Facebook’s Flub-Up & the Number 1 Threat to Google: Interview

The Evolution of Digital Marketing: From Facebook Flaws to Amazon Supremecy [Transcript]

Mordy Oberstein: I am here with Mordecai Holtz who is the co-founder of Blue Thread Marketing. Thank you for joining us this morning, joining me this morning.

Mordecai Holtz: Good morning. How are you?

MO: Good, good. How are you?

MH: Great. 

MO: Besides being the most… the best-dressed person on Twitter, are you wearing cufflinks, by the way, today?

MH: Today I’m actually not, I usually do wear cufflinks. Today I’m actually not wearing… The problem with cufflinks is in the summer, especially here in Israel, is that it gets warm and too…and very uncomfortable to wear cufflinks and start sweating. Depending on the weather, you change it up a little bit. But thank you for the comment, I am a big fan of wearing French cuff shirts. It’s actually from a… I don’t know if he still works, but he used to work in the SEO industry. He would get on stage and he would talk, and he would wear jeans and a cufflink shirt.

MO: Nice.

MH: And I was like, “Well, I **** jeans and I **** wearing cufflink shirts.” And I was like, “I can’t know if I can pull it off in Israel.” And then I started doing it, and… Let’s do it, this is my thing, this is my brand.

MO: Nice.

MH: And so I started doing it. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, that’s my thing.

MO: I’ll make sure to interview you in January next time.

MH: Oh, okay, great. 

MO: Let’s just jump into this. Obviously, Facebook and the privacy concerns are a major issue. What’s your take on the… I know you just published an article about this, how Zuckerberg should have… or how he should react after, or with the interviews, or the questioning. Could you just run me through that a little bit? 

MH: Sure. Two days ago, the article you were mentioning was two days ago. I got my first big publication on Fast Company. It was a conversation that really started with someone that I met, and we were talking late a couple of ****** ago. And that journalist said, “Oh, you have a good idea, a good concept, much more on social media, less about the actual… less about the privacy, but what social media and how can Mark Zuckerberg talk about.. and make sure that his audience is still interested to people beyond just the journalists who are going be there, or the tech companies and things like that, but more on the social media perspective.” I offered my ideas and she said, “You should write it.” And I turned it over
quickly, and wrote my article about why he needs to be… besides the general information that a lot of publications are going to write about, and Fast Company actually wrote an article about, in general, what this means. I really focused more on what Mark Zuckerberg, as a person, can do to use his own platforms to engage with his audience and show how real he is and things like that. I think the last two days of hearings were painful for me. I was watching them, and I felt like it was just clear. And everyone’s been talking about it now. It was clear that the Congress, people in Congress and the people in the session were clearly either uneducated or they were just .. uninformed, we’ll call it that. And they just didn’t know how to really understand what was going on. Now you can watch all these little clips of the videos, the clips of the sessions, it’s clear. My favorite line is, “What happens when I’m emailing on WhatsApp?” That’s my favorite line. That’s my favorite line of the entire session. If you can say that, then basically the entire conversation is done right there. I also think it was like… in my opinion, again I could… there’s a lot of people who will say something else, but in my opinion, I think it was just a waste of time in terms of resources, and energy, and amount of the time invested just to get… It’s an important debate. I’m not minimizing the debate, but the public forum of it, ironically, 90% of the people who were watching it were watching on Facebook live, they were all watching it on Facebook, they’re all watching what’s going on. And the politicians and the people in government who are… debating with Mark Zuckerberg are on Facebook actually… they all run campaigns on Facebook to promote their own message. You’re really looking at a… it’s this weird… and it’s clear that this is the indication of what’s going on is, they are going to use this platform, it’s going to continue being used, and they need some new policy to be put in place, I’m not denying that. But it could have been done in a… what’s called a closed-door session with people who actually know what they’re talking about, and not just getting information from their advisors, and their… whoever they’re using, and the face of what the government represents, and who they’re talking about, and who are the people that they represent could’ve looked much better if they just said as we spoke. And many times, throughout the first day at least, when I was listening, the first day they were all saying is, “Oh, we met you before, Mr. Zuckerberg. We heard you, we talked to you before. Now this big meeting, and this big session, and the hearing and all these things.” And like, well, if you did it before, why do you even have to do this big public thing? Just close doors, shake hands, everyone’s going to be nice, everyone’s going to do it. And on both
sides we could clearly see that they had no idea what they’re talking about. They didn’t know the form. Mark Zuckerberg knows Facebook and knows the technology. But he knows also that the questions they were asking were just not, they were just not there. And the people on the other side, they didn’t know all the information on their side, the congresspeople and the people at the committee didn’t know what they were saying. And it was just a… I think it’s important, it’s a great conversation, but I think it’s not necessarily the form that needed to be done. That’s that, but my opinion in general is, I think that there was a mistake. It was clear that there was a mistake in terms of the privacy settings, and everyone knows about it.

