Weird topic but very important for every visuals.

This article will dive into the principles of algorithm design. If you haven’t a clue what I’m referring to, read on!

When you hear the word “algorithm,” you probably respond in one of three ways:

1. You immediately know and understand what we’re talking about because you studied computer science.
2. You know that algorithms are the workhorses of companies like Google and Facebook, but you aren’t really sure what the word means.
3. You run and hide in fear because everything you know about algorithms reminds you of high-school Calculus nightmares.

If you are one of the second two, this article is for you.

Yes, Thanks To code.tutsplus.com for their contribution.

What is an Algorithm, Exactly?

Algorithms are not a special type of operation, necessarily. They are conceptual, a set of steps that you take in code to reach a specific goal.

Algorithms have been commonly defined in simple terms as “instructions for completing a task”. They’ve also been called “recipes”. In The Social Network, an algorithm is what Zuckerberg needed to make Facemash work. If you saw the movie, you probably remember seeing what looked like a scribbly equation on a window in Mark’s dorm room. But what does that scribbly algebra have to do with Mark’s simple “hot or not” site?

Algorithms are indeed instructions. Perhaps a more accurate description would be that algorithms are patterns for completing a task in an efficient way. Zuckerberg’s Facemash was a voting site to determine someone’s attractiveness relative to a whole group of people, but the user would only be given options between two people. Mark Zuckerberg needed an algorithm that decided which people to match up to one another, and how to value a vote relative to that person’s previous history and previous contenders. This required more intuition than simply counting votes for each person.

For instance, let’s say you wanted to create an algorithm for adding 1 to any negative number, and subtracting 1 from any positive number, and doing nothing to 0. You might do something like this (in JavaScript-esque pseudo code):

You may be saying to yourself, “That’s a function.” And you’re right. Algorithms are not a special type of operation, necessarily. They are conceptual – a set of steps that you take in code to reach a specific goal.

So why are they a big deal? Clearly, adding or subtracting 1 to a number is a fairly simple thing to do.

But let’s talk for a second about searching. To search for a number in an array of numbers, how would you think to do it? A naive approach would be to iterate the number, checking each number against the one you’re searching for. But this isn’t an efficient solution, and has a very wide range of possible completion times, making it an erratic and unreliable search method when scaled to large search sets.

Fortunately, we can do better than this for search.

Why is it Inefficient?

There is no better way to become a better algorithm designer than to have a deep understanding and appreciation for algorithms.

Let’s say your array has 50,000 entries, and you brute-force search (that is, search by iterating the full array). The entry you are searching for, in the best case scenario, will be the first entry in the 50,000-entry array. In the worst case scenario, however, the algorithm will take 50,000 times longer to complete than in the best case scenario.

So what’s Better?

Instead, you would search using binary search. This involves sorting the array (which I will let you learn about on your own) and subsequently dividing the array in half, and checking to see if the search number is greater or less than the halfway mark in the array. If it is greater than the halfway mark of a sorted array, then we know that the first half can be discarded, as the searched number isn’t a part of the array. We can also cut out a lot of work by defining the outer bounds of the array and checking to see if the searched number exists outside of those bounds, and if so, we have taken what would have been a multiple-iteration operation and turned it into a single iteration operation (which in the brute-force algorithm would have taken 50,000 operations).

Sounds Fairly Complicated

Take the seemingly complicated nature of a single binary search algorithm, and apply it to billions of possible links (as searching through Google). Beyond that, let’s apply some sort of ranking system to those linked searches to give an order of response pages. Better yet, apply some kind of seemingly randomized “suggestion” system based on artificial intelligence social models designed to identify who you might want to add as a friend.

This gives us a much clearer understanding of why algorithms are more than just a fancy name for functions. At their finest, they are clever, efficient ways of doing something that requires a higher level of intuition than the most apparent solution. They can take what might would require a supercomputer years to do and turn it into a task that finishes in seconds on a mobile phone.

How do Algorithms Apply to Me?

For most of us as developers, we aren’t designing high-level abstracted algorithms on a daily basis.

Luckily, we stand on the shoulders of the developers who came before us, who wrote native sort functions and allow us to search strings for substrings with indexOf in an efficient manner.

But we DO, however, deal with algorithms of our own. We create for loops and write functions every day; so how can good algorithm design principles inform the writing of these functions?

Know Your Input

One of the main principles of algorithmic design is to, if possible, build your algorithm in such a way that the input itself does some of the work for you. For instance, if you know that your input is always going to be numbers, you do not need to have exceptions/checks for strings, or coerce your values into numbers. If you know that your DOM element is the same every time in a for loop in JavaScript, you shouldn’t be querying for that element in every iteration. On the same token, in your for loops, you shouldn’t use convenience functions with overhead if you can accomplish the same thing using (closer to) simple operations.

If you are a JavaScript developer (and you use jQuery) and you don’t know what the above functions are doing and how they are significantly different, the next point is for you.

Understand Your Tools

At their finest, [algorithms] are clever, efficient ways of doing something that requires a higher level of intuition than the most apparent solution.

It is easy to think that this goes without saying. However, there is a difference between “knowing how to write jQuery” and “understanding jQuery”. Understanding your tools means that you understand what each line of code does, both immediately (the return value of a function or the effect of a method) and implicitly (how much overhead is associated with running a library function, or which is the most efficient method for concatenating a string). To write great algorithms, it is important to know the performance of lower-level functions or utilities, not just the name and implementation of them.

Understand the Environment

Designing efficient algorithms is a full-engagement undertaking. Beyond understanding your tools as a standalone piece, you must also understand the way that they interact with the larger system at hand. For instance, to understand JavaScript in a specific application entirely, it is important to understand the DOM and performance of JavaScript in cross browser scenarios, how available memory affects rendering speeds, the structure of servers (and their responses) you may be interacting with, as well as a myriad of other considerations that are intangible, such as usage scenarios.

Reducing the Workload

In general, the goal of algorithm design is to complete a job in fewer steps. (There are some exceptions, such as Bcrypt hashing.) When you write your code, take into consideration all of the simple operations the computer is taking to reach the goal. Here is a simple checklist to get started on a path to more efficient algorithm design:

• Use language features to reduce operations (variable caching, chaining, etc).
• Reduce iterative loop nesting as much as possible.
• Define variables outside of loops when possible.
• Use automatic loop indexing (if available) instead of manual indexing.
• Use clever reduction techniques, such as recursive divide and conquer and query optimization, to minimize the size of recursive processes.

Study Advanced Techniques

There is no better way to become a better algorithm designer than to have a deep understanding and appreciation for algorithms.

• Take an hour or two every week and read The Art of Computer Programming.
• Try a Facebook Programming Challenge or a Google Codejam.
• Learn to solve the same problem with different algorithmic techniques.
• Challenge yourself by implementing built in functions of a language, like .sort(), with lower level operations.

How Do Algorithms Work?

Let’s take a closer look at an example.

A very simple example of an algorithm would be to find the largest number in an unsorted list of numbers. If you were given a list of five different numbers, you would have this figured out in no time, no computer needed. Now, how about five million different numbers? Clearly, you are going to need a computer to do this, and a computer needs an algorithm.

Below is what the algorithm could look like. Let’s say the input consists of a list of numbers, and this list is called L. The number L1 would be the first number in the list, L2 the second number, etc. And we know the list is not sorted – otherwise, the answer would be really easy. So, the input to the algorithm is a list of numbers, and the output should be the largest number in the list.

The algorithm would look something like this:

Step 1: Let Largest = L1

This means you start by assuming that the first number is the largest number.

Step 2: For each item in the list:

This means you will go through the list of numbers one by one.

Step 3: If the item > Largest:

If you find a new largest number, move to step four. If not, go back to step two, which means you move on to the next number in the list.

Step 4: Then Largest = the item

This replaces the old largest number with the new largest number you just found. Once this is completed, return to step two until there are no more numbers left in the list.

Step 5: Return Largest

This produces the desired result.

Notice that the algorithm is described as a series of logical steps in a language that is easily understood. For a computer to actually use these instructions, they need to be written in a language that a computer can understand, known as a programming language.

Now, Is The Next Gen.

Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age

Algorithms are aimed at optimizing everything. They can save lives, make things easier and conquer chaos. Still, experts worry they can also put too much control in the hands of corporations and governments, perpetuate bias, create filter bubbles, cut choices, creativity and serendipity, and could result in greater unemployment

BY LEE RAINIE AND JANNA ANDERSON

(filistimlyanin/iStock.com)

Algorithms are instructions for solving a problem or completing a task. Recipes are algorithms, as are math equations. Computer code is algorithmic. The internet runs on algorithms and all online searching is accomplished through them. Email knows where to go thanks to algorithms. Smartphone apps are nothing but algorithms. Computer and video games are algorithmic storytelling. Online dating and book-recommendation and travel websites would not function without algorithms. GPS mapping systems get people from point A to point B via algorithms. Artificial intelligence (AI) is naught but algorithms. The material people see on social media is brought to them by algorithms. In fact, everything people see and do on the web is a product of algorithms. Every time someone sorts a column in a spreadsheet, algorithms are at play, and most financial transactions today are accomplished by algorithms. Algorithms help gadgets respond to voice commands, recognize faces, sort photos and build and drive cars. Hacking, cyberattacks and cryptographic code-breaking exploit algorithms. Self-learning and self-programming algorithms are now emerging, so it is possible that in the future algorithms will write many if not most algorithms.

Algorithms are often elegant and incredibly useful tools used to accomplish tasks. They are mostly invisible aids, augmenting human lives in increasingly incredible ways. However, sometimes the application of algorithms created with good intentions leads to unintended consequences. Recent news items tie to these concerns:

• The British pound dropped 6.1% in value in seconds on Oct. 7, 2016, partly because of currency trades triggered by algorithms.
• Microsoft engineers created a Twitter bot named “Tay” this past spring in an attempt to chat with Millennials by responding to their prompts, but within hours it was spouting racist, sexist, Holocaust-denying tweets based on algorithms that had it “learning” how to respond to others based on what was tweeted at it.
• Facebook tried to create a feature to highlight Trending Topics from around the site in people’s feeds. First, it had a team of humans edit the feature, but controversy erupted when some accused the platform of being biased against conservatives. So, Facebook then turned the job over to algorithms only to find that they could not discern real news from fake news.
• Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, pointed out that predictive analytics based on algorithms tend to punish the poor, using algorithmic hiring practices as an example.
• Well-intentioned algorithms can be sabotaged by bad actors. An internet slowdown swept the East Coast of the U.S. on Oct. 21, 2016, after hackers bombarded Dyn DNS, an internet traffic handler, with information that overloaded its circuits, ushering in a new era of internet attacks powered by internet-connected devices. This after internet security expert Bruce Schneier warned in September that “Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet.” And the abuse of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm and general promulgation of fake news online became controversial as the 2016 U.S. presidential election proceeded.
• Researcher Andrew Tutt called for an “FDA for Algorithms,” noting, “The rise of increasingly complex algorithms calls for critical thought about how to best prevent, deter and compensate for the harms that they cause …. Algorithmic regulation will require federal uniformity, expert judgment, political independence and pre-market review to prevent – without stifling innovation – the introduction of unacceptably dangerous algorithms into the market.”
• The White House released two reports in October 2016 detailing the advance of algorithms and artificial intelligence and plans to address issues tied to it, and it issued a December report outlining some of the potential effects of AI-driven automation on the U.S. job market and economy.
• On January 17, 2017, the Future of Life Institute published a list of 23 Principles for Beneficial Artificial Intelligence, created by a gathering of concerned researchers at a conference at Asimolar, in Pacific Grove, California. The more than 1,600 signatories included Steven Hawking, Elon Musk, Ray Kurzweil and hundreds of the world’s foremost AI researchers.

The use of algorithms is spreading as massive amounts of data are being created, captured and analyzed by businesses and governments. Some are calling this the Age of Algorithms and predicting that the future of algorithms is tied to machine learning and deep learning that will get better and better at an ever-faster pace.

While many of the 2016 U.S. presidential election post-mortems noted the revolutionary impact of web-based tools in influencing its outcome, XPrize Foundation CEO Peter Diamandis predicted that “five big tech trends will make this election look tame.” He said advances in quantum computing and the rapid evolution of AI and AI agents embedded in systems and devices in the Internet of Things will lead to hyper-stalking, influencing and shaping of voters, and hyper-personalized ads, and will create new ways to misrepresent reality and perpetuate falsehoods.

Analysts like Aneesh Aneesh of Stanford University foresee algorithms taking over public and private activities in a new era of “algocratic governance” that supplants “bureaucratic hierarchies.” Others, like Harvard’s Shoshana Zuboff, describe the emergence of “surveillance capitalism” that organizes economic behavior in an “information civilization.”

To illuminate current attitudes about the potential impacts of algorithms in the next decade, Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center conducted a large-scale canvassing of technology experts, scholars, corporate practitioners and government leaders. Some 1,302 responded to this question about what will happen in the next decade:

Will the net overall effect of algorithms be positive for individuals and society or negative for individuals and society?

The non-scientific canvassing found that 38% of these particular respondents predicted that the positive impacts of algorithms will outweigh negatives for individuals and society in general, while 37% said negatives will outweigh positives; 25% said the overall impact of algorithms will be about 50-50, positive-negative. [See “About this canvassing of experts” for further details about the limits of this sample.]

Participants were asked to explain their answers, and most wrote detailed elaborations that provide insights about hopeful and concerning trends. Respondents were allowed to respond anonymously; these constitute a slight majority of the written elaborations. These findings do not represent all the points of view that are possible to a question like this, but they do reveal a wide range of valuable observations based on current trends.

In the next section we offer a brief outline of seven key themes found among the written elaborations. Following that introductory section there is a much more in-depth look at respondents’ thoughts tied to each of the themes. All responses are lightly edited for style.

Theme 1: Algorithms will continue to spread everywhere

There is fairly uniform agreement among these respondents that algorithms are generally invisible to the public and there will be an exponential rise in their influence in the next decade.

A representative statement of this view came from Barry Chudakov, founder and principal at Sertain Research and StreamFuzion Corp. He replied:

“‘If every algorithm suddenly stopped working, it would be the end of the world as we know it.’ (Pedro Domingo’s The Master Algorithm). Fact: We have already turned our world over to machine learning and algorithms. The question now is, how to better understand and manage what we have done?

“Algorithms are a useful artifact to begin discussing the larger issue of the effects of technology-enabled assists in our lives. Namely, how can we see them at work? Consider and assess their assumptions? And most importantly for those who don’t create algorithms for a living – how do we educate ourselves about the way they work, where they are in operation, what assumptions and biases are inherent in them, and how to keep them transparent? Like fish in a tank, we can see them swimming around and keep an eye on them.

Fact: We have already turned our world over to machine learning and algorithms. The question now is, how to better understand and manage what we have done?
BARRY CHUDAKOV

“Algorithms are the new arbiters of human decision-making in almost any area we can imagine, from watching a movie (Affectiva emotion recognition) to buying a house (Zillow.com) to self-driving cars (Google). Deloitte Global predicted more than 80 of the world’s 100 largest enterprise software companies will have cognitive technologies – mediated by algorithms – integrated into their products by the end of 2016. As Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths write in Algorithms to Live By, algorithms provide ‘a better standard against which to compare human cognition itself.’ They are also a goad to consider that same cognition: How are we thinking and what does it mean to think through algorithms to mediate our world?

“The main positive result of this is better understanding of how to make rational decisions, and in this measure a better understanding of ourselves. After all, algorithms are generated by trial and error, by testing, by observing, and coming to certain mathematical formulae regarding choices that have been made again and again – and this can be used for difficult choices and problems, especially when intuitively we cannot readily see an answer or a way to resolve the problem. The 37% Rule, optimal stopping and other algorithmic conclusions are evidence-based guides that enable us to use wisdom and mathematically verified steps to make better decisions.

“The secondary positive result is connectivity. In a technological recapitulation of what spiritual teachers have been saying for centuries, our things are demonstrating that everything is – or can be – connected to everything else. Algorithms with the persistence and ubiquity of insects will automate processes that used to require human manipulation and thinking. These can now manage basic processes of monitoring, measuring, counting or even seeing. Our car can tell us to slow down. Our televisions can suggest movies to watch. A grocery can suggest a healthy combination of meats and vegetables for dinner. Siri reminds you it’s your anniversary.

“The main negative changes come down to a simple but now quite difficult question: How can we see, and fully understand the implications of, the algorithms programmed into everyday actions and decisions? The rub is this: Whose intelligence is it, anyway? … Our systems do not have, and we need to build in, what David Gelernter called ‘topsight,’ the ability to not only create technological solutions but also see and explore their consequences before we build business models, companies and markets on their strengths, and especially on their limitations.”

Chudakov added that this is especially necessary because in the next decade and beyond, “By expanding collection and analysis of data and the resulting application of this information, a layer of intelligence or thinking manipulation is added to processes and objects that previously did not have that layer. So prediction possibilities follow us around like a pet. The result: As information tools and predictive dynamics are more widely adopted, our lives will be increasingly affected by their inherent conclusions and the narratives they spawn.”

“The overall impact of ubiquitous algorithms is presently incalculable because the presence of algorithms in everyday processes and transactions is now so great, and is mostly hidden from public view. All of our extended thinking systems (algorithms fuel the software and connectivity that create extended thinking systems) demand more thinking – not less – and a more global perspective than we have previously managed. The expanding collection and analysis of data and the resulting application of this information can cure diseases, decrease poverty, bring timely solutions to people and places where need is greatest, and dispel millennia of prejudice, ill-founded conclusions, inhumane practice and ignorance of all kinds. Our algorithms are now redefining what we think, how we think and what we know. We need to ask them to think about their thinking – to look out for pitfalls and inherent biases before those are baked in and harder to remove.

“To create oversight that would assess the impact of algorithms, first we need to see and understand them in the context for which they were developed. That, by itself, is a tall order that requires impartial experts backtracking through the technology development process to find the models and formulae that originated the algorithms. Then, keeping all that learning at hand, the experts need to soberly assess the benefits and deficits or risks the algorithms create. Who is prepared to do this? Who has the time, the budget and resources to investigate and recommend useful courses of action? This is a 21st-century job description – and market niche – in search of real people and companies. In order to make algorithms more transparent, products and product information circulars might include an outline of algorithmic assumptions, akin to the nutritional sidebar now found on many packaged food products, that would inform users of how algorithms drive intelligence in a given product and a reasonable outline of the implications inherent in those assumptions.”

Theme 2: Good things lie ahead

A number of respondents noted the many ways in which algorithms will help make sense of massive amounts of data, noting that this will spark breakthroughs in science, new conveniences and human capacities in everyday life, and an ever-better capacity to link people to the information that will help them. They perform seemingly miraculous tasks humans cannot and they will continue to greatly augment human intelligence and assist in accomplishing great things. A representative proponent of this view is Stephen Downes, a researcher at the National Research Council of Canada, who listed the following as positive changes:

“Some examples:
Banks. Today banks provide loans based on very incomplete data. It is true that many people who today qualify for loans would not get them in the future. However, many people – and arguably many more people – will be able to obtain loans in the future, as banks turn away from using such factors as race, socio-economic background, postal code and the like to assess fit. Moreover, with more data (and with a more interactive relationship between bank and client) banks can reduce their risk, thus providing more loans, while at the same time providing a range of services individually directed to actually help a person’s financial state.

“Health care providers. Health care is a significant and growing expense not because people are becoming less healthy (in fact, society-wide, the opposite is true) but because of the significant overhead required to support increasingly complex systems, including prescriptions, insurance, facilities and more. New technologies will enable health providers to shift a significant percentage of that load to the individual, who will (with the aid of personal support systems) manage their health better, coordinate and manage their own care, and create less of a burden on the system. As the overall cost of health care declines, it becomes increasingly feasible to provide single-payer health insurance for the entire population, which has known beneficial health outcomes and efficiencies.

“Governments. A significant proportion of government is based on regulation and monitoring, which will no longer be required with the deployment of automated production and transportation systems, along with sensor networks. This includes many of the daily (and often unpleasant) interactions we have with government today, from traffic offenses, manifestation of civil discontent, unfair treatment in commercial and legal processes, and the like. A simple example: One of the most persistent political problems in the United States is the gerrymandering of political boundaries to benefit incumbents. Electoral divisions created by an algorithm to a large degree eliminate gerrymandering (and when open and debatable, can be modified to improve on that result).”

A sampling of additional answers, from anonymous respondents:

The efficiencies of algorithms will lead to more creativity and self-expression.

• “Algorithms find knowledge in an automated way much faster than traditionally feasible.”
• “Algorithms can crunch databases quickly enough to alleviate some of the red tape and bureaucracy that currently slows progress down.”
• “We will see less pollution, improved human health, less economic waste.”
• “Algorithms have the potential to equalize access to information.”
• “The efficiencies of algorithms will lead to more creativity and self-expression.”
• “Algorithms can diminish transportation issues; they can identify congestion and alternative times and paths.”
• “Self-driving cars could dramatically reduce the number of accidents we have per year, as well as improve quality of life for most people.”
• “Better-targeted delivery of news, services and advertising.”
• “More evidence-based social science using algorithms to collect data from social media and click trails.”
• “Improved and more proactive police work, targeting areas where crime can be prevented.”
• “Fewer underdeveloped areas and more international commercial exchanges.”
• “Algorithms ease the friction in decision-making, purchasing, transportation and a large number of other behaviors.”
• “Bots will follow orders to buy your stocks. Digital agents will find the materials you need.”
• “Any errors could be corrected. This will mean the algorithms only become more efficient to humanity’s desires as time progresses.”

Themes illuminating concerns and challenges

Participants in this study were in substantial agreement that the abundant positives of accelerating code-dependency will continue to drive the spread of algorithms; however, as with all great technological revolutions, this trend has a dark side. Most respondents pointed out concerns, chief among them the final five overarching themes of this report; all have subthemes.

Theme 3: Humanity and human judgment are lost when data and predictive modeling become paramount

Advances in algorithms are allowing technology corporations and governments to gather, store, sort and analyze massive data sets. Experts in this canvassing noted that these algorithms are primarily written to optimize efficiency and profitability without much thought about the possible societal impacts of the data modeling and analysis. These respondents argued that humans are considered to be an “input” to the process and they are not seen as real, thinking, feeling, changing beings. They say this is creating a flawed, logic-driven society and that as the process evolves – that is, as algorithms begin to write the algorithms – humans may get left out of the loop, letting “the robots decide.” Representative of this view:

Bart Knijnenburg, assistant professor in human-centered computing at Clemson University, replied, “Algorithms will capitalize on convenience and profit, thereby discriminating [against] certain populations, but also eroding the experience of everyone else. The goal of algorithms is to fit some of our preferences, but not necessarily all of them: They essentially present a caricature of our tastes and preferences. My biggest fear is that, unless we tune our algorithms for self-actualization, it will be simply too convenient for people to follow the advice of an algorithm (or, too difficult to go beyond such advice), turning these algorithms into self-fulfilling prophecies, and users into zombies who exclusively consume easy-to-consume items.”

An anonymous futurist said, “This has been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Every time you design a human system optimized for efficiency or profitability you dehumanize the workforce. That dehumanization has now spread to our health care and social services. When you remove the humanity from a system where people are included, they become victims.”

Another anonymous respondent wrote, “We simply can’t capture every data element that represents the vastness of a person and that person’s needs, wants, hopes, desires. Who is collecting what data points? Do the human beings the data points reflect even know or did they just agree to the terms of service because they had no real choice? Who is making money from the data? How is anyone to know how his/her data is being massaged and for what purposes to justify what ends? There is no transparency, and oversight is a farce. It’s all hidden from view. I will always remain convinced the data will be used to enrich and/or protect others and not the individual. It’s the basic nature of the economic system in which we live.”

