On April 23, amidst the froth of the Covid-19 crisis, we have been acquired by Shout About Suffolk, and we are now operating within the warm embrace of a family of emerging brands, with access to some fantastic business brains.

Shout About Suffolk works to nurture the next generation of Suffolk businesses, helping talented companies reach their full potential. Its founder, Paddy Bishop, has commented that “we have long shared a great relationship with Infotex, and know that thanks to their commitment and dedicated team, they will be able to help more Suffolk businesses achieve local, but perhaps global recognition too.”

The commitment to Infotex by Shout About Suffolk is a tremendous boost, during a difficult time for all of the business community. We welcome having the opportunity to share in the excitement that goes with new entrepreneurial ventures, and to being an integral part of our clients’ success.

As we all worry our way through this Covid-19 pandemic, we can be certain that the world and our markets are going to be changed forever. Online sales and business activity have been critical during this lockdown and it seems that their growth will accelerate. One of the keys to the recovery of our economy and wellbeing is going to be these entrepreneurs, who seize the opportunities to build new businesses in new ways, so it is exciting  for all of us in Infotex to be a part of it.

Today there are a wide variety of online newsletters with many different ways to design and build them, but which one will allow you to speak to your audience most effectively and get them engaging with your content, find out how to create an email newsletter to increase your sales?

Newsletters are useful to businesses in that they are cost-effective compared to sending physical items. Another advantage of this is monitoring the activity of the newsletter such as what time of day it is opened and how long it is looked at for.

This allows you to learn when your audience are most active with their emails and how you can improve your approach to increase the open rate for the future.  An increase in clicks means more engagement with your business which fosters recognition.

In 2019 email marketing is still a marketing channel that is worth investing time in as it continues to deliver a high ROI despite the popularity of social media marketing campaigns that have become more prominent in recent years.

The Newsletter Guide

Step 1: Your audience, lists and the right platform for you

• Setting up a newsletter is the easy part. Building up a list of engaged recipients tailored specifically for the content in your newsletter is going to be a little more difficult. Let’s face it, most people actively avoid ticking that box to sign up for email correspondence so you will need to offer some value as an incentive for them to sign up.
• Once you have built up this list of recipients you must define the audience purpose – a relevant message going out to the right people. IE – a property newsletter going out to all your subscribers interested in this subject. Then you must ask yourself some key questions – how frequently will this newsletter be sent out? How will it benefit your audience? What do you want these newsletters to achieve?
• Then it’s a matter at looking at the best platform for you – but which one is best? Mail Chimp? Campaign Monitor? This important step can define everything about the future success of your campaign so make sure you choose wisely. We’d be happy to guide you through this process at Infotex as we have extensive experience with various email platforms.

Step 2: Write clear headlines

• Creating a simple title that clearly outlines the content of the newsletter helps the reader recognise if the article is of use to them or not. It also helps to verify it’s not spam.

Step 3: Less is more

• With people living busy lives and being fed information from every angle we have less time to read and absorb. Making your newsletter a condensed size, about three to four scrolls will prevent it appearing a challenge to read. If you have a lot to inform your recipient about, adding a Call to Action taking the reader to the full article can be the best of both worlds.
• Arranging text into easy to read chunks or bullet points is another way to make the content easier to read.
• By making each newsletter personalised, showing the recipient’s name and providing a relevant welcoming message can be a good way of directing the content to create a relationship.
• Newsletters also have the potential to be shared with people through other platforms such as social media which lend themselves to short snappy sound bites. So, think of this while composing your newsletter.

Step 4: Design

Should your E-Newsletter be in a plain-text form or more creative like an HTML email? HTML stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language and is the way web pages and email templates are coded so that information such as text is styled and images are added. Plain-text emails on the other hand are written with limited visual options such as bold or italic text.

While it has been said that people on first impressions prefer visual HTML emails the evidence supports a minimal design getting more responses and avoids the spam filter. This is really good news for those of us who ‘don’t pride ourselves on being great designers.

• With many email companies featuring software to prevent spam emails reaching the recipient’s inbox this can in turn stop your content reaching your audience while a plain text version has more promise.

