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China and AI: what the world can learn and what it should be wary of

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China announced in 2017 its ambition to become the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030. While the US still leads in absolute terms, China appears to be making more rapid progress than either the US or the EU, and central and local government spending on AI in China is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

The move has led – at least in the West – to warnings of a global AI arms race and concerns about the growing reach of China’s authoritarian surveillance state. But treating China as a “villain” in this way is both overly simplistic and potentially costly. While there are undoubtedly aspects of the Chinese government’s approach to AI that are highly concerning and rightly should be condemned, it’s important that this does not cloud all analysis of China’s AI innovation.

The world needs to engage seriously with China’s AI development and take a closer look at what’s really going on. The story is complex and it’s important to highlight where China is making promising advances in useful AI applications and to challenge common misconceptions, as well as to caution against problematic uses.

Nesta has explored the broad spectrum of AI activity in China – the good, the bad and the unexpected.

The good

China’s approach to AI development and implementation is fast-paced and pragmatic, oriented towards finding applications which can help solve real-world problems. Rapid progress is being made in the field of healthcare, for example, as China grapples with providing easy access to affordable and high-quality services for its ageing population.

Applications include “AI doctor” chatbots, which help to connect communities in remote areas with experienced consultants via telemedicine; machine learning to speed up pharmaceutical research; and the use of deep learning for medical image processing, which can help with the early detection of cancer and other diseases.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, medical AI applications have surged as Chinese researchers and tech companies have rushed to try and combat the virus by speeding up screening, diagnosis and new drug development. AI tools used in Wuhan, China, to tackle COVID-19 – by helping accelerate CT scan diagnosis – are now being used in Italy and have been also offered to the NHS in the UK.

The bad

But there are also elements of China’s use of AI which are seriously concerning. Positive advances in practical AI applications which are benefiting citizens and society don’t detract from the fact that China’s authoritarian government is also using AI and citizens’ data in ways that violate privacy and civil liberties.

Most disturbingly, reports and leaked documents have revealed the government’s use of facial recognition technologies to enable the surveillance and detention of Muslim ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang province.

The emergence of opaque social governance systems which lack accountability mechanisms are also a cause for concern.

In Shanghai’s “smart court” system, for example, AI-generated assessments are used to help with sentencing decisions. But it is difficult for defendants to assess the tool’s potential biases, the quality of the data and the soundness of the algorithm, making it hard for them to challenge the decisions made.

China’s experience reminds us of the need for transparency and accountability when it comes to AI in public services. Systems must be designed and implemented in ways that are inclusive and protect citizens’ digital rights.

The unexpected

Commentators have often interpreted the State Council’s 2017 Artificial Intelligence Development Plan as an indication that China’s AI mobilisation is a top-down, centrally planned strategy.

But a closer look at the dynamics of China’s AI development reveals the importance of local government in implementing innovation policy. Municipal and provincial governments across China are establishing cross-sector partnerships with research institutions and tech companies to create local AI innovation ecosystems and drive rapid research and development.

Beyond the thriving major cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, efforts to develop successful innovation hubs are also underway in other regions. A promising example is the city of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang Province, which has established an “AI Town”, clustering together the tech company Alibaba, Zhejiang University and local businesses to work collaboratively on AI development. China’s local ecosystem approach could offer interesting insights to policymakers in the UK aiming to boost research and innovation outside the capital and tackle longstanding regional economic imbalances.

China’s accelerating AI innovation deserves the world’s full attention, but it is unhelpful to reduce all the many developments into a simplistic narrative about China as a threat or a villain. Observers outside China need to engage seriously with the debate and make more of an effort to understand – and learn from – the nuances of what’s really happening.

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Sourced from The Conversation

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8 of the Most Important Instagram Trends to Watch Right Now

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By Katie Sehl,

Like most social media trends, Instagram trends move quickly. And in 2020, change has been fast and furious, with a global pandemic, social uprising, and competitors, shaking things up.

Trends make the difference between looking out of touch or ahead of the curve. That doesn’t mean you should throw your social media content calendar out the window. It means you should stay informed and stay flexible.

There’s a lot to stay on top of at Instagram. From Instagram Story trends to Live Shopping, and Instagram Shops, we break down the biggest trends on the app.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a lifestyle photographer used to grow from 0 to 600,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

9 of the most important Instagram trends in 2020

These are the top trends on Instagram to watch right now.

1. Brands and influencers reckon with racial inequality

On June 2, Instagram feeds were checkered with black squares in support of Blackout Tuesday. The original concept, The Show Must Be Paused, was created by music executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, as a day for the industry to “take a beat for an honest, reflective, and productive conversation about what actions we need to collectively take to support the Black community.”

But the black squares swiftly became symbols of performative allyship. The posts inadvertently drowned out the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, a channel activists use to relay vital information. Many brands and influencers who participated were called out for virtue marketing or hypocrisy, spurring calls for transparency and action.

Designer Aurora James’s #15PercentPledge initiative calls on big retailers to pledge %15 of shelf space to Black-owned businesses. Brands including Sephora, Rent the Runway, Cupcakes and Cashmere have since made the pledge. UOMA Beauty founder Sharon Chuter launched #PullUpOrShutUp to challenge brands to back their marketing with employee diversity statistics.

Instagram plans to reexamine how its policies, tools, and processes impact Black and other underrepresented communities on Instagram. The company will focus on addressing harassment, account verification, content distribution, and algorithmic bias.

Black creators and professionals have also been speaking out about tokenization, pay disparities, and being sidelined. Several celebs, public figures, and influencers have responded to this disparity by sharing Black influencers and businesses or hosting account takeovers. As a result, many Black creators have seen their followings double overnight.

The social momentum behind Black Lives Matter is stronger than ever. But as initiatives like #PullUpOrShutUp demonstrate, brands need to know the difference between social trends and social movements. As eTalk CTV reporter Tyrone Rex Edwards said, “My trauma is not a trend.”

