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We are a society tearing through the digital landscape, and theres no hint of us slowing down anytime soon. New stars are born every day in the digital world. Some stay burning bright, while others quickly burnout.

Take for example, the Pokmon Go craze that took the world by storm in 2016. The augmented reality game exploded onto the global app scene early last summer. And while a series of technical and safety-related missteps led to its slowdown, it quickly clued marketers into the possibility of augmented reality.

Related: 5 Content Ideas for Making Money With Facebook Live

On the flipside, mobile app Snapchat has held strong in the social media realm since its release in 2012. This social media starlet has clued marketers into the power of expiring content, so much so that it was offered (and rejected) a $3 billion buy-out from Facebook.

But, what the rise and fall of these digital stars tell us is that new technologies are rapidly evolving, right alongside the wants and needs of consumers. And in order for your business to keep growing in the digital marketplace, youve got to develop a marketing strategy that keeps up with the technology. Here, we take a look at five of the biggest digital marketing trends for 2017 to help you get started.

In todays world of information overload, users are increasingly becoming all about the visuals. People need clear, concise dissemination of information, and visuals do just that. The brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percentof the information transmitted to the brain is visual. Ergo, visuals speed up comprehension and retention. Whats more, the right visuals have the ability to enhance emotions and feelings. Enter: the importance of visuals to establish your brands identity in the digital marketplace. Effective logos, infographics, photographs, animationsand website design are all laying new foundations for enhancing brand identity, and they arent likely to disappear anytime soon.

This visual infographic by NatGeo allows users to make sense of Manhattans quickly changing skyline in a matter of seconds.

Related: The Modern Marketing Strategy Every Business Should Start Using Today

The desire for connection and engagement is whats driving the current demand for visual content. But, this same desire for engagement is now leading marketers to discover a new, monumental need for interactive content. Interactive content requires active participation by the user. In effect, these new forms of content -- quizzes and polls, contests, voting, calculators, assessmentsand animated infographics -- are adding a whole new layer of depth to the total user experience. But, more importantly, they are inviting the user in, to be a part of the brand. They are enhancing connectivity and effectively turning one-time visitors into brand loyalists. This growing trend is likely to lead the pack for marketing strategies in 2017.

This BuzzFeed quiz is just one of the many quizzes utilized by the site to increase traffic and enhance user interactivity.

Related: 5 Ways to Get Your ROI With Your Company's Social Media

As of 2015, online videos accounted for 50 percent of all mobile usage, and video content is still very much on the rise. Another form of visual content, videos have the power to connect with consumers and deliver a truckload of information, feelings, thoughts, and responses all within a matter of seconds.

But, in order to heighten the emotions and excitement for users, brands are now "going live." This means that businesses are able to promote their content ahead of time and then interact in real-time with their consumers. This live element is adding a humanistic component to brands, helping to increase feelings of trust and honesty amongst consumers.

Take, for example, womens magazine Grazia UK. Last summer, the magazine was working on launching a major week-long collaborative project, deemed the community issue. Throughout the project, the magazine livestreamed multiple behind-the-scenes events -- including a live debate amongcontributors -- making users feel like they were really a part of the whole process.Users were invited to submit and contribute to the debate, using a specific hashtag on Facebook. The live event was extremely successful, as it brought the magazine and its community of women to life.

Related: 8 Rookie Marketing Mistakes I Made But You Don't Have To

I alluded to the influence of social platform Snapchat earlier on, but lets delve a bit deeper into the effects of expiring content for marketers and consumers. Much like the live video element, expiring content is helping to increase excitement for consumers.With expiring content, users are given a limited window of time to view content before it quickly disappears into oblivion, never to be seen or heard from again. In effect, this creates a massive sense of urgency among consumers. And in a world where interconnectivity takes the cake, the thought of not knowing whats going on is, well, utterly disturbing. Expiring content helps pique user interest, while also working to keep their eyes glued to the screen in anticipation of whats to come.

Related: 4 Ways Small Businesses Can Master Marketing

This whole theme of bringing brands to life runs strong into our final digital marketing trend. Retail brands are now finding ways to interact with their customers, live and in-store -- seamlessly blending physical marketing elements of the past with modern digital elements of the present.

