act on CTAs.  So it’s a real trade-off and publishers have to figure out what’s best for them.  Anyway, they’re moving beyond their publishing partners and making it open for all publishers April 12^th so start figuring out if it’ll help you or hurt you.

 

That’s it.  Would love to have you connect @mikestiles.