Pantone Color of the Year

In the world of design, there is one announcement that marketers eagerly await with the turn of the new year- Pantone’s Color of the Year! Pantone has officially deemed 18-3838, ultra violet, as the color for 2018. This bright purple shade will add a bold pop of color to any design, while conveying a sense of luxury and innovation.

To learn more about this color & to check out Pantone’s suggested color palettes, visit this article.

Want blog content and more directly to your inbox? Sign up for our email list  for marketing news and insights sent to your inbox every month.

Voice Enabled Search

What do you do when you don’t know the answer to a question? A year or two ago, you might have said “Google it.” But now, you might say “OK Google.” With the recent (and fast) development of voice-enabled search machines, like Google Home, consumers and professionals alike have started to turn to these hands-free options for answers- and businesses are beginning to react.

The Big Three

While Google Home has (arguably) been considered as the most powerful machine in terms of search results and virtual assistant capabilities, other tech companies aren’t far behind. Check out the big three voice-enabled search brands:

  1. Amazon Echo (Alexa)
  2. Google Home (Google Assistant)
  3. Apple HomePod (Siri)

How Hoteliers Can Improve Their Voice SEO

With the constant improvement of smart technology, businesses’ keyword research is more important than ever. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results like a human, Google Home provides most of its voice answers from the featured snippet at the top of the search result page.

So as a small, luxury hotelier how do you improve your SEO and become part of that featured snippet? Most companies are turning to their FAQ pages, or creating one from scratch. Since nearly all featured snippet boxes are curated from someone asking a specific question, having a strong FAQ page will drastically increase your brand’s chances of becoming the next Google Home voice answer. 

Voice Search Vocab

We aren’t experts when it comes to voice-search technology, and we don’t expect you to be either! Here are some keywords that might help when dabbling in the world of snippets and SERPs.

  • Machine learning: a machine’s ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed
  • Featured snippet: a summarized answer that appears at the very top of Google after a search
  • SERP: the first page of your search result or “search engine results page”

As technology continues to change, so should your marketing strategy! Voice-enabled search is only the beginning to machine learning technology, and now is the time to adapt your plan to continue reaching your consumers. Want more information about voice-enabled search machines? Contact us!

** The information and statistics in this blog was adapted from “Hello, Voice” written by Britney Muller and published in Chief Content Officer.

Want blog content and more directly to your inbox? Sign up for our email list  for marketing news and insights sent to your inbox every month. 

About Twitter Promote Mode

With over 350,000 tweets sent out to Twitter every minute, how are businesses supposed to push through the clutter? Well, just a few weeks ago, Twitter provided a solution for small companies to fight the clutter with its new ad subscription tool called “Promote Mode.”

What is it?

While Twitter has offered a paid advertisement option (similar to Facebook and Instagram) for most business accounts, it has yet to offer something like Promote Mode. Promote Mode is an account function available to all business accounts for $99/month that automatically blasts all tweets to non-followers’ timelines. Instead of managing individual Twitter Ads campaigns, Promote Mode automates the promotion of all tweets, and the account itself, with no additional maintenance needed from the account owner.

Promote Mode is intended to steadily increase an account’s influence on Twitter, however it can be temporarily disabled for a period of time that doesn’t need to be promoted. One of the best features of Promote Mode is that it provides consistent analytics on your account and its activity.

What it measures:

Twitter Promote Mode provides users with an impressive dashboard of analytic information including:

  • How many additional users were reached by tweets
  • How many followers were gained
  • How many users visited profiles that month

Why should luxury hoteliers use it?

Promote Mode is intended to give small companies a voice in the cluttered social media world, so a better question would be, why shouldn’t hoteliers use Promote Mode?

  • Users can post and promote an unlimited amount of times each day, rather than paying for each individual ad campaign
  • Hotel Twitter accounts would require less maintenance with Promote Mode, as campaigns do not need to be monitored or created
  • Not only is your content promoted, but you also receive detailed analytics for an incredibly inexpensive cost (Sprout Social costs $99 per user/month vs Promote Mode $99/month, unlimited users)

After learning about Promote Mode, one large question remains- will this subscription just further clutter the feed? While we can’t tell for sure, we do think that this new function will help small hotels get the traction they need with their target markets!

Want blog content and more directly to your inbox? Sign up for our email list  for marketing news and insights sent to your inbox every month. 

6 Surprisingly Awesome 6-Second Ads

In last week’s blog we talked about the shrinking attention spans of the modern world. Well apparently advertisers are well aware of this trend. According to a recent article by Adweek the next “big thing” in advertising is 6-second ads!

It’s hard to believe that you can fit an entire commercial’s worth of content into less time than it takes to post a selfie,  but after watching these examples you’ll see why ultra-short form advertising might be the wave of the future.

Loveletter – YouTube Advertisers

YouTube released a series of 6-second ads that told stories. They aren’t really advertising a product, just more of a promotion for the 6-second ad concept itself. This first stop sign video is a feel good example!

YouTube Advertisers – Hamlet

Another YouTube concept ad, this one is a modern retelling of Hamlet… in 6 seconds.

Old Spice – Sweat |#smellegendary|

Deodorant giant Old Spice stays consistent to its absurd/in-your-face brand with this quick and to the point commercial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znGQlB_e9KA&list=PL9Xlh2Jq9l7V0JE-Nu95h9rWRbN69DBjz

Mercedes-Benz Singapore – The New Mercedes 

It’s pretty amazing how well this ad creates the feeling of speed with just some text and a very short video clip. We’d be curious to know how small of a budget this had.

YouTube Advertisers – Free Bacon

Who doesn’t love bacon? This YouTube concept ad crams a lot of action into a very short span of time.

Stella Artois – Slate 

We can’t tell if it’s the patient cadence of the voice-over or the fact that it’s pretty much a still shot, but Stella Artois somehow makes this ad feel a lot longer than 6 seconds.

Want blog content and more directly to your inbox? Sign up for our email list  for marketing news and insights sent to your inbox every month

120-Year-Old Brand, Modern Marketing

Whether sandwiched between two graham crackers or hardened over fresh strawberries, Hershey’s chocolate has been a household favorite for a long time-120 years to be exact.

With such a long history rooted in tradition, it might come as a surprise that Hershey’s decided to adopt a modern strategy when launching its Cookie Layer Crunch candy bar. Lauren Johnson from Adweek highlights the most effective parts of Hershey’s digital campaign:

  • Facebook became Hershey’s platform of choice when launching the campaign due to its ability to reach large volumes of people with quick, high quality videos
  • One week before the launch day (National Cookie Day, of course) Hershey’s released a teaser video on Facebook that mimicked the futuristic style of Apple tech
  • On National Cookie Day, Hershey’s utilized Facebook’s live streaming feature to officially launch the candy bar, with the video reaching over 2 million views!

With a successful digital campaign under their belt, Hershey’s proved that social media’s not just for the young. Even a 120-year-old company can use this new technology effectively.

To read the whole story and watch Hershey’s digital ads, visit Adweek. Until next time, be well.

Want blog content and more directly to your inbox? Sign up for our email list  for marketing news and insights sent to your inbox every month