Your Facebook News Feed 2018: Content from Friends > Content from Publishers & Brands

On January 11, Mark Zuckerberg announced significant changes to Facebook’s News Feed, partially resulting from the negative user feedback that "public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — [was] crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other." Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook would tweak its algorithm to ensure that users would see less of this content in 2018, which caused shockwaves through the marketing world, as brands feared dwindling engagement from their audience. "By making these changes,” Zuckerberg said, "I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable."

But is this really so bad for brands? Sure, it will be detrimental for small businesses or companies that do not have the budget or talent pool in place to produce engaging content that generates conversations. However, I would argue that this shift will force most publishers and brands to do what they should have been doing all along: create meaningful, engaging content that makes the brand feel personal and memorable. (Frankly, we should be thanking Facebook for this not-so-subtle nudge!)

In addition to producing better content, we will likely also see brands increasing their spend on Facebook advertising, and further diversifying their marketing mix to engage users on other channels.

CNN Tech

The Need for In-Store Personlization

http://www.adweek.com/digital/personalization-is-a-priority-for-retailers-online-and-off-but-its-harder-than-it-looks-in-an-off-the-shelf-world/

As e-commerce alternatives continue to take market share from brick and mortar retailers, businesses are looking for ways to keep up. While Amazon and others can provide a personalized shopping experience informed by data on past purchases and viewing, brick and mortar retailers lack the data to emulate this experience.

In an effort to combat this, retailers are looking to merge the data-rich e-commerce universe with the 'white glove' touch of brick and mortar. The goal for these stores is not about product recommendations (that's easy), but about using data to provide an individualized experience more relevant to the consumer. So far, this ambitious goal has proved elusive. All too often, according to industry experts, companies want to do "sexy personalization stuff, but...haven't done the unsexy work of capturing, organizing and using customer data to create truly relevant experiences".

Ultimately this is less about e-commerce versus brick and mortar, and more about the challenge of uniting the two, so that when a consumer interacts with Macy's in-store and online they receive the same personalized experience informed by their behavior in each environment.

In my opinion, there is a market opportunity for a platform that marries in-store behavioral data with online interactions. (Perhaps it is as simply as tying a device ID or cookie ID to a credit card. Though smarter engineers than myself have probably thought of this and failed.) The company that is able to do so will fulfill a growing challenge faced by all business who have both e-commerce and brick and mortar.

Muting Ads on Google

Google generates much of its revenue on paid advertisements and so in a surprising blogpost, Google has decided to make it easier for users to mute ads that follow you on other sites.  Google already has a mute option which has been utilized by millions of users daily and received over 5 billion pieces of feeback that people muted ads that were irrelevant.

Google is now going to make muting easier with an Ads setting tab and will allow you to mute across devices. This is definitely good news for Google users, but is potentially bad for companies that advertise through Google. If customers tend to see the ads as reminders and eventually spurs them to re-visit the site and make a purchase, companies are potentially losing out on revenue.

However, if the ads were a pesky annoyance and made customers less likely to revisit the site, it may be better off for companies who would not have generated any revenue regardless from the ad reminders. 

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/google-expands-controls-to-let-you-mute-those-annoying-ads-that-follow-you-on-every-site/

Social Media - Blog Post 3

As technology evolves, younger children get access to devices and applications and develop abilities to navigate these with no problem whatsoever. According to an article published in Semana.com, a local Colombian publication, Tim Cook recently confessed that even though he has no children, he is setting up limits on his 12 year old nephew regarding social media usage. There are studies that say that teenagers exposed to these platforms have twice as more chances to become sad individuals aside from generating addiction.

According to record, more than 5 million Facebook users are ages 10 and/or below, and even though most social networks have a minimum age range to open accounts near 14 years of age, children lie in order to gain access. This has led to several Silicon Valley gurus to prohibit social media and even computers to their children, or at least restrict access. According to the article, people like Steve Jobs, and Bill Gats prohibit the usage of computers to their children and foment the usage of books instead. Per the article, studies have been made to identify a proper time usage for social media. Steven Aldrich, from GoDaddy Inc has established limits to his 16 year old son Jackson and questions his decisions as to all the information he decides to publish and upload on social media.

In general, several psychologists suggest that parents should educate themselves as to the proper usage of social media for children in order to determine the right amount of time and usage. Today, we live in an era of overstimulation and information that may eventually backfire with any child. I personally believe that the evolution of social media is imminent and children of all ages will be more and more exposed to these environments. As their parents limit their time on these platforms, it means that they have less exposure to content. However, it is certain that this content has been accessed at younger ages than before.

