It’s a hot one: How heat waves have trended over time
I live in the Pacific Northwest, a part of North America known for cooler weather and notoriously gray skies. So imagine my surprise when temperatures hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit over the past few days. And did I mention that, like many other PNWers, I don’t have air conditioning? Every morning lately, my Google Assistant delivers the slightly worrying news that the temperature is ticking up.
The heat wave is all anyone here — and in other affected areas — can talk about. U.S. searches about heat waves and sunscreen reached all time record highs this month, and “air conditioner installation service” spiked more than 2,150% over the same period of time. (To little surprise, search interest in air conditioning peaks every summer — but you can see that they’ve been rising every year.)
Navigating uncertainty with Google Marketing Platform
When we introduced Google Marketing Platform in July 2018, the world was a different place. A royal wedding, the World Cup and Hurricane Florence were among the top news stories. A global pandemic was not the first thing on everyone’s minds.
Much has changed over the past three years. We’ve all learned how to unmute ourselves on video chats and attend meetings in our sweatpants. But one thing that hasn’t changed is Google Marketing Platform’s commitment to helping marketers navigate periods of change.
It’s not just the pandemic. With an intensified focus on privacy, driven in part by shifting consumer expectations, new regulations, and technology platform changes, brands need to find new ways to connect with their customers and measure marketing performance. And as we move into the recovery, Google Marketing Platform is here to help marketers adjust to the new normal.
Addressing rapid change, with help from first-party data
In our research, we’ve seen that using first-party data helps brands build stronger relationships with customers, create additional value, and boost ad performance. Brands using first-party data for key marketing functions have lifted revenueup to 2.9 times and decreased costs by 1.5 times, compared to companies that failed to fully integrate first-party data. And the most successful have invested more heavily in technology and organizational enablers, such as a unified advertising and analytics platform like Google Marketing Platform.
One business that used Google Marketing Platform and first-party data to successfully navigate the pandemic is Deckers Brands, makers of active lifestyle footwear featuring brands like UGG, Teva and HOKA.
Google Marketing Platform: Deckers Brands Case Study
Founded in 1973, Deckers Brands grew rapidly over the years, but eventually growth began to slow. The company’s channel-oriented strategy – which featured separate marketing teams for search, display, video and other channels – created silos.
The company knew it needed to become more customer-centric and to connect customer data across multiple touch points. To achieve that goal, Deckers Brands partnered with digital marketing specialists Jellyfish and adopted Google Marketing Platform as its integrated advertising and analytics solution. Jellyfish helped Deckers Brands use tools within Google Marketing Platform to apply machine learning to its first-party data, then activate the insights obtained from that data.
When countries around the world implemented stay at home orders in early 2020, Decker Brands’ found that its new strategy was essential to helping them quickly spot and react to customer trends. In the United States for example, the company exported data from its Analytics 360 account into BigQuery, a data warehouse solution part of Google Cloud, to better understand customer buying behavior. They found an increase in the sale of UGG slippers, which helped them quickly learn that people were interested in more comfortable footwear for the home. When people began venturing outside, Deckers Brands saw that trend very early through increased interest in HOKA running shoes and Teva hiking sandals and was able to quickly respond.
Using Google Marketing Platform and Google Cloud together, Deckers Brands was able to continue putting people into products they loved – and grow their business. To learn more, read the full case study here.
Season 3 of the ‘Founded’ podcast is here
In October 2020, Women Techmakers, in collaboration with Google for Startups, launched Founded, a podcast highlighting women entrepreneurs from all over the world. This week, the series returns with six new episodes, sharing advice and experiences from women who’ve lived the entrepreneurial journey. Ahead of the new season, we took time to chat with one of our podcast interviewees, Lateesha Thomas.
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An update on our progress in responsible AI innovation
Over the past year, responsibly developed AI has transformed health screenings, supportedfact-checking to battle misinformation and save lives, predicted Covid-19 cases to support public health, and protected wildlife after bushfires. Developing AI in a way that gets it right for everyone requires openness, transparency, and a clear focus on understanding the societal implications. That is why we were among the first companies to develop and publish AI Principles and why, each year, we share updates on our progress.
Internal Education
In the last year, to ensure our teams have clarity from day one, we’ve added an introduction to our AI Principles for engineers and incoming hires in technical roles. The course presents each of the Principles as well as the applications we will not pursue.
Integrating our Principles into the work we do with enterprise customers is key, so we’ve continued to make our AI Principles in Practice training mandatory for customer-facing Cloud employees. A version of this training is available to all Googlers.