This is not to say that HTML newsletters should be avoided all together, it depends on the audience you are sending it to. For e-commerce companies the HTML format is vital for promoting products and driving sales, one way you can see what resonates best with your audience is to conduct an A/B test ­­- Sending half your audience the HTML style of newsletter and the other half the plain-text style. If you decide to use an HTML format it’s vital that your logo, brand colours and other visual aspects are consistent to help your newsletters appear legitimate, professional and recognisable as you!

Step 5: Optimise

With people using more portable devices like phones and tablets to view their emails it’s crucial that your content is clearly visible on all devices. A way of achieving this is to adopt a single column grid layout. Using a lot of white space can keep the design minimal and making buttons or Call to Actions larger so they are easier to select.Watch your image count. Continuing on from the HTML subject in ‘Step 3 Design’, a lot of images can be seen as spam by email filters.A way of reducing the load time of your newsletter is to compress the size of the images. A quick and easy way of doing this is using www.tinypng.com. Tiny PNG is a website that takes your PNG or JPEG images and reduces the size of them. Including these smaller sized images in your newsletters will make the loading time of your content much faster.

Step 6: Timing

When is the best time in to send people emails for more engagement? The best time depends on the audience the newsletter is aimed at.

• A general guide for business emails is between Tuesday and Thursday during the day as this is when people are less likely to delete their emails. But beware many other companies send their newsletters at this time and yours can become lost in the crowd.
• If a newsletter is intended for a young person the evening could be a better time when they are at home on their phones or computers.
• Unless you are writing about something in the past make sure that your content is new and current. This is so that your newsletters do not appear out of date and are on trend.
• Another consideration is to send out an email in advance. This can be particularly effective for advertising things such as events so more people are aware. Megan Marrs from Wordstream says “While 23% of emails are opened within 60 minutes after being sent, there are some lingers who may not check out your email until a day or two later.”

Step 7: Social media

• By using different social media platforms to promote your newsletter or including sharing links within your newsletters is a way of distributing content with an audience you might not otherwise have got in touch with.

Summary

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Everyone’s newsletter will be different depending on the demographic. From the time you send your newsletter, to how many images you include, always create your content with your audience in mind. If you are unsure what will work best, try an A/B test to see how people respond and alter accordingly.

For an easy to use mail system it may be worth having a look at Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor. And, if you need further help with your newsletter why not call one of our team on 01394 615615 who are more than happy to help get you started or answer any queries.

TikTok is the new kid on the block a social media video sharing mobile app that also incorporates live broadcasting. The app has amassed an active user base of 500 million as of June 2018. It is available in 75 different languages since is was launched in 2016.

“TikTok was the most downloaded app on App Store in the third quarter of this year 2018 (beating Facebook and Instagram) with downloads growing from 92 million in the previous quarter to 185 million.”

What is TikTok

The 15 second short form video sharing app originally known as Douyin owned by ByteDance a Chinese company was rebranded for the international market to be known as TikTok.  The company merged with musical.ly a popular app used by 70 million young people in the US that was purchased for $1 billion in 2017.

TikTok’s Mission

“Our mission is to capture and present the world’s creativity, knowledge, and moments that matter, directly from the mobile phone. TikTok enables everyone to be a creator and encourages users to share their passion and creative expression through their videos.”

Features

The app allows users to create short video clips that are simple to edit on the go from your smartphone with built in special effects that include a variety of filters and emoji stickers.  The app has a similar feel to other social media networks such as Snapchat and Instagram that feature filters and live broadcasting.

To shoot a music video the user chooses a song from TikTok’s music library that contain a variety of genres such as pop, hip-hop and rap from here the user can lip-sync to songs.

Other popular content creation ideas for TikTok videos typically include comedy skits, dance, vlogging, food, DIY, sports, memes, animals and more. The videos can be then shared across popular social media platforms.

Users

Currently the majority of TikTok’s users are Generation Z however celebrities are starting to adopt the app such as Jimmy Fallon the host of NBC’s talkshow “The tonight show Jimmy Fallon”.

TikTok Challenges

One of the apps feature is the hashtag challenge that allows users to create short videos that include music clips on certain topics such as lip syncing.  Jimmy introduces a new segment in his show called “Tonight Show Challenges” and asks viewers to participate using the TikTok app to submit a version of his #tumbleweedchallenge for a chance to be featured on the show.

