Author Archives: Nathan Jokers

via The Atlantic // As Instagram has grown to more than 1 billion monthly users, it has ushered in a very particular look: bright walls, artfully arranged lattes and avocado toast, and Millennial-pink everything, all with that carefully staged, color-corrected, glossy-looking aesthetic. Photos that play into these trends perform so well on Instagram that the look became synonymous with the platform itself, then seeped into the broader world. Even if you don’t use the app, you’ve undoubtedly encountered an “Instagram wall,” a pop-up experience like the Museum of Ice Cream, or a brightly patterned restaurant bathroom just made to be photographed.

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No one has capitalized on this look’s popularity more than influencers. Some have even started to make thousands of dollars on photo presets that warp anyone’s pictures to fit this mold. But every trend has a shelf life, and as quickly as Instagram ushered in pink walls and pastel macaroons, it’s now turning on them. “Avocado toast and posts on the beach. It’s so generic and played out at this point. You can photoshop any girl into that background and it will be the same post,” said Claire, a 15-year-old who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym because of her age. “It’s not cool anymore to be manufactured.”

Fast-rising young influencers such as Emma Chamberlain, Jazzy Anne, and Joanna Ceddia all reject the notion of a curated feed in favor of a messier and more unfiltered vibe. While Millennial influencers hauled DSLR cameras to the beach and mastered photo editing to get the perfect shot, the generation younger than they are largely post directly from their mobile phones. “Previously influencers used to say, ‘Oh, that’s not on brand,’ or only post things shot in a certain light or with a commonality,” says Lynsey Eaton, a co-founder of the influencer-marketing agency Estate Five. “For the younger generation, those rules don’t apply at all.”

In fact, many teens are going out of their way to make their photos look worse. Huji Cam, which make your images look as if they were taken with an old-school throwaway camera, has been downloaded more than 16 million times. “Adding grain to your photos is a big thing now,” says Sonia Uppal, a 20-year-old college student. “People are trying to seem candid. People post a lot of mirror selfies and photos of them lounging around.”

Take Reese Blutstein, a 22-year-old influencer who has amassed more than 238,000 followers in just over a year by posting unfiltered, low-production photos of herself in quirky outfits. (A recent flash photo into a mirror with her dog picked up more than 5,000 likes). She, like many members of her generation, doesn’t stress about posting almost the exact same photo twice in a row, something first-generation influencers wouldn’t dream of. “I’m not afraid to over-post. I don’t think, Oh, will this mess up how my feed looks,” she says. “I don’t think too much about it. If I like an image, I just post it.”

Anything that feels staged is as undesirable for Blutstein’s cohort as unfiltered or unflattering photos would be for older influencers. “For my generation, people are more willing to be who they are and not make up a fake identity,” she says. “We are trying to show a real person doing cool things as a real person, not trying to create a persona that isn’t actually you.”

Matt Klein, a cultural strategist at the consultancy Sparks & Honey, also says he’s seen a gradual shift away from the rainbow-colored preplanned photos that dominated the platform in late 2017. “We all know the jig is up,” he says. “We’ve all participated in those staged photos. We all know the stress and anxiety it takes. And we can see through it. Culture is a pendulum, and the pendulum is swaying. That’s not to say everyone is going to stop posting perfect photos. But the energy is shifting.”

Over the past year, “Instagram vs reality” photos have grown in popularity as influencers attempt to make themselves seem more accessible. Earlier this month at Beautycon, a beauty festival, Instagram stars spoke about moving away from ring lights and toward showing off their faces in sunlight. As the public becomes more aware of the prevalence of sponsored posts, beauty influencers are abandoning branded shots for ones that show off their “empties” (empty bottles of product they actually use). A growing number of accounts are dedicated to calling out the various cosmetic procedurescelebrities and influencers have had. Influencers have also been actively speaking out themselves about burnout, mental health, and the stress that comes with maintaining perfection.

