Three Essential Plugins to Install on Your WordPress Website

1- WordLift  AI Powered plugin with smart SEO benefits

WordLift is a semantic plugin for WordPress. It brings the power of Artificial Intelligence technologies to help creators in producing richer content, organizing content around their audience’s needs, and promote it over the different search engines.

WordLift includes several features which can assist you in different tasks such as:

  • Organizing your content by suggesting details and facts to provide context for your audience. It also adds a semantic markup to your text to assist machines in fully understanding your website
  • Making an aesthetically pleasing website using imagery and data visualization tools such as maps and timelines, in order to engage readers in an immersive user experience
  • Connect readers with deeper content and using data to find new ways to publish and monetize your content
  • Use semantic content optimization to be more visible and understandable to search engines
  • Engage more audience using relevant content and recommendations to elongate their time spent on your website.

2- The Facebook Pixel  tracking the behaviors of your website visitors

The purpose of The Facebook Pixel is to enable users to create custom audiences for their Facebook ads. This enables you to build re-targeting campaigns showing your catered ads to users while browsing Facebook with their phones or PCs. The importance of The Facebook Pixel lies in its ability to track your website visitors, no matter of “referral source.” Thus your re-targeting efforts will further support your marketing from other platforms. You are in an advantage, your website is on WordPress, since Facebook and WordPress have an integration that would enable you to install The Facebook Pixel easily. 

Here are a few benefits to adding The Facebook Pixel to your WordPress website:

  •  Reaching the right target audience- the Facebook pixel helps you find leads on Instagram and Facebook through your re-targeting ads which reach customers who are actually interested in your message.
  • Increase your audience size by building a similar audience equal in behavior to your website visitors to the closest 1% Facebook users in a geographic area.
  • More data and information that helps you get a deep understanding of your Facebook community and their interactivity with your website
  • Stimulate actions that matter to your business, like ads optimization for conversations or even page views.

3- Social Report — the full-featured WordPress scheduling tool

Social Report is much suitable for WordPress, as it enables you to write blog posts and publish them from one centrally focused social media dashboard.  You can also track your WordPress blog post clicks from within the Social Report dashboard. Social Report plugin will help you use the mentioned analytics and others to optimize your social media while sharing these blog posts to harvest maximum benefits and generate more traffic. 

Social Report can enhance your WordPress website through its many features, which include:

  • Smart Social Inbox , where all your social messages across all of your social media profiles gathered into one organized stream.
  • Advanced tools for social media posting, and scheduling bringing advanced social media publishing tools along with intuitive workflows to your website 
  • Social Media motoring and listening tools brand that help marketeers analyze social data for marketing insights
 

Deepfakes: Sensational Technology or a World Threat

Courtesy of makeuseof

The Term Deepfakes

Last year, a new type of “synthetic media” took the world by a storm, when a video of Barack Obama calling President Trump a “total and complete dipshit” circulated the web.The video was released on Buzzfeed youtube channel in collaboration with film director Jordan Peele to raise awareness on this new type of media, and its ability to distort reality. Supported by the fairly new Artificial Intelligence technologies, Deepfakes is a new type of media ( mainly Videos) that could be the next major challenge for information verification, and of course a serious threat to news.

It all started back in 2016, when some Reddit users started creating videos where they swapped the faces of celebrities with porn stars, making a fairly believable claims that these celebrities are actually in porn movies. The term deepfakes was also generated by a Reddit user, but has been officially used to describe the AI editing technology worldwide. With the right tools these editing software can either sync people mouths with another person’s speech or change their movement to turn them into great dancers.  

The Different Techniques of Deepfakes

Deepfakes are definitely more than just lip syncing and fun face swaps, there are different techniques to create deepfakes, and it does require technical  knowledge.

Face Swap: The most popular form of deepfakes where an algorithm implant a person’s face into a video. Usually used to put a person’s face into actors bodies into movies, placing them in situations and places where they have never been.

Facial Reenactment: Through this techniques video forgers can transfer the facial expression for one person to another. Individuals can play with expression making the targeted person on video look weird, disgusted, angry, surprised…etc.

Lip Sync: Using this technique video forgers can embed someone’s mouth to another’s face on a target video. When combined with audio, people will appear in the video saying thing which they didn’t, like what happened in the Obama video

Motion Transfer: Video creators and researchers figured how to transfer the body movements from one person to another creating a completely different figure movement on video. For examples they have captured the motion of a certain dancer and transferred it to a another person with zero dancing skills making them seem like professionals.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley, and WSJ correspondent Jason Bellini used Motion Transfer to give him the dance moves of  Bruno Mars.

