Главните изпълнителни директори виждат растежа през 2021 г. като белязан от 3 основни смени

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

През по-голямата част от 2020 г. главните изпълнителни директори съсредоточиха енергията и ресурсите си върху реакцията на извънредната ситуация в бизнес операциите, предизвикана от COVID-19. Тези, които имаха техническата възможност да пренастроят начините си на опериране, за да предоставят необходимите услуги, не се поколебаха да го направят: производителите на облекла започнаха да произвеждаш маски и ЛПС (бел.ред. лични предпазни средства); компаниите в химичния сектор произвеждаха дезинфектанти за ръце; транспортните компании пренасочиха кораби и самолети, за да доставят вентилатори. Но сега главните изпълнителни директори гледат напред.

“Изпълнителните директори залагат, че програмите за масова ваксинация ще осуетят плановете на вируса в много региони, което ще доведе до нещо като икономически бум”, казва Кристин Мойер, уважаван вицепрезидент анализатор в Gartner. “Мнозинството очакваха бързо и рязко възстановяване и вече предприемат стъпки, за да се възползват.”

Проучването между главни изпълнителни директори на Gartner за 2021 г. включва отговори от 465 бизнес лидери от повече от 30 държави. Провеждано ежегодно в продължение на повече от 10 години, СЕО-проучването изследва бизнес нагласите и приоритетите, които са от първостепенно значение за бизнес лидерите.

Въпреки сериозните смущения, пред които се изправиха толкова много хора и компании през последните две години, фокусът върху растежа остана непроменен както и през предишните години, макар и със следните промени.

Промяна #1: Главните изпълнителни директори търсят нови пазари за възможности за растеж
60% от главните изпълнителни директори очакват приходите на техните компании да се върнат до нивата от 2019 г. до края на последното тримесечие на 2021 г., а други 30% очакват възобновяване до 2022 г. Само 10% смятат, че ще им трябва повече време, за да се възстановят.

Повече от половината от анкетираните подкрепят този оптимизъм, като посочват растежа като един от топ трите водещи бизнес приоритета. По-малко изпълнителни директори (в сравнение с миналата година) обаче очакват новите възможности да бъдат постигнати чрез стари механизми.

Вместо това те разглеждат новите пазари като източник на новри възможности за развитие и растеж – с уговорката, че “новите пазари” изглежда се фокусират върху сегменти или съседни области. Големите географски скокове не са на първо място в дневния ред: по-голямата част от лидерите на северноамерикански, европейски и азиатски компании посочват собствените си региони като основен източник на възможности.

Смяна #2: Работната сила се изкачва в списъка с приоритети; намаляването на разходите пада
Пандемията също така принуди главните изпълнителни директори да поставят силен акцент върху нови области и да се откажат от други. Работната сила набра най-голяма инерция, като 24% от главните изпълнителни директори я посочват сред своите три основни приоритета, което е увеличение от 24% спрямо миналата година. Това бързо нарастване е знак, че главните изпълнителни директори признават щетите, които последните две години оказаха върху хората, и ролята, която квалифицираните таланти ще изиграят, за да позволят на организациите да постигнат целите си.

Най-големият сектор, загубил вниманието на главните изпълнителни директори, е управлението на разходите, което падна на седмо място в резултат на спад от 17% на годишна база в дела на главните изпълнителни директори, които го посочват като приоритет: от 14% на 11%.

Този спад може да се обясни и като резултат от факта, че “ниско висящите плодове” бяха отрязани през 2020 г., за да се запазят парите по време на пандемията; някои фирми започнаха да съкращават в края на 2018 г. в отговор на очакваното циклично забавяне на икономиката. Управлението на разходите обаче не е напълно извън дневния ред: остава основен приоритет, върху който главните изпълнителни директори насочват своите главни и финансови директори да се съсредоточат.

Промяна #3: Инвестиционните намерения сочат към амбициите за все по-голям дигитален растеж
“Дигиталните възможности” са единствената област, в която по-висок процент от главните изпълнителни директори биха се ангажирали с увеличаване на инвестициите. Дори области, които обикновено получават силна подкрепа, като информационни технологии, хора и култура и подобрения на продуктите, поемат ангажименти от по-малък дял от главните изпълнителни директори.

Любопитното е, че се наблюдава смесица от очевидни избори и изненади в областите, които претърпяха най-голям спад в инвестиционните намерения, като резкият спад в офиси и офис оборудването – явен признак за въздействието, което хибридните работни модели оказват върху нуждите на компаниите.

И все пак отдели като Правен, Управление на риска, HR и Маркетинг също бележат значителни спадове – въпреки че анализаторите на Gartner не виждат признаци на опасност, че фирмите са по-малко подготвени за извънредна ситуация или се колебаят да привлекат таланти, ако е необходимо.

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C-suite за свят след пандемия

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

Пандемията COVID-19 промени драматично задълженията на т.нар. C-suite. Ето как старшите/висшите лидери могат да навигират промяна в света.

3 въпроса, които да се запитаме:
– Какви нови способности на C-suite трябва да бъдат придобити, за да се осигури растеж и да се осигури дългосрочна стойност дори отвъд пандемията?
– Размерът, структурата и управлението на даден екип на ниво C подкрепят ли гъвкавото вземане на решения, необходимо за отговор на дислокациите, произтичащи от пандемията?
– Как ще бъдат инкорпорирани изискванията на по-широк кръг от заинтересовани страни за видимост и принос при вземането на корпоративни решения?

