Facebook is aware of almost everything a mobile devices users does online, and is capable of monitoring informations and datas of its users. But what does Facebook really knows about you and how can these informations and datas be used against you?

Up to date, hackers have obtained the social security numbers of more than 400 million in the world. Is it still safe to use Facebook? The main issue here is for Facebook users to understand severity of such. For example, once you have signed into Facebook page, you need to fill up personal information about yourself. So the question here is, do you really feel safe to have Facebook obtain your personal information?

The below graph shows the percentage of people from different age range feel about having their personal information being send overseas. As we can see from the graph, majority of the people are concerned about having their personal information being sent overseas.

What are the things that Facebook knows about you?

1. Facebook know about you, your family and your friends are. Your Facebook profile is your onsite behaviour, it covers your personal information, what advertisement you’ve clicked on and all the events you’ve created and attended to. This allows the company to be able to guess your gender, age and educational level. Besides, Facebook also knows who else is in your family, where they live, when is their birthdays are and even their upcoming anniversaries.
2. Facebook knows about which website you visited and what apps you used. Facebook online tracking is not limited to social media site alone. If you ever visit Facebook Pixel, both Facebook and the publishers can track the users. Advertisers use this information to craft ads for those people who have used the mobile app or visited the website.
3. Facebook knows where you are and where have you been? This informations are revealed by the IP address of where you have connected to on the GPS, internet and location services on your phone. Facebook says only we can see this histories, but that is not entirely true. It has an option to share locaiton with your friends to see who is nearby. Also, Facebook offer tools to developers to help advertisers target their customers through the access of their location.

With that being said, Facebook is a big company that has millions of users all around the world and offers free services. Users paying for services is not Facebook’s main source of funding, the company makes its money from advertising. For example, some people do not use Facebook due to privacy concerns. However, those same people that uses Google, also have the same amount of informations collected.

Facebook might not be for everyone, however, not having a Facebook account does not mean the end of the world. It is your choice to decide if you want to use Facebook or not and how much information you wish to share.

After reading my post, Do you know about the other things that Facebook knows about you?

As social media continues to expand bigger and bigger, the speed of informations spreading throughout the world will also become quicker and quicker. As a result, this will change how the world interacts.

Before the existence of social media, our ways of interaction with others have been greatly limited and we were limited largely even to the people that we knew personally. There were things that the older generations had to deal with that we the millennials do not have to – your significant other’s parent answering the phone when you called, waiting for a letter to arrive in the mail, having to wait a week to get your pictures that you sent off to be developed, and so on. however, the technology of communicating has gradually evolved over the past 20 years.

How social media is changing the way we communicate?

There are four instances of how social media is changing the way we communicate.

1. Social media is ever so changing the way Traditional media work- the way we delivery the news and informations that can be found online has changed rapidly since the birth of social media. Traditional media is no longer the only way to connect with people around the globe, social media has helped companies to instantly reach their targeted audiences.

2. Digital communication made more personal- Social media has increased the level of connections between people to a higher touch of personal level. Rather than a random phone call or faceless email, companies can directly interact with customers via Facebook, Twitter or other social media accounts.

3. Negative messages can spread like wildfire- Social media allow news and messages to travel at a much quicker rate among customers. It is hard to contain the negative messages from spreading, there are affiliations between different social media apps. Such as Instagram connecting with Facebook, Twitter connecting with Reddit. When a negative message appears on Twitter a hundred times and it will do the same on the main page of Reddit.

4. Losing people social skills– Although social media has its advantages, it affects some people’s ability to interact and holding a normal conversation in real life. When we are out on public, you can witness many people constantly using their phones rather than having a conversation with the people around them. This could be a problem with modern day’s technology.

All that being said, social media is transforming the way we communicate. There is no right or wrong way to communicate. However, we are all adapting to this new digital age of communicating as a result of the growing evolution of technology. In a way we are all practically forced to adapt to this new form of interacting. Thus, we need to adopt social media in a smart manner, be curious to continue learning new things in every step of the way.

After reading my post, how do you think social media is changing the ways of communicating? Please share your thoughts below in the comment section.

Why Search engine optimization? (SEO)

Companies uses SEO to help themself gain a higher ranking in the search engine in order to gain more attention. SEO uses keywords to help atract users towards the company. Many companies want their website to be on the top search of the search engine list for free, maximising clicks to generating Pay Per Click (PPC), reaching higher traffic flow and earning more profits. And that is a summary of what Search engine optimization (SEO) is.

There are also various listings that appears on the Google search results, such as videos, map listings and more. SEO can improve the visibility in these result sets as well.

Benefits of SEO

SEO can help you improve your ranking in search engine result.

But if you are still not convinced, keep on reading to learn these five biggest benefits of SEO.

