Digital Intervention

Simplifying the Digital World

Paul B. Kaiser

Digital Strategies to put in your 2019 Marketing Plan

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While there are many digital strategies for marketers, the ones that stand out, are rare the ones remembered. Your clients want to use the tried and true, but they always ask for the “innovative” tactic every year. However, innovative needs to provide ROI. Here are a few strategies (that don’t have the word blockchain in the title) that will be influencing your audiences, and stealing eyeballs. These strategies have been effective for several years, and will be for several more. I recommend you provide your clients with some of the solutions below:

  • Voice activated strategies

  • Influencer marketing

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Live Video marketing

voice

Voice Search

When you talk about change in digital marketing, search has got to be the most chaotic aspect of it all. The “Google algorithm updates” alone have kept marketers awake at night. Now with the entrance of Alexa and Google Home, search has taken on a whole new perspective. Voice search is rapidly gaining acceptance among consumers. Although still in its infancy, voice search is making a huge impact in how we get information, how we purchase products, and how we interact with our environment (home control). See how Merck is Alexa to interact with their patients.

60% of people have started using voice search within the last year.

Planning Ahead

According to ComScore, at least half of all searches will be made via voice query by 2020. That’s not so far away. And it doesn’t mean that we should ignore traditional SEO, either.

The rise in instant answers without search results will continue

You’re going to see a continual rise in instant answers. What is happening is that when a lot of these voice and conversational search queries are coming through, they tend to be longer, and they tend to be seeking out an answer that a device can quickly give you a direct answer to. Things like, what I placed here, and this requires some logic and some understanding from the machines, some contextual understanding, but it’s not that challenging, and the machines are doing a good job of this.

influencer

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing as a strategy has been growing in popularity for the past few years, but new and different types of brands are now starting to take notice. By using social media listening tools a marketer can identify individuals that will help a brand get the word out. There is a defined process to identifying these influencers, and understanding the online conversation around your brand is vital to choosing the right online influencer.

85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations – BrightLocal Survey

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84% of marketers planned on executing at least one influencer marketing campaign during 2017 – Inc.com

ai

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is not new – in fact, you probably already interact with marketing AI when you see ads in search results and on social media. And, 57% of marketers already use AI. However, the use of AI for marketing is only going to grow as the technology improves. 

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Examples of AI in Marketing

  • Chatbots
    Chatbots designed to serve one or more purposes to the customers. For example, a chatbot operating in a chat screen of a website, or a bot operating in any social networking website’s chatbox. National Geographic lets you chat with Albert Einstein on Facebook messenger to raise awareness of the launch of its new original series Genius that dissects the psyche of the physicist Albert Einstein.
  • Data analysis
    One of the most useful examples of AI in marketing is data analysis. These days you don’t have to guess what will work for what audience. There are thousands of data points attached to the target audience that can be accurately analysed by bots to understand which message is going to appeal to whom.

AI closes the gap by moving far past human limitations to consume and analyze data on a scale no human can. The “intelligence” in artificial intelligence is the ability to think independently, to grow more knowledgeable from being exposed to more information and to adapt and adjust when things change.

  • Recommendations/content curation
    Predictive analytics allows Netflix to surface and finesse recommendations. This kind of clustering algorithm is continually improving suggestions, allowing users to make the most of their subscription.Uniting information from diverse datasets is a common use of AI.Under Armour is one of the many companies to have worked with IBM’s Watson. The sports apparel company combines user data from its Record app with third-party data and research on fitness, nutrition etc.The result is the ability for the brand to offer up relevant (personalized) training and lifecycle advice based on aggregated wisdom.
  • Content Generation
    A significant portion of sports and finance related articles are already written by machines, not humans. With AI marketing, this trend is poised to spread throughout various other industries. Finance and sports are traditionally numbers-heavy industries, which makes it easy for AI programs to understand the data and translate it into human-readable articles.
    A creative solution would be providing thoughtful answers in real time to customers. Check out Google Duplex coming soon.

google ai

In 2017, marketing platforms collected and stored information such as site usage, browsing patterns, search history and content preferences to create customer profiles and behavior marketing strategies that help marketers create custom messages to address these prospects. But the next step is even more exciting.

