Mediaboss Marketing

Ive just finished reading all 355 slides in Mary Meekers 2017 Internet Trends Report. Meeker is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and her annual PowerPoint presentations are legendary. In 2015, I shared 12 slides that every video marketer should read right now. And in 2016, I shared 12 brand new slides every video marketer should read right now. But, this year, I couldnt find 12 slides that video marketers need to read anytime soon.

However, there were still a couple of nuggets of news buried in her presentation at the Code Conference in California that are worth knowing about. For example, Meeker predicted that internet ad spending will surpass spending on TV within the next six months. That seems like a major milestone.

The plethora of PowerPoints also included the news that online advertising revenue in the US grew 22% in 2016, with much of the growth coming from mobile, which now generates more ad revenue than desktop. That seems like critical data.

Google and Facebook accounted for an astonishing 85% of all the digital advertising growth seen in the US in 2016, with Facebooks revenues leaping 62% year-on-year while Google saw year-on-year revenue growth of 20%. Yep, thats one of the trends in the digital video marketing business.

Looking at the challenges faced by social media advertisers, Meeker reported that measuring ROI (61%) is their top concern, although other problems include securing budget and resources (38%) and tying social campaigns to business goals (34%).

She also reported that global smartphone growth is slowing. The number of smartphone shipments increased by 3% in 2016, but this was down from 10% growth in 2015.

Other takeaways from the report included the observation that American adults now spend 5.6 hours a day using digital media, including 3.1 hours via mobile devices and 2.2 hours on desktop and laptop.Meeker also highlighted the rising global use of ad blocking software, especially in developing markets. India, for example, has a mobile ad blocking penetration rate of 28%, while in China it is 13%.

However, e-commerce, voice recognition, gaming and mobile entertainment are all on the rise, and Meeker noted that there are now 2.6bn gamers around the world compared to just 100m in 1995.

Another trend that she identified is the rise of extremely powerful US and Chinese internet companies, which may worry competition regulators, but not Meeker, who told the Financial Times in an interview that these firms are likely to step up their competition with each other.

People dont spend enough time looking at how intense the competition is, she said. The bet here is we cant stop progress. Are we better off or worse off? So far, the data implies we are better off.

Thats it. Thats all I could glean from 355 slides. Of course, you may want to wade into Meekers 2017 Internet Trends Report and see if there are a few more news nuggets that Ive missed. I only found nine. But thats still a few nuggets short of a dozen. So, maybe its just an off year.

Want to chime in on this article? Share your thoughts with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Link:
Video Marketing Nuggets in Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends Report - Tubular Insights

If I told you servicing your smaller clients is different from managing your enterprise ones, Id probably win the understatement of the year award. These smaller companies likely have fewer employees, fewer customers, and fewer dollars to allocate to their marketing budgets.

So its important that you take advantage of strategies that will get them the most bang for their buckand one of these is hyperlocal social media marketing.

Why Go Local?

Consumers are paying more and more attention to how brands interact with them. Theyre fed up with generic messaging that doesnt connect with them on a personal level, so theyre relying more on local recommendations to find brands that meet their specific needs.

In fact, 88% of customers trust local reviews as much as they do in-person recommendations, and with 95% of 18- to 34-year-olds likely to follow a brand on social media, what better avenue to reach a local audience.

Hyperlocal social media marketing gives your clients the opportunity to reach highly relevant audiences in a way that fosters trust and affinity. Its different from other forms of online marketing because it positions the company as a local expert in its industrywhich is appealing to consumers who are tired of batting away irrelevant, insincere marketing messages.

Of course, you can implement this highly valuable strategy for both your small and your large clients, but you will have to take a different approach for each.

Implementing Hyperlocal on a Large Scale

When it comes to implementing a hyperlocal social media strategy for your larger clients, you face the steep challenge of not only appealing to their local audiences, but also maintaining their global brand voice. Finding a balance can be difficult.

In that vein, its important to first establish a specific set of social media guidelines to prevent off-brand interactions. These guidelines specify etiquette, brand voice, etc. And because larger clients are more likely to have the budget and a larger audience, their social media marketing efforts often require more manpower from your agency. These efforts mean there are a lot of moving parts, but when done well, big businesses can see great results.

For example, when Walmart promotes the grand openings of new stores, each store is marketed differently to appeal to individual regions based on reach into each communitys values tofind ways for the store to fit right inwithout compromising Walmarts global voice.

Dont Discount Smaller Clients

Smaller clients likely dont have the same kind of money to invest as your larger ones, but that doesnt mean you cant implement an effective hyperlocal social media strategy. In fact, their smaller size often allows you to forge deeper, more personal connections with itstarget consumers, who are much more likely to engage with their social pages.

After all, local companies are typically more relevant to consumers daily lives, so consumers are more likely to engage with social media posts from, say, a local coffee shop than a global coffee brand. Its why Facebook users engage with local business pages three to four times more than with global pages and why local pages grow twice as fast as their global counterparts.

