It’s been a minute since I’ve worked at a job where money was payment and not hugs, kisses and thank yous from my family. I stopped working “professionally” when I had my now 18-year-old son back in 2004. And now, after all of these years, I find myself once again at the same company that I worked for back before becoming a mom.
It’s the perfect job for me; part-time, flexible, and I get to work with some really great people. I’ve been at Sketchfolio for just over a year now. And while I love it, I am often questioning myself. Am I enough? Do I know what I am doing? Am I embarrassing myself by jumping back in after all of these years? Am I making an impact? Am I living up to expectations?
All of these questions start to creep into my mind, more frequently than I would like to admit. After all, I haven’t worked for 17 years! How am I supposed to feel comfortable and confident in my role? And in a weird time, when nothing in this world feels quite normal anymore, I guess the answer (that will probably be different next week) is that I’ll probably never feel perfectly comfortable…and that’s okay. I know I’m great at certain things, but also, that I have so much to learn. And while that can feel really overwhelming at times, I also see it as a good thing. If I don’t feel uncomfortable, am I even stretching myself, or growing, or learning?
I saw a LinkedIn commercial today and a line from it stood out to me. “Professional is ours to define.” Truthfully, even when I started working full-time right out of college, I never really considered myself a “professional.” I suppose it was because I was just starting out and didn’t have a great idea of what I really wanted to do in terms of a career. So, would I consider myself to be a “professional” now? Probably not. But I do think that being willing to learn, and in general getting better at the job, will help me eventually become more comfortable with the term. In general, I feel grateful to be working with teams that value my previous experiences, and see my value, especially on days when I begin to doubt myself. My hope is that by being more honest about our insecurities, we can help support each other, especially when our negative thoughts try to get the best of us.
What does it take to earn a place on a prestigious New York Times Advertising Externship? The skills I gained at Sketchfolio certainly helped! Having learned even more from T Brand Studio, the custom content agency for the NYT, I’m bringing my new knowledge back home.
At Sketchfolio, we keep it fresh. We pride ourselves on our core values of innovation, smart design, and giving back. Staying relevant to new trends and capabilities is crucial to our business and we love learning from other agencies in our field, so I’m excited to share my new skills as I resume my internship.
T Brand has set itself apart through its mission to “craft stories that help brands make an impact in the world.” At Sketchfolio we produce products that both beautify and functionalize our clients’ spaces. I learned from T Brand how to break rules and reset the mold. I was inspired by their satiric Dropbox campaign that poked fun at corporate lingo and outdated team activities. This encouraged me to think outside the box with our solutions as well as utilize audio in our campaigns.
The Sketchfolio internship program has given me the opportunity to share my own knowledge of this ever-changing field to improve our content and team culture. I hope my contributions can add a new perspective to the amazing work that Sketchfolio is doing!
Has your project spiraled out of control? Whether you’re an agency or client, you’ve probably experienced this at least once, and want to keep it from happening again! But how? We’ve got a quick checklist to keep your project on time, under budget, and with fewer roadblocks.
1. Is that feature still needed?
Maybe you learned something during the course of the project that changed your initial assumptions. There are so many situations where a client comes to the table with ideas, then finds that some of their ideas are not as important as they thought. Or maybe the agency provided some different solutions to their problems, and some features can be dropped from the “must have” list.
2. Can that feature wait?
Delaying implementation of nice-to-haves can get a new project in front of customers sooner. Say your client wants the screen to have a confetti explosion when a customer order is submitted. Sure, that may be an awesome feature, but if it takes an extra two months and twice the budget to complete, is it worth it? Or does it make more sense to deploy with a simple order submission screen, and add the bells and whistles in Phase 2?
3. Have you gotten feedback from anyone outside of your team?
Fresh eyes are a great way to validate your progress. The old saying “You can’t see the forest through the trees,” definitely applies here. It’s easy to get sidetracked when a project is the main thing on your plate, but getting reviews from outside your team is a great way to ensure you’re sticking to the script.
