For all the budding entrepreneurs out there, I came across this very interesting infographic on how startup funding works. It's inspiring and interesting at the same time.
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The main focus of Gartner's 2014 hype cycle is digital business technologies and there are 2,000 technologies, in 119 areas, to choose from. New Hype Cycles this year include Digital Workplace, Connected Homes, Enterprise Mobile Security, 3D Printing and Smart Machines.
Gartner's 2014 Hype Cycle
Gartner’s road map to digital business includes 6 models:
Digital Business tech includes: Bioacoustic Sensing; Digital Security; Smart Workspace; Connected Home; 3D Bioprinting Systems; Affective Computing; Speech-to-Speech Translation; Internet of Things; Cryptocurrencies; Wearable User Interfaces; Consumer 3D Printing; Machine-to-Machine Communication Services; Mobile Health Monitoring; Enterprise 3D Printing; 3D Scanners; Consumer Telematics.
(This article will take you 7 minutes to watch/read)
Derek Muller is man behind the video claiming that Facebook ads are a waste of money. This he claims is due to the method by which 'page' 'likes' are obtained through the advertising model and the impact of the Facebook algorithm on serving posts as a result of your dis-engaged fan base. Derek is the author of the You Tube channel Veritasium, an informative science channel. Muller makes a compelling argument around Facebook likes and his research, whilst inconclusive is logical. Check out his video first:
I see that the crux of his argument is centered around the
the Facebook algorithm for Page views. If the Facebook algorithm that Muller
claims is in place: which submits your pages' posts to a "few" of
your fans first and then gauges the reaction before exposing to more - then having
a large number of disengaged fans will inevitably hurt your exposure.
However it could be that that even if you have a genuine fan
base, if they are still disengaged from your brand then this would be the same
net effect as having a fan base generated from a click farm, albeit that you
may have an influence over your genuine fan base by changing your content
strategy and winning them back.
Muller makes another interesting claim and that is that
there is no financial benefit to Facebook taking ownership of this click farm
issue, albeit that the ethical reasons would stand to argument.
The Facebook ads when used to garner more
'Likes' are served on an impression basis or as Facebook describes it:
"You will be charged every time someone is shown your advert." Therefore if a click-farm is being used to
generate disengaged and even non-existing people then Facebook is still earning
its revenue but the advertiser is getting a nil return for the deal.
It's important however to note that there is two types of
Facebook advertising: there is the 'Page Likes' advertising and then there is
the 'Post Boost'. The post boost does
use the same algorithm and the same method but with one difference.
On the Page
Boost advertising option the choice of targeting is a little simpler. You can choose the audience off the basic ad setup
window and from there you can choose to target only 'Fans and their Friends' or
you can elect to use the audience targeting.
Choosing 'Fans and their Friends' I would argue is safer due to the fact that
its less likely (but not impossible) that your fan base (unless already
infected by bogus fans) is disengaged by virtue of them being non-people !
I am interested in other people's views on this - we use
Facebook as part of my company's content management strategy and we recently
choose to 'boost' a post with mixed results - thank goodness I didn't click the
"Promote your page" option or I could have landed us in the same
position as Muller.
Thanks for reading my article - if you liked it or found it useful, please click the FaceBook Like or Tweet/ReTweet my post if you are on twitter, so that others may enjoy and benefit from it. Thanks for your support.
(This article will take you 4 minutes to read) As I browsed through the ads that were slated to play in the breaks of the NFL Super Bowl 2014 it was hard not to notice a general theme. Gone had the hard sell of 'product', and arrived in its place was the feel good ad. Two great examples are the Microsoft Super Bowl ad and the Apple 30 year ad, which whilst was not aired in a Super Bowl ad slot, has a similar and yet common theme.
