Let’s start with what is a social bot? A social bot is an automated software that controls a social media account and simulates being a real person. On Twitter, these bots sometimes don’t pretend to be a real person and embrace being a bot, such as the account @I_Find_Planets , an exoplanet bot with the purpose of finding new planets.

According to research from the University of Southern California, up to 15 percent of Twitter accounts are bots, which translates to approximately 48 million Twitter bot accounts. With a mass of bots this large, Twitter bots have the ability to either be captivating and helpful, or damaging and manipulative.

The Dangerous Side of Bots

Amplification bots are bots that amplify content by following, retweeting, commenting and liking posts, which in turn creates an artificial level of buzz. These bots are often used in marketing to make products seem more desirable and popular than they are to influence others to purchase their products. Through social media opinions are often validated by the ‘like culture’ and opinions with more likes or retweets are regarded as more valid than other views. Therefore, these bots have the dangerous ability to feed on this culture and when fake news is spread, it is perceived as credible.

Amplification bots are even said to have had an influence on Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election. According to Oxford University, there was an overwhelming amount of pro-Trump bots compared to pro-Clinton bots. Furthermore, social bots helped to spread fake news that the Pope recommended Trump for presidency. A news report that was shared almost a million times. Whilst this fake news favoured Trump, non credible sources and reports are constantly amplified by bots which have the ability to defraud businesses and ruin reputations.

Helpful Bots

Social bots are not always harmful, there are various benefits that Twitter bots have to offer. Three of the most innovative and helpful ways are customer service, natural disaster warning and self-care bots.

Twitter chatbots is one use of a social bot that actually benefits society. Having customer service assistance available 24/7, without the hassle of calling and waiting on hold on a customer service line, or physically going to the store. This ones a no brainer

Natural disaster warning bots such as the @SF QuakeBot is a watcher bot monitor. A Twitter account that tweets when something changes and in this case tweets abut relevant information regarding earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lastly, self-care bots such as @tinycarebot, remind followers to do little things that will keep them healthy and healthy. Some of the tweets from the account are featured in the image below.

So, regardless of whether you like it or not, social bots are here and only growing in numbers. Do you think social bots will have more of a positive or negative impact moving forward? And do you think you can embrace them knowing their potential to wreck havoc? Let me know in the comments below!

So what is IMC and the four C’s? Simply, Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the integration of all the promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony. Pickton and Broderick postulate that to most effectively implement an IMC strategy there are four C’s required:

1. Coherence: Messages must be logically connected all channels
2. Consistency: Communication across all channels must support and reinforce the primary message
3. Continuity: Communications are connected and consistent through time
4. Complementary: Messages should be better together

Nike has a long successful history with advertising campaigns. The brand’s iconic slogan, ‘Just Do It’ has been featured in almost all their digital advertising since its inception in 1988. To celebrate the slogan’s 30th anniversary Nike released the ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign narrated by controversial former NFL player, Colin Kaepernick. The campaign featured various athletes who shared the vision to have crazy dreams and achieve them. The overall message being to believe in your dreams no matter the cost. However, the campaign also took a social stance as Nike endorsed Kaepernick, who in 2016 protested police brutality, particularly the disproportionate number of black people killed by police by kneeling during the American National Anthem. His protests sparked nationwide controversy and discussion. Following the ads release, Nike’s stock initially plummeted, but in the aftermath Nike’s sales received a 31% increase, and earned $163 million in earned media and $6 billion overall in brand value.

Nike’s use of the Four C’s

Coherence: All of the advertising was linked throughout the platforms. Whether it was short videos of the ad on instagram, the full ad on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the television ad or the outdoor billboards, all of it condoned the same message.

Consistency: Although the content was portrayed slightly different in each medium. Such as in the ad, it finished with, “it’s only crazy until you do it, Just Do It”, compared to the billboard, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”. The ‘Just Do It’ slogan appears across all mediums and the consistent message remains the same.

Continuity: Nike followed up in 2019 with the ‘Dream Crazier’ ad, which took the same message of striving to achieve dreams no matter the cost or how crazy they seem. The ad focused on women in sport with a compilation of moments considered crazy by some, but monumental in achieving equal rights for men and women.

Complementary: Together, all the media created an incredibly strong campaign. Through the interaction of the mainstream media as well as social media, the buzz created led to a much more successful campaign. The ad later receiving a Creative Emmy and the billboard winning its own award at Cannes Lions.

With Nike’s success maybe all companies looking to employ IMC strategies should ‘Just Do It’ and use the Four C’s approach…

Do you believe Nike’s campaign would have the same success with a poorly executed IMC because of the cause? Or is it essential to have a key strategy such as Pickton and Broderick’s Four C’s theory to have sustained success?

Let me know in the comments below!

Big data are datasets thats size exceeds the capabilities of typical database software tools that capture, store, manage and analyse data. With extremely vast quantities of data being generated every day (approximately 2, 500, 000 terabytes) that will only continue to grow, the crucial factor is what can be analysed from the data to create valuable insights for companies.

There are many ways that companies convert big data into value, predictive analysis, a method that looks at historical and current data to predict what will happen next is a very common form seen everyday. Such analysis allows companies to become recommendation engines, like Amazon, which suggests purchases based on prior interests of one customer as compared to millions of others. An algorithm that is useful to send targeting advertising to the customer on what specifically they are looking for, in the moment they are searching for it. An estimated 35% of all Amazon’s sales stem from their recommendation engine.

