Social Media Marketing: The In-Text Context

Brand marketers are increasingly relying on in-text advertising that plugs their presence on the social web, "fishing where the fish are" (as the saying goes) to engage consumers with their brand messaging.

The in-text ads — think of them as mini-microsites with menu-tabs and interactivity — give users quick access to the marketer's Twitter feed or Facebook wall, or can direct them to a YouTube video.

Flite is one such cloud-based ad platform, designed to "improve brand recall and purchase intent" and enable marketers "to produce ads that express the power of their brand as effectively as the brand’s website."

“Marketers receive up to a 10x increase in ROI on their brand spend with ads developed in 1/10th the time,” Flite states, with its website featuring an array of campaigns it has produced for leading brands including Heineken (at right), Burberry, Coca-Cola, Lancôme, Volkswagen and AT&T.

According to Flite, consumers spent 30 seconds on average interacting with on of its ads (vs. the Google-reported average of 11 seconds as average), and are more likely to click on a “learn more” button, with 35 of every 1,000 users clicking through.

“Brands are building a great presence on social networks and are looking at ways of making it more accessible,” observed Giles Goodwin, president for product and technology at Flite, to the New York Times.

In contrast, Kontera’s approach to in-text advertising has marketers pay for hyperlinked keywords in an article or blog post; the ads appear in a pop out window on the same page, highlighting a brand’s social networks. 

Kraft’s Ritz crackers used Kontera for an in-text ad that highlighted a sweepstakes with a grand prize of a trip to Los Angeles to meet the cast of Glee. Fans were required to sign up as followers on Ritz's Facebook page to enter the sweepstakes. 

“A program like Kontera’s is really effective for reaching consumers with common and shared passion points. It really was a push to drive people to Facebook to learn more about the brand,” Sheeba Philip, marketing director for Ritz, commented to the New York Times.

Vibrant Media also designs contextual campaigns for brands, such as the highly regarded Best Buy Twelpforce campaign.

Best Buy’s Twitter account was monitored 24/7 to answer customer’s basic tech questions, using Vibrant’s dynamic custom in-text unit, the first in-text Twitter execution in the U.S. The campaign saw strong engagement with average CTR of 5.07% and over 1.2 million user-initiated ad views. 

 “We have seen the power of contextual advertising to connect brands and consumers with the right messages, across the right content and at the right time of engagement,” Jonathan Gardner, Vibrant's director of communications, told brandchannel.

“Contextual advertising solutions deliver because they build relationships of relevance between consumers and brands. Social media is about word of mouth and what’s more relevant than what is shared by those with whom you have a connection, be they friends or brands.”

In-text, context — the sub-text for consumers is a more meaningful engagement with the brand.