Twitter's surprise revenue shortfall and its advertising challenge, Salesforce is in sales mode, Google makes up with European news outlets, Secret is out, Uber's plan to take over the world, Lyft report leaked, quality over clickbait in content marketing, podcasts have their own upfronts, knowing when to use data and when to use intuition, the decline of reading, how leaders innovate and more, it's This Week in Digital.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
Each week, we compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, business, digital communications and marketing in order to keep leaders up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in your job. Please subscribe - either to our full feed or just to this newsletter to keep up to date on developments.
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Industry
- Salesforce is working with bankers on fielding inquiries for acquisition. (Bloomberg)
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- At a price tag of over $40 billion, there's only a handful of companies who could afford it and who might be a match: Microsoft, Oracle, Google, or IBM. Our money is on either Microsoft or IBM, who have an enterprise business that is focused on becoming more cloud-based. (re/code)
- Tesla made a big announcement about home batteries (called Powerwall) this week, but earlier its Twitter account and website were hacked. (Business Insider)
- Despite some of the early naysayers, the Apple Watch is getting some useful apps out of the gate - such as health tracking, geolocation services, remote control of surroundings, and a hands-free retail experience. (WSJ Digits)
- CMOs use Twitter to share more mainstream news stories than industry-specific information, and they use Twitter as a hub for cross-posting content between social networks. These insights and more on CMOs on Twitter. (Marketing Land)
- Experian's Digital Marketing report indicates that senior digital marketers' top priorities include storytelling (46%) and using data to inform customer interactions (43%) - yet only 26% want to strategically align their companies' departments to meet the demands of the modern consumer. (Marketing Charts)
Platforms
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- In a mea culpa on how it has treated the news media in Europe, Google is forming a partnership with eight European news organizations. The Digital News Initiative will provide product development guidance, research and training. (The Guardian)
- Last week was YouTube's 10th birthday. So where are all of the early YouTube stars now? (Business Insider)
- Twitter's full integration with Google search is coming in May, and is about "driving [Twitter's] total audience strategy." (Search Engine Land)
- Microsoft
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- Big news from the Microsoft developers conference this week: iOS and Android developers can simply port their apps to Windows 10 with two new SDKs. (The Verge)
- Microsoft revealed Edge, its replacement browser for Internet Explorer this week. (Telegraph)
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- Messenger is rolling out video calling, making it even more competitive with Skype, Hangouts, Facetime and other video chat apps. (Facebook Newsroom)
- Facebook's Q1 earnings showed significant audiences on mobile platforms. But they also shared a good deal of information on video, and this link includes how to test YouTube vs. Facebook results. Note the HBR article below about how you measure it, though. (SHIFT Communications)
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- Twitter released its Q1 2015 earnings this week - or rather had them leaked an hour early and saw a nearly 20% drop in its stock before asking the NYSE to halt trading. The news included news that quarterly revenue missed analysts' targets. (Bloomberg)
- As expected, there's a lot of doubt circulating about Twitter's ad program. If Wall Street could look beyond one quarter at a time, perhaps they'll give Twitter some breathing room to prove that its ad operations are beginning to work. (WSJ)
- A superb analysis of Twitter's current state of affairs looks at the dip in revenue growth for the first time, as well as two key announcements that will help Twitter longer term: a partnership with Google's DoubleClick and its purchase of TellApart for predictive analytics in advertising. (SHIFT Communications)
- In an effort to boost the attractiveness of its ads, Twitter is changing how Promoted Tweets look, making them seem more like regular tweets. Expect some discussion from native advertising critics about this lessening of transparency. (Marketing Land)
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- Instagram is targeting musicians with its first vertical channel: @Music. Just as Twitter has worked with celebrities to onboard them to its own platform (as well as Periscope), Instagram is hoping that its video features will give the same buzz to musicians. (BuzzFeed)
- Periscope / Meerkat
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- As part of its earnings announcement, Twitter revealed that it only took 10 days to acquire 1 million Periscope users. (Mashable)
