What makes people share? What makes YOU share (or ‘Like’)?

As Google+ surpasses 50 million users, Facebook pushes out over 750 million, and Twitter reaches over 100 million active users, we must consider the end consumer’s motivation to share content throughout these networks.

As marketers hoping to capitalize on the growth of these networks, we have to improve our understanding of the fundamental motives behind consumer’s behaviors within them. The following post examines several theories on this topic, but please, add your own color and tell us: what makes YOU share?

Extending Your Own Credibility by Borrowing the Credibility of Others

Most of us follow people we admire, trust, or respect as thought leaders within our own industry, whether that industry is marketing, architecture, medical, financial, automotive, entertainment, etc. Most likely, we strive to be more like these people, to have the respect of our industry, with the greater intention of moving it forward. So why do we share so much content from these mentors: on behalf of ourselves or for the behalf of the creator?

Maybe this is the transitive property of “borrowed” online trust:

Affirmation of Personal Tastes

Why do people share or like content from brands or content within the entertainment vertical (where a great majority of share content comes from)? Receiving a ‘like’ to your own personal beliefs is the new feeling of “YAY, I received a real letter in the mail.” When you share this type of content, a part of you secretly (or not so secretly) hopes that others feel the same, that they affirm your own beliefs. Before social networks, we could only attain this affirmation from the few people within our physical circle that we felt comfortable sharing it with. However, we can now passively pass on our beliefs with a level of transparency that has never before existed. Our posts on this matter will either fall upon silence or they’ll be met with a shared understanding amongst our peers. If you don’t believe that still matters, recall your days in high school. Affirmation of our own beliefs is a great, morale and confidence boosting attribute of social networking.  Likes are confidence boosters.

Call for Interaction

The opening quote from the movie Crash sums this up perfectly, sans its negative connotation:

“In any real city, you walk, you brush past people, and people bump into you. In L.A, nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.”

In the Information Age, data moves fast. Our personal lives, however, move even faster. We are constantly bombarded by what is immediately in front of us, and maintaining relationships from the past or with those we don’t see any more becomes more and more difficult. At times, we may comment on or ‘like’ content that these people share in order to strike up a conversation, in hopes of rebuilding what we feel we may have lost.

It may take just one ‘like’ to break the ice and build the relationship anew. Think about the last time someone meaningful from your past, that you hadn’t spoken to recently, liked something you posted on Facebook. Did that ‘like’ entice you to respond? Did you at least recall off-Facebook memories of that person? Many would gawk at the idea that something so simple, within the confines of “online”, could have such meaning, but that’s the era we live in now. A simple ‘like’ can be powerful.

Invent or Alter Your Perception

Most people know who they are, but they also understand who they’d like to be. In the environment of a social network, we are given the opportunity to reposition our perception:  who we are to our network vs. who we’d like to be. Developing your personal brand is a hot topic these days, and what you share, what you put your name against, is a powerful tool to create this brand. Go ahead, try it out: connect with other coworkers on Google+, Facebook or Twitter, and especially LinkedIN. Some you may already know well, but for those you don’t, what is your perception of them after reading their posts, their shares, and their +1’s? Chances are, your perception of them is pretty close to the perception they are hoping to create. In an environment where we have more interaction with acquaintances than real connections, we all have this same level of control:

…if we utilize it.

These days it seems like you, me and our neighbor’s pet are all on Facebook. Facebook is certainly changing how we interact with each other and the world. We have digital records of college, weddings, birthdays, kids growing up and all other special occasions. Where these things used to be physical albums, now they are public and digital. Facebook has become the repository of our life’s memories.

Today, social media strategies are considered an integral part of any comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Brands and their marketing execs understand that social is the place they need to be – that’s where their consumers are. If you look up any big brand on Facebook, they will be there. As a consumer, we almost expect that any legitimate brand will have a Facebook page. Arguably, social media strategies are the most widely talked about, publicized and coolest/controversial digital strategies out there.

Social media is here to stay, with the percentage of social networking users increasing every year. Social media is important and there aren’t many people who will deny that, but… why Facebook? If you compare Facebook to other sites by the sheer number of unique visitors, you see that Facebook blows other social networks out of the water.

In the comScore media metrix, which measures the top online properties, Facebook ranked 4^th in the U.S, not to mention the top-ranking social network. For the marketers out there, Facebook ranked at the 10^th largest ad display network in the U.S.

 Simply put Facebook is hot right now.

Investing into a social media strategy seems like a good idea but there’s a slight issue:

Do current brand strategies resonate with Facebook users? There is a disconnect between the perceptions of what interactions between Facebook users and the brand actually mean.

Brands hope that Facebook users will buy their products, become an advocate, or for friends of friends, to become customers’ advocates. Facebook users, on the other hand, may be much less enthusiastic about the potential meaning of any particular action taken on the social network.