How to Identify Deepfakes

Different media organizations are working on new tools that will enable them to detect deepfakes fast, in order to avoid any kind of misinformation. One way of detecting deepfakes is to check if the footage has been altered by closely looking at the frames of the videos to inspect abnormal elements. Another way is to go the traditional route and ask sources and subjects directly to get their confirmation first. Another way to detect deepfakes is to use the reverse image method, to check for old versions of the footage. Some search engine offer tools to do Reverse image search like Google Image Search and Tineye. It is advised to also use editing softwares like final cut to check for glitches and unnatural additions to the videos.

Unnatural chin movement

“We know deepfakes and other image manipulations are effective — this kind of fakery can have immediate repercussions,” said Roy Azoulay, founder and CEO of Serelay, a platform that enables publishers to protect their content against forgeries.

Life Threatening or Life Saving Technology

Deepfakes are precariously believable and there’s no doubt that they represent a risk to the media industry if not to the whole society. A  video showing soldiers committing war crimes or politicians saying the wrong things could literally start a war. However, that does not negate the technology’s many advantages if used for the right reasons. Deepfakes can be used in the entertainment production division to considerably lower the cost of filmmaking and gaming manufacture as well.

GANs (Generative adversarial networks) the technology that gave birth to deepfakes, and Machine Learning holds great potential in enhancing self-driving cars, helping them recognize elements like bicycles and pedestrians in great precision. This also helps voice activated devices like google assistant, Alexa, and Siri in their conversational abilities.

Although GANs created many possibilities, deepfakes being one of them, which threatens the lives of many, it can also be used in saving them. GANs can generate quiet realistic images of brains with Alzheimer’s disease and others with tumors. The resulting images will be used to train algorithm to identify tumors in new images.

Actual MRI images and synthetic versions generated by a GAN — Shin et al

If you would like to know more about Video Analysis using the latest AI technologies contact us at Insideout10 to learn more about our products and activities. 

 

 

5G Networks: Unlimited Potential for Mobile Marketing in the Near Future

Expected to hit the market by 2020, 5G or fifth generation wireless is the upcoming and much anticipated mobile technology replacing the present 4G/LTE wireless networking. Experts anticipate the number of 5G connections to reach 20 to 100 million connections by 2021. The expenditure on 5G infrastructure is forecasted to reach around 2.3 billion dollars for 2021. One justification for the large amount of money is that 5G infrastructure actually differs than usual 4G/LTE networks. 5G networks needs a far bigger number of access points, since it depends on millimeter-wave signals that can’t travel far distances like what we utilize for 4G networks.

What is 5G and how does it work?

5G is definitely more than just faster downloading speed. With this technology high definition media streaming will become more attainable in highly populated areas and places where people cannot reach WiFi hotspots. 5G is expected to be a main contributor in many industries, for instance, in environmental industries, 5G makes remote monitoring possible, which in turn supports environmental integrity, food scarcity, and ensures clean water.”

The reason why many industries are willing to spend vast amounts of money on this new technology is that it can get your internet speed up to 10 GB per second, that is “600 times faster than the traditional 4G speed.” to give you more perspective, 5G speed allows you to download a 4k movie in only a few seconds.

How Can 5G Change Online & Mobile Marketing?

For business and beyond faster mobile phones, specifically when complemented with artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing technologies, 5G will stimulate business and transformations in smart societies with the help of large number of connected devices.

Five Reasons Why You Should Use Artificial Intelligence Powered Marketing

For marketers and online business the benefits could be unlimited. Using 5G, different forms of content will travel from screen to screen between customers and brands and uninterruptedly amongst customers themselves at unprecedented fast speed. Marketers will be more able to implement many strategies like using AR and VR technologies, more interactive gaming experiences plus a new level of customization and personalization for their customers.

5G will increase accuracy in technologies such as GPS and context driving data. Connected to loT devices that will appear in the global market in a few years, 5G will pave the way for innovations in products and services, equivalent to how 4G brought about Google Maps, and Uber. Also on the customer’s side, data should get cheaper, and accordingly some expect the business models of payments and data costs to change.

How Can VR/AR Successfully Change Online Marketing

5G supported phones are expected to be released early this year, as smartphone models from brands like Samsung and Huawei are set the hit the market soon for all the early adopters interested in this technology. Apple, alternatively is not going to offer 5G backed iPhones before 2020 or 2021.

Samsung Galaxy 10, 5G smartphone (expected model) — cnet.com

With these new capabilities it is time for marketers to roll up their sleeves and think of ways to integrate 5G technologies into their work. Many of the traditional marketing constraints and troubleshoots can now be solved using the new competencies offered by this new addition. From integrating AI in marketing activities to AR/VR advertising and accurate testing results, with fifth generation wireless networking the sky’s the limit.

If you are looking to advance your online & mobile marketing techniques using Artificial Intelligence and the latest media streaming technologies, contact Insideout 10 today to learn more about our offers for digital branding and media delivery. 

