Mediaboss Marketing

Here is a round-up of coronavirus-related articles from across Indian publications. From preparing for community transmission after lockdown, to relief for homeless migrants, and how to wear and remove a mask properly read these and more in todays India dispatch.

Expert Speak

A mental health crisis is brewing: How ready are we as a populace or as individuals for the post-Covid-19 world? What is happening to us right now as we sit at home and engage with our families? Are issues we should have been grappling with or are grappling with perhaps have an impact as we emerge back into the real world? Read this interview on the impact of the lockdown on mental health, with Shekhar Saxena, professor of Practice of Global Mental Health at Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, Amit Malik, who has spent 13 years in the National Health Services, and Neha Kripal, co-founder of Innerhour, a digital mental health platform.

Opinion

Covid-19 is teaching us that force of nature is bigger than combined force of science and technology: According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the recession triggered by the Great Lockdown will be more intense and more extensive than the Great Recession in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC). But that is not the only factor that separates the corona financial crisis (CFC) from the GFC. There are other critical differences between the two crises, and it is important to recognise them for they have implications for the nature and effectiveness of the solutions. Read here.

The pandemic and the challenge of behaviour change: Containing Covid-19 and restoring our economies require not just good policy decisions and medical advice, but also continued compliance with the recommended behavioural changes that in many ways go against social and cultural conventions. The science of social marketing use is known as marketing principles and behaviour change theory to influence peoples behaviour for the benefit of both the target audience and of society. Public health, safety and environmental concerns are some of the areas where social marketing can have a huge impact. Read more here.

Citizens Under Lockdown

They walk 30 km. Wait four days for a train. No ones told them theyre at the wrong station: Millions of working-class Indians have been stranded far away from home, mostly without wages and food, for nearly two months.

Many have walked over 1,000 km to get back to their villages. Over 120 have died in accidents on the way. Read more here.

ALSO READ: Coronavirus: BMC planning to use Wankhede Stadium as quarantine centre

How to ensure all homeless Indians get lockdown relief? With no money and no documents to help them access relief measures related to food, health, water, sanitation, shelter and livelihood, the homeless have become the most vulnerable to the immediate impact and aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, an analysis shows. Read more here.

Managing Covid-19

Koyambedu India's coronavirus cluster at a vegetable market: Koyambedu market in Chennai was temporarily closed because several vendors and labourers at the market tested positive for coronavirus, and it was linked to a spate of cases in Chennai and surrounding areas. Asia's largest fruit and vegetable market, trading in millions of tonnes of fresh produce daily, is quickly becoming a cause for concern. Read more here.

India must prepare for community transmission of Covid-19 after lockdown: When the lockdown opens, there will be much greater mobility of people, there could be more widespread transmission of the virus, so we have to maintain as much physical distancing as possible, continue practices like wearing masks and hand-washing as precautionary measures. Things are going to be difficult in overcrowded areas, especially slums, according to Public Health Foundation President K Srinath Reddy. Read here.

ALSO READ: Trump gift of ventilators welcome, India needs each machine coming its way

If flights resume, study estimates outbreak risk: Air travel is currently on hold to check the spread of Covid-19, but a new study of 1,364 airports worldwide has found that if flights resume, cases could spread unevenly across the globe, with many of the airports in India and China posing the highest risk of the spread. Read more here.

Why Bihars door-to-door screening could be underreporting Covid-19 cases: The Bihar governments door-to-door screening campaign for Covid-19 is marred by poor adherence to guidelines about data collection. Health workers conducting the screening are skipping entire households and conducting incomplete, perfunctory interviews. Read more here.

Understanding Covid-19

How to wear and remove a mask properly: Cloth masks reduce the number of droplets that are spread into the environment when people breathe, cough or sneeze. Medical masks protect the wearer from these droplets. Its important to wear and remove a mask properly. Read more here.

India overtakes China with 85,000 confirmed cases: How did we reach here? With 85,940 Covid-19 cases on Saturday, 16 May, India has now exceeded China, which has 84,038 cases. While India has surpassed China in the total number of cases, China is still way ahead in number of deaths. China has a case fatality rate (CFR) of 5.5 per cent, against India's 3.2 per cent. Read more here.

