Category: Insights

Saying Farewell to Facebook Organic Posts

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 25/10/2017

The internet is awash with rumours. And we, at DTW HQ, are 90% certain they are true: Facebook will (we think) be removing organic page posts from the news feed (but not yet).

What is an organic page post?

Currently, when you log into Facebook, your news feed is populated with posts from both profiles (your friends) and pages (brands or businesses). Some of the posts from brands or businesses are organic posts – these are from pages you have liked or followed, others are paid posts – these are from pages who have paid Facebook to show their content in more news feeds. Guess who Facebook likes more…

Since 2013, organic posts have been hitting fewer news feeds, triggering marketers to pay Facebook more and more for the privilege of having their content appear in these feeds.

What’s happening now?

Facebook are currently testing moving those organic (non-paid) posts to a new ‘Explore’ feed only in some countries, freeing up the news feed for posts shared only by profiles and people.They claim they have no current plans to roll this out globally. However, it would be more of a surprise if they don’t do this for everyone.

Facebook’s ad spend ‘only’ increased by 27% last quarter, as opposed to Instagram’s 55% and Snapchat’s 73%.

What does this mean?

At the moment, there’s nothing to do but carry on as normal. Facebook have stated they aren’t planning any major changes to the feeds, but we all need to be keeping a close watch on that organic reach.

It does mean marketing budgets will need to consider more money for paid promotion on Facebook should they want to keep a similar level of interaction and reach that they’re used to.

We don’t know if or when this will happen, but, as they say in the Cub Scouts, always be prepared – and hang on to your Facebook budget – you’re going to need it.

Insights

Facebook Announces Withdrawal of 17 Ad Formats

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 25/08/2017

Facebook has unveiled (another) set of changes to drive us all to use its publishing tools as opposed to third party applications like Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

As of the 15^th September, 17 post formats on Facebook will no longer be available to boost. They are apparently post types that are rarely used (see below for a full list) and are not tied to any advertiser objectives, meaning that nothing will change in the main Power Editor/Ads Manager interface.

However, one thing to note is the removal of the ability to boost a post from an app posted to a page’s timeline. This MAY affect any page managers using third-party publishing tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Buffer. As of yet, Facebook hasn’t been clear if it sees these tools as an app or as a separate functionality altogether.

Facebook has always preferred managers to use Facebook’s own scheduling functionality instead of using publishing tools like Hootsuite, so there is a possibility this is another move by the network to try to curb the use of those applications.

If you do use Hootsuite et al, the best way around this news is to post any posts that have a budget planned for them directly to Facebook and boost from there.

Alternatively, you could start scheduling from Facebook. We do this already as it means we have full control over how a post will look on the platform without risking any ‘quirks’ that many of these tools have (like funny URL strings, or misshaped images).

In short, its Facebook’s latest trick to get us all using its publishing tools, so watch out if you don’t, they’ll be coming for you.

PS – The following post formats are the ones being removed:

Boosting share of products from shops
Boosting the share of a story about a for-sale post
Boosting a check-in on a map, at a restaurant, or in a city
Boosting the share of a note
Boosting the share of a poll
Boosting place recommendations
Boosting the share of cultural moments
Boosting the share of comments
Boosting change of a profile picture
Boosting a file upload or share
Boosting a sports event
Boosting of a video or image uploaded through the Facebook camera
Boosting of attendance for an event
Boosting the share of a video playlist
Boosting the status of watching a television show, movie, or other types of programming
Boosting a post from an app posted to a page’s timeline
Boosting a political endorsement

Insights

What is Nomophobia?

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 26/06/2017

Nomophobia. We’ve all been there, whether it’s because we’re running late or you were thinking about something else – you’re in a situation where you realise: you forgot your phone. There’s a sinking feeling, a panic. Can you go home to get it? Who’s been trying to get in touch? How will you check Facebook? Or get to the next level of Candy Crush (just me?..Ok).

You see the usual social media posts “it’s like losing an arm! I’ve forgotten my phone – contact me on here” and you get the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in the pit of your stomach.

This is called Nomophobia – the fear of being anywhere without your phone. A phobia you may smirk at, but, in reality, probably have to some scale. Phones are used by people as a tool to browse content and fill idle time. When waiting for a bus, or an appointment, we instinctively get our phones out and subconsciously look for interesting things to enlighten, educate and entertain us.

We shouldn’t be surprised there is a term like this – as of 2016, 71% of UK adults owned a smartphone. A study showed that UK adults spend an average of 66 hours a month browsing on their mobiles – that’s just over 2 hours a day. It all adds up.