Technology is evolving and becoming part of everyone’s lives. Digital content and media are being filtered and broadcasted via applications on a more regular basis. The more kids and children of all ages are exposed to social media or apps, the more access they will have to content. This is a double edge weapon that may be used for psycho development, but at the same time, may result in negative repercussions for certain individuals. There is still a huge responsibility component from parents and adults, especially in an environment where devices become more and more prominent at younger ages.

Source: http://www.semana.com/vida-moderna/articulo/que-hacer-con-los-jovenes-en-facebook/554923

Sotheby's acquires Thread Genius

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/sothebys-acquires-thread-genius-to-build-its-image-recognition-and-recommendation-tech/

Sotheby’s has acquired Thread Genius, which has a set of algorithms that can instantly identify objects and then recommend images of similar objects to the viewer. Thread Genius will become part of a new unit at Sotheby’s building out AI based recommendations engines. 

The art world has a challenge in getting a new generation of would-be buyers interested in buying art at a time when their disposable income probably doesn’t allow for it. One way to appeal to this group is through the use of technology to expand the pool of potential buyers and use algorithms to show buyers who don't know much about art, styles that are similar to things that they like. Traditionally auction houses have relied heavily on art connoisseurs  to identify artists, value art work, and to source objects and match them to potential buyers. By looking at the browsing habits of users online paired with demographic data, Sotheby’s can predict with much greater accuracy what buyers are looking for and what pieces in their inventory would pique a buyer’s interest.

I don’t think this means an end to the human intervention in the art world, as humans can pick up the subtle details that an algorithm cannot detect and have built up networks and long-term relationships with buyers that no computer can replace but it does showcase an interesting trend for companies whose core competency is not technology, using tech to replicate some of the expertise they have. 

It's Personal

I am a person of interest at a little store on the Upper East Side. The trendy women who work at Meg know my name, what my style is like, and also that I tend to hide shopping bags from my husband and sneak them into our apartment 2 blocks away. They KNOW me.

Fresh Direct also knows me. They know that I tend to order organic frozen fruits and have access to all my previous meal kit purchases. Fresh Direct has an algorithm that knows what I bought last week and what I've put in and taken out of my shopping cart.

It's a different type of personalization and knowledge, but where companies have struggled is to merge the two. Gathering data points and algorithms does not a relationship make. So how are brands planning on merging the personalized relationship and individual gets in a brick and mortar with the incredible information gathering that occurs online?

Over 70% of brands are offering personalized experiences, and this numbers is currently at it's peak. This is due to customer reaction to personalized offers, recommendations, and experiences. Beauty and sports brands are currently excelling at this, although it's only the beginning.

Glossier, a make-up brand that is the spin-off of an extremely successful beauty blog, is able to make sophisticated recommendations to its online customers based on the blog posts that they are reading on Into the Gloss. This personalization is quickly shifting from recommendations to individualization... and currently content is king. Creating an experience and an environment that is desirable for customers whether in the store or out.

We're finding that brands need to actually let go of the control, gather the data that is personal and relevant, and make it easier for people to get what they want, but on their own terms.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/personalization-is-a-priority-for-retailers-online-and-off-but-its-harder-than-it-looks-in-an-off-the-shelf-world/ 

Web Design Trends in 2018

Web design is evolving day by day and a website that is considered modern yesterday can be seen as an outdated one overnight. Below there are 15 trends to keep an eye out for in 2018 that will help you create a modern, unique website:

1. Bold Typography: Big, bold typography is used in titles of websites when everything else looks very minimal and simple.
2. Cinemagraph: Cinemagraph is a high-quality video or GIFs that runs very smoothly and continuously on a website. It is intended to give some movement to a static page and capture the attention of a visitor.
3. Brutalism: Brutalism emerged as a reaction to websites all looking the same. It is often characterized by stark, asymmetrical, nonconformist visuals and a distinct lack of hierarchy and order. This unique style is now adopted by many brands and help them stand out.

