Facebook Adds Reactions: What Marketers Need To Know

Last month, Mark Zuckerberg hosted a Q&A from Facebook headquarters. During the event, he commented on many members want to be able to react to posts with more than a simple ‘Like’. Zuck shared that Facebook is working on adding functionality to allow users to indicate a greater range of emotional connection with posts (most news sources incorrectly reported that Mark had said a ‘Dislike’ button was on the way; apparently they didn’t bother to listen to his comments as he never said this). And now it’s here.

Yesterday, Facebook announced that they’ve begun testing new Reactions. These Reactions, shown above, give users a better way to show how they really feel about a post. Now they can show the sadness a post about your poor health brings or how angry people that litter make them. They can also celebrate things they love seeing. No longer will they have to comment with, “I wish I could like this twice!” Instead, they can use the ‘Wow’ or ‘Love’ reactions.

As with all changes to Facebook, they will likely have an impact on digital marketers. Here’s what you need to know.

Report: How Digital Marketers Allocate Their Time

How you spend your time can greatly impact the success or failure of your marketing campaigns. While many tasks require more time commitment than others, neglecting to give certain stages their proper attention can have a negative impact on the overall success your campaign sees.

A recent report from Econsultancy and Oracle Marketing Cloud looked at where marketers are spending their time, along with their top 3 priorities in terms of time spent. What they found is interesting and may show where some have their priorities a bit mixed up.

Study: The Top 5 Brand Research Channels

Consumers are becoming better informed. Thanks to the internet, there’s a huge wealth of information about every product and brand just a couple clicks away. We use to have to rely on the recommendations of friends and coworkers, magazines like Consumer Reports, or simply buying it and hoping for the best. Now we find countless sources to tell us everything we want to know while still in the early inquiry stage.

The sources people turn to for this information are very important. They can mean the difference between a product becoming the must-buy product or fizzling and being forgotten. For marketers, making sure we’re presenting the best in these places can help mean your brand/product is on everyone’s wish list, rather than perused and passed over. Here are the top 5 ways people research brands and products when they’re looking to buy.

5 Things I Loved About Working Remotely

For a number of years I had the opportunity to work remotely. It was a wonderful experience that I really miss. There are countless advantages for a company to allow their employees to work remote. And there are so many for the worker too. During my time, I found so many reasons to love it. Here are just a couple of them.

Online Ads Suck. But What If They Went Away?

No one loves seeing advertising online (well other than those few and far-between campaigns that really make us laugh). To stop their intrusion on our viewing, ad-blocking software has become increasingly popular. A new report from Adobe and one of several startups helping publishers fight ad blocking found that 198 million people globally are now blocking ads, up 41% from 2014. It’s obvious that ads are an annoyance to many. But what if we blocked them all? What might happen to the web as we know it?

The Value Of Sharing What You’re Working On

Every other week, my entire company meets. During this 2 hours on a Friday, various team members present on a wide range of topics. Each time another team presents what they’re working on, or what they’ve just completed, I find both numerous questions (chances to learn form them) and I also see many opportunities.

While most aren’t in the habit of always sharing what they’re doing, I see that doing so would provide countless opportunities to offer help to others and share expertise and insights across the organization. Here’s how it can benefit your company.

Gmail’s Latest Change Means You Need To Up Your Email Game

Last week, Gmail adds a new Block feature. It allows users to easily block messages from a sender within the email service. All future emails from that sender will be sent to the spam folder. They’ve also added the easy unsubscribe to their Android app.

While this change may not seem like a big deal, it could have a big impact on your email marketing success. Here’s why.

Targeting Techniques For Paid Social Success

Paid social is awesome. While many will balk at the idea of paying to get your message seen, the ability of paid social to reach people outside your own network, and target the specific people you’re looking for, can’t be matched with organic alone. Far from saying organic doesn’t matter, paid offers a HUGE new audience for your social solicitation.

One of the great advantages that paid offers over organic is the ability to target. Rather than simply show your message to all of your followers, targeting options allow you to pick who sees your post based on numerous factors. You can target interests such as cooking, boating, or technology. Targeting allows you to pick age groups, sex, geographic location and more. Remarketing even allows you to show ads to people that have visited your website in the past, in order to follow up with more information that may lead them to return or to a sale.

There are countless ways you can use targeting to get your social posts in front of the people you want. Today, we’ll take a look at some of the fun ways you can use targeting to hit the nail on the head.