SMH IT Pro story: “‘Larger technical issue’ in Facebook ad system”, December 2011

A short feature for the Sydney Morning Herald’s IT Pro section. It’s my first work published under the SMH masthead. Excerpt below.

‘Larger technical issue’ in Facebook ad system

Self-service ad platform gives advertiser grief.

A Facebook employee has suggested the dramatic shifts in advertising rates on the company’s self-serve ad platform may be due to a “larger technical issue”, in an email to an Australian customer.

The customer, Tim Levinson [pictured], manager of Sydney-based hip-hop music label Elefant Traks, claims to have experienced price hikes of up to 1000 per cent on the social network’s self-serve ad platform.

Levinson has spent around $10,000 on Facebook advertisements in the last two years; roughly $100 per week, using the site’s pay-per-click model.

In late July, he wrote a concerned email to Facebook’s ad sales team, noting that the pay-per-click rates had gone “inexplicably through the roof” – from $0.50 per click to as much as $5. The Elefant Traks manager – who performs under the MC name Urthboy, and is also a founding member of popular Sydney hip-hop group The Herd – noticed in July that the estimated cost-per-click suggested by Facebook’s self-serve ad system wouldn’t budge on its ‘suggested bid’ amount, regardless of whether he was bidding on popular – and therefore, more competitive and expensive – keywords such as ‘triple j’ and ‘bliss n eso’, or significantly less popular terms such as ‘sydney underground rap’.

“I run a music business where a click results in an actual ‘sale’ only a certain percentage of the time,” he wrote in the email. “This is consistent across the board. The art is increasing that percentage through clever targeting. There is no way that $2 per click is value for money, let alone $3 or $4. There is no way that I gain useful information about the best keywords for targeting people who actually buy our product when the fee per click is the same, regardless of the targeted groups.”

It took two weeks for a Facebook employee to respond. In the month of July, Levinson had been charged between $25 and $71 each day. On August 5, “Josie” from Facebook’s ‘Online Sales Operations’ team wrote back and explained how the pay-per-click system worked, despite Levinson having used the ad platform without problems for two years. His concerns remained, so the email conversation continued.

For the full story, visit SMH IT Pro.

Native Digital blog project: One Movement For Music 2010

A couple of months ago I undertook a blog project for One Movement For Music 2010, a Perth-based event whose five days (Oct 6-10) consisted of daily MUSEXPO panel discussions, nightly industry showcases at live music venues throughout Perth’s inner city, as well as a three-day music festival. I first blogged for One Movement during its first year, in 2009.

On behalf of my employer, Native Digital, I coordinated blog content on One Movement Word and operated the event’s social media accounts – Facebook and Twitter – from the beginning of August. On the ground in Perth, I live-tweeted it and blogged daily highlights of the conference, as well covering the festival and showcase acts in photo form – links included at the bottom of this post.

The difference between last year’s traffic and 2010 was significant. Whereas in 2009 we were starting from a literal blank slate – zero Twitter or Facebook followers, and thus no traction – this time around, we had 300 followers on Twitter and 600 Facebook fans, which meant that our blog content instantly had an audience. These numbers grew as the blog campaign continued: as of 1 November, we have 945 Twitter followers, and nearly 2,500 on Facebook.

The growth in overall blog traffic speaks for itself – compare 2010 (top image, 17,000+ visits) to 2009 (bottom image, 6,700+ visits).

August – October 2010:

July – October 2009:

This year, One Movement Word’s blog content was split into the following categories – click for further info:

• 2010 ‘Five Minutes With’ – short Q+As with MUSEXPO guest speakers
• 2010 Industry Showcases – extended Q+As with artists who played One Movement showcase events
• 2010 Music Festival – extended Q+As with artists who played at the One Movement Music Festival
• 2010 Event Coverage – daily blog entries published while in Perth for the event

Posts in the latter category included:

• OMFM 2010 Day 1: Creative Industries Dialogue, Paul Kelly book launch, Perth music showcase at Amplifier
• OMFM 2010 Day 2: Troy Carter (Lady Gaga’s manager), Richard Kingsmill (triple j) interviews
• OMFM 2010 Day 2: Richard Kingsmill interviewed by Lars Brandle at MUSEXPO Asia Pacific 2010
• OMFM 2010 Day 2: MUSEXPO Managers Forum, Todd Rundgren Interview, State Of The Host Nation Panel
• OMFM 2010 Day 2: Live Entertainment Summit, Publishing + Copyright panel, Michael Chugg book launch, and Industry Showcases
• Photos: One Movement For Music by Twilight Festival, Friday October 8 2010
• Photos: One Movement Music Festival, Saturday October 9 2010
• Photos: One Movement Music Festival, Sunday October 10 2010
• OMFM 2010 Day 5: MUSEXPO Panel – The State Of Global Independence
• Videos: Paul Kelly and Dan Sultan performing at the One Movement Music Festival
• Videos: Murdoch University Interviews with One Movement Festival Artists

