This blog will explore the effectiveness of social networks as a marketing tool.  Firstly by understanding how big advertising has become on social media among organisations, it will help to understand the faith and resources being put in to.  In other words, arguably the more popular it is among organisations then a presumption can be made about its effectiveness.

Advertising on social media has grown substantially in the past years and is expected to be worth $15 billion by 2018 (Adweek, 2014).  The most preferred networks are Facebook and is preferred by more than nine in ten marketers!

The image below shows percentage of how many of the 382 most known brands are on each social media site.(Statista, 2015)

The previous statistics show that it is a popular medium for organisations, therefore it can be presumed to be pretty effective, but why has social media become such a pivotal part of an organisation advertising strategy?   Social media is no longer the home of just the young, it had embedded itself in every corner of the web, an example is the usage of social media site; 72% of all internet users are on a social media site (Bullas, J. 2014). Further more there is an argument that individuals are turning into a new breed of customer, they are now more powerful, their wants and needs are becoming more sophisticated, and furthermore they are harder to retain, as such social media sites are becoming a more important medium to reach this new breed (Constantinides, E. 2014).

But why are social media sites important as an advertising tool?  There is an argument that it is where the people are, as previously mentioned 72% of all internet users are on social media sites, if you are wanting to advertise a product you want the biggest audience available to you (SocialHi5, 2014).  Furthermore the ability to segment the target audience gives a big advantage over other mediums, for example if you were to advertise on the television there is no guarantee that your targeted audience would see your product or service which is being offered.  A study conducted by Carmicheal, D (2012) showed that even if the CTR (click through rate) is small compared to the sites average, the advertising is still effective.  Furthermore according to (social media examiner) in 2014 92% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.

The following video highlights other important points as to why social media is important for advertising:

However conversley to the arguments for the effectiveness of advertising on social media there are limitations.  Temin, D. (2015), argues that audience are no longer paying attention to the adverts on the sites, they say that the users have become ‘de-sensitized or are determined to simply block the advertisement out of their viewing.  Further more they say that 4 out of 5 users have never bought a  product because of an ad (solely based on Facebook) (Temin, D. 2015).

There are arguments for and against the effectiveness of advertising on social media sites, however the volume of companies on the sites and given the vast amount of users it arguably is an invaluable medium through which to advertise.  However that being said there is no guarantee the campaign will be successful, users are to be shown to become more ‘de-sensitized’ to the adverts.  With the increasing presence of advertisements on social media sites how much longer can they provide an effective campaign strategy?

References

Adweek, (2014). Social Media Ad Spending: Statistics & Trends [INFOGRAPHIC]. [online] Available at: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-ad-spend-stats-trends/503712 [Accessed 1 May 2015].

Bullas, J. (2014). 22 Social Media Facts and Statistics You Should Know in 2014 – Jeffbullas’s Blog. [online] Jeffbullas’s Blog. Available at: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/01/17/20-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2014/ [Accessed 1 May 2015].

Carmicheal, D. (2012). How effective is social media advertising? A study of Facebook Social Advertisements. IEEE, pp.226-229.

Constantinides, E. 2014, “Foundations of Social Media Marketing”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 148, pp. 40-57.

SocialHi5, (2014). Is Social Media Advertising Effective? – SocialHi5. [online] Available at: http://www.socialhi5.com/is-social-media-advertising-effective/ [Accessed 1 May 2015].

Statista, (2015). Global share of businesses using social media marketing 2014 | Statistic. [online] Available at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/188444/global-share-of-businesses-using-social-media-marketing/ [Accessed 1 May 2015].

Temin, D. (2015). Don’t Waste Money – Make Your Social Media Advertising Smarter, More Original, More Effective. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviatemin/2013/12/03/dont-waste-money-make-your-social-media-advertising-smarter-more-original-more-effective/ [Accessed 1 May 2015].

Due the growing demand for male clothing, this blog will explore what the wants and needs are of the male consumers from a clothing retail website, and if their wants and needs are being met by online retailers.  Differences in gender are believed to influence, or perhaps moderate the interest in websites and how much an individual uses it (Rodger & Harris 2003).  The three critical determinants of men’s shopping attitudes and behaviour, according to Rodger & Harris (2003), are the following; Emotion, trust, and convenience.

