The Solution to the Influencer Problem you never knew existed

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing where people who have influence over potential customers have marketing activities for products placed around them or incorporated into activities for their followers to see.   When Influencer marketing first emerged, marketing professionals thought it was the answer to their problems.  Gone were the days of not having enough content to support all different audience types and channels, not being able to break through the noise and grab consumers' attention and the struggle to create an authentic and trusted brand identity.  

Marketers were fast to board the Influencer ship.  They dedicated increasing amounts of money, time and resources to build campaigns around influencers and contracted online personalities to represent their brands.  Years later problems have started to arise with the use of professional influencers.  Today Influencers have become like inauthentic reality stars who create content that's no different than traditional advertising.

Conde Nast has found a way to leapfrog the Influencer wave by creating a social telnet agency that will enable it to stay innovative, authentic and relevant to the changing landscape of social marketing.  The talent agency will identify influencers whose values align with those of Conde Nast and coach them on how to stay on message in an authentic and relatable manner to the end customer.

Conde Nast has done it again - staying ahead of its competitors on how to best serve the needs of its clients through targeted and relevant marketing

Talk about Egg-travagant.

Earlier this week, I was stunned to learn that a good old-fashioned egg had broken the world record for 'likes' on Instagram. In the three seconds it took me to Google The Egg, I learned that an attempt to dethrone Kylie Jenner's prior world record breaking post had been successful - and Kardashian frenemies everywhere were delighted.

I'm not exactly sure how something so ridiculous captivated our society for 3 days, but I've captured my reflections below:

1) Social media is powerful. A simple, anonymous request from a London-based Instagram account challenged loyal users everywhere to usurp the crown from Kylie and place it squarely on The Egg's head for safekeeping. The Egg, which went viral in mere hours, quickly triggered various hashtag # references, including #EggGang , #LikeTheEgg and others,  and became the subject of water cooler talk. Within a day, Amazon and Etsy had both filled their sites with various Egg-related merchandise. Talk about Egg-travagant!

2) Kylie Jenner's popularity - and followership on Instagram - probably benefited considerably from the egg-tra noise. Was that really necessary?

3) Speed to market matters. In marketing (and in life), timing matters. And so does speed when you're pushing products because something went viral. Although The Egg gear may lose steam over the next few days, there were many who profited considerably.

Ultimately, The Egg brought to light the importance of how easily influenced popular culture is by social media. Until next time...#TheEgg2020

Not Fake News....The Government Shutdown and it's affects on Aviation

On January 19th, the US closed out the 29th day of the longest shutdown in our government's history and while many people have not yet felt the impact of the shutdown, aviation has been affected.  No I'm not referring to President Trump cancelling Speaker Pelosi's trip to Europe and the Middle East, I'm referring more about the 54,000 workers affected at the Department of Transportation including the TSA and the FAA.

While critical FAA functions including air traffic control services, safety oversight and the FAA Registry are continuing to function, numerous activities at FAA are suspended.  TSA workers are continuing to work, albeit without pay!

Today when I travelled through Savannah, GA the TSA were surprisingly very short and when I spoke to one lady she I thanked her for working through this shutdown, she  surprisingly responded that she thought the shutdown was the right thing to do and she hoped it would be over.  

I'm hoping when we return to class next week that #governmentshutdown is over and the good folks at TSA receive all of their backpay!  

Fake News - What About Fake Reviews??

Fake News - What About Fake Reviews?

According to the Verge, three Facebook employees were recently caught leaving 5 star reviews for Portal, Facebook's video calling photo share hardware product. It's Facebook's most prominent attempt at entering the home device market.

Amazon verified that these three employees actually purchased the product (a "verified purchase", according to Amazon,  is a purchase that actually occurred by the reviewer and not at a deep discount), so it's conceivable that these employees just really love the product (since Facebook is a paragon of honest corporate practice, right?). Still, it encourages thought on a broader topic - in a world consistently driven by consumer reviews and recommendations - what can we really trust?

