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Published by Brad Johnson on 01/02/2020

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-voice-marketing-funnel-alexa-flash-briefings/

Looking for a unique way to increase your social media engagement? Have you considered gamifying an Alexa flash briefing? In this article, you’ll discover how to create a voice marketing funnel that increases social media reach and engagement. Using Voice Technology to Improve Social Media Engagement Voice technology is becoming increasingly prevalent with the explosion […]

The post How to Create a Voice Marketing Funnel With Alexa Flash Briefings appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

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How will you utilize the advice from this post?

How will you utilize the advice from this post?

Published by Brad Johnson on 01/02/2020

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWritePractice/~3/a8PaOo4kPDA/

How do you tell a story? Not how do you construct a story, or how do you structure and plot a story? How do you tell a story?

When I think about storytelling at its most basic, I think about our earliest ancestors, sitting around a campfire, sharing stories about their lives, the adventures they’ve been part of, and the history of their people.

Narrative devices are about how you tell the story, and if you’re a writer, the method and perspective of your storytelling is something you must consider.

In this article, we’re going to talk about narrative devices, what they are, the different types found in the best books, plays, films, and serials, and how to use them to tell a powerful story.

Narrative Devices 9 Types With Examples

First, let’s start by defining what a narrative device is.

Narrative Devices: Definition

Narrative devices, also known as narrative framing devices, are the method which a story is narrated. Narrative devices involve who is narrating the story and how they’re narrating it. The narrative device becomes the guideposts by which you tell your story.

If that sounds abstract, it’s because it is! To really understand narrative devices, it’s best to learn from example. Skip ahead to the list of narrative devices below.

Narrative Devices Can Help You Win Literary Awards

Before we get into the examples, let me say this: if you’re interested in experimental writing, the cutting edge in fiction and the kind of work that can win you literary awards, narrative device has consistently been the realm in which to play.

Examples of award winning writers who have creatively used narrative device to win them fame and fortune include Stephen Chbosky, Joseph Conrad, Margaret Atwood, William Shakespeare, and even Geoffery Chaucer.

List of Narrative Devices

How will you tell your story? Find the list of narrative devices below:

Chronological Narrative

In a chronological narrative, the events follow chronological and sequential order. Flashbacks, memories, and dreams may also be used to give information and show events to the reader at the right moment, but the narrative soon returns to chronological order of events.

Chronological narrative far the most common narrative device, to the extent that it is the default of ninety-nine percent of novels, films, and memoirs.

Reverse Chronological Narrative

Reverse chronological narrative, the opposite of chronological narrative, is when the scenes follow the reverse chronological order. Unlike chronological narrative, the reverse is not a common device. The primary example is the Christopher Nolan film, Memento, which was hailed as one of the most important films of the early 21st century.

Real Time Narrative

Real time narrative is a version of chronological narrative in which each hour of the narrative corresponds to one hour of events within the story. This narrative device is only available to film (or theater). The primary example of this device is the television series 24.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

The narrator or specific characters (rarely all characters) can address the reader or viewer directly, sometimes referring to them as “dear reader.”

The origin of this device is theater, the fourth wall referring to an imaginary wall between the audience and the actors. By “breaking” the fourth wall, the actors speak directly to the audience.

While first found in theater, this device is also used in other forms, including novels, memoir, and film.

Examples of this device How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell (a novel before it was a film trilogy!), Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, William Goldman’s The Princess Bride (also a novel before it was a film), Puck’s final monologue in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and even Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

In my own writing, I used this device in my memoir Crowdsourcing Paris. Personally, I find addressing the reader directly lends a sense of intimacy and authenticity to the narrative.

This device may be combined or even enhanced by other devices.

Epistolic or Diary

Taking the idea of breaking the fourth wall further, the epistolic narrative device (epistolic, as in a letter) or diary narrative device allows the narrator to address the reader directly through a letter or diary format. This is one of the most popular narrative devices in literature, and it has been used in stories ranging from Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.

Another version of this is an oral history narrative device, in which an oral telling of the story replaces the letter or diary. William Faulkner used this method, notably in Absalom Absalom and The Sound and the Fury. Joseph Conrad also used it in Heart of Darkness, in which a seaman returning home from a voyage relates a story to his crew mates of an adventure gone wrong.

Documentary or Mockumentary

Originating in the reality TV format, the mockumentary narrative device assumes that there is a documentary crew following the characters as they go through the events of their (fictional) lives. This allows characters within the narrative to address the viewer directly through interspersed interviews and occasional moments where the characters look directly into the camera.

The Office is a good example of this device, as well as Waiting for Guffman and This Is Spinal Tap.

Like the epistolic narrative device but for film, this allows the characters to share their inner monologue directly with the audience during the events of the story, something that was not previously possible in film.

Later iterations of this style have removed the conceit of the documentary crew altogether, even as they keep the interviews, like later season of The Office and the show Modern Family.

Story Within a Story, also known as a Framing Story

A framing story is a narrative device in which there is another story within the story that is somehow related. This is device has been used by some of the best writers in history. William Shakespeare was especially fond of it, and included it in several of his plays, including Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Taming of the Shrew, among others.

