Our data sources, they're rapidly increasing.


MozCon 2015 - 13 - Digital Analytics: People, Process, Platform with Adam Singer

Yesterday, Marty talked about a lot of this.


He talked about audience data, which


is rented data from Facebook, from Axiom,


from the DoubleClick network, all that good stuff.


But our data sources are rapidly increasing.


We have website data, mobile app data, advertising data, CRM


data.


Google Analytics, we collect a lot of data.


We collect everything now on demographics data


to AdWords data, technology data, all this good stuff,


which you guys know.


But until now, not everything.


So GA was historically a web analytics tool.


But we want to be a digital analytics tool.


And we're already there with the launch of Universal Analytics.


If you can connect it to the internet,


you can measure it in Google Analytics.


One of our certified partners actually


wanted to answer an interesting data-driven question.


They wanted to know if more caffeine intake, more coffee


intake from their team members would


result in greater productivity.


So they plugged their employee coffee maker


into Google Analytics, which you could scan with a badge,


which their team members did whenever they got coffee.


And then they also plugged Basecamp into Google Analytics


whenever anyone did something in Basecamp that sent a hit.


And so they actually found out that more caffeine intake did


correlate with more productivity.


So I share that example just because you can measure it


if you can plug it into the internet.


And so a question you might want to ask


is, do sales for beach vacations increase on rainy days?


We actually have one of our power users,


Twitty is a vacation rental home company on the East Coast


that sells, or they rent like $5,000 a week vacation homes.


And so that's a great analysis question


you might want to ask that was previously hard to measure.


And so we've launched something called Data Import, where


you can bring pretty much anything you want into Google


Analytics, user data, campaign data, content data, refund


data, cost data, custom data, whatever data you want,


not PII, not personally identifiable information.


But anything else can be brought into Analytics.


And so yes, you can bring weather data


into GA via one of the many weather apps.


And you could segment based on weather


and see if more people buy vacation homes on a rainy day.


Ultimately, the goal with all this,


bringing all your data together is great.


And being able to segment on all these different things


and do even like BI level data intelligence in GA is awesome.


But the goal is to provide a user centric view.


You've heard a lot this morning about mobile.


And I almost want people to stop thinking


about desktop and mobile and social and all this stuff


and just think about your users.


And if you can start thinking about it that way


and doing what's right for them, you'll


be a lot more successful at your marketing.


And so that's why we launched Universal Analytics.


The goal is to connect the dots on multiple touch points,


whether it's mobile, whether it's a laptop,


whether it's in-store purchases.


We have one of our users is testing, actually measuring


store traffic around their store in GA,


which is kind of interesting.


But bringing all this data together is really important.


So you can do great analysis.


So across screens, sequential screening is really important.


If, for example, you are a company that sells rail passes,


if you're, say, EuroRail or Amtrak,


you would want to look at are people looking up,


booking a ticket somewhere or an airline


on their mobile device and then later converting on a desktop.


That is a path that we see quite frequently


with a lot of our travel users.


And so if users are moving between devices,


how are you going to measure that?


You want to make sure that you are structured to measure that.


And just a couple questions.


UMass, I kind of went back into these.


I think the most important one is the overlap.


Are people going from mobile to desktop?


What do those paths look like?


And think about that for your users.


And if you're not measuring that today, start measuring it.


You might even want to get some qualitative data as well


as the quantitative.


So we've launched a couple of tools in GA to help out.


One is we have our cross-device reports in Analytics.


These are really cool.


These will let you see what the overlap is


on different devices so you can understand what experience


your users are having.


And again, if you look at the latest venture capital


funded companies or you look at a lot of just the companies


that are doing really well or hot right now,


they have just a great logged in experience across devices.


I know Reddit's going through a lot of drama right now,


but I'm an eight year editor.


I'm still a fan of the service.


And they have such a great experience on mobile,


on desktop, on everywhere I go.


And it's just such a great experience.


I'm also an E-Trade user.


I don't know if you guys trade or invest,


but that's a fun thing to do if you're in digital marketing.


You're good at analysis.


You should get involved.


And they have a great experience on their app on desktop.


And they have all sorts of awesome data on me.


I've talked to them about their app and a couple of things


they could change.


But think about how you can have that logged in experience that's


consistently great across devices.


Yesterday, a lot of people were talking about attribution.


Obviously, we have attribution in Google Analytics.


And Adobe has this in their products as well.


So you're probably already doing attribution.


We recently launched a data driven attribution


in our premium product.


And this is cool because this will give you


an easy button for attribution.


I know a lot of people don't have this solved yet.


Well, we assign our data scientists to the problem


of helping understand, well, hey,


if we added display to this path,


could we increase the likelihood of purchase?


And you might find you can get a percent increase.


And that's a pretty darn high increase


when you think about it if you're running $5, $10 million


spends.


I'll talk a little bit about mobile briefly.


But you guys were probably beaten over the head with this.


But we check our devices 150 times a day on average.


150 times, amateurs.


We're probably at like 500, right?


Mobile also far eclipses all other devices.


I don't think this is that surprising.


A lot of people like to share graphs like this


about the acceleration of mobile.


But it makes sense.


I mean, we're buying more mobile devices.


We lose them.


We're frequently replacing them.


You don't replace your laptop or desktop as much.


Rand said this yesterday too, I think.


And I'll reiterate, desktop isn't going away


because desktop and laptops and workstations, that's


where makers create things.


And mobile is really just consumption.


It's just we're getting information on the go.


So I think the people that like to pit one against the other


are generally doing so because they've made some investments


or they have an agenda with pushing mobile.


But your users are multi-screen.


And there will be over 3 billion internet users


by the end of 2015, many of which will only use the mobile


web, especially in developing countries.


So if you're an international business,


you want to think about is the platform that you have


for analytics able to measure mobile in a really strong way.


Mobile is also spurring new types of conversions.


And so you probably have web conversions nailed down.


If you don't, you need to leave Moscon right now


and have your web conversion set up.


I'm guessing everyone has that.


But on mobile, there's different conversions


like click to call, in-store from apps, cross device,


all this good stuff.


So whatever app analytics tool you're using,


whether it's R tool or R tool in combination with something


like App Annie, you want to make sure


that you have conversions set up.


Integrated testing.


Kara talked a lot about this yesterday.


So I'm going to skip that slide.


Targeting.


Marty talked quite a bit about targeting.


But you want to make sure that whatever platform you're using


is able to test and target because it's


annoying when you have your data somewhere


and you're not able to get it out.


And that's why we have lots of APIs in GA


and we let you do what you want with your data


to get it into the platforms you need.


Just a couple cool uses because I've got about a minute left.


We now have a plug-in to be able to bring GA data out


into Google Sheets really easily.


It's so easy.


My mother can do it.


Yes, I had my mother sit down and use our connector


to bring data into Google Sheets.


So she can do it.


All of you guys can do it.


And that's pretty cool.


There's all sorts of apps in our app gallery


to beautify your data.


This visually has an app where you


can turn your GA data into an infographic, which


is kind of cool.


We also have connectors with Tableau with,


is anyone still using Excel in here?


Probably not.


No more Excel, right?


We're all past that.


You can bring your data into Tableau, Excel,


all that good stuff.


And of course, in GA, we now have custom dashboards,


segments, and reports you can share with your team


and stakeholders.


But whatever platform you're using,


make sure you can get your data out,


because you may want to do different things with it.


And one other thing we've done our work for you


in the Solutions Gallery.


So I've got 10 seconds left.


That's awesome.


Did we fill out 50 minutes?


Good.


Here's what's really wrong with him.


So I like to use House at the end of the presentation.


And then some resources for you guys.


So you can tweet at me anytime, at Adam Singer.


I'm happy to answer questions.


Our mook is here.


I would definitely say you should take our courses.


And feel free to chat with me after this.


I'm happy to help out with any GA issues or just measurement


issues that you guys have.


All right, thank you, Adam.


So we have developer resources on the GA website


that list guides for offline data


for using custom dimensions and bringing basically whatever


data sources you want.


We also have some easy connectors


for bringing in data from certain sources.


So check out the developer section of the Google Analytics


website.


I don't want to go through all the steps


now, because it's fairly technical.


But hopefully we outline that.


We also have a developer relations team


that helps out businesses like you guys that


might have some technical questions with how


to bring in a custom dimension if you're having any problems.


So feel free to send me a ping.


I'm always happy to connect you with them.


And the other area is the GA forms


if you're having issues with a developer-specific issue


like bringing data in.


OK, we're going to put you on the spot here for a second.


We had one tweet that has been retweeted about 15 times


from Brooke McClary.


I hope Adam Singer talks about those annoying spam


refers in Analytics.


What's going on with spam refers?


We totally hear you.


I think Jeff Sauer is somewhere in the room.


Where's Jeff?


Jeff is here.


Yes.


Awesome.


So Jeff actually has emailed my team a number of times on that.


We've been monitoring it for a while.


We're very aware of the issue.


It is being worked on, obviously.


We want to remove that data as soon as possible.


So I know it's annoying.


Just be a little bit more patient with us.


But we're very aware of it.


Thank you for bringing that up.


OK.


So a solution is on the way.


