This week we will be discussing about digital campaign tools and how should companies approach them. As we all know, there are 2 forms of media a business can use to run campaign and they are traditional media and new media. Traditional media comes in forms like newspaper, magazines, television and radio. New media however are forms like the internet, email and etc. Digital media are interactive, incorporate two-way communication and involve some form of computing and are easy to process, store, transform, retrieve, hyperlinked and easily searched for and accessed.

Before jumping right into how businesses can use digital campaigns, let’s take a look at why traditional media is dying. As show in the diagram below, it can be seen that the average time spent vs a business spending is ridiculously high especially for radio, newspapers and magazines. Businesses should instead pool their resources and spend it on e-devices like mobile and computers.

A good digital marketer will have a good understanding of how each digital marketing campaign suit their objectives. Based on the goals, marketers can then better support/run a large campaign through free or paid channels to achieve them. Here are some types of digital marketing tactics a marketer can use when running a digital marketing campaign.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Content Marketing
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
5. Affiliate Marketing
6. Native Advertising
7. Marketing Automation
8. Email Marketing
9. Online PR
10. Inbound Marketing

If you have been following this blog, many of these points are already covered and explained. If you haven’t this article is a great summary for these 10 commonly used tactics. In conclusion, as written in Taylor’s paper, when running a campaign, besides using these tools and tactics, a marketer must also be sensitive to consumer concerns about privacy, gain trust among consumers, be interactive and entertaining to draw attention and lastly in the long run, new media messages need to build the brand to be effective. What are your thoughts on today’s blog? Leave a comment below if u have any interesting theories that marketers can possibly use.

In this weeks post, we are going to discuss what is SEM and SEO and which of these should companies/businesses use to gain better reach for their users. Firstly, let us go through the basics of SEM and SEO. In summary, search engine marketing (SEM) are paid strategies which companies use to appear in a search. Remember those pesky advertisements in the first few links on you Google searches? Those are forms of SEM. Search engine optimization (SEO) on the other hand is when companies uses organic strategies to make their links appear in the top few links of searches.

SEM is commonly referred to as paid search or pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. The most commonly used search provider is Google Ads. After uncovering the keywords a target market uses when conducting searches, companies uses Google Ads to target their audience using the best keywords. The brand is then charged each time a user clicks on the ad.

Now that we know the basics of SEO and SEM, when should companies use them?

When to use SEM for your company?

1. When there is a lot of competition for your target keywords
2. New to a market segment and wants to test and idea, product or service
3. New to a business and have little online presence
4. Current website needs more work to improve on organic SEO factors
5. High budget or low cost-per-click

When to use SEO for your company?

1. When you know the market segment has long-term value and demand
2. Customers take longer buying process and needs more time to research before making purchase
3. High cost-per-click in your industry
4. Have a well established website/business
5. Moderately optimized website and is doing fairly well in organic searches

Big data and the internet of things have, without a doubt, become a part of our everyday lives and we can’t live without it. For example, the first thing I do when I wake up every morning when i turn off my alarm, is to scroll through my Whatsapp for conversations I’ve missed then, Facebook and Instagram look at images and read post/ articles shared by my friends. How about you?

Moving on, in today’s society, the importance of customer satisfaction (user experience) is reliant on the digital footprint of the world. In an article released by McKinsey & Company, it is written that businesses need to take a different approach and capture the full range of benefits promised by the Internet of Things in order to stand out among competitors.

So how can we as marketeers use big data to improve customer satisfaction? As argued in Eli Pariser filter bubble theory, traditional adverts on websites are soon to be a thing of the past. Because, overtime these adverts may soon seem too common and boring. However, I feel that it is still a good theory that should not be forgotten and marketers should instead mix it up (traditional and outliers suggested adverts) to draw customers attention and not shun away conservative customers.

In these articles (1) & (2), they provide very useful information on how companies use big data to boost sales and how big data analytics drive productivity and profits. Companies today need to understand the importance of big data, how to effectively utilize big data analytics to create better customer satisfaction and thus, create better sales, profit and allow them to stand out among their competitors.

I’m positive that more companies will step up to the challenge, analyse efficiently the vast data around us and utilize the power of big data and the internet of things to provide better customer satisfaction and reap the profits!

In this week’s topic, I will be discussing about how time and space aspects of mobile technology are changing marketing. Let’s jump right in.