4. Saturated Gradients: lots of home pages are using gradient washed colors
5. Vivid Layers of Colors: staggered and stacked layers of text boxes in bright colors add depth and texture to simple sites.
6. Text-Only: some websites are minimizing images and navigation section and relying on big texts and links to help people navigate on their sites
7. Illustration: more and more companies are using designer and illustrator to come up with unique illustrations on their website to set them apart from the other websites.
8. Ultra-minimalism: extreme minimalism to show the bare minimum
9. Duotone: two-tone color scheme can help a website look modern and cool.
10. Mixing Horizontal and Vertical Text: mixing the text in a website in both horizontal and vertical formats adds some dimensions to the page.
11. Geometric Shapes and Patterns: a combination of shapes and patterns change the flat nature of words and logos.
12. Serif Fonts: with the recent improvements in website designs, more websites are using Serif Fonts to add sophistication and style.
13. Overlapping Texts and Image: overlapping texts on images can look very good for blogs and portfolios.
14. Organic Shapes: curved lines and soft organic shapes can add personality to the website as websites no longer have strict grid layouts.
15. Hand-Drawn Fonts: hand-drawn fonts help differentiate

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/web-design-trends-2017

Digital Advertising Will Continue to Drive Growth in Total Ad Spend

A "Schumpeter" column in a recent issue of The Economist took an interesting new approach to analyzing expectations for future growth of digital advertising spend. 

Looking at investors' expectations of adtech companies' future earnings - as implied by their target pricing of those companies' stock - The Economist points out that "stock prices currently imply that American advertising revenues will rise from 1% of GDP today, to as much as 1.8% of GDP by 2027." The questions worth asking, of course, are whether those expectations are realistic, and whether this growth would turn the world as we know it into an advertising-soaked dystopia.

The Economist argues that these growth expectations are not realistic because people will reach their limit to tolerate more advertising and firms won't be able to afford to spend that much. I disagree; I believe that these expectations are realistic (for better or for worse; probably for worse by most measures).

Recent growth in ad dollars has been and will continue to be all thanks to digital. The digital channel isn't just cannibalizing other channels (like print); it's adding to the overall, absolute total of ad spend. The article points out one good reason for this - the availability of the channel to small advertisers. 

But more importantly, it does not mention the fact that businesses can measure financial return on ad spend in digital, which was never truly possible in other channels. Digital advertisers can associate sales to views and clicks, and with a reliable calculation of CLV (customer lifetime value), they know their precise hurdle rate for it to be ROI-positive. For any CPA to which they can optimize below that point, they should have inexhaustible, infinite budgets. If a capital expense has demonstrable ROI, companies will naturally increase that expense because of its directly associated returns. Digital, unlike other forms of advertising and unlike most business activities in general, makes this possible.

As to the question of whether this growth in digital advertising will saturate the world with branding messages to the point where we feel like we are living in a Philip K. Dick novel - probably true. But it will happen so gradually that we probably won't notice the change until we are already living in that world (perhaps this has already happened).

https://www.economist.com/news/business/21735029-stockmarket-investors-are-wrong-expect-enormous-surge-advertising-revenues-something 

Trust the news on Facebook?

Facebook started with a mission to "give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." This all sounds really great on paper! We all want to connect and stay connected with our friends and families in different cities and countries. We also want to be heard and we want to share what matters to us. It took a little time for a lot of us to be okay with sharing every moment of our life with our "friends" but we all got over it and accepted that in this day and age, we should take pictures, share our locations, or update our status. Anyways, this is how we all got hooked on Facebook back in 2008. Many of us, unknowingly using the platform and liking everything we see, never realized how Facebook can negatively impact our lives, other than just wasting our precious time. This was more or less the case until the presidential election in 2016 that we learned that Facebook is the major disseminator of news produced elsewhere. The key in that last sentence is the word elsewhere.

We know that Facebook does not have journalists to produce its own content so we first started seeing news pop up on our feeds from other known news sources, such as the Economist or The New York Times. That's all fine until in the 2016 election that extreme content and propaganda were shared and the term fake news was created. It took quite a bit of time for Facebook to admit how it is influencing the world, but last week, Facebook announced that it would start prioritizing “trusted” news sources. The relationship between Facebook and news sources has always been a complicated one - so with that, how is Facebook going to do this prioritizing? Facebook plans to gather this data through polling a "diverse and representative sample of people across the US to gauge their familiarity with, and trust in, various different sources of news.” One might wonder if this approach is going to ensure news will come from trusted sources.

Russell Hardin, in his 2002 book Trust and Trustworthiness writes that trust by itself has a messy definition. Trust is what someone feels and it is a three-part relationship: A trusts B to do X.  If you have two elements, then that is trustworthiness. By Hardin's definition, trustworthiness is the thing that a person or an institution might possess. When it comes to news, what does Facebook think its users' trust news organization to do? Solving for X is tricky and then according to the definition above, Facebook is asking about trustworthiness and not trust. How are people supposed to assess the trustworthiness of news organization? One view is that people tend to be more trusting of things they are familiar with. Another view is that people typically do not trust media much in general but their level of trust is a function of their political views.