Over the Christmas period and New Years Eve TikTok launched its first large scale marketing campaign worldwide using a series of themed hashtags and challenges. In the UK the social media apps target market was young millennials in London running out-of-home (OOH) promotions an increasingly popular advertising medium.   OOH advertising formats fall into six main categories: billboards, street, roads, highways, transit, and alternative.  TikTok put on an impressive OOH display on new years eve at the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

In summary there are many viral apps that come and go Vine being a classic example.  TikTok has the advantage of a large userbase currently that is expanding at a rapid rate with around 800 million downloads going into the new year.

The social media app is backed up by its owner the massive privately held Chinese company ByteDance worth an estimated $78 billion.  Live streaming is big business in China with the introduction of 5G rolling out, the country is looking to make its mark worldwide establishing a social media platform.  It has entered the market at the right time as video is becoming more prominent.

A combination of its success or failure could lie in different areas whether that be the user experience, longevity of the app, trust in the companies privacy policy and future competitors.  Facebook have quietly launched its own version of TikTok named Lasso which is lagging behind.

Youtube the billion dollar company started out  in 2006 and was seen as just a small video platform featuring viral videos of cats and has now grown to become the worlds second largest search engine with multiple features including livestreaming.

Social media marketing agencies and advertisers have started to take notice of TikTok looking at the platforms top influencers for example Ariel Martin aka “Baby Ariel” the 18 year singer and US social media influencer with 29.2 million followers on the app.  TikTok has the potential to become another social media platform for influencer marketing in 2019.

Attributing credit to marketing efforts has been the strife of marketers for decades. Luckily, we’ve gained a few tricks on our way and we can give you a great insight into the health of your campaign. In addition to this, with the key metrics available from industry leading tools, we can give you an even deeper look into your digital performance.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Traffic isn’t worth anything if users aren’t interacting in a way that is beneficial for your business. We track your website’s goals and optimise to make the completion of them more likely. For websites with high traffic we use A/B multivariate testing to isolate features that are holding back your goals. For smaller scale CRO we use tools like SessionCam to see how individuals are navigating around your page. There is always room for improvement and we look to squeeze every last bit of improvement out of your website.

KPIs/ROI

The right KPIs (key performance indicators) can paint an accurate picture of your digital performance and inform future strategy. We’ll customise your reports to give you the most accurate representation of reality as possible. If you need a hand interpreting our performance reports we’ll be more than happy to give you a realistic explanation. Calculating ROI (return on investment) involves translating performance metrics into revenue. Although challenging, through clever attribution models and combining data sets we can give you reality driven assurances that your digital investment is paying off.

Google Analytics

All useful information about your site lives here. Google Analytics is the perfect tool (in the right hands) to drill down into the data and mine precious insight that can be fed back into your online strategy.

Read more from our Digital Strategy Director, Tim, about predictive analytics.

Marketers can’t ignore the fact looking at data trends and how our society is evolving around technological advances influencer marketing is becoming a mainstream marketing channel.

The challenge for businesses is how to use it effectively to get the best return on investment avoiding the pitfalls that marketers can fall into when running influencer marketing campaigns for brands.

Brands must recognise at the moment influencer marketing is vunerable as a small percentage of influencers are trying to take advantage and cheat the system.

The giant company Unilever worth $62.62 billion dollars weighed in on their thoughts about influencer marketing

Keith Weed CMCO of Unilever is responsible for the marketing and communications gave a speech earlier this year at Cannes

“the industry has recognised that it must take a stronger stance on the integrity and transparency of influencer marketing”.

Luis Di Como, executive vice president for global media, Unilever

“I believe we are still in the early stages [of influencer marketing] and we need to continue working with influencers to see what measurement and success look like to create a mutual benefit partnership rooted in transparency and trust.”

With the rise of smartphones in the past 10 years users are impulse buying straight from their phones as a direct result from influencers.

“The average person in the UK spends more than a day a week online, according to a landmark report on the impact of the “decade of the smartphone”.

