A Facebook guide on web 2.0

January 8, 2015

Written by Mathias Miller Thorneman

Abstract

The web has changed dramatically from web 1.0 to web 2.0. The change has been rapid, and has implicitly and explicitly implied a plethora of changes for both consumers and marketers. The consumer has been emancipated, given a voice and has consequently become a force, which has dethroned the marketers, and deprived them of their dominance. The tools that made this possible were the advent of social platforms that exist in variations on web 2.0. The various platforms offer a differentiated utilization scheme; herein the social networks are of particular interest. Based on the particular interest on social networks a Facebook guide is constructed to allow an eased and more successful employment of the social network.  The Facebook guide employs specific emphasis on understanding how the media functions, but also to development and control of posts and content.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to shed light on what the Internet is today and to explore and understand the platforms web 2.0 offers. Hereafter the article will address and act as a guide for construction and development of social media communication with a particular focus on the platform Facebook. To accommodate the questions at hand in an optimal manner the composition of data for this article is based on academic litterateur, journals, blogs and lastly examples are applied to illustrate and underline points, in particular for the Facebook guide.   

The birth of contemporary Internet

Since the birth of the Internet the online aspect of our lives have become evermore consuming, and far reaching. The impact of the Internet has without doubt left deep marks, and forever changed the way we communicate, shop, work, and search for information. Norms that existed for millennia evaporated at the speed of light with the introduction of web 1.0 (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011), and a new era proclaimed it’s importance by the introduction of communities (Seraj 2012), blogs, micro-blogs and social networks (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011), namely a era characterized by a reciprocal flow and co-creation of information (Singh & Sonnenburg 2012). In geeky circles this era is referred to as web 2.0 (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011).  Collectively this myriad of platforms wherein co-creation (Singh & Sonneburg 2012, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011) takes place is referred to as Social Media. Within these social media platforms consumers are now advocating events, brands, products and experiences though an electronic word-of-mouth (eVOM) which have become significantly important (Akar & Topcu 2011). Thereby, emancipating the consumer and empowering him/her to play a decisive role in the success or failure scenario, which unfolds before the marketer on the web 2.0 (Papasolomou & Melantbiou 2012). By understanding, listening and co-creating knowledge and content with consumers through social platforms marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to strike gold, eureka!, by meeting consumer needs (Chrisodoulides 2009, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).  Consequently this has let consumers to expect that they will play an active part in the media process (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011), and left the marketer in a role where he must fit in rather then dominate (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).

With an understanding of what contemporary Internet offers consumers and marketers, focus is directed towards the platforms that facilitate the revolution web 2.0 ushered in. Therefore a closer examination of the platforms is conducted.

Flourishing platforms on web 2.0

The many platforms web 2.0 offers segmented into four primary categories, namely blogs, communities, micro-blogs and social networks (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011).  Although the platforms operate and co-exist simultaneously on web 2.0 the purpose of the user and marketer utilization of the platforms differ dramatically. In the box below utilization purposes are displayed.

The box above is based on Seraj 2012, Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011.

As exhibited in the box above, there are various overall and sub decisions to be made prior to engagement of web 2.0. The importance and the potential of these platforms are becoming widely recognised, as they offer a unique opportunity to monitor, engage, share, collaborate with, which in turn hopefully leads to (brand) evangelism (Weinberg & Pehlivan 2011). But what is it these platforms offer the consumer on web 2.0? In accordance to Deighton & Kornfeld (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009) a five category scale is suggested, wherein one factor is of particular interest, namely Cultural Exchange. Cultural Exchange implies that the marketer aspires cultural production, which is then incorporated in groups or by individuals (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009). A recent example of this is Coca Cola’s online ‘Share a coke’ campaign which has been widely spread throughout all of the four platforms: micro-blogs, communities, blogs and social networks. Through the campaign users are encouraged to share a digital Coca Cola with friends.

A phenomena like Facebook is perceived to one of the most potent social media platforms as Facebook in particular enables cultural exchange, and functions as a facilitator of identity projection, and collective ascription of meaning and identity (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).  

In sum, this article has suggested that web 2.0 have catapulted consumers and marketers into a more egalitarian paradigm that is nourished and rejuvenated through various platforms. In addition, it was suggested that especially platforms that presented possibility of cultural exchange were in particular potent. To provide a deeper understanding of the utilization of a potent platform (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009) in praxis the following section will function as a guide to social network platform, namely Facebook (www.facebook.com).