“Everyone is trying to be more authentic,” says Lexie Carbone, a content marketer at Later Media, a social-media marketing firm. “People are writing longer captions. They are sharing how much money they make … I think it all goes back to, you don’t want to see a girl standing in front of a wall that you’ve seen thousands of times. We need something new.”

James Nord, the CEO of Fohr, an influencer-management platform, says he sees this shift play out in his clients’ numbers every day. “What worked for people before doesn’t work anymore,” he says. “For the first time, influencers are coming up against this problem of, How do I continue to grow as tastes change?” A year ago, an influencer could post a shot with manicured hands on a coffee cup and rake in the likes—but now, people will unfollow. According to Fohr, 60 percent of influencers in his network with more than 100,000 followers are actually losing followers month over month. “It’s pretty staggering,” he says. “If you’re an influencer [in 2019] who is still standing in front of Instagram walls, it’s hard.”

The platform itself could be partially responsible for how things have evolved. Whereas Instagram started as a purely visual feed of filtered photos, it has morphed into a messy, tangled social network where photos fight with stories, IGTV, GIFs, and video clips for attention. For many users, a photo itself is just a way to vent in the captions or comment section.

According to Taylor Cohen, a digital strategist at the advertising agency DDB, the Instagram aesthetic’s saturation point came sometime in mid-2018. “It’s not the same as it was even a year ago,” she says. Consider, for example, the Happy Place, an Instagram museum that opened to great fanfare in Los Angeles in 2017 and bills itself as the “most Instagrammable pop-up in America.” When it opened, people were thrilled to fork over the nearly $30 admission price ($199 for a VIP pass). But when it arrived in Boston this month, it landed with a thud. “I would not go,” said Claire, the 15-year-old. “I’d rather take pics in front of a library or something.”

Instagram museums and walls were built to allow normal people to take influencer-quality photographs—but they worked so well, those types of photos became common enough that they don’t resonate like they used to. In the beginning, “you had everyone posting these normal photos, and so that rainbow-food photo stood out,” Klein says. “But because so many people adopted that aesthetic, that has become passé. We’re living in influencer overload.”

Plus, all that perfection is a grind. “I spent so many months looking for a wall that was a certain color,” says Sarah Peretz, a Los Angeles–based influencer known for her stylized, hyper-saturated feed. “There came a point in my life where all I’d be looking for was walls, walls, walls. I was like, Guess what day it is? It’s another wall.” After interrupting a vacation to take a picture against a roadside casino’s perfect orange wall, she decided enough was enough. She began pivoting her feed away from the traditional Instagram aesthetic and started experimenting with drone photography and more creative formats. She says wall photos had become boring to her audience anyway, who are more interested in entertaining Instagram Stories than flat photos.

Last year, Kristin Ruby, the president of Ruby Media Group, a public-relations consulting firm, splurged on a blowout and waiting in an endless line at an Instagram museum—but now, she says, she doesn’t think the pop-ups are worth it. These days, like many users, she doesn’t think too much about her feed and posts more frequently on Instagram Stories. “You don’t have to think about colored walls, the filter, or the people in the background in the way of your perfect candytopia photo,” she says.

As the ideal Instagram look shifts, brands are, as ever, eagerly trying to catch the next wave. “For brands to seem cutting edge, they can’t paint a wall and say that’s what they’re doing,” Nord says. “That aesthetic … is no longer viable.” Cohen points to Glossier as an example of a brand that’s using Instagram in a more modern way. The beauty brand shares a mix of memes, natural-looking close-ups, and recently, a cute video of a sloth “just because.”

Ultimately, Eaton says, “people are just looking for things they can relate to.” And “the pink wall and avocado toast are just not what people are stopping at anymore.”

via Social Media Explorer // Many businesses are overly confident in their social media strategy. The biggest problem is that their strategy often hinges around a series of short-term tactics that are implemented across a number of different platforms. They don’t have a consolidated strategy that provides a consistent branding message.

This approach could create serious problems for your brand. You need to be aware of the problems that will arise if your social media strategy is too fragmented.

The importance of creating a holistic and consistent social media branding strategy

Aliza Sherman raised some very valid points about the importance of consistent social media messaging. This is something that you need to consider when growing a brand on different networks.