 

 

 

This is how AI is Changing the Face of Journalism in 2019

Courtesy of scmp.com

In its January 2019 report, Reuters Institute Digital Media Survey revealed that media publishers are planning to invest more in AI in the next year. This is in an effort to exploit the potential of AI and machine learning to create better news results, but not on the expenses of editors and journalists, said Nic Newman, Senior research Associate. In this article, we’ll present you three ways in which publishers will integrate AI in 2019.

Big Data Analyzer

The huge amount of daily data entry for journalists to analyze and verify has become more and more beyond their daily capabilities. Therefore, it is now a necessity for journalists to use algorithms. DataMinr for example, used algorithms to check hundreds of tweets that helped them to keep track of important breaking news items. AP has used AI to come up with an internal verification tool that assists journalist in verifying news in real time. Reuters on the other hand, is using AI to help journalists analyze big data and recommend ideas for news stories, or even help journalists write part of the stories, but not to replace reports.

Reuters News Tracer demo — Thomson Reuters

Search Engine Optimizer

AI can help media publishers and websites by sorting analytics to detect content, which is producing the top on page results. AI can also categorize themes and subject that encourage website visitors to keep returning to the website. For example Wordlift uses machine learning for SEO and has helped many businesses grow their website visitors using AI technologies. With the help of AI they were able to re- designed how content is organized by using the entity-based content models for Windowsreport, and improve content organization and SEO for Freeyork magazine.

Robotic News Anchors

News agencies have been using automated news stories in different capacities for years now, but what the next step might be, is virtual news anchors. Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency has revealed their first robotic news anchor last year. The robotic anchor movements, voice and appearance is based on a real presenter who works at Xinhua. The virtual anchor can speak English and Mandarin, but lacks warmth and sense of humor, which Xinhua claims that they can eventually programme these specification in it. Experts in the field have shared their ethical concerns in regard to the integration of AI anchors into newsrooms in the future. With the technological advancements of AI, we might witness a solution to all public concerns and a real application of AI anchors in news presenting, if not in 2019 may be in just a few years.

Machine Learning News

One impressive application of machine learning technologies in news is the Chinese app Jinri Toutiao or (Today’s Headlines). Toutiao and Kuaibao are the current global leaders of AI news, mainly using Machine Learning to send personalized news stories to users. Touitou’s has around 120 million users, with an average engagement time of an hour daily. Although AI apps are spreading fast across Asia with Newsdog in India and similar apps in Indonesia, it is important to be aware of the dangers of “popularity based algorithms.”

Toutiao App — Photo by Mike Sullivan

BBC is also building Machine Learning applications for public service in 2019. BBC believe these applications are “Responsible Machine Learning in the Public Interest,” but this means first and foremost educating people about how to use algorithms and AI for their benefits to avoid undesirable consequences.

Top Four Digital News Predictions of 2019 

Despite promising potentials, experts are still skeptical about AI and continue to share their concerns regarding what is considered AI, how can it be regulated, when to be used and incorporated into the society.  Theses doubts might be formed by the media coverage of the AI topic. Based on a recent study by RISJ (Reuters Institute) which analyzed 760 articles that referenced AI in UK media, 33% of the articles based their information on industry sources (CEOs and Executives), that is six times more than articles which actually referenced academia or the government.The report also declared that news outlets “politicize” opinions about AI. Right-wing outlets focus on geopolitics and economics, while Left-wing outlets focus on the ethical side of AI like algorithm bias and discrimination.

Perhaps in 2019, alternative opinions of scientists and activists can provide more insight about the advantages and smart capabilities of AI in an attempt that might change the view of AI/ML as disruptive technologies.

Would you like to write smarter stories using AI-powered SEO? Contact us at Insideout10 to know more about our latest tools to grow your business. 

 

 

Top Four Digital News Predictions of 2019

According to Reuters Institute Digital News Report of January 2019, the journalism field has faced many challenges in the past year; from the change of Facebook algorithm to the worst social media and digital technology privacy leaks. This, however, does not negate the fact that they can still be used to deliver better high-quality journalism. In 2019, we expect better outcomes, with more technology integration such as Artificial Intelligence and Virtual/Augmented Reality. In this article, we will share with you our top four digital journalism and media predictions of 2019 based on Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends Predictions report by Nic Newman.

1-A Test for Media Platforms  

Elections Igniters 

The elections poll this year in India and Indonesia will be a big defense test for social media platforms. The rise of religious hatred and intolerance in India has corresponded with the rise of social media, specifically political WhatsApp groups. Political activists and parties have established thousands of Whatsapp groups to spread their messages, which will be a hard task to audit. A new BBC study indicated that Indians feel that forwarding some of these political messages is their patriotic duty. Furthermore, In Indonesia, the government has reportedly set up a defense team of 70 engineers to fully block Facebook, if needed.