MO: Well, it’s not just his mistake. It’s really everybody’s mistake. I’m sure…

MH: Everybody’s mistake.

MO: Ad targeting. I think he even said it at one point.

MH: Right, exactly. And I think it’s also, it’s on the user to know if the technology… If the information is there and it’s public and you’re using a platform that’s free, everyone knows that once the public platform is free and you agree to the terms of service, which most people just roll over and skim over. If they look at it at all and then just say, “Yes, I agree.” Because they want to get on Facebook or whatever the platform may be. They say, “Yes.” And once they say yes to that then what if you’ve accepted something that’s just completely… You’re at your own risk.

MO: Right. It’s only good faith to the user at that point. He’s lucky that he didn’t get a placed in front of the EU, it’s only Congress.

MH: Right, exactly. And I think there was once a couple of… I think there was a couple of months ago there was a company that was providing WiFi in some city I think it was or some area, and as a joke in the terms of service, the person agreed to connect to the WiFi and in the terms of service, just to prove the point that people don’t read it, they wrote that they agreed to clean the streets of the city… Just like some little funny line. But it proves the point that people don’t read the terms of service and it’s on us the users to accept those. If you accept the terms of service, whatever it says in there, it’s on you to really be responsible for what gets done after that. The information, the data and that’s collected and that’s fair. It’s fair game. Just like the ads that you pay for on radio. You’re targeting certain audiences. You might not get to the level of targeting that you may want or the granular targeting that you get on Facebook. It’s still there.

MO: Right. Well, it just sort of regulates itself. If you just don’t like the terms of the service. They should be a little bit clearer, you’re reading through the fine print of 300 pages. It’s like my brother-in-law who actually read the contract for his house. No one actually reads the contract to your house but… it’s there. 

MH: Exactly. Right. I think it’s there and I think there’s got to be some sort of… Everyone today uses the TLDR, kind of thing. The short version of it before you get to the details of it. Have some sort of summary which is five bullet points of what you agreed to, with linkable text. That way if you want to read the full version of it, you just click right away. But it’s on us, the users, and the consumers to really understand the terms of service. And if we agree to it, we accept that. And we have to accept that in today’s digital age, we use Gmail, we use Google, we use Facebook, we use whatever digital platform we’re using to connect and to create that global community and break down the walls of, the traditional walls, and create one global community. It’s on us to really understand that information is being stored and collected. In this
case it was a mistake.

MO: Do you think though… I’m sorry. Go ahead, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

MH: I was going to say, in this
case it was a mistake in that they allowed it to get to get storage somewhere outside of their own system and he admitted to that, and he apologized for it, and he’ll make it look right. But I think there’s a lot of information that is not necessarily on Facebook… It’s not their issue, it’s more of the user issue and I think he was trying to deliver that message. But I don’t necessarily think that they heard that.

MO: I’m not sure it’s a message people want to hear. Do you think though, if the terms of service were clearer there’s… I think what’s going to happen now is, you’re basically going to see them, the market sort of regulate itself. The users are upset. He’s going to have to change something, somewhere, somehow, otherwise, there will be a fall out to a certain extent. If those terms of service were clearer on the outset, could this have been avoided?

MH: Yeah, I think it could’ve been… Might not
been avoided because this is kind of thing definitely might not be avoidable and there’s always…

MO: The issue in general.

