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4 Ways to Collect Email Leads From Your Facebook Group https://ift.tt/2N2e9Jx Wondering how to build an email list from your Facebook group? Looking for tips to help? In this article, you’ll learn four ways to collect emails from your Facebook group.
Why Gathering Emails From Facebook Group Members Is ImportantFacebook groups can be an awesome way to share content, engage with your followers, and build your brand. They’re also powerful tools for growing your email list. When running a group is part of your marketing strategy, getting email leads from your group is important for several reasons, the most critical being that you don’t own your Facebook group. Facebook does. Relying solely on a Facebook group for interacting with members is risky because Facebook can ban your account or shut down your group anytime. Although Facebook doesn’t ban groups or accounts often, a more likely risk is that Facebook could throttle your group’s organic reach. Many group owners (myself included) have noticed Facebook favoring paid traffic over groups’ organic reach. With these risks in mind, I suggest you plan your audience growth around the worst-case scenario and focus on growing something you own. When you collect email addresses to build your list, you own that list. Also, when you have someone’s email address in addition to their group membership, you increase the chances they will see your content and promotions. Although many group members don’t participate in the groups they join, these people might still be interested in you, and your content and products. Tip: To gather email leads from a Facebook group, you only need a few tools that most marketers already have: email marketing software and a landing page to deliver a lead magnet to your followers. For email software, I use ConvertKit, but dozens of other good options are available. When you develop your lead magnets, remember that they’re not just about getting emails. They’re a chance to build a relationship with your group members and give them some real value right out of the gate, increasing the likelihood they’ll become lifelong fans and possible future customers. #1: Post Links to a Lead Generation PageIn this straightforward tactic, you post something to your group that very clearly requires members to share an email address to opt in. For instance, people who are familiar with online offers for freebies, like this vector designs offer, will expect to enter their email address to receive the image files: Although this method works well, group members are often hesitant to click overly salesy posts. To avoid this issue, try a slightly less direct approach: share a blog post, video, or other content that leads to an email opt-in. With this indirect approach, conversion rates are often much higher than a direct link in a group. Plus, members can share your content, which increases engagement. To build your email list, you need to regularly post things that turn your group members into email subscribers or help you better segment existing subscribers. Each month, post a mix of lead magnets, quizzes, surveys, webinars, blog posts, contests, videos, and so on. The more types of lead generators you use, the more members you’ll convert. To help you post more consistently, Facebook allows admins to schedule group posts, so you can plan these promotions in advance. Alternatively, you can choose from many third-party tools like IFTTT, Buffer, CoSchedule, and Hootsuite that allow you to schedule posts far in advance. With all of these posts, you need a reliable tracking system in place so you know what posts work best for your audience. A link shortener such as Bitly, Sniply, or Clkim is an easy way to make your links easier to track because most of these tools provide some sort of trackability. Although these tools are called “link shorteners,” the shorter links are almost secondary to the tracking capability. If your group is very active, your posts can quickly become buried amid all the other activity. In addition to posting frequently, you can also pin your post with the lead-generating link to make sure group members see the post. Also, try marking it as an announcement. To do that, click the three dots in the upper right of the post and choose Mark As Announcement from the menu that appears. If your lead-generating post is a webinar, you can also promote it as an event in your Facebook group. When you create the Facebook event, set the location as the landing page where people can register. Last but not least, with the Facebook pixel installed, you can make sure group members see your lead-generating posts by retargeting group members with ads that highlight the post. The ability to use the Facebook pixel with groups is a new feature in 2018, and it’s easy to use. With your ads, you can encourage people to sign up for your freebie. #2: Collect Emails With Group Onboarding QuestionsFacebook allows group creators to ask potential members questions before they’re accepted into their groups. Whether Facebook intended for people to use a question to collect email addresses, these questions are an awesome opportunity to do so. You can ask people who want to join your group up to three questions, so make one of them a request for an email address in some way. Simply asking, “Could you please provide an email address?” won’t work. Instead, ask for an email address in exchange for a relevant freebie. This freebie will encourage new members to check their inbox and open your email. People who open the first email are more likely to open the second one. You also increase the chances your email address is whitelisted so future emails won’t go directly into the junk folder. You also need to decide whether providing an email address is a requirement to join. For my groups, the email address is required. With this requirement, you not only gather emails, but also avoid giving a fake Facebook account access to your group. Someone interested enough to provide an email will likely be a good member and potential long-term customer. Set Up Questions in Your Facebook GroupTo set up questions for anyone requesting to join your group, open your group and click the More button in the top bar. Then select Edit Group Settings. To collect emails, you need to make sure your group is closed. In the Change Group Privacy Setting area, select the Closed option and click Confirm. Some groups allow existing members to approve new requests to join the group. When you’re collecting emails, only admins and moderators should approve new members. In the Membership Approval setting, make sure