There is no single way to apply the AI Principles to specific features and product development. Training must consider not only the technology and data, but also where and how AI is used. To offer a more comprehensive approach to implementing the AI Principles, we’ve been developing opportunities for Googlers to share their points of view on the responsible development of future technologies, such as the AI Principles Ethics Fellowship for Google’s Employee Resource Groups. Fellows receive AI Principles training and craft hypothetical case studies to inform how Google prioritizes socially beneficial applications. This inaugural year, 27 fellows selected from 191 applicants from around the world wrote and presented case studies on topics such as genome datasets and a Covid-19 content moderation workflow.
Other programs include a bi-weekly Responsible AI Tech Talk Series featuring external experts, such as the Brookings Institution’s Dr. Nicol Turner Lee presenting on detecting and mitigating algorithmic bias.
Tools and Research
To bring together multiple teams working on technical tools and research, this year we formed the Responsible AI and Human-Centered Technology organization. The basic and applied researchers in the organization are devoted to developing technology and best practices for the technical realization of the AI Principles guidance.
As discussed in our December 2020 End-of-Year report, we regularly release these tools to the public. Currently, researchers are developing Know Your Data (in beta) to help developers understand datasets with the goal of improving data quality, helping to mitigate fairness and bias issues.
Why this Google engineer is teaching students to code
San Francisco-based Googler Ernest Holmes first started coding when he was in high school. “From then on, I was hooked and knew I wanted to become an engineer,” he says. By the time he was a freshman at Morehouse College, Ernest was participating in the Google in Residence program (GIR). That program introduced him to the Google internship program which he took part in for three consecutive summers before joining us as a full-time engineer.
Early exposure to coding helped set Ernest up for success, but some of his classmates weren’t as lucky. During his first computer science course in college, he realized many of the students were only then getting their first coding experience.
“There were some students who, like me, had their interest piqued early on, while others had never coded before in their lives, and they just wanted to take a computer science class to figure it out,” Ernest says. “For that second group, it was like they were starting at a disadvantage because they’d never been exposed to the concepts, and they were entering into college life at the same time. That can be overwhelming.”
Ernest started tutoring sessions for his classmates and quickly learned that if they’d been exposed even just a few years earlier, it could have changed their paths. Inspired by this idea, in 2019 — at the same time Ernest began his career as a full-time engineer at Google — he founded the nonprofit CodeHouse to fulfill his personal goal of bringing the joy of coding to the next generation.
“CodeHouse is a nonprofit that partners with schools across the U.S. to introduce students to careers in tech through exposure to large tech companies, hands-on training and financial assistance,” Ernest says.
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Mediatech, webinar gratuito sulla Cyber Security. Defense in Depth (DiD)
MEDIATECH (GRUPPO RELATECH) ciclo di seminari formativiWEBINAR #3 – MARTEDI’ 6 LUGLIO 2021 ORE 12 Online il terzo incontro di aggiornamento sulle soluzioni per ridurre i rischi legati al crimine informatico…
L’articolo Mediatech, webinar gratuito sulla Cyber Security. Defense in Depth (DiD) scritto da Paolo Brambilla proviene da Assodigitale.
Nakisha Wynn helps other moms build profitable blogs
Nakisha Wynn was working at a financial services firm when life took an unexpected turn. She thought about starting a blog aimed at other moms, particularly single mothers. “I didn’t see anybody who looked like me doing the blogging thing,” Nakisha notes. “It was either these fabulous girls showing off their fashions or huge bloggers I couldn’t relate to, so I birthed my blog from that.”
In 2016, Nakisha launchednakishawynn.com, where she blogs about single parenting, personal finance, working at home, family travel, frugal living and self-care.
Ehi Google, come si dice in inglese “salsicce e friarielli”?
Un lettore, Giovanni L., mi segnala una chicca divertente di Google Traduttore: se gli si chiede di tradurre in inglese “salsicce e friarielli” , risponde con un epico:
“bhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”
Giovanni se ne è accorto cercando la traduzione in inglese di alcuni termini relativi al cibo.
Cosa ancora più curiosa, la “traduzione” proposta da Google Traduttore ha tanto di bollino che dichiara che si tratta di una “Traduzione verificata dai collaboratori di Google Traduttore”. Meno male che l’hanno verificata, altrimenti chissà cosa sarebbe successo.
Giovanni nota che “traduzioni simili ci sono anche per tutte le altre lingue, al massimo cambia il numero di “o” finali. Gli stessi risultati si ottengono dall’app per iOS.” E anche dall’app per Android, secondo questa segnalazione. Se invece chiedo all’assistente vocale di Google, mi risponde (abbastanza correttamente) “sausage and broccoli.”
Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers
What are some uncommon ways B2B marketers can successfully work with influencers?
One of the many advantages of working with subject matter experts (SMEs) who are influential in their industry is the sheer variety of ways that marketers can collaborate to build a mutually beneficial partnership.
While we’ve explored many of the traditional ways B2B marketers often work with influencers, we wanted to take a look at a few of the unusual ways collaboration is taking place.
Let’s dive right in, with examples from both SMEs and marketers who’ve implemented uncommon takes on the B2B influencer partnership that can help inspire your own influencer programs.
1 — From Influencer to Long-Term Friendship
Christopher Penn, co-founder and chief data scientist at Trust Insights, has found that an influencer partnership can on occasion lead to something bigger than the sum of its parts.
“Uncommon experience? Becoming great friends with one of the folks who was originally just doing outreach,” Christopher shared.
“There’s always a bit of a power imbalance in any kind of influencer situation, especially in cases where someone is asking for help and there isn’t a tangible exchange of value — like payment,” Christopher explained.
“But occasionally you run into someone that’s just a solid, good human being, and the commercial relationship evolves into an actual friendship. Rare, but delightful,” Christopher noted.
Successful B2B influencer marketing programs are often built on long-term professional relationships that find brands and SMEs working together and helping one another over the long haul, giving rise to always-on efforts that gain strength as years of shared experiences and successes accumulate.
Finding friendship is a bonus that can sometimes happen when working with influencer programs, and is certainly one to treasure as Christopher shared.
[bctt tweet=”“Occasionally you run into someone that’s just a solid, good human being, and the commercial relationship evolves into an actual friendship. Rare, but delightful.” — Christopher Penn @cspenn” username=”toprank”]2 — Building Trust with Pre-Release Influencer Briefings
For Michaela Underdahl, marketing lead at customer relationship management software firm Nimble, there are a variety of uncommon tactics that can be used when working with industry influencers.
“One of our main goals at Nimble is to turn the influencers that we work with into power users and evangelists,” Michaela said.
“So, every time we are launching a new feature, we brief our influencers prior to the release date and request quotes describing the benefits of the feature to them. Depending on the type of the influencer, we use the quotes in various different ways,” Michaela explained.
“Some of the more common ways are press releases and blog posts, but we also create social graphics and use the quotes to reach out to additional influencers and press. This helps us open new doors as people recognize these influencers and are more likely to start working with us since they know we already work with people they know, like and trust,” Michaela shared.
This trust and the variety of ways it can be nurtured when working with SMEs is another example of the power of influencer marketing to go beyond traditional content or search marketing initiatives, as we explored recently in “Trust and the Search for Answers: How Influence Optimizes SEO Performance.”
Empowering evangelists as Michaela noted can lead to stronger influencer relationships that benefit both brands and industry experts.
[bctt tweet=”“One of our main goals at Nimble is to turn the influencers that we work with into power users and evangelists.” — Michaela Underdahl @MichaUnderdahl” username=”toprank”]3 — Discovering New Influencers In Unusual Social Hangouts
B2B influencer marketing continues to evolve, and SMEs in some industries aren’t always going to be found solely on the traditional social media platforms of LinkedIn*, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Many industries have attracted an infusion of newly-minted marketing professionals, and the SMEs they consider influential may frequent an entirely different set of online communication platforms, which could be any of the following or others:
- Clubhouse
- Twitter Spaces
- TikTok
- Spotify Greenroom
- Facebook Live Audio Rooms
- Caffeine
- Twitter Blue
- MeWe
- Twitch
Today there are more social channels than ever, and we all have our favorites for work, play, research, or other tasks.
B2B marketers are finding untapped audiences on uncommon social platforms — audiences that often become customers — and that feature potential influencers to consider for certain industries.
We’ve explored how B2B marketers can utilize some of these alternative social platforms in the following articles:
- How B2B Marketing Influencers Are Finding Success On New Social Channels
- On-Target: What’s New With Twitter For B2B Marketers In 2021
- How B2B Brands Can Boost Confidence in Livestream Video, Podcast and Clubhouse Marketing
Additionally, Penry Price, vice-president of marketing solutions at LinkedIn, recently explored how B2B marketers can tap in to Gen Z, in “Focusing on gen Z: how B2B brands can hook this new generation of customers & candidates.”
