Social Media

09
Jul
2018
The paradox of long-form vertical video

The paradox of long-form vertical video

Originally featured in the July 8th 2018 issue of Campaign Middle East

Not content with pick-pocketing Snapchat in 2016, Instagram seems determined to muscle in on YouTube’s turf as well by launching a video hub and standalone app that they’re calling IGTV. And for good reason too. According to a recent Pew Research survey in the US, Instagram is trailing only YouTube in usage among teens. 85 percent of Americans aged 13 to 17 say they use YouTube, with Instagram coming in second at 72 percent, and Snapchat close behind at 69 percent. While Instagram could definitely do with a better ‘home’ for its video content outside of users’ Stories or Feeds, their emphasis on catering to the longer-form video that YouTube currently dominates clashes somewhat with their insistence on using vertical video.

The vertical format that currently features on Instagram and Snapchat lends itself well to shorter content; an impromptu piece to camera, a quick glimpse around a quirky cafe, a short makeup tutorial etc. But the type of video that typically garners a following on YouTube, the kind that Instagram wants to attract to its platform, is a fundamentally different type of content altogether; longer, better structured, with a higher level of production value, and more importantly, horizontal in format.

Viewers on these ‘vertical’ platforms have been primed for brevity and, because of this, the big question for Instagram is whether users will spend as long watching vertical videos as they already do with horizontal videos. The average YouTube viewing session on mobile is an impressive 40 minutes according to Google. But for Instagram, the average mobile session duration is a mere 3.05 minutes. Instagram hopes that, by increasing the maximum time limit for its videos from 1 minute to 60 minutes, it will enable longer-form quality content to flourish and keep users on the app for longer. But will users really watch 10, 20, even 30 minute vertical videos on their phone? Instagram clearly thinks they will, but there will need to be a change in current viewing habits for this to happen, especially as these platforms currently appeal to short attention spans with quick-fire content that is easy to jump through.

From a creation point of view too, there is a chicken-and-egg challenge of trying to encourage longer-form content creation without evidence for creators that it will find an audience on these channels. Instagram must try to both convince their current top content creators to fundamentally change the type of videos they make for the longer format, while also trying to attract YouTube creators to the platform, which would in turn require them to drastically adapt their content for vertical video. For these creators, the vertical format is a restrictive one in comparison, with valuable screen real estate at the sides being sacrificed for length, and a heavy trade-off in the amount of information they can show on the screen at any one time. For YouTube content creators, this could be a serious stumbling block.

At the moment, Instagram has said that they will not show ads on the new IGTV, although this will inevitably change over time once the platform finds its feet. But by shutting off a potential revenue stream for creators at the beginning, and by not making direct payments to stars either, they could initially struggle to attract the talent that they want to come to the platform. It seems like a stretch to expect YouTube’s most popular creators to jump ship to a format that doubles their workload without cutting them in on the ad revenue. Ultimately, the old cliche is true, content is king, especially for video. Facebook has already found this out the hard way over the past couple of years by not being able to take market-share from YouTube due to a lack of exclusive quality content on the platform. Can IGTV succeed where Facebook ultimately failed? Stranger things have happened, but it’s certainly a tall order.

Posted by Rob in Campaign Magazine, Mobile, Snapchat, Social Media
11
Apr
2018
5 Key Aspects Of A Localized Digital Marketing Strategy In The Middle East

5 Key Aspects Of A Localized Digital Marketing Strategy In The Middle East

A version of this article first appeared on Entrepreneur Middle East

It can be daunting as a mid-sized company when entering a new international market. Especially so when entering a region as diverse and fragmented as the Middle East. Although no matter where you go around the world, you can’t just copy and paste a strategy that has worked well elsewhere and expect it to succeed in a different market. With digital channels becoming more and more essential in today’s business landscape, here are some key aspects to consider for your digital strategy when entering a new region.

 

  1. A LOCAL WEBSITE – Understanding the competitive digital landscape

You’d be surprised how many companies come to the Middle East and don’t create a region-specific website. Nothing will frustrate your customers more than if they can’t find simple information about you when they search online like basic product details, your location and contact information, opening hours etc. According to a recent Gartner report, only 15% of businesses in the region have an online presence. This is some very low hanging fruit, so make creating a local mobile-responsive website your first port of call when entering a new market. Don’t forget to include an Arabic language option for the content on your site too.

 

  1. LOCAL KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION – Understanding local online search behaviour

Speaking of customers searching for you online, it’s important to realize how people’s search behaviour differs around the world, and that it is essential to treat each market separately when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Conducting simple localized keyword searches around topics related to your product is a must, as well as doing so for the Arabic language also as the most highly-searched keywords can differ across languages. Don’t forget to include the local country in the meta tags of each of the web pages in the process, and make sure to create business listing pages on Google for your head office and retail locations. Make it as easy as possible for your customers to find out about you online.

