Do you think our privacy is important? If yes, how you make sure they are protected?

When we talk about Internet, what is the first site you would automatically click and go first? Is the ‘Setting’ and privacy site? I will discuss on the topic of privacy and how it effects us.

Privacy is a fundamental human right that underpins freedom of association, thought and expression, as well as freedom from discrimination. However, ‘Privacy’ is not defined in legislation, and providing a conclusive definition is difficult. Privacy includes the right to be free from interference and intrusion, to be able to control who can see or use information about you and to associate freely with whom you want.

Instagram, which is an American photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, lack of users privacy control. According to a Business Insider investigation, Instagram has been allowing a San Francisco-based marketing agency, HYP3R, to flout its rules and collect information from millions of users. For example, HYP3R make use of an Instagram security lapse, allowing it to zero in on specific locations, such as hotels , and vacuum up all the public posts made from the locations. And also, HYP3R did not access any nonpublic data from Instagram users who set their profiles’ privacy settings to “private.”

One more example, there is a Malaysian You Tuber’s Instagram has been hacked as below. She has 350k followers, her account name has been taken and the hacker change the password as well. She lost her accounts just overnight.

Let’s talk about fake accounts of Instagram. According to Mobile Marketer in 2018, Instagram may have as many as 95 million bots posing as real accounts, how scary!

Some of the people set their accounts as public, which means any accounts can see your photos, video and leave comments. However, some of these bots actually use real people’s likenesses (without their knowledge) and are employed to sway opinions, impact someone’s influence online, and scam unwitting users. Fake accounts are also used to attack people, they often cyber-bullying people, comment posts with negative and harmful tone such as “You are so ugly!” “You are so fat!”, these kind of comments will hurt people heart and soul virtually. In addition, the bot may be friending you so it can spam you private messages.

In my opinion, it is important to think before you share something online. It is best to me that such sites should be appropriately used to avoid issues. Well, what are your thoughts on this? Welcome to leave your comments below!

References:

1. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/05/199439/fake-followers-on-instagram-problem-check
2. https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/instagram-just-acknowledged-it-has-a-much-bigger-privacy-problem-than-we-thought.html
3. https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/your-privacy-rights/what-is-privacy/

What is IMC?

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the strategy that takes your department from marketing disparate functions to one interconnected approach. Moreover, IMC means integrating all promotional tools, so that they work together in peace.

IMC include a lot of different processes. If you want to know more, do watch the video below to get more insights.

IMC tools

Integrated Marketing Communications is an integration of marketing tools such as online marketing, advertising, social media, public relation, and sponsorship. Promotional tools are effective when they work together rather than in isolation. The strategy behind IMC is to create a great experience for the customers. Below are different methos:

Although integrated marketing communication require a lot of effort it delivers many advantages. It helps to move customers through different stages of their process which are before,during and after. It also helps to boots profits and sales. Moreover, IMC also enhance brand awareness, as it provides a consistency brand message to the customers.

Apple IMC campaign

I believe you probably know Apple company, which is an is is an American multinational technology company  that designs, develops, and sells computer software, online services and customer electronics such as iPhone and Mac book. It also considered one of the Big For technology companies, side by side Amazon, Google, and Facebook. This company have turned to integrating their advertising efforts with other communication techniques such as direct marketing, sales promotion and event sponsorship. Here are the examples of different channels Apple used to promote its iPhone:

Billboards:

iPhone billboards are no strangers along roads and highways over the country.

You Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEemOmHw9Y

Word of mouth marketing:

Here are one example of how the Apple company has gotten people talking about their brand accompanied by explanations and analyses.

The company uses celebrities to advertise their product. To show off the capabilities about the iPhone’s voice activated virtual assistant, Apple hired popular celebrities Samuel L Jackson and Zooey Deschanel to star in a series of videos.

These advertisement rely on stars. Showing the normalcy of celebrity life made it easy for viewers to relate to the stars and feel significant. When people have good emotions, they share.

So, do you have any successful IMC campaign examples want share with me? Please leave a comment below to let me know!