Story Within a Story Within a Story, also known as a Framing Story Within a Framing Story

Taking the framing story a step further, Margaret Atwood’s Blind Assassin uses a story within a story within a story to further layer her plot.

Stream of Consciousness

Stream of consciousness is a narrative device and literary style in which the narrative is within the first person narrator’s consciousness. The reader is placed inside the thoughts and perceptions of the main character

Edgar Allen Poe flirted with this style as early as 1843, but it wasn’t until the modernist authors of the early 1900s that the style came into full form. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust all helped develop this style, and later, more popular authors like Ernest Hemingway made use of it.

Taking this style further, second person narratives like Jay McInerny’s Bright Lights, Big City and Audrey Chin’s As the Heartbones Break put the reader directly into the character’s persona, addressing the character as “you,” as if all of the character’s thoughts and perceptions are the readers.

Personally, I used stream of consciousness briefly in my memoir Crowdsourcing Paris in Chapter 10, in which I streamed through two months of writing in cafés.

This device can turn off some readers, something I learned from experience. Some readers loved chapter 10 of Crowdsourcing Paris. They said it was their favorite chapter, the moment that the book flowed the best. Others hated it, saying they found it confusing and hard to follow. For me, though, writing in stream of consciousness has always been thrilling, and one of the easiest ways to get into flow state.

All that’s to say, experiment with stream of consciousness, but be conscious about its affect on your readers.

Which Narrative Devices Will You Use to Write Your Book or Screenplay?

All novels use a narrative device, generally chronological narrative. But just because that is the most popular device doesn’t mean you have to use it to write your screenplay or novel.

What device would fit your story best? If you begin with that question, you should be prepared to make the best decision.

Which narrative device do you like best? Which will you use, or have you used, in your writing? Let us know in the comments.

PRACTICE

Let’s put narrative devices to practice using the following creative writing prompt:

An old man or woman tells the story of a mysterious adventure he or she had when he or she was young.

Choose one of the narrative devices above and write your story for fifteen minutes. When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section to get feedback. Then, make sure to give feedback to three other writers too.

Happy writing!

The post What Is a Narrative Device: 9 Types of Narrative Devices appeared first on The Write Practice.

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The Best Poems about Sympathy and Compassion

Published by Brad Johnson on 01/02/2020

For Wilfred Owen, ‘the poetry is in the pity’. Many poets, from war poets like Owen to poets writing about social and political issues, pity and sympathy have formed an important part of the poet’s emotional makeup. Here, we gather some of the greatest poems about sympathy, pity, compassion, and […]

The post The Best Poems about Sympathy and Compassion appeared first on Interesting Literature.

Continue readingThe Best Poems about Sympathy and Compassion

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Published by Brad Johnson on 01/02/2020

https://wordtothewise.com/2019/12/authentication/

Some notes on some of the different protocols used for authentication and authentication-adjacent things in email. Some of this is oral history, and some of it may be contradicted by later or more public historical revision.

SPF

Associates an email with a domain that takes responsibility for it.

Originally Sender Permitted From, now Sender Policy Framework. It allows a domain owner to announce which IP addresses mail that uses a particular return path to be sent from, and whether a recipient should accept mail sent from other IP addresses as legitimate.

It authenticates the domain in the return path, not any hostname that’s visible to the recipient.

Original intent

By allowing recipients to detect “probably forged” return paths, SPF allows recipient ISPs to avoid backscatter, by not sending asynchronous bounces in response to spam with forged return paths.

Secondarily, it provided a way to tie a message to domain name – the one hidden in the return path. Simple blocking of mail that violated SPF stopped a lot of spam, though not in a particularly sustainable way.

It allowed senders to take responsibility for mail they sent (authentication) and deny responsibility for mail they didn’t send (repudiation).

There’s a lot of history documented here.

Current usage

SPF on it’s own is primarily seen as a way for a domain to advertise which IP addresses it expects to send email from, and so to associate an email with a domain that takes responsibility for it. This allows the reputation of a mail stream to be monitored keyed on the associated domain.

It’s widely used for authentication, but use of SPF for repudiation (blocking mail that fails SPF with a -all result) has pretty much disappeared.

It’s also a major building block for DMARC. Having the return path and the domain in the visible From: header be “in the same domain” has additional benefits on it’s own as well as being part of the DMARC process.

Failure modes

SPF authentication is tied to the peer IP address of the SMTP transaction. That means that most sorts of forwarding – vanity domains, mailing lists etc. – will cause SPF to fail. There were attempts to mitigate that, by having the forwarder rewrite the return path (sender rewriting scheme) but as recipient ISPs moved to ignoring SPF failures as far as delivery decisions were concerned they didn’t make that much impact (but see DMARC and ARC).

Benefits and risks

An SPF pass is considered a positive sign, at least if the associated domain has some history. A missing or failed SPF check isn’t widely considered a negative (unless the sender has opted-in to it being used that way, by publishing DMARC records).

Most of the benefits of SPF require that you use a domain you control in your return path rather than one you don’t own, such as your ESP’s bounce domain. Most ESPs should be able to support that, but it will require delegating control to the ESP via adding DNS records to your domain.

It’s generally cheap to deploy for most senders and deploying it has no real risks, but management of it can get more complex when multiple mail streams are in use.