Only Admins and Moderators is selected. To set up the questions, go to the Membership Requests section and click the Ask Questions button. In the form that appears, you can ask up to three questions, which don’t have to be questions at all. For the FBA Today group, one question space says, “This group requires a valid email for approval. You will also receive THREE awesome Amazon related freebies from us as a welcome gift (check inbox to confirm).” When you’re done setting up your questions, click Save. If everything is working correctly, new group requests show the requester’s name and their responses to your questions. Add Email Addresses to Your Email SoftwareEmails mean nothing if you aren’t adding people from your group to your list and sending them messages. At the time of this writing, Facebook doesn’t offer a direct integration with third-party email services, so you must get creative. I recommend that you use a third-party Google Chrome extension and Zapier integration to automate the process, but you can also upload the email addresses manually. To create an automated system that adds the emails from the Facebook questionnaire to your email software, use the Groups Ninja Chrome extension to export emails from Facebook into Google Sheets. The extension costs $9.99 per month. Then, to move the email addresses from the Google Sheet to my email marketing software (ConvertKit), I use a Zapier integration. Zapier offers free and paid plans. If you’re unsure what Zapier is or how to use it, paid tools like Groups Ninja provide support videos for integrating with Zapier and email marketing software. To upload emails from your group to your email marketing software manually, copy the emails from the group and paste them into your email software or a master CSV file. With the CSV file, you can upload a list of emails all at once. If you work with a virtual assistant, this is a task you can outsource. Tip: After you set up the approval system in your Facebook group, you’ll need to start approving or declining requests to join your group. If you make providing an email address mandatory and a user doesn’t provide an email address right away, give them at least 3 days before you decline their request. Facebook sends reminders for 3 days, encouraging them to finish the application. Welcome New Members With a Reminder of Your Lead GeneratorFor new members who do provide an email, you can use a feature that allows group admins and moderators to welcome all new group members. Each member is tagged in the post and you can customize the post however you’d like. Making your new members feel welcome will improve the chances of them engaging with the group later. This welcome is also a great way to remind new members to check their email for their freebie (if applicable) or get them to click a lead-generating link (if you didn’t require an email address to join). To illustrate, Chris Green shares a great welcome in his Merch by Amazon group. In the following example, Chris welcomes the new members and reminds them to download a free PDF. #3: Create a Group Cover Image That Offers a Lead MagnetAt the top of your group, you can display a banner that you can use as a lead-gathering billboard. For this tactic, you need to offer a lead magnet that makes sharing an email address worthwhile. Remember that simply offering something for free isn’t enough because people know sharing an email exposes them to future promotions. Offer something truly valuable that your audience will want. You also need to create a landing page for the lead magnet that allows you to collect email addresses. If you don’t have a landing page with a lead magnet, you can find several tools that help you create one. (I use ClickFunnels for all of mine.) To hire someone to create the landing page for you, check sites like Fiverr or Freelancer.com. After you know what you’ll offer and what the landing page will be, create a 1640 x 920 pixel cover image with a call to action. This image is like a big banner ad for your lead magnet. In the image, identify your group with your branding in addition to advertising your lead magnet. You can create this image with a tool like Canva (both free and paid options), and then download the image. When you’re ready to upload the image to your Facebook group, navigate to your group page, hover over the existing cover image, and click the Change Group Cover button in the upper right. Then click Upload Photo and select the photo you want to upload in the dialog box that appears. After you upload the image, drag it around until it’s positioned perfectly. Although you can’t link your group cover image to your landing page, you can add a link in the image description. After you upload your image, click Add a Description. Then write a short description (like the one shown here) to explain that visitors must click the link to access the landing page. #4: Add a Call to Action in the Facebook Group DescriptionThe group description is another piece of group real estate that you can use to collect email addresses from people interested in your group. Although this description isn’t as visible as the cover image, there’s no harm in adding a lead-generating link to it. The cool thing about this tactic is that even people who aren’t in your group will see the link to the lead magnet because the link appears publicly. In other words, you create the opportunity to gather leads from people even if they don’t join the group. After your efforts start to build your email list, make sure you email your new subscribers right away while you’re still top of mind. If you wait too long, they might not recognize you or may report your email as spam (which hurts future deliverability rates). A welcome message also helps long-term engagement: subscribers who receive a welcome email show 33% more long-term brand engagement than those who don’t. With a little up-front work, you can create an email sequence that not only sends new Facebook group members the freebies you promised them, but also automates follow-up emails that convert exceptionally well. .What do you think? Have you tried building your email list via your Facebook group? What tactics have worked well for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Social Media via Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p September 26, 2018 at 05:07AM
