What is the value of a “Like”?

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What is the Value of a “Like”?

by Brad Stewart, CEO
Now that we are squarely in the dawn of a new media revolution, everyone is asking the same question:

Question 1: How much does it cost?

In other words: How much should we be spending on Facebook page likes? What is a reasonable targeted cost-per-click? How much is a Facebook fan worth? How much should I spend on creating a YouTube video? How do I get views? How much should I spend? And the absolute holy-grail of all social media ROI questions:

Question 2: What is it all worth?

This very difficult question absolutely needs to be put into the proper context in order to arrive at a realistic answer for your agency, company or charity. Here are the factors that should be taken into account in order to come up with a realistic and practical answer.

The Type of Business

One of the challenges of coming to a one-size-fits-all price matrix for social media is that we are comparing grains of rice to solar systems. A family restaurant has more competitors, a smaller budget, and different requirements than a large brand like Coca-Cola. Companies with huge budgets typically target entire countries with campaigns. As you would expect, it’s more expensive to attract a fan from a pool of 10,000 people than it is to attract a fan from a pool of 300 million.

On the other hand, a small business fan might arguably be worth more from a lifetime value perspective than a fan of a consumer packaged good product.

Fan Intention

This is another extremely important consideration for a social media ROI calculation, and with social media this value ranges from negative to positive. In a recent case involving McDonald’s restaurants, their efforts to get individuals to share stories backfired, and created a string of negative social attention, and an extraordinary amount of negative coverage. “Fans” followed the rules of this campaign (ie. share stories about McDonald’s), but instead shared horror stories about food quality, etc. In this case, the value of social media attention was a big huge integer.

On the other extreme, I had a client who was running for Municipal council. My agency created a Facebook fan page with one single purpose: to remind fans of the exact time and location of voting day. We created an event associated with the fan page, and the councillor won by a larger margin (93%) than any other candidate in any riding in the province. What is the value of those fans? As Mastercard would say, “priceless”.

In the middle of the spectrum there are a lot of fans who “like” pages based on deals, discounts, contests and promotions. These consumers would probably represent the mean value of a fan, as they are conditionally interested in the product or service. However, their value should not be discounted, because if they are handled properly, they can provide tremendous word of mouth value.

Campaign Purpose, Company Profile, and Lifecycle

Know Thyself ~Socrates

Just as important as the intention of a fan in measuring social media impact is the purpose of the specific campaign in question. In the case of the local politician who was unlikely to use social media as anything other than a way to remind fans to vote, it was an all-or-nothing calculus. In the case of a consumer packaged goods company, it’s a much more complicated calculus. Here are some of the considerations that a company, service, brand or charity might take into consideration.

• Are you trying to boost SEO rankings with page-likes?
• Are you simply in the seeding process of moving from 0 to 100 fans, or are you trying to move from fan 10,000 to 20,000?
• Are your fans committed to you unconditionally (like a political candidate), or are they committed only based on deals?
• Are your fans committed positively to you at all? Or are they only there for a give-away or (in the worst case) to hurt you?
• Are your fans likely to share the content you share with them?
• Are you looking for increased sales, or just brand/product/service awareness?
• For charities: are you looking primarily for donation, membership or general awareness/outreach?
• Are you looking primarily for a “share” or primarily for a “like”?
• What industry are you in?

Conclusion

The takeaway here is simple, and typical. Careful planning, and getting to know your prospects is critical to coming up with your personal ROI numbers. This thought process will hopefully also put you in the mindset to creatively and meaningfully connect with them.

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Want To Be ‘Liked’?

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Originally printed on January 25th, 2012 in Mediapost. Mediapost is the largest online trade publication for media and marketing professionals. To see the original article, click here.

by Brad Stewart, CEO Adjoy Inc.

I posted the following status update on Facebook about a month ago:

My son came across a picture of a starving child online, and he asked me “what’s wrong with that boy?” I told him he didn’t have enough to eat. He left the computer, and then came back with a small sandwich bag of money he had collected. “Give that to him, daddy.” The next day, he started looking around the house for more money, “to give to the boy.” You can learn a lot from a three-year-old.

Instantly, I received 34 likes and 8 comments: more than I had ever received on a single status update.

So, what’s to Like?

Facebook has become a fascinating barometer of social preference over the years. This is true on both a micro-scale (say, amongst my own friends), and on a larger scale (examining the collective behavior of Facebook users in general).