SenderID

Original intent

To be a “better” SPF, and one that authenticated based on the hostname visible to the recipient in the From: header. It had a new style policy record that started with “spf2.0/pra” rather than “v=spf1” but would fall back to the old-style v=spf1 records.

Current usage

Not much. The working group that was working on it gave up due to a range of disagreements, many around intellectual property claims from Microsoft.

Microsoft still appear to check for traditional SPF records based on the domain in From: header, which is technically a SenderID check, but they say they don’t look for spf2.0/ style SenderID records just v=spf1 style SPF records.

Benefits and risks

Based on anecdotal evidence publishing an SPF record for the domain in the visible From: can improve deliverability at Microsoft properties.

There’s not really any risk to publishing that SPF record, whether accurate or not, and the only costs are the maintenance overhead and the (valuable) space it’s DNS record takes up in the root of a zone.

Publishing a spf2.0/ style SenderID record is probably pointless.

DKIM

DKIM allows the sender of an email to attach a hostname to a message in a way that can be cryptographically validated by a recipient.

It authenticates the domain (often called the “d=”) in the DomainKey-Signature header, not any hostname that’s visible to the recipient.

Original intent

DKIM was intended to allow a sender to take responsibility for an email via an attached domain name, allowing recipients to track reputation via that domain name rather than via, e.g., sending IP addresses.

Current usage

DKIM is used much as it was intended, to associate a domain with an email.

It’s also a major building block for DMARC. Having the d= domain and the domain in the visible From: header be “in the same domain” has additional benefits on it’s own as well as being part of the DMARC process.

Failure modes

DKIM relies on a cryptographic signature of the body of the email and a – sender-chosen – subset of the email headers. If any of those are changed at all then the DKIM signature will be broken.

There are obvious ways that the content can be modified – mailing lists adding annotations to the subject line or footers to the body, for instance. But there are also a lot of subtle ways it can be modified. If mail is sent using an “unusual” structure – overly long lines, unwrapped headers, unusual content transfer encoding – then an intermediate mail system may “fix up” the mail in a way that doesn’t change the semantics of the message and which wouldn’t be visible changes to the recipient, but which will break the DKIM signature.

Benefits and risks

DKIM is much more robust against being broken in transit than SPF, and gives similar reputation advantages. It also allows participation in some feedback loops.

It is more complex to deploy, requiring emails to be cryptographically signed as they’re sent, but that’s well supported on current MTAs.

To get most of the advantages of DKIM you need to sign it with a domain you control rather than with a domain you don’t own, such as that of your ESP. Most ESPs should be able to support that, but it will require adding DNS records to your domain to delegate control to your ESP.

DMARC

DMARC allows a domain owner to state that all mail they send with their domain in the visible From: header will by authenticated by them (via SPF or DKIM). It’s for repudiation, not authentication. It effectively changes the semantics of SPF and DKIM from having them being a positive signal to not having them being a (very) negative one.

It also allows a domain owner to request notifications about mail that appears to be sent from their domain but which isn’t correctly authenticated. This is critical to being able to check that you really are authenticating (most of) your email, and to do so before you ask recipients to discard potentially legitimate mail that’s not authenticated. This is the critical feature that distinguishes DMARC from previous attempts at email repudiation such as SSP, ADSP and SPF.

Original intent

Brand protection and anti-phishing.

Current usage

Mostly brand protection. Anti-phishing is still given lip service, and DMARC does mitigate phishing from the most naive phishers, but it’s not particularly effective against an adversary who’s learned to adapt in the years since DMARC began to be widely deployed.

It has also changed some of the semantics of SPF and DKIM authentication. DMARC introduced the idea of “DMARC-aligned” authentication, meaning that the return path used by SPF or the d= used by DKIM is “in the same domain as” the email address in the From: field. Many ISPs will provide preferential treatment to email that is authenticated in a DMARC-aligned way, even if the domain is not publishing DMARC records.

Benefits and risks

Using DMARC in “reporting only” mode, either “p=none” or “p=quarantine pct=0” is an extremely useful tool for mapping out your mail flows and finding sources of legitimate email that aren’t correctly authenticated. This is useful in itself, as well as being an essential step towards DMARC enforcement. It will potentially generate a lot of data, though, and you’ll need to budget for infrastructure and personnel time to handle and analyze those reports. There are very few deliverability or usability risks in this mode, though there are a few mailing lists which will modify their behaviour in a potentially user-surprising way for users of your domain.

To deploy DMARC in enforcing mode effectively requires deploying SPF and DMARC everywhere as a prerequisite (while DMARC only requires that either SPF or DKIM passes the two authentication approaches are fragile and will occasionally break, so you want to have them both in place to minimize the risk of DMARC failing). It also requires ongoing management and monitoring to ensure that authentication hasn’t stopped working or a new mailstream has been deployed without it.

DMARC in enforcing mode is likely to reduce your deliverability rather than increase it, as anything unexpected in mail flow – whether it be a mistake on the senders part, a mistake by the receiver ISP or some sort of forwarding – will cause mail to be lost. In theory an ISP may be using the existence of enforcing DMARC as a positive signal but that’s probably far outweighed by the positives of the DKIM and SPF you had to put in place to get there. (There’re a lot of “soft” effects that DMARC might conceivable have indirectly on recipient behaviour that could have an impact, but until someone independent does real research on that speculation about it is a bit ineffable.)