We recently spoke with a marketing executive from Jukebox Stickers, a company that does sticker printing in Vancouver. They have extensive experience in both sticker and social media marketing. They have shared some insights they made across both of these seemingly inconsistent branding approaches.

Many brands use different types of stickers to convey their message. They often create different sticker designs for customers in different regions or demographic groups. This becomes a problem when they are trying to build a national brand image. They find that contrasting sticker designs muddy the perception of their brand.

Although they don’t directly offer social media services to their customers, they still notice customers making similar mistakes with social media. Inconsistency is one of the biggest problems. Here are some of the a fragmented social media strategy is an issue.

Failing to adhere to a central branding message

Let’s say that you are looking for a new dentist. You find an article in your local newspaper emphasizing that a particular dentist is known for their exceptional care. You decide to visit their website for more information, where you find the dentist constantly emphasizes the affordability of their services without any reference to the quality work they do.

At this point, you would probably be pretty confused about the main selling point of the dentist. Although they might be able to offer great service for an affordable price, they didn’t do a good job articulating that across all of their marketing mediums. This might leave you questioning whether any of the claims are true.

The same problem will occur with your brand if you don’t communicate the same message across your various social media platforms. Unfortunately, this could be a problem for a couple of reasons:

• You have delegated social media marketing management for different platforms to different people on your team. They might not be on the same page, so they might not understand the key points of your branding message.
• You try to tailor your marketing messages to customers on each platform, assuming that the demographics and mindset difference. Since you assume that customers on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter each have their own perspectives, you might unwittingly alter your branding message for them.

These are common issues that you need to look out for.

You neglect to build a real relationship with the same customers across different platforms

Have you ever reached out to a brand over social media? If you reached out to them multiple times through the same platform, you would expect them to remember you. How would you feel if you tried talking to them on another social media platform, but they didn’t seem to know anything about you?

This it’s not uncommon, especially if different people are responsible for managing different social media profiles. It is important to try having the same people manage every platform. You should also make sure that they have access to all interactions across different social networks, so they can build a consistent relationship with your more vocal customers.

Your brand strategy could suffer if activity on one of your profile stagnates

The other day, I was looking at the Facebook page of one of my client’s competitors. I noticed that they had not updated the page in two and a half years. If I was one of their customers, I would assume that the company was as dormant as their Facebook page was. As Brand 24 points out, irregular posting is the biggest mistake social media marketers make.

There could be good reasons that you abandoned one of your social profiles. You might have found that one of your social networking profiles simply had a poor ROI. However, if you stop updating it without deleting the page, then it will send the wrong message to potential customers at find it. Similar problems can occur if the quality of your posts on when social network starts to decline.

If you are committed to a social media network, then you need to continually put in the effort.

You failed to leverage content across platforms

David Ford, a leading marketing expert that I have spoken with, has said that one of the benefits of using both Pinterest and Instagram is that you can get twice as much traction out of the same visual content. You can also reuse content across other platforms as well, including Facebook and Twitter.

However, you will overlook the benefits of this opportunity if you look at all of your social media profiles in isolation. You need to have a centralized social media strategy and keep inventory of all of the content that you use.

Missing trends across demographics

This is a similar issue with reusing content. You might notice that some customers are converting more than others. You might find that some demographics respond to certain ads, while others are more receptive to different ads. 

You’ll make these observations quicker if you look at data across all of your social media platforms.

via ECM TechNews // The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a real driver of development for many industries. According to Gartner, by 2020 there will be more than 20 billion terminals connected to IoT including eight billion terminals used in the field of business.

Even areas such as agriculture, which are apparently far removed from this trend, are concerned. In the dairy industry, for example, IoT collects essential information to improve activity through sensors in the neck of cows. Thus, it is possible to track and locate each adnimal in real time. This makes it easier to transport animals to the milking parlor, to examine them or to treat them more effectively.

The Internet of Things offers many applications, here is an overview. Each time the approach is innovative for an optimized added value.

