Online Marketing News: Social Yin & Yang, Instagram for Brands, Facebook Gives ROI

The Yin and Yang of Social Media Training Having a strong, social workforce by way of employee advocates can do a lot for a business. It shows your customers that your employees believe in your brand, while making your brand more human with direct contact - person to person. Many organizations are hesitant, and often for good reason, about encouraging their employees to share news and content online. This infographic helps make the case for employee advocacy and social involvement. Social Media Today Instagram Brand Profiles are Coming – Here’s a First Look Just like winter, Instagram brand profiles are rumored to be on the way. According to Social Media Today, "the first images of the new brand pages for Instagram have been spotted, with Later.com posting images of the new profile format – or, at least, how the new brand profiles look at this stage of the testing process." Following news of ads being available on the platform, this may not be a huge surprise, but rather, a huge opportunity. Social Media Today For Social Media Marketers, Facebook Produces the Best ROI According to eMarketer, "Social Fresh, Firebrand Group and Simply Measured surveyed 551 social media marketers worldwide and asked them to choose up to three social media platforms that they thought produced the best ROI. Almost all (95.8%) of social media marketers worldwide said Facebook did." Followed in stride by Twitter and Instagram, social media giant Facebook continues to rule the roost in the eyes of marketers. Interestingly, Pinterest, Snapchat and Slideshare are trailing their social advertising cohorts. eMarketer Groupon Lets You Send a Life-Size, 3-D Version of Yourself to Mom for Mother's Day Sunday is Mother's day, and what better way to celebrate the lovely lady who gave you life than to send her a 3D version of yourself? For the menial cost of $30,000, Groupon is letting you do just that. What does this mean for marketers? Although not everyone can, or should, be purchasing some giant, life-sized version of themselves for dear old mom, unique gifts that go beyond the standard flowers and bruch may be increasing in popularity in the future. Making sure you angle your marketing and messaging accordingly can only help your bottom line. AdWeek Google confirms live demo of new AdWords redesign will happen on May 24 A few weeks back I mentioned that AdWords is undergoing a much needed redesign, their first since 2008. The company has now announced that they'll be giving a live demo in their annual conference on May 24th of this year. According to Search Engine Land: "It is being built with Material Design, the design language Google uses for many of its consumer-facing apps like Gmail and Maps." What does this mean for search marketers? A potentially more user friendly, certainly prettier, AdWords platform. Search Engine Land YouTube Introduces Virtual Reality And More According to Social Media Today, not only are you able to record and post 360-degree video to YouTube, there will soon be a possibility to live-stream that 3D video for an audience. This is awesome news for music festivals like Coachella who count on the at-event experience to lend heavily to word of mouth promotion. This could also have implications for the real estate, sports, and entertainment industries, allowing marketers to make virtual experiences for their audiences to increase engagement and allow a try-before-you-buy scenario to play out where it previously wasn't possible. Social Media Today Millennials, Gen-Z Alienated by Ads in Social News Feeds (Study) Social media ads may not be the way to go when targeting millennials and Gen Z buyers. According to Social Times: "A new study by Harris Poll, commissioned by brand relationship manager Lithium Technologies, found that 74 percent of millennials (ages 20 through 39) and Gen-Z respondents (16 through 19) object to being targeted by brands on their social media feeds." For marketers, this means that finding more out-of-the box ways to target potential buyers is key to engaging this younger generation. Social Times What were your top news stories this week? If you have something to say, or something to share, send it my way @Tiffani_Allen or @toprank! I'll be back next week with more helpful news for your everyday marketing life. Infographic via Social Media Today.

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