Facebook’s mobile-only active users has surpassed 1 billion worldwide, and as a result they are introducing mobile specific algorithms in their news feed; they even use bandwidth to dictate the sort of content you consume. For example, did you know if you’re in a 2G area, you won’t see as many videos in your news feed?

The fact that there is a name for the fear of being without your phone just shows the importance of mobile in content discovery.

So why should marketers be mindful of Nomophobia?

As the internet becomes more mobile focused – marketers need to think about the content they are publishing on social. Catch your audience’s attention in those idle moments; make your creative thumb-stopping, think about how that video will look on a mobile device, does the link you’re posting go to a mobile-optimised website?

And whilst Nomophobia sounds a bit daft – we marketers should be nomophobic when it comes to our strategies. There should be a fear that without mobile in our plans, we could be missing out.

Insights

Droning on about bridges

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 10/04/2017

There’s nothing we love more than working on a stunning new infrastructure project, especially when we get a chance to get some amazing drone footage.

Our video team has been out and about recently – capturing some incredible drone footage on two really important transport projects we’re involved with – the Mersey Gateway Project in Halton and the New Wear Crossing in Sunderland.

The Mersey Gateway film follows the route of the new bridge from north to south – starting at the north approach viaduct as it crosses the saltmarsh and Widnes and moving across the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal to the construction of the new Astmoor Viaduct in Runcorn.

For the New Wear Crossing, we’ve used drones to get some incredible footage for a series of set piece events for the project – culminating in the raising of the centrepiece of the bridge – a 300 foot pylon on site.

The results are amazing, but you don’t get them without proper planning.

Here’s our top tips

Keep safe and don’t break the law – CAA licenses, landowners’ permissions, an understanding of what you can and can’t do is critical – the dronesafe website is a good place to start.
Tell your story – make your footage meaningful and make sure the visuals reflect the story you are trying to tell. If you are flying from multiple locations or it’s a ‘blink and you miss it’ event, camera angles and flight paths really matter. If you just ask someone to turn up and say “please film that”, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t live up to expectations.
Remember the context – you know every last detail about whatever it is you are filming – your audience probably doesn’t – remember to give them some context.
Check the weather and have a contingency – if it’s raining, you’re not flying. If your event is taking place anyway, what’s your back-up plan? Ground footage can add value too.
Go social – you can plug in Facebook Live and broadcast direct from the drone via your Facebook channel – but it has risks and needs planning.
Share the joy and build your own comms infrastructure – it’s lovely to have great footage but you need to be able to share it – don’t be shy – provide it to the media and use your own channels.
Think strategically – how can you use the exposure this can create for you to get your messages across to your audience? For example, for Mersey Gateway we need tens of thousands of people to register with the tolling provider this summer – so we included relevant links. At some level your organisation will be trying to influence perceptions or shape behaviour – don’t lose sight of that.

Finally – a big thumbs up to Mark at I-sky – our drone pilot of choice. These are all two-person operations – a pilot and a camera operator. Mark – we couldn’t do it without you – thanks.

If you want to talk to us about drones, or any other filming requirements, we’d love to chat. Please call Pete Whelan on 01287 610 404 or email pete@dtw.co.uk.

Insights

Social Regulators Roundtable – 6th December 2016

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 07/12/2016

Communications professionals from a wide variety of regulatory organisations gathered in London yesterday for the first ever Social Regulators Roundtable.

DTW and Digital Allies were honoured to be invited by the hosts – the Solicitors Regulation Authority – to help facilitate the day. Collectively, we explored the issues and challenges facing regulators on social media, including senior management involvement, employee advocacy, engaging stakeholders, tone of voice, measurement and social media policy.

The purpose of the day was to share ideas and issues commonly faced by people in a team or on their own, working at the sharp end as communicators for regulators. And certainly, by the end of the day, connections had been made and smiles were on faces.

It was a great day of discussion following introductions from SRA Chief Executive Paul Philip and Executive Director, External Affairs, Jane Malcolm.

Attendees from the SRA, ASA, RICS, BSB, PSR, FRR, ARB, Ofwat, CAP and the Homes and Communities Agency discussed the challenges they faced and what they hoped to learn from each other.

Key takeaways from the day included:

There is a real desire and a drive from regulators towards engagement and away from using social just to broadcast – and that means posting content that is suitable for a social media audience (including light-hearted content) without compromising the authoritative voice of a regulatory body.

Employee engagement and advocacy is seen as a very exciting area – but one with pitfalls and there is a need to prove to senior management teams that the risk is worth it. Social media policies are often placed in the disciplinary sections of staff handbooks – is this the right place for it? It adds a negative tone to the use of social.

Evaluation and measurement is very important, but determining a significant ROI for a regulator is very difficult as there is no key conversion or call to action. As ever, the key with evaluation is focusing first on identifying what is REALLY important and understanding WHY you want to measure it.