Anti-racism, inclusive marketing, equal pay and opportunity are not trends. They’re the new norm and the bare minimum of what consumers expect from brands going forward.

2. Instagram goes Live

Stay-at-home orders and event cancellations have helped propel Instagram Live viewership figures to new heights. Between February and March, the number of people tuning in for live broadcasts rose by 70%. More than 800 million people now watch live video daily across Instagram and Facebook.

Live lineups have been packed with star power. DJ D-Nice’s #ClubQuarantine sets have featured shoutouts to Rihanna, Zuckerberg, and Joe Biden as the viewership count soared above 100,000. Former U.S. President Barack Obama and Justin Bieber were among the 50,000 viewers punctuating a live convo between NBA star Stephen Curry and Dr. Anthony Fauci with emoji.

As people look for ways to replace in-person activities, brands and creators have jumped on live, too. In fact, 80% of live broadcasters have fewer than 1,000 followers.

Instagram Live sessions include everything from cocktail and comedy hours to virtual protests, yoga classes, and drawing tutorials. Desktop functionality, added in April, has made tuning in a lot more practical.

Like Instagram Stories, live videos tend to be more intimate and spontaneous than posts in the feed. Hosts can also respond to questions and comments in real-time, which is why Live videos tend to average six times more interactions on Facebook.

It’s too soon to know what staying power Instagram Live may have in a post-COVID world. For now, Instagram is rolling out enhancements, such as the option to save videos to IGTV and run fundraisers. Live Shopping and Badges allow creators to monetize livestreams.

Instagram is also testing showing two-rows of Stories in the feed, with live videos up top.

Until in-person activities resume, expect to see more memes and innovation on the Instagram Live front.

3. Creators can now make money directly on Instagram

Since its inception in 2010, Instagram creators have mostly monetized their audiences through affiliate marketing and brand partnerships. New features introduced in May now allow creators to make money directly.

Instagram is now testing Badges with a small group of creators and businesses. During a live broadcast, viewers can spend 99 cents to $4.99 for heart badges to stand out in the comment stream and unlock features. During the test phase, creators will receive 100% of revenue earned from these badges.

Instagram influencer doing a live video

Source: Instagram

Tests for IGTV ads are underway as well. These ads can last up to 15 seconds and appear after someone clicks to watch the full IGTV video. On par with YouTube, 55% of ad revenue is shared with the creator. In addition to ads, Live Shopping tools now let creators and brands tag products during live videos.

Influencer doing an Instagram live skincare tutorial

Source: Instagram

These changes come as competition to retain creators heats up between platforms. They also cater to a cohort of “specialized” creators who monetize their audiences by offering valuable content, rather than featuring valuable products and experiences in their content. It’s why many are shying away from the label influencer in favor of the term creator, or even ambassador.

Brand partnerships will still remain an important source of revenue, but they’ve already become a lot less transactional. Expect to see some fine-tuning in the Brand Collabs Manager from Instagram (and Facebook).

4. Instagram Shops set brands up to cash in on conversions

Instagram Shops promise to make it easier for brands to make money, too. Shops let businesses create a storefront directly in the app, so people can buy without the need to visit a website. By eliminating this friction, brands should be able to drive significantly higher conversions and sales.

In May, Instagram and Facebook launched a phased rollout to businesses globally. The plan is for the shopping experience to eventually be integrated across all of Facebook’s apps. Once complete, it will mean that when someone puts something in their cart on Facebook, they can check out later on Instagram using stored credit card info or Facebook Pay (which will likely be integrated, too).

Instagram shopping in Explore tab

Source: Facebook

To improve discoverability, Instagram will soon have a dedicated Shopping tab, like the Explore tab, which already features a shopping section. Accounts with shops have a View Shop button on their profiles, as well as a shop tab. Businesses can customize how collections appear, connect loyalty programs, and benefit from the platform’s built-in AI to create personalized experiences.

There are now more ways to spend money in Stories, too. In addition to product tags, companies can share gift card, food order and donation Stickers.

Set up Instagram Shopping so you can sell your products.

5. Shopping and advertising get AI-powered upgrades

More people shopping across Instagram and Facebook means more data. And more data brings the company closer to its vision of “making anything shoppable while personalizing to individual taste.”

To make anything shoppable, the Facebook engineers have developed an A.I called GrokNet that can automatically tag the products in a business’s catalog in seconds. The A.I., which is already used on Facebook Marketplace, can scan photos, identify attributes such as colour and style, cross-reference with catalogs, and suggest descriptions. On the flip side, this data is used to deliver better search results and targeted ads to users.

Rotating View is another A.I. project that aims to enhance social shopping. The feature, which allows people to create 3D-like images, is currently being tested on Marketplace. Maybe it will crop up on Instagram, too.

Instagram may soon introduce ads that use augmented reality to let people “try on” beauty products or preview furniture in their homes. Facebook already offers an AR ad format, and Zuckerberg recently announced more developments are on the horizon.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that reveals the exact steps a lifestyle photographer used to grow from 0 to 600,000 followers on Instagram with no budget and no expensive gear.

Get the free guide right now!

Read our complete guide on how to advertise on Instagram.

6. Instagram Guides accompany the rise of “info-social”

Brands and influencers often get asked for recommendations, from “where should we eat in Marrakech?” to “how do you talk to your kids about climate change?”. In the past, these requests have been handled by referring followers to highlights or blog posts. Now guides can be created directly on Instagram.

several different Instagram guides

Source: Instagram

According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, guides were initially developed for travel, but that idea was curtailed by the coronavirus outbreak. Instead, they launched under the theme of wellbeing, with more themes coming up. Instagram recently assembled a racial justice resource guide, too.

Guides have their own devoted tab on profiles, and can be shared to Stories or appear in the Explore tab. They can include curated posts and videos with added notes and tips.

There’s a growing appetite for informative social content. On TikTok, educational videos are surging in popularity, especially in China, with a reported 14 million “knowledge-based” posts created last year. In the United States, career coaches, personal finance experts, and fitness experts are finding success on the app.

