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Regulation will only make Facebook stronger, analyst says

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By Myles Udland

 

Recently, British regulators fined Facebook (FB) 500,000 pounds (about $660,000) for breaking data protection laws that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March.

The fine totals about 7 minutes worth of the Facebook’s revenue.

The fine was so small because the company violated a 1998 data protection law that capped penalties at 500,000 pounds. Under the newly-passed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations that took effect in Europe in May, however, the company’s maximum penalty would’ve been up to 4% of annual global revenue, or around 1.4 billion pounds. Not nothing, but still not the kind of financial penalty that would cause much more than a quarter of analysts “looking through” a one-time charge that impacts GAAP profitability.

And, as regulators increasingly look to take on big tech companies like Facebook and Google, more regulation will entrench these companies’ dominant positions in the online advertising industry. Which means that rules aimed at reining in tech giants will merely ensure their dominance in markets lawmakers already think the companies have too much control over.

Facebook’s revenue in the first quarter of 2018 was just under $12 billion, a nearly 50% increase over the same quarter last year. This week, British regulators fined the company the equivalent of seven minutes worth of revenue. (Source: Facebook)

“As history has shown, we believe that regulation will embolden the incumbents and increase their market share at the expense of smaller tech firms,” said Mark Kelley, an analyst at Nomura Instinet in a note to clients on Tuesday.

“We draw comparisons to the financial services sector post Dodd-Frank, where there has been a clear decline in new banks formed as regulation created higher barriers to entry, likely the result of the outsized impact of compliance costs on smaller banks versus that of larger institutions.”

Kelley cites data from the Minneapolis Fed that shows reported compliance costs at banks with less than $100 million in assets pose a burden that is four times that faced by banks with between $1 and $10 billion in assets.

“This disparity in the financial burden of compliance would likely be replicated in the tech sector, punishing smaller firms and reducing competition to the benefit of the incumbents,” Kelley writes.

“With this as a backdrop, we believe the big players such as Facebook and Google are best positioned to handle the heightened operating costs from regulation and will also benefit from increased barriers to entry.”

The fine levied against Facebook this week — which could be potentially fatal to a tech startup that runs afoul of regulations — illustrates the extent to which tech’s biggest players can swat away regulatory action.

Kelley and his team also think that worries over GDPR regulations neutering the ability for websites to track users’ activity online are overblown.

“Anyone on the internet can go to an EU website to see what the new cookie disclaimers and privacy policy notices look like now that GDPR is in effect,” Kelley said.

“In our opinion, to an unsuspecting consumer (which is likely the majority of consumers), clicking ‘okay’ to the new cookie use policy — which grants the site permission to collect data to be used for tracking purposes — doesn’t look much different than what it looked like in a pre-GDPR environment, if at all.”

Kelley’s note marked the firm’s initiation of coverage on the U.S. internet sector, with the firm putting Buy ratings on shares of both Facebook and Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOGL).

“Overall, we think there is still some room for growth in digital advertising for the foreseeable future — led primarily by digital video and social (and TV budgets making the transition to digital), and primarily on mobile devices,” Kelley writes.

“As a result of slowing user growth and already high internet penetration, the growth will likely be led by pricing, rather than volume, and the consistent shift away from offline to online media.”

And to the benefit of Facebook and Google.

By Myles Udland

Myles Udland is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @MylesUdland

Sourced from Yahoo Finance

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The generation is maturing, causing shifts in consumer preferences and priorities.

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By Elizabeth Doupnik

What Millennials want, Millennials — should — get. The demographic is increasingly influential as it matures and gains more spending power. With the aging of the demographic come big life events like marriage and having children, which is shaping their shopping behavior. According to a new report, “Building Loyalty with Dynamic Shoppers,” by Valassis, 47 percent of Millennials and 57 percent of Millennial parents have opted to visit a specific retailer for particular types of items.

“The competitive retail climate has made it crucial for brands to differentiate and prove their value to customers,” said Curtis Tingle, chief marketing officer of Valassis. “There are a number of variables that impact a consumer’s decision on where to shop. Discounts, offers, communication frequency, channel of engagement and more, all play a role in determining which brands become preferred retailers and reap the rewards of a loyal customer base.”

