Social Slideshow Ads

Advertisement is always evolving, now it is transforming to social slideshow ads. Although to a normal person, slideshow ads may seem like just another way of advertisement and there is no real difference, this form of advertisement is actually a lot more effective. To me personally, these kinds of advertisements are slightly more interesting because I always want to see what the next page holds so more time than not I slide it to see else there is. It also depends on what it being advertised, if it is something I'm not interested in at all then I just don't bother with the ad at all, but if it something I am semi interested in then the slideshow ad appeals me to the ad just a little bit more. These ads have also made a difference, wordstream.com states, "These ads also work! Take the sock company Stance for instance;comparing their static image ads to slideshow ads, they saw a decrease in cost per acquisition by 48%, a 2.42X increase in click-through-rate, and a 1.48 increase in return on ad spend." This makes a huge difference when talking about a big company such as stance and how much slideshow ads have actually helped. Overall companies should give out slideshow ads a try because it doesn't hurt to try.

A trend that his been getting a lot of publicity in the past couple months, and will continue to get even more in the next year is video advertising. Video advertising has become the new way to advertise, mostly because it is a better way to advertise. How many people are engaged and really interested when they see an ad, especially one that don't catch your attention. Now with video advertisements, companies get a much better chance to catch the consumer's attention and find a great way to sell them their product. Video advertising is a great tool because it allows you to do so much more with advertising then just put up a simple ad. Videos are here to stay, especially in advertisement. Videos appeal to people a lot more, so why wouldn't companies use videos to send a message to people and they are also more cost effective than print advertising. These videos can be seen literally everywhere, compared to print advertising where they can only be see on print. If you are home and are just in bed all day, companies can still get their advertisement to you because of the internet. It is not only a better way but overall more effective and efficient. Overall video advertisement brings in more attraction and is only beneficial, so if your company isn't already using it as a way to advertise then they are losing out.

Cross device marketing is another trend that can be very popular in the near future. Today it is common for people to use five or more devices to shop, go on social media, or perform other task online. Soon enough companies will find a way to tell that it is the same person who is using the smartphone that is also using a certain laptop and tablet at home. This can very well be in our near future and is being worked on as of right now. This can help marketing in more ways than imaginable. If data can be collected for a certain human being who is surfing the web at work as well as the data from home or on the go, then marketers will have more information than ever. This will be a huge step and can possibly be a trend for several years. Overall cross device marketing is possibly the most enticing way to market because of how much more knowledge producers will have.

This past summer we saw what could lead to the future of games and apps. Pokemon Go was a massive hit and although it has calmed down over the past few months, it showed that AR (augmented reality) games are something of the future and there definitely is a future in them. Now that companies see that this can be a success right now in the gaming community and possibly even more in the future, this is something we might see a lot more of in 2017. Along with VR (virtual reality) and AR games, consoles and headsets we could also end up with AR ads. There have been some AR ads in the past but not many where they have dominated to the market. This is what social media marketing might lead to in the future. AR advertising should be an interesting and possibly better way to connect with the consumers by connecting with them in ways that was impossible to do so before. There are endless possibilities that come with AR because even though they might not be there in the real world, anything can be seen in the virtual world. Overall I believe AR is a great way to market because of so many opportunities. Ideas to market to the targeted audience don't have to be simplified anymore and can now be literally out of this world when it comes to marketing to people.

Hashtags

Although hashtags have been around for a while now, they are still very popular. For people who don't know what hashtags are they are simply words followed by this (#). For example today people on twitter will say something like this (Thank you to all the troops who have served our country #veteransday). There are many purposes of this tool. For starters everyone who uses that hashtag with their tweet or message can be seen if you look up that hashtag. This is actually a very cool and useful tool because if you want to see everyone's opinions or comments on the topic all you have to do is search for the phrase and everyone who ever said something about it will pop out. Another purpose is to get a topic to trend. For instance if everyone tweets #mambaday which was a day to honor Kobe Bryant then #mambaday will be trending and everyone can see all the popular tweets about it. A lot of people used this when they were out honoring or celebrating Kobe's day. Lastly the most important way hashtags can be used for companies is to get whatever product or service they have popular with a cool hashtag in order to get people or their consumers/fans using the hashtag in order for it to get popular. This way it gets around to all of social media and everyone knows about it. Some hashtags can help companies out a lot while other hashtags could actually give companies a bad rep. Overall hashtags are a great tool for everyone but just make sure you know how to use them properly and to your advantage.