And it's going to come from the Google Analytics team.


In the meantime, you can use a filter


if it's really annoying you.


But we hear you.


It is a PITA.


And so that will get solved at the universal level.


Final question for you.


Maz wants to know who's better looking, you or Avinash?


Oh, Avinash.


Yes.


All right.


Adam Singer, thank you very much.


How to Model the Demand Distribution Curve of Your Niche - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Let's kick off 2016 with a little bit of discussion about something higher level, and that is


the demand distribution curve of your particular niche when it comes to content, social media,


and SEO, that is search demand for keywords.


What I think we can do here, and what I've seen in the past, is that folks who understand


their distribution of demand, what people want from them, where in the process they


want it, have this unique advantage because they can apply tactics that fit with their


niche and with their customers' needs so much better than folks who try blasting these marketing


tactics that are made for places where there's heavy demand all throughout the demand curve


or there's a long tail of demand.


They blast these tactics at distribution curves where they don't make sense.


And I think that probably contributes to a lot of the frustration that marketers see


in why their tactics, their strategies don't work.


So let me suggest a process for you.


First off, try analyzing the keyword demand distribution in your space.


This sounds fancy, it's not fancy at all.


Basically what I'm saying is go make a list of all the keywords in your space, all the


keywords that would bring relevant high quality traffic to your site that might potentially


turn into customers either on a first visit, second visit, two or three visits in the future.


And then look at that list.


Are we talking about a list where a few keywords dominate the demand curve?


There's five keywords that are getting tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of searches


per month and the rest is less than 50.


Or are we talking about more of an even curve that moves down so you have a few that are


getting many tens of thousands, a few in the thousands range, a few in the hundreds range,


a few in the long tail, maybe a really, really long tail, tons of keywords that get five


to 50 searches per month and there's just thousands and thousands of them, you can't


even think of them all.


If you construct that distribution curve, you can do some very cool things.


I'll show you that in a sec.


But second, after you have your keyword distribution, try collecting data on your social followings,


not just yours, but the social followings in your industry.


Go to your competition, go to the media players in your field that people in your niche pay


attention to.


Look at all of the subscriber counts.


Are you seeing, wow, there's like tons of accounts that have many thousands or hundreds


of thousands or millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers and Google Plus followers


and LinkedIn channels and blogs that have all these subscribers and email newsletters


that have all these subscribers?


Or is it kind of the opposite story where there's one or two big players who have many


thousands and then nobody else has even more than a couple thousand in your space?


Oh, well, now that's a very steep fall off for that demand curve.


And you can do that, you can model that same thing with the traffic that you and your competition


get in the space.


And now you get something that looks like this, something that looks like this.


What you can do is I'm suggesting you create a graph of that distribution.


It doesn't have to be a perfect graph.


You can put it in Excel or in Google Docs.


Or honestly, you know what, you can kind of spitball this one.


This is one where it's okay to just look at the curve and be like, oh, this is one of


those where there's lots of demand for just a few sources and there's very little demand


at the tail end, but there's many, many sources that offer a small amount of information.


This has a big long tail.


Model these out because when you do that, when you draw this type of a curve, you can


infer a ton of things about what types of marketing will and won't work.


Let me show you some examples and then I'll talk about how that shifts strategy.


So let's start with this classic fat head long tail.


And I'm using the example of recipes.


This is a space with a very, very classic keyword demand curve model.


It's this green line here.


You can see up here it's the things that we all search for the most.


It's the recipes for the best burgers or the best steak or the best chili or whatever the


top 50 recipes that are made most commonly in the United States in my example, but it


could be country of your choice.


And then down here we get into some other things that are slightly less popular but


still get lots of demand and there's lots of them.


Spaghetti carbonara, right?


Carbonara is delicious.


You got to get good pancetta, but if you can, oh man, it's phenomenal.


And then all the way down at the end in the long tail, we've got kosher pork loin, which


is probably the most oxymoronic recipe search you can come up with, but I invite you to


do that search.


I'm sure there'll be something fascinating there.


It's a ridiculous example, but you can do this not just with keywords but then with


social channels too.


And with domains.


So for example, at the top here, all recipes, right?


There's only a few sites that get tens of millions of visits a month, but they have


a huge amount of demand, right?


A huge amount of visits.


And then something like a smittenkitchen.com, which is a recipe site that's lovely and does


beautiful photography, but it gets a medium, moderate amount of demand.


And then over here at uncleanshef.com, I hope no one ever visits that domain.


That sounds like a, that's just a branding disaster, right?


Very, very small amount of demand.


So you can see that curve and you can imagine your marketing efforts targeting it, right?


Because there's a big long tail, there's lots of room to create a tremendous amount of content.


And because that demand curve shifts up kind of gradually by gaining more links to all


of these and by continuing to produce content, you can have a few hits.


Maybe you can even try and target some of these ones and use the links that you gain


in the tail and in the chunky middle to help bolster your fat head, right?


There's a lot of opportunity for a classic content marketing play.


But what if we look at this pink curve here, which has a kind of a chunky head and middle


that are similar to each other and then it drops off pretty substantially.


Hotels is a pretty good example of this.


There's a few hotels in New York City or hotels at Disney World or those kinds of things that


have very dominant, a few destinations kind of dominate the top ten.


But then there's this massive mid-market of hotel demand and then it falls off pretty


quickly, right?


There's just only so many places in the world that you can go and the hotel demand gets


really, really tiny when you search for hotels in Ifeldorf, Germany, which is where my father-in-law


lives.


Going out there, it turns out there's one hotel, one hotel with, I don't know, I think


like 12 rooms.


So if you don't get one of those, too bad, you're not staying in Ifeldorf.


This works on the demand curve of sites as well.


So Expedia, Oyster.com might be right in the middle here along with Hotel Seattle and then


I Love Madagascar.blogspot.com.


Turns out they haven't posted anything since 2012, but there's a little bit of good information


about small amount of demand.


If you're looking at marketing in this space, you really have to say to yourself, hey, we're


not going to get anywhere until we can reach this chunky middle in terms of demand and


we're going to be competing with every single hotel site on the web for all of this stuff


because it turns out Hotel Ifeldorf is targeted by Expedia just as much as it is the tiny


hotelier that runs that little boutique hotel in that tiny town.


So now you're playing in a different world.


Niche demand, this purple curve here, this is sort of niche demand that's concentrated


in the head and a little in the middle.


For example, searches around SEO.


It turns out there's not like a Best Burgers or a Hotels NYC in the world of SEO.


Learn SEO and SEO tools, those might be the head terms and even they only get tens of


thousands, not hundreds of thousands of searches a month because we're a relatively concentrated


niche activity that only human beings who are interested in internet marketing are searching


for.


But then we get into these demands like an on-page SEO checklist and way down here, well,


what about SEO redirects rules in cold fusion?


That tail trails off a little sooner than these ones where there's just so many massive


numbers of people searching that the searches can get into a very unique snowflake type


of territory.


We might start with Moz here and then have chunky middle sites like a rim Kaufman group,


the consultant group and then down here like an SEO-NYC.info which I looked at that site,


I'm not so sure about that one.


And finally, I mocked up another one, my last demand curve which is like a hyper niche or


local demand with a handful of dominant players.


This happens in a lot of industries like what we'd call boring industries.


I used to do consulting in some of these spaces like commercial real estate where there was


basically one big publisher, all the commercial real estate brokers in the country paid attention


to that publication but not really anything else.


They weren't reading blogs, they weren't following social media accounts, like it's that publication


or it's nothing.


And so you get this very steep curve but even the highest point of demand is maybe half


the height of what it is in SEO because it's such a niche play.


This happens a lot in local SEO spaces.


So if I'm running a massage clinic in Seattle, I only have a few keywords that I really care


about at all.


There's not this huge long tail of keywords that I can really target.


People just aren't doing that much of a breadth of searches.


They either want a massage in Seattle or they're searching for not massages in Seattle.


And so maybe Seattle Massage and Yelp.com kind of dominates the results for that but


Therapeutic Sports Massage in Greenwood, which is a neighborhood.


Very small amount of demand.


Tail trails off quickly and maybe Seattle Massage.com.


So you get a sense that these curves are dramatically different and that the marketing tactics we


would pursue, the types of content we would create, the expectations we would have, how


we would pitch our clients or our teams internally and what we'd tell them to expect from content


efforts, from social media broadcasting, from building those channels, from targeting keywords


is going to be really different.


If you apply kind of the one size fits all methodology to every one of these curves,


you're going to encounter failure.


For sure you're going to encounter failure.


You have to adjust your content, your SEO, your social strategies according to the demand


curves of your niche.


I think if you try this exercise you will find your strategy gets better significantly.


All right everyone, hope you've enjoyed this early edition of 2016's Whiteboard Friday


and we'll see you again next week.


Optimizing for the New Wave of Social Video Platforms [MozCon 2017] — Phil Nottingham

When I say SE, you say O. SE? SE? When I say rel equals, you say canonical. Rel equals?