The evolution of normative social behavior on the social network is dizzying. In the early days, groups were an instant way to gain a form of democratized consent about social issues: from the mundane to the substantial. Okay, mostly the mundane. People joined groups en- masse to publicly display their disdain or support for politicians, sports teams, and — of course — to protest Facebook changing its user-interface. In these early years, Facebook users were app-crazy, ready to have their voices heard (or “seen,” as the case may be) by manically getting involved. A snapshot of these early years would fool you into thinking that the average person was more concerned about slow-walking people than the environment or social injustice.

Eventually, everyone learned how to create a group, and the splintering soon followed. Groups that would have attracted a few thousand members a month earlier started to attract only a few dozen. A potentially huge problem emerged. People’s opinions to this point were democratically aligned with joining groups. But, with so many groups and the novelty clearly wearing off, Facebook started to feel like a vacuum: noisy and closed.

But then something extraordinary happened. In February 2009, Facebook introduced the “like.” In the blog post that introduces the concept of the like, Facebook itself didn’t seem to anticipate that “liking” could become one of the most important social phenomena of the modern Internet. Eventually, Facebook Connect functionality enabled people to like things that were posted other than on Facebook, and the Internet would never be the same.

Likes themselves went through their own social filter evolution. At first, people liked only things they really enjoyed. Users dipped their toe into the water by liking the usual suspects: the arrival of a new baby, graduation, or an amazing video. But, eventually, users began to realize that “liking” meant “I support” or “I empathize.” Personal losses and even tragedies were “liked,” as users began to realize that “liking” didn’t necessarily mean “yippee, I’m happy,” as Facebook had originally planned.

Users eventually realized that “liking” had social and political connotations, which would follow you onto other news feeds. Like something and be prepared for your inbox to be filled with notifications of every other person that liked, and every comment that ensued.

If you’re a Facebook user, you know what I’m talking about. You casually like a comment about an organic apple pie recipe, and the next thing you know, you’re witness to a heated debate about GMOs, organics, green washing, Obama, pesticides and cholesterol.

What does this mean to green marketers and cause marketers who want to be liked? The answer is a double-edged sword. Users are hungry for content that has personal meaning with no filters, and they are increasingly bored by the mundane or uninteresting. We are beyond that phase where people will like something to show they on your side about a relatively unimportant issue. Now, people need to see a level of genuineness, meaning, and real relevance. This is where marketers need to wake up and realize that to be part of the conversation, they have to offer something of substance.

On the other hand, issues that are too contentious or clearly divisive amongst friends should be avoided. These hot-button subjects vary regionally, so brush up on your state, provincial, and local politics if you want to be part of a productive and positive conversation.

Oh, and by the way: my son’s little sandwich bag is at about $20.

Cause Media Beats Beyoncé

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Originally printed on December 28th, 2011 in Mediapost. Mediapost is the largest online trade publication for media and marketing professionals. To see the original article, click here.

by Brad Stewart, CEO Adjoy Inc.

A rookie hit the biggest ninth-inning grand slam of her fledgling career, single-handedly beating a team that included: Beyoncé; Steve Jobs (making two appearances at bat — once when retiring, once while expiring); the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown; and Ashton Kutcher’s unfortunate mis-tweet.

The rookie goes by several names: free-raising, free-action, or — as this reporter likes to call her (in reference to her famous father, mentor and predecessor, cause marketing) — “Cause Media.”

That’s right, folks, Cause Media won the World Series of social media with a single at-bat, beating out a record number of paid, unpaid, human, and robo-tweeters. 2011 was the year that Twitter finally broke the 200 million tweets-per-day mark, so the competitive field was stiffer than ever.

In 2011 there were tweets about earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns, and Obama-led assassinations. One of the greatest entrepreneurs of the modern era died suddenly, and Beyoncé announced that she was pregnant. But, of the billion+ tweets per week, one young rising star supported by a Dublin, Ohio, hamburger chain rose above them all.

“I think I was successful because people basically care about stuff that matters. My coaches always told me to stick to the fundamentals, and that’s just what I did,” she explained humbly when asked how she beat 50 billion or so other tweets with her single 81-character message.

The fundamentals she downplays are enabling other Twitter users to make a small but tangible human difference, based on a simple action, which itself results in further promotion of the campaign. The ensuing ripple effect created the social velocity this young rookie needed to hit the ball over the green monster in the dying moments of the ninth inning.

Linguists and media analysts are studying every syllable, nuance and #hashtag of this now legendary blurb:

“RT for a good cause. Each retweet sends 50¢ to help kids in foster care. #TreatItFwd” @wendys

According to the Twitter representatives, it was a close race with Beyoncé’s sudden pregnancy announcement. The singer won top honors for most-tweets-per-second on the social micro-blogging site, giving her automatic title to 2011 league MVP. Though Cause Media didn’t get league MVP this year, her steady, passionate, and focused efforts did win her a place in the coveted historic spotlight with this year’s top honor: the golden tweet award.