There has  been a big increase in the male clothes market, for example between 2001 to 2006 the market grew by 13% to £9 billion (Tungate, M. 2008).  With increasing celebrities and public figures setting more ‘metrosexual’ trends, it is growing more common for men to change their wardrobe as females (Keynote 2012).

Mens garments, as a sub sector, recorded the highest period of growth of 23.2% in 2013 (Keynote, 2o14)

The growing demand for male clothing as discussed is growing, but what do males want from the online stores?

It has been shown that males prefer a much more ‘functional online environment’, in other words males are wanting a clothing website where the information about clothes is simple to find and where the ordering process is quick and simple (Close, A. 2012).  Further more the structure has to be relatively simple and straight forward, and it has also been shown that males prefer the use of imagery and descriptive wording when advertising the clothing products (Close, A. 2012).  Also it has been shown that if retailers bring  in customization features, for example being able to change the colour of the items, or specify the exact measurements it can  enhance consumer interest and loyalty (Tarafdar,M. & Zhang, J. 2007).  It has also been advised for retailers to concentrate on the aesthetics of the websites, such as the images and colours used, as this encourages prolonged use by the customers (Nsairi, Z.B. & Khadraoui, M. 2013).

It is all good to try and understand the theory behind what males want from shopping but it is another scenario trying to apply it to your website.  To try and demonstrate the application Asos’s mens section, (Asos, 2015), will be looked at and a few key points will be applied in a hope to demonstrate some of the theory.

The annotations above show some concepts which can be applied to the pages of male clothing websites, in an attempt to further obtain custom, or help to gain repeat custom.

To create a website that males are going to respond to the following factors need to be taken into consideration; it has to be functional; easy to navigate, yet needs the use of imagery and descriptive wording to capture our attention.  As demonstrated, applying the theory is not that difficult, however the prove is in the results….. so try it out for yourself!

References:

• Asos, (2015). Shop men’s clothes, jeans, shoes, t-shirts, shirts and more at ASOS. [online] Available at: http://www.asos.com/men/ [Accessed 30 Apr. 2015].
• Close, A. 2012, Online consumer behavior: theory and research in social media, advertising, and e-tail, Routledge Academic, London.
• Key Note. (2012). Men and Womens buying habits. [online] Available at: http://www.keynote.co.uk.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/market-intelligence/view/product/10564/men-and-women%27s-buying-habits?medium=download [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].
• Key note. (2014).Market update. [online] Available at: http://www.keynote.co.uk.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/market-intelligence/view/product/10958/clothing-retailing?medium=download [Accessed 29 Apr. 2015].
• Nsairi, Z.B. & Khadraoui, M. 2013, “Website Satisfaction: Determinants and Consequences on Website Loyalty”, International Business Research, vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 77.
• RODGERS, S. & HARRIS, M.A. 2003, “Gender and E-Commerce: An Exploratory Study”, Journal of Advertising Research, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 322-329.

This blog will explore which social networking site is the most effective for advertising.  The following social media sites will be explored: Facebook, Twitter and Linked-in.  The amount of users, the demographics which you can reach and the costs will be explored to determine the best social media site to use for your advertising campaign.

Social media is an effective medium for organisations to advertise to their selected target market. According to Barbu, O. (2014) this platform has huge potential for marketing, what is more the user bases are ‘solid and credible’ sources for brand promotion.  Given the reach and capabilities of such platforms it is important to determine which site is best for your business.

The first social media site which will be analysed is Facebook:

In terms of its users Facebook trumps both Twitter and LinkedIn, they currently have 1 billion+ registered users! (wordstream 2014), and they have 699 million active daily users.  Users aged between 25-34 make up 29.7% of users and are the most common age demographic (Noyes, D. 2015). The advertising stats are as follows:

• There are 3 categories to Facebook ads; Online sales, Local stores and Mobile apps.
• When it comes to advertising facebook offers a lot of flexibility, the minimum amount you can spend per day is $1, of course that for any advertising campaign is unrealistic!  They allow you to set a budget of your choice, and the type of bidding either cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPI) (Facebook.com, 2015).
• The average CPC in 2013 was $0.21 (Baer, J. 2015)
• The average CPI was $0.75 (Baer, J. 2015)
• ;The click through rate (CTR), globally, in 2013 was 0.36%. (Baer, J. 2015)

The second social media site to be analysed is Twitter:

Twitter has 982 million registered accounts, however only 271 million active users and only 43.4 million tweet more than once a day (Digital information, 2015). The biggest user age demographic is 18-29 year olds which make up 29% of its user base (Brodzky, B. 2014).

