Category: Media & Communications

distributions: premium, elite

Categories
Computers & Software Human Resources Media & Communications Technology

Microsoft Announces 365 Copilot Integration with AI-Powered Features; Aims to Streamline Complex Excel Tasks

On 16th March, Microsoft announced the debut of Microsoft 365 Copilot as part of its effort to integrate generative AI capabilities into all of its productivity apps, reported MAKE USE OF.

“Today marks the next major step in the evolution of how we interact with computing, which will fundamentally change the way we work and unlock a new wave of productivity growth,” explained Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “With our new copilot for work, we’re giving people more agency and making technology more accessible through the most universal interface — natural language.” 

What Is Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a sophisticated orchestration and processing engine that is powered by OpenAI’s GPT4 — OpenAI’s multi-modal large language model (LLM).

GPT-4 is considered a more reliable and creative language model, capable enough to process nuanced instructions more efficiently compared to GPT-3.5. 

Microsoft claims its Copilot System is capable of responding to images and writing descriptions while also processing around 2500 words—eight times more than ChatGPT. 

Built on Microsoft Corp’s patented approach to security, the permissions model of Microsoft’s Copilot System can prevent data leaks and automatically sync with a company’s inherent privacy and compliance policies.

This AI assistant can leverage massive troves of business data in the Microsoft Graph and other Microsoft Office apps data to help organisations get actionable insights in a fraction of the time. 

“Microsoft 365 Copilot has real-time access to both your content and context in the Microsoft Graph. This means it generates answers anchored in your business content — your documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings, contacts, and other business data — and combines them with your working context — the meeting you’re in now, the email exchanges you’ve had on a topic, the chat conversations you had last week — to deliver accurate, relevant, contextual responses,” explained Microsoft Corp.

Besides Excel, Copilot is embedded in other Microsoft 365 apps: Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more.

How Can Copilot Revolutionise Excel?

Leveraging Excel’s built-in data systems (e.g. Power Query) and functions, Excel helps users speed up calculations.

By integrating this high-end assistive AI into Excel, Microsoft is committed to helping users significantly bolster their productivity. 

The Copilot System by Microsoft is expected to provide users with formula suggestions to help accurately write complex functions.

While Copilot’s Formula debugging functionality will enable users to track down errors efficiently and with ease, the formatting assistance using this AI assistant is expected to make data formatting as effortless as possible.

According to Microsoft, the data analysis functionality with its Copilot System will facilitate data visualisation by offering suggestions of relevant charts and graphs.

Copilot in Excel will allow users to ask questions about their data sets in natural language and will create visualisation based on these queries.

Microsoft is committed to enhancing the Copilot functionality by introducing the new Business Chat feature.

Powered by Bing, Business Chat integrates LLM with all Microsoft 365 apps to surface essential data and insights whenever a user requires.

Even though Microsoft is contemplating equipping Excel with AI, the built-in functionalities with some Excel charts are still overwhelming to deal with. 

On top of that, building charts in Excel requires a lot of clicks and manual effort, which make the process of creating professional-looking PowerPoint presentations really arduous. For professionals looking to impress the audience with stunning presentations, investing in a high-end PowerPoint add-in such as think-cell is a sensible business decision. 

With fewer clicks, these add-ins enable users to create professional-looking PowerPoint presentations as quickly and as seamlessly as possible. 

Wrapping Up

Microsoft 365 Copilot is currently only available to Microsoft Office Insiders. 

This AI-powered LLM-bases system is being rolled out focusing on boosting user productivity, with 20 initial testers as of 16th March.

Microsoft Corp expects to make this high-end system soon available for mass use. 

Categories
Computers & Software Media & Communications Professional Services Technology

The Massive Data Breach at LastPass Tied to Hack of Senior DevOps Engineer’s Home Computer; Users Urged to Change their Passwords

On the 28th of February, the password manager maker LastPass revealed that the massive data breach it encountered last November involved the compromise of a DevOps engineer’s home computer.

The breach was the result of one of the engineer’s forgetting to upgrade Plex on their home computer, which put a decrypted vault available to only a handful of developers into a hacker’s hands. The vault allowed the threat actor to hold sway over a shared cloud-storage environment among others and ultimately, exfiltrate Amazon S3 vault backup encryption keys, reported The Hacker News.

Breaking Down the Breach at LastPass

Before this massive hacking at LastPass, the company experienced a security incident disclosed last August. In this incident, an unauthorised third-party exploited a developer’s compromised account to steal source code and “proprietary LastPass technical information”.