References:

1. https://learn.g2.com/integrated-marketing-communications
2. https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/apple-word-of-mouth-examples/

Do you hear SEO and SEM before? If yes, do you understand what is the difference between both of them?

SEO marketing is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of optimizing your website to get organic, or un-paid, traffic from the search engine results page. In other words, SEO involves making some changes to your website design and content that make your site more attractive to a search engine. You do this in hopes that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page.

Keywords is the main point of SEO. They help Google to identify what your website is about. They ensure that your content is displayed to the right people at the right time. 50% of research consist of at between 3-4 words.

SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, which is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. There have two keys of Search Engine Marketing which are SEO and PPC, which stands for Pay-Per Clicks. SEM includes the use of paid search, for instance pay per click (PPC) listings and advertisements. In addition, SEM has advantages which are SEO allows you to display your website as a top result on the search engine results page, and online advertising lets you to send promotional content to the target audience of your choosing, SEM combines both advantages as content is both optimized for higher search rankings.

Now I will discuss Google Bert brings benefits to Google’s Algorithm. Google BERT, also called Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers.  It is Google’s neural network-based technique for natural language processing (NLP) pre-training. Google’s BERT Update improves how Google understands search queries. BERT analyzes search queries, not web pages.Moreover, BERT is going to improve results for voice searches and people using talk to text to search, which is crucial as “more people every day are searching using artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like Siri and Alexa.(Morgan Hennessey)

Are there any other opinion or ideas about SEO and SEM? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

References:

1. https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/how-google-bert-will-impact-seo-and-marketing/
2. https://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/adwords/search-engine-marketing/
3. https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/seo-sem-faqs

Do you all know what is IoT and Big Data? IoT also means Internet of things, refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data. The term IoT is mainly used for devices that wouldn’t usually be generally expected to have an internet connection, and that can communicate with the network independently of human action. Marketer will use IoT to do many things such as analyse customers buying habit, collect previously unobtainable data about how consumers interact with device and products, quickly resolve problems to close sales, keep customers satisfied and so on.

Big data is a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and unstructured. There have three Vs of Big Data which are volume, velocity and variety. Big Data is very important as big data can reduce cost and time, smart decision making and new product development. However, there is a perfect match of Iot and big data. The two stalwarts have connection, since whenever we talk of plenty things connected via the Internet; there is surely generation of a large amount of data, which can be managed only through Big Data.

Here has a company, American Express which is using Big Data. American Express brought in machine learning algorithms and upgraded from traditional database technology to a Hadoop infrastructure in 2010. The company especially focus on Big Data, cloud computing and mobile infrastructure. American Express uses machine learning and Big Data algorithms to avoid fraudulent, and these two algorithms now has become common in the industry. Besides that, it has enabled American Express to save millions.

Other than that, this company uses board data flows to create apps that can connect a cardholder with products and services, provide some benefits to cardholders to use the app. For example, an app called Amex Offers, indicate real-time coupons related to the individual’s lifestyle and buying habits based on their nearby businesses and physical location. Besides, company hope that more business to accept American Express.

For consumers, the company is using its vast data flows to develop apps that can connect a cardholder with products or services. One app looks at past purchase data and then recommends restaurants in the area that the user is likely to enjoy. Another, called Amex Offers, shows real-time coupons relevant to the individual’s lifestyle and buying habits based on their physical location and nearby businesses. And this isn’t just a benefit to cardholders that use the app, but also hopefully an incentive for more businesses to accept American Express.

In conclude, Big Data and Iot will become common and indispensable for businesses in the future.

I hope my blog gives you a better understanding on IoT and Big Data, and feel free to leave comments or reviews to my blog.

References:

https://www.bernardmarr.com/default.asp?contentID=1263

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-the-internet-of-things-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-iot-right-now/

Mobile marketing can defined as the art of marketing your business to appeal to mobile device users (wordstream, 2019) And also is a multi channel online marketing technique, which targeted at specific audience on devices such as tablets, smartphones or mobile applications. You ca get closer to you customer as possible.