Follow this link:
India coronavirus dispatch: Pandemic and the challenge of behaviour change - Business Standard

The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a grip on all activity across the globe. We live in unprecedented times and people are going through extreme restrictions and difficulties not seen in multiple generations.

Economic activity too has come to an almost halt in most sectors, other than those deemed essential for public good or critical for fighting this pandemic. In this scenario, students are particularly hit hard. Apart from disruption to class schedules, ongoing commitments towards internships have also suffered as either companies have suspended work altogether or movement restrictions do not allow execution of work.

It is said that adversity brings out the best in people, and this is true for our students who have applied ingenuity to ensure continuity. Internships have now moved into virtual mode wherein students complete their stints working from their location using information, data, calls, internet research, and online faculty reviews. Their work is facilitated by many trends that have been taking shape over the last few years, including: widespread broadband availability, low internet data tariffs, proliferation of industry and market generated data, faster processing speeds of hardware, and a growing comfort amongst industry and professionals for online modes of communication.

Key focus areas

Since the current pandemic is also a great learning and adaptation opportunity, many of the assignments are unsurprisingly about how to cope with and even seek silver linings in this crisis. The projects across functional areas like Finance, Marketing, HR, Economics & Policy, Operations, IT, and Strategy cover interesting topics such as:

Examining the paradigm shift in the buying behaviour of personal hygiene products during Covid 19 pandemic

Working of credit rating agencies and the effect of Covid-19

The impact of Covid-19 on Indian Restaurant Business

Use of Digital Platforms by Organisations for Social Marketing during Covid-19

A comparative study of Healthcare and Economic Policy Response by Countries to Covid-19 Pandemic: A search for Best Practices

Reviving business operations and uplifting them through various marketing campaigns and initiatives after the Covid-19 impact.

Forecasting the spread of Covid 19 using machine learning algorithms

Effect of culture on leadership styles of select world leaders during the 1st quarter of Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

Potential gains

In undertaking such assignments, the students are not only sustaining and fulfilling their requirements but are also contributing to a better understanding of the effects of this pandemic. The impact of such initiatives may not be fully understood now but will be fully realised once industry and commerce begin to slowly come back on stream. Another benefit comes from the fact that no crisis should ever be wasted, since it always offers learning opportunities. Such studies by academia will help us to prepare better for any such future events and understand implications more clearly beforehand.

On its part, Fore School of Management, New Delhi is encouraging students to pick up topics around the Covid-19 pandemic so that both our understanding of its impact and mitigation strategies is improved. The B-School has also developed guidelines for rewarding students who come up with publishable quality Virtual SIP work. These students will receive a cash prize of INR 5,000 and a citation. Around 25 such awards are planned in total across the PGDM batches and will be distributed across functional areas. The primary criteria for evaluation is publish-ability of the SIP work and selection of the cases for award will not be limited only to Covid-19 related SIPs but till extend to all Virtual SIPs.

More here:
Virtual SIPs: Fore students work on areas related to Covid - BL on Campus

Marketers are pretty intimate with content marketing metrics, data, and analytics these daysand if youre not, youd best get learning.

Weve long moved on from the days where follower and like counts were considered the apex of robust marketing engagement data. But the proliferation of measurement tools and the increasing number of platforms that let us speak directly with users have delivered a big challenge: measuring the true impact of marketing efforts on your brands bottom line.

So what are the metrics that prove your content strategys role in driving profits? And how can you defend them in C-suite conversations to unlock higher marketing budgets? For starters, youll need to speak like an executive.

Theres a fundamental gap between how marketers talk and the language the C-suite uses. For example, its common for marketers to inquire about the cost per click of a social ad or campaign. However, when CEOs and CFOs hear the term cost per from marketing, they may begin to view the team as a cost center rather than a strategic partner who influences growth.

Never, never talk about cost per anything with the leadership team, advises Bruce McDuffee of Manufacturing Marketing Group. Using this phrase cements an idea that is likely already in their mindsthat marketing is a cost and not a source of revenue. Always, always talk about revenue per or contribution with the C-suite, with the objective of creating the perception that the marketing function is a source of revenue.

Yes, the language we use when talking with the C-suite is of huge importance, as are the metrics we use when demonstrating our success. Think of senior leadership like you would your customer personas: Each member of the C-suite will have different pain points and needs, and you must appeal to these to get your message across. By choosing your words wisely with executives, youll have the best chance at securing the budget and resources your team needs to create best-in-class content.