За главните оперативни директори бизнесът вече не е “както преди”. Главните маркетинг директори видяха, че навиците на потребителите се променят почти за една нощ. Главните служители по приходите се опитват да намалят риска и да изградят доверие в силно променлива среда. Главните изпълнителни директори съчетават оцеляването на бизнеса с безопасността на служителите и непрестанния натиск от инвеститори и други заинтересовани страни. И повечето го правят пред лаптопи, като използват видеоконферентна връзка.

Пандемията от COVID-19 преобърна света по начин, пó и по-малко драстичен, от бек офиси до заседателни зали, в различни индустрии и географии. И все пак C-suite лидерите не само работят по различен начин – самата природа на ролите им се променя. Традиционните, предвидими отговорности са погълнати от новите изисквания на фона на промени в начина на работа на екипите; това, което клиентите искат, и драматични промени в перспективите на секторите и индустриите.

В същото време, всички други неотложни глобални предизвикателства, които все повече занимаваха лидерите преди пандемията COVID-19 – като извънредната ситуация в областта на климата, разширяващото се неравенство в доходите и изместването на работни места – остават. Всъщност много от тях са изострени от пандемията, която разкрива крехкостта на глобалната икономика и несигурния характер на много средства за препитание.

Справянето с основните предизвикателства – на вътрешно и външно ниво – е основна отговорност на висшите лидери. И все пак естеството и самият мащаб на предизвикателствата, пред които са изправени днес, са различни, особено защото поставят още, нови и непознати изисквания към традиционните роли. Как трябва да се адаптират лидерите? И как C-suite може заедно да издържи на “бурята” COVID-19 и да се възползва от възможността да преосмисли бъдещето на своите организации?

“Много се говори за мисията”, казва председателят на Barclays Bank Group Найджъл Хигинс в скорошно издание на уебкаста на EY, “и сега е моментът бизнесът да покаже какво всъщност има предвид”.

За отделните лидери от ниво C съществува поредица от действия, които всеки да предприеме. Идентифицирахме какво се изисква сега, като следваща стъпка и отвърд пандемията за Главния информационен директор, Главния маркетингов директор, Главния оперативен директор, Главния директор по приходите и Главния директор на веригата за доставки.

C-suite за свят след пандемия
Бързата промяна за C-suite е в ход още преди пандемията. Императивното проучване на EY CEO за 2019 г. установява, че само една трета от главните изпълнителни директори на Forbes 2000, техните членове на борда и анкетираните институционални инвеститори биха казали, че настоящият модел на C-suite е много подходящ за предизвикателствата и възможностите на следващото десетилетие.

Почти всички изпълнителни директори съобщават, че са въвели нова позиция на ниво C през последните пет години, като най-честите избори са Главен директор по иновациите, Главен дигитален директор и Главен стратегически директор. Три четвърти от главните изпълнителни директори в това проучване казват, че в момента обмислят промяна или добавяне на роли в C-suite, като цифровата трансформация, иновациите и изкуствения интелект се разглеждат като ключови пропуски в способностите.

Тази вълна от промени в C-нивото вероятно ще се ускори в съответствие с променящия се характер на проблемите, пред които са изправени висшите лидери: проучване установява, че мнозинството (57%) от главните изпълнителни директори на компаниите от Forbes 2000 вярват, че това е в най-добър интерес на големите компании и техните лидери да поемат много по-активна роля в справянето с глобалните предизвикателства.

Науката за климата и способността за справяне с нарастващия императив на корпоративната декарбонизация са от решаващо значение. По подобен начин нараства и нуждата от експертиза в поведенческата наука, като се има предвид шока от пандемията и страха и несигурността от произтичащите блокажи. Ще ценят ли сега хората все повече личните взаимодействия, или ще предпочетат социалните медии? Споделеният опит с COVID-19 ще повиши ли социалното доверие и солидарността, или ще ги намали? Как ще се променят режимите на срещи, сътрудничество и дори развлеченията?

Като се има предвид изключително високият залог на вземането на решения на изпълнително ниво, сега е моментът бизнес лидерите да оценят своя C-suite в светлината на императивите и възможностите, които ще се появят след COVID-19.

Водещи VS. Изоставащи
Има ясни разграничения между лидери и “изоставащи” по този въпрос. Водещите изпълнителни директори свързват своята корпоративна цел със справянето с глобалните предизвикателства и интегрирането на план за решаването им в корпоративната стратегия. Те също така използват икономическата мощ на своите организации, за да стимулират необходимата промяна в области като веригата за доставки, закупуването, регулацията и работната сила.

Мисленето и подходът на главния изпълнителен директор са важни отличителни черти. Много повече от “изоставащите”, водещите изпълнителни директори поемат лична отговорност за оценката на глобалните предизвикателства, с които ще се справят, и активно се ангажират със своите бордове и инвеститори, за да осигурят подкрепа за необходимите инвестиции. Не е изненадващо, че 80% от водещите изпълнителни директори очакват да станат още по-активни по отношение на глобалните предизвикателства в следващите пет до десет години.

Обобщение
Със C-suite, фокусиран върху обединението и възстановяването на бизнеса, е лесно да загубим от поглед възможността за оформяне на новото нормално, което предстои да ни се случи. Икономическите и социални дислокации на кризата COVID-19 представляват глобално нулиране, ускорявайки някои тенденции, създавайки нови и прекратявайки други. В рамките на това, получаваме възможност “веднъж в живота” бизнесът да ръководи създаването на по-добро ново нормално – за тази цел лидерите от C-нивто трябва да бъдат повече от подготвени.