For domains that are entirely dedicated to sending bulk mail, and which have no humans sending mail with normal mail clients the overhead of deploying DMARC can be tiny, especially if use of DMARC is baked in from the beginning. For more complex domains, or for retrofitting DMARC to a domain that is already in use the effort required to deploy DMARC while being sure that ongoing operations aren’t going to be impacted can be significant, potentially requiring months and person-years of work.

Enforcing DMARC is a prerequisite for BIMI.

ARC

Naive or uncaring use of DMARC breaks mailing lists and forwarding. ARC fixes some cases of that.

Original intent

ARC is Authenticated Received Chain. It allows mail forwarders to communicate whether the mail they’re forwarding was authenticated before they forwarded it.

Current usage

It’s standardized, it’s being deployed by receiver ISPs and forwarders. It seems to do what it says on the box.

Benefits and risks

It’s something that most people don’t have to care about, other than knowing that by making forwarding of authenticated mail more robust it mitigates some of the risks of DMARC.

BIMI

BIMI lets a sender have their logo displayed next to their email in the inbox at some email providers.

Original intent

To allow email senders to loot their companies marketing budget to pay for the costs of deploying DMARC.

No, really. But it’s probably a good thing.

BIMI allows whitelisted senders to display an image next to their email if their mail passes DMARC and they’re vetted in some manner. There’s not really any technical reason for BIMI to require DMARC (as opposed to DKIM and SPF), but it’s a good carrot that mailbox providers can use to encourage senders to deploy DMARC.

Current usage

Gradually being rolled out at some providers.

Benefits and risks

Data on whether having the brands logo displayed next to an email helps with recipient trust or avoiding phishing has been mixed. There’s no real downside, though, beyond the risks of deploying DMARC and the costs of being vetted.

If you already have DMARC in place you should consider BIMI. If you’re considering deploying DMARC you should probably include BIMI as part of that proposal.

STARTTLS

STARTTLS is an extension to SMTP that allows mailservers to exchange mail over an encrypted channel rather than as plain text.

Current usage

Opportunistic STARTTLS is widely supported by receiver ISPs. It’s used for transport security, protecting traffic from passive interception during delivery.

Benefits and risks

Much as most of the web is quietly moving from unencrypted http to TLS protected https the same is true of email. Supporting it when sending email is typically just a configuration setting, and there’s no real drawback from turning it on beyond a slight increase in CPU usage (which is unlikely to be a limiting factor for delivery rates anyway).

Google have stated that they believe in TLS everywhere, to the extent that they provide search benefits to sites that offer it. It’s safe to assume that they’d like to see TLS on their inbound email too.

Null MX

Not exactly authentication, rather a way to say “this domain doesn’t accept email”.

Original intent

Ideally when you’re sending email you’d look up the MX records of the recipient in DNS, then send to one of those. If there were no MX records you wouldn’t send the email. But for backwards compatibility with the internet of the 1980s you also have to check for an A record if there are no MX records.

If a domain doesn’t want email, but does want a webserver, they’ll publish an A records for the webserver and so senders will try and deliver mail there.

Null MX is a formal way to publish MX records saying “don’t even bother trying to send mail”.

Current usage

Universally supported, and many smarthosts will special-case it so as to not even try to send the mail and immediately suppress recipients at those domains without any retry attempts.

Prehistory

Repudiated Mail From, Mail Transmitter, RMX, DMP

These were all early attempts, starting in the late 80s but crystalizing in the early 90s, to identify legitimate return paths in email. They evolved into SPF.

DomainKeys, Identified Internet Mail

DomainKeys was developed by Yahoo, and Identified Internet Mail by Cisco to verify the source of email. Rather than having two competing standards the authors merged them to give DKIM.

DomainKeys had an outbound signing policy that added repudiation of the From: field, much as DMARC does to DKIM/SPF.

SSP, ASP and ADSP

DKIM removed DomainKeys outbound signing policy, avoiding tying all the operational problems with it from the DKIM standardization process by deferring it to a separate standard.

That standard was called variously SSP (Sender Signing Practices), ASP (Author Signing Practices) and ADSP (Author Domain Signing Practices). They were standardized in 2009, but abandoned due to being unused. The experience from that experiment informed DMARC’s development.

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How will you utilize the tips from this post?

How will you utilize the tips from this post?

Published by Brad Johnson on 01/01/2020

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OnlineMarketingSEOBlog/~3/YiOeYsdaQqI/

2019 The Year in Review Image

2019 The Year in Review Image

 

As we begin the new year of 2020 filled with fresh opportunity and promise, it’s a great time to rewind and learn from some of the biggest news items in B2B digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, and influencer marketing over the past year.

Let’s take a look back at what the year gone by has gifted us, from opportunities to challenges, and see what lessons it can teach us as we move ahead in 2020.

First Quarter 2019

During the first quarter of 2019 the digital marketing industry experienced a number of newsworthy shifts—from a big Google algorithm update in March to a host of new targeting and advertising features across several platforms.