- The NFL draft was this week and sports outlet Scout broadcast 15 different Periscopes on the process, showing perspectives of different schools, goings-on behind the scenes and live coverage. This is the type of use that will help legitimately grow Periscope - not the video equivalent of lunch food shots. (Digiday)
- LinkedIn reported Q1 earnings this week, seeing a 19% drop in its stock after downgrading its outlook for the year. (CNBC)
- The Secret is out. Anonymish app Secret is shutting down, with its CEO writing that "Unfortunately, Secret does not represent the vision I had when starting the company" (Medium)
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- Could this be the beginning of the end for anonymous apps? (Social Nerdia)
Collaborative Economy
- Advances in crowdsourcing will lead to significant growth of crowd finance. That's one of the predictions of how crowdsourcing and the sharing economy will grow in the next five years. (Econsultancy)
- A look at how Uber is expanding in India, Colombia and Singapore indicates how Uber will take over the world. Bottom line: it works to understand the unique needs and cultures of each market and sets itself up accordingly. (BuzzFeed)
- New York and Chicago are about to experience Uber's food delivery service, UberEats. Are you ready to pay $20 for a sandwich? If you live in those cities, the price probably isn't all that far off. (The Verge)
- With the quiet launch of its massive delivery service UberRush, retailers like Louis Vitton, Nieman Marcus, Tiffany's and others are helping to put Uber on par with Amazon, even if only for luxury products just now. If this expands, Uber may very well take over the world. (TechCrunch)
- A leaked report from Lyft indicates a costly marketing battle against Uber. But it also shows how Lyft is differentiating itself, as Uber is defined as having a "top-down model" with an "exclusive mentality" and "an anti-social culture," while Lyft's growth is from drivers (32% of whom are women) and the brand is trusted with a social experience. Them's fightin' words. (Bloomberg)
- Five Takeaways from Jeremiah Owyang at the CDO Summit in New York:
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- Common digital technologies empower people to get what they need from each other.
- The crowd is becoming like a company - bypassing inefficient corporations.
- Like the internet and social, corporations must use these same digital strategies to regain relevancy.
- This requires business model change: product > service > marketplace > repeat.
- Continue to be digitally resilient: connected, empowering others, build to last, and profitable.
Content
- While certain aspects of B2B and B2C marketing are similar, there are nuances in how content strategies are developed for each. This is largely because of B2C marketing being more brand and product-driven and B2B focusing largely on lead generation. But that doesn't mean your B2B efforts need to be devoid of humanity. (Forbes)
- Give people good content and they'll pay for it. Digital content and apps are acting as a revenue engine. (BI Intelligence)
- The CEO of Vox agrees: quality will trump clickbait. (WSJ)
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Audio
- Podcasts now have their own upfronts, with NPR, WBEZ and WNYC getting in on the action. This is part of the continuing renaissance for on-demand audio and will certainly give the industry more credence. (WSJ)
- Previously only open to a test audience, SoundCloud is making its podcasting features available to everyone. )
Metrics / Measurement / Data
- You know video is growing. And you know data are important. Some of the video metrics you should be watching go beyond just view count. Think audience, play rate, engagement, action completes and more. (HBR)
- When you're trying to determine what content to boost with paid media, how do you effectively combine science and art? Gini Dietrich takes you through it, step by step. (Spin Sucks)
- Data can only tell you so much. But then again, the same can be said for experience. How to tell when its safe to rely on intuition and when it's not. (HBR)
- When you deal with data and analytics, you might think the subject seems dry to other people. But by using storytelling strategies, you're more likely to get your point across. (AMA Elevate)
Privacy / Security / Legal
- If you're hosting (or attending) a conference, you should be aware of the legalities of photography at an event and plan accordingly. ({grow})
When You Have the Time: Essential Watching / Listening / Reading
- What can save society from its increased distracted reading problem? More reading. (Medium)
- And if you're concerned about distractions, here's a simple fix, borne out by research: make commitments rather than relying on your willpower. (Washington Post)
- If you'd like to get started on innovation, here are 50 questions to spark strategic innovation discussions. (Greg Verdino)
- Whether you're innovating a product or innovating how you go to market, there are eight essentials of innovation to be aware of. (McKinsey)
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This post appeared first on scottmonty.com
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