4. Have you kept tabs on features that could break your project?
You’re only able to plan for the risks you know about. For example when you’re creating a new website, some themes allow tons of customization, while others have stricter limitations. It’s easier to identify what could cause your project trouble down the road than find huge issues later.
5. Can you measure the impact of individual features?
Removing features that aren’t engaging your customers is a great way to prepare for future growth. So many clients have a vision of features that could make their project stand out. But sometimes those features that seem cool provide little value to the end customer. Be sure you aren’t spending a lot of time and money on a feature that doesn’t contribute to your end goal, whatever that may be.
Our start was so different from where we are now. 1,000 miles away. Literally, in Woodland Hills, California.
Two jokers, kids really, sitting back-to-back on tiny chairs in a cramped, 140-square-foot room in my apartment — fighting back the claustrophobia with closet doors made of full-length mirrors and thanks to the dreams of where our work might take us.
Things looked a lot different then. The monitors and computers weighed a lot more. I weighed a little less. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn weren’t around yet. Heck, MySpace was born, died, and reborn again in the time we’ve been around.
Some things haven’t changed. My first client — the company I left to start Sketchfolio — is still a client today. My ex-CPA father-in-law still does my books (I promise, I’ll let you fully retire one day, Mike). And, most importantly, it’s the relationships that matter the most.
Yes, I’ve been a “boss” for 20 years. But, I’ve had hundreds of bosses to learn from (aka clients). I’ve had hundreds of colleagues to collaborate with (aka partners and vendors). And I’ve had my family grow — the team at Sketchfolio over the years, my amazing wife and our three kids, who are the greatest creation I’ve had the honor of being a part of over the past two decades.
The 20 years certainly weren’t easy (see note above about three kids). There’s things I’d change, things I’ve learned, ways we’ve grown. But I wouldn’t change any of it if it meant risking some of the amazing things that came along with the hard times — the relationships built, the bonds of trust gained, the faith that we can accomplish great things.
I started writing this thinking I had to write something about Sketchfolio, what it’s done over the last 20 years, and where it might go. But, I realized in the third (or fourth or eighth draft) that the story of the business isn’t what matters.
What matters is that I say thank you. To my family for supporting my sometimes obsessive nature to dive into the work. The team members who have been with Sketchfolio for more than a decade. The team members who have just started their journey with us. The clients who trusted us 20 years ago and the ones that trust us today.
If you’re reading this (and got to the end), you must be someone who’s supported Sketchfolio along the way. So, thank YOU.
It’s been an honor to lead this ship for 20 years. I hope you’re a part of where the winds take us next.
Whether your web form is for customers to sign up for a newsletter, gathering feedback via a survey, or collecting information for a new client project, good web form design is essential to ensuring your clients are engaged and complete the form. Web forms should be like eating a piece of pecan pie: Simple. Easy to swallow. Leaves you feeling satisfied.
Tips to get users to complete your form:
Use Multi-step forms when there are a lot of fields.
It is less intimidating to the user
They are more likely to give out personal info (email, phone, etc…) when it is asked at the last step
Remove non-essential fields
Condense to just the absolute necessary fields needed to follow up.
Give users a reason to complete your form; offer an incentive
Discount on a product, free info sheet, a new puppy, etc
Choosing to rollout a project with small releases rather than one huge release can have many benefits. Take the caterpillar. In stage 1, it starts out looking like a simple worm, then in stage 2, it becomes a fuzzy little bug that begs to be petted. In stage 3, something about a cocoon and so on. You get the point—save the best for last. Flexibility to tweak any issues along the way, less shocking to customers, measure which features are received well and which ones aren’t – these are all great reasons to choose small releases for your project. Check out our quick checklist to apply to each release and get the most out of the process.
Establish a platform and process from which it’s easy to make changes and add new features.
Measure the performance of your project.
Analyze the data to identify opportunities for improvement
Start making small tweaks to improve your customer outcomes.
Here at Sketchfolio, we pride ourselves not only on doing amazing work for our clients, but also creating a healthy company culture that values work-life balance. We’ve learned a few things along the way to keep our team happy.