With the above explanation, it is still clear that Facebook is doing very little to limit propaganda and fake news on its site. 

Source: 

https://www.wired.com/story/you-cant-trust-facebooks-search-for-trusted-news/

http://observer.com/2009/07/the-evolution-of-facebooks-mission-statement/

Snap Tackles Web

A social network is only as strong as the size of its user base. With testing already underway in Australia and Canada, Snap stories will soon be available on snapchat.com worldwide as Snap attempts to address its user growth challenges.

Famous for posts that disappear within short time periods, Snap is now experimenting with sharing some user stories on its website. Unlike competitors such as Instagram and Twitter, Snap content was only limited to the Snap platform. However, the web version of Snap will allow users to share links with friends on other social media platforms and in this way create greater awareness for the app and more importantly, dissemination of Snap content to a wider audience. While this move seems like a departure from Snap's value proposition, short-lived videos, users need not fear because at the moment Snap plans to put a 30 day expiry on  its web content.

This move comes at a time where Facebook is at loggerheads with the news industry, an industry that has taken well to Snap. By opening up its content to other platforms, including its own website, Snap is making a strong play for the advertising dollars provided by publishers. Who should be worried? Twitter has long been a Google search favorite for delivering real time news. With Snap opening up outside of its app, search users may now be able to find Snap video content of the latest breaking stories. Facebook's Watch platform may also have cause for concern as user generated stories from Snap join YouTube in the battle for social media television.

At the moment, Snap claims that not much thought has been given to a monetization strategy but given the competitors in this space, the thinking has already been done for Snap.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/23/snapchat-will-now-let-you-share-some-stories-outside-the-app/

Digital marketing in Pharma Industry

https://econsultancy.com/blog/68851-six-ways-digital-is-changing-the-pharma-healthcare-industry

Digital Marketing is now one of the key weapons being deployed in any marketing strategy in almost all the industries. I was intrigued to find out how is Digital Marketing being strategized in Pharmaceutical Industry. Web marketing can be a daunting array of unfamiliar choices for those new to the scene. From Facebook to search engine optimization, Twitter to RSS, there is no shortage of calls on the marketer’s time. Relationship marketing is the most powerful tool in converting leads into customers for any industry. Pharmaceutical marketers have started investing in their customer databases as a key aspect of their customer communication strategy and expanded the use of email in pharmaceutical marketing to reach customers in their inbox. After all, every brand needs to find ways to reach its target customers directly. Whether through renting lists from online media, or building the lists themselves, that database is key to starting successful relationship marketing.

In order to have a reliable database, Health Care sector has been constantly looking for ways to capture data at every opportunity. One channel is to acquire more new leads by using their web presence smartly – using both their own websites and online advertising. This coupled with  motivate their sales force to incorporate email into the data they capture for every new contact is proving a to be a good digital strategy. Once the database is visualized as the engine of the marketing strategy, everything else starts to follow.

More and more Pharma companies are now using online media to reach the right audiences in the right mindset. They are the tracking the exposure that web ads generate, exploring podcasts, video debates, white paper downloads etc all of which are being used more and more in digital marketing efforts. Many new tech companies are coming up, which cater specifically to Digital Marketing in Pharma companies. I found a couple such as SKURA, VEEVA systems which have been in the news a lot lately.

Get Ready to Shop with your Voice.

Here's the link to the original article:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/ebay-ceo-get-used-to-shopping-with-your-voice.html

This article and accompanying video start to address conversational commerce.  As a marketer, I'm interested in emerging technologies, devices, and platforms.  Much of my day is spent focused on digital marketing for e-commerce.  We are constantly the tweaking the graphic interface and visual user experience of our website to drive increased conversion.  

I have started to think more and more about auditory user experience.  I believe that both visual and auditory interaction design share a common set of principles given that they're built on a foundation of communication.  With that being said, I think there are going to be challenges on how the commerce of goods is represented through auditory commands.  An often overlooked 'front line' of e-commerce is our customer service team.  They are our 'brand' for many consumers.  Roughly 40% of all customer service calls are related to product details and descriptions on our site.  A customer will ask about a specific colorway.  Is it a brick red or a fire engine red?  What is the size of the pebbling on a specific pebble leather?  How do I care for a specific product?  