I want to give a special mention to the ‘State Of Global Independence’ panel, moderated by Nick O’Byrne of AIR, as it was an incredibly inspiring discussion, and by far the best music industry panel I’ve witnessed. Which doesn’t sound that impressive, really, but trust me: Nick and his panelists touched on some brilliant, universally-understood topics, like pursuing your passion, the nature of independence, and being kind to others without expectation of repayment. I’ll say no more; you’ll have to read my transcript of the panel at One Movement Word. It’s totally worth it. I promise.

Thanks to Sunset Events and Native Digital for again allowing me to be a part of the One Movement online campaign.

How I ran social media for One Movement For Music Perth, July-October 2009

This was my first venture into blogging on behalf of a commercial entity. It was a massive learning experience and I’m grateful for the opportunity to run what I believe was the first dedicated Australian music festival blog.

The first One Movement For Music Perth ran October 16-18 2009. The event was a bold combination of music industry summit, artist showcase festival, and local artist street performance. Think of it as a nascent SXSW for the Southern Hemisphere.

Between July and October 2009, Nick and I ran One Movement’s blog and social media presence.

Located at onemovementword.com, the One Movement blog became the central hub of online activity surrounding the event. We published interviews, festival announcements, guest posts, a ‘four questions with‘ series, and event coverage.

From July-October, traffic looked like this:

One Movement promoters Sunset Events handed over the event Facebook and Twitter accounts to us in mid-September.

By the end of October, our Facebook fans looked like this:

And our Twitter followers looked like this: (Source: TwitterCounter)

So, what worked for us when blogging for One Movement?

1. Short, sharp posts that featured the input of festival artists. The ‘four questions‘ series proved particularly popular and attracted the attention of the fanbases surrounding the dozens of bands we profiled. (Witness the Big Day Out blog successfully replicating our formula here)
2. The guest post by Kyle Bylin of Hypebot, and the couple of One Movement-related placements we coordinated on their site.
3. Our Indonesian music industry feature, which was the second most popular entry on the blog.
4. Embedding music videos wherever possible to encourage visitors to stay on-site. This was especially useful during ‘four questions‘, as we asked every respondent to name their favourite song of the week, and included the music videos where we could.
5. Seeding exclusive content among fan communities. This involved posting links to the blog articles on artists’ Facebook pages, fan forums, and Last.FM profiles as soon as relevant articles were published. We also used artists’ Twitter usernames where possible to notify them of the new content, and encourage them to retweet the content.

Why did these work?

1. Put simply, people want to read artists’ opinions. They also want to know what artists are listening to; what’s influencing their work. The ‘favourite song of the week’ offered a quick snapshot into the artists’ mind, and offered a talking point for their fans.
2. Hypebot is a popular music news destination, and my relationship with associate editor Kyle Bylin ensured that he directed traffic off-site to provide OMW with the exclusive on his latest article, which we used as a guest post.
3. Indonesians are interested in reading about analyses of their music industry, since it appears that such articles are few and far between. Check out the response on Indonesian band The Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent’s Facebook page.
4. Most users will stay on the blog to watch the embedded videos, which increases ‘time on site’ metrics. And obviously, a combination of image, video and text makes for a visually appealing blog.
5. We decided early into the ‘four questions’ series that it’d be valuable to make each artists’ fan communities aware of the new content by posting the link on the most popular Facebook page/group, their Last.FM profile, and by including the artist as an @reply in our One Movement Twitter updates whenever we posted new content. This ensured that any switched-on fan (or fansite/forum operator) could easily find new content relevant to their artist, and reblog it wherever possible.

Facebook and Twitter

Once we were in charge of the event Facebook and Twitter, we built communities by posting daily updates based on the blog content, as well as responding to @replies and Wall posts as they happened.

Project Outcomes

• 6,700+ unique visitors to the event blog, One Movement Word
• 600+ Facebook fans
• 280+ Twitter followers

What did this mean for One Movement?

• Within four months, a thousands-strong community of passionate music fans built around a new event on the Australian festival calendar.
• Accolades surrounding the construction and ongoing maintenance of the first popular blog built around an Australian music festival.
• The ability to listen to, and learn directly from these engaged fanbases. (see below; click for full-size)

This post that originally appeared on waycooljnr.

