Why B2B should STOP using YouTube in Social Media / Content Marketing

B2B organizations have been dependent on YouTube for sharing product demo videos, insights on new developments, product servicing videos, etc. to customers. These videos are used for marketing and customer support as well.

But YouTube has been blocked by most of the corporates, so employees cannot view videos during work hours and as it distracts.  YouTube doesn’t offer landing page for videos or lead generation facility for B2B. These have adversely affected B2B organization’s as they have to courier CDs of product demo and servicing videos to customers, and use other content marketing tools for lead generation. Time has come for B2B organization’s to identify better tools for video sharing, along with landing pages for lead generation and analytics.

Content marketing is most essential for B2B organizations and videos play major role in content marketing. Most B2B organizations have corporate clients for whom they offer products or services, as YouTube is blocked this becomes very difficult to engage with them.  Here are few examples how Video helps B2B in engagement.

1. Email marketing with Videos: Using videos for email marketing can increase Click – Through – Ratio (CTR) for the campaign. Using video streaming server helps to view the video in the email box itself thus increases engagement with customers. These videos should be not more than 60 seconds and have landing pages incorporated in the emailer for lead generation, which helps to attract customers to website by showing trailer videos. 
2. Video landing Pages: Using video landing pages during social media and search engine optimization campaign helps for more time spent on each page, thus increasing engagement with customer. Usually website visitors tend to view video rather than spend time reading the entire content. 
3. Analytics of videos: Video streaming websites offer better analytics about viewing patterns of the video; this helps to filter target audience based on engagement levels. Better the analytics and better will be the marketing strategy. 
4. Customer Support: This is the most important element of marketing, whether offering demo of the product / service or helping in solving errors in the product. As YouTube is blocked by most corporates, sending a video of product demo or servicing becomes tedious process, with video streaming, B2B doesn’t have to worry about blocked content; the video directly opens in email box. Since it is stream from different server’s chances of the server getting blocked is very less. 
5. Testimonials: One of the best marketing tools for B2B organizations are testimonials from clients, these are the most effective tools and can be marketed along with case studies. As most customers don’t have time to read through the content, viewing videos  with case study and testimonial capsules helps to engage, since it increases me-too factor and spread word – of – mouth.

 There are many companies offering services of video streaming like

• Bomb Bomb
• Get Response
• HTML5 video plugin is supported by high number of mail boxes, which can help in video marketing

Future of Technology for Social Media

Smart phones

Smartphone sales in India are expected to reach 80.57 mn by this year end. Most consumers have migrated from ‘feature phones’ to smartphones for using new features, especially Internet. As Internet usage on mobile has increased tremendously, as India lacks broadband connectivity. This boost in sales of smart phones has also been the offer of EMI options from smartphone makers, even for below '$200 segment', as it plays key role in driving growth of the smartphone market

Wearable technology

Wearable technologies are accessories and devices which have wearable technology with computing capabilities and share vision of interweaving technology into the everyday life. Thus, making technology interaction friction less between humans and digital world.

Types of Wearable Devices & Technology

• E-textiles 
• Wearable computer 
• Activity tracker 
• Smart watch 
• Smart glasses 
• GPS watch 
• Virtual reality 
• Computer-mediated reality 
• Clothing technology 
• Smart Shirt 
• Healthcare 
• Augmented Reality 
• Watches

Smart watches

Smart Watches are wearable - technology devices that maintain a relatively persistent wireless connection to between mobile device—usually a smart phone and watch—and can receive notifications of incoming calls, texts, instant messages, social-network updates, and more, from that device.

Bracelet

From activity trackers to wristbands that track and notify about all kinds of things – nobody is safe from this new wave of wristbands. In which brands, big and small, want to get their piece of the cake. Both, Bluetooth Smart as well as optical sensors is state of the art for most of these bands.

Smart Glasses

Smart Glasses has been pioneered by GOOGLE, this Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format. Wearers communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

Apparels

Evolution of technology has enabled textiles to merge with technology to create fashionable, functional and comfortable solutions to meet every day needs; whether in sports & fitness or outdoor & leisure or home care & health care.

Smart paper

Electronic paper & e- paper are part of display technologies that mimic appearance of ordinary ink on paper. But unlike back lit flat panel which emits light, electronic paper reflects light like paper. This makes them comfortable to read, and provide a wider viewing angle than most light-emitting displays. Ideally this e-paper display can be read in direct sunlight without the image appearing to fade.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is referred to as hypothetical future technology, it is a computer - simulated environment which creates perception of being physically present in a non-physical world or imagined world. Virtual reality can recreate experiences which include virtual taste, sight, smell, sound, touch, etc.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. This is a part of virtual reality, which doesn’t require hardware.