To collect the insights, Valassis in conjunction with NPD polled 1,200 U.S. consumers earlier this year. As current brand loyalty becomes strengthened over time, it will be difficult for competitors to draw consumers away for their preferred shopping locations. “Shoppers reported that to earn their loyalty, it’s critical for retailers to safeguard and protect personal information (76 percent); reward them with personalized discounts or special offers (73 percent); and interact with them through their preferred communication channel (55 percent),” said a Valassis spokesman.

Champions aren’t created overnight. The report said in order to hit home runs during key shopping seasons like back-to-school and holiday, retailers need to be dedicated to building loyalty throughout the year. Seventy-three percent of consumers will patronize merchants who have contacted them outside these blockbuster-shopping periods. Just be sure the messaging is purposeful and personalized.

But heightening efforts during key shopping events will have a better chance of drawing Millennial parents away from their typical destinations. According to the report, 49 percent of Millennial parents are more amenable to visiting new retailers during these shopping periods. Targeting this consumer set throughout the work day will likely improve loyalty, too. “Sixty-two percent of Millennial parents often make purchases during work when they see an email, online ad or mobile notification from a retailer,” said the spokesman.

Arguably less groundbreaking, Millennials will shop a good sale when they find one. “Nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of consumers admitted they can be swayed by advertised promotions and sales for where to shop and what to buy. Forty-seven percent of consumers say receiving an offer will drive them to visit a store or web site they don’t typically shop,” said the report.

Feature Image Credit: A Target on Black Friday. REYNOLD/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

By Elizabeth Doupnik

Sourced from WWD

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‘It’s impossible’: Google has asked ad tech firms to guarantee broad GDPR consent, assume liability

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By Tim Peterson

Google has rankled publishers and ad tech firms with its General Data Protection Regulation compliance strategy. But a pledge the company has presented to ad tech firms is considered particularly burdensome.

In the lead-up to the GDPR’s enactment May 25, Google asked ad exchanges and supply-side platforms to guarantee that the publishers whose inventory they help sell have gotten consent across hundreds of vendors for any ads sold through Google’s automated ad-buying platform, DoubleClick Bid Manager, according to three ad tech executives with knowledge of the matter. The EU privacy law requires businesses to justify collecting people’s online data, by getting their consent or through other means.

In signing Google’s consent guarantee agreement, the exchanges and SSPs as well as their respective publishers would assume liability for any corresponding GDPR violations that Google’s DBM is charged with, the execs said. Under the GDPR, any company found violating the law can be fined up to 4 percent of its annual revenue.

Google is asking that the exchanges and SSPs guarantee that their publishers have received consent for each of the roughly 200 vendors on Google’s commonly used vendor list. The ad tech platforms can compromise by creating their own whitelist with a subset of those vendors that they provide to Google, according to the execs. In either case, Google will assume that any exchange or SSP requesting personalized ads from DBM has received consent for all of the vendors on the respective whitelist, the execs said.

The ad tech execs don’t want to assume liability for violations against Google and they don’t think they could honor it in practice. Further, they said Google’s agreement goes against the spirit of the GDPR, which says people have to have the option to withhold consent from individual vendors.

“It’s impossible to get 100 percent consent for every reader for the entire vendor list because most consent management platforms have to, by GDPR law, allow the reader the option to select potentially opting out of specific vendors, and so there’s no way to guarantee 100 percent of readers for 100 percent of the partners or vendors have given consent,” said one of the ad tech execs.

At least one ad tech firm, Sovrn, has declined to sign the agreement. “The changing landscape of GDPR has brought a lot of uncertainty for publishers. Due to the strict requirements around consent in the Google agreement, Sovrn has elected to wait until Google joins the IAB consent framework, which will make it easier for publishers to comply,” Sovrn CTO Jesse Demmel emailed.

“The GDPR is a big change for everyone. We’ve been working hard to make sure that Google complies with its obligations under the GDPR, and to help our partners in their compliance efforts too,” a Google spokesperson said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that AppNexus and Teads said they have struck deals with Google to guarantee consent. Reuters earlier this month reported that AppNexus and Rubicon Project have guaranteed to Google that they will only sell inventory to DBM for which publishers have received people’s consent. The articles didn’t say if the agreements were initiated by Google or if the companies and their publishers assumed liability for GDPR violations charged against DBM. Spokespeople for AppNexus and Rubicon Project declined to say if their respective companies signed Google’s agreement and assumed liability. A spokesperson for Teads did not return a request for comment by press time.

