Wednesday, December 23, 2015

In Social Media: Earn, then Own

Repost from the Tahzoo Blog:


In the past few months, some subtle and some not-so-subtle changes have happened in the social media landscape.  Together, I think they teach us a lesson on dependencies that could—or should—influence your Marketing Technology choices.
social media by Sean MacEntee 

TWITTER

On November 20thTwitter disabled the Tweet count feature. As explanation, Twitter provided a dominantly technical and partly functional response, but left the community guessing as to the business reasons. Access to Tweet count remains possible only through a paid API. It’s not a dramatic change, but if Tweet count was part of your KPIs, I hope you reserved some budget for a fix.
Of course you should keep using your social media channels for your Content Marketing efforts, but business-critical data should be housed in your own analytics platform, not on rented land.

YOUTUBE

With the launch of YouTube Red on October 28th, YouTube offered partner creators a new revenue-share deal. All of the major content creators have been given the choice: accept the new deal or have your content made private.
This could very well be a sweet deal for the content creators, but it is still unclear what cut the creators will get and what the results for paid and ad-supported channels will be, but I do not think the content creators were altogether happy with this unilateral change. ESPN had to remove a large part of its content, not being able to meet the new conditions.
There’s a big chance you won’t be affected by this change, but it leaves us questioning what YouTube/Google’s next change will be. Will that effect you?
YouTube remains an attractive channel to stream video, but if videos are becoming a growing part of your Content Strategy, consider hosting your own videos and be liberated from conflicting ads and other restrictions on YouTube.

GOOGLE+

Google+ has been pushed by Google since 2011, but this year Google+ was abandoned as the Google Identity framework and updated last month to the revamped Google social network. Whether it will take off now is anybody’s guess as it is not part of the Google package deal anymore.
Change is unavoidable, but we must be in control of how we interpret change. And we should be able to react to change fast to seize new opportunities. Perhaps building a Google+ Community or Collection now is your next big thing. Or, perhaps, it isn’t.

FACEBOOK

In the last two years there has been much upheaval about the algorithms Facebook uses to filter your feed. Just search for “Organic Facebook Reach” and you will understand. Facebook offered explanations, but left lots of users baffled or angry, seeing organic reach drop by 50% or more.
So what can you do besides pay for the reach you once got for free? Unlike SEO, FTO (Facebook Timeline Optimization) seems to be the new science. The best overall advice is to do your own multivariant testing, and discover what works for you and your fans.

WRAP-UP

The best advice is to keep earning your audience. Keep distributing your story through your favorite social channels, and engaging potential customers in the process. Get new people into your CRM system so you can reach out to them in a personalized way should be your main objective. And, last, make sure you own all your important content, and distribute it over channels you control. Don’t build your house on rented land!
And, finally, build in the flexibility to change – you will need it!
If you are interested in finding out how Tahzoo can help you adapt to these and other change of the age of digital transformation—perhaps with a free evaluation of your present situation—let us know. We would love to help.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Serial season 2

I am thrilled to see that Serial season 2 has kicked off.
Serial is a podcast from the creators of This American Life, and tells one true story over the course of a season.



I loved Serial season 1 (review in Dutch). I loved the intriguing plot, the art of storytelling, the great soundtrack, the podcast format and the innovative business model supporting it.

I hope season 2 will thrill me (and you) as much as season 1 did.