Consider These Stats and Facts

live video

Live Video, because it’s Live – Instant Gratification

Like AI, live video is nothing new, but it’s growing exponentially. Everyone wants a piece of Facebook Live.

And, it isn’t just popular with marketers. People love watching live video too. In fact, 80% of users said they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post, while according to Facebook, live video gets 3x more views.

Here are a few tips for getting started with live video:

  1. Use live video at events to give followers a behind-the-scenes look at the event.
  2. Show off holiday displays and sales in live video.
  3. Use live video to introduce your followers to your employees.
  4. Advertise an exclusive sale or promotion to anyone who watches your live video.

Consider These Stats and Facts

  • The $127 billion autonomous vehicle market is being driven by AI. That’s how much the self-driving car market is expected to be worth worldwide by 2027
  • 76% of smart home speaker users conduct local searches at least once a week—with 53% performing daily searches
  • Live video is more appealing to brand audiences: 80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts.

How AI is changing Business: A look at the limitless potential of AI 

Facebook or not to Facebook – that is the question

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In recent weeks the Facebook scandal has made people rethink their purpose and desire to be on Facebook, or any social media for that matter. But I’m here to give you a digital intervention. I feel your anger and frustration. And I considered heavily to delete my account as well. Not because of the scandal so much, but because I’ve grown tired of its extra baggage. But a few enlightening articles later and some deep thought, I’m back in the saddle again.

I think there are several good reasons to keep Facebook, but you should have a new perspective on Facebook. And use Facebooks strengths and get rid of the weaknesses. So below are a few reasons to keep your Facebook account. And then a few ways to clean your account up and give you a new perspective.

If after this you’re not happy, just delete the account. Just realize what you’re giving up and losing.

Facebook analyticaThe Facebook Scandal in 10 seconds

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is not so complicated, but it is a mess.

  • A Cambridge University researcher created a personality quiz app for Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of people took the quiz, and because of the way Facebook worked at the time, millions of their friends also had their data collected.
  • The researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, then sold this data to Cambridge Analytica, a company specializing in data mining. Cambridge Analytica then sold that data, allowing political parties to target people during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
  • Facebook has since tightened the rules on how apps collect data on users and their friends, but the damage has already been done. And people are outraged, leading to some deleting their Facebook accounts.

Enter – the angry FB’er.

But before you hit the delete button on your account, consider the positives of Facebook and learn how to tighten up your privacy. Remember, more detailed personal data has been stolen/hacked by thieves this year than the data they got from Facebook – Check out Equifax

“143 million people has their personal data stolen from Equifax”

Reasons to stay on Facebook & Social Media

1. Facebook Helps You Stay in Touch

The reality is that Facebook is one of the main reasons families are more in touch now than ever before.

This is especially true for adults who grew up in a world without the internet and without social media. According to the Pew Research Institute,

“a quarter of all adults surveyed reported that they feel the internet and cellphones contribute to closer family relationships than they had when they were growing up.”

2. Facebook keeps you Informed – Quickly

Ever since Facebook became so widely used, I’m sure you’ve noticed how often you hear about breaking news on Facebook first. Whether it’s a social crisis, a weather disaster, a celebrity death, and unfortunately something like an active shooter, you’re far more likely to discover the news on Facebook. And getting news first-hand from the sources is invaluable and tends to be more accurate.

3. Facebook Helps You Feel Supported

Whenever you’re going through a tragedy or other difficult time in life, sharing your experience with others is a powerful form of therapy. Personally, I don’t always like using it for this, but many do. For some people, either the isolation of a disability or living in a remote location makes attending such support groups difficult, if not impossible. Being able to connect virtually truly is a gift for them.