MH: Yeah. I think it could’ve been avoided and I think that is in terms of the startup or we’ll call the tech community in general, their responsibility now is to clarify the terms of service to give the short version of it. At the beginning say, “These are the basic
terms, if you want more information click here. We’ll give you all the list, the whole legalese that everyone needs to have.” But I think it could’ve definitely been to Facebook, but in general, big tech companies responsibility, big tech companies could’ve been avoided and been less of a situation. Because they said is, “We gave it to them.” And then you say, “And this is what we did.” And I think that’s where the shift will be. The policy, that will be the shift on both sides and I think that will make both sides more comfortable. Because no question that there is… there’s never a question that this is going, everyone is going to use Facebook until there are other platforms. But right now this is the massive platform including all their WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, all these great tools that everyone uses on a day to day basis. That’s the only way it’s going to really be set in motion.

MO: Does this change Facebook? Does this change ad targeting in general?

MH: It will, it will definitely change targeting because now, first of all, Mark Zuckerberg opened up the door for potentially creating an ad-free version of it for pay, which is fine, that’s the first thing. But second of all, I think it’s going to change because people are going to now be more careful of what information they’re willing to share to the public domain. That’s an important step and I think people… And that’s important in two ways. One, it’s important because people are going to be taking a little bit more responsibility which I think is… up until now, it may have in some people but most people didn’t. And the other thing is, I think it’s also important for them to know that if they don’t change the settings, for whatever reason, and they decide to either ignore it or they’re just naive and they don’t know how to, then they have to be willing to accept the fact that this is going to… the data that they promote or that they publicize, will be used to create personalization, and create content, and create ads, and potential revenue sources for the businesses that are targeting them. That’s now become much more public and much more aware and it’s not the whole 1984 scene. But it’s much more of that… people now are much more accepting to that, are accepting of it. And [they] will be more comfortable with it because they now know that this has been in the public forum for it. And there’s been a public cry of it.

MO: At this point because it’s more conscious, and because people are aware of it, and because people want to change, are you going to see other people being dragged in? Look Google is the king of this.

MH: Google was the first one, I honestly think Google was the first ones and then Facebook followed suit. Not because they copied what Google was doing but much more because that’s the way the platform was built. I think Google was the first one, Facebook is just more public than that because I think people are not sure what Facebook does. Even though everyone uses Gmail and everybody uses Gmail’s platform and all its entire Google suite. I think that we’re uncomfortable with Facebook’s way of doing it. And even Google, and I think Facebook has an advantage here because Facebook has much more granular data than Google does. Because there’s this deeper information that people don’t have necessarily on Google. In other words, you’re going to get certain targeting on Google that’s almost limiting to, with it now maybe there’s more but it limits to a certain amount of deep, we’ll call it emotional intelligence. We’ll call it marriage status, age,
age you’ll get on Google, but maybe marital status, kids, your political views, things like that. Because even though the data is being stored, Google never really took advantage of it and Facebook is taking advantage of it. And now that’s where these things are really progressing.

MO: Interesting. To Google’s credit, at least they’ve made their ability to turn on and off those settings a little bit more public and Facebook could’ve taken a little lesson from that one possibly.

MH: Right, absolutely. I think that’s where it’s going to happen and now it’s going to shift. There’s no question that things are going to change, no question that things are going to be moving in that direction. But right now, if nothing else, this is probably the positive outcome of this all, is that people will be much more aware. And the tech companies like Google, Facebook, whatever it is and the social media platforms will be more aware that they have to be much more
user, consumer-focused in terms of their ability to identify and set out the policy upfront in a much clearer way.

MO: Jumping to a different subject for a second, well staying with Google. What happened to the Chrome ad blocker? You hear this huge frenzy it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s here, and then you just don’t hear anything about it.

