Swipe up, pinch to zoom, and touch. Is it all about numbers, data, and such?
Data might seem cold at first sight, but you need to keep on your mind that the clicks, likes and shares are all human actions. Actually, Facebook, Google and other digital platforms rely today more than ever on these human signals, so you really have to touch the people to improve your metrics.
There is too much content on social media and internet for people to sort through, so algorithms do it for you, based on your past behaviour. Algorithms try to offer you the posts and stories that are relevant to you, among thousands of messages.
So, it’s about user experience, right?
Not quite, these algorithms have been created to get people spend more time on social networks. And that means more income to the platform owner if the monetization has been handled well. So basically, brands need to either pay up or make shareable content to be seen on social media.
The algorithms are in constant flux so it’s hard to keep up. Marketers have done weird stuff to outsmart the algorithms over the years. It’s not that long ago when people were writing for machines. That’s right. The web copy had to please Google’s crawlers in order to get your website on top of the search results.
I’ve been in a marketing department where there were more data analysts than creatives. There were also more marketing automation specialists than creatives, so it sounds like there’s no room for creativity in marketing anymore, is there?
Quite the contrary. Today, marketing efforts rely on your ability to turn data into insights that direct your creative work. Be the end result then cat videos, a Chuck Norris cameo or whatever.
More than ever, you need creativity because you need to figure out what to do with all the data and everything it can provide you with. Nowadays, marketing requires people working at the intersection of technology, business, and arts, combining data and creativity.
But numbers can be deceiving because they tell you what you want them to tell you. So you need to make the data work for you, not the other way around. Just because your content has reached thousands of people, it doesn’t mean those people would have in fact seen your content. You have to interrogate the data to get real insights.
There isn’t much time to make an impression before the user has swiped from one post to another, so you need to start creating thumb-stopping content. You need to make those few moments count. You have to be able to crystallize everything in 140 characters or less. Even that is too much. Try an image or a 6-second video that cuts through the clutter.
Luckily today there’s data to back up your decisions, taking bias out of the equation. And there are tools that allow you to experiment, compare with A/B testing, and do real-time adjustments.
And in the end, everything still relies on the killer idea that makes your thumb stop and leaves a lasting impression.
"No matter how much technology you have, you still have to be creative with it. Technology is only as creative as you are prepared to be." - Liam Howlett