Ofcom, which compiled the report, attributes a large part of the surge in time online to the rise of smartphones, which are now used by 78 per cent of the population compared with just 17 per cent in 2008, the year after the first iPhone was launched.” Telegraph

What is a Social Media Influencer

An influencer is an individual that uses popular social media networks examples being Facebook, Instagram and Youtube to build credibility in their specific industry by creating authentic, engaging content for the influencers audience of followers.

• 90% of marketers say proving authenticity is critical to the future of influencer marketing.
• 85% of marketers say engagement data is the biggest metric of success for influencer marketing

Types of Influencers

Celebrity Influencers

Kylie Jenner has leveraged her fame as an influencer first appearing on the TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”.  The young entrepreneur makes an estimated $1 million per sponsored post on Instagram with a cool 120 million followers, she is currently worth $900 million dollars.  However celebrity influencers have a lower engagement rate.

Micro-Influencers

On the flip side micro-influencers have a much smaller audience between 1-100K but have a far higher engagement.

• 61% of consumers say micro-influencers produce more relatable content when it comes to thinking about the appeal that micro-influencers hold for consumers
• 43% of consumers also say that the micro-tier is more likely to engage in discussion with them

Influencer Marketing Summary

The Key Finding

• 85% of marketers say engagement data is the biggest metric of success for influencer marketing
• ‘Fake followers’ ranks as number one concern within influencer marketing
• 61% of consumers, aged 18 to 34, have at some point been swayed in their decision-making by digital influencers.
• 100% of marketers agree that ‘relevance’ is the most sought-after attribute in influencers
• Confusion continues to plague disclosure guidelines
• Proving the ROI of individual influencers is a big challenge for 84% of marketer

Intelligent Influencer Marketing Strategy

When creating an Influencer marketing strategy an important variable to take into account is the age demographic whether that be for generation Z, millennials or generation X.  They use social media channels and other online activities differently.

Gen Z

Marketers need to be open minded with Gen Z (13-24 year olds), according to Adweek

“The spending power is estimated at somewhere between $29 billion and $143 billion, easily eclipsing that of the millennial generation.”

In a digital world that is growing at a rapid rate with the introduction of machine learning and AI research at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There are constant changes that effect these Silicon Valley companies whether that be algorithm updates, the inclusion of ads that can change the user experience or external factors where governmental bodies could potentially regulate these private companies in the future.

When it comes to planning your social media marketing strategy Facebook advertising has a proven track record to deliver measurable results at an affordable price to increase your sales giving you the peace of mind that investing in this paid advertising channel is suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Setting up a Facebook ads campaign uses a powerful targeting option allowing your business to be seen by thousands of people who have the ability to buy your product or service.  You have the advantage of controlling your media budget.

The facts don’t lie Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform with over 2 billion worldwide monthly active users.  UK stats show 45% of UK Facebook users check their account several times a day.

Facebook is set to make $4 billion with over 90% of Facebook’s advertising revenue now coming from mobile which shows businesses are adopting Facebook ads as a marketing channel.

Facebook is expanding its reach to advertise on the cross-platform messaging service for mobile devices WhatsApp.

• Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg’s company bought WhatsApp for $22 billion in 2014
• Facebook will be monetising the messaging app that has over 1.5 billion users in 2019

General Facebook Statistics

• Worldwide – 2.27 billion monthly active Facebook active users in Q3 2018.
• Worldwide – Over 1 billion daily active users
• Europe – 170 million users
• United Kingdom – 39 million users.  By 2022 the projected monthly active Facebook users will be 44 million users

(Facebook active users can be defined as those which have logged in during the last 30 days October 2018).

Why Facebook ads?

Looking at Facebook stats there is a high probability that your customer is already on the social media platform.

 Ad targeting

You can target Facebook users by a number of different indicators to get a maximin ROI for example demographics.

Ads Targeted by Demographics

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Interests
• Connections
• Relationship Status
• Languages
• Education
• Workplaces

What Makes a Great Facebook Ad?

It must be visually compelling with a professional photo of the product.  A picture tells a thousand words and when the ad is correctly structured it is likely to be remembered opposed to written ads.

The ad must be relevant to the end user.  Facebook ads is built around the model of Cost Per Click (CPC).  You spend money when a user clicks on the ad, so it has to be relevant to your target audience otherwise you are wasting money.

The ad must have a precise, focused call to action.