On Instagram, everything from “practice accounts” to doctor and nurse micro- and nano-influencers are popular, proving that engaged communities are much more valuable than high follower counts.

7. Values take center stage

Authenticity is a big buzzword in the influencer industry. But it’s not just an influencer trend. Consumers increasingly demand authenticity from brands, too, especially in the form of transparency.

As brands and influencers use their platforms to take a stand, promote values, and support causes, transparency will be more necessary to retain authenticity. For example, sustainable beauty brand Elate Cosmetics goes into great detail to explain the eco-attributes of its products and practices.

Influencers will share more about their decision making in general, and be more upfront about why they partner with specific brands. To maintain trust, disclaimers and clear labelling between spon-con and regular posts will be necessary, particularly in Stories.

With social advocacy on the rise, Instagram has added several fundraising tools, including live fundraisers and donation stickers. The company is also reportedly testing the option to add fundraisers to profiles. Nonprofits already have access to account Donate buttons.

Instagram is also adding context to posts from high-reach accounts. In April, the company started piloting a feature that shows location and where followers are based on posts from these accounts.

Instagram post showing where account is based

Source: Facebook

8. TikTok, Twitter, and Giphy invade Instagram

The days when Instagram was only a place for filtered images are long gone. Instagram’s feed now features everything from memes and Twitter takes to TikTok challenges, special effects, music, and more.

To keep up with competition from TikTok and Snapchat, Instagram’s been on a feature-adding bonanza—especially in Stories. The recent acquisition of Giphy, which already sourced 25% of its traffic from Instagram, will add to a collection of interactive features that already includes stickers, filters, and other special effects.

Despite more content variety in the feed, the Instagram aesthetic still creeps in. As Arimeta Diop points on in Vanity Fair: “It’s the end of the iPhone-Notes-App-Apology Era.” Bold typefaces, templates, and hand-drawn sketches have proven more popular, thanks in part to Instagram’s strong design community. Infographics and visual storytelling have taken off, too.

Most cross-platform sharing is up to the users, except when it comes to Facebook’s family of apps. Further integration between Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger—on the front and back end—is looming. Beyond a fully integrated shopping experience, Facebook is developing an option for users to view and reply to Instagram Stories from Facebook.

Facebook is also planning to merge messaging across its apps by the end of this year. Once complete, Instagram users would be able to message friends on WhatsApp and Messenger, even if those friends don’t have Instagram accounts. This level of integration would make the app family comparable with the WeChat, the super app that dominates in China.

Manage your Instagram presence alongside your other social channels and save time using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can schedule and publish posts, engage the audience, and measure performance. Try it free today.

By Katie Sehl

Sourced from Hootsuite

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How the post-COVID workplace will change business for the better

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By Mark Pringle,

  • Businesses that prioritize their return to work strategies and change how they operate will outpace their peers;
  • As we emerge from coronavirus lockdowns, we need to evolve the dated mindset that being in an office full-time is an actual business imperative;
  • Organizations should focus on four key pillars to ensure a smooth transition of team members back onsite.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations across the globe into a balancing act – protecting the health and safety of their employees while simultaneously continuing their operations. Like all essential businesses, Dell Technologies is working through this challenge to implement the most effective approach for protecting as many stakeholders as possible. And, it’s critical that we partner with customers to put their business continuity, remote working and digital services into practice.

As we began creating our company’s return to site strategy, it became clear that the workplace impact would not be a temporary one, and organizations that seize this opportunity to change how they work will outpace their peers. This concept compelled us to create a formal Customer Playbook that serves as reassurance that our plan – and business – are strong, as well as providing guidance on how to leverage these strategies to strengthen their own businesses.

Emerging opportunities

As governments at local and federal levels start to lift restrictions and ask employees to “return to work,” we must remember: we are already at work. Our team members who are required to be in a facility or in the field are steadfast in their support of our customers. Meanwhile, the remaining 90% of our workforce continues to be productive working remotely.

We know coming out of this crisis that many of our team members won’t need to return to corporate sites, at least not on a full-time basis. While every industry and every business is different, it’s critical that organizations reinvent and redefine “work” in the new world. We must change how we think about spaces, cybersecurity, meetings, travel, events and policies, and we mustn’t forget the ways employees find balance through their family, volunteer work, hobbies and more. We need to evolve the dated mindset that being in an office full-time is an actual business imperative.

As we rethink where business is done, it creates the opportunity for organizations of all sizes to advance and achieve their goals and experience a more flexible culture, reduce their carbon footprint, enhance diverse talent recruitment and make new investments in innovation.

How does this paradigm shift enable us to do all of this?

Businesses should start with an honest accounting of how a reduced on-site workforce with more flexible workplace conditions can help the business execute on its strategy. We’ve aligned our business objectives with our evolving workforce in the following ways:

  • Use our values to develop new ways of working, with high levels of engagement and productivity.
  • Create a stronger customer and team member experience by investing time and money on the things that matter most.
  • Start from the top, with a leadership team and ethos culturally committed to increasing our work-from-home footprint and team member flexibility and choice.
  • Be a leader in workplace flexibility with a goal of 50% (or greater in countries with the right infrastructure) of our team members in flexible work arrangements.
  • Advance progress against our 2030 Moonshot goals by reducing our carbon footprint and opening new opportunities to bring in diverse talent.

Although this is specific to our own approach and goals established before the pandemic arrived, we’re confident it’s a strong framework for customers to consider as they adapt their own goals, along with the right technology to accelerate innovation and growth.

Of course, to achieve these goals, we must prioritize the safety and wellbeing of our team members at every step. This includes planning our return to site in a way that prioritizes flexibility and will require fine-tuning as we learn through the process. The way we’re approaching our strategy is focused on health first, through graduated return to site for different functions based on need and flexible schedules.

This strategy takes a conservative approach and relies strongly on data and science to determine safety and readiness, align to local government regulations and follow health and hygiene guidance. It also ensures we support our customers and partners, focus on teams who need to be on-site for enhanced productivity, and enables employees to return to the office while taking into consideration the future state of work.

