The Way Social Media Affects Politics

By | advertising, marketing, SEO, Social Media, website design | No Comments

If you accessed social media at all during this past Presidential election, then your account was probably plastered with all sorts of political agendas and opinions. You know Donald Trump is constantly tweeting and everyone is either agreeing or disagreeing with what he is doing. Social media has significantly influenced the field of politics.

There is always news — always. Before the Internet, people had to wait for the news that night or the newspaper the next day to get the latest information. Now, you have news wherever and whenever you want it. Marketing agencies around the world work to keep the information flowing along with these sources of news.

The problem with that is occasional misinformation. When people check Facebook and Twitter for the latest trends, the news they pull form there isn’t always accurate.

Increased Interaction

Political polls are important and you can often find poll results on the same day. Thanks to social media, these polls have had an increased presence. Social media platforms can now report results of polls, while also allowing you to participate in polls you or your friends create.

In addition, social media now allows user to have direct interaction with candidates and elected officials. Before the age of the Internet, it was difficult to interact, let alone meet with a political official. Now, there are events that are streamed live across social media platforms where people can interact with candidates and politicians.

The Impact

Social media is still rather new. We are just seeing the beginning impacts on society. It will become more and more influential in the political realm. It will be interesting to see how it will continue to influence politics.

Social media is not only having an effect on politics, but many other things as well. Marketing agencies are no longer just doing traditional marketing. Now, they are targeting website design, SEO and more online marketing rather than traditional media outlets such as television.

Sources:

https://blog.sysomos.com/2016/10/05/social-media-affects-politics/

Speed vs. Perfection

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, marketing, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

Famous YouTube star and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia states, “Speed is four billion times more important that perfection.” As technology has made our world become increasingly fast and efficient, there is room for debate on what is more important for advertising agencies. Speed or perfection?

As an advertising agency, clients want both. They want their creative to be done fast and perfectly. Unfortunately, this cannot be accomplished in almost any situation.

Speed

Being fast on a day-to-day basis is extremely important. A wise man once said “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Thank you Talladega Nights and Ricky Bobby for the insightful knowledge. It’s extremely applicable in today’s marketplace where being first is important on many levels.

A perfect example is the New York Times. The famous newspaper is looking to eliminate copywriters to replace them with more journalists. In protest, people stood on the street with typo ridden signs to show that in the news industry, ethics and perfection are more important than speed.

Competition for business is at an all time high, and clients are demanding high speed from their agencies. With the amount of tools available for content marketing and web development, there is no reason for agencies to spend weeks on requests from clients.

Perfection

If you make a mistake large enough, it could be the very next viral meme online. With the speed that the marketplace is demanding, mistakes will be made. Whether clients are more or less forgiving, there is a fine line to be drawn for excusable and inexcusable mistakes. Quality control of content and production is essential to producing a product that has value to the marketplace.

The Balance

While both qualities are important, value and emphasis needs to be place on one or the other. The high-speed market will leave those trying to perfect every little detail in the dust. While making sure all of our work here at Fusion 360 is perfected, speed is the name of the game.

 

How Advertising Agencies Keep You Updated on Current Events

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If you’re wondering how a marketing agency knows what’s going on in the news and portrays that news to you then wonder no more. An advertising agency is about doing just that: advertising. Here’s how they keep you in the know on what’s going on in your town and the world.

Clients and Communication

Marketing agencies typically do work for one or more clients. With all these clients, it is important to watch the news and stay updated on current events that could relate to one of their clients specifically. Here at Fusion 360, we have all eyes on the news so we can use events happening now and create awesome content that is relevant to our audience at that moment.

We are lucky in that we’re not only professionals at advertising why our clients are amazing, but we’re also experts at relaying that applicable information about the news and relating it back to them to make them stand out among the rest.

The Agency

All marketing firms have clients, yes, but they are also responsible for taking care of their own content and social media channels as well. Just one quick visit to Fusion 360’s social channels or blog and you will most likely not only realize how fun Fusion 360 is, but also learn something new about what has happened in Utah or the world and how advertising agencies play a role.

Blogs and Social

What many people don’t realize is that almost every big company or business that has a website also has a blog page. These blogs are not just there to add professionalism to the look of the website, but for the consumers to read and enjoy.

If you’re reading this than you obviously know about Fusion 360’s blog, which is fortunate for you because Fusion 360’s blog is stuffed full with current events and facts that you might have missed out on. Blogs are the perfect way to get questions answered that you probably didn’t even know you had. It’s as if they read your mind before the question has even come into your head. It’s exciting.

Thanks to Fusion 360 and other marketing companies, you’ll be able to show off your dazzling wit to all your close friends and they’ll envy you.

 

All You Need to Know About Social Media

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The prominence of social media has skyrocketed over the last decade. This has caused advertising agencies all over the world to step up their game and get on board the social media train.