There is also use for big data for police, who are now using big data to create crime hotspots based on crime type, data, time and crime locations. Such maps will be heavily patrolled to combat crime and will allow police to predict where and when a crime will occur.

Police using crime maps to predict crime draws striking resemblance to the 2002 Spielberg movie, ‘Minority Report’. Where there was a pre crime system in society that would predict murders before they occurred and police would charge those individuals. However, the system is flawed as it doesn’t take into account human error and how people’s minds can change. In marketing terms this is the ‘filter bubble’ effect where statistical methods write off outliers. Although the movie is an extreme example, it does to an extent demonstrate both the potential power and faults of big data.

So what’s my opinion on big data? I feel that big data and the careful analysis of it for rich insights is a vital tool for companies to use. However, I feel that recommendation engines and targeted advertising breaches the line of invasiveness rather helpfulness. I find it creepy when something I haven’t even searched for but have messaged someone about, suddenly appears as a recommendation.

What do you think? Do you think big data and particularly recommendation engines are helpful? Or do you too find them to invasive? Let me know in the comments below!

First you need to know what viral means. The term referring to content that is quickly and widely spread or popularised especially by means of social media.

So how do certain videos or memes become rapidly popularised? Every aspiring influencer and every business wants to know this answer too. I’m about to give you not one but two methods to become the next viral sensation. As well as recommend which method I believe will be more successful.

Jonah Berger’s six STEPPS

A professor and viral marketing expert, Berger asserts that there are principles which make consumers more likely to share content. He identified six principles of contagiousness:

• Social Currency
• Triggers
• Emotion
• Public
• Practical Value
• Stories

By incorporating some or all of these principles into content it has the potential to go viral.

In 2015 there was the dress. An item that divided the internet over the pointless argument whether it was blue and black or white and gold. Beginning as a tumblr colour photo (the original pictured below), within a week it created major buzz with millions of mentions on social media of #TheDress. The dressmakers – Roman Originals certainly benefited, their website received 3, 622, 960 visitors within the first 48 hours and the dress sold out online within 34 minutes of its availability.

However, the dress mainly focuses on the emotion principle of contagiousness, by either highly arousing people with excitement or anger as a trigger to affect sharing. Besides this ploy, the dress doesn’t doesn’t really incorporate any of the other 6 STEPPS.

The dress among other previous viral sensations such as Rebecca Black’s Friday fit under Kevin Allocca’s three requirements to go viral.

Kevin Allocca’s three requirements

Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s Head of Culture and Trends states that to go viral there needs to be three requirements:

• Unexpectedness
• Tastemakers
• Communities of participation

The dress and the song – Friday both have the unexpected factor. Then a group of tastemakers took a point of view (the colour of the dress and how awful the song is) and shared that with a larger audience. Where finally a community formed for each and started to talk and spread them or even do something new with it, such as people parodying the song for other days of the week.

Allocca’s requirements may be simple, but I believe that it is best method to go viral. Currently, there are so many peers I have that have amassed large followings on social media. Therefore, their are many potential tastemakers that could help accelerate the process of any content I post going viral. I am not in a unique situation though, and it is very likely that you have these connections too! So if you want to go viral, it’s no longer a secret, just start thinking of an idea that’s going to shock everyone into talking about it. Will it be positive or negative? Who knows. But it will probably go viral.

What method do you think would be more successful for going viral? Let me know in the comments below.

Everyone loves free things. There’s no downside, you can try it, taste it, play it and ultimately if you don’t like it, you’ve lost no money. Sometimes the only reason why we try something at all is because it is free. I’m no stranger to this, knowing damn well that I tactically signed up for the 10 day free subscription to Foxtel with zero intention of continued usage, just to watch the last two episodes of Game of Thrones in peace. We aren’t the only clever ones though, business’s are well aware that us consumers love free things. Enter, the Freemium business model.

Freemium is a type of a business model. We know it all too well nowadays. Apps that offer great content for free, but for a monthly subscription or one off payment, the user can remove ads and receive other incentives. Some of today’s most successful video games and music streaming giants use this model.

Spotify, currently the world’s biggest music streaming platform has 217 million monthly active users (MAUs), to which 100 million MAUs are premium users. Spotify offers listeners their entire music library for free with the option of shuffle play. However, free listeners, and I was one of them once, are plagued with ads, such as banner ads, brand mentions and full 30 second ads that can’t be skipped. In turn, Spotify premium is a monthly paid subscription that unlocks all their features. Allowing for offline listening, the ability for unlimited skips and most importantly – no ads.

Spotify’s revenue is largely due to their premium subscriptions. With 91% of revenue stemming from premium subscriptions, and the other 9% from ads on the free version. This huge disparity in their revenue is what I like to call the Freemium bait and hook.

Chris Anderson in his talk about Freemium being the first business model of the 21st Century (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOKcedfE_nM) asserts that the content behind a pay wall should appeal to the niches. Preaching that the more niche the better. Fortnite among other popular video games have capitalised on this thinking, offering players almost an unlimited stream of different character options and cosmetics useable in game behind a paywall. However, I believe Freemium doesn’t have to appeal to the niches, but rather, the masses. Just as Spotify and Youtube’s premium versions have done, they’ve found one thing that we collectively hate and made that the key point of their premium versions. ADS. We all hate ads.

Everyone loves free things…but secretly we hate ads more. That’s where they’ve got us. We’ve all been hit with the free bait of using their service and once we decide we’ve had enough of the ads, that’s when the hook sinks in. And congratulations, you’ve become another hooked. And trust me, they’ve got us all hooked.