Example Call to Action buttons

• Book now
• Contact us
• Use app
• Play game
• Shop now
• Sign up
• Watch video
• Learn More
• Download

Facebook Ad Formats

• Text
• Image
• Video

 Facebook Business Pages Stats

60 million businesses have a business page worldwide

Top 10 Leading Brand pages on Facebook in the UK 2018

• Amazon UK – 4.7
• Coca-Cola – 2.52
• Skittles – 2.42
• Samsung UK- 2.23
• McDonald’s – 2.13
• Cadbury Crème Egg – 2.06
• Marks and Spencer – 1.94
• iTunes UK – 1.91
• Red Bull – 1.86
• Tesco – 1.84

(Stats in million local fans)

Facebook Competition

• YouTube – 1.900
• Wechat – 1.058
• Instagram – 1.300
• LinkedIn – 562
• Twitter – 335
• Snapchat – 225

 Ranked by monthly active users (millions)

From the data provided Facebook is the dominant social media network and should be included in your overall marketing strategy.

Facebooks ad platform is incredibly profitable if set up correctly and optimised.

Our digital marketing team is on hand to answer any of your questions.

Contact Us Today so we can help you grow your business.

Businesses are now having to incorporate an Instagram marketing strategy alongside other social media networks as a large segment of Instagram users are a potential buyer of the businesses product or service.

Instagram History

Instagram is a social media networking service allowing users to share photos and videos.  The app was created in October 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook saw the potential of Instagram and in April 2012 bought the company for $1 billion, with a user base of 30 million.  The young start up company had 13 employees at the time with zero revenue coming in.

As of June 2018 Instagram has hit 1 billion users and is expected to amount $6 billion worth of advertising revenue in 2018, with some analysts predicting this number to increase to $20 billion by 2020.

Despite Facebooks recent setbacks regarding the public’s confidence in their privacy policy, data breaches, and fluctuating stock prices, advertisers haven’t shyed away from the platforms powerful influence it has on consumers.

There is an arms race between Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat as to how many minutes per day a user is spending on these social apps. In June 2018 new data from the online measurement company SimilarWeb was released.

“Instagram users in the U.S. spent nearly as much time in the Android app as Facebook users spent on their app.

On average, Instagram users spent 53 minutes per day with the Android app in June — just five minutes less than Facebook users spent with their app. Snapchat users spent 49.5 minutes in the Snap app, on average.”

Why a Business Should use Instagram Advertising

Instagram is currently the platform where specific businesses need to be found on when looking at paid search across the different social media platforms in regards to brand awareness, followers, engagement, driving business sales and generating leads.  Instagram advertising has the potential to get your business ahead of your competitors.

“Instagramers look to be inspired, be creative, explore photos, videos and watch IGTV which includes content from brands and businesses on the social media network.

Instagram Audience

• 25 million+ Instagram business profiles worldwide
• 2 million+  Advertisers worldwide use Instagram to share their stories and drive business results
• 60% of people with Instagram accounts they have found new products on Instagram
• 200 million+ Instagram users view on average one business everyday
• There was an 80% increase by users watching video content according to Instagram Internal statistics dated June 2017.
• One in three of the most viewed stories on Instagram are from business accounts.

Interested in advertising your business on Instagram?

Our digital marketing team have a wealth of experience helping businesses with social media advertising in research, planning, creating original campaigns that deliver results for your business.

When it comes to local search marketing services pre internet one traditional way to search for a local service or product would be to reach for the yellow pages or local directory.  Fast forward to today and for many people google is the default place to go to obtain information about services and products.  One factor to help you increase local SERP for your website is to build local citations.

What is a Local Citation?

A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, postcode (NAP) and phone number for a local business. Citations can occur on local business directories, on websites and on social platforms. Citations help Internet users to discover local businesses and can also impact local search engine rankings. Local businesses can actively manage many citations to ensure data accuracy.

Citations can occur on:

Local generic business directories

• Yell.com
• Thomsonlocal.com
• Scoot.co.uk
• 192.com
• 118118.com

Social and Review – oriented sites

• Facebook
• Yelp
• Foursquare
• Google reviews

Geo/Industry-Specific Niche Platforms

A business can look at building geographic and industry specific listing citations

An example citation directory of the restaurants industry in London

• squaremeal.co.uk/restaurants/London

Across The Web

Local business citations can be built or earned by reaching out to a variety of publications such as blogs, news sites, maps, industry specific and government databases and accredited associations.