While those are all positive reasons, you should give your account a spring cleaning and check your settings. Spring Cleaning your Facebook Account is a great idea right now. Here are a few things you can check up on.

facebook spring clean

6 Things you can do to Improve Your Privacy

1) DO A PRIVACY CHECKUP

Another new feature on Facebook is the “Privacy Checkup.” The three-step process walks you through the privacy settings and shows you how many third-party apps have access to your information. When you log into another app with Facebook, that company gains access to everything you’ve shared on Facebook including personal information, posts and friends lists. You might be surprised by how many apps you’ve logged into with your Facebook ID.

Click the question mark for a drop down to settings.

Then click on Privacy and you’ll see the areas you can adjust.

Also, its good to check your Facebook App Settings to see the third parties that have access to profile data through these steps. Go through all the third-party apps you’ve logged into and delete anything you’re not using regularly. Especially if you’ve never heard of them. I know this call seem a bit much but really its a 1/2 hr worth while. Heres a video that is good at walking you through.

2. CLEAN YOUR POSTS

Moving forward, you should be taking better care to how you reply and what you say – if you care about what others think. But if you need to go back in time, there is an App for that. Scrubber is the one third-party app you actually want accessing your information because they’ll track down all those inappropriate posts and help you delete them. According to their website, Scrubber will find and flag;

  • Posts containing profanity
  • Flag posts with innuendo
  • Flag posts with mentions of drugs or alcohol
  • Scan through comments your friends make on your posts.
  • Flag political and religious posts (which we think are fine, but flag since our users have asked for it)
  • Allow you to search for custom keywords like the name of an ex, boss, family member, or coworker.

3. RE-ACCESS THE PEOPLE YOU FOLLOW

While you’re cleaning up your posts, consider the accounts you follow or the people you’re “friends” with who are just cluttering up your feed. Do you really care about what your high school lab partner is doing right now? If not, delete. Do you follow a bunch of accounts from that time in 2012 when you were really into skydiving, but have since moved on to other things? Unfollow. Take ten minutes off from mindlessly scrolling through your newsfeed and mindfully scroll through your follows to get rid of the people you just don’t need updates on.

4. USE YOUR BLOCK BUTTON

Take it one step further and use your block button to eliminate any negativity that’s ruining the online experience for you, especially on Twitter. People can be harsh, but thankfully, websites and apps give you a way to literally shut out the haters. If you don’t want to hear from someone, block them. Simple as that.

5. POST THE THINGS YOU ACTUALLY WANT PEOPLE TO SEE

Social media is about connecting and it’s a great way of staying in touch and networking. Update the parts of your life you want people to see. With all the Facebook talk, don’t neglect places like LinkedIn where you want to keep your job and experiences up-to-date in case business opportunities come along. Remember that sharing some info on social media can be a good thing. Just make sure you have control of it.

6. MAKE SEPARATE LISTS

Click on “Friends Lists” and you can make many lists like Family, Family all, Work, Friends and Friends all. This allows you to send the post to whom you want and to whom you don’t want to. You can name it what you want and add who you want. You can also add people to multiple lists.

While this is a great feature, I suggest keeping it simple. If you have to overthink who you are sending to all the time that can be a challenge as well. Just the basic groups will do.

 

Well thats it. Even if you’ve done a few things above, you are ahead of the game. A good percentage of FB users do not make any changes. 

Be aware, be moral, be social.

keep calm and be social

Influencer marketing is here to stay

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Influencer marketing has been growing in popularity for the past few years and is becoming a strong player in the marketing tool kit. By using social media listening tools a marketer can identify individuals that will help a brand get the word out. Understanding the online conversation around your brand is vital to choosing the right online influencer. You can start with simple less costly tools seen here, before moving to more expensive, but comprehensive tools like Symplur, Traackr or Brandwatch. They will segment and narrow down your search for the perfect Influencers.

influencer marketing

There is a defined process to identifying influencers, and you’ll need more than one tool to get the job done, but the payoff can be very beneficial. Here’s a few benefits and key objectives to discuss with your clients.

