What are the new Digital Trends for 2016?
I believe that brands will use social media and messaging platforms with more awareness than before: they are finally understanding the impact that social media, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook can have on business.
One of the most important phenomena will be the “Digital Transformation”: the Brand will have to actively participate on social media platforms having a cross-media vision. Digital Transformation is the process characterized by technology, digital infrastructure, and automatic systems that solve all activities of the customer service.
Another Trend will be the increase in mobile activities: the majority of website traffic comes from mobile. Search, purchase, and information are activities that users make through their mobile devices. Brands don’t just have to define their strategy in order to be mobile website friendly, but they will have to build ad-hoc landing pages and mobile adv.
How do you interpret the phenomenon of Real-Time Marketing? Is it a new publishing frontier?
It is not a new phenomenon at all. It is already common in the USA, for example, where they put together three fundamental elements: intuition, creativity, and execution ability. Intercepting the digital “wave”, the news, and content: this is the reason why you need listening tools, for intelligence and for monitoring. They are useful for developing the creative, executive, and editorial components.
Which are the KPI’s to monitor in this case?
One is about Viral Marketing; it is possible to calculate the information about reach engagement much better than the planned ones. We are typically in a field of unpredictability and it is hard to programme real-time marketing. But engagement, fan growth, and reach are the metrics to evaluate it.
You are involved in the Observatory of Social Minds for use by banks on social networks. What changes are happening in the digital banking system?
There are a few changes I have noticed:
· There has been an exponential adoption of Social Media.
· There is a big gap between cooperative credit banks, big banks, and digital native banks.
· There are several banks that are implementing in their marketing strategy digital innovation and creativity linked to social media marketing. For example, BNL and Intesa have very different approaches: each adopts various incentives to achieve their objectives. One is focused on content and editorial plans, and the other one is more focused on brand advocates. Today social media is considered a factor that enables change, and not just a collateral marketing medium anymore.
How does Big Data impact the Italian banking system?
It has allowed for the creation of what we call Customer Insight. Which creates a base for the brand strategies to develop from an effective and deep knowledge of the interests of its users and fan base. If you know your target audience well, you can offer products that are more appropriate for it.
The segmentation of aggregated data and profiling are at the frontier of User-Centric Intelligence: how do you explain the advantages of these aspects?
Right now we are moving more and more to human-to-human communication in social marketing. People create connections using empathy and personalization and this is embedded within the content. It is vital to count on such a “mass personalization” in order to diffuse the idea that “markets are conversations”: people always search for ways to communicate their experience. Understanding user’s interests is crucial to building what are called marketing personas.
In 2016, which preferential channels will be utilized for online advertising?
LinkedIn is a preferential channel for the B2B, whereas Facebook is perfect for the B2C. As for real-time advertising, live tweeting and entertainment look like new editorial frontiers. Without a doubt, this is an important trend because social media is typically open to content. It is clear that an event allows for a larger expression of content production, whether in terms of engagement or interactions. All the content linked to an event could be used even after the event has ended.
What is so important about understanding the Users’ interests?
All the research agencies have tried to focus on the customers and their related interests, but now social media absorbs this function. So monitoring and tracking of Users’ interests gives us an understanding not only of the people’s preferences but also their buying experiences, purposes, expectations, and desires. This will open-up a great range of storytelling about the Users’ experiences, which will prove incredibly useful for brands.