The advertising facts are as follows:

• There are three types of advertising; A promoted tweet, a promoted account and a promoted trend
• The average CPC is $1.35 for both a promoted tweet and a promoted account (Alleger, J. (2013)
• The promoted trend will cost you $200,000 per day! (Alleger, J. (2013)
• The average CTR is between 1-3%

The final social media site analysed is LinkedIn:

LinkedIn has over 347 million users of which 35% of the users access the site daily, what is more 1 out of 3 professionals globally are users (Wersm, 2014).  The biggest age demographic is 35-54 years old which makes up 39.8% of its users (blog).

The advertising facts are as follows:

• There are three main advertising formats; Sponsored updates (appear on the users news feed), display ads, and direct sponsored content.
• The average CPC is $3.50 (Wordstream.com, 2014)
• CTR average of 0.025% (KISS metrics, 2015)

Each site has been briefly analysed in terms of users, types of ads, cost of ads and average CTR, yet the answer to which site is best is still not apparent.  Facebook boasts the biggest audience  and has the lowest CPC.  Twitter  has a better CTR than both Facebook and LinkedIn, however they have less active users on a day to day bases.  LinkedIn has the highest CPC and the lowest CTR, which would be enough to discourage anyone, however it is a network filled with professional individuals, and as such it may be a case of quality over quantity  (Schaffer, N. 2013).  To truly ascertain the best social networking site you need to assess which has the audience you are targeting to, and make sure the costs are in line with you proposed budget.

References

Alleger, J. (2013). How Much do Ads on Twitter Cost? | Penna Powers. [online] Pennapowers. Available at: http://www.pennapowers.com/how-much-do-ads-on-twitter-cost/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Baer, J. (2015). 15 New Facebook Advertising Statistics | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy. [online] Convinceandconvert.com. Available at: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/15-new-facebook-advertising-statistics/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Barbu, O. 2014, “Advertising, Microtargeting and Social Media”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 163, pp. 44-49.

Brodzky, B. (2014). Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014. [online] LinkedIn Pulse. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118182103-28964915-social-media-user-statistics-age-demographics-for-2014 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Digitalinformationworld, (2015). #SocialMedia 2014: User Demographics For Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – #infographic. [online] Available at: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/10/social-media-user-demographics-linkedin-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015]

Facebook.com, (2015). How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook? | Facebook Help Center | Facebook. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/help/214319341922580 [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

KISS metrics, (2015). The KISSmetrics Guide To LinkedIn Ads – Part I: The Basics. [online] Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/guide-to-linkedin-ads1/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Noyes, D. (2015). Top 20 Facebook Statistics – Updated February 2015. [online] Zephoria Inc. Available at: https://zephoria.com/social-media/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Wersm, (2014). Top LinkedIn Facts And Stats [infographic]. [online] Available at: http://wersm.com/top-linkedin-facts-and-stats-infographic/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

Wordstream.com, (2014). Social Media Advertising: Which Platform is Right for Your Business? | Wordstream. [online] Available at: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/09/24/social-media-advertising [Accessed 24 Apr. 2015].

In this the blog the question ‘Can you measure the return on investment (roi) for social media’ will be explored.  If you are unfamiliar with the the concept of the finding the roi from social media, or need further clarification, the following video should address most issues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMAr_gKRQmI

For businesses, measuring the ROI on social media is arguably very important, after all if your putting money into advertising or building a presence on social media site then you want to know whether its making you a return (Arno, C. 2015).  Unfortunatley however ascertaining whether you are getting a return can prove tricky, according to forbes (2013) 88% of 750 marketing proffesionals  did not think they could measure the effectiveness of their social media campaings, further more 52% stated there biggest frustration was trying to work out the ROI.