Източник: Джон де Янг, EY Global Markets EYQ Global Insights Director

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The benefit of empowering women in the workplace can be impactful now and in the future

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News
women_emp

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the professional and personal lives of just about everyone, but early evidence and reports highlight how it has impacted women more proportionally.

Women are increasingly leading the way in India, be it in sports, politics, arts, corporate, or social sectors. The benefit of empowering women in the workplace can be impactful now and in the future. Research shows that company profits and share performance can be close to 50% higher when women are well-represented at the top levels of the organization. According to a report by the consultancy firm Grant Thornton, in India, 98% of companies have a woman as a part of senior management while the global average is 90%. Yet many women are often subject to gender discrimination, workplace bias, limited mentoring, deep routed sexism, and lopsided HR policies in the workplace.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the professional and personal lives of just about everyone, but early evidence and reports highlight how it has impacted women more proportionally. According to the 10th edition of the LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index, nearly 47 percent of working Indian women are experiencing more stress or anxiety due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. For men, this number stood at 38 percent, pointing towards a disproportionate impact on women in these challenging times. Such economic slowdowns not only unduly affect women but also prompt gender equality issues to slip down in priority on the corporate agendas. A McKinsey report pointed out that women’s jobs have been 1.8 times more vulnerable during the pandemic than men’s jobs. While reports say that the COVID-19 crisis has shown us the remarkable leadership capabilities of female leaders around the world, there is still a lot of work to do to ensure greater gender equity and pay parity among male and female employees across our country.

At an organizational level, here are a few ways in which one can empower and encourage women at their workplace:

Promote gender diversity
Organizations need to understand the impact of gender diversity and how teams with a ‘balanced’ gender mix perform significantly better on critical parameters like revenue and growth. By having a healthy gender ratio, an organization can attract a broader pool of talent, have multiple perspectives, and encourage greater collaboration. Hence, organizations need to put additional efforts into recruiting female workforce members across levels. With hybrid work models and an increase in demand for digital talent, many sectors are further looking at enhancing women’s participation in the workforce. GoDaddy’s 2020 global diversity data shows that the total population of women at the company is 30%, as compared to globally, where women make up 19% of technical positions and 36% of non-technical roles. Other IT companies like Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Infosys are planning to hire more women candidates this year through campus placements. All these companies are focusing on creating opportunities for women and promoting gender diversity in the workforce. If organizations are not considering full-time women employees, they can consider hiring a diverse group of contract or gig workers to benefit from having women join in the collaboration. A recent study states that alternative work arrangements in the gig economy have the potential to absorb more women and increase their participation in the workforce with some amount of reskilling.

Remove pay disparity
The pay gap persistently exists despite the efforts made to bridge it over the past few decades. It’s estimated that women earn 20 percent less than men for the same work. Closing the gender wage gap is essential to help women achieve economic security. Organizations can combat this disparity by promoting transparency and allotting salaries based on market standards. And they also need to continually work towards minimizing unconscious bias across sectors, specifically in the areas of recruitment, performance reviews, and career advancement. While a Glassdoor study says gender pay parity won’t disappear entirely until 2070, many organizations have already taken steps to eliminate pay parity from the grassroots level.  One such example is GoDaddy, with it’s 2020 Diversity Report showing that in the technical ranks, women make one cent more on the dollar than men, and in non-technical roles, women make $1.00 for every $1.00 a man makes.

Prevention and elimination of violence and harassment
Despite its massive scale, violence and sexual harassment at the workplace remains under-reported because of fear of disbelief, blame, or social and professional retaliation. Apart from the psychological and emotional damage that harassment causes to victims, businesses suffer too. Many studies have found that experiencing harassment in the workplace often forces women to leave their jobs, taking away their ideas, connections, and potential growth along with them. It is almost like a brain drain for these organizations. Even as several companies have been on a work-from-home model since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, sexual harassment cases still persist. According to the database of the National Commission of Women, 125 complaints of sexual harassment of women were received in 2021 so far. Organizations should demonstrate a zero-tolerance approach to harassment and must make clear that punishment for harassment applies equally across the organization, regardless of the designation of the employee. Remedial actions, in such cases, should also be known to all, which can aid in setting a benchmark for the organization. Strict anti-harassment policies and training on preventing sexual harassment should be made mandatory for all employees. Many organizations also implement channels through which employees can anonymously report cases of sexual harassment.

Special mentorship programs and policies
Establishing a gender-diverse workforce is imperative for organizations to perform at their highest stature, and mentoring can be the ideal approach to enable upskilling, building networks, increasing employee engagement and retention. Organizations should provide special mentorship programs for women as it enables them to set clear career ambitions, gain confidence and learn from each other personally as well as professionally. Many organizations have institutionalized training programs to help women who have been on a break for a certain period post-maternity, sabbatical, or a career break, transition back to work. Apart from special mentoring programs for women, organizations must also embrace the many lessons of flexible work learned through the pandemic. Policies like work from home, maternity leaves, child-care, and flexible working hours can all help to encourage women to enter the workforce and perform at a high level.

To help achieve a balanced and diverse culture at any organization, men should act as allies and get better at collaborating with women to help shrink gender disparities and engage as mentors, sponsors, and advocates for the fair treatment of women. Women provide a unique and impactful perspective that contributes to a more collaborative futuristic organization. Working women are here to stay, and organizations that chose to embrace these concepts to encourage women to join and excel in their organizations can be setting themselves up for greater success in the future.