Turns out not very much. Amazon is plagued by fake reviews. A recent report suggested that over 60% of electronic reviews on the mammoth retailer are fake and given the fact that over 50% of people make purchasing decisions based on reviews, that's a big problem. While undeserved positive reviews can make a product seem more credible and of a higher caliber, an onslaught of fake negative reviews can also cripple a product or small business.

Amazon isn't alone in facing this problem, Yelp, Facebook, Instagram are all infested with fake reviews. That doesn't even account for all the borderline manipulative "native advertising" or the intentionally cloaked sponsored content.

While businesses, regulators, and consumers fight back, the impact of fake reviews in our society is pervasive. Sources that were once trusted can be seemingly corrupted and for the discerning customer determining what to buy, where to shop, and what to eat can be fraught with difficulty. Even high caliber sources, like Wire Cutter for example, are undoubtedly influenced by the sponsor dollars and affiliate fees they stand to collect from a purchase referral.

How do you build a trusted brand or review platform, one that can co-exist with commerce oriented digital market places? Brands that engage with customers and build trust overtime with reliable product is one way... but the days of feeling confident in your decision by combing through the reviews of any major commerce market place is over.

Fake Sponsored Content is Changing the Landscape of Influencer Marketing

We have all become accustomed to seeing sponsored posts from influencers littered all over our social media. What you may have not considered before is how someone becomes an influencer. The Atlantic ran an article which discussed how influencers are posting fake sponsored content on Instagram in order to kickstart their influencer career.

When a brand is selecting an influencer to promote their message, they are looking for someone who has sufficient reach but also has track record of success. Similar to how a page with many inbound links form reputable sites looks attractive to Google’s search algorithms, an influencer who already has many sponsorships is more desirable for brands. Essentially an influencer gains more credibility with each additional sponsor they add. Given this dynamic, the first deal for an influencer it is often the hardest to land. As a result, what aspiring influencers are creating fake posts to give the appearance that they are already have sponsorship deals.

These fake posts are intended to mimic a sponsored post in everyway except that the influencer has no relationship or is being paid by the brand. To the average person it would be difficult to tell the difference, if they even cared to stare long enough at the post to scrutinize them. Given all this free publicity, it would seem that brands would stand to benefit from this trend; however, it is a bit of a mixed bag for them as well. When an aspiring influencer creates a fake post, the brand has no control over the content and it runs the risk that these posts can be off-message. Brands are caught in an interesting position where they want to continue to benefit from the free publicity, but they also want to ensure consistency in the brand message.

How quickly influencers have increased their digital presence makes you wonder if the influencer marketing is here for the long-term or if we as a society will be all “influenced” out in a few years. Me personally, I’ve already become numb to these ads and sponsored posts (or at least I think I have) and with fake posts on the rise it could accelerate the whole process. With brands getting free posts from these fake influencers, could this saturate the market and undermine the whole influencer marketing society?

Blockchain potential in digital marketing

Why Facebook and Google (and Amazon on the rise) are monopolizing the online ad market? Because advertisers have to use the data these networks/marketplaces collected to target consumers more accurately and provide more relevant ads. But what if the middlemen can be eliminated and consumers voluntarily receive relevant ads from advertisers based on the personal information they are willing to share? As the development and application of blockchain technology are growing, this is becoming possible. 

Since blockchain records transactions and is resistant to modification of data, a blockchain-powered network can enable a decentralized online ad market where advertisers can directly advertise to consumers. If the consumers are willing to permit access to these data, Facebook and Google will lose their advantage of knowing consumers better. But will consumers approve access? They probably will. The sellers have built in the marketing cost into the price, so consumers are actually the ones who are paying for viewing the ads. If the sellers offer incentives, such as discounts or rewards, to consumers for the access to their data, it is likely that the consumers are motivated to share information since they can save money and have greater control over how much information they are willing to share. And with blockchain, website publishers and advertisers can also directly communicate with each other because the users and clicks are authentically validated. 