The use of IoT to improve logistics management

According to IDC, 37% of organizations have already deployed IoT projects, making a breakthrough towards digitizing their businesses. Given the irreversible nature of technological progress, such a development is fundamental if they wish to avoid falling behind on competition.

Many companies in the logistics industry have understood this trend. They are aware that truck capacity is not fully exploited, which reduces the return on investment. With the installation of 3D cameras and the use of analysis software, these companies can collect and analyze the data generated during the loadings: density, method, speed of execution, or filling rate. If the system identifies a malfunction in the loading process, it is able to inform the manager who, based on the information collected, can intervene directly or complete the training of operators for the purpose of continuous improvement.

Real-time visibility to limit out-of-stock

Every year, businesses register a 4% shortfall caused by the shortage of some particularly requested products. This phenomenon especially affects clothing stores where items are often forgotten in the locker room or stored in the wrong place. Products equipped with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags could be located by employees anywhere, anytime. It would also be possible to know the status of stocks in real time and improve the availability of products on the sales area.

In addition, tagging parts helps prevent theft, since tagged products can trigger the alarm when they exit without being deactivated. This method of prevention is particularly useful in the luxury sector. By taking advantage of this technology, merchants could significantly reduce the loss of goods and revenues related to this negligence.

Reinforced patient follow-up with connected wristbands

In the health sector, the complexity of the network of stakeholders (doctors, nurses, hospitals and insurance) makes it difficult to consolidate, share and analyze medical data. IoT can help to improve the collection and processing of information in order to improve the offer of care offered to patients.

The Leiden University Hospital (LUMC) in the Netherlands used an IoT-based time tracking solution dedicated to its patients with severe myocardial infarction.  The connected bracelets of the patients send the heart rate to the doctors who can thanks to this tool ensure a regular follow-up. Analysis of these data allows medical staff to accurately measure the effects of treatment on the patient and to modulate care procedures according to their health status.

These testimonials illustrate only a handful of opportunities offered by IoT to companies. The data collected and analyzed allows them to understand more clearly how to improve their strategic planning and make the most of their business opportunities.

In a nutshell, IoT solutions are true vectors of growth for companies. It gives them the opportunity to look forward to a bright, smart and connected future, of course.

via Innovation Management // When talking about Digital, some refer to the term “digital marketing”, which is actually the way to promote business and sales through social and digital platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-mail and more.

Digital has a much broader meaning. Digital is the connection between business and technology. Digital enables organizations to create real value for their customers, and hence also for the organization itself, through advanced technological tools. Digital usually includes mobile applications, e-mail communications, WhatsApp, SMS, digital promotion (marketing) and of course self-service processes that enable the customer to run independently and perform end-to-end processes without human involvement.

Indeed, Digital touches everything. Digital reaches all levels of the corporation and integrates business issues, customer service, legal matters and of course various technologies. This is precisely why the industry term is “digital transformation.” In order to implement this digital transformation, a significant change in the level of the organization is required. It is not possible to just take outdated business processes and simply automate them, as this will not create the experience expected by the client. In many cases, organizations are in different stages of the transformation and engage in a very basic digital experience.

Innovation, on the other hand, is the next step. Innovation connects the capabilities of digital technologies and platforms. Furthermore, Innovation within organizations refers to rethinking the business – new products, new business models, and all this through using advanced technologies and “disruptive” thinking. Innovation relates equally to the change of organizational culture, the change of perceptions among managers and holders of control, and to change processes within the organization.

Ostensibly, it can be assumed that large organizations operating for many years in veteran industries are required to end the digital revolution before they reach innovation.

In practice, it is also possible and perhaps better to work differently.

Organizations that will use innovation as an engine to promote and accelerate digital transformation will benefit twice. On the one hand, advanced technologies and the use of creative knowledge and capability from the outside, from startups, is a lever for shortening digital processes in the organization and improving the user experience. On the other hand, there is little reason to wait for the end of digital transformation. Our dynamic world maintains a complex market that does not allow organizations to wait. Organizations must promote innovation parallel to the revolution that is going on within the organization and move towards trial and error experiment, encouraging the organization and its employees to take risks.