Photo attrtibution: Diggity Marketing on Unsplash.

What are these magic metrics and buzzwords, then? Its easy to say steer clear of cost per click or talk about revenue, not followers, but what language can you use instead?

According to HubSpot, there are several marketing metrics you can use to grab the C-suites attention and get them to understand your value. These include:

Customer acquisition cost (CAC): This is what your brand spends in marketing and sales costsincluding ad spend, salaries, bonuses, overheadswithin a given time period, divided by the number of new customers in the same period.

Ratio of CAC to customer lifetime value (CAC:CLV): Most of the C-suite will be interested in the overall value a customer can bring to the company, especially if your brand operates on subscription or recurring revenue models. Being able to show the cost of acquiring a customer against the total value they bring can be incredibly powerful in demonstrating marketings value.

Time to pay back CAC: This is the amount of time it takes to earn back the customer acquisition costs. You take the CAC and divide by margin-adjusted revenue per month for the average new customer you just signed up, and the resulting number is the number of months to payback, explains HubSpot.

Marketing-oriented customer percentage: What percentage of new business is driven by marketing efforts? That is, what ratio of new customers came initially through marketing efforts? What was the first touch point?

Marketing-influenced customer percentage: Slightly different than marketing-oriented customer percentage, this metric looks wider at those sales where marketing had some influence. This could be initial contact, but it could also be where content or other marketing efforts, such as events, helped to nurture the prospect through the funnel.

But getting the C-suite to listen to your content strategy success will take more than just gathering these data points and putting them in a presentation. Youll also need to understand the individual needs of each member of senior leadership. This allows you to speak to them in their own language and demonstrate how your marketing efforts impact their personal business objectives.

These days, the chief marketing officer is an endangered species. As costs are cut and efficiencies are sought, this marketing leader often also leads sales and customer service under a chief customer officer title. To win them over, youll want to talk about customer needs.

Show how your successful content strategy will nurture prospects by helping them engage with the brand and by encouraging them to become loyal advocates. The CMO may also be interested in those cost per content marketing metrics but only insofar as it impacts the marketing budget and ROI.

Unsurprisingly, the chief financial officer wants to know the numbers. They want to know how much this is costing the company, as well as how much revenue and ultimately profit the company will make as a result. Remember the term net contribution: Its a percentage based on gross profit, which shows the CFO how your overall strategy and tactics will drive revenue. Its the best measure of efficiency, and it can help you show how their investment can lead to a more successful content strategy.

Image attribution: Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash.

To get accurate data for content marketing metrics, youll need to invest in martechand for that, youll need the chief technology officers backing, especially in large enterprises where the tech stack is tightly controlled. Demonstrate to the CTO how the application or platform in question will help you connect the dots and break down silos, how it will generate efficiencies, or how it will make the customers life easier.

Next to the CMO, the chief revenue officer or chief sales officer is your best friend. A successful content strategy from you can help their team nurture leads and build a loyal audience thats ripe for conversion. Show them how youll help with this by talking about more than just marketing qualified leads.

To begin with, ensure you bring sales along for the content marketing journey, getting their input into your strategy and making sure the content marketing assets you produce provide them with extra value. Get them involved by proving how your work will support their sales, showing that you have the right assets for the right stage of the nurture journey. For example, you could look back at previous conversions and track those customer journeys through the sales funnel. Map each time a prospect connected with a marketing output, and show how it was your content that helped convince them to sign on the dotted line.

Where does the chief data officer come into play? This is a newer C-suite role created to ensure compliance with the various privacy regulations coming into place around the world. They may not be as interested in hard content marketing metrics as their fellow C-suite members, but the CDO will want to be consulted on how youre getting content in front of customers and prospects. Get the CDO on board by demonstrating compliance with data protection legislation, such as Europes General Data Protection Regulation.

Remember, even though the C-suite doesnt care about marketing vanity metrics and may as well be jumping on the table crying, Show me the money! that doesnt mean they come from a different planet. The C-suite is ultimately looking for value from all of the companys teams and marketing isnt excluded from that.