Nowadays, as technology advanced, even children have their own mobile phone. We are able to do anything on our mobile phones instead of using desktop. As you can see, people use mobile phones more than Laptop or desktop in Us. Furthermore, people always download apps to online purchase, use map apps such as Google Map and Waze when they drive, and now already have food delivery too. Companies should create a unique and adequate marketing tools for mobile phones. There have some advantages for successful apps:

• Solve a problem
• Consumers are too busy to learn; must be able to use right away that easy to use.
• Update Frequently to audience.
• Built for Native Platform
• Make a Business
• Looks like fee has won. Look for in-app purchases or premium options.

ZARA has utilized features of mobile marketing trend, and create a successful mobile app for business. Zara is an international fashion company, which products include shoes, clothing, swimwear, beauty and perfume. This company has include e-commerce in their marketing strategy. You can see models wear products before you decided to buy it. Zara mobile app provide multiple pictures of each item under different angles, customers can scroll the app to see a selected product in all available colors and size, zoom in to see texture quality, to make sure customers can get more information from mobile apps (lotasoft,2019).

Besides that, Zara also launched a new technology for its mobile app. Artificial intelligence recognizes the leg and the foots 3D position. After that, it augmented reality overlays the new shoes or sneaker on top of the existing one. Customers can point their camera at the mirror and try different shoes and sneakers models, to see how the shoes will look. They also can see is the shoes match their body shape or clothes.

In conclusion, mobile app is an effective way to improve company marketing strategy. This feature allows customers to have a more happy and enjoyable buying experience. This creates better value for the customer.

Reference:
1. https://lotasoft.com/blog/how-to-create-retail-business-zara-app/
2. https://www.supersuperagency.com/blog/retail-shoes-shopping-zara-mobile-app-concept

Normally, people will evaluate products or services before they decide to try them. They will more tend to believe the positive comments. They will bring positive attitude or positive mood to the shop if the shop reviews and recommendation are positively.

Word of mouth is a free form of advertisement or promotion. With the continuous popularization of network technology, the value of internet word of mouth marketing will become more significant. According to a Nielsen study, 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than they do advertising.One of the important thing is world of mouth doesn’t stop after one interaction, it spread from one person to one person based on people recommendation and also triggered by event or campaign the consumers experiences. In contrast, negative comments also can be spread very fast as negative comments. If the products or service do not live up to consumers’ expectation, they might be disappointed and disseminate negative comments about company.

Starbucks, an American coffee company and coffee-chain worldwide, is the best example of Word of Mouth. They are focusing to create the third place for everyone to work and home. Their mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. Their values include to create a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome. People can enjoy their food or beverages in a comfortable environment.

Furthermore, Starbucks have some special service such as customize their coffee cup name, always provide different design of Starbucks card indifferent season for instance, they will sell Valentine day design Starbucks card to customers. And also, during Christmas, they will come out unique Christmas design cup for customers. Starbucks also have campaign such as Happy Hour to buy one get one free on selected date.

Customers who experienced these services will disseminate information to their family, friend or public. However, the positive word of mouth from customers not only drives more customers to Starbucks, but also set high reputation that brought the big brand dissemination effect.

Digital marketing affect the whole market due to the rapid development of Internet. Digital marketing include all marketing efforts, for instance advertisements and short video which are included in video content. Short video platforms became popular among young and middle generation.

Nowadays, people share their daily lives stories by taking a short video. I believe that most of you have heard about the Dove “Real Beauty Sketches” Campaign before. The aim of the campaign was to show the women that they are more beautiful than they think. An FBI-trained sketch artist Gil Zamora was shown sketching two portraits of women based on the description given by them and on how they were perceived by strangers.

It was one of the successful case of viral marketing. Viral Marketing is a business strategy that which is able to generate interest of a brand or product through messages that spread like a virus, quickly disseminate information from person to person. In Dove “Real Beauty Sketches” Campaign, several women describe themselves to a artist who cannot see his subjects. The same women are then described by strangers whom they met the previous day. 