Once the conditions are right, organizations should focus on four key pillars to ensure a smooth transition of team members back onsite while cementing the conditions for greater innovation and flexibility:

  • Return to site risk assessment – Evaluate the infection rates, active cases, recovery and scaled increase trends of the country/specific location to determine how safe it is for team members to return to site.
  • Pre-opening readiness – Assess and prepare for team members to return to site while ensuring hygiene, social distancing, and infrastructure all support team member health and productivity.
  • Phased return to site – Start with those team members who are physically required to be onsite, and gradually move to those functions and people who prefer to come to their place of work; as well as accommodating those who don’t feel comfortable to return.
  • Communication – Develop transparent and frequent communications, with a feedback loop, to team members and communities.

We’re rarely afforded the opportunity to make such dramatic changes to our businesses in such a short period of time – even rarer still is the ability to do so in a way that will better prepare our teams for the changing digital landscape while helping us achieve organizational goals around sustainability, diversity and innovation. Although it’s not a change that anyone asked for, it’s the change that will help us create more flexible, sustainable businesses that put people first.

Feature Image Credit: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

By Mark Pringle,

Senior Vice President of Corporate Real Estate, Global Facilities and Environment, Health and Safety, Dell Technologies

Sourced from World Economic Forum

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What’s next for social ad spend as one third of brands plot hate-speech boycott?

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By Rebecca Stewart

As brands continue to add their name to the growing list of companies boycotting Facebook, fresh research from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has painted a sobering picture of how marketers view the social network and its rivals.

Volkswagen and Mars are the latest corporations to halt ad spend with Facebook over its handling of damaging content and misinformation. The car marque and food giant join Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Unilever and more in signing up to the ‘Stop Profit for Hate campaign’ which is backed by civil rights groups including the NAACP, Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League.

The coalition has been calling on major corporations to put a pause on advertising on Facebook for the month of July, citing its “repeated failure to meaningfully address the vast proliferation of hate on its platforms”.

Some brands have gone further, pulling the plug on all investment for the foreseeable future across all social networks.

The WFA’s research has revealed a diminishing faith in not only Facebook, but also its bedfellows, to address the issue at hand.

What did the WFA’s research find?

  • The WFA’s members control nearly $100bn in global ad spend. Following on from the news of the Facebook boycott, the trade body asked members about their policies on social media ad spend. The WFA’s research asked advertiser views on all social media platforms.
  • 76 responded, representing 58 companies and $92bn in marketing dollars.
  • Almost one-third of these marketers (31%) said they will, or are likely to, suspend advertising on social media over platforms’ failure to police hate speech. A further 40% said they were also considering doing so.
  • 17% said they were unlikely to withhold spend. 12% said they had no plans to withhold spend.
  • Brands were also asked which other actions they’d taken or had considered. 53% said they’d already had direct conversations with social platforms about hate speech. 48% said their main approach was to work through industry bodies to deal with the issue. 32% said they weren’t taking action for now and 13% said they were taking other actions.

What does the data show?

  • If anything, the survey shows how divided the industry is on how to handle the issue. Some brands are set on pulling spend, where others remain undecided.
  • The WFA also released some anonymised qualitative responses as part of the research. Again, these are a mixed bag: one marketer laments that it’s “simply depressing” how much the platforms are still falling short and says they would “appreciate support with identifying and viable alternatives for investments”.
  • Another pointed out that neither the platforms nor the advertisers propping them up are perfect: “Advertisers may pull out of these platforms,” the brand marketer continues, “but consumers will not.

What’s next?

  • Hate speech and how brands inadvertently fund it is an issue that has been on the WFA’s radar for some time. Working with social networks to find a solution to the problem is already being prioritised by the trade body’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).
  • For its part, Facebook has promised “new policies to connect people with authoritative information about voting, crack down on voter suppression, and fight hate speech”.
  • Actions include labelling posts that are potentially harmful and even in violation of the platform’s policies but are not censored by the platform because they are deemed newsworthy.
  • Facebook will also add a link to its voting information centre to posts that reference voting, including those made by politicians such as President Trump.
  • Speaking to the Financial Times earlier this week, chief executive of the WFA Stephen Loerke noted how this moment feels like a turning point amid the pressure of the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign.
  • “What’s striking is the number of brands who are saying they are reassessing their longer-term media allocation strategies and demanding structural changes in the way platforms address racial intolerance, hate speech and harmful content,” he explained.
  • The magnitude of the brand exodus won’t really be clear until Facebook releases its Q3 results in October.

Feature Image Credit: Volkswagen and Mars are the latest corporations to halt ad spend with Facebook over its handling of damaging content / Unsplash

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

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Style Guide: How to Write One for Your Brand

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By SASHA LAFERTE

Sometimes branding fails happen when something gets lost in translation. For example, when Coors translated its slogan “Turn It Loose” into Spanish, it used a colloquial term for diarrhea.

More often, though, branding fails happen because of a lack of a clear style guide, which can result in inconsistency or miscommunication among your content team.

#Branding fails happen because of a lack of a clear style guide, says @SashaLaFerte via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

A style guide also can be a way to foster content authenticity by containing instructions for all parties creating content for your company.

This article addresses why your organization needs a style guide, details what to include in your style guide, and gives examples of top-notch style guides to ensure streamlined external communications.

Why you need a style guide

First, what is a brand style guide?

A brand style guide is a holistic set of standards that defines your company’s branding. It references grammar, tone, logo usage, colors, visuals, word usage, point of view, and more.

A brand style guide references grammar, tone, logo usage, colors, visuals, point of view, says @SashaLaFerte via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

By creating a detailed brand style guide, you ensure that your published content is consistent, polished, recognizable, and more enjoyable. A thorough, well-thought-out style guide puts your readers first. It creates a recognizable, engaging voice and personality that readers can form a more personal connection with.

