Stephanie Carr of Marin Software says: “Those with access to Instagram’s ads API [application programming interface] will now have unprecedented control over their social budgets so they can optimise and manage their campaigns more effectively. Instagram is being treated as a targeting placement option for Facebook ad sets. So with just a click of a button, you can replicate your existing Facebook ads on Instagram. This means there’s access to the audience targeting capabilities of Facebook, removing the guesswork and friction of launching on a new publisher. Brands can deliver a positive user experience and keep the audience engaged by using rich visuals and considering other creative options such as image format, and the viability of using the same creative across audiences and platforms.”
Influencer marketing
Jenny Halpern Prince of The&Collective says: “Relevance is key. It is important that time is spent researching the digital influencer you are looking to approach, to ensure they are the right fit for your brand. It’s also smart to identify influencers who have already shown your brand some love online. Digital influencers like to be part of the creative process, so try and work as collaboratively as possible. In 2015 we saw brands starting to loosen control on content and let digital influencers speak to their audiences in their own language. Millennials specifically are more engaged with messages that are authentic. Importantly, always ensure you are adhering to advertising guidelines. If a digital influencer is paid to promote a product, they must clearly label their content as having been paid for.”
Video
Nick Hugh of Yahoo says: “We’re going to witness a huge growth in social video in the next 12 months. Horizontal video has perpetuated in popularity simply because it is a legacy of platforms such as TV and cinema. However, on mobile, now the dominant platform of all, vertical video is an invariably better user experience and we can expect to see more campaign videos made in portrait mode. Also social video will be an opportunity for marketers to utilise what is a familiar format in new and exciting ways, such as in the use of GIFs [graphics interchange formats]. Tumblr, often hailed as the home of the GIF, has a staggering 23 million GIFs posted every day and GIFs will become a staple tactic of brands seeking better social media engagement.”
Olly Honess of Cubaka says: “Facebook is a smart operator that continually develops its targeting algorithm to placate marketers. These increasingly intelligent and tighter targeting mechanisms should lead strategic thinking in 2016, a year when the one-size-fits-all creative will no longer be relevant. With Facebook’s new detailed ad-targeting option giving marketers the ability to define and reach different groups within their overall audiences, it’s savvy to place more consideration on multiple types of creative that will resonate better with these subtly differentiated groups. Now more than ever is the right time to keep a close eye on the platform’s incremental targeting changes.”
Georgia Marshall Brown of MMP says: “Mobile use is growing, offering users multiple brief interactions, anywhere and anytime. E-mail content should reflect this and content can be optimised into bite-sized chunks offering users instant access to the information they need, right from the palm of their hand. Responsive design e-mail templates are a good way to optimise. They offer the ability to update this well-established communications channel by dynamically resizing content to fit the screen of any user’s device. Also as e-mails are trackable, it is simple to take a test-and-learn approach to your marketing strategy. This might include A/B testing of subject lines and/or content to ensure marketing communications deliver against specific business objectives as effectively as possible.”