In order to stretch your agencies advertising reach all over the world, there has to be enough social platforms to support all the hype. Read below to find out all you need to know about social media so you can be a posting pro.

 

Brands and the People Who Are Loyal to Them

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You know who they are: the people at your office that will absolutely die if they don’t have the newest Apple product. Your parents who say they’ll always buy a Ford because its an American car. Your friends who hate Marvel movies but love DC movies.Your friends, family and co-workers (and more than likely you as well) are experience brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty is when a consumer will continually buy a particular service or product from one particular company because they believe it is the best fit for them. Great marketing agencies will focus on brand messaging for its clients so that those businesses can gain an audience that sticks around for the foreseeable future.

How Television Viewing Habits Are Changing

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Written by Ascari Pena

 

If you look back fifteen years ago, we would have never imagined we would be watching TV the way we watch TV today. Do people really “watch TV’ anymore? Television is no longer checking the TV guide, figuring out what time the new episode of your favorite show is on and sitting down to watch it — those days are long gone.

Not every TV show is watched on traditional televisions anymore. Everyone wants to watch their shows when it’s convenient form them and without commercials of course. Now, advertising agencies may not advertise nearly as much on TV, but have many other opportunities to advertise.

Mobile

Phones have changed the way we watch TV. Families still gather around and watch TV for some events, but this is only sometimes. Today, people are streaming Netflix and Hulu. Seventy-two percent of viewers use a mobile device to view video and 42 percent sit outside of their home.

Content Providers

Content providers are not Direct TV, Comcast or cable subscription. Now, there are other content providers that advertising agencies don’t have as much opportunity to advertise on. Apple TV provides TV shows, news, movies and sports; you can get thousands of videos for free on Amazon Prime — there is also Netflix and Hulu. Some of these providers force you to watch commercials, unless you pay for commercial-free viewing while others don’t even bother.

Scheduling

For those people who still want to watch some sort of live-TV, consumers have the opportunity to record and watch shows at their own convenience. This way, people can record shows from live TV and watch whenever they want. The best part is you have the ability to skip through commercials, too.

Multi-tasking

Everyone multitasks now; no one really sits down and watches TV. They are usually reading e-mails, viewing social media posts or browsing the web.

The way TV is being watched has drastically changed. People just don’t “watch TV” using their TVs anymore. This change is forcing advertising agencies to adapt and become rather creative to be able to reach consumers. Advertising agencies are accepting change with open arms.
Resources:
https://extremereach.com/blog/the-continuing-evolution-of-tv-viewing-habits/
http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2016/31149/how-television-and-video-viewing-habits-are-changing

 

Advertising and Technology – The Battle for Power

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

In 2017, we are seeing the mass emergence of many different technological platforms such as Virtual Reality (VR), self-driving cars and dominance of non-traditional television platforms such as Netflix and Hulu. With this technology changing how we interact with media, products will emerge and others will fall. Innovation is the name of the game.

Our media consumptions habits are changing daily and large tech companies such as Facebook and Google are having larger pressures from large businesses to deliver higher quality ad-serving platforms. On the opposite side, advertising and marketing agencies are competing for business and trying to drive growth of their clients through SEO and content marketing.

To further prove the shift to digital platforms, digital ad spending overtook TV for the first time ever in 2016; experts say this is due to the Summer Olympics and the Presidential election. Globally, TV is still leading in ad spending. While many in the advertising arena would like to debate which one is more effective, the shift to digital is real and advertisers need to recognize this.

Apps and Ads

Large companies with billions of dollars in an advertising budget such as McDonald’s are now turning straight to social platforms such as Snapchat to assist in the marketing of their brand to allure teens to apply for jobs.

While this is becoming a trend for major corporations, these prominent social platforms are now having to provide scalable advertising analytics for their dollars spent. Scaling the analytics for advertising campaigns has been a thorn in the hide of Facebook, Google, Snapchat and Twitter.

With the freedom of the internet also comes the one percent that ruin it for the rest of us. In March 2017, major brands such as Honda pulled their advertising from YouTube as their ads were appearing on extremist websites and other content they deemed to be inappropriate to their brand.

While these platforms have nearly all the attention, there is demand from users and advertisers to create systems to filter out hate speech and the new trend of ‘fake news’ through development of algorithms.

Traditional Advertisers

While we are consuming media at an all time high, traditional media spenders need to think long and hard about where they are placing their advertising dollars. Unlike previous generations, Millennials and Generation Z’s have no problem tuning out your annoying 30-second spot on TV.

While traditional television advertising works to reach a broad audience, it does not have the granular analytics that digital platforms do. If an advertising agency is to spend on traditional mediums, the creative must be engaging and provide value to the viewer, or they will be tuned out faster than the latest Nickelback album.