“Next year I’m determined to do better,” Cause Media exclaimed in a typically determined fashion.

Cause Media added that her cousin was a major influence.

“Last year my cousin [Green Media] was so close, but they gave the award to Humor instead,” in reference to the controversial 2010 Golden Tweet award going to comedian Stephen Colbert, who himself claims that his award-clinching tweet was actually not a joke.

in honor of oil-soaked birds, ‘tweets’ are now ‘gurgles’ @StephenAtHome

Humor was not available for comment, according to his representatives, as he was apparently filming a sequel to his extraordinarily successful “he bit me” franchise, with child-star “Charlie.”

How Does Adjoy Work?

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Adjoy increases viewership of online videos and social media sharing by leveraging the tried and true principles of social investment. Adjoy is a disruptive game-changing advertising platform, because it uses social sharing for distribution, and introduces a bright new era of media spending: down to the second billing. Media spending goes directly to charity, with donations being tied directly to viewership of your brand content. Create, give and grow!

How Does it Work?

Create and Upload Your Video

1. Create a commercial or cause-based video.

2. Upload your video into the Adjoy content management system.

3. Specify a charity to which funds will be donated.

4. Set the campaign budget, duration, and viewership-to-donation-ratio (for instance: 1 penny for every 3 seconds of viewership)

5. Copy the unique Adjoy CMS campaign code™.

Give! Send your charitable offer to the world.

6. Paste the campaign code™ into websites, blogs, and other online properties.

7. Seed the link(s) to your users, email list, social media contacts and employees.

8. Add a “Support this Message” button, to encourage donations from friends and colleagues.

Support this Message Donate to CHEO and help us spread the word about this vital part of our community.

Grow. Measure your success!

8. Watch the likes, shares and views grow organically.

9. Down-to-the-second viewership dashboard provides a granular ROI report.

10. Feel the joy when your media spend goes to charity rather than to ad networks, or affiliates. Billing is based on per-second engagement.

The Benefits of the Adjoy Video Platform

1) Social Permission with Viewers. Being asked to donate to charity, or -even better- donate a tiny bit of time to charity is a tolerated and respected action. In social media, a cause media campaign enables your brand content to literally travel anywhere: walls, discussion forums, emails, blog postings, comment fields, etc. 

2) Social Permission for Publishers. Repetition is extremely important in social media. Sending a single email or feed update has a limited chance of reaching everyone in a given network. Adjoy changes this, by creating permission for publishers. You can be proud to ask people to watch, because essentially you are just asking them to give. You won’t have to be worried about being “unfriended” by asking people to donate “a-view-and-a-like”.

3)Positive Brand Association.. Our market research shows a significant difference between positive brand association linked to charitable giving, versus association with other loyalty programs. We are happy to share this research upon request.

4)Real Social Reach. Charities are powerful allies, in terms of digital, word-of-mouth and PR reach. And talk about a loyal and powerful database! Share the campaign code™ with your online network to create an army of loyal publishers. This includes: charities, employees, agencies, etc. A single campaign code can be pasted onto unlimited sites, extending the viewership network extensively for any given campaign. Unlike traditional advertising, an Adjoy video campaign gives people a compelling and dignified reason to share. 

5)Accountability. Your media buy is 100% accountable and the donation amount goes 100% to charity. You only pay Adjoy a commission on successful viewership. Also, you can alter your cost-per-view (CPV) to whatever you want, depending on your strategy, target market, product or service, etc. 1 cent for every 10 seconds of engagement for some evergreen content, or 1 cent per second for high impact, shorter campaigns. Any budget. Any duration. Any CPV. Your choice.

Adjoy Moves to HTML5

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As many of our fans, friends and customers know, the Adjoy player was built initially on Flex and Flash technology. This is a great solution for interactive video, which we leveraged initially to offer customizable pre-roll and post-roll URL’s as well as other functionality.

As time has rolled on, customer demand has led us to adopt the newest standard for web video: HTML5. Our research indicates that the average web user does have the browser requirements for HTML5, and that it is a step that will enable greater viewership for our customers’ videos. The rollout will occur sometime in November, and we will be sure to send emails to all of our customers to communicate any new steps and upcoming best practices, including iframe embedding.

We will also be releasing a valuable whitepaper about web best practices in conjunction with HTML5, video and social media. We hope to be offering the most comprehensive, unambiguous, easy-to-follow instructions on how to leverage social media through video, cause media, and while adhering to various best practices. All of our email subscribers will automatically receive this valuable publication.

