Presentation discussing how and why media companies and web publishers can sell social media extensions and experiences.

1. VOICES HEARD MEDIA
Why & How to Sell Social Media Extensions

2. Challenging Times
There are significant challenges in the advertising marketplace
today. Here are a few that we see customers struggling with:
• Debt Cliff – Pandora Announced their 4th Quarter revenue was
down due to advertisers holding back because of the looming
decision on the debt crisis
• Banner Blindness – Research concluding that internet users
ignore banner advertisements
• Depressed CPM’s – Competition and market forces continue to
push down prices and increase the amount of remnant
advertisements
• Expectations – Advertisers and brands hold Internet
advertisements to higher standards than other forms of media.
Click-thru’s and conversions are the focus, not simply eyeballs.
• Social Media – Social media has thrown another wrench into
the equation that has everyone seeing gold, but no clear winner
has been identified.
• Mobile – Mobile presents an entirely new problem because the
smaller screen makes it harder for content and advertisements
to coexist.

3. What NOT to Focus On
To thrive in the current market, we must focus on the challenges
that we can lead in and affectively improve the marketplace.
To do this we must first know what not to focus on:
• Government decisions and macro market forces that are
completely out of our control.
• Advertisers’ expectations and metrics on banner ads are solidly
established and not readily to change in the near term.
What to Focus On
The four challenges that do offer the most opportunity and have a
need for leadership are in the areas of: 1) social media, 2)
depressed CPM’s, 3) banner blindness, and 4) mobile advertising.

4. Creating A New Experience
Social media applications can be leveraged to create new
experiences and extensions for existing content. This creates
interactive and engaging user experiences that easily integrate with
sponsors, without detracting from the user experience or impairing
editorial standards.
Resolves Issues
Done correctly, this helps solve the issues around banner blindness,
and where to locate ads within mobile websites or apps.
Another benefit is that sponsoring content is different from other
offerings in the market place, empowering a sales team to sell
packages independent of traditional CPM’s.
Maximizing the Opportunity
By connecting the sponsor into content, we can also begin to move
the focus away from click thru’s to metrics such as engagement,
social media extensions, and added-value services.

5. In the following slides we will cover ways in which publishers
have successfully integrated sponsors into social media to
create new value-added experiences.
Examples Covered
• Embedding Ads within Content
• Participation-Based Ads
• Branded Experiences
• Adding in Social Media Extensions
• User-Initiated Refresh Rates
• Content as the Ad
• Other Value-Added Services

6. Embedding Ads Within the Content
The easiest way to get started is to sell traditional digital
ads (banners, block, and pre-roll ads) within social
media experiences. Sponsors will receive increased
value because their ads are now mixed within the
content portions of your website.
Ex. 1
Biggest Key: Users will accept ads as long as they are
receiving value and are not being berated with ads.
Best Practices:
• Ex. 1 - Ads that overlap content should still allow
content to be seen and should allow the user to
easily dismiss or skip over the ads
• Ex. 2 – Embedded ad ratio should be somewhere
around 4:1 (display four pieces of content for every
one ad)
Ex. 2

7. Ads Displayed Based on a Users Participation
Research conducted around SMS advertising showed that Ex. 1
when users initiated an action and received the information
they had requested with an ad, they were 30% more likely
to view the ad favorably.
Psychologically, the user is more apt to accept and even
click-thru on an ad when they have been given the
opportunity to participate or receive something of value for
free.
Examples:
Ex. 1 – After users ask a question they are required to
watch a pre-roll video before seeing the answer to their
question.
Ex. 2 – Between questions 7 and 8 of a trivia game the
user sees an advertisement.
Ex. 2
Our experience has shown this to be true. Ads displayed after a user
has taken action have a lower number of total impressions but a higher
click-thru rate.

8. What the Sponsor Wants?
The sponsor wants their brand first and
foremost to be seen. Because of the
research around banner blindness, sponsors
know the best place to be is within the
content sections of a website.
Even more valuable is to be where the users
are actively engaging with content.
Branding the Experience
Basic integration can be executed by simply
adding a brand’s logo as a watermark. More
fully integrated experiences can include
sponsor colors, logos, and even their name or
slogan as the call-to-action.
Ex. “Unleash the Beast with the Monster
Tweet of the Day”
Don’t Forget!
These same experiences are a great way to
cross-promote other properties and events.

9. Social Landing Pages
Sponsors are always looking to buy fully branded
destination pages. These pages can exist on
your website and or on your social pages, i.e.
Facebook Tabs.
Best Practices
The best way to execute this kind of campaign is
for the publisher to create a Facebook Tab as
well as a destination page on their website.
Example
Here, the Facebook Tab banners link to the
destination page on the publisher’s website, and
the banner ads on the web page point to the
sponsor’s website.
Note:
In order to conform to Facebook’s advertising standards,
all banner ads on the tab must link back to a page on the
publisher’s website.