Rel equals? When I say item prop equals rating value, you say item type equals schema.org


slash aggregate rating. Item prop equals rating value. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem


with social media marketing today. We tend to think of it as call and response. We think


of it as broadcast. We think if we just shove something out there that's really, really


good, that's really interesting, and people care about it, then they'll respond in kind


and they'll share it and they'll distribute it everywhere and everything will be wonderful


and more beloved. And I think we have this perspective because of TV. And most of us


of a certain age assume that the world of marketing often works like the world of TV,


where essentially if you make something good, you put it in front of the right people, you


pay to distribute it at the right time, happy days, revenue goes up. This doesn't really


work anymore in our modern world. And I think for brand marketing on social media, the reality


is far more like this. We are begging for people to love us and we are desperately throwing


things out there hoping that they will respond positively. So I'm going to show you an example


of a video recently published on Facebook by Cisco, obviously a large company, and see


what you think.


We live in a world defined by less. Less time. Less budget. Less of everything. And yet more


data.


Okay, I'm sure you get the idea. So that video, very well produced, beautifully shot, visually


appealing, fantastic, clear brand message. So in TV terms, this is a good piece of content.


How did it do on Facebook? Now for a company with 70,000 employees, that's not fantastically


good. And the problem is not that it's not good content, it's just that it's the wrong


content. And that when we're working in this world of social media, we need to understand


exactly what we're making, how we're distributing it, and getting in front of the right people


in the right way.


I think another problem is that too often we think video is in and of itself a virtue,


and it's not. So we see this quote from Forrester, where one minute of video is worth 1.8 million


words. Now for context, War and Peace is just under 600,000 words. So please do find me


this single video that has a more profound impact than that masterpiece. And we think


that the fact that something is video is good and a good start, but it isn't. Having video


is not a strategy. And so today I'm going to talk through optimizing for the new wave


of social video platforms that we've seen emerge over the last few years.


If we look back just to 2014, YouTube was the only game in town. And your social video


strategy essentially looked like get your stuff on YouTube and leave it there. And most


companies adopted what I like to call the cupboard strategy, which is just shoving all


your videos on YouTube and hoping that somebody picks them and finds them and something happens.


But we now live in a very different world. Fast forward a few years, Facebook has native


video, Twitter has native video, there's obviously Vimeo, Instagram has video, Snapchat is primarily


video based. There's obviously live streaming platforms like Periscope and Pinterest allows


you to share in their video as well, Facebook Live, and LinkedIn last week announced that


they are doing native video too. So we're actually in a world now where every


single social platform that you interact with is fundamentally a video platform. And that


really shifts the dynamics of the way we need to think about video marketing. And the way


that most companies have adapted to this is as follows. They have just taken what they


were doing for YouTube previously and they're just syndicating it and pushing it to all


the platforms. But this really doesn't make sense because


these platforms, while they may all be video based to some degree, are not all the same.


And so some of them have vertical aspect ratios like Instagram is square, whereas YouTube


is 69. Some of them have in stream mobile playback, some of them don't. Some of them


have thumbnails like YouTube, whereas Facebook doesn't because it has silent autoplay. And


some of them allow you to upload supporting metadata like titles and descriptions and


some of them do not. And then Snapchat and Instagram stories are walled gardens in that


you cannot browse the content outside of the apps and the channels themselves.


So we live in a world where actually while all these different channels and all these


different platforms are video, and we can think about video on your website, video on


email, video on Snapchat, the types of video are very radically different. The way we browse


and discover them are radically different. And the types of media that you're allowed


to include on those platforms are very different as well. So this kind of question, which I


get all the time, does not make any sense. Because if you are asking this kind of question,


it's too late. What you should be doing instead is building for the platform, understanding


where is the right platform for you to target, where your audience are going to be present


and visible and interacting. Decide what the best thing for you to go for is, build the


content for that platform and optimize for distribution there, not build the content


and then worry about distribution afterwards. And if you think about it, it's again this


legacy of TV and TV advertising that makes us think that is the way one must approach


video. And yet nobody is sitting there going, oh, you know what, we've got some text. We


need to go and syndicate our text to all these social platforms. And yet that's exactly where


we think about video. Word of warning, however, with platform first,


don't adopt what a number of companies do, which is what I like to call the twister strategy,


where you say, okay, well, you know, we need to be on Facebook and our Twitter's got video


and we now need to be on Pinterest and all of this new thing called Yit Yak and Grindr's


monetizing and thinking you need to put every single platform out there because then you


spread yourself extremely thin and actually what's far more effective is to pick one,


do it really, really well and then expand as and when you're ready. You're going to


get much better return from focusing on one platform and doing it properly than trying


to be everywhere all the time for everybody. So today I'm going to talk through the following


platforms. We're going to go through Facebook, then the live streaming platforms, Instagram


and Snapchat, which are increasingly converging and becoming similar, Twitter and then finally


LinkedIn. So I'm going to start with the big one, Facebook.


Now Facebook have launched video. They've had native video since January 2015 and around


that time I started working with a company called Wistia. Some of you may be familiar


with Wistia. We are a video hosting platform and we build a lot of content and educational


content. So we thought, you know what, let's give Facebook video a go and for the last


couple of years I've been really trying to focus on working out what our strategy can


be on Facebook. And we are in a lucky position that we can experiment with video. We have


a very good team that are able to make video for us. So we started by saying, let's just


take Facebook while nobody really understood the way it was going to go and experiment


with a bunch of things. So the first thing we tried was a product video. Let's see if


anybody on Facebook cares about our product. Wistia now supports 1080p, which means your


videos will look clearer and crisper in full screen. You can select which video quality


works best for your video strategy, optimized for quality or for deliverability. With that


1080p resolution, you might even be able to fool your dog.


Okay. And the reaction to this video on Facebook was as follows. So we thought, okay, product


type content clearly doesn't work that well. So then we tried more of a customer service


kind of approach. Let's see if we can build something that maybe just communicates who


we are, shows faces behind the business and that kind of thing. And we came out with this.


Hi. Hi. Hello. We're the customer support team here at Wistia. Summer is officially


here and that means July 4th is right around the corner. Wistia's countdown to Independence


Day. In celebration of Independence Day, the Wistia office is going to be closed on Friday,


July 3rd. Happy birthday Lake Liberty. We'll be back in the office on Monday morning, but


if you have an urgent issue, you can always reach out to us at emergency at Wistia.com.


Hot dogs, fireworks and freedom. This is America baby. Have an awesome weekend and stay safe


everyone. Have a great 4th of July. Bye now. Wistia, celebrate your Independence Day. You


know, I'm actually from Canada. All right. Few laughs in the room, but unfortunately


again the reaction was, eh. So we thought, you know what, maybe Facebook is just as it's


always been like the Internet. Maybe the way we're going to win here is just by having


a slow motion video of a dog. So we tried that. Again, that didn't really work. And


we were trying this stuff for, you know, mostly most of 2015, tried different things. And


the real first breakthrough we had was I think February 2016 when one of the guys in the


office, it was Valentine's Day and decided, you know, maybe we should just try and make


a little funny pancakes for everybody to cheer everyone up, particularly anyone who is a


bit lonely on Valentine's Day. And somebody else decided to get out an iPhone and film


it. And this is what came out.


That's really great.


So that was lower investment than most of the other stuff that was made. It was just


an iPhone, just kind of spur of the moment, pushed something out. And suddenly we noticed


that hold on, there's a bit of traction here, managed to get 1600 views. Arvin Keshe thought


it was fantastic and 27 likes. So we realized, okay, hold on, this has resonated with people


for some reason. And my job was then to kind of unpick that and work out why did this particular


piece of content work and all the other ones that we tried did not. And I think the answer


is down to how we use Facebook and why we use Facebook. So how do we use Facebook? Well,


I think most of us use it like this or possibly in the bathroom or similar situations. Some


of you are probably doing it now while you're bored. Essentially we use Facebook usually


for some sort of dopamine hit. Maybe we just need a slight bit of entertainment. We want


to catch up with our friends. We want to be validated and have our opinions confirmed


and our biases shown. Maybe we want to learn something. But ultimately we usually want


something short, snappy, interesting, some sort of hit to excite us when we are otherwise


not doing much. And Facebook is primarily mobile, of course. I think the Facebook app


is actually the number one mobile browser now both on Android and iPhone, which puts


it into perspective. So we're bored and we're mobile. And that's the context in which we


are typically exploring video on Facebook. And this means that instead of thinking about


traditional 16-9 TV, the screen that we're operating on is usually actually like this.


