Keen to know what has been going on over the past week in digital marketing? We bring you a round up of all the most interesting developments, but before we continue – did you read last week’s edition? We discussed how to use social media in 2018, Google and Facebook’s high ROIs and gave you 5 top tips for your content marketing strategy… And after that, you can look forward to reading up on the following:
Video viewing is one of the mainstays of our digital consumption, with around 65.1% of internet users watching videos regularly. Services such as Netflix, HBO Go, Shomi and Youku Video are increasing the availability of subscription video-on-demand, and mobile devices are set to see video consumption increase further.
It is predicted that in 2018, 1.87 billion individuals around the world will use their mobile to watch digital video, which is an 11.9% increase from the previous year.
Video consumption on a mobile device has become more popular, and for the most part this is because social media platforms, such as Facebook and WeChat have put a strong focus on sharing video content. On top of this, social media messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have encouraged video chatting amongst their users.
Both of these elements of social media have contributed to making digital video consumption part of one’s daily online activity.
READ MORE: How to Create ‘How-to’ Videos
Research by Adobe has revealed that millennials spend on average 8.5 hours a day consuming online content. Whether that’s reading, watching or creating content, it seems that millennials are hooked. The amount of time spent consuming content varies directly with the users age – the generation above the millennials spends 6.9 hours a day watching content, whilst the generation below – Gen Z – spend a total of 10.6 hours online everyday.
Mobile has proven to be the most popular device for consuming content – taking up 5.2 hours of the 8.5 hour total for millennials, and 5.9 hours of the 10.6 hours that Gen Z spend online.
One of the takeaways from the research is that recent events, such as fake news and dark UX, mean that 77% of the 1,000 respondents to the survey reported being more cautious about what they engage with.
For brands this means that it is vital to create content that feels authentic; 71% of respondents said that they would not make a purchase from a site that had;
John Watton, Senior Marketing Director, Adobe EMEA, noted that,
“With the rise of fake news and ‘click-bait’ content, consumers are increasingly looking for engaging content that provides them with an authentic and relevant experience …
Whether it’s across social, online, blogs, or email communications, branded content has to be well-designed, optimised for the device, and offer a genuine experience that goes beyond selling products.
Brands that succeed will drive customer acquisition and loyalty; those that don’t will see customers swipe their screen in search for content that offers them a better experience.”
Research by Feefo, a reviews and customer insight company, has found that when it comes to making financial decisions, young people place greater value on verified reviews than in the opinions of their own family and friends.
In a survey of over 1,000 UK consumers aged between 16 and 34, 85% said that they trust verified reviews more than any other source, meaning that banks, lenders and insurers that do not provide trustworthy, easy-to-use review systems may be missing out on business from younger people.
Although switching bank accounts is rare, the survey found that verified reviews were equally as important for those looking to open their first account, or take out their first mortgage, as they were for those simply switching accounts.
Matt West, the CMO at Feefo, notes that,
“In the hyper-competitive era of fintechs and challenger banks, financial services organisations need to maximise every means of engaging with customers.
Out-of-the-box solutions can provide a bank’s customers with reviews they trust, using advances in artificial intelligence to provide personalised drill-downs and summaries.
As well as enticing new customers and dramatically increasing loyalty, review systems tell a financial services provider what it is doing right and where it is going wrong. They are definitely revenue-builders.”
Facebook has announced that it is making changes to the way that they count organic reach impressions – by only counting those Page posts that actually appear on the screen. These changes were originally expected to come to fruition in November 2016, and Facebook explained that the new counting system – set to launch next week – had taken longer than expected to build.
The changes in counting methodology match how Facebook already counts reach for its ads, however it may mean that some Pages will see lower reach figures than before, thanks to the more strict reporting methods.
To help companies to understand how the new figures compare to the old, Page managers will initially be able to view both versions of the figures.
Facebook has also redesigned the mobile version of its Pages Insights analytics tool, so that the most popular measurements can be found at the top of the screen for easy access.
The redesign sees the number of likes, reach and engagement numbers, recent post performance and information about Page’s newer audience move up the screen, will be rolled out globally on Friday.
READ MORE: Our Guide to Facebook Remarketing
The Week in Digital Marketing
We take a quick look at some of the most interesting insights from the past week…
A report by Next Revolution of Search has shown that 80% of consumers thought that it would be “incredibly useful” for their personal digital assistant to help find the best options for them. 75% of the respondents were interested in the idea of a digital assistant making automatic purchases, where the consumer has very little, if any, input in the transaction.
Even for those respondents who did not use a personal digital assistant frequently, 90% did admit that having products that they buy regularly delivered automatically would make their lives easier.
Newsworks and the Association for Online Publishing have completed some research into how the context affects the efficacy of a digital advert. When shown the same ad in different contexts, the participants brain responses were measured. The results showed that when an ad is shown on a premium publishers site, it is viewed for 17% longer, creates 29% higher engagement and generates greater levels of left brain and right brain memory encoding (which correlates with decision-making and purchase intent) than the same ad shown on Facebook or YouTube.
Over 1,000 UK consumers were surveyed by Shoppercentric, with the results showing that there has been a dramatic increase in smartphone usage for grocery shopping.
Although smartphones still lag behind the laptop when it comes to grocery shopping – 45% compared with 63% – smartphone usage actually increased by 18% in the past year, whereas laptops only gained 6%.
Smartphone usage is also notably more popular in Asia, with 71% of Asian consumers using their devices, which compares to 59% of all global shoppers. Two individual Asian countries are doing even better, with 76% of Indonesian shoppers using their mobiles, and an impressive 90% in China.
Brands in Asia are still focussing on creating a great in-store experience, but these numbers are proof that mobile is becoming a more natural and instinctive choice for shoppers.
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