Source: Nikhil Arora/People Matters

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Hybrid Workplace & The Biggest Dilemmas We Are Facing

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

What will be the biggest challenges when it comes to hybrid work, and what should companies prioritize to build an efficient hybrid workplace model? Talent leaders share their biggest dilemmas in setting up an ‘efficient anywhere’ work model before Anushree Sharma from People Matters.

Hybrid working has taken the traditional workplace by storm and is continuing to shake up the traditional office. How do we communicate effectively? How can we enable better collaboration among peers? What’s the best technology to promote higher productivity, accountability, and efficiency– all this while being apart. How do we make working in different places work for every employee in the organization?

The talk of the future of work is pretty chaotic, and everyone is looking out for best practices, and experts’ advice to plan for the future. While hybrid work seems to be, as per reports, the future of work, this new way of working has its shortcomings. In order to make it work, organizations are looking at possible solutions to ensure they can move forward successfully.

How do we ensure “trust and belief” in the way we deal with each other?

Teams can’t function well when coworkers don’t trust one another. Building and maintaining trust in the traditional, physical workplace is difficult enough, but the process is even tougher in a virtual environment, where people often have to work with people they haven’t met in person.

Employers are skeptical whether trust can be established in a virtual environment. How many employees can truly trust people they haven’t met in person? While the hard truth is that teams can’t function without trust, a lack of face-to-face interaction doesn’t automatically mean an environment of distrust. Proactive communication and more engaging conversations can ensure that trust will flourish within the virtual work model.

How to find the right balance of flexibility in hybrid working?

Working remote vs in an office. Combining these two opposing dynamics will reinvent our traditional work methods. Hybrid work is not just about an employee’s physical location, but also about their way of work, their habits, and overall efficiency. Finding the right balance between these two extremes and namely the corresponding level of hybrid work will be a decisive factor to a company’s success in the future.

A company will have to generate customized solutions for every single employee by analyzing the environment they need to do their best work and the amount of personal contact, as well as the flexibility they require.

Are organizations really open to making fundamental shifts to the way they work?

Facing strong employee resistance and turnover, Google recently backtracked from its plan to force all employees to return back to the office and allowed many to work remotely. Apple’s plan to force its staff back to the office has caused many to leave Apple and led to substantial internal opposition.

According to a study, many executives are falling victim to a number of well-known psychological biases in their push to end remote working.

How to translate the same level of ‘belongingness’ in the virtual space

In a recent global survey of employees across industries, seventy-five percent of respondents reported feeling more socially isolated since the start of the pandemic. Sixty-seven percent of employees reported increased stress, and fifty-three percent said they feel emotionally exhausted. Further, in a global study led by Cognizant, which studied their full-time employees, respondents said fostering a sense of belonging at work significantly increased their motivation, commitment, emotional and physical well-being, and overall engagement. Ultimately, these feelings of belonging led to greater innovation and increased productivity.

In the midst of so much uncertainty, it’s critical that organizations intentionally focus on nurturing a sense of belonging – feeling connected, included, valued, and welcomed.

Accenture’s Future of Work Study 2021 shows that sixty-three percent of high-growth companies have already adopted an “efficient anywhere” model. We have all learned that productivity is not dependent on a common physical location and while there are plenty of available digital tools, still, as HR leaders we need to find a way to redesign connections, collaboration, and business continuity in the new normal.

How one will answer these biggest dilemmas – Trust, Flexibility, Balance, Change, and Belongingness will become key to getting hybrid work right! 

In a recent virtual roundtable, “Building an efficient work model with technology,” hosted by People Matters in collaboration with Workplace from Facebook, leaders across the industries came together to find answers to these dilemmas. One of the immediate steps to enable the hybrid work model was to focus on keeping trust, culture, and people’s experience at the center of their communication strategy.

Ram shared the story of implementing Workplace from Facebook at L&T, wherein the management was skeptical of whether getting social media to work might hamper workplace discipline. However, today after four years, he says the employees at different levels collaborate seamlessly and indulge in engaging communication both professionally and personally. The company sees tremendous growth in productivity and engagement.

The pandemic and subsequent lockdown has compelled many companies to adopt a work-from-anywhere model but also shown how productivity is not dependent on a common physical location. The availability of a plethora of digital tools has enabled teams to stay connected, help them collaborate, and ensure business continuity. The key lies in pivoting the future of work dialogue from working at a fixed physical location to one that allows employees to do their best work from wherever they are.

Source: People Matters

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Inclusive Representation 101: Support Women in Business

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

Even before the pandemic, women fulfilled multiple responsibilities at once—running a business and a household, caring for family or a community, and more. Unfortunately, the pandemic has made it even more difficult for women to continue in so many roles. According to LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co., one in four women are considering scaling back their career or leaving the workforce.

A key reason for this change may be that women bear the brunt of domestic duties. In Facebook’s most recent Global State of Small Business Report created with the OECD and the World Bank, 31% of women business leaders surveyed reported spending more time on domestic tasks than before the pandemic.

Women have faced—and defied—setbacks before. (You can always find support and inspiration In the many, many stories on our blog – Women Inspirations, dedicated to helping women realize their inner power.) But they shouldn’t have to advance progress alone to achieve the equality they deserve!

Brand leaders can actually help remove barriers for women by considering how every decision drives inclusive representation. Here are 10 ways to put diversity at the core of your business, courtesy of Michelle Klein/AdWeek.com

Support women suppliers
1. Hire women suppliers using databases like those provided by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).

2. Offer workshops, professional matchmaking events, investment opportunities, training, and other resources for women business owners.

