Tag: digital

Trends and Impacts of Digital HR

Trends and Impacts of Digital HR

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Many companies have already switched to a more digital system for various work sectors among their departments, and this includes Human Resources. For a long time, HR has always been thought to be more of a human job, thus requires HR managers to do various tasks manually with as much human contact as possible. But this might not need to be the case. While an HR manager is still welcome, the use of solutions or platforms could help streamline and perhaps improve many of the processes.

The Trend of Digital HR Activities

69% of companies in the US believe that Digital HR is becoming an important aspect of a company. Over 83% of Southeast Asian companies agree. Of course, these would include:

  • Using crowdsource recognition data to substantially increase performance review accuracy
  • Using AIs to better improve multiple aspects of HR
  • Digitalizing or using online recruitment platforms to streamline hiring processes
  • Doubling down on people analytics efforts to get better employee data

Many more trends, of course, exist such as using onboarding platforms, networking with employees, and using an employee’s digital work signature to monitor their performance. However, among the many digital initiatives one could apply to the office, how will it impact the behavior around it?

The Impact of Work Culture

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A company’s work culture is something very valuable and one might even say that it is what defines the soul of the company. With something corroborated so tightly with HR, it will also be affected should a more digital HR system be implemented. Be it for automation of employee data, recruitment or even onboarding, companies have been known to even go to the length of redesigning their whole organizations. And such lengths are undergone for the sake of adapting to a more digital business model.

The main impact on a good digitalization of your HR processes shouldn’t simply be to streamline processes (although it is part of it), but to also improve retention rates of your employees. After all, the reason you ease HR processes is to ease your HR managers to keep your employees cared for and satisfied with your company.

Why Digital HR is Helpful to the Company Culture

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During a survey, it was found out that only 72% of the respondents do not understand their company culture that well. Although this seemingly feeble, it may eventually lead to a breakdown on a psychological level. Many employees undergo the provided work culture without knowing any better. In the meantime, they might not know that they’re subjected to something bad at all and thus stay silent while their stress builds up. This could result in an eventuality of employees resigning or relocating.

Digital HR Use for Welfare Management

With the shift in how welfare management is being approached, a Digital HR could help in this regard. The current shift in trend, that HR practitioners are starting to look into and prioritizing the employee’s mental health as well as physical. This could benefit highly from a proper two-way communication.

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A Digital HR not only helps with creating a more efficient environment but communication as well. An instantaneous feedback or survey system can easily help HR managers and the employees reach a better understanding of how the company culture should be molded. By doing so, it is expected that it would help to create a true two-way communication and, in turn, create a more stable environment and culture to maintain the mental well-being of the employees.

Benefits of a Digital HR System

A digitally-enabled HR system would create a much more improved work environment for your employees and managers alike. Such improvements would include:

  • Innovating and Streamlining Processes would help transform time-consuming administrative tasks.
  • Providing Data and Analytics to process more accurate and detailed employee information within all HR activities would help improve decision making.
  • Improving the Workplace by digitally-enabling the work environment would help employees become more flexible and efficient.
  • Providing Instantaneous Feedback and Service to your employees would help them and HR managers collaborate to create the ideal culture to increase their retention rates.
ARG’s Power to Spread Brand Awareness

ARG’s Power to Spread Brand Awareness

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You may be wondering how exactly can an ARG bring forth so many people to collectively work together or to individually pursue such great lengths for what is essentially a game. Our previous two articles explain the fundamentals of ARGs’ potential and the impact it had on the past. But in this article, we’ll be seeing how exactly said impact is made. Right now, in the present and how said potential will continue to grow in the future, especially for marketing brand awareness.

How ARGs Gains Their Reach

Alternate Reality Games, in its essence, are puzzle solving games where the players would need to work as a collective to solve. Even ARGs targeted for individuals to solve alone like recruitment ARGs still encourages a sense of community within the players, collaboratively increasing their knowledge-base through networking. Therefore, it is through that collective process that ARGs spread like wildfire. Especially in this day and age, where sharing information through something like mainstream social media is only 1 click away.