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Don’t Ignore Social Selling As A Way To Grow Your Business https://ift.tt/2zsF4KV Social selling, which can best be defined as the use of social media to boost sales performance, is taking off in popularity amongst sales professionals, especially in the B2B world, where getting in front of the right prospects and developing the right industry relationships is critical. Not surprisingly, LinkedIn – as the most business-focused of all the most popular social networks – is typically the starting point for any social selling initiative. Social selling in practiceSo what does a “social selling” initiative look like in practice, and not just theory? Well, it starts with creating the right kind of presence of LinkedIn. Your overall focus should be on creating a professional brand that resonates with prospects and customers. Think about ways that you can add value to industry conversations taking place across LinkedIn, or ways that you can demonstrate your expertise and skill. This is about more than just adding a brief comment here or there – it’s about focusing deeply on the needs of people and providing relevant commentary and resources. One easy way to get started is simply posting commentary about different news impacting your industry. Say, for example, there is a new change to the tax code that impacts companies in your industry – that would be a perfect time to offer your opinions and analysis on “what it all means.” Or, for example, say that a foreign competitor has just announced plans to enter the marketplace – what does it mean for the overall industry? LinkedIn puts its muscle behind social sellingLinkedIn believes so strongly in the concept of social selling (and why wouldn’t it?) that it has even developed a Social Selling Index (SSI), which is a numerical score denoting how well someone is leveraging social selling techniques. The higher your score, the better you are at social selling. Those who score highly according to the SSI, says LinkedIn, generate 45 percent more sales opportunities than those that do not. And better yet, they are also 51 percent more likely to hit quota. Just imagine going to your boss on Monday and saying something like, “I’ve just figured out a way to boost my number of sales opportunities by 45 percent…” Say goodbye to the cold callThe one unstated assumption of social selling is that cold calling is antiquated and out of date. Does anyone really “cold call” anymore in the era of social media, where all it takes is a few minutes to find out the most personal, intimate details of someone’s life? So social selling puts the focus on getting to know people BEFORE you make your next sales call. Go beyond just the title of the person to figure out a little about his or her role, function and approach to business. Better yet, engage in conversations on social media before ever picking up that phone so that you know which business problems are top of mind. Taking a big picture view, social selling is all about changing the shape and size of the traditional sales funnel. Fewer leads are needed to generate more sales, because it is much easier to convert a prospect into a customer. Who can argue with logic like that? That’s one big reason why social selling has become an important way to help your business grow. The post Don’t Ignore Social Selling As A Way To Grow Your Business appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer https://ift.tt/2onGYog September 25, 2018 at 02:52PM
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I am pleasantly horrified by these 'wet unboxing' videos https://ift.tt/2xAMGd6 This is Ode To..., a weekly column where we share the stuff we're really into in hopes that you'll be really into it, too. Thankfully, the cultural peak of the unboxing video has come and gone. Do you really want to watch another person open a new iPhone or a box from Glossier? But there's still room for riffs on the genre — for example, these profoundly disturbing "wet unboxing" clips from artist Alex Frost. Each video shows Frost opening up a package of some kind underwater. The stuff, whatever it is, oozes into the water, usually turning it gray and filling it with weird flakes. It's absolutely nauseating. I can't stop watching. Here is one of the more disgusting clips, for example. It features Frost opening an egg sandwich, peppering the water with bits of egg and sad, floating vegetables. Turn the volume up for the full experience — the sound of the sandwich being dismantled is a damp-sounding squish. There are also videos starring more liquid-y substances: a chalky dose of Pepto Bismol, or a vaguely foreboding bottle of cold brew. These liquids emerge from their containers slowly, in a feathery trickle, and are generally very pleasant to watch. (You know how pretty long hair looks underwater? It's kind of like that.) On the slightly gelatinous side of things, there's travel-sized toothpaste, which squirts out of its tube in one long, gloppy snake. Then, of course, there are the weirder objects. In my personal favorite, Frost unwraps individual tablets of Alka-Seltzer, letting them fizz and dissolve into the water as their packaging floats beside them. In another clip, he pops caffeine pills from a foil sheet. Nothing really happens to them, but the gentle pop of the tablets coming out of the packaging is extremely satisfying in an ASMR type of way. It's hardly a secret that the internet is drawn to content at the intersection of gross and satisfying — take Dr. Pimple Popper, for example — which gives me immense hope for the future of this project. There's lots of stuff that looks weird in water, and thus infinite possibilities for wet unboxing's future. Might I suggest a breakfast burrito? A packet of almond butter? A bottle of hyaluronic acid serum? Whatever it is, I'll watch. It'll be beautiful and sickening, the two things the internet does best. Social Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 September 25, 2018 at 01:31PM Twitter says it will now ask everyone for feedback about its policy changes starting today9/25/2018
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Twitter says it will now ask everyone for feedback about its policy changes, starting today https://ift.tt/2xBI46j Twitter says it’s going to change the way it creates rules regarding the use of its service to also now include community feedback. Previously, the company followed its own policy development process, including taking input from its Trust and Safety Council and various experts. Now, it says it’s going to try something new: it’s going to ask its users. According to announcement published this morning, Twitter says it will ask everyone for feedback on a new policy before it becomes a part of Twitter’s official Rules. It’s kicking off this change by asking for feedback on its new policy around dehumanizing language on Twitter, it says.