3. Set aside part of your products—and shelf space—for women-owned businesses. When Brother Vellies creative director Aurora James called on brands to commit 15% of their offerings to Black-owned businesses, several retailers in the U.S. and Canada signed the pledge. Consider making a similar commitment for women-owned businesses.

Examine how your brand represents women
4. Assess whether your creative contributes to harmful stereotypes. For example, are women in your commercials always cooking or doing laundry? You can use marketing bias auditing tools like the Geena Davis Institute’s GDIQ, which analyzes gender representation for brands and media creators. And the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) assesses the sales lift the impact of cultural representation in advertising and media through Cultural Impact Insights Measure (CIIM).

5. Include criteria for gender, race, and sexual orientation in your briefs, scripts, and casting documents. Consider representing intersectional identities that combine these attributes. To gain inspiration about inclusive marketing, register for Forward Together, a Facebook-hosted content series.

6. Hire a diverse team so your creative can be more authentic in how it reaches a broader range of women’s voices.

Amplify historically underrepresented voice
7. Build awareness for women’s interests during cultural moments like Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. Consider creating social media content commemorating women who’ve made an impact.

8. Invite women to share their stories. On International Women’s Day, Pure Leaf’s “No is Beautiful” social media campaign featured videos of women describing how they’ve said no to distractions in order to say yes to opportunities that changed their lives. Our personal contribution, for example, is Women Inspirations.

9. Elevate women’s voices in your product or service.

Collaborate with others working to make a difference
The work of diversity and inclusion doesn’t have to be done in a bubble. Learning from other brand leaders can make a big impact on your own journey.

10. Connect with other leaders also actively working on inclusive representation.

These steps toward greater inclusivity can add up to a sea change for progress. Together, we can eliminate barriers and support women as they seek to accomplish their dreams and serve their communities.

Source: Michelle Klein / AdWeek.com

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Marketers’ Guide to TikTok. Part II

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

We previously discussed the important role of TikTok in today’s Marketing world, and now it’s time to get to business by exploring different ways of advertising on the very popular app:

How to find hashtags for your brand’s TikTok posts
There are three top ways to find TikTok hashtags that will boost your reach – use some tried-and-true general hashtags that have surged in popularity and are meant to help get as many eyes as possible on your posts. Try these ones below from Influencer Marketing Hub.

Look at trending hashtags
Navigate over to the Discover page, where you’ll find a list of currently trending hashtags. Scroll through the hashtags to see if any fit your business and industry, or see if they indicate general challenges that you could put your spin on.

Get inspirations from influencers
Look at the hashtags influencers in your vertical use. After you’ve completed the steps above to find niche influencers for your industry, borrow the hashtags they use and test their success on your own posts.

Use general popular hashtags
Use some tried-and-true general hashtags that have surged in popularity and are meant to help get as many eyes as possible on your posts. Try these ones below from Influencer Marketing Hub.

#tiktok
#foryoupage
#fyp
#foryou
#viral
#love
#funny
#memes
#follow
#bestvideo
#tiktok4fun
#tiktok4fun
#thisis4u
#loveyoutiktok

Use TikTok Ads
If you don’t have the time to come up with creative ideas, execute videos, and then slowly cultivate their reach through organic engagement, don’t sweat it⁠—TikTok has an advertising platform that will expand the reach for you if you set aside some budget.

TikTok Ad Formats
TikTok offers a variety of ways your ad can appear in the feed, depending on the creative assets you’re visualizing or what makes sense for your campaign. TikTok says these formats “include but not limited to horizontal, vertical, or square videos and images.” To create these ads, they also offer a couple of creation toolsets, should you choose to use them:

“Video Creation Kit” provides you with a variety of video templates and allows you to create videos by using your existing images, without needing to be a pro editor.
“Automated Creative Optimization” helps you automate the process of creating, delivering, and optimizing your ads.
These ads can appear in four places:

– In-feed
– Detail Page
– Post-roll
– Story
– TikTok Ad Targeting
When managing your TikTok Ads, you can target your audience by gender, location, age, interests, and what TikTok calls “other unique variables.”

For more advanced users who may have practice using these same popular strategies on other paid social initiatives, you can create “Custom Audiences” and “Lookalike Audiences” to reach more people similar to your existing customers. If you have a self-serve account, you can use TikTok’s chart to see which geographic ad targeting options are available to you based on the location of the owner account.

TikTok Ad Performance Measurement
TikTok Ads measurement tools let you monitor your ads performance by using a few different devices meant to help you track actionable KPIs:

Use the TikTok pixel to monitor your ad performance and measure your marketing results by tracking users’ behaviors on your website. TikTok partners with third-party tracking companies to track ad conversions, users’ in-app behavior, impressions, and click attribution data. As you can probably tell, these ad specifications indicate that TikTok ads are meant to blend into the average customer experience as much as possible. If you want users to linger on your ad (or even better, click through and convert), you’re not off the hook for creating something entertaining that doesn’t disrupt their social experience. The brand, Guess jeans kept this in mind when launching their TikTok advertising campaign, leaning into both the musical and “trending challenge” aspects of the platform by creating their own challenge hashtag and generating an influx of consumer-generated content.

They used the idea of “transforming your looks” with the slogan “Transform your outfit from a mess to best-dressed! All you need is denim!” accompanied by Bebe Rexh’s “I’m a Mess” and the hashtag #InMyDenim. The campaign was wildly successful, and you can read more about the KPIs they hit in the case study on TikTok’s website.