If an exchange or SSP declines to sign the agreement, it is limited to only selling non-personalized ads through DBM. Those generic ads generate less revenue for publishers than personalized ads that are targeted to specific audiences based on data collected about them. Some publishers that are heavily reliant on DBM have seen their revenues decline by 70-80 percent since GDPR took effect because they were limited to non-personalized ads, said another ad tech exec. That revenue drop has put pressure on exchanges and SSPs to sign Google’s consent agreement lest their publishers move their inventory to other platforms that can run DBM’s personalized ads on their sites, the second exec said.

Google’s consent guarantee agreement is considered by the ad tech execs to be a stopgap measure until the tech giant adopts the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe’s and IAB Tech Lab’s GDPR consent framework. Google has said that it plans to complete its integration of the industry framework by August, at which time publishers and ad tech platforms will be able to pass consent to Google on a per-visitor, per-vendor basis.

By Tim Peterson

Sourced from DIGIDAY UK

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Why The CCO Will Transform Customer Experience

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By Kris McKenzie

Do we all need chief customer officers to bridge a gap between marketing and tech?

Consumers are more connected than ever, and with that connectivity comes sky-high expectations about their experience with a brand. This shift isn’t just changing the tools businesses use; it’s also changing the C-suite.

The roles of the CEO, CMO and CIO are more complex than ever before. CMOs and CIOs, in particular, are tasked with transforming massive amounts of customer data into increased revenue and topline growth. As these roles continue to evolve, success hinges on a key addition to this duo: The Chief Customer Officer (CCO).

Today, many CMOs have sole ownership over the customer experience. Not only that, to increase acquisition and combat customer churn, many CMOs now control or heavily influence customer-focused technology spend.

This blurs the lines of ownership in the C-suite and can infringe on the CIO’s domain. As the traditional technology-enabler who oversees deployment, security and support, the CIO has the power to stop a new customer experience technology implementation dead in its tracks.

Given the power struggle, it’s no wonder that 47 percent of CMOs say that they lack the right tools to understand customer challenges.

Conquering those challenges requires more than technology and data; it requires companies to listen to customers.

While CMOs and CIOs have access to massive amounts of customer data, from website activity to order history, that data alone doesn’t tell a story. That story is locked inside the voice of the customer, and it’s the CCO that holds the keys.

Contact centre agents are on the frontlines of customer relations and loyalty building. Every day, customers reach out with questions or issues, and it’s contact centre agents who act as brand ambassadors on the other end of the line.

The best part? They learn what customers want and need directly from customers themselves.

Unfortunately, many companies aren’t capitalising on those interactions: 56 percent of senior leadership say they only sometimes or occasionally use data from the contact centre to inform decisions.

A recent report from McKinsey stresses the importance of customer interaction analytics, and notes that these insights can build customer loyalty, improve the employee experience and drive revenue increases of five to 10 percent.

Companies can’t afford to ignore contact centre insights. The CCO is the missing link who will finally bring the true voice of the customer to the C-suite.

Not only that, in 2018 alone, the number of communication channels is expected to grow from nine to 11. For companies that want to create a great customer experience, that’s 11 channels to hear what customers have to say.

However, it’s also 11 ways through which companies must create the right experience. Whether they reach out via phone, email, chat, social or any other method, it’s contact centre agents who best understand customer sentiment.

However, without the help of an internal champion, the customer’s thoughts and feelings never make it to the C-suite. As the CCO takes control over the entire customer experience, data silos will be destroyed, unleashing powerful customer insights on both an individual and aggregate level.

As the C-suite power triangle forms with the introduction of the CCO, he or she will bridge the gap between the CMO and CIO, allowing voice-of-the-customer data to become a fundamental driver of customer experience strategies.

CMOs will be able to quickly measure customer reaction and make informed decisions based on customer sentiment, while CIOs will be empowered to make technology decisions based on customer data and insights.

It’s a customer-centric world and companies must keep up with consumer demands. As the importance of the customer experience continues to grow, the roles within the C-suite will also change.

Data is more important than ever to driving this change, but CMOs and CIOs can’t manage the influx of data alone. It’s the CCO who can extract the voice of the customer and tell the story in all the noise.

With these customer insights, companies will ultimately increase customer acquisition, build brand loyalty and decrease churn. With the addition of the CCO, this new power triangle can transform the customer experience.