A sampling of excerpts tied to this theme from other respondents (for details, read the fuller versions in the full report):

Algorithms have the capability to shape individuals’ decisions without them even knowing it, giving those who have control of the algorithms an unfair position of power.

• “The potential for good is huge, but the potential for misuse and abuse – intentional, and inadvertent – may be greater.”
• “Companies seek to maximize profit, not maximize societal good. Worse, they repackage profit-seeking as a societal good. We are nearing the crest of a wave, the trough side of which is a new ethics of manipulation, marketing, nearly complete lack of privacy.”
• “What we see already today is that, in practice, stuff like ‘differential pricing’ does not help the consumer; it helps the company that is selling things, etc.”
• “Individual human beings will be herded around like cattle, with predictably destructive results on rule of law, social justice and economics.”
• “There is an incentive only to further obfuscate the presence and operations of algorithmic shaping of communications processes.”
• “Algorithms are … amplifying the negative impacts of data gaps and exclusions.”
• “Algorithms have the capability to shape individuals’ decisions without them even knowing it, giving those who have control of the algorithms an unfair position of power.”
• “The fact the internet can, through algorithms, be used to almost read our minds means [that] those who have access to the algorithms and their databases have a vast opportunity to manipulate large population groups.”
• “The lack of accountability and complete opacity is frightening.”
• “By utilitarian metrics, algorithmic decision-making has no downside; the fact that it results in perpetual injustices toward the very minority classes it creates will be ignored. The Common Good has become a discredited, obsolete relic of The Past.”
• “In an economy increasingly dominated by a tiny, very privileged and insulated portion of the population, it will largely reproduce inequality for their benefit. Criticism will be belittled and dismissed because of the veneer of digital ‘logic’ over the process.”
• “Algorithms are the new gold, and it’s hard to explain why the average ‘good’ is at odds with the individual ‘good.’”
• “We will interpret the negative individual impact as the necessary collateral damage of ‘progress.’”
• “This will kill local intelligence, local skills, minority languages, local entrepreneurship because most of the available resources will be drained out by the global competitors.”
• “Algorithms in the past have been created by a programmer. In the future they will likely be evolved by intelligent/learning machines …. Humans will lose their agency in the world.”
• “It will only get worse because there’s no ‘crisis’ to respond to, and hence, not only no motivation to change, but every reason to keep it going – especially by the powerful interests involved. We are heading for a nightmare.”
• “Web 2.0 provides more convenience for citizens who need to get a ride home, but at the same time – and it’s naive to think this is a coincidence – it’s also a monetized, corporatized, disempowering, cannibalizing harbinger of the End Times. (I exaggerate for effect. But not by much.)”

Theme 4: Biases exist in algorithmically-organized systems

Two strands of thinking tie together here. One is that the algorithm creators (code writers), even if they strive for inclusiveness, objectivity and neutrality, build into their creations their own perspectives and values. The other is that the datasets to which algorithms are applied have their own limits and deficiencies. Even datasets with billions of pieces of information do not capture the fullness of people’s lives and the diversity of their experiences. Moreover, the datasets themselves are imperfect because they do not contain inputs from everyone or a representative sample of everyone. The two themes are advanced in these answers:

Justin Reich, executive director at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, observed, “The algorithms will be primarily designed by white and Asian men – with data selected by these same privileged actors – for the benefit of consumers like themselves. Most people in positions of privilege will find these new tools convenient, safe and useful. The harms of new technology will be most experienced by those already disadvantaged in society, where advertising algorithms offer bail bondsman ads that assume readers are criminals, loan applications that penalize people for proxies so correlated with race that they effectively penalize people based on race, and similar issues.”

Dudley Irish, a software engineer, observed, “All, let me repeat that, all of the training data contains biases. Much of it either racial- or class-related, with a fair sprinkling of simply punishing people for not using a standard dialect of English. To paraphrase Immanuel Kant, out of the crooked timber of these datasets no straight thing was ever made.”

A sampling of quote excerpts tied to this theme from other respondents (for details, read the fuller versions in the full report):

One of the greatest challenges of the next era will be balancing protection of intellectual property in algorithms with protecting the subjects of those algorithms from unfair discrimination and social engineering.

• “Algorithms are, by definition, impersonal and based on gross data and generalized assumptions. The people writing algorithms, even those grounded in data, are a non-representative subset of the population.”
• “If you start at a place of inequality and you use algorithms to decide what is a likely outcome for a person/system, you inevitably reinforce inequalities.”
• “We will all be mistreated as more homogenous than we are.”
• “The result could be the institutionalization of biased and damaging decisions with the excuse of, ‘The computer made the decision, so we have to accept it.’”
• “The algorithms will reflect the biased thinking of people. Garbage in, garbage out. Many dimensions of life will be affected, but few will be helped. Oversight will be very difficult or impossible.”
• “Algorithms value efficiency over correctness or fairness, and over time their evolution will continue the same priorities that initially formulated them.”
• “One of the greatest challenges of the next era will be balancing protection of intellectual property in algorithms with protecting the subjects of those algorithms from unfair discrimination and social engineering.”
• “Algorithms purport to be fair, rational and unbiased but just enforce prejudices with no recourse.”
• “Unless the algorithms are essentially open source and as such can be modified by user feedback in some fair fashion, the power that likely algorithm-producers (corporations and governments) have to make choices favorable to themselves, whether in internet terms of service or adhesion contracts or political biases, will inject both conscious and unconscious bias into algorithms.”

Theme 5: Algorithmic categorizations deepen divides

Two connected ideas about societal divisions were evident in many respondents’ answers. First, they predicted that an algorithm-assisted future will widen the gap between the digitally savvy (predominantly the most well-off, who are the most desired demographic in the new information ecosystem) and those who are not nearly as connected or able to participate. Second, they said social and political divisions will be abetted by algorithms, as algorithm-driven categorizations and classifications steer people into echo chambers of repeated and reinforced media and political content. Two illustrative answers:

Ryan Hayes, owner of Fit to Tweet, commented, “Twenty years ago we talked about the ‘digital divide’ being people who had access to a computer at home vs. those that didn’t, or those who had access to the internet vs. those who didn’t …. Ten years from now, though, the life of someone whose capabilities and perception of the world is augmented by sensors and processed with powerful AI and connected to vast amounts of data is going to be vastly different from that of those who don’t have access to those tools or knowledge of how to utilize them. And that divide will be self-perpetuating, where those with fewer capabilities will be more vulnerable in many ways to those with more.”

Adam Gismondi, a visiting scholar at Boston College, wrote, “I am fearful that as users are quarantined into distinct ideological areas, human capacity for empathy may suffer. Brushing up against contrasting viewpoints challenges us, and if we are able to (actively or passively) avoid others with different perspectives, it will negatively impact our society. It will be telling to see what features our major social media companies add in coming years, as they will have tremendous power over the structure of information flow.”

A sampling of quote excerpts tied to this theme from other respondents (for details, read the fuller versions in the full report):

The overall effect will be positive for some individuals. It will be negative for the poor and the uneducated. As a result, the digital divide and wealth disparity will grow. It will be a net negative for society.

• “If the current economic order remains in place, then I do not see the growth of data-driven algorithms providing much benefit to anyone outside of the richest in society.”
• “Social inequalities will presumably become reified.”
• “The major risk is that less-regular users, especially those who cluster on one or two sites or platforms, won’t develop that navigational and selection facility and will be at a disadvantage.”
• “Algorithms make discrimination more efficient and sanitized. Positive impact will be increased profits for organizations able to avoid risk and costs. Negative impacts will be carried by all deemed by algorithms to be risky or less profitable.”
• “Society will be stratified by which trust/identity provider one can afford/qualify to go with. The level of privacy and protection will vary. Lois McMaster [Bujold]’s Jackson’s Whole suddenly seems a little more chillingly realistic.”
• “We have radically divergent sets of values, political and other, and algos are always rooted in the value systems of their creators. So the scenario is one of a vast opening of opportunity – economic and otherwise – under the control of either the likes of Zuckerberg or the grey-haired movers of global capital or ….”
• “The overall effect will be positive for some individuals. It will be negative for the poor and the uneducated. As a result, the digital divide and wealth disparity will grow. It will be a net negative for society.”
• “Racial exclusion in consumer targeting. Gendered exclusion in consumer targeting. Class exclusion in consumer targeting …. Nationalistic exclusion in consumer targeting.”
• “If the algorithms directing news flow suppress contradictory information – information that challenges the assumptions and values of individuals – we may see increasing extremes of separation in worldviews among rapidly diverging subpopulations.”
• “We may be heading for lowest-common-denominator information flows.”
• “Efficiency and the pleasantness and serotonin that come from prescriptive order are highly overrated. Keeping some chaos in our lives is important.”

A number of participants in this canvassing expressed concerns over the change in the public’s information diets, the “atomization of media,” an over-emphasis of the extreme, ugly, weird news, and the favoring of “truthiness” over more-factual material that may be vital to understanding how to be a responsible citizen of the world.

Theme 6: Unemployment will rise

The spread of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to create major unemployment and all the fallout from that.

An anonymous CEO said, “If a task can be effectively represented by an algorithm, then it can be easily performed by a machine. The negative trend I see here is that – with the rise of the algorithm – humans will be replaced by machines/computers for many jobs/tasks. What will then be the fate of Man?”

A sampling of quote excerpts tied to this theme from other respondents (for details, read the fuller versions in the full report):

I foresee algorithms replacing almost all workers with no real options for the replaced humans.

• “AI and robots are likely to disrupt the workforce to a potential 100% human unemployment. They will be smarter more efficient and productive and cost less, so it makes sense for corporations and business to move in this direction.”
• “The massive boosts in productivity due to automation will increase the disparity between workers and owners of capital.”
• “Modern Western society is built on a societal model whereby Capital is exchanged for Labour to provide economic growth. If Labour is no longer part of that exchange, the ramifications will be immense.”
• “No jobs, growing population and less need for the average person to function autonomously. Which part of this is warm and fuzzy?”
• “I foresee algorithms replacing almost all workers with no real options for the replaced humans.”
• “In the long run, it could be a good thing for individuals by doing away with low-value repetitive tasks and motivating them to perform ones that create higher value.”
• “Hopefully, countries will have responded by implementing forms of minimal guaranteed living wages and free education past K-12; otherwise the brightest will use online resources to rapidly surpass average individuals and the wealthiest will use their economic power to gain more political advantages.”

Theme 7: The need grows for algorithmic literacy, transparency and oversight

The respondents to this canvassing offered a variety of ideas about how individuals and the broader culture might respond to the algorithm-ization of life. They argued for public education to instill literacy about how algorithms function in the general public. They also noted that those who create and evolve algorithms are not held accountable to society and argued there should be some method by which they are. Representative comments:

Susan Etlinger, industry analyst at Altimeter Group, said, “Much like the way we increasingly wish to know the place and under what conditions our food and clothing are made, we should question how our data and decisions are made as well. What is the supply chain for that information? Is there clear stewardship and an audit trail? Were the assumptions based on partial information, flawed sources or irrelevant benchmarks? Did we train our data sufficiently? Were the right stakeholders involved, and did we learn from our mistakes? The upshot of all of this is that our entire way of managing organizations will be upended in the next decade. The power to create and change reality will reside in technology that only a few truly understand. So to ensure that we use algorithms successfully, whether for financial or human benefit or both, we need to have governance and accountability structures in place. Easier said than done, but if there were ever a time to bring the smartest minds in industry together with the smartest minds in academia to solve this problem, this is the time.”

Chris Kutarna, author of Age of Discovery and fellow at the Oxford Martin School, wrote, “Algorithms are an explicit form of heuristic, a way of routinizing certain choices and decisions so that we are not constantly drinking from a fire hydrant of sensory inputs. That coping strategy has always been co-evolving with humanity, and with the complexity of our social systems and data environments. Becoming explicitly aware of our simplifying assumptions and heuristics is an important site at which our intellects and influence mature. What is different now is the increasing power to program these heuristics explicitly, to perform the simplification outside of the human mind and within the machines and platforms that deliver data to billions of individual lives. It will take us some time to develop the wisdom and the ethics to understand and direct this power. In the meantime, we honestly don’t know how well or safely it is being applied. The first and most important step is to develop better social awareness of who, how, and where it is being applied.”

A sampling of quote excerpts tied to this theme from other respondents (for details, read the fuller versions in the full report):

We need some kind of rainbow coalition to come up with rules to avoid allowing inbuilt bias and groupthink to effect the outcomes.

• “Who guards the guardians? And, in particular, which ‘guardians’ are doing what, to whom, using the vast collection of information?”
• “There are no incentives in capitalism to fight filter bubbles, profiling, and the negative effects, and governmental/international governance is virtually powerless.”
• “Oversight mechanisms might include stricter access protocols; sign off on ethical codes for digital management and named stewards of information; online tracking of an individual’s reuse of information; opt-out functions; setting timelines on access; no third-party sale without consent.”
• “Unless there is an increased effort to make true information literacy a part of basic education, there will be a class of people who can use algorithms and a class used by algorithms.”
• “Consumers have to be informed, educated, and, indeed, activist in their orientation toward something subtle. This is what computer literacy is about in the 21st century.”
• “Finding a framework to allow for transparency and assess outcomes will be crucial. Also a need to have a broad understanding of the algorithmic ‘value chain’ and that data is the key driver and as valuable as the algorithm which it trains.”
• “Algorithmic accountability is a big-tent project, requiring the skills of theorists and practitioners, lawyers, social scientists, journalists, and others. It’s an urgent, global cause with committed and mobilized experts looking for support.”
• “Eventually, software liability law will be recognized to be in need of reform, since right now, literally, coders can get away with murder.”
• “The Law of Unintended Consequences indicates that the increasing layers of societal and technical complexity encoded in algorithms ensure that unforeseen catastrophic events will occur – probably not the ones we were worrying about.”
• “Eventually we will evolve mechanisms to give consumers greater control that should result in greater understanding and trust …. The pushback will be inevitable but necessary and will, in the long run, result in balances that are more beneficial for all of us.”
• “We need some kind of rainbow coalition to come up with rules to avoid allowing inbuilt bias and groupthink to effect the outcomes.”
• “Algorithms are too complicated to ever be transparent or to ever be completely safe. These factors will continue to influence the direction of our culture.”
• “I expect meta-algorithms will be developed to try to counter the negatives of algorithms.”

Anonymous respondents shared these one-liners on the topic:

• “The golden rule: He who owns the gold makes the rules.”
• “The bad guys appear to be way ahead of the good guys.”
• “Resistance is futile.”
• “Algorithms are defined by people who want to sell you something (goods, services, ideologies) and will twist the results to favor doing so.”
• “Algorithms are surely helpful but likely insufficient unless combined with human knowledge and political will.”

Finally, this prediction from an anonymous participant who sees the likely endpoint to be one of two extremes:

“The overall impact will be utopia or the end of the human race; there is no middle ground foreseeable. I suspect utopia given that we have survived at least one existential crisis (nuclear) in the past and that our track record toward peace, although slow, is solid.”

Key experts’ thinking about the future impacts of algorithms

Following is a brief collection of comments by several of the many top analysts who participated in this canvassing:

‘Steering people to useful information’

Vinton Cerf, Internet Hall of Fame member and vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google: “Algorithms are mostly intended to steer people to useful information and I see this as a net positive.”

Beware ‘unverified, untracked, unrefined models’

Cory Doctorow, writer, computer science activist-in-residence at MIT Media Lab and co-owner of Boing Boing, responded, “The choices in this question are too limited. The right answer is, ‘If we use machine learning models rigorously, they will make things better; if we use them to paper over injustice with the veneer of machine empiricism, it will be worse.’ Amazon uses machine learning to optimize its sales strategies. When they make a change, they make a prediction about its likely outcome on sales, then they use sales data from that prediction to refine the model. Predictive sentencing scoring contractors to America’s prison system use machine learning to optimize sentencing recommendation. Their model also makes predictions about likely outcomes (on reoffending), but there is no tracking of whether their model makes good predictions, and no refinement. This frees them to make terrible predictions without consequence. This characteristic of unverified, untracked, unrefined models is present in many places: terrorist watchlists; drone-killing profiling models; modern redlining/Jim Crow systems that limit credit; predictive policing algorithms; etc. If we mandate, or establish normative limits, on practices that correct this sleazy conduct, then we can use empiricism to correct for bias and improve the fairness and impartiality of firms and the state (and public/private partnerships). If, on the other hand, the practice continues as is, it terminates with a kind of Kafkaesque nightmare where we do things ‘because the computer says so’ and we call them fair ‘because the computer says so.’”

‘A general trend toward positive outcomes will prevail’

Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher at Microsoft, said, “We are finally reaching a state of symbiosis or partnership with technology. The algorithms are not in control; people create and adjust them. However, positive effects for one person can be negative for another, and tracing causes and effects can be difficult, so we will have to continually work to understand and adjust the balance. Ultimately, most key decisions will be political, and I’m optimistic that a general trend toward positive outcomes will prevail, given the tremendous potential upside to technology use. I’m less worried about bad actors prevailing than I am about unintended and unnoticed negative consequences sneaking up on us.”

‘Faceless systems more interested in surveillance and advertising than actual service’

Doc Searls, journalist, speaker and director of Project VRM at Harvard University’s Berkman Center, wrote, “The biggest issue with algorithms today is the black-box nature of some of the largest and most consequential ones. An example is the one used by Dun & Bradstreet to decide credit worthiness. The methods behind the decisions it makes are completely opaque, not only to those whose credit is judged, but to most of the people running the algorithm as well. Only the programmers are in a position to know for sure what the algorithm does, and even they might not be clear about what’s going on. In some cases there is no way to tell exactly why or how a decision by an algorithm is reached. And even if the responsible parties do know exactly how the algorithm works, they will call it a trade secret and keep it hidden. There is already pushback against the opacity of algorithms, and the sometimes vast systems behind them. Many lawmakers and regulators also want to see, for example, Google’s and Facebook’s vast server farms more deeply known and understood. These things have the size, scale, and in some ways the importance of nuclear power plants and oil refineries, yet enjoy almost no regulatory oversight. This will change. At the same time, so will the size of the entities using algorithms. They will get smaller and more numerous, as more responsibility over individual lives moves away from faceless systems more interested in surveillance and advertising than actual service.”

A call for #AlgorithmicTransparency

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, observed, “The core problem with algorithmic-based decision-making is the lack of accountability. Machines have literally become black boxes – even the developers and operators do not fully understand how outputs are produced. The problem is further exacerbated by ‘digital scientism’ (my phrase) – an unwavering faith in the reliability of big data. ‘Algorithmic transparency’ should be established as a fundamental requirement for all AI-based decision-making. There is a larger problem with the increase of algorithm-based outcomes beyond the risk of error or discrimination – the increasing opacity of decision-making and the growing lack of human accountability. We need to confront the reality that power and authority are moving from people to machines. That is why #AlgorithmicTransparency is one of the great challenges of our era.”

The data ‘will be misused in various ways’

Richard Stallman, Internet Hall of Fame member and president of the Free Software Foundation, said, “People will be pressured to hand over all the personal data that the algorithms would judge. The data, once accumulated, will be misused in various ways – by the companies that collect them, by rogue employees, by crackers that steal the data from the company’s site, and by the state via National Security Letters. I have heard that people who refuse to be used by Facebook are discriminated against in some ways. Perhaps soon they will be denied entry to the U.S., for instance. Even if the U.S. doesn’t actually do that, people will fear that it will. Compare this with China’s social obedience score for internet users.”

People must live with outcomes of algorithms ‘even though they are fearful of the risks’

David Clark, Internet Hall of Fame member and senior research scientist at MIT, replied, “I see the positive outcomes outweighing the negative, but the issue will be that certain people will suffer negative consequences, perhaps very serious, and society will have to decide how to deal with these outcomes. These outcomes will probably differ in character, and in our ability to understand why they happened, and this reality will make some people fearful. But as we see today, people feel that they must use the internet to be a part of society. Even if they are fearful of the consequences, people will accept that they must live with the outcomes of these algorithms, even though they are fearful of the risks.”

‘EVERY area of life will be affected. Every. Single. One.’

Baratunde Thurston, Director’s Fellow at MIT Media Lab, Fast Company columnist, and former digital director of The Onion, wrote: “Main positive changes: 1) The excuse of not knowing things will be reduced greatly as information becomes even more connected and complete. 2) Mistakes that result from errors in human judgment, ‘knowledge,’ or reaction time will be greatly reduced. Let’s call this the ‘robots drive better than people’ principle. Today’s drivers will whine, but in 50 years no one will want to drive when they can use that transportation time to experience a reality-indistinguishable immersive virtual environment filled with a bunch of Beyoncé bots.

“3) Corruption that exists today as a result of human deception will decline significantly—bribes, graft, nepotism. If the algorithms are built well and robustly, the opportunity to insert this inefficiency (e.g., hiring some idiot because he’s your cousin) should go down. 4) In general, we should achieve a much more efficient distribution of resources, including expensive (in dollars or environmental cost) resources like fossil fuels. Basically, algorithmic insight will start to affect the design of our homes, cities, transportation networks, manufacturing levels, waste management processing, and more. There’s a lot of redundancy in a world where every American has a car she never uses. We should become far more energy efficient once we reduce the redundancy of human-drafted processes.

“But there will be negative changes: 1) There will be an increased speed of interactions and volume of information processed—everything will get faster. None of the efficiency gains brought about by technology has ever lead to more leisure or rest or happiness. We will simply shop more, work more, decide more things because our capacity to do all those will have increased. It’s like adding lanes to the highway as a traffic management solution. When you do that, you just encourage more people to drive. The real trick is to not add more car lanes but build a world in which fewer people need or want to drive.

“2) There will be algorithmic and data-centric oppression. Given that these systems will be designed by demonstrably imperfect and biased human beings, we are likely to create new and far less visible forms of discrimination and oppression. The makers of these algorithms and the collectors of the data used to test and prime them have nowhere near a comprehensive understanding of culture, values, and diversity. They will forget to test their image recognition on dark skin or their medical diagnostic tools on Asian women or their transport models during major sporting events under heavy fog. We will assume the machines are smarter, but we will realize they are just as dumb as we are but better at hiding it.

“3) Entire groups of people will be excluded and they most likely won’t know about the parallel reality they don’t experience. Every area of life will be affected. Every. Single. One.”

A call for ‘industry reform’ and ‘more savvy regulatory regimes’

Technologist Anil Dash said, “The best parts of algorithmic influence will make life better for many people, but the worst excesses will truly harm the most marginalized in unpredictable ways. We’ll need both industry reform within the technology companies creating these systems and far more savvy regulatory regimes to handle the complex challenges that arise.”

‘We are a society that takes its life direction from the palm of our hands’

John Markoff, author of Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots and senior writer at The New York Times, observed, “I am most concerned about the lack of algorithmic transparency. Increasingly we are a society that takes its life direction from the palm of our hands – our smartphones. Guidance on everything from what is the best Korean BBQ to who to pick for a spouse is algorithmically generated. There is little insight, however, into the values and motives of the designers of these systems.”