[bctt tweet=”“Participating on the Clubhouse app immediately increased my social and professional networks. Clubhouse is amazing for the give-and-take communication and information exchange.” — Stephanie Thum @stephaniethum” username=”toprank”]4 — Working Together To Drive Industry Knowledge
Perhaps even more than in B2C marketing, B2B influencers have increasingly formed mostly private groups that serve as communication tools for refining and driving the long-term success of influencer marketing.
Sometimes driving industry knowledge and empowering influencers are also tackled by more public groups, such as the popular Adobe Insiders program.
“Working with a small group of influencers can be a great place to start, but that small group should be backed by a much larger list of researched candidate influencers. As relationships develop through the course of different collaborations, B2B marketers will refine and find the right influencers. A VIP group of influencers might be created as Adobe has with its 60+ Adobe Insiders being activated at individual, small group or large group levels depending on the situation,” our CEO and co-founder Lee Odden noted recently in “B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Questions to Ask First.”
The Adobe Insiders program is a diverse group of over 60 influencers that includes leading executives, industry leaders, major media correspondents, contributing journalists, and technology pioneers — including Lee.
Managing the B2B Adobe Insiders program is Rani Mani, head of employee advocacy at Adobe. Rani shared her insight into the program and how it drives industry knowledge and more in her in-depth interview for our Inside B2B Influence show, which is available at “Inside Influence 1: Rani Mani from Adobe on the B2B Influencer Marketing Advantage.”
[bctt tweet=”“I think we’ll see a lot more influencers standing up for their creative freedom and creative license and I think we’ll see less prescriptive micromanagement from brands.” — Rani Mani @ranimani0707″ username=”toprank”]5 — Spark Interest by Mentoring New B2B Influencers
By mentoring the next generations of marketing influencers, you’ll not only help new SMEs develop, but also continue your own lifelong learning.
Influencer marketing is a two-way street when it comes to mentoring opportunities.
“I think it’s really important that people seek out a person who is going to be a champion for them if they want to advance and grow their career,” Jen Holtvluwer, chief marketing officer at Spirion shared in our “Inside Influence 5: Jen Holtvluwer from Spiron on Award Winning B2B Influencer Marketing.”
“I’ve had so many that I still keep in touch with today that have been that champion for my cause. So I think it’s really important to not to do it alone and make sure you put in the time and that your time is noticed. And make sure that you’re marketing yourself to the right champion in the business. Then they’ll stay with you and refer you as other opportunities come up,” Jen explained.
We can do a great service to future generations by sharing our insight with aspiring young B2B influencers.
If we can spark an interest by mentoring a younger colleague, client or associate, we’ll contribute to a future of marketing that is more robust with your own personal knowledge passed along to the next generation.
We can do this by inspiring and mentoring young influencer talent by imparting your own passion for B2B marketing, as Peggy Smedley, editorial director and president at Specialty Publishing Media, shared with us in “B2B Influencer Marketing Advice from 9 Top B2B Influencers.”
“As influencers we are here to serve the mission and [know] that our influence on people comes from our ability to be a role model. We need to be very mindful about what we say and how we say it. We are always leaders and mentors and we need to focus on the needs of others first because we have been tasked with leading others. We always need to serve others and by doing that we are doing the best for ourselves,” Peggy shared.
[bctt tweet=”“We are always leaders and mentors and we need to focus on the needs of others first because we have been tasked with leading others.” — Peggy Smedley @ConnectedWMag” username=”toprank”]Taming Your Uncharted Influencer Waters
By making the leap from influencer to long-term friendship, building trust by sharing pre-campaign briefings, tapping into unusual social hangouts, using influencer groups to drive industry knowledge, and mentoring future influencers, your own B2B influencer marketing program can benefit substantially from these uncommon tactics.
These five are only the tip of the influencer marketing iceberg, however, as the power of influence is expansive and only expected to increase as we make the push to 2022.
To learn more about the power of influence in B2B marketing, be sure to catch the new season of our Inside B2B Influence show, featuring in-depth video and podcast interviews with the top B2B influencers working with the world’s biggest B2B brands. The season kicked off with Ann Handley of MarketingProfs in “Inside B2B Influence 14: Ann Handley of MarketingProfs on Content Marketing and Influence.”
Creating award-winning B2B marketing with an artful mixture of influence takes considerable time and effort, which is why many firms choose to work with a top digital marketing agency such as TopRank Marketing. Contact us today and let us know how we can help, as we’ve done for businesses ranging from LinkedIn, Dell and 3M to Adobe, Oracle, monday.com and others.
* LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.
The post Mindful Marketing: 5 Uncommon Ways To Work With B2B Influencers appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
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