Flexible Schedules
With the huge spectrum of personalities in the world, it’s easy to understand how not everyone works best with a traditional 9-5 schedule. While we start new team members on a traditional schedule, we will often allow them to have some flexibility after a certain period of time. Some people are most efficient bright and early, while others do their best work later in the evening. For certain people, speaking to them before 8 am is risky, unless you are gently handing them their coffee and a delicious gluten heavy pastry. Flexibility in scheduling the team’s working hours can sometimes make a huge difference in someone’s ability to care for their family, spend time with friends, or get errands done.
Work From Home (Telecommuting)
Once team members have settled in, we offer the ability to work from home a couple days a week. Some of our team prefers to be in the office every day, but others who have a longer daily commute to the office appreciate saving some time (and gas money!) by working from home when able. We also have several employees who have moved to other states during their time with us, and working remotely allows us to keep them on our team. This is also another way we can benefit from having team members in different time zones, and provide more availability to our clients. The only downside to telecommuting is not seeing the bull snake that visits the office spontaneously from June to August.
Open Office & Collaborative Tools
Work-life balance isn’t just about schedules, it’s also about keeping your office culture healthy. We have an open office environment, and use lots of collaborative tools and apps to keep the team organized and on the same page. Some of our favorites are Teamwork, Box, Google Drive, and Slack. Using these tools streamlines projects, and helps avoid confusion and roadblocks.
Daily Check Ins
Our team meets every morning for a daily check in meeting. This allows us to quickly and easily address any questions for the day, making the team more productive and efficient. It’s also a great way to keep tabs on open projects, and know the status each day.
Snacks!
Awesome snacks may not be a perk for everyone, but our team LOVES snacking. People who don’t like or need snacks probably should look elsewhere for employment. We keep the fridge and pantry stocked with (mostly) healthy snacks, drinks, and a few tasty treats too. The ability to grab a quick snack or drink from the kitchen means our team can stay focused throughout the day. All the studies show snacking makes people nicer to be around. And when the afternoon zzz’s kick in, we’ll often take a break to play a game of darts. Actual darts, not the Nerf kind
Quarterly Team Days
Each quarter we gather up the team and head out for a day of fun. It’s a great way for us to enjoy time together and work on teamwork skills with a fun activity. Some of our past adventures have included escape rooms, food tours, and Dave & Buster’s. We are always planning the next outing, which can be tricky as not everyone is interested in spending a day at clown school.
Ensuring your company values a good work-life balance can mean the difference between retaining great employees and having a high staff turnover, so it’s definitely something that should be high on the priority list.
The Truth About Employee Engagement is a surprisingly quick-read and would qualify as a page-turner in my opinion given the genre. Instead of your typical self-help book, it is a “fable” that follows the story of Brian Bailey. Brian retires as CEO after successfully building up a fitness company and selling the business. He moves to Tahoe to enjoy the good life but soon finds he was made to manage people and can’t stay “on-the-sidelines” for more than a few months. His friends and family are shocked when he decides to re-enter the game by becoming the weekend manager and part-owner of a little, Italian restaurant in need of some big help. The restaurant and it’s rag-tag group of employees affords Brian the opportunity to prove his management theory is no fluke. His friends, family, and new co-owner are skeptical and pessimistic about his prospects of success given how tough the restaurant industry can be. With nothing to lose, Brian’s experiment plays out among this unlikely cast of characters.
What’s the main message?
Brian’s management theory is to address, what he believes, are the three main causes of job misery:
Anonymity
Irrelevance
Immeasurable
Anonymity: People are miserable at work when they feel that nobody knows or understands them as individuals. People want to be known. Even the weird stuff, like how you sleep on Star Wars sheets, even though you are a 47 year old man. Genuine connections at a personal level are very important to an enjoyable work experience.
Irrelevance: A miserable job is one where people feel they are not needed. They need to know they are helping others and that their job is valuable.
Immeasurable: This is a word created to describe the lack of clarity on whether people are progressing or succeeding in their jobs. People need to know if they’re doing well. Their job performance must be measured in such a way that their behavior has a direct and objective influence on the measurements; not based on a subjective assessment by another. As it turns out, tech nerds aren’t the only ones who like quantifiable results and positive outcomes. Everyone does.