Put in the effort to gather the right metrics and research to justify your content program, including those ROI and customer acquisition cost stats. Then, present your findings to senior leadership using their language. Do this and youll find the C-suite not only listens intently to what you have to say, but they may even celebrate your content strategy success.

For more stories like this, subscribe to the Content Standard newsletter.

Featured image attribution: bruce mars on Unsplash.

Read the rest here:
Content Marketing Metrics that Inspire C-Suite Buy-Inand How to Talk Them Up - The Content Standard by Skyword

New York, May 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Customer Analytics Market By Component By Type By Deployment Type By Data Source By Industry Vertical By Region, Industry Analysis and Forecast, 2020 - 2026" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05893248/?utm_source=GNW Through analyzing massive data points in real-time, one can identify the most relevant customer journeys and can prioritize those opportunities that greatly impact company goals.

Growing developments in analytics due to the growth in real-time data availability and digitization results in data analysts being adopted for customer behaviour. The analysis focuses mainly on business operations to efficiently make marketing decisions. The need for data analysis of the customer behavior contributes to an increase in demand for consumer journey analysis.

The main factor driving market growth in the forecast period is growing demand for personalized customer service. Customers expect to be considered as individuals with unique interests, which has shifted the emphasis to personalized brand experiences. The continuing trend observed is growing acceptance of customer travel analytics.

It enhances the profitability of the customers acquisition, brand loyalty, and customer lifetime. The emphasis is on creating a unified view of the customer as they connect with a brand and personalize the experience of consumers through networks, locations and always in the moment. Customer analytics will evolve from retrospective analysis to real-time, behaviour-driven interaction to achieve this blended customer experience. Analytics of customer journey is the key to making this transformation.

Based on Component, the market is segmented into Solution and Services. Based on Type, the market is segmented into Brand & Campaign Management, Customer Behavioral Analysis & Churn Management and Product Management & Others. Based on Deployment Type, the market is segmented into On-premise and Cloud. Based on Data Source, the market is segmented into Web, Smartphone, Email, Social Media, Store & Call Center and Others. Based on Industry Vertical, the market is segmented into BFSI, IT & Telecom, Healthcare, Retail & eCommerce, Government & Defense, Media & Entertainment, Manufacturing and Others. Based on Regions, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, Middle East & Africa.

The major strategies followed by the market participants are Product Launches and Partnerships. Based on the Analysis presented in the Cardinal matrix, IBM Corporation, Google, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Oracle Corporation are the forerunners in the Customer Analytics Market. Companies such as Salesforce.Com, Inc., Adobe, Inc., Accenture PLC, and SAP SE, SAS Institute, Inc., and Teradata Corporation, are some of the key innovators in Customer Analytics Market.

The market research report covers the analysis of key stake holders of the market. Key companies profiled in the report include Google, Inc., SAP SE, Teradata Corporation, SAS Institute, Inc., Adobe, Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, IBM Corporation, Accenture PLC.

Recent strategies deployed in Customer Analytics Market

Partnerships, Collaborations, and Agreements:

Mar-2020: Google Cloud came into partnership with ThoughtSpot, a leader in search and AI-driven analytics. The partnership aims to empower enterprises with cloud analytics. Under this partnership, the companies would launch Embrace for Google Cloud, which allows enterprises to run search and AI-driven analytics directly in Google BigQuery, without moving or caching any data.

Feb-2020: Microsoft announced partnership with Myntra, a lifestyle brand. The partnership would accelerate digital transformation and provides a better experience to its customers. Myntra is applying advanced analytics and machine learning to gain a comprehensive understanding of customers and deliver personalized products, marketing, and service for the customers.

Jan-2020: Microsoft entered into partnership with dunnhumby, the leader in customer data science. Under this partnership, the latter company would move its widely-used customer insights products to Azure, Microsofts cloud platform, providing retailers and suppliers instant and secure access to dunnhumbys customer data science tools. The partnership aims to enable more retailers and their suppliers to gain deep shopper and business insights, better understand their customers needs and preferences and improve collaboration.

Nov-2019: SAP teamed up with Verizon, a telecommunications company. Through this collaboration, the companies provide holistic IoT Analytics solutions that process enterprises data right from assembly lines to retail stores on a real-time basis.