 

  1. SOCIAL MEDIA – Understanding the social media ecosystem

With almost 50% of the people living in the Middle East region being under the age of 30, it’s no surprise that social media is incredibly popular here as a form of expression and communication. In such a diverse region, visual channels such as Instagram and Snapchat have become especially popular in recent years as a way of propagating a common visual language. Similarly with video content. YouTube is the most used social platform for video consumption in the region and Saudi Arabia, with a staggering 90+ million active daily video views, has even surpassed the USA to become the #1 consumer of content on this platform.

The Middle East as a region is built on respect for people and culture. Whilst most markets in the region have been adopting a more relaxed approach to social content, countries like Saudi Arabia have far stricter rules regarding the type of messages and imagery that can be leveraged. Despite, or maybe because of that fact, User-Generated Content (UGC) is an extremely popular form of content that brands here try to encourage. The Middle East also has its own community of super-influencers who use Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and YouTube to collaborate with brands and communicate a more relatable, yet personal story. This could be a relevant approach to consider when entering a market in the region.

 

  1. eCOMMERCE – Understanding how your consumers shop online

While some regions around the world embraced online shopping more than 20 years ago, the Middle East has been somewhat slower to join in. Up until recently, most purchases made online would be paid for in cash on delivery as many customers remained skeptical of shopping online. This has changed over the last 5 years or so, with more and more businesses accepting online payments and customers finally feeling comfortable with handing over their credit card information to companies online.

Amazon’s acquisition of Dubai-based Souq.com in 2017 was a boon for the region and signals a validation of the concept of eCommerce here in general. According to the Midddle East-based online payment platform PayFort, the e-commerce market here is set to double to more than $69bn by 2020 with the UAE accounting for $27 billion of that and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia $22 billion, making them by far the two largest eCommerce markets in the Middle East. Food for thought when considering whether or not to facilitate online payments on your local website.

 

  1. TECH ADOPTION – Understanding your market’s technological fluency

In case all of the above didn’t convince you of the importance of a localized digital strategy in the Middle East, maybe these statistics will. Even though many people around the world might consider the Middle East to be somewhat of a traditional region, the population here is surprisingly tech-savvy.

For a starters, Middle Easterners are a very well-connected bunch with more mobile connections here than there are people (128%), higher than in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Smartphone penetration is exceptionally high here also, with the UAE having the highest smartphone penetration rate in the world at 80.6% according to Newzoo’s 2017 Global Mobile Market Report. Saudi Arabia is not far behind at 65.2%.

When it comes to internet penetration, UAE (99%), Qatar (99%) and Kuwait (98%) are the three highest ranked countries in the world according to the 2018 Hootsuite & We Are Social Global Digital Report. Mobile internet usage in particular is very high here too, with Saudi Arabia (64%) and UAE (61%) in the top 12 countries globally when it comes to using a smartphone as opposed to a computer to access the internet (StatCounter).

 

Take the next step

While it might seem like a lot to take in, you should consider digital channels as an opportunity rather than a challenge to overcome when entering a new market like the Middle East. Understanding the region and how the people here use digital technology in their day-to-day lives can help you build up a loyal customer base and create a solid foundation for future success. Utilizing a local expert who knows the region can give you a head start so don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you want to take the next step!

Posted by Rob in Advertising, Dubai, Social Media, Tech, Web Design
06
Jan
2017

A case for going cold turkey on social media this New Year

It’s a new year, and with it the obligation to try and pursue some form of self improvement. I came across this piece on the New York Times about one computer scientist, Cal Newport, who shuns social media in an attempt to maintain his concentration skills and it struck me as something worth looking into.

I’ve always seen social media as a harmless activity that can help develop your personal brand online and keep you up-to-date on news and trends, but Newton highlights some all too familiar downsides that certainly hit home. Mainly, the effect on ones ability to concentrate on a certain topic for a prolonged period of time. In work, this can manifest itself in jumping from task to task looking for quick wins and making it difficult to focus on one thing to completion.

Over the last couple of years I’ve found that messaging apps like WhatsApp are actually much worse at encouraging this habit than traditional social media channels, triggering an urge to check your phone every minute or two and tripping you up in whatever task you are trying to concentrate on at the time.

Newport outlines the side effects of this below:

Consider that the ability to concentrate without distraction on hard tasks is becoming increasingly valuable in an increasingly complicated economy. Social media weakens this skill because it’s engineered to be addictive. The more you use social media in the way it’s designed to be used — persistently throughout your waking hours — the more your brain learns to crave a quick hit of stimulus at the slightest hint of boredom.

