Jeff Li's Blog

“Silent films were killed by technology, and now they’re back — because of technology!”

Companies pouring millions of dollars into their video content that requires the audio to be heard to be able to understand. However, it is estimated that 50% of the videos are now watched in a silent mode in platforms that promotes silent videos such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

With technology changing at this rapid rate, the consumer behaviour also changes. Company’s E-marketing team must be able to follow the trend for their content to be attractive to the customers. Using this silent films as an example, as most people are moving toward reading feeds from the mobile app, videos are often played without the sound. Therefore, this brings the challenge for the content producers that they have to make videos that can be understood without the need of audio. However, the audio should also add value to the film if the audiences decided to listen to it. Firms who can adapt to the new way consumer consumes videos are those who would be successful in this field.

When I read about this article, I feel like the one thing for me about today’s E-marketing is that is ever changing. The behaviour consumer takes in feeds or ads are changing often, with the change of technology and developing of new apps, firms are facing with challenges each day to create content that can adapt to the new platforms. But change is also what makes E-marketing fascinating. In the future only those who can adapt will be able to succeed.

https://medium.com/@weareimpero/the-return-of-the-silent-film-does-your-branded-video-content-make-sense-with-the-sound-turned-off-7bc0a315bb7c#.iadisxbi4

At the heart of marketing, there are only three things that matters.

1. The Audience
2. The Story
3. The Context

The first key to a successful marketing is to define your audiences. It is about identifying your audiences and make your audiences feel they belong to somethings bigger than themselves. Social media and online communities provide firms the opportunity to precisely define their audiences. Today, no longer can say that my audiences are anyone from age 30 and above. Instead, they have to be specific about the characteristics of their audiences. The reason is that with the emerging of the social media platforms, people can define themselves into smaller and more niche categories. Therefore, companies have to identify these niche markets in order to penetrate their campaigns to their audience.

Every good company is fuelled with a good story. A good story is the ones that can connect the audiences with the company’s brand image. Stories are used to align the values of the company and the values of the customers. Before, you can tell a average story but spent billions of dollars on T.V and Radio channels so that people have to remember your story. Today, if you don’t have a good story, no matter how much money you spent to expose it, customers will not remember your story, and thus will not be able to connect with your brand.

You can have a well defined audiences, and a fabulous story but if the medium you use does not connect with your defined audiences then your marketing plan is bound to fail.

https://medium.com/coffee-time-1/how-not-to-fail-in-marketing-4e196968af7e#.8zzitbyo8

https://medium.com/@brand24/all-you-need-to-know-about-hosting-a-tweet-chat-d1bcc584e29c#.ook3x0a54

I would like to first talk a little bit more about the idea of hosting a tweet chat or any chat of that matter before digging into the details of how to host a good tweet chat. With all the social media tools start to mature, companies are facing the new age where they have the direct access to their customers, and can be involved in customers’ discussion about their brands. This come as both an opportunity and threats. If not managed well, these conversation can easily lead to a bad brand image. However, on the other hand, if companies can manage these tools well they can have the first hand insight on their customer’s opinions about their brand in real time. They also have the ability to answer any questions or concerns that their customers may have.

A tweet chat for that matter is an essential tool that I think all companies should adapt. It is an opportunity for companies to have a real time discussion with their customers. It is an opportunity for the company to understand their customer base better. It is also an opportunity for the company to humanize their brand. Furthermore, companies can also use this chat to influence consumer’s opinions on their brands or products.

Choosing an appropriate and unique hashtag is a key to start a good tweet chat. Then it is about choosing a topic that can foster a great discussion, and starting the discussion at a time where it taps as much customers as possible. Finally, it is important to follow up with the participants.

https://medium.com/what-do-you-want-to-know/differences-between-advertising-and-pr-continue-to-blur-e25aeddb805a#.72pux0h3o

Back in days, large firms would have a PR department which manages the firm’s reputation and handles the press releases and other serious stuff; then there is the marketing department who handles all the ads that goes on T.V shows or radios or billboards. Today, the line between PR department and marketing department continues to blur. The reason for this merge between the two department falls heavily on the development of social media and internet. Customers are no longer accepting traditional advertising methods, they don’t want to be shout at. Rather, today’s customers want their opinions to be heard. Today, customers trust the peer reviews on a products or services than the statements that companies made on their website or ads. Therefore, in order for today’s marketing to succeed, its all about the content that are put out from the company. The content that a company create must represent the company’s core value and be demonstrated in a creative way.

Firms today need to have one united voice between all the channels that they release their content. They can no longer afford having one group of people managing one channel and another department managing the other while these two department never meet or discuss. Each content that is sent out today, whether through press conference, T.V ads or social media advertising have to have an aligned meaning.

https://medium.com/@brand24/5-easy-hints-with-to-take-your-holiday-campaign-to-the-next-level-68a125aaacee#.t8kspjctc

The Medium article, “5 Easy Hints with to Take Your Holiday Campaign to the Next Level” talks about strategies that one can use to help improve their holiday campaigns but I think the advices that are explained in this articles can be applied to doing social Media campaigns in general.

First advice that this article gives is that your campaigns should be able to surprise your clients. People love Santa because he brings surprises to people. Thus, for your campaigns to attract customer’s attention you have to create contents that are creative. This advice is very important because for E-marketing campaigns its all about the content.

The second advice is that the author give us is that emotion generates interactions. “Social media users are more willing to interact with contents that tap into their emotions”. All the popular photos, videos and texts that were spread around the internet at a rapid speed are those that can arouse reader’s emotions.

The following three advices evolves around understanding the clients. The major benefits of social media is that brand can have the first hand information and feedbacks from their customers in real time. Thus, it is important for companies to adapt with this kind of marketing style and focuses on answering customer’s needs rather than just promoting your own products.