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However, that is not the only reason an ARG can quickly become so popular. An ARG like the Twitter account The Sun Vanished makes use of surreal story-telling elements. An ARG is a narrative playground. If you can create a story for the ARG that would evoke a sense of interest alongside the challenge it provides, you can have yourself a viral hit ready to be sent out.

How Your Brand Can Tie to an ARG

With some ARGs, it seems almost impossible to put the face of your brand into it. But the key here isn’t to put your brand blatantly to the game. That takes away the intrigue of it all. Your potential consumers must know that your brand is an ever-looming presence in the game without being intrusive about it. Below are 2 examples of how a brand is implemented within a viral ARG.

I Love Bees, Halo 2 (Game) Marketing Campaign

In August 2004, hints of a website were dropped everywhere but were first advertised by a hidden message within the game’s trailer. When taken to the website, the players then uncovered that it was apparently being taken over by an A.I. and through this campaign, foreshadows and context of the story for the game is slowly uncovered. From the people that found it, spreading it, and reaching out for help, the campaign eventually reached out to over 3 million visits and players around the world. This campaign, titled I Love Bees was commissioned by Microsoft for their upcoming game, Halo 2. The campaign itself received many awards for being innovative and incredibly unique at its time. Although the ARG weren’t too blatantly obvious that it was a Halo 2 marketing campaign, the people that paid attention to its updates and the participating players never forget.

Why So Serious, Batman: The Dark Knight (Film) Marketing Campaign

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Some marketing ARGs are a bit more obvious as to what it promotes. The Batman: the Dark Knight’s marketing ARG titled Why So Serious. This campaign was a viral hit not only due to it being in the shadow of the big movie title, but also for its way of fan-service. The puzzles were simple enough, thus it doesn’t require super intelligence to solve but also hard enough to invoke many people asking questions, thus the sense of community. This campaign sparked over 10 million people to be immersed in a world-wide puzzle-solving agenda. And with a lot of the orders were to take pictures and share it online, it leads to a domino effect of intrigue and an ever-growing audience.

The Power that ARG Gives

Besides having the power to spread your brand and product, ARG has the capability to give a power as well. And said power is ownership. One of the key aspects of gamification is to make something done and worth the effort feel like it’s the player’s. Thus, they’d have a sense of bond to said experience. And with it, a bond with the product and/or brand.

“The experience must transfer ownership to the Audience, make it feel like it’s theirs”
Susan Bonds, 42 Entertainment President & CEO.

Creating a Brand Sensation with ARGs

Creating a Brand Sensation with ARGs

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According to eLearning Industry, ARGs or Alternate Reality Games are “An experience that takes place across multiple platforms, formats, and locations.” Something that “Has elements of eLearning, computer games, geocaching, scavenger hunts, live action role-playing, and social learning in Alternate Reality Games.”  But that in itself is not the full extent of this initiative. With proper implementation, this initiative has the potential to attract up to millions of players worldwide. Alternate Reality Games could possibly be one of the best method of getting the involvement of your potential consumers through a marketing campaign and this article will tell you why.

What is an ARG?

Alternate Reality Games are more than often a collaboration of a scavenger hunt and a mystery case. Sparking engagement through the puzzling clues it leaves and drives collaboration within individuals that are equally interested in finding the answer. Through the challenging tasks it provides and offers to the players, often times an ARG is seen as something that might alienate consumers instead of draw them in. However, what is often overlooked is that despite not everyone is able to participate in such a hunt for clues and puzzles, everyone can bear witness to it. The mere activity in itself becomes intriguing and often leaves people fascinated by them, and this often leaves quite the examples.

The Problem with ARGs

Albeit having early 2000s with Microsoft’s marketing campaign for the movie; Artificial Intelligence, ARGs had always been thought as expensive due to the need of in-depth elements such as puzzles, mysteries and the incorporation of those elements to the real world. Combine this with things such as website maintenances and other variety of costs, Alternate Reality Games have always been considered an intimidating campaign to plan, let alone execute. And despite the results ARGs seem to bring, with its level of virality and reach, it has never been a true trend or mainstream within the world of marketing. However, the argument here is that perhaps now it is the time to ignite a more creative approach to ARGs.