  1. Expanding your brand’s reach
    Growing an audience is a long-term task, but you want it to have as many growth spurts as possible. Partnering with an influencer expands your reach more quickly than some organic methods.
  2. Generating user-generated content
    Partnering with influencers to create content together takes some of the content creation off your own team’s plate.
  3. Drive traffic
    Whether an influencer is promoting you in a website review or in a tweet, including a link back to your website will drive their audience to check out your brand.
  4. Improve SEO
    In addition to driving traffic, quality backlinks can help improve your website’s search rankings and traffic. By generating backlinks from influencers who have high authority websites, you can improve your SEO game.
  5. Boost your reputation
    A trustworthy source goes a long way in shaping someone’s opinion. Influencers are highly trusted by their audience, so an endorsement or partnerships can go a long way in building your brand’s reputation.
  6. Finally – Helps to Drive sales
    According to AdWeek, surveys have found that 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions.


Closer look at the Influencer

Using social media influencers in your marketing is the practice of building relationships with the people who can build relationships for you. Whether an influencer’s audience is small or large does not mater as much that they can reach your audience via their blogs and social networks that your brand may not be able to. Your targeted audience needs to trust your influencer. YouTubers like Casey Neistat reviews his products in a unique way. Even if he likes it he faults it, but when he talks about a product, it increases sales. It’s definitely not the 1970’s style of advertising. Take a look at his style here.

85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

influencer

Clothing and beauty brands have had great success with using micro influencers and major celebrities for a while now, but now brands like Amazon, and even healthcare are getting in on the action. People are more apt to make a purchase after reading reviews or listening to an influencer. As you research influencers you’ll uncover a competitive landscape for your client too.

According to a study by Adweek, 75% of brands engage with influencers as a part of their main marketing strategy.

Components of an influencer marketing strategy

  • Identify the topics of influence that speak to your brand’s target buyers.
  • Vet the influencers who are a good contextual fit with your brand. Look for content quality, reach, engagement and an alignment of values with your brand.
  • Relate and engage with your target influencers via email and other social channels. Ask them to partner with your brand and offer them compensation to create mutually beneficial relationships.
  • Measure all earned media and identify which influencers and which topics lift your brand the most.
  • Repeat. Once you’ve identified who and what works best for your brand you can build a stronger influencer marketing strategy each time around. You should have around 10-15 to pick from, and you’ll get 2-3 solid influencers.

influencer-marketing
Map the influencer landscape

Before reaching out to influencers or building a list, you need to understand the influencers in your industry. Map out the different segments. Are they leaders in their fields? Do they report the news on a regular basis? Do they create content or are the passive viewers?

influencer mapping

When mapping the landscape, track these areas:

  • Where do conversations and shares about your topic take place? How social is the market?
  • What motivates people in your market to promote content about your topic?
  • Is activity concentrated among a few publishers, or is the market more fragmented?
  • What’s the author model for key publications? Do they have in-house journalists, regular contributors, guest bloggers – or a mix of all 3?
  • What’s the background of the popular authors in your space?

At the end of the day, the time you spend creating the right strategy and identifying the right influencer, the more impactful influencer marketing will be. Remember that honest dialogue generates true relationships.

Get Started with Google Home Routines

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The Google Home Assistant’s routines are rolling out to everyone. If you are familiar with the Home app then you’ll find this pretty easy to set up. But if you’re not familiar, here are some places to help you.

Google Assistant’s Routines support page

Google Home list of commands

First of all here is where to find “Routines” in your app. Go to settings in the Google Home or Google Assistant app, and you’ll find them under More Settings > Services > Routines.

google home routines google home routines

People and news outlets have been reporting that only the Morning routine is available but I have the full version, so I assume the full version is rolling out to everyone. Hey Google – Have Fun.

3 Reasons why SXSW 2018 is Magical

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SXSW 2018 is in full swing in Austin, and from what I can tell the “experiential” factor tops the interactive cake. I mean they have built sets, taken over houses, and created mind-blowing events before, but these three interactive promotions below are incredible. They have taken the 5 senses and added a sixth – “mind melt”. The event truly looks informative and magical.

If you’re a fan of HBO’s Westworld, than this SXSW event will make you wish you were in Austin. It might be one of the best publicity stunts of the 21st century.