The Facebook guide will serve for inexperienced and novice marketers to avoid the contemporary pitfalls on Facebook and to seize and obtain most possible “bang for your buck”.

The Facebook guide

The focus of this guide will be on Facebook as it is the largest, and the most utilized platform, in addition Facebook is subject to increasing utilization from users (Bayer 2014). Furthermore, consumers on Facebook who becomes fans/followers tend to be more loyal; more open for information, visit the brand store more and generate (e)VOM (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). Having underlined the importance of the platform the Facebook guide will now proceed to examine a number of considerations a marketer will have to be aware off when interacting with future fans and followers.

Understanding Facebook

The first step of the Facebook guide is to develop an understanding how Facebook functions. With Facebooks new algorithm brands can no longer rely on somewhat random fans or followers (Pedersen 2014). The new fan or follower must now live up to a complex range of criteria, which will make Facebook rate the fan/follower interested in your brands material. In short, although your fan-base may be 10.000, only 1.000 may actually see your post, as Facebook estimates the rest to be uninterested in your post (Pedersen 2014). This Facebook guide therefore suggests and underlines the importance of intense focus on content that will intrigue your brands loyal fans/followers (Magid 2014).  Furthermore, the algorithm also emphasizes the importance of shares, likes and comments of your post. By having your fan/follower base share, like and comment on your post Facebook will perceive your post as more important and relevant and hereby increase the posts range. This fact becomes particular interesting when taking Metcalfe’s law into consideration. Metcalfe’s law suggest that the value of a social network increases in proportion to the square of its connections (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).

Adding ‘likes’ to your post

In accordance with quantitative research the number of likes on your post can be affected by the vividness of the post (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). By submitting content in the form of an embedded video (Magid 2014) or more participation oriented material, such as a contest. Another mean of attracting ‘likes’ to your post is by making it more attractive, by trying to get positive comments on the post (Caballero 2014).

Adding ‘comments’ to your post

An effective method of comment generation can be by taking advantage of the intuitive human, simply by posting a question many are drawn to provide an answer. Regardless whether the post reply is positive or negative the amount of post interest is believed to rise (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). In addition, it is advised that the marketer remains in sight for the fan/follower, and encourages and acknowledges the fan/follower with incentive, whether it be a ‘thanks’ or a ‘giftcard’ (Sandes & Urdan 2013).

Content control

An important aspect of this Facebook guide is how to manage your post content. Without a prober post content management one can rapidly experience hijacking or harsh critique (Singh & Sonneburg 2012). In layman terms a notion of ‘tension’ between marketer and fan/follower is suggested, wherein personal, internal and external tension exist (Singh & Sonneburg 2012). The essential outcome is to aspire a captivating brand by continuous re-assessing bonds of tension, and utilizing more types of tension simultaneously. In example this entails providing excitement, provocation and challenging the fan/followers perception, hence adding to the cultural exchange (Deighton & Kornfeld 2009).

Aber dabei….

Ironically, what makes your post more attractive to ‘likes’ consequently decreases the attractiveness in relation to ‘comments’ and vice versa. As such the marketer must be aware when designed posts, will the post be ‘like’ or ‘comment’ oriented? Perhaps a combination between the two can work? Regardless of choice the marketer must be conscious about the potential a well designed post has, raising the correct question, attracting your brands core fans/followers and seeing your message spread like rings in the water. Moreover this process allows for collection of data and increased understanding of your audience (Chrisodoulides 2009, Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden 2011).  Conversely the marketer most also be aware that receiving negative comments is not necessarily equal to failure or misunderstanding of this Facebook guide. Through negative comments much can be learned about thoughts, desires and feelings about your brand. It is therefore paramount that negative comments are not perceived as a failure or irrelevant and annoying noise, but rather as a chance to learn and collaborate with your fans/followers (Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012). It is only a failure if you fail to learn from it! Moreover, marketers whom decide to apply facebook must also consider that the platform is relatively often subject to algorithm alteration, which explicitly manifests itself as re-strategizing for marketers. Thus it is a media that requires continuous care and attention to remain valid.

Conclusion

The consumer have been emancipated and given a voice on web 2.0. The marketer is now dependant on sharing, listening and collaborating with the consumer. An array of opportunities has arisen for the consumer, but also for the marketer. In effect these opportunities unfold upon platforms on web, and in this article the social networking platform Facebook was targeted due to its relevance, popularity and unique features for content. Through the Facebook guide it was concluded that an understanding of Facebook as a platform is paramount in order to launch a successful campaign. Moreover there was shed light upon the do’s and don’ts when marketers are aiming for ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and content control and the oxymoron it is to master all at once.  Lastly it was concluded that negative fan/follower ‘comments’ are opportunities for further learning about your consumers.

