You’re sitting at your desk, talking to a colleague about a trip to Spain you’re planning. The next thing you know, you’re seeing ads for Spain pop up in Google search and on Facebook. It’s not magic. It’s the power of voice search. Marketers can use your interactions with voice assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, along with other factors—your search history, shopping activity, visited websites, etc.—to create a comprehensive profile that they can use for ad targeting. Not all voice assistants do this, and the process is actually more complex than it may seem, but it’s illustrative of the shift from text to voice in consumers’ search habits. Voice search is on the rise. (more…)
Archive for April, 2024
Fact Checking AI: A Must Do to Maintain Your Brand Value
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
A Conference Board survey, in collaboration with Ragan Communications, found that while almost 90% of marketing and communication professionals have used generative AI (GenAI) tools, their feelings about the usefulness of these tools are mixed—only about four out of ten expect GenAI to improve work quality and creativity—three in ten expect it to deteriorate outputs.
So I decided to do some further research and experimenting on my own. (more…)
A Study in Contrasts: Companies That Go the Distance, and Those That Don’t…
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024
Whatever happened to…
Over the past decade, we’ve seen a number of iconic brands simply disappear without a great deal of fanfare. On the other hand, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of new players that quickly captured the hearts, minds—and wallets—of consumers. But will they be able to sustain their gains? Only time will tell.
Here we take a look at some of the “losers,” and some of the “winners” and try to determine what it is that keeps a brand strong. (more…)
Should You Brand Your Small Business or Solo Practice? Of course—before someone else does…
Thursday, April 11th, 2024
I tend to be passionate about some odd things (I can tell by the way people look at me sometimes…) One of the things I’ve been passionate about for a number of years is effective branding. It’s an issue that I find that many people—even very smart business people and sometimes even extremely smart communication professionals, don’t really fully understand.
Recently I was asked to provide some insights for a small business audience about whether small businesses really need a brand (yes!!), and how they should do this. I jumped at the chance!
For the Best Connections via Social Media Focus Your Profiles on People
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
Before I started Strategic Communications in 2008, I worked for some large organizations in the education, energy, and healthcare industries. These were the early days of internet and social media adoption and it was, at least initially, wildly uncharted space. When the American Medical Association issued guidance for physician use of social media, I was all for it. In my former role, even absent these guidelines, I would have worked hard to keep our providers from independently using social media to communicate with patients.
But, my role has changed. And so has the social media and digital environment. Today, (more…)
Subcribe to This Blog
Brand Evaluation
CONTENT CREATION
PR/MEDIA RELATIONS
SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGIC PLANNING