MH: Well, let’s take a step back. Yeah. I’m going to take a step back for a second because you might see for a second some fewer ads here and there on the web now
because people… Google Chrome did launch, they did release the ad blocker. We all know that. And Google Chrome is, according to most studies that I’ve read, 50-60 % of the people prefer Google Chrome over other platforms. It’s clear that they are using that. They did start rolling it out but what they really did, they really did it in the way that tried to do it slowly do it with the major publications, the major places that people will be reaching. It’s the major sites that people are reading. It could be news sites, it could be I guess the biggest ones, news sites or information sites such as big journals, big publications. That would be the first thing. It doesn’t really address the… it doesn’t really impact your privacy specifically or the page speed. It’s not going to change those things, it’s really just meant to eliminate the annoying ads that people see. But I think that they did launch it and people know about it, but I also know that a lot of the efforts that they’re doing now at least is with the publications, is that it’s mostly around the United States. The people outside of the United States are still not necessarily seeing or experiencing it yet because of that. The way they created this ad blocker is they took what they called the Coalition for Better Ad Guidelines thing, and they took sample groups from different places within this coalition of states and countries. And if you’re not within those countries you’re not necessarily going to experience the ad blocker right away and that’s I think an important reason why some people outside of the Google ad blocker I guess we’ll call it, in a rollout won’t be experiencing it. And you and I even if we know, we don’t even know what the ad blocker potentially could do, and I’ll explain why. Only because the reason why I think that is because we know where the ads should be. We know where the ads should be and we know the ads could be because we’ve seen the annoying ads. But we don’t know if the ad blocker is working or not only because the whole idea is that it’s supposed to eliminate that experience update. If
the space is not there anymore, if the ad is not there anymore for whatever reason, maybe that it’s the Google’s or the Chrome ad blocker is being initiated, but we’re not experiencing it in the way that… it’s not going to be like, “Oh, your ad is not showing anymore here… ”

MO: There’s a blank space on your screen.

MH: Right. It’s not going to be a blank space
anymore. It’s just going to be that it’s not there. And the site will accommodate itself because of that. Though it’s not going to be that way when we see some… you’re not going to be like, “Oh, Google ad blocker is working.” It’s not going to happen. At least I don’t think that’s going to be the idea here. I think it’s more… it’s Google’s effort even though we know that Google and any of these platforms, all digital platforms… and there’s always a conversation of, “We’re getting something for free. We have to be willing to accept the fact that they’re using our
information, and targeting, and providing it to publishers to better target their audiences etc.” But I think they’re doing it
to… It goes back to the Facebook information but it’s the same issue. The issue is, can we create a policy or can we create some sort of guidelines in which the user doesn’t necessarily get annoyed by the fact that ads are being presented to them? Which we’ve all accepted. But at the same time creating an experience which is positive, which is… and that’s Google’s responsibility to create a positive experience without being super annoying, without being
super big brother. But we know that they’re watching, we know that they’re collecting and aggregating our data. That’s the key here.

MO: Is there a way to balance privacy and personalization?

MH: I think so. Listen, it’s two parts. One, is the balance would be… for sure one step is for us to take every consumer, and every
person, and every business that uses these tools is one of them is to… the consumer’s front is to definitely be more careful, or review all your terms of
service, or all your privacy settings which is clear. And now everyone is going to be doing that, that’s no question. That’s the first one. The second for the businesses is to make sure that the companies that you work with whether you are the one who’s… if you’re working as an agency, if the companies that you’re working with make sure that you’ve revealed that this could happen, that their ad blockers might go and get initiated. And also to know that businesses have to be aware that their ads, and their design, and their text, and their content that they’re going to be advertising whatever the style of advertising could be blocked. And they have to be as careful as possible to avoid the blocking. But that means that they have to be more careful and more creative in terms of what they’re presenting. That way they don’t fall
within either the grey area or the clear space that ad blockers are going to pick up on.

MO: I guess that’s good in a way.

MH: Yeah. 

MO: Along with…

MH: I think it’s an important step and I think it’s natural, it’s a natural progression. People **** what Google is doing up until now got to an extreme. And now the extreme will just basically… or bounce back to a point where the happy medium which is what everyone wants to have. 

MO: That adds up. I am going to jump ship to Amazon. Well, Amazon and Google.

MH: This is great.

MO: I really think that Amazon is Google’s biggest competition.

MH: Absolutely.

MO: And in two ways. One is, it’s advertising network and it’s product, the product search. Is Amazon Google’s biggest threat? Can Google compete with Amazon’s product search? Or does Amazon’s advertising network actually pose a threat to Google? Is Google worried about it? What’s going on?