The Digital Marketing Sights and Sounds of Q1

When It Comes to Digital Marketing Spend …

CMOs continued to diversify their budgets to adapt to new trends, taking advantage of opportunities, and overcoming challenges. According to Forrester, CMOs will spend nearly $150 billion by 2023 on search marketing, banner and outstream advertising, instream advertising, and email marketing in the United States. However:

  • Paid search was expected to lose share to shopping and voice search;
  • Programmatic banner buys were expected to retrench;
  • Email was expected to continue to woo B2B adopters.

 

via GIPHY

What Else?

  • As the B2B buyer’s journey  has become increasingly similar to that of its B2C counterpart, the B2B e-commerce market has expanded rapidly—and was expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. (Demand Gen Report)
  • B2B brands felt the pressure to take a stand on values, with study data showing that 8 in 10 business leaders would end a business relationship based on a vendor’s failure to address high-stakes communications like data security. (Marketing Dive)

When It Comes to Search Marketing …

While each year Google always draws plenty of news coverage, it’s big Q1 core update was a major attention grabber. According to Search Engine Journal, it was “one of the biggest updates in years,” focused not on any particular signal or niche, but on making substatial overall improvements.

Mobile web traffic dominated the search landscape, with Google releasing its first mobile-first indexing update and indicating that mobile-first will be an ongoing focus.

Beyond the search implications, mobile continues to be essential when it comes to connecting and creating amazing experiences. According to  Adobe’s* survey of 1,000 adult smartphone owners:

  • 89% of respondents agreed strongly that they need a device while on the go, while one-fifth of respondents said that they cannot live without their devices.
  • 50% of respondents said the ad offers they receive are just “OK.”
  • Less than 20% of respondents said the offers they receive are relevant.

This trend showed that creating quality experiences — across platforms and devices — has continued to grow in importance, even for B2B marketers, and is not just a passing fad.

[bctt tweet="Creating quality experiences—across platforms and devices—is only growing in importance, even for B2B marketers. @CaitlinMBurgess" username="toprank"]

When It Comes to Content Marketing …

Content continued to be the beating heart of digital marketing strategies. And during Q1 Backlinko, with the help of their data partner BuzzSumo, analyzed 912 million blog posts to understand the state of content marketing, finding:

  • Long-form content got an average of 77.2% more links than short articles.
  • When it comes to social shares, longer content outperformed short blog posts. However, for articles that exceed 2,000 words, return diminishes.
  • Question headlines got 23.3% more social shares than headlines that don’t end with a question mark.
  • “Why” and “what” posts, as well as infographics, received 25.8% more links compared to videos and “How-to” posts.

This served to reinforce the core principle of our approach to content marketing: Striving to be the best answer.

[bctt tweet="Your customers, prospects, and target audience are searching for answers—the best answers. This requires a thoughtful narrative, not just all the words. @CaitlinMBurgess" username="toprank"]

Read more on this topic:

When It Comes to Social Media …

Facebook confirmed in Q1 that it was testing a new feature that would let Pages archive and share Stories.

This allowed users to help expand the organic reach of a brand’s content beyond its followers, according to Search Engine Land.

Read more on this topic:

When It Comes to Influencer Marketing …

Adoption of B2B influencer marketing continued to rise in Q1 of 2019. From enhancing trust and credibility to reaching new audiences, more B2B brands began to understand the many benefits of forming mutually-beneficial partnerships with influential voices.

During Q1 TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden outlined five B2B influencer marketing trends marketers need to pay attention to — trends that largely proved to ring true throughout the year, and which will likely also continue now that 2020 has begun:

  • Micro and Macro Influencers. A lot of marketing press has emphasized micro or even “nano” influencers over celebrities. There’s merit to that. But successful programs map the right “big and small” influencers to the right content within the buying journey.
  • Centralizing Influencer Operations. Disparate processes and lack of coordination can create real problems. But centralizing influencer marketing operations can create opportunities across organizations.
  • Always-On Influencer Engagement. Early on, many B2B brands are campaign-focused when working with influencers. But more advanced marketers and brands are focused on developing relationships and fostering advocacy with influencer partners on an ongoing basis.
  • Focus on Quality vs. Quantity Metrics. From influencer identification to brand vs. popularity, there’s a big shift happening in the way qualitative metrics are used.
  • Influencer Marketing Software Investment. As organizations begin to implement influencer marketing initiatives across departments and businesses, coordination in identification, engagement, and measurement needs to be a priority. And specialized platforms can help.

When It Comes to The TopRank Marketing Team …

Q1 was a busy time for as,  with some of the team’s highlights being:

Q1 also saw the addition of a special new member to our team: Laser Bear.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMHSu-SYo8E[/embed]

Get to know him more by checking out Lee’s post dedicated to “Breaking Free of Boring B2B.”

Second Quarter 2019

The second quarter of 2019 was filled with many important B2B marketing changes and several unexpected twists and turns that combined to affect how the industry moved forward.

We’re always working to bring you the most relevant B2B marketing news, including weekly industry news videos from Tiffani Allen and Joshua Nite here on our blog and on our TopRank Marketing YouTube channel, so if you haven’t yet tuned in, be sure to make it a part of your 2020 B2B marketing efforts.