Within Facebook, the most popular way that users engage with a brand is through the “like” feature. In fact, 84% of users engage with a brand’s posts on Facebook through the “like” button. There is also data that suggests that Facebook likes will influence shoppers to purchase. In a study done by eMarketer on a sample size of 1,202 people, 35% of people said that seeing Facebook likes on a product would increase the likelihood that they will buy the product. 83% of users who have already liked a brand have also clicked the like button on the brand’s page. From a brand perspective, this sounds pretty phenomenal. Brands are interacting with their customers directly through the “like” function; thereby developing a relationship with them and gaining users who are now fans of the brand.

Or so it might seem.

According to one study, less than 42% of users actually found that the “like” meant that they were actual fans of the brand, while 58% of users perceived a “like” to mean that they were only subscribing to the brand with an expectation of special perks. A “like” may not even mean that much, 37% of people in the same study said that it meant nothing to them. In other words, a “like” doesn’t mean that the user is now a fan of the brand.

In addition to lackluster interest, some people have negative perceptions of the Facebook “like.” The graph below shows that people don’t want brands interfering with their lives or the lives of their friends. The largest reason people have not liked a brand is that they don’t want to be bombarded with messages or ads.

With these statistics, you might start to think that the social networking giant doesn’t provide as much value to the brand.

Now, I’ve given you a lot of reasons why a Facebook “like” isn’t all that it seems to be. However, you have to remember Mugatu and that Facebook is hot right now! Social media still has a lot of potential than can be tapped into with the right strategy. Brands have to give Facebook users content and utility that is more than just throwing advertising dollars into media strategies that give users negative perceptions or make them apathetic to their ads. Brands have to provide entertaining content and utility to the user where the brand becomes the backseat.

“Another example is from Orangina in Europe. Its slogan is “We’re the original.” It created an app that tells you who the first 10 people were you became friends with on Facebook. That’s cool. Occasionally, you’ll get a message from Orangina in your newsfeed suggesting a purchase of Orangina on a hot day. It offers a reason to enjoy Orangina rather than a 20% off promotion. Perhaps you’ll “like” Orangina because you have a reason to.”

-eMarketer

Facebook has a lot of potential, as we can see in digital and social trends, and people are still trying to figure out how to best utilize it. At the same time, we are getting there, to a point where brands are effectively communicating with their consumers by providing real value.

1. Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, or more commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi, was the official ruler of Libya from 1969 to 1977. In 1977 he stepped down from his official Executive position but maintained control of the country until February 2011, when riots against his leadership began. On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi’s convoy was attacked by NATO, where he was then captured and executed. He was 69 years old.

2. Paranormal Activity 3

It’s like the new Blairwitch Project: terrible camera angles, horrible plot, and predictable jump scare scenes. Sounds like 90 minutes of spine tingling Halloween season goodness.

3. Battlefield 3

Released on October 25, this multiplayer first-person shooter has the 3 G’s: guns, grenades, and gore. If this game is half as good as Jordan Sparks’ song “Battlefield”, it is going to be epic!

4. World Series

What do you get when you cross a cardinal and a stallion? The world series of course. Albert Pujols may have played his last game in a Cardinals uniform. Next up for him is Dancing with the Stars.

5. Lindsay Lohan

She was caught making out with her mother in a club. I’ll spare you the details. She also accepted a 1 million dollar offer to pose in a not-so-PG magazine. Again, no comment.

6. Powerball

The betting-man’s tax… err, I’m sorry, I mean the Powerball jackpot, is now 180 million dollars. You’re a fool if you think you can win… I’ve already picked the winning numbers, I can feel it in my soul.

7. Batman Arkham City

An action adventure video game developed by Rocksteady Studios. Personally, I haven’t had much luck with superhero video games. If I don’t get to play as the Joker, I’ll pass.

The most popular “all hallows eve” costumes this year are Captain America, Nicki Minaj, and Angry Birds. Angry Birds seems to make every most popular list there is.

9. Dan Wheldon

He was an Indy car racer who was fatally injured during the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship. He passed away doing what he loved the most.

10. The Walking Dead

Is back for season two. Are you surprised? They already died once. What’s to stop them from coming back with a second season?

Background:

Google has been getting personal with search results since 2009 customizing and suggesting results based on your web history.

Now Google is getting personal with marketers – stripping the search keyword from the Google organic referred traffic for signed-in Google account users. There is no impact to paid search as this time. Google will continue to provide insight to queries generating traffic via paid search allowing advertisers to optimize to relevant behavior. Google describes this latest announcement as an enhancement to protect privacy of users.

Situation:

On Tuesday October 18, 2011, Google announced on their blog that users logged into Google would see their organic queries default to HTTPS (Secure HTTP) https://www.google.com instead of HTTP.