Fix the ‘organizational, societal and political climate we’ve constructed’

danah boyd, founder of Data & Society, commented, “An algorithm means nothing by itself. What’s at stake is how a ‘model’ is created and used. A model is comprised of a set of data (e.g., training data in a machine learning system) alongside an algorithm. The algorithm is nothing without the data. But the model is also nothing without the use case. The same technology can be used to empower people (e.g., identify people at risk) or harm them. It all depends on who is using the information to what ends (e.g., social services vs. police). Because of unhealthy power dynamics in our society, I sadly suspect that the outcomes will be far more problematic – mechanisms to limit people’s opportunities, segment and segregate people into unequal buckets, and leverage surveillance to force people into more oppressive situations. But it doesn’t have to be that way. What’s at stake has little to do with the technology; it has everything to do with the organizational, societal and political climate we’ve constructed.”

We have an algorithmic problem already: Credit scores

Henning Schulzrinne, Internet Hall of Fame member and professor at Columbia University, noted, “We already have had early indicators of the difficulties with algorithmic decision-making, namely credit scores. Their computation is opaque and they were then used for all kinds of purposes far removed from making loans, such as employment decisions or segmenting customers for different treatment. They leak lots of private information and are disclosed, by intent or negligence, to entities that do not act in the best interest of the consumer. Correcting data is difficult and time-consuming, and thus unlikely to be available to individuals with limited resources. It is unclear how the proposed algorithms address these well-known problems, given that they are often subject to no regulations whatsoever. In many areas, the input variables are either crude (and often proxies for race), such as home ZIP code, or extremely invasive, such as monitoring driving behavior minute-by-minute. Given the absence of privacy laws, in general, there is every incentive for entities that can observe our behavior, such as advertising brokers, to monetize behavioral information. At minimum, institutions that have broad societal impact would need to disclose the input variables used, how they influence the outcome and be subject to review, not just individual record corrections. An honest, verifiable cost-benefit analysis, measuring improved efficiency or better outcomes against the loss of privacy or inadvertent discrimination, would avoid the ‘trust us, it will be wonderful and it’s AI!’ decision-making.”

Algorithms ‘create value and cut costs’ and will be improved

Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said, “Like virtually all past technologies, algorithms will create value and cut costs, far in excess of any costs. Moreover, as organizations and society get more experience with use of algorithms there will be natural forces toward improvement and limiting any potential problems.”

‘The goal should be to help people question authority’

Judith Donath of Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, replied, “Data can be incomplete, or wrong, and algorithms can embed false assumptions. The danger in increased reliance on algorithms is that is that the decision-making process becomes oracular: opaque yet unarguable. The solution is design. The process should not be a black box into which we feed data and out comes an answer, but a transparent process designed not just to produce a result, but to explain how it came up with that result. The systems should be able to produce clear, legible text and graphics that help the users – readers, editors, doctors, patients, loan applicants, voters, etc. – understand how the decision was made. The systems should be interactive, so that people can examine how changing data, assumptions, rules would change outcomes. The algorithm should not be the new authority; the goal should be to help people question authority.”

Do more to train coders with diverse world views

Amy Webb, futurist and CEO at the Future Today Institute, wrote, “In order to make our machines think, we humans need to help them learn. Along with other pre-programmed training datasets, our personal data is being used to help machines make decisions. However, there are no standard ethical requirements or mandate for diversity, and as a result we’re already starting to see a more dystopian future unfold in the present. There are too many examples to cite, but I’ll list a few: would-be borrowers turned away from banks, individuals with black-identifying names seeing themselves in advertisements for criminal background searches, people being denied insurance and health care. Most of the time, these problems arise from a limited worldview, not because coders are inherently racist. Algorithms have a nasty habit of doing exactly what we tell them to do. Now, what happens when we’ve instructed our machines to learn from us? And to begin making decisions on their own? The only way to address algorithmic discrimination in the future is to invest in the present. The overwhelming majority of coders are white and male. Corporations must do more than publish transparency reports about their staff – they must actively invest in women and people of color, who will soon be the next generation of workers. And when the day comes, they must choose new hires both for their skills and their worldview. Universities must redouble their efforts not only to recruit a diverse body of students –administrators and faculty must support them through to graduation. And not just students. Universities must diversify their faculties, to ensure that students see themselves reflected in their teachers.”

The impact in the short term will be negative; in the longer term it will be positive

Jamais Cascio, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, observed, “The impact of algorithms in the early transition era will be overall negative, as we (humans, human society and economy) attempt to learn how to integrate these technologies. Bias, error, corruption and more will make the implementation of algorithmic systems brittle, and make exploiting those failures for malice, political power or lulz comparatively easy. By the time the transition takes hold – probably a good 20 years, maybe a bit less – many of those problems will be overcome, and the ancillary adaptations (e.g., potential rise of universal basic income) will start to have an overall benefit. In other words, shorter term (this decade) negative, longer term (next decade) positive.”

The story will keep shifting

Mike Liebhold, senior researcher and distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future, commented, “The future effects of algorithms in our lives will shift over time as we master new competencies. The rates of adoption and diffusion will be highly uneven, based on natural variables of geographies, the environment, economies, infrastructure, policies, sociologies, psychology, and – most importantly – education. The growth of human benefits of machine intelligence will be most constrained by our collective competencies to design and interact effectively with machines. At an absolute minimum, we need to learn to form effective questions and tasks for machines, how to interpret responses and how to simply detect and repair a machine mistake.”

Make algorithms ‘comprehensible, predictable and controllable’

Ben Shneiderman, professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, wrote, “When well-designed, algorithms amplify human abilities, but they must be comprehensible, predictable and controllable. This means they must be designed to be transparent so that users can understand the impacts of their use and they must be subject to continuing evaluation so that critics can assess bias and errors. Every system needs a responsible contact person/organization that maintains/updates the algorithm and a social structure so that the community of users can discuss their experiences.”

In key cases, give the user control

David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, said, “Algorithmic analysis at scale can turn up relationships that are predictive and helpful even if they are beyond the human capacity to understand them. This is fine where the stakes are low, such as a book recommendation. Where the stakes are high, such as algorithmically filtering a news feed, we need to be far more careful, especially when the incentives for the creators are not aligned with the interests of the individuals or of the broader social goods. In those latter cases, giving more control to the user seems highly advisable.”

Conclusion

If you didn’t know what an algorithm was at the start of this article, hopefully, now, you have a more concrete understanding of the somewhat elusive term. As professional developers, it is important that we understand that the code we write can be analyzed and optimized, and it is important that we take the time to do this analysis of the performance of our code.

Any fun algorithm practice problems you’ve found? Perhaps a dynamic programming “knapsack problem”, or “drunken walk”? Or maybe you know of some best practices of recursion in Ruby that differ from the same functions implemented in Python. Share them in the comments!

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What Other Marketing Strategy Can Silent Digital Marketing In The Coming Years?

Thanks to growthrocks for this piece. And please read to your understanding as we hope to guide you through this article.

1. Ahrefs

> 10 Ways to Get Google to Index Your Site (That Actually Work) – By Joshua Hardwick

> How to Improve SEO: 8 Tactics That Don’t Require New Content – By Si Quan Ong

> How to Write a Blog Post in 9 Steps (That People Actually Want to Read) – By Rebekah Bek

2. Backlinko

> We Analyzed 912 Million Blog Posts. Here’s What We Learned About Content Marketing – By Brian Dean

> Copywriting: The Definitive Guide – By Brian Dean

> We Analyzed 12 Million Outreach Emails. Here’s What We Learned – By Brian Dean

3. BuzzSumo

> The 2019 Ultimate Guide to Facebook Engagement – By Susan Moeller

> 7 Steps To Create A Successful, Profitable Blog – By Mike Allton

> Best B2B Content: Analysis and Insights from Over 50,000 Articles – By Dustin Stout

4. Content Marketing Institute

> Get Rid of These 25 Phrases and Words From Your Content – By Julia McCoy

> 9 Steps to Optimize Images for SEO – By Isaac Justesen

> 24 Big Mistakes You Should Avoid in Content Marketing – By Ann Gynn

5. Copyhackers

> Forget the Images: Long Facebook Ad Copy Works – By Sarah Sal

> I’ve Helped Create 150+ Case Studies. Here’s (Almost) Everything I’ve Learned – By Joel Klettke

> Inclusive Buyer Personas: Where new product ideas live and growth happens – By Sonia Thompson

6. GrowthHackers

> AMA with Dani Hart, Founder of Growth Gal & Former Head of Growth at GrowthHackers – By Dani Hart

> ΑΜΑ with Jim Huffman, GrowthHit CEO, Author of The Growth Marketer’s Playbook and Techstars Mentor – By Jim Huffman

> AMA with Kieran Flanagan, VP of Growth and Marketing at Hubspot  – By Kieran Flanagan

7. GrowthRocks

> LinkedIn Experiment: Link in Post VS Link in Comment – By Nicolas Lekkas

> The Big 5 Tech Companies & Their Big 5 Acquisitions – By Nicolas Lekkas

> 12 Ways to Increase Organic Facebook Reach in 2019 – By Nicolas Lekkas

8. Hubspot

> The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2019 – By Caroline Forsey

> The 60 Best Free Online Courses For Whatever You Want to Learn – By Lisa Toner

> 6 Tips to Stop Thinking About Work After Work Hours [Infographic] – By Caroline Forsey

9. Indie Hackers

> We wasted $50K on Google Ads so you don’t have to – By Anton Elfimov

> Ideas for promoting your software product  – By Justin Jackson

> Bootstrapping a Business: 5 Years In – By Michael Hansen

10. Marketing Land

> Facebook to replace relevance score with 3 new metrics in April – By Amy Gesenhues

> Updated: Prepare to say goodbye to Facebook ad set budgets – By Amy Gesenhues

> Facebook gives small businesses new advertising and engagement tools – By Amy Gesenhues

11. Moz

> Optimizing for Searcher Intent Explained in 7 Visuals – By Rand Fishkin

> The One-Hour Guide to SEO: SEO Strategy – Whiteboard Friday – By Rand Fishkin

> On-Page SEO for 2019 – Whiteboard Friday – By Britney Muller

12. Neil Patel Digital

> How Digital Marketing Will Change in 2019 – By Neil Patel

> The Ultimate SEO Tool: Ubersuggest 3.0 – By Neil Patel

> 17 Charts That Show Where Social Media is Heading – By Neil Patel

13. Search Engine Journal

> 5 Freaking Genius Content Ideas You Can Steal from BuzzFeed – By Jessica Foster

> Google Shares Top 3 SEO Factors – By Roger Montti

> Mark Zuckerberg at F8 Conference Announces New eCommerce and Payment Platform – By Roger Montti

14. Social Media Examiner

> 10 Metrics to Track When Analyzing Your Social Media Marketing– By Ashley Ward

> How to Grow Your Instagram Following: A Strategic Plan – By Amanda Bond

> Is Facebook Organic Marketing Dead? – By Michael Stelzner

15. Social Media Today

> Facebook API Changes Mean You Can No Longer Auto Post Tweets to Facebook – By Andrew Hutchinson

> Why is Digital Marketing so Important for Business in 2019? [Infographic] – By Andrew Hutchinson

> 8 Ways Your Social Media Content is Annoying Your Audience – By Nathan Mendenhall

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Today we are considering what some 5 major Influencer marketing companies for us to share with you our keen readers.

• Case 1: Global Influencer Marketing 2019 (What to Know About Spending, Stories, Fraud and Microinfluencers)

Lets see what e Marketer is got to say on Influencer Marketing as it becomes a very rampart world in the digital age.

Influencer marketing is a part of marketing plans for businesses around the world, especially in industries such as fashion, beauty, retail and entertainment. But high-profile scandals like the Fyre Festival show that this industry that sprang up to help brands forge authentic connections to consumers is facing increasing scrutiny of its own trustworthiness.

• How much should marketers be spending on influencer marketing?The average share of budgets is only about 10%, but marketers are increasing their spending as their reliance on the tactic grows. In some Asian countries, such as China, the practice is even more important than in other parts of the world.
• Why are marketers gravitating toward Instagram Stories? Influencers like Stories because they can be more candid and real than in feed posts, and because they can disappear. Stories are also helping to bring influencer marketing closer to the purchase decision, because they allow outbound links.
• How big a problem is fraud in influencer marketing? Fraud is on the rise, and issues ranging from fake engagement to nondisclosure are still far from resolved. Some marketers such as Unilever have pledged to no longer work with influencers whose metrics they cannot trust.
• Why the spike in interest in microinfluencers? A growing number of marketers are taking a back-to-basics approach, scaling back their use of celebrities and megacreators for so-called “micro-” and “nano-” influencers who have smaller audiences but may actually use a product and can speak authentically about it.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report pinpoints the ways marketers are using influencer marketing successfully and explores how they are getting past some of the vexing issues that threaten to hold the tactic back.

KEY STAT: A worldwide survey of CMOs found that 30.5% are increasing their focus on influencers as part of the advertising media mix.

Key Cases To Analyze Globally With An Integrated Sector Search For Nigerian Brand With High Consideration Of Influencer Marketing On All Platforms.

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• Case 3: How To Stay Competitive In The Growing World Of Influencer Marketing

• Case 4: How To Stay Competitive In The Growing World Of Influencer Marketing

As social media becomes a more integrated part of our lives, influencer marketinghas exploded. People are turning to their favorite Instagram models, Twitter personalities and YouTube stars for advice and recommendations on purchasing decisions.

These influencers are trusted by millions of consumers, and marketers are paying attention. It turns out 86% of them used influencer marketing since last year, and budgets for influencer marketing are skyrocketing.

Social media has given normal people an opportunity to build their own brand through stimulating content and engagement. These new influencers are more relatable than traditional celebrities. Since more people are joining social media networks every day, companies have begun to realize they can leverage these platforms for marketing.

Interest in influencer marketing has only raised, which means a lot of research has been conducted which has produced interesting statistics. So let’s take a look at some of the most eye-popping results of these studies. Here are 20 influencer marketing stats that will surprise you.

1) 70% of Teens Trust Influencers More than Traditional Celebrities

It’s extremely difficult for brands to build the same level of trust influencers possess, but thanks to influencer marketing that trust is transmitted to your brand. So much so that 4 in 10 millennial subscribers say their favorite influencer understand them better than their friends

Another effect of influencer marketing is that brands don’t have to waste resources promoting themselves, and instead use influencers to speak on their behalf and deliver the message they want people to here and trust.

2) 86% of Women Use Social Media for Purchasing Advice

This statistic should be important to any brand that either has women as their primary target audience or within their scope of ideal customers.

It seems if you want to reach more women and get them to buy your product or service, you need to be present on social media and aware of the influencers that they are interested in. And this behavior is growing as 45% of women claim to be more active on social media that they were just 2 years ago.

When it comes to influencer marketing, over half of women made purchases due to influencer posts with Facebook and Instagram being the preferred platforms. The key to engaging this cohort through influencers is to be genuine and inspirational.

3) 49% of Consumers Depend on Influencer Recommendations

This statistic demonstrates the growing importance of social media influences for brands to connect with their audiences. Not only do 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations but 40% had purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

If consumers feel confident about an influencer’s recommendation, they are more likely to make a purchase. Brands are able to piggyback on the trust of influencers.

4) 6 in 10 Teens Follow Advice From Influencers Over Celebrities

The word of a celebrity isn’t as valuable as it used to be. Not only do customers have a hard time trusting brands, but also traditional celebrities seem to have lost the influence they once had.

Influencers have the power to forge strong ties with fans and experience a more engaged audience gaining 3 times as many views, twice as many actions and 12 times as many comments compared to videos from traditional celebrities.

It seems these days’ consumers trust social media influencers and their peers above anybody else. Power has shifted to social media influencers.

5) Influencer Marketing Campaigns Earn $6.50 for Every Dollar Spent

With 59% of marketers planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets, this area of marketing is becoming the fastest growing channel for brands beating organic search, paid search and email marketing.

According to a Tomson study, businesses earn $6.50 for each dollar spent on influencers with the top 13% earning $20 or even more. That’s a significant return on investment considering that over half of marketers also consider the customers they acquire through this route as better prospects.

In terms fo influencer channels, blogs and Facebook are cited as the most effective platforms.

6) Influencer Marketing Is the Fastest-Growing Online Customer-Acquisition Method

More brands are hopping on the influencer marketing train. It’s becoming more important than ever to build relationships with influencers who resonate with your brand and to create campaigns, which are aligned with the values of an influencer’s followers.

In addition, 22% of marketers say influencer marketing is the most cost-effective method of obtaining new customers.

7) 57% of Fashion and Beauty Companies Engage in Influencer Marketing

Fashion and beauty are industries that rely heavily on influencer marketing as organic growth for brands has become more challenging without advertising and amplification.

In this sector,  57% of companies now use influencers as part of their marketing mix while 21% are planning to add this to their strategy in the coming year.

Many brands now use influencers to great success such as Lush using Grav3yardgirl and  Nicole Guerriero gaining thousands of views on YouTube. However, while many fashion and beauty brands are keen on using influencers, many want to ensure that a brand affinity exists in order to drive success.

8) Major Brands Plan to Increase Spend on Influencer Marketing

More brands and marketers are coming to realize the incredible results that influence marketing can produce. This impact is resulting in an increase in spend with  67% of marketers planning to increase their budgets in the next 12 months particularly on Instagram.

Not only is spend increasing to help boost brand awareness, reach new audiences and improve brand advocacy, but it’s fast becoming the key channel for many marketers.

9) The Influencer Marketing Industry is Expected to Hit $10bn by 2020

As an industry, influencer marketing has expanded exponentially over the past two years. Worth just $2 billion in 2017, the industry is set to reach  $10 billion by 2020 as the industry witnesses more growth and becomes a more effective marketplace.

This growth means more widespread use in marketing and will require marketers to evolve strategies in the way campaigns are measured, create analytics to scale campaigns and look at how to manage relationships between brands and influencers.

10) 74% of People Trust Social Networks to Guide Purchasing Decisions

About  three-quarters of consumers trust opinions they find on social media, including those from friends, families, and influencers, to help them make the right decision about buying a product or service.

This creates huge opportunities for marketers in the promotion of products (sponsored or not) to reach new audiences and influence key cohorts such as millennials and Gen Z.

11. Influencer Marketing has Surpassed Print Marketing

What this means is brands are undergoing a transition in the ways they spend their marketing budgets. Expensive and inefficient ad buys, such as those found in newspapers and magazines, are giving way to influencer marketing.

The return on investment in influencer marketing is far outpacing any traditional medium.

12. 40% of Customers Use Ad-Blocking Technology

More and more internet users are removing traditional ads from their online experience. In the U.S. ad-blocking usage is 40% on laptops and 15% on mobile as consumers are tired of being hammered with pop-ups and banners.

But influencers are now filling the gap. People aren’t blocking videos from their favorite social media celebrities; in fact, they’re eating up every word they say. Advertising power is shifting to real people and influencers.

13. Marketers spend $25,000-$50,000 on Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Spending on influencers has gone up over the past few years, and it’s only going to increase.

Many budgets for influencer marketing are on the rise with marketers expected to invest an average of $25,000-$50,000 in multifaceted campaigns, which is in line with many external marketing budgets of small-to-medium sized companies.

14) 40% of Twitter Users Made a Purchase Based on a Tweet

It seems Twitter influencers do, as a matter of fact, have the ability to impact the purchasing decisions of followers. On the platform, influencers are now rivaling friends in terms of building trust with 49% of Twitter users saying they relied on influencers compared to 56% listening to friends.

Engaging in marketing campaigns with influencers over Twitter clearly has the potential to drive up sales for goods and services.

15) 67% of Marketers Promote Content With the Help of Influencers

We already mentioned 73% of marketers have a budget set aside for influencer marketing, but as of right now just 67% are actively engaging with and have a relationship with influencers. They’re getting ahead of the curve and striking marketing deals to borrow their trust.

Now is the time to jump in and get involved in influencer marketing. It’s time to do your research and find influencers who might have the trust and dedication of your target audience.

16) Facebook Is the Most Influential Social Media Network

With about two billion monthly users across the world, Facebook is the most influential social media channel with 19% of purchasing decisions being influenced by the platform.

Other social media networks are catching up to the giant, but Facebook remains on top. It’s important to stay active on Facebook and engage with influencers for marketing purposes.

17) YouTube Is Hot on Facebook’s Heels

While Facebook is still the alpha dog, YouTube is right behind with 18% marketing influence. The platform has made celebrities and influencers of regular people, and fame is open to all age groups and demographics.

There’s something for everybody on YouTube, and marketers are taking notice by putting more money into influencer marketing on the platform.

18) 60% of Consumers Have Been Influenced by Social Media or Blog While Shopping at a Store

This changes the meaning of comparison shopping. According to research, 3% of consumers would consider buying a product in-store if promoted by a celebrity compared to 60% for an influencer.

Not only is the influence greater, but over half of customers are consulting blogs and social media on their mobiles prior to shopping highlighting the importance of easy to find information and posts (social and blogs) to reveal a product’s reputation.

19) Purchase Intent Increased by 5.2x by Influencers on Twitter

Part of influencer marketing research means discovering which social media networks are most suitable for promoting your brand and where your target audience can be found.

According to Twitter influencers created a 5.2x increase in purchase intent when users were exposed to brand and influencer tweets compared to 2.7x when just shown brand tweets.

20) 71% of Marketers Believe Influencer Partnerships are Good for Business

Influencer marketing campaigns should not be a one-and-done proposition but are a valuable strategy in a marketer’s toolkit. with nearly three-quarters of marketing professionals citing them as good for business.

If you can partner with them and create a long-term relationship, making them ambassadors of your brand, the message they portray comes across as more trusted instead of promotional. It helps to boost your brand’s credibility if you’re seen as trusted by an influencer.

Join the Social Influencer Marketing Party

It’s better late than never when it comes to developing an influencer marketing campaign. A good way to start would be to reach out to some of your industry’s top influencers and show off your great product or service. Otherwise, do research on some of the big-time social media influencers and find out which ones have your target audience as a significant portion of their following and go from there.

Either way, understanding how to use influencer marketing to its true potential will help to drive brand awareness, leads and revenue.

However, when the thoughts comes up please recall the best influencer marketing company in Lagos Nigeria for influencer marketing services in Lagos Nigeria

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Brand Activation – Experiential Marketing Notes

Printing Services: Branding Act In Prints Communication

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Congratulations to the XINI team with a spotlighting credit across the world, We are more than delighted for your winning category by the creative team led by the Founder/Managing Director  Charles Ataghoma of XINI Communications Limited as they include an exceptionally fit achievement to their portfolio as the Best Branding And Digital Marketing Agency In Nigeria for the year 2019.

United Kingdom, 2019– MEA Markets magazine announces the winners of the 2019 African Excellence Business Awards.

Although the economy is fluctuating we believe in Og Mandino’s words: ‘always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity’. Showcasing the most outstanding businesses from across, but not limited to industries such as, energy, agriculture, mining and tourism to the uncovering the innovators in disciplines like banking, technology and real estate development, we have provided an overview of the best of the best from across the region.

Commenting on the success of these deserving winners, Edward Faulkner, Awards Coordinator said: “Congratulations to all of my winners, you are truly the best that the African corporate market has to offer. I am very proud of all of you and I wish you the very best of luck for the future.”

To find out more about these prestigious awards, and the dedicated professionals selected for them, please visit https://www.mea-markets.com/ where you can view our winners supplement and full winners list.

ENDS

Notes to editors.

About MEA Markets

Published quarterly, MEA Markets endeavours to provide readers with the latest business and investment news across the Middle East and Africa regions.

Keeping pace with a vast array of ever-changing sectors thanks to regular contributions from some of the region’s top corporate professionals across a variety of industries, MEA Markets is home to the very best news, features and comment from the people and institutions in the know.

It is our wish that they keep up the more success in the coming years as it includes the global stage. We must say that Nigeria is proud to have you in Africa as a creative communications company.