Oct-2019: Teradata signed partnership agreement with Deutsche Telekom. The partnership provides SMBs access to data analyses that only large companies have been able to carry out to date. By combining strengths, the companies can provide affordable solutions created especially for the customers.

Aug-2019: Google Cloud extended its partnership with Wipro for accelerating cloud adoption and digital transformation for global enterprises. The partnership enables the companies to win in an experience economy through differentiated offerings around application modernization, data, analytics, artificial intelligence, SAP workload migration, and industrialized cloud migration at scale.

Jun-2019: Salesforce collaborated with Sitecore, a global leader in digital experience management software. Under this collaboration, the companies announced the expanded functionality of Sitecore Connect for Salesforce Marketing Cloud at Salesforce Connections. With the new enhancements, the combination of Sitecore Experience Platform and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sitecore Connect provides hyper-customized experiences by enabling marketers to better understand customer behavior and preferences.

May-2019: Google Cloud announced that it has extended its partnership with Informatica, the enterprise cloud data management leader. Informaticas support for Google Cloud extends beyond full lifecycle API management and marketing analytics to include enhanced Google BigQuery support for pushdown optimization that enables customers to process massive workloads, and new support for Dataproc, which enables customers to leverage and simplify native Google big data environments.

May-2019: Adobe signed partnership agreement with Software AG, an enterprise software company. The partnership was aimed at helping companies in transforming their customer experience management (CXM) by bringing together customer data from across multiple enterprise systems into a centralized and actionable real-time customer profile.

May-2019: IBM collaborated with HDFC Ergo, a General Insurance Company. Together, the companies set up a lab in India for performing deep analytics on customer data and subsequently develop customized solutions to improve business efficiency and profitability.

Apr-2019: SAS Institute announced partnership with Citi and EY for the NextGen project. NextGen Project uses artificial intelligence (AI) for developing a risk analytics scoring engine. The NextGen project aimed to analyze global trade transactions in-depth and can be scaled to deal with high volumes of daily transactions. It uses advanced analytics and natural language processing for understanding networks of related parties, unstructured data, and customer activity better.

Acquisition and Mergers:

Feb-2020: Google Cloud acquired Looker, a data analytics company. The acquisition strengthened the resources of both the companies and brings together some of the best minds in both analytics and cloud infrastructure to build an exciting path forward for the customers and partners.

FEB-2020: Salesforce took over Evergage, a provider of personalization and customer data platform. The real-time, cross-channel personalization and machine learning capabilities of Evergage complement Salesforce Marketing Clouds robust customer data, audience segmentation, and engagement platform, allowing companies to deliver more relevant experiences during moments of interaction across the entire customer journey.

Oct-2019: Accenture acquired Happen, an innovation firm that uses proprietary methods, frameworks, and digital tools for helping the clients generate new ideas, products, and services. The acquisition enabled the Accenture to help companies develop innovative products, services, and experiences.

Aug-2019: Salesforce completed the acquisition of Tableau Software. Together, the companies aimed to transform the way people understand not only their customers but their whole world by providing powerful AI-driven insights across all types of data and use cases for people of every skill level.

Aug-2019: Accenture announced an agreement to acquire Analytics8, a big data, and analytics consultancy company. The acquisition would strengthen the analytics capabilities of Accenture.

Jan-2019: SAP SE completed the acquisition of Qualtrics International, the global pioneer of the experience management (XM) software. Together, the companies accelerated the new XM category through integrating Qualtrics experience data with operational data from SAP software to power the economy.

Product Launches and Product Expansions:

Mar-2020: Adobe made enhancements to its Experience Platform. This platform integrates data silos and offers more tools to analyze customer data. This would allow data to be collected from the web and mobile channels with the use of a single JavaScript library tied to the first party domain for all Adobe products.

Jan-2020: Oracle Retail unveiled Consumer Insights for helping the retail marketers use enriched customer data attributes alongside third-party consumer data from Oracle Data Cloud to find prospective lookalike customers. Oracle Cloud provides data sets composed of profile-based, transaction-level data along with other demographic attributes.

Nov-2019: Oracle launched two new solutions, the Digital Sales Solution and its customer data management (CDM) platform for Oracle Service Cloud. The Digital Sales Solution is the latest addition to the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud suite and has a new user interface for helping sales representatives in recognizing and qualifying good opportunities. The new solution also seeks to help sales representatives save time by reducing the number of fields needed to find and update customer relationship management (CRM) records.