And because we're usually in a public place, because we're normally walking around or we


are, you know, in a place without a lot of opportunity to play things, we are usually


silent. And anyone who's tried Facebook video will notice that the overwhelming majority


of views that happen happen in silent autoplay. So we are bored, we're mobile, we're muted,


and we're time bound. By that I mean we only have a short period of time to actually engage


with what's going on because we are in the middle of something else and we're quickly


getting that dopamine hit to be excited. So this is the context in which we need to understand


why we are creating video and what we're creating video for. Does anybody know what the most


popular kind of video is on YouTube? It's not cats. It's music. These are the top viewed


YouTube videos of all time. All music. And the interesting point is that video may be


an aural and a visual medium, but actually YouTube is primarily aural. And you'll all


kind of know this because you've probably done what I have, which is listen to a podcast


via YouTube or put on a lecture and listen to it in the background or just listen to


music via YouTube. So while we think about video, YouTube is actually in its nature slightly


more skewed towards the literary elements, the aural elements of video itself. And Facebook


is reversed. Facebook is primarily visual because we are watching it silently. So as


creators and strategists, we need to understand what can we do with Facebook that is going


to be compelling, silent, short form, entertaining on a screen that is probably more square or


vertical than horizontal. Essentially, we probably need to learn what worked at the


dawn of cinema, further like Charlie Chaplin, and understand strategically, creatively what


worked for them because that's exactly the kind of thing that is going to work for Facebook


video in 2017. So at Wistia, after our success with our little Valentine's Day number, we


thought, okay, we're onto something here. What we need is to come up with things that


are fun, that are short, that are visual, that are entertaining in some form. And this


is the next thing that we released along that line.


Okay, extremely silly. I'm sure you'll get the idea. That kind of worked because it was


visual, because it was entertaining, because it was silly, because it counterpointed something


you weren't expecting to see against a very ordinary office environment, the likes of


which most of us would be familiar with. The other thing that we discovered we could do


was build something that really encouraged people to turn on the sound by virtue of the


captions, by virtue of what was being included, so that they saw that there was a real value


and a payoff from clicking the button to actually allow the audience to come in. So we made


something like this.


All right. So not only did we try that, we also discovered that we could do something


with product videos. We could actually do a product-focused video, but only when the


product was secondary to the core entertainment, that visual kind of hit, the interesting thing


that somebody's going to be entertained by when they are bored. And this is what we came


up with for that.


All right.


So the essence of the strategy that has worked for us on Facebook is one which I'm calling


snacks. It's that thing where you just want to log in, you see something fun, something


pops up in your feed, and you decide to watch it because it's entertaining. And everything


that we create, it doesn't matter if it's sending a product message now or a customer


service message or whatever it might be, is done within the context of building a snack,


something interesting that people are going to be able to just click through and watch.


And some other companies I've observed have found out the same thing is true. So example


here from a company called Happy Socks. They are Swedish. Oh, let's see if this works.


And what they have done is just gone for the classic handsome man and pug combo. And of


course, that's going to work very well on Facebook itself. Another one local company,


REI, have done some nice stuff where they've just been showing some recipes. And you can


obviously watch this silently or with sound. And you can just see that they're showing


you how maybe if you want to go camping at the weekend, you can go and create some nice


dinner. And it's just giving you that lovely little snack and something interesting and


entertaining, particularly if you're in the mode of planning your weekend or whatever


else you might be doing.


So works really, really well. So if you're going to be doing Facebook, think about what


you can do that's going to be snackable, that's going to be that sort of entertainment. It


doesn't necessarily have to be silly. It can be serious. It can be cause based. But it


has to be entertaining. That is the essence of Facebook video.


So YouTube obviously has this thing, right? The skip ad button. And we know that Facebook


doesn't have a skip ad button in the same way. Except, of course, that it does. And


this skip ad button is called a thumb. And this is the way it works. So here's the video.


And it's gone.


So where YouTube skip ad maybe five seconds, the Facebook one is probably two to three


tops. Which means what you need to do is get really, really clear about what that initial


visual is going to be as somebody scrolls past. How is it going to impact them, catch


their eye so they decide to watch and actually stick through and see what else you're saying.


It's worth noting that Facebook seemed to measure views based on whether somebody has


vaguely wafted past your video in a neighboring room. So the actual number that's in the


view count is not necessarily the big thing to measure. And Facebook metrics generally


I think are a little bit confusing. So the number of views you get, the number of impressions


is ultimately not the number of people that are impressed. It's much, much lower.


But conversely, the number of people who like the video is not the number of people who


actually like it. What you really need to measure is how many people you are actually


speaking to that are engaged with your content that are at least watching it through and


entertaining. And you can do this very easily if you just actually explore the Facebook


insights platform itself. So if we just scroll through here, we'll see that the main video


dashboard doesn't really have a great deal of data for us. But what we can do is if we


go up to overview, this is just normal Facebook insights that you have for your business,


your data, and then select video data. And then select an Excel spreadsheet, select the


date. Maybe we're going to go from January at the start of this year and see what's going


on. Click export. It will actually give us a massive spreadsheet full of every single


metric we could possibly imagine and is a real dream. So fortune favors the brave with


Facebook. And if you actually go in and just get that data and put it into Excel, you can


measure how many people watched over 75% of a video, how many people watched it silently


versus how many people put sound on, how many people liked it after they'd watched it, et


cetera. You can get super, super granular. So really explore this and work out what's


working for you. When it comes to Facebook promotion, I think


really we're in a world where everything is pay to play. So there really isn't a difference


between your Facebook video organic strategy and paid. And you should think of them together.


And the way that I think about this is essentially that the content itself is like a guitar and


the spend is like the amplifier. So you need both. And if you don't have the amplifier,


very few people are actually going to end up seeing your video and you won't get that


great reach that you might be able to. But you need to be able to build something that


actually is sounds good when you amplify it. So you need both elements if you're going


to make this work. So Facebook customer audiences are great.


And I think they are one of the best things that make Facebook probably superior in terms


of targeting to YouTube. And there's a few things that I recommend using if you're doing


this sort of video distribution. Firstly, build a segment that is people who have watched


more than 75% of another video which tells you that they are enjoying your content and


they're engaged. They're likely to want to watch some more. Maybe people who look like


your existing likes. So build that lookalike segment that shows you people who are like


the people who already like your page. If you put a tracking pixel on your checkout


page or your conversion page, you can actually build a segment that is exactly like your


customers and people that look like as far as Facebook's concerned your customers. So


a great way to actually build that audience of people who are going to buy from you. And


perhaps the most exciting one from my perspective is location. And I love this because actually


you can get really, really granular with location targeting on Facebook. So, for example, any


of you ever wanted to do a Super Bowl ad but have never had the budget? Well, why not just


build a Facebook video and then decide to promote it to everybody who's sat in the venue


next February and then do a bunch of PR off the back of it. Go on, you can have that idea


for free. So one of the best things about Facebook distribution is also the way in which


you can select a goal. With Google AdWords and YouTube, it's pretty much you're either


paying for a kind of basic action or you're paying for the actual impression itself. But


you can get really, really granular in Facebook and decide to select a certain few things.


One of my favorites is actually to build an engagement kind of campaign and then select


page likes. Because what this allows you to do is then adjust your spend for social CRM.


So put in the money and try and get return based on how many people then end up liking


your page. And we wanted to do this at Wistia because we wanted to build that core audience


that we knew when we published new content, when we put out a new video, people would


watch it and be interested. So we ended up coming up with an idea for a campaign that


basically we wanted to try and get people to like the page, but we didn't really have


a huge amount of budget. So we decided to run a competition. And I think you'll probably


see why this didn't end up costing us a huge amount.


We're excited to announce our brand new Facebook video competition, What Will Lenny Choose?


Each week, we'll release a new video where our office dog Lenny has to make a tough decision


between an awesome piece of video gear and a small piece of food. Enter the contest by


liking our page. One lucky winner will be chosen at random and will receive whatever


Lenny picks in the mail. Please note that Lenny is a dog and he really loves carrots.


So go ahead and like our page for a chance to win.


Now I think everybody who engaged in this competition was aware that they probably weren't


going to win anything particularly good. And we had a ton of comments of people going,


oh, great, that carrot in the mail is going to be something special, huh? And we put the


spend behind this particular campaign and got people to like the page off the back of


the page. And even though they clearly weren't going to win anything particularly good, they


did. So we ended up sending people carrots in the mail, and that seemed to be morally


entertaining for a few people. So we ended up spending, I think, about $1,000 on this.


And we ended up getting about $2 per page like. So actually, it was quite a good return


for us in terms of building that real social CRM that we're able to then communicate with


people.


There's another couple of things that we have discovered with Facebook targeting itself.


And I'm sorry to say that the variable that affects the performance of your spend the


most, you're not going to like it. It's the quality of the content and how much it resonates


with people. So here is an example of one video that we put out. We spent $600 on promoting


this particular piece. And the return from this was 88,000 impressions. And then we got


about, you know, just under 5,000 people watching mostly the whole thing. And that gave us a


cost per completed view of about 12 cents. And this particular video was just advertising


a content piece that was explaining when you should be using vlogging in your kind of blog


strategy. And then we subsequently did another piece that was around a review of Snapchat


spectacles, exactly the same targeting, exactly the same spend. And that actually gave us


150,000 impressions and a cost per completed view of just 4 cents. So that's 4 cents


per somebody who actually watches the entire thing. So that is actually incredibly good


return for anybody who has been playing with YouTube, advertising before or done any TV.


It's very, very hard to get something that's quite that good. So I would recommend if you


can get the content right on Facebook, then the spend can go a very, very long way and


you can end up getting a huge return on the investment you're putting into this. But the


key is really making sure that content resonates. And also bear in mind that great Facebook


video promotion doesn't necessarily mean you get a load of traffic from it. This is what


happened to us when we started actually putting the spend behind Facebook video. Because the


content is actually visible on the platform, you don't have to click through to see it.


