Sometimes, when you’ve been using a really cool piece of software for ages you forget that other people may not have shared your delights, or in this case not heard about it at all. The other day, a work colleague asked me if I could recommend a good multichannel updating service; it was then, that I realized I needed to share my knowledge of HootSuite to the mass. If you’re not familiar with Hootsuite, it is a professional twitter client (although it now includes other social platforms) that can help you to save your time and sanity by managing multiple social networks through one client. It’s great because you can schedule updates and give administration permission to certain networks so clients can manually update their accounts without accessing your whole dashboard.
They have integrated some new features that have taken the service to another level [although still in beta]; my favourite features include:
+ Klout – a zero to 100 ranking that estimates their degree of influence within Twitter based on a whole slew factors like number of active followers, links clicked and engagement with other users. A small slider on the right can be used to adjust the desired Klout Score, filtering out users as the score increases.
+ Insight – HootSuite have also added a new layer of information about each user, in addition to the standard Twitter bio that displays when their user name is clicked. A new tab labeled “Insight” shows the user’s age, gender, additional profile images and a list of other public social profiles for that user, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Amazon.com (including wish lists), eBay, StumbleUpon, Pandora and quite a few others.
+ Sleek new themes – I know this sounds lame but being able to personalize your online environment is a real under-rated value added function that is often overlooked.
+ Analytics – Measurement is everything these days, so with the tied in functions from Google Analytics it allows you to track everything through one platform.
+ GeoSearch – This is an awesome capability as there are so many brands that want to know, who is talking about what and where.
I almost forgot the best bit, it is completely free!
Now that summer has truly arrived, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful: There’s the plethora of sporting events for us to enjoy, from the World Cup, to the Cricket season and the usual staple events of Wimbledon, Royal Ascot and The British Grand Prix. Longer days and lighter evenings allow greater opportunities for midweek socialising or playing sport. Most will be looking forward to a summer holiday at some point, with a couple of weeks of relaxing sun, sea and sand. And finally, most parents will enjoy taking their children off on numerous day trips and excursions. However, if you’re an affiliate, a network or a client Affiliate Manager, there are also plenty of reasons not to be cheerful. Aside from the current economic climate, the hot weather means that people are far less likely to be sitting indoors and buying things online. If you’re like me and my friends, the next few months will be full of trips to music festivals, sporting events, Stag (or Hen) Do’s, summer holidays, Weddings and barbecues. We’ve already allocated a not insubstantial amount of money towards event tickets, accommodation, presents and travel and there’s also the small matter of ‘refreshment’ budget for each of the events that we’re planning to attend.
All of this means that we’ll be spending far less time and far less money online on usual purchases like clothes, DVDs, games etc that you’d expect at other times of the year. This all amounts to an unhappy period of the year for all involved in the industry. It can of course be argued that the Travel boom in January has already been very kind to them, and many will also updated their summer wardrobes online in the Spring from which they can benefit, however it’s still galling every June to see statistics and graphs and charts all starting to point downward as the sun comes out. I used to work at a network where it was joked that we wished for rain every weekend, such is the extent of the situation.
However, the industrious and innovative amongst us can still very much capitalise on social trends. Social media has allowed us all to feel far more involved and wrapped into a community than we ever have before, so it’s far easier for cultural and social phenomena to be carried virally around the web, rather than just round the water cooler as in previous years. Affiliates and merchants alike, who are savvy and move quickly can capitalise on these sensations, and now more than ever is the time, as the World Cup moves into the knockout stages and society collectively goes a little bit giddy. Here are a few great examples of entrepreneurial types cashing in on the latest niche fads and fashions:
No world cup before this one has had such a huge talking point about something happening off the pitch. ‘Vuvuzela’ has been the word on everybody’s lips. A quick look at Google trends shows how much interest in this musical instrument has picked up.