What are the take-a-ways?
It shouldn’t come as a shocker that these principles turned around the ragged and failing Italian restaurant and, just as important, the lives of its employees. But the real suspense is in asking yourself, what about my workplace? Am I surrounded by people who work with passion and commitment knowing that their work is valuable and makes a difference in other people’s lives? Thankfully, my personal reply would be YES! While the exact words aren’t tossed around verbatim, the main ideas are certainly part of the company culture here at Sketchfolio.
But even when the culture is already in place, it’s not automatic and doesn’t run on auto-pilot. It’s up to each individual to buy-in and participate otherwise the culture could atrophy into something less healthy and strong. Connecting and being part of a culture in the office setting improves productivity, creativity, quality of life. Besides, everyone knows connection bonds the human soul to one another every Friday on “wear your Hawaiian shirt” day. In closing, The Truth About Employee Engagement is a great reminder to stay engaged in your role, with your team members, and in maintaining a healthy company culture.
It’s old news that B2B marketers are using analytics to measure marketing performance. What we learn from analytics helps us optimize ROI and create more efficient, targeted campaigns.
But here’s an analytics headline worth noting: Smart Marketers are Hot onto Heatmaps.
Image Source: www.hubspot.net
Industry-leading marketers are upping their analytics game with tools that enable them to see exactly how visitors are using a site, a page, an ad or a campaign.
For some time, marketers have been using targeted analytics and link tracking to specify an audience, narrow ad distributions and track visitors use and interactions of pages. But these important analytic functions are no longer the only tools on the map. Let’s go off the grid and see how B2B marketers can use click, eye-tracking, and scroll heatmaps to visualize data that old standards like Google Analytics simply cannot supply.
Charting New Territory
Ask any passenger-seat navigator what the one drawback to a map is, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: folding the dang thing up. The concept of the GPS surely flourished in a moment of map-wadding fury.
Perhaps your marketing team has noticed that wringing meaning from traditional analytics can garner similar frustrations. Sometimes there is too much information, other times not enough. What seems significant can turn out to be petty, and something ostensibly inconsequential can end up being very important indeed.
Heatmaps are the GPS of analytics. They are guiding marketers to information destinations, hassle free!
Discovering The Best Route
Click heatmaps allow marketers to see exactly what visitors are clicking on, whether it’s a button, a link, an image, or even text they expected to be a link. With click heatmaps, marketers can immediately see what’s working and what isn’t. For instance, they are able to determine something as granular as which “buy now” button visitors are clicking more.
Marketers are using eye-tracking heatmaps, which visualize mouse movements, to see where visitors are looking and identify which parts of the site they’re reading. Research indicates that mouse and eye movement are closely correlated.
Scroll heatmaps are being used to pinpoint how far visitors are scrolling down on a site’s pages. Marketers are using scroll heatmaps to find out how many visitors actually make it to the middle or bottom of the page. This information is used to determine where important content, such as a purchase button or a special discount banner, should be placed on the page.
Social Media Heads West
It should come as no surprise that B2B marketers are using heatmaps to analyze social media usage.
Content matters. Facebook brand page visitors are immediately drawn most often to your posts, spending more time focused on these than any other element on the page. Keep brand content current and directed at your targeted audience in order to optimize the amount of time viewers dwell on your page.
Fixation Order is important. Heatmap analytics revealed a common ranking of what viewers look at first, most, and longest. Studies showed that visual attention beneath the fold drops dramatically, and that viewers are interested in who you are following and if anyone they know is following you. Pinning your best posts to the top of your page will help them get more attention.
It’s not the writing on the wall anymore—it’s the photos. Viewers of PlayStation’s Facebook wall proved that the wall with the most images is the wall people spend the most time viewing. A heatmap test of a number of brand pages revealed that, on average, viewers stayed on the image-heavy PlayStation wall for 4.88 seconds. No other page element on any brand’s page held attention for longer than four seconds. Studies have also shown that high quality embedded videos will promote return visits if they are fun, educational and under three minutes.