Reference list

Articles

Akar, B, Topsu, (2013), “An examination of factors influencing consumers’ choice of social media marketing”, Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(1), 35-67.

Chrisodoulides, G. (2009), “Branding in the post-internet era”, Marketing Theory, 9, 141.

Deighton, J. and Kornfeld, L. (2009), “Interactivity's Unanticipated Consequences for Marketers and Marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23, p. 4-10.

Hanna, R., Rohm, A. and Crittenden, V. (2011), “We’re all connected: the power of the social media ecosystem”, Business Horizons, 54, 265-273.

Papasolomou, I.  & Melanthiou, Y. (2013), “Social Media: Marketing Public Relations ‘New Best Friend”, Journal of Promotion Management, 18(3), 319-328.

Sandes, F.S. & A. T. Urdan (2013), ” Electronic Word-of-Mouth Impacts on Consumer Behavior: Exploratory and Experimental Studies”, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 25(3), 181-197.

Seraj, M. (2012), We Create, We Connect, We Respect, Therefore We Are: Intellectual, Social, and Cultural Value in Online Communities, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 209–222. *

Singh, S. & S. Sonnenburg (2012), Brand Performances in Social Media”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 189–197.

Vries, L. & S. Gensler & P. S.H. Leeflang, (2012),” Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: An Investigation of the Effects of Social Media Marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing 26, 83–91.*

Weinberg, B.D. and Pehlivan, E. (2011), “Social spending: managing the social media mix”, Business Horizons, 54, 275-282.

Web pages 

Bayer, Jay. (2014). 3 ways to fight facebooks algorithm and customize your feed. Available: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/facebook/3-ways-to-fight-facebooks-algorithm-and-customize-your-feed/. Last accessed 13-02-2014.

Caballero , Luis. (2014). marketers make facebooks algorithm. Available: http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/marketers-make-facebook-s-algorithm/291050/. Last accessed 13-02-2014.

Magid, Larry. (2014). Facebook tweaks newsfeed algorithm again .Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2014/01/21/facebook-tweaks-news-feed-algorithm-again/. Last accessed 12-02-2014.

Pedersen, Hedegaard Lars. (2014). Fusk med Facebook annoncer. Available: http://markedsforing.dk/artikler/digitalt/fusk-med-facebook-annoncer. Last accessed 14-02-2014.

How social media are changing Television, with a focus on Twitter

January 5, 2015

Written by Alessio Stringari

Introduction

In the last few years internet and social media changed completely our daily lives. The way in which we relate with other persons has radically mutated since the introduction of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Nowadays news travel at the speed of a tweet, everyone with its smartphone has become a reporter, with just a finger touch users can spread news about accidents, natural phenomenon, sport etc. These innovations not only are changing people’s lives but also the “old” mass media have to adapt themselves in order to “survive” in this new environment. According to Hermida & Thurman (2008) websites such as YouTube, MySpace and Wikipedia enable any user to upload videos, comments, photos and much more online, becoming what is defined as User Generated Content (UGC). At this point newspapers, broadcasters, radios have to make a decision: embrace this new technological and social development or risk to face shrinking figures in the number of customers.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how social media and in particular social networks like Twitter are changing the principal mass media or rather the television. The approach of this essay is composed of a first part based on a literature review to examine the existing works concerning this phenomenon and in the second part the focus is on three different case studies that aim to explore deeply the potentiality of social media in the Television business.

Literature Review

As often happens with new technologies and internet related innovations also the terms social media and social networks are frequently misunderstood or used as a synonym. Although this implication is wrong because the two terms have different meanings that now we are going to define. Social media as claimed by Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) is a set of different internet applications established in the Web 2.0 environment that allows the creation and sharing of User Generated Content. Furthermore as stated by Mangold & Faulds (2009, p.358) “Social media encompasses a wide range of online, word-of-mouth forums including blogs, company-sponsored discussion boards and chat rooms, consumer-to-consumer e-mail, consumer product or service ratings websites and forums, Internet discussion boards and forums, moblogs (sites containing digital audio, images, movies, or photographs), and social networking websites, to name a few”. Therefore social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are just a slice of a broader entity named Social Media.  The cases in the coming part are based on the social platform Twitter, therefore in this section we explain what this website is about and how does it work.