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Why ARG is Now Simpler

After nearly 2 decades of its first case, ARGs are now getting simpler to plan (With the creation of intricate elements of the game aside). This is due to the fact that communication and media had grown wildly since then. It is much easier to spread the fire of the game’s virality online. And such ease comes from (but not exclusive to) the following:

  • Growth of the Internet and its ease of use
  • Growth of Social Media
  • Rise of services that serves to ease phases of an ARG’s creation

How Alternate Reality Games Drive Such Engagement

Everyone loves a mystery and many people love challenges. A good ARG brings the best of both worlds. An ARG can create a challenging mystery, driving the curiosity of its players and bringing creative ways for the players to progress the game. In its essentiality, an ARG uses the same drive that makes people think up and love things such as conspiracy theories. Since, within an ARG, initially you would not know what the purpose of the challenge is. The cryptic nature and intermingling over the world-wide web would spark a sense of genuine curiosity and fascination.

ARGs’ Effect to Brands

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Besides leaving behind a spectacle in the brand’s history, players that had partake in the game or even onlookers that observed its progress will familiarize themselves with the brand that conceived it. And this is no small matter. As, if the game itself reached the ears of hundreds of thousands or even millions, those very millions would be the one to see the brand in high regard for the clever marketing. And besides spreading brand awareness, would most likely also promote a better image for the brand as all creative marketing plans tend to do. And should this be coveted into recruitment for capable hands, the campaign itself would also serve to be the best type of assessment for it.

Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

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Drastic Changes to How Ads Work

Although the title above says ‘drastic’ the change to advertising due to modernization and advancement of the digital era has been chipping slowly little by little. However, it is that very accumulative stride that will lead to a sudden shift that must be made now in order for a company’s marketing to not be left behind. Below we’ll be going through what those changes are and how a company can cope with them or perhaps even take advantage of those changes.

Traditional Ads vs Digital Ads

As technology advances and slowly surrounds our everyday life, it is only natural that they would be the perfect target for advertising. We live in a strange time where a company’s advertising can show up in a digital monitor on our fridge or car after all. But what is that to say about traditional ads? Will there be no more room for them?

Something that needs to be separated

While it is true that these days digital ads are so much easier to consider than regular real-world advertising, this is not the change that needs to be considered. Even in the digital world, a regular advertisement is still just an advertisement. It is often invaluable to the consumer and the internet user would want to be rid of it. Be it from using an ad blocker or skipping immediately when they are allowed to. And this is said to have costed the digital marketing industry over 22 billion dollars.

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Is there room for real-world advertising?

The short answer is yes. And yet, not in the way most companies might think. How many times do you see a billboard or poster catching your eyes these days? Most likely, it happens rarer than a decade or so ago. And yet, it still happens does it not? Occasionally, creative and eye-catching advertising will pry your eyes away from your activity to get a look at it. And that is most likely the drastic change you need. The key here is that there is in fact, room for traditional advertising, but it must serve to must be more meaningful and charming to the audience. Not simply blatant advertising.

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Consumers Demand Creativity in Advertisements

Blatant advertising is rarely accounted as ‘informative’ to consumers these days. And over 60% of people are saying that today’s ads are annoying and/or intrusive. And indeed they are. In fact, some companies still believe that by being intrusive you can generate more attention because you’re all up on the consumer’s faces. But is that really the case? If your advertising proves to only be a nuisance to your potential customers, it will only serve to hurt your brand’s image.

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And of course, this would at times mean a higher investment. Be it cost, creativity and time investment, these things prove to be essential in modern day marketing. But the key investment you really need is creativity.

The Change Doesn’t Stop There

Creativity is even more needed today than ever before as other forms of scouring the web come to existence, mainly voice searches. Beyond the United States or parts of Europe, this may not yet be that big of a deal, but it certainly is so when it will be.