Tweeters read beneath the fold. Tweets have a much higher turnover rate than Facebook posts, Linkedin updates, and Google+ shares; so it’s no surprise that the most notable Twitter pattern revealed in heatmap studies is the extended reach of the viewer’s eye. Unlike on any other social platform, viewers commonly navigate far beyond the fold. It’s important to find the ideal schedule for your tweets keeping your brand visible in your follower’s feeds just enough, not too little, and not too much.
Higher content share rates, lower dwelling times. With a typical center page dwell time of 3.1 seconds before users move to take action by clicking on a link, user or image, the dwell time of users is significantly lower than on other social platforms. Research tweeting best practices and test often to discover the best ways to grab the attention of your targeted audiences.
Center-focused. In line with the other platforms, heatmap analytics showed that LinkedIn users spend a majority of their time in the middle of the page. From there, viewers tend to veer right to take some type of action, such as making a connection with another user.
Having a detailed page counts. The majority of viewer attention is focused on a page’s business information. As the number one lead generating platform for B2B marketing, it is important for brand pages to provide as much business information to users as possible. Since LinkedIn users are looking for business connections, make sure to provide a compelling reason why they should connect with you.
Dwell-time winners. With an average dwell time of 5.9 seconds, Google+ has the longest dwell time across all social platforms. Heatmap studies showed viewers generally pay the most attention to taglines and primary posts. High interest in followers. Similar to Facebook, viewers demonstrate high interest in a page’s followers, both who the page is following and who is following the page.
Lessons Learned from the Heatmap Pioneers
Readers stay above the fold. Viewers do scroll, but their attention span is short. A recent scroll study found that page viewing time decreases sharply when viewers go below the fold—80% of viewing time is focused on the content above the fold.
Recommendation: Place important and relevant content at the top of the page.
What consumers see is what they buy. When the decision process is rushed, visual impact influences choices more than consumer preferences. So when viewers are in a hurry, their focus is less on personal preferences and more on what sticks out on the page.
Recommendation: Optimize the design of your website so visitors can find what they are looking for (or what you want to sell the most) in an increasingly hasty world.
Viewers veer left. Several heatmap studies have shown that the left side of the website gets up to 69% of the viewer’s attention and time. The same studies indicate that the left side is also looked at first.
Recommendation: There are always exceptions, but keeping the left side in mind first is a good starting point.
Readers scan content in an F-shaped pattern. Strange as this sounds, it’s true. Think about it. Most people skim content, and their main focus is on the start of the text. We read the most important headlines and subheadlines, but only selectively read the larger parts of the text.
Recommendation: Make sure your headlines and subheadlines are strong and attention grabbing. The first two paragraphs must state the most important information in your text, because this is the content most likely to be read.
NOTE: this does not hold true when browsing picture-based webpages where people tend to browse in a horizontal manner.
Consumers ignore ads. Consumers are bombarded daily by thousands of ads, and people have learned to ignore advertising on websites. We call that defense mechanism Banner Blindness—subconsciously or consciously ignoring any block of text or images that may look like advertising.
Recommendation: Avoid (like the plague) any page designs that feature content in patterns that resemble ads or banners. If you don’t, your viewers will.
Consumers care what people look like, and what they look at. We don’t have to tell B2B marketers that buyers are swayed by a pretty face. But it might surprise you to know that several heatmap studies have shown that viewers follow the direction of a model’s eyes.
Recommendation: A pretty face looking at your content will encourage viewers to view your content. So put that beautiful person on your website, and make sure her eyes are on your content.