Nov-2019: Salesforce introduced Customer 360 Truth, a new set of data and identity services. These services help the companies in building a single source of truth across all of their customer relationships. Customer 360 Truth connects data from across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more to create a single, universal Salesforce ID for each customer. All of a customers previous interactions and shared preferences are brought together to create a complete view so companies can better serve and even predict their needs.

Oct-2019: Teradata released Vantage Customer Experience (CX) for transforming the customer experience at the worlds most innovative data-driven companies. Vantage CX helps brands in delivering relevant, personalized experiences in real-time, across all interactions, to drive incremental revenue and lower the cost-to-serve. Teradata also launched Vantage Analyst: a set of capabilities for Vantage customers, which empowers business analysts to perform machine learning and advanced analytics.

Sep-2019: Adobe launched Customer Journey Analytics in Adobe Analytics. It uses the power of Adobe Experience Platform, which standardizes and stitches together customer data from across an organization and opens up new creative ways to understand insights across online, offline and third-party channels.

Sep-2019: Oracle made upgradation to the Oracle Customer Experience (CX) Cloud. The updates include digital assistants for sales, customer service, and marketing; data-enriched B2B sales capabilities. The updates to Oracle CX Cloud are fueled by data and machine learning for helping the customers in taking the advantage of powerful data insights to get ahead of customer needs and ensure a positive, unforgettable customer experience.

Scope of the Study

Market Segmentation:

By Component

Solution

Services

By Type

Brand & Campaign Management

Customer Behavioral Analysis & Churn Management

Product Management & Others

By Deployment Type

On-premise

Cloud

By Data Source

Web

Smartphone

Email

Social Media

Store & Call Center

Others

By Industry Vertical

BFSI

IT & Telecom

Healthcare

Retail & eCommerce

Government & Defense

Media & Entertainment

Manufacturing

Others

By Geography

North America

o US

o Canada

o Mexico

o Rest of North America

Europe

o Germany

o UK

o France

o Russia

o Spain

o Italy

o Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

o China

o Japan

o India

o South Korea

o Singapore

o Malaysia

o Rest of Asia Pacific

LAMEA

o Brazil

o Argentina

o UAE

o Saudi Arabia

o South Africa

o Nigeria

o Rest of LAMEA

Companies Profiled

Google, Inc.

SAP SE

Teradata Corporation

SAS Institute, Inc.

Adobe, Inc.

Salesforce.com, Inc.

Read more from the original source:
The Global Customer Analytics Market size is expected to reach $29.8 billion by 2026, rising at a market growth of 19.7% CAGR during the forecast...

As coronavirus spreads, people are getting more cautious and creative with their social interactions. USA TODAY

Handshaking is a key part of Michelle Ngomes networking game as a marketing professional.

Which is why Ngome, president of the African American Marketing Association and host of the Networking With Michelle podcast, is already missing it as social distancing rules discourage the age-old ritual.

We didnt realize how powerful the handshake is," she said."The handshake means connection, it means agreement, cooperation, 'hi.'Its a common courtesy."But in the immediate future, the handshake is dead.

And it might never come back. With the coronavirus pandemic making human touch a potentially lethal act since the virus can be transmitted with skin contact,handshaking has suddenly become socially unacceptable.

Health experts are urging us to stay at least six feet away from people outside of our households to minimize our chances of catching COVID-19, which hadinfected more than 4.5 million people and killed morethan305,000 worldwide as of Friday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins.

And some are saying that we should make permanent alterations to the way we physically interact with others to prevent future outbreaks, even after the coronavirus is gone. The handshake could give way to some alternative form of interaction, such as the elbow bump or the footshake.

No bump in benefits?: There may be no Social Security cost-of-living increase next year, early estimate shows

Struggling states: State budget hits due to coronavirus are trickling in and it's not pretty

I dont think we should ever shake hands ever again, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader of the White Houses Coronavirus Task Force, said recently. Weve got to break that custom. Because as a matter of fact, that is really one of the major ways that you can transmit a respiratory illness.

Fauci later clarified on the Today show that he was somewhat serious.