Development update: we will be updating the player to serve up both HTML5 or Flash, depending on browsers. According to our research, there are still a fair number of people using older browsers, which only support Flash. For all customers currently using our player, we will contact you to provide instructions on how to embed the new code into your sites. By keeping the old code in your site, your video will still display as usual on the original player.

Adjoy Demo Video

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The video below has been uploaded on the Adjoy platform. The GiveGauge in the bottom right corner tracks the number of dollars and cents raised for the campaign on a “1 penny for every 1 second” basis. This piece of technology is the key to gaining increased views, by encouraging viewers to share the video for a good cause. “Donation” is tracked live during viewership, then the total donation is updated with every new view.

Other features

Customizable “on the fly” pre-roll and post-roll link/description. You can change the pre-roll and post-roll clickable links in the video itself, which will be updated within the Adjoy CMS. This means that you don’t have to re-embed after you make changes. Make this a share call to action, or link to a donation or eCommerce page. Your choice, which you can change across all embeds at any time.

Social media sharing. Social media sharing is included at the end of every video, linking to twitter or Facebook. The meta-description is based on what you put on your campaign page.

Customizable thumbnail. You can upload whatever eye-catching thumbnail you want for your video, in order to increase conversion. This is automatically included in further social media sharing.

Upload once, share many. You can launch as many campaigns as you want from a single video. This means you can pick different charities for different social media segments. Remember: all videos have a date/time/budget limit, so you never have to worry about going over budget!

Campaign down, Video Up. Once your campaign is over, the video will stay up. The GiveGauge disappears, and continued views can still occur in all places where the video has been embedded. Viewers will never be deceived into thinking money is still being raised, once a campaign budget has been hit.

Set Your Own CPM. Perhaps the most revolutionary part of the Adjoy platform is that you can set your own CPM. The amount you decide to pay will increase your chance of your campaign getting the attention it requires.

Fully Accountable Advertising. You only pay the charity once a view occurs. The social masses and the charity are responsible for helping you get the attention your company or product needs! You are not alone with Adjoy.

The Most Cost-Effective Advertising Platform? Whether it’s just a small budget, or from a cost-per-view basis, Adjoy is extremely cost effective. Social media and search costs around $1.00 per click. With Adjoy, that same dollar gives you over 10 full views of your video!

Granular Viewership Reporting Advertisers and agencies have to pay hundreds per month for viewership tracking and reporting with other video content management systems. The Adjoy platform costs a fraction of these platforms, and offers the same functionality. Are people leaving your video at the 20 second mark? With Adjoy, you can answer this question, and get a deeper understanding of your creative’s impact.

Case Study Results

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Adjoy is proud to announce that The Captiva Farms Adjoy® case study for small business has brought about unprecedented results for small business client, Captiva Farms. Captiva Farms is a horseback riding farm, located about 25 minutes from Ottawa, Canada.

Summary for Captiva-Adjoy® campaign

Total Budget: $250 dedicated to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Video Content: A 1:06 minute promotional video featuring horseback riding at Captiva Farms.

Media Strategy: Link to Adjoy® video was placed on homepage. Video was tweeted and shared on Facebook by Captiva and Adjoy staff (3 people).

Facebook “Likes”: The campaign generated 105 “Likes” in 18 days. 99 Likes occurred during the campaign, and 6 likes after campaign completion.

Video Views: 769 engagements of the video, with 703 full views registered

Video Metrics: 8.58% abandonment rate; .91% bounce rate; 1% CTR

Traffic Sources: 86% Social Media; 13% Referring Sites; 1% Search Engines
Testimonial: Captiva Farms plans on launching more Adjoy campaigns. They are extremely happy with the impact that this has had on brand-association and traffic.

“YouTube was not delivering as much traffic as we had hoped. Adjoy® provided a quick and easy solution. We pinched ourselves when we found out that the cost was simply a donation to a charity that we care deeply about.” - Craig Clost Sr, Owner, Captiva Farms.

Highlights

Social Media “Likes”: The video page received 105 likes over the course of the campaign. The page hosting the same video, and also featured on the homepage of the website received no likes. The webpage with the second most facebook likes has a total of 7. This is a 15x (1500%) increase in the number of likes on the next best performing page.

SEO: Search engines are now favouring pages with high social media “like” validation. With over 100 likes on the campaign page, Captiva Farms can continue to feature this completed campaign as a testament to the company’s charitable investment.

Video: Though an identical video was posted on YouTube three weeks earlier and also featured on the Captiva Farms website, the total number of views on YouTube is less than one third the number of views for the Adjoy® campaign. Total YouTube views remain at 215.