Twitter is a social network and microblogging website founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams and Biz Stone. This particular social media “allows people to publish (tweet), reply to, and forward posts that cannot exceed 140-characters in length” (Smith, Fischer & Yongjian 2012, p.103).  Every user has a profile page, where is possible to find all the texts or “tweets” sent by this particular user. Although Twitter is not limited to publish something in your personal board, every tweet has the capability to reach potentially every person registered on Twitter (except the case of private profile, in that case only the followers can read the tweet).

One of the main characteristic of Twitter is the use of the so called “hashtag”, that means writing the word or argument that interest you and put at the beginning the # symbol. In this way you can show to your followers that you are talking about a specific topic and by clicking on the hashtag you are able to see all the tweets regarding this topic.

A research conducted from Jansen et al. (2009) shows that 19% of the tweets analysed mention either a company, organization or product brand. Furthermore 20% of these tweets are about expressing opinion, personal point of view, positive and negative feedback about brands, company or products. This figure shows how the word-of-mouth generated on Twitter and other similar social network can have a significant impact on the companies mentioned.

Over the centuries word-of-mouth (WOM) has been considered as a vis-à-vis conversation between customers, consumers about a product or a service experience (Sen & Lerman, 2007). Yet we now live in a high technological environment, where WEB 2.0 is at hand from morning to night; for WEB 2.0 we meant all the “computer network-based platforms upon which social media application/tools run or function.” (Weinberg & Pehlivan, 2011). Consequently we have to distinguish between the old-fashioned WOM and the brand new Electronic WOM, eWOM include any comment, both positive and negative, made by current, potential or past consumer about a specific company, product or service through the use of Internet and WEB 2.0 based applications (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004).

Focusing on the television business, one of the daily choices of every viewer is about which television shows, news and broadcaster decide to pick. As suggested by Romaniuk (2007) one of the common assumption about WOM is that dissatisfied people share more their negative experiences compared to satisfied users, in order to prove it the author analysed  the effect of WOM in the selection of different tv shows. The results indicate that the reach of WOM was mostly low, but positive word of mouth was prevalent and likely to influence people compared to negative word of mouth. 

Nowadays in the modern environment, more and more power is gained by the “WOM 2.0”, and Twitter, due to the characteristics discussed before, can be selected as the ideal social media where people are able to share their opinions. As mentioned by Hanna et al. (2011), interactive technologies enabled the change from a passive WEB 1.0 model to an active and participant WEB 2.0, where consumers are both the initiators and receivers of information and contents. In the following section we are going to analyse how practically social media are changing television, using examples from TV shows, sitcoms, Breaking News and the social network Twitter.   

Case studies

I.         TV Shows

Taking a cue from the inspiring article of Hanna et al. (2011) we are going to examine how the Twitter community, without any organised campaign, can affect a TV show. In the mentioned academic research it has been analysed the effects of a social media campaign on the American music show Grammy Awards, which helped to achieve the best ratings in years. The show was nominated program of the week with more than 26 million viewers and an increase of 32% in the profitable segment of 18-34 year old.

Otherwise the example chosen for this paper is the Italian Music Festival of Sanremo, the most important music award in Italy, first broadcasted in 1951 which in the last years experienced shrinking number of viewers and low percentage of young audience.

The purpose of this case is to prove, or at least show, that eWOM can impact the viewing results of a TV show even without any organised campaign from the show producers.

During the 2012 edition (in the years prior to 2012 Twitter was barely known in Italy) more than 244.000 tweets were using the hashtag #sanremo, with an average of almost 50.000 per evening (source: tech.fanpage.it). As shown in the table below, the red lines representing the number of viewers (in thousands) have a similar trend as the blue line which stand for the number of tweets mentioning #sanremo. Even we can only assume there is a positive correlation between the number of tweet and the number of viewers, additionally we have to consider that #sanremo related words were in the Twitter trend topics during all the Festival days and that created even more eWOM.

img “stringari_image” alt=”Sanremo data 2012"

Source: techfanpage.it

II.         Breaking News

Compared to other Social Media like Facebook or YouTube, Twitter is considerably faster and straightaway. Many political leaders now communicate theirs ideas and statements first on Twitter, for instance Enrico Letta (Italian prime minister), on the 13th  of February 2014 posted on Twitter that he was going to resign as prime minister the following day. Twitter hence has become one of the main sources of information for news broadcaster all over the world; it is not possible for them to avoid it, they are “compelled” of using Twitter both in order to get news and share news.