If all above becomes reality, networks (e.g. Facebook and Google Display Network) will take the biggest hit while marketplaces (e.g. Amazon) might be less affected. 

Interesting reads:

How Much Will Blockchain Really Affect Digital Marketing https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/10/04/how-much-will-blockchain-really-affect-digital-marketing/#34ee43be30dc

Case Study: Companies That Doing Blockchain Well

https://www.singlegrain.com/blockchain/blockchain-marketing-case-studies/

How Will Block Chain Impact Digital Marketing

https://www.business.com/articles/blockchain-online-marketing-help/

Gillette's double-edge razor

No one can forget the scandalous ad by Pepsi released in 2017 featuring Kendall Jenner, a rally of (calm) protesters and the all-powerful, can of soda. According to NBC news, Pepsi was accused of appropriating a Black Lives Matter movement following "police shootings of African Americans." The ad's controversial nature encouraged Pepsi to pull the ad and they've since refrained from releasing similar content. Understandably, the ad by Pepsi raised questions in light of its timing, message and context.

In 2018, Nike also released a controversial ad featuring Colin Kaepernick regurgitating the renown Nike slogan "“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything. Just Do It." Admittedly, this was shortly after Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem in protest to policy brutality. Although the ad spiked debate, it felt genuine to the millions of Nike followers and consequently brought the company $6 billion in sales. 

A few days ago, Gillette too launched a controversial ad encouraging men to take action against sexual assault and endorsing messages from the me-too movement. Many progressives commended the company for its liberal take, however, many more consumers condemned the ad and threatened to boycott the razor company, according to BusinessInsider. Many posted pictures throwing their razors in the toilet and others proclaimed their switch to alternative brands. The question then becomes, why? 

According to Intelligencer, Gillette tried to profit off a politically tumultuous time by accusing men of systematic corrupt behaviour. Regardless of the truth behind this claim, the company's downfall lies in their replacement of one word. Specifically, "Gillette... inverts the company’s slogan, changing “Gillette: The Best a Man Can Get” to “The Best a Man Can Be.”...Instead of offering the man something, the slogan now asks him to do something." Intelligencer examines the implications of this change and concludes that in marketing, the brand "works for its customers, not the other way around." In essence, Gillette introduces a social-change message by accusing men of faulty behaviour and by telling them the 'correct' way of acting. 

What are the implications of Gillette's ad in a digital world? Millions of consumers, potential consumers, and non-consumers are exposed to the ad, the company's name is trending for days, and the company gains news coverage and national popularity. But, this popularity is negative. Negative popularity can destroy a brand at a faster pace than a positive popularity can inspire a purchase. So, should companies gamble their future by introducing social-change messages in their campaigns? If it's well received, it can be financially rewarding like Nike's gains. If it's bad, well just look at Gillette. I guess if it's not well received, you can also just pull the ad like Pepsi, apologize and lay low for while. 

This goes to show that in business, espousing some moral authority can be the end of you. Hopefully Gillette does recover, though. I personally like their razors...

If you can't share it, did it even happen?

Search engines and social media platforms, really the digital revolution as a whole, have changed the face of advertising and marketing. Traditional methods of advertising seemed difficult to tie to metrics. How do you really know how many people saw that billboard and how could you possibly estimate how many people turned into paying customers? And were people sharing their experiences with others?

There's a number of questions that arise but a particularly interesting one is how much impact does "sharing" have on advertising? I think it's significant. As our lives are increasingly connected digitally, much of our social value is tied to connecting with friends and family over shared media. How many times have you sent a link to an article a friend would enjoy? How many times have you sent and Instagram post to a friend via direct message? My guess is multiple times per day.