Over the past three months, Twitter has been working to create a policy that addresses language that “makes someone feel less than human” – something that can have real-world repercussions, including “normalizing serious violence,” the company explains. To some extent, dehumanizing language is covered under Twitter’s existing hateful conduct policy, which addresses hate speech that includes the promotion of violence, or direct attacks or threats against people based on factors like their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. However, there are still ways to be abusive on Twitter outside of those guidelines, and dehumanizing language is one of them. The new policy is meant to expand the hateful conduct policy to also prohibit language that dehumanizes others based on ” their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target,” says Twitter. The company isn’t soliciting user feedback over email or Twitter, however. Instead, it has launched a survey. Available until October 9 at 6:00 AM PT, the survey asks only a few questions after presenting the new policy’s language for you to read through. For example, it asks users to rate the clarity of the policy itself on a scale of one to five. It then gives you 280 characters max – just like on Twitter – to suggest how the policy could be improved. Similarly, you have 280 characters to offer examples of speech that contribute to a healthy conversation, but may violate this policy – Twitter’s attempt at finding any loopholes or exceptions. And it gives you another 280 characters to offer additional feedback or thoughts. You also have to provide your age, gender, (optionally) your username, and say if you’re willing to receive an email follow-up if Twitter has more questions about your responses. Twitter doesn’t say how much community feedback will guide its decision-making, though. It simply says that after the feedback, it will then continue with its regular process, which passes the policy through a cross-functional working group, including members of its policy development, user research, engineering, and enforcement teams. The idea to involve the community in policy-making is a notable change, and one that could make people feel more involved with the definition of the rules, and therefore – perhaps! – more likely to respect them. But Twitter’s issues around abuse and hate speech on its network don’t really stem from poor policies – its policies actually spell things out fairly well, in many cases, about what should be allowed and what should not. Twitter’s problems tend to stem from lax enforcement. The company has far too often declined to penalize or ban users whose content is clearly hateful in its nature, in an effort to remain an open platform for “all voices” – including those with extreme ideologies. Case in point: it was effectively the last of the large social platforms to ban the abusive content posted by Alex Jones and his website Infowars. Users also regularly complain that they have been subject to tweets that violate Twitter guidelines and rules, but no action is taken. It’s interesting, at times, to consider how differently Twitter could have evolved if community moderation – similar to the moderation on Reddit or even the moderation that takes place on open source Twitter clone Mastodon – had been a part of Twitter’s service from day one. Or how things would look if marginalized groups and those who are often victims of harassment and hate speech had been involved directly with building the platform in the early days. Would Twitter be a different place? But that’s not where we are. The new dehumanization policy Twitter is asking about is below:
Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com September 25, 2018 at 09:45AM
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UK newspaper industry regulator wants Google and Facebook to pay journalism tax https://ift.tt/2xA2YTy UK newspaper industry regulator wants Google and Facebook to pay journalism taxGoogle, Facebook and other sites that host news content on their platforms should pay an annual tax to fund journalism in the UK. This is the stance of the News Media Association, the British newspaper industry's trade body which represents most of the UK media. The organization's proposal to the UK government comes as the British newspaper industry shrunk from £6.8 billion ($8.94 billion) to £3.6 billion ($4.73 billion) from 2007 to 2017, the Guardian reported Tuesday. “The primary focus of concern today is the loss of advertising revenues which have previously sustained quality national and local journalism and are now flowing to the global search engines and social media companies who make no meaningful contribution to the cost of producing the original content from which they so richly benefit," the organization said. Google and Facebook's platforms are an increasingly significant source of news; according to a 2017 Pew report, two thirds of Americans get some of their news on social media. Research from the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford showed that, in 2018, social media was a news source for 39% of people in the UK. But a similar proposal in Spain in 2014 has not gone very well, as Google simply shut down its News service in that country. The News Media Association also proposed that Facebook shared its revenue with newspapers when their stories appear in users' feeds, even if the users don't click on them. Furthermore, the NMA would like tech companies to give "reasonable notice" when they make changes to their terms of business or algorithms that affect news publishers. Facebook has often been the target of criticism for abrupt changes to its algorithms. The NMA also touched on the widely publicized fake news problem. Under their proposal, tech companies would have the same legal responsibility as the publishers whose content they carry, and would be watched over by an independent regulator. "This would incentivize the aggregators to promote verified news content over fake news and other harmful content," NMA claims. Social Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 September 25, 2018 at 06:51AM
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How to Track Social Media Traffic Using Google Analytics https://ift.tt/2OcRChG Do you know if your social media efforts are working? Wondering how to track link clicks from social traffic? In this article, you’ll discover how to use UTM tags to measure your social media traffic with Google Analytics.
Why Measure Your Social Media Traffic?Measuring your social media traffic will help you determine which marketing tactics are working for you and which are coming up short. The traffic that comes from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or other social media sources funnels into content on your site and then triggers some sort of completion such as a lead, a purchase, or whatever you’re trying to accomplish with that traffic. Your social media traffic will come from both paid and unpaid sources. To illustrate, Facebook traffic can come from paid ads, shared posts from your page, and maybe even posts from a group. The same can be true with Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. You can also look at social media traffic on a more granular level. On YouTube, for instance, traffic might come from specific areas of the site such as cards, the backend, or description links. You want to measure how all of this social media traffic converts into content and ultimately into your completion goal. You can do that with Google Analytics and UTMs. #1: View Data About Your Social Media Traffic in Google AnalyticsThe Source/Medium report in Google Analytics is where you’ll find all of the relevant details about your social media traffic. In this one report, you can see the identity of each traffic source, how much of an