MH: Okay, it’s a good question. In my opinion, and this is after reading a lot about it, it’s clear that Amazon is the number one threat to Google in this space. 55% of searches in the US come from Amazon. You’re talking more than half the country’s… in the US but obviously other markets as well. We all shop on Amazon, we all do our searches. The advertising platform is tiny in comparison to Google and Facebook, it’s growing. In terms of
actual platform it’s smaller but in terms of the search itself is larger. Just to give you a sense of what’s going on here, Google’s advertising business is around $100 billion, Facebook is $40 billion, Amazon is around $2 billion. Yes, it’s billions but in relationship to… Google is at $100 billion. It is “insignificant”. A certain Sir Martin Sorrell, this is a guy who was this CEO of the world’s largest ad firm, WPP. He said actually at the World Economic Forum he said, “Amazon’s tentacles are spreading rapidly into all areas.” And he said
that, “It’s clear that Amazon is the number one threat to Google in this space.” And he said that… he actually made an interesting point that Google and Facebook are… Google, Amazon, and then he said that… he actually mentioned that Snapchat might be the next threat. The biggest threat to Facebook is Snapchat. And Google and Facebook are always going to be this… they’re going to be always jockeying for who has a better targeting system in network, ad system whatever it is. I think Amazon like you said product searches, and their ability to really know user behaviors in a way that’s not just getting them interested in buying but rather actual people who are in the mindset of buying. But it’s different than Facebook. Facebook is a great platform for people to be… we’ll call it the lead gen or get you to the point where you might be interested. But Amazon is at the point where I’m at the store already, I’m there, I am ready to buy. And they’ve got the impulse buys setup. They’ve got what you’ve been looking at. They’ve got what you’re interested in what you saw last time. And you’re in the store… You’re in the supermarket and you’re ready to buy. It’s a different strength, and it’s a strength that is much more in this regard targeted and tightens the circle in terms of the ability… or tightens the gap between intention to buy and
buying. Here you’re buying. There is no… go to Amazon… I don’t even know what the numbers are, but I would imagine that if you go to Amazon you’re probably going to buy something. You might buy a $5 item, you might buy a $200, or $5,000 item. But you’re going to buy something. And once you’re in their store, they know how to get you to buy other things as well. That’s their goal.

The reason why he thinks… and he thinks is this… Sir Martin Sorrel said this but I think it’s an interesting conversation is the reason why he thinks that Snapchat is the biggest threat to Facebook is because Facebook right now clearly in the last couple of days is data is a big concern to people now. Like I said it’s a short-term lead gen machine. In other words, it’s getting people to lead and to consider. But I think Snapchat in general is, it’s this getting them to be… it’s that consumable content that Facebook can’t really get to yet and it’s that point of engaging and getting interested… and that theory of just slow small pieces of information and small pieces of user-generated content, we’ll call it. That people will start… It starts planting seeds in people’s minds about what they’re going to buy and whatever it is. Facebook in a way is in this three-part competition. Google is one thing. Amazon is another stop. Facebook and Snapchat are going to be in another area because they don’t… and Snapchat is going to be that Facebook’s competitor in that regard. In my opinion.

MO: Can Snapchat make it though? They’ve had so much trouble.

MH: Yeah. I think obviously the biggest issue here with Snapchat, and this is a question that always comes up is… and that is a clear question that every person gets since the… it’s the most famous question
…. What is the ROI of social media? And with Snapchat you have the issue that the ad platform is where people… the investors, the consumers, and the brands want to know where… “If I spend my money there, how am I going to know? How am I going to track it? How am I going to click it?” And that’s where Google and Amazon have the strength to be able to track. Facebook too, but Google and Amazon can track your journey. They understand what your behavior is. Snapchat is not there yet. They’re not there to say, “Okay, buy here. Click this button.” Click, buy, you’re out. And that’s where they’re going to have to prove that… it’s the engagement.

MO: They tried, right? They tried upgrading it, didn’t they?