Everyone recognised and sympathised with each other and we all enjoyed and learned a lot from the day.

Really interesting, insightful and engaging discussions. Thanks @sra_solicitors for hosting! https://t.co/4QzsFaoZy9

— ASA (@ASA_UK) December 6, 2016

We received great feedback from attendees with talk of further meetings and of course some social networking and online sharing to back it up.

A huge thanks to John Rieger and the Digital Communications team at the SRA for organising an excellent day.

Insights

Twitter introduces customer service bots

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 02/11/2016

Twitter launches customer service bots in direct messages.

There are many brands and accounts on Twitter that pride themselves in great customer service on the social network. This is usually because they invest time and money in staff and equipment that can enable them to provide such a service; examples of this include KLM and train networks.

Now, in theory at least, it will be easier for smaller companies to provide a similar level of service as those larger brands with Twitter’s new tool.

So, how does it work?

As a twitter user, you can set up an automated welcome message that greets the customer before they’ve even started typing. The customer can then select different categories of queries that have automated responses; or request to speak directly to an agent.

Think automated telephone systems without the painful dictation (“AGENT…” “Putting you through to…payments”) or dreadful hold music.

Sounds good, so what’s the catch?

Aha – you did ask. You need to open your DMs to everybody (not just mutual follower/followees), which means if you are a brand likely to get bombarded with irrelevant messages, tread carefully and ask the following questions:

Does the level of genuine queries warrant a system like this?
Do I get a lot of the same queries that have the same answer?
Would a system like this contribute to my overall customer service level?

So should my organisation sign up?

If the answer to any of the questions above is yes, then exploring this tool further is worth it. We would still recommend a third party customer service system like Sprout Social or Hootsuite, in addition to this to help you filter through the noise and answer questions as efficiently as possible.

It is also worth keeping in mind that Twitter isn’t revolutionising social customer service automation as Facebook launched a very similar tool for their Messenger app earlier this year. At least this way customers and brands that lean towards either Facebook or Twitter have a level playing field in which to implement good customer service.

Ultimately its good to see Twitter recognising this growing area and trying to do something for help, but more fundamentally there are still too many people and brands using social media without defining why they are there or thinking about how they’re going to measure success.

Don’t forget the big picture

My advice is to sit down and challenge yourself or your organisation’s presence on social and get all existentialist and ask the big questions.

Why am I here?
What am I trying to achieve?
How am I going to measure success?

Thanks for reading

Jess

Tags Social Media, twitter

Insights

A Guide To Pokemon Go For Business

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 18/07/2016

Is Pokemon Go a new marketing platform for business?

There’s a new craze on the loose. You may have observed groups of people walking around your town talking about ‘gyms’ and ‘Pokestops’ and teams. They’ll all be looking at their phones. Or you may have seen videos of stampedes of crowds in New York running into a dark Central Park as they seek a rare ‘monster’.

This is Pokemon Go: a new app from Nintendo’s Niantic that, in its very short life, has more downloads than Tinder, more UK users than Twitter, and has sent Nintendo’s shares through the roof.

Naturally, businesses want to know how they can utilise this craze for marketing purposes.

The way the game works is through geolocation, it uses your phone location to allow you to play Pokemon in the ‘real world’ through augmented reality. It also uses local places as key locations in the game where you can pick up items and play against other players.

It is these locations that businesses want to get their hands on. Well, here are the key things around that:

The app uses Google for its mapping data, not necessarily the location data
The locations of gyms and Pokestops are crowdsourced: busier areas will generally have more activity.
The locations are inherited from Niantic’s previous game called Ingress; its developers prioritising the public attractions and points of interest they learnt from that.

The key thing about Pokemon Go is the more users and people about, the more activity there will be on the app. This is why Niantic has been put into hot water as more sensitive locations like Auschwitz and the Holocaust Museum in the US have increasing gaming activity due to the number of visitors these places get.

Pokemon No Go areas have appeared across the world

This all leads to the question: how can brands get themselves into the game?

The short answer is: they can’t.

The long answer is: they can’t at the moment, but there are discussions about sponsored locations within the game at some point, but not yet. McDonald’s is already pursuing this with branded locations in the game, but for smaller, local businesses this is a long way off. Remember, it’s only a few days old at the moment!

What businesses can do is utilise the game through other marketing platforms. The RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) recently tweeted that they were a Pokestop. Our office at DTW is a Pokemon Go Gym, therefore, as a business, see what’s around you in the app and market your location in relation to these places. That way, hopefully, you’ll be able to see some footfall benefit from this new craze.