On 22nd December, the password manager service detailed that the threat actor infiltrated the company’s system during the second incident by exploiting data stolen from the first incident. The backup of partially encrypted user vault information that the hacker managed to copy included passwords, website URLs, and usernames. 

“The second incident saw the threat actor quickly make use of information exfiltrated during the first incident, prior to the reset completed by our teams, to enumerate and ultimately exfiltrate data from the cloud storage resources,” LastPass said.

Now, in Monday’s update, the company said that even though the first incident ended on 12th August, the hacker “was actively engaged in a new series of reconnaissance, enumeration, and exfiltration activity” up to 26th October.

According to the company, during this time, the hacker managed to execute the second attack. 

This second intrusion particularly singled out one of the four senior DevOps engineers with access to the corporate data vault executing a keystroke logger malware on their computer. The target was to steal the master password as it was entered by the hacked engineer to access the corporate vault. 

The threat actor exploited a three-year-old, now-patched security vulnerability on Plex Media Server software to gain code execution on the engineer’s computer.

“This was accomplished by targeting the DevOps engineer’s home computer and exploiting a vulnerable third-party media software package, which enabled remote code execution capability and allowed the threat actor to implant keylogger malware,” explained LastPass officials. “The threat actor was able to capture the employee’s master password as it was entered after the employee authenticated with MFA and gained access to the DevOps engineer’s LastPass corporate vault.”

Tracked as CVE-2020-5741 (CVSS score: 7.2), the vulnerability was patched by Plex in version 1.19.3.2764 released in May 2020. 

“Unfortunately, the LastPass employee never upgraded their software to activate the patch,” Plex said in a statement. “For reference, the version that addressed this exploit was roughly 75 versions ago.”

In Monday’s update, the password manager company said that the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used to execute the first breach were different from those used in the second one, making it tough for the investigators to correlate these two incidents. 

Educating Employees on Cyber Behavior Can Help Dodge Breaches

Ensuring employees have access to essential tools and providing them with training on cyber behaviour is critical to minimising the risk of cyber threats. 

For organisations looking to develop a security culture improvement program to ensure no cybercriminal can hold sway over sensitive business information, leveraging a human risk management solution such as CultureAI is a sensible decision. 

Wrapping Up

LastPass detailed the steps it has taken as part of the company’s effort to investigate and respond to the security incident. The company also suggested its customers reset their passwords as an additional security measure.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment Computers & Software Media & Communications Society & Culture Technology

How AI and Cloud-Based Filmmaking Could Redefine the Way Videos & Films Are Made

blank

Social media users and visitors on image and meme-sharing sites must have seen the image of the pope in a fancy jacket that’s been doing the rounds. The image is fake, of course. It was created by the artificial intelligence (AI) image generator, Midjourney.

The platform has since discontinued its free trial, citing “extraordinary demand and trial abuse” as the reason.

The thing is, AI–generated images are not the only thing taking the content world by storm. AI and the cloud are also changing the way videos are being made and edited.

In an article by Forbes, the author discusses how film and TV show production is being transformed by AI and camera-to-cloud technology.

Using AI in Film Production

AI technology has been used to change the appearance of actors, going as far as to make them look younger. This can be seen in the Miramax feature, Here, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Both actors start as younger versions of themselves and age through the course of the film.

For agencies, this can be a good thing as their best-selling actors can be made to “last longer” and be suitable for a larger variety of roles. 

However, creatives are insisting that technology can only support human creativity, not replace it.

AI can be very useful for sifting through information that might be tedious for humans to go through—like finding a scene from a longer piece of footage. This feature then frees up human creators to focus on other, less “automatable” tasks.

Camera-to-Cloud in Film Production

Michael Cioni, Adobe’s senior director of global innovation, claims that by 2030, all electronic assets in the media and entertainment industry would be “generated in the cloud, by the cloud.”

According to Cioni, edits and effects would be added to pre-shot scenes simply by telling the computer to do so, using text-based commands. For example, he said, one could shoot a scene and then add rain to it simply by typing “make it rain”.

Filmmakers would be able to create a rough “assembly” with basic visual effects, colour correction, and sound design. That would then be passed on to specialists to be refined.

Cloud-based filmmaking would also mean directors could collaborate with each other, even when they aren’t in the same physical location. It could also speed up short projects like music videos and advertisements.

In short, AI and cloud-based tools are being touted as a way to enhance productivity by delegating mundane tasks to them.

Legal Implications of AI in Filmmaking

However, lawyers are advising that contracts with “language that purports to control the right to simulate an actor’s performance are void and unenforceable until the terms have been negotiated with the union.”