It's these connections that have led many content producers to bring themselves out from behind a paywall. The New York Times, for example, was behind a paywall for a time. What did they discover? They were nearly unsearchable, as pages behind paywalls do not show up in google's search. Unwilling to completely abandon the subscriber model, they settled for a hybrid - people can access up to 5 articles per month, more if they access the article through social media. What they noticed is that people were unwilling to read an article if they could not share it with others. Content producers and advertisers should be quick to accept this changing landscape. If there was ever a debate about the proverbial tree in the forest, it seems like now its quite obvious that if it's not re-tweeted, it definitely never happened. 

Digital Marketing Moves In-House

Companies Taking More and More Digital Marketing In-House

Ten years and more ago, digital marketing was seen by many companies as a nice-to-have but not a must-have stream of their overall marketing effort.

Accordingly, the digital marketing practitioner was, back in those early days, something of an exotic species: usually a talented outside consultant who would come in and sprinkle his or her magic stardust over the more banal, quotidian diet of “traditional” marketing activities concocted by the in-house team.

But those days are now long gone as a striking new survey published this week by the advertising platform Bannerflow and Digiday reveals.

It finds that 91% of brands are moving toward in-house digital marketing. This is a stunning finding that has important implications both for the structure and staffing of the in-house function but also, of course, for the consultancy sector.

The move to conduct digital marketing campaigns in-house reflects a number of interesting trends.

First and foremost, the march of time: what was out of the comfort zone of many senior marketing folks back in the early and mid-2000s is now seen as a standard skillset for an aspiring professional. That means deep knowledge of different digital and social media platforms and the metrics used to evaluate them is now expected of anyone going into the field.

Second, digital marketing is an increasingly dominant part of the marketing mix. Back in the days when it was a fun add-on, it didn’t matter so much that some eccentric outside consultant was handling it. Today, when it is the critical core of many a marketing campaign, it sure needs to be closely managed and monitored by the in-house team who have the responsibility and accountability for the overall strategy.

Third, cost is increasingly a decisive factor. Having outside consultants do the heavy lifting of a big and ongoing marketing campaign is often just too expensive nowadays.

Certainly, in the Bannerflow study, cost efficiency, greater control and increased transparency are amongst the biggest reasons given by corporate brands for in-housing.

So the trend makes sense of course. But what does it mean for the sky-high hourly rate outside consultant? Are their days numbered?

The answer is: not necessarily. But if they want to make a living in today’s marketplace they better be pretty good.

Companies are no longer going to pay a lot of money for boilerplate solutions and templates. They can implement those through their much cheaper in-house employees.

However, one thing will nearly always be in short supply inside a big company: and that is creativity. Indeed, creativity and originality as well as forward thinking in terms of trends are now what the outside consultancy needs to offer. If they can keep their clients ahead of the trends and, above all, if they can keep coming up with ideas to use the evolving digital landscape that sell more widgets, then they will survive – and some may even thrive.

advertising on reddit

Companies and brands are now starting to advertise on Reddit. The website is self-described as the “front page of the Internet”  and is home to 330m monthly visitors, yet performance marketers do not have a huge presence yet. This is exciting because Reddit has many “communities” with specific niches and topics. This will allow very targeted and direct advertising to target customers. In some cases, marketers create ad copy specifically tailored for one or more individual Subreddit. The Reddit audience is fast growing as well which is exciting for adversisers. However there are risks as the subreddit users are very honest and vocal and the risk of negatitve comments or backlash is high. So be prepared for feedback and experiment.

What is Account-Based Marketing?

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a crucial component in B2B Marketing. In the B2B space, businesses must think in terms of target accounts to market and sell to. Demandbase defines ABM as:

Account-Based Marketing is used by B2B marketers to identify and target the accounts they value most. ABM solutions typically include account-based data and technology to help companies attract, engage, convert and then  measure progress against customers and prospects.

Drift illustrates ABM as an inversion of the traditional inbound marketing funnel (depicted below).

 

Per the diagram above, traditional marketing relies on attracting a broader audience and then identifying target companies associated with that audience. ABM, on the other hand, starts with the list of target companies and focuses efforts accordingly. This list is generally agreed upon between the Sales and Marketing departments and can vary based upon the company. For example, it may be generated based upon "firmographic" attributes (e.g., target industries and revenue ranges). Alternatively, companies may leverage Artificial Intelligence to identify companies that are displaying in-market intent signals. Demandbase offers this functionality in their Account Selection solution as a part of their ABM Platform.