Fact Checking Indicators

Making a decision on what and what not to show as a publisher will be harder than it has already been. The different social search platforms along with aggregators will increase their focus on the credibility and the track record of publishers in 2019. This had proven effective in downranking false news. However, this year, more systematic approaches will be put into action. About 120 news websites have included indicators to gain people’s trust on their pages. The indicators link to details about online journalism ethics, fact-checking and editor’s corrections. Accordingly, established news websites hope that these indicators will differentiate them from unreliable ones.

BBC Trust Indicators

Stories vs. Feeds

The trends report also showed that publishers are thinking of moving away from Facebook to try the diversity of other social media platforms this year. Media publishers along with many others have moved from feeds to stories last year, due to the huge traction that these stories have received.  According to Facebook, people will use stories more than feeds to share with their friends in 2019. On a daily bases, about 150 million people use stories on Facebook, 300 million people on Instagram, and 190 million on Snapchat. A notable mention here is the AMP stories, which firstly appeared in 2018 at the top of some Google searches. These AMP stories will become more important for Google news distribution this year, operating on Android devices.

2-The Business of Journalism

The Game of subscriptions 

Regarding changes in the journalistic field this year, news websites will place further subscription limitations on their online content. The limitations will range from putting entire website behind paywalls to introducing new membership models for loyal readers only like what is used by HuffPost and the Independent. However, these limitations might not be the ultimate solution in 2019, as we might witness the rise of ‘subscription blockers’ downloadable software or maybe browsing extensions that will give people a way around paywalls. One solution for news websites is to force users to login with their information, but that will result in a decrease in occasional readers and advertising revenues as well.

Organizational Changes

Another change in the journalism field is equal opportunities for different genders. More organizations will try to follow the example of Ben Bartenstein, a business reporter at Bloomberg, who made sure that he is giving enough opportunities by approaching more diverse sources. Ben’s colleague helped him to build lists of people, and he went further to start the “New Voices” initiative, where they give media training to executive women.  As a result of his imitative efforts, Ben argues that including more women has given him a competitive advantage of coming up with intriguing higher impact stories.

3-AI in the Newsroom

Publishers and newsrooms are planning to invest more in the potentials of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning technologies (ML).This investment, however, will not be at the expense of journalists and editors. Editors will still be valued more than machines; the integration of both humans and AI technologies are also needed to assist journalists and editors in their jobs to hopefully reach a high level of accuracy and efficiency.

At AP 72% of publishers denoted that they were experimenting with the different tools of AI, however, in 2019, there will be real life application of AI, said Lisa Gibbs, Director of News Partnerships.

The application of AI will mainly fall into three main categories

1- Using Machine Learning to individualize content and generate customers’ recommendations more efficiently.

2- Making more automated videos and stories (Robo-Journalism).  

3- Presenting tools that help journalists dealing with the overloading of information and enhancing their work, like Wordlift for example.

Robo-Journalism Expected to Expand Despite Limitations — Financial Tribune

4-Audio and Voice in 2019

The huge sales of millions of new smart devices, spreading globally, and the rapidly growing popularity of podcasts, have set audio to be one of the biggest media topics of 2019. In the United States, it is estimated that up to 40 million individuals own a smart speaker, while in the UK it is about 7 million people. The digital Survey of Reuters News disclosed that (75%) of the respondents believe that audio is becoming an essential part of content creation and the different marketing strategies of publishers that they are building audio production units. Moreover, the majority of respondents (78%) believe that, during the next few years, voice-controlled technologies like (Google, Assistant and Amazon Alexa) will change the ways people discover media.

READ MORE: 

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TRENDS IN 2019: THE FUTURE IS VIDEO

 

How Can AR/VR Successfully Change Business Marketing

What is VR/AR?

Virtual Reality is a computer aided stimuli that places the user into another dimension. Alternatively, Augmented Reality (sometimes called mixed reality) is placing digital content in the real world using smartphone cameras. The most common application of AR is Pokémon Go game. AR/ VR and MR all fall under the term extended reality. VR/AR was mostly well received in the virtual gaming industry, however, the promising potentials of this technology encouraged experts in many fields, including marketing to experiment with it. Here are some of the ways where VR/AR can be used in business marketing.

A New Way to Attract Customers

Recently experiential marketing has become widely used by many entities, especially when attracting new customers and sustaining existing ones. Merged with experimental marketing, using AR/VR technologies, marketers can visually display what customers request…From kitchen counter-tops to medical surgeries, VR will add value to customer experiences and accordingly enhance the marketing and sales processes.

With the support of VR, customized advertising will be part of our lives. Marketers and advertisers will make use of user preference data and turn it to real time, in an effort to enhance messages, colors, timing and placement of ads.

Surgeons can now use VR headsets to virtually check their patient’s brain or body — Surgical Theater

User- Brand Interactivity

One of the most important things for marketers in customer engagement, and VR/AR has allowed marketers and advertisers to achieve their user interaction goals using short features on brands and companies. Traditional marketing is limited when it comes to customer interaction restraining the benefits that could arise from a favorable user interaction. Alternatively, using AR/VR, marketers can now display immersive interactive experiences built around brand content.