The campaign became viral as it could engage to the customers emotionally. This video was fascinating without pushing the products. Furthermore, this advertisement are encouraging to the women that they are more beautiful than they think. It allowed women, awake the feelings of confidence and warmth. Empowerment is an important tool that can increase brand image and awareness of the company.

After this film upload online in April 2013, it quickly going viral. More than 15 million people downloaded the video within a week of its release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk

To conclude, by adopting some of the elements such as triggers and emotional, Dove spread the idea of its audience. In addition, Dove build a long term relationship with customers that make them memorable and become customers’ favorite shower product.

I hope my blog gives you a better understanding on Idea Dissemination, and feel free to leave comments or reviews to my blog.

Reference
1. https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/word-of-mouth-marketing-strategies-infographic

2. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/why-word-mouth-marketing-so-important

3. https://awario.com/blog/starbucks-best-and-worst-marketing-campaigns/

4. https://medium.com/rta902/starbucks-marketing-c61272fb25f8

Why do people participate in social media? People motivation to use social media because of information, they may share their information to each other. People also will use for social connection such as self-expression whether it may provide the opportunity for individual to share their own review and opinion.  Other than that, people can create a community development for a purpose to discuss public issues.  People also can catch out with friends or family, share pictures and videos to each other and also can get the news rapidly. How to segment the social media audiences? There were some ways to segment social media users. First, use social media target such as Facebook allows businesses to aim their messages to users based on data for instance, geographic, interest, gender. Secondly, create a group that anyone can join or member must be approved by admin or moderator. You can share information, advertising or messages to group members. Next, there have six significant consumer trends which are device shift, communications shift, content shift, social shift, video shift, retail shift.

What is digital business model? Digital business model is a set of planned activities designed to result in profit in a marketplace” (Laudon & Traver, 2007), and also a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself — that is, generate revenue” (Rappa, 2009). The function of business models are articulate the value proposition which is create value for user, identify a market segment, define the structure of the value chain, forecast the cost structure and profit potential of the above, describe the position of the firm with the value network linking suppliers and customers, and formulate the competitive strategy by which the innovating firm will gain and hold an advantage over rivals. For example, The Business Plan Overview Template is effective model that have questions about the target customer market, distribution plan, executive team and a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

References:

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/segment-social-media-audience

Web 2.0 is the network as platform that describe a second generation of the worldwide. It is ability for people to work together and share information online. These applications are those that make the most of the advantages of that platform which are delivering software as a continually, consuming and remixing data from different sources. In contrast, the first generation of Web 1.0, websites where people were limited to view content. For example, features of Web 2.0 have Instagram, You Tube, Facebook, etc which are a wide range of social media platform. Other than that, in Web 1.0, there are banners on the website, in contrast Web 2.0 are image, video, automatic text, interesting media advertisement to website content and audience. Overall, Web 2.0 is about social media, used generated content and consumer-generated media. For example, in 2017, Facebook announced that it will move to become with Messenger 2.0, Facebook is moving the platform to be far more useful.

Next, social media are computer-media technologies that can sharing information, career interests, different kind of ideas and other form of expression through virtual communities and networks. There also have classification of social media which are social community, social publishing, social commerce and social entertainment. Firstly, social community are the channels of social media focused on build relationship and maintain people on sharing interest and information. For instance, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn. Secondly, social publishing are channels focused on dissemination of content. It is an art of publishing content that allows people to give the respond and feedback.  Thirdly, social commerce are channels focus on facilitating transaction, help to online purchasing or selling products for example TripAdvisor, LivingSocial and Payvment. Last but not least, social entertainment are channels focused on entertainment such as MySpace.

Lastly, company should be careful when using social media, choose the social media platform carefully, ensure the target of activity. Also, being social: be active, be interesting, be humble, be honest.

Reference:
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_2_point_0.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/04/28/the-facebook-messenger-2-0-platform-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important/#7f5e03e52db2