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The Future of SEO, Online Advertising and Social Media

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What does the future hold for SEO, online advertising and social media?

Today’s marketing landscape reflects predictions made in science fiction films from the 80’s. We have predictive technology, machine learning and computers that can perform complex actions at nothing more than a voice command.

Put simply, we are living in a new age of internet capability where every discovery leads to more endless possibilities than the last.

The impact this is having on the marketing world is immense as brands look to keep a pace with their customers, the adopters of this technology.

In this 140 character and 15-second video era, it is evident that consumers’ attention spans are decreasing and with it, so are the windows of opportunity for brands to connect with them. It is no longer about “sell sell sell” but “engage engage engage”.

So what does the future hold for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), online advertising and social media and how can marketers effectively use these tools in order to continue to engage audiences?

Why SEO will continue to boom

Given the advances in technology, it’s hard to look more than a few years into the future with huge predictability. However, it’s likely that SEO will continue to grow in popularity, in one form or another.

According to a recent study by Borrell Associates, companies are going to spend $65bn on SEO in 2016. What’s more, the same study found the SEO industry will continue to grow to an estimated $72bn by 2018 and $79bn by 2020.

It’s not hard to see why. There is more of everything. There is more searching as older generations, averse to technology, are making way for younger generations, who use it regularly.

Brands have moved from trying to make their content go viral to focus on creating content that resonates with their audience

There are more users as the internet becomes more affordable and available to different demographics. There are also more outlets for search visibility. When traditional advertising methods finally cease to exist altogether, businesses will have no choice but to look to inbound marketing campaigns in the online world.

Although it won’t all be plain sailing. We’ll see competition increase as more people get involved, which is likely to put up costs.

SEO will adapt with the times and so will how people using it. In the short-term there is much out there to help businesses keep up to date and incorporate a best practice SEO strategy – we do it regularly to support our users.

Looking further ahead, technologies such as self-driving cars will give users more time to perform searches at times when they previously couldn’t. These changes will make it possible for almost anyone to search for anything at any time.

Digital assistants will bridge the gap between online and offline search and as more and more brands get to grips with big data, we can expect to see search engines specific to individual platforms like the app store.

Social Media

While all of this is going on we will see a new age of social media that goes beyond the consumer dominated landscape it is today. It will become a business battleground, particularly centered on metrics and engagement.

Metrics such as likes, followers, retweets, unique views, total story completions or even screenshots, but most importantly click-through rates and the actions taken after that are what marketers will be looking at in more detail.

The goal of every marketer is to have a reliable social ROI (Return of investment) in order to be able to connect social efforts with real world results.

Alongside with metrics comes engagement. Brands have moved from trying to make their content go viral to focus on creating content that resonates with their audience, particularly video, and we will see a lot of developments in this space.

By producing content that is valuable and interesting to their audience, the most likely it is for it to be shared. This might seem an easy task, but it’s not. The only way to get it right is by constantly learn and understand what your audience expects from your brand and your business.

– Li-at Karpel Gurwicz

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How Wimbledon will use IBM’s Watson to serve up Data

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If you’re lucky enough to get a ticket to this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships, be prepared to be scanned by a supercomputer: IBM Watson.

Cameras linked to IBM’s Watson “machine-learning” platform may be monitoring your facial expressions and trying to work out what emotions you are displaying.

If Watson learns quickly enough over the fortnight, it will apparently be able to work out which player you are supporting just by reading your face.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) and its tech partner IBM are remaining tight-lipped on the details of the new technology – not least because it needs legal approval and raises privacy concerns.

But it is another example of how sport is becoming increasingly digital, for fans, players and venues alike.

Even if Watson isn’t tracking your every cheer and grimace at the championships – which begin on Monday 27 June – it will be digesting millions of conversations on social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and using natural language processing to identify common topics – not necessarily just about tennis.

“During last year’s final we were analysing about 400 tweets a second,” says IBM’s Sam Seddon. “Expand that out into Facebook, Instagram and more long-form content, and that’s a lot of data.

“We can come up with insights much faster than humans can and inform the media team so they can decide what kind of content they should be offering.”

Wimbledon’s digital team has a global audience to serve – the website received 71 million visitors last year – and a window of just a few seconds to persuade people to read its social media content rather than that of other publishers.

So, armed with IBM’s social media analysis, the team will be able to entice people chatting about their own country’s performance in the current Euro football championships, say, towards Wimbledon content about a tennis player of the same nationality.

“Social media is growing exponentially and is increasingly becoming the primary voice with which we communicate with our fans,” says Alexandra Willis, Wimbledon’s head of communications, content and digital.

Data-driven sport

On top of this social analysis by IBM’s “cognitive command centre”, sensors and computers at the venue will be collecting about 3.2 million pieces of data from 19 tennis courts across the fortnight. The tech company claims a sub-second response time and 100% accuracy.