The new movie Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg, is coming out this month. But in Austin it has already arrived. This movie and SXSW stunt elevates VR to the next level. Not just with special effects but weaving it into life.

The tech giant is showing off about a dozen interactive demos at an air-conditioned warehouse here in Austin, and the event sounded like it would be really chill.

Sony wanted to make its visitors feel connected to its technology, and what better way to engage than through physical exertion.

They focused less on explaining the tech or convincing people why you’re here — just wow your audience with magical experiences.

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sxsw magical

Could Apple Really Fix Healthcare for Physicians and Patients

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Apple has been playing in the healthcare arena for the past few years, and they’re is still working hard to make the Watch an integral part of the wearable technology mix. But now Apple has taken on a whole new aspect by helping the physician help their patients. By using their technology, software and hardware, Apple may soon be the key to successful health outcomes for patients by storing medical records. By making the accessible to both patients and physicians in a secure environment is a long overdue promise. I hope they can do it.

So what is Apple’s plan?

Apple announced a new health effort as part of iOS 11.3. The new Health Records section in the Health app lets you gather and view all your medical records as well as the participating hospitals – see below. So that means that those hospitals and clinics will be able to push this data to your phone directly. You’ll receive a notification alerting you that you just received a new medical record. Data is encrypted on your phone and protected by your passcode.

Health Records is going to be a new menu in the Health Data section of the Health app. You’ll be able to add any file to this menu as long as it’s a CDA file (Clinical Document Architecture). Some hospitals already email you those files or make them available on their website. But Apple wants to automate this process.
 
The new Health Records section is available to the patients of the following medical institutions as part of the iOS 11.3 beta. In the coming months, more medical facilities will connect to Health Records offering their patients access to this feature. Further information for health institutions is available here.
  • Johns Hopkins Medicine – Baltimore, Maryland
  • Cedars-Sinai – Los Angeles, California
  • Penn Medicine – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Geisinger Health System – Danville, Pennsylvania
  • UC San Diego Health – San Diego, California
  • UNC Health Care – Chapel Hill, North Carolina
  • Rush University Medical Center – Chicago, Illinois
  • Dignity Health – Arizona, California and Nevada
  • Ochsner Health System – Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
  • MedStar Health –  Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia
  • OhioHealth – Columbus, Ohio
  • Cerner Healthe Clinic – Kansas City, Missouri

Why will Apple make the difference?

Apple does four things very well. They know how to automate operations, simplify tasks, create an intuitive interface, and provide trust. The apps on iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch are capable of helping medical professionals deliver personalized care.

“Our powerful hardware is built to keep up with the demands of healthcare organizations to make work faster and more efficient. And intuitive apps provide easy access to critical health information, so healthcare teams have all the resources they need to make the best decisions for their patients.”

An intuitive, familiar interface.

Apple’s advantage is to build on a platform people are already familiar with. “Apple devices and iOS apps allow patients to learn more about their conditions or treatment, doctors to view lab results and radiology images, and nurses to send and receive secure communication or to help ensure patient safety when administering medications.”

apple heatlhcareApple can continue patient care at home.

At home, iOS apps enable patients to stay connected to their care teams between office visits. Healthcare organizations can use off-the-shelf apps or use CareKit to create apps that empower patients to manage their health. iPhone, Apple Watch, the Health app, and HealthKit-enabled apps and medical devices make it easy for patients to record their health data and share it with their care teams.

Clinical trials and medical research.

Medical researchers can take their studies into the real world by building apps with ResearchKit. The open source framework streamlines the process, making it easier for researchers to enroll participants, capture informed consent, and gather medical information more frequently, rather than only during periodic visits.

Safe and secure data.

We build every aspect of our iOS devices with security in mind. Touch ID allows doctors to use their fingerprints as passwords to access patient charts instantly. Regular software updates protect iOS from emerging security concerns. And we build in safeguards to ensure that both third-party and in-house apps can access data only in ways that are authorized by the user. This gives patients ultimate control over what is shared with their care teams or other apps.

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