By Kris McKenzie

Kris McKenzie is general manager for EMEA at Calabrio. He is responsible for Calabrio’s EMEA operations and go-to-market efforts. He oversees sales, operations, strategic partnerships and customer success.

Sourced from Minute Hack

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Sharpen Your Marketing Strategy With The Top Digital Trends Of 2018

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By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

With 2018 already well under way, my mind is bursting with ideas on how to make the most of the latest digital marketing trends. Change is happening right before our eyes. Every year I like to take a step back and revisit key sales drivers, writing down probing questions about recent technological advances, search algorithm changes, SEO drivers and changes in consumer behavior.

Every key driver gives me new opportunities to experiment and measure the results. I’m always up for a challenge, and the results almost always surprise me. Here are the trending projects I have my eyes on in 2018:

Live Videos

I’ve had success using pre-recorded videos on our blog and other marketing channels. In 2018, live video is bringing us even closer to our customers. If you’ve spent any time on Facebook lately, you’ll notice that more people and companies are using live video to promote products, services, events and more. You’ll also notice that people are tuning in, and comments come pouring in on the live feed in real time.

Think about how to use live videos to publicize company events. Offer a promotion for those who tune in live during the event. Take advantage of the opportunity to get live customer testimonials from your satisfied customers.

Personalization

This year, I want to spend time on personalization by focusing more heavily on our customers and their experiences. Using personalization in marketing means knowing more than your customers’ names and general demographics. Voice why your customers appreciate your services and what a difference they can make in the quality of their lives. Develop new content that assures your customers that you understand them and their needs. Good experiences from current clients create brand loyalty. I’m happy to share with new customers how our services have changed the lives of our current clients.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is one of the biggest marketing trends on the horizon. AI can already do more than many of us can fathom. I predict that 2018 will bring marketing apps that use machine learning to help us identify customer needs. AI will also take advantage of natural language processing to give us increasingly precise details. Future applications may allow marketers to monitor the activity of programs that use data to signal the start or end of marketing campaigns. Whatever AI brings us in the coming months is certain to be valuable.

Meaningful Content

I’ve found that articles are a more cost-effective marketing tool than paid ads. Create new content for your platforms that enhance the connection between your customers and your brand. I strive to get our customers involved in a story using words or videos that establish a warm and comforting relationship with our services. The goal of any piece of content is to make it truly meaningful and memorable for the customer.

Voice Search

Last year, smart devices got even smarter as voice search applications on laptops and mobile devices made searching, connecting and multitasking even easier. Voice search will become increasingly popular as more applications become available and consumers get better acquainted with how useful they can be. Marketers should be aware that voice search uses words more naturally than written content. Voice apps are a great place to plug in those long-tail keywords and conversational phrases.

Paid Ads

While it’s true that content is more engaging than paid ads, there is an effective way to use paid ads in marketing. Marketers must face the reality that many consumers are annoyed by ads that block the information they are looking for. Some customers will even pay a small fee so they don’t have to see any ads. However, I find that customers are more amenable to target ads that appear alongside content they are already perusing. If they’ve checked out our services in the past, they’re more inclined to click on an ad that appears to be a subtle reminder.

Customer Trust

Today’s consumers are over flashy ads, but they do have new appreciation for brands that work to establish trust. People still like reviews. Our customers have taken notice of disclosure laws that motivate marketers to obtain honest reviews from real consumers. Additionally, data breaches have caused new concerns about privacy. Developing a trusted relationship means letting customers know how their personal information is being used and how well your company is protecting it.

The Wrap-Up On 2018’s Digital Trends

A good digital marketer completes assignments and meets deadlines. A great digital marketer is a trendsetter, not a trend-follower. Look for new ways to leverage live videos, targeted ads and developments in AI and voice search. You can start by taking a fresh look at old content and revamping it to take advantage of 2018 trends.

Feature Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Karina Tama – Rutigliano

Karina Tama – Rutigliano is the Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Caring People Inc. where she leads SEO, PPC and content marketing.

Sourced from Forbes

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Unilever CMO Keith Weed applauds Twitter for cracking down on fake followers

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By Minda Smiley

Unilever’s chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed has commended Twitter for taking steps to eliminate fake accounts on the social platform.

On Wednesday, he tweeted that he is pleased to see Twitter “taking a big stand against the fake followers polluting the digital ecosystem.”