By implementing a hyperlocal social media strategy, youll position your smaller clients as key members of their communities. Heres how:

1.Target nano-markets Thanks to hyperlocal search and social media, its easier than ever to find consumers who are truly passionate about companies through these niche markets. Even better, most of the tools to do this are free or inexpensive, so youll be able to implement this strategy without breaking your clients bank.

2. Keep customers top of mind Consumers can sniff out insincere marketing efforts from a mile awayits why so many struggle to trust large brands. Make sure you deploy hyperlocal social media messages that position clients products in ways that showcase value and authenticity. Empathy and personalization go a long way, and your smaller clients proximity to their customers puts them at a great advantage.

3.Address feedback promptly Communication is key when it comes to hyperlocal marketing. Work with your smaller clients to actively respond to any negative reviews or feedback. Coach them on how to address the complaint and resolve the issue. Sometimes, acknowledgment is the best way to build loyalty.

Hyperlocal social media marketing is a unique strategy that rings more authentic than traditional push marketing campaigns, and its effective for clients both large and small. So get out there and establish community connections, and say hello to lifelong loyalty.

Sarah Clark is the president of public relations firm Mitchell, part of the Dentsu Aegis Network.

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How to Implement a Hyperlocal Social Media Strategy - Chief Marketer

Andy Rain/EPA/NewscomYou'd think Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself was the driver of the van that plowed into pedestrians on London Bridge Saturday, the way U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is talking about the attack. He isn't, but everybody across the world, not just in the United Kingdom, needs to pay close attention to how May wants to respond to the assault.

May believes the problem is you and your silly insistence that you be permitted to speak your mind and to look at whatever you want on the internet. And she means to stop you. And her attitude toward government control of internet speech is shared by President Donald Trump (and Hillary Clinton), so what she's trying to sell isn't isolated to her own citizenry.

In a speech in the wake of this weekend's attack, May called flat-out for government authority to censor and control what people can see and access on the internet:

We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breedyet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide. We need to work with allied democratic governments to reach international agreements to regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning.

Note that May appears to be trying to narrowly pitch a regulatory regime that focuses entirely on censoring speech by terrorists. One might argue that even America's First Amendment would not protect such speech, since such communications involve planning violence against others.

But May and the Tories really want to propose much broader censorship of the internet, and they know it. May is using fear of terrorism to sell government control over private online speech. The Tories' manifesto for the upcoming election makes it pretty clear they're looking to control communication on the internet in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with fighting terrorism. BuzzFeed took note:

The proposalsdotted around the manifesto documentare varied. There are many measures designed to make it easier to do business online but it's a different, more social conservative approach when it comes to social networks.

Legislation would be introduced to protect the public from abuse and offensive material online, while everyone would have the right to wipe material that was posted when they were under 18. Internet companies would also be asked to help promote counter-extremism narrativespotentially echoing the government's Prevent programme. There would be new rules requiring companies to make it ever harder for people to access pornography and violent images, with all content creators forced to justify their policies to the government.

The manifesto doesn't seem to acknowledge a difference between speech and activity, Buzzfeed adds:

"It should be as unacceptable to bully online as it is in the playground, as difficult to groom a young child on the internet as it is in a community, as hard for children to access violent and degrading pornography online as it is in the high street, and as difficult to commit a crime digitally as it is physically."

New laws will be introduced to implement these rules, forcing internet companies such as Facebook to abide by the rulings of a regulator or face sanctions: "We will introduce a sanctions regime to ensure compliance, giving regulators the ability to fine or prosecute those companies that fail in their legal duties, and to order the removal of content where it clearly breaches UK law."

The United Kingdom already has some very heavy content-based censorship of pornography that presumes to police what sorts of sexual fantasies are acceptable among its populace. Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown has written repeatedly about the British government's nannying tendencies in trying suppress pornography.

In a manner similar to this censorship push, May and the British government sold the Investigatory Powers Actalso known as the Snooper's Charterto the public as a mechanism to fight terrorism. But the massive legislation, now in place as law, actually demands that internet companies store users' online data to investigate all sorts of activities that have nothing to do with terrorism at all.

The European Union is also hammering out regulations that would require social media companies to censor their services. But the E.U. plan is currently much more limited than what the ruling party in the U.K. is demanding. The European Union wants to force companies only to delete videos that contain hate speech or incitements to violence.

So be warned: This isn't even a slippery-slope risk that a government that claims the authority to censor terrorist communications might broaden that scope to other areas. May and her government already want those broader powers. They're just using the fear of terrorism to sell the idea.

