Social Media Technology Thought Leader Interview Series Ivan

Social Media Technology Thought Leader Interview Series
Ivan Fernandes, MediaCom Global Director, Social Media Technology, interviews Benjamin Faes,
Managing Director of Media and Platforms, Europe, Google
Welcome to the sixth Social Media Thought Leader Interview, a series of regular interviews with some
of the world’s best and brightest innovators, conducted by Ivan Fernandes, MediaCom’s Global Head of
Social Media Technology. These conversations will contain numerous ideas and insights that brands
may be able to use to enhance their social media development strategies.
Every two weeks, we will take a look at key changes in the social media technology landscape and
implications on the way brands engage with their customers. Read what's on global thought leaders'
minds.
In line with our philosophy of “People first, better results”, Ivan works to reinforce MediaCom’s position
as the agency that best understands consumers in the digital sphere. Ivan oversees work around digital
measurement and social media technology to inspire our clients to make the most out of paid, owned
and earned media.
If you are a thought leader that wishes to participate in a future interview, please contact Ivan at
[email protected].
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In our sixth interview, I speak with Benjamin Faes, Managing Director of Media and Platforms,
Europe, Google
Benjamin joined Google in May 2008 and is the Managing Director of Media
and Platforms for Northern and Central Europe. From the Google Display
Network to DoubleClick, Invite Media and YouTube, Benjamin's role is to lead
these European teams in their execution of the company's overall display
advertising strategy. Previous to joining Google, Benjamin was managing
director of AOL France where he transformed the company from its original
ISP model into an online publisher and premium ad network.
Benjamin received his degree from the ESSEC Business School in Paris.
Some of the key takeaways from our interview with Benjamin include:
Social is more than a destination, it’s a core human behaviour and users should be able to perform
“social actions” everywhere across the web. With Google+ we are adding that social spine that will
make all of Google, YouTube and the whole web more social.
Benjamin’s top tip advice for a brand is to have a holistic video strategy. Brands shouldn’t think the
viral effect is the Holy Grail they need to grab, the ultimate goal they may achieve with a stroke of
luck.
For business owners, it’s important to have a social media strategy to reach your audience. The
landscape can be confusing, so it’s best to begin looking at where your audience is and meeting
them there. YouTube reaches more than 800 million people globally every month and is a great
place to reach potential customers. But YouTube is not only about reach - it’s also about niche,
about having the possibility to target specific audiences with specific content.
Don’t think TV and digital anymore - think video, across all devices.
Ivan Fernandes, Global Director, Social Media Technology, MediaCom Worldwide
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Background
1. Tell us about YouTube in 140 characters or less.
YouTube connects advertisers with the world’s largest online video community through a creative
explosion of entertaining content and innovative ads.
2. How and why did you get into social media business? Tell me about YouTube – how it was
created and what you do? What makes YouTube different from your competitors?
What made YouTube so popular is the huge quantity of engaging content, which could easily be
shared with friends. Now, YouTube has evolved into something more than a place to watch funny
videos thanks to an increasing content quality and a wide range of creative ad formats. YouTube is
unique because it’s global, has the biggest reach and has the highest user engagement of any other
video platform.
3. Can you tell me a little bit about how YouTube works? What are some of the more important
new business strategies being deployed at YouTube? How does YouTube integrate with
Google+? How does the TrueView advertising format work?
YouTube acts as a place for brands to connect and interact with their customers by providing them
with a great digital experience. YouTube gets over 800 million unique visitors each month and
brands have the opportunity to be part of the conversation.
This ambition is carried forward through some key strategic goals:
YouTube is working to become the best possible platform for the next generation of content and
is redefining video advertising.
Google+ makes everything brands do on YouTube better. The Google+ page is the identity of
brands on Google and makes it easier for brands to share and engage with YouTube videos.
Circles give users the ability to share content with the audience that they think is the most
relevant and they can express how they feel about content using the Google +1 button. Video
hangouts offer a unique opportunity to interact with users on a very personal level. Or simply
allow users to “hang out” together and jointly watch a video. There are many ways to measure a
brand’s influence on Google+ as well. For example, with Ripples, brands can follow how videos
spread and identify key influencers. Further integration will make it seamless for brands to
integrate content on their YouTube brand channel with their Google+ page.