Topshop, the clothing brand, with the help of an emerging tech agency “INITION,” gave their customers the experience of a fashion show front seat. Customers used VR glasses to watch Topshop’s catwalk as if they were attending the show during The London Fashion Week.

Customers at Topshop were able to virtually attend the fashion show — Wired UK

Closing the Digital-Print Marketing Circle

Closing the circle between digital and print marketing, AR has already become an integral element of experiential marketing. Marketers now have the ability to boost their real world message with the support of digital interactions, which in term increase the resonance of the message and elongate the user engagement time, bringing the digital reality to the real world. On the other hand, VR allows marketers to bring the real world into digital reality when they use it to bring customers to a controlled environment like for example a virtual store.

 

“The traditional model of advertising and marketing is based on the marketer speaking to the marketed through a commercial, social post or digital skyscraper ad. With AR and VR, customers have a new opportunity to become part of the experience, to interact with a brand in ways they haven’t before.” – Kathleen Lucente, Red Fan Communications

 

E-Commerce Integration with AR

In a new way that was not possible a few years back, AR can be integrated into E-commerce using smartphones operating system. Brands can now engage their customers with their products, a process which was not possible a few years back. For example Ray-Ban used AR in an Instagram sponsored post to allow customers to tryout the different glasses, and see how they look on their faces before making a purchase.

Rayban VR Demo from Teads on Vimeo

Exploring Products Became an Experience

In a digital world where customers read reviews, look at photos, and check rating before purchasing any product, AR/VR technologies allows customers a 360 degree view of any item before actually making a purchasing decision. IKEA for example used VR in their app to allow people to decide on how the furniture will look and fit into their place. While Lowe’s home improvement store worked with Microsoft to design an experience where people can see how they would look like at their future homes. The Importance of these VR activities lies in the valuable customer data collected by VR systems which later help marketers in their marketing strategy and market research.

A View of Ikea Kitchen Using VR app for HTC Vive

Ikea VR app for HTC Vive

VR for Fundraisers and philanthropy

Many sectors can benefit from VR/AR technologies including non-profits. Fundraisers could use AR to demonstrate the causes they support like for example recreating a poor village in need of food supplies. Toms shoes, known for their philanthropy initiative: Giving away a pair for every pair purchased “one for one,” used VR in one of their marketing campaigns. Toms created virtual reality experience, where customers can feel what it is like to travel on a trip to give someone shoes.

Contact us at Insideout 10 to know more about our services for integrating VR/AR technologies in your business marketing activities.

Read More:

Five Reasons Why You Should Use Artificial Intelligence powered Marketing

 

 

 

Five Reasons Why You Should Use Artificial Intelligence powered Marketing

The term Artificial Intelligence has been a buzzword in the marketing industry in recent years due to the many benefits that this type of technology can add to marketers and the quality of their work. Nevertheless, recent studies show that only 18% of companies have figured out how to use AI to the point that they’re scaling it in their operations, that is due to the fact that marketers still do not know how to use this technology and feel threatened by it that they just want to experiment with it, but not actually use it.  

To put things into perspective, Artificial Intelligence powered marketing (AI marketing) is today’s new wave of data-driven marketing strategy, that allows marketers to construct customized and remarkably personalized customer experiences. These AI fueled experiences are much cheaper and more efficient than traditional marketing in that it truly fulfills one to one marketing by filling the gap between data, analytics and customer experiences. Here are five reasons why you should use Artificial Intelligence in your marketing activities. 

1.Customized Content For Your Customers 

Marketing platforms that support AI are able to come up with purposeful information and findings that enhance and boost personalized marketing activities. Additionally AI integrated marketing create customized content and fulfill a measurable one to one individually tailored communication with customers.

Wanna learn how Artificial Intelligence can help grow your business? We’ve tried and reviwed for you some of the best Artificial Intelligence SEO tools to improve your website performance. Check our top 10 AI SEO tools!

2.A Possibility to Win Every Sale 

Marketers who use AI technologies can clearly understand motivators, improve user experience, and predict actions and behaviors to engage customers. The AI driven marketing ultimately amplify the possibility for marketers to win a sale. For example, Sigma Beauty ( the makeup brushes brand) sends its customers personalized codes in order to incite them to make a purchase.

3.Big Names Are Already Witnessing AI Benefits

Whilst some still look at it as science fiction, AI is already integrated into people’s lives without their realization since long ago! Google , for example, uses it in their Google Search optimization to discover trends. Facebook uses AI in their ads to predict future occurrences and to enhance their marketplace. For their buyers, Facebook uses AI to suggest items that look similar to the one the buyer is looking for, and for their sellers, they have a tool that automatically enriches the lighting in product images while being uploaded. Also, social networks use AI, somehow. For example, Pinterest uses AI to foresee users behavior in order to come up with search recommendations.