This fact can be quite divisive as some actors might want to take advantage of technology to extend their “viability”. However, there is a concern that it might be used as a way to avoid paying for digital performances since they technically aren’t being played by the artist.

Content generation using AI has led to an authenticity concern, especially with deep fakes that seem extremely realistic.

Actor Keanu Reeves, who has been quoted as saying he finds the idea of deep fakes “scary” often has a clause in his contracts that forbid digital manipulation of his performance. Interestingly, this clause dates back several years—decades, even—when a production added a virtual tear on his face. 

According to the actor, any performer might expect the footage to be edited with their consent. However, deep fake is different, as it has no input from the performer.

Of course, this technology is still mostly limited to films and television productions. Corporate videos still require the services of video production companies, like Bold Content. (Check out Bold Content’s contribution to encourage girls into STEM studies.)

However, with AI taking over so many tasks, it remains to be seen whether it will help enhance filmmaking or “take away jobs” in yet another industry.

Originally published in Geeky News

Categories
Business Marketing & Sales Media & Communications Professional Services U.S

Marianne Schwab, Former National Network TV Talk Show Producer, Exposes Five Mistakes High-Level Entrepreneurs Make with Talk Show Interviews

blank

Getting invited to appear as a guest on a TV talk show can be a valuable opportunity for experts, authors, and high-level entrepreneurs to share their message with a broad audience and establish credibility. However, it’s essential to be aware of the challenges that come with securing and preparing for such appearances on television and how to avoid common mistakes that could derail a media interview.

The media landscape is constantly evolving, and it can be challenging to keep up with the latest trends, preferences, and best practices. Marianne Schwab, a former national network TV Talk Show Producer, understands the good, the bad, and the ugly from what can go right to what can go terribly wrong and she shares her insights on some the biggest mistakes high level entrepreneurs make when they get talk show interview opportunities.

Mistake #1 – Not understanding that it’s all about the media hook and story angle. Anyone who wants to be a guest on a talk show needs to understand what producers want and it’s really pretty simple. According to Marianne, a media hook will be the number one reason a producer will look at a pitch to decide if an expert will make a good guest. “The media hook is really about how producers will promote the segment or title it on their website so viewers click to watch it online. For example, one of my clients is a Canine Caterer and she launched a cook book for dogs that also had two pages of toxic foods to avoid giving your dog. Our media hook was, ‘Toxic Mistakes Dog Owners Make.’ This is the sort of hook that you can almost hear the host of the show say, like ‘Coming up next,’ or ‘Stay tuned.’ That’s the type of media hook producers love.” 

Mistake #2 – Not understanding the amount of preparation needed before the interview. TV talk shows can be intimidating even if an expert has lots of YouTube videos or Facebook Live experience. Marianne has prepared clients for hundreds of interviews, “Without the right preparation and coaching, it can be challenging to come across as confident, articulate, and engaging on camera. For the newbie talk show guest, they often think once they’ve booked the interview, all they have do is show up and answer questions, but that is a recipe for disaster. You don’t show up for the World Series and treat the game like a batting practice. If you want to hit a home run with your interview, you need to dial in your message so you can maximize your three minute interview and then prepare it so you come off authentic and confident and this can take between five to ten hours.”

Mistake #3 – Not understanding what to look for when hiring a publicist. Hiring a publicist is the best way to fast track getting television interviews, but not all publicists specialize in broadcast or have those contacts.  Marianne advises, “You want to work with a publicist who specializes in broadcast P.R. and has media connections with producers. Also, look at their track record for clients they’ve booked on talk show programs. Since I’m a former national network talk show producer, I can guarantee that my clients will get on network quality local talk shows since I have strong relationships with producers all over the country.” So look for publicists with talk show media connections because ultimately, producers work with trusted professionals.

Mistake #4 – Not understanding that the first talk show interviews will be a local talk shows. Even if an author has had a bestselling book, it’s no guarantee they’ll land an interview on a national talk show. In fact, it’s unlikely, according to Marianne, “As a producer for national talk shows, I always wanted to see that guests had been on other talk shows and that meant local talk shows. I knew if they could do well on those shows, they’d be great on my show since my job was literally on the line if I booked a bad guest. Local talk shows on network affiliates are an excellent training ground for experts and high level entrepreneurs to master on camera media appearances while building credibility as a go-to on-camera expert.” 

Mistake #5 – Not understanding that talk shows are about publicity and NOT marketing or advertising. One of the most difficult things to understand about talk show interviews is that they are not marketing or advertising platforms so the approach has to be informational in nature with a soft call to action. Marianne shares, ” No amount of advertising can get you the credibility that appearing as a guest in the editorial framework of a talk show because at the end of the day, advertising is saying that you’re good, but public relations is getting someone else, in essence, to say it for you. Anytime you’re interviewed, you’re not just perceived as an expert, but you’re elevated to an authority in your industry.”