Another major example of the capability of Twitter is during extraordinary events like earthquakes. Taking once more Italy as a model, during a recent earthquake that hit a region in the north east, Twitter was the first source of information, with users promptly tweeting using the hashtag #terremoto (earthquake in Italian). Even before the office of Geology released any press report about the epicentre and power of the seism, it was possible through the number and geolocalization of the tweets attest quite precisely where the earthquake hit most. Moreover Twitter was not just a social media, it has been used to help rescuing persons from remote zone where the landline communications were damaged.

img “stringari_image1” alt=”terremoto hashtag earthquake”

Source: Focus.it

  III.         Sitcoms 

Previously we analysed how social media transformed TV Shows and Breaking News, but also TV series have been affected by this innovation. When any of the most famous sitcoms like “How I Met Your Mother” or “The Big Bang Theory” are aired, on Twitter the spectators immediately start to comment their favourite scenes using the dedicated hashtag and at the same time interact with other fans to share their personal opinions. But since not all the viewers of a sitcom are able to watch it live, the phenomenon of the “spoilers” grown considerably in importance, for spoiler it meant the fact of commenting in a place (for instance Twitter or Facebook) where other persons interested in the show could be “spoilered” by reading some comments that will break the surprise effect.

Can broadcasters do more other than invite people to comment using the dedicated hashtag? Yes, they do, an interesting sample is the exploiting of Twitter from the producer of “The Big Bang Theory”, whom created for each character of the sitcom a personal Twitter page (using the artistic name) that allows them to enhance eWOM even in the days that the TV series is not aired.

img “stringari_image2” alt=”Sheldon Cooper Twitter”

Source: Twitter.com

General Discussion and Conclusion

Even if the aim of this paper was very challenging, I found this topic particularly interesting to research and the analysis of a phenomenon like social network could be rewarding and demanding at the same time. The findings show that television is not fastened in the “World 1.0”, it is moving following the latest social trends, especially in order to not lose younger audiences.

As mentioned by Chorianopoulos & Lekakos (2008) Television is moving towards a concept of Social TV, where viewer are not passively watching contents but they are actively participating and interacting. This could be achieved thanks to the latest technologies, such as interactive televisions or more often via smartphone and social media applications.

Albeit Twitter is not the social network with the largest number of users, it is growing at exponential rate all over the world, and as shown in the previous cases is having a remarkable effect on the television galaxy, definitely changing it. 

References

Chorianopoulos, K. & Lekakos, G., 2008. Introduction to social TV: Enhancing the shared experience with interactive TV. INTL. JOURNAL OF HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 24(2), pp. 113-120.

Focus.it, n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://www.focus.it/scienza/dove-si-e-sentito-il-terremoto-21062013_7844_C12.aspx
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011. We're all connected: the power of the social media ecosystem. Business horizons, Volume 54, pp. 265-273.

Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004. Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the internet?. Journal of interactive marketing, 18(1), pp. 38-52.

Hermida, A. & Thurman, N., 2008. A Clash of Cultures. Journalism Practice , 2(3), pp. 343-356.

Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chowdury, 2009. Twitter power: tweets as electronic word of mouth. Journal of the American society for information science and technology , Issue 60, pp. 2169-2188.

Kaplan, A. M. & Haenlein, M., 2010. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizon, Issue 53, pp. 59-68.

Mangold, G. & Faulds, D., 2009. Social Media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, Issue 52, pp. 357-365.

Romaniuk, J., 2007. Word of mouth and the viewing of television programs. Journal of advertising research, pp. 462-471.

Sen, S. & Lerman, D., 2007. Why are you telling me this? An examination into negative consumer reviews on the web. Journal of interactive marketing, 21(4), pp. 76-94.

Smith, A., Fischer, E. & Yongjia, C., 2012. How does brand-related user-generated content differ across Youtube, Facebook and Twitter?. Journal of interactive marketing, Issue 26, pp. 102-113.

Techfanpage.it, n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://tech.fanpage.it/twitter-i-dati-finali-del-festival-di-sanremo/
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Twitter, n.d. Twitter.com. [Online]
Available at: https://twitter.com/
[Accessed 10 February 2014].

Weinberg, B. & Pehlivan, E., 2011. Social spending: managing the social media mix. Business Horizons, Issue 54, pp. 275-282.

