There’s a galactic amount of data being produced on social media, but the ability to categorise it into meaningful information is “near impossible” without Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is the challenge that Crimson Hexagon is taking on, and a brief demo of its abilities at #DMWF by senior sales executive Yugen Moodley shows the “deep insights” platform is doing a scarily good job.

Crimson uses a combination of Natural Language Processing, image recognition and sentiment...

A brand’s success stands or falls on its public perception. There is a direct correlation between the trust that customers and the general public have in a brand and its overall profits. Social media has revolutionised not only the way that brands engage with customers and the public at large, but also the way that they operate and succeed... or fail.

In the UK alone there are currently

 When WhatsApp unveiled its new Business API last week, most tech reporters determined Facebook was getting serious about monetising the chat app it purchased for $19bn in 2014.

They’re probably right about the money, but wrong about where it’s most likely to come from.

The business model question 

As another busy summer winds down, retailers are preparing for those consumers that hit reset on certain aspects of their life by making thoughtful changes to their routines. People often think of this particular time of the year as going ‘Back to Life’ and an ideal time for starting fresh habits and making new purchasing decisions. It’s also a mindset that retailers can leverage beyond the usual back to school push.

We continue to see the gap between online and offline shopping close as...

Facebook’s Watch video-streaming platform has been rolled out worldwide, nearly a year after its initial launch in the US.

Watch gives users of the social network a hub to discover content (including live streams), create watch feeds and archive saved videos from the news feed. Facebook also promises to bring ‘interactive’ experiences, including ‘Watch Parties’, premieres and interactive quiz-style shows, and unique-to-platform content.   

Making the service available...

The capabilities that social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc.) provide to retail brands today has far extended likes, comments or shares. Through these platforms online visitors can discover more of a retailer’s product catalogue through a curated feed of suggestions based on the user’s browsing and intent behaviour. But with that comes its own challenges for overstretched e-commerce managers and...

Advertisers worldwide are expected to spend $29.8bn (£23.2bn) on online video in 2018, according to WARC’s latest global ad trends report.

The figure represents a year-on-year hike of 27.5%, while the majority of ad dollars will be directed at the rise of mobile video bought via social media platforms, but the readiness to spend on the channel comes despite video placements posing an everyday risk for brand safety.

WARC reports that one in 10 placements pose a “negative adjacency” risk for brands....

It’s fair to say we’ve evolved significantly from our 18th century ancestors, in every possible area of our lives, but when it comes to influencer marketing…? Well it turns out Wedgewood and the Royals were playing our game long before social media came into the fore. 

Luckily, we’ve amassed a wealth of experience and knowledge about how to make...

Facebook has launched a new set of tools to help marketers create mobile-ready video ads on its platform and Instagram, which include the ability to add motion to images and brand logos for simple animations.

Announcing the update on a blog post yesterday, the social media platform cited its findings that mobile-first creative has a 27% higher likelihood of driving brand lift, while message association went up 23% compared to video ads...

The rise of social media has seen a big increase in the use of brand influencers. In the last two years, “influencer marketing” as a search term on Google Trends has risen by 400%. But working with the right sort of influencer is critical – you must choose one which fits well with your brand and has an authentic voice. Biggest is certainly not always best when it comes to influencers.

Pepsi’s controversial...