High level entrepreneurs often look for a direct ROI from talk show appearances, but successful public relations is not measured in the same way that a successful marketing campaign is measured. Overall, getting on a TV talk show and leveraging it correctly, can give an entrepreneur the instant know, like, and trust factor with potential clients or customers that can ultimately seal the deal on purchasing decisions.

Marianne Schwab has worked as a producer for over 25 years in New York and Los Angeles. She is currently the Executive Producer of CMP Media Cafe where she works with clients to develop compelling media hooks and story angles that get them TV and radio interviews in today’s complicated media environment. She shares tips on Instagram and has created an online training that shares her insider secrets to promoting a business on TV talk shows and details the types of guests producers love to book as guests.

Categories
Business Computers & Software Marketing & Sales Media & Communications U.S

How a Young Woman Started a $9,500-a-Month Business Selling Digital Products on Etsy

blank

Etsy is a popular store designed to sell products that people have created themselves. When you think of it, you’re more likely to think of handmade jewellery, knitted or crocheted items, paintings, clay modelling stuff, glass items, etc.

You know… trinkets. 

(Can you tell I don’t spend much time on Etsy?)

So, when I came across an article about a woman using her maternity leave to start a $9,500-a-month business on the website, I had to read it.

The first thing that surprised me was that she wasn’t selling those stereotypical products. She was selling printables that she created on Canva.

Rachel Jiminez had a full-time job as the director of alumni engagement at a university. She was also studying on the side—Positive Psychology. Her blog and Etsy store were, in her own words, “side hustles”.

Ms Jiminez explained that her Etsy shop was consistently getting her around $50 a month. She just didn’t have enough time to invest in it. It was when she was on maternity leave with her second child that she started putting work into it. 

In the article, she explains how she built her business.

Tips For Expanding an Etsy Business

According to Ms Jiminez, building her business was a four-step process. Here’s how it started.

Developing the Growth Mindset

When starting your own business, it’s easy to take failure personally. Once you do that, you’ll give up at the first sign of trouble. 

That’s why Ms Jiminez considers the first step of her journey the one where she stopped thinking that she wasn’t good enough and focused on figuring out the problem.

Learning From Others’ Successes

When you’re on a platform like Etsy, you can see how other sellers are performing. Again, it’s likely that you see others doing better than you and feel jealous. 

What Ms Jiminez did with that emotion was to use it to learn from the sellers she perceived as more successful than her.

She says she’d “…study their strategies, devour any podcasts or blog posts they created, and put their tips and recommendations to the test.”

Testing and Tweaking Periodically

No matter how well a strategy works for someone else, it’s possible that isn’t suitable for you in the least. When Ms Jiminez saw a strategy failing to deliver, she’d “try to get helpful data” from her failures.

One of the questions she’d ask is whether it was a marketing problem or a product problem. For example, say she had high volumes of traffic to a product page, but not enough conversions. That told her the product wasn’t appealing enough.

On the other hand, if she didn’t have many people visiting the product page, but those who did ended up buying more often than not? That meant she wasn’t marketing it well.

Considering the Customers’ Needs and Wants

Customers tend to vote with their feet. If they don’t like the product, no matter how well you sell it, they won’t buy it. That’s why Ms Jiminez decided to find out exactly what customers were looking for. 

She says she looked for “clues in Facebook Groups and online forums, noticed what was trending in stores, and used tools like Google Trends and Pinterest Trends.” She even used paid tools, such as eRank.

This research helped her identify the problems her customers wanted to solve, which she then used to design her products.

Why Digital Products?

I discussed this in another article about Digital Products UX Trends in 2023 in greater detail but a digital product is any product that is built, delivered, and consumed online. 

As Ms Jiminez explained, “a digital product can be a PDF, a JPEG image, or even an Excel spreadsheet that you make once and profit from forever.”

Of course, if you’ve read my previous article on digital product trends, you’d know that it also includes other online consumables like audio files, videos, apps, software, templates, plug-ins, and more.

However, the key point is the latter half of her description… make it once and profit from it forever.

A digital product doesn’t need a warehouse (or a workshop cupboard) to be stored in. You don’t need to ship it physically to a customer. You don’t need to build a copy every time someone orders it.

In short, it doesn’t have much overhead.

How Can You Create Your Own Digital Products For Your Business?

