Twitter gives brands the opportunity to reach niche audiences through video
As video continues to take over social media as the preferred mode of content and live streaming has grown rapidly over the past year as a key part of many leading brands marketing strategies.
Video allows for a new dimension of real-time engagement, giving your brand more personality and emotion. Brands are increasingly using live streaming to reach audiences. Its importance has grown significantly thanks to social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat.
Twitter has ramped up their video effort this year. In May, Twitter announced it would be live streaming video 24 hours a day, 7 days a week inside its app and desktop site. Video is now Twitter’s largest revenue-generating ad format partnering with key brands such as BuzzFeed, The Verge and Bloomberg.
Other major news channels such as BBC have seen the value in live…
How and Why We Have Updated the UX in Our Members' Area
With over 150,000 active Basic, Individual and Business members accessing our resources through our members' area when they are signed in, we take the user experience (UX) of this area extremely seriously.
Since we first launched the members' area in Smart Insights in November 2011 we have updated its look and feel several times through major changes to the features and tests to improve usability and conversion. The new UX, launched this week is one of the biggest changes in look-and-feel for two years. So, in this article, I wanted to detail what the changes are and why we made them. I won't explain how different types of resources can help businesses in different use-cases or scenarios, these are detailed in our Getting Started guide for members. Before I get to the 5 new features I'll also explain a little…
Chart of the day: Most marketers are empowered to collaborate with sales
Research has found that marketing and sales are aligning more than ever, sharing insights and metrics. The study shows marketers usually understand what sales need from them.
The positive results from Salesforce show:
Marketers understand how they impact individual customers.
Marketers believe they send high-quality leads for the most part and marketing and sales share common goals and metrics.
They both also share data and imp[ortantly marketers understand what sales need to succeed and how they can assist with that.
The results suggest that sales and marketing metrics and goals are aligning, that they have regular communication and empathy for each other. In turn, supporting each other to succeed. This research is very positive for the effect marketing has on sales, in supporting their efforts. Perhaps marketers are now targeted on leads, quality of…
To boost your social media results, first answer these crucial questions
Did you know that the very first tweet was sent only 11 years ago? It was posted in 2006 by Twitter’s co-creator Jack Dorsey who simply wrote, ‘just setting up my twttr’. It has since received more than 93,000 retweets and over 72,000 likes.
Twitter was by no means the first social media platform - you may remember the likes of MySpace and Bebo. But Twitter was a game changer, evolving not only the way we share information but the way we receive it too.
At this point, it is safe to say that no one knew quite how colossal this industry was going to be, let alone how key it would become to brand marketing campaigns.
You would probably have laughed at the idea of someone spending their working day updating Twitter statuses and editing photos to share, and you might have…
Original content with ads is set to change the way Facebook advertising works
Thirty-six years ago, MTV broadcast its first music video. The Buggles debuted their song Video Killed the Radio Star (a homage to new technology usurping old). Four years later the channel promoted another Eighties band, Dire Straits, who sang how in return for the channel selling advertising items like microwave ovens custom kitchens, refrigerators and colour TVs, music videos on MTV rewarded rock stars with “money for nothin' and chicks for free”.
Whilst the Buggles’ prediction of video killing radio did not come to fruition, the rise of social media – especially Facebook did manage to decapitate the head of attention time teenagers and young adults allotted to skimming content. (From three minutes – the average music video length - to under eight seconds of flicking through selfies, emoticons and snappy messages).
Now Facebook, which has over 1.9bn monthly…
Chart of the Day: Mergers & Acquisition activity involving AI companies is increasing rapidly.
First people build things in their garages. Then the startup ecosystem develops. Then the tech gets noticed. Then the big players start realizing how disruptive it will be, and they start buying up the startups so they're the ones doing the disrupting, rather than being disrupted.
It's a cycle as old as silicon valley (so not really that old in the scheme of things). We've seen businesses like Amazon, Google and Facebook go from dorm rooms to garages to becoming some of the most valuable companies in the entire world.
Now it is artificial intelligence tech that is the exciting new technology with the power to transform how we live work and organize the world. The possibilities for marketers are enormous, so it is wise to keep an eye on how the tech is maturing.
The chart below shows how many…
Are you embracing AI to improve your ad campaigns?
Throughout the last year, artificial intelligence (AI) and its multitude of uses for marketing have become more and more obvious. While many brands were hesitant to explore the plethora of benefits it offers, 2017 is seeing brands dipping their toes into the AI waters, ready to embrace it as a beneficial component of their marketing strategies.
Take a look at these 3 ways artificial intelligence will affect marketing even more in 2017.
Impactful Ads
The creation of better advertisements is one of the biggest ways artificial intelligence will impact marketing in 2017. The ability for brands to use AI to research and develop crucial marketing aspects, such as keyword searches, empowers marketers to build smarter, more effective ads that should lead to more conversions.
For years, companies have focused on who to show ads to and when to show the ads. AI allows marketers to, instead,…
Follow these examples to get the most from Twitter marketing in 2017
Twitter remains one of the most popular social media platforms and it’s recognized by brands as a way to facilitate customer and user engagement. But, with over 350,000 tweets posted per minute, achieving brand visibility is a challenge.
Success is not just about how many followers you have, it’s about engagement with users, building strong relationships.
Twitter allows you to reach a larger audience and increase brand awareness. But there are challenges to overcome such as exposing your brand to negative comments, dealing with customer complaints, and remaining visible.
18 Brands + 2 CEOs, 12 Months of Twitter Data
Using Interbrand as a reference, we chose 18 successful global brands from 9 industries. For a different perspective, we included two well-known CEOs, both with a big presence on Twitter.
For the period of…
Happy birthday iPhone
120 months ago on the 29th June at 09.41am (California time) the world changed forever. Six months after being introduced at the Macworld Convention by Steve Jobs, the $499, 4GB storage iPhone was finally in stores.
Since then, over a billion iPhones have been sold globally. In 2007 Apple had $6bn in cash. Today the company’s accounts are reportedly in the final stretch to being valued at $1trillion.
But things could have turned out very differently. Back when the iPhone wasn’t even a glint in Steve Jobs’ eyes, telecoms giants like Verizon held a tight grip over the specification of handsets. Weighty manuals read like a bible of ‘thou shall nots’. Such restrictions went against everything Jobs believed in. It certainly wasn’t a sector that he wanted to get into.
Some three years before the iPhone said ‘hello’. A team of Apple engineers were fiddling…