Congratulations Once More!

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Tips to Avoid Getting Burnt Out Thinking of Marketing Ideas

Most businesses are looking to have an online presence. They also want to reap from it by looking for strategies to implement to achieve their desired sales goals. Having your site optimized through SEO is one of the strategies that can help improve your site’s visibility, ranking, and traffic. There is vast information on how to implement SEO for your site on your own, but this is not recommended. You can assign that task to an SEOtool provider and utilize that time carrying out different tasks.

To choose the best provider for your site, there are things you need to consider. They include:

1) Objectives for Your Site

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You need to know exactly what you want for your site before reaching out to an SEO tool provider for their services. There are different SEO services, and they all differ in application and results.

They are also applicable to different platforms, and you need to choose the most suitable for your site. When in the dark about what you want, look for a firm that offers all SEO services such as eCrawl to ensure that you get exactly what you are looking for. Talk to them and get into an agreement on the changes and achievements you are looking for.

2) Techniques and Tools Used

You can choose a provider depending on the tools, activities, and approaches they use for SEO. Ensure they are legit as illegal techniques such as black hat SEO as they might get your site penalized for unscrupulous tactics leaving you with a poorly ranked site.

Have the provider list all the techniques they will implement for your site. They should also inform you of the key performance indicators you need to look for when keeping an eye on your site. Some can use one or several tools to help you achieve your targets.

3) Cost

Providers have different rates for their services. Once you determine what you need, compare prices charged by different firms to ensure you get services from firms that fit within your price range. Some firms can offer packages for services they offer or customize the prices depending on your needs.

4) Communication

Consider how the firms communicate to their clients before making your investment, as this will apply to you too. Choose firms that constantly keep updating you on changes on your site. You can establish a channel of communication to use for your firm in case you operate on a different schedule.

5) Recommendations

To spot a reputable firm, get recommendations from friends, family, or other businesses that have used similar services. You can also review recommendations about each provider by strangers and choose the one with the best reviews. These reviews can be found on the service provider’s site or on other platforms that people have room to offer honest opinions.

6) Performance

In each industry, there are oversight firms that reward their key players with exemplary performance. You can observe and follow up on this and go for firms who receive the awards. This is a sign that their activities are valid and can work for you too. Additionally, this helps you choose legitimate companies as some out there are scams.

Conclusion-

These were all about some of the tips while choosing seo tool provider. While selecting this, you should take care of both on-page seo optimization techniques and off-page seo optimization techniques and ensure that the tool provides both. Do let me know what you think while selecting the tool.

The Ultimate Startup Marketing Strategy For Incredible Growth

We live in the era of start-ups. Thousands of them were burnt just after a short period of existence, while others, however, have succeeded and now represent serious business players.

Let’s revise such advertising platform as Twitter as an example. It was used for communication between several colleagues and co-workers. The idea was not treated seriously for quite a long time. But now it is a new standard for communication on the Internet. What is their secret?

First of all we should start with two universal truths:

1. Having a good product doesn’t mean you will be successful.
2. Good marketing will not help you if your product is nothing, but rubbish.

Basics

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Become viral

Hotmail, Dropbox and some their soul friends have won the audience with almost investment to marketing, their secret is in installing viral element to the product. It means that your product should be worth recommendation to a friend.

Communicate with your clients

You may have oceans of traffics, but low conversion rates. No time for guessing – ask your clients what frightens or dissatisfies them in your offer. There are thousands of ways to start opinion polls, Survey Monkey as a variant.

Note: users will be reluctant to spend their time for no compensation. You may offer your master class available for a specific audience or a trial period with full facilities.

Get feedbacks

New start-ups should be interested in the clients’ feedbacks. They are very short of time to react and improve the product until it is not too late. To be honest, people are quite lazy to fill all the questionnaires, think how you can motivate them.

Start with small audiences

Become mass market is good idea, but public is very reluctant and suspicious about changes. Being a new product, you’d better earn confidence from newbies and innovators. After positive experience with your products, being praised, you can attack mass markets. Try to use different channels to attract your customers – RTB advertising network, social media, video content, PPC ads etc

Paid marketing

It is silly to think that start-ups should use only free means for promotion. It is certainly wise if you spend $1 for attracting one user and he brings you 5 more. The most popular variants are the following:

Paid Search Marketing

If you have a treatment for a common human’s problem – they are very likely to google it. Paid search results are displayed over natural query. Some people may not even notice that small mark “ads”. The principle based on laziness as searching the answer on the 10th page is really long and if your snippet is attractive and likely to offer what your client need – why hesitate?

Main disadvantage is that it will be stopped as soon as you finish fueling it with money.

Affiliate Marketing

This strategy shouldn’t be considered as a main way out, but will suit as an addition. There are good rates at such places like ClickBank.

Earned marketing

Here we refer any type of advertising that was created by your followers, colleagues or partners – anyone who share your ideas and want to help.

One of main ideas here is to show that you are unique from others. It is difficult to say what you should exactly do, but people should understand why they should choose you instead of your competitors.

Implement your own channels

There are thousands of ideas like:

• email marketing;
• blogging;
• create videos about your product;
• content marketing;
• join social networks where your clients hang out.
• Online advertising network

Bottom line

You may get surprised, but all you have read just now is not a universal truth. Nobody can exclude human factor or a wonderful stroke of luck, sometimes perfect solutions for your main competitor can be absolutely not applicable for you. What to do? Test, experiment, take examples and tune them to your situation.

Want to Learn Social Media Marketing Tricks? Read This

Social media may have come to us more than twenty years ago and evolving into more as technology advances. Social media marketing is just one of those additions that are being used by businesses to advertise their company and BroadVision Media can show you just how you can use these platforms to take your business to the next level in the way of marketing.

Businesses have been turning to social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter as a new way to reach more demographics but also because today’s population seems to have less of an attention span than previously so businesses have had to adjust from using traditional ways of marketing such as radio, television and direct mail to incorporating social media in their advertising campaigns.

If you’re a business owner you know that the time it takes to put together an effective marketing campaign is the time you don’t have, that is why you have a marketing team or outsource to a marketing agency.

Today marketing is more effective when sharing content, staying updated with the latest trends in your field as a way to gain new clients while keeping current ones engaged enough to come back.

I don’t know how to use anything but Facebook and I can’t do more than like posts and comment on pictures.

BroadVision Media is a perfect example of a company who has the 411 on using social media marketing to increase your business awareness and clientele. BroadVision Media’s main focus is on inbound marketing a smart way to get your business up and running by redesigning your website and increasing your followers on social media platforms an that is exactly what BroadVision Media does for you, step by step.

What is Inbound Marketing?

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An example of inbound marketing is using HubSpot’s methodology; Attract, Engage, Delight. This method is used by uploading videos, relevant content and social media posts to attract hot leads.

The second step is to engage the potential client using marketing automation, lead management, and conversational bots. Those who remain, become engaged and are happy to receive email marketing, emails that start a conversation and smart content from the business without feeling solicited.

Followers who don’t unfollow.

In the present day of phishing, scams, and bots using social media company’s like BroadVision Media who use keywords and Social Mediamarketing in addition to their inbound marketing is a new type of service to businesses especially to those who may not be as tech savvy or educated in the way of different social media platforms so BroadVision Media has designed a business to help business owners to use these tools with guidance that will, in turn, increase brand awareness and clientele.

So how does one gain followers?

Chose interesting content that is relevant to your business and use hashtags beyond the obvious. Upload videos and pictures of employee’s, the office, people at work and post on a regular basis using relevant hashtags such as #businessnameanniversary #workinghardorharlyworking #yolo #lovemyjob #alwayscreating.

The Website That Makes Instagram Followers on Sale at the Cheapest Price

You must have heard the phrase “A Picture is worth a Thousand Words”. Instagram is a social media platform for photos sharing and networking and the phrase is the best caption or tagline for Instagram. With so many social media platforms available today, Instagram is the #1. Everybody who uses a smartphone has an account on Instagram, with thousands of new users registering daily.

Social media has become a game changer in the field of marketing. If anyone wants to run a business or get recognized, then Instagram is the platform with a lot of potential. Getting noticed on such a platform is always helpful in establishing or expanding the business, getting recognized, and many more individual goals.

The first thing you want to do on Instagram is to get some followers to follow your content. Now, people think that this is the easiest part but it is not. In fact, this is the most difficult part of Instagram.

It takes determination, peace, skill, and commitment to gain followers. Let me ask you a question, what is the first thing you notice on someone’s profile? The answer is the number of followers.

The Second thing you do is to look at the likes or comments on any of the picture of the profile. Following someone is easy but liking the content takes time. You have to build a profile that can attract the target audience that will spread the word about your profile.

Advantages of Instagram to any business or individual:

• Posting a picture or a video about the company’s product, office culture, and behind the scene operations on Instagram brings the people closest to you. If people like your content they will spread it like an epidemic. Using lucrative hashtags regarding the product you can speak to a large part of society.
• Instagram helps in getting reviews of the customers. If someone is following you on Instagram, that means he/she is interested in your content. If your business appeals to your followers, they will surely leave positive feedbacks and bring more and more people to your profile. It is the human psychology if someone sees that some profile has a few million followers, odds are he/she will look up the profile and follow it.
• Instagram can be used to endorse your products. People follow celebrities from Hollywood, footballers, and various famous personalities. These celebrities can promote your brand/product on Instagram. It saves a lot amount of money compared to tele-promoting.
• Posting stories daily or posting pictures/videos from time to time keeps your followers engaged. People can always connect with you through the personal chat option. You can also share live video with your followers whenever you launch something new. This builds the trust and sometimes you get to feature in the search/trending section.
• Unlike some social media platforms, Instagram does not have any character limit describing your image (captioning) as well as the number of posts limit. You can post any number of posts daily or in total.
• For a talented individual with a certain skill set, Instagram will surely bring recognition, fame, money, and what not. You just have to keep your audience close to your Instagram page and make them like you.

Looking at these advantages you must be tempted to create new accounts and start your journey on the platform of Instagram. But managing a business is not easy. It takes time, energy and determination to manage the business. Running an Instagram is a similarly challenging task. An easy way to manage Instagram is to buy Instagram followers.

By buying the followers, you can save your precious time and money. Let us look at this step logically, if you buy a certain number of followers. This will ultimately increase the number of people who see your business. You might know that phrase people attract people, the more people see your products, more is the sales, and you will get more profits.

There are some companies which provide services like providing followers, likes, comments, tweets, etc. Instafollowers.co is one of the leading companies in this growing market. With the cheapest rates and 24/7 customer support, Instafollowers.co is making a difference. Instafollowers.co is equipped with social media advisors.

Every client is treated with respect and every promotional demand is studied with utmost priority. If clients need any suggestions or one to one sessions with the advisors, it can be arranged. You can get 1000 regular (bot) followers for $4 and 1000 real followers for $5. They also provide discounts and special offers if you buy in large quantities.

Merits of Instafollowers.co

• Provides both active and regular followers to your account within minutes of the payment.
• A fast and efficient payment method like Paypal is used. As soon as you make the payment, the service that was bought is brought to the user.
• You do not need to provide the password of your account. Just give them your Instagram username and you will get the service.
• Support team works hand in hand with the designer team. If you have any problem regarding anything Contact them, support will reply with a quick response.
• In addition to the followers, they also sell likes, comments for your pictures. You just need to take a leap of faith and register with them.
• It is absolutely legal to buy Instagram followers. Active followers will interact with your content and they will share more and more.

About our branding and printing services

As soon as you register with Instafollowers.co and buy the followers, traffic will increase to your account. Keep posting appealing content and the followers will bring more real followers. Everyone wants to gain more and more likes and comments on the pictures, so reach out to Instafollowers.co and register now. A recent study has revealed that the number of local businesses which uses Instagram is limited. So grab this opportunity and enter this area of low competition and grow your business with Instafollowers.co. you can also get an updated business scope with https://nationalviews.com

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What is Advertising?

Advertising is a marketing tactic involving paying for space to promote a product, service, or cause. The actual promotional messages are called advertisements, or ads for short. The goal of advertising is to reach people most likely to be willing to pay for a company’s products or services and entice them to buy.

Finding Your Ideal Customer

When trying to zero in on the types of people who are more likely to need or want your goods or services, and be willing to shell out hard-earned cash for it, you might look at demographic characteristics, such as:

• Gender
• Age
• Education level
• Income level
• Zip code

By more precisely defining who your target customer is, you can better choose advertising vehicles that will reach more of your target customers for less money. Sure, you can buy an expensive ad in the Wall Street Journal, for example, but if your best customers live in the western Boston suburbs, you can buy ads in local papers there for far less.

Where to Advertise

Traditional advertising outlets include newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations. Today, however, advertisements are placed nearly everywhere and anywhere, including:

• Roadside billboards
• Sides of buildings
• Websites
• Electronic newsletters
• Print newsletters
• Inside bills
• Product packaging
• Restaurant placemats
• Event bulletins
• Store windows
• The sides of cars and trucks
• Subway car walls
• Airport kiosks
• Sporting arenas
• YouTube videos

Even if you are the best small shop in your area you still need Advertising as key.

Creating Effective Ads

Advertising messages themselves are designed to persuade an individual to buy a company’s goods or services. Even in business-to-business transactions, individuals have to first be convinced to choose one product over another. To accomplish this, ads have five main components:

1. Headline – This is the key attention-getting message. “Got milk?” is a perfect headline. Or Wendy’s old, “Where’s the beef?”
2. Subhead – Some ad headlines need clarification, much like a book’s subtitle.
3. Body copy – The meat of the advertising message occurs in the main section where the product or service’s features and benefits are highlighted.
4. Image – Unless you’re advertising on the radio, including a product photo, or image illustrating a key benefit is critical.
5. Call-to-action – At the end of the ad you want to invite the consumer to take a step towards doing business with you, such as calling a toll-free number, visiting a website, texting a certain number, or pulling into the drive-thru window.

While advertising is the only way to guarantee that your message will be seen or heard, it is expensive by comparison to other marketing methods. For that reason, it is more popular with large corporations and brands than small businesses.

At the time of this post shopify was the number one ranking website for the word Advertising but however, we would check through what other platforms offer.

Let check wiki from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

Advertising is a marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea.^[1]:465 Sponsors of advertising are typically businesses wishing to promote their products or services. Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser pays for and has control over the message. It differs from personal selling in that the message is non-personal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual.^[1]:661,672 Advertising is communicated through various mass media,^[2] including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor advertising or direct mail; and new media such as search results, blogs, social media, websites or text messages. The actual presentation of the message in a medium is referred to as an advertisement, or “ad” or advert for short.

Commercial ads often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through “branding“, which associates a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers. On the other hand, ads that intend to elicit an immediate sale are known as direct-response advertising. Non-commercial entities that advertise more than consumer products or services include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may use free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement. Advertising may also help to reassure employees or shareholders that a company is viable or successful.

Modern advertising originated with the techniques introduced with tobacco advertising in the 1920s, most significantly with the campaigns of Edward Bernays, considered the founder of modern, “Madison Avenue” advertising.^[3][4]

Worldwide spending on advertising in 2015 amounted to an estimated US$529.43 billion.^[5] Advertising’s projected distribution for 2017 was 40.4% on TV, 33.3% on digital, 9% on newspapers, 6.9% on magazines, 5.8% on outdoor and 4.3% on radio.^[6] Internationally, the largest (“Big Five”) advertising-agency groups are Dentsu, Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis, and WPP.^[7]

In Latin, advertere means “to turn towards”.^[8]

History

Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters.^[9] Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4000 BC.^[10]

In ancient China, the earliest advertising known was oral, as recorded in the Classic of Poetry (11th to 7th centuries BC) of bamboo flutes played to sell confectionery. Advertisement usually takes in the form of calligraphic signboards and inked papers. A copper printing plate dated back to the Song dynasty used to print posters in the form of a square sheet of paper with a rabbit logo with “Jinan Liu’s Fine Needle Shop” and “We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time” written above and below^[11]is considered the world’s earliest identified printed advertising medium.^[12]

In Europe, as the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, and the general population was unable to read, instead of signs that read “cobbler”, “miller”, “tailor”, or “blacksmith”, images associated with their trade would be used such as a boot, a suit, a hat, a clock, a diamond, a horseshoe, a candle or even a bag of flour. Fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from the backs of carts and wagons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers) to announce their whereabouts. The first compilation of such advertisements was gathered in “Les Crieries de Paris”, a thirteenth-century poem by Guillaume de la Villeneuve.^[13]

In the 18th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after. However, false advertising and so-called “quack” advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.

19th century

Thomas J. Barratt of London has been called “the father of modern advertising”.^[14][15][16] Working for the Pears Soap company, Barratt created an effective advertising campaign for the company products, which involved the use of targeted slogans, images and phrases. One of his slogans, “Good morning. Have you used Pears’ soap?” was famous in its day and into the 20th century.^[17][18]

Barratt introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie behind successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He constantly stressed the importance of a strong and exclusive brand image for Pears and of emphasizing the product’s availability through saturation campaigns. He also understood the importance of constantly reevaluating the market for changing tastes and mores, stating in 1907 that “tastes change, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them. An idea that was effective a generation ago would fall flat, stale, and unprofitable if presented to the public today. Not that the idea of today is always better than the older idea, but it is different – it hits the present taste.”^[15]

As the economy expanded across the world during the 19th century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States, the success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.

In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney B. Palmer established the roots of the modern day advertising agency in Philadelphia. In 1842 Palmer bought large amounts of space in various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the space at higher rates to advertisers. The actual ad – the copy, layout, and artwork – was still prepared by the company wishing to advertise; in effect, Palmer was a space broker. The situation changed when the first full-service advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded in 1869 in Philadelphia. Ayer & Son offered to plan, create, and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers. By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning, and advertising was firmly established as a profession. ^[19] Around the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas to include advertisement brokerage, making it the first French group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers.^[19]

20th century

Advertising increased dramatically in the United States as industrialization expanded the supply of manufactured products. In 1919 it was 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the US, and it averaged 2.2 percent of GDP between then and at least 2007, though it may have declined dramatically since the Great Recession.

Industry could not benefit from its increased productivity without a substantial increase in consumer spending. This contributed to the development of mass marketing designed to influence the population’s economic behavior on a larger scale.^[20] In the 1910s and 1920s, advertisers in the U.S. adopted the doctrine that human instincts could be targeted and harnessed – “sublimated” into the desire to purchase commodities.^[21] Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, became associated with the method and is sometimes called the founder of modern advertising and public relations.^[22] Bernays claimed that:

“[The] general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology. It is evident that the successful propagandist must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the reasons which men give for what they do.”^[23]

In other words, selling products by appealing to the rational minds of customers (the main method used prior to Bernays) was much less effective than selling products based on the unconscious desires that Bernays felt were the true motivators of human action. “Sex sells” became a controversial issue, with techniques for titillating and enlarging the audience posing a challenge to conventional morality.^[24][25]

In the 1920s, under Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the American government promoted advertising. Hoover himself delivered an address to the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World in 1925 called ‘Advertising Is a Vital Force in Our National Life.”^[26] In October 1929, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Julius Klein, stated “Advertising is the key to world prosperity.”^[27]This was part of the “unparalleled” collaboration between business and government in the 1920s, according to a 1933 European economic journal.^[28]

The tobacco companies became major advertisers in order to sell packaged cigarettes.^[29] The tobacco companies pioneered the new advertising techniques when they hired Bernays to create positive associations with tobacco smoking.^[3][4]

Advertising was also used as a vehicle for cultural assimilation, encouraging workers to exchange their traditional habits and community structure in favor of a shared “modern” lifestyle.^[30] An important tool for influencing immigrant workers was the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers (AAFLN). The AAFLN was primarily an advertising agency but also gained heavily centralized control over much of the immigrant press.^[31][32]

At the turn of the 20th century, advertising was one of the few career choices for women. Since women were responsible for most household purchasing done, advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women’s insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman – for a soap product. Although tame by today’s standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message “A skin you love to touch”.^[33]

In the 1920s psychologists Walter D. Scott and John B. Watson contributed applied psychological theory to the field of advertising. Scott said, “Man has been called the reasoning animal but he could with greater truthfulness be called the creature of suggestion. He is reasonable, but he is to a greater extent suggestible”.^[34] He demonstrated this through his advertising technique of a direct command to the consumer.

On the radio from the 1920s

In the early 1920s, the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers, followed by non-profit organizations such as schools, clubs and civic groups who also set up their own stations.^[35] Retailer and consumer goods manufacturers quickly recognised radio’s potential to reach consumers in their home and soon adopted advertising techniques that would allow their messages to stand out; slogans, mascots, and jingles began to appear on radio in the 1920s and early television in the 1930s.^[36]

The rise of mass media communications allowed manufacturers of branded goods to bypass retailers by advertising directly to consumers. This was a major paradigm shift which forced manufacturers to focus on the brand and stimulated the need for superior insights into consumer purchasing, consumption and usage behaviour; their needs, wants and aspirations.^[37] The earliest radio drama series were sponsored by soap manufacturers and the genre became known as a soap opera.^[38] Before long, radio station owners realized they could increase advertising revenue by selling ‘air-time’ in small time allocations which could be sold to multiple businesses. By the 1930s, these advertising spots, as the packets of time became known, were being sold by the station’s geographical sales representatives, ushering in an era of national radio advertising.^[39]

By the 1940s, manufacturers began to recognize the way in which consumers were developing personal relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense.^[40] Advertisers began to use motivational research and consumer research to gather insights into consumer purchasing. Strong branded campaigns for Chrysler and Exxon/Esso, using insights drawn research methods from psychology and cultural anthropology, led to some of most enduring campaigns of the 20th-century.^[41]

Commercial television in the 1950s

In the early 1950s, the DuMont Television Network began the modern practice of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually became the standard for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as The United States Steel Hour. In some instances the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show – up to and including having one’s advertising agency actually writing the show.^{[citation needed]} The single sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.^{[citation needed]}

Cable television from the 1980s

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV Canada.^[42]

On the Internet from the 1990s

With the advent of the ad server, online advertising grew, contributing to the “dot-com” boom of the 1990s.^[43] Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, some websites, including the search engine Google, changed online advertising by personalizing ads based on web browsing behavior. This has led to other similar efforts and an increase in interactive advertising.^[44]

The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media since 1925. In 1925, the main advertising media in America were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media; by 2017, the balance between broadcast and online advertising had shifted, with online spending exceeding broadcast.^[45] Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower – about 2.4 percent.^[46]

Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This type of advertising is unpredictable, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea.^[47] This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and “embedded” ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various campaigns utilizing social network services such as Facebook or Twitter.^[48]

The advertising business model has also been adapted in recent years.^{[when?][clarification needed]} In media for equity, advertising is not sold, but provided to start-up companies in return for equity. If the company grows and is sold, the media companies receive cash for their shares.