10. Social Media Feeds
A way to deliver social media extensions is by
integrating a sponsor’s social media feeds within
content on a publisher’s website.
Why?
Take 5 minutes, think of the amount of time and
money that each sponsor is spending to create
and enhance their own social networks. How can
you help them achieve their goals and grow their
network?
Best Practices
Depending on your sponsor’s goals you can have
them set up a new twitter feed around a special
promotion, or use their existing account. From
there you pull in their feed into your social stream
product. This allows you to integrate the
sponsor’s tweet without having to manually add it
in each time.
Depending on the product, a user can follow,
favorite, or reply to the sponsor directly.
Other features can be added to highlight the
sponsor’s tweets, such as avatars and the brand’s
colors.

11. User-Initiated Ad Refresh
According to IAB standards, the following defines the
use case of when an ad on a web page may be
refreshed based on a user’s actions.
• Rich Interactive Applications with “Strong User
Activity”
• User activity triggers ad-counting:
• Mouse Button Usage
• Keyboard Activity/Typing
• Fully disclosed to all parties (advertiser)
• The application must cover 40% to 50% of the
page
• Source:
http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_s
ervices/508676/guidelines/1470

12. Benefits For the Publisher
This technique can be used to throttle up or down a
particular campaign’s impressions, based on how
well or poorly the campaign is performing.
This same technique can also be used to rotate
several advertisers within a given ad location.
Example
Advertisements can be set up to refresh based on a
user answering a question, going on to the next
question, or both.
We have seen in some cases that for every
20,000 engaged visitors 1,000,000 ad
impressions were served. Traditionally, this
same number of visitors would only have
amounted to 100,000 ad impressions.

13. 300X250
Content As the Ad
One of our first customers to use our product as an ad was a
candidate running for state governor. The campaign created
a poll that asked voters “How Can Bill Earn Your Vote?”
The campaign purchased a 300X250 ad spot on a local TV
news station’s website the day of the first debate. The TV
station began getting numerous calls from viewers asking
why the station was backing the candidate. The news group
finally took the ad down to end the flow of inbound calls.
While this caused the news station a few headaches the poll
was clearly labeled as an ad and was not deceptive in any
way.
Benefit
The sponsor clearly saw value in the advertisement because
voters saw the ad and the ad provoked a reaction. The
benefit for the news organization was that they were able to
prove the value of their online ads.
The blurring of lines between ads and content does not
have to be deceptive to provide tremendous value to a
sponsor. It is simply about location and engaging the
user instead of simply messaging them.

14. 300X250
Eliminate the Need for Artificial Destinations
Often digital ad sales teams find themselves at the mercy of
initiatives sold by the traditional sales team where, as a part
of a special promotion, an artificial destination (i.e. webpage,
Facebook Tab) is created for the sponsor.
The Problem
Problems occur because the number of impressions
promised are based on existing web page numbers. What
ends up happening, is that the number of impressions served
fall well short of the impressions committed.
The Solution
By pairing an artificial destination page with a distributable
content experience, the digital sales team has the ability to
distribute the sponsored content to established webpages in
order to meet their contractual commitments and increase
the overall engagement around the promotion.

15. Email Newsletter Sign Ups
Businesses large and small are looking to
increase their email databases so that they
can re-market and target consumers.
The key is how to get users to willingly sign
up for a businesses’ newsletters.
Solution
For sponsors looking to capture email
addresses, offer them the opportunity to
sponsor your next contest or sweepstakes.
In exchange, not only will the sponsor be
branded into the event but any users that
participate will be asked to sign up for the
sponsor’s newsletter.
This is an acceptable practice as long as
signing up for the newsletter is a not
requirement for entering the contest, and the
user has the ability to opt out of the
newsletter.

16. Mobile Content and Couponing
Other ways to add value are by looking at campaigns
that have a focus on mobile experiences.
These experiences typically consist of the user
consuming content outside the confines of their home
- whether it is at a live event, restaurant, or being
distributed through an out-of-home platform (i.e. digital
signage, in-store broadcast).
The most difficult part is getting the user to the correct
web address. The key here is to give the user a
simple and easy way to find the content on their
mobile phone. A few ways to direct users to the web
address are by providing a short URL address, SMS
text message, and/or a QR code. None of these
methods are ideal but they work. (Good news - other
forms of technology are being tested to make this
process easier for users.)
After the user interacts with your content, you then
have the opportunity to thank them by responding with
a coupon. Based on the user’s location, this coupon
can be used to make an immediate purchase.

17. Digital Advertising is Open to New Ideas
What is so exciting about the advent of social media, and of mobile
advertising, is that the world of advertising is now - more than ever -
open to exploration and experimentation to new ideas, campaigns
and ways in which to offer sponsors increased value.
The key is for us all to push the boundaries and try new things, that
will work (in some cases) but in many others may likely fail. To
those that lead the way and succeed… the rewards will be great!
Please let me know if you have any other thoughts, ideas,
questions, or information to share. I would love to hear from you
and discuss.
My email is woverstreet@voicesheardmedia.com