We found that we actually got fewer visits to the website itself, but we ended up getting


much more engagement on the platform. And that's fine. Because actually you have to


understand the value of Facebook video versus the other channels you might be working with.


And I really do believe that this snacks approach, this pushing things out that's going to be


entertaining and watched for a short period by somebody is fantastic for brand. It's not


necessarily great for customer acquisition for most people, but it is a great way to


build that brand and everything that Perna was just talking about. And the future is


really going to be brand driven. So if you're going to be doing this, really worry about


how many people are engaging with the content, not just how much traffic you're getting.


But you know what? You're probably all thinking, that's great and everything, but brand, this


is an SEO conference. Is there nothing we can do with Facebook video, Phil, for SEO?


Well, yes, there is. Now, I am aware that if you were to take a photo of this and tweet


it out without any context, that might be quite funny. We shall see. Yes, you can buy


links for the Facebook video. What I mean by this, well, obviously you're not really


buying links, but what you can do is make a short video to advertise a bigger piece


of content. Maybe you've done an infographic or a white paper or some long form piece of


blogging. So make a short video to advertise that. Then download the emails of your link


prospects from Golkana or Buzzstream, whatever you're using. Maybe you've got the list of


a bunch of journalists. And just pay to target these people using custom audience with these


emails and just decide to target specifically these people and push the video towards your


link prospects. If you have a big network of journalists, just make sure they're seeing


your videos. And you're thinking, well, that's great in principle, but does it actually work


in practice? Yes, it does. Here is an example of a trailer that we made for a big piece


of content. Hey, Trevor, knock, knock. Who's there? Clean your screen. Clean your screen


who? No, seriously, clean your screen. We're prepping for this shoot. Oh, right. To learn


more about shooting laptop screencasts, head into the Wistia library. Okay, so we spent


$75 pushing that to our link prospects. And we got three links. That's $25 a link. Not


too bad for a DA62, DA51, DA35. So yeah, you can buy links and get that good old fashioned


link juice, link juice, link juice, link juice, link juice. Okay, so that's Facebook. Call


Facebook. What about the live streaming platforms? What about Facebook Live and Periscope? Now


these are obviously relatively new to the game, but I think a lot of people are kind


of thinking, well, why should we care about live video versus just recorded video? And


I think there is a subtle difference. So there's a few brands that have made success with live


video. For example, Adidas managed to get Lionel Messi, who is the greatest football


player in the world. That's real football, not American football. And they managed to


get him training with a few kids in a park and just filmed it. And people tuned in to


see exactly what he was like in terms of coaching. Taco Bell decided to try and get people to


buy tacos. Doesn't that work very well? And my favorite actually is from General Electric,


who decided to basically strap a camera to a drone and just film some of their massive


big boats and equipment and things that they have that people can go and watch. So there's


really an open question about why would you live stream versus building that recorded


video? And I think there is only a couple of situations where actually investing in


live video is going to be better for you than investing in recorded video. Maybe have an


exclusive event. So we could obviously live stream MozCon, and it would work very well


because people want to be here and it has that community atmosphere, and watching it


at the time is far more valuable to us as humans than watching it after the fact is


recorded. Maybe have an interesting manufacturing process, something that people would never


be able to see except when you're able to put a camera through a factory or something


and they're able to go and see it. So if you have that exclusivity, that real unusual thing,


you can build that demand by saying you're only going to be able to watch this once and


seeing it live. Similarly, maybe you're like GE and you have an exciting physical space


that you can allow people to go and see through. Or maybe you're like Adidas and you have


access to iconoclastic people, people who are in demand and others would really want


to engage with. So the strategy here, I think, is can you provide a privileged view? Can


you show something that people would love to be able to have access to but otherwise


can't? And that's when there is going to be demand and interest for live streaming. If


you just decide to live stream everybody working from your office, no one's going to tune in


and care. Okay, so that's live streaming. What about Instagram and Snapchat? So these


are obviously Instagram is integrated with Facebook, it's owned by Facebook, it's very,


very connected. Snapchat is separate, but the two are converging because Instagram stories,


for anyone who's played with it, is very, very similar to Snapchat in that it only lasts


for a short period of time and it's there and it's time bound. Snapchat now allows you


to post things that link out to external content. So the two are kind of converging, becoming


similar platforms. And from a video perspective, there's a real question about what is Instagram


video? Is it a video? Is it more like an image sequence? Is it more like a GIF? So I didn't


really know the answer to this question. So the other day I sat down with my good friend


Kyle, here he is on the right, and Kyle works for Jamie Oliver's Drinks Tube, which is a


big popular YouTube channel and social content company in the UK. They make a ton of stuff


around drinks and showing how to make all these beautiful things. So they have all this


great content on YouTube with tons of views, and on Instagram they make these kind of beautiful


videos that show you how to make a certain cocktail and gets a lot of engagement and


interest. So I kind of wanted to chat to Kyle and say, exactly how does this work? What


is your strategy on Instagram versus YouTube? Because YouTube is their primary platform.


And he came up with a quite interesting little statement, which was, what we do on Instagram


is too long, didn't watch. We make a really short form version of the big content they're


trying to come up with. So if we have this five minute YouTube video, we try and work


out, can we get to a point where we have, you know, just we're able to show the essence


of it in a few seconds with a 15 second video. So he really tries to condense it and works


out how they can turn that long content into a small thing. So we've been trying this at


Twitter, so we decided to try and do a too long, didn't watch video of something about


how to make a camera case. Nice and simple. The other thing that works really well on


Instagram is trailers, content where you are advertising a bigger piece. So we have built


some stuff that shows you advertising a far bigger piece of content that's on the Wistia


library or the blog. When you're doing Instagram, one piece of advice I would have is to tag


all of the hashes. Instagram has a limit of about 30 hashtags you can put in. There's


a great tool here, hashtagify.me, and this will show you the most popular hashtags for


a specific topic. So if you want to go in and understand how people might be discovering


this content through the hashtag system, use that tool and be very liberal with it on Instagram.


So with Instagram and Snapchat, most of the time obviously you're building a video with


an iPhone. And you may think, well, you know, that's kind of a bit restrictive, but actually


this is a fantastic camera. The iPhone is a really, really good camera. And so if you're


going to be using it, just remember that what makes a really good shot is not the quality


of the camera necessarily, but also all the things that go with it. So make sure you're


using lights, make sure you're using an external audio source, using a little tripod like this


that can give you that stability and really improve the quality of the content you're


making. So with Instagram Stories and Snapchat itself, bear in mind that the essence, the


value of these platforms above every other social network is that it's short lived. It's


ephemeral. It's really only there for a second. And so the whole principle behind this content


is that you're building up demand and expectation, which you then have to surprise people with.


So you have to imagine every time you're building something that this is the context of your


audience before they see your thing. They are not sure what they're going to get. They're


pressing that button and they're going to get it very, very shortly for a short period


of time. So make sure that what you're doing is entertaining and exciting and really surprises


them and does it in an interesting way. You do that over time consistently and that's


when they're going to start to follow you and want to engage with your stuff.


So the other thing you can do is obviously think about building a series. So if you are


publishing things on Snapchat, doing it sequentially over time, maybe showing a segment of the


story can be a really nice way to build up that demand. And at Wisti we tried doing this


with characters. So we built some different Snapchat profiles for characters and then


as a user you had to go through and discover the way these different characters were just


chatting with one another and that story, the bigger story emerged over time through


you actually exploring and using that platform itself.


So Twitter. Now if we go back to my little matrix here, the old Stratas matrix, we'll


see that Twitter and Facebook are very closely aligned. And this is because the way we consume


them are pretty much the same, right? We're on our mobile, we're scrolling through and


the video will pop up in that feed. And that means that everything that I've kind of said


for Facebook does tend to apply to Twitter as well. We need to think about building that


snacks kind of approach. But I think Twitter is different in one critical way, which is


that on Facebook the essence of the content is very fluid, but on Twitter the tweet is


still the thing. The thing that is really critical is that 120 character essence, the


little bit of text that goes along with it. So if you're building a video, make sure that


it is there to support the tweet and is not just there in and of itself. People will read


the tweet before they end up watching the video. And essentially this means that the


kind of thing that works very well on Twitter tends to be the more intellectual kind of


content. So things like lectures and webinars and courses, all the kind of things that we


probably would think about doing maybe for leads and maybe for educating our audiences.


And one of the beautiful things about Twitter I think as against some of the other platforms


and indeed the essence of what's valuable about Twitter across the world is it is the


one to one communication. Anyone can speak to anyone. And that gives us a real great


opportunity to build things for specific customers that we can send through DMs or tweets and


we can build videos to really show who we are as a company and build that kind of brand


affinity. So I thought I would do with you a live demo of a tool that we have been working


on at Wistia and we have recently released and it is built for exactly this purpose,


building a short form one to one intellectual video. And I thought I'll do a live demo because


what could possibly go wrong? So I'm just going to pop up here and we'll


see, hey, lovely, thank you. So I have just set up here. I'm on my little laptop and I'm


using a DSLR as the webcam. So if you have a bit of budget, you can obviously really


upgrade the kind of quality of your shot and here we're using a fast 1.4 24 millimeter


lens to get a nice wide shot with that blurred background that you can see. So what I'm doing


here is just visiting this website, Wistia.com slash soapbox where you can install this Chrome


extension that will allow you to make these really, really quick videos. So let's go ahead


and do one. So I'm just going to click start record and share the screen. And we're going


to get a countdown. Hello, MarsCon. I wanted to share with you


all soapbox, this new tool from Wistia that allows you to build these new videos that


allow you to show your screen and your webcam at the same time and then switch between the


two. And the beauty of this is that you can make it really, really quickly and then share


it out on Twitter or any other platform that you want to. So go to this website and you


can install it with one click and it will all be good. Everybody wave to the camera.


