Is Artificial Intelligence a Boon or a Bane

If your business has not begun thinking of how artificial intelligence will affect your bottom line, then it may be the right time to start putting some thought behind it. 

About Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence is the term being used to define the human/machine cooperative interaction, meaning how machines and humans work together and the interactions between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. The current environment of AI is based on collective intelligence, and its current and future implications for business will affect every industry. From job creation to job loss, from new manufacturing to replacement models, AI has the potential to shift the industrial landscape in a few concise years.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence as a Business

There are three main architectures that are currently affecting business; each of these presents opportunities for differentiation and challenges to each industry. However, knowing, at least the fundamental structures behind these artificial intelligence architectures is key to the planning of your business.

Machine Learning

The ability of machines to learn, in a supervised or unsupervised environment is what machine learning is currently about. Machine learning is methods enabled by constraints that support models of thinking, which is part of the definition of Artificial Intelligence, according to MIT Professor, Thomas Malone. What this means, in lay man’s terms, is the ability of a machine to learn how to respond to different interactions based on rules we provide it or based on learnings it can develop based on the rules we provide it. We may still be far away from the days where machines can learn on their own, but when that day comes, we may be up against our creation. In essence, machines can be provided with structures or rules for them to learn how to do a specific task. That unique task could be as simple-sounding but very complicated as determining whether an image is a dog or a cat. Humans can help machines understand the difference between the photos by “training” them on characteristics that define the differences between the two at a micro-level. Those questions could be examples of the differences between a cat’s ear and a dog’s ear. We can define rules around the shape, the color, specific features, that’s probably what most of us would do. Machines, however, require a much deeper understanding to learn, starting with questions like “Does it exist?” or “Is this a tip” before it can ask if “Is the tip rounded” for example, so the level of detail is micro-level. It could be as deep as looking at a micro-structure portion of the ear and learning the shape, depth, and other features.

Among the learning portion of machine learning, we also find visual learning, as in sensing in automated vehicles learning to recognize specific patterns on the ground to guide them on a road, and predictive, where based on a set of rules, the learned behavior or task can predict what will happen next, as in a stock market prediction, which can be made given a large set of information and knowledge of how we, as humans and investors, behave based on information, news, and trends. The behavioral modeling behind AI for machine learning can then be considered as supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, active, transfer, and reinforcement learning. The latter three are not considered within this article as they’re more complex than what an average business should be worrying about in the immediate future.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing is the ability of machines not only to understand the language but to translate the intent within the sentences, the relationship between the words, and the probability of meaning or context trying to be communicated. This is the job of what we see IOT devices like Alexa-enabled home devices attempting to achieve. Alexa, for example, is based on an NLP called LEX, which is Amazon’s version. Same as Siri, and others, these NLP’s look to gain an understanding not only by leveraging learning but by leveraging connected information. Other NLP’s in the market include architectures like Chatbots, which are trained in different, defined structures of processing in order to provide a guided conversation that feels, as much as possible as a human interaction, in order to assist us in resolving issues, finding answers, ordering items, and other day-to-day operational functions.

Robotics

Robotics is mostly what we all expect it to be, machines that can produce and execute tasks generally considered labor or laborious. We see robotics in places like automotive and manufacturing to build cars at plants or fill plastic bottles. Add an element of probability to those robotics, and you start creating an environment where the machines can select based on trends in orders or purchases whether they should produce more red cars or black cars than others.

All-in-all artificial intelligence is not a thing of the future. It is here and now. Looking at how your business can leverage tools that serve as part of the collective intelligence of the future of your business should not only be on your radar, schedule, and budget; not having it as part of your long-range plan could be a serious detriment to your business prospects. To us, Artificial intelligence is now a total boon.

How People Can Tell Whether Your Brand’s Message Is Authentic

Authenticity means erasing the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world. —Adam Grant

A few years ago, if you described something as “slick,” it was a compliment. It meant that something was polished and terrifically produced. But nowadays, “slick” is increasingly used as a criticism. It’s a warning sign that something is manipulative – flash over substance. Increasingly, consumers are rejecting the slick and seeking the sincere. According to a recent survey, 86% of American, Australian and British consumers say that authenticity is important when they decide which brands to support.

But how do you demonstrate your authenticity without coming off as, well… fake?

Detail Matters

As we understand it, when the Warby Parker team was first designing its website, they’d decided to include blue in the site’s color scheme. Yet when it came to a decision on the specific shade they’d use, they didn’t use a Pantone color wheel. Instead, they adopted the color of the feet from the blue-footed booby, a bird indigenous to the Galápagos Islands. They chose the color because the birds looked a bit “formal” (like a penguin), but their blue feet were a bit of unexpected flair. And that was sort of what the team was going for in their new eyeglass company: elegant design with some unexpected flair.