NATIVE ADVERTISING, THE NEXT BIG THING? Part 2

December 15, 2014

Written By Thomas Roos

Part 2: Native Advertising Discussed 

Part one of this paper discussed the rise of native advertising and how it is a result of paradigm shifts in consumer culture as a whole, as well as of developments within the online marketing field. This part will further elaborate on how native advertising is practiced and eventually discuss native advertising in terms of its success, and its limitations. To conclude with I raise the question that I could not answer in this paper, but should be of interest of anyone that has genuine interest in the field of internet marketing and branding. 

Empirical data analysis: Native advertising.

The consumer annoyance and scepticism towards advertisements, advertisers and capitalist practices in general as described in part 1 have forced online marketers in a new direction: native marketing. Native advertising, as explained in this infographic about native advertising by Wasserman (2012), is the creation of high-quality content by brands which is placed “…into the organic experience of a given platform.’’ Perhaps a simpler definition of the concept was given by Keers (2013), on the Content Marketing Association blog: “…instead of a simple, same-everywhere ad, it is targeted content, sitting alongside the publisher's content, but produced by brands themselves.”

The essence of native advertising is that it answers the consumers’ demand for valuable content from brands, whether they are the targeted audience or not. Holt (2002) argues that in the post-postmodern paradigm, consumers will judge brands and their ads on how they add value to people when they are not customers. Samuel Johnson once said: “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.’’, and this research provided reason to believe that the same mantra will define brand perception in the post-postmodern internet era. Native advertisements make a clear step into that direction, which is perhaps the reason why they work so well.

A second important strategic advantage of native advertising is that it offers value to both brands and publishers, as well as to different platforms. As Miller, the CEO of The Guardian Media Group (in this case: the platform) puts it: "There's an opportunity to work with advertisers on creating content that meets the editorial aspirations of ourselves and meets their need to get to consumers." {C}(Jackson, 2014){C}. What is being created is thus ‘branded content’ instead of simple advertisements.

{C}{C}{C}To illustrate this, an example is provided that came up during the empirical research online. The picture below shows a BuzzFeed article, and on the surface it seems like another entertaining BuzzFeed article (click on the image to view the full page). Who posted it? It was posted by Captain Morgan, and looking at the marked text in the description, its purpose is not just to entertain you{C} (Muniz & Schau, 2011){C}; it is there to educate consumers about the man behind the rum. On the side, we can find more ‘sponsored content’ from Captain Morgan. Evidently, the success of one such native ad is to create content that 1) enhances brand equity, 2) adds to the publisher’s / platform’s value, and most importantly; 3) is valuable for the audience that needs to be engaged.  

Figure 1 : Native Advertising in practice; Captain Morgan offering valuable content on Buzzfeed.

Native Marketing explained

Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Atlantic, Facebook, The New Yorker, etc; they all have developed a version of native advertising, called ‘sponsored content’, of which the above is an example. Buzzfeed runs completely on the gains from native advertising; not only do they encourage advertisers to settle in between the website contributors, (the regular visitors), but they also offer help to potential and existing advertisers to create content that is likely to be shared often by BuzzFeed users.

An overview of the main players in the native advertising field is provided in this map of native advertising platforms, and was taken from a 2013 article (Berry, 2013), and therefore not completely up to date. However, it accurately shows the division between different native advertising channels. Please note that more players joined this landscape since the map was made, however, the main players have remained more or less the same (Berry, 2013):

• Sponsored Posts and Articles: Facebook and BuzzFeed (and newspapers)
• Sponsored Video: YouTube and ShareThrough
• Sponsored Images: Imgur and TripleLift
• Sponsored Playlists: Pandora (mainly U.S) and Spotify (mainly Europe)
• Sponsored Links: Disqus and Zemanta (many more have emerged)
• Sponsored Listings: Uncrate and Yelp

Discussion.

In a study that was published on February 12th 2014, The Media Briefing (Taylor, 2014) investigated the traffic around these native ads and provided this study with interesting data collected from 689 BuzzFeed native ads posted by 51 companies.

The results (average ad shares per social platform) are astonishing:

• 263 Facebook shares
• 36 Tweets
• 7 Google ‘plus one’s’
• 44 Pins
  
• 2 Linkedin shares

Additional outcomes of the study:

• Native advertising on BuzzFeed is likely to result in 4241 total social media interactions.
• Spotify’s native ad wins: 8530 Facebook shares, resulting in almost 50.000 Facebook interactions, including likes and comments.