audience you’re getting from that source, how that audience is engaging with your site, and the results of those actions. Here’s how to get started using this report. Access the Source/Medium ReportTo access the report, open Google Analytics and go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. Scroll down the page to see the list of traffic sources for your site. This data is divided into several different sections. For this walk-through of the report, we’ll look at some data from the Google Merchandise Store demo account. The far-left column of the Source/Medium report identifies the traffic source and the medium. You can think of the “source” as the brand of the traffic that’s coming through and the “medium” as the type of traffic. To visualize this, the first traffic source listed below is google/organic. In this case, Google is the brand of traffic and organic is the type of traffic. For google/cpc, the traffic also comes from Google and the type of traffic is CPC, which is paid traffic. The next part of the report, Acquisition, tells you about the quantity of traffic from that source. You can see the number of users, new users, and sessions. The third section, Behavior, tells you about the actions people are taking. You can see the bounce rate, pages per session, and average session duration for this audience. Looking at the Acquisition and Behavior data together will give you an idea of the quality of the traffic from that source. For instance, you may have a source that drives a ton of traffic to your site, but those users don’t take the actions you want or leave quickly. And you might also have a source that doesn’t send you a ton of traffic but those users really engage with your message and your content. That second source is a little higher quality. The last section of the Source/Medium report shows you the results. If you’ve set up goals in Google Analytics to measure actions like leads or purchases, this is where you can see those results. Select one of your goals from the drop-down menu to compare traffic sources for different results. Analyze the Data in the ReportNow that you’re familiar with what’s in the report, let’s look at how to analyze this data. When you review the data, don’t get caught up in the numbers. Instead, look for trends. If you look at the Behavior data below, you can see that the traffic sources with the lowest bounce rates are mall.googleplex/referral (11.05%) and sites.google.com/referral (13.31%). This data indicates the audiences from those two sources are more engaged than the audiences from the other sources. The same two traffic sources also stand out from the others in pages per session and average session duration. These audiences viewed more pages on average during a session (8.28 and 6.58, respectively), and spent more time on the site (4:28 and 4:13, respectively). Now that you’ve determined the audiences from these two sources are really engaged, you need to find out if that translates to results. On the ecommerce side, you can see that mall.googleplex had 93 transactions for a total of $8,839, but sites.google.com had only 2 transactions for a total of $248. While the engagement levels from the two sources are similar, the first source sent you 93 transactions and the second source only 2. That tells you the second source isn’t working as well for you as the first one. If that first source was Facebook, and the second source was YouTube, you’d want to put more of your efforts toward Facebook. Now that you have a general understanding of how to use this report in Google Analytics, you’re ready to start tagging your own traffic. #2: Track Your Social Media Traffic Sources With UTMsUTM parameters are tags that you add to the links you share on social media so you can get more detailed information about your traffic in Google Analytics. Tagging your links with UTM parameters lets you determine which source of social media traffic brings the most visitors to your site, what pages or content they’re interested in, and even more details such as how much they purchase, what they do after they purchase, where they drop off your funnel, and more. Suppose you have a Facebook campaign and use multiple ads to send visitors to the same piece of content on your site. To determine which ad gets the most clicks, it’s easy to look at the analytics from your Facebook account to determine this metric. However, which ad gets you the most page views after the initial click? Which ad turns the clicks into subscribers or customers? Google Analytics can show you this information if you tag your traffic. When it comes to tagging, think of the structure like this:
To understand how this structure translates to your social media marketing efforts, let’s look at a Facebook ad example. Here are the details for this ad:
You want to include the “laptop image” identifier in the details because you’re testing different images in otherwise identical Facebook ads and want to see the results of using the different images in your ads in Google Analytics. Tagging your traffic this way allows you to see details about a specific ad and what type of actions people take after clicking that ad. So how do these details translate to UTMs? Your product or service is the “campaign,” the brand is the “source,” the type of traffic is the “medium,” the headline is the “term,” and the details are the “content.” To track this information in Google Analytics, you add UTM parameters to your links:
For the Facebook ad example, here’s how to add the UTM parameters to the link. First, identify the source (the brand), which is Facebook in this case: Next, identify the medium (the type of traffic). In this case, you’re using CPC, which stands for cost per click: Follow this up with the campaign (product/service). It’s Measurement Marketing Academy, but we’ll use Academy for short: Then add the term (headline/subject), which is Trust Your Numbers: Finally, provide the content (details). You’re retargeting blog readers and using an image of a laptop in the ad, so you write it like this: Now you need to add these parameters to the link itself. Note that the UTM parameters can be used in any order and only source/medium/campaign are required. For this example, when users click the Facebook ad, it takes them to the home page at https://ift.tt/2z9e9DN. That’s the main link. Now add a question mark to the end of the main link and then the individual UTM parameters. Separate each parameter with an ampersand. Here’s what the final URL will look like: Now let’s look at how you’d use this URL when you set up the Facebook ad. In Ads Manager, type your main link in the Website URL box. Then add your tracking parameters (everything after the question mark) to the URL Parameters box. Now when somebody clicks on your Facebook ad, that information will come through your Google Analytics. If you open the Source/Medium report, you can see where the traffic is coming from (Facebook), what specific ad it’s coming from (the “Trust Your Numbers” ad with the laptop image that’s retargeting blog readers), what the users’ actions are, how much traffic is being sent from that traffic source, and ultimately what the results of that traffic are. #3: Create Your Own UTMs With the UTM Builder ToolThe good news is that there’s an easier way to create UTMs for your campaigns. The UTM Builder tracking tool will keep your UTMs structured and ensure all of your information is organized and in one place. To use this method, open the UTM Builder and then choose File > Make a Copy to create your own copy so you’ll be able to edit it. On the first tab, UTM Building Tips, you’ll find a recap of the UTM information discussed earlier. To start customizing this sheet, open the Traffic Tag Settings tab to set up your core traffic tag settings. In the Source column, list the “brands” of traffic sources you use (Facebook, YouTube, etc.). In the Medium column, add the types of traffic you use (share, CPC, email, etc.). In the Campaign column, list the products or services you offer. The sources, mediums, and campaigns you list on this tab will show up in drop-down lists on the other tabs of this sheet, as you’ll see in a second. Once you’ve filled in that information, you’re ready to start creating your UTMs. To understand how to use this tracking tool, let’s use it to create the UTM for the Facebook ad example from earlier. Start by opening the Facebook-CPC tab. In the URL column on this tab, type in the URL for the ad’s landing page. Then in the Source column, select the social media traffic source (Facebook, in this case) from the drop-down list. In the Medium and Campaign columns, select the medium (CPC) and campaign (academy) from the drop-down lists. Here’s what your sheet looks like at this point: Next, type in your term and add the details about your content. As you define the different parameters, the spreadsheet will automatically generate the URL for you in the Code column. Click the code in the spreadsheet to test it and make sure it opens to the correct landing page. Tip: As you add UTMs to your spreadsheet and begin tracking, you may want to highlight the content and campaigns that bring you the most social media traffic. Keeping them in this spreadsheet will help you remember specific details you may need to know later on. Watch the video: VIDEO . .What do you think? Do you use UTM parameters in the links you share on social media? How might you improve how you tag your traffic sources? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Social Media via Social Media Examiner https://ift.tt/1LtH18p September 25, 2018 at 05:09AM
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Former Facebook content moderator sues company for giving her PTSD https://ift.tt/2MTSJON Former Facebook content moderator sues company for giving her PTSD
By Johnny Lieu
The mental toll of moderating unsettling content on the internet is well-noted, and now it's the subject of a lawsuit against Facebook. Former content manager Selena Scola has lodged a suit against the social media company, claiming "constant and unmitigated exposure to highly toxic and extremely disturbing images" had left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the filing in the Superior Court of California, the company is accused of ignoring workplace safety standards that help protect employees from psychological harm. As part of her job, Scola reviewed "thousands of images, videos, and livestreamed broadcasts of graphic violence." She was employed by a staffing agency, Pro Unlimited Inc., and began work at Facebook's offices in June 2017. Pro Unlimited was also named as a defendant in the case. Scola was at the company for nine months, and eventually developed symptoms of fatigue, insomnia, and social anxiety, before being formally diagnosed with PTSD. The suit claims that her PTSD symptoms may be triggered "when she touches a computer mouse, enters a cold building, watches violence on television, hears loud noises, or is startled." "Her symptoms are also triggered when she recalls or describes graphic imagery she was exposed to as a content moderator," the claim reads. Scola's lawyer Steve Williams, of Joseph Saveri Law Firm, said in a statement that his client wants Facebook to set up a medical monitoring fund to provide testing and care to content moderators with PTSD.
"Facebook needs to mitigate the harm to content moderators today and also take care of the people that have already been traumatized," he added. Another lawyer on the case, Korey Nelson of the law firm of Burns Charest LLP, added, "Facebook is ignoring its duty to provide a safe workplace and instead creating a revolving door of contractors who are irreparably traumatized by what they witnessed on the job." As of June, Facebook employs 7,500 content reviewers across the world, a number that it's doubling this year to 20,000. The company uses a mix of full-time employees, contractors and companies to take care of the thousands of posts which need to be reviewed every day. Facebook's director of corporate communications, Bertie Thomson, said in a statement via email that the company is "currently reviewing this claim," and that it recognizes that "this work can often be difficult." "That is why we take the support of our content moderators incredibly seriously, starting with their training, the benefits they receive, and ensuring that every person reviewing Facebook content is offered psychological support and wellness resources," the statement added. Thomson pointed to the in-house counsellors and other wellness resources it provides to employees, which it detailed in a post on the company's blog. Social Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 September 24, 2018 at 10:26PM
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Mode raises $3M Series A to put sensor data in the cloud https://ift.tt/2OcdXvM True Ventures has led the $3 million round for Mode, a real-time database that gives companies instant access to sensor data. GigaOm founder and True Ventures partner Om Malik has joined the startup’s board of directors as part of the deal. Sensor data is collected from vehicles, cell phones, appliances, medical equipment and other machines. Businesses deploying these sensors, however, often don’t have back-end databases or tools to understand what that data means for the real world. San Mateo-based Mode wants to help them make sense of it by moving the hoards of sensor data to the cloud, where they can better understand their devices and derive actionable insights. For now, Mode is targeting the solar, medical and manufacturing industries. “We focus on data collection because we want to address common infrastructure challenges and let customers spend their time utilizing data for their businesses,” said Gaku Ueda, Mode co-founder and Twitter’s former director of engineering. Ueda and co-founder Ethan Kan, who was previously the director of engineering at gaming startup 50Cubes, have a long history of friendship. True Ventures’ Malik says that’s part of what attracted him to the company. “Companies are not a straight line,” Malik told TechCrunch. “You go through ups and downs. If you have a good co-founder, you have someone to get you through it.” The round brings Mode’s total funding to $5 million. The company, which is also backed by Kleiner Perkins, Compound.vc and Fujitsu, will use the Series A financing to connect additional sensors to the cloud and expand its team. Social Media via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com September 24, 2018 at 01:57PM
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Zendaya (Meechee) is a big fan of the 'Zendaya is Meechee' meme https://ift.tt/2xPbr4m Zendaya (Meechee) is a big fan of the 'Zendaya is Meechee' meme
By Chloe Bryan
One need not understand memes to enjoy them fully, which is lucky because they become more nonsensical by the day. The latest: Zendaya is Meechee, a meme based on a fake song about a promotional poster for the upcoming animated film Smallfoot, which is about a group of Yeti who discover that humans are real. Simple! The song was written by YouTuber Gabriel Gundacker, whom you might also recognize from this flawless series of Vines. As songs go, it is almost unbearably catchy, to the extent that you should think carefully before viewing. Do you want to have "Zendaya is Meechee" stuck in your head for the rest of the day, or perhaps the week? If so, proceed. Since the video went up, it's been viewed more than 4 million times. At least one of those 4 million views was Zendaya (Meechee) herself, who tweeted it out on Sunday. And it seems to have taken up permanent residence in the rest of the internet's brain, too. We miss you, Vine.