Ultimately, in making the decision between organic and paid TikTok content, you will have to decide if you’re paying with your time or your money. There are pros and cons to each, so it will depend on your budget and how you want to interact with your audience.

Bottom Line for TikTok Marketing
And there you have it: How to market on TikTok in 2021. Use this guide to decide on if you should pursue TikTok marketing, whether it should be organic or paid, and how you want to kick off your first campaign.

Remember, it has a very specific demographic, so tread lightly, keep it fun, and make it shareable for that audience.

Source: Anna Dievendorf / fanbooster

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Marketers’ Guide to TikTok. Part I

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

TikTok was the number one most downloaded mobile app in 2020, and it’s estimated that TikTok has about 689 million monthly active users and 2 billion app store downloads. What does that mean? The network is larger than both Twitter and Pinterest. With this firehose of new content to consume, its staying power has become crystal clear⁠— TikTok is unlikely to be a passing fad. If you’re thinking to yourself that at least some of those 689 million people must be in your business’s target audience, there’s a good chance you’re right. This may sound like a marketing goldmine — especially because there could be less competition while other businesses hesitate to get on board. However, engaging with potential customers in a place where they go to be entertained requires a very careful approach.

Use this guide (courtesy of Anna Dievendorf/Fanbooster.com) to get up to speed on TikTok, how to use the app, if you should use it, and a few best practices to make your post surge in popularity:

What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social media mobile app with a large community of users centered around video content. TikTokers (TikTok users) film short videos and edit them with effects, filters, captions, and music, then post them for their TikTok followers. Content creators use hashtags and identify which popular category they fit into to more easily be discovered by non-followers.

Much of the site’s content is comedic – kind of like Vine, Twitter’s late video network. Some of the most popular genres include short skits, lip-syncing, cringe videos, how-to’s, and sharing common experiences with “tell me about a time that you…” One of the most popular phenomena is the influx of “challenges” posted across the platform (often to visualize lyrics from a popular song or test different reactions to a common social experiment) that create a ripple effect as everyone contributes their own version. Take the #InMyFeelingsChallenge for example – while it was widely popular on Instagram (uploaded 1.7 million times to be exact), it was an even bigger success on TikTok with 5 million entries worldwide.

TikTok first launched in China as Douyin, then launched as TikTok internationally in 2017. Then, everything changed⁠⁠— ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) acquired Music.ly, a social media platform that allowed users to create lip-sync videos to popular songs. Creativity with lip-syncing paved the way for TikTok’s US popularity and emphasis on incorporating music. Douyin still exists, and both Douyin and TikTok use the same software, but they maintain separate networks to comply with China’s censorship laws.

TikTok has a very specific user demographic
Before you start marketing on TikTok, make sure your demographic aligns. The app is most popular with people between the age of 16 and 24, which makes up 60% of the total user base. TikTok reports that 80% of all users are between the ages of 16 and 34, confirming that this probably isn’t the channel for marketing to the older crowd. Aside from age, the other stats we know seem to indicate popularity fairly evenly across the board.

– 58.4% of TikTok users are male and 41% are female (this is a flip from 2020, where the gender split was in similar proportions but skewed the opposite way)
– The app is available in 150 markets in 39 languages
– iPhone/Android usage is a 52%/48% split.

So with that in mind, we do recommend only using TikTok for marketing if you have a young audience. While there’s no doubt that older people are slowly starting to adopt the platform, your marketing resources will likely be better spent elsewhere if that’s your targeted audience. Does that mean all hope is lost if you market to older millennials and above? Absolutely not.

Re-posting videos that were created on TikTok to other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter is also a hugely popular practice. If you have an engaged audience on those other profiles, you can take advantage of the robust TikTok editing tools to create video content for your followers. If you go this route, just keep an eye on news released from the other platforms on how they plan to handle repurposed content. For example, Facebook has announced plans to test algorithm changes that make Reels with a TikTok watermark less discoverable.

Here’s how to market on TikTok
You have two options for an organic TikTok marketing strategy: working with influencers or creating original content. Each of these strategies has its own merits and time commitments. Let’s walk through both options so you can decide which one makes the most sense for your business.

Influencer marketing will be huge on TikTok
From makeup to baking videos, TikTok is full of people making things. There are some huge TikTok influencers in these spaces – in fact, some have millions of subscribers. These influencers have audiences that may want to buy your products, so for a chunk of your marketing budget, you can partner with them and create an influencer marketing campaign. Get these influencers to use your products on-camera or otherwise promote your brand in their videos, and you’ll get your products in front of new eyes. But even more importantly, you’ll earn some of your customers’ trust too. One in three consumers trusts an influencer’s opinion more than what a brand says, so use that to your advantage.

How to get started with TikTok influencer marketing
The golden rule of Influencer Marketing: relevance is more important than reach. Don’t simply approach the people behind accounts with the largest following⁠-not only will they be incredibly expensive to work with, but many references to your brand could fall on deaf ears. Find out who is posting popular videos in your niche by navigating to the Discover tab, and searching a handful of keywords that relate to your industry, products, or services. Document the users with the most followers or most popular videos within this topic, watch their posts to determine a fit for your brand and think about reaching out. As you’re moving through this process, also look at the most popular videos associated with those keywords, under Discover>Top.