In addition to the essentional framework of a citation NAP name, address and postcode, citations can also include a number of other core features that enhance the user experience providing them with more information about the business.

The Most Important Citation Site Features

• Industry relevance
• Local relevance
• Domain authority
• Displays user-generated reviews
• Audience size

The state of Citations in 2018?

• 90% of experts believe accurate citations are important to local search ranking
• 59% think citations are less important than they were 12 months ago

Local Search Experts

“The more prominent and consistent your business is online matters. When a search engine can see that you have more mentions than your competitors it only makes sense that this could affect the way the algorithm sees you as an entity. At the end of the day, getting citations done is a necessary evil. They are not as important as they were a few years ago, but the same thing holds true as it was back in the 90s. If you can get a link or a mention on a relevant website that your customers would care about, then go for it. The worst thing that can happen is you gain more traffic.” Ben Fisher 

Google My Business (GMB)

Google has a specific feature when it comes to local search.  Google my business is a free feature that make it easy for people to start building visibility in Google Search and Maps in your local community.

Core GMB listing Information

Business Name

• Category – Select the industry category your business should be in
• Address – Name, Address, Postcode
• Opening hours of the business
• Special Hours – Enter hours for days when this business has an irregular schedule
• Telephone number – Landline, mobile and fax
• Website address – Primary website

For more information about Google My Business refer to the following article “Promote Your Business For Free With Google My Business Posts 2018″.

Our marketing department have a wealth of experience helping businesses improve their online presence through local marketing services.

The term voice search is a speech recognition technology that allows users to search by voice command by saying terms out loud to search the internet, or a portable device, rather than going to a search engine for example Google or Bing where the user has to type in a search term.  In recent years we have seen the rise of smart phones and the applications they are using that effect our everyday lives personally and on a business level.  Smart phones and smart speaker devices have driven a strong interest in voice search.

Voice Search Statistics

• 50% of interactions will be voice activated by 2020
• About 30% of all searches will be done without a screen by 2020
• June 2018 – iProspect surveyed 1,181 adults in the UK on their current voice search behaviours
• The study found 15% use voice search to engage with a device – Smart Speakers (Hub), Smartphones and laptops
• Voice is already influencing googles search marketing strategies whereby web designers, developers and search experts are having to optimise their websites to accommodate voice search medium.
• Google polled 3,000 consumers that revealed two thirds say they are using voice search more.
• 45% believe voice search is the future
• 83% agree voice search is more user friendly
• 57% say they would use voice search more if it recognised more complex searches

Smart Speaker Device Virtual Assistant

A smart speaker is a voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant.

What Are The Benefits Of A Smart Speaker?

A smart speaker offers the user an interactive handsfree experience, it is activated by a “hot word”.  One of the first smart speaker devices is called Amazon Echo which was released to the U.S. public back in 2014, two years later it was launched in the U.K.

The virtual assistant integrated with Amazons smart devices is called Amazon Alexa.  To activate the echo the hot word is “Alexa”.  Alexa can answer your questions, follow your instructions and control your smart home devices.  As of January 2018 there are 31 million Echo users in the U.S.  If you are a fan of science fiction, Alexa was inspired by the computer voice of the infamous Starship Enterpise TV series originating back to the era of the 70’s.

Global Smart Speaker Sales (Q1 2018)

• US – 45.6%
• China – 20%
• Korea 8.1%
• Rest of the world – 26.3%

Source: Canalys

Smart Speaker UK YouGov Poll

Smart speaker ownership among Britons has doubled in the last 6 months

What do Smart Speaker Owners Use Their Device For?

• 71% – To play music
• 58% – Answer general questions
• 49% – Set alarms/reminders
• 47% – Live news/weather updates
• 34% – Interact with other smart devices
• 20% – Record memos/lists
• 17% – Sync with calendar/schedule
• 9% – Order products online
• 7% – Read audiobooks
• 7% – Games
• The Amazon Echo Dot was the best-selling product on all of Amazon in the 2018 holiday season

A Closer Look at Amazon Echo (2^nd Generation)

The Features

“Amazon Echo connects to Alexa-a cloud-based voice service-to play music, make calls, set alarms and timers, ask questions, check your calendar, weather, traffic and sports scores, manage to-do and shopping lists, control compatible smart home devices, and more.