His comments are in response to Twitter’s recent decision to remove locked accounts from follower counts across profiles globally. Twitter locks accounts when it detects sudden changes in account behavior, like tweeting a large volume of unsolicited replies or mentions. Until now, those locked accounts remained in follower counts, but moving forward they will be removed.

“Most people will see a change of four followers or fewer; others with larger follower counts will experience a more significant drop,” wrote Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s legal, policy, and trust & safety lead, in a blog post. “We understand this may be hard for some, but we believe accuracy and transparency make Twitter a more trusted service for public conversation.”

The move comes one month after Weed expressed his concern over the issue of follower fraud at Cannes Lions. At the festival, Weed said Unilever will no longer work with influencers who buy followers and encouraged the industry as a whole to do more to curb the issue.

“The key to improving the situation is three-fold: cleaning up the influencer ecosystem by removing misleading engagement; making brands and influencers more aware of the use of dishonest practices; and improving transparency from social platforms to help brands measure impact,” Weed said at the time.

Feature Image: Keith Weed

By Minda Smiley

Sourced from The Drum

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The Shift From 4G to 5G Will Change Just About Everything

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Including speed, bandwidth and low latency

Telecom experts are going so far as to herald the arrival of 5G as the advent of the fourth industrial revolution. There are an ever-expanding number of high-tech devices out there trying to connect to the internet every day, many of which require extensive bandwidth, and companies across the board will leverage 5G capabilities to better reach consumers.

“The application of 5G technology will result in massive changes for both consumers and enterprises,” said Jeff Weisbein, founder and CEO of digital media company Best Techie. “5G networks will offer consumers incredible broadband speeds at home (up to 20Gb/s). It will also enable companies to make advancements such as even smarter, better connected cars, advancements in medical technologies and improved retail experiences through personalization.”

5G refers to 5th-Generation Wireless Systems and uses additional spectrum in the existing LTE frequency range to build on the capabilities of 4G, which is often used interchangeably with 4G LTE by marketers. LTE denotes Long Term Evolution, and is a term that was deployed with early 4G networks that presented a substantial improvement on 3G, but did not fully qualify as 4G, meaning 4G LTE is essentially first-generation 4G.

“Through a combination of high speeds, massive bandwidth and super low latency, 5G will allow for improvements in AR, VR, robotics, cloud gaming, immersive education, healthcare and more,” said John O’Malley, a spokesperson for Verizon. “It will allow you to send so much more data so much faster and technology will be more responsive.”

We’ve briefly covered in the past how 5G could change the marketing landscape, but how exactly can we expect 5G to differ from its predecessors?

Improved precision

5G uses unique radio frequencies that are higher and more directional than those used by 4G. The directionality of 5G is important because 4G towers send data all over, which can waste power and energy and ultimately weaken access to the internet. 4G networks use frequencies below 6 GHz, while 5G will use much higher frequencies in the 30 GHz to 300 GHz range.

The larger the frequency, the greater its ability to support fast data without interfering with other wireless signals or becoming overly cluttered.

5G also uses shorter wavelengths than 4G, which means antennas can be shorter without interfering with the direction of the wavelengths. 5G can therefore support approximately 1,000 more devices per meter than 4G. On 5G, more data will more quickly get to more people with less latency and disruption to meet surging data demands.

5G networks can also more precisely understand the data being requested and can self-modulate power mode (low when not in use or high when you’re streaming HD video, for example), generally making devices more user-friendly.

Low latency/more bandwidth

With 5G, it takes less time for the signal to travel, which translates to low levels of latency. “We’re talking latency of a millisecond on 5G networks,” said O’Malley. Pages will load much faster, allowing for a significantly greater immersive experience, particularly in the realms of VR and AR.

Video sharing on social media mushroomed with the arrival of 4G/LTE, and will continue to escalate across all apps and services with the coming of 5G.

“Video now makes up more than half of our mobile data traffic,” said Mo Katibeh, CMO, AT&T Business. “Our video traffic grew over 75 percent and smartphones drove almost 75 percent of our data traffic in the last year alone. ‘Viral videos’ and ‘binge watching’ are part of the cultural lexicon now.”

“Technologies such as AI and machine learning offer great potential, but require high bandwidth and low latency to achieve optimal performance,” said Katibeh. “The same is true for technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality, which can offer a customer experience like nothing before.”

For example, a home decor brand could use 5G and immersive VR to show customers what furniture would look like in their homes, or a financial services company could transform an ATM into a full-service branch powered by video conferencing over a 5G wireless connection.