Once the target accounts have been identified, Sales and Marketing teams can focus their initiatives accordingly. Marketing can leverage ABM technology to attract key decision makers from in-market target accounts onto the company website. They can analyze website engagement patterns by account and provide this intelligence to the Sales team to inform their outreach. Furthermore, each visitor's website experience can be personalized based upon the company they work for. If that company is a current customer, for instance, a call to action to potential upsell solutions can be displayed. If the company is a prospective customer, information on customer case studies from the company's industry can be brought to focus. With the power of ABM, B2B focused businesses can target and close accounts much more efficiently.

Using Podcasts as a targeted marketing channel

Podcast listenership has been growing exponentially in recent years, especially within the younger demographic. According to metrics released by Edison Research, in 2018 forty-eight million people listened to podcasts weekly, up six million from 2017. By way of comparison, approximately 20 million people watch NFL Sunday Night Football, the highest-rated television program for many years. Growing adoption of apps such as Spotify is also contributing to an uptick in podcast listenership. This increase in popularity has made podcasts an ideal medium for marketing.

Podcasts provide marketers unique avenues to insert advertisements. Not only does it offer a captive audience but it also allows for very specific targeting. Listeners are likely to pick podcast types and topics that they are personally interested in. This ensures a much more engaged listener who is more receptive to products or services related to the podcast. It also offers interesting ad formats, such as endorsements where the podcast host, who the listener probably likes and respects, offers a personal testimonial to promote a product or service. Ads can be interwoven into the content of the program which give them a natural feel and make them more compelling. 

Podcasts offer marketers a powerful channel as they look to integrate into all digital formats accessed by customers.

Amazon's New IMDb Freedive Opens Opportunities

One week ago, Amazon launched a new video streaming service on the movie directory website IMDb, called ‘IMDb Freedive’. Not only does it allow users to watch free movies and TV shows , but it’s also reinvented the website to create a real estate for commercials to be watched with full attention by users across the globe. 

While Amazon has already got its membership based Amazon Prime Video, one would think this old repository of movie cast information, trivia and curated movie lists would be a space with dated movies for people to enjoy – similar to free classic movies on YouTube like Legally Blonde, Princess Diaries, etc. However, IMDb Freedive has updated shows like ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘Fringe’ and feature movies like ‘Look Who’s Talking' and 'Memento’ that has opened up considerable ad inventory to sell brands. 

Claiming to have 250,000,000+ unique visitors a month looking up information about 5,000,000+ movies and shows, IMDb now has a new reason to be visited. Users can now go to curated playlists made by their friends and family and watch the linked show/movie, rate them and give their opinions to help others make their own movie watching decisions. 

"Customers already rely on IMDb to discover movies and TV shows and decide what to watch," said Col Needham, founder and CEO of IMDb. "With the launch of IMDb Freedive, they can now also watch full-length movies and TV shows on IMDb and all Amazon Fire TV devices for free. We will continue to enhance IMDb Freedive based on customer feedback and will soon make it available more widely, including on IMDb's leading mobile apps."

What is interesting, however, is the fact that the website will now have a plethora of additional data to collect from the visitors. As a Marketing Science student, I have already worked on IMDb’s free data, collecting information on individual movie ratings, genres, associated tags and related movies, and running a simple topic model analysis on the data set gives you a breakdown of exactly which movies have risen in popularity, the existing descriptive statistics of the movies to date, and the type of movies that typically do well. 

The addition of tracked viewer data, the knowledge of seeing the approximate timing of each break in the movie, the quickness of the user to skip the ad, and closing and opening of new links would allow for the creation of a whole new recommendation system for movie directors to follow when deciding what cinematic venture to take on next. 

