What are internet trolls? How can Marketers coexist with them in this Digital Age?

“Information is power. Disinformation is abuse of power” – Newton Lee

The internet is an indispensable tool in our daily living. While the abounding benefits of the internet are undeniable, it has facilitated the dissemination of disinformation, some of which have dire consequences to companies and individuals’ image.

Trolling behaviors are defined as deliberate, deceptive and mischievous attempts engineered to elicit a reaction from the target(s), are performed for the benefit of the troll(s) and their followers and may have negative consequences for people and firms involved. (Golf-Papez & Veer 2017). While many provocateurs are simply instigating arguments for entertainment, there are some with more malignant intent – tarnishing reputations by trash-talking, engaging negative word-of-mouth, and misrepresentation of information. Here is a list of common internet trolls that marketers need to watch out and deal with.

Artificial Troll

Bot farms created to leave negative feedback and comments on forums and advertisements.

Some of these comments may seem irrelevant to your content, so no response is needed. Delete and block artificial trolls as you spot them.

Mindless Accuser Troll

People who make harsh comments and/or accusations that can tarnish the brand image. They may leave negative threads about you despite not having bought products or worked with the brand.

If these comments are abusive or hate-based in nature, simply delete and block. If the comments are about products or the integrity of the brand, then respond rationally and tactfully in a calm manner.

Angry Customer Troll

These are customers who have brought up their dissatisfaction on forums and communities, either because they struggled to get any response, or simply were unhappy with the purchase.

This is an opportunity to build your brand equity and credibility. Reply with empathetic concern. With appropriate and desirable commenting, a service recovery paradox may occur, and your customer conversion rate may go up!

The Troll Repellent

The best way of handling trolls is to halt them in their tracks before they went rampant. The ‘troll repellent’ refers to the code of conduct, which can be invoked when forum members step out of line. The common code of conduct entails: 1. Provocative comments will be removed 2. Users who breached the code will be given a stern warning 3. If disruptive actions persist, the user will be removed.

Have you came across any internet trolls? How do you handle them? let me know your thoughts and views below!

Word count: 399

What makes Gen Z tick? What channels should we use to engage them?

Gen Z is anticipated to make up around 40% of the customer market in a few years. With more people from this group joining the workforce in the near future, the purchasing power of Gen Z is expected to increase. To capitalize in the lucrative Gen Z market, we must first understand what makes them tick.  

People who were born after 1996 is referred as Generation Z (Parker and Igielnik 2020). Gen Zers are digital natives, who have no or little memory about the world as it existed before smartphones. In the late 1990s, consumers increased their access to available information (e.g. product specifications, comparative prices, product reviews etc.) through the use of the internet (Vollero et al. 2019), which in turn increases their consumer marketplace power as they develop the ability to express their opinions online and participate in decision-making. This concept holds true for Gen Zers, as the abundance of social media platforms (Communities, Publishing, Commerce and Entertainments) and product review pages have given them convenient access to insightful information. With limitless information at their fingertips, Gen Zers are open to change – constantly seek new ideas and experiences, and desire for their voices to be heard (TTI Success Insights 2019). They also tend to be more sensitive in product pricing, and will leverage on internet tools to source for the best price.

To market to them effectively, we must ensure that the media vehicles utilized are relevant, coherent, consistent, in continuity and complementary with each other. 

1. Social publishing – WordPress, Blogger, Youtube

Youtube and blogging sites are common platforms for micro-influencers. Employing youtubers as brand ambassadors is an effective way to engage Gen Zers, as 1) Youtube is the most common entertainment platform for Gen Zers, which maximizes effective reach and 2) Gen Zers will seek out opinion leaders to evaluate brands/products. As opposed to sharing the experiences associated with the product descriptively in social media, Youtubers are better in establishing the positive experiences in the consumers’ minds.

2. Social communities – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Community forums are essential in marketing to Gen Zers, as it fulfils their important need of expressing their opinions and getting involved in decision-making. Additionally, social communities are great platforms for brands to establish their brand positioning and value proposition, and to engage with Gen Zers in their customer journey.

This is the end of today’s post. Let me know your feedback. Thanks!

Word count: 388

Overcoming the implications of SEO Marketing.