In the article, Ms Jiminez says she used Canva to design both her products as well as her listing images. Other people might use Keynote, PowerPoint, PhotoShop, or Illustrator. Others might use Notion, OneNote, or Excel.

Of course, if you wanted to design a digital product that required more technical knowledge, you might need to hire a digital product development company, like Luminos Software.

It would depend on what you want to design and sell. You might want to do your own research to see what customers want and need. Or, you might have a brilliant idea but you aren’t quite sure how to market it.

Hopefully, Rachel Jiminez’s story will inspire you to give it a go and provide you with enough pointers to get you started on your path to success.

Categories
Business Employment Media & Communications Technology U.K

How Tech Startups Can Make Themselves Recession-Ready

blank

The start of 2023 has seen big tech companies laying off employees in the thousands. To make matters worse, there’s talk of a potential recession happening this year. 

If tech giants are having a rough time, how will smaller tech startups fare in this market?

As a smaller tech company, you’d be justified in getting a wee bit concerned. Fortunately, even when the near future looks bleak, there are ways your business can avoid the doom and gloom that comes with economic downturns.

Here’s how:

Focus on Your Team

A business is made up of not just the brand but also its people. And, as a startup, you want each member of your team to be a valuable asset. The more you invest in them, the more they will be invested in you.

That’s why continuous improvement and on-the-job training are invaluable. Technology changes and grows rapidly, and you want your employees to keep up. Not only are you building a stronger foundation for your business, but you’re also giving your employees a reason to care about the company’s growth. The more you grow, the more they grow.

This is one of the best ways of showing them you believe in their potential. And, also of creating a lean team that will keep your business afloat when times are rough.

Understand the Recession Market

Let’s face it. Recessions are nothing new. And, whilst technology might not have been the same, business principles tend to work in the same way, generation after generation.

So, take a look at what other successful tech companies did in the past. See how you could apply those principles to your business.

That should give you a good baseline for a set of revised business goals for your company during a potential recession.

It helps to have a multilayered strategy with different sets of business goals for various situations. Things might not be as bad as you think. Alternatively, things might be worse.

If you have a plan for every situation, including the worst-case scenario, you won’t be left floundering when (or, if) things do go south.

Be Prepared to Offer New Products

When COVID-19 started spreading in 2020, many countries enforced a strict lockdown. The UK was one of them. Businesses that were deemed non-essential had to close operations. That included manufacturers as well.

However, seeing that there was a shortage of ventilators in the country (at a time when the NHS would require more ventilators than normal), the Government issued the Ventilator Challenge.

Manufacturers who agreed to take part in it got together to make 20 years’ worth of ventilators in 12 weeks.

If you look at other businesses during the lockdown, you’ll see a number of them did have to change their product offerings in order to stay relevant.

In a recession, you may find that the products you normally make are not required. So, you need to be prepared to change your offerings.

(And, if you paid attention to my first point, you’d have a team that would be able to handle that change!)

Focus on Retention, Not Acquisition

You know that saying—a bird in hand is worth two in the bush?

It applies—very strongly, I might add—to customers. 

It is always easier to retain existing customers by keeping them happy than it is to acquire new ones. 

And, if you’re in the middle of a recession, new customers are even more difficult to find.

So, spend time on building those existing relationships instead of focusing on new ones. Reach out to your customers and find out if their needs have changed. If times are difficult, it might be possible for you to help each other out.

Plus, marketing to existing customers doesn’t have to be tedious or boring. As Bold Content pointed out, B2B videos don’t have to be boring. Build a connection with emotional, funny, relatable content.

(Plus, Bold Content is already helping produce content that could help your workforce grow—check out the story about the animation they created for Tech She Can, which encourages young girls to take up STEM studies.)

So, there you have it. Keeping your tech startup going during a recession is all about having a plan and building human connections. Stay creative, and maybe I’ll be writing a case study on your business in a couple of years.

Categories
Media & Communications Technology Telecom U.K U.S

How Will Artificial Intelligence Change the Way Businesses Optimise Their Websites?

blank

A short while ago, there was a news story about how Google was panicking about ChatGPT, OpenAI’s “chatty” chatbot. 

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool which has access to information on the internet—all the way up till 2021.

Ask a question, get the answer.

Of course, the answer might not be completely accurate or original. It does rely on potentially old information and only what’s available online, after all.

However, what worried Google is the fact that it gives an answer and not a list of pages. A complete, coherent answer. 

The Google “Code Red”

Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, declared a “code red” over the threat. And, the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who had not been involved in the running of the company, were now attending meetings with executives.

The goal was to push out the company’s own AI capabilities to combat the threat of the chatbot.