Once this Pavlovian connection is solidified, it becomes hard to give difficult tasks the unbroken concentration they require, and your brain simply won’t tolerate such a long period without a fix. Indeed, part of my own rejection of social media comes from this fear that these services will diminish my ability to concentrate — the skill on which I make my living.

Maybe putting a limit on messaging & social media app usage might not be the worst New Year’s resolution to make. Food for thought.

Posted by Rob in Social Media
01
Nov
2016

Activate’s Tech & Media Outlook for 2017

It might come in at a gruelling 177 slides, but this 2017 Tech & Media Outlook from consulting firm Activate at last week’s WSJ Live Conference is jam-packed with interesting stats, insights and projections for the future of technology, media and entertainment. It’s a bit of a slog if you’re trying to absorb all the information presented, but it’s well worth a skim through at least.

Posted by Rob in Media, Social Media, Tech
01
Sep
2016

Will a lack of Ad targeting options be Snapchat’s achilles heel?

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Originally featured in the August 28th 2016 issue of Campaign Middle East

Ever since last year’s Cannes Lions Festival, where Snapchat was the darling of the young tech companies strutting their stuff, Ad Land has been waiting for the company to make a serious push into scalable advertising. Snapchat’s advertising revenue is growing at an incredible rate, rising from $59m last year to a projected $250-350m this year, but this has mainly been on the back of branded geo-filters, lenses and sponsored stories.

While until now this has only been accessible to brands with huge budgets, it seems that Snapchat is now on the verge of scaling it’s advertising offering by forging new partnerships with third-party creative agencies, as well as API platforms that facilitate the buying and delivery of ads on the app. All of this will help make managing ad campaigns on Snapchat much easier for brands and agencies alike.

A few months ago, the platform rolled-out auto-advance stories, a process that automatically plays friends’ stories one-after-another creating a seamless video-roll of everything you’ve missed since your last visit. It’s here that they plan on inserting what they term ‘Snap Ads Between Stories’, i.e. ads that automatically play between your friends’ posts.

The route to advertiser accessibility

While this might be good news for the company, as well as for brands and agencies willing to experiment with new ways of reaching younger consumers, there’s still one aspect that I feel will hold back Snapchat from reaching the same scale and accessibility as Facebook and Google when it comes to advertising – and that’s targeting.

Snapchat simply doesn’t have as much information on its users’ demographics and tastes as some of the other platforms competing with it for advertising dollars. With the advanced targeting options offered by Facebook and Google based on a mountain of user data and search behaviour, advertisers can laser-focus their ads. In this digital age, and especially on digital channels, advertisers expect this level of precision.

Without these options for advertisers, Snapchat is a bit more like TV; great for big brands with big budgets that want a broad reach, but not really suitable for smaller companies that have less of a budget to experiment with. For any digital platform that truly wants to scale, accessibility and flexibility are paramount.

Targeting in a post-demographic age

While Snapchat lacks the detailed user info and search behaviour data that Facebook and Google have, if it can find a way to accurately profile it’s users by ‘Interests’, as opposed to demographics, it could prove to be a more meaningful variable for targeting them. After all, we live in a post-demographic world in which it has become less accurate to segment consumers based on age, gender or location etc.

While Facebook for example has an endless treasure trove of its users’ stated Interests, Twitter bases much of it’s targeting on the themes and topics that users frequently feature (via keyword tracking) and on the high-profile accounts they follow.

As there is little text-based content from it’s users to scrape, Snapchat will have to approach this kind of content tracking in another way, analysing what it’s users are snapping about, and better evaluating popular accounts so as to more accurately profile their followers. With Instagram trying to muscle in on Snapchat’s turf with their new ‘Stories’ feature, the pressure is well and truly on.

Snapchat is an immersive and engaging platform with a unique potential for ads that engross and inform users. Think Facebook Canvas-style immersive scrolling pages and videos for brand awareness campaigns, click-to-buy snaps for sales-based campaigns, and simple info entry forms for lead generation campaigns. All this could happen within the app itself rather than redirecting to a separate website or landing page making for a more frictionless experience for the user.

As more advertisers come on board, the focus turns to measurement and accountability, and this is another aspect that Snapchat must also address. Facebook’s Dave Jakubowski outlines this challenge; “marketers are going to start asking questions when they get out of the experimental budget phase … when the dollars get big enough, somebody someplace says ‘What am I getting for this?”

CEO Evan Spiegel may have previously said publicly that Snapchat is against “creepy” targeted advertising that follows you around the web. But if they can nail targeting within the app, and scale the success they’ve had with some larger brands to brands with smaller budgets as well, then they can really start looking towards competing with Facebook and Google for a more broad range of advertising dollars.

 

Posted by Rob in Campaign Magazine, Marketing, Snapchat, Social Media