There is a possibility to create a whole new agency of movie-related data, similar to Spotify’s iconic annual ‘Wrapped’ campaign that gives every user a yearly breakdown of their top favourites songs and artists, and statistics on how they ranked among others similar to them. And I, for one, hope this data is released for public use. 

Digital Marketing Investing Considerations

Having lived with a private equity investment in the digital marketing space, if I have learned one thing, it is that the digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving and extremely competitive. Companies in the space must continue to innovate, as the product life cycle is generally under one year. Our company has to be at the forefront of innovation in order to compete and provide value to our customers. We have to provide excellent service whenever we win a customer as well. Competition in the space is also fierce, as the large players (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can throw a significant amount of resources and engineers at a problem and can attract top talent. Culture can help combat the competition and need for innovation investment considerations.

Social Media Without a Net

A recent Ted Koppel editorial highlighted an interesting exchange the veteran journalist had with Candidate Trump in 2016.

On July 21, 2016, just hours before he accepted the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump and I sat down for an interview. What he said on that occasion would serve as a remarkably candid foreshadowing of how Trump would handle his relationship with the media in what, on that day, seemed the unlikely event that he would actually become president.

“I don’t need you guys anymore,” Trump told me.

Trump realized early on the power of bypassing the media and speaking directly to his base via Twitter.  Politicians using social media to interact with their constituents is nothing new.  Where Trump broke the mold was his unfiltered stream of conscious tweeting (typos and all.)

This approach, a stark contrast to the heavily vetted social media interactions of most politicians, played a large role in Trump's victory in 2016.  Since then, we have seen other politicians adopt the strategy, most notably Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, whose instagram accounts have over 1 million and 200,000 followers, respectively.  Despite being a young, junior congresswoman, AOC has managed to push her ideas and gain traction by her adroit use of social media.  She has had over 60,000 followers join an instagram live session where she answered questions while cooking macaroni in her apartment.

Yesterday, Cardi B posted a video in which she complained about the shutdown in her inimitable style.

"You promised these f**king racist rednecks that you was gonna build the wall, but you know that was impossible," Cardi said. "But they voted for you and you promised them this s**t so now you have to do it. Even if motherf**kers build the wall, that's still not going to f**king prevent people coming into this country."

The video currently has almost 3 million likes, and also resulted in a twitter exchange in which several Democratic Senators debated whether or not they should retweet Cardi.

From a business perspective, Trump, AOC, and Cardi B's approach to interacting with their followers - or constituents - demonstrates the power of going off script and being genuine.  People respond positively to authenticity.  Businesses can play it safe with a traditional social media presence, or they can take a risk but possibly reap huge amounts of goodwill and coverage. 

What Is The Future Of Digital Marketing?

History has a tendency to repeat itself, and with digital marketing in particular, there is a pattern of disruption.

After finding that B2B organizations are not getting the most value out of the old digital marketing playbooks, new frameworks are being put in place, which should be visited at least once every 12-24 months to ensure relevancy, are a guide to help prepare for periods of disruption.

We're entering into the fourth digital marketing framework — the first was in 2000 — and there are things a business can do to prepare for the next disruption.

What Is Digital Marketing 4.0?

The prior framework includes websites, email campaigns, digital advertisements, basic social media management and basic blog publishing. It only focuses on increasing visits to websites but has no focus on lead conversion and proper online lead qualification. This most recent iteration, though, includes: 

More Integrated Global Marketing: Inbound and outbound marketing should now be combined. In comparison to cold-calling, consider this "warm-calling." For example, after someone reads a blog article on your site, follow it up with an email sharing more meaningful content.

A Cohesive Marketing Technology Stack: No one software tool can save the day. Marketing is not about the creative aspect alone anymore. Marketing technology infrastructure needs to be designed and integrated correctly. One social media tool alone will not save the day, nor will one CRM tool be the solution to a challenge anymore. Consider your full stack and how it can work together.