Some argue that the ROI simply cannot be done, and like alternative advertising methods, such as billboards, the only thing you can do is hope for the best (Wordstream, 2013).  However there are sources out there which offer guidance to try and quantify the activities on your social media which may lead to an answer; Forbes (2013) offer three methods to do this, using:

• Metric tools, such as conversion rates
• Interactions, analysing the ‘likes’ of your posts, plus taking into account the friends of the users who were exposed when they liked your post.
• Analysing traffic, such as analysing your website analytics against the Pay per click (PPC) campaigns

Hoffman, D.L. & Fodor, M. (2010) argue that most approaches organisations take to work out the Roi, are the wrong way to go about it, and further states that to work out the return the ‘traditional ROI approaches should be turned on its head’.  The argument put forward is that instead of calcuting the returns through the consumers responses, they instead should consider the motivation for consumers using social media and then measure the social media investments they make with a company.  To put this in context when working out the reutrn for the investments there are 3 factors,as  follows:

• Brand awareness (no.of ; followers, impressions, reviews/ratings)
• Brand engagement (no.of; Comments, active users, likes rate of activity)
• Word of mouth (frequency of appearance in timelines, no. of; posts on walls, reposts/ shares)

Roi is important for any individual or business wanting to quantify the benefits they recieve from investing on social media.  Two different approaches have been looked at, but even using those solutions can be; tricky, costly, and the result may still not give a definitive answer.  However the best course of action is to concentrate on the metrics which can be quantified, such as the click through rates (CTR), which google analytics is an effective and free tool which can be used to do such things.  Further metrics include the number of followers, likes, retweets, shares etc, although this wont give you a complete picture as to the return on your investment it will give you an idea, to some extent, how well the campaign is doing (Arno, C. 2015).

References

Arno, C. (2015). Is It Possible to Measure Social Media ROI?. [online] ClickZ. Available at: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2339947/is-it-possible-to-measure-social-media-roi [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

Forbes, (2013). CapitalOneSparkVoice: How To Measure Your Social Media Return On Investment. [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/capitalonespark/2013/04/25/how-to-measure-your-social-media-return-on-investment/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

Hoffman, D.L. & Fodor, M. 2010, “Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?”, MIT sloan management review,vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 41-49.

Wordstream, (2013). Measuring the ROI of Social Media | Wordstream. [online] Available at: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/04/25/social-media-roi [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

This blog will explore how to go about creating an online advertising campaign on linkedIn, and the steps you need to take to do so.  What is more, LinkedIn’s weaknesses and strengths will be explored and compared to its competitors. There will also be an insight into the audience linkedIn has, to ascertain whether it is the right social networking platform for you and your ad campaign.

Firstly, why is creating an advertising campaign on social media sites a good move for an organisation?  According to Constantinides, E. (2014), there is an emergence of a new breed of customer as people are becoming more powerful, sophisticated, and harder to influence and retain, social media sites are increasing in importance in advertising for this new breed. Constantinides raises the importance of social media sites as a powerful medium for advertisements to reach consumers, making it a potentially lucrative investment.

It is all well understanding the justification behind using social media sites, but how does one go about creating an advertising campaign on LinkedIn? According to Sibley, A. (2015) there are 8 steps to take when creating an online campaign in linked in:

• Step 1= Go to: https://www.linkedin.com/ads/, select ‘new ad campaign’
• Step 2 =Select the language to write in
• Step 3= Choose the media type, either a basic text ad or video (video has to be 30 seconds or less)
• Step 4= Make your ad, and decide what the landing page will be, there is a choice of landing page either being; an external website, or your linked in page
• Step 5= Choose the target market, the options to narrow the audience are by: Location, company, job title, school, skills, group, gender,age.
• Step 6= Choose payment method, ie pay-per click
• Step 7= Set a daily budget for advertising cost
• Step 8= Decide on linkedin’s lead collection feature, this is where linkedin collects leads on your behalf, it gives the audience viewing the ad to ask for more information or to be contacted from your company.