Whilst vuvuzelas have mainly been prevalent in South Africa, and are available from street vendors, someone has correctly predicted that sales in the UK would rocket. With the help of Amazon’s affiliate programme they’ve put together this simple yet effective site: http://www.ukvuvuzela.co.uk/
Many older children are already off school on study leave and post exams, and all the younger ones will soon be joining them. With a good summer weather forecast predicted, and many families potentially feeling the economic pinch, there are opportunities for affiliates to generate sales through sites like http://www.paddlingpoolsuk.co.uk/ It’s now possible to buy a far wider range of splashpools and paddling pools far more cheaply than when I was growing up, and with a range of merchants such as I Want One Of Those and Prezzybox offering them for sale, it’s a great little niche to be in for the right domain owner.
With Festival season kicking off last week at the Isle of Wight, and Glastonbury getting into full swing, sites like http://festivaltents.org.uk/ should be doing a roaring trade. Many people who go to festivals look for cheap, small and possibly throwaway tents such is the environment in which they’re pitched, and affiliate sites which are built in the comparison style are a great place for people to find what they want.
These are just a tiny sample of the sort of niches which can help combat the usual summer drop in sales and commissions. It would be great to see any other examples you’ve seen.
Thanks,
Tim
When a press release proclaimed a ‘truly revolutionary feature’ in the affiliate marketing industry, I sat up and took notice. It turns out that “MoreNiche are set to raise the bar and offer a truly revolutionary feature that no other affiliate network has done before which could change the shape of affiliate marketing as we know it.” (source: Moreniche blog)
These are bold claims indeed from Moreniche’s Managing Director – Andrew Slack. In a video on Moreniche’s Youtube channel, confusingly titled Brand Portfolio Manager/Network Support Executive/Affiliate Manager – Mike Alexander-Thorn, explained how Moreniche have rolled out technology which enables them to track the consumer path to purchase, and reward both the last and first affiliate referral with a commission.
This technology in itself is not at all revolutionary. Many agencies have been undertaking path to purchase/exposure to conversion/Clickstream data modelling in order to better understand the multiple browsing steps a consumer takes on their ‘journey’ to purchasing online. The basic purpose is to be able to understand the key influential steps so that media agencies can be more scientific in their planning. However, many media owners, and in particular affiliates, seem to want the natural progression of this research to be a reattribution of media spend in order to replicate the varying degrees of influence in each purchase journey. And due to huge complications with CPMs, CPCs, CPAs and the varying objectives of different strands of online advertising, this hasn’t looked like coming anytime soon. However, it seems that Moreniche could be about to change this.
The Moreniche proposition is simple – affiliates on the Proactol Weightloss programme will continue to be rewarded the usual 30% of sales revenue commission as the last click referrer, but now, affiliates who are responsible for the first, introductory click will now receive a £3.50 bonus commission as a ‘thank you’ for introducing the consumer to the brand. The move is in response to growing industry concern that more and more often the last click is being ‘stolen’ by voucher code sites. ‘True content’ affiliates argue that they spend a lot of time and effort writing relevant content, carrying out product reviews, and comparing prices, only for savvy consumers using a voucher code once they’ve decided which product they’re going to buy.
So will this revolutionise the affiliate industry? It’s very hard to say, but our opinion is no. That’s not to say that it won’t contribute to the relentless evolution of the speciality. A lot of merchants may see it as an opportunity to reconnect with affiliates who have become alienated by the seemingly unstoppable march of the voucher code sites, and there will inevitably be other clients, or maybe even networks who trial this. However, we have our concerns over the long term viability of this as a new industry-wide payment metric for the following reasons:
Robustness of the sample: We’re yet to see truly robust data from a comprehensively executed research project which gives us a definitive picture of the influence of the various online media channels. In Vodafone’s excellent white paper into the viability of multi payment attribution, they took the first step at oncovering the mystery behind online journeys, however they discluded post-impression sales, and online ‘brand’ display activity, choosing to concentrate on post-click direct response advertising only. Arguably their resultant findings are consequently flawed. They effectively render advertising views and branding activity redundant in the consumer purchase consideration process. An argument which is heavily discredited by the huge branding display budgets spent every year by retailers. In an industry which stresses the importance of sales de-duplication, and the hugely varied online media channels, can any research piece which isn’t comprehensive ever hold true value?