This requires a comprehensive understanding of our product by our CS reps.  Voice command commerce is going to quickly evolve from barking commands at Alexa ('Order me more laundry detergent.') to much more nuanced conversations with chat bots.  As marketers, we are going to have to define our brand voice and figure out a way to have these bots ingest large amounts of nuanced information.  

Audi Produces All-Terrain Ski Video

Seeking an ad campaign to target a young adult audience while displaying the versatility of the Quattro technology, Audi turned to French ski champion Candide Thorvex to create yet another sensational, eyeball-grabbing promotional video. The video is just under two minutes long and follows Candide ripping down hillsides on skis without a single snowflake in any of the terrain environments. Candide has absolute control over his descents and even throws in some tricks and flips along the way for flare while the aerial camera tracks from above. The video is the second installment of the Audi Quattro series (the first video launched in 2015) and is sure to rack up millions of views- currently just shy of 1M views only a day after publishing.

As an avid skier, I’m was first drawn to the video through a professional skier’s Instagram post with a clip of it and eventually found my way to the full video on Candide’s Youtube account. Upon first watching, I was blow away by the sensational skiing, the alien landscapes, and cinematography. It wasn’t until I reached the very end did I realize the video was an ad for Audi. There are only subtle ad placements at the start and end of the video. Ultimately I made the connection between the video and the product and appreciated the full production value.

Creating a viral video is an impossible feat and yet marketers continue to try and produce the next big one. I think the Audi ad with Candide strikes the perfect balance. It draws in a certain customer demographic interested in skiing and only reveals the product in a subtle, not in-your-face way. The ad is organic and a great example of how to market without paid support through display placement or sponsored content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHrwcQQ38bA&t=4s

http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ad-day-audi-made-one-hell-gnarly-skiing-ad-without-any-snow-all-168575/

Something SEO Marketers Need to Do in 2018

https://searchengineland.com/8-game-changing-seo-trends-that-will-dominate-2018-286023

Several articles revealed the trends of SEO in 2018, especially the new SERP features, which brings  new challenges to the SEO marketers. The strategies and tactics need to be evolving to meet the transformative requirements of the new trends.  Based on the new SERP features, I would like to provide some ideas that SEO marketer may consider to include in their 2018 plans.

Content consolidation to provide more information required by the new SERP features. The rich snippet allows pictures to be shown in SERP. Attractive pictures will be an inevitable factor, while keywords will need be re-selected with the support of some Rank Tracker to achieve the optimum value.

Consumers'/Users' feedback became even important than before. The rich snippet also included consumers' rating. The rating session and the ranking info show the popularity directly in the result page. Low rating will kill the conversion rate in only one second. To create more rating or feedback, the SEO marketer may consider provide more incentive in their service to attract user for providing their feedback. Or they may cooperated with their product/marketing team to set certain parts to bring a WOW feeling to users to make them more willing to share their experience online.

In-depth content in other prestigious platform matters a lot. The relevant information on influential platform would make itself appear at the first page of the search result, while the marketer need to leave some bandwidth to keep all these information updated and consistent. Personally I would suggest the marketer even include their recent campaign information into the influential platform such as Wikipedia.  

Machine learning may require further customization. Once the technology can figure out more detail information or preference about the users, it required the content appeared to be more specific and relevant. The content mix might grow. Marketers should have customized information targeting all kinds of category to make sure most of the audience may have their respective customized information. 

Extra Caution When Displaying Job Ads

It is totally reasonable for Target to send diaper ads to pregnant women, but pushing job posts based on age is more controversial. Corporate giants including Amazon and T-Mobile engaged in age discrimination by placing recruitment ads on Facebook targeting younger workers, according to a lawsuit filed by a communications industry labor union.

There is a vague boundary for how creative and customized can marketing job ads be. Facebook, one of world's largest marketing platforms, provides extensive flexibility for companies to decide who to reach. Theoretically, a perfectly designed job ads filter should only reach the candidates who are qualified to apply to that job - so-called micro-targeting. However, the accuracy is governed by laws against discrimination. While companies setting up the age filters are considered misconduct, Facebook's business model also contributed.

One thing Facebook can do is to remove controversial filters such as race, age and gender, especially for talent hunting posts. In addition, Facebook can change the fee structure to discourage discrimination.

http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-defends-targeting-job-ads-based-age/311726/

https://nypost.com/2017/12/21/facebook-job-ads-allow-age-discrimination-suit/