This change will reduce visibility into why visitors are coming to web properties for signed-in Google searchers. In other words we won’t be able to determine the type of keyword used to arrive to the site from Google organic search. We also won’t be able to track the content viewed or actions taken from that particular organic keyword visit.

This referring information will be missing from all the solutions that track usage on web sites, including Google analytics and all the web analytics vendors (Omniture, Webtrends, Coremetrics). However, according to Google, we will still be able to get to some of this in depth keyword information in Google Webmaster Tools.

Immediate Impact:

At this time it is estimated that this change is currently impacting just fewer than 10% of the referrals originating from Google.

Here is why:

• Queries are only encrypted and noted as “not provided” when users are signed-in to Google accounts and perform a search on Google.com (not a partner site or Google toolbar)
• Google has not fully enabled this change to all Google signed-in users

Why this Will Likely Change:

The adoption of the new social network Google+ (see appendix) got off to a quick start, reaching more than ten million users in its first few weeks of field trial. However, Google+ has struggled to reach the “mainstream” audience and is currently only 10% of Facebook’s audience reach. Google+ also has .01% the level of engagement with the total online population compared to Facebook.

The Google+ adoption rate is a key consideration, as users flock to the network it is likely more users will remain “signed-in” to Google accounts throughout the day. The continued growth of Gmail, YouTube and other “sign-in” Google properties will also continue to influence the number of signed-in users in the future as well.

Strategy

• The best practices for optimizing your site – on-page, backlinks, social, internal linking – are unchanged

Measurement

• To quantify impact, Razorfish recommends benchmarking “not provided” visitors as % of total visits referred by Google Organic to gauge scale of signed–in users

• Available Through Omniture

What performance indicators/views are at risk for secure search signed in Google traffic?

• organic keyword performance (traffic, ROI, bounce rate, engagement, page views etc.)
• landing page keyword targeting and benchmarking growth
• paid/organic keyword click/revenue share
• competitive footprint

Technology

• Ensure Webmaster Tools Account with Google is verified

• Webmaster Tools account will provide top organic queries
• Available referring queries will exclude site interaction such as page views and on-site activities (bookings, conversions, leads, etc.)

Conclusion:

While the immediate impact is limited to less than 10% of traffic this has the potential to scale with stickiness of Google products requiring sign-in such as Gmail and Google+. With scale, blocking this data from site analytics reporting also impacts ad networks that rely on this data to monetize content based on search/user on-site behavior.

An important next step is benchmarking impact and creating proxies for potential loss of insight over time.

Typically Google does not release a lot of details around these types of changes. Razorfish plans to trend data over the next few weeks and develop a formal Point Of View detailing impact.

Download the Google Secure Search POV.

About Google+

In July, Google launched Google+, a new social network poised to offer a more custom experience compared to social network giant Facebook. Google+ is seamlessly integrated with all Google products (Gmail, Google.com, Maps, etc) and virtually any experience you have on the web. With the Google+ Button (similar to the Facebook “Like”), you signal to Google what you are interested in. When this is combined with what you are searching for and the sites you visited, Google has the capacity to aggregate these data points to create an experience just for you. This personalized experience is well positioned to be monetized via “interest based” advertising categories. For more information on Google+, download the Razorfish Google+ POV.

Background

The Google Display Network (GDN, formerly referred to as the Google Content Network) has an extremely large inventory pool of sites across the internet. GDN was initially launched on October 23, 2000, and in more than a decade has grown to one of the largest online advertising properties in the world.  It is estimated that this network reaches 89% of the internet in the U.S., with over 1 million publishers and 211 million unique users per week (comScore Networks machine-based panel). Paid search and display media ads can be served across this network, and audiences can be targeted in several different ways. Ads are served alongside content specified by the advertiser. This brief will take a deep dive into the targeting capabilities of the GDN, and the benefits of the GDN for a paid search advertiser.

GDN and Digital Advertising

Paid search advertising and display media advertising both have the opportunity to advertise within the GDN. The main difference between these two mediums is cost structure. Display media is usually bought on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis, meaning the advertiser pays each time 1,000 impressions are served. Thus, each advertiser’s display media impression must be a valuable placement.

Paid search advertising is usually purchased on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. This means that the advertiser only pays when their ad is clicked on. With this cost structure, there is more flexibility in what sites these ads are placed. If the site is not compatible with the ad, then the ad will not get served and no cost is incurred. Paid search advertising using the GDN is an excellent way for an advertiser to reach a greater audience and still maintain efficiencies.

While targeting is critical for both types of digital advertising to reach the right audience at the right time, the implications of highly specific targeting are usually more essential for display media to ensure that impressions are not lost on an extraneous audience. However, all targeting options in the GDN are available for purchase on a CPM or CPC basis for both text and display ads, depending on the advertiser’s goals.