Cynicism: Is it grossly unfair of us to suggest that perhaps Andrew Slack’s organisation has built its relative success on self-promotion and PR generated publicity? Are they just the first, boldest organisation to stick their head above the parapet and rollout a technology which has been mooted by many for years in order to claim brownie points for innovation? Have Proactol been convinced that they will receive incremental value above the extra £3.50 they will now have to pay for every order? I think this could prove to be a loss-leader for Moreniche (or in this case, Moreniche’s merchant) in order to generate awareness and interest in their network. There’s no denying that it’s effective, and they should be applauded for raising awareness and forcing merchants to take notice of this issues which has been bubbling under for years.
Cost: Ultimately, developments of this kind are only ever going to result in increased media costs for merchants whilst the different online disciplines in which they operate have different payment metrics. For example, most merchants run PPC campaigns to promote their brand. They can justify this as it usually generates the most volume of sales and traffic at the most efficient effective CPA. Currently, a campaign which is de-duplicated by third party software such as Atlas or DFA will result in a proportion of affiliates losing ‘their’ last click to Google. It’s a nature of the beast, and a bitter pill which affiliates (who have built their businesses off the back of Google’s technology) have to swallow. Arguably a merchant could start rewarding affiliates with a proportion of a commission for the part they play in getting the consumer to the purchase point, even if Google swooped in and ‘stole’ the sale. The technology exists, so why don’t more merchants already do this? It’s simple: Because they pay Google for clicks whether they make sales or not. It’s already hard enough to optimise a search campaign to be efficient without having to pay affiliates on top of this, and whilst it can be argued that they contributed to the purchase, it can also be argued that they didn’t. Did a consumer accidentally find themselves at an affiliate site when they really wanted a merchant’s official site? It’s impossible to get this level of granularity on every single customer journey, so rightly or wrongly, merchants will continue to take the cheapest route until genuinely robust research shows them that they will receive incremental value in rewarding on influential stages of every journey.
We welcome MoreNiche’s development, if only for the debate it has created in the industry. It remains to be seen whether it will be truly revolutionary, or whether it’s a clever marketing ploy for Moreniche to win more affiliates/merchants, but either way, there will be great attention paid to any follow-up they provide to see whether it was effective. Then you can guarantee there will either be a whole host of bandwagon-jumpers or ‘I-told-you-so’ smart Alecs. And then we’ll let you know which side of the fence we fall.
The latest trends report from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) show that nearly half of the marketers surveyed were still scared of fully exploiting social media, despite platforms such as Facebook now engaging potential customers on a vast scale.
58% of marketers in larger firms with a turnover of more than £100m feared the use of Social Media the most. Nearly one third of the public and charity sector also agreed that Social Media is still something to be wary of.
David Thorp, CIM director of research and professional development said, “This is an incredible figure. Marketers and organisations have a tool that they are almost frightened to take advantage of because they don’t understand the ramifications of using it and how it can integrate into their strategies”.
Thorp claimed that social media will contribute to the way that marketing is practised but marketers are unsure how to use it. “It is fundamentally capable of changing the rules of the game. There is recognition that [social media] is needed but I don’t think there is strategic leadership on how best it can be applied. That nervousness is reflected in the survey,” he says.
We at Digitalis Media think that using social media can be easy, if you follow these cardinal rules:
1) Choose your Social Networking platform carefully, Facebook is the most popular platform but it may not always be the most relevant for your brand and/or target audience. LinkedIn, Twitter and Foursquare etc are all powerful Social Networking sites in their own right.
2) Make sure you define your target audience and create your messaging and/or campaign around who you want to target and what you want to say.
3) Make sure that you incentivize your audience, whether it is: quality/ news worthy content, discounts, insight, competitions/ promotions and/or events. Users will not engage with your brand unless they think they will gain something from it.
4) Ensure that you have the resource to follow through your campaign, i.e. someone to moderate and update on a regular basis.
5) Measure your success. They’re Social Media measurement tools in place to allow you to moderate and follow the success of your campaign, make sure you exploit these to your advantage.
If you want to know more about what we can do for you, contact Roger Jones roger.jones@digitalismedia.co.uk.
Source: Marketing
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