YouTube has rolled out an innovative new format called TrueView, which gives users the choice
and control over which ads they view. Viewers can skip the ads they don't want to see and only
watch ads they truly enjoy. This ad format is a real win-win proposition:
Viewers can select ads that are most relevant to them
This cost-per-view advertising means that advertisers only pay for engaged views on ads
that people actually watch
We believe that TrueView is a game-changer for the industry because it incentivizes
advertisers to create powerful ads that people love (and won’t skip).
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Technology
1. How is social video affecting the marketing landscape today? Will YouTube follow
Facebook’s "social by design" approach - utilizing community, building conversations and
curating identity? Does YouTube foster open information exchanges with influencers,
agencies and brands?
YouTube is inherently social and aims to offer the best social viewing experience anywhere in the
world. In addition, the integration with Google+ empowers brands to enter into a much more
personal communication with their followers. Thanks to the hangout functionality, users can share
and view YouTube videos, allowing the hangout participants to comment, discuss and enjoy content
together.
For example, Cadbury UK, who has more than 1M followers on Google+, has done 4 different
hangouts (video chats with their fans) and posted the YouTube video recordings from each hangout
on their Google+ page. These YouTube videos have been heavily endorsed via the +1 button and
re-shared by followers, allowing them to increase their brand awareness in a record amount of time,
going from 500K to 1M followers in just over a months’ time.
2. Are there any social media technologies that have caught your eye recently? Can you say
anything regarding the technical breakthroughs YouTube have made? Tell us one thing
about YouTube or its services that most people don't know.
Hangouts on Air is a magnificent technology which enables a Google+ hangout to be hosted on
YouTube for all to view. For instance, the Dalai Lama used a Hangout on Air to connect with the
retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu on his 80th birthday when the South African government denied
the Dalai Lama a visa to enter the country for the Bishop's birthday. Many in the YouTube
community have embraced this new technology and brands are also starting to use it in very
interesting ways to engage with their potential customers.
With the recent launch of AdWords for video we took video advertising to a new level. AdWords for
video is a new feature within AdWords that allows you to create and manage video ads on YouTube
(and the Google Display Network) in the same interface that advertisers already manage search
and display campaigns. This will enable advertisers of all sizes to plan and pay for their TrueView
campaigns (which is based on the cost-per-view metric). We are now doing for video what AdWords
did for search advertising - making it accessible, easy to book and easy to analyse.
3. What are some of the most exciting breakthroughs that you are seeing in the technology or
methodologies related to social video - YouTube signing streaming content deals? What
changes can we expect in social video in the coming years?
As advertisers are beginning to catch up with consumers through the use of this technology, we're
seeing a much more sophisticated use of social interactive video in advertising. A great example
here is the exciting interactivity of the new Tippex ads.
Beyond that you will continue to see dramatic growth in engagement with video on mobiles, tablets
and connected TVs. YouTube mobile traffic tripled in 2011 and in Korea mobile traffic already
represents over 50% of overall YouTube traffic. Connected TVs and consoles are going to change
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the way people engage with social video again - putting it right at the heart of the family home, on
the living room TV.
4. Here we are in May 2012, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing social media
technologies/platforms in the coming year? What's currently missing? Tell us about some
changes in the works to improve or expand your current products and services?
The web has gone social, however a key challenge for social media is that it is still confined into
closed platforms and is considered primarily as a destination. Social is more than a destination, it’s
a core human behaviour and users should be able to perform “social actions” everywhere across
the web. With Google+ we are adding that social spine that will make all of Google, YouTube and
the whole web more social. It’s still early days, but we're seeing a positive impact all across the
web. Google users can now recommend search results they like. Our engineers are working
endlessly to integrate Google+ with all of our products, including YouTube.
Social Media
1. What are the possibilities? What would be your top tip for a brand looking to start
harnessing YouTube?
Video is an extremely powerful tool to connect with users: combining sound, image and motion,
video has the capacity to engage viewers and to trigger a reaction - A recent Experian Hitwise (UK,
Oct 2011, Online Video: Bringing Social Media to Life) study showed that 52% of people take action
after seeing a video. As a social platform, YouTube is the best place to generate a viral effect and
amplify brands’ messages.