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Heatmaps
Maybe your B2B marketing team was on the cutting edge of heatmaps analytics. And if you were, we thank you. But if you haven’t caught on to heatmaps yet (and this article has convinced you to hitch up your wagon and head out west), here are a few quick tips for reading, running, and understanding heatmaps:
The lack of a heat pattern indicates confusion
Heavy heat in an area of little importance tells you it is time for a redesign
Minimize unnecessary noise in areas not receiving as much heat as you would like
Track eye path patterns to merge the habits of your viewers and the desired design
Especially useful with beautifully designed pages that aren’t generating traffic
These are the most common eye path issues that harm conversion rates:
Objects are competing for viewer attention
Elements of the page are out of order
There is too much “stuff” on the page
Calls to action fail to call anyone to take action
On the Road to Marketing Success
So there you have it. Heatmaps are generating new analytics and adding a depth of understanding to some things marketers already knew. Don’t be the navigator who stuffs a mangled map into the glove box and ends up taking “the long way” to the analytics party. Take the direct route to measuring B2B marketing performance by adding heatmaps to your analytics tool belt.
Tools for Heatmap Tests:
Crazyegg
Find out what is making visitors leave your website by seeing how users click and scroll through your website. Pricing starts at $9 with a Free 30-day trial.
Mouseflow
Helps you understand your visitors by letting you record website visitors and see website heatmaps showing where they click, scroll and even pay attention. Mouseflow does offer a minimal free plan. All other plans start at $19 and come with a 30-day money back guarantee.
Clicktale
Their Comprehensive Heatmap Suite lets you optimize your website’s conversion rates and usability by visualizing your visitors’ every mouse move, click, and scroll.
LuckyOrange
Lets you see exactly how your visitors interact with your website. With one click, you can watch as they type text, scroll pages, read text, click links, and navigate your site. They will even record a bunch of sessions automatically so you can replay them at a convenient time. Monthly prices start at $10 with a free 7-day trial.
Free Alternatives:
Heat Maps by Plerdy
Offers a suite of tools that can be used to grow your website’s traffic. Plerdy offers a 14-day free trial, and then free and paid options after that.
Clickheat
Provides a visual heatmap of clicks on a HTML page, showing hot and cold click zones. ClickHeat is an OpenSource software, released under GNU general public license, and free of charge.
It’s always a pleasure working with the talented crew at McBeard. Check out two of our latest custom Tumblr interfaces built for Netflix and NBC’s A.D. Series.
Author Information: Mike Monteiro is the co-founder and design director of Mule Design, an interactive design studio whose work has been called “delightfully hostile” by The New Yorker. In early 2011, he gave a Creative Mornings talk entitled “F— You, Pay Me” that not only uplifted the downtrodden the world over, but fueled his first book, Design Is a Job. In 2014 he won .net’s Talk of the Year award for “How Designers Destroyed the World,” a screed about designers taking responsibility for their work. He can be heard weekly as the co-host of Let’s Make Mistakes. None of the terms Mike has coined are printable on a family website. Find out more: http://abookapart.com/products/youre-my-favorite-client
Has the author published anything else noteworthy?
Design is a Job
What level of experience is needed to use the information in the book?
Very little, the book is not technical. However, be warned… the author’s language is colorful.
Who will find it most useful?
Marketing professionals and business managers who want to raise their design game.
What are the core ideas shared in the book?
Why You Need Design
Hiring a Designer
Working Together
How to Evaluate the Work
When Things Go Well
When Things Go Wrong
How did Mike Monteiro support/prove his ideas?
With a successful career within the industry, and a reputation for being an excellent storyteller, Monteiro shares his ideas in the form of advice. He mainly relies on anecdotes from his career to illustrate his points. You either buy into his expertise up front or you don’t.
Was there an industry need behind the writing of the book?
Improving the results of design services for clients.
Favorite Quotes from You’re My Favorite Client
“You’ll make more money from your website than the designer ever will.”
“A designer who nails something right out of the gate isn’t good—they’re lucky. A designer who works with you, listens to your feedback, pays attention to your users’ needs, and brings the work closer to the mark with each iteration is good. You don’t want to rely on luck. You want someone with a proven process that ensures you success time and again.”
“The most important thing to keep in mind while evaluating design: what you’re looking at isn’t art, not even close. It’s a business tool in the making and should be looked at objectively like any other business tool. Your feedback for your designers is based on the same stuff you care about with any other person you interact with at work: how is this going to help your business succeed? That’s something you are very good at evaluating. The right question isn’t “Do I like it?” but “Does this meet our goals?” If it’s blue, don’t ask yourself whether you like blue. Ask yourself if blue will help you sell sprockets.”
