Facebook's got a new Hobbi, Twitter's focusing on visuals, and Adidas gets down in the DMs.
Your weekly digital marketing matchbox to kindle creative content.
February 21, 2020
Who Tweets Your Story?
Tweeters, we’ve got some tea. The Twitterverse may soon see a new set of visual tools and capabilities, courtesy of the company’s acquisition of Chroma Labs (the parent company of Chroma Stories App, which helps users spruce up their stories for Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat). All we know now is Chroma Labs is settling into Twitter to give people more creative ways to express themselves. Whether this means stories for Twitter or new ways to format and design tweets, it’s a win for marketers and brands looking to set themselves apart from the rest of the feed. Either way, we’re excited to see what features are brewing.
We Need to Talk
Remember how people used to use encyclopedias to find information? Now we don’t even have time to type a question into Google. Enter voice search, users’ second favorite choice for mobile searching. If you’re wondering how to optimize for this, you’re not alone. For starters, make sure your content addresses questions the way people would ask them to Siri or Alexa and provide specific, concise answers. Keep long-tail keywords in mind (or even full-sentence queries). And make use of H2 and H3 tags — they structure pages, make it easy to find quick answers, and boost your chances of being featured as a voice search response. All in all, keep your content thorough yet skimmable, because gone are the days of putting in major effort to get information.
Facebook’s New Hobby
Trying a brand new hobby can be intimidating. (Where do you even begin?!) But now, thanks to Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team, it might not be so bad. This week, the team launched Hobbi, a Pinterest-esque app where users can sort images of their interests into boards and track their progress. While it’s not FB’s first time copying another social platform (anyone remember Lasso?), it’s easy to see why it’s trying to jump on the Pinterest train. Last month, the pinning platform surpassed Snapchat as the third most popular social network in the U.S. We’ll give FB some credit — Hobbi isn’t exactly like Pinterest, but it’s clear that’s the vibe they were shooting for. If the app is successful, it could prove a worthy rival to Pinterest — and offer brands another way to capture the attention of the app’s 335 million monthly users.
WHAT LIT US UP THIS WEEK
Let’s Get Personal
Brands are itching to get to know their audience. Like, really get to know them. So much so that they’re sliding into their customers’ DMs to create a more personalized marketing experience. Take Adidas: Since 2015, the sportswear giant has used WhatsApp to connect with targeted audiences and build hyper-local communities — making the messaging app Adidas’s main platform for global campaigns. In its recent “100% Unfair Predator” campaign, for instance, the company created a “Rent-a-Pred” hotline where London football clubs (that’s soccer to you Americans) could make last-minute player requests for games. The brand sent a few lucky teams sponsored athletes, decked out in some of Adidas’ latest cleats. Not only did the campaign take advantage of WhatsApp’s potential for personalized marketing, but it created an experience that all the footballers involved are unlikely to forget.
For brands that really want to connect with customers on their wants and needs, WhatsApp is the place to be. With 1.5 billion monthly active users (and a whopping 60 billion daily messages sent), there’s a good chance a large portion of your audience is using the app. Even more promising? Ninety-eight percent of WhatsApp mobile messages are opened and read, blowing email engagement rates out of the water. Now, of course, there is a fine line between personal and invasive communication. You can’t just text random numbers you find (we’re looking at you, political campaigns). What you can do is get creative, entice a targeted group to contact you via WhatsApp, and be prepared to get personal.