The Digital Marketing Sights and Sounds of Q2

When It Comes to Digital Marketing Spending …

Forecasts from the quarter showed that global digital advertising spending was expected to climb over the next four years, including a prediction from Juniper Research that spending will reach $520 billion by 2023, and that:

  • Spending will increase significantly from 2019’s $294 billion
  • Amazon’s share is projected to hit 8% — up from 2018’s 3%
  • Google’s digital ad revenue is expected to top $230 billion by 2023

via GIPHY

What Else?

    • 63% of B2B companies planned to raise spending on email marketing, with top goals being increased engagement, conversion, and lead generation, according to survey data released during Q2. (MediaPost)
    • Digital video advertising spend has seen continued growth according to IAB study data, with the average survey advertiser projected to spend $18 million in 2019, up from 2018’s $14.2 million. (Adweek)
    •  Q2 Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report showed that 2018 was the first year U.S. digital advertising earnings topped the $100 billion mark, hitting $107.5 billion, up from 2017’s $88.3 billion, led primarily by the strength of mobile and video. Users also spent 22% more time on social media properties in 2018 than during 2017, the report detailed. (Adweek)
    • Social media advertising spending has risen 27% year-over-year, topped by a 44% increase for video ads, with accompanying impressions also up 20%. (ClickZ)
    • The highly-anticipated Internet Trends report for 2019 was released at the end of Q2, including digital spending data of interest to digital marketers, and we took an in-depth look at the report during the quarter.

Meeker Media Time

  • Digital ad sales were expected to grow by 14% in 2019, according to additional forecast data. (AdAge)

Read more on this topic:

When It Comes to Search Marketing …

Q2 2019 saw Google launch a search update focused on domain diversity, by having fewer first-page results that come from the same domain, and the search giant also rolled out several other changes including:

via GIPHY

What Else?

  • Q2 also saw Google rolling out automatic transcription to certain podcasts on its Google Podcasts app. (Search Engine Land)
  • Google’s annual Q2 Marketing Live event saw the firm announce expanded mobile-first native ads that display in a more visually-rich view across multiple Google feed environments, along with mobile-only gallery ads and several other features of interest to online marketers. (Search Engine Land)
  • 20% of Android Google App searches came from voice, and SEMrush looked at ranking factors including the importance of first-page placement and other facets of voice search. (SEMrush)

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When It Comes to Content Marketing …

The end of Q2 saw content marketers get new data on the optimal times for publishing content on various social media platforms. Sprout Social updated its best-times-to-post study, showing that:

  • Facebook content posted on Wednesdays from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. has the greatest engagement
  • Instagram also shows Wednesday as the top day, along with Fridays between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
  • Twitter posts have the greatest success when made on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
  • *LinkedIn posts were seen to get the highest engagement on Wednesdays between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

via GIPHY

What Else?

  • Instagram started offering a branded content ad option that allowed organic branded content feed posts from creators. The new ads contained “Paid Partnership,” and were part of Instagram’s efforts at increased ad transparency. (Adweek)
  • Q2 saw the release of Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, showing that 75% of consumers now value trust over trendiness, along with a wide swatch of other digital marketing insights. (AdAge)

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When It Comes to Social Media …

Several Q2 2019 reports pointed to social media usage remaining mostly unchanged, while the way people use social platforms shifted, offering digital marketers new opportunities as well as some additional new hurdles to conquer.

  • Instagram was the only major social media platform to see an significant increase in usage among U.S. adults since early 2018 according to Q2 Pew Research survey data. (Pew Research Center)
  • The Q2 Edison Research and Triton Digital Social Habit study showed largely unchanged social media usage over the past four years. (Convince and Convert)
  • 2019 was forecast to be the first year during which more people — 51.7% — use social media platforms from mobile devices than from computers. (eMarketer)

via GIPHY

What Else?

  • Facebook advertisers and users of the firm’s Business Manager platform got new layout changes and features, including streamlined Ads Manager navigation and tools to improve new client on-boarding. (Marketing Land)
  • LinkedIn saw revenue growth of 27% for FY19 Q3, a 24% increase in on-platform sessions, and record engagement and job posting levels. (Social Media Today)
  • U.S. adults were using Instagram more than ever, at an average of 27 minutes daily, and expected to increase into 2020, while Facebook and Snapchat both saw drops in the average number of minutes of use per day. (eMarketer)

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When It Comes to Influencer Marketing …

Implementation of B2B influencer marketing continued to expand during Q2 2019, when our CEO Lee Odden examined this growth and shared 7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020, including:

  • Increased use of AI
  • Democratized Influence
  • Brandividal Media
  • More Engaging Content Formats
  • Influencer Tech Integration with other Martech
  • Consumerization of B2B Influencers and Content
  • Influencer Experience Management

What Else?