Evolving Marketing Roles: Digital transformation is no longer limited to the CIO. Your CMO now needs it more than ever. The CMO needs to know more about the possibilities of implementing marketing automation to not only help execute on the marketing playbooks but also to help CIOs measure a full, end-to-end ROI.

Omnichannel Marketing Strategy: This includes deep analytics and data mining, such as AI and machine learning. Omnichannel marketing brings a diversity in mediums when it comes to communicating your brand and value-add. Focusing only on one medium can be limiting, especially if your buyers don't exist on that channel.

A Focus On Account-Based Marketing (B2B): Account-based selling should be an integrated part of your digital marketing process even if you are a B2B SaaS or a modern managed service provider (MSP). This will be the key differentiator between B2C and B2B organizations in 2017 and beyond.

Understanding What Drives Disruption

While working at a Fortune 100 company for nine years before moving to lead my current team, I became fascinated by customer behavior. What kinds of digital offerings most deeply engage customers in their digital lives? I started by looking at some case studies of the products, services, communications and experiences that had been embraced and adopted by customers during the first two decades of the internet. Over a period of seven years working on inbound marketing campaigns, what I found was a recurring pattern of three behaviors that drove the adoption of new digital experiences, which I call the three core behaviors of a network:

Access

Consumers are looking to interact with digital content and access digital data as quickly and as conveniently as possible. Any offering that enhances this access is incredibly compelling. Think of text messaging on early mobile phones, which revolutionized communications with the ability to receive and send messages from anywhere at anytime.

Engagement

Once consumers can access this content, they want to engage with something that fits their needs and is sensory and interactive — from the early popularity of web portals to the spread of online video, to the next generation virtual realities. Their digital desires are marked by a thirst for content. The old media adage that “content is king" is correct. There is no question that the desire to engage with content is a key driver of customer behavior.

How are you transforming mass online marketing to one-to-one interaction and engagement in your online marketing plans? How do you become a source of valued content for your customer? Always focus on the customer care. Be consultative in your online conversation. Seek to ask and go deeper into a prospect's business challenge, and be very honest in your marketing campaigns to ensure you are progressively qualifying the prospect.

Customization

Consumers seek to customize their experiences by choosing and modifying a wide assortment of information, products and services. In a generation, customers have gone from having a handful of television channel options to a digital world with more than a trillion web pages. They have been trained by their digital networks to expect more options for personal choice, and they like this. From Pandora’s personalized radio streams to Google’s search bar that anticipates search terms, consumers are drawn to increasingly customized experiences.

In summary, whether you are a B2B or B2C business, building the buyer's journey is very critical when building your marketing engine.

Unique popularity of Twitter in Japan Market

Twitter is an important social media in Japan. In fact, the country is the 2nd largest user network region outside U.S., following Brazil. In Japan, the network is well competing with Facebook, and eMarketer reports Twitter's 27 million users outstrip that of Facebook which is 23 million aside from the largest network of LINE having 50 million users. (in 2017, before removal of fake accounts in Twitter)

Why is it so big in Japan? One of the reasons must be cultural fit of Twitter. 
First, Japanese language has advantage in tweeting, where it had limitation of 140 characters in one post. In English, the word "SUMMER" consumes 6 letters, but in Japanese, it's "夏", just a single character, so users can put lot more information in one post.
Also, anonymity of user account encourage users to utter a opinion freely in Japan, where arguing politics or criticizing something openly among friends is not very common.

Japanese users love to play in Twitter. With presumably help of it's homogeneous culture, a big event among Japanese users is tweeting a magic spell of "balse" all together at the same time when their favorite anime movie "Castle in the Sky" is shown on TV roadshow at the moment hero and heroine utter the word. This posts topped the Twitter's record of 11,349 tweets per second in Nov 2017, exceeding the 2nd record high posts when the news of Beyoncé's pregnancy came out. Users are so excited to report about Twitter's server capacity tolerates this heavy flash stress every time after this anime is on TV. (Twitter CEO Seemed Unaware Of Japan's Most Famous Twitter Meme) In addition, not very often but some times people play with posts by creating vertical sentence, which could be familiar for Japanese as vertical writing was the traditional style of the language. such as 
  At noon in a day before summer,
  People go to a park,
  Play the guitar,
  Lie on the grass,
  Eat apples there.
This is not a great example (I know), but people can make these wordplays in Twitter, because unlike Facebook which hides a part of a long post, Twitter doesn't fold the posts and shows the whole post in a glance.