• Improved traffic
• Higher returns of investment
• Affordable techniques
• Enhance site usability
• Increase of brand awareness

For more insights refer to the link

https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/seo/benefits/

Ways to be ahead of the competition

There are different types of ranking alogorithm:

• Location and frequency of keywords on page
• HTML title tag
• Content
• Quality and relevance
• Number of other sites linking to page
• Number of click-throughs generated by searches

In order to rank well in the SERPs, the first and most important thing is to optimize your webpage titles for the search engines. Title tags are audiences first sight seen when they enter a search engine. If you want your audience to click on your website, you need to craft compelling titles.

How to optimize your search engines titles?

Giving an attractive title not only makes an impact on your rankings on the search results, but also affects user experience. Below will show a few ways on how to opimize your titles appearing in the search engines.

1.Get the length right

Having a right title length is important because having it too long will cause your title to be hidden partially, ending with the three dots at the end. However, there are no penalties in using longer titles, it is better to keep it in a right length when displayed in the SERPs.

2.Write unique titles

Clear and accurate titles help users better understand what your content in the search engines is all about. If you want to attract more users, you will need to come up with a unique title.

3.Use your brand’s name

Users are more likely to click on your webpage title if it is a more recongized brand. It gives them a greater sense of trust and reliability towards source of information.

Conclusion

To create a unique title, you need to understand and find the right balance between user-focused and keyword-focused titles. Besides, creating a unique title does not require much effort and time, but it can improve your search rankings.

Do you have other ways for SEO title optimization? Please share your comments below. Hope to hear from you!

What is Internet of things?

Internet of things (IoT) is becoming a growing trends recently. It refers to the billions of every electronic devices connected to the internet and sharing data. This includes everything from smart phone, lamps, washing machine and any smart devices that you can think of. With the convenience of wireless networks, IoT is able to merge both the physical and digital worlds together.

To give a better understanding of how IoT works, the video below will help explain to you more about IoT.

How big is the internet of things?

IoT is big and will continue to grow bigger. Analyst Gartner calculates that 8.4 billion connected things were used in 2017 and 11 billion IoT devices in 2018. With this steady growth, it is expected to reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Out of that 8.4 billion devices, there will be more than half of the consumer products being smart speakers and smart TVs.

What are the benefit of the Internet of things?

IoT helps to makes our living environment much more convenient and comfortable. It is impossible to ignore the impact of IoT technologies can have in our homes. Smart speakers like Google home and Amazon’s Echo helps to make it easier to manage the lighting in our homes, play music to set the mood and also collecting informations online. Meanwhile, Nest Thermostat helps us adjust our house temperature to our liking before we reach home. It learns about your preferences and will adjusts the home temperature automatically. Besides that it will also help you use energy more efficiently and save electricity.

BMW connected all its cars to the IoT by 2021

BMW is stepping into the IoT and connected driving technology. First, BMW will be able to track how drivers use their cars by directly controlling the connections. Second, BMW enginners can better secure the car by consistently connected. Besides, the car will be power by SIM cards, just like smartphones and other mobile devices. This technology can even connect their cars to the driver’s home, allowing drivers to manage and monitor their home from the road. For instance, notifying of water leakages or smoke alarms setting off. With the power of IoT, BMW believes that this techology will be a big revolution by 2021.

To learn more on connected cars, see beyond smart cars: Smart car production.

In conclusion, IoT have helped advance the world into a higher level of comfort and convenience. It also changed how people interact with each other through their smart devices. After much advances in the age of technology, the future of connected smart home and cars has finally become a reality.

Now you have understood what is IoT. Got questions? I’d love to hear them! Let me know in the comments below.

What is moblie marketing?

Mobile marketing is the art of marketing thats gets the company closer to their customers. It provides customers with personalized, time and location information so they can get to know what they need and when they need. Marketers advertise their products by sending via text messages and other form of mobile marketing method.

Almost everyone owns a smartphone and people are now more engaged with their smartphones than before. As you can see from the graph, there are an increasing amount of users spending more time on their mobile devices than ever before. With this, we can expect this trend to continue increasing even further in the future.

Types of mobile marketing strategies

There are a variety of mobile marketing strategies and different strategies depends on the company’s targeted audience and budget.

SMS: SMS marketing is a strategy that involves customers receiving a text message via mobile phone from marketers. There are over 96% of smartphone users using SMS and it has a 98% open rate. It can be used to notify customers about the store’s event or sending out discount to further increase the chance of customers with purchasing the products.

App-based marketing: Companies usually create their own apps for their brand marketing program. It is a mobile marekting platform that connects shoppers with the brand and turn them into customers.

In-game mobile marketing: In game mobile marketing are mobile ads that appears within mobile games. It can be apper as a Full-page, banner pop-ups or incentivized videos ads.

Location-based marketing: Location-based marketing is a strategy that helps company to implement marketing activities based on customer’s geographic location, bridging the physical world and digital world. For example, some companies may only want their mobile ads appearing when users are within a 1-mile radius of their business location.

(Link below for those who are keen.)

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/08/19/what-is-mobile-marketing

After learning about the different types of mobile marketing, I will apply my knowledge to IKEA augment reality catalogue.