Social Media via Mashable https://ift.tt/2DCFv97 September 24, 2018 at 11:51AM
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10 Ways Machine Learning Is Reshaping Marketing https://ift.tt/2QS5HzD Advancements in technology are constantly changing our world. This is no secret. As a marketer, you need to have a better understanding of this technology that goes far beyond the latest smartphone release. If you recall, artificial intelligence made my list of the top marketing trends to look for in 2018. While artificial intelligence and machine learning are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. Basically, artificial intelligence has a broader meaning. It’s the idea that machines and computers can complete tasks normally requiring human intelligence. Machine learning is a branch of AI, and it automates model building for data analysis. The concept behind machine learning is that a computer can learn from the data it analyzes by identifying patterns. Ultimately, this technology can make decisions without humans. What does this mean for marketers? I know some of you might be thinking you’re not currently using this technology, so the information isn’t relevant to you. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The reality is, marketers are already using this technology to help improve their marketing campaigns and increase revenue by optimizing the customer experience. If you don’t have your finger on the pulse, you could fall behind your competitors. Even if you’re not ready to implement machine learning today, you should be prepared to do so in the future. I’ll explain the top 10 ways machine learning is reshaping marketing. 1. Improved lead scoring accuracyLead scoring helps rank prospective customers on a scale representing their value to your company. Improving your lead scoring accuracy will help you prioritize your lead generation strategies. Right now, marketing professionals don’t have the highest confidence levels in their lead scoring methods: But as they embrace machine learning, I believe their confidence levels will increase. That’s because many factors go into these calculations, and machine learning can help you make them. Marketers use machine learning to monitor customer behavior. They write algorithms to track:
A consumer’s social score is a factor as well. It monitors and analyzes how a user behaves on social networks, e.g.:
Using machine learning to qualify prospects is helping businesses create more accurate customer profiles, improving their marketing. 2. Easier to predict customer churnCustomer churn is also known as customer turnover. It measures the number of customers who ended their relationship with a business. For a SaaS business, it occurs when a customer cancels its service or unsubscribes from its membership. Churn rates are calculated by the percentage of customers or subscribers who leave a business within a specified period of time. For a company to grow, the number of new customers must be higher than the churn rate. You need to know what your churn rate is to know how satisfied your customers are with your product or service. And you also need to be able to predict your churn rate so you can minimize it. How can you predict the churn? You need to monitor customer behavior. Here’s a machine learning discovery model that can make predictions based on certain behaviors: Examples of behaviors that get monitored include how customers engage with a product or mobile app. When was the last time they signed into their profile? When was their last purchase? For example, let’s say one customer visits your website twice per month. On the first visit, they research products, and on the second visit, they buy something. This pattern goes on for a year. But after a year, the customer visits your site only once per month and doesn’t buy anything. You could predict they’ll stop using your business altogether soon. Machine learning helps analyze this data on a much larger scale. The technology gives marketers information to predict the churn so that it can be prevented. Now these brands can do something to make sure they don’t lose the customer before it’s too late. 3. Profitable dynamic pricing modelsA dynamic pricing strategy allows businesses to offer flexible prices for the products and services they offer. It’s a common model in hospitality, travel, and entertainment industries. With machine learning and AI, the dynamic pricing strategy is penetrating the retail industry as well. Basically, this strategy helps you segment prices based on customer choices. Dynamic pricing is also related to real-time pricing, which is when the value of goods is based on certain market conditions. Purchasing an airline ticket is a great example of this. The price of the ticket depends on how far in advance you purchase it, the number of tickets already purchased, and the location of the seat. This isn’t a new pricing strategy. But machine learning makes it easier for companies to implement and improve their dynamic pricing models. Setting the right prices is critical to the success of your business. You can generate more profits by focusing on your pricing strategy. Machine learning helps you use regression techniques to make market predictions. It’s also used for sales forecasting to optimize the pricing structure based on market spending habits. 4. Sentiment analysisWhen you’re having a conversation with someone face-to-face, it’s easy to understand how they’re feeling. You can make judgments based on their facial expression, tone, and body language. This helps you determine if their satisfied, excited, or unhappy. But this can sometimes be lost with digital communication—the current trend. We’re not having as many face-to-face interactions with consumers because they’re reaching us online. When a customer sends you an email or direct message, you need to know how they’re feeling in order to properly respond. Machine learning can do this for you. AI technology can analyze text to determine whether the sentiment there is positive or negative. Sentiment analysis is being used by marketers to better understand their online reputation. Computers read through social media comments and alert the marketers to negative content. The company can then address the problem raised. AI can also identify people happy with your products to help you find social influencers and brand ambassadors. You can use machine learning to help you read the emotions of consumers online. 