What to include in your style guide

GatherContent recommends keeping a style guide to between four and five pages. Anything longer is too much to digest. Before creating it, research who your audience members are and what they want. Create a style guide based on what resonates with them.

Keep style guide to no more than 4 or 5 pages, according to @GatherContent. @SashaLaFerte via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

If you already have a mission statement or boilerplate “About Us” description for your brand, start there. Revisit it to make sure it’s not only on point with what it says but how it says it. If you define your brand voice as conversational, but your mission statement is filled with corporate jargon, it’s probably worth revisiting.

From there, create a table of contents for your style guide and use it as an outline. All style guides should include an introduction. This might include a mission statement, letter from the CEO, About Us page, or general overview of the company’s brand and audience. Next, create a section on how your brand talks and writes, and another section on branded visuals. Here’s a breakdown of what these sections should include.

Writing section

Roughly 45% of a brand’s image can be attributed to what a brand says and how it says it. Details like whether to use “&” or “and” or if you should use the numerical or written versions of numbers may seem trivial. But the sum of these details adds up. If they are consistent throughout your published work, they convey a coherent voice, coherent thinking, and a credibility impossible to attain without this consistency.

Here are some tips for ensuring that your brand guide aids in creating first-rate content:

  • Baseline guide: Use an existing style guide (like AP Style) as a baseline. Add your brand’s differences, such as the use of the Oxford comma or general best practices for emojis.
  • Formatting: Add a small section around formatting. Include details on how to format bullets, lists, hyphens, and quotes.
  • Tone and voice: Give descriptions of these and examples of how the tone and voice might be right or wrong. If you want a playful tone, explain what that means. This section also should include information on sentence structure. Do you want long complex sentence structures, a mix, or Hemingway simplicity? (Pro tip: You don’t want long sentences if you want to be persuasive.)
  • Additional details: Include a section on how to engage, words to stay away from, and any other details important to your brand. Use the brand personality spectrum below to get a better idea of what’s important to your brand’s written content.

In your brand style guide, give descriptions and examples of tone and voice, says @SashaLaferte via @CMIContent.CLICK TO TWEET

Visual section

Visual cues are as important to brand consistency as the written aspects. Consider including these elements in your style guide’s visual section:

  • Colors: Detail your brand’s palette of colors, including function. Make sure to include the hex, CMYK, and RGB codes for each color, as well as Pantone numbers.
  • Logo: Include all versions of your logo and examples of proper uses. If you have older or frequently misused versions, include them as “don’t-use” examples.
  • Fonts: Include all brand fonts for headings, paragraphs, etc., and their uses.
  • Presentation format: Include a link to a company slideshow template for presentations.

2 brands with awesome style guides

Here are two brands we all know that have first-class style guides and highlights on what makes them special.

MailChimp

MailChimp’s style guide thoroughly prepares any contributor to create on-brand content. Check out its style guide if you’re looking to create a guide with a lot of detail. Highlights include the voice and tone section and word list section. MailChimp also breaks out writing guidelines by content type, from emails to blog posts to social media.

.@Mailchimp’s style guide prepares any contributor to create on-brand #content, says @SashaLaferte via @CMIContent. #Contentmarketing #ExamplesCLICK TO TWEET

Uber

Uber’s brand style guide is packed with GIFs and videos that convey the very movement Uber is so proud of. Uber uses this site to not only describe brand style but to share the brand story, showcase examples of its branding done well, and provide helpful tools.

.@Uber’s brand style guide is packed with GIFs and videos that convey the very movement Uber is so proud of, says @SashaLaferte via @CMIContent. #Contentmarketing #ExamplesCLICK TO TWEET

According to Uber, the guidelines cover nine elements: logo, color, composition, iconography, illustration, motion, photography, tone of voice, and typography. The style guide’s home page also makes it convenient for users by highlighting and linking the most frequently requested assets:

Create your brand’s style guide

Now you know why a good style guide is important, what it should look like, and what to include. It’s time to create one for your company. Include the marketing team, sales team, and any other creatives working on your marketing and products when creating a style guide. Upon completion, share it companywide, and store it as a living document in a place that’s easy to find.

By SASHA LAFERTE

Sasha Laferte is Checkr’s senior customer marketing manager. She’s written for several digital marketing publications including Young Women in Digital and HubSpot’s Blog. Her experience spans writing content for marketing software companies to creating viral media for Wenner Media (the parent company of Rolling Stone and Us Weekly). Follow her on Twitter @SashaLaferte.

Other posts by Sasha LaFerte

Sourced from Content Marketing Institute

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Marketers Need To Get Their Digital Display Houses In Order

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By Christian Polman

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Programmatic media buying and the vagaries of the digital media ecosystem hit the headlines again recently with the publication of PwC’s research report for ISBA. The study found that only 51% of UK advertisers’ programmatic ad spend actually reaches publishers and around a third of all supply chain costs could not be attributed.

The ISBA study tells a story about programmatic media that we already know well, the story of an ecosystem characterized by a high degree of complexity that rarely delivers results. There are many more practical starting points for unlocking value in digital media spend than analyzing trades at a transaction level.

We now have a much better understanding of what makes digital display advertising so ineffective. While most advertising is digital and 90% of digital display is traded programmatically, marketing analysts and econometricians still find it challenging to identify positive ROI on digital media investment.

My primary concern is that there’s a genuine risk that all this talk about the programmatic supply chain will mean brands lose sight of where the real value drivers lie in digital marketing effectiveness. Disclosure and transparency can help advertisers achieve greater control, but they don’t guarantee that programmatic media buying will deliver better results.

Advertisers can and should prioritize a number of key drivers that sit well outside the programmatic ecosystem. Excessive automation, coupled with poor briefing and misalignment in campaign strategies, mean that programmatic has become highly tactical as opposed to strategic, certainly with little brand thinking involved.

The real crisis in programmatic trading is that much of its value is lost beyond the tech stack.

