The newer the medium, the worse the media bullshit
Last week Sir Martin Sorrell pointed out that Facebook’s claims about video views lack credibility. The issue is just the latest evidence that digital media is driving a transparency crisis, argues Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes.
I had an eye-opening chat to a blogger the other day.
For the sake of argument, we’ll call her Penelope.
Having established her “influencer” credentials by building up a following in her particular Instagram niche, she had been urged by the agency representing her that it was time to launch a website.
Too many brands have got influencer influenza.
I’m absolutely amazed that a number of the blogger and influencer agencies are still pushing Instagram posts by talent when its blantently clear there’s little merit to using them and the ROI is minimal. Let me explain why –
– if you start looking at many of the 50-100k people, their followers are often wel above 50% foreign. Few brands have the desire to spend local marketing dollars reaching global audiences.
– audience demographics, particularly male followers . If your influencer is one of the many women who spend their life wearing little and photographing your product alongside their bodies and you think you’ve got amazing reach…. Check out how many of those followers are male. Probably not the best spend for your fem beauty product.
– no view metrics. There’s absolutely no understanding of whether your 9am post got seen by anyone.
– What Caption – no one reads Instagram captions. You can’t click a URL and enagagement around promos through workarounds like ‘click the link in my profile or tag your friends’ convert very little when you consider the likes. People don’t read Instagram, it’s a visual platform.
– fake followers. Need I say more.
Instagram – from an influencer perspective – is a black hole for ROI and investment accountability. I’d love to hear a brand come out and demonstrate its Instagram success. Mostly I just hear from blogger agencies and influencers… Instagram ads on the other hand… Go for it.
Tim,
Good article as usual. And a good complement to all the posts about ad blocking in recent weeks.
I find it somewhat ironic but unsurprising that the most measurable of media, digital, is already facing its own crisis of measurement confidence. The issue in all of this, whether traditional media or new is that the advocates of both sides still seem to be in love with measuring themselves. Not their effect. Reach, frequency, views, likes, clicks. They are all the same to me. Eyeballs, three seconds or thirty, however they are measured is merely a measure of ‘did we execute OK’? Not did we do any good? Important – for sure, often overlooked indeed, but the right end measure? I personally think not.
Maybe, media owners (old and new) should start taking the notion of measuring their effect on brand and consumer behaviour much more seriously, rather than just the comparing the size of their increasingly flaccid and disinterested audience. Otherwise they will risk appearing like they are just trying to flog whatever dead horse they are currently selling. My hope is that the analytical capabilities present inside the Googles and Facebooks of this world will allow them to move their focus here in time. My faith in the FTA channels to so the same given the pressures they are under is somewhat less.
Evaluate effectiveness by something real … like campaign results. Digital is much easier than traditional to quantify when brands work out what it is they should actually measure.
to Influencer Influenza (comment #1), if you’re looking for Instagram success stories, check out Frank Body body scrubs. The founders attribute much of their ‘overnight’ success ($20million in 18 months) to their instagram account – it’s a great example of social media done right.
A simple idea: All bloggers should allow media buyers, clients and agencies access to their Google Analytics in a “read only” capacity, covering stats relating to Unique Browsers, Acquisition and basic tech / demo.
Another short cut, a very rough rule of thumb. Take the number of shares / likes / comments and divide that number by 0.07 for view numbers.
e.g.: 50 likes / 0.07 = Approx 714 viewers. It’s a rule of thumb, but generally pretty accurate across all categories, channels and formats.
Con: agreed.
Jess: a great case study. So many businesses have turned big, overnight, via social.
People with agendas distort facts. They are the old school, fat, 3rd parties, watching their revenues crumble.
P.s.. Cowboy agencies spruiking inflated analytics can naff off too.
Fascinating story. Thank you.
That story about “Penelope” is fucking appalling Tim.
I’m sorry for swearing but hearing about practices like this that make my blood boil. It detracts from all those who are doing a great job with integrity in the influencer space.
I would recommend that all brands and agencies ask influencers for screenshots of their Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and YouTube Analytics – they should be more than happy to share them, and if they’re not then reconsider investing your spend with them.
That story about “Penelope” is f*cking appalling Tim. Hearing about practices like this make my blood boil. It detracts from all those who are doing a great job with integrity in the influencer space.
I would recommend that all brands and agencies ask influencers for screenshots of their Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and YouTube Analytics – they should be more than happy to share them, and if they’re not then reconsider investing your spend with them
The elephant in the room – most instagram ‘followers’ are bought.
You can even buy followers who will comment, in broken english, how beautiful you look, what a big fan they are, etc.
It’s so easy to do on that platform, as a user’s followers are hidden.
And still the marketing companies fall for it, and send free product etc to the so-called ‘influencer’.
Timely story. This week in UK the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) revealed the findings of its Digital PR Report 2015. One key finding was the growth in blogger outreach for both in-house and agency PR practitioners.
In-house investment in influencer (e.g. blogger) outreach/engagement has seen growth of 11% over the past two years – from 41% in 2013, to 50% in 2014, and to 52% in 2015.
Take The Plant Hunter as an example.
Here is the advertise page: http://theplanthunter.com.au/advertise/ It does not site exact views / user metrics, however does state: ‘Having only launched in November 2013, we’ve already been described as Australia’s best online magazine’. I would call it a ‘website’?
Similarweb says $5k visits:
http://www.similarweb.com/webs.....ter.com.au
Actual unique users will be lower than that. For Australia’s ‘best online magazine’, I am wondering why the visits are so low?
My point?
More fool clients who do not subscribe to a variety of web analytic’s tools themselves in order to understand how many visits third party sites receive. Agencies also.
Experian
Neilson
GA
Similarweb
etc
Tim, great article.
The only surprising thing to me is that so many people are surprised.
No audience measurement is perfect. What we’re after is “acceptable estimates” of the audience.
Note the word “audience”. Not traffic. Not copies sold. Not plays or stream starts. We need the people count of audience. Sure there are correlations (some strong, some poor) in these other metrics but they are at best a cohort. We can use them in hybrid systems but standing alone they are insufficient.
And as you point out, the ‘traditional media” tend to do this better than the “new media” IMHO a lot of this was the “new media” falling in love with “the big number” (didn’t matter that it carried little meaning or commercial relevance) in the initial launch and growth phase, and a lot simply can’t shake the habit 10-15 years later.
A wise person (often attributed to Einstein) once said “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”. That applies perfectly to the Internet. Again IMHO, it is the most countable medium but over the years has been one of the least accountable for the reasons you point out in your article. Having said that, things are changing and the swing to people-based measurement that is accountable to marketing and brand-building is happening (and boy is it hard to do).
Anyway, I’d better stop banging on, or you’ll need to buy more disk space!
Cheers.
“As an industry, we can’t be trusted to mark our own homework.”
The fact that marketing managers are still signing up for such bunkum in the search for a silver bullet is exactly why marketing has become less influential and increasingly sidelined in many businesses – moved to the back of the class to play with the social media equivalents of safety scissors and glitter, while the rest of the team gets on with running the business.
According to The Fournaise Group (yes, they’re a marketing analytics agency so the irony isn’t lost), 80% of CEOs don’t trust the work or advice of their marketing teams, while 90% of the same CEOs trust the work and advice of CFOs and CIOs.
I’m horrified by the examples in this article, but I can’t say I’m surprised.