“The media industry is facing a moment of reckoning.”

Ad-blocking softwares have been around for years, but recently there have been a tremendous increase in the number of users who uses them to block online ads. The percentage of Internet population using ad-blockers on desktops have reached to 20% for Canadians and 16% of U.S in 2015. This become even more devastating for the digital marketing industry when Apple decided to allow consumers to download ad-blocking softwares in Safari. In the foreseeable future, more and more customers would be using ad-blockers to increase the loading speed for the websites they intent to browse.

It’s an absolute dilemma for web-advertisement industry. Users choose to use ad-blockers is an indication that they are unsatisfied with the experience they had browsing the websites. Thus, they are looking for ways to enhance their experience through blocking the ads on a website. On one side, to track more loyal customers, companies wants visitors to have a good user experience on their website. On the other hand, if they don’t put ads on their websites, especially small-medium sized companies, they have no resource to create more content out.

As both users and E- Marketers we should drastically rethink about the way we interact with internet ads. For users, perhaps disabling ad-blockers for sites that are niche and needs more support. For marketers perhaps think of ways in which you can generate your revenue from other methods so that you can both keep the browsing experience clean while still have the resources to produce more content.

“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” — Joe Chernov

Pre-internet age, people make their purchase decisions largely based on the information they receive from advertisements, such as billboards, T.V ads and radio ads. That is no longer the case. People have seen and heard enough from fraud companies trying to sell them with products that have less than desired qualities. Today, with the booming of internet review sites, customers make many of their purchase decisions based on the new form of “word of mouth”. Thus, spending thousands of dollars on traditional marketing campaign is no longer that useful. Instead companies should try to humanize their brand and build a strong relationship with their customers. Today’s marketing campaign should focus on how to attract more loyal customers.

Then how? What is the the key factor that allows companies today to attract loyal customers? I believe it’s the customer education. You want to educate your customers in away that you create an identity. You want to educate your customers to associate your brand and products not just their face value but also a form of identity. For example, in many ways using Apple products will differentiate yourself from the rest. Only this way you can build your loyal customer group.

“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” — Joe Chernov

I was reading a blog post from Medium, “Marketing Is Dead (And Obsolete). Long Live Customer Loyalty” by Thomas Oppong, and the blog has made a connections with the first E-marketing lecture that was taught by Professor Julio Viskovich. Both Mr. Viskovich and Mr. Oppong believed that the development of SNS and the internet really reshaped the definition of a successful marketing strategy. Marketing is no longer about amount of visibilities but rather its about how to build a connection with your customers. Today, we live in an era where customer and professional reviews on almost any products and services can be found online through different channels of media. Customers, especially the younger generations, no longer depends on company’s advertisement to make a purchase, instead they depend on the peer reviews or influencer reviews to make purchase decisions. Thus, a successful company today often requires to be active on their SNS platforms, and be responsive to their customers concerns and complaints. More importantly, a company today is more depend on the quality of their products and services to succeed than ever before. Customers no longer make their purchasing decisions on how visibility or promising a company’s ads are but instead they care more about a true view of the products from their peers. A bad product with heavy marketing can be successful decades ago, but today its very unlikely the same product will succeed.

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

We are living in the greatest era of mankind. There was never a time like today where the global literacy rate of both man and women combined reached 84.1%. We have seven billion people living on earth, and almost six billion of them can read and write. Less than a hundred years ago, those who can read and write were considered to be higher in social status than those who cannot, and today literacy is almost like a necessity for majority of our population. And in many countries around the world receiving higher education became a norm. Especially in developed countries, every person, both man and women, has the rights and freedom to go to school and receive an education. Yet, many of us take this precious opportunity for granted. We do not appreciate the value of education, the value of learning and the value of knowledge. Many of our peers, including myself, never thought of the importance of knowledge. We learn and read so that we can pass the exams. We are doing this only because it’s the norm, its what makes our parents and relatives happy. We never understood that learning is what makes us different from other species.

Watching Malala’s talk in the United Nation made me re-think about the use of my time. When Malala and many other people who lived in a place where going to school can mean the end of their live, and yet they still persist to learn in one way or another. Even when the Taliban shoot Malala in the head, she is not resentful but hopeful. She didn’t come out and ask to punish those who caused the disaster, instead she wants to give rights and opportunity of every individual to receive an education. Because she knows that only way to solve the problem, and any problems is to have everyone educated. Only through education and knowledge, we can think critically and form our opinion. Only through knowledge and education we can came up with solutions for the problems that exists around the globe.

I have recently watched a Ted talk by Sir Ken Robinson “Do School Kill Creativity” I was so inspired by his talk that I went on to read his book, “The Element”, which also talks about personal creativity and how our public education systems have “educated” us out of it.

In his Ted talk, Sir Robinson mainly focused on to inspire the audiences to rethink about our public education system. He believes that, which I couldn’t have agreed more on, our schools are designed to produce professor but do not nurture other talents. Our society as a whole is so keen on academic success that other success, such as success in visual arts, music, and theater are all suppressed to be viewed as less useful. This is especially true to the land where I grow up from. In China, even in elementary school, math and languages are rated much higher than other subjects. In grade 6, before attending middle school, students are basically only learning mathematics and Chinese for a full year to prepare for the entrance exam for middle school. Some students whose talents lies in the field of academics accels in this type of education system. But others, who perhaps need to move to think cannot reach their fullest potential in our current education system. And as a result, many of them perhaps takes longer or perhaps never find their “elements”

I encourage everyone who have viewed my blog to spend 18 minutes to view Ken Robinson’s ted talk “Do School Kill Creativity”, and to rethink about our education system.