But if the handshake is truly gone for good, it will qualify as a remarkable turn of events for a practice that has been happening for thousands of years, according to National Geographic, which noted that ancient artifacts depict people handshaking.

Handshaking may be a thing of the past due to the coronavirus.(Photo: Getty Images)

Theres no definitive indication of how the handshake began, though one common theory is that it developed as a way for people to prove to others that they werent carrying a weapon, said Juliana Schroeder, a management professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied handshakes.

Its very deeply ingrained in the social fabric, Schroeder said. It feels like something will be lost if it goes away.

People who shake hands before beginning negotiations achieve "better joint outcomes," whileexecutives who shake hands before antagonistic talks are less likely to lie about self-benefiting information, increasing cooperation even to their own detriment, according to research Schroeder published in 2018.

What we find is that when youre in that type of interaction and the other person offers a hand to you, you view that as a signal that the person is willing to cooperate with you, she said.

Over the course of history, handshakes have marked the end of wars, the beginning of peace talks and the launch of major business deals.

Memorable handshakes include Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1865; a three-way handshake between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to end a state of war between Egypt and Israel; and President Ronald Reagan meeting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for talks in 1985.

Professor Dustin York, an expert on nonverbal and professional communication at Maryville University in St. Louis, predicted that the handshake may live on in certain areas that havent been hit hard by the coronavirus while it dies in other areas that have been.

He added that he expects younger people to be more likely to stop shaking hands, while older people are more likely to continue doing so.

York, who teaches his students in normal times how to shake hands professionally, said different attitudes towardhandshaking will make some people unsure whether they should extend a hand.

Its going to be awkward, he said. Some people are going to be very passionate about not shaking hands.

Uncertainty over proper etiquette may prompt employers to put up signs deeming their workplaces as handshake-free zones, experts said.

Conferences might declare handshaking off-limits. Political leaders might declare that people shouldnt shake hands at all.

But would that be enough to change the culture?

Communication experts said that if the handshake goes away, it will likely happen because people organically decide they are not comfortable doing so anymore not because someone tells them to stop.

If the handshake is gone, it will have a far-reaching effect in the workplace.

In job interviews, for example, people who shake hands well are more likely to get job offers, said Greg Stewart, a University of Iowa professor of management and entrepreneurship, summarizing the results of a 2008 study he led.

Our evidence would suggest that people who shake hands well are socially adept, he said. They know how to operate well in social situations. So, the handshake has traditionally been a cue of social awareness and knowing how to interact properly with people.

In the near future, however, the reverse is true.

Today the handshake is not going to help you get a job because it would convey you do not have a good understanding of social awareness, Stewart said.

But Stewart said hes not sure the handshake is history.

There is something about physical touch that conveys warmness and intimacy with people, and a handshake is the least invasive form of physical touch, you might say, he said. Obviously over the centuries, its been an enduring practice.

Could an alternative to the handshake permanently take its place? Experts are skeptical.

People talk about elbow bumps and things like that, York said. At this point, theyre not similar. They dont convey the same message and warmth and intimacy that would be conveyed by a handshake.

That said, he suggested an alternative thats common in parts of the Middle East: placing your right hand over your heart for a few seconds while making eye contact with the other person.

Michelle Ngome, president of the African American Marketing Association.(Photo: Bashari Guidry)

Ngome, the president of the African American Marketing Association, said she has begun to slightly bow my head instead of shaking hands.

Im leaning in to let you know, Hey I do trust you but at this moment Im not comfortable shaking your hand or touching, she said.

The problem with suggested alternatives is that they may encounter resistance among people who dont want to change, Schroeder said.

Alterations to rituals can produce more outrage if people feel like theyre trying to change the value system of the group, she said.

Ngome, for one, still hopes the handshake makes a comeback.

Maybe in the next six to nine months, early next year, maybe when a treatment is out and people are way more relaxed and comfortable, she said. But I do think as Americans we are going to get back to it.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

Social distancing matters. Here is how to do it and how it can help curb the COVID-19 pandemic. USA TODAY

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/14/coronavirus-handshaking-alternatives-social-distancing-covid-19/5177513002/

Go here to see the original:
Goodbye handshake: How do we replace the ancient greeting if coronavirus keeps us from touching? - USA TODAY