According to The Media Briefing (2014), it can therefore be argued that BuzzFeed’s native advertising strategy is a tremendous success simply because advertisers love the idea that consumers will share an ad on their social network platforms. Why? It turns out that the earlier-mentioned Word of Mouth is of vital importance for gaining trustworthiness, and therefore is much more likely to lead to an increase in sales (see table 1 below). “That these services enable only the sharing of content on the Web is not important here. What is important is that they allow simultaneous sharing in reality.” (Akar & Topcu, 2011, p.39).

A 2012 study conducted by The Nielsen Company (2013) indicated advertising in the form of word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family continued to be the strongest factor triggering action among 84% of 29.000 global respondents from 58 countries (table on the next page).

Table 1: Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising, Questionnaire 1-2013 (Nielsen, 2013)

Native Marketing explained

A brief Critique and suggestions for research.

Some critique is being raised about native advertising as a new form of online advertising.  Listed below are the most commonly raised issues:

• Many platforms may not have the capacity to handle the growing amount of native advertising, even though they say they can (Kantrowitz, 2013).
• It is generally hard to tell whether native advertising is more successful than conventional banner methods, as they are used at different scales.
• Joe McCambley, who helped creating the first banner ad, says that native advertising might destroy journalism, as “You are gambling with the contract you have with your readers,” and “How do I know who made the content I am looking at and what the value of the information is?” (Carr, 2013).
• There are ethical questions being raised about the extent to which for instance The New Yorker is fooling their audience and breaching the contract of offering valuable and trustworthy content.

The scope of this paper leaves no room for discussion of the above, therefore it is suggested that further research should be done towards the limitations of native advertising, in terms of scalability as well as in terms of ethical issues.

 

Conclusion.

Web 2.0 has made a significant impact on the power relations between brands and their audience, and native advertising is one answer to this paradigm shift. Online advertisers now find themselves on thin ice, as the “…web-based power struggles between marketer and consumer brand authors challenge accepted branding truths and paradigms: where short-term brands can trump long-term icons, where marketing looks more like public relations, where brand building gives way to brand protection, and brand value is driven by risk, not returns.” (Fournier & Avery, 2011, p.193). This paper confirms that advertisers will always be looking for better ways to reach their audiences, and that those who are most adaptive to change will always be upfront.

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NATIVE ADVERTISING, THE NEXT BIG THING? Part 1

December 11, 2014

Written By Thomas Roos

Part 1: How Web 2.0 gave consumers endless power

An introduction to native advertising.

Native advertising is a new phenomenon within the online advertising field and by some people is referred to as the new disruptive online advertising strategy (Salmon, 2013). Native advertising has received wide-spread attention within the online marketing field, especially among content marketers, but seem to be poorly understood by too many stakeholders. (The average monthly Google searches of the term ‘native advertising’ has gone from 800 January 2013 to 4000 in 2014.) Native advertising includes ads that ‘blend in’ with the content that surrounds them, but are actually branded and paid for. Evidently, the success of one such native ad is to create content that 1) enhances brand equity, 2) adds to the publisher’s / platform’s value, and most importantly; 3) is valuable for the audience that needs to be engaged.

The nature of this paper and the reason for writing.

This article will merely reflect upon my interpretations of the information that was collected and processed, and it is written to provide deeper understanding of native advertising. But most importantly; it tries to identify native advertising’s place in the existing marketing paradigm and to relate it to current movements within consumer culture.

After reflecting back upon the recent paradigm shifts in society and in internet marketing that are relevant to the rise of native advertising practices, I will display the findings from a literature search, highlighting authors that made future predictions in regards to the development of (internet) marketing and advertising. In the second part, the empirical data resulting from an explorative study using netnographic methods and secondary data sources will be analysed and discussed. After illustrating the essence of native advertising and how native advertising has developed to what it is now, I will provide the reader with an argument that explains the success of native advertising for brands. The paper will conclude with a discussion of native advertising and how its success might be predicting the future form of advertising in Web 3.0

Consumer resistance to online advertising.

Online advertisements are everywhere. It seems that there is no way to escape them, even though we were fairly quick to adapt our cognitive efforts to the overwhelming amount of stimuli; nowadays 90% of the banners is selected out by our brain and does not even reach our conscious mind (Benway, 1998) (Burke et al., 2005) (Buscher et al., 2010).