How to Become an Architect and Win in the RankBrain Era?

 

4. Say Goodbye To Tedious Daily Tasks

AI uses machine learning algorithms to step in and take over the time consuming and boring tasks that marketers have to deal with daily. A good example of this would be product recommendations. With zero human interaction, AI can consistently decide which product to offer to which customer. Optimizing ads for instance used to be a heavy task on marketers, especially when trying to reach a certain level of customization dealing with thousands of customers. Now, with the help of AI and based on precise customer data, ads are easily targeted to serve each user .

AI-powered SEO is the future of content marketing! Wordlift is Paving the way for a completely new generation of AI-driven SEO tools powered by semantic technologies that combine knowledge extraction with high-quality graphs to help editors focus on their stories and let machines find the perfect audiences for it. Learn how our AI-powered software can improve your organic traffic, while you focus on your content.

5.Machine Learning Objectivity and Accuracy 

There aren’t enough data for marketers to identify and optimize incentives on an individual level. Artificial intelligence , on the other hand, collects and analyze data regarding customer responsiveness to incentives, and how that affects buying behaviors. Machine learning then excludes any objectivity or speculations by distinguishing the exact incentives for individuals to buy products. 

If you want to advance marketing ROI and boost your business way beyond traditional marketing, drop us a note on our contact form and get to know more about how you can use AI driven marketing solutions tailored for your brand.

Infographic about the problems faced while using traditional marketing and how AI can solve them

 

 

 

 

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TRENDS IN 2019: THE FUTURE IS VIDEO

A person holding his phone up horizontally and take a videoIn the past couple of years, video content has notably boomed especially with the rise of different forms of videos such as live videos, 360 videos, VR videos, and technology continues to surprise us each year with astonishing concepts and inventions that take videos to another level.

In 2019 video content is expected to grow even stronger, video is anticipated to dominate the online marketing arena and that is mostly true for live videos, the trend that has been taking over Facebook and Instagram in the past couple of years. The originality and the immediacy of these live videos have attracted viewers and social media users globally.

360° Videos and Live Streaming: An Immersive Video Experience for your Audience

Michael Stelzner founder of Social Media Examiner conducted a survey where more than 5000 marketers mostly in the United States answered question regrading social media marketing trends.  According to the report’s results,  social media marketing is definitely moving towards including more visuals, specifically more videos. The participants identified five different types of social media content that they use in their social media marketing activities. These are visual images, videos, blogging, live videos, and podcasting. The major percentage of 80% went to visual images, followed by videos at 63%, blogging at 60%, live videos at 35%, and lastly, marketers use podcasting only 9% of the time.

Interestingly using videos for social media marketing moved from 57% in 2017 to 63% in 2018. While live videos moved from 28% in 2017 to 35% in 2018. Witnessing this rise in video content is due to the fact that when asked which content form these marketers wish to learn more about in the future, videos went to the top of the chart with 77% followed by live videos at 68% and visual images at 65%. Therefore marketers when asked whether they’ll increase, decrease, remain the same, or not use various forms of content. They indicated that they would increase videos by 77%, visual Images by 68%, live video by 63%, blogging by 57%, and finally podcasting by 25%.

Infographic including facts and figures about using videos for social media marketing, that's based on a 2018 survey by MICHAEL A. STELZNER

 

The rise of ‘Live’

We have witnessed the rise of live video in the past few years; to be more specific YouTube started this featured back in 2012 for selected partners and verified accounts. The popularity of this feature among many viewers and mobile users encouraged Facebook and Instagram to follow the leads of the video streaming giant. The strong continuation of live videos in 2019 has created opportunities for marketers to engage audiences and creating strong relationships with their brand followers.

Some risks accompany live streaming, just like any type of technology due to technical difficulties and random problems that arise from the nature of going live, however viewers are likely to understand these issues owing to their geniality and authenticity. In addition, issues actually might increase relevance to both sides.

Mike Allton, Brand Evangelist, Author and Content Marketing Practitioner at The Social Media Hat said that:

“As more and more devices and platforms support video – and in particular, live video – it’s becoming imperative that brands have a video strategy.”

Generation Z and Millennials thrive to trustworthiness and realism in their relationship with brands. Their intensive mobile usage and instant gratification needs will increase the popularity of short feature content in 2019. Hence, it is essential for social media content creators and marketers to form a strong video strategy that not only develops audience engagement with the brand but also establish FOMO (fear of missing out) effects among the follower.