This performance-monitoring data – everything from live scores to fastest serves to the number of backhand winners – is made available to fans via smartphone apps, the website, and now Apple TV.

You can personalise the app and receive every piece of relevant content on your favourite players, using data going back eight years.

But, to the surprise of many tech commentators, Wimbledon still has no plans to introduce wi-fi in the grounds, so visitors will have to rely on an imperfect mobile network to access all this data and content.

It will be interesting to see if this limited connectivity – and potentially higher mobile data costs – mars the user experience, particularly for international visitors.

While the tennis players can also use sensors inside tennis racquets and wristbands to monitor their own performance, under current International Tennis Federation rules the data is not allowed to be used for coaching purposes during matches.

But is there a danger players will become too reliant on detailed data analysis of their opponents and end up cancelling each other out?

“The great players know how to understand and react to what’s happening on the court – no amount of data analytics can prepare for that. It’s only one element of a sportsman’s preparation,” says Mr Seddon.

Super Bowl economics

The increased use of smartphones and apps is giving sports venues reams of valuable data about the way fans move around, the things they buy, and the content they want to watch.

For example, during February’s Super Bowl final at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, data analytics helped improve the fan experience and drive up sales of drinks and merchandise.

Tech firm VenueNext developed an app on behalf of the NFL (National Football League) and nearly half the stadium’s 71,000 capacity used it on the day to make purchases and access game stats.

“By offering an in-seat beverages delivery utility orders increased 67% during the Super Bowl,” says John Paul, VenueNext’s chief executive. “Delivery times averaged less than 10 minutes.”

A crack team of 200 ushers delivered the drinks and fed back data to the app on how long the queues for the toilets were, for example, and where the quickest place to buy a hotdog was at any time during the event.

“We also implemented express pick-up of merchandise after ordering online via your mobile,” says Mr Paul. “We ran out of inventory because it was so popular – we could’ve sold five times more than we did.”

The average spend was $212 (£145) and the most popular item was a woman’s Denver Broncos jacket costing $225, he says.

Horses for Courses

Mr Paul admits that the many breaks in play during an American football match make in-seat ordering practicable, but it wouldn’t be suitable for other sports and venues.

Indeed, Wimbledon’s Alexandra Willis says that’s the last thing they want during an intense tennis match. Nevertheless, location-based app data does help them improve signage and navigation for visitors across the complex site, she says.

During a summer of sport that includes the current Euro football championships, Wimbledon, and the Olympics, global audiences are set to grow and digital will be the main way most people access the action.

Andrew Chant, head of networks at cloud services firm Exponential-e, notes: “Since the Uefa European Championship began on 10 June, an average of 30% extra traffic has been added to networks.

“Excited by real-time intensity, we predict that the reach of this year’s biggest sporting events – from the Euros to Wimbledon and the Olympics – will extend far beyond the stadium and into the workplace, as connected sports fans live every second of the game, wherever they are.”

– Matthew Wall

Intense Glass Slide opens on 1000ft Los Angeles Skyscraper

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A glass slide fixed 1,000ft (305m) up on the outside of a skyscraper in Los Angeles opens to the public on Saturday.

The Skyslide spans 45 ft from the 70th to the 69th floor of the US Bank Tower in the city.

Despite being made of glass just one inch thick, it is built to withstand hurricane-force winds and earthquakes.

Tickets cost $25 (£18) each. It is part of the Skyspace renovation that also includes an observation deck.

Some visitors got a preview earlier in the week.

“I thought it was nerve-wracking and exciting and daring,” said Keri Freeman.

“I went a lot faster than I thought I would,” said Rebecca Fitzgerald.

“And you kind of like hit the side as you’re coming around the curve, so you’re really pressed up against the glass, so you see the whole world below you, but it’s not really that scary.”

– BBC News

Electric Car sets World Acceleration Record

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Student-built EV accelerated to 100kph in just over 1.51 seconds, stamping on previous 1.78 second EV world record

An electric racing car built by a group of students in Switzerland has broken the world record for fastest acceleration by a battery-powered vehicle.

The car, which was developed by students at ETH Zurich and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, accelerated to 100 kph (62 mph) in 1.513 seconds, over a distance of less than 30m, on Wednesday. The previous world record, set last year by a team at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, stood at 1.779 seconds.

The record was set on a track on the Dubendorf air base near Zurich.

The Grimsel electric car was developed by a team of 30 student engineers from the Academic Motorsports Club Zurich (AMZ) who compete annually in the Formula Student competition, the largest competition worldwide for engineering students.

Built in less than a year, the EV weighs just 168 kg, thanks to extensive use of carbon-fibre materials. It is powered by four hub motors, while a traction control system allows individual control of each wheel, allowing the car’s acceleration to be increased even further.

