Google announced several Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP), technical updates. These included scrolling animations, an improved responsive-navigation sidebar, support for video analytics, fluid ad support and other features to improve ad targeting. [Source: Search Engine Land]
While Facebook’s also trying to muscle in on LinkedIn’s turf by introducing job listings on Pages, LinkedIn’s data gives them a big advantage. The latest development on this front is LinkedIn’s new ‘Talent Insights’. [Source: Social Media Today]
Although television still remains the biggest advertising platform in India, growing demand for smartphones, cheap 4G handsets and falling data prices are expected to increase mobile ad spending significantly, according to marketing research firm eMarketer. [Source: Mint]
Google is laying the groundwork for turning the love-hate relationship many publishers have with the company into a love-love relationship. Among the recent announcements by the company was the launch of a new effort to share user data with publishers and introduce more machine learning into Google’s publisher products. [Source: Marketing Land]
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything more on Instagram’s shopping tags, their coming eCommerce addition which would enable businesses to add information and price tags to products featured in their posts. [Source: Social Media Today]
Most online news publications are not able to support themselves with advertising these days. For this reason, among others, Google is yielding to publisher requests and replacing its much-debated “First Click Free” program with what it calls “Flexible Sampling.” [Source: Search Engine Land]
Google believes it has found a winning formula in its smartphone war with Apple and in its smart home war with Amazon. Eight new or updated devices are being introduced, from new Pixel smartphones to a Google Home Mini, a new laptop and a new smart camera. All or nearly all of them feature the Google Assistant and are designed to integrate with other Google devices and work seamlessly together. [Source: MARTECH TODAY]
Yes, LinkedIn is also copying Snapchat – though their use-case is a little different, and does make a lot of sense. As part of their new native video tools, LinkedIn’s giving conference attendees the opportunity to add dedicated event frames to the videos they create while attending such functions. [Source: Social Media Today]
Google AdWords notified advertisers in their accounts and on Twitter that a change had already happened to the way budgets get handled on a daily basis. It is not going over well. [Source: Search Engine Land]
Instagram’s adding a new method for conducting polls, with a sticker option that lets you pose a question within your Instagram Story and see the results from your followers as they participate. [Source: Social Media Today]
Expert Opinion:
- Marketing for the new age hyperconnected consumers
Digitalization has changed the way we consume and process information. With the deluge of information, the customer’s attention span is shrinking and the interactions are becoming evanescent. This changing customer behavior is compelling the digital marketers to think creatively about the new strategies to remain relevant to the fast-evolving customer behaviors.
With the rising use of smartphones and insatiable appetite for data, the new age consumers are now getting ‘hyper-connected’- Perpetually and with increasing frequency. As per the recent study done by Gfk, there are around 41 million hyperconnected consumers in India and the internet users in India will burgeon to more than 450 million by June 2018. This naturally is increasing the frequency with which these consumers are engaging with different brands showing a substantial level of engagement with at least one brand on social media.
Considering these facts, it’s becoming imperative for brands to focus on the hyper-connected consumers with hyper personalisation. The user experience across the touch points needs to be coherent and intelligent to communicate the ‘right product’ with the ‘right price’ to the ‘right customer’ at the ‘right time’ through the ‘right channel’. In order to get this entire experience ‘right’, requires a thorough redesign of the processes, data crunching and redefining communication message. There is clearly a need for digital professionals to evolve into Techno-marketers who understand the new age customers, their needs and have the requisite technology skills to provide a seamless customer experience. When the customer experiences are value accretive at every touch point, organizations will start winning loyal customers and naturally create winning brands.
– Gaurav Hazrati, Senior Vice President and Head, Digital Banking-Consumer Banking, IndusInd Bank
