Facebook is about to offer brands the chance to add an additional dimension to their online campaigns

At F8 (Facebook’s annual developers conference) the social media titan announced its next iteration of Oculus Go.  It is the company’s first standalone virtual reality headset, available online and via retail partners in 23 countries. Oculus Go’s features include new social apps that let consumers experience live events from a personal perspective.  For example, enjoying the best seats in the house at a launch show…to exploring social issues. Beyond the headset, brands will be able to exploit AR through more traditional platforms including Messenger. “We’re launching the ability for brands to integrate AR camera effects into their Messenger experience,” announced David Marcus, who heads Messenger. It is one of several enhancements aimed to help businesses develop brand connections through augmented reality camera effects, within the app. “This feature, launching in closed beta, helps people…

Here are the 3 biggest takeaways from the conference, and exactly what they mean to us as marketers!

Facebook’s F8 was an intense and amazing experience. The amount of development, innovation, and progress shown in just two days is only barely digestible. To ensure myself and my team were not caught up in all the pomp and circumstance, I was determined to view this entire conference as a marketer, not a fan-boy, or Facebook junkie.

Augmented Reality

What’s happening here: From the video you can see that Facebook has the technical capabilities of augmenting any world, in whatever manner they want. Through Oculus (which is only in year two of a ten-year development plan) you can own the environment of your business. Through these headsets, people will see the reality you what them to, not the physical one to which they are currently limited. What this means for Marketers:…

WhatsApp, announced that it was not requesting any new rights to collect personal information in the agreement it created for the European Union

Barely a day passes without another social media platform notifying me of updated terms of business. Now, in a new twist to the ongoing data protection saga that is European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - due to come into effect on 25th May 2018, WhatsApp intends to ban under 16 year olds across Europe from its system. Potentially that represents a significant chunk of its 1.5bn users. (WhatsApp is the fifth most popular social network with 12 -15-year olds, after Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube).

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According to researcher eMarketer, about a fifth of Snapchat users in the US are aged…

Google Analytics has not only made it easier for data-driven marketers to work in compliance with GDPR, but has also introduced a new feature to improve sales and marketing integration

In an era where every marketer is aspiring to be “data-driven”, you, yes you, need to make sure that your marketing decisions are informed by well-rounded data. When we speak about data analytics, Google Analytics is first to make an appearance in any marketer’s mind. Yet another Google tool that has provided revolutionary changes, if we may call it that, in the process of digital data collection, insight and analytics. Google Analytics is widely used by marketers to generate better business results. Hence, Google is always looking for ways to improve this tool and add new, more relevant features to it. As you may know already, GDPR…

The voice assistant could eventually listen to all conversations in a room, identify speakers, and even interrupt them with sponsored suggestions

During the Second World War, a campaign warned private citizens against speaking too loosely in public places about matters of national interest. After all (so the campaign explained) one could never be sure of who was eavesdropping. In recent years, the rise of ‘listening robots’ has been precipitous, including Google’s Assistant, Amazon’s Echo device, and Apple’s Siri-activate HomePod. Triggered by ‘call names’ (for example, Siri), they offer useful hands-free assistance on everything from checking the weather and travel, to selecting music from a personal playlist. In the Case of Alexa, things are set to take what many would consider a sinister development by adopting a far more ‘hands-on’ attitude A recent Amazon patent suggests the voice assistant could eventually listen to all conversations in a room, identify speakers, and even interrupt them…

Everything you need to know about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the use of big data what the future holds for Facebook

Each year, targeting technologies get increasingly sophisticated. Machine Learning has turned simple algorithms into sophisticated Big Data which helps companies precisely focus specific messages at apt times to appropriate audiences Many rely on extrapolating data from Silicon Valley giants to target users with ads across platforms. Some companies openly market stockpiles of raw data to third parties. Companies like Nielsen, Comscore, Xaxis, Rocketfuel, and an array of anonymous data brokers nestle on top of a summit of hoard of consumer information. Reportedly much of this data has been exploited to power political campaigns around the world. From a consumer perspective, the mushrooming sector, with its ever-blooming spores of bits and bytes of data on all of us of has remained mostly unregulated. The wider public has for years,…

ICYMI: Now that Snapchat has a new Insights feature, will it help calm down the miffed Snapchat Influencers?

With it’s recent layout change, Snapchat has been on the receiving end of some major flack from its users. There now seems to be noticeable divide between the average snapchat user and snapchat influencers, with 2 distinct pages, which led to Snapchat being accused of ‘forgetting it’s consumer’. However, that’s a debate for another time! Snapchat’s relationship with its users, particularly influencers, has been quite complicated. Especially, with competitive social media platforms being one step ahead of the game at all times, snapchat has found itself being far behind in the competition. Although, some would say that snapchat has its own set of loyal user base, which is unlikely to shake, even under competition. And some can say, Instagram is quickly catching up with Snapchat’s unique features and…

With over 100 soft-drink variations catering for every type of regional taste, for 132 years, Coca-Cola has remained the world’s benchmark leading soft-drinks brand

Now that ‘soft’ image is about to toughen up with the brand venturing into ‘hard’-alcohol beverages. The brand is set to launch a boozy version of its beverage in the shape of a Japanese alcopop. The new drink will join the “Chu-Hi” range of canned sparkling flavoured drinks that are especially popular in the region. Sold in most local supermarkets and widely available from vending machines, “Chu-Hi’ is an amalgamation of the words “highball” (a mixed drink) and “Shochu,” (a spirit distilled from rice barley, sweet potatoes and other ingredients).  Chu-Hi alcoholic content ranges between 3-9% proof (which saves producers from paying the higher taxation given to stronger drinks).

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Smart Insights Alert: Organic content distribution is about to get easier for Twitter users

Twitter announced yesterday that they're introducing a new 'share' button for mobile users. In short, this will allow users to sent tweets to friends, colleagues, and contacts via direct message, email, and text and will allow them to 'bookmark' tweets they want to read later.

Today we are rolling out a new ‘share’ icon that allows you to: ☑️Direct Message Tweets to others ☑️Share Tweets via email or text message ☑️Bookmark Tweets you want to save

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 28, 2018 Users responded to the official Tweet by Twitter by stating they would rather have an 'edit' button. Twitter is still to release an 'edit' button, but not everyone agrees this would be a wise choice and would kill Twitter's USP.

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The social media giant is finally listening. Facebook has recently been switching things up to “better” suit its users - or has it really?

A while ago, Facebook announced changes to its algorithm, showing users less public content, like posts from businesses, brands etc., and more personal content shared by friends and family. And now, they’ve come up with yet another change, this time, specifically aimed for marketers.

To give businesses more of an insight into how the impact of their advertisements is calculated, Facebook has introduced new labels on some of its metrics. “We’ve heard that businesses want more insight into our measurement tools and metrics. So today, we’re introducing new labels on some of our metrics to clearly show how they are calculated”, the social channel stated in its latest blog post on Thursday.

Facebook has been on the receiving…