Cumulative Advantage and Social Currency

A straightforward online exchange: Matt Granfield tweeted a link at @waycooljnr, the Twitter account I run with Nick Crocker for music and marketing links. It was an interesting link worth sharing, so I thanked Matt via Twitter and left a comment on David Gillespie‘s blog post.

Simple, right? And, at first glance, pretty nerdy, especially when I describe what took all of 30 seconds. But it got me thinking about what is, in my mind, the real value of social networking: shortening the distance between people.

For the last couple months, I’ve been reading a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called The Black Swan. I’m not going to feign complete comprehension, as frankly, it’s the most challenging thing I’ve read since Robert Greene‘s 48 Laws Of Power, which took me over a year to absorb.

Among many taxing topics, Taleb discusses the ‘Matthew effect‘, otherwise known as cumulative advantage. It’s the concept whereby it’s easier for the rich to become richer, and for the famous to get more famous:

This theory can easily apply to companies, businessmen, actors, writers, and anyone else who benefits from past success. If you get published in The New Yorker because of the color of your letterhead or attracted the attention of the editor, who was daydreaming of daisies, the resultant reward can follow you for life. [p. 218]

The earlier Twitter exchange allowed me to bridge the gap between that concept and social networking. Put simply: the more you interact with someone online before you meet them, the greater the chances that you’ll get what you want for them, be it friendship, mentorship, or a job.

Let’s run with the third option. Picture two undergraduate job candidates. One spends his days at university and his nights on the couch watching television. The other spends his days at uni and his nights online, reading blogs, participating in relevant industry conversations via social media, and identifying local influencers within the industry he hopes to begin a career.

An ideal employer advertises a junior role. Until they shake hands at the interview, Dude #1 is nothing more than a resumé and a cover letter to the employer. But Dude #2 has been sharing valuable links and commenting on the company’s blog, so he strikes an easily rapport with the employer based on their mutual interests and knowledge. Their social currency.

Which one’s going to get the job? [An aside: I'm as surprised as you that I autopiloted into a university-based thought exercise, given my past admonishment of its worth.]

Okay, the scenario’s not applicable to every industry. A chemistry undergraduate would find it less pertinent than a web designer. But hell, everything’s online these days. It kinda blows my mind that so many people still don’t get this.

I’ve been online for like 10 years, and I’m only just beginning to consciously pay attention to this stuff. Cumulative advantage dictates that the more time you spend online building meaningful relationships and contributing to the internet, the easier it’ll be to get what you want.

At the top, I wrote that it was kinda nerdy to describe a Twitter interaction. But when you’re using these tools to establish yourself as an influencer within the industry you’re passionate about, well, who the fuck cares if it’s nerdy? You’re winning.

One of Australia’s top indie record labels today advertised a job via Twitter. You wouldn’t hear about that while watching television, would you?

Three quotes occurred as I wrote this. The last one’s the most important.

Ryan Holiday, December 3 2007:

[If I was starting all over again today]l I’d become a personal RSS reader for one or two of the big bloggers. “You’ll like this article.” “Do you read this blog? He hits a lot of the same themes that you do.” “I’m hearing rumors that ____ is going to acquire ______, just wanted to give you a heads up.” And I would tailor the results for that person based on what I know they like. I would kill myself doing it. Every day, 5-10 articles. And then I would start to integrate commentary or questions. Become the guy that they get their information from, the person that keeps them connected to the pulse. Maybe one week I’d take a break and send nothing, just to highlight the difference. The ultimate end game being that they would start to send you out to find things for them: “What can you tell me about ________” Yes, you’re a research bitch but in the end, you come away with something that even the person you’re serving doesn’t–not just a vast reserve of knowledge but the ability to find out where it is coming from.

Ryan Holiday, June 11 2008:

One day you’ll probably want something from the internet – you’ll have a book to promote, a business that needs customers, someone you need to meet, an ebay auction you’re trying to sell, a job you’re after. It’ll be too late then. You have to start before. And there’s only one way to do that.

Tait Ischia, April 17 2009:

You have to prove to business owners that you are good and that you’ll make them money. And of course the best way to prove it is by doing stuff. Blogs are the easiest way to do stuff. It’s basically like maintaining a Facebook but isn’t a complete time-wasting exercise in vanity. If all the kids these days spent the same amount of time writing blogs that they did on Facebook, then [the advertising] industry would be a hell of a lot more competitive.