Link:
Theresa May's Call for Internet Censorship Isn't Limited to Fighting Terrorism - Reason (blog)

At the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, anti-racist protests spilled over once again into threats of violence. Every year at Evergreen, minority students play virtue-signal hooky to highlight racial inequities. They call it the Day of Absence. When this years Day of Absence turned into the Day-That-Evergreen-Students-Demand-That-All-Whites-Leave-Campus, Professor Bret Weinstein disobeyedshades of Thoreau!and calmly explained the difference between Evergreens past clarion calls to anti-racist righteousness and this years diktat to discrimination: The first is a forceful call to consciousness which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.

Heres the rub: Weinstein has deluded himself if he thinks the Day of Absence was ever about crippling oppression. Todays student demands are about power exercised through threatened and actualized violence.

Its everything to do with Evergreen students fascistic beliefs and threatsso severe that the Olympia chief of police told Professor Weinstein it was unsafe for him to go to the colleges campusand nothing to do with equality or equity.

You might be wondering where the Mayor of Olympia is in all this, or why the damn police arent getting in gear. Because left-leaning professional politicians, increasingly isolated on the coasts, choose to abstain from the free speech fracas unless theyre dragged in. The party being banded to a coastal sliver means theyre hardened by the demands of a homogeneous progressivist base.

A little south of the Evergreen fray, in Oregon, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he would not issue any permits for alt-right events scheduled to take place in the weeks following the Portland stabbing carried out by Joseph Christian.

To support his position, Wheeler used the same canard about there being a hate speech exception to the First Amendment that Howard Dean peddled in justifying Ann Coulter being barred from Berkeley. Lets call it the Wheeler-Dean Theory of the First Amendment. Heres the proposition: A) Right-wing political positions are hateful and disfavored by progressives; B) that which is hateful is not protected by the Constitution; therefore, C) the spoken political positions of the Right are unconstitutional.

Howard Dean, completely ignorant of the history he thinks supports his position, is fond of citing the WWII-era case Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the source of the fighting words doctrine (which doesnt apply to hate speech).

Deans discursus conveniently omitted how vile the Chaplinsky case really was. Chaplinsky was a Jehovahs Witness being accosted by a town mob. He was arrested for opposing the war and calling a police officerbrace yourselfa damn fascist.

Citing Chaplinsky proves nothing other than that Mayor Wheeler and Howard Dean both unthinkingly draw from the well of authoritarianism. Its a bad case.

Inconvenient truths like the true story of Chaplinsky are obscured by a supine media who obsess over the apparition of white-race-hatred. Notice that white supremacy is the catch-all term used to justify the most outrageous behaviors, including Evergreen College students using physical intimidation to confine administrators. The willingness of Evergreen College president George Bridges to give in to their every babyish demand doesnt help much either.

The concern for white supremacist activity overwhelming society is, of course, absurd. Joseph Christian, for instance, is more crazed hobo than calculating hater; he was swigging from a bladder of purple-drank sangria before he attacked, he hadnt had a permanent address in years, he once robbed a convenience store because the guy there d[id]nt sell any winning lottery tickets.

Calling Christian a white supremacist is a misdirect, a red herring, a tactic used to raise the stakes so that restrictions applying to only one side of the political spectrum can be justified.

Will more violence come in our cultural Cold Civil War? If it does, it wont be frivolous. It also wont be the doing of the criminally insane like Joseph Christian. If violence comes, it will be a return to the insecurity of the 1970s, when 1,470 terror attacks resulted in the deaths of 184 people. It will be terror and political violence.

The sum-total of terrors tollmortality, fearwill rattle us. And if there is a John Brown moment, a Wall Street Bombing moment, or anything of the kind, the Cold Civil War is going to heat right up. The bloodshed will come on the heels of censorship. The Battle of Berkeley is so much evidence.

Free speech is, as Dr. Jordan Peterson puts it, the mechanism by which we keep our society functioning. The apparatus to which Peterson refers is a safety release valve, a kill switch on combat.

People need to feel like they have an outlet; they need to know they can jettison the frustration (and even the poison) that accumulates in their mind. But today, the institutions of civil societywhats left of it, anywayhave formed an anti-speech coalition: students against speech, politicians against speech, intellectuals against speech, journalists against speech, and on and on.

Youll remember that The Washington Post assumed a new taglineDemocracy Dies in Darknesswhich like most contemporary clichs is not true at all and means nothing. As a matter of fact, democracy dies in the blazing solar heat of the public forum, where the wrong ideas swelter in the hot box, awaiting a heatstroke-induced death, while the emboldened authoritarians of the left wait in the cool shade.

This will cause incalculable damage. And lots more violence.

Here is the original post:
Evergreen, Portland, And The Censorship-Violence Nexus - The Daily Caller

Evanston Now

Viewpoint: Censorship at the library Evanston Now On Friday June 2, the Evanston Public Library held a hearing that may lead to the firing of librarian Lesley Williams this week. Her alleged crime? Posting a message on her personal Facebook page criticizing the library's efforts at racial equity. This ... and more »

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Viewpoint: Censorship at the library - Evanston Now