IKEA augmented reality catalogue is an app that gives customers the ability to see virtual images of the chosen products. It provides a unique experience that allow customers to experience new furniture to be scaled in their house and it helps them make better decisions while shopping online.

This app helps customers scan selected pages in the printed IKEA catalogue or digital IKEA catalogue on mobile devices. After scanning the chosen furniture, the app itself will display a 3-D image of the furniture. According to IKEA reports, the app have been downloaded 8.5 million times. This is a highly effective app-based marketing startegy.

In a nutshell, with the majority of the world possessing a smart phone, everyone can be a potential customer. “In today modern world, people are either asleep or connected.” Janice H. Reinold said. Make sure that your customers are not asleep, make sure they are connected with your business. Besides, it is important for companies to choose the most effective and best form of mobile marketing strategies for targeting their audience.

Now you know and better understand about mobile marketing, can you share your experience about it?

With the right content, social media platforms are the fastest way to get anything to go viral these days.

Why is sharing important? Nielsen studies have shown that 92% of consumers believe WOM from families and friends as compared to advertisements, and it is up to 50 times more likely to trigger a purchase. (McKinsey)

Why viral marketing?

Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that creates brand awareness by spreading messages like a virus. The purpose of viral marketing is to attract customers attention and inspire them to share the message to their family and friends.

Will it blend?

“Will it blend?” is a viral marketing campaign starring from Tom Dickson, founder of Blendtec. He uploaded his videos on YouTube about blending all sorts of items that can fit inside the container. Surprisingly, It only took it 5 days to achieve 6 million views on YouTube and gain 200,000+ subscribers, making a total 700% in sales increment.

The most popular video is the one where they put the newly released latest iPhone to the “Will it blend” test in 2015. At that time, this video went viral and the biggest reason is because the iPhone is such a popular brand and has the highest consumer rate as well.

For more insights refer to the link https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/will-it-blend

Jonah Berger’s contagious theory

According to Jonah Berger’s contagious theory, using 6 STEPPS can lead you to success with your trend or goods. I will apply my knowledge of the video”Will it blend”.

Social Currency

People often care about how others perceives them and share things that give others a good impression. They want to appear cool, smart, and interesting. Hence, the viral video “Will it blend”, allows consumers to stay in the topic and keeping up to date that somewhere in the internet an iPhone has been blended.

Triggers

“Triggers not only get people talking, they keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue.” (Jonah Berger) iPhone is a well-known smart phone brand and it makes for an effective trigger. This video is able to link up certain triggers with the brand (iPhone) and encourage consumers to buy more.

Emotions

When we care, we share. Emotions is one of the important factors to create viral marketing. Emotional content often goes viral, so we can focus more on feelings instead of functions. The video must be able to let the audience feel two different sets of feelings, anger and excitement. Doing so, it can trigger consumers curiousness.

Public

Built to show, built to grow. The more publicity there is, the more likely people will imitate it. After the video was uploaded, the products and initiatives that advertise themselves, triggered positive WOM or triggered consumers to purchase it.

Viral marketing can be effective sometimes because the video doesn’t always revolves entire around the product. It maybe about a cute cat playing with a smart toy, but the viewers subconsciously adopt the idea of wanting to get the smart toy for their pets as well. Majority of the time viral videos isn’t about a single product. However, it can be manipulated in such a way whereby the audience thinks they know what the video is about, but in reality, they’re subconsciously being introduced to a new product. Just like in “Will it blend” videos, it maybe a channel revolving around random products being blended, but after a few videos, the viewers might come to find themselves realising what a fantastic blender it is and that’s where the sales comes in. In conclusion, viral marketing is an extremely good form of marketing if you know how to play your cards right.

I hope you have learnt my enthusiasm to share my knowledge with you. Lastly, before you go leave the comments below!

PS: How you make your content go viral? And what’s your thoughts about the post?

Have you noticed that the way people are obtaining their informations have been changing rapidly over the decade? In the past, people have been mainly using traditional media such as television, newspaper and radio to acquire informations or advertisements. However, this sources are very limited, unlike social media, which is able to reach out to the whole world.

Companies have been increasingly using Facebook as an advertisment plaform to advertise. To appeal business stakeholders, Facebook created a sponsored stories. However, it could reduces Facebook’s users attractiveness and increases users privacy concerns. Although facebook maybe underperforming on their advertisements, they can still make an impact on customer’s buying decisions. (Mindi Chahal, 2016).

To better develop and understand Facebook audiences, it can be broken down into 4 different segments: entertainment chasers, attention seekers, devotes and connectoin seekers. Marketers can better understand the different behaviours in each segments of target audience on Facebook and build the right target marketing strategy.

Let’s see some real life examples:

 I will apply the Facebook matrix on the article from (LyfeMarketing) by using the selected insight Facebook marketing strategies.

I hope you have learnt my enthusiasm to share my knowledge with you. Lastly, before you go leave the comments below!

PS: Which of the 4 segments are mostly like you? And what’s your thoughts about the post?