Attention: Too many ads fail to attract consumer attention. Ads should be created that capture and hold attention on a brand. That attention can be measured with eye tracking studies, A/B tests or even using AI-based predictive solutions. CPMs should increasingly be related to and adjusted for attention. Remember, more than 90% of display ads are currently viewed for one second or less.

Brand safety: Marketing spend is wasted, and brand equity placed at risk, when ads run in non-brand-safe environments. These are also placements with high risk of ad fraud, a potentially very large problem. To ensure brand safety and reduce the risk of fraud, marketers can whitelist the right environments and cut out the long tail.

Context: The wrong context can render an ad ineffective. To increase receptivity to a creative message, consumers need to be reached in the right context. Context trumps the false promise of microtargeting.

Functionality: There is no one-size-fits-all ad format. Brands must produce creative executions that work in the media in which they run. Repurposing TV commercials to run on digital video platforms does not work. Branding and product need to be visible. You don’t have time to tell complex, nuanced stories online.

Targeting: Poorly targeted ads increase the potential for irrelevant messaging. Avoid retargeting consumers who have already made a purchase. Remember that half of ads are off target and targeting too narrowly at the expense of reach can end up being costly for many business models.

Viewability: An ad can’t have an impact if it is never viewed. Sixty-five percent of ads are not viewed, and half are not even viewable. Excessive frequency leading to bombardment irritates consumers and leads to low viewability.

As with any complex problem, the solution requires a broad, diverse worldview. Brands should take a holistic approach to improving the value they get from programmatic media. It’s only by addressing challenges holistically that advertisers can truly optimize effectiveness in digital display.

By Christian Polman

Chief Strategy Officer at Ebiquity.

Follow Ebiquity (@ebiquityglobal) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Sourced from AdExchanger

 

 

 

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The Best Hack To Being Recession-Proof: 3 Reasons To Never Stop Marketing

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By Pia Silva

The past couple of months of this global pandemic have brought up no shortage of questions for entrepreneurs: “How long will it last? When can I go back to work? How can I keep working through this crisis? My cash flow has essentially stopped; how can I save money—and my business?”

I really can sympathize with all of the above, because I asked myself similar questions during the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, I was just starting to get my business footing, and when the economy came crashing down, I, like many entrepreneurs across the country, found myself staring at very slim pickings.

So this time, I want to address the elephant in the room during times of economic uncertainty: Should you keep marketing your business to an audience that may be struggling financially, and is it even worthwhile to market your services when people aren’t in a position to buy?

Feature Image Credit: “How can this be happening? I cut my marketing budget!”  STEVE WASTERVAL

By Pia Silva

I am a partner and brand strategist at Worstofall Design where we build brands that turn expertise into profit. Unlike most branding firms, we build entire brands in days instead of months, and only work for 1-3 person service businesses. Our unique process and niche positioning has helped us to overcome the hurdles we struggled with when we were starting our business, reliably attracting a steady flow of high paying clients and allowing us to enjoy the freedom that inspired us to become entrepreneurs in the first place. At Forbes, my goal is to clarify and simplify the elusive idea of “branding,” and share practical tips and tangible steps to help businesses find their unique brand voice that leads to profit.

Sourced from Forbes

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The Top 7 Instagram Automation Tools For Smart Marketers

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All entrepreneurs and marketers know how valuable time is.

The more time you spend engaging in activities that don’t directly bring any return on investment (ROI), the slower your growth.

You should choose your marketing approaches taking into account efficiency and available amounts of time.

Lack of time and the need to increase efficiency are the two main reasons why you should consider automation as a part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

Managing an Instagram account and promoting your products or services on this social network is a difficult task. You should not only provide your followers with fresh high-quality content on a regular basis but also reply to comments, monitor posts where users mention your brand and deal with many other time-consuming tasks.

Instagram is the fastest-growing social media platform with more than 1 billion active monthly users. There are thousands of influencers from different niches, along with thousands of businesses that put a lot of effort into building a strong presence on Instagram. All these businesses have to compete for a greater audience and to make sure that their posts will satisfy Instagram’s algorithm.

If you use the right Instagram automation tools, you’ll be able to improve the efficiency of many processes significantly. For instance, you can schedule your posts so that your target audience can always see your content when they are most active. There are also many tools that can help you analyze engagement and provide the exact content your followers are looking for.

Now let’s take a look at the best Instagram automation tools that can help you improve your Instagram presence.

1. Hashtagsforlikes

Hashtags For Likes Instagram Automation Reference Guide

Sorting hashtags is a time-consuming task. Many businesses even decide to outsource it. To use the right hashtags, you should analyze hashtags that are trending in your niche and determine which hashtags can be associated with your brand.

Even though developing an effective hashtag strategy is difficult, it’s still very important for the visibility of your posts in your followers’ feed.

Hashtagsforlikes is an organic tool that will help you use the best hashtags for your products, services, promotions, and other types of content. This is a search engine that also provides analytics on each hashtag so that you can choose the right ones.

2. Kicksta

Kicksta Organic Automation Growth Tool Reference Guide

Kicksta is one of the best organic automation growth tools that has proven to deliver great results, enabling users to get real followers.

Some solutions imitate success by using fake followers, but this is not the case with Kicksta. You can be sure that your brand gets genuine engagement and that all your followers are actual people.

Kicksta will help you promote your products or services to the right audience so that you will have more time to create authentic content.

3. Ingramer

Instagram Automation Tools Statistics General Auditory Reference Guide

One of the main advantages of Ingramer is that it combines effectiveness with simplicity.

This software comes with a variety of automation tasks, including a hashtag generator, automated likes and follows, and data analysis.

Ingramer is based on an algorithm that simulates the activity of real people and only considers information on customers or active followers. If you’ve never used such services before, you can contact the support service and get answers to any of your questions.

In addition, this solution can help you analyze the performance of your account so that you can promote it more effectively.

4. SocialCaptain

Social Captain Instagram Automation Software Reference Guide

SocialCaptain is one of the best solutions for Instagram automation. This Instagram automation software focuses on attracting real audiences and increasing engagement rates.

