In this installment of May’s Internet Marketing news, we have news and resources from mapping the NFT ecosystem, and new social media trend alerts, to making that cold product launch red hot.
What Are NFTs? Mapping the NFT Ecosystem [Infographic]
The NFT movement has now become a key growth aspect of the broader social media space. And while there are many skeptics, and many questions about the long-term viability, and value, of these digital artworks, the growth of NFTs is undeniable, with Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all exploring new ways to directly integrate NFT art and ownership into their apps.
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/what-are-nfts-mapping-the-nft-ecosystem-infographic/611832/
9 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ad Results
Feel like your Facebook ad campaigns need some new life? Wondering what changes you can make to improve conversions?
In this article, you’ll discover nine ways to optimize your Facebook ad campaigns to get more bang for your buck using new or underutilized native features on the platform.
New Trend Alert: “Anti-social” App Gets $ 11 Million in Funding
App developers and product creators, take note:
While Instagram, TikTok, and others continue to rack up millions of users, there are definitely some users who are wary of these social media channels and their agendas. They’ve been found to contain a lot of toxic content, and because it’s ultimately hard to control how they are used (and abused) some users believe the solution is to abandon them.
On a less severe note, even those users who have found a lot of fun, or even business, in mass-market social media apps tire of their relentless push for engagement and exposure and thus want to explore more private or impactful ways of being “social.”
The Mystery Of Nancy Drew’s Annoying Punctuation
I read anything and everything I can get my hands on because I never know if something might spark a new idea for me.
That’s why I recently read a Nancy Drew mystery.
Nancy Drew was a young, fictional female detective who solved all sorts of mysteries. These books were published in the 1950s and girls loved them. Today they’re collector’s items.
So there I am, reading ‘The Clue In The Crumbling Wall’ and something is bothering me! In fact, it’s distracting me something terrible, to the point where I’m having trouble following the story! This thing keeps appearing, even when it makes no sense to appear! And every time I see it, I stop and try to figure out what the author was thinking!
Yup, you got it.
There are so many exclamation points in that book that I have to wonder if the author was perhaps addicted to them. Maybe she didn’t have a lot of confidence in her writing and felt that adding exclamation marks would somehow make her sentences more compelling.
News flash: Every sentence!! Is really not!!! That exciting!!!!!!
The Chicago Manual of Style says to use the exclamation mark “sparingly to be effective.”
I agree!
(Sorry, couldn’t resist).
Here’s an article from the BBC revealing perhaps the biggest exclamation mark offender of all times.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170301-what-overusing-exclamation-marks-says-about-you
One note: Exclamation marks can save lives. For example, there’s a big difference between “Duck” and “Duck!”. Ha! Love it.
The Cold Start Problem
You’ve got a new product or service you want to introduce to the world. The problem is, that no one knows about you or your product. How do you get those first users on board? And how do you leverage those first users into a larger market share?
Those are the questions Andrew Chen answers in his new book, “The Cold Start Problem,” which promises to explain how to start, grow and defend successful businesses.
It’s difficult to get momentum when there are no existing users, just as it’s harder to start a car engine when it’s cold.
And if you don’t overcome this cold start problem quickly, your new product will likely die.
“A network effect describes what happens when products become more valuable as more people use them,” Chen writes. Think of a dating website – it’s worthless if there are only a handful of members. But as the membership grows, the site becomes more valuable to both users and the site’s owner.
Many dominant businesses got their early start by serving niche markets, what Chen calls “atomic networks.” For example, Bank of America launched its first credit card just in Fresno, California in 1958 to 60,000 residents. Tinder and Facebook each started in a single college community before branching out.
Conversely, Google tried to launch its failed Google+ social network with a large-scale launch targeting everyone rather than first establishing a successful atomic launch.
“Your product’s first atomic network is probably smaller and more specific than you think,” Chen advises.
Determine who you are targeting as the first users of your product and service and then find a way to get them on board. Tinder initially threw big parties for college fraternity and sorority members to get them to use the app. Uber offered extensive bonuses and financial incentives for its first drivers, which were targeted in very specific locations.
Says Chen, “The product idea itself should be as simple as possible – easily understandable by anyone as soon as they encounter it. At the same time, it should simultaneously bring together a rich, complex, infinite network of users that is impossible to copy by competitors.” An example is Zoom, with its simple interface and freemium model that encourages new users.
Once a product has succeeded in its atomic market, then its creators can extend it to adjacent markets, such as other demographics or locations until a tipping is reached and the product is a success.
Side Note: On TechCrunch, I see news of a new app called Go Disco that curates local events to get you doing cool stuff around town. Scrolling down, I read that Go Disco is only launching in Los Angeles, but plans to expand to New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Miami, Portland, and Austin in 2022. This is a perfect real-world current example of the Atomic Network launch referred to by Chen in his new book.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/17/go-disco-ios-app-local-discovery/
Dictionary.com Word of The Year = Opportunity
Sometimes you find entrepreneurial opportunities in the strangest of places.
Take the “word of the year” from Dictionary.com, for example.
This year, for the first time ever, Dictionary.com chose a word that’s new to their dictionary for this distinction.
allyship (noun): the status or role of a person who advocates and actively works for the inclusion of a marginalized or politicized group in all areas of society, not as a member of that group but in solidarity with its struggle and point of view and under its leadership.
Imagine creating a service that works as an ally for a certain niche. For example, you might help animal shelters obtain corporate sponsorship or help women’s groups get legislation passed.
Your business could be working for a cause that’s important to you while earning you a solid income.
TikTok Is Now The Third Largest Worldwide Social Network
TikTok has surpassed Snapchat and Twitter in global user numbers, according to the inaugural forecast on TikTok users worldwide by Insider Intelligence (formerly eMarketer). The social networking app surpassed those competitors in 2020 and grew even larger in 2021, cementing itself as the No. 3 worldwide social platform behind Facebook and Instagram.
There will be 755 million monthly TikTok users in 2022. This number grew 59.8% in 2020 and will increase an additional 40.8% in 2021. While that growth will slow, it will remain high at 15.1% in 2022.
