Tag: Facebook

Intent in mobile marketing more important than demographics, says Google

| December 24, 2015

This insight was provided in a blog post by the tech giant, which was clearly a shot at Facebook’s advertising strategies.

When it comes to mobile marketing, the biggest players have made serious efforts to try to grasp at the top spot and keep it and Google has now released a blog post that reveals some of its latest efforts to create the most appeal for its offerings.

Facebook has a natural advantage when it comes to mobile advertising to specific targeted demographics.

That said, Google has been underscoring its own consumer intent data when it comes to searches in order to provide companies with what it calls better data for mobile marketing to targeted consumers. It has stated that this is particularly helpful in the mobile advertising sphere, though it is beneficial to all online marketing. It supported its perspective by saying that demographic data develops a form of pre-conceived form of targeting for advertising campaigns.

Google gave examples of how that style could end up skewing mobile marketing results.

Mobile Marketing ImportanceFor instance, it said that among sporting goods searchers over the last half year, 56 percent are female. Equally, 45 percent of home improvement searchers are also female. On the other hand, 68 percent of influencers in the skin and body care sector are male.

The blog post stated that “Intent beats identity. Immediacy trumps loyalty. When someone has a want or need, they turn to their smartphone for help,” adding that “When a need arises, people turn to search and YouTube to look for answers, discover new things, and make decisions. We call these intent-filled moments, micro-moments.”

For this reason, the blog post explained that mobile marketing firms have the best opportunity to reach people if they’re there during that specific moment that an individual is actually seeking to learn about a subject. Understanding the intent of consumers and providing content that meets those needs, said Google, was at the heart of being able to convince them to take action such as subscribing or making a purchase. Therefore, Google said that while designing targeted campaigns, regardless of the channel, intent should play the primary role over demographics and first-party data.

A number of Facebook apps dumped by the social network

| December 10, 2015

At the same time, the top social media platform has gone ahead and shut down Creative Labs.

The initiative that was behind a range of the most experimental Facebook apps published by the social network – as well as a number of the applications it put out over the last year – have all been shut down and are no longer available for download.

Some of the mobile apps no longer available include Riff, Rooms and Slingshot, which were essentially failures.

Each of those Facebook apps were unpopular and were considered to have missed the mark in terms of what mobile device users actually want. According to the social network, it still intends to encourage experimentation. However, that will not be through Creative Labs, a type of initiative somewhat like a startup, which was quietly closed down. As of December 7, the Riff, Rooms and Slingshot apps were taken down from the app stores where they had previously been available. Moreover, the webpage for Creative Labs has also been taken down.

According to a spokesperson, the Facebook apps hadn’t received any updates in quite some time.

Facebook AppsThe spokeswoman explained that “Since their launches, we’ve incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps.”

The social network is known for its inclination to continually “move fast and break things.” This time, it determined that some of the efforts it had made under that mantra hadn’t worked out, so it was bringing them to an end. This could potentially mark an important milestone in the development of applications under the Facebook brand, as the company turns its attention on other creative avenues.

For instance, it is still looking toward artificial intelligence (AI) technology, as well as drones that would be able to bring internet connections to highly remote parts of the world, in addition to virtual reality (VR) goggles. While the company had been continually adding new Facebook apps to offer new components of the desktop version of its service as well as to compete with other popular application offerings, it has been gradually turning toward boosting the features of its core platform, including the 360 degree videos and live streaming.