Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Relationship Is A Grand Conversation

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By Nancy Zapolski, PhD, Landmark Forum leader

You+Me=UsNancy has an elegant way of pointing out the upside to having something at stake. Relationships are a good place to start because most of us can’t avoid them even if we wanted to.

We sometimes think that the circumstances in our relationships keep our relationships from being great. (If only she fill in the blank, if only he fill in the blank, etc.) But it’s not the content that determines the quality and power of our relationships—it’s the way we hold the content, the conversations we engage in, the conversation we are, the stand we take for workability.

Power, fulfillment, satisfaction, and aliveness in our relationships happen if we take our various complaints, or things we think don’t work, and promise to produce what’s missing (not as an insufficiency, but a possibility for something). To promise to produce what’s missing leaves us at risk.

Being related is a grand conversation—it’s living in a possibility, and if it’s a possibility, it’s inherently risky. If it’s not risky, if it’s a sure thing, if it’s predictable, then what we’ll be left with is something trivial. Our closest relationships then become a place of explanation rather than exploration, of resignation rather than declaration. In those moments, courage is required to set aside our judgments, characterizations, and Landmark Insights blog, Nancy Zapolski, Landmark Forum leaderopinions and create our relationship being powerful again—being related is a conversation, and with that comes an infinite malleability. Love, genuinely and openly expressed, is enormously powerful. And it’s in risking ourselves, in revealing ourselves to one another and to those closest to us, that we become ourselves.

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– See more at: http://landmarkinsights.com/2014/05/relationship-is-a-grand-conversation/#sthash.Aq7Z2ger.dpuf

Power(ed) Readers: Americans Who Read More Electronically Read More, Period

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Majority of Americans, and two-thirds of Millennials,

read at least some books electronically

NEW YORK , N.Y. – April 17, 2014 – As with just about every other aspect of our lives, the ways in which we can read books have undergone radical shifts over the past few years. Not long ago hardcover and paperback were the main options available to readers, but then e-readers hit the scene, followed by tablet computers. With the additional options of reading on your computer or your phone, these days it seems as though just about the only thing standing between Americans and a good read is setting aside the time. Americans seem to be embracing their broader options, as the majority (54%) currently read e-books, including two-thirds of Millennials (66%).

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,234 adults surveyed online between March 12 and 17, 2014.

When asked to consider any format – not just hardcovers and paperbacks, but electronic formats as well – a strong majority of Americans (84%) say they read at least one book in an average year, with over a third (36%) saying they read more than ten. On average, Americans report reading roughly 17 books per year. Looking at demographics, Baby Boomers and Matures (whose readerships average roughly 19 and 25 books per year, respectively) both read more in a typical year than Millennials (13). Women, meanwhile, (23) read twice as many books as men (11).

Two-thirds of Americans (65%) purchased at least one book in the past year, with one in ten (9%) purchasing over 20 and an average of over 8 books purchased. Women also purchased more books in the last year, on average, than men (10 vs. 7, respectively).

Powered Readers = Power Readers

Interestingly, there appears to be an intersection at work between how Americans read and how much they read. Those who read either more or exclusively in the e-book format are more likely to read over 20 books in an average year (30%) than either those who read more/only in hard copy (18%) or those who read in both formats equally (21%). They also report a higher average readership per year than either hard copy hardliners or equal-opportunity readers (22.5 books vs. 16 and 15, respectively).

Looking at the number of books purchased in the past year, with a reported average of 14 books, those favoring e-books purchased roughly twice as many as those preferring hard copies, who purchased an average of less than seven.

Print Still Predominates

However, in terms of overall users, the hard copy format is still king. Nearly half of Americans (46%) say they only read hard copy books, with an additional 16% saying they read more hard copy books than e-books. Seventeen percent (17%) read about the same number of hard copy and e-format books, while 15% read more and 6% read exclusively in the electronic format.

About half of Americans (51%) say they read the same amount in the past six months as they did before, while nearly a quarter (23%) read less in the past six months and fewer than two in ten (17%) read more. Younger Americans often get blamed for declining readership nationally, but Millennials (21%) were more likely than their elders (14% Gen Xers; 15% Baby Boomers and Matures) to have read more in the past six months.

Further reinforcing the interplay between reading format and overall readership, those who read either more or exclusively e-books are more likely to indicate reading more over the past six months (29%) than those preferring hard copies (13%) or those who reading both formats equally (16%).

To see other recent Harris Polls, please visit the Harris Poll News Room.

Want Harris Polls delivered direct to your inbox? Click here!