Even though these days there are no big growth of user size in Twitter and young people prefer LINE and Instagram, this social network has still vigorous presence in social network in Japan.


Reference:
http://www.emarketer.com/m/Article/Japan-Sees-Surge-Instagram-Users/1016576
http://www.humblebunny.com/japans-top-social-media-networks-2018/
https://kotaku.com/twitter-ceo-seems-unaware-of-japans-most-famous-twitter-1820703599

IOT and Digital Marketing

Internet of things is having a profound impact on how the digital marketing campaigns are run.

1. Personalization: IOT can allow the marketer to run highly personalized targeted campaigns as it provides very specific individual details of the user.
2. Instant Service: IOT enables easy access to product/service/information when wanted and wherever wanted. Today’s customers expect services instantly, and even a tiny delay can mean the loss of opportunity.
3. Advertising Opportunities: Being able to connect any device to the internet offers a plethora of advertising opportunities, and almost any object can be used as a channel to engage customers.
4. Analytics and Attributions: Data generated through IOT will drive test data to feed machine learning algorithms thus eventually driving artificial intelligence to drive targeted campaigns.

Source: https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/iot/5-ways-iot-is-changing-digital-marketing/

Memes

What is a meme? One of the most famous memes is a small square photo of a toddler in a green and white shirt with a determined look on his face, clenching a fist of sand, labeled with a single word: SUCCESS. The meme went viral and became known as the “success kid.” The image was such a hit that it was ultimately licensed for commercial use, and was even used by the White House to promote immigration reform.

This demonstrates why memes can be such a powerful marketing tool. They grab attention. Shareable with just a click, and highly personalized and relatable instantaneously. Usage of memes in my marketing campaigns, primarily in email marketing tend to have higher click-through rates.

Thus Memes are quite potent to make a digital marketing strategy a success by themselves.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/08/10/memes-a-digital-marketing-tool-for-every-industry/#2cd7fab72664

What Does Virtual Reality Mean for Brands and Advertisers?

Thanks to the constantly changing digital landscape, advertisers have been forced to get more and more creative with their advertisements, all while looking for the next great advertising idea. Now that virtual reality headsets are rising in popularity, the next step seems clear: VR ads. Virtual reality users are a captive audience: they’re fully immersed, and they aren’t going to take a headset off until they’re done—not even because of an ad.

Unfortunately, like any other new and shiny piece of tech, a decent VR set has a hefty initial price tag and doesn’t have the most sophisticated features or the largest following right now. These headsets range anywhere from the $20 Google Cardboard, to the $100 Samsung Gear VR and the $800 HTC Vive. Despite the costs, publishers and advertisers are already buying in. The New York Times has a VR Editor, CNN has streamed political debates in VR, and USA Today Network has produced over 40 pieces of VR content since 2014.

For advertisers, the appeal of VR is clear. In a world of ad blocking and ad blindness, VR offers a fully viewable and entertaining experience—if it’s done right.VR also offers unique features that allow advertisers to track eye movements in order to know exactly what parts of the screen viewers are looking at and the parts they’ve chosen to interact with.

However, while VR presents a unique opportunity for advertisers to reach a completely immersed audience, it also means they have to create ads that people don’t mind watching or interacting with. After all, there are no ad blockers for VR (yet). With VR, consumers are going to be much less forgiving of an invasive or boring ad than they would if they saw the ad elsewhere and could easily click out of it. If VR is done right by advertisers, though, it could lead to much higher forms of user engagement by offering consumers more opportunities to interact with content.