5. Improve website experimentsAre you currently running tests on your website? A/B testing is a great way to improve the features of your site, mobile app, and email marketing content. I’m a big advocate of using this strategy. While A/B tests ultimately give you results to optimize your website, there is some downside to this method. Yes, the end results of your testing will help you maximize conversions in the future. However, to get there, you miss some opportunities. Let me illustrate. Let’s say you’re testing the CTA button on a landing page. By design, you’ll send 50% of your site traffic to a page generating fewer conversions than the other. That’s how you test your hypothesis. But what about the missed opportunity to convert those directed to the underperforming page? Machine learning will help you solve this problem by improving your bandit testing. With bandit testing, the solution with the highest value gets prioritized. The algorithms of such tests will minimize missed opportunities and make your experiments more profitable. 6. Prioritize ad targeting and customer personalizationAI and machine learning are helping marketers target their ads more effectively. Right now, your ads might be great, but they can’t be effective if they aren’t being seen by the right audiences. With the help of AI, you can make sure your target audience is reached. In addition to improving the way your ads get targeted, machine learning can help personalize the customer experience on your platforms. Algorithms can predict which type of content would be the most popular with each unique visitor. You and I could both visit the same website and see different content: Let me give you an example. Delta Faucet used AI and machine learning to improve its website. A case study was conducted on this technology and the new strategy. After implementing machine learning, Delta Faucet saw a 49% increase in page views per visitor. Further, 45% of the traffic that came from paid ads resulted in visitors spending at least 40 seconds reading the content. The clicks on the CTA buttons quadrupled. And 37% of the visitors viewed multiple pages in a single session. Machine learning made it possible to run personalized and targeted ads that led to higher visitor engagement. 7. Computer vision for product recognitionYou might not be familiar with this technology. However, it’s increasing in popularity, and marketers are using it to their advantage. Machine learning for computer vision helps brands recognize their products in images and videos online. Software such as GumGum can accomplish this. Miller Lite used machine learning technology to scan through user-generated content on social media. The algorithm looked for images without any relevant text to find posts related to the brand. It also tracked information about competing brands and influencers. The software collected data about users who posted on social media about Miller Lite. These were the results: As you can see, machine learning helped this company find over 1 million posts associated with the brand. It would be nearly impossible for a human to complete this task. 8. Relevant recommendation systemsRecommendations can go a long way. If a friend or family member tells you about a restaurant you’d like or a book you’d enjoy reading, chances are, you’d actually like it. That’s because these people know you. They won’t recommend a sushi restaurant to you if they know you have a seafood allergy. They won’t recommend a historical non-fiction book to you if you’re a fan of science fiction novels. Machine learning can identify your preferences as well and probably even better than the people who know you best. Here’s an example to show you what I mean. If you have multiple profiles on your Netflix account, you know that each time you launch the platform, it asks you “who is watching?” Then it has “recommendations for you,” based on shows, movies, and documentaries you have already watched. These recommendations improve the customer experience. The same concept can be applied to your marketing efforts. Machine learning helps marketers discover which types of products consumers want based on their browsing histories and shopping behaviors. Relevant product suggestions increase conversions. 9. ChatbotsLive chat has a 92% customer satisfaction rating. Studies show 63% of customers are more likely to return to a website if it offers a live chat feature. You can learn how to provide better customer service by implementing live chat. These are the top reasons why consumers prefer live chat: Chatbots can help you improve your live chat features. That’s because they use some of the machine learning elements I’ve previously talked about. Machine learning improves how chatbots operate by using sentiment analysis to judge the mood of a message from a customer. When paired with social media, machine learning can gather more information about customers when it receives a new message. As a result, this will improve your targeting and product recommendations. Basically, machine learning helps chatbots further personalize the customer experience. Chatbots keep your customers on pages for longer and also decrease the wait times for customers waiting to connect with customer service representatives. 10. Improved audience insightsI see business owners make the mistake of grouping their customers into one category all the time. Just because all these people buy from your brand doesn’t mean they are the same. You need to segment your customers into groups. This can help improve engagement when you target them. Software that uses machine learning, like Affinio, can help you with this. With machine learning, you can learn valuable information about your customers. This information will give you more accurate data to use when you’re building a customer persona to help you improve personalization and target people accordingly. Affinio helps you discover various aspects of your customers’ behaviors, e.g., how many of your customers are foodies, how many watch a certain TV show, and which customers have traveled to similar places. Now you can segment these customers into different clusters to improve their experience and increase the likelihood of them converting. ConclusionArtificial intelligence is here, and it’s not going anywhere. Marketers are already using machine learning technology to change the way they operate. Even if your company isn’t ready to implement this methodology today, you need to keep up to date with the latest trends. Otherwise, you could fall behind your competitors. If you know how to use it to your advantage, machine learning can be a valuable tool for your business. When you’re ready to move forward with this technology, refer to this list to help you determine the best ways to improve your marketing strategy. How is your company planning to use AI and machine learning to optimize your marketing efforts? Social Media via Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/UU7LJr September 24, 2018 at 10:04AM |
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