While not a lot of information about the inner workings of the TikTok algorithm is public, there appears to be a component that allows anyone with palatable content to skyrocket popularity. The team at Later reports from a first-hand investigation into the app that posts seem to be ‘tested’ on people who don’t follow you. If it performs well in that first group, the post will be served to even more non-followers if it performs well in that first group. Reach depends on performance. While this is great encouragement when producing your own original content, this also gives us clues about when to nab an influencer as they’re on the cusp of becoming popular. The micro-influencers with just one or two wildly popular videos that gained traction through this performance-based model may still be in the process of amassing a huge following (and price tag). Keep an eye out for these as you sift through popular videos from your keyword search and document influencers to reach out to.

Create original TikTok content for your brand (if you dare)
Making your own content can be a powerful TikTok marketing strategy. However, it will take lots of time, creativity, and resources. TikTok is largely based on viral content, so your content needs to be viral too. Otherwise, it will likely be ignored by TikTokers. The easiest, most effective way to ensure that your original content is popular and shareable is to dive into the “trend” culture. Use the Discover page to track trending hashtags, and then create your own version of the trend that includes an element of your business. Bonus points if it’s funny or silly to increase your chance of virality. Another simple way to create popular content is to offer how-to’s, tips and tricks, or insider secrets from your industry. This method is a doubly effective strategy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, where many in-person services have been forced to find a way to offer something different virtually. Once you’ve created your content, always add a few relevant hashtags to your post before you upload it, since this is how users who don’t yet follow you will find it.

Just remember: Even if you don’t employ one of those two methods, the key to TikTok marketing is to make a viral, light-hearted video that also promotes your products⁠—not a product-first sales pitch. The team at Later also reports that “Rewatches, video completions, shares, comments, and likes all seem to be strong indicators to the TikTok algorithm,” so make it entertaining.

In the upcoming Part II, we will discuss broadly the different options to advertise on TikTok. Stay tuned!

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The Knowhows in Organizing Engaging Virtual Events

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

Virtual event formats allow us to use time in a more efficient way, keep us focused on the key takeaways – content and networking, allow a bigger number of individuals to participate one way or another, save costs, give flexibility and generate valuable insights. But what else should we know about organizing successful online and hybrid events?

Planning

Preparing for venue visitors is one thing and planning for virtual attendees is completely different. In order to guarantee optimal audience experience, testing is obligatory. This includes the choice of a web streaming portal, virtual speakers’ rehearsals and, in the case of hybrid format, the quality of the internet connectivity, the software tools and hardware equipment that will be used at the event venue. It’s the event organizer’s responsibility to make sure that all – guests and participants, feel comfortable and familiar with the technology.

Interaction

Interactions between all guests are one of the most important defining characteristics of a virtual event. Otherwise, people will simply be watching a live stream. A virtual/live discussion should be scheduled with a moderator in a virtual conference room so that remote attendees will get to ask their questions. It will be the moderator’s job to make sure that both audiences – live and online in the hybrid case, are on the same page as far as participation is concerned. Other possible alternatives include live streaming via a social media platform, a dedicated hashtag, email question submissions and live chat.

Attendee journey

Engagement is the essential ingredient in virtual and hybrid events. The latter require even more dedication as we should apply extra care to ensure both our virtual and live audiences get the most of our event. A hybrid format should offer experience that caters to all audiences in a viewer-friendly way, putting online and live audience on the same level. Virtual events can take a multitude of appearances, depending on company’s event format and audience but hybrid events have one thing in common: they put the audience journey first, for both audiences.

Partner with the Right Team

Technology is important but partnering with professionals is even more crucial. Count on professionals with extensive experience in virtual event planning who are knowledgeable about technologies, interactions, entertainment options and are able to coordinate and host your next virtual event for success.

Benefits of hybrid events

In conclusion, here are some pros to consider why hosting a hybrid event could be worth the extra set up and resources needed:

  1. Increased reach & attendance – hybrid events allow us to increase reach and gain more attendees, not fewer. With a hybrid event, we lower the barrier to entry for those who want to attend, but can’t, and those who are unsure if the event is worth their time. This increases the reach significantly as we broadcast our event to a larger audience than ever could be possible in person.
  2. Higher engagement with the audience – adding a virtual element opens up many more engagement opportunities. But we need to start planning our event audience first to ensure which engagement opportunities make the most sense to them.
  3. Reduced costs – hybrid events can significantly decrease travel costs across the board for everyone involved.
  4. Content generation – as content is recorded, we can use it for future marketing campaigns and generate new ideas based on audience insights.
  5. Higher ROI due mainly to the increased reach and scalability. Getting more attendance through hybrid events can result into greater views for sponsors and more sign ups after the event. Secondly, we receive more accurate reporting on the performance. Also, it’s easy to replicate the technology process in consecutive events. A virtual event platform doesn’t require crews for set-up and take-down. Plus, there is also potential to scale down the live event while scaling up the online presence. This allows for reducing onsite costs while still reaching a large audience and boosting our margin.

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Technology Predictions 2021 and Beyond

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

The beginning of 2020 in no way hinted the turnaround that COVID-19 brought to the world, to our way of life and the economic consequences. But when it comes to technology, the pandemic has only accelerated digital transformation processes that have long started to take shape. The disruption caused by COVID-19 only confirmed the predictions that the successful business model would be edge-centric, cloud-enabled and data-driven. But let’s review the main technological trends for 2021, according to leading research companies.

According to IDC the majority, 65% of global GDP will be digitalized by 2022, driving $6.8 trillion of IT spending from 2020 to 2023. Just a year before the pandemic, the analysts predicted $5 trillion over the same period. According to another leading research and advisory company, by 2024 25% of traditional large-enterprise CIOs will be held accountable for digital business operational results, effectively becoming “COO by proxy” – again an indicator of the prioritization of digitalization in companies.