Just ask for a song, artist or genre from Amazon Music, Spotify, TuneIn and more. With multi-room music, you can play music on Echo devices in different rooms, available for Amazon Music, TuneIn and Spotify; Bluetooth not supported. Echo can also play audiobooks, radio stations, news briefings and more.

Call or message anyone hands-free who also has an Echo device or the Alexa App. Also, quickly connect to other Echo devices in your home using just your voice.

New speaker with Dolby processing that fills the room with immersive, 360° omnidirectional audio, and delivers crisp vocals, deep bass, and clear highs at louder volumes.

With seven microphones, beam-forming technology and noise cancellation, Echo hears you from any direction-even while music is playing.

Just ask Alexa to control your compatible smart lights, switches, TVs, thermostats and more

Alexa is always getting smarter and adding new features and skills. Just ask Alexa to request an Uber, order a pizza, get train times, and more.”

What Is an Alexa Skill?

Alexa is Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind tens of millions of devices like the Echo family of devices, Fire TV, Fire Tablet, and third-party products with built-in access to Alexa. Alexa provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to create a more personalized experience. There are now tens of thousands of cloud-based skills from brands like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Universal Studios, and Uber as well as individual designers and developers.

Essential skills for your new Amazon Echo speaker

• Skill Finder: Find more skills
• Plex: Manage your media
• TrackR: Find your phone
• Hive: Control your heating
• Nest: Control your lights
• Control your Uber: Call for a ride
• 7-Minute Workout: Get a guide workout
• Spotify: The best for music streaming
• Wake up to your favourite song
• Control your whole home entertainment set-up
• BBC: All the latest news
• Sky Sports: Never miss a goal
• National Rail: Get train updates
• Google Calendar: Arrive at your appointments on time
• Control Fire TV with your Echo

Google Home

This smart speaker device “Google home” series is integrated with “Google Assistant” as it tries to gain its market share behind Amazon Alexa its main competitor.  As of January 2018 there were 14 million users of Google home in the U.S.

Google home has many similar functions to Amazon Alexa.

Various forms of both in-house and third-party services are integrated into Google Home, allowing users to speak voice commands to control interaction with them. Examples of supported services include Google Play Music, Spotify and iHeartRadio for audio, Netflix, YouTube and Google Photos for videos and photos, Google Calendar and Google Keep for tasks, and CNN, CNBC and The Wall Street Journal for news updates. New services are integrated on an ongoing basis.

Apple Home Pod

The Home Pod brings to the table outstanding sound quality integrated with Siri voice that is highly accurate which syncs with Apple Music.  Apple Home Pod was released to the UK public in June 2018.  The Home Pod initially received mixed reviews.

The Audio Technology Behind Home Pod

• High-excursion woofer with custom amplifier
• Array of seven horn-loaded tweeters, each with its own custom amplifier
• Six-microphone array for far‑field Siri
• Internal low-frequency calibration microphone for automatic bass correction
• Direct and ambient audio beamforming
• Transparent studio-level dynamic processing
• Stereo pair capable

The Smart Speaker Privacy Debate

Firstly, internet users are now becoming more savvy understanding how their personal data is being used and stored.  There has been an increase in ad-blocking on internet browsers.

We have seen more recently how social media network companies have been in front of U.S. congress and the E.U. parliament explaining how they handle and store their users data.  A well-documented case was how Cambridge Analytica took advantage of Facebook members personal data.

The question is can users be confident in the big tech companies and the responsibilities they have to protect the individual.  One can change the security and privacy settings for Amazon, Google and Apple smart speakers.  Note it is worth reading the terms of service (privacy policies) for each manufacturer.

Voice search is becoming more common place and users will adapt in a positive way to embrace this technology as the digital lifestyle around us evolves in years to come.

