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Likes, Camera, Actions! Social's Move From Selfies To Conversions

While the social media pundits prepare their “Year in Review” listicles, us practitioners are readying for 2015: the Year of Actions in Social. Nobody loves a good 2014 retrospective more than I do, but rather than bemoan the death of organic reach, I prefer to read the most recent tea leaves from Facebook and Twitter and get ready to spring into, well, action.   

Facebook Page Calls to Action
As of last week, Facebook is enabling brands to deliver calls to action right inside their Business Pages. Prior to this, if users found a company’s Page through a friend’s post, they'd have to Google the company to learn more. No longer. With new CTA options like, Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now and Sign Up, Facebook Business Pages will connect curious new customers to the products and services companies offer in fewer clicks. Saving customers time and effort equals tangible value for both brands and users.

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Twitter Offers
Powered by last summer's card-linked-offer acquisition of CardSpring, the recent launch of Twitter Offers makes it possible for users to click ads displaying deals (Think: 20% Off!) and instantly add those deals to the credit or debit cards in their wallets. Unlike the Facebook Offers of old, users don’t need to print out a piece of paper and bring it to the store to redeem their offers. Now, when they swipe their cards in person, or check out online, the deals they claimed on Twitter will be applied to the purchase. Talk about saving customers time, money and energy.

Steps like these are a game-changer because they’re a great opportunity for marketers to accurately attribute conversions from social.

The Value of Attribution

The social call-to-action movement actually kicked off for advertisers in early 2014, with Facebook ad CTAs and Twitter Card CTAs. The lesson learned was that, for social marketers to earn the attribution for ROI-related actions like flights booked, shoes purchased and apps downloaded, the platforms had to deliver users one step further down the buying funnel. Smart performance marketers are already seeing this benefit, because they’ve built their attribution models and know that social delivers qualified leads and purchases.  

With Facebook Page Calls to Action, more marketers will be able to connect the dots. Although not part of last week’s announcement, a probable next step is conversion tracking that attributes online sales to clicks on these new buttons. That’s direct ROI measurement that ties Facebook Pages to dollars earned.

Twitter Offers creates a similar scenario. By linking the deals showcased on Twitter directly to user credit cards, Twitter will be able to deliver ROI reports that summarize online and in-store purchases and revenue.

Same Great Social, but More Like Media

The social networks are growing up. In 2015, they’ll graduate from simple social metrics like retweets and likes, with their implied value and proximity to relationship measurement, and transform into high-powered marketing and advertising vehicles that compete more directly with traditional channels.

Last July, Facebook spoke publically about testing Buy Now buttons that allow users to purchase products entirely within Facebook, effectively making the social network an ecommerce marketplace platform that could find ways to compete with the likes of Amazon. Nothing, it seems, is off the table.

When we look back on 2015, it will be the seen as the year that social actions really deliver undeniable value -- for users in constant pursuit of greater efficiency, and for marketers, who will finally get the social marketing attribution they’ve needed.

 

1 comment about "Likes, Camera, Actions! Social's Move From Selfies To Conversions".
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  1. Rick Miller from Big Chalk, December 16, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.

    Great post Jamie, this particular quote:

    "The social networks are growing up. In 2015, they’ll graduate from simple social metrics like retweets and likes, with their implied value and proximity to relationship measurement, and transform into high-powered marketing and advertising vehicles..."

    is something we've been seeing in 2014 as well.

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