 

TABLE 1

BOOKS READ IN A YEAR (ANY FORMAT)

By Generation, Gender & Preferred Format

“Now, we’d like to ask you some questions about books and reading. When we refer to books, think of books in any format – not just hardcovers and paperbacks, but electronic formats as well. How many books do you typically read in an average year? If you are not sure, please use your best estimate.”

Base: All adults

Total

Generation

Gender

Preferred Format

Millennials (18-36)

Gen Xers (37-48)

Baby Boomers (49-67)

Matures (68+)

Male

Female

Read more/only hard copy

Same

Read more/only ebooks

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%
0

16

15

18

16

15

20

12

15

30

8
Any (NET)

84

85

82

84

85

80

88

85

70

92
1-2

17

17

16

17

15

19

14

20

10

12
3-5

18

25

17

16

12

21

16

18

14

22
6-10

13

13

13

13

15

11

15

15

7

14
11+ (NET)

36

30

35

38

42

29

42

32

39

47
11-20

15

13

15

15

17

13

16

14

18

14
21+

21

17

20

23

26

15

26

18

21

30

Mean

17.1

13.2

15.4

18.6

25.2

10.9

22.9

15.9

14.8

22.5

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

 TABLE 2

BOOKS PURCHASED IN THE PAST YEAR

By Generation, Gender & Preferred Format

“How many books have you purchased in the past year?”

Base: All adults

Total

Generation

Gender

Preferred Format

Millennials (18-36)

Gen Xers (37-48)

Baby Boomers (49-67)

Matures (68+)

Male

Female

Read more/only hard copy

Same

Read more/only ebooks

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%
0

35

31

35

36

42

38

32

37

38

27
Any (NET)

65

69

65

64

58

62

68

63

62

73
1-2

16

18

17

13

14

19

13

17

12

16
3-5

20

21

19

20

18

19

21

21

18

17
6-10

12

13

12

11

8

11

12

11

14

12
11-20

9

11

8

8

6

6

11

9

7

10
21+

9

5

8

12

12

8

11

6

10

19

Mean

8.4

6.5

8.5

9.8

9.3

6.9

9.9

6.6

8.5

14.0

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 3

READERSHIP – HARD COPY VS. ELECTRONICALLY

By Generation, Gender & Children in Household

“Currently, how many books would you say you read in hard copy form (e.g., hardcover, paperback) versus electronically (e.g., on a smartphone, tablet, e-reader)?”

Base: All adults

Total

Generation

Gender

Millennials (18-36)

Gen Xers (37-48)

Baby Boomers (49-67)

Matures (68+)

Male

Female

%

%

%

%

%

%

%
I only read hard copy books

46

34

46

52

57

44

48
I read more hard copy books than “e-books”

16

21

14

14

17

15

17
I read about the same number of hard copy and “e-books”

17

26

16

13

9

21

14
I read more “e-books” than hard copy books

15

14

18

15

11

14

15
I only read “e-books”

6

5

7

6

7

6

6
Read more e-books than hard copy (NET)

21

20

25

21

17

21

21
Read any e-books (NET)

54

66

54

48

43

56

52

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

TABLE 4

READING MORE/LESS IN PAST 6 MONTHS

By Generation, Gender & Preferred Format

“Over the past 6 months, how have your reading habits changed? Please choose the statement that best describes you.”

Base: All adults

Total

Generation

Gender

Preferred Format

Millennials (18-36)

Gen Xers (37-48)

Baby Boomers (49-67)

Matures (68+)

Male

Female

Read more/only hard copy

Same

Read more/only ebooks

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%
I read the same amount as I did before.

51

39

54

56

59

53

48

54

47

44
I read less than I did before.

23

26

23

21

19

19

26

24

22

19
I read more than I did before.

17

21

14

15

15

16

17

13

16

29
Not at all sure.

5

7

6

4

4

7

4

5

8

5
I purchase more books now, but do not read them as readily as I did before.

5

8

4

3

3

4

5

4

8

3

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding

 

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between March 12 and 17, 2014 among 2,234 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, The Harris Poll avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Poll surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in our panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

These statements conform to the principles of disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

The results of this Harris Poll may not be used in advertising, marketing or promotion without the prior written permission of The Harris Poll.

Product and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

The Harris Poll® #37, April 17, 2014

By Larry Shannon-Missal, Harris Poll Research Manager

About Nielsen & The Harris Poll

On February 3, 2014, Nielsen acquired Harris Interactive and The Harris Poll. Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence and mobile measurement. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

Content Marketers Guide To Sponsored Social Media Posts

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by Jason Konopinski 3 days agoFILED UNDER: DESIGN

You’ve worked hard to create an amazing campaign for your brand, combining top-notch content and engaging visuals. Now all you have to do is get that content in front of as many eyes as possible.