So, on the 7th of February 2023, Google launched Bard, an AI-powered chatbot that would compete against ChatGPT.

What’s more, Bard has a slight edge over ChatGPT. It can draw information from the internet whilst ChatGPT currently only has the information it was “fed”.

End of story, right?

Nope.

The launch of Bard (and the ever-growing popularity of ChatGPT) leads to the question: Will AI kill SEO?

AI Chatbots and Digital Marketing

Digital marketing, currently, has been focused on search engine optimisation (SEO). This term encompasses all the activities a company undertakes to make its website and web pages rank high on search engines.

Whether by oneself (with the right technical knowledge) or with the help of companies like Geeky Tech, businesses try to make their online presence attractive to both Google and users.

Businesses need to appeal to search engines because they determine if—and where—their web page shows up when users search for a relevant query. 

However, chatbots that look up questions and distil an answer from various sources might change the way people search online.

The New Way of Searching 

Instead of typing out their search queries and then looking for the answer in the hundreds and thousands of pages that show up, users would be able to use chatbots to give them the answer right off the bat, in natural language.

Suddenly, Google SERPs—Search Engine Result Pages—would no longer be relevant. 

Why go through thousands of results when someone can use AI to get a complete answer, which takes a fraction of the time? 

Google’s competitor, Bing, is already in the process of integrating ChatGPT into its search page, complete with the chat feature. So, a person can have a conversation with the bot, complete with follow-up questions. 

With these AI-powered entities answering user queries like a person would, traditional SERPs might be on their way to becoming obsolete.

So, with no more SEO, what will digital marketers do?

No, they won’t lose their jobs. They’ll simply have to move from SEO to AEO.

What Is AEO?

AEO, or Answer Engine Optimisation, is actually a part of SEO which focuses on providing answers to search queries instead of just making the page optimised for search robots.

It’s not a new concept, either. 

AEO became a part of SEO jargon when mobile voice search started gaining traction. People would verbally ask the search engine on their phones a question. And, instead of giving a written answer, which one would need to read, the helpful Google lady would read out the answer.

Since voice search was growing rapidly, and was expected to be the primary way people would search in the near future, AEO became a hot topic.

At the same time, there was also position 0 on the SERPs—the much-coveted featured snippet. Ask a question and find the answer on the search page directly, right at the top.

Trying to “win” that spot required AEO.

Again, it is still a component of SEO, but AEO has a different focus. Instead of appealing to search robots, it aims to answer questions real people are asking. 

SEO is all about taking a keyword and optimising a page for it. AEO looks at the whats and whys of the question—the search intent. Then, it tries to answer with that intent in mind, succinctly and knowledgeably.

People-Friendly Content for AEO

So, how does this come back to chatbots and search engines?

If people start using search differently, then, in order to keep up, marketers would need to make sure they are answering people’s questions. It will no longer be enough to satisfy crawlers—they would need to be people-friendly as well.

In conclusion, AI-powered chatbots will change the landscape of search and search engine optimisation. 

Categories
Business Marketing & Sales Media & Communications Professional Services U.S

Marianne Schwab, Former National Talk Show Producer, Reveals Five Mistakes Businesses Make When Hiring a P.R. Agency or Publicist

blank

Hiring a public relations agency (P.R. agency) or publicist can be a great way for businesses to improve their image and reputation, as well as increase their visibility. However, it’s important for businesses to avoid making mistakes when choosing a PR agency or publicist, since these mistakes can lead to wasted time and money, and even damage to the business’s reputation.

As a former national network TV talk show producer, Marianne Schwab has worked with P.R. Agencies for over twenty-five years and shares some insight on what to do look for to make a good match with an agency and the business they’ll be representing. She says, “When I produced daily talk shows, I got a lot of pitches from P.R. agencies and some were great, but many publicists were kind of clueless and didn’t understand how to effectively pitch television talk shows to get results for their clients. Overall, publicists are generalists in P.R. and have to pitch print publications like magazines and newspapers or online publications so pitching broadcast outlets like podcasts, radio, and television talks shows and news programs requires an entirely different skill set and contact database that many publicists don’t have.”

Schwab says when businesses or entrepreneurs hire a PR agency or publicist they need to avoid making these mistakes because they won’t just cost money, but they’ll end up with little to no media results which is the goal when investing in a public relations campaign.