For a more detailed and visual explanation this video depicts the process:

As you can see the process is relatively simple and straight forward.  However before deciding on whether or not to choose LinkedIn it is important to assess whether there are enough users,  if they are the audience you are trying to reach, and to consider whether there are any better alternatives.   According to LinkedIn Newsroom, (2015),  linkedin has:

• Over 347 million members, in over 200 countries and territories
• Professional are signing up at rate of 2 per second
• 39 million are students/ recent graduates

Futhermore according to Digitalinformationworld, (2015):

• 38% of users have an income of $75,000+ (twitter has 19%)
• 22% of users have an income of $50,000-$74,000 (twitter has 15%)
• The main audience are aged between 30-39 years old
• 24% of male internet users (US) have an account on linked in.

The chart below shows the users age range (Messieh, N. 2012):

From the previous statistics stated, LinkedIn has an appeal for those who wish to target the ‘professional’ and ‘higher income’  user.  For example 38% of users have an income of $75,000 +, if you are promoting a high end product then there is arguebly a vast audience who  have a vast amount of disposable income.  Conversely if you chose to advertise on Twitter it only has  19% of its users with the same spending power.

There are of course drawbacks, LinkedIn is seen as site for professionals and assumptions can be made that the diversity of its users are limited, whereas Twitter and Facebook users  have a user base which is  vastly diverse (Duggan,M. Et al 2015).

So the question remains, should you chose LinkedIn as the social media website to start an ad-campaign?  Well its apparent that the answer is more complex than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, various factors come in to play; it depends who your target market is, if its a product or service aimed at the wealthier user then LinkedIn is your site.  It is worth bearing in mind that their  biggest audience of users  are  aged between 35-54, as such it has to reach the appeal of this audience.  If it does not, then the best solution is to opt for a different social media site; Facebook, Twitter, etc, there are plenty of options.

References

Constantinides, E. 2014, “Foundations of Social Media Marketing”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 148, pp. 40-57.

Digitalinformationworld, (2015). #SocialMedia 2014: User Demographics For Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – #infographic. [online] Available at: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/10/social-media-user-demographics-linkedin-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Duggan, M., Ellison, N., Lampe, C., Lenhart, A. and Madden, M. (2015). Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms. [online] Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

LinkedIn Newsroom, (2015). About Us | LinkedIn Newsroom. [online] Available at: https://press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Messieh, N. (2012). 43% of all LinkedIn Users are in the US, IBM Has the Most Followers. [online] The Next Web. Available at: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/02/25/43-of-all-linkedin-users-are-in-the-us-ibm-is-the-company-with-the-most-followers/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Sibley, A. (2015). A Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First LinkedIn Ad Campaign. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34069/A-Simple-Guide-to-Setting-Up-Your-First-LinkedIn-Ad-Campaign.aspx [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

It is always helpful to define the subject being discussed, which the following quotation does perfectly: ‘Internet marketing (..or online marketing) is the process of promoting an organisation using online media, typically with the goals of increasing sales and boosting profits’ (Jamehshooran B.G. et al 2011).  In other words anything a company or an individual does to promote themselves, or their company, is classed as online advertising.  Advertising on the internet is something most are familiar with, whether it be through the medium of  banner ads, newsletters, spam emails or pop ups on websites.  However online advertising has evolved substantially since the first online site advertisement was put up in 1993, which was done by a company called Global Network Navigator (Bourne, J. (2015).

An expedition into how and why online marketing went from one website, to being the vast marketing machine it is now ($537 billion dollars in 2014  was spent in 2014 on online markeitng (Lunden, I. 2015)  will take place.  To start off, a timeline showing online advertising has progressed since 1993, is shown below (source taken from Bourne, J. 2015).

Without conducting an in-depth analysis into why online advertising has become so massive, the timeline above  highlights a big contributing factor, the significant rise in the users.  In 1995 there were 16 million users, In 2012 there were 1.2 billion, which is a 7400% increase, by all means a very big audience to market to.  Of course there are other contributing factors to this growth just to list a few; the rise of ecommerce, developments in technology, faster internet, mobile internet, social networking and online PR (Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Johnston, K. 2009).