What lies in future for us?

Semantic Search Engine

Semantic search uses artificial intelligence in order to understand the searcher’s intent and the meaning of the query rather than searching for keywords, it understands the complete meaning of search phrase. Google is focusing to build natural language processing – the process by which machines can effectively interpret human speech and phrase. This will become a driving force in the advancement of semantic search, leading to accomplishment of search / query with different tools of GOOGLE.

Social Media + AI

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are beginning to use artificial intelligence techniques to build - deep learning capacities. They have started to process all activities occurring over their networks from conversations, to photo facial recognition, to gaming activity, etc. Deep learning is a sub-field within AI that focuses on training computers to make logic behind undefined and irregular types of data that humans generate, such as when we speak, write, photograph or film. These Learning systems try to recognizes the trends in all raw data for predications.

Big Data Analytics

Data processing platforms let data scientists analyze, collect and shift through various types of data. In 2012 Summer Olympic Games at London used 1,800 closed-circuit video cameras monitoring Olympic Park and athletes' village. Analysts used applications to process data pertaining to those who were filmed and flag any individuals behaving suspiciously. The big data servers automatically detected the suspicious behaviors. Data visualization has given a new dimension to visual communication especially for statistics. This helps to simplify complete data into infographic or other formats which can be easily transcript by lay people. It is both art and science, since the amount of data generated is huge which makes it difficult to translate or communication. Through infographic or visual art data visualization has becomes easier. Big data and data visualization helps in identifying new Business Opportunities. In 2012 US presidential election demonstrated this how BIG DATA helps to identify voters and donors and plan accordingly to reach them. Campaign managers in both Democratic & Republican parties invested resources for seeking interest led information of voters and taking this information, addressed different election rallies. This information also helped to target advertising and fund raising programs.

Data is everything from text, voice, video, statistics, etc. using right tools of BIG DATA ANALYTICS this valuable information can be processed to offer vital information for mining. This data has huge capabilities, especially predication's for business and healthcare.

The relationship you have with your technology is no longer command and control. It is evolving to become human relationship, and slowly your technology will know you and it will understand you.

How to Leverage PR using Social Media?

Public relations have seen huge change in the mode of communication strategies with the rise of social media marketing. Digital marketing has enabled new forms of communication tools which have enabled organizations in better engagement with stakeholders. Public Relation Agencies has also embraced this new form of communications, but the biggest difficulty remains on incorporating both these forms together. Here are few techniques which can help a PR Professional to adapt social media for PR. 

• Social Sharing with Press Releases: Rise of social media has enforced changes in press release to social media release, as press release communicates only to journalists. Social media release incorporates social sharing buttons in press releases as journalists rely a lot on this feature. This feature also helps to build credibility as journalists have a wide following of readers on social networks. Social Media release also enables ease of dissemination of release since it follows the principle of shares, so is less spamming. As social media release is targeted to the online content generators, it is preferable to share only information rather than PR Jargons. Also Social Media Release incorporates all the elements of social media, SEO along with press release, offering all required information for the reader. SMR is beneficial to target bloggers, journalists, content marketers, etc. When creating a news release for print, catchy headline works to attract attention, but when writing for an online audience have to include the keywords and search terms that you want to be found for. 
• Build Campaign around Case Studies: Case study helps to build story for engagement with journalists in much easy way to explain about products / services, since explaining about products is quite boring. Creation of visual case study has better impact than textual. 
• Journalist access and insights: Social media has greatly helped PR professionals to source information and likes about journalists, this helps to build better relationships with journalists. Social Media has also given rise to citizen journalism, which emphasis importance of bloggers, authors, content generators, etc. Further, journalists often search for sources of information and social media is the first place they update about their requirements. 
• Sharing is caring:  To be successful on social media it is important to be helpful and offer information, whether related to your client or information from market. Providing information to journalists and fans helps in developing engaging relationships. Social media is more about working collaboratively. 
• Managing Reputation: Reputation management is about reaching out to fans and clients through social media, rather than depending on journalists as the turnaround time is more. Social media is viral, usually one social media day = 8 hours, so response time for crisis has to be immediate. Also with social media is much easier to respond to crisis, as offline media takes time to respond. To avoid such situation engage regularly rather than when NEEDED. Even though social media gives the option to engage online, any negativity should be taken offline as high chances of hitting viral. Provide clear instructions which are helpful, don’t confuse. If you don’t know then assign person having technical knowledge