• https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/19/smart-speaker-ownership-doubles-six-months/
• www.amazon.co.uk
• https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Home
• https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-homepod/homepod/white

Supporting Woodbridge Tide Mill

Situated on the banks of the Deben, the Woodbridge Tide Mill has been harnessing the power of the river for over 800 years. Continuing to mill to this day, it is ranked as the number 1 thing to do in Woodbridge (TripAdvisor) and required an updateable website to entice and educate potential visitors.

Using the existing branding we incorporated a bright and bold website, that’s easy to navigate to make sure information is quickly found. Key information is available on every page, and details such as the Tide Mill Mouse and a flowing “swoosh” sets the design of the site apart.

The Tide Mill is a charity and receives little state funding, so the majority of upkeep costs are provided by the community and friends. We advised on using GoCardless which allows for cost effective regular repeat donations automatically, alleviating administration and complex paperwork. The site also invites people to be a volunteer, with milling roles through to PR and fund raising positions available.

Infotex have been delighted to support the Tide Mill, and look forward to many more years of milling and turning.

Why not take a look woodbridgetidemill.org.uk

Instagram have shaken up the social media and TV world by launching IGTV a new feature that allows users to post long form vertical videos with ease.

Prior to last week Instagram restricted the length of video you could upload depending on the post type:

• Instagram feed – a video post to your feed can be 1 minute long.
• Instagram story – videos can be just 15 seconds long. Users have been getting around this by cutting longer videos into 15 second sections (rather fiddly) or doing live videos (rather nerve racking). Instagram stories also disappear after 24 hours, unless pinned as highlights so are ideal for more throw away content.

IGTV allows videos as long as an hour long, enabling Instagramers, brands and influencers to create more engaging content. General accounts can post up to 10-minute long videos, however larger and verified accounts can upload videos of up to an hour.

IGTV can be accessed through Instagram or you can download the app separately.

So, what makes Instagram IGTV different?  

• Videos are full screen and vertical making it easier to make videos without having to fiddle with settings.
• The app starts playing videos from users that you follow as soon as you open it, like turning on the TV.
• It’s really easy to post videos to both Instagram and Facebook.
• Finding videos to watch is also simple – you can switch between ‘For You’ (based on your activity on Instagram), ‘Following’ (videos from those you follow), ‘Popular’ (trending public videos) and ‘Continue Watching’.

How to join IGTV and start uploading videos

1. Open IGTV through the app or Instagram
2. Create an IGTV Creator Account
   
   If you are already on Instagram your account will be linked to IGTV and you can choose to continue with this account or switch.
3. Create an IGTV channel by tapping on your profile picture or the gear icon.
4. Go to your channel by clicking on your profile picture.
5. Click the + icon and IGTV will access your video library.
6. Add a title, description and cover photo – place keywords in your title and description to help with reach and add a compelling cover photo.
7. Post
   
   
8. Check out your analytics by clicking the … icon next to like, comment and share.

How can brands use IGTV?

Currently there are no ads on IGTV but it is likely that this is the direction it will head in. Brands therefore should be looking to utilise IGTV to create great content and partner with influencers.

Lele Pons, who has a whopping 25.2m Instagram followers, is planning to launch a new cooking show on IGTV, Gucci are sharing their fashion shows (https://www.instagram.com/tv/BkQOGu7hCRt) and Netflix posted an hour of Cole Sprouse eating a burger – and it has had over 750k views!

Think about the different features of Instagram and which feature best suits each piece of content. IGTV shouldn’t replace your stories. Stories are an opportunity to build brand personality – add annotations, make them fun and engaging without needing to invest too much resource into the creation.

IGTV also has great content analytics like Instagram itself. This will allow brands to analyse what content works best for them. ‘Audience Retention rate’ is a particularly useful metric giving a breakdown of the percentage of users who watched the video all the way to the end and you can see where in the video users drop off. All great learnings for content creation.

Should you start using IGTV?

Instagram now has over 1 billion users – a great opportunity to reach your audience.

However, to cut through the mass of content you must invest in creative, inspiring videos. Don’t just make your videos longer because you can – use those extra seconds and minutes wisely. Instagramers will quickly tell you through comments, follows and analytics if your investment is delivering – and if it’s not go back to the drawing board, listen, plan and create.

Video isn’t the future it is now. Brands that do not embrace video as a media to engage with their target audience will get left behind.