Social media offers brands a distribution channel for the promotion and amplification of their content, but it’s also becoming an increasingly noisy place. To stand out above the clamor of the Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter crowds and train the right eyes onto your content, you need to spend a little scratch to boost the reach of that content. Why? Because it’s just not going to be seen otherwise.

You’re probably thinking, “but social media is supposed to be open and free!” Sorry, that’s no longer the case. (We’ll tell you why below.)

And hand in hand with paid placement comes creating the right images to help boost performance further. Here’s what you need to know about getting your content promoted on each of the leading social networks.

Facebook

As a publicly traded company, Facebook must now demonstrate profitability to shareholders. The result? The well-documented decline of brand pages’ organic reach. For content marketers on both the agency and brand side, this means one thing: Facebook is quickly becoming a pay-to-play network.

Facebook’s self-serve advertising platform makes it easy to hyper-target key audiences, but there are some tips for crafting a relevant and effective ad — one that gets clicked, and more importantly, converts the person on the other side of the click into a fan, lead, or customer.

Relevance, a great call-to-action and a crystal clear value proposition work together to pull the user into your content, but it all comes down to strong visuals and ideal image size.

Facebook Desktop App Ad

On Facebook, the best image size to upload is 1200 x 627px. If you’re placing an ad front and center into the newsfeed, you’re looking at a minimum of 600 x 600 pixels. Jon Loomer wrote an excellent post outlining the optimal image sizes for various Facebook ad products and media type. Keep it handy as you’re optimizing images for the most effective ads possible.

Source: JonLoomer.com


 

There’s good reason that big, bold visuals capture our attention as we’re doing a quick scroll through a Facebook timeline — they stand out against a wall of text. Newsfeed ads with clear calls-to-action (Install this App, Play this Game!) can be irresistible to eyes bored with text update after text update.

A few key considerations:

  • You’re limited to ninety characters to make your pitch, so keep it simple. Clarity trumps cleverness every time. Reserve about 25 characters for the headline — that’s about five words.
  • Facebook’s guidelines limit the amount of text in images to 20%. Don’t fret. They’ve made it easy to check with this super handy grid tool.
  • Choose the right type of ad for the right result. Promoted posts or Page Post ads are most often used to promote brand Facebook pages, but that doesn’t mean they’re off limits to other types of content. If you’re driving signups for a webinar series or announcing the availability of a new white paper, for instance, a promoted post is the most basic and least expensive option for showcasing visual content.

Twitter

If you think Facebook is getting noisy, get a load of Twitter. According to Twitter’s recent IPO documentation, there are over 500 million tweets sent each day. That’s a lot of noise to rise above and get your content the attention it deserves.

Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards were made available to all advertisers on the micro-blogging platform late last year. They’re like embedded landing pages in the body of a tweet. For your community following your tweets via twitter.com, they’re simple, one-click opt-ins for newsletters, claiming coupons and offers, or registering for your latest webinar.

Here’s what you need to know about Twitter Cards (there are seven types that can be attached to tweets for a beautiful content consumption experience on web or mobile):

  • The minimum required width for your uploaded image is 600px and at least 4:1 aspect ratio.
  • Supported file types are: jpg, jpeg, png and gif.
  • The card title should describe to content of the offer, and it’s a hard stop at 50 characters.
  • Call to action label – Choose short calls to actions that make the benefit obvious. You have 20 characters to work with here, make ‘em count.
  • To make Twitter cards display properly, you have to include a bit of HTML in your site header, butthat’s easy to do.

EastIndiaTeaCompany Twitter Card

East India Tea Company used Twitter Cards to promote their blog posts. It’s a great use for online brand development. In this application, the enhanced layout looks very much like a rich snippet you’d find in search engine results and provide context to the content, encouraging more clickthroughs and deeper engagement onsite.

The Barista Bar Twitter Card

LinkedIn

Let’s not forget LinkedIn. It’s all business, all the time on LinkedIn, as it should be. If your brand is targeting other business professionals, LinkedIn advertising offers a number of products to boost conversions and drive traffic. Sponsored posts pull images from the source links, but you have to define images for sidebar ads.

linkedin-ads

LinkedIn supports image uploads for ads (PNG, JPEG, or GIF) with a maximum size of 2MB. Once it’s uploaded, your image will be resized to fix a 50px square. Ads with images perform up to 20% better, according to LinkedIn.

