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LinkedIn tools up, agencies throw down, and everyone hates Facebook.  (Except possibly Lewis Dvorkin).

LinkedIn to Content Marketers: Get Your Analytics Here     

LinkedIn released two tools this week to help users understand the the impact of the content they post on the network.  The Trending Content tool identifies and ranks topics that will resonate with a given audience, and provides reach and engagement scoring and benchmarking.  The Content Marketing Score evaluates how well a user’s content actually engages their target audience: it measures the total number of LinkedIn users who engaged with a piece of content, across sponsored updates, company pages, and other forms of content, and then divides it by the total audience that a user (or marketer) is trying to reach.

LinkedIn is making a strong push to be the repository for more content from and for it’s professional-oriented audience.  These tools will help marketers make better decisions about the content they devote time to, which may make LinkedIn more appealing overall as a content destination.

 

Who Should Own the Content Amplification Budget?

John McDermott of Digiday posted a great piece on the push and pull going on over ownership of the “paid social” budget between agencies focused on social media work, and the traditional media buying agencies.  On behalf of the social agencies, social agency Laundry Service emphasized the efficiency gains from having the content creators also manage the paid promotion.  On behalf of the traditional media buyers, Ben Winkler of OMD cited the consumer data insights and the importance of coordinating among all media.

Clearly, purchasing social media space in real time is at least slightly different from the traditional media-planning-and-buying process that used to take place months in advance; but it’s not clear to us that in today’s world of increasingly “real time bidding” the same companies and optimization techniques can’t be applied on behalf of amplifying content.   So who will win?  McDermott finishes by saying that  “If social and media agencies are unable to harmoniously work together, then, the question becomes which group can better co-opt the other’s skill set.”  Let the hiring wars begin!

 

Forrester: Ogilvy Was Right, and Marketers Hate Facebook

Seems like this is becoming a bit of a meme, but the data seems to support it: Forrester analyst Nate Elliott posted on his blog that Ogilvy’s research, which we reported on last week, is fueling still more discontent amongst marketers.  In addition the shrinking organic reach, marketers are concerned about fake fans and likes.  (More data to support our interest in fraud management techniques for content amplification!)

Facebook’s growing revenues seem to belie this statement.  Still, if enough top-flight analyst pile on, this issue runs the risk of undermining Facebook’s growth…

 

Dvorkin: Here Are The Key Fights Going On In Native Advertising

Who doesn’t love lists?  Lewis Dvorkin, chief product officer of Forbes gives us 10 aspects — or, Dvorkin prefers the more headline friendly “BATTLEGROUNDS”! — of content marketing or native advertising that are in flux.  They are:

  1. Competition (it’s increasing)
  2. Transparency (the definition is shifting)
  3. Content Creation (different publishers approach it differently)
  4. Labeling (the FTC needs to step in!)
  5. Presentation (who will win in the battle between platforms and publishers?)
  6. Ad Networks (the tension between scale and quality)
  7. Distribution (where should content live, and how will consumers find it?)
  8. Ad buys (pricing is in flux)
  9. Evaluation (who knows?)
  10. The Players (everyone wants to get into everyone else’s business — see “Who Should Own the Content Amplification Budget,” above)

The most interesting point for us is #7, distribution.  Dvorkin frames it ultimately as a debate over corporate micro-sites vs placing content on 3rd-party publisher sites, and Forbes prices its BrandVoice product on that basis.  But while the dichotomy may be true, the definitions underpinning each approach seem inaccurate, leading to false conclusions.  Check it out for yourself.

 

Government Goes Native

We’ve recently been covering the growth of content amplification toolsets outside the US, and here’s a cool data point from UK publisher brand-e.biz: the UK government has entered a native ad deal with Say Media to promote UK tech companies on Say’s tech-focused ReadWrite property.  It’s almost misleading to call them native ads, since the units are actually videos featuring ReadWrite features editor Owen Thomas.  If the government is doing it, is must be cool!

Seriously though, this is interesting for two reasons.  First, it directly contradicts the admittedly anecdotal report Digiday published last week about publishers shying away from using editorial staff for content marketing, sponsored content or native ad units.  ReadWrite is a great publication, and Owen Thomas is a very strong reporter, so this is a strong statement about the fear of a mixing the oil and water (chocolate and peanut butter?) of editorial and sponsored content.

Second, it resembles the highly-touted guest spot that President Obama did on FunnyorDie’s talk show Between Two Ferns to promote the Affordable Care Act.  Regardless of your opinion of Zach Galifianakis’ humor, it’s fascinating to see governments taking to non-traditional forms of marketing to promote key initiatives.


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