Beacon technology is at the forefront of this new marketing strategy. The installation of more than one million beacons is forecasted for U.S. retailers this year. Basically, beacons are physical landmarks that can send signals to mobile devices. These signals are now allowing shoppers to scan in-store products to read reviews and check to see whats in stock. Likewise, retailers are able to use beacons to send push-notifications to shoppers, allowing them to see what special deals are being offered on items throughout the store. Target is just one of many major retailers now tapping into this technology to drive its digital marketing campaign.

The in-store marketing trend is one of many that are now finding ways to blend the physical world with the digital world, all in an effort to enhance user interactivity. Now the dominant mode of connection in the digital world, user interactivity should now be at the core of your business marketing strategy.

Ultimately, its up to you to utilize technology to establish connections with your consumers. And these five digital marketing trends are a great jumping off point.

Karina Welch is marketing manager at Blue Fountain Media.

Originally posted here:
5 Digital Marketing Trends Your Business Needs to Try - Entrepreneur

"The band will regain control of its social media channels".

Arcade Fire have apologised for the social media campaign accompanying the release of their new album Everything Now, which has seen the band use Twitter to promote dress codes at their shows and post a series of fake news stories.

Last month, the band attracted criticism for creating a dress code for fans attending their Webster Hall show in New York, before they were forced to clarify that attendees were allowed to wear whatever they want.

They have also released a series of fake news stories on their Fact Company site, with one focusing on a fictional writer who goes behind the scenes of their marketing campaign and discovers that the band were considering selling removable jihadi beards.

The campaign has also seen Arcade Fire stage an elaborate hoax on their merchandise page, where they claimed to be selling an $109 fidget spinner that contains a digital download of their new album.

Now, theyve released an equally bizarre statement to apologise for the campaign, claiming that it was the idea of Tannis Wright, a fictional promoter working for the Everything Now Corp, an equally fictional company that the band claim to be controlled by.

In the statement, the band said: In recent weeks, it has come to light that Tannis crossed the line from marketing into outright fiction on more than one occasion, and has even offended some readers, fans, and websites. He wasnt being truthful with the band or our fans at all times.

They have also confirmed that the band will regain control of its own social channels, marketing and publicity. You can read the full statement below.

Meanwhile, Arcade Fire will return to the UK next year for a tour that sees them taking in three dates at The SSE Arena, Wembley.

Read the rest here:
Arcade Fire apologise for controversial 'Everything Now' social media campaign - NME.com

Ah, those sociable humans, they're always up to something online texting, tweeting, messaging, Googling.

HubSpot (HUBS) Chief Executive Brian Halligan says he's staying on top of all that, and making it work to his company's advantage.

XAutoplay: On | Off"We are really watching the way the marketplace and humans are changing, and building products to match that," Halligan said on a recent company earnings call.

HubSpot is an 11-year-old maker of sales and marketing software based in Cambridge, Mass., and it sells to small- and midsize businesses. Itsown pitch is that potential customers aka those sociable humans find businesses through digital channels like blogs, internet search engines and social media. HubSpot's expertise lies in attracting people to websites and optimizing content so that visitors are converted into paying customers.

Its mantra: Help customers create more personalized interactions with their prospective buyers to close the deal.The strategy has helped HubSpot see its revenue shoot up 38% to $171 million in the first six months of 2017.Shares are up 52% this year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect 2018 revenue growth to slow to 25% from 34% this year. HubSpot could beat those earnings estimates if new initiatives gain traction, says Derrick Wood, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

"Their rate of growth has come down. Marketing tech in general is a tough market to scale. It's fragmented with lots of small vendors. So to come out as a single winner and take a lot of market share has been challenging,"said Wood, who has a neutral rating on the stock.

Further, HubSpot's main challenge is maintaining a sales growth rate that will support its valuation.

HubSpot has evolved into a multi-product company adding sales automation and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Many of HubSpot's customers have 10 to 50 employees, with some in the low hundreds. Analysts say HubSpot targets firms with up to 2,000 employees.