Digital advertisements have become more and more intrusive, some colourful, some beautifully simple; but they all annoy us to a certain degree. Certainly, advertisers and marketing agents have become better and better at drawing the online wanderer’s attention along the way, using a variety of methods (Winer, 2009, p.110).

‘’The early part of the 21st century has witnessed an explosion in new media utilized by marketing managers to reach their customers’’ (Winer, 2009, p.119). Not solely through visual attractions, no, a fine-tuned mix of audio-visual materials is often used to facilitate a desperate call for attention. Think of the time you were listening to your favourite playlist on Spotify, rudely being interrupted by an audio advertisement in your native language, along with a screen-size billboard popping up on your screen. Think of the times you were distracted by extravagant banners on the side of the news article you were trying to read. Think of that, and you’re thinking of the post-modern internet era, an era of ‘advertising deficit disorder’ (Rubleski, 2008).

A simple, but effective way to deal with these annoying banners and ads, is simply to install so-called ad-blocking plug-ins such as Adblock, that claims to have been downloaded over 200 million times (Palant, 2014). When companies started blocking Adblock users with software called Adblockblock, activists invented Adblockblockblock to avoid that (Smith, 2013), indicating an endless cat and mouse play.

Literature study: Are we witnessing the maturation of Web 2.0?

Even though the past decade has shown us numerous examples of brands that successfully drew the attention of their target audience, it seems like the ‘traditional ways’ of online marketing (Winer, 2009, p.110) are getting out of fashion. More specialized online marketing such as interactive methods have emerged in the past years, indicating a possible maturation of the online marketing paradigm as we know it (Wind, 2008) (Varadarajan & Yadav, 2009, p.20). 

This maturation of internet marketing goes along with shift in society as a whole. The paradigm shifts that have taken place in consumer culture naturally have their effect on marketing. In the current postmodern consumer culture, brands are used primarily for identity building projects. A growing body of literature from a more consumer culture perspective deals with how advertisements are perceived by consumers nowadays. Slightly older, but still very relevant contributions to this body of literature were made by Mick and Buhl (1992) and by Ritson and Elliot (1999). The former argue that ads function considerably as carriers of social meanings and are actively being used for identity building and creation. The latter argue that ‘’advertising can form the basis of for a wide variety of social interactions’’ (p.273). Firat and Venkatesh (1995) argue, - in their rather elaborative description of the postmodern condition of consumer society-, that “...it is not to brands that consumers will be loyal, but to images and symbols...’’ (p.251). Deighton and Kornfeld (2009, p.9) therefore argue that of their five possible strategies for interaction with online consumers, the one that facilitates people’s identity projects and that contributes to a collective sense-making will be the most successful.

{C}{C}{C}{C}In Why do brands cause trouble? (2002), Holt predicted a paradigm shift from postmodernism to what he calls ‘post-postmodernism’. He provides evidence for the impact that contemporary anti-branding movements will have on marketing as whole, and based upon the exploratory research that was conducted, this paper suggests that these predictions are to a large extend applicable to the online marketing paradigm as well. The recent changes in consumer attitude towards brands show that branding has become a fine art and is now subject to growing consumer scepticism of brands, producers and capitalist systems in general (Holt, 2002) (Barwise & Meehan, 2010). The well-awake and self-educated brand critics that we used to call consumers are now questioning the authenticity of each branded article, advertisement, blog or other content they come across. Advertising online is subject to a changing power balance between producer and consumer, and brands will be valued as long as they allow interaction from both sides and can be used to create meaning (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). As Christodoulides (2009) argued already 4 years ago: “Post-internet branding is about facilitating conversations around the brand” (p.142).

The empowerment of the consumer is enhanced in the numerous user-generated content (UGC) platforms: “…whether the news is good or bad, they will tell everyone.” (Levine et al., 2001). Recent examples of consumer empowerment include single Youtube videos posted by one single individual, resulting in substantial losses (or gains) in brand equity when going viral, and proving why Word Of Mouth (WOM) is one of the strongest means through which a brand can gain exposure. Later on WOM will be discussed further. 

Consumers have turned to UGC to inform themselves and others about brands and products, rather than listening to companies (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010, p.180). Now the companies seem to have their answer: settle in between the audience through native advertising.

Part 2 of this paper will take the above into consideration when discussing empirical examples of native advertising as an answer to this changing power balance, as well as its successes and limitations. It will offer visual aid while explaining the essence of native advertising.