The insurance industry, for example, is an old industry, and operates by the same business and actuarial models for many years. The insurance world has been selling the same products, in the same way, for years.

In the past two years, we have witnessed changes in the insurance industry, including advanced technological capabilities and new players emerging in the insurance world, such as small digital insurance companies focused on a limited number of products and because they are digital natives, they provide a simple and seamless customer service experience.

Large companies also use digital innovation to encourage better behavior. NationWide, for example, uses Amazon’s Alexa to encourage proper driving, while offering incentives in the insurance premium. The result is savings for companies and for consumers.

The largest and oldest companies in Israel and around the world are working to create simple digital processes from end-to-end, without the need for human involvement behind the scenes, alongside innovation.

One of the tools transforming old, cumbersome complex processes is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). This technology enables automatic decision making and provide immediate and personal customer response. The technology replaces a complex and long process of human decision making that creates uncertainty on the customer side and inconsistencies on the company side. Two interesting Israeli companies in this field are Five Sigma, which offers an AI-based claims management system, and Atidot, which offers a Big Data platform that enables insurance companies to produce analytical models to make decision-making processes faster and more efficient.

At the same time, there is a growing innovation process in insurance companies, beginning with the transition from fixed annual payments on insurance to payment-on-demand and Pay Per Use. An interesting example of this can be found in companies that enable the operation of insurance and payment only when using the vehicle is in use. Bambi Dynamic is an example of such a company. The company offers drivers the ability to operate or pause their car insurance and pay only when they need coverage. Another company is Trov, which not only provides On Demand insurance as mentioned above, but also enables potential customers to photograph products via cellular and receive an insurance quote.

Another interesting innovation stems from the new technologies that create the need for new products – for example, the cyber world. Businesses, even of small and medium size, face cyber threats that did not exist until recently, as a result of the development of the Internet. Menora Mivtachim, for example, now insures small businesses with cyber insurance – a completely new digital insurance product. One of the tools that provides a rapid response to innovation, a combination of business and technology partners is Kovrr, which helps insurance companies understand, evaluate and manage cyber risks in a way that allows proper pricing of insurance policies.

Digital and innovation complement each other and allow corporations to advance and accelerate faster.

via Social Media Explorer // A presence on social media affects nearly every aspect of life. This also includes the financial sector. This isn’t just a factor for personal loans, but also ecommerce and online business loans. A company’s viability can be closely linked to activity on social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that social media is taken into consideration.

Banks Use Social Media: When a bank decides to approve or deny a loan, there are a number of things that are taken into consideration. These things include the history of the company, the size of the company, and the relationship with customers. One of the ways a bank can determine the relationship with customers is the rapport the company has with its customer base on social media.

Alternative Lenders Use Social Media in Algorithms: It’s not just banks that use social media. If you are applying for a business loan with a different lender thinking it will improve your chances, it may not as far as social media is concerned. Alternative lenders don’t just look at how many followers you have, but how engaged you are with customers on social media. If you make an effort to connect with your customers and reach out, then it gives you a better chance of a loan approval.

Social Media Can Indicate Potential Success and Revenue: Any business that is more than a year old and wants funding should consider that a lender might look at its online marketing activities as a predictor of future success. Marketing plans are a key factor when it comes to evaluating loan applications, and online strategies should be an important part of any companies marketing efforts. A business that is doing well on social media shows that it knows how to reach and build an audience and this can be looked at as a strong marketing foundation. This shows that the business has been able to use its available funds for growth and knows what it is doing when it comes to marketing. Lenders are more likely to lend money if they know there will be continued success. While an average social media presence may not hurt the ability to get a loan, a strong one will certainly strengthen the likelihood of approval.