Ultra-low latency applications provide endless opportunities and will revolutionize the way consumers shop. “In the not-too-distant future, mirrors could be replaced with high resolution monitors with Internet of Things (IoT) cameras that allow you to ‘virtually’ try on dozens or hundreds of combinations of clothing,” offered Katibeh. “You could ‘swipe right’ to try on another shirt or even automatically get recommendations on accessories.”

Autonomous cars could use live maps for real-time navigation on 5G, which is crucial to their efficacy, and could eliminate some of the problems currently experienced with self-driving cars.

Higher download speeds

Everybody wants their device to be working at peak speed, and this is easier to achieve when there are fewer devices and other interferences affecting speed. 5G has the potential to be 20 times faster than 4G, meaning you can download things 20 times faster or download more in less time. 5G has a peak speed of 20 Gb/s, while 4G’s is only 1 Gb/s.

However, things rarely work at peak speed, so it’s important to take into consideration normal speeds as well. Because 5G has not yet been released, experts agreed it’s hard to say accurately how much faster it will operate than 4G, but estimates put it at at least 10 times faster than 4G.

What’s next?

There will not be an overnight shift from 4G to 5G, O’Malley explained. 4G will continue to run in parallel with 5G and 5G will be rolled out gradually. Verizon is rolling out 5G first in residential broadband in three to five markets including Los Angeles and Sacramento and will soon announce additional plans for rollouts.

Following residential broadband, consumers will notice 5G on mobile devices and then in places like smart homes and municipalities.

It’s too early to say how 5G is going to impact carriers, O’Malley said. There is much about the impact of 5G that remains to be seen. In light of the arrival of 5G, Katibeh said AT&T plans to virtualize 75 percent of its core functions by 2020.

Of course new technology always brings new obstacles–the impending greater connectivity makes security paramount and will be a key challenge for businesses.

“Who would have thought five years ago you could take a smartphone and catch a car without exchanging money,” said O’Malley. “The things we’re going to see in a few years with 5G, we cannot even imagine right now.”

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images. Low latency with 5G means web pages would load in a millisecond.

By

Alissa Fleck is a New York City-based reporter, podcast producer and contributor to Adweek.

Sourced from ADWEEK

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4 Big Ways to Use Live Stream Marketing

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By Bonnie Harris 

Live Stream Marketing and Your Integrated Marketing Plan

Live stream marketing is growing in popularity in all different areas. Sports teams can now broadcast their games across the internet, bands can reach a bigger crowd online and companies can market to their unique audiences.

Multiple social media platforms now offer users live streaming marketing capabilities too. Whether you want to use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or even Twitch, there’s a platform for everyone. Due to the multi-channel accessibility lives streaming provides, businesses can reach bigger audiences than ever before.

According to Marketing Week, live stream marketing is the key to building authenticity with younger generations. Sara Carter, an experienced tech expert at Enlightened Digital, agrees. “Live stream marketing is going to be most efficient when trying to reach millennials and Generation Z,” Carter says. “With the ever-growing importance of finding ways to differentiate your brand, live stream marketing just might be a good strategy to add when trying to reach these demographics.”

4 Big Ways to Use Live Stream Marketing

Live Stream Interviews

Customers want the inside scoop that’s happening NOW. Conducting “get to know me” interviews with different employees and creators can be a great way to do that. It will give your business relatability and give prospective customers a better understanding of your company’s culture and values.

Another benefit of live streaming is that it’s able to be filmed wherever you want it to be. These interviews can take place sitting at your desk or on a set created in the meeting room. If live stream interviews are something you want to try, be sure it’s done with a professional air. Be prepared with questions to ask, act comfortable in front of the camera and know how to use the technology. Poorly done live stream marketing can become a negative reflection of your brand. If you’re unprepared, it will show. The time and preparation will pay off when audiences can tell you put effort into creating something special just for them.

How-Tos

Another great live stream marketing engagement idea is creating a tutorial. A how-to live stream can be a fun and interactive outreach. A how-to live stream doesn’t mean an artistic how-to necessarily, which is a common misconception. These live streams can range from how to write an eye-catching blog post to how to put together a great summer outfit. There are countless ways for any business type to get involved in this live stream tactic. How-tos are for anyone that’s creative enough to come up with a fun idea that customers will want to emulate. How-to live streams can also provide an opportunity to reach a new audience, especially if you center your project on material that’s different from what your business typically gravitates towards.