While most people would have thought this was overthinking the choice (there’s no explanation of the color on the site), Warby Parker co-founder Neil Blumenthal once explained the reasoning behind their choice: “Details matter. They create depth, and depth creates authenticity.”

If “slick” implies a new superficiality, details prove authenticity. They demonstrate care through consistency.

Responsibility Matters

Particularly for Millennials, authenticity includes corporate social responsibility—a demonstrated awareness of the company’s impact on the community, and even the world.

While companies such as Warby Parker and TOMS have famously made social commitments as part of their business model (with product donation programs), still other companies are proving their authenticity by becoming involved in charitable efforts consistent with their company’s goals.

Still, others explain on their websites and in other marketing material how they’re minimizing the environmental impact of their product through sustainable resources or recycling.

Accountability Matters

Of course, skeptical consumers don’t necessarily believe a company’s claims. Which is why accountability is so important. For most people, accountability means owning up to mistakes and the transparency involved in the mistake. That is certainly an issue, and it’s even more important if the problem relates to the company’s core mission. (Such as when Equifax, provider of financial profiles, got hacked.)

Companies who aspire to a higher sense of authenticity aren’t waiting to fix a problem. Instead, they’re actively showing how they prevent problems in the first place.

For example, companies like Patagonia are becoming certified “B-corporations,” with independent verification of their social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.

Companies are signing up to be a part of CEO Action, an organization where firms commit to specific policies that promote diversity and inclusion.

As a marketing tool, initiatives like these have twice the impact: they become a public commitment to live up to a particular set of standards, and the company benefits reputationally as it joins a community of changemakers.

In the Mad Men era, marketing was about flashy ideas. In today’s marketplace, the best ideas are ways for customers to really know who you are, and what you stand for.

For more ideas on effective marketing, check out our podcast, and for more specific insights on your company, contact us directly.

Adopt a virtual blue-footed booby.

Taking a Well-Known Brand into New Places: Do’s and Don’ts

Every great brand is like a great story.
—Kevin Plank, Founder/CEO of Under Armour

 

Breyer’s Girl Scout Thin Mints Ice Cream.

What a genius expansion of not–one–but–two–brands. Why did it do so well? First, Breyer’s already had related flavors: It considers mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, and chocolate chip cookie dough among its classic flavors, so quality execution was never a concern. Of course, Girl Scouts’ Thin Mints are a much loved and highly anticipated yearly treat. Many devotees (you may be one of them) have said for years that the cookies are best when frozen. The perfect partnership for a winning Thin Mint Ice Cream. Using a successful marketing strategy, Breyer’s smartly created a demand by introducing the product as a limited edition—echoing the cookies’ famed limited availability.

However, for every Breyer’s-like smash, there’s a Colgate Lasagna. That’s right, the people who make toothpaste decided, for some still unknown reason, that it was a good idea to get into the TV dinners business, including lasagna. Because toothpaste and lasagna go nicely together? It was such a disaster that, sadly, there’s a box of it in the Museum of Failure.

Here are a few tips to point you towards thin mint success instead of toothpaste lasagna:

 

DO LOOK FOR RELATED PRODUCTS.

DON’T PUT YOUR BRAND ON SOMETHING, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN.

 

Just because something is a good business opportunity, doesn’t mean it’s a good opportunity for your brand. Putting your brand on an unrelated product or service will confuse your customers and a lack of clarity in messaging can kill a brand.

As Wicked Bionic recommends, look for more specialized versions of products already in your line. Or things that are used as companions to your products. General Mills, the flour manufacturer, started “Betty Crocker” cookbooks. Then GM made Betty’s baking mixes and, later, kitchen utensils. The baking brand keeps adding products to help you better use their products. Brilliant.

 

DO LEVERAGE YOUR EXISTING BRAND BY BRINGING ADDED VALUE.

DON’T TAKE ON AN ESTABLISHED MARKET FOR NO REASON.

 

Colgate’s lasagna failed because there were already established lasagna brands. Therefore, Colgate’s brand didn’t help them gain a foothold in someone else’s market. But Colgate later decided to have a brand of toothbrushes. This made perfect sense: The people you trusted to care for your teeth, were delivering their product in a new way. A Colgate toothbrush immediately seemed more credible than other toothbrush manufacturers you’d never heard of—even if they’d been in the market longer. Once again, it just seems inevitable that they’d be in that product category, too.

 

For more ideas on effective brand management, check out our podcast, and for more specific insights on your company, contact us directly.

Building a Tribe Devoted to Your Brand: Why It’s Essential to Cut through the Clutter along with a Guide to Get Started

Every human being has to feel part of a tribe.

It’s programmed into us.

And you have to feel that you’re contributing to something.

­­                                    —Steven Hatfill, Scientist

 

Only 38% percent of customers are truly devoted to a brand. But these core customers are gold. They will go out of their way to get their favorite product or service, and they ignore the rest. They are their reliable purchasers, and they also become unofficial brand ambassadors. Their opinions count. Recommendations by family and friends are five times more influential than endorsements by celebrities and other influencers.

Therefore, what would happen if you approached marketing, from the perspective that your customers are a valued part of your marketing team?

Provide Customers with a Great Emotional Experience

While that may seem obvious, according to Forrester Research, most companies don’t make a concerted effort to improve the customer experience. Instead, the vast majority aim just to do as well (or as poorly) as their competitors. But they do so at their own peril: Forrester has also found that a customer’s emotional experience is more important to brand loyalty than a company’s effectiveness. We have seen this over and over in our agency with our clients.

Companies’ effort is quantifiable. Elite brands provide customers with an average of 22 positive experiences for each negative experience.

The lowest-performing brands provide customers with two positive experiences for each negative one. Imagine that. What company can afford to have customers walk out disappointed or upset one-third of the time?

Gallup has found that only 27% of employees say their companies actually honor promises made to their customers, in terms of quality and service. For example, they miss promised delivery dates, they make customers wait for service longer than promised. And so on.

Now think of all this, in terms of your core customers. When you give customers a positive experience, you remind them why they’re devoted to you. You’re giving these brand ambassadors stories to tell their friends and families – word of mouth recommendations speaks volumes. Even occasional missteps can be forgiven because they’re so few and far between and always viewed by the brand as an opportunity to create a deeper personal connection with an attentive fix.

 

Ask Your Best Customers What They Want

 

To improve your customers’ experience, market research is a great tool. In-depth research will help you learn where they come from, what they like, and what other services they need that you can provide.

Or perhaps you could ask more frequent customers to write testimonials for your website.

Ask them for their ideas on how to improve your services, and if you implement them, thank them on social media. The point is to recognize your best clients’ contributions to your company. Let them know you value more than their money. You value them.

By strengthening your relationship with them, you build a presence in the community and target the exact clientele you want—more customers who love you.

For more ideas on marketing, and building a devoted core of customers, check out our Wicked Marketing our podcast, or to contact us directly.

 

Carlos Sapene and Dana C. Arnett from Wicked Bionic

Authors of Influence Over Coffee – How to Gain It or Use it in Social Media 

Local Marketing: The Finance Sector

The key to local marketing is in knowing, leveraging, reaching, and engaging your key market segments. In the financial sector, this means a mix of general market messaging with an awareness of the areas surrounding your branches. Market segments are a great way of devising personas for your targeted messaging. When providing our marketing services to local banks, we help them craft messaging targeted to the general market and also demographic and ethnographic conscious messaging to help them connect with their consumers. Because local branches are a mix of residents and foot traffic, relevant messaging should be framed based on the needs of the consumer, where ethnographic messaging and visuals may be used for actions like “Opening an Account” at a local bank; general market messaging may be more appropriate for messaging related to accessing the ATM network.

Here are five thought starters for local banks:

  1. Make your messaging walk the talk: Meaning, make decisions that consider your surroundings. One example of this is when we help local banks market their specific branches and suggest a strategy to consider that provides a mix of TV, digital, social, email, and out of home marketing. However, how we help them structure their strategy and messaging is based on goals and proximity. Technology has enabled us to reach people where and whenever we want, based on recent interests. Using a mix of proximity, ethnic, and demographic awareness and the right mediums for each will help financial institutions reach and connect, engage and convert your local audience. Most importantly, it will help you build an emotional connection.
  2. Work your data: When looking for a marketing agency in Los Angeles, make sure the agency is able to provide you with a comprehensive set of placements that can help you reach your local audience and not just with one avenue. A comprehensive agency is able to utilize all forms of marketing and advertising as is applicable to the client. Also, using both online and offline data tracking can help reach potential costumers. What matters most is the number of times needed for the customer to be able to recall your bank’s name and experience at that crucial moment of deciding to open an account or seek a loan.
  3. Identify your core: Each branch has a core group of people that are the key target for their products and services. No messaging can be everything to everyone. Therefore, especially when a new branch opens, focus on growing your core audience first. That is the place where you’ll be able to learn and understand your crucial stakeholder customer. Knowing how they behave, what they like and dislike, and the intricacies of their relationship to your branches and location are what will help you make the customizations you need to meet their needs. If you’re looking to connect with Millennials and Gen-Z, you’ll want to focus on creating messaging that connects with them at a social level, leveraging messaging from reviews and positive experiences from people with your bank as that is one of the ways they validate trust.
  4. Follow Up: One of the most misunderstood pleasantries of marketing is follow up. Surveys are not always the best way to connect with people. A simple email follow-up, thanking people for their business or interest, is something that can be set up as an automated process but that provides a lasting impression and improved perception of the quality of service.
  5. Have an Identity: In the world of social media, having an identity is a tried-and-true way to connect with your audience. Social media can be one of the most effective tools to keep connected and top of mind with your local customers. However, using organic social as a marketing tool is flawed; we suggest paid social for that. The nature of social media is organic; keep your posts focused on value, local perspectives, and openness with your community. If you become a resource to the community, you’ll get more engagement on social media, which in turn will lower the need and expense of paid social. Over time, this will allow you to shift some of your paid budgets to engagement, keeping you connected with your customer.

Having an awareness and a measurable plan is what allows us to help local banks reach, engage, sustain and grow the core audience of customers. Learning is one of the foundations of every business; what you do with those learnings determines your level of success. By continually analyzing performance, fine-tuning, and researching, you’ll be able to deliver on your marketing goals. The era of set-it-and-forget-it marketing is long gone; the future is filled with initiatives like using data forecasting to drive messaging through AI and machine learning. Being small, local, or nimble means you have to plan more aggressively, keep in touch more efficiently, and grow exponentially. Therefore, work with an agency partner that has that goal and mindset to get your message out to the community.

Candor & Emotional Connection: How to Connect With Millennials and Gen-Z

The narrative and writing style of communications nowadays has to be crafted very differently to what it was just five years ago. For websites, as an example, to develop a narrative that communicates the brand message, we now leverage storytelling, first and third-person perspectives, and interweaved trust validators like quotes and reviews. Whereas in the past, communications focused on informing, relating, and driving brand recall through repetitive statements, jingles, and memorable tag lines, our current environment has shifted, and that is in large part due to the generational shift.

 

Millennials as Expert Storytellers

Millennials, or the pass-back generation as I like to refer to them, grew up in an era of digital explosion. For the most part, they were part of fully working households, where one or both parents worked full time and in cases, multiple jobs due to the great recession. These kids grew up sitting in the back of vehicles with an iPad passed back to them to keep them busy as their parents focused on the never-ending stream of worries, job requirements, late hours, and a litany of bills. With the iPad/iPhone or other digital device being a co-parent, these kids learned to gather information from multiple sources on their own. Genetically modified by social media, these kids learned the values of community, resourcefulness, and individuality, in their early years. Whereas we valued the authority of teachers and instructors, these kids learned from their environment, validating facts against opinions expressed digitally and views of the world through everlasting access to information. All of this translates to an individualistic view of the world, a broad representation of authority, where a YouTube influencer may be more credible than a school teacher because they can relate to them on an emotional level. Our education system and our overall communications did not and could not keep up the pace.

 

The Gen-Z Activist

Now the upcoming Gen-Z crew is even more individualistic and opinionated, heavily implicated too. They’ve experienced early onset adulthood, living in a politicized world where they know it to be imperative to validate facts because basically everyone has a different story. They’ve grown up in a generation that challenges everything from physics to physiques and where the story must include elements of relatability, which to them means validation from sources with which they’re familiar.

 

Connecting is Emotional Storytelling and Driving Memories

What this all means to marketing and communication is that to deliver on-brand messaging, we must rely heavily on storytelling. Those stories must be served with trust validators from a broad stream of sources and must be written with an emphasis on kinesthetic, visual, and auditory references. We live in an era of bombardment. Where information is delivered at supersonic speeds and quantities. This information leads to an efficient level of ADD that allows large numbers of data to be assimilated and discarded from our brains at light-speed. To deliver and connect, we must then be strategic about how we develop content. In particular in places like text, where the entire message must be provided in a three to five line story, full of keywords, references, and validators while still making sense and driving an emotional connection. The winners here those that can leverage copy, social, and experience to write something that’s engaging enough not wholly to lose a prospect within the five seconds (at most) you have to engage them.

For us, as an agency, it is our job to find, nurture, and engage expert storytellers to mold them into expert keyword strategists and kinesthetic geniuses then. Impactful messaging has no value without an emotional connection. Brand recall has transformed into a kinesthetic experience, and only those that can engage will be able to deliver to the audiences that now carry the buying power. Focus on connecting first, then deliver on message as it is the connection that will drive the memory, not the message itself.

Where you choose to host your website is an important decision.

Depending on the level of knowledge and experience of your web designer, web developer or engineer, a suggestion will be made to host your website at a specific host. In our case, we host our websites on Amazon’s Cloud Infrastructure. We do this because we find it to be the most robust, responsive and future proof solution for our clients. However, we experience all sorts of other hosting providers throughout our continuous support, upgrades, migrations and infrastructure setups as we have clients join our agency. What I’ve learned is that website hosting is the first decