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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

influencer

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. 

ai

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 

Social Media Analytics Tools and Reporting

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If you have ever wondered how effective your engagement is doing on Twitter, I have some tools for you to check out. And if you’re running campaigns or researching on Twitter there are some phenomenal FREE tools. And wrapping that all up for a report to your client is vital.

First off, if you want to look at just your account, the analytics that comes with Twitter is very informative. But make sure you have it turned on. Here is a link on how to activate your analytics and see your engagement activity.

twitter analytics

The next tool is called TweetReach

  • This tool is great for researching Twitter accounts or #Hashtags. Simply, type in any keyword, hashtag, or username, and TweetReach returns a snapshot of analytics on your search, including charts and graphs for:
    • Reach
    • Exposure
    • Activity
    • Contributors

  • twitter reach

    Twitter Reach can help identify influencers on Twitter through their tweets associated with a keyword and how much they influence.

  • It’s quite useful for checking in on mentions of your Twitter username and tracking branded hashtags and industry keywords.

My next favorite tool is called Followerwonk. This tool helps you;

  • Dig deeper into Twitter analytics: Who are your followers? Where are they located? When do they tweet?
  • Find and connect with new influencers in your niche.
  • Use super-actionable visualizations to compare your social graph to others.

The TechGuy is doing better than me 🙂

The last free tool to show you is a tool called Keyhole.

Keyhole is a social media monitoring and campaign tracking service with a real-time, visual dashboard. It offers monitoring for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram- of hashtags, URLs and keywords. It provides insights such as demographics, location and topic clouds that can be used for identifying influencers. For hashtag and keyword tracking, it provides a wealth of information such as reach, top posts, share of posts, and more. For account tracking, you can monitor your brand’s or competitor’s engagement on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. 

keyhole

 

Reporting back to your clients

A social media report is simply a collection of data and stats. But sometimes you can find yourself in “analysis paralysis'” meaning to much data. And then you need to explain int in a relevant way to your client.

Which data and stats should be on there? And why? Here is a good place to start.

The answer likely depends on your specific social media strategies and goals.

  • Followers tell you the number of people who wish to connect with your brand. The benefits of followers are for the reach of your content, the social proof of your brand’s popularity, and in some cases a simple vanity metric to boost your confidence!
  • Clicks tell you that the content you’re sharing is of personal interest to the user. Clicks send traffic to a URL and establish your social profile as a great resource for curated content.
  • Retweets tell you that the content you’re sharing is perceived as potentially interesting to one’s followers. The benefits of retweets is for advanced exposure to people who aren’t your followers and social proof that you know what you’re doing on social media.
  • Favorites are somewhat of a wild card. The benefit of favorites is as a social proof metric, and beyond that, it’s a bit hard to tell what people are thinking when they favorite because there are so many different strategies and reasons (curation, appreciation, bookmarking, etc.). On some channels, favorites/likes may surface the content higher into the News Feed.

Twitter counts engagement anytime someone clicks anywhere on the tweet, including:

  • retweets
  • replies
  • follows
  • favorites
  • links
  • cards
  • hashtags
  • embedded media
  • username
  • profile photo
  • tweet expansion

But you can do less and more points of contact based on your strategy. The other factors to producing a solid report is choosing a timeframe and presenting “what good looks like” vs your brand.

Which timeframe is most valuable to you?

Here’re the timelines that have come up most often in our discussions:

  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Quarterly
  • From campaign start to end

Here is one way to display your social media stats.

 

Here is another dashboard example and you can download a template from their website.

Increased ROI with Retargeting Ads

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Retargeting ads are nothing new at this point of online marketing, but following the basics of marketing principles will get you higher returns. Don’t get caught up in the technology of it all. It’s still about targeting your audience, segmenting them correctly, and delivering he right message at the right time.

Once set up correctly, retargeting ads will work hard for you. Don’t forget to set realistic goals for your program. This shouldn’t be an awareness program. This is about conversion – about getting people to buy your product. It’s all trackable and quantifiable. If your’e using pixel-based targeting you’ll get new leads, and when your’e using list-based retargeting you’ll have better quality leads. Let’s take a look at how this all works.

Web site visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70 percent more likely to convert on your Web site.

Quick 101 – What is retargeting?

Retargeting ads are a form of online targeting advertising and are served to people who have already visited your website or are a contact in your database (like a lead or customer). Unlike banner ads, this is not random advertising, this is more specific, more “targeted” like the name says. This is a marketers dream. Tell me who to advertise to and I’ll find a way to communicate with the right message, at the right time.

retargeting

Two Types of Retargeting Campaigns

There are two main types of retargeting: pixel-based and list-based. 

Pixel-based retargeting is a way to re-display your material to any anonymous site visitor. It uses cookies to track you. When they leave your site to surf the web, that cookie notifies retargeting platforms to serve specific ads based on the specific pages they visited on your website. By tracking past interests, purchases, level of buying intent, and overall engagement, ads will be displayed to you when you go to FaceBook or other websites.