All right. So what we then do is we click stop and all being well, fingers crossed,


let's check the conference Wi‑Fi. Voila, we're now on this editing screen. So what


we're at here is we can see that we are able to adjust the essence of the feed that we're


getting. So let's change here to this particular feed and then maybe we're going to add here


a change to this kind of view here. And maybe we just want to click on that one and just


zoom it in slightly so we can go nice and crisp on my face and the tool itself. And


then maybe at the end we also just want to add ‑‑ we just click done there. We can


add another little shot just of the web page itself. And again, I'll just zoom in nicely


on that one. And then maybe at the end I'm just going to show off all of you. So let's


go back to this shot here. And then what we can do is just wait for this to say uploading.


We'll add a little title. So MozCon test video. Lovely. And what we can then do is play this


thing back and see how it looks.


Hello MozCon. I wanted to share with you all Soapbox, this new tool from Wistia that allows


you to build these new videos that allow you to show your screen and your webcam at the


same time and then switch between the two. And the beauty of this is that you can make


it really, really quickly and then share it out on Twitter or any other platform that


you want to. So go to this website and you can install it with one click and it will


be good. Everybody wave to the camera.


There you all are. And we'll just trim the end there. And it's just saving so we're going


to click share and we'll just copy this link. We'll go to Twitter right now. And here's


a video we've made. I'm just going to share that. Oops, didn't want to do that. So I'm


just going to copy the URL and share that on the Twitters and tweet that out. And voila,


we have made a video live on stage and that kind of worked. I'm surprised.


So if we can go back to the feed. Thank you very much. So go and start building. Use Soapbox.


Use whatever tools you can to build these kind of intellectual videos. Something that's


going to be interesting, educational, and use that on Twitter. If you're using Twitter


for maybe news broadcast, you can go and build a really quick thing where you show what's


going on in the news and you can give that information to people.


All right. So that's Twitter. What about the last one, LinkedIn? Now, LinkedIn kindly decided


to launch native video last week. So I haven't had a chance to play with this at all. But


I'm guessing what's going to happen is that they'll just send you a notification email


any time anybody posts any video at all. Thanks, LinkedIn.


All right. So to finish, some of you are probably thinking, this all sounds good, but you know


what, we don't really know how to do video. How much should we be spending on production?


Should we be going outside help? Should we be doing things in house? Well, I think there's


actually a really simple principle here, which is that you should spend the amount of money


commensurate with the people that you're speaking to.


And I think too often we get worried with thinking about building things that are right


up this top. We're thinking that every video we make is going to be seen by every part


of our audience. But in this world of small social platforms where something's posted


on Facebook and will be seen over the course of a few days and then people will not see


it again, we're actually in most instances only communicating to a few people.


So I'd advise you probably not to start thinking about building an agency, but for short-form


social video, think about starting in house. And this probably feels really difficult for


a lot of you because most of us tend to think with video and film that we need to kind of


replicate what the big guys are doing. We need to kind of do what the big companies


are doing. But the problem with the strategy of big companies that were built on TV is


that their whole principle tends to be that they buy eyeballs. So here's an example.


Has everyone seen the movie Get Out? Fantastic movie. And here's one of the protagonists


and he is worried about his friend. And what he decides to do in this context is what any


sane person would, which is to grab his Microsoft Surface and search on Bing. Sorry, Perna.


Now this obviously is just buying eyeballs in some sense. And we shouldn't try to replicate


exactly what the big companies do. Instead, I would think for most of you, start by doing


something in house. Start by doing things small because when you're starting on social


video, you're probably only speaking to a few people at a time, not the whole audience.


And we live in a world where actually video production has never been simpler. We can


now add a 4K camera to a cup of coffee, a shot that was unimaginable only a few years


ago. Or there's a tool like the DJI Osmo, which is a handheld gimbal camera that allows


us to get these sweeping shots that are stabilized and look like you're using a helicopter or


a dolly for only $300. Or the Ricoh Theta S, which is a 360 degree camera that you can


use for VR will cost you, I think, $300, $400. And you can use it for shots like this where


we just have Lenny the office dog going around in a circle eating peanuts.


And of course, most of us who think about film being these things that we do with big


cameras are actually behind the times. What film is to most people now, most young people


certainly is this. And the communication that people who have grown up with smartphones


think of is video first. And they think about communicating through the camera far more


than they will text often. So it's a really different world. We need to understand that


video on these social platforms is inherently small and inherently scrappy and inherently


the kind of things that we should be learning to build in-house.


All right. Finally, what about SEO, right? Because this is an SEO conference. Is there


any value to this kind of stuff and video more broadly for SEO? I haven't really touched


on this, but there is one thing I wanted to mention. Google have recently been showing


that they are bringing videos into image results. So if you go and search on a mobile for Soapbox


Wistia, you'll see that actually if you go to image search, you'll see this kind of result


come up where there's little and it says watch. And I advise you all to do this and go and


click on that link. And that will take you to a deep page on Wistia's website where the


video will start playing. And that is all done just because we have sent the JSON, we've


just used JSON-LD to deliver the schema markup on the page itself. Super, super simple. Anyone


can do this and it allows you to really rank in image search with various different frames


of your video. So well worth playing with. And some of you are thinking, yeah, great,


okay, fine, oh, lovely, but I'm not going to be able to do any of this. I'm off down


the pub because we're in a boring B2B niche. We can't be fun, we can't be entertaining,


we can't do anything. We're not going to be able to do social video. I just don't accept


that. There are no boring niches. There are only boring companies. And if you don't believe


me, go and see the way Wistia's competitors market themselves. Wistia is not a terribly


sexy niche. It is video hosting, which is essentially we buy bandwidth, we resell it


with some tools. It's not that cool. But what you have to have if you want to be able to


communicate in an entertaining manner is a perspective. You need an idea. You need something


that is going to be saying what your business means in the world. And I want to introduce


you briefly to this idea called the big ideal, which comes originally from Ogilvy. And the


principle is that what you need to do is build a cultural tension, so you need to understand


what it is that allows your business to exist. What is the societal issue that defines your


company and why you care about coming to work in the morning? And then understand the way


in which you actually help solve that problem, whatever it might be. How do you help others?


Combine those two and come up with that single thing that really tells you what change do


you want to see in the world. And if you have this perspective, it allows you to drive everything


that you communicate, particularly in an entertaining manner, through that lens. And it gives you


the perspective and it gives you the reason why people will care about what you say on


social. So for Wistia, we've had a breakthrough by really adopting this and understanding


our perspective. And so for us, the reason why Wistia exists, the reason why we build


video is that corporate comms have been commoditized. Too often, too many companies are communicating


the same generic ways that are not exciting. And video is different. And we care about


people doing creative marketing. And then we have to understand, well, what's the thing


that really defines the best self? And you might say, well, you know, okay, you provide


tools and you help people do video. But I actually think it's a bit broader than that.


What we do is really reduce the barriers to creativity. And so if we combine these two,


the essence that has defined the way we have approached all of our social video marketing


is this big ideal of business communications in our form. So we try to celebrate every


essence of people doing great communication and bringing that down. And we're trying to


push towards this lofty ideal that we will never reach, that allows us to really skew


and focus on everything that we do with the social video marketing we're doing. And this


idea I originally learned from Mac Fogelson. And I should have just tweeted some links


that she has put together for exactly how you can go learn more of this stuff. So please


do go and check that out.


And lastly, it's worth mentioning that, like, shit takes time and it's hard. I've been working


with Wistia on their social video now for two years and we've only just started to see


these great big spikes. It takes time to experiment, to try new things, to work out what our particular


view is. And if you come into this thinking that you want immediate return on investment,


it's never going to work. You need to be comfortable with that bit of risk and try new stuff. So,


you know, we come to conferences like this and we think everybody's just saying, yeah,


go and create great content. Well, I don't want you to do that at all. I don't want you


to create great content. What I would like you to do is to focus on just creating more


smaller, lower quality videos, pushing them out on social media, using Soapbox, trying


all these different tools and trying to come up with things that are small and fun and


different and interesting because that's how you're going to build that audience and really


engage people over time. So thank you ever so much. It's been a real absolute pleasure


to speak to you today.


Designing a Page's Content Flow to Maximize SEO Opportunity - Whiteboard Friday

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


This week we're going to chat about designing a page's content flow to help with your SEO.


Now, unfortunately, somehow in the world of SEO tactics, this one has gotten left by the


wayside.