The company has focused on the midmarket as opposed to competing head-on for large corporate accounts vs. the likes of Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce.com (CRM), SAP and Adobe Systems (ADBE). That way HubSpot has avoided the cost of investing in its own sales staff to chase down and close deals, says Wood.

"What's different about these guys is the focus on midmarket. They have to keep the new-customer growth engine going. They're looking at new ways to acquire customers," said Wood. "Also going into new markets, like they're doing with sales force automation and CRM, is going to drive growth. But I don't think you'll see them go upmarket into (larger) enterprise (firms)."

HubSpot's customers mostly engage in business-to-business marketing. They buy online subscriptions to software that ranges from $2,500 to $30,000 annually. The average marketing customer spends about $13,000 a year.

HubSpot also has laid claim to what it calls "Inbound Marketing." Halligan and co-founder Dharmesh Shah wrote a book on using Google, social media and search-friendly blogs to attract customers via the internet.HubSpot sells tools that track the online activity of website visitors and personalize content as their interests are identified.

Halligan says people are spending less time texting, emailing back-and-forth, or searching on Google. Instead, Halligan says, they're using messaging platforms more, including Slack, in the workplace.

And, humans consume tons of video. So HubSpot helps its customers evaluate video platforms such as Facebook (FB) Live for marketing purposes.

"If you look how people spend their day, they're spending an awful lot of time on social media," Halligan said on the earnings call. "There are big shifts going on, and HubSpot's going to be there to help our customers through it."

HubSpot has used Twitter (TWTR), Facebook and Instagram to build its own follower base. In late September, HubSpot will host its annual "Inbound" user conference to rally the troops.

Still, there's more to HubSpot's marketing than social media engagement.HubSpot has built up sales channels, such as website design and marketing agencies, that point people toward its products. About 40% of revenue comes from customer-referral channels, says Wood.

HubSpot aims to borrow some techniques from Intuit (INTU) and Autodesk (ADSK), which have successfully targeted accountants and architects, as partners. HubSpot aims to partner with sales agencies.HubSpot also works with industry players. HubSpot has growing ties to Microsoft's (MSFT) LinkedIn and its sales tools.

IBD'S TAKE: HubSpot has formed a cup-with-handle chart pattern with a buy point of 76.20. The stock is hovering near its 50-day moving average. Alarm.com, Realpage, and Appfolio have the highestComposite Rating, aCAN SLIM investing metric, of companies in IBD's Computer Software-Specialty Enterprise group.

The company also provides help in integrating its software with Salesforce.com's biggerplatform. And, HubSpot's tools work with e-commerce payment platforms such as Shopify (SHOP).

HubSpot recently rolled out a $50 monthly marketing starter package. New visitors to its website are greeted with offers for free versions of HubSpot products. After using free versions for a while, or "freemiums," the company figures users will upgrade to paid products.

"If you roll the clock forward two, three, four years, that's just the way I think humans are going to buy products because they're going to want to try it and use it (first)," said Halligan on the earnings call. "This freemium thing is going to be here to stay."

Indeed, HubSpot has added two new board members one from software firm Atlassian (TEAM) and one from data storage provider Drop both of which use freemium business models.

HubSpot has more than 34,300 customers, up 40% from a year ago, with roughly 27,000 of them buying marketing tools. Average revenue per customer has been falling, however, due to the lower-priced offers.

Nate Cunningham, a Guggenheim Securities analyst, says HubSpot has a "greenfield" opportunity to target small companies that never bought marketing software. He says HubSpot needs to improve operating margins as it adds customers in new ways.

"The No. 1 determinant of HubSpot's growth is probably not competitive displacement, to gain share vs. Salesforce or IBM," said Cunningham. "It's more about how can they get people to try their product who never have had a marketing product before. I think greenfield is where the bulk of the opportunity is."

HubSpot had over 5,000 "Growth Stack" customers as of June 30, up from 3,000 at the start of the year. These high-spending customers buy more sales, CRM and marketing software tools. And, they're more likely to renew subscriptions annually as opposed to leaving.

Bhavan Suri, analyst at William Blair, says HubSpot is on the right track.