What nugget of wisdom do you take away from this book?
A good design process is critical for getting consistently successful results. “Design isn’t magic and it isn’t art. It’s a craft.”
Is there jargon that needs to be defined?
Yes, but not a lot. There’s a glossary in the back that provides context to commonly misused words.
Cody Hoppis
Sketchfolio – Director of Technology
Cody loves nothing more than a good puzzle, whether it’s making your home page’s Twitter feed PG-13 or fitting twelve pages of single-spaced engineering specifications into a three-page brochure. You should ask him about whatever shiny new thing he’s learning right now — just be sure you’re ready for the answer. He gets really excited about this stuff and has been known to go on for a while. Let’s talk if you’ve got an interesting problem for him to explore.
So here we are, a few months into the new year and finally settled enough to start dusting off our crystal balls and peering pensively at our tea leaves. What will 2015 hold for marketers? Well, according to our Magic 8-Ball here at Sketchfolio, we need look no further for an insight into our future than…the past.
What we’ve learned in these first few months of 2015 is that the experts are saying exactly what they said in 2014—that the wave of the future for marketing success is paid advertising on social media, quality content, and more direct customer engagement. This repeat prophecy begs the question: what did marketers do in 2014 to cause this Groundhog Day effect? Did we do it so well that all we have to do is repeat our success? Did we do it so poorly that we need a redo? In reality, it’s probably a mixture of both. It’s a complex issue, and we’re not above using a little black magic to divine the answer to increasing brand presence and sales.
But let’s not make this harder than it is. Why should we look to the stars when we can take a look at what we already know, and get some tangible insights into how to outshine the competition in the remaining months of 2015?
Social Networking – A Pastime of the…um…Past?
LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. These are the social networks B2B marketers are using, at a 91%, 85%, and 81% rate, respectively. Although usage is high, only 62% of marketers will tell you that LinkedIn is effective. Half of marketers consider Twitter worth the effort, and a mere 30% find Facebook an adequate platform for B2B marketing.1
What this tells us is that B2B marketers have some doubts about the effectiveness of their social media strategies. And they should! Because here’s what we know: statistics indicate that LinkedIn and Twitter are effective when the social strategy includes targeting and appealing to their ideal clients. But because it can be tough to generate germane content on a timely basis, marketers are inundating their social streams with non-relevant topics.
The takeaway here is pretty straightforward: no more cat pictures! Unless your ideal customer is actually a cat-loving crowd. If you want better engagement, provide content that is focused on your marketing message.
Although many marketers are egregious offenders of the cat-pic rule, LinkedIn and Twitter are getting better results than Facebook. As a result, many marketers are shying away from the platform. With organic reach at sometimes less than 5% per post, it’s not surprising that marketers are moving in different directions. But there’s a compelling reason marketers shouldn’t be getting completely out of the game: paid advertising. Facebook’s ability to target very specific demographics still makes it a prime component of B2B social strategy. Marketers who continue to focus on paid advertising continue to see results. Statistics indicate that paid social is leading to 25% more conversions than organic social.
Here’s what we think: we don’t need an hour and a half with Bill Murray to know that we’re reliving 2014 because we just didn’t quite nail it. Our posts weren’t always targeted at our ideal audience, and we underutilized the power of paid advertising. The good news is, we’re on the right path. We’re already using these platforms—we just need to use them a little better.
What’s In the Cards for the Pariah of Social Networking?
While proof of the benefits of appropriately engaging LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook users is in the statistics, there may actually be some magic involved in understanding Google+. Because all Gmail users automatically receive a Google+ account, the true reach and numbers are tricky to define. But outside the conversation of numbers, it’s easy to see that Google+ is operating as a cross between the social atmosphere of Facebook and the business networking of LinkedIn, making it a unique platform worth marketing consideration. It offers the possibility of following influencers within specific industries, using the Google+ circles and hangouts.