Mistake #1 – Not doing their homework. It’s important for businesses to thoroughly research and compare different PR agencies or publicists before making a hiring decision. This includes looking at the agency’s or publicist’s track record, understanding their approach to P.R., and getting references from other clients that include the media results. Schwab says, “It’s also important to look at the types of clients they have worked with and are currently representing for two reasons. First, they need to be the right fit for your industry or aligned with your brand, and second, confirm that they do not currently represent any competitors which would be a conflict of interest. This can sometimes be tricky if you’re thinking about working with a brand that specializes in beauty and skin care. On one hand, they have developed media contacts for that industry that can help you, but on the other hand, they may represent competing products or brands and that can be an issue.”

Mistake #2 – Failing to set clear and realistic goals or objectives. Before hiring a PR agency or publicist, it’s crucial for businesses to have a clear idea of what they hope to achieve through public relations. Goals might include increasing brand awareness, improving media coverage, or managing a crisis, but should also be measurable like securing a specific number of placements in print and broadcast with a specific number of impressions for the audience as well. “PR campaigns do take time to get traction and produce results so you need to be realistic about the time not only needed to achieve these goals,” Schwab says, “but also do not expect national coverage when local media may be far more effective and realistic.”

Mistake #3 – Not communicating effectively. Communication is key to the success of any PR campaign. It’s important for businesses to provide their PR agency or publicist with all relevant information they need to represent the client, including details about the business and its products or services, as well as any challenges or issues that need to be addressed. In turn, the PR agency or publicist should keep the business informed about the progress of the campaign and any opportunities or challenges that arise.

Mistake #4 – Not being open to expert consultation or feedback. A good PR agency or publicist will provide honest and constructive feedback to help the business improve its PR efforts. It’s important for businesses to be open to this feedback and be willing to make changes based on it. Marianne Schwab advises, “Remember that you have hired an expert and your results will depend on how much you respect their advice and heed it. I always love when a client is open to ideas that may push the envelope just a bit since those are the pitches that get the best results.”

Mistake #5 – Overpaying for services: There are also other considerations especially when it comes to the fee for public relations services. “I’ve seen some small businesses and entrepreneurs get talked into buying ‘too much P.R.’ for the size of their business. Retainers for small agencies start around $3,000 per month and the major P.R. agencies charge up to $25,000 and more. Small companies don’t need a big agency and it breaks my heart when I see them invest a boatload of money and get little to no results in media placements especially when I know I can guarantee meaningful media placements for clients,” Schwab comments.

By avoiding these mistakes, businesses can improve their chances of success when working with a PR agency or publicist. A well-planned and executed PR campaign can be a valuable investment for any business, helping to build its reputation and reach new audiences.

Marianne Schwab has worked as a producer for over 25 years in New York and Los Angeles. She is currently the Executive Producer of CMP Media Cafe where she works with clients to develop compelling media hooks and story angles that get them TV and radio interviews in today’s complicated media environment. She shares tips on Instagram and has created an online training that shares her insider secrets to promoting a business on TV talk shows and details the types of guests producers love to book as guests.

Categories
Business Marketing & Sales Media & Communications Professional Services U.S

Ross B. Williams, Founder of Modern Profits, Reveals How Personal Branding Can Be a Game Changer for Entrepreneurs

blank

Personal branding has become one of the most important foundations for entrepreneurs as they build a business and professional reputation to promote their image to their ideal clients and there are three crucial keys to ensure personal branding success. Unfortunately, if these are not part of the initial business strategy, it can derail the best laid out plans since personal branding is much more than color combinations, fonts, and a cool logo. It is, in fact, an essential ingredient for every aspect of marketing a business that includes websites, social media posts, advertising, and everything digital.

Ross B. Williams, founder of Modern Profits, is a Personal Branding Strategist and he says, “When personal branding is done correctly, it will differentiate you from your competition and elevate your reputation, but business branding is very different from personal branding. Not only do you need to understand the difference between the two, but you also must understand why you need both. You can be successful at your business but if your personal branding is not aligned with who you are, you are missing opportunities that ultimately affect your bottom line.” 

Williams, who was recently interviewed on Tampa Bay’s Morning Blend, the local ABC-TV station, has a unique background as a personal branding strategist.  He has contributed multi-seven–figure sales revenue to several companies with his mastery of sales and uses his business building skills and digital marketing expertise to help successful business owners dramatically increase revenue by transforming their personal brand.  When he works with his clients, he incorporates three crucial keys to ensure personal branding success.

1. Personal branding should reflect the entrepreneur’s authentic self. A personal brand should be an accurate, yet authentic, version of who the entrepreneur is so they attract the types of clients with whom they want to work. According to Ross B. Williams, this is crucial for ultimate success, “I see a lot of successful entrepreneurs promoting their lifestyle on social media, for example, but I have no idea what they actually do, what business they’re in, or how I can help them by referring business. If people don’t know what you do, they can’t refer business to you and that is why a personal brand is so important.”