It comes with several tools for targeting and real-time analytics. It also includes an AI-powered module that boosts its performance.

The best thing about this solution is how fast it works. For instance, if you opt for the Turbo plan, this software will deliver the desired results 10 times faster than the majority of other automation solutions. If you need to grow your follower base quickly, you will certainly appreciate this tool.

5. Upleap

Upleap Reliable and Effective Instagram Automation Tool Reference Guide

Upleap has proven to be reliable and effective. Before you decide whether or not you want to use this solution, you can try a free 3-day trial to familiarize yourself with its main features.

Every client gets a personalized account manager so you can always ask real people about any issues and get timely help.

Another reason why Upleap is more popular than many of its competitors is that it offers good pricing options. The prices start at $39 per month, and when you choose this solution, you know what you’re paying for.

6. Instavast

InstaVast Multipurpose Instagram Automation Tool Reference Guide

Instavast is a complex solution that includes a variety of features. For example, you can use an Instagram bot that deals with comments, likes, and follows. There is also an automated direct message sending tool and a post scheduler that you can customize according to your needs.

All the tools are priced separately, and the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee.

You might also want to check out the free Instagram automation tools on Instavast’s website. For instance, there is a media downloader, a hashtag generator, and a list of banned hashtags.

7. Agorapulse

Agorapulse social media management tool

Agorapulse is a full-suite social media management software.

It allows you to pre-load Instagram posts and schedule them to go at the exact time you need. You can also schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. It’s a huge time-saver.

Agorapulse also provides detailed reports on all of your social media activity.

Common mistakes

To achieve good results on Instagram, you should not only use automation tools but also know how to use them properly. For example, you should make sure that your comments are personalized so that your followers won’t have to read generic comments that have obviously been written by a bot.

Keep in mind that the main purpose of automation tools is to help you with repetitive tasks so that you can focus on tasks that require well-developed creative skills. Bots won’t be able to produce high-quality content.

Another common mistake is setting impossible goals so that your account will get unnatural numbers of followers too quickly. Solutions that enable you to promote your account in such an aggressive way can often create problems. Sometimes, accounts that are promoted too aggressively may even get banned. We recommend that you focus on stable growth and manage your expectations.

Wrapping up

Instagram marketing is extremely time-consuming so there’s no surprise that more and more businesses and influencers choose various automation tools that can help them automate repetitive tasks and focus on other important things.

I hope that this list of the best Instagram automation tools will help you get more followers and achieve your business goals.

By

Anna is a specialist in different types of writing. She graduated from the Interpreters Department, but creative writing became her favorite type of work. Now she improves her skills while working as a freelance writer for Pick The Writer, Writing Judge to assist a lot of students all over the world and has free time for another work, as well. Always she does her best in the posts and articles.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

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How To Use Design Thinking To Overcome The Financial Crisis

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By Luciana Paulise

Covid-19 has caused an economic crisis. According to a Mckinsey study, more than 20.5 million jobs have been lost in the United States since the start of the pandemic. In some cases, however, a crisis can present new opportunities. Design thinking can help you develop a disruption mindset.

Design thinking is a method of creative problem-solving that focuses on customer empathy. While it is usually applied to develop new products and services or make current products more appealing, the ideation process can be used to solve any problem. In the current unpredictable climate, design thinking can help companies address the financial crisis in a more empathetic and collaborative way.

There are many tools to create solutions, but the keys of design thinking are the focus on:

1) People: design thinking prioritizes empathy and the human aspect of the solution; it is a human-centered approach.

2) Processes: Making sure the idea is technically feasible

3) Business: financially viable.

Through a continuous trial-and-error process, ideas are tested quickly to ensure these three aspects are covered.

There are different ways to approach design thinking. The most simple is to divide the process into three stages: exploration, ideation, and implementation.

Exploration phase: observe and listen

A multidisciplinary team made up of people from varied backgrounds, such as designers, accountants, engineers or psychologists, observes human behaviour, considers a problem they have, and mulls a solution.

The team should have no more than ten members; the more diverse, the better: different backgrounds, ages, cultures, and seniority. Define together the major challenge facing the company; from high costs to employee engagement or a product that is now obsolete in the post-pandemic world. Then investigate what’s behind the problem. Explore the suppliers, the customers, the processes. Look at the details. For example, look into how the customer has changed their behaviour. Are they buying another product? Are they buying it differently? Ask questions. Take pictures, record answers and meet with the team to analyse the findings.

Ideation Phase: brainstorm multiple ideas

In the second phase, ideation or creation, think of how the team could solve the problem. Here is where the tool SCAMPER is very useful. As per The Innovation Answer Book by Teresa Jurgens-Kowal, SCAMPER is an acronym used to trigger alternate associations of existing solutions in addressing a problem. Use it to find different approaches to the problem. It can be like a virtual brainstorming.

Substitute: can you substitute or exchange parts, material or components of the existing solution? Many companies, for example, are replacing permanent human resources and employee development departments with consultants to reduce fixed costs and improve training quality. Other companies are taking the opposite approach and using current employees to do jobs that would otherwise go to a contractor in order to reduce project costs.

Combine: can you combine different steps or processes? Telehealth is a solution that is combining experts, new technologies like Zoom or Facetime and apps to make health checks more affordable and accessible. Another combination in manufacturing is TPM (total productive maintenance), which combines the skills of the maintenance department and operators to prevent problems and reduce idle hours.

Adapt: can you adjust a specific task or product for better output? Many ideas in a company were ideated during informal conversations. Working remotely that kind of interaction is less frequent or not possible. Many companies have created virtual spaces where employees can meet. From an informal breakfast on Zoom to Slack channels, or specific tools like StarMeUP, these intimate connections can still be promoted only by making small adjustments to the current communication process.

Modify, minimize, or magnify: how can you adjust the whole process? Two-hour meetings online are more disengaging than face-to-face gatherings. Can you minimize them to a 30-minutes meeting? Or can you turn 4-hour learning modules to 15-minutes smaller pieces that can be delivered online?