LinkedIn Profiles Reflect Job Stability: Lenders can look at LinkedIn profiles for business owners and investors that are applying for the loan. This can give an impression of job stability or instability. Are they staying in the same general career path or industry? A high volume of short-term jobs and a lot of job changes can indicate there is a higher risk of defaulting on a loan. If owners are considering a business loan, lenders may also look at the management team to see if they have experience in the industry that is related to the business and if they have influential relationships that could help the business grow.

Social media isn’t just important for loans. It also to help your business grow without a loan. If you are trying to crowdfundinstead of using a loan, social media needs to tell your story so people care about your business.

via TechCrunch // Twitter  CEO Jack Dorsey  took the stage today at the TED  conference. But instead of giving the standard talk, he answered questions from TED’s Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers.

For most of the interview, Dorsey outlined steps that Twitter has taken to combat abuse and misinformation, but Anderson explained why the company’s critics sometimes find those steps so insufficient and unsatisfying. He compared Twitter to the Titanic, and Dorsey to the captain, listening to passengers’ concerns about the iceberg up ahead — then going back to the bridge and showing “this extraordinary calm.”

“It’s democracy at stake, it’s our culture at stake,” Anderson said, echoing points made yesterday in a talk by journalist Carole Cadwalladr. So why isn’t Twitter addressing these issues with more urgency?

“We are working as quickly as we can, but quickness will not get the job done,” Dorsey replied. “It’s focus, it’s prioritization, it’s understanding the fundamentals of the network.”

He also argued that while Twitter could “do a bunch of superficial things to address the things you’re talking about,” that isn’t the real solution.

“We want the changes to last, and that means going really, really deep,” Dorsey said.

In his view, that means rethinking how Twitter incentivizes user behavior. He suggested that the service works best as an “interest-based network,” where you log in and see content relevant to your interests, no matter who posted it — rather than a network where everyone feels like they need to follow a bunch of other accounts, and then grow their follower numbers in turn.

Dorsey recalled that when the team was first building the service, it decided to make follower count “big and bold,” which naturally made people focus on it.

“Was that the right decision at the time? Probably not,” he said. “If I had to start the service again, I would not emphasize the follower count as much … I don’t think I would create ‘likes’ in the first place.”

Since he isn’t starting from scratch, Dorsey suggested that he’s trying to find ways to redesign Twitter to shift the “bias” away from accounts and toward interests.

More specifically, Rodgers asked about the frequent criticism that Twitter hasn’t found a way to consistently ban Nazis from the service.

“We have a situation right now where that term is used fairly loosely,” Dorsey said. “We just cannot take any one mention of that word accusing someone else as a factual indication of whether someone can be removed from the platform.”

He added that Twitter does remove users who are connected to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, as well those who post hateful imagery or who are otherwise guilty of conduct that violates Twitter’s terms and conditions — terms that Dorsey said the company is rewriting to make them “human readable,” and to emphasize that fighting abuse and hateful content is the top priority.

“Our focus is on removing the burden of work from the victims,” Dorsey said.

He also pointed to efforts that Twitter has already announced to measure (and then improve) conversational health and to use machine learning to automatically detect abusive content. (The company said today that 38 percent of abusive content that Twitter takes action against is found proactively.)

And while Dorsey said he’s less interested in maximizing time spent on Twitter and more in maximizing “what people take away from it and what they want to learn from it,” Anderson suggested that Twitter may struggle with that goal since it’s a public company, with a business model based on advertising. Would Dorsey really be willing to see time spent on the service decrease, even if that means improving the conversation?

“More relevance means less time on the service, and that’s perfectly fine,” Dorsey said, adding that Twitter can still serve ads against relevant content.

In terms of how the company is currently measuring its success, Dorsey said it focuses primarily on daily active users, and secondly on “conversation chains — we want to incentivize healthy contributions back to the network.”

Getting back to Dorsey himself, Rodgers wondered whether serving as the CEO of two public companies (the other is Square) gives him enough time to solve these problems.

“My goal is to build a company that is not dependent upon me and outlives me,” he said. “The situation between the two companies and how my time is spent forces me immediately to create frameworks that are scalable, that are decentralized, that don’t require me being in every single detail … That is true of any organization that scales beyond the original founding moment.”