MH: They tried and I think it’s still a learning curve. It’s a start-up. They’re still a start-up. Yes, they’re public but they still are in terms of the business cycle, they’re still young. They’re still learning, and going public doesn’t necessarily change the fact that they are in the mindset of being a young company that is still learning the ropes and learning how to do that. And then, by the way, Facebook… this is the first time Facebook is really… Facebook has many times made mistakes over the course of time in terms of what they’ve done with their information. But this is the first time that they’re really getting… It’s new tech ecosystem versus classic traditional government. It’s the same issue. Can the new company, young in their maturity level… in this case Facebook is a little older, but can they in their level of maturity and level of experience explain and also make sure that the experience is positive? And obviously for a business they have to create dollars and generate dollars but can they show something beyond just eyeballs on the page? That’s the key here. I want my eyeballs on the page.

MO: Welcome to the big leagues.

MH: Exactly. Welcome to the big leagues. You want to play with the big boys you got to show us that you’re a big boy and you understand that engagement is important but it’s not the bottom line. And the bottom line is ad revenue and ad revenue versus actual dollars being, I guess you would call it, sold or dollars that actually have been spent via your platform. And that’s where I think is the… eyeballs are important but the more important is the dollars generated from the eyeballs. That’s the key here.

MO: Can I ask you then? Was it a mistake for Snapchat to go public do you think, and to add an extra level of scrutiny that they didn’t need?

MH: I think it was… Listen, I’m not involved in this fund at all. I have no…

MO: You can abstain. You can take the fifth on this one.

MH: No I’m not going to take the fifth. I think that they probably wanted to go public to give themselves a certain sense of credibility, and I think people were questioning. And I think that I can understand it, and I’m not at that level in terms of understanding all the details of it. But I think it’s important for Snapchat now that they’re at that level, they’ve got to play with the big boys. And they have to learn that now they’re responsible
to not only their investors, they’re now responsible to the public, and to the SCC, and all that means. And that’s what Facebook is now facing with, is dealing with now. Snapchat could’ve in theory be a couple years from now that could happen the same thing. Now it may not happen and because of what’s going on with Facebook’s…

MO: I would hope it wouldn’t happen again.

MH: No, it won’t. It might not happen again, but I think it just opens the door for that. And I think that’s an important growth metric for them is to show that they can actually be that ******, in my opinion.

MO: As we’re
waning into the final minutes, and staying on social media for a second. Twitter is it too saturated? And LinkedIn is it the future?




MH : Okay, two great questions. In preparing for our chat with the questions that you introduced me with or introduced to me, the only ones that I didn’t write out were actually these.  I didn’t prepare some…

MO: No, this is good. This is off the cuff Holtz. 

MH: Yeah, it’s off the cuff. First of all, it’s off the cuff. Second of all, I think it’s more important is because it’s the domain that I’m most comfortable with.

MO: Okay.

MH: I think it’s easy to talk about it at… and kind of go off.

MO: Save the best for last.

MH: Yeah. Twitter I think is not oversaturated. People think that it is but it’s not as saturated as Facebook. Twitter’s going through… Again, every one of these companies is going through a certain sense of maturity and learning how to fine-tune its public display of usage and consumers. And
public display of what people are using and how they’re using it. And I think it’s not saturated. They’ve already done some corrections in terms of how many people are using bots, and all these automated followers, and all these things. Which I think is a great step in the right direction. Their ad platform to me at least, there’s a lot of strength to their ad platforms versus the bigger ad forums like Facebook, and Instagram, and even Google. They have a lot much… Their targeting is good and stronger and you have the ability to basically target via hashtag which is great because you can really do some interesting things with that. Our company did it once, we did it around this specific conference where we knew there were like 5,000 or 8,000 people in the conference using this specific hashtag. We just targeted content to those people. It’s much easier to do it because then you’re not identifying people. Because everyone within that, using that hashtag… unless you might be outside of the actual conference but using that hashtag you’re all of a sudden identifying a trend, you’re targeting the trend, and you’re doing it to the people that you want to reach anyways without getting to the point of being too invasive. That’s the first thing. LinkedIn is a different conversation. LinkedIn is for the last six, eight months have really gone
in a total overhaul. Yesterday they started releasing memes into their system.

MO: Oh really? Oh boy. The beginning of the end?

