Marketing Analytics and the World’s Most Famous Butt

Marketing Analytics and the World’s Most Famous Butt

Yes, you read that correctly; while seemingly possessing no relation to one another, there is a definite positive relationship between marketing analytics and a glorious butt. Bear with me, I promise I’m not just click-baiting you…

Firstly, let’s lay down the foundation for this post: in order to demonstrate results and achieve progression in digital marketing, it is imperative that some fashion of performance management exists. As so famously put by Bob Napier (1960’s), “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” It’s no hidden truth that majority of firms have an established online presence, but the way in which marketing performance of such a presence is evaluated and modified with a view of improving performance is still somewhat ambiguous (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Johnston & Mayer, 2006). Fortunately, as with most provocative disciplines, this has resulted in a magnitude of performance frameworks being established that can assist in the assessment of digital performance outcomes.

Whilst there are an endless amount of frameworks now being circulated, there in one commonality that should emphasised: quantifying marketing results so that we can attach meaningful, calculable numbers to them. After all, why is the CEO going to hand you a budget for something that you can’t prove any economical return on? They want to invest in their various organisational departments, not just gift you with some moolah because, in some Freaky Friday event, they’ve decided to be entirely altruistic in nature and throw profitability goals out the window.

So what marketers are really hungry for is a way to create, track, analyse and report meaningful data. And SNS, specifically Instagram, have become a hotspot for achieving such objectives. Why? Because we have access to some handy-dandy numbers (yay!) that allow us to measure reach and engagement of marketing efforts.

As all marketers know, measuring awareness and engagement is an important aspect of assessing the achievement of marketing objectives, and these are two things that social networking sites do really well. Per-follower engagement for Instagram posts are reported to average 4.21%; a significant statistic that proves 58 times more engagement per follower than that of Facebook and an approximate 120 times more than Twitter (Elliot, 2015). With such impactful and quantifiable results, it’s no surprise that digital marketers are hungry for follower-intensive posts; and what better way to achieve that than by targeting instafamous users, and using them as a marketing communication tool?

And this is where the world’s most famous butt becomes relevant in our discussion. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jen Selter’s greatest asset, click here to have a browse of Jen’s Instagram account. For a quick rundown, here’s what we know about Jen: she’s 22 years old, has 6.8million Instagram followers, and (perhaps most importantly) has a gluteus maximum that looks like it was hand-crafted by Aphrodite herself. Why is she the focal point for this blog post? Well, according to various sources (theladbible.com, 2015; squanderguy, 2014; Chris Illuminati, 2014; thenetworth.com, 2015) she has a current net-worth of approximately $500,000 and has received up to $50,000 for a single sponsored Instagram post.

Why?

Let’s bring it back to the ‘numbers’ topic: Jen has access to an astonishing 6.8million Instagram users – that kind of exposure for an organisation is arousing in itself. Each photo Jen shares appears to average close to 200,000 ‘likes’ per post; that means that not only has the post itself gained exposure to a potential 6.8million people, but at least 200,000 have proceeded to the stage of engagement with the post. They’ve indirectly said, “hey, I like this…” and made a conscious effort to show their satisfaction with the content. The use of ‘likes’ and exposure to followers is of such high interest to digital marketers because it quantifies marketing efforts and provides firms with data. And what can we do with that data? Analyse it! Halleluiah!

If you’re not quite ambitious enough to reach 6.9m followers on Instagram, accounts with followers of around 200k are reported to have an income potential of $5,000 – $7,500 per month, according to Brian DiFeo (founder of The Mobile Media Lab).

And don’t worry; organisations aren’t just after women with great assets.

Justin Livingston dropped his former job at Amazon in their social media department to become a fulltime “Instagram influencer”. At age 25, he earns enough to live comfortably by simply sporting brands like Ralph Lauren and Armani Exchange on his Instagram (and now at events). There are entire organisations dedicated solely to representing these Instagram influencers, and caution people not to be limited by what they’re influencing – whether you like to photograph current events, antique chairs or delicious looking pastries, if you gain a considerable following then there may just be a firm who want to use your profile for a slice of marketing action!

As Jennifer Power, an L.A.-based talent agent, so eloquently puts it; “When you have a person with 2 million Instagram followers, that’s direct consumer advertising. It’s a no-brainer.” The Federal Trade Commission states that disclosure is necessary in social media when the user is receiving payment for a post (CNBC, 2014), but that the requirements of disclosure may be as simple as a “thanks (brand name here)” in a caption.

Sponsored posts also often contain ‘discount codes’ in captions, which allows consumers to get some form of benefit –usually financial- when purchasing the featured product or service. Whilst this discount may appear to be solely for the consumers’ benefit, it also allows firms to see whether the successful transaction is a result of their sponsored marketing efforts. If a transaction occurs and you’ve input “jensbutt10” in a promo code during the checkout stage, the firm can relay that purchase decision back to the sponsored post, and conclude that the marketing effort did provide a financial return.

Don’t be restricted by Instagram: this quantifiable performance measurement is evident through various response options such as ‘favouriting’, retweets, ‘shares’, subscriptions etc. The reason why Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (and SNS in general) are of such high interest is because they simplify the ability for firms to track exposure and engagement. Take a look at this video that shows just how much the ‘top 10 highest paid youtubers’ are earning – a large slab of which comes from advertisers and sponsorship from hungry marketers! 

Traditionally, site-visitor activity data and interaction is collected using log file analysis web analytics tools (Chaffey et al. 2006) – and of course, this more in-depth and analytical method is highly regarded and a crucial component in any credible online performance measurement system. They offer far more comprehensive data such as top pages, entry and exit pages, path or clickstream analysis showing sequence of pages viewed, country of visitor origin, browser and operating system used, referring URL and domain etc (Chaffey et al. 2006). But this doesn’t undermine the use of sponsored posts on instagram; they’re massive complements to each other and are clearly beneficial to both the firm and the recipient of the sponsorship!

So, what do you think? Would you be happy to advertise on your personal digital spaces to earn some extra money? What do you think about marketers using consumers as a means to get their products out into their ‘followers’? 

Sources:

Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Johnston, K., Mayer, R. (2006) Internet Marketing: Strategy, implementation and practice (3rd ed.). Essex, England: Pearson.

Illuminati, C. (2014, December 26). Jen Selter Earn $50k per Ass Shot. Retrieved August 17, 2015, http://www.brobible.com/girls/article/jen-selters-ass-allegedly-worth-half-million-dollars/

Saiidi, U. (2014, April 11). Modeling on instagram? Don’t laugh. It can pay big. Retrieved August 16, 2015, from http://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/11/instagram-influencers-models-make-thousands-working-on-instagram.html

The Lad Bible. (2015, January 8). You Won’t Believe How Much Jen Selter Earns for a Booty Picture. Retrived August 17, 2015, from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=click+bait

The Net Worth. (2015). Jen Selter. Retrieved August 16, 2015, http://www.the-net-worth.com/2015/05/jen-selter/