The Week in Social: Influencer value, Nielsen reporting and Snapchat

Influencers are outpacing digital ads

People trust people. The Global Web Index ranks a personal recommendation as the most powerful impact on purchase decisions, outperforming any other type of marketing. Smart brands and agencies have known this for years, thus we’re living in a groundswell of influencer marketing. Brands are putting more funding into influencers than their owned channels, and for good reason. Influencer campaigns have the potential to be more precise and generate better ROI than an owned campaign. However, it’s not a guaranteed win. Brands must evaluate where their audience is, what the audience is listening to, and which influencers can get them there in a relevant way.

Female Influencers for the win

While people trust people, women are earning more for that trust than men. Women may have to wait until 2041 for the gender pay gap to close. However, female influencers are already making 35% more than their male counterparts. The demand for lifestyle and beauty influencers with strong engagement creates a more valuable marketplace for women. As influencer marketing matures (and as audiences become more aware), the need for brands to pair with the right influencers will set the premium.

Nielsen shows owned vs organic on TV

Nielsen introduced their social content ratings for TV content early last year. The value of those ratings has clearly had an impact internally, as they have continued to put serious backing behind their reporting standards. This week, Nielsen announced the addition of a breakdown between owned and organic activity for social TV reporting. This updated metric will quickly spotlight TV content where viewers are generating word of mouth, compared to those shows and networks that are doing all their own talking.

Snapchat and video views

Every social network wants your video content. Brands give money and content to platforms, and platforms report on how many views that content received. But, what counts as a view, and how those views come about varies significantly from platform to platform. What’s left unanswered is whether those views were worth the money. Snap is working with research firm Moat to audit video content and answer a new question. What are the elements that make a video view worth a chargeable impression?

Snapchat’s unique Audience

While Facebook and its partners swipe up Snapchat’s most successful features, Snapchat’s audience remains platform-loyal. A report from App Annie indicates that using Facebook and Instagram to reach Snapchat users will be a rough road. On a daily basis, 35% of Snapchat users do not check Facebook, and 46% don’t check Instagram. YouTube and Twitter have even worse crossover for the average Snapchatter, making the ephemeral platform a required consideration in your social strategy.

Snapchat ad manager

While its users keep Snapchat viable, it’s the advertisers keep the lights on. To date, Snapchat ads have only been purchasable through a Snapchat sales team, or through a third-party tool that uses Snapchat’s API. To make this easier and increase revenue, Snap announced the first self-service ad manager. The dashboard will be made available to everyone in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Australia, and more. The initial offering covers SnapAds, but does not yet include geofilters or custom lenses. This is the first indication that Snapchat may be taking a page from Facebook and Twitter by streamlining and simplifying how advertisers operate campaigns on their network.

Facebook’s latest conversations

Facebook has struggled to wrangle how it presents what’s noteworthy when it comes to news. Whether to use a human-lead editorial approach, or a geo-algorithmic approach have both caused trouble in the Trending Topic area. Facebook has announced Latest Conversations, which will combine new and trending topics with the conversations that are taking place about those topics. Expect to see the feature when you search topics on Facebook mobile, and on other devices in the coming months.

The Social Derby

NBC partnered with Facebook Live to bring exclusive content from the Kentucky Derby this weekend. The planned content included a slow-tv style cast of sunrise at the track, through to a dedicated social media reporter in the owners’s box. Snapchat was also on scene with a Live Story, encouraging attendees to contribute to the channels at-the-scene coverage. NBC incorporated both into their live TV broadcast. Expect to see strategies and budgets behind social broadcasts continue to escalate.

Twitter TV

More than any other social platform, Twitter owns live news. Acting on that strength, and their desire to stay competitive in live video, Twitter has announced a 24/7 news stream in partnership with Bloomberg TV. Twitter revealed last week that they have big plans in live broadcasts and on-demand news at a global scale with a yet-unnamed service coming later this year.

The state of the industry

5 charts from Digiday outline what you need to know about digital advertising in 2017. Google took in nearly $80 billion in ad revenue in 2016, three times more than it’s nearest competitor Facebook at $26.9 billion. That rising tide lifted all boats, as both Snapchat and Twitter saw significant ad revenue growth in 2016. TV remains resilient, keeping 42% of all ad spending last year. But, it’s a mobile world, and digital advertising is quickly catching up with TV in terms of spending.

The Week in Social: Influencers, Snapchatters, Twitter TV