Domain name registrants (usually those who register and renew domains as an investment) sometimes “park” their domains and allow advertising companies to place ads on their sites in return for per-click payments. These ads are typically driven by pay per click search engines like Google or Yahoo, but ads can sometimes be placed directly on targeted domain names through a domain lease or by making contact with the registrant of a domain name that describes a product. Domain name registrants are generally easy to identify through WHOIS records that are publicly available at registrar websites.^[49]

Classification

An advertisement for the Wikimedia Foundation

Advertising may be categorized in a variety of ways, including by style, target audience, geographic scope, medium, or purpose.^[2]:9–15 For example, in print advertising, classification by style can include display advertising (ads with design elements sold by size) vs. classified advertising (ads without design elements sold by the word or line). Advertising may be local, national or global. An ad campaign may be directed toward consumers or to businesses. The purpose of an ad may be to raise awareness (brand advertising), or to elicit an immediate sale (direct response advertising). The term above the line (ATL) is used for advertising involving mass media; more targeted forms of advertising and promotion are referred to as below the line (BTL).^[50][51] The two terms date back to 1954 when Procter & Gamble began paying their advertising agencies differently from other promotional agencies.^[52] In the 2010s, as advertising technology developed, a new term, through the line (TTL) began to come into use, referring to integrated advertising campaigns.^[53][54]

Traditional media

Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniturecomponents, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards and forehead advertising, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes (“logojets“), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, doors of bathroom stalls, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any situation in which an “identified” sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.^[55]

Television

Television advertising is one of the most expensive types of advertising; networks charge large amounts for commercial airtime during popular events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television – with an audience of over 108 million and studies showing that 50% of those only tuned in to see the advertisements.^[57][58] During the 2014 edition of this game, the average thirty-second ad cost US$4 million, and $8 million was charged for a 60-second spot.^[57] Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops^[59] or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience.^[60] More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none exist in real-life. This technique is especially used in televised sporting events. Virtual product placement is also possible.^[61][62] An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically five minutes or longer. The word “infomercial” is a portmanteau of the words “information” and “commercial”. The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the target sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have testimonials from customers and industry professionals.^{[citation needed]}

Radio

Radio advertisements are broadcast as radio waves to the air from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials. While radio has the limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage. Radio is an expanding medium that can be found on air, and also online. According to Arbitron, radio has approximately 241.6 million weekly listeners, or more than 93 percent of the U.S. population.^{[citation needed]}

Online

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Online ads are delivered by an ad server. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in pay per click text ads, rich media ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.^{[citation needed]} A newer form of online advertising is Native Ads; they go in a website’s news feed and are supposed to improve user experience by being less intrusive. However, some people argue this practice is deceptive.^[63]

Domain names

Domain name advertising is most commonly done through pay per click web search engines, however, advertisers often lease space directly on domain names that generically describe their products. When an Internet user visits a website by typing a domain name directly into their web browser, this is known as “direct navigation”, or “type in” web traffic. Although many Internet users search for ideas and products using search engines and mobile phones, a large number of users around the world still use the address bar. They will type a keyword into the address bar such as “geraniums” and add “.com” to the end of it. Sometimes they will do the same with “.org” or a country-code Top Level Domain (TLD such as “.co.uk” for the United Kingdom or “.ca” for Canada). When Internet users type in a generic keyword and add .com or another top-level domain (TLD) ending, it produces a targeted sales lead.^[64] Domain name advertising was originally developed by Oingo (later known as Applied Semantics), one of Google‘s early acquisitions.^[65]

Product placements

Covert advertising is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise‘s character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them “classics”, because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW and Aston Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale. In “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer“, the main transport vehicle shows a large Dodge logo on the front. Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product placement; the whole film stops to show a Coca-Cola billboard.^{[citation needed]}

Print

Print advertising describes advertising in a printed medium such as a newspaper, magazine, or trade journal. This encompasses everything from media with a very broad readership base, such as a major national newspaper or magazine, to more narrowly targeted media such as local newspapers and trade journals on very specialized topics. One form of print advertising is classified advertising, which allows private individuals or companies to purchase a small, narrowly targeted ad paid by the word or line. Another form of print advertising is the display ad, which is generally a larger ad with design elements that typically run in an article section of a newspaper.^[2]:14

Outdoor

Billboards, also known as hoardings in some parts of the world, are large structures located in public places which display advertisements to passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often, they are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and pedestrian traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large numbers of viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in shopping malls or office buildings, and in stadiums. The form known as street advertising first came to prominence in the UK by Street Advertising Services to create outdoor advertising on street furniture and pavements. Working with products such as Reverse Graffiti, air dancers and 3D pavement advertising, for getting brand messages out into public spaces.^{[citation needed]} Sheltered outdoor advertising combines outdoor with indoor advertisement by placing large mobile, structures (tents) in public places on temporary bases. The large outer advertising space aims to exert a strong pull on the observer, the product is promoted indoors, where the creative decor can intensify the impression.^{[citation needed]} Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted billboards or digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely for carrying advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also be specially equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change; for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of advertisements. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including: target advertising, one-day and long-term campaigns, conventions, sporting events, store openings and similar promotional events, and big advertisements from smaller companies.^{[citation needed]}

Point-of-sale

In-store advertising is any advertisement placed in a retail store. It includes placement of a product in visible locations in a store, such as at eye level, at the ends of aisles and near checkout counters (a.k.a. POP – point of purchase display), eye-catching displays promoting a specific product, and advertisements in such places as shopping carts and in-store video displays.^{[citation needed]}

Novelties

Advertising printed on small tangible items such as coffee mugs, T-shirts, pens, bags, and such is known as novelty advertising. Some printers specialize in printing novelty items, which can then be distributed directly by the advertiser, or items may be distributed as part of a cross-promotion, such as ads on fast food containers.^{[citation needed]}

Celebrity endorsements

Advertising in which a celebrity endorses a product or brand leverages celebrity power, fame, money, popularity to gain recognition for their products or to promote specific stores’ or products. Advertisers often advertise their products, for example, when celebrities share their favorite products or wear clothes by specific brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in advertising campaigns such as television or print adverts to advertise specific or general products. The use of celebrities to endorse a brand can have its downsides, however; one mistake by a celebrity can be detrimental to the public relations of a brand. For example, following his performance of eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, swimmer Michael Phelps‘ contract with Kellogg’s was terminated, as Kellogg’s did not want to associate with him after he was photographed smoking marijuana.^{[citation needed]} Celebrities such as Britney Spears have advertised for multiple products including Pepsi, Candies from Kohl’s, Twister, NASCAR, and Toyota.^{[citation needed]}

Aerial

Using aircraft, balloons or airships to create or display advertising media. Skywriting is a notable example.^{[citation needed]}

New media and advertising approaches

A new advertising approach is known as advanced advertising, which is data-driven advertising, using large quantities of data, precise measuring tools and precise targeting.^[66] Advanced advertising also makes it easier for companies which sell ad-space to attribute customer purchases to the ads they display or broadcast.^[67]

Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the “traditional” media such as television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward the usage of the Internet for news and music as well as devices like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo.^[68]

Online advertising began with unsolicited bulk e-mail advertising known as “e-mail spam“. Spam has been a problem for e-mail users since 1978.^[69] As new online communication channels became available, advertising followed. The first banner ad appeared on the World Wide Web in 1994.^[70] Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the “relevance” of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.^{[citation needed]}

In online display advertising, display ads generate awareness quickly. Unlike search, which requires someone to be aware of a need, display advertising can drive awareness of something new and without previous knowledge. Display works well for direct response. Display is not only used for generating awareness, it’s used for direct response campaigns that link to a landing page with a clear ‘call to action’.^{[citation needed]}

As the mobile phone became a new mass medium in 1998 when the first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in Finland,^{[71][citation needed]} mobile advertisingfollowed, also first launched in Finland in 2000.^{[citation needed]} By 2007 the value of mobile advertising had reached $2 billion and providers such as Admob delivered billions of mobile ads.^{[citation needed]}

More advanced mobile ads include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia Messaging Service picture and video messages, advergames and various engagement marketing campaigns. A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D barcode, which replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the camera feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web content. 83 percent of Japanese mobile phone users already are active users of 2D barcodes.^{[citation needed]}

Some companies have proposed placing messages or corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International Space Station.^{[citation needed]}

Unpaid advertising (also called “publicity advertising”), can include personal recommendations (“bring a friend”, “sell it”), spreading buzz, or achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the United States, “Xerox” = “photocopier“, “Kleenex” = tissue, “Vaseline” = petroleum jelly, “Hoover” = vacuum cleaner, and “Band-Aid” = adhesive bandage). However, some companies^[which?] oppose the use of their brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also risks turning that brand into a generic trademark – turning it into a generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is lost.^{[72][disputed – discuss]}

From time to time, The CW Television Network airs short programming breaks called “Content Wraps”, to advertise one company’s product during an entire commercial break. The CW pioneered “content wraps” and some products featured were Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero II, CoverGirl, and recently Toyota.^{[citation needed]}

A new promotion concept has appeared, “ARvertising”, advertising on augmented reality technology.^[73]

Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages (propaganda).

Rise in new media

With the Internet came many new advertising opportunities. Pop-up, Flash, banner, pop-under, advergaming, and email advertisements (all of which are often unwanted or spam in the case of email) are now commonplace. Particularly since the rise of “entertaining” advertising, some people may like an advertisement enough to wish to watch it later or show a friend.^{[citation needed]}In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their ads to anyone willing to see or hear them. In the last three quarters of 2009, mobile and Internet advertising grew by 18% and 9% respectively, while older media advertising saw declines: −10.1% (TV), −11.7% (radio), −14.8% (magazines) and −18.7% (newspapers).^{[citation needed]} Between 2008 and 2014, U.S. newspapers lost more than half their print advertising revenue.^[75]

Niche marketing

Another significant trend regarding future of advertising is the growing importance of the niche market using niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet and the theory of the long tail, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach specific audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible.^{[citation needed]} However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provide advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined,^{[citation needed]} leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies’ marketing products. Among others, Comcast Spotlight is one such advertiser employing this method in their video on demand menus. These advertisements are targeted to a specific group and can be viewed by anyone wishing to find out more about a particular business or practice, from their home. This causes the viewer to become proactive and actually choose what advertisements they want to view.^[76] Niche marketing could also be helped by bringing the issue of colour into advertisements. Different colours play major roles when it comes to marketing strategies, for example, seeing the blue can promote a sense of calmness and gives a sense of security which is why many social networks such as Facebook use blue in their logos. Google AdSense is an example of niche marketing. Google calculates the primary purpose of a website and adjusts ads accordingly; it uses keywords on the page (or even in emails) to find the general ideas of topics disused and places ads that will most likely be clicked on by viewers of the email account or website visitors.

Crowdsourcing

The concept of crowdsourcing has given way to the trend of user-generated advertisements. User-generated ads are created by people, as opposed to an advertising agency or the company themselves, often resulting from brand sponsored advertising competitions. For the 2007 Super Bowl, the Frito-Lays division of PepsiCo held the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, allowing people to create their own Doritos commercials.^[77] Chevrolet held a similar competition for their Tahoe line of SUVs.^[77] Due to the success of the Doritos user-generated ads in the 2007 Super Bowl, Frito-Lays relaunched the competition for the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl. The resulting ads were among the most-watched and most-liked Super Bowl ads. In fact, the winning ad that aired in the 2009 Super Bowl was ranked by the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter as the top ad for the year while the winning ads that aired in the 2010 Super Bowl were found by Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics to be the “most buzzed-about”.^[78][79] Another example of companies using crowdsourcing successfully is the beverage company Jones Soda that encourages consumers to participate in the label design themselves.^[80]

This trend has given rise to several online platforms that host user-generated advertising competitions on behalf of a company. Founded in 2007, Zooppa has launched ad competitions for brands such as Google, Nike, Hershey’s, General Mills, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Zinio, and Mini Cooper.^[81] Crowdsourcing remains controversial, as the long-term impact on the advertising industry is still unclear.^[82]

Global advertising

Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national, and global. For global advertisers, there are four, potentially competing, business objectives that must be balanced when developing worldwide advertising: building a brand while speaking with one voice, developing economies of scale in the creative process, maximising local effectiveness of ads, and increasing the company’s speed of implementation. Born from the evolutionary stages of global marketing are the three primary and fundamentally different approaches to the development of global advertising executions: exporting executions, producing local executions, and importing ideas that travel.^[83]

Advertising research is key to determining the success of an ad in any country or region. The ability to identify which elements and/or moments of an ad contribute to its success is how economies of scale are maximized. Once one knows what works in an ad, that idea or ideas can be imported by any other market. Market research measures, such as Flow of Attention, Flow of Emotion and branding moments provide insight into what is working in an ad in any country or region because the measures are based on the visual, not verbal, elements of the ad.^[84]

Foreign public messaging

Foreign governments,^[which?] particularly those that own marketable commercial products or services, often promote their interests and positions through the advertising of those goods because the target audience is not only largely unaware of the forum as a vehicle for foreign messaging but also willing to receive the message while in a mental state of absorbing information from advertisements during television commercial breaks, while reading a periodical, or while passing by billboards in public spaces. A prime example of this messaging technique is advertising campaigns to promote international travel. While advertising foreign destinations and services may stem from the typical goal of increasing revenue by drawing more tourism, some travel campaigns carry the additional or alternative intended purpose of promoting good sentiments or improving existing ones among the target audience towards a given nation or region. It is common for advertising promoting foreign countries to be produced and distributed by the tourism ministries of those countries, so these ads often carry political statements and/or depictions of the foreign government’s desired international public perception. Additionally, a wide range of foreign airlines and travel-related services which advertise separately from the destinations, themselves, are owned by their respective governments; examples include, though are not limited to, the Emirates airline (Dubai), Singapore Airlines (Singapore), Qatar Airways (Qatar), China Airlines (Taiwan/Republic of China), and Air China (People’s Republic of China). By depicting their destinations, airlines, and other services in a favorable and pleasant light, countries market themselves to populations abroad in a manner that could mitigate prior public impressions.

Diversification

In the realm of advertising agencies, continued industry diversification has seen observers note that “big global clients don’t need big global agencies any more”.^[85] This is reflected by the growth of non-traditional agencies in various global markets, such as Canadian business TAXI and SMART in Australia and has been referred to as “a revolution in the ad world”.^[86]

New technology

The ability to record shows on digital video recorders (such as TiVo) allow watchers to record the programs for later viewing, enabling them to fast forward through commercials. Additionally, as more seasons of pre-recorded box sets are offered for sale of television programs; fewer people watch the shows on TV. However, the fact that these sets are sold, means the company will receive additional profits from these sets.

To counter this effect, a variety of strategies have been employed. Many advertisers have opted for product placement on TV shows like Survivor. Other strategies include integrating advertising with internet-connected program guidess (EPGs), advertising on companion devices (like smartphones and tablets) during the show, and creating mobile apps for TV programs. Additionally, some like brands have opted for social television sponsorship.^[87]

The emerging technology of drone displays has recently been used for advertising purposes.^[88]

Advertising education

In recent years there have been several media literacy initiatives, and more specifically concerning advertising, that seek to empower citizens in the face of media advertising campaigns.^[89]

Advertising education has become popular with bachelor, master and doctorate degrees becoming available in the emphasis.^{[citation needed]} A surge in advertising interest is typically attributed to the strong relationship advertising plays in cultural and technological changes, such as the advance of online social networking.^{[citation needed]} A unique model for teaching advertising is the student-run advertising agency, where advertising students create campaigns for real companies.^[90] Organizations such as the American Advertising Federation establish companies with students to create these campaigns.^{[citation needed]}

Purposes

Advertising is at the front of delivering the proper message to customers and prospective customers. The purpose of advertising is to inform the consumers about their product and convince customers that a company’s services or products are the best, enhance the image of the company, point out and create a need for products or services, demonstrate new uses for established products, announce new products and programs, reinforce the salespeople’s individual messages, draw customers to the business, and to hold existing customers.^[91]

Sales promotions and brand loyalty

Sales promotions are another way to advertise. Sales promotions are double purposed because they are used to gather information about what type of customers one draws in and where they are, and to jump start sales. Sales promotions include things like contests and games, sweepstakes, product giveaways, samples coupons, loyalty programs, and discounts. The ultimate goal of sales promotions is to stimulate potential customers to action.^[92]

Criticisms

While advertising can be seen as necessary for economic growth,^[27] it is not without social costs. Unsolicited commercial e-mail and other forms of spam have become so prevalent as to have become a major nuisance to users of these services, as well as being a financial burden on internet service providers.^[93] Advertising is increasingly invading public spaces, such as schools, which some critics argue is a form of child exploitation.^[94] This increasing difficulty in limiting exposure to specific audiences can result in negative backlash for advertisers.^[95] In tandem with these criticisms, the advertising industry has seen low approval rates in surveys and negative cultural portrayals.^[96]

One of the most controversial criticisms of advertisement in the present day is that of the predominance of advertising of foods high in sugar, fat, and salt specifically to children. Critics claim that food advertisements targeting children are exploitive and are not sufficiently balanced with proper nutritional education to help children understand the consequences of their food choices. Additionally, children may not understand that they are being sold something, and are therefore more impressionable.^[97] Michelle Obama has criticized large food companies for advertising unhealthy foods largely towards children and has requested that food companies either limit their advertising to children or advertise foods that are more in line with dietary guidelines.^[98] The other criticisms include the change that are brought by those advertisements on the society and also the deceiving ads that are aired and published by the corporations. Cosmetic and health industry are the ones which exploited the highest and created reasons of concern.^[99]

Regulation

There have been increasing efforts to protect the public interest by regulating the content and the influence of advertising. Some examples include restrictions for advertising alcohol, tobacco or gambling imposed in many countries, as well as the bans around advertising to children, which exist in parts of Europe. Advertising regulation focuses heavily on the veracity of the claims and as such, there are often tighter restrictions placed around advertisements for food and healthcare products.^[100]

The advertising industries within some countries rely less on laws and more on systems of self-regulation.^{[100][101][102]} Advertisers and the media agree on a code of advertising standards that they attempt to uphold. The general aim of such codes is to ensure that any advertising is ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’. Some self-regulatory organizations are funded by the industry, but remain independent, with the intent of upholding the standards or codes like the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK.^[103]

In the UK, most forms of outdoor advertising such as the display of billboards is regulated by the UK Town and County Planning system. Currently, the display of an advertisement without consent from the Planning Authority is a criminal offense liable to a fine of £2,500 per offense.^[104] In the US, many communities believe that many forms of outdoor advertising blight the public realm.^[105] As long ago as the 1960s in the US there were attempts to ban billboard advertising in the open countryside.^[106] Cities such as São Paulohave introduced an outright ban^[107] with London also having specific legislation to control unlawful displays.

Some governments restrict the languages that can be used in advertisements, but advertisers may employ tricks to try avoiding them. In France for instance, advertisers sometimes print English words in bold and French translations in fine print to deal with Article 120 of the 1994 Toubon Law limiting the use of English.^[108]

The advertising of pricing information is another topic of concern for governments. In the United States for instance, it is common for businesses to only mention the existence and amount of applicable taxes at a later stage of a transaction.^[109] In Canada and New Zealand, taxes can be listed as separate items, as long as they are quoted up-front.^[110][111] In most other countries, the advertised price must include all applicable taxes, enabling customers to easily know how much it will cost them.^{[112][113][114]}

Theory

Hierarchy-of-effects models

Various competing models of hierarchies of effects attempt to provide a theoretical underpinning to advertising practice.^{[clarification needed][115]}

• The model of Clow and Baack^[116] clarifies the objectives of an advertising campaign and for each individual advertisement. The model postulates six steps a buyer moves through when making a purchase:
  1. Awareness
  2. Knowledge
  3. Liking
  4. Preference
  5. Conviction
  6. Purchase
• Means-end theory suggests that an advertisement should contain a message or means that leads the consumer to a desired end-state.^[117]
• Leverage points aim to move the consumer from understanding a product’s benefits to linking those benefits with personal values.^{[citation needed]}

Marketing mix

The marketing mix was proposed by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s.^[118] It consists of four basic elements called the “four Ps“. Product is the first P representing the actual product. Price represents the process of determining the value of a product. Place represents the variables of getting the product to the consumer such as distribution channels, market coverage and movement organization. The last P stands for Promotion which is the process of reaching the target market and convincing them to buy the product.

In the 1990s, the concept of four Cs was introduced as a more customer-driven replacement of four P’s.^[119] There are two theories based on four Cs: Lauterborn’s four Cs (consumer, cost, communication, convenience) ^[120] and Shimizu’s four Cs (commodity, cost, communication, channel) in the 7Cs Compass Model (Co-marketing). Communicationscan include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, publicity, personal selling, corporate identity, internal communication, SNS, and MIS.^{[121][122][123][124]}

Advertising research

Advertising research is a specialized form of research that works to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of advertising. It entails numerous forms of research which employ different methodologies. Advertising research includes pre-testing (also known as copy testing) and post-testing of ads and/or campaigns.

Pre-testing includes a wide range of qualitative and quantitative techniques, including: focus groups, in-depth target audience interviews (one-on-one interviews), small-scale quantitative studies and physiological measurement. The goal of these investigations is to better understand how different groups respond to various messages and visual prompts, thereby providing an assessment of how well the advertisement meets its communications goals.^[125]

Post-testing employs many of the same techniques as pre-testing, usually with a focus on understanding the change in awareness or attitude attributable to the advertisement. With the emergence of digital advertising technologies, many firms have begun to continuously post-test ads using real-time data. This may take the form of A/B split-testing or multivariate testing.

Continuous ad tracking and the Communicus System are competing examples of post-testing advertising research types.^[126]

Semiotics

Meanings between consumers and marketers depict signs and symbols that are encoded in everyday objects.^[127] Semiotics is the study of signs and how they are interpreted. Advertising has many hidden signs and meanings within brand names, logos, package designs, print advertisements, and television advertisements. Semiotics aims to study and interpret the message being conveyed in (for example) advertisements. Logos and advertisements can be interpreted at two levels – known as the surface level and the underlying level. The surface level uses signs creatively to create an image or personality for a product.^{[citation needed]} These signs can be images, words, fonts, colors, or slogans. The underlying level is made up of hidden meanings. The combination of images, words, colors, and slogans must be interpreted by the audience or consumer.^[128] The “key to advertising analysis” is the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the object and the signified is the mental concept.^[129] A product has a signifier and a signified. The signifier is the color, brand name, logo design, and technology. The signified has two meanings known as denotative and connotative. The denotative meaning is the meaning of the product. A television’s denotative meaning might be that it is high definition. The connotative meaning is the product’s deep and hidden meaning. A connotative meaning of a television would be that it is top-of-the-line.^[130]

Apple’s commercials^[when?] used a black silhouette of a person that was the age of Apple’s target market. They placed the silhouette in front of a blue screen so that the picture behind the silhouette could be constantly changing. However, the one thing that stays the same in these ads is that there is music in the background and the silhouette is listening to that music on a white iPod through white headphones. Through advertising, the white color on a set of earphones now signifies that the music device is an iPod. The white color signifies almost all of Apple’s products.^[131]

The semiotics of gender plays a key influence on the way in which signs are interpreted. When considering gender roles in advertising, individuals are influenced by three categories. Certain characteristics of stimuli may enhance or decrease the elaboration of the message (if the product is perceived as feminine or masculine). Second, the characteristics of individuals can affect attention and elaboration of the message (traditional or non-traditional gender role orientation). Lastly, situational factors may be important to influence the elaboration of the message.^[132]

There are two types of marketing communication claims-objective and subjective.^[133] Objective claims stem from the extent to which the claim associates the brand with a tangible product or service feature. For instance, a camera may have auto-focus features. Subjective claims convey emotional, subjective, impressions of intangible aspects of a product or service. They are non-physical features of a product or service that cannot be directly perceived, as they have no physical reality. For instance the brochure has a beautiful design.^[134] Males tend to respond better to objective marketing-communications claims while females tend to respond better to subjective marketing communications claims.^[135]

Voiceovers are commonly used in advertising. Most voiceovers are done by men, with figures of up to 94% having been reported.^[136] There have been more female voiceovers in recent years,^[when?] but mainly for food, household products, and feminine-care products.^[137]

Gender effects in the processing of advertising

According to a 1977 study by David Statt, females process information comprehensively, while males process information through heuristic devices such as procedures, methods or strategies for solving problems, which could have an effect on how they interpret advertising.^{[138][need quotation to verify]} According to this study, men prefer to have available and apparent cues to interpret the message, whereas females engage in more creative, associative, imagery-laced interpretation. Later research by a Danish team^[139] found that advertising attempts to persuade men to improve their appearance or performance, whereas its approach to women aims at transformation toward an impossible ideal of female presentation. In Paul Suggett’s article “The Objectification of Women in Advertising”^[140] he discusses the negative impact that these women in advertisements, who are too perfect to be real, have on women, as well as men, in real life. Advertising’s manipulation of women’s aspiration to these ideal types as portrayed in film, in erotic art, in advertising, on stage, within music videos, and through other media exposures requires at least a conditioned rejection of female reality, and thereby takes on a highly ideological cast. Studies show that these expectations of women and young girls negatively impact their views about their bodies and appearances. These advertisements are directed towards men. Not everyone agrees: one critic viewed this monologic, gender-specific interpretation of advertising as excessively skewed and politicized.^{[141][need quotation to verify]} There are some companies, however, like Dove and Aerie that are creating commercials to portray more natural women, with less post production manipulation, so more women and young girls are able to relate to them.^{[citation needed]}

More recent research by Martin (2003) reveals that males and females differ in how they react to advertising depending on their mood at the time of exposure to the ads, and on the affective tone of the advertising. When feeling sad, males prefer happy ads to boost their mood. In contrast, females prefer happy ads when they are feeling happy. The television programs in which ads are embedded influence a viewer’s mood state.^[142] Susan Wojcicki, author of the article “Ads that Empower Women don’t just Break Stereotypes—They’re also Effective”^[143] discusses how advertising to women has changed since the first Barbie commercial where a little girl tells the doll that, she wants to be just like her. Little girls grow up watching advertisements of scantily clad women advertising things from trucks to burgers, and Wojcicki states that this shows girls that they are either arm candy or eye candy.