Last week in my Social Media Marketing class we had an assignment regarding buy buttons. Buy buttons are pretty much a shortcut on social media sites that allow you to skip all the little stuff and go directly to buying the item. These buy buttons were a trend in 2015. In 2016, not so much and are even failing in social media sites and apps. Buy buttons were turning social media into commercial media, and this is one of the big reasons why I believe they failed. If people wanted to go shopping then they would actually go shopping or surf the web on other websites. People go on social media for pleasure and to see what is going on in their lives or their friend's lives. This is where I believe social media such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter all made a bad decision, because I myself hate to see buy buttons promoting me to buy something when I am trying to keep updated on social media. Although I do believe buy buttons failed, I feel like they can be successful in certain situations and used limited, not being used everywhere harassing the users which in end make them ignore in all. It is a great strategy to increase revenue but at the same time it comes at a cost, which we have seen this past year with buy buttons falling out of the loop. Another problem that was encountered was the fact that most consumers are already use to going to Amazon for shopping. People are wondering what they really need Buy Buttons for and if they would really use them. Myself personally do not like using them either because I usually do not like my card information saved and rather take the extra minute to input my information in again then have it stolen and something be charged to my card. Overall I think buy buttons can excel in the right situations, but for the most part should be kept out of social media platforms such as twitter and instagram.

Snapchat is great for social media marketing, and it is here to stay in 2017. Before today I never really recognized Snapchat as a social media marketing tool, until I realized that...well they are. I myself follow many companies on this social media application. At first I only used Snapchat to talk to friends, then I started to follow celebrities and lastly companies started to use the it as well in order to deliver information about products, keep their fan base alert, and release updates. Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media networks and has over 100 million active users every single day. So if you were thinking of marketing on any social media network, this would be it. In a way snapchat is all of social media put together, where you can take pictures of your activities, videos of live events (which many companies do) in order to get an insight of what goes on behind the scenes, or deliver private content to friends. Snapchat is easily my favorite and most used social media. There are several ways companies can use Snapchat in order to market. For example if I am Nike and I am in charge of their Snapchat I would provide live updates, insight to behind the scenes, hold contests in order to keep my fan base active and involved, and even partner with other companies in order to expand my fan base. There is so much to do on Snapchat that it would be crazy for companies not to be on it.

Just recently I found myself joining one of the biggest trends of 2016. I went to Best Buy to look for a new TV. When I was looking around, a relatively new technology caught my eye. I've seen them before and was amazed when I first saw what they can do. Instantly I wanted an Apple Watch. I was so caught up in everything it was able to do that I bought it when I didn't even go to the store with the intention of buying one. Apple watches and wearable technology have been taking over the past few years and rightfully so. They are the future of technology, being able to do everything at your wrist without even needing a phone. Some of the many things they can do are send text, make calls, access the internet, and use apps. There are even watches that look fancy like regular watches but are smart watches. They have all kinds of watches depending on what your style is . Although wearable technology is not a necessity I believe that it is a major upgrade from before. These watches can do more than you think and can come in handy for multiple things. I believe this is a look at what is to come in the future.

One of, if not the biggest trends of 2016 is live-streaming. I have experienced live-streaming first hand from Twitter. This year Twitter agreed to a contract with the NFL in order to stream 10 Thursday Night Football games. This has been a huge success for Twitter as they reach out and attract a bigger audience by doing this. Along with football, there is Periscope which is the most popular live-streaming platform where anyone can share what they are doing at the moment. This changes how social media works because people are use to posting what they are gonna do or what they did and now people can share with millions across the world on what they are currently doing. I have seen NBA players use this platform in order to show their workouts, or even concerts being shown. I believe this is a great new way to promote as long as companies find a way to utilize it in their favor.