Six Elements of a Successful Video Strategy

The biggest development in 2018 ongoing to 2019 regarding video is the launch of IGTV by Instagram. Many were confused by this new addition at the beginning including myself. It was not clear how can we use this new tool to market brands. IGTV is a long video feature that can last up until one hour, which makes it different than other types of videos on social media. Despite its dissimilarity in format to the other videos on social media the IGTV has encouraged many brands and dare I say “Social Media influencers” to become broadcasters, bringing variety, authenticity, and relevance to video content for mobile users. Initiating IGTV as its own platform similar to conventional TV with its separate channels only for Instagram users will boost the likability and growth of Instagram between users in 2019, which in turn will open new paths of social media marketing  

Live videos seem to increase people’s trust and relevancy of the brand, which in turn might affect customer retention in a positive manner. Hence, live videos or video content , in general, is an opportunity for brand exposure and growth that you don’t want to miss out on in 2019.

If you are interested in a video strategy to market your brand online and key solution tailored for your needs to generate revenues with videos, contact Insideout 10 today to know more about our video marketing solutions and services, we would be delighted to help! 

 

This is why digital signage is crucial for growing your business

Out Of Home Advertising has always been one of the most effective methods to promote products, services, and activities. Born in the nineteenth century in order to reach a vast and heterogeneous audience of people passing in public spaces, it is still today one of the best advertising strategies thanks to its multiform and dynamic nature and for the ability it has had over the years to evolve its communicative support by implementing new technologies able to ensure its efficiency.

From Liberty posters, which involved the most influential artists of the time to create captivating promotional images, to nowadays, where Out Of Home Advertising becomes smart and digital and creates new possibilities for an increasingly interactive proximity market personalized on the needs of the Companies.



We are talking about Digital Signage, that is the possibility of creating advertisements that can interact with the vast public of passers-by and show on their smartphones web pages, augmented reality applications, notifications with personalized messages, coupons and offers.

Endless promotional opportunities, therefore, but above all the guarantee to convey their message through hybrid support, able to combine the immediacy and interactivity of a digital ad with the reliability and physicality of the posters. The Digital OOH, in fact, reduces the risks of an intangible (and often impersonal) web communication and ensures the presence of a product in the desired place and time through a dynamic and spectacular promotion.


Here’s why companies like Facebook and Google have chosen Digital Signage

Investing in new forms of OOH Advertising means entrusting your message to an efficient, versatile and constantly evolving tool. Here are virtuous data and examples that demonstrate its potential.

O-O-H Advertising absorbs roughly 13% of the total budget of successful companies. And we’re not just talking about local businesses, but also about the most famous online companies such as Facebook, Netflix and Google.

The examples that we are about to show, prove how the digitization of billboards has helped to create a fertile ground where we no longer talk about offline vs. online communication, but about a space that is able to combine the advantages of both instruments, creating awareness also towards products and services perceived as immaterial.

This is the case with Google, which launched its innovative home voice assistant Google Home, transforming dozens of bus stops into small interactive homes where, by relating to a digital billboard located inside the bus stop, passers-by could ask questions, control the temperature, listen to music, turn off or turn on the light and much more.



And it’s also the case of Facebook that, to launch its live video service on its social platform, projected dozens of live streaming on the giant road signs in Los Angeles, inviting the public to immediately test the new feature.

Also, Netflix is famous for using Digital OOH strategies to recruit new subscribers and promote the latest seasons of the most popular TV series.



Advertising through Digital Signage in external spaces gives consistency and shape to a digital product and allows any activity to realize effective campaigns through the possibility of interacting with the users and give them immediately a taste of the product or of the service you want to sell.


Implement Digital OOH campaigns: the four phases of the meeting between the users and the company through Digital Signage

From the posters located in the main areas of passage of the city to the Wallscapes, which cover buildings and fabrics, passing through the digital panels at the metro and bus stops or installed directly on the transports. Digital OOH Advertising is dynamic, intelligent and versatile. But what can be its actual applications? Here are described the four phases of the meeting between the public and digital signage, from the approach with the users to the measurement of the results.


INCEPTION

At this stage, the audience is near the billboard, which can be digital or not. Approaching the billboard, the first thing that is noticed is usually the visual.
“Augmenting” a billboard means anticipating that it is a “special” billboard.

We can do this by:
– The “present” technology brand (for Nearby / Beacon)
– Special phrases for the activation of virtual assistants such as the Google Assistant
– Images and markers (for Augmented / Mixed Reality)

ACTIVATION

The public activates the digital experience using one or more of the following contact technologies and carrying out a specific action:

Proximity / Nearby (sending notifications on the phone that do not require the presence of an application)
– Voice Search & Interface Voice combined with personal assistants (Google Assistant and Alexa)
GPS (geo-localized campaigns related to the territory where the billboard is located)
Videos / Images to be scanned with the device (using social apps like Snapchat)
Infrared technology and heat detection



EXPERIENCE

The message displayed by users takes various forms and functions, depending on the type of technology used. The public view and interact through their device with the promotional message through a combination of:


Landing Page, a web / mobile page that can contain offers (also linked to a territory) or have the function of an online flyer
Social Login (will then allow the advertiser to have information on the profile of users who have interacted with the message)
Mixed Reality, use of technologies that reproduce 3D content and videos in urban contexts
Premium Content (exclusive content, the promoted movie trailer, the band’s audio track, etc.)