Cloud Acceleration

New models of work require new technologies, reliable, secure and fast access to the resources of organizations from anywhere, which is possible through cloud-based solutions. If years ago, the so-called Cloud journey was meant to last about 5 to 10 years, according to current forecasts, by the end of 2021, based on lessons learned, 80% of enterprises will put a mechanism in place to shift to cloud-centric infrastructure and applications twice as fast as before the pandemic.

Intelligent Edge

This is another major trend that is evolving dynamically for several main reasons. The first is that data has long been created not only in the data centers of the organizations but is generated by various smart devices in the Edge or the so-called periphery. They grow exponentially which leads to the next reason – processing these heterogeneous in type and volume data sets, analyzing information in real time and making timely decisions. Through 2023, reactions to changed workforce and operations practices during the pandemic will be the dominant accelerators for 80% of edge-driven investments and business model changes in most industries.

Hybrid by design

Establishing a hybrid model rather than performing hybrid ad hoc actions is a necessity. We are not just talking about Hybrid IT here, but a whole process that involves jobs and employees. Streaming in 2020 has increased 7 times, which requires Hybrid by design model of structuring jobs and employees. Moreover, 82% of company leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely some of the time according to Gartner. This means that all systems should be made available, regardless of the location of employees.

This trend of planning a hybrid way of working is relevant not only for corporations but also for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which cannot build this type of solutions on their own and have to rely on many different providers. According to forecasts, by 2023 75% of G2000 companies will commit to providing technical parity to a workforce that is hybrid by design rather than by circumstance, enabling them to work together separately and in real time.

ICT Ecosystem Changes

The pandemic situation, the changed workforce and operations practices as well as the technology consumption are impacting the partner ecosystem, i.e., the terms and choice of a reliable partner. 2021 will be the year of new trade models and delivery methods so that businesses can remain solvent. It is important who your service and infrastructure providers are, whether they have sufficient experience and appropriate qualifications as well as the ability to quickly and cost-effectively deliver the necessary technologies and expertise in a flexible way.

Digital Resiliency

In 2022, enterprises focused on digital resiliency will adapt to disruption and extend services to respond to new conditions 50% faster than ones focused on restoring existing business/IT resiliency levels. So, just reconfiguring the systems or introducing classic IT such as Disaster Recovery (DR) or Backup will not be enough. Developing a digital resiliency strategy will be critical for the success of any large organization.

All these processes take place in simultaneously and are equally important for the post-pandemic business development. But what is striking is the fact that 90% of Global 2000 companies have found that their decision-making systems do not meet the needs of organizations at all. They do not just have to upgrade their existing systems, but invest in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, etc., to support decision-making processes and accelerate business in the digital environment. Every company must become or is already in some way a digital player.

Key Takeaways

We can summarize that in the context of the digital transformation the world is evolving from a centralized model of data storage and processing to the decentralized world of diverse by origin and volume sources of information of the Intelligent Edge; from a world in which the cloud is everything to one in which the cloud as an experience is everywhere; from a world in which data is generated and collected to the world of the so-called Age of Insight, where insights are generated based on real-time data processing and analysis, competitive advantages are identified and measurable business benefits are achieved.

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The Next Wave of Digital Transformation is Here

By: Ludmila Malcheva / in News

Right Image organized for a third consecutive time the Intelligent IT virtual forum for Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium held on November 10th. Intelligent IT 2: Edge-to-Cloud Forum focused on business and technology discussions in the context of the new reality and was attended by 300+ representatives of key industries in Bulgaria. During the third edition of this technology event series, business leaders and technology experts discussed how the next wave of digital transformation responds to the unprecedented pace of change within organizations, the need of financial stability and flexible solutions.

“We’re now in the next wave of digital transformation, fueled by apps and data everywhere, where everything edge-to-cloud is connected, where enterprises unlock value everywhere, revealing new opportunities – new experiences, efficiencies, services and more”, said Iravan Hira, Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium. “Three years ago, HPE predicted the enterprise of the future would be edge-centric, cloud-enabled and data-driven. Now it is not just a vision of the future, it is reality.”

The program of the virtual conference brought together business and technological topics presented in an interactive discussion format. During the first business session The Journey to Agility Miroslav Petrov, an experienced telecom professional and current CEO of Lead Vision and Vanya Manova, Regional Director of Mastercard for Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania, discussed with Iravan Hira and Lyudmila Malcheva, founder and CEO of Right Image, how companies can become faster, more productive and more responsive in addressing market requirements, the new business and customer needs. Next in the virtual conference agenda was the technological discussion Digital Game Changers, featuring Hristo Belchev, Director of IT VMware EMEA as a special guest in one of the panels. The participants in the three technology panels talked about the need of flexible solutions to protect investments and enable development in the context of a dynamically changing environment; what cloud experience means and how IT platforms should be provided as a service providing flexibility and financial stability to organizations; how the deployment of smart platforms lead to greater data efficiency.

Keynote and inspiration for participants and audience were the two special guests – Stefan and Maxim Ivanovs. The father and son shared the amazing story of their recent Atlantic adventure – what it means not to rest until you reach your Everest, how to survive amidst ocean storms and succeed, why giving up is not an option when going on a historic voyage across the Atlantic with a hand-made rowing boat in the name of a worthy cause.

The conference was held online with 300+ the virtual guests representing private and public sector organizations, entrepreneurs, technology innovators, consultants, partners and media. More about the forum agenda and participants is available at https://intelligentit.online/.

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