We don’t have any psychics around the offices, but we’re willing to go out on a limb and say we think this capability has the potential of making Google+ a big player in the future of social media.
The Future of Social is Mobile
Smartphones. You have one, I have one, my kid has one, my cat has one (which explains all the pictures). From social sharing to banking, mobile phones are taking over many of the functions of traditional desktop computers, allowing consumers, decision makers, and executives to get their information on the go. According to an article by Andrew Lipsman, Vice President of Marketing & Insights at comScore, mobile platforms combined accounted for 60% of total digital media time as of May 2014, and that number continues to grow. Social interaction continues to grow as well.2
Fact: Mobile engagement on social has grown 55% in the past year.
Fact: Social networking on mobile devices accounts for 31% of all growth in total Internet engagement in the past year.
Fact: Social networking now generates more than 70% of its activity on mobile.
Fact: We should all be paying attention!
It’s true that social networking is not the most mobile-skewing content category—but it is arguably the most important. Its importance is due, in part, to the fact that social networking is the top category when it comes to overall digital engagement—it accounts for 20% of total digital time spent. Social networking’s contribution to total digital ad spending marks a very fast, very colossal change in the Internet economy.
We don’t have to dig too deep to see proof of this shift. In fact, we don’t need to look any further than the very top of the mobile property list. Today’s #1 mobile property, Facebook, accounts for 24% of all mobile time spent. That’s one mobile property eating up nearly one-quarter of all mobile time.3
Fact: Social networking has already gone mobile. If your B2B marketing strategy has yet to take that into account, put it on your 2015 (first quarter) to-do list.4
Why Say it When You Can Play It?
Here’s what we know so far about content: it needs to be focused on your intended audience and it needs to be mobile-accessible. I’m sure many of you are out there thinking, “Tell us something we don’t already know!” To which we say, we’re not responsible for the redundant predictions—we’re just calling them like the experts are seeing them. And according to the experts, it’s time to get serious about incorporating video into your B2B marketing strategy.
“But we’re on YouTube,” you say. “And YouTube is the leader for calculating ROI and final destination,” you say. “And we took advantage of that and now we’re a leader in our industry,” you say. “What could you possibly say about our amazing YouTube strategy,” you ask.
YouTube is for the birds.
OK. We don’t actually believe that. You’re right that proactive marketers who have used YouTube to promote their organization have a real competitive edge. But here’s something you may not be aware of: in October 2014, comScore reported that Facebook surpassed YouTube in the number of video views on desktop devices in August of that year. 5
Sure, YouTube still has more views across all devices. But as of September 2014, Facebook was attracting a billion video views per day – a roughly 30-fold increase since July of that year. And according to SocialBaker’s research, Facebook is receiving more shares than YouTube.6
So if you’re not already leveraging video content, it’s time to start. If you listened to the video predictions of last year, now’s your chance to take your video content to the next level. Get yourself a tall folding chair and a bullhorn, because 2015 is your year to be the director. Here are a few ideas to get you started on your video content:
Instead of (or in addition to) blogging or putting out a press release for a new product launch, create a video promo.
Create FAQ videos to help your customers and let them see the faces of your organization.
Get creative with some “behind the scenes” videos. These are great for sharing and showing the human side of your organization, no matter the size.
The Future Foretold, The Present Evolved
So there you have it: our take on the B2B marketing experts’ predictions for 2015.
Focus your content.
Don’t snub paid advertising.
Give Google+ a chance.
Make it mobile.
Play it, don’t say it.
Even if we had a crystal ball (OK, we totally have one), we wouldn’t need it this year. We’ve already been down this road. The landscape has changed a bit, so we’ve updated the map. Go forth into this familiar territory; and if you find that here there be monsters, make sure to video them and get them on Facebook.
It’s no secret that measuring social media ROI is the sharpest thorn on the rose for marketers. With an estimated 1.7 billion users topping all Internet activity, marketers simply can’t ignore the beauty of the numbers. However, without any clear, established methods to measure return, marketers are without a map, digging in vain for the golden information.
But you’re in luck! We’ve already done the digging, and we’re uncovering the riches for you.