Content Collaboration

If you’re afraid that the content or employees in your live streams repetitive, don’t worry! Live streaming is a great place for content collaborations. Inviting outsiders in will give your stream a fresh set of opinions and ideas. These individuals can be creators or influencers working in your field, or even other business owners that you think could make a positive impact. Use tactics like a back and forth conversation between CEO’s, a Q&A, or a content swap with a social media influencer in your city. There are endless options when it comes to working this into your live stream marketing strategy. Working with other influencers in your field introduces them to a new audience and gives your brand access to the audience they’ve already built. Both sides win!

Want to make your clientele feel like they know the ins and outs of your business? An office tour could do just that. Having the ability to create brand loyalty is an essential step in establishing a strong business. Allowing customers to step inside the office of the CEO, for example, could make those watching feel like part of the team. These live streams can show off your company’s personality and culture. Your office’s decoration can display an identity, and identity provides something to which a customer can relate.

The Impact of Live Stream Marketing

It’s measurable. In the end, what matters is how your company and the marketing strategies you’re using are accepted. By live streaming, your brand can get immediate, quantitative feedback on both reach and engagement. Live stream marketing is convenient, free, and super hot right now!

So don’t be shy, get live! The world is ready to watch.

Feature Image Credit: Free-Photos / Pixabay

By Bonnie Harris 

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Read more at https://www.business2community.com/video-marketing/4-big-ways-to-use-live-stream-marketing-02088510

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How Small Businesses Can Leverage Influencers When Advertising On YouTube

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By  Omar Jenblat

Watching online videos already accounts for one-third of all internet activity. Video content is most definitely one of the most prominent online marketing trends out there right now. And it’s no wonder: Videos receive a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines. Videos are a powerful marketing tool — even more so when they are posted on YouTube. Google seems to prefer YouTube videos over any other platform when filtering search results.

When YouTube was created in 2005, surely no one could have imagined just how important the video-sharing platform would become to marketers around the world. Just behind Google, YouTube is one of the world’s largest and most important search engines. This means a great video can not only attract new customers but also boost your SEO ranking as well as general online presence and prominence.

At BusySeed, we use YouTube as part of many of our clients’ social media marketing strategies. We love to use YouTube for clients that have products or services that can easily be incorporated into a storyline. When we are not helping clients to create their own videos to share on YouTube, we often use influencer marketing to raise hype around a product or service.

Although YouTube may not be the first social network that comes to mind when considering a social media marketing strategy, it is just as important as Facebook or Instagram. The video-sharing platform hosts over a billion users and should be especially attractive for businesses looking to reach a younger, hipper consumer base since YouTube reaches more people between the ages of 18 to 49 than any U.S. cable network.

While the statistics are convincing, actually developing and implementing a social media marketing strategy on the platform can seem overwhelming. The general idea may seem simple: create quality videos, post them on a regular basis and grow a larger consumer base. But 400 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day. It can be difficult to stand out from your competition, but there are steps that even small businesses can take. In my opinion, one of the easiest things you can do as a small business to effectively partake in advertising on YouTube is to partner with an influencer.

Influencer Marketing

Before making a purchase, only 33% of individuals do not research online. A lot of this research takes the form of watching videos like testimonials, reviews or product demos. On YouTube, a lot of this type of content is produced by online influencers.

There are a number of different platforms to help facilitate working relationships with companies and individual influencers. When trying to find the perfect influencer for advertising on YouTube, there are a few different things to consider. First of all, find an influencer that shows interest in your industry. For example, wellness brands will probably have a better match and see more results from a fitness blogger than a gaming channel would.

Before committing to one influencer, take a look at their content. Do they post regularly? How much interaction do they receive on their videos? How is their like-dislike ratio? If possible, take a look at one of their previously sponsored videos and see how their viewer base reacted.

Younger generations greatly prefer online social influencers over the traditional celebrity you may see on TV doing testimonials. Of teenage YouTube users, 40% say digital influencers know them better than their friends. And 60% of the same group reported that influencers have an influence on their purchasing decisions. Not to mention, more than 80% of people trust reviews online as much as personal recommendations.

If you do decide to partner with an influencer, there are a lot of different types of videos you can create to help increase awareness about your business as well as its products. Unboxing videos are certainly a craze on YouTube. These videos highlight influencers opening different packages and showing what’s inside while saying a few words about each product. There are currently more than 70 million that appear on YouTube when you search “unboxing.”