MH: I’m not necessarily sure that was the right move but I guess they have to. In their
defense I think they were late in the game in terms of changing their platform. Everyone knows that LinkedIn platform up until about six, eight months ago was just a big way to just put your resume online. In some way or another. It was a B2B platform. People were looking for jobs or companies were looking to hire, but now I think they’ve learned what people are using. They’ve taken the lessons from these other companies, and sold it to a platform and baked it into their system better and baked it into their platform better. I think their advertising, the cost is more expensive but the targeting and the ability to reach the right person in the right space is much stronger than in others as in maybe… In this
case I would say Twitter and LinkedIn have an advantage over Facebook or
Google, because their platform is much more targeted. And the cost may be a little bit more but the results are stronger only because your ability to… you know what company, you know
their… and you have multiple versions of ads on LinkedIn and Twitter as well that you can actually do with a lot stronger version, at least in my opinion. Twitter and LinkedIn, you have a much stronger experience in terms of creating a direct connection between the ad and the lead after.

MO: I understand.

MH: Yeah. I think it’s a maturity level that is important for LinkedIn and Twitter to get to. LinkedIn more than Twitter. Twitter is doing it and it’s evolving now. Twitter is doing it but LinkedIn has got it and is working towards creating relevancy. And it’s just a matter of showing how they can take the tools and the components of their platform whether it’s video, whether it’s… They’re now starting integrating hashtags up until eight months ago who would put a hashtag on LinkedIn? 

MO: I started seeing them and I was saying, “Wait, wait, wait, this is not Twitter” but I guess so.

MH: Right. I think that’s also an important thing. But I think that’s a… It’s an important step to their credit. I think it’s an important step to them in their development. And I think that there’s… the LinkedIn data is much stronger in terms of if you’re looking to reach the person for a business related not to buy something, but more in regard of connecting to a business, getting that lead gen. Our company did it with a very large financial start-up company that was working with Fortune 500 companies and only Fortune 500 companies. What we did there is an example of what can be done now is, we ran an ad set that they told us that their salespeople, they have… Every salesperson is responsible for about 80 Fortune 500 companies, and two weeks prior to the sales call we would leak ads to the people they were about to call. And you can get to that level of targeting on LinkedIn. You might not get that on Facebook because these business people might not be on Facebook actively, and they may not be on Google actively but they will be on LinkedIn actively.

MO: And that data is up to **** usually.

MH: Right, right, exactly. The data is up to ****, and the data is super relevant in terms of what they’re looking for. And the keywords unlike Google or Facebook, keywords in business, like industry keywords, whether it’s micro-financing, or cloud monitoring, or whatever it is, you may not put that on your Facebook page as ‘Mordecai Holtz works in cloud monitoring’ but on LinkedIn you’re going to put that on there and that keyword is super relevant and super important for when you’re targeting. That keyword becomes your ticket to success where you can do that, and yes that means you’re going to have to pay more for the lead in terms of cost per lead but your result is much stronger. Your result is much more relevant and you can use the right keywords to get to the right people. And when we did that the idea was to leak the information
so the potential cold call when we ran this ad set… potential cold call is all of a sudden, we’ll call it a lukewarm call because this information they’ve seen the name, they’ve seen some things on LinkedIn. All of a sudden you’re taking that relevant data and it only gets sent to them, it’s only getting to the people that you want, and it’s not using your personal information in terms of family status or whatever it is. You’re using the business information which is really important in terms of targeting. To me I think LinkedIn has a strong, it’s always been a B2B platform. It’s changing itself to be a little bit more… how B2B and C2C are now changing but I think it’s still going to be there and I think that’s the advantage to businesses or will be the advantage to businesses down the line.

MO: There’s definitely a lot of momentum there and with that our time has run out. Again Mordecai Holtz from Blue Thread Marketing. Thank you very much for joining me.

MH: Thank you.

MO: Until next time.

MH: All the best.

MO: Take care. 

About The Author

Mordy is the official liaison to the SEO community for Wix. Despite his numerous and far-reaching duties, Mordy still considers himself an SEO educator first and foremost. That’s why you’ll find him regularly releasing all sorts of original SEO research and analysis!