Types of GDN Targeting

Contextual Targeting - selecting specific keywords and/or topics where the advertiser would like an ad to appear. Contextual targeting is done on the page level, not the site level for maximum relevancy.

Keyword Contextual Targeting – advertisers select certain keywords that are relevant to them, and bid to appear alongside this content. This ad may appear on any site across the GDN where there are those keywords on the page. The scale of this method of advertising could be very large, depending on the keywords that are being targeted. It is usually recommended to layer this type of targeting with another method to increase relevancy and minimize waste.

Topic Contextual Targeting – advertisers select certain topics that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear on pages of these sites.  This ad may appear on sites across the GDN that are categorized under that topic. This method is very broad-reaching as well, and is usually recommended in combination with another targeting method for an advertiser interested in reaching a specific audience.

Placement Targeting – advertisers select certain sites and/or sections of sites that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear on pages of these sites. These sites can be selected by the advertiser using Google Tools such as Ad Planner, which uses Nielson data to index sites in the GDN based on:

• Demographics (Household Income, Age, Gender, Education)
• Online Activity (Other Sites Your Audience Visits, Keywords Your Audience Searches For)
• Interest Categories (i.e. Cooking & Recipes, Women’s Interests, Weddings)

In practice, Razorfish usually finds this method to be the most successful approach to the GDN, because sites/sections that index highly against a target market can be cherry-picked for extremely relevant targeting.

Behavior Targeting – Advertisers select certain topics that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear across the GDN to users who match those interests. This method can be used to reach a large audience as well as a more targeted, niche audience. A user’s interests are either declared interests (through the Ad Preferences Manager), or are inferred based on their browsing behavior, specifically their recent and frequent site visits. This method of targeting is usually used for broad-reaching awareness campaigns or advertisers that seek site visitors that abandoned part of an intent funnel.

Inferred Demographic Targeting – advertisers bid on an audience where Google has inferred their demographic based on their GDN history. A user’s demographic is determined by a number of sources, including user registration data, 3^rd Party data and site composition. The registration data that is used in Inferred Demographic Targeting may come from YouTube registration, or other undisclosed sites in the GDN that capture registration information. Specific targeting sources cannot be cherry-picked, and Google takes all into account when inferring a demographic. The composition index of a site determines the inferred demographic. For example, if a person visits a fashion site, and then visits a parenting site, then Google may infer the demographic as a Female 25-54. If an advertiser uses Inferred Demographic Targeting for this target, then Google will serve an ad in the GDN network to that person. Google is constantly improving the dataset used to determine user Demographics and will incorporate new data sources as they become available. Additionally, this feature is currently in Beta and advertisers must request to be whitelisted by Google to participate.

This newer method of targeting may have benefits for an advertiser that has an extremely specific audience they wish to target, and should be tested alongside other GDN methods. However, because demo-inferred targeting is still in beta and takes very little user self-identification into account, it should not be used exclusively as a preferred GDN targeting method without the support of testing and analysis alongside the other methods.

Below is an example of how an advertiser can use a Google tool, Ad Preferences Manager, to target select audiences.

Remarketing – advertisers bid on an audience that visited their site (or a site which will allow them to implement a pixel) and their ad is displayed across the GDN. This method is often used for CRM marketing, or if the visitor was in the middle of a conversion funnel and then left. In the example given below, Special K can remarket those that visited the Special K Challenge Registration page but did not fulfill registration.

Hybrid GDN Targeting - GDN Targeting products can be combined together to reach a very specific, desired audience. As targeting layers increase, an advertiser will be reaching a more specific audience and a smaller percentage of the total population.

GDN Benefits for Paid Search

With the targeting capabilities and mass reach of GDN, there is a greater opportunity to expand paid search marketing campaigns. Expanding an advertiser’s paid search marketing presence will lead to impactful benefits such as:

1. Efficiencies – It has been established with prior campaign history that paid search is one of the most efficient means of advertising. However, paid search on sponsored search (i.e. Google.com) can sometimes be expensive if an advertiser is bidding on keywords where there are many other competitors, which may increase CPC and overall cost significantly. Including GDN and network targeting can be essential for an advertiser with many competitors who is concerned with efficiencies such as CPC and CPA (cost-per-action).

2. Reach – there are a finite number of searches for a set of keywords, and search trends must increase if an advertiser wants to expand their paid search marketing efforts. GDN offers an opportunity to expand reach beyond basic sponsored search results.

3. Relevancies – GDN is an opportunity for an advertiser to appear alongside relevant content or a target audience efficiently.

4. Testing - GDN is a way test sites and targets with minimal cost commitment (budgets can be set as low as $1 a day for only one day)

5. Turn-Key Implementation – ads are the same format as traditional paid search ads (130 characters) and can be created quicker than other advertising creative.