I think a lot of people in the SEO world are investing in things like content and solving


searcher's problems and getting to the bottom of searcher intent.


But unfortunately, the page design and the flow of the elements, the UI elements, the


content elements that sit in a page is discarded or left aside.


And that's unfortunate because it can actually make a huge difference to your SEO.


So if we're asking ourselves, like, well, what's the question here?


Well, it's what needs to go on this page, right?


I'm trying to rank for faster home Wi-Fi.


Right now, you know, Lifehacker and a bunch of other people are ranking in these results.


It gets a ton of searches.


I can drive a lot of revenue for my business if I can rank there.


But what needs to go on this page, in what order, with what placement in order for me


to perform the best that I possibly can?


And it turns out that sometimes great content gets buried in a poor page design and poor


page flow.


But if we want to answer this question, we actually have to ask some other ones.


We need answers to at least these three.


First off, what is the searcher in this case trying to accomplish?


When they enter faster home Wi-Fi, what's the task that they want to get done?


B, are there multiple intents behind this query?


And which ones are most popular?


What's the popularity of those intents in what order?


We need to know that so that we can design our flow around the most common ones first


and the secondary and tertiary ones next.


And C, what's the business goal of ranking?


What are we trying to accomplish?


That's always going to have to be balanced out with what is the searcher trying to accomplish.


Otherwise, in a lot of cases, there's no point in ranking at all.


If we can't get our goals met, we should just rank for something else where we can.


Let's assume that in this case, we have some good answers to these questions so we can


proceed.


So, pretty simple, right?


If I search for faster home Wi-Fi, what I want is usually it's going to be faster download


speed at home, right?


That's what the searcher is trying to accomplish.


But there's multiple intents behind this.


Sometimes the searcher is looking to do that with their current ISP and their current equipment.


They want to know things they can optimize that don't cause them to spend money.


Can they place their router in different places?


Can they change out a cable?


Do they need to put it in a different room?


Do they need to move their computer?


Is the problem something else that's interfering with their Wi-Fi in their home that they need


to turn off, right?


Those kinds of issues.


Or can they get a new ISP?


They might be looking for an ISP that can provide them with faster home internet in


their area, and they want to know what's available, which is a very different intent than the


first one.


And third, maybe they want to keep their ISP, but they are willing to upgrade to new equipment.


And so they're looking for, you know, what's the equipment that I could buy that would


make the current ISP I have, which in many cases in the United States, sadly, there's


only one ISP that can provide you with service in a lot of areas.


And so they can't change ISP, but they can change out their equipment.


And let's assume that C is we know that what we're trying to accomplish is affiliate revenue


from product referrals.


So our business is basically we're going to send people to, you know, new routers or the


Google Mesh network, right, home device, and we get affiliate revenue by passing folks


off to those products and recommending them.


Okay, fair enough.


So we now have enough to be able to take care of this design flow.


And the design flow can involve lots of things, right?


There's a lot of things that could live on a page, everything from, you know, navigation


to headline to the lead-in copy or the header image or body content, graphics, right, reference


links, the footer, a sidebar potentially.


And the elements that go in here are not actually what we're talking about today.


I mean, we can have that conversation too, right?


So you know, I want a headline that's going to tell people that I serve all of these different


intents.


I want to have a lead-in that has a potential to, you know, be the featured snippet in there.


I want a header image that can rank in image results and be in the featured snippet panel.


I'm going to want body content that serves all of these in the order that's most popular.


I want graphics and visuals that suggest to people that, you know, I've done my research


and I can provably show that the results that you get with this different equipment or this


different ISP will be relevant to them, right?


But really what we're talking about here is the flow that matters.


And the content itself, the problem is that it gets buried.


And what I see many times is folks will take a powerful, you know, visual or a powerful


piece of content that's solving the searcher's query and they'll put it in a place on the


page where it's hard to access or hard to find.


And so even though they've actually got, you know, great content, it is buried by the page's


design.


The goals that matter here and the ones that you should be optimizing for when you're thinking


about the design of this flow are how do I solve the searcher's task quickly and enjoyably?


So that's about user experience as well as the UI, right?


I know that for many people they are going to want to see, and in fact the result that's


ranking up here on the top is Lifehacker's sort of top 10 list for how to get your home


Wi-Fi faster.


And they include things like, you know, upgrading your ISP and here's a tool to see what's available


in your area.


And they include, you know, maybe you need a better router and here's the best ones.


Maybe you need a different network or something that expands your network in your home and


here's a link out to those, right?


So they're serving that purpose up front, up top.


We also want to serve these multiple attempts in the order of demand.


So if we can intuit that most people want to stick with their ISP but are willing to


change equipment, we can serve this one first.


We can serve this one second and we can serve the change out my ISP third, which is actually


ideal, you know, the ideal fit in this scenario for us.


That helps us optimize for the business goal without sacrificing one and two.


I would urge you to design generally with the searcher in mind and if you can fit in


the business goal, that is ideal.


Otherwise what tends to happen is the business goal comes first, the searcher comes second,


and you come tenth in the results.


If possible, try to claim the featured snippet and the visual image that go up there and


that means using the lead in up at the top.


It's usually the first paragraph or the first few lines of text in an ordered or unordered


list along with a header image or visual in order to capture that featured snippet.


That's very powerful for pages, for search results that are still showing it.


And finally, we're trying to limit our bounce back to the SERP as much as possible and in


many cases this means limiting some of the UI or design flow elements that hamper people


from solving their problems or that annoy or dissuade them.


So for example, advertising that pops up or overlays that come up before I've gotten two


thirds of the way down the page really tend to hamper efforts, really tend to increase


this bounce back to the SERP, which the search engines call pogo sticking and can harm your


rankings dramatically.


Design elements, design flows where the content that actually solves the problem is below


an advertising block or below a promotional block, that also is very limiting.


So to the degree that we can control the design of our pages and optimize for that, we can


actually take existing content that you might already have and improve its rankings without


having to remake it, without needing new links, simply by improving the flow.


I hope we'll see lots of examples of those in the comments and we'll see you again next


week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


Improve Your Data Hygiene - Whiteboard Friday

Hi, my name is Dana DiTommaso. I'm president and partner at Kickpoint. We're a digital


marketing agency based in the frozen north of Edmonton, Alberta. So today I'm going to


be talking to you about data hygiene. And what I mean by that is the stuff that we see


every single time we start working with a new client, this stuff is always messed up.


Sometimes it's one of these four things, sometimes it's all four, sometimes there's extra things.


So I'm going to cover this stuff today in the hopes that perhaps the next time we get


a profile from someone it is not quite as bad. Or if you look at these things and see


how bad it is, definitely start sitting down and cleaning this stuff up. So what we're


going to start with first are filters. And by filters I'm talking about analytics here,


specifically Google Analytics. And when you go into the admin of Google Analytics there's


a section called filters, there's a section on the left which is all the filters for everything


in that account. And then there's a section for each view for filters. And filters help


you exclude or include specific traffic based on a set of parameters. And so usually what


we'll find is one analytics property for your website and it has one view which is all website


data which is the default that analytics gives you, but then there's no filters. Which means


that you're not excluding things like office traffic, you know, your internal people visiting


the website. Or home office, if you have a bunch of people who work from home, get their


IP addresses, exclude them from this. Because you don't necessarily want your internal traffic


mucking up things like conversions, especially if you're doing stuff like checking your own


forms. You haven't had a lead in a while, maybe you should fill out the form to make


sure it's working. You don't want that coming in as a conversion and then screwing up your


data. Especially if you're a low volume website, you know, if you have a million hits a day


then maybe this isn't a problem for you. But if you're like the rest of us and don't necessarily


have that much traffic, some of those can be a big problem in terms of the volume of


traffic you see. And then agency traffic as well. So agencies, please make sure that you're


filtering out your own traffic. And again, things like your web developer, some contractor


you worked with briefly, really make sure you're filtering out all that stuff. Because


you don't want that polluting your main profile. The other thing that I recommend is creating


what we call a test and staging view. So usually in our analytics profiles we'll have three


different views. One is, we call this master, and that's the view that has all these filters


applied to it. So you're only seeing the traffic that isn't you, it's the customers, people


visiting your website. The real people, not your office people. And then the second view


we call test and staging. And so this is just your staging server, which is really nice.


So for example, if you have a different URL for your staging server, which you should,


then you can just include that traffic. So then if you're making enhancements to the


site or you upgraded your WordPress instance and you want to make sure that your goals


are still firing correctly, you can do all that and see that it's working in the test


and staging view without polluting your main view. This is really helpful. And then the


third thing is make sure to test on a second property. This is easy to do with Google Tag


Manager. What we'll have set up in most of our Google Tag Manager accounts is we'll have


our usual analytics and most of the stuff goes to there. But then if we're testing something


new like say the content consumption metric we started putting out this summer, then we


want to make sure we set up a second analytics view and we put this test new stuff that we're


trying over to the second analytics property, not view. So you have two different analytics


properties. One is your main property, this is where all the regular stuff goes. And then


you have a second property which is where you test things out. And this is really helpful


to make sure that you're not going to screw something up accidentally when you're trying


out some crazy new thing like content consumption which can totally happen and has definitely


happened as we were testing the product. You don't want to pollute your main data with


something different that you're trying out. So send something to a second property. You


do this for websites, you always have a staging and a live. So why wouldn't you do this for


your analytics where you have a staging and a live? So definitely consider setting up


a second property. The next thing that we have a lot of problems with are time zones.