MEASURE

The final phase of the communication flow is related to the measurement of the engagement results obtained by the campaign. Today, substantially O-O-H is sold according to the volumes of transit. In the digital world, these are called impressions. “Increasing” the OOH or using digital signage technologies for Digital OH allows us to “sell” not only impressions but also clicks by increasing the economic value of the entire circuit.

Summing up, we are faced with one of the most innovative, flexible and promising advertising methods of the moment. And we can not wait to experience it in the first person.

 

Why you should immediately use personal branding over Linkedin to boost your business?

Linkedin has been originally perceived as a social network for recruitment. But that has changed a while ago and now with more than 560 million users, it serves many purposes that can help you grow your business, for sure the top of them is building your own personal brand there! Whether you are a top manager, middle management, entrepreneur, investor, consultant or a freelancer, its a face today, you got to have your personal brand crystal clear and shining online.

Up for a quick self-test?!

When was the last time you “Googled your name?” Please also do that from another computer or mobile other than yours, or in an incognito browser tab, to ensure fresh eye overview. This is how people would see you! In most of the times we played this exercise in our training sessions with different customers, the results were always that their social media profiles were on the top Google SERP, most of the time Facebook and LinkedIn. Now keeping facebook aside (for the time being), what impression or idea about you and your company would your LinkedIn profile give them!?

Why personal branding?

Because simply in today’s world with the overflow of information, data and content over the internet business decisions are becoming more and more difficult. For example, if you want to buy/subscribe for one of the automation tools of your work (whatever it is), you would find tons in each category may be also with similar features and similar prices. BUT people would trust people they know, they trust opinions, reviews , and feedback.

That’s why on the other side, if you are perceived online as the expert in your field people would trust you and buy from you. Whether you are selling a product or service, the human factor and “expert” behind that product/service plays a crucial role in the buying decision here.

Here are some cool tricks that worked for me!

Personal branding tips

Personal branding tips on Prezi.com

Why Linkedin’s algorithm is a goldmine for personal branding now?

Like all other social networks, LinkedIn engineering team have been working heavily on AI algorithms to “generate personalized news feeds for every member and ensure they are having the conversations they need to become more productive and successful, based on thousands of signals to understand a member’s preferences”.

According to their blog, these signals fall into three broad categories:

  • Identity: Who are you? Where do you work? What are your skills? Who are you connected with?
  • Content: How many times was an update viewed? How many times was it “liked”? What was it about? How old is it?
  • BehaviorWhat have you liked and shared in the past? Who do you interact with most frequently?

BUT things usually do not go easy and pinky all the way!

According to their new post this month, the main challenged the engineering team discovered this year that the algorithm heavily favored content from top creators. More and more people are using the feed and giving feedback to their network’s posts: our members generate tens of millions of viral actions (likes, comments, and reshares), and the number is increasing more than 50% YoY. However, we found that these increases weren’t equally distributed. In fact, at the beginning of 2018, we were in danger of creating an economy where all the gains in viral actions accrued to the top 1% power users, while the majority of creators who don’t receive much feedback were receiving less than ever.” Which means that popular figures like Richard Branson gets orders of magnitude more feedback than the average person; he has millions of followers, so this is normal and expected. While it doesn’t work the same way for normal users.

Creator optimization – Courtesy of linkedin blog

To solve this challenge of the linked team called “concentration of like” problem, they added a new algorithm element to quantify how much a user (when he posts an update) will appreciate getting feedback from a given viewer on his update. This means how much difference will it affect Bill Gates if I liked his LinkedIn update, versus how much would that affect a colleague or friend of mine? Apparently makes lots of difference to the later. Two interesting metrics used here are “total feedback received” per user to calculate the number of likes and comments he/she received on the all posts.

Another interesting metric is “first likes given” which qualities how many times a user (feed viewer) likes a post that has no any likes yet. Based on this new suite of metrics LinkedIn confirms that the engagement around content is starting to be fairly distributed now. By numbers what happen so far is that 8% of all feedback was taken from the top 0.1% creators (Richard Branson, Bill Gates, etc) and redistributed to the bottom 98% and this lead to 5% increase in creators returning to post again interestingly.

“Creator love” metrics describe how the creator feels about the viewer’s actions. Courtesy of linkedin blog

 

Conclusion

This means that LinkedIn algorithm now wants to generate more engagement over your posts, which means that your personal brand would get much more exposure than before! With a well-defined strategy and consistent presence with high-quality content over LinkedIn, you got now more chances of new business potential.

 

Contact us today if you need any help with online marketing strategies