These videos are great for raising awareness about your brand and especially for boosting product sales. If your main priority doesn’t revolve around product sales but rather the general perception of your brand, consider featuring interviews with industry leaders, behind-the-scenes content or customer testimonials.

YouTube Ads

Businesses are also able to create normal advertisements that appear in search results as well as before and during YouTube videos. There are currently four main types of ads available for businesses on YouTube: TrueView, pre-roll, bumpers and display ads.

TrueView ads are skippable and pay-per-view. Pre-roll ads are non-skippable, pay-per-click videos placed before a regular YouTube video. And bumpers are non-skippable, pay-per-view ads placed before a YouTube video.

In addition to these ads, there are less common formats like overlay ads, which are semi-transparent overlay still ads that appear near the bottom of a video. Sponsored cards are the last option marketers have for ads on YouTube. Viewers are shown the card for a few seconds and have the option to click an icon in the right corner of a video to browse all cards.

Video ads are best for storytelling marketing geared toward generating more interest in your company. Still ads, like overlay ads or sponsored cards, are best if your business is focusing on increasing sales for a specific product or sharing a specific brand message.

Currently, only 9% of American small businesses have a YouTube presence. Get involved now, and stay ahead of all of your peers.

Feature Image Credit: Pexels

By  Omar Jenblat

President of BusySeed, Cofounder of BusySeed Deutschland UG and coffee connoisseur.

Sourced from Forbes

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Doom and gloom in advertising? I don’t see it, says IPG boss Roth

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By Kate Holton

CANNES, France (Reuters) – The veteran boss of advertising giant IPG said he does not recognize the talk of “doom and gloom” in his industry, arguing the holding companies are needed more than ever to help clients chart the rapidly changing territory.

The strength of Google and Facebook in online advertising, and the arrival of well-heeled consultants offering advisory work, has sparked fears that the traditional holding companies could lose their grip on client spend during the digital transformation.

But Michael Roth, CEO of IPG since 2005, is having none of it. While he accepts that the industry underperformed from a shareholder point of view last year, he said the range of services he offered could not be beaten.

“I have a slide that says ‘we’re the new disruptors in the industry, the advertising industry is doomed’,” he told Reuters. “That was the headline of the Wall Street Journal 25 years ago.

“I think it is over-rated in terms of fear. I don’t see it.”

Much of the concern about the traditional advertising industry has focused on WPP, the world’s biggest holding company of agencies including JWT and Ogilvy, which suffered a sharp downturn in trading in 2017.

The company, which lost its founder and CEO Martin Sorrell in April, has said the industry is going through structural change, with Google and Facebook enabling clients to reach consumers directly and without an advertising agency.

At the same time, consultants like Accenture and Deloitte are expanding in the sector while some major clients are creating digital content in-house or with independent start-ups. Others still are demanding proof that the millions of dollars they spend online leads to actual transactions.

Roth said that for most of his clients however the sheer scale of change in the industry and the fragmentation of content across the internet meant they relied on IPG, one of the top four holding companies, to make the right decisions.

The holding companies, which also include Omnicom, Publicis and Dentsu, offer everything from adverts for TV, mobile and newspapers to data analytics, media buying, PR and some market research.

Offering a more limited service, the consultancies, he said, were beatable.

“Candidly, we don’t see them very much in terms of who we pitch against and when we do pitch against them we win because we’re able to provide the integrated offering that they don’t.

“The issue of disintermediation, (clients) going to Google and Facebook and not to us, frankly when they do go to Google and Facebook we’re involved because you need an independent arbiter.”

The New York-based owner of McCann outperformed rivals in the first quarter of this year and guided toward the high-end of its 2018 forecast.

While it lifted the shares on the day the stock remains down around 4 percent in the last year, compared with a rise of 14 percent for the broader S&P 500.

Roth said he was concerned by the talk of “doom and gloom” and said a drift to a trade war could knock his clients off their stride. But he reiterated his optimism after spending time with clients in Cannes at the annual advertising festival.

“Clients are looking for solutions and they are looking for a single source that is independent in thinking but has the tools and resources to make a difference,” he said.

“If we’re on our game and clients are willing to spend, the industry is in decent shape.”

By Kate Holton

Sourced from Reuters

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