Marketing Trends: Voice Search and Commands

Every year new advanced phones come out such as the iPhone and new samsung phones, which are competitors. A relatively new feature in both of these phones are voice search or assistants, such as Siri and Cortana. Siri and Cortana are the names of the digital assistants on these phones which help you with searches or pretty much anything you need. These digital assistants have become a big trend and now apple and samsung are fighting to see who has the better digital assistant and which is more responsive. When they first came out they were hard to use, weren't user friendly and hard to function. As the years have past they have gotten more advanced and are much easier to use and they actually come in handy a lot of the time. With these digital assistants every company is always trying to one up each other. The new thing included in these digital assistants are keyword search, which is searching for something based off a key word that you use to describe what you are looking for. It is important for every digital assistant to include this and much more if they want to stay at an even pace with the competitors as this is becoming a huge factor into which phone consumers purchase.

In 2016 one of the biggest trends that continues to grow are videos. They have been dominating the web over the past years and continue to do so. Many studies show that content with videos are engaged more than content with just plain text. People love to watch videos, whether it be on youtube or just on any site. I feel the reason for this is because they get a better understanding if they actually see what is happening instead of reading what is happening even if it is the same information. Videos are vital to a website so it isn't plain and boring. Videos interest people and can bring more traffic to your website and overall attract more people. Although videos do help, it is important to make these videos entertaining, you can't just have a video that is as boring as plain text. I believe that interesting and engaging videos are very helpful to a website. When I think about the websites I visit and what makes me stay such as espn.com I think of all the videos I watch on there and then I realize that there are always advertisements before but I still watch them in order to watch the video. Overall videos are a must in order to keep a website alive and going.

Foursquare is a social media platform that has gone under my radar for a long time. I really didn't know what Foursquare was until today. I learned that it is a social network to connect people using their locations. With this application you can check in to places such as restaurants, bars, shops and cities so your friends can see where and what you are doing. This is a great tool for businesses big and small because it gives them exposure so they can get more customers. With Foursquare you can even search for top picks, trending, food, coffee, nightlife and entertainment depending on what city you're in. A great way to make sure your business gets publicity is being on foursquare so people can check in when they are there. You can even add it yourself if it is not there and add descriptions, pictures, categories and even a profile. Foursquare allows the owners or managers of places to send out promotions or deals and their customers will get a notification. This is a great way to bring in customers and if foursquare didn't have this available they would lose out on potential customers. One of the best things foursquare allows their customers to do is get deals based on checking in such as the first 10 customers to check in get a certain thing free or if you check in you will get a free dessert. Even though the customer gets something free out of it, it benefits the company more because they end up getting more customers to come to their restaurant or business. Overall Foursquare is a great platform to market your business because what it offers and the potential clients you can gain just from being on this social media site. There are many cool tools and little extra things on foursquare to keep people entertained and try new places, so in the end it is a win-win for everybody.

Today I want to talk about my favorite brand, Nike. Nike is one of the most well-known companies around the world as well as one of the most liked. Nike is established and is the biggest sports brand today over companies like Under Armour, Adidas and many others. Although they have the name recognition, it doesn't stop there. They have to continue to market their company as much as they could so they could stay on top of the sports world and with social media platforms that is exactly what they do. I follow Nike on snapchat, twitter and instagram so I know exactly when all the new lines are coming out and what is new from them. They do a great job of keeping their fans updates on news about their company and the direction they are headed. I believe this is why Nike is at the top, because they do such a great job of keeping their customers happy not just with their products but their appreciation and customer satisfaction job. On snapchat Nike gives you a detailed look into their new products and events that are going on. With instagram, Nike gives you more of a look into when their products come out and what stores they come out in while twitter does a little of both. One of my favorite things about Nike and how they use all these platforms is that they use their endorsed athletes to share their products and even talk about them. To me this is what sells me on their products.