List-based retargeting simply works after you already have someone’s contact information in your database and it is uploaded.

The pros are that results show better performing ads, stronger ROI from your advertising spend, and the ability to nurture customers with a consistent, cross-channel experience. The cons are that people find it creepy and sometimes annoying. It depends on the product you are selling. I would make the effort to make it “less creepy” by adjusting the purchase and behavior parameters. 

Hubspot has this quick guide to setting up retargeting on FaceBook.

retrget

3 Ways Your Retargeting Ads Can Be Better?

  1. Audience Segmentation
    Audience segmentation allows you to tailor ad messages to users in different stages of the purchase funnel. The process is simple: you place different retargeting pixels on different pages of your site, and then tailor creatives based on the depth of engagement of each user. You want to have specific messages for different people.
  2. Geographic, Demographic, & Contextual Targeting
    Targeting gives you the chance to optimize your ad placements. Ads can be targeted based on demographic information, like age or gender, contextual factors like subject matter of the website, or geographic data. When you target your ads with consideration for demographic, geographic, and contextual variables, you don’t waste valuable impressions on people who aren’t relevant to your campaign.
  3. A/B Test The Heck Out Of The Campaign
    Even if you launch your campaign with incredibly strong creatives, running the same set of ads will result in a lower performing campaign at some point. Plus, what you think is going to work ad what works can be two different things. A/B testing your creatives will help you determine the optimal combination of ad copy, calls-to-action, and graphics.

Retargeting ads are powerful and can be optimized to not be “creepy” to your audience. When used properly, retargeting has a great ROI. Follow some of these  best practices and your guru marketing skills, and you’ll be sure to see positive returns.

 

Podcasting for business and culture at Bell Labs

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On Thursday night (5/4/17) Bell Works in Holmdel NJ will host a special event featuring a panel event on podcasting and the effects on business and culture. Podcasting has quickly become a powerful tool for businesses to market themselves and for people to reinvent themselves. If you don’t know what podcasting is yet, check out my other article – The Power of Podcasts, but know that this medium, really a radio show on steroids, is helping businesses around the world get the word out. And the thing is anybody can do a podcast that will be available to literally the entire world. According to a report by Edison Research

“Over 98 Million People ListenTo Podcasts In 2016”

podcasting monthly numbers

 

Overall, podcast listening increased from 11% to 36%, translating into an estimated population of 98 million (Edison Research). Even more 21% of Americans over age 12 have listened to a podcast in the past month growing since a 12% share in 2013 (Pew Research). Certainly, podcasts are incrementally growing. Because podcasts listeners will form relationships with hosts and are loyal to show they are following, listeners will tend to return back to shows on a regular and timely basis, whether weekly or monthly (Columbia University).

And the nice thing is that men and women are almost equally listening to podcasts.

men and women

 

In any event, podcasting is securing its prowess in the fabric of business marketing, and even better they are entertaining. They all have personalty that speaks to “you” and cover any topic imaginable. So what is tonights topic? All panelists will speak from their experience about podcasting as a business, including emerging business models that have proven more and less successful. The panel will be moderated by Julia Zapcic of digital marketing agency Marketing Rival and sponsored by Bell Works and vi Innovation Hub.

The panels are made up of the following:

  • Fan Theory Podcast, affiliated with USA Today Network & APP.COM, hosted by Felecia Wellington Radel and Alex Biese.
  • I Sell Comics/Ming & Mike Podcast, affiliated with SMODCO (Kevin Smith’s entertainment company) and AMC TV’s Comic Book Men unscripted tv show and hosted by Mike Zapcic and Ming Chen.
  • Neil Mody, founder of Sparemin, a software startup promising to do for self-produced audio what Youtube did for self-produced video.

Fan Theory will provide a big picture view of corporate-backed podcasting/linked to an established media resource (USA Today/Gannett). Also, how podcasting helps build community and feeds into other conversations that open doors to affiliated business opportunities, including creation or enhancement of events based on a podcast or the larger fan community. 

Mike & Ming will bring the ‘organically grown’ experience of podcasting to the table — building an audience and message around a very personal/personality driven passion. Also, using podcasting to promote a strongly held, personal agenda, ie: more inclusive society; culture that values storytelling and shared goals and aspirations; encouraging the ‘average geek’ to get creative and create something that celebrates what’s important to them in their lives.

Neil Mody and Sparemin will demo new technology currently being used by major media outlets to do on-the-spot audio capture and upload that allows users to produce relevant, relatable content in real time. Neil will talk about who’s already using it, their experience and the impact of this tech in podcasting.

All in all it sounds like a great night. 

Wrap up

Last night was informative on podcasting and the future. And it was a historic moment for Bell Works. The theatre opened for the first time since the place was shut down, and we were the first event to be hosted. Quite an honor. Below are some pictures of Bell Works and the event.

bell works

Podcast panel

 

The Power of Podcasts – Top 5 Podcasts

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Podcasts are more popular than ever. We all have something to say or something to sell. While this is just another channel. It is a channel that holds its audience attention, and reinforces your business goals. So why are so many people turning to podcasts to et the word out? Because content can be delivered in a unique way and with expertise.