Catch a Weedle outside DTW

Insights

The joy of flight

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 05/11/2015

Earlier in the year we hopped over the back wall of DTW Towers into the grounds of historic Gisborough Priory in order to conduct a test flight of the new DJI Inspire drone which our aerial filming partners at iSky had just got their hands on.

With the help of our friends at the Gisborough Priory Project, we’d successfully negotiated the labyrinth of permissions and approvals needed to fly on English Heritage land – aside from needing a CAA license to operate commercially there are a whole host of other checks and paperwork that should be completed if you’re going to do this sort of thing by the book (we’re planning a future blog post on this very topic) and on the day we were blessed with a lovely clear, sunny day which made for some spectacular views of the Priory and surrounding area.

Since shooting the film we’ve used the Inspire to shoot aerial footage in two “live” projects – some road safety videos for the 95 Alive Road Safety Partnership and a soon to launch recruitment project for North Yorkshire County Council.

If you want to find out more about using aerial filming, you can drop me a line at pete@dtw.co.uk or give me a call on 01287 610404.

Insights

#FacebookDown

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 01/10/2015

The Facebook website and mobile apps went offline for 40 minutes on Monday afternoon, the second short outage in a week and the third in three weeks, blaming, engineers tinkering, which was the reported cause for the previous outages.

Now what is a minor annoyance or disruption for the ordinary user, or benefit if it gives you the chance to have a cuppa and catch up on work, has real-world consequences for organisations. Starting with Facebook themselves, their share price took a 4% hit (£56 a share) or 1% for every ten minutes. Then there are the cascading consequences for other apps and websites that use Facebook as their primary login method or are built on Facebook’s structure. Tinder, the popular dating app, is the highest profile example. There are also the hundreds of thousands of Facebook advertisers whose campaigns may have been postponed or lost as a result of the unscheduled stoppage – Facebook has to take their concerns seriously and make amends in short order.

Other social networks, primarily Twitter, had a lot of fun at their expense, providing an outlet for frustration and also underlining their own robust systems but the little blue bird and others are just as susceptible to a malfunctioning algorithm or even something as minimal as a 0 retyped as an O. Computers are unlike people in that there is no shade of grey regarding their operating parameters. A program either runs or it doesn’t – there is no nearly right here.

Such rare events also illustrate the danger of building a business model or primary presence on a platform that is ultimately out of your control – both proprietary and technically. If you have a website, it is very unlikely that the internet will go down as there are a myriad of redundancies and work round’s to avoid it. A single site or platform is much narrower and easier to disable no matter how popular or famous.

Facebook has a lot of engineers and data scientists who can solve and fix issues and game plan for likely future offline incidents. In honour of #FacebookDown, maybe you should game plan your own social survival strategy if your main showroom simply vanishes into thin air…

Tags #Facebookdown, Facebook, internet, media, outage, social, twitter

Insights

Are you mobile friendly?

Post author By DTW Agency
Post date 06/05/2015

It’s the end of SEO as we know it. On 21 April 2015, Google rolled out its new algorithm for non-mobile-friendly websites. In a statement the company said: “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

So what does this really mean and why should you care?

You need to make sure your website is mobile optimised.

If your website is not optimised to be viewed on a smartphone or tablet, then you will not appear high in the search results, it will be harder for people to find you, and you’ll be losing out against your competitors who do have a mobile-optimised website. You are either mobile-friendly or not, there are no degrees of mobile-friendliness in this algorithm.

This means that in the case where websites that do accommodate for mobile, they would be getting an additional rankings boost.

Keeping Google happy is one reason to make sure you are mobile friendly, but the biggest reason is to keep your customers happy.

The latest 2015 digital device stats from the Global Web Index show that of 40,000 Internet users surveyed, 80% own a smartphone.

It also showed that the majority of adults (16-64) now personally own a desktop or laptop AND a smartphone with nearly half owning a tablet.

This shows the importance of providing great online experiences across multiple devices. Your customers are expecting it – and Google will punish you if it isn’t.

Next steps…

There are two ways for you to check whether your website is mobile-friendly

Use this mobile-friendly testing tool from Google and enter your URL.
Just Google your brand using a smartphone. If you see a grey “mobile-friendly” label next to your site, then you’re all fine and don’t need to worry.

In today’s world, if your website is not fully responsive to allow your visitors to visit your website via their computer, their tablet, or their mobile, at a time and a place when they want to, then they will go elsewhere and you will lose their custom.

Whether you like it or not, it is all about the customer experience and more importantly consumer behaviour!

So, if you’ve tested your website to see if it’s mobile-friendly, and – shock horror! – it’s not, then get in touch with us today to have a chat and see how we can help.

Drop Lorna a line if you want to know more.

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