“No website can stand without a strong backbone. And that backbone is technical SEO” – Neil Patel

Internet users in Singapore have grown exponentially from 4,179.6 in 2014, to 4,892.5 million in 2019 (Euromonitor International 2020). This equates to 84% of Singaporeans who use the internet!

While many businesses used to abuse ‘black hat techniques’ such as adding hidden comment tags, meta keyword stuffing, and link selling to boost their site rankings, Google’s algorithm changes; implementation of the Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird algorithms, have successfully oppressed these SEO malpractices. However, these changes also have drastic implications on law-abiding businesses. The Panda algorithm implemented in 2011, demotes sites that Google deems to be of lower quality, and vice versa. According to insider information from Google employee Amit Singhal, the prominent criteria for high-quality sites are insightful relevant information, along with the originality and credibility of content (Marie Haynes 2014). The Penguin algorithm introduced in 2012, guards against sites that had bypass Google’s algorithms by creating unnatural backlinks (E.g. self-made anchor texts), to increase their search rankings. In contrast to the Panda and Penguin algorithms, which is to filter out low-quality and untrustworthy sites respectively, the Hummingbird is in fact a completely new Google engine with a goal to better understand a user’s query.

It is inevitable to have sites on similar topics with slight keyword variations, while we are marketing products in the same product category. Unless we have a monopoly in the industry, repeated information will be present in the promotion of our products. These undesirable implications – lack of originality and insights, will undoubtedly affect the quality of our sites. In handling the aforementioned issues, we can make use Canonical Tags to solve the issue on duplicate content. To overcome the lack of content originality, it is imperative for us to comprehend and leverage on Google’s search engine. Furthermore, we have to integrate our understanding on the SEO – Keywords and technical optimization, with market research, such as our target customers, their goals and motivations, to effectively devise a SEO strategy.

On a final note, it is advisable to follow conventional SEO practices, given the strict regulations put in place by Google. To avoid being marked as a dishonest site, we have to proactively identify and remove untrustworthy links that point to our sites. Alternatively, we can utilize a disavow tool to alienate from untrustworthy foreign links.

Do let me know your comments below!

Word count: 399

How can Marketers leverage on IoT to capitalize on consumers?

“The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the internet did. Maybe even more so.” – Kevin Ashton

The Internet of Things (IoT), refers to the billions of physical devices around the world that are connected to the Internet, all collecting and sharing data (ZDNet 2020). Thanks to the rapid fall in costs of electric components, and the ubiquity of wireless networks, we can conveniently connect different objects by adding a level of digital intelligence to them, thus enabling real-time data communication.

In the digital era, marketers can jump on the bandwagon and develop innovative strategies to engage the audience better. For instance, in the context of domestic living, we can retrieve and interpret data from smart home devices (e.g. Speakers, LED bulbs, home systems, security cameras) to understand the consumers’ home routine, habits and tendencies, so that we can provide real time point-of-sale notifications at optimum timings via well-tailored advertisements to trigger their immediate purchase. In 2014, Google acquired Nest Labs, the home gadget maker company, at $3.2 billion (Wohlsen 2014). Google’s purchase intent is to understand people better through data collection from smart appliances, to maximize profitability. This reflects the importance of IoTs in the contemporary marketing landscape. Additionally, we can also obtain insights on the consumers’ latent motives by observing their daily living through smart speakers and home systems, and activate or suppress their problem recognition through informed advertising.

Marketers can also leverage on IoTs to uncover new opportunities, such as connecting with new communities. Wearable smart devices (e.g. Smart watch, fitness trackers, smart glasses) allows users to share posts generated by the devices on social media platforms, which eventuate in the development of new communities centered around the users of such devices. Once these communities are uncovered, we can connect with these like-minded groups and convert them into customers further down the road.

Although the IoTs is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 19% from 2017 to 2022, and is estimated to be US$1.5 trillion by 2022 (Inforcomm Media Development Authority 2020), the implications of smart appliances such as hacking and personal privacy intrusion can impede the diffusion of IoTs. As such, it is important for marketers to understand the consumer perceptions on all the relevant IoTs, to determine which are the best mediums for data collection.

This comes to the end of the post! Please let me know your thoughts below!

Word count: 394