“Grimsel is AMZ’s fifth electric vehicle and sets new standards in lightweight construction and electric drive technology,” ETH Zurich said in a release. “No large-scale production car – even one with a combustion engine – can reach an acceleration comparable to the Grimsel.”

– Jocelyn Timperley

Jaguar’s turn to Virtual Reality: Increased Car Sales

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Jaguar says VR is helping it sell an ‘incredible amount of cars’ as it launches Andy Murray experience

Having signed up Andy Murray for a new virtual reality experience, Jaguar has insisted the technology isn’t a gimmick and is resulting in improved car sales.

The #FeelWimbledon VR campaign is part of Jaguar’s sponsorship of the iconic tennis tournament and places users onto Centre Court to experience the atmosphere while hitting the winning shot as Andy Murray.

The virtual reality experience will debut at Goodwood Festival of Speed before being placed at London Waterloo station for the duration of the tournament. It will also be distributed throughout Jaguar’s car dealerships via 20,000 Google Cardboards.

With virtual reality (VR) set to become a $1bn (£710m) industry by the end of 2016, marketers are seeking to tap into the platform’s storytelling power to set the agenda for VR excellence.

Jaguar Land Rover, in particular, first launched a VR experience (in partnership with IBM) back in September 2014. The VR experience allows an in-store consumer who is wearing a headset to choose the model, make, colour and features of a car. The experience also allows consumers to get into the car to check out interior features with a 360-degree view, and to make real-time changes.

And Robert Herd, head of communications at Jaguar Land Rover UK, said VR is having a major impact on the brand.

“We felt there was a perfect opportunity to build something cutting edge for Wimbledon and we want the public to experience hitting the winning smash and how that feeling of joy has similarities to driving one of our cars,” he told Marketing Week.

“Jaguar now designs its cars in a VR environment and sells its cars in a VR environment; it is incredibly successful for driving purchases.

“Yes, initially consumers think it is gimmick but they quickly convert and it is driving a lot of additional car sales for us.”

Robert Herd, head of communications at Jaguar Land Rover UK

Herd said there is now a “lack of fear” among consumers to try VR experiences – with Jaguar having previewed models including the F Type, F Face and Discovery Sport through the technology – and that the car brand will continue to “evolve” its role within the retail experience.

Standing out at Wimbledon

In a recent interview, Alexandra Willis, head of comms, content and digital at the All English Lawn Tennis Club, advised sponsors: “Fans are so discerning now they can spot immediately if someone is trying to pigeon hole themselves into speaking in a millennial way. You have to be authentic to your brand and its ties to Wimbledon. Don’t just do Facebook Live as everyone else is.”

Yet, despite the warning, Jaguar’s Herd is confident it can stand out.

The luxury car brand will launch a series of films celebrating the ‘four emotions of Jaguar’ to fit around the tournament and has also created reactive videos so its activity can change based around the event. The latter will include a film that shows the Jaguar F-Pace roof opening and closing should it rain during play and the roof is required to close on Centre Court.

Herd says the key to sponsor success at Wimbledon is being reactive and brands that just sit back after creating an above the line campaign will do more damage than good.

He concluded: “We can change our messaging or video campaigns based on the results. As a sponsor, you’ll fail if your campaign can’t adapt in real-time.”

– Thomas Hobbs

Microsoft Ahead in Cloud Computing for the Enterprise

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Microsoft leads the way in Cloud Computing for the Enterprise

Almost three quarters (74%) of global organizations across a range of industries are planning to move even more of their systems to the public cloud, according to new studies. Public cloud refers to cloud computing that allows companies to build, operate, and store software and data in off-site, third-party data centers.

The study, which included survey responses from mostly decision makers, found that a plurality of businesses are looking at employing Microsoft Azure rather than going with public cloud market leader, AWS.

  • 34% of respondents indicated that they would employ Microsoft Azure for their cloud solutions.
  • 24% of respondents noted their intention to use VMware.
  • 22% of respondents said their company would pursue AWS for their cloud operations.

Microsoft Azure’s popularity is likely due to Microsoft’s brand recognition as an enterprise software company, as well as its more robust hybrid cloud offerings.

  • Microsoft is one of the only cloud vendors that offers true, end-to-end, hybrid cloud options, managing both public and private cloud aspects, notes Tech Republic. And while both Google and AWS offer hybrid cloud solutions, they often outsource their private cloud segment to third parties.
  • Microsoft is well known among businesses as a software provider due to the substantial adoption of its suite of productivity offerings, such as Office 365. As the use of cloud becomes normalized, this exposure within the enterprise is likely to help it close the gap with AWS within the broader market.

Still, for many larger legacy companies, the public cloud is still relatively new territory. Concern over data security, largely wrought from a lack of information, means that many organizations are employing hybrid cloud strategies, rather than moving all of their data across to the public cloud. 93% of respondents said that if security were better they would invest even more in cloud solutions.

-BI Intelligence

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