Brands

Content Catchup: Facebook’s Master Plan, Real-Time Marketing’s Fatal Flaw, and More Must-Reads

Here’s what you missed while wondering whether it’s possible for anyone over the age of 25 to understand Snapchat…

Data: Real-Time Super Bowl Marketing Is a Giant Waste of Money

Real-time marketing and social media war rooms are the hot new accessory in brand land; all the cool kids have them, and they’ve got the Instagram pics and Twitterjacks to prove it. But are they worth the cost? Contently co-founder Shane Snow crunched the numbers and came to a surprising conclusion:

Under generous circumstances, the best real-time marketing ad at the Oscars was nine times the cost of the most expensive other kind of advertising, and the #10 real-time marketing ad at the Oscars is 200 times more expensive than the most expensive type of ad you can typically buy… and 1,200 times more expensive than just paying for ad impressions on the same social networks for which you’re building war rooms. Read it.

Why Marriott Built the Biggest Branded Content Studio Since Red Bull Media House

Marriott wants to be the Red Bull of the travel space, and they’re not fooling around. Since September, the world’s largest hotel chain has grown its content studio to 65 employees, and they’re got big ambitions.

The project was spearheaded by Marriott’s global marketing officer, Karin Timpone, and its vice president of global creative and content marketing, David Beebe, who joined the company last July. Beebe, who has a background in creative development and worked for Disney/ABC, Showtime, and DirecTV, was tasked with shepherding the 18-brand hotel giant over new marketing terrain. “It’s no longer about brand-first,” he says. “It’s about giving consumers content that adds value to their lives, and in return adds value to us.” Read it.

In One Chart, the Story of How Facebook Took Over the Media and Marketing Worlds

Do you love badass data and grand theories about how Facebook is trying to take over the world? Then I’ve got a post for you.

Three years ago, Facebook was a relative blip compared to Google, driving only 6.53 percent of all referral traffic. But since then, its share of overall traffic has exploded by 277.25 percent, even though its user base only expanded by 60 percent over that time period. So what’s going on? As Shareaholic’s Danny Wong points out, it may be the result of “a far more engaged user base. According to Nielsen, Americans spent an average of 15.5 minutes each day on Facebook in August 2011. In November 2014, eMarketer published a study which suggests the average user spends 42.1 minutes each day on the ubiquitous social network.”

It’s important to point out that when we say social traffic is catching up to search in terms of power and importance, we’re not really talking about social media. We’re talking about Facebook. Read it.

Facebook and Twitter’s Native Video Plans Are About to Transform Content Marketing in a Big Way

It’s Facebook Scheming Week here at The Content Strategist! Dillon Baker takes a look at another element of Facebook’s master plan: waging war on YouTube through their native video player:

On the surface, Facebook claims auto-play is meant to increase engagement, and indeed it has. It also conveniently has the side effect of making embedded players from other sites (which don’t have auto-play) seem obsolete. After only one quarter with the feature in place, Facebook witnessed a 134 percent increase in native video plays and a 58 percent increase in engagement—YouTube and others, meanwhile, saw none of the benefits.

They’ve also made sure to minimize the effectiveness of YouTube. Just look at a comparison of the Facebook video player (top) and embedded YouTube video (below). The Facebook player is big, bright and beautiful. The YouTube player, in comparison, is made to seem as ugly as possible. At a quick glance, you can barely tell that there’s a video to play. Read it.

Content vs. Legal: Brand Publishing’s Big Battle [Contently Comic]

Finally, end your week with the Contently Comic. And click here to read my #hottake that accompanies it.

Have a great weekend, and don’t embarrass yourself too much at after-work happy hour. We’ll see you on Monday.

Image by Marc Blickle

Get better at your job right now.

Read our monthly newsletter to master content marketing. It’s made for marketers, creators, and everyone in between.

Trending stories