Since the first online advertisements emerged the environment of the internet and it uses have dramatically changed.  Advertising has adapted along side this change,  so has the way in which online advertisements are portrayed to the end user.  The first form was spam emails, which according to the BBC (2008) the first was sent in 1978!  Since then many forms have emerged, these are just a few of the many examples:

• Banner Ads
• Search engine Ads
• Adwords Ads
• Social media Ads
• Viral video Ads
• App ads

The following video, briefly explores this evolution:

Online advertising has progressed a lot since the first spam emails, and the first paid advertisements emerged.  The question which next comes to mind is where is it headed? What implications will it have for everyone as the users of the internet?  Well in a nutshell its hard to tell, as Pozin, I. (2013) eloquently puts it: ‘Today’s digital marketing certainly wont look like tomorrow’s’.

References:

BBC. (2015). BBC NEWS | Technology | Spam reaches 30-year anniversary. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7380788.stm [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015].

Bourne, J. (2015). Online advertising: A history from 1993 to the present day [infographic]. [online] Marketing Tech News. Available at: http://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2013/sep/11/online-advertising-history-1993-present-day-infographic/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015].

Ecommerce, (2015). Internet Marketing – History Of Internet Marketing. [online] Available at: http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/708/Marketing-Internet-HISTORY-INTERNET-MARKETING.html [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015].

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Johnston, K. (2009). Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice. D. Chaffey (Ed.). Pearson Education.
Chicago Jamehshooran, B.G., Danesh, E., Teimouri, M.E. & Heydari, A. 2011, “The past, present and future of online Marketing”,Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 585-606.

Jamehshooran, B.G., Danesh, E., Teimouri, M.E. & Heydari, A. 2011, “The past, present and future of online Marketing”,Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 585-606.

Lunden, I. (2015). Internet Ad Spend To Reach $121B In 2014, 23% Of $537B Total Ad Spend, Ad Tech Boosts Display. [online] TechCrunch. Available at: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/internet-ad-spend-to-reach-121b-in-2014-23-of-537b-total-ad-spend-ad-tech-gives-display-a-boost-over-search/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015].

Pozin, I. (2013). Where’s Digital Marketing Heading? 4 Leaders Weigh In. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2013/09/11/wheres-digital-marketing-heading-4-leaders-weigh-in/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2015].

I watched the video ‘How i hacked online dating’ by Amy Webb (Ted 2014).  Amy was in a life situation where she was ready to settle down and in essence find her life partner, the problem was based on her calculations of finding her ideal partner there appeared to be a slim success rate.  She was based in Philadelphia, which has a population of 1.5 million people (Webb), through certain criteria which needed to be met Amy narrowed her ideal partners down to 35 people out of 1.5 million.  Based on the 0dd of bumping into one of these 35, which is very low, Amy ventured onto online dating.

The online data sites use algorithms which uses the user data entered, for example their hobbies, and matches them to user who have the same/ similar answers.  Amy’s experience of the matches the algorithms provided was not pleasant as the dates she had with the  users suggested were all unsuccessful. The algorithms were doing the job they were designed for, however human error presented a flaw in the data, as humans are prone to not be 100% about themselves.  Furthermore Amy believed the types of questions being asked such as ‘Are you a dog or cat person’ were questions to find your ideal pen pal and not a life partner.  In attempt to bypass the the sites algorithms based which she believed was based on ‘superficial information’ she decided to reverse engineer the system.

By Amy reverse engineering the system she was able to collect the data she needed to be matched with her ideal partner, she did this through providing preferences to the  characteristics she was looking for in her ideal man.  Once this list was completed she set a scoring system which users had to match up to and then a data could be had etc.  This allowed her to be matched with more preferable candidates, however the variable of her competition was not taken into account, and as such she decided to collect data on her competition, she did this by creating a number of fake male profiles.  The data collected allowed her to create a ‘super profile’.  The following is the criteria which is needed:

• 90 words (ish) on the about you section
• Non specific language to be used
• Not using superficial data
• optimising language use

This shows the power of data, effective use can enable a person to identify their potential life partner systematically.  Whats more using this data effectively can allow individuals to attract their ideal partners, by understanding the information the more popular people are using and the style in which they are presenting it.

Good morning!