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This new type of browsing the world wide web can change and disrupt regular SEO as we know it. Don’t think that this might be true? Below are the facts of how voice searches are being used that benefits businesses according to BrightLocal Study.

  • 58% of consumers have used voice search to find business information.
  • 46% of voice search users look for a business daily.
  • 27% visit the website of business after conducting a voice search.
  • 53% of voice search users are performing daily searches.

What Awaits 2019

With everything’s pace coming up a slope, waiting at any time to have that boost of downhill speed, no one is really sure what awaits us at 2019. However, with the changes that we know in mind, we should always try to stay steps ahead. So be sure to use any means you can for your marketing, lest it gets left behind. Controversial ads, live streams, gamification, or a whole other entry only you can think about. Just remember to keep it creative.

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Using Viral Social Media Marketing

Using Viral Social Media Marketing

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Using Viral Social Media Marketing

Social Media marketing is something that a lot of brands and companies are looking to these days for what is sometimes a cheaper alternative to traditional advertising. However, should that really be how this initiative is viewed? The matter of the fact is, that this type of marketing has proven to be more than lucrative with the right amount of investment, creativity-wise and funding-wise. Below is how some companies had used social media to their advantage and at times manipulated its virality. And why this method of marketing is essential in this day and age.

What is Virality

Virality is essentially the status of a post’s engagement. When a post is viral, it would drag in hundreds of thousands if not millions towards that single post. But a state of virality is an elusive one. Many companies also try to recreate this without understanding the bases of what and how the youth—or rather, the masses of social media—thinks. This statement is proven in this video that rejects such blatant attempt at virality in a TV ad for Wendy’s. And yet ironically enough, the video itself became viral.

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To a degree, the virality created by the ironic hate of this commercial indeed worked. But at the cost of damaging the brand’s image by the people that resent it. But using memes isn’t the only way to boost your virality. And in fact, that inside joke-like internet culture is better off left to a whole other topic entirely.

Using Controversy and Rivalry

Nothing is better than a little healthy rivalry right? Wrong. The internet is quite the brutal place where most of the time childish humor and backlash actually might help you win the day. An example of using controversy is mastered by the fast food brand Wendy’s. That’s right, where their TV ad fails, their twitter rivalry saves them.

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Wendy’s Twitter account is infamous for being extremely hostile towards rival brands and to back this up, the admin of said account is extremely proficient in dishing out insults. However, what most would think as bad business practice actually played an incredible part towards Wendy’s brand awareness and loyalty from their followers.

And with most other restaurants retorting back at Wendy’s twitter account, customers get to choose sides. And with their pride for their favorites in line, becomes more loyal with each supporting action such as re-tweeting and sharing. While your brand might antagonize some potential customers, it gains great loyalty by the ones that truly love what you have to offer. This helps improve the quality of your customer base for the price of some of its quantity.

Using Influencers and Social Figures

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Another most common social media marketing tactic is to simply pay an influencer to promote your product. This will help not only spread brand awareness, but perhaps earn you the loyalty of new customers that are loyal to the influencer that’s sharing it. And with over 69% of marketers considering this highly grossing initiative, its effectiveness is only further proven. And being that most influencers have multiple channels across the varying social media platforms, you won’t have to worry about missing any.

Through Acts of Charity

Companies sometimes underestimate how moving the force of good really is. This is especially the case when your acts of charity is shared for everyone to see.  And when the charity is crowd-funded, everyone that takes part in it gets to see your brand at the center of it all.

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The act of charity is not only beneficial in spreading your brand awareness throughout social media, however. As the main benefit you earn from creating such a loving and charitable campaign would mean it helps improve your brand image as well. This will be earning you the trust of those that follow your campaign with good will. And of course, you’ll also help many in need as well which never hurts.

Other Benefits to Social Marketing

Not only is social media marketing most of the time remains easier and cheaper, but it also goes by the 30% of people using the internet with an Ad Blocker in tow. Since your advertising won’t be detected as an ad but as content. Though ads in video sharing platforms like youtube remains blocked, it still won’t be if your influencer accounts the ad within their content itself. And yet, besides from that, online videos have other means of generating clicks.

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