In a paper written by Andreas Kaplan, he explains that there are 4 categories based on time and location sensitivity of mobile technology and how they are changing marketing. They are quick-timers, space-timers, slow-timers, space-locators.

Also, Andreas Kaplan explained that there are 4 I’s that keeps your audience and they are Individualize, Involve, Integrate and Initiate.

However, in this article, it is stated that there are 5 types of social media content that our audience want and they are, engaging content (Involve), inclusive content (Integrate) , news worthy content (Individualize), follower content (Initiate) and special offers/promotions being the additional point compared to the 4 I’s as mentioned above. I personally feel that the additional point is as important as the 4 I’s due to an increase in mobile shopping because of convenience and thus, benefiting brands which are already on social media. Also, online shopping can also be either a space-timer or space-locator depending on time sensitivity.

In this article, it states that 78% of consumers enjoy social media shopping, 64% of consumers prefer the convenience of online shopping, social media influences 87% of online shoppers and mobile shopping expected to increase by 56%.

In conclusion, with the increasing trend of mobile social media, I feel that promotions are necessary because social media promotions helps increase a brand/company’s brand awareness, increase sales and traffic and also get customer feedback/insights on issues faced gaining better customer satisfaction.

How about you guys? Do you feel that mobile social media is becoming part of your everyday lives? Comment your feedback and what you guys think.

This week, after looking at the lecture materials, i’ve decided to talk about the best theory to spread ideas through social media.

From what i know, there are 3 theories/approach that suggests the spread of ideas through social media. They are 1) message characteristics (Jonah Berger), 2) the network characteristics (Malcolm Gladwell) and 3) people characteristics (Seth Godin). Let’s take a quick run through before we share our thoughts.

1)In message characteristics (Jonah Berger) talks about STEPPS, how they aid in the spreading of ideas and they are:

2)In the network characteristics (Malcolm Gladwell) suggests that for ideas to spread, there are 3 main person/theory and they are, connectors (message spreader), mavens (message providers) and Salesman (persuaders).

3)In people characteristics (Seth Godin) suggests that targeting an interested audience is more effective as compared to targeting the entire audience with a product. Seth Goldin also suggests that if you have a remarkable product but targets an uninterested audience, it would be of no use. However with the same remarkable product and with the right target audience (interested), more interested audience will find the product.

Now that we understand what the 3 theories are, let’s discuss which are the best. I personally feel among these 3 theories, not one is better than the other, however I feel that a hybrid between these theories are possible. For example, from my personal experience, I used to sell printers as a part time job and I would say I have good social connections (connectors and salesperson as suggested by Malcolm Gladwell) and under Jonah Berger’s STEPPS model would fall under triggers because when my friends (social connections) need help with printers (fixing or getting recommendations for a new purchase), I would be the first on their minds when they contact me.

All in all this is what I personally feel. How about you? Where do you think you would fall under these theories? Could there be other theory? Share and comment your thoughts with me.

In this blog, i’m going to talk about the different types of Facebook users and how are they grouped based on online business models.

In this article, https://themanifest.com/social-media/how-people-use-social-media-2018 , it is shown that social media has become a daily part of our lives. With almost 86% of the respondents saying that they use social media at least once a day and 72% uses it multiple times a day. Using social media has been made easy and can be found on many platforms such as mobile applications, web browsers on computers or mobile phones and tablets as long as there is an internet connection. Some of the top social media apps include Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. Do you use social media everyday? What social media apps are among your favourites?

Let us take a look at why do people use social media.

From the above image, people that uses social media can be generally grouped into 3 usage behaviours. 1) Entertainment 2) Information 3) Social Connection. Heinonen (2011) summarised that uses and gratification approach is one of the reason that motivates people to use social media. Where motives are rational or emotional based that consumers get in a form of gratification (through actual usage) when they use social media. The rational based motives are 1) Entertainment and 2) Information. The emotional based motives would be 3) Social Connection.

Social media as entertainment? Did it really evolved? From this link, http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Feature/Facebook-From-Social-Media-Site-to-Entertainment-Portal-78027.htm. Take for example, Facebook. It started out as a social media website. Where users can reach out to their friends globally either by sharing or commenting on each others photos, to writing a post on a page to let your friends know how your day went. Now, Facebook lets users do live videos, play games, share videos and may more. With more context sharing being uploaded and shared around, I would say Facebook is becoming more.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.