What you need to know:

  • Ad headlines are limited to 25 characters.
  • Body descriptions are limited to 75 characters.
  • Test, test, and test some more. The LinkedIn advertising platform will let you launch up to 15 different versions of the same ad to see which one proves most effective. This can help you test different combinations of headline, description, image and landing page to hit paydirt.

LinkedIn Engine

Remember that the social networks are distribution channels and, increasingly, display ad networks, so you have to carve out a little budget to train more qualified eyeballs on your content to meet those important business outcomes.

Want to learn about creating visual content that drives engagement? Download our white paper, Visuals That Stick, with actionable advice on impactful design from the Visually creative team.


 
 

Jason Konopinski has been living the life of a fulltime freelancer since 2007, specializing in data-driven content development and lead-nurturing frameworks. He has worked with boutique PR, marketing, and advertising agencies to develop strategy, create cross-platform and cross-medium content, and help clients tell better stories. You can connect with him on Twitter at @jasonkonopinski.

More Men Pushing Shopping Carts, Are Your Adapting?

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Male African American ChefWhen at risk males were surveyed regarding their interests, cooking and food service were at the top of the list. Seen as a career track, food is rapidly becoming a driving force throughout multiple sectors of the economy. What would it look like if we used eating, food, nutrition and health as economic redevelopment drivers?

 

From Nielsen

Between 2004 and 2011, cooking moved to seventh from 12th on a list of men’s top interests, according to a recent study by the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA). That puts cooking ahead of politics and reading and right below cars. And another PLMA study found that 47 percent of men polled do more than half of their families’ shopping and cooking.

It’s not surprising then that Nielsen research shows men have gained or maintained trip share in all retail channels except drug stores since 2004. While women still drive 64 percent of all shopping trips, dominating every retail channel except convenience/gas, the rise of male shoppers cannot be ignored. As men assume more household responsibilities, their new influence over how cupboards and refrigerators are stocked requires food manufacturers and retailers to fine-tune their marketing plans or risk losing business.

Differences Abound Between Male and Female Shoppers

As with so many other areas, men and women shop differently. Women are more likely to seek out deals: they buy more on sale in total (34% of dollar purchases versus 28% for men) and shop with coupons about twice as much as men (7% versus 4%).

Home Depot Caped Cruader Super DadWhen we compare the distribution of all-outlet spending for women and men, the split varies by age. Young women under 36 years of age outspend their male counterparts almost 2:1 (19% versus 12%). The gap narrows with age, though women 36-44 years old retain a slight edge (16% versus 13%). Men find their stride from 45-54 years old, outspending women by a nose (27% versus 26%), then extend their lead during the 55-64 timeframe (26% versus 21%) and maintain it after age 65 (23% versus 18%).

So what are the sexes buying differently? Women dominate trip share for beauty, baby and basic food categories. Female share of category sales in many beauty and baby categories are between 79 percent and 90 percent. Female shoppers hold a 74 percent share of category sales by gender for items such as baking mixes, desserts/gels/syrups and breakfast foods, leaving men with just a 26 percent share. Even though men spend more per trip than women in many of these categories, more women buy and they buy more often.

Convenience stores, however, break all the rules. Male shopping trips in this channel lead female trips 57 percent to 43 percent. The channel’s unique position could set an example for others to follow. To help simplify shopping like convenience does, top-selling categories—such as beer, carbonated beverages, snacks, juices, bread and milk—are already collaborating with retailers to harness store layout, package design and in-store signage to create themed deal areas that bundle items, benefiting retailers, manufacturers and consumers.

Finding the Sexes’ Common Ground in Stores

Produce Filled Shopping CartWhen it comes time to shop, both genders share a preference for heading to the stores on the weekends. Men and women also buy many of the same items when they head to the store: bread/baked goods, fresh produce, snacks and milk appear among the top 10 most frequently purchased categories for both sexes.

Men and women also have similar habits when picking products. They equally favor brands compared with private label (about 80% versus 20% for both), although women spend more on both. And both sexes show strong preferences for brands in certain categories. Women account for 81 percent of dollars spent for branded hair care. And well over half of men buy branded products in motor vehicle care (57%) and liquor (58%).

What do These Differences and Similarities Mean for Retailers?

Men and women’s unique shopping habits can provide challenges to retailers attempting to reach both. However, the benefits can far outweigh these difficulties—especially for certain categories and channels. Men’s lower interest in shopping for deals provides a unique opportunity for premium priced brands and non-promotional items—especially with men under 36 years of age. And while convenience is a nice-to-have for female shoppers, it’s a deal breaker for men. Does your marketing exploit or ignore this positioning opportunity? Marketers with campaigns at odds with their shoppers’ preferences may be overdue for a review.

Interested in learning more? Contact Nielsen