  • Influencer marketing saw success in numerous industries. (MarTech Advisor)
  • Influencer marketing was seen as poised to top the $10 billion mark by 2022, including a 1,500% increase in searches for information about influencer marketing over the past three years. (Social Media Today)
  • Instagram first tested the elimination of likes and follower counts as a possible method for driving more focus to content, in a trend that continued throughout 2019 and which is becoming the new normal in 2020 for some platforms. (Marketing Land)

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When It Comes to The TopRank Marketing Team …

Some of our team’s highlights in the press during Q2 included:

  • Marketing Influencers: Our 2019 Top 30 (ExoB2B)
  • Modern Marketing Influencer Series: Key Ingredients of a Great Content Marketing Strategy for 2019 (Oracle Modern Marketing Blog) (client)
  • An Undervalued Work Management Strategy: Listening (Workfront)
  • B2B Lead Generation Ideas: A Full-course Content Planning Dinner (DivvyHQ)
  • Learn How To Solve The Experience Equation With The Right Technology And The Right Strategy (Digitalist Magazine)
  • Influencer Marketing Trends for 2019 – A live interview with TopRank’s Lee Odden (Rival IQ)
  • A Sophisticated Marketer’s Perspective: Lee Odden on Ruling the Content Kingdom (LinkedIn)

Third  & Fourth Quarters of 2019

Q3 and Q4 2019 were also filled with plenty of significant B2B marketing changes, with some of the quarter’s key shifts shown below.

The Digital Marketing Sights and Sounds of Q3 & Q4

When It Comes to Digital Marketing Spending …

Forecasts from the third quarter showed that global digital advertising spending was expected to continue to rise, and in the U.S. alone digital ad spending grew to $28.4 billion for the first quarter, up 18 percent year-over-year. (ClickZ)

IAB 2019 Ad Spend Chart Image

What Else?

    • Digital advertising spending was up nearly 20 percent during the quarter. (Broadcasting & Cable)
    • Digital advertising expenditures in the U.S. increased by 18 percent. (ClickZ)
    • By 2021 global digital advertising spending was predicted to increase by 47 percent from 2019, with ad expenditure growth up by 5.3 percent. (MarketingProfs)
    • Amazon cut into Google’s advertising market share, garnering ad revenue growth of 53 percent for sponsored brands and 102 percent for sponsored products. (MediaPost)
    • Revenues from advertising on social media and messaging platforms climbed 26.2 percent year-over-year. (Mobile Marketing Magazine)
    • 73 percent of B2B senior-level executives said that they used more sources when researching and evaluating purchases than they did last year. (MarketingCharts)
    • By 2021 podcast advertising was expected to top $1 billion in annual revenue, IAB predicted. (The Verge)
    • 63% of B2B companies planned to moderately raise spending on email marketing, with top goals being increased engagement, conversion, and lead generation. (MediaPost)

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When It Comes to Search Marketing …

Q3 2019 saw the release of data showing that for the first time most Google searches don’t yield subsequent clicks, with 50.33 percent ending on the search giant’s result page, and 45.25 percent of searches resulting in organic clicks and 4.42 percent in paid advertisement clicks. (SparkToro)

2019 September 20 MarketingCharts Chart

What Else?

  • Google gave content creators the ability to incorporate multiple thumbnail images from the same video, which will all appear in search results linked to various spots within a video. (TechCrunch)
  • Audience targeting was the top search marketing technology affecting search engine marketing strategy — at 86 percent, audience targeting topped keywords, which came in at 83 percent, and re-marketing, which had 76 percent. (MarketingCharts)
  • Google rolled out playable podcast episodes that appear directly in search results. (Engadget)
  • Facebook began offering more advertisers options for inserting ads within search results on its platform. (Search Engine Journal)

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When It Comes to Content Marketing …

During the third quarter of 2019 report data showed that B2B marketers saw in-person events, content marketing, traditional e-mail, and paid social as the most effective B2B marketing channels. (MarketingCharts)

2019 August 16 Marketing Charts Chart

What Else?

  • Facebook began testing the elimination of “like” counts in news-feed posts. (TechCrunch)
  • Among senior B2B marketers, a sizable 82 percent viewed content as important for achieving marketing goals. (ClickZ)
  • 80 percent of B2B buyers expected more B2C-like experiences. (Webbiquity)
  • B2B marketers saw their websites as an effective method for building awareness, however the sites often fail to offer compelling content and directly answer top questions, according to Q3 research from Forrester. (MediaPost)

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When It Comes to Social Media …

Q3 and Q4 saw a number of reports that detailed the health of social media and how marketers, brands, and consumers have used various platforms.

Liking posts topped a Q3 list of how people interact with brands on social media platforms, at 51 percent, followed by 31 percent who leave reviews, while millennials were more likely to purchase due to social ads. (Social Media Today)

2019 August 9 Marketing Charts Chart

What Else?

  • Consumer conversations about brands shared very little crossover from social media listening and offline discussion. (Marketing Land)
  • 60 percent of regular emoji users like brands using emojis that match their own personality, and some 51 percent are more likely to comment on social media posts from brands that use emojis. (MarketingCharts)
  • 56 percent of Gen X consumers find too much advertising on social platforms. (eMarketer)

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When It Comes to Influencer Marketing …

B2B influencer marketing continued its growth during Q3 and Q4, and influencer advertisements were seen to have generated 277 percent more emotional intensity and 87 percent more memory encoding than traditional television ads. (eMarketer)

2019 July 12 SmallBizGenius Chart

What Else?