However, the top tip advice for a brand is to have a holistic video strategy. Brands shouldn’t think
the viral effect is the Holy Grail they need to grab, the ultimate goal they may achieve with a stroke
of luck. The viral power of a message is unpredictable - there’s no such thing as a recipe to
generate it for sure. It’s much more efficient to have a result-driven approach: combining the power
of a paid campaign and of an owned media and associating the opportunities of display ads,
promoted videos and brand channels are the best way to create a rich experience and to increase
the power of a brand’s message.
2. Do you think social media metrics are important for brands and businesses? What do you
think are the most important metrics to track YouTube?
For brands and advertisers, knowing how your campaign is performing and the data associated with
it are essential to make the right decisions - and this is also true for online video and social media.
Viewership, seen as the number of video views, remains the top metric to evaluate the success of a
video campaign and the top criteria to optimize the performance of a brand channel. This can help
to identify trends and patterns. Other insightful metrics include channel subscriptions as a great
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indicator of longer term viewer relationships and community actions as an excellent way to measure
user engagement.
For our innovative TrueView format, view-through rates are a good indicator of the performance of a
campaign. As viewers have the choice to see or to skip, those view rates indicate strong
engagement with the campaign as well as spend, as advertisers only pay for a view (on a cost-perview metric). The breadth and detail of back end metrics on YouTube gives advertisers the ability to
fine tune their campaigns based on their performance and engagement.
3. How should brands organize for YouTube success? Are there any hard and fast YouTube
guidelines to follow?
Identify your big idea by being very clear with your objectives (What do your objectives deliver?
What do your customers want to watch? What leverages what you are already doing? What
complements the rest of your communications?)
Think about the format (entertainment / information / education)
Use a brand channel to tell your brand story, and define a precise editorial strategy (regular
schedule, frequency)
Think efficiency and quality when you create your videos: the shorter is often the better - in any
case, the content needs to be compelling and associated with a call to action
Create a community around your brand by interacting with users, by creating engagement
programs (games, competitions, etc) and by integrating Google+.
4. If you could give just one piece of advice to someone starting social media for the first time,
what would it be?
There is no magic formula to social media, but it’s important to know what you want to achieve.
Make sure you have this clear from the start and be prepared to test, experiment and learn. Let the
community reaction to your content guide you and based on this, make continuous adjustments until
you get it right.
5. It seems like every day there is a new network being launched. And they are becoming much
more specific. How can a business owner know where to direct their efforts?
For business owners, it’s important to have a social media strategy to reach your audience. The
landscape can be confusing, so it’s best to begin looking at where your audience is and meeting
them there. YouTube reaches more than 800 million people globally every month and is a great
place to reach potential customers. But YouTube is not only about reach - it’s also about niche,
about having the possibility to target specific audiences with specific content.
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6. How do you measure the ROI of social media? Is there an effective way to marketing
success?
Google offers a wide range of tools to measure Social Media ROI for YouTube and Google+.
With YouTube Analytics, brands can assess a channel’s performance and investigate changes or
trends across different metrics (viewership, subscriptions, community actions, traffic sources,
audience retention, demographics and geography).
It indeed provides actionable intelligence for brands to make better videos, implement optimizations
and produce content which is strategic to core objectives. You can thus track current and past
viewer trends, to establish comparison points for future video analysis; you can discover surprising
new segments, by knowing your audience and where they watch videos; you can identify traffic
sources and optimize your marketing strategy around them. You can discover what videos
generated subscriptions, and then model your programming strategy based on this. You can
compare playbacks locations to improve the ad mix across watch pages, channels and mobile. You
can analyse your social currency to identify attributes of engaging videos and mirror them in the
future. You can track audience retention to maintain consistent video engagement... YouTube
Analytics opens a whole range opportunity when it comes to measuring ROI and optimizing a
brand’s video strategy.
For Google+, Google Analytics answers questions like “How does +1s affect user behaviour?”. The
tool measures +1s and also shows how engagement on your site changes with personalised
recommendations. You also get aggregate, anonymized demographic information about users who
have +1’d your site. As mentioned before, the Ripples tool shows in a unique way how posts, videos
and comments spread and give brands insights about influential brand ambassadors.
Future
1.
What does the future of digital innovation look like in the next five years? Finally, what does
2012 hold for you and YouTube?
Don’t think TV and digital anymore - think video, across all devices.
Thank you very much, Benjamin!
Ivan Fernandes,
Global Director, Social Media Technology at MediaCom Worldwide
@MediaComSMM
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/ivan-fernandes/2/a7/833
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