Put to another use: use products for another purpose, recycle waste or choose a different target market. Let’s take Airbnb. It has a booking system that is now almost obsolete because nobody can travel. Can Airbnb pivot their system to provide home-office spaces for parents that need to focus? Can single people rent rooms or desks during the day through the same app?

Eliminate: this is my favourite, so simple and still so hard to accept. Can you remove parts or eliminate unneeded resources to improve a process? How many things were you keeping that now seem irrelevant? Have you found yourself noting you didn’t need broken tools, old-fashion clothes or duplicated steps? Use the 5S method to sort needed from unneeded. Now not only booking rentals but also a doctor or coaching appointments have gone online, eliminating the process of waiting or various emails back and forth discussing the best time for a meeting.

Reverse: rearrange parts or reverse the process. The command and control process would require the C-suite to come up with solutions for problems. Now, agile teams require that solutions come from the bottom-up. The ones that know the processes better are the employees, why not let them figure it out? It is the first change to a successful design thinking.

Implementation: iterate until you solve the problem

And the last stage is implementation. At this point, you should have tons of ideas. Ten team members by 7 Scampers, that’s around 70 ideas minimum! Prioritize and test these ideas quickly. Use pilot teams or focus groups to try them out and see what works best. Contact a coach to help you facilitate meetings to make them more effective if needed. Iteration is part of the process, so implement them right away and make adjustments as needed.

In Japanese, to write the word crisis they use two signs: danger and opportunity. Maybe, this is the time for your company to fight the threat and find creative ways to unleash this opportunity.

Feature Image Credit: BY MIGUEL Á. PADRIÑÁN FROM PEXELS

By Luciana Paulise

I am Lu Paulise, culture coach, speaker and author. I am an MBA, Quality Engineer and Certified Scrum Master. As a passionate book writer, I regularly contribute to Forbes as well as other multiple international media outlets such as ThriveGlobal.com, Medium and Infobae in Latin America. As the founder of Biztorming Training & Consulting LLC and TheWeCulture.com, I have helped a wide range of companies, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies, to transform their culture to become more agile, engaged and innovative. I also enjoy giving back to the community participating in non-profits. I am currently Regional Deputy Director for the ASQ and VP of Innovation for the Argentina-Texas Chamber of Commerce. I live in Texas, and I also speak and write in Spanish.

Sourced from Forbes

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Why Your Business Needs To Spend More Time Thinking About Cash Flow Management

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By Rodney Laws.

Cash flow is a central issue for all businesses — balancing your income against your expenses to ensure you have enough cash available to continue operating can be very complicated. Many businesses, especially startups and small businesses, can underestimate just how important cash flow management is.

We’re going to run through exactly why your business needs to manage your cash flow and ways in which you can improve it.

Why is cash flow management important?

Cash flow isn’t a clear indicator of how well your business is doing — you’ll be making long term investments that pay off at a later date, or a large portion of your money is tied up in stock.

And while these are necessary expenditures in running a business, if you invest too much money you might not have enough to pay out in the short term. Rent, suppliers, and employees all need paying regularly, and you can’t wait until you have the cash available to pay.

Lack of cash reserves is one of the top reasons that startups fail. Cashflow is a clear indicator of how safe your business is, and what you have to fall back on if your investments don’t pay off.

It’s particularly important for new businesses when you have endless outgoings to get things up and running. You need to have a clear idea of when you will start to see some sales or income. Seasonal businesses also rely on good cash flow management as any profits will need to cover periods with reduced or little income.

What’s the difference between cash and profit?

It’s pretty easy to get confused between profit and cash. On paper, your business might have income, but it’s not necessarily always physically available as cash that you can access and use. Profits won’t ensure you’re able to pay your bills. You might have sold products or services and billed customers, which is considered profit, but until it’s been paid you don’t have the cash.

How to improve your cash flow management

Whatever type or size of business you’re running, cash flow management is something that needs to be prioritized. These are some starting points for improving your cash flow management:

Reduce your expenses

While some expenses such as wages for your existing employees are set in stone there are a number of expenses that can be reduced.

If you’re renting an office space, you could look at moving somewhere new for a better deal, or consider downsizing the office if some of your employees would prefer to work from home. And if you own the property, make sure you keep on top of renewing your mortgage so that you’re always getting the best rates.

When you’re looking to hire more staff, look at hiring graduates or candidates with less experience that are willing to learn. You can save some money, but also employees that receive regular training and learn new skills on the job feel valued and they’re more likely to stick with your company long term. HR analytics can also help to optimize your costs.

For bills always use a comparison site like Uswitch to ensure you’re getting the best possible deal for your broadband, gas, and electricity. And if your business involves a lot of driving, then a fuel card like the DCI card can provide competitive fuel rates. Fuel card comparison site, iCompario, will help you to find the best one and clearly explain the benefits.

Don’t invest too much money

It’s easy to get carried away when money starts coming in to just invest it all back into the business. However, it’s no good having a warehouse filled to the brim with stock but no money to pay the rent. Use inventory management software like Veeqo to monitor stock levels carefully and only order the stock that you’re going to be able to sell.

Keep on top of your invoicing

If you’re running a business where you provide your service or products before receiving payment then it’s important that you have a reliable system in place for collecting your money.

Don’t allow customers to go long periods without paying off their account, and don’t let them rack up a huge bill – you need regular payments. Most accounting software such as Xero will have invoicing features that can send out invoices, payment reminders, and provide online payment options.

For a subscription business, consider how monthly or annual billing will affect your cash flow – if you choose annual will you have enough cash to cover the months with fewer payments.

No business should underestimate just how important cash flow is. Follow these steps and spend some time thinking about your cash flow management – reduce your expenses and keep an eye on your finances to ensure you’re never short on cash.

 

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By Rodney Laws

Editor at Ecommerce Platforms, https://ecommerceplatforms.io

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