  • Global spending for influencer marketing was predicted to top $5 billion and could reach as high as $10 billion over the next two years. (Social Media Today)
  • Influencer marketing spending in the U.S. and Canada saw 83 percent year-over-year growth. (The Drum)
  • 70 percent of U.S. consumers who use social media platforms and follow at least one influencer said that they trust the opinions of influencers at least as much as those of their own friends, with 78 percent trusting influencer opinions over those presented in traditional digital ads. (MediaPost)
  • Micro and niche-influencers were forging stronger target audience connections and boosting long-term loyalty. (eMarketer)

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When It Comes to The TopRank Marketing Team …

Q3 and Q4 saw the team at TopRank Marketing continuing a busy and productive year, with some press highlights during this time including:

  • Lee Odden: “B2B Doesn’t Have To Mean Boring To Boring” [Podcast] (B2B Marketing Exchange)
  • Why Experience Matters [Video] (The New Economy)
  • Eight Colors That Will Brightly Grow Your Personal Brand (Forbes)
  • What Customer Experience Management Means For Today’s Business Ecosystem [Video] (Adobe Experience Cloud)
  • How To Build A B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy For 2020 (Demand Gen Report)
  • How to Build a B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy for 2020 [Infographic] (Social Media Today)
  • The Stranger Things In B2B Marketing: 5 Ways to Avoid The Upside-Down of ABM (Engagio)
  • Augmented And Virtual Reality: The Latest Engagement Drivers In B2B Marketing (Demand Gen Report)
  • The Guide to B2B Influencer Marketing for CMOs [Infographic] (Social Media Today)
  • A Shark’s Perspective – Episode 147 – Lee Odden [Podcast] (A Shark’s Perspective)
  • 5 Crucial Ingredients for a Tremendous Content Marketing Strategy [Infographic] (Social Media Today)
  • 5 Easy Ways Your Brand Can Use Twitter Video for More Engagement (Social Report)
  • The Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020 [Infographic] (Social Media Today)

Goodbye, 2019. Hello and Welcome, 2020.

B2B marketers, we hope that your 2020 is filled to the brim with digital marketing success and innovation, and as a bonus list to help you get the most of the year, here are the top 25 posts we’ve published during that past year, each offering plenty of insight and numerous industry innovators to learn from and follow going forward:

  1. The Top 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers in 2019 by Lane R. Ellis
  2. BIGLIST of 50 Top Marketing Blogs for 2019 – Martech Edition by Lee Odden
  3. 7 Top B2B Influencer Marketing Trends for 2020 by Lee Odden
  4. Explore, Experience, Engage: 6 Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2019 by Lee Odden
  5. Top Marketing Resources for CMOs in 2019 by Lee Odden
  6. Over 50 Top Social Media Marketing Blogs by Lee Odden
  7. Dare to Be Different: 5 Fresh Examples of Innovative B2B Content Marketing by Lane R. Ellis
  8. 10 Free Online Courses to Optimize Your Marketing Skills by Lane R. Ellis
  9. Take 2019 By Storm: Get Inspired By These 11 Content Marketing Quotes by Anne Leuman
  10. 50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019 #CMWorld by Lane R. Ellis
  11. Setting Your Sights on 2020: How to Brew a Forward-Thinking Marketing Strategy by Elizabeth Williams
  12. LinkedIn’s List of 24 B2B Marketers You Need to Know by Lane R. Ellis
  13. 5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences by Lane R. Ellis
  14. B2B Marketing Examples: 7 Bold Examples of Interactive B2B Content by Joshua Nite
  15. The B2B Marketing Funnel is Dead: Say Hello to the Trust Funnel by Nick Nelson
  16. Social Media Secrets: 5 Under-the-Radar LinkedIn Features for Marketers by Nick Nelson
  17. 50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, Experts and Speakers in 2019 by Lee Odden
  18. Around the World in 50 Captivating Digital Marketing Statistics by Lane R. Ellis
  19. 5 Content Promotion Tactics To Make You (Almost) Famous by Lane R. Ellis
  20. 5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action by Lane R. Ellis
  21. Key B2B Takeaways From the 2019 Internet Trends Report by Lane R. Ellis
  22. 20 Podcasts To Elevate Your B2B Marketing by Lane R. Ellis
  23. Break Free of Boring B2B with Interactive Influencer Content by Lee Odden
  24. 80+ New Social Media Marketing Statistics for B2B Marketers by Lane R. Ellis
  25. Wow Your Crowd: How Content Marketers Can Create Powerful Audience Connections by Nick Nelson

2020 sees an increasingly tricky and quickly-changing landscape for marketers, requiring expertise, dedication, and time — leading some to hire a professional B2B marketing agency like TopRank Marketing, which had the honor of being named by Forrester as the only B2B marketing agency offering influencer marketing as a top capability in its “B2B Marketing Agencies, North America, Q1 2019” report.”

*Disclosure: LinkedIn and Adobe are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post B2B Marketing In 2019 — The Year In Review appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

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Published by Brad Johnson on 01/01/2020

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How long should your emails be? Do people read long emails? Do short emails convert better? These questions have been debated for a long time. My guest has the data and this is one question she answers for us. There’s nothing better than getting another shot at a conversion. Sometimes, people aren’t ready to buy. […]

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