"We believe HubSpot's customer growth is a good indication of the health of the business," he said in a note to clients, "and provides significant up-sell and cross-sell opportunities longer term, which we believe could ultimately lead to an acceleration of the business as soon as next year."

Shares of HubSpot have been in decline while forming a deep handle, but were up 2.2% at Friday's close to 67.35.

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HubSpot: A Marketing Software Firm That Uses The Human Touch - Investor's Business Daily

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

The Price of Censorship for China's Internet Giants Wall Street Journal (subscription) By blocking foreign competition, China's censorship regime has groomed the country's internet companies into some of the world's biggest companies. Now Big Brother is turning against the behemoths. The country's largest social-media platforms ... China's censorship crackdown targets WeChat, Weibo, and BaiduTNW China Steps Up Censorship of Social Media SitesTheStreet.com China probes Tencent, Baidu and Sina over subversive contentFinancial Times Fortune -BBC News all 87 news articles »

Read more here:
The Price of Censorship for China's Internet Giants - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Farmers are on the front lines of climate change. The people who grow the food we eat deserve clear, candid scientific advice on coping with global warming and the growing threat drought and extreme weather pose to American agriculture.

But such honest counsel, it turns out, wont come from the Trump administration. A recently revealed series of emails shows that U.S. Department of Agriculture experts who help farmers deal with manmade warming were told after President Trump took office to stop using terms like climate change and reduce greenhouse gases.

This alarming act of scientific censorship might have stayed a bureaucratic secret but for one thing: Americas powerful public records law, which has become a truly vital tool in revealing the grim details of Trumps war on climate science and the environment.

My organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain these remarkable emails sent to staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a component of the USDA that provides land-conservation assistance to farmers.

The USDA emails have ignited a firestorm of controversy because they reveal the Trump administrations stark impact on language used by agency staff. NRCS leadership instructed employees to describe their work without any reference to climate change, instead describing weather extremes and eliminating any reference to human causes.

But obtaining those incriminating communications which are clearly public records was no easy task.

As an attorney specializing in public records law, I am profoundly grateful for the Freedom of Information Act, a landmark law that provides Americans with the right to know what their government is up to.

Yet in just the first six months of Trumps presidency, Ive been flabbergasted by his administrations dogged determination to avoid complying with this critically important law.

After the center submitted its FOIA request to the USDA in early April, the agency blocked the release of records under an exemption so abused by the government that some have labeled it the withhold it because you want to exemption.

The center was forced to appeal the NRCSs withholdings of information. We pointed out that officials failed to conduct an adequate search for responsive records and improperly redacted information.

As a result of the centers appeal the NRCS finally released 65 pages of records without redaction.

In other public records cases, weve actually had to sue. Indeed, weve filed 10 lawsuits to force the Trump administration to comply with its legal duty to make public records available to the public.

For example, the center sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to provide public records of closed-door meetings between the agency, states and industry groups regarding Trumps weakened wetlands regulations under the Clean Water Act. Those changes could potentially eliminate protections for millions of acres of wetlands, which are critical to water purification and provide habitat for hundreds of endangered species.

Weve also had to sue the EPA, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and Department of State for failing to provide records addressing the censorship of words or phrases related to climate change in formal agency communications, violating deadlines established under the law.

We dont yet have the full picture of Trumps scientific censorship, since were still waiting for many federal agencies to release public records.

Yet one thing seems clear: The administrations opposition to transparency is closely connected to its desire to censor climate scientists and other federal experts. An administration that favors alternative facts over the truth is naturally determined to operate under the cover of darkness.

Thankfully, we have an open records law that can reveal disturbing realities like the fact that the climate-deniers now running our federal government are so determined to ignore science that theyll avoid telling farmers about climate changes increasingly potent threats to our food supply.

Thats not a pleasant thing to know, but its critical for Americans to have the full facts about the Trump administrations alarming attacks on truth.

Meg Townsend is an open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit advocacy organization focused on protecting at-risk species and protecting thelands, waters and climatethose species need to survive.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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How to fight Trump's climate science censorship - The Hill (blog)