When evaluating where to spend your ad dollars, auditing your ad spend and re-strategizing with an advertising agency like Fusion 360 in Salt Lake City, Utah may be your best option.

 

Where is the Value in Digital Marketing?

By | digital marketing, Utah | No Comments

With traditional advertising techniques taking a blow from modern technological advances, it is important for the media to adapt to evolving marketing approaches — digital marketing companies are doing just that.

Our world is becoming a digital breeding ground, we get our news from online articles, we do our shopping online, we even use technology as our main form of communication. However, where is the value in digital marketing? As a $62 billion-dollar industry, it is important to know where that revenue is coming from so that up and coming agencies can thrive in the modern world. Here is where the value lies when it comes to digital marketing.

 

The Downfall of Malls and Rising of Digital Commerce

By | advertising, content marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

In 2017, various businesses are either rising or crashing. Right now, we are seeing the beginning of the end for malls. Studies have shown that in 2021, 25 percent of malls will be closed. With the emerging rise of e-commerce, Americans are starting to ditch large retailers like Macy’s, JC Penney’s and Sears for digital companies such as Amazon. To understand this downfall, let’s look at the past, present and future of the American consumer.

Digital marketing companies have predicted this downward trend occurring over the past 15 years and are beginning to capitalize on their correct predictions of the fall of the American mall lifestyle. With marketing firms targeting consumers with extremely competitive pricing of products and the inconvenience of driving to a mall and walking, malls will become obsolete. Property management companies must begin to restructure their business model to deliver further value.

Past

To give a bit of a history lesson, let’s step back in time a bit. In 1956, the very first indoor shopping mall called Southdale opened outside Minneapolis. After the exploding popularity of malls, there was a large retail boom in the United States.

In 1960, there were 4,500 malls that made up 14% of retail sales. In 1987, there were 30,000 malls accounting for over 50% of all retail dollars spent. Malls were the emerging destination for commerce, hanging out and community gathering events.

Malls were the place to be and quickly became a staple in the American lifestyle.

Present

Since 2006, no new indoor malls have been built. This is around the time that online commerce began to emerge. Digital marketing companies have taken notice of this and capitalized on the shift of attention from malls to iPhones. Since 2004, the net sales revenue of Amazon has risen from 6.92 billion to nearly 136 billion dollars.

This is now where our eyeballs and dollars have all shifted to. With less hassle and lower prices, the incentive of going to the mall for relaxation or socializing has become a thing of the past.

Future

In the age of embarrassing viral videos of people stomping over each other at Walmart over a discounted TV on Black Friday, the experience of shopping amongst other American consumers is increasingly negative. If malls are not providing a product or event that requires in person attendance, they will fail.

Marketing firms that represent these properties are looking at new avenues of either providing further value to American consumers to re-attract them, or re-purposing these structures to self-storage, doctor’s offices or apartment structures.

 

Sources:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=7196

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266282/annual-net-revenue-of-amazoncom/

 

Less is More, Right?

By | advertising, content marketing, digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Utah, web development | No Comments

Written by Ascari Pena

 

When it comes to advertising or marketing agencies, they come in all different shapes and sizes. Agencies can range anywhere from 10 to 1,000 people, and serve many different functions. As eyeballs continue to shift every single day, companies with large marketing budgets are trying to figure out the best ways to target the right people, spend dollars in the right places and ensure effectiveness in their messaging.

The debate of size in regard to an advertising agency is definitely a conversation to be had. Here are just a few differences to keep in mind when deciding to outsource your content marketing, SEO or video production to an advertising agency.

Contact With the ‘Head Honcho’

If you were to hire an agency that employs 500+ people, what are the odds you will be dealing directly with the CEO? Slim to none. If you are to work at an agency with under 50 people, the odds are much higher that you will work with the shot caller. When managing millions of marketing dollars, there needs to be streamlined communications to ensure tasks are completed effectively. The path of least resistance is the best route to travel.

The Workplace

With many companies that we see today, the ‘growing pains’ can sometimes be too much to handle. With a smaller agency, the vision and mission are able to be maintained with much less effort. Keeping an equal workplace mindset is crucial to the quality of the work produced for its clients. A loss in workplace continuity can cause headaches for everyone.

Attention to Your Work

At a larger agency, work can fall by the wayside very easily; a smaller agency overvalues its clients as each one is extremely vital to the company. Your marketing dollars are the lifeblood of your company, and the last thing needed is for your company to fall lower on the priority list because of your budget.

Agencies are ensuring the success of your marketing dollars on an everyday basis. As these agencies are analyzing the daily shifts in attention, marketing dollars need to be spent as efficiently as possible. When choosing an agency for your business, consider that bigger doesn’t mean better and agencies are not ‘one size fits all.’

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/deeppatel/2017/05/30/gen-z-hates-tv-and-what-that-means-for-traditional-advertising/#4934587a32ed