Alternatives

Other approaches to revenue include donations, paid subscriptions and microtransactions. Websites and applications are “ad-free” when not using ads at all for revenue. For example, the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia provides free access to its content by receiving funding from charitable donations.^[144]

See also

Influential thinkers in advertising theory and practice

Branding In Marketing from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branding

• Brand, a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service
  • Branding (promotional), the distribution of merchandise with a brand name or symbol imprinted
  • Brand management, the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand
  • Employer branding, the application of brand management to recruitment marketing and internal brand engagement
  • Internet branding, brand management on the Internet
  • Nation branding, the application of marketing techniques for the advancement of a country
    • Place branding, the application of marketing techniques for the advancement of country subdivisions
  • Personal branding, people and their careers marketed as brands
  • Co-branding, two companies or brands partnering on a product or service
  • Branding agency, a type of marketing agency which specializes in creating brands
  • Faith branding, the application of marketing techniques to religious institutions or individual

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Do not be in a hurry to read! Get Your Pen To Study

If your website takes 2 seconds to load, only 9.6% of customers are bouncing off your page. However, if the page is taking 7 seconds or more to load, an alarming 32% of customers are running away from your website.

Charles Ataghoma, the CEO of XINI Communications and Brian Dean did a study in which he concluded that Google PageSpeed is one of the most relevant factors when it comes to revenue generation.

Marketers are finding ways to beat their competitors, eliminate the friction and make page loading time their competitive advantage to grab the attention of target customers. Plenty has been written to optimize a website for better speed, but nothing proves more useful than the Google PageSpeed Insights tool.

What exactly is Google PageSpeed Insights tool?

Unless you are living in a cave, far far away from humans, you must have already heard about Google PageSpeed Insights tool.

For others, it is an authentic tool by Google, designed to optimize the performance of the website.

The tool will give you an option to improve the performance of some aspects of the page which will boost the overall page speed. The tool can be used for both mobile and desktop which gives every website a chance to rise above their competitors.

1)  Start by designing a responsive website

Imagine this. You’ve created an excellent website for desktop users. The interface, the colors, the graphics are making users fall head over heels in love with the website. However, somewhere around the globe, some people hate your website. Why? Because when they tried to access your website on a mobile device, the pixels are distorted. The design is displaced. Moreover, the so-called-interface doesn’t seem aesthetically pleasing to them.

I don’t know about you, but as a marketing professional, I know what it feels like to design a website that is responsive in nature and works well across every device.

You can check the responsiveness of your website by visiting the following website.

A responsive website will improve the user experience which will help Google rank your website higher in the Google search pages.

Last year, Google launched its mobile-first indexing which gave mobile page load speed a significant place in their algorithms.

So, now you know that mobile page speed is vital to ranking your website in Google search result.

2) Optimize your images

Some people are already doing it while others don’t even pay attention to the pictures on the website.

As per the guidelines by Google, you need to incorporate quality images in your website.

Embed titles, alt text in every image. Most importantly, use a sitemap for images which will help Google organize your photos in a better way. Use Squoosh to optimize your images.

Of course, using responsive images are a must. Furthermore, use safe search images which will increase your chances of ranking your website higher.

It is prudent to read the SEO guidelines before you start working on the SEO of the website.

3) Instead of quantity, focus on the quality of the code

If the code on your website is good, the webpage will load fast.

Use Pingdom to know precisely which of the codes on your website need more simplification.

Reduce the CSS code in your website. Try to use inline formatting whenever it is possible for you.

It is best advised to avoid any intensive WordPress themes or bulky codes.

Instead, it is better to use a clean HTML 5 template.

Google uses several machines to gather data from the website. If the code on the site is not well-structured, it will give Google a hard time, and this is not something you want for your website.

We can help you build simple, yet gorgeous websites.

Google PageSpeed Insights enable search engines to look for straight-forward codes and rank the websites based-on the simplicity of the code.

4) Focus on Brower Cache

Whenever you visit a website, the web browser stores data such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images in the local cache. This makes things easier when you visit the website the next time. When the cache is stored, it gives access to the same browser and reduces the delay that occurs when rendering the website. When the browser cache is implemented, it will help load the website faster.

A professional hosting service might already be using browser cache. However, if you want to implement the browser cache, you can always go for the W3 total cache plugin.

5) Accelerated Mobile Pages

When building a website, it is good to learn from the best. The best startup websites employ Accelerated Mobile Pages to pull-up data and present it in a decluttered manner.

Here are the three reasons why you must use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

A mere 1-second delay in loading the webpage can drop the conversion rates by 7%.

Studies have shown that using AMP pages to fetch data from a website can reduce the number of server requests by 77%. Which means that a website will load faster regardless of the device used to browse the website.

6) When it comes to website design, less is more

A clean website is not always attention-grabbing for users but Google PageSpeed Insights necessitate website owners to simplify their website designs.

A clutter free website design will reduce the load-time of the website. Using simple triggerscan boost the UX of your website.

The Speed insight tool will help you eliminate all the extra space that your website is consuming, and you can ask your website developer to mitigate any further damage.

To conclude it all

As a skilled marketer, it is essential to learn website optimization and the holistic approach to every piece of the puzzle that constitutes the site. Furthermore, web speed optimization is an ongoing project. There is no limit to it. You can take six months and still feel that it is not enough.

However, PageSpeed Tool can help you tons. Use the above rules as a guideline and starting point to familiarize yourself with the tool, and start setting clear goals on how you plan to use it to craft your long-term content marketing strategy.

Lets Us Take you further on a series – 1

Since the year 2016, designers have been tinkering around with UX design. There have been changes in the way website designers design app and websites. In the year 2017, website designers came up with personalized designs to save their users some time.

Here, we give you seven website ideas which can fuel you with inspiration and help you create better websites to impress your clients and customers and get the best buck for your money:

• Robby Leonardi Studio

In an era of digital disruption, Robby Leonardi found a way to get hired as a graphic designer. His website is his portfolio. You can flaunt your brand achievements in this way. Trendy retro style inspired by the ’80s and 90’s photography. On a first glance, it looks like a Mario game.

Moreover, when you move forward, you realize that this man is a genius. Just check out the typography, the fonts, and how the images are blending together seamlessly with the character. Everything comes together so well.

• CatScarf

The cat is the epitome of fanciness, faithfulness, and cuteness. Moreover, when you land on this homepage, you feel yourself brimming over with the same sentiments. The visual appeal of this page is impeccable. Thanks to sharp graphics, CatScarf took minimalism to a whole other level. The hero image dominating the top of the page basks in the limelight and instantly catches the eye. Scroll down, and you’ll see that each of the products is aligned beautifully in a transparent grid. This gives our eyes a pleasing effect and if you hover over an item, you can delve deeper in its product details page. I think every ecommerce owner should take inspiration from this website.

• New Acton

Are you hackneyed with the old static design? Why not take a dose of inspiration from graphic designers and illustrators who are doing great work already? You can take some inspiration from New Acton. It is simplicity at its best. Not much content, just amazing animation that will keep you engaged. The sidebar incorporates many categories. Click on any type, and you’ll see relevant animation playing at the entrance. Just a cool way to grab the attention of a new user.

• GC watches

Time is an essential commodity. If you don’t want your customers to leave without buying anything, the best way is to show the products in a straight-forward manner. GC Watches is one of those website ideas which will force you to simplify your ecommerce store. The oversized typography makes for better readability. The crystal-clear photos, the high-definition zoom for every watch will entice every watch aficionado. The simplicity of this website makes it a perfect website design ideas that will generate sales in Nigeria and diaspora.

• Big Commerce

For anyone who has no idea how to show their services seamlessly, Big Commerce is the perfect example. A simple tagline that communicates what the business is all about . The packages are in front. Regardless of the size of your business, you will be presented with several categories which will let you choose from the favorite list of industries. Case studies, testimonials and the use of images to steal the attention of customers and show them what the brand is offering, makes this website steal the limelight.

• Howard Yount

A potent trio – An exuberant background, a colossal title, and clear message right in the front. If your user is not a competitor of Howard Yount, there is no reason for them not to be impressed with such a direct approach. Customers love companies that give them offerings without letting customers dig deep in the sub-pages. The overall design of the website is simple yet impactful.

• Take What You Can Carry

A not to miss website in cool website design ideas. The entire website seems to be floating in the air, allowing so much room for free space. Just check the alignment of words. The design by Matt Porterfield makes it necessary to take some inspiration from this design which blends vertical and horizontal text with perfect alignment.

Closing Thoughts

We’ve been trying to curate the best of seven cool website designs for you. As you would know, a website that is unattractive or poorly constructed harms your business more than helps it. Stay abreast of industry trends and follow all the CRO principles to create the best website design for your business. Assess the efficiency of your website design based on the number of visitors, bounce rate, and conversions.

Lets Us Take you further on a series – 2

Every soul in this world has a higher purpose. Birth is a wondrous experience. You open your eyes to a world rife with opportunities for the taking. You can become anything. For some people, it happens in an instant. Their life’s purpose unfolds right in front of them, but for others, it takes a lifetime to understand why they were born.

If your startup is in its infancy, you might be facing something familiar. Instead of understanding your life purpose, you are struggling to find your brand purpose. If you’re one of those brands that don’t have a direction yet, here are some startup websites which can provide you with some food for thought.

1. AiroHealth.com – Simple is better

Knowledge lies in piling up facts. Wisdom is the elimination of all clutter. Airohealth.com is all about simplicity. The first glance at the website will be enough to safely venture a guess at what the company is selling. On the front page of the website, you realize that it is solving a real-life problem. If you scroll down, you will see how the product works. Next, comes how to think about anxiety and stress. Moreover, in the end, there are testimonials with a call to action in Lagos Nigeria or across Africa.

2) RateYourSeats.com – Selling something unique

Rateyourseats.com is a ticket-selling website with a distinctive feature. Not only does it offer the most market competitive ticket prices, it gives you a bird’s eye view of the seat based on crowdsourced reviews, ratings, and photos of a plethora of concert and sports avenues. This makes sure that our customers make an informed choice based on a particular seat’s rating and reviews by actual users.

3) GrooveJar.com – UI/UX Design

Much has been said about UI/UX Design. If you are looking for some solid inspiration, visit GrooveJar.com. The startup helps other startups boost their website traffic. However, their prominent feature is the clean, sleek interface of the website. Decent navigation, bulging CTAs, and giving out comprehensive information without too much scrolling, makes this website a prime example of the perfect UI/UX design.

The chatbox is easy to locate. Reviews can be found right at the bottom. GrooveJar offers everything that a startup website design has to offer. Take note.

4) SmarthomeNX.com – The Perfect Mobile First website

There is much buzz about mobile first websites. In the midst of all this, smathomenx.com makes a brilliant effort to design the perfect mobile-first website. The website is not at all complex. The Accelerated Mobile Pages allows the website to load immediately. A perfect example of a startup website design where users can log in and join in the discussions without going over lengthy registration steps.

5) Vertoe.com – Mobile Loading Speed

Google Speed Update made it clear that Google is forcing brands to decrease their bounce rate by developing mobile-optimized websites. Vertoe.com took this seriously and started working on the loading speed of the website on mobile.  The website is optimized in a way that users don’t have to download any app or wait for the website to load in the mobile. The load time is super-fast. The one-click checkout helps customers place an order seamlessly. The website works on all primary mobile devices and fits across all screen sizes.

6) EFynch.com – Privacy and Payment Options

If there are a few things that a startup website capitalize on, it is payment options and privacy policy. Other trends include AI and machine learning. Some of the payment methods include complex AI algorithms which simplify processing and make it easier to pay fast. This website teaches a lot. Also, there are some components of IoT to support the simple dashboard.

7) Printful.com – Grist for the mill ecommerce website

The best startup websites provide convenience and simplicity to users. Printful.com takes this approach to the next-best level. You can talk all about white-spacing and how-to optimize the website design to show quality work without sacrificing the caliber of the website. A clean ecommerce design which can teach a lot about how ecommerce stores can use the power of minimalism to sell products online.

The website offers perfect examples in its blog for entrepreneurs to apply across their business. How to send emails that entice customers? Moreover, how to scale business on a global scale?

Facebook #10YearChallenge: A Fun Gimmick or something much more Sinister

Unless you have been hiding under a rock the past week, you might have participated in the #10YearChallenge, or rather the hashtag #2009vs2019. The challenge involves posting a contemporary photo of yourself in parallel with another from ten years ago. Ostensibly it’s about nostalgia and going down the memory lane to see how much things have changed in the intervening years. Replete with opportunities for virtue signaling, reflection, poignancy, bucket loads of humor and celebrity humble bragging, the trend was always meant to pick up steam.

For some people it was fun, just a meme to embrace the past. But to others, it felt more sinister. Something that threatened to undermine their safety. After all, not everyone feels memes are something to laugh on.

The #10YearChallenge hiked when celebrities like Jersey Shore’s Nicole and Kevin Smith joined the party. The challenge spread like wildfire and people started sharing their photos on every platform.

The #10YearChallenge was all fun until a tweet moved thousands of people to worry: Are we inadvertently helping giant corporations boost their algorithms for age progression and biometric identification? Now there’s some food for thought right there. Facial recognition proponents argue that all this treasure trove of data could be indispensable for finding missing people or catching criminals. But critics warn us of unfathomable effects and mass surveillance that we can’t yet fully grasp the intensity of.

While the Cambridge Analytica scandal was still fresh in the minds of users along with the woes of other data breaches associated with Facebook, Facebook has found itself in hot waters again. Even after giving ample clarification on the matter, Facebook is denying its connection with the #10YearChallenge.

Talking to New York Times, Lauren A. Rhue, shared her concerns about the algorithm.

“The #10YearChallenge is giving authorities a clear set of data and how age-progression can be predicted in a few years from now.”

Furthermore, the professor said that there are already trillion on photos on Facebook and people should be wary of their data is out there in public like that.

“The risk in giving up any type of biometric data to a company is that there’s not enough transparency, not only about how the data is currently being used, but also the future uses for it.”

This is another form of biometric data that is being used by the law enforcement agencies to track down prospects.

Finally, Professor Rhue concluded with an alarming thought, ‘There are things out there in the internet which are not treated as a threat now.” And 10 years from now people will understand that they are a threat, but by then, they would have parted with the data already.

Why Facebook really need this kind of data?

As per statistics, 350 million photos are uploaded on Facebook daily. Here, we need to pay attention to the fact that no-one is forcing people to upload and share photos; people are willing to share photos and feel proud about it.

The year 2019 is not about how many photos are uploaded each day, it is about image processing, and the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is becoming smarter by the day.

Let us take all the strain and help you boost your sales.

Almost every company is using facial recognition to analyze candidates and evaluate them even before they start working with the company. The iPhone app and even the Google Photos app understand, and match faces to people and their relevant contact numbers.

The horrors of social media have been highlighted in Black Mirror – the first episode of season 3. Here instead of rating products, people are being rated. And people that show kindness and generosity towards people are rated high in the society and these people get jobs more often than people with a low rating. These ratings are displayed right in front of a person.

Some people suggest that Facebook don’t really need this data because they have all the photos time stamped but think of the time that Facebook is saving by not having to through every picture which was uploaded by the user in the year 2009. Sure, you could mine Facebook for profile pictures and look at posting dates or EXIF data. But that’s a lot of noise; it’d help if you had a clean then-and-now. What’s more, the photo posting date and even EXIF data wouldn’t always be reliable for when the pic was actually taken. People could have scanned offline photos. People might have uploaded pictures multiple times over years. Some platforms strip EXIF data for privacy; people’s captions are helpfully adding that context back, as well as other context about where and how the pic was taken.

Regardless of how much Facebook denies the fact that it was just a meme challenge that was initiated automatically for the kicks, the reality is that sooner or later, Facebook will use these pictures to train their face recognition algorithm.

If you have partaken in the #10yearchallenge, good for you. You’re now a part of some future conspiracy – just kidding. It’s okay to have some fun but what we need to do is to ponder over the effects that each one of our posts is having. Read

Digital SEO Strategy For 2019

In the end, it is all about keeping your personal life offline and using social media to establish connections for your business and help your brand reach more customers. Take control over whatever you share on social media, and think twice if it can hurt your personal or professional life in the coming future.

Digital SEO Strategy For 2019

How To Leverage On Quora SEO Power For Digital Marketing Conversion

The importance of posters in advertising your business in Lagos

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The key to effective digital marketing is ensuring that your search engine optimization efforts are geared towards local searches. Successfully channeling local traffic to your website boosts visibility amongst customers looking for local options. Amping up your local SEO performance helps you ride to the top of search results and can also in turn positively influence your paid search results.

Local SEO in 2019

Google estimates that 97% of consumers look for local businesses online. Being able to convert a search result to a business deal is the difference between staying afloat and going under. According to a study (link), statistics clearly illustrate how crucial local search is for businesses:

• 50% searches on mobile phones ended in an actual visit to the same business
• 50% searches are looking for local solutions to problems
• One in three smartphone searches was conducted immediately prior to a local store visit

Local search is a broad field that’s constantly growing and changing, challenging marketers to keep up. No matter what kind of business it is, traditional marketing campaigns should always be accompanied by real efforts into local SEO ranking to boost online presence. Ranking as a legitimate business increases brand awareness and customers’ traffic, saves money on paid ads, and attracts instant publicity.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a search engine optimization process specifically geared to highlighting local results during online searches. Page content, link building and on page optimization are combined to show up on top in local search results. Since Google remains the most relevant search engine, consistent information must be provided across the local search landscape. The only way in which local SEO and organic SEO differ is in terms of the geographical component – while organic SEO is aimed at a global audience, local SEO is relevant to a limited geographical spread.

Top Google Local Pack Ranking Factors

Here are the bases you must cover if you want your website to show up at the top of search results on Google:

• Claim a “Google My Business” page and put correct information regarding the type of business. Upload photos of your location, products, and staff to increase credibility. Your NAP (name, address, phone number) should be consistent across all platforms
• The Google Knowledge Panel which collects and displays all relevant basic information about a local listing also affects ranking
• Create a presence on online directories such as Yellow pages, Foursquare, Apple Maps, and Yahoo’s Localworks
• Your website should be mobile-friendly. Google’s latest algorithm first checks whether you are mobile-ready.
• Proximity of address matters most to local rankings. How close searchers are to particular businesses at the moment has an impact on whether or not those businesses show up in Google search results.

What is Important for your Local SEO Strategy?

Local SEO implies that the relevant audience is aware of your existence. These are the people who are located locally, and who conduct online searches with clear intent. Being visible to them is what wins the day. Here are some tips for becoming accessible to more and more people locally:

• Local content development – Content should be relevant and geared towards a local audience. It is best to anticipate search queries.
• Citation management – A citation contains online mention of the particulars of a business. They help the searches locate and discover local businesses.
• Review management – Allow your customers to review your performance, preferably directly on Google as these are given priority during searches. Some of the other review sites are Yelp, Glassdoor and others. Reviews greatly increase the visibility of your website, so you must ensure that the majority of them are positive. Reviews which include your location or keywords promote trust with Google. Also, always try and respond to all reviews.
• Technical needs – The local business website should be error-free, indexable, multi-device compliant, properly optimized and well structured.
• Schema – Properly configured, it allows a search engine to display user-friendly snippets about your website.
• Local link building – Email, followed by community websites and local content and news websites are most valuable for creating links that carry up local business in search rankings.
• On-site optimization – Write and arrange content on your website in a manner that local searchers find it relevant
• Website design – The website should be accessible across all mainstream devices
• Email marketing – This involves keeping current and potential customers updated on latest news from the company’s end and is the best way to get across to a targeted audience.
• Google’s Mobile-first indexing – Google has issued guidelines to create a mobile-friendly website. Follow these carefully to improve your website’s performance.
• Offline loyalty programs – Presence on major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can help you earn local links.

In addition to the above, some local tactics are: apply geo-modified keywords to pinpoint the location, and ensure that you are featured on trusted local snippets.

Local SEO tools

Some local SEO specific tools which can be applied to increase website performance are:

• Automated listings finder – this allows identification of additional directory listing opportunities. It also ensures verification and updating of all listing information together
• Review management tools notify businesses of new reviews across all platforms so that the business can respond suitably  

Apart from these, Google has a range of tools to help every business build and maintain their own specialized local SEO mechanisms. These include – Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google My Business insights, Google tag manager and results of statistics and surveys.

The success of your local SEO strategy is determined by how the business defines overall success. A well-structured plan should be developed which is scalable as well as open to modification. To really improve local presence, local SEO too should be monitored and fine-tuned in accordance with the business environment’s opportunities and threats. Local SEO optimization is a continuous process.

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If there is an online social network with over 100 million users asking questions that they know will be answered back, do you think it’d be a good source to generate website traffic?

Definitely!

Quora is a kind of forum where anyone can pose questions and expect them to be answered. The Quora community also votes up to the most relevant and helpful answer which bubbles up higher than the other responses.

It’s true that the real impact of SEO is seen only after some time, PPC advertising gives different results. On the other hand, social media takes up a lot of time and energy and other forms of advertising becomes very expensive for your business vis a vis expected return. Therefore, the free traffic from Quora makes it an exciting platform worth considering.

How is Quora a unique platform?

A lot of different platforms let you interact with your target audience – be it Twitter or Facebook. So, what makes Quora unique?

The best part about Quora is that you get to engage with your target audience when they are asking you questions. On Quora, you can step in and take part in an ongoing conversation centred around your offerings as well.  For instance, if you sell shoes, you can answer questions about fitness, exercise, running, weight loss tips, etc.