Positive Brand Association: The entire campaign was driven by social media sharing, based on emotional attachment to a cherished local institution (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario). This means high-quality levels of user engagement and brand association.

Ongoing Recommendations: The creative messaging in the video should reflect the intention and nature of the campaign in future efforts. Captiva Farms intends to invest in videos that have a “charitable spin”, in order to make the entire user experience more congruent and more effective.

How Much Is It?

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The Adjoy video CMS is a free video platform that gives you down to the second analytic capacity, customizable pre-roll and post-roll click-through, viewership reporting, and other features. It’s a system that’s simple enough for an everyday web user, but complex enough to impress any boss or client. Get more views for your online video today.

Cost and Billing

Get started on the Adjoy video platform right away for free. You can upload your video, and start a fundraiser immediately. We only charge a small commission for successful campaigns.

You have a video. Now what?

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Adjoy solves this challenging problem. With Adjoy, your video takes on a life of its own, finally giving viewers a real reason to share. By focusing on the “social” in social media. Adjoy is all about the human factor……

The problem. Online veterans and newbies alike know exactly what we’re talking about: getting views for a video is next to impossible. Unless you have Evian-Baby sized production budgets, chances are your video will end up like 90% of online videos, with under 100 views. Adjoy is an extra tool in your toolbag to help you get views for your video.

1. Your Video

You can use existing videos or we can create one for you very affordably. The other option to consider is whether you want to produce a video highlighting your company’s specific social investment effort, or whether it’s simply a generic commercial video. Our suggestion: to maximize your chance of getting views for your video, do both!

2. Company Logo

Company, product, service, or initiative. Your choice. Upper left is recommended for maximal brand association. Place your logo front and centre so that viewers will know who should get credit.

3. Adjoy Logo

This is 100% optional. We appreciate the exposure, but want to insure that your campaign is created entirely to your specification. By default, our platform is entirely white-labeled.

4. The Adjoy GiveGauge™

This is an extremely technical, but simple aspect of the platform, which links viewership directly to donation. Our servers crank away at a million miles a minute to track every view at the 5 second interval. We associate these intervals with your donation amount, and the ticker rises accordingly for viewers. For every view of an entire 30 second video, you can pay as little as only 6 cents: a fraction of today’s pay-per-click costs.

5. Charity Logo

Chooses your own charity, or go with one of Adjoy’s partners. We are available to consult on best practices in terms of finding a charity that matches your organization’s CSR and branding goals. To maximize views of your video, you will want to pick a brand-appropriate and reliable charity.

The Benefits of the Adjoy Platform

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Adjoy does everything a video platform should do (viewership tracking, monthly reports, transcoding from multiple formats, etc.), and it also gets you views for your video.Everytime a viewer watches your video, they feel better about your company!
It’s not too good to be true, it’s just the next logical evolution of online video, developed by an experienced and conscientious core of developers, business leaders, visionaries and customers.

Here’s what charitable donation gives you. It’s a pretty impressive list, and might just make you think twice about your next big media buy.

1) Permission Space.People hate marketers online and everywhere. By people, I mean “them” as well as you and me! No one wants to be interrupted and told what to do. However, being asked to donate to charity, or -even better- donate a tiny bit of time to charity is a fully tolerated and respected action. In social media, a cause media campaign enables your brand to literally go anywhere: walls, discussion forums, emails, blog postings, comment fields, etc. “We are raising money for Haiti” is much more tolerated than “Check out this vacuum”. Particularly when you’re in a Haiti relief forum!

2)Positive Brand Association Our market research shows significant difference between positive brand association linked to charitable giving, and association with other loyalty programs. The same holds true with negative brand association. It’s pretty simple, really. People are skeptical of the quality of your product if you discount or bribe them to buy it. However, if you don’t talk price and focus on the good you’re doing for the world, people just feel good.

3) Reach. Word of Mouth. And More Reach. Have you ever seriously thought about the reach that a major charity has in their database? The numbers would surprise you. And talk about a loyal and powerful database! In any major charity’s database, there could be dozens or hundreds of influential, and passionate bloggers. Pass them the embed code so they can become publishers, and watch the ticker grow!

4) Accountability.* Your media buy is 100% accountable* and goes 100% to charity. You only pay us a small percentage of a successful campaign. Also, you can alter your CPM to whatever you want, depending on your strategy, target market, product or service, etc. 1 penny for every 5 seconds of engagement perhaps?? Any budget. Any duration.

*Our definition of “accountability” differs from other media outlets. Rather than “per view” or “per thousand potential views”, “accountable” to us means “down to the second”. Another reason to feel the joy!