So here's what happens. Let's say your website basic install a WordPress and you didn't change


the times on a WordPress so it's set to UTM. That's the default in WordPress unless you


change it. So now you've got your data for your website saying it's UTM. And then let's


say your marketing team is on the East Coast so they've got all of their tools set to Eastern


time. And then your sales team is on the West Coast so all of their tools are set to Pacific


time. So what you can end with is a situation where let's say for example you've got a website


where you're using a form plug-in for WordPress and then when someone submits a form it's


recorded on your website but then that data also gets pushed over to your sales CRM. So


now your website is saying that this number of leads came in on this day because it's


in UTM mode. Well, the day ended or hasn't started yet. And now you've got Eastern which


is when your analytics tools are recording the number of leads. But then the third wrinkle


is then you have Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever your CRM is, is now recording Pacific


time. So that means that you've got this huge gap of who knows when this stuff happened


and your data will never line up. This is incredibly frustrating especially if you're


trying to diagnose why for example I'm submitting a form but I'm not seeing the lead or if you've


got other data hygiene issues you can't match up the data and that's because you have different


time zones. So definitely check the time zones of every product you use. Website, CRM, analytics,


ads, all of it. If it has a time zone, pick one, stick with it, that's your canonical


time zone. It'll save you so many headaches down the road, trust me. Alright, the next


thing is attribution. Attribution is a whole other lecture in and of itself beyond what


I'm talking about here today. But what I find frustrating about attribution is that every


tool has its own little special way of doing it, right? Analytics, like last non-direct


click, that's great. Ad says well maybe we'll attribute it, maybe we won't. If you went


to the site a week ago, maybe we'll call it a view-through conversion. Who knows what


they're going to call it? And then Facebook has a completely different attribution window


and you can use a tool such as Supermetrics to change the attribution window but if you


don't understand what the default attribution window is in the first place, you're just


going to make things harder for yourself. And then there's HubSpot which says the very


first touch is what matters and so of course HubSpot will never agree with analytics and


so on. Every tool has its own little special sauce in how they do attribution. So pick


a source of truth. This is the best thing to do is just say you know what, I trust this


tool the most. And then that is your source of truth. Do not try to get this source of


truth to match up with that source of truth. You will go insane. You do have to make sure


that you are at least knowing that things like your time zones are clear so that's all


set. But then after that really it's just making sure that you've got, being honest


about your limitations. Know where things are necessarily going to fall down and that's


okay but at least you've got this source of truth that you at least can trust. And that's


the most important thing with attribution. Make sure to spend the time and read how each


tool handles attribution. So when someone comes to you and says well I see that we got


300 visits from this ad campaign but in Facebook it says we got 6,000. Why is that? You have


an answer. And that might be a little bit of an extreme example but I mean I've seen


weirder things with Facebook attribution versus analytics attribution. And I've even talked


about stuff like Mixpanel and Kissmetrics. Every tool has its own little special way


of recording attributions. It's never the same as anyone else's. We don't have a standard


in the industry of how this stuff works so make sure you understand these pieces. And


then the last thing are what I call interactions. And the biggest thing that I find people do


wrong here is in Google Tag Manager it gives you a lot of rope which you can hang yourself


with if you're not careful. And one of the biggest things is what we call an interactive


hit versus a non-interactive hit. So let's say in Google Tag Manager you have a scroll


depth. So you want to see how far down the page people scroll at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%.


It'll send off an alert and says this is how far down they scrolled the page. Well the


thing is that you can also make that interactive. So if somebody scrolls down the page 25% you


can say well that's an interactive hit which means that person is no longer bounced because


it's counting an interaction which for your setup might be great. But what I've seen are


unscrupulous agencies who come in and say if the person scrolls 2% of the way down the


page now that's an interactive hit and suddenly the client's bounce rate goes down from say


80% to 3%. They think wow this agency is amazing. They're not amazing. They're lying. And this


is where Google Tag Manager can really manipulate your bounce rate. So be careful when you're


using interactive hits and absolutely maybe it's totally fair that if someone is reading


your content they might just read that one page and then hit back button and go back


out. It's totally fair to use something like scroll depth or a certain piece of the content


entering the user's viewport that that would be interactive. But that doesn't mean that


everything should be interactive. So just dial it back on the interactions that you're


using or at least make smart decisions about the interactions that you choose to use. So


you can game your bounce rate for that and then goal setup as well. That's a big problem.


A lot of people by default maybe they have destination goals set up in analytics because


they don't know how to set up event based goals. But what we find happen is by destination


goal I mean you fill out the form, you got to a thank you page and your recording views


of that thank you page as goals which yes that's one way to do it. But the problem is


that a lot of people who aren't super great at internetting will bookmark that page or


they'll keep coming back to it again and again because maybe you put some really useful information


on your thank you page which is what you should do. Except that means that people keep visiting


it again and again without actually filling out the form. So now your conversion rate


is all messed up because you're basing it on destination not on the actual action of


the form being submitted. So be careful on how you set up goals because that can also


really game the way you're looking at your data. And ad blockers. Ad blockers could be


anywhere from 2% to 10% of your audience depending upon how technically sophisticated your visitors


are. So you'll end up in situations where you have a form fill, you have no corresponding


visit to match with that form fill. It just goes into an attribution black hole but they


did fill out the form so at least you got their data but you have no idea where they


came from. And again that's going to be okay. So definitely think about the percentage of


your visitors based on you and your audience who probably have an ad blocker installed


and make sure you're comfortable with that level of error in your data. And that's just


the internet and ad blockers are getting more and more popular. Stuff like Apple is changing


the way that they do tracking. So definitely make sure that you understand these pieces


and you're really thinking about that when you're looking at your data. Again these numbers


may never 100% match up. That's okay. You can't measure everything. Sorry. And then


the last thing I really want you to think about, this is the bonus tip, audit regularly.


So at least once a year go through all the different stuff that I've covered in this


video and make sure that nothing has changed or updated. You don't have some secret exciting


new tracking code that somebody added in and then forgot because you were trying out a


trial of this product and you tossed it on and it's been running for a year even though


the trial expired nine months ago. So definitely make sure that you're running the stuff that


you should be running. And doing an audit at least on a yearly basis. If you're busy


you have a lot of different visitors to your website. It's a pretty high volume property.


Maybe monthly or quarterly would be a better interval. But at least once a year go through


and make sure that everything that's there is supposed to be there because that will


save you headaches when you look at trying to compare year over year and realize that


something horrible has been going on for the last nine months and all of your data is trash.


We really don't want to have that happen. So I hope these tips are helpful and get to


Debunking Link Building Myths in 2021 — Whiteboard Friday

Hi Moz fans, my name is Shanna McGurk. I am a director at a UK based SEO, digital marketing


and digital PR agency called Aera. Today I will be taking you through debunking link


building myths in 2021. So historically, SEOs, digital PRs, everyone alike, there are a bunch


of myths out there at the moment, some new, some old, and today we're going to be running


through the top five that seem to be making a bit of a headline at the moment, debunking


them and hopefully sharing some helpful tips and tricks along the way. So myth number one


then, and this is a really big one at the moment because we know the importance of building


direct links into product and category pages have huge benefits from a search visibility


perspective. So the first myth that I want to talk you through today is that it is impossible


to build these links into product and category pages. In fact, that is completely false.


It is highly, highly possible to be able to do so. You just need to make sure you're giving


people a good enough reason to link. So the example that I've put up here today, and let's


take the mythical concept of a tire company, let's say e-commerce site as well. So if you


are said tire company and you are looking to build followed links into some of these


product or category pages themselves, the reason for journalists being able to do that


or wanting to do that might be that you actually, you know, have an offer on the page or you're


sharing some insights on the page that aren't purely self-serving and self-promotional.


You need to be giving these webmasters, journalists, writers, and alike a reason to actually give


you that link back into their page. So a couple of ideas and ways that you might get over


this and kind of, you know, let's debunk the myth together. So you could pop an offer on


the page, a Black Friday offer for that specific tire. That then when you're pitching into


key titles, it could be the mythical one of carnewstoday.com that you drop the journalist


a note and say, you know, for your readers X percent off, you get this code, you can


view the code on this page here. The journalist is then going to be, or the writer, the webmaster,


is then going to be more encouraged to link back to that category or product page through


being able to, you know, share that offer with their audience and readership. Another


way that you are able to potentially do this as well is start to look at product roundups


in the news. So if I was a fashion brand and as we head into the summer of next year, we


might be looking at trying to rank for the term summer dresses. If that's a really, really


important key term for yourselves that you want to be ranking for, you then go out to


fashion writers, fashion bloggers, fashion webmasters, and potentially pitch in the top


10 fashion items or summer dresses for their audience to cover, for them to include within


their articles. And of course, again, you should be providing things like high res images


and what have you to be able to support the writer get that article live. So my key thing