Note that every conversation that happen here will organically introduce your brand to the users as you can sneak a mention of the brand or the store (online or offline).

How can you leverage Quora traffic?

1. Make an appealing profile

The first thing that a Quora user does after reading your reply to a question is to visit your profile in order to know more about you. If they realise that you have an uninteresting page, they are not likely to trust the information provided by you. So, it makes sense to build your Quora profile for an enriching experience.

 A few tips:

• Use prominent headline to build your online image as a source of authority in your field.
• Add some of your best accomplishments
• Add your location and business title

2. Pick the right/relevant topics

When you customize your account, you are given an option to select from a wide range of topics that you may find interesting and Quora keeps you updated with the most recent questions asked based on your topic selection.

Thus, one of the best aspect of this is that you don’t have to go about hunting questions that you want to answer about your areas of interest.

What’s more? Quora even sends you notifications through emails about relevant questions that you may want to check out and try to answer them. You can even use the search bar to pick relevant questions to answer to sneak in your brand mention. So, it’s best to have a wider option in terms of interest to have more opportunities to answer questions with a fresh set of audience.

3. Impress with your knowledge

Make sure you know your goal clearly while answering any question in order to establish yourself as an expert to have a great followers’ list on Quora. But providing an informative and detailed answer isn’t going to cut it; you will have to subtly leave an impression of you being an expert in different ways.

In order to do this, you need to have a professional profile picture and a strong headline. Furthermore, you need to pay a close attention to the tone you use while answering your questions. Slip in a sentence or two to highlight or focus on your professional expertise and experience to establish authority of an expert.

4. Provide helpful answers

You shouldn’t compromise on providing value in order to establish your authority. People reach out to Quora to get a response for their query, so your first job is to provide a helpful answer with insightful information. If you do this in a consistent manner, then, gradually, you will generate a following – of people who actually trust you.

So, don’t be pretentious or fake being an expert because it can’t last for long so you can fumble over an answer which can reveal your lack of expertise. Address the problems of the users effectively to deliver value. If you continue to do it, your value will continue to increase and your brand awareness will eventually grow – leading to more traffic to your site.

5. You can also ask questions

The best part about Quora is that you can get your questions answered as well. Being an expert shouldn’t stop you from asking questions. By asking questions, you can connect with your audience at large. You can run surveys, ask for a feedback, offers, etc. to improve on the quality of your product or service. This kind of market research on Quora will help you improve your overall product offering.

6. Insert Links

Quora allows you to use hyperlinks within your answers. This helps in directing readers to your site. But, ensure that you don’t stuff your answers with links after links. There is an SEO advantage to creating Quora backlinks to your site, do it organically and tactfully to make sure it doesn’t look forceful and do it only if adds value response you share on the platform.

The secret to being successful at leveraging Quora to generate website traffic is to provide helpful answers to genuinely help your readers and better serve their needs – which can eventually lead to more reach and greater impact to your busines

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STEP 3 – TEST MULTIPLE ADS TO FIND THE MESSAGE THAT RESONATES BEST WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

This step is crucial, and also one of the most overlooked. Most of the people simply create one ad and call it a day, but I wanted to discover the best ad possible for my ad campaign.

What I did was to craft 3 completely different messages that I thought would resonate with my audience… and I run them one against the other.

I did this because I’m applying a strategic approach to media buying.

I want data, not guesswork.

I want to be able to say “Ok I tested three messages and there’s a clear winner. Let’s do more of that and delete the underperforming ads.”

At this step I didn’t simply change the background image (that comes later) – I created three messages that are completely different one to the other. I used different words, different offers and, of course, different images.

After two weeks I started to understand what resonates with my audience. And only at that point, I created variations of the winning ads testing multiple backgrounds, AB testing headlines and CTAs.

At this point, organisation and clarity are crucial: write a very descriptive name for every ad and ad group you create.

Don’t write “ad 1” “ad 2” “ad 3”, write “winter collection white coat” “winter collection blonde girl” instead.

Now that my three ads were ready, I focused on defining multiple audiences-.
I came up with three different audiences, and I run my three ads for each audience. It’s a total of 9 ads that were running at the same time.

Do you see what I did here? I’m maximising my chance to find an ad that performs well because I’m running more AD concepts and show them to different niches of people.

Some ideas to get you started to find the perfect audience:

1. Test a lookalike audience based on previous customers;
2. Test a retargeting audience;
3. Test a contextual audience (based on your dream client interests).

Now that the ads and audiences are ready there’s one hot topic that needs to be addressed: price.

How much should I spend? How should I split my budget?

STEP 4 – DIVIDE YOUR BUDGET IN 3 MONTHS TO GET MORE OUT OF IT

It may seem counter intuitive, but spending less at the beginning of your ad campaign can lead to better results later.

Why?

Remember that in step 3 you just created several ads and several audiences, and you still don’t know which ones will perform better.

Give yourself minimum a week to run all your ads together and see if there are some clear losers (that you can turn off) and some clear winners (where you will invest more money).

If you have enough budget, you can do like me, and run extensive tests for eight weeks. After two full months, you’ll know exactly which ads are working or not, and you’ll have the key to scale and make even more out of your ads.

This is how I split my client’s budget.

MONTH 1

• Test phase – After researching my target audience and competitors, I put together my best ideas and made some educated guesses on the message that would resonate better with my audience. I tested 3 ad concepts one against another. Just by doing that, I was able to spot underperforming ads (0.7% of CTR) and disable them to get more of my budget, running only ads with 1.5% CTR or higher.

MONTH 2

• Verify – I kept looking at the data from my ads, and I verified that the ads running were still performing well. If the CTR of an ad was dropping compared to month one, I was disabling it.
• Optimize – In the middle of Month 2, I started to know which was the best message, which words to use, and which concepts were driving more interactions to my ads. At this point, I was duplicating my ads and tweaking them a bit to decrease even more the CPC and get a better CTR.

MONTH 3

• Scale – Now there’s nothing else to do apart from investing more! I knew what was working well, so we used a bigger budget to drive even more visits, for a lower cost, to the website.

The final question you may have for me is: I have all these great ads that are performing amazingly, but where should I drive traffic to maximise my ROI?

The answer is in the next and last step.

STEP 5 – MAXIMIZE LEADS WITH A HIGH-CONVERTING PAGE.

Mostly in the B2B world (but even for most every b2c offerings), a lead generation page can be everything you want it to be.

It can be a specific landing page, or article on your blog.

For my client, I used (and tweaked) one blog post that was deeply connected to his dream clients.

The key to generating leads was to insert a content upgrade: it’s a simple, locked, document that the reader can download filling up a form on the page.

It’s exactly what you see on this article. If you click this link, you can input your name and email and I’ll send you four additional media buying strategies for B2B companies.

An easy way to create a link like this is by using Sumo. It’s a great plugin and it’s completely free when you are starting out. After you install it, just head over “List Builder” and create a new popup. Alternatively, you can use OptinMonster.

An additional way to generate leads is by sending traffic to a simple (but effective) landing page.

Your page doesn’t need to have lots of elements or a fancy graphic, but it needs to have the right elements on it.

THE PERFECT LANDING PAGE.

First of all, remember that people that will land to your page have never been there before, so you should simplify the page as much possible and make it extremely easy for them to do what you want.

To do that, decide one single thing that you want your visitors to accomplish (for example, sign up for your newsletter, get a discount or download your white paper).

Second thing, the visitors need to see that the value of the offer is higher than the pain of leaving their email address on your website.

When you have these points clear in your mind, you can focus on the actual content of your landing page. Make sure to include as many of these elements:

1. Vital Business Info: Logo, privacy policy, and the name of the company.
2. Remove unnecessary, distracting elements like the navigation bar.
3. Visible call to action: Make it easy to find the sign-up/download button
4. Social proof: Has your company been featured somewhere important? Has your product been sold thousands of times? Write it to increase credibility.
5. Catchy headline: Your headline should be compelling enough to make the reader continue reading.
6. Relevant copy: It’s after the headline, it explains how you can solve the pain of your target customer. Use 2-3 short bullets points.
7. Bonus – Urgency: If you can add real urgency to your landing page (limited availability, or time-sensitive promotions), conversions will increase.

Next step: test. When your page is up and running, and you are getting data (like CTR and conversion rate), you can test more versions of your page. Create an entirely different page and compare the results.

NOW YOU KNOW HOW TO CREATE A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MEDIA BUYING CAMPAIGN

You just learned my 5-step strategy to boost the performance of any media buying campaign.

The basic approach of creating a single ad, starting it and hoping for the best is a guarantee to fail. With my method, you’ll create a detailed strategy to minimize your risks and you’ll be sure to spend your ad budget better.

Get started, try your best and iterate based on the performance of previous ads! If you’d like us to help you implement an advertising strategy like this in your business, you can apply here.

And if you got some value from this post, let me know in the comments below.

A new Facebook study revealed that people spend 5 times longer watching video content than reading static content.

Gary Vaynerchuk, Larry Kim, and Neil Patel all used video ads to grow their audiences on every major social network, increase brand recall for their products and reach consumers at scale. But how can you take advantage of them?

In this guide, I’m going to show you:

• The 6 elements your video ads must have if you want to outperform your best static ads;
• The 6-second non-skippable video ad that won’t annoy your users;
• How to create a “thumb-stopping” effect that gets your target audience to watch your videos and buy from you.

Ready? Let’s do it!

BONUS MATERIALS: Get my Video Ads Swipe File & the PDF version of this article

Get my Video Ads Swipe file with 14 successful video ads you can take inspiration from, and a PDF copy of this article to read whenever you like.

Yes! Give me my PDFs

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

Why you need to use video ads in 2019

CHAPTER 2

How to create an highly effective video ad

CHAPTER 3

Spread your message like wildfire with Facebook Video Ads

CHAPTER 4

Reach your dream client with Instagram Video Ads

CHAPTER 5

Connect with B2B decision makers with Linkedin Video Ads

CHAPTER 6

Maximize your reach tapping into additional video platforms

CHAPTER 7

Take advantage of advanced targeting with Twitter Video Ads

CHAPTER 8

Get high CTR with Youtube Video Ads

CHAPTER 9

Target millennials with Snapchat Video Ads

CHAPTER 1

Why you need to use online video ads in 2019

With video ad spend to reach $20B by 2020, we know that more and more companies are investing in video advertising online.

Why? Because they work. From Lagos Nigeria to other parts of Africa we are sure that advertising is key

US Digital Video Ad Spending, 2017-2021 (billions)

PRINTS PRICE LIST

In fact, the average time viewers spent watching video ads in 2017 has grown by 19% compared to the year before.

On top of that, the Video Completion Rate (Videos Played All the Way Through) reached a staggering 69% in 2017.

Average video ads completion rate:

But if you want to succeed with digital video ads in 2019, there are some things you should know.

First, like for every digital marketing channel, also the video space starts to get saturated (the law of diminishing returns affects any kind of advertisement) and CTR is lower compared to previous years.

To win the video ad war, last year we saw more companies competing with shorter ads. To start, Snapchat limits ads to a max of 10 seconds, and also Facebook recommends video ads to be 15 seconds or shorter.

IAB released a great research and discovered that 10 second videos can help maximize impact among Millennials, who are particularly sensitive to mobile ad clutter. Mobile video ads for this audience should be well targeted, relevant and enjoyable to help maximize its potential impact.

An upside of shorter ads is that they allow more ab testing: it’s much easier to create four versions of a 10-second ad, than four versions of a 30-second ad, give the same budget and timeframe.

The last trend, of course, is about mobile.

In fact, mobile video viewing broke records in 2018.

But that’s not all:

Forrester discovered that mobile is forecast to account for 72% of the growth in spending on online video advertising in the next 5 years.

With a CTR higher than any other type of ad, you start to see why you should invest in video advertising.

But how do you plan and create an effective video ad?

Keep on reading, the answer is in chapter 2.

Video ads have the highest click-through rate (CTR) of all digital marketing ad formats.

Source: Ayat Shukairy, Invesp

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CHAPTER 2

How to Create an Highly Effective Online Video Advertisement

So you want to create a video ad. Where should you start?

It’s simple: from a detailed plan.

Who fails to plan, plans to fail, they say, and this is absolutely true for video ads, that require a good investment of time and money.

In this chapter, you’ll discover how to optimize your ad budget for maximum results, and the best practices to create an high-impact ad.

BONUS: Get my video ads swipe file with 14 successful video ads.

#1: Plan before you buy

The goal of media planning is to determine the best combination of media to achieve the marketing campaign objectives. In our case, we‘ll plan for the creation and the promotion of the best video ad possible.

The upside of media planning: you create a comprehensive strategy so you’ll know where you are going and you won’t waste your budget creating an ad that doesn’t convert.

The downsides? None. It’s a crucial step that should never be overlooked.

What I want you to do is to get to know your customer and write down everything you may need for your video ad: the exact words to use, the features of your product you should mention, which social networks to use to promote your web video ad.

You have several ways to gather this data:

 

MEDIA PLANNING STRATEGY N. 1 – CUSTOMERS INTERVIEWS

Find five previous customers willing to chat with you on the phone for 15-20 minutes, and understand why they bought from you.

Write down the exact words they are using to describe your product (you’ll use them later in your ad).

Understand where they hang out online: you’ll use this info to understand which channels use to promote your video.

 

MEDIA PLANNING STRATEGY 2 – GATHER AS MUCH DATA AS POSSIBLE

ASK AROUND – Talk with the CEO, VP of Strategy and anyone else from leadership that can give insights on who their dream client is.

TALK WITH SALES – What do prospective clients ask them?

CHECK THE CRM – What are people saying when they contact the company?

STALK CUSTOMERS ONLINE – Get the name and surname of 20 past clients and check them online. Discover which social networks they use every day, what content they share, and which pages they follow.

 

The interests box at the bottom of every Linkedin profile.

 

MEDIA PLANNING STRATEGY 3 – CHECK YOUR COMPETITORS

You should also check what your competitors are doing online.

By using Buzzsumo, you can understand which topics are getting the most shares (these can be useful ideas for your videos) and in which platforms they are being shared.

You see where I’m going with this?

You are making your life easier because with these three strategies you understand what your customers want to hear, and where they want to hear it.

PRO TIP: To get more insights and a real example of a detailed media planning and media buying strategy, you should check out Top Brand Management Company In Lagos Nigeria

#2: How to put together your video ad

Now that you know who you are talking to, and what your prospective customers want to listen, it’s time to put together your video ad.

Here some tips for a great ad.

 

1. Recording tips

If you are recording the video yourself, you should put together a script, understand how your camera works, how to set up a basic studio and how to cut and compose the video. Hubspot created the best guide I found online on the topic.

 

2. Create a video listicle

If you don’t have the resources to create a professional video with talking heads, you can create short listicles, precisely like Business Insider does.

A video listicle is a short video that features a list of interesting facts on a specific topic, and it’s quite straightforward to create. You can use it as a teaser for an in-depth article or show some key features of your product.

There are several tools you can use to easily create videos. With Magisto you can upload your single photo shots and images to Magisto, choose a theme, and the tool will put them together for you with AI.

 

 

If you want to create videos entirely from zero, I recommend Animoto or Wave.Video. I created the video above with Wave: it’s more expensive than Animoto, but it has more features than other online tools I tried. I liked it because it’s easy to resize a video for the different social networks with just a few clicks, and there’re lots of text effects.

 

 

And if you need completely free stock videos, I got you covered too with Pexels. You can thank me later!

 

3. Design with mobile in mind

From the moment of conception, you need to be thinking about your video in terms of mobile devices first, everything else second.

First, because most of the people will be seeing your video ad from mobile anyway, second because some apps (like Snapchat) are mobile only.

Some best practices to get mobile ads right:

1. Consumers are sensitive to mobile ad clutter: ads should be well targeted, relevant and enjoyable.
2. Brand logos, brand cues and product shots are large enough to be easily seen on smaller mobile screens.
3. Create ads that can still convey a message if shortened to 10-20 seconds.
4. The initial frames of an ad should be well branded and engage to capture consumers’ attention and still have an impact if closed or skipped.
5. 30-second ads can be considered for mobile if the goals are to communicate complex information, to increase persuasion among consumers ages 35+ or to drive consumers to take action.

 

4. Experiment with shorter ads

Ads shorter than 15 seconds (but that are usually around 6 sec) are gaining momentum because they are successful at capturing the attention via mobile.

When you can use a 30 sec ad to tell your full story, you can experiment with a 15 sec version to improve reach and frequency, reinforce your message, and reduce overall campaign costs.

Online advertising research by Google

 

There are three main ways you can take advantage of them.

 

Tease

You can use a short ad to seed an idea, and reveal the full story with a longer ad weeks later.

Example of a tease video ad made by KFC.

 

Amplify

Run your long and short ad together to increase ad recall.

 

Echo

When your primary campaign is finishing, you can connect short ads to retargeting (read here if you want to learn how to do effective retargeting video ads) to increase ad recall and convert more viewers, by showing your short ad only to people that saw your full-length video.

For any online video advertising platform you choose, just make sure to follow the guidelines below to create ads of the appropriate length.

 

 

5. Design with sound off

As part of your efforts to think about the mobile platform first, design videos that can be fully understood and enjoyed with the sound off. After all, the best sound for facebook video ads is silence.

Use text overlays to convey essential points and always use titles, captions and similar techniques so that people know what is going on.

Netflix is, of course, doing it right:

 

One nice exception is Snapchat that starts ads with the volume on by default.

 

6. Check your progress

As Kim Larson from Google points out, you should make sure to measure progress with the right metric.

Don’t simply track views, but use KPIs that make sense to your business goals.

The beauty of video advertising online is that, unlike with television, we actually can measure every different metric in real time, so follow Kim’s advice and make sure to track the ones most important to you.

 

Image from: Think With Google

 

Now that you know how to plan your video advertising strategy, how to create your video and how to track the results, we can finally start buying ads. The next chapters will guide you to create video ads in the most important advertising platforms online.

Let’s go!

CHAPTER 3

Spread your message like wildfire with Facebook Video Ads

Facebook provides incredible opportunities to target the perfect customer on granular levels.

With Facebook video ads, you can take advance of metrics like personal interests, locations, website visits, custom and lookalike audience.

Whether if you are a B2B or B2C marketer, you should have Facebook video ads as part of your digital marketing strategy.

BONUS: Get my Facebook Ads Swipe file.

How to make the most out of Facebook Video Ads

On Facebook, users aren’t forced to watch your video ad to get to the next thing in their newsfeed. 98% of the time they just scroll right past your video ad. So Larry Kim (CEO of MobileMonkey) tells people to make the ad’s pitch in reverse.

Make sure that the “explosions” are happening at the very beginning of your Facebook Ads, to capture attention immediately, and then later explain the why/how.

If you want to create a Facebook video ad that really stands out, I’ll share with you some advanced tactics in a bit.

But right now, let’s focus on the basics. Here some guidelines and best practices you should always follow for video ads on Facebook:

• Use square videos (1:1). They take up 78% more real estate in a person’s mobile newsfeed than landscape video (16:9). Studies show that 1:1 outperforms landscape videos by 30-35%
• Think silent. 85% of videos are viewed on Facebook without sound, so make sure to add captions.
• Facebook’s Autoplay will count 3 seconds as a “view”, so make the first 3 seconds count.
• Use high-resolution: 720p or 1080p HD.
• Facebook video ads recommended length: 15 seconds or shorter.
• Use as less text as possible in the ad image preview. Facebook may block your video ad if there is lots of text on top or around your video.

And now the advanced tactics you were all waiting for.

Use the combo video + Facebook lead generation forms

As Hope Horner from Lemonlight pointed out, if you use this strategy right, it can be a marketing goldmine. Lead ads allow users to share their contact info directly on Facebook, which can result in more subscribers than driving them to an external landing page.

You can later use the leads as you want: add them to your newsletter or use them to create custom and lookalike audiences.

The video comes in handy if you are promoting a physical location or a saas. For example, you can:

• Showcase your offering with video (like a coworking space or a gym) and offer a free day pass.
• Do you have a restaurant? Show videos of your food and offer a 2-for-1 voucher upon signing up.
• Do you run a saas? Show some features of your program and offer a free trial.

To create the best lead video ad of the whole internet, simply log into Facebook Ads manager and choose “Lead Generation”.

 

 

Define your audience like you would usually do for any facebook ad.

 

Upload your video.

 

 

Now you can finally create your form. Make sure to ask only for the essential info, if you want to maximise signups, or to add more fields if you’re looking for fewer but more qualified leads.

 

Create a custom audience from video views

Imagine being able to target only people that love your content so much that they watch your videos until the end.

Well, Facebook allows you to do precisely that (and much more) to re-engage users and drive more conversions.

In fact, it’s possible to create an engagement custom audience of people who’ve interacted with your video on Facebook:

• People who viewed at least 3 seconds of your video
• People who viewed at least 10 seconds of your video
• People who viewed at least 25% of your video
• People who viewed at least 50% of your video
• People who viewed at least 75% of your video
• People who viewed at least 95% of your video

With this strategy,  someone can view your video — with or without sound — and automatically be added to an audience to target later.

How you do it:

1 – Go to your Audiences, click the Create Audience drop-down and choose Custom Audience.

 

2 – Click Engagement

 

3 – Click video

 

4 – In the “Engagement” field, choose the amount of time you want people in your audience to have spent viewing your video.

 

 

5 – Click on “choose videos” and choose a video that you previously shared on your Facebook or Instagram page.

 

Congrats, you can now target this audience with a new ad!

Create perfect loop video

Perfect loops are like good GIFS: videos that seamlessly blend from end to beginning.

They are easy to make and great if you are on a budget, but you still want to create beautiful looking mini-videos.

They are ideal for social because the viewer can’t understand when the video finishes (it’s in a perfect loop), so they help to get more people to watch your videos till the end, or more.

One example:

 

 

If you want to create a perfect loop, you have several options.

 

1# strategy: Giphy

Go to Giphy, download a gif in MP4 video format. You are done.

Source: Gyphy

2# strategy – iMovie

Open a video you own in iMovie and cut a single scene that you can play on a loop.

Save.

Use as your video ad.

 

3# strategy – Specific software.

Flixel specialises in “cinemagraphs”, mini videos composed of a part (usually the main subject) that doesn’t move, and another part (usually the background) that moves. Exactly like in the Adidas example above.

There’s a free trial for iOS and MacOS.

Alternatively, try Animoto: upload a video you own to their website, choose a 5-second frame that would be nice in a loop, add filters and some copy, and you are done. It’s similar to the iMovie strategy but easier to use and with more available effects.

With this, we conclude Facebook video ads.

Next up: Instagram!

CHAPTER 4

Reach your dream client with Instagram Video Ads

Instagram video ads are ideal if you want to increase web traffic sales and drive awareness.

With the help of highly-visual content, you can get users to engage with your posts and show off your B2C offerings.

But why should you advertise on Instagram in the first place?

BONUS: Get my Instagram Ads Swipe file.

Overview

Let’s start with some stats:

1. A study by Instagram found that 60% of their users learn about products and services through the platform, and 75% of them took actions such as visiting sites, searching, or telling a friend after seeing an Instagram post.
2. Again, Instagram looked at more than 400 campaigns globally and found out that ad recall from their ads was 2.8 times higher than Nielsen’s norms for online advertising.

As you can see, Instagram is a great platform to advertise, but before starting your next media buying campaign you should ask yourself:

 

Is my target audience on instagram?

Let’s start with demographics.

According to Statista, in January 2018 the most active Instagram users were men and women, 18 to 34 years old (61%).

 

 

With this in mind, you should understand if your target audience talks about your industry/product/service on Instagram.