Ross continues, “The ultimate point to keep in mind is that people buy from people so your personal brand is a reflection of you even when you’re not the face of a company. Since you are promoting yourself, you need to create your branding assets according to your personality. If you are selling something that’s not true to you, others will feel it.” 

2. Entrepreneurs must build their personal brand alongside their business brand. Today, more than ever, it’s not enough to build a business brand, but entrepreneurs need to build a personal brand in tandem as they build their business. Why? Williams advises, “It’s imperative that you begin with the end in mind. If you have an exit strategy when you build your business to sell it five years down the road, you only want to be the ‘face’ of a successful business without having your name tied to the brand because if you do, you can’t sell your business as a separate brand.”

Ross goes on to say, “If you choose to sell your business someday without a personal brand developed alongside your company, you’d have to start another business from scratch and cannot use your name on your business.”

3. The logo and color combinations are just “gift wrap” for a personal brand. Many entrepreneurs start their personal branding with a logo and branding board, but it is much more complex and scientific, according to Williams, “Personal branding starts with how you make people feel with what you do in your business, how you want to be portrayed and have others see you, then you wrap it in colors and design. The graphic designer understands the creative color combinations, fun fonts, and logo design, but most don’t understand which colors, and even fonts, trigger emotions and attract clients to buy from you before they even get to peek inside the box. These are psychological touch points that can dramatically increase sales and ultimately revenues.”

Content creation for personal branding can be overwhelming for most business owners and that’s why Ross B. Williams has put this all together in a done for you package that’s simple for any business owner. The key is not to build a little bit at a time and then try to bring it all together since that’s chaotic or doesn’t match. “Effective personal branding demands that social media, photos, graphic design, and media are cohesive and congruent so that it extends your digital footprint and your omnipresence.” Ross concludes.

Ross helps coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and business owners build their personal brand with his brand accelerator package. This helps entrepreneurs perfect their messaging and expand their digital footprint with a website, funnel, social media, and press that seamlessly work together as a cohesive brand that people remember and buy from. 

Ross B. Williams works with clients based in the U.S. and around the world to develop personal branding strategies that get results. He is available for Personal Branding Strategy sessions and can be contacted at RossBWilliams.com or connect with Ross on Instragram.

Categories
Marketing & Sales Media & Communications News & Current Affairs Professional Services Technology

Achieving Maximum Visibility Has Never Been Easier with Instantly Press

blank

(Vancouver, Canada) Instantly Press, the new press release distribution agency, is excited to announce its launch. The agency aims to provide businesses with a quick and efficient way to reach a wide range of news and media outlets, including Bloomberg, Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, Apple News, Google News, NBC Network, CBS Network, ABC Network, FOX Network, MarketWatch, Digital Journal, Benzinga, Streets Insider, and over 400 additional outlets.

But Instantly Press doesn’t just stop at press release distribution. The agency also offers a variety of additional services to help businesses get the most out of their PR efforts.

One of the key services that Instantly Press offers is a writing service. The agency’s team of experienced writers can create high-quality press releases that are tailored to meet the specific needs of each client. Whether you’re launching a new product, announcing a new partnership, or simply sharing some exciting news about your business, Instantly Press can help you craft a compelling press release that will get noticed.

Instantly Press also offers translation services, allowing businesses to reach a global audience with their press releases. The agency’s team of professional translators can translate press releases into multiple languages, ensuring that your news reaches a wider audience.

In addition to press release distribution, Instantly Press also provides clients with a variety of formats for their press release, such as PDF, Social Media and Social Blog, PR Podcast, PR Slideshow, PR Infographic, PR Video, Google Stacking. this allows clients to reach their target audience in multiple ways and increase their visibility.

The team at Instantly Press understands the importance of getting the word out about a business or product, and they have worked hard to develop a platform that makes it easy for clients to share their news with the world. Their goal is to help clients gain maximum visibility and reach their target audience with minimal effort.

Instantly Press offers a variety of packages to suit different needs and budgets, and their team is always on hand to offer guidance and support. The agency is committed to delivering results and helping clients achieve their goals.

“We are thrilled to launch Instantly Press and look forward to helping businesses of all sizes get their message out to the world,” said the CEO of Instantly Press. “We believe that our platform will make it easier for businesses to reach their target audience and achieve the visibility they need to grow.”

If you’re looking for a reliable and effective way to distribute your press releases, look no further than Instantly Press. Visit their website https://instantlypress.com to learn more about the agency and how they can help you get your news in front of the right people.