The power of podcasts

Podcasts can perform so many functions:

  • They can educate.
  • They can entertain.
  • They can inform.
  • They can inspire.
  • They provide authority.
  • They can provide a humorous personal side of your business.

podcaster
At the end of the day, you can make a connection with your audience. You are able to talk directly to your audience and provide the voice that migt no come out in a blog.

Podcast Listening Grew 23% Between 2015 and 2016 and monthly podcast listenership has increased 75% since 2013.

Podcasts are also portable. In this world of accessibility, we all have multiple devices to listen to podcasts. Where we want and when we want. All this sounds great but who is really listening?

To provide some context for what 21% of the entire country represents, 13% of the US listens to Spotify monthly, and 21% of the country uses Twitter. The same number of folks listen to podcast and use Twitter.

podcast facts
Click to enlarge

All this sounds great but in order to grow more listeners, the age barrier needs to be broken. Those 55+ age bracket are pretty flat with listening. If this changed the podcast would go through the roof.

Even mainstream media is investing in podcasting:

  • The New York Times, which in March 2016 announced the creation of a podcast team focusing on news and opinion programming;
  • Public radio broadcaster WNYC, which announced in October 2015 its plan to raise $15 million in funds for a new podcast division (for more on the role of podcasts within the public radio world, see the public broadcasting fact sheet);
  • The Wall Street Journal, which introduced WSJ Podcasts in December 2o15;
  • And on the local front, the Des Moines Register, which turned to long-form narrative podcasts in order to explore one story in depth.

Startups and newer media organizations investing in podcasting included:

So, what are we all listening to in the podcast world?

Here are the top 5 podcasts when writing this article 1/13/17.

 1. Pod Save America is here

A no-bullshit conversation about politics.

This is a political podcast for people not yet ready to give up or go insane hosted by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor.

 

2 Hollywood & Crime is here

A fictional crime series.

 

3 TED Radio Hour is here

Networks surround and sustain us, in nature, in our bodies, in relationships, in the digital world. This hour, TED speakers explore how we rely on networks and how we have the power to shape them.

 

4 This American Life is here

Most weeks This American Life is the most popular podcast in the country, with around 2.5 million people downloading each episode.

 

5 Hidden Brain is here

The Hidden Brain helps curious people understand the world – and themselves. Using science and storytelling, Hidden Brain’s host Shankar Vedantam reveals the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, the biases that shape our choices, and the triggers that direct the course of our relationships.

 

 Coffee Podcast 

Tasty videos are a feast for the eyes

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With short attention spans ruling the internet, Tasty videos has taken over FaceBook and marketing to our appetites is on the rise. Thanks to fast-motion animation, food and technology have intersected on the internet with some fresh thinking on recipes. Tasty videos has taken it to the next level.

The New York-based media company’s Facebook-only cooking channel, Tasty, now has 30 million followers on Facebook. Its videos regularly get tens of millions of views.

“Tasty has become the driver of video views at the company, with 53.6 million likes”

UPDATED May 5, 2016

Digiday reported that in less than a year after it launched with an experimental recipe video, Tasty has become the driver of video views at the company, with 53.6 million likes (its rapid ascent made it look like a spam channel, which caused a Facebook glitch that temporarily halted its growth, according to BuzzFeed) and a global presence that’s spawned a growing number of BuzzFeed video offshoots around kids, moms and cooking gadget unboxings. There’s a DIY offshoot for crafters called Nifty. Tasty has begun opening the door to advertising.
Full story.

Take a look at some good examples of stop-motion foodie videos.

The large majority of Tasty’s videos — which are made by BuzzFeed Motion Pictures — are filmed in Los Angeles. Andrew Gauthier, executive producer for BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, said that the process for what to shoot isn’t especially complicated. “Oftentimes a producer will make a new recipe for their family over the weekend, and then come in on Monday excited to make the video and share the dish with the world,” he explained. “Once we’ve arrived at a final recipe, a video can be shot and edited in as little as a day.”

“Tasty has 50 million Facebook fans”

That quick turnaround yields overwhelming results. Tasty is barely a year old — it launched at the end of last July — but has since amassed almost 50 million Facebook fans, and, as of the beginning of this year, more than 84 million comments. The view count is even more astounding: Tasty has racked up 8 billion views and counting.

Engaging the user

Tasty’s format of fast-motion videos, suck the viewer in and keep them engaged. They’re optimized for Facebook’s autoplay feature, which starts playing videos without the sound on. You don’t need sound to engage either. Your eyes do all the work. 

A marketing strategy of publishing your content directly to social media outlets like Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram, rather than posting links to stories on your website, is not the norm. Unlike conventional thinking at most media organizations, you might want to be less concerned about driving traffic back your website, and concentrate on engagement and acquisition.

 

A different perspective here is a video that is food for thought.

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