Twitter is arguably the most popular social media application today. So why wouldn't it be a good tool to use to market? That is exactly what many companies use Twitter for, to get their product or service out there to the public. Almost all my friends, co-workers and classmates have a Twitter, so we all know what is trending at every moment. I feel like Twitter is a great platform to market because first of all so many people have it, as well as all those people can share it with their friends. On Twitter you can even add pictures so whatever it is that is being put out their can be endorsed pretty easily and done well. Just because Twitter is a great platform to market doesn't mean that whatever you put up it will become popular and you will be successful, it is just a gateway to start and get your product/service more known. There is still a whole market planning and strategy that needs to be done in order to make sure what is being put out is presented well and make sure it is successful. Overall, I believe with the right tools Twitter is a great platform for social media marketing.

I never thought the day would come where I would use the app "Yelp!". Well today, I want to talk about how I use it almost every day of my life. Yelp comes in handy in my everyday life whether it is to look for a good place to eat, look up reviews, check in to restaurants, look up hours of operation or even find a new barbershop. For the longest time I refused to download the application and thought it was dumb and wasn't useful. My sister would always use it to find places around us and look up reviews. One day she finally convinced me to download it but I still didn't use it. Not until a couple months later I decided to look up a place to eat because I was in San Diego with friends and we didn't know the place that well. I ended up finding a barbeque place to eat called Phil's, which is amazing by the way. To this day I still go to the same barbeque spot and the reason I found it was because of Yelp. So from that day on I constantly use Yelp in order to help me find out whatever it is I am looking for and it never lets me down. Yelp is a great way for businesses to promote themselves and offer deals to customers as well, so all in all it is a win-win for everybody.

Today I want to talk about Groupon. The reason I want to talk about this is because the place I had dinner with my family today, was because my mom had a coupon, or rather a groupon. My mom is all about groupon, who has now used it for about a year ever since my sister introduced her to it. I personally don't care for it, but I do think there are some good deals and also a good way for businesses to bring in more business. Ever since my mom has been using it, she actually spends more money instead of saving money on discounts because of the fact that she buys groupons for places that we would never go to in the first place. There are places and businesses that are very well known that do offer discounts on groupon however, and you can occasionally get some really good deals from groupon. I believe groupon is a great way to market your business and a good deal for both the consumer and the producer because the people get discounts but the business also brings in more clients. This is a great idea for businesses because it is a win win situation, because their business gets promoted and they also bring in people that would usually not go if they had seen them on Groupon. I have tried restaurants in nearby neighborhoods that I have seen before but would have never stopped in and then have gone back to have again because I liked it the first time I was introduced to it by Groupon. Overall Groupon is a great app and even better social media marketing tool.

Mobile marketing is one of the biggest trends of 2016. In a world where everyone is constantly on their smartphones and at the same time on the go, it seems only logical that mobile marketing is the future. Yet, there are several companies that have yet to make their own shopping app or even a mobile website, which is a huge shocker. I seriously don't understand how companies manage or stay alive without online marketing which is probably the best way for companies and brands to get their names out there. I personally like shopping and do so on many websites, so when mobile websites and apps for stores came out it made my life that much easier and better. My favorite place to shop at is footlocker so when they first came out with their mobile app I was excited to see what it featured and how it would work. One of my best life decisions was when I downloaded this app, it saved me so much time, it was convenient, fast and best of all easy to navigate. When a website isn't mobile friendly I tend to shy away from it because I am always on my phone, so to me it's a hassle to have to use something else in order to access it. I highly recommend for all companies, especially start up companies to get on track with the rest of the world and find a way to market their companies on a mobile device. This would benefit the companies in more ways than you could think of. Not only will it help increase revenue, keep customers and make them happy, but also take the company to the next level.