Facebook surveyed 11,000 young adults and, from their video advertising research, they discovered that some of the most popular topics on Instagram are the following:

Fashion/beauty, food, TV/films, hobbies, music.

Finally, ask yourself: can we create visual content that blends into our target audience’s Instagram feed?

According to the same Facebook study above, “Instagrammers appreciate aesthetic quality in visual content”. Instagram is a visual-first platform, where visual content, rather than text, is the primary form of communication.

If your product/service tick all the three boxes above, congratulations. Instagram is the perfect platform for your brand!

 

Let’s see some best practices to maximize the effectiveness of your ads.

• Use the right format: square format (1:1) works best if posting on the Instagram feed;  Buffer discovered that it costs 33% less than landscape. Use vertical format (9:16) for stories.
• Create videos with audio for stories, create videos without sound in the feed (more on this below)
• Since users will click on ads from the Instagram app, you should optimize your landing page for mobile first.
• Create content that blends in with the organic feed. To stand out, create videos that are beautiful, thoughtfully composed and artfully presented.

 

Facebook vs. Instagram video ads

Since the two platforms are considerably different, Marketing Land points out that long and conversion-centric content should live on Facebook, while you should leave Instagram to the artsy, visually appealing videos.

Instagram ads use the same advertising system as Facebook. You can specify your target audience’s location, demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. You can even target people who have bought from you or interacted with you and others like them.

As a result, you can use the same strategies that we discussed on the Facebook ads chapter, and apply them to the two types of Instagram video ads available to you: stories and native.

Stories Video Ads Best practices

Stories ads run in a full screen, vertical format. This means all your Stories video ads format must be portrait (9:16 aspect ratio).

With 60% of stories viewed with sound-on, be sure to share content that sounds as good as it looks.

You can also experiment with text overlays. Videos with text on top work very well compared to non-text videos to build brand awareness or to drive action through purchases and installs.

Why should you use story ads? Because the use of Instagram Stories is growing.

A lot:

 

 

Ad specifics:

• Resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• File Size: 4GB Max
• Instagram Video Ads Duration: 1 to 15 seconds
• Maximum Video Ad Ratio : 9:16
• Sound: Optional but recommended
• Video thumbnail: images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery

To create your first Instagram Story ad, simply head to Facebook Ads Manager and create a new ad. When it’s the moment to choose where to display your ad, disable every placement except for Instagram stories.

 

 

High impact, low budget Stories

If you don’t have a big budget, you can still create Instagram Stories of high impact, by using the stop motion feature of the instagram app.

Simply open the app and start creating a new story.

Select “stop motion” from the available options on bottom of the screen.

 

 

Now play with the product placement and take multiple pictures to show your product as if it’s moving.

Save and upload as an ad with the “Ads Manager” app.

Check the full tutorial here.

Native Video Ads best practices

You can post Instagram video ads in either landscape or square format. However, square videos have the edge over landscape videos.

Square videos consume more space on the user’s screen, meaning that your viewer is not distracted by other posts and the metrics (views, likes, comments, etc).

But don’t stop there: AB test a square video with a video with an aspect ratio of 4:5 to see what’s performing better for you.

Native videos specs:

• Resolution: at least 1080 x 1080 pixels
• File Size: 4GB Max
• Instagram Video Ads Duration: 1 to 60 seconds
• Minimum Video Ad Dimensions : 4:5
• Maximum Video Ad Dimensions : 1.91:1
• Text under the video: Two rows of text will display
• Video thumbnail: images that consist of more than 20% text may experience reduced delivery

 

How to set up an Instagram video campaign.

There are several ways to promote your video on Instagram.

Some of them offer you more options, while other are simpler and faster to use.

If you want to have access to as many options as possible and be in complete control of your ad, use Facebook Ads Manager or Facebook Power Editor. For a quick and easy way to promote your video, you can directly use the Instagram app (you’ll need to have a business Instagram account for that).

For a detailed tutorial on how to place ads, I recommend you to check out this great guide that Buffer put together on Instagram ads.

Anyway, to create Instagram or Facebook ads, I usually use Adespresso. It’s a great tool because it makes it extremely easy to test multiple variations of your ad: you can test various headlines, descriptions and videos. Here a great tutorial to set up an Instagram video ad campaign in Adespresso.

One strategy to test: User Generated Content in Ads

User-generated content is a form of content that was created by users, not by a brand.

The power of this kind of content is its trustworthiness: since it was created by real users, it appears more genuine.

In fact, according to Nielsen, 92 percent of consumers say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising.

 

Image source: Nielsen

 

User-generated content can help with conversions as well: customer product photos on a product page can increase conversion by 4.6%.

What’s more, many users have no objections against having their content used by brands. Iconosquare, for instance, found that 65% of users would feel honoured if a brand liked one of their posts.

If you have an active group of followers for your brand, scout for the best videos and ask them permission to repost them and promote them with ads. You may be amazed by the results.

CHAPTER 5

Connect with B2B decision makers with Linkedin Video Ads

Video ads are the brand new addition to Linkedin ads.

Currently available on mobile only, Linkedin video ads are auto-playing videos that can drive more visits to your website or more sign-ups to a LinkedIn lead generation form.

They are an excellent opportunity to target B2B companies, so let’s see why you need them and how to set them up.

BONUS: Get my Linkedin Ads Swipe file.

Overview – B2b video advertising done right

We can say that with a very peculiar demographic, LinkedIn is the best platform for business-to-business interactions.

Your LinkedIn campaigns can help you gain visibility for your brand, generate leads, and boost traffic to your web pages with thought-leadership content.

The most amazing part of LinkedIn ads is its audience creation. If you want to target b2b prospects, there’s no better way to do it.

 

Linkedin ads are way more expensive than Facebook ads (in my experience, I’m talking minimum 10 times more, after optimisation) but you’ll have the possibility to target Linkedin users by, among other things, their seniority, their job title, or the industry they work in.

If you are starting to see how powerful they can be, you’ll be happy to know that now you can also create custom audiences based on company names, and retarget your website visitors as well.

Linkedin rolled out video ads on March 18, so make sure to be among the first to take advantage of them!

 

Source: Linkedin Video Ads

 

Here some best practices for you to follow:

• Show what you want your audience to see in the first 10 seconds of the video (the viewer attention drops after that point).
• Think like a silent film director: a significant portion of LinkedIn members will watch your ad with the sound off. Consider adding video subtitles.
• Feature a clear CTA (call to action), so your audience knows the next steps to take after watching your video.
• Keep videos under 30 seconds for brand awareness and brand consideration goals; test longer videos for demand generation. The general guideline for top-of-funnel videos is 30-90 seconds, but content can be longer from the middle of the funnel.
• A/B test the same content with different lengths: short looped videos (5-15 sec) to encourage your audience to learn more; Medium (~30 sec) with quick product overviews; Long (1 min+) richer stories that make an emotional connection.
• Measure success with demographic reporting to understand which audience segments have the highest video view rates (example in the image below).

 

Source: Demographics for your ads

 

Essential components of a b2b video:

BlitzMetrics CEO Dennis Yu shared with Linkedin his tips to condense messages into quick-hitting 60-second videos that are more likely to be viewed in their entirety:

• Hook: Capture attention within the first 3 seconds
• Ignite Pain/Pleasure: Identify problem or opportunity in 3-15 seconds range
• Describe Solution: Explain what you offer and why it will help viewers from 15-50 seconds
• Call to Action: Leave with an actionable next step in the final 10 seconds

 

Linkedin video ads specs:

• Length: Three seconds to 30 minutes (Tip: most successful video ads are less than 15 seconds long)
• Layout: Horizontal (vertical videos are not supported)
• File size: Between 75 KB and 200 MB
• File format: MP4
• Pixel and aspect ratio requirements: up to 1080p
• You cannot upload more than 25 Videos in Campaign Manager within 24 hours.
• You can only upload videos from a desktop computer, not from your mobile device.

How to create a video ad campaign on Linkedin

Sign in to Campaign Manager, click on “Create new campaign” and choose “Sponsored Content”:

 

 

Choose any of the ad formats available. With any of them you’ll be able to use video as ad format:

 

 

Choose video as ad format:

 

 

Now upload your video based on the guidelines explained above in this chapter, and later click on “sponsor selected content”.

 

 

Now it’s only a matter of choosing the right audience for your video ad, your budget, and submit to Linkedin for approval.

The next step is to simply wait while you generate views and clicks on your ad.

After a couple of days, you can check your data to see how many people watched your video in full or until a certain point.

To do so:

1. Sign in to Campaign Manager.
2. Click account name for the account that contains your video ad campaign.
3. Scroll down to the Campaigns table and click the campaign that contains your Video Ad.
4. Scroll down to the Ads table and click the Video tab to see performance metrics for each of your creatives.

 

Source: Linkedin Help

CHAPTER 6

Maximise your reach tapping into additional video platforms

Social networks are not the only platforms where you can promote your video ad.

There are lots of additional networks that can allow you to reach more customers on more websites.

I’m gathering the most important ones in this chapter but be warned – some are really high level, and you’ll need a huge monthly ad spend to be accepted.

Taboola

Tabola places its ads on some of the greatest websites of the world – in 2017 they reached 1.4 billion people a month, which is around half of the global internet users.

Taboola Feed is a feed of promoted news that appears after an article on websites that are using Taboola, and it can display video ads as well.

You can learn more and register for Taboola here: https://www.taboola.com

Oath by Verizon

Oath is a subsidiary of Verizon that serves as the umbrella company of its digital content subdivisions, including AOL and Yahoo! Oath includes Brightroll and One by AOL.

To push your video ads to their websites, which include Huffington Post, TechCrunch and 40 more brands, you can contact them directly from here

SpotX

Spotx Is an online platform that focuses only on video ads.

On their website, they claim that they can provide a direct pipeline to premium supply and buy video through public, private and curated Marketplaces.

They work with Zynga, Spotify, and CBS Local among others, so it’s worth checking them out.

You can learn more and contact them here

Adobe Primetime

It’s a cloud-based service that helps broadcasters, cable networks, and service providers capitalise on their data and technology to increase advertising and subscription revenue.

They use machine learning, data and dynamic ad insertion to reduce ad waste and improve the targeting of your ad.

They have NBC and Comcast among their customers, and you can check them out here

Exponential

It’s an advertising platform that can connect your brand with more than 700 million users globally (on desktop and mobile).

They have a unique approach to audience modelling: they look for the ideal behaviour, the activities and interests that indicate if a person will convert, regardless of what their profile may look like as a whole.

Some of their partners: Microsoft, Mastercard, IBM, Kellog’s.

Learn more about them here

Videology

Videology is an online platform that provides advertising across both TV and digital video.

If you’d like to promote your video ad on television, check them out.

YuMe by RythmOne

It’s a provider of video and connected TV inventory, unique consumer insights, and cross-screen targeting technology. They claim they can help you reach and engage consumers wherever and however they consume video content.

Check them out here.

CHAPTER 7

Take advantage of advanced targeting with Twitter Video Ads

Twitter videos mirror the platform where they are hosted. To make an impact, they must be quick, personal and entertaining.

Mix them with the advanced advertising capabilities of Twitter ads, and you’ll have the perfect formula to gain new followers for your brand and drive conversions to your website.

BONUS: Get my Twitter Ads Swipe file.

Overview

Let’s start with some basics, and you’ll learn why you’ll love Twitter video ads.

First of all, Twitter’s ad targeting is insanely great.

You can target by keyword, hashtag or people that follow specific Twitter profiles: use these options if you are building your database or if you want to do some brand awareness.

You can also use “engager targeting”, which means to show your ad only to people that interacted with your tweets in the past – use this to drive more conversions to your website!

Finally, with “tailored audiences”, you can take advantage of retargeting your website visitors directly on Twitter and get highly relevant views for a very low cost.

So why choose video ads?

Well, tweets with video are 6x more likely to be retweeted than Tweets with photos, and you can use any of these targeting options we just discussed.

Here some best practices for scroll-stopping videos:

• Use a hook. Build in an intriguing set-up or dynamic set of actions to hook the viewer in the first few seconds.
• Show your logo. Feature your brand logo or product at the beginning of your video to drive brand association from the start.
• Humanize your videos. Videos showing people in the first few frames have been proven to increase view rates and drive 2x higher retention. (source)
• Tell a story. Videos with a clear beginning, middle and end can increase viewership (source)
• Videos that simply aim to entertain your audience can lead to a 15% higher intent to share (source)
• Include captions. Use captions and visual cues to pull the viewer through the video and make it easier to process.

And these are the specs for Twitter video ads:

• Title (under video): 70 characters.
• Description (under video): 200 characters.
• File type: MP4 or MOV.
• File size: 1GB Max
• Max time: 2 minutes and 20 seconds

Here below, some strategies to get the most out of Twitter video ads.

Strategy 1 – How to get more video views

Let’s create a campaign with the sole focus of maximising the views of your video.

To start, go to https://ads.twitter.com/ and choose “Promoted Video Views”.

 

 

Now decide your budget and, optionally, start and ending time.

 

 

Now it’s the tricky part, so pay attention because you’ll need to go back and forth between 3 separate tabs on your browser.

You’ll need to create a new sponsored tweet that contains your video, and to do that the first step is to create a new tweet by clicking on the blue icon on the right:

 

 

On the new tab of your browser, click on “Select Video” and “Media Library”.

 

 

From the new tab, click on “Upload Media” and on the blue button to compose a Tweet:

 

 

Now you can finally compose your tweet. If you want to can link back to your site but that’s optional. I recommend to “Edit media settings” to add a title and description to your video, and to click on “promoted only” to use this tweet only for your paid campaigns.

Click the blue button “tweet” and your tweet will be ready.

 

 

You now go back to the first tab (I told you this was going to be tricky) and:

1. Click on refresh
2. Choose “promoted-only tweets”
3. Write the first couple of words of your tweet to make it appear from the list
4. Click on the tweet to select it
5. Press “next” on the top right of the page.

 

 

Now that the tweet is ready, you can now define the right audience to promote it.

In my case, I wanted to target people in the UK that search for “Larry Kim” or that are following him (or similar accounts):

 

 

When you are happy with the settings, click next.

In the next page, you can change the bidding,  and clone the ad group you just created by clicking on “Clone Ad Group”.

If you click there, your “ad set” will be duplicated. Use that if you are testing multiple videos and multiple audiences.

 

 

When you are ready, click next, and you will arrive at the final page.

Review the details of your campaign and click “Launch campaign” to start your Twitter video ad campaign!

 

Strategy 2 – Drive targeted visitors to your website with a Video Website Card.

Video Website Cards are a creative format that combines the power of video with the ability to drive users back to a site to learn more or take action immediately.

With a Video Website Card, businesses can:

• Attract qualified consumers with an immersive auto-playing video showcasing their brand’s value, product, or service before a person clicks through.
• Extend brand engagement beyond the end of the video with creatives designed to drive consumers to your site to learn more or take action.
• Keep consumers’ attention as they move down the funnel.

How they work: when a user clicks on a video on mobile, the video anchors to the top of the screen and continues to play while the website loads below it.

 

 

To create a video website card, we’ll follow the strategy 1 explained above, but with a few differences.

First of all, our goal will be to generate website clicks or conversions:

 

 

Next, when you are creating your new tweet in compose mode, you’ll click on “select card” and “card library”.

 

 

From the new tab, click on “Create Card” and “Video Website Card”.

 

 

Fill up the card with your video, headline and URL and click on “create”.

 

 

Now head back to the previous tab of your browser (the Compose mode) and choose your video website card from the dropdown menus on bottom right (make sure you choose “video”):

 

 

Finally, head back to your first tab and search for the tweet you just created:

 

 

All the rest of the process stays the same: choose your targeting, your bidding method, and you’ll be ready to confirm and start your campaign!

CHAPTER 8

Get high CTR with Youtube Video Ads

YouTube processes more than 3 billion searches per month, and it’s the second largest search engine online right behind Google.

For most of its users, it serves a fundamental purpose: discovery.

Placing your video ad inside a youtube video, you are making sure to target a big audience that is willing to learn more about a specific topic or product, making it a fantastic platform to advertise on.

BONUS: Get my Youtube Ads Swipe file.

Overview – Your Guide to Youtube Advertising

Compared to Facebook, Youtube video ads are more “traditional”, since you can basically force users to watch your ad for 5 or even 15 seconds. That means you can take your time and tell your story, and ultimately build up to a punchline at the end, just like a normal TV commercial.

Another great thing you should know is that advertising on youtube is more affordable than you think.

The cost per view of your ad varies for several reasons, but mostly because of your target market. For a very competitive market in a country like the US, you can expect to spend 0.50$ or more, but for other markets the cost is much lower, ranging between 10 and 30 cents per view. Larry Kim points out that in the USA, a typical CPM for (Facebook or) YouTube ads is around $15.

Of course, more factors influence the cost per view. They are:

• Video quality. Make sure to have a professionally written script, high production and image quality (more on this in chapter 2)
• Targeting
• Ad placement

A great reason to choose Youtube to advertise your videos is that you only pay when people decide to watch your ad. For example, when someone chooses to view your ad for at least 30 seconds or engages with it – like clicking on a call-to-action overlay.

Youtube offers you four different video ad formats.

• Skippable video ads – the most common type of YouTube ad. These are the ads you see before during or after a video; a viewer can skip your ad after 5 seconds.
• Non-skippable video ads – Viewers must watch the entire 15+ second ad which may deter viewers who don’t know the value of your videos.
• Midroll ads – Currently available for videos over 10 minutes: the ads are spaced within the video, like TV commercials. Viewers must watch ads before continuing through the video.
• Bumper ads – these are non-skippable videos of max 6 seconds which a viewer must watch before seeing the main video.

 

Which advertising option should you choose on Youtube?

• Skippable video ads are the lowest risk ads, given that you pay only when a viewer watches 30 seconds or till the end of the video ad.
• Non-skippable video ads (midroll or before the video) may generate higher CPMs than other ad formats on YouTube, but they have higher video abandonment.
• Bumper ads are non-skippable but so short that the users won’t feel annoyed. Use them to keep your brand on top of mind. They help driving upper-funnel goals like ad recall and awareness.

Let’s see in detail how to optimise your next video ad campaign on youtube, step by step

How to create and optimise your Youtube video ad.

First, go over to Adwords and create a new campaign from the blue button.

 

 

From Campaign Type, click on Video, choose your main goal for this campaign and click continue:

 

 

The process from now on is very straightforward, so I want to focus only on a few points.

 

Networks

 

 

Youtube search results – This option allows you only to create a “video discovery ad” that appears on YouTube search results only. It’s a promoted search result (made of an image and some copy). By clicking on it, your video ad will open.

 

 

YouTube videos & Video partners on the display Network – This option allows you to create “video discovery ad”, “in-stream ads” and “bumper ads” that will appear on Youtube videos, channels, homepage and on a collections of sites part of the Google Display Network.

 

Targeting options

There are several targeting options to allow you to show your ad to the right people.

 

• Languages & Location – once set, these options will be the same for the whole campaign.

 

The following options can be different for every ad set so that you can easily ab test different segments:

 

• Demographics – Age, gender, parental status, household income
• Audiences – Target people based on their interests, or by the products they are actively looking for.
• Remarketing – You find this option inside “Audiences”, it allows you to target people who previously interacted with your business and create similar audiences. If you created lists of people that previously watched your videos, you’ll find them here as well.
• Keywords – Show your YouTube ads to people that searched specific keywords on YouTube.
• Topics – Show ads on content about specific topics. Topic targeting is a simple way to place your ads on many web pages, apps, and videos about a particular subject.
• Placements – You can decide exactly where you want your ad to run. On the Display Network, a placement can be an entire website, a specific page of a site, or a mobile app. On YouTube, a placement can be a specific channel or a video.

 

Ad Creation

 

 

Here you’ll be able to upload your video or link any video already hosted by youtube (it doesn’t need to be connected to your account).

One note: to choose a different thumbnail, you’ll need to edit the video from youtube and change the thumbnail there.

Make sure to choose the right type of ad (in-stream, video discovery or bumper ad) and after you write your headline and description you will be ready to confirm your campaign and start your ad.

With this, we concluded our chapter on Youtube ads.

Let’s move to the last chapter, which focuses on a fantastic platform to target millennials: SnapChat!

CHAPTER 9

Target Millennials with Snapchat Video Ads

If Millenials are part of your target audience, you should definitely run Snapchat video ads.

Snapchat has a young audience, but more than half of new users currently signing up are over the age of 25, making this a fantastic platform to advertise several B2C products.

Let’s see why Snapchat is different compared to other platforms, and how you can take advantage of that.

BONUS: Get my Snapchat Ads Swipe file.

Overview

Snapchat is growing – and growing fast.

To make a comparison, Snapchat’s daily active users grew by 5% in the last quarter of 2017, while Facebook grew only by 2.2% – with a total of 187 million average daily active Snapchatters globally.

 

 

And when users are active, it seems that they can’t live without Snapchat:

 

https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/blog/whos-on-snapchat-anyway/

 

The community spans a broad age range. A lot of people think it’s just teens who Snap on a regular basis, but the audience is ageing up.

They do have a large audience of teens and young adults, but more than 50% of daily new Snapchatters in the US are 25 or older, and nearly one-third of adult Snapchatters are parents.

Another thing that sets Snapchat apart is the amount of time users spend on the app each day –  daily active Snapchatters open Snapchat an average of over 18 times every day.

Crazy right?

If you want to reach any of the 185M active users with ads, you have several options: video ads, filters and lenses – but since the aim of this article is “video ads”, we’ll focus here only on the first category.

The Snap Video Ads

 

There are four advanced types of video ads, but they all start with a “snap ad”: a full-screen, 100% viewable video ad of max 10 seconds, with audio on by default.

Some specs:

• 32 MB max of file size
• Minimum size: 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Required Ratio: 9:16
• Length: 3 to 10 seconds
• More requirements here

After you create you snap ad, you can decide if you want to stick with it (usually to generate more awareness for your product) or if you’re going to drive action using one of the following:

• “Web View” to send the user to your website;
• “App Install” to drive more downloads of your app;
• “Deep Link” to re-engage users of your  app;
• “Long Form video” to show a video in full, after you showed a teaser with your snap ad.

 

How to choose the best audience possible for your video advertisements.

To create a new ad, simply head over to https://ads.snapchat.com/, log in with your Snapchat account and create a new campaign.

I recommend choosing “Advanced Create” to have the ability to create multiple ad sets and test your ads with different audiences.

 

 

In any case, you’ll have the possibility to choose the best objective for your campaign:

 

After this, you can define the audience for each of your ad sets.

One note here: the audience options will depend on the country you are targeting.

For example, if you target the United Kingdom, you will only be able to target users by “Lifestyle” (that are long-term interests of users), but if you target the US, you have three additional options:

• Shoppers – what people buy in stores or restaurants
• Viewers – what people watch on tv or online
• Visitors – where people usually go with their smartphone

 

https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/audiences/

 

One note on custom audiences

Snapchat, like other platforms, gives you the ability to create custom audiences: you can import a list of emails or device IDs to reach your customers and their lookalikes.

 

 

To create a new custom audience, click the arrow on the top left of any page and choose “Audiences”.

 

 

Ad creation

Going back to the creation of a new campaign, when you are ready with your audiences, you can move to the next and final step: ad creation.

Digital Video Ads Branding Marketing

Follow the guidelines explained at the beginning of the chapter to create a video that complains with Snapchat video specs and upload it to “Topsnap Media”.

 

 

Add the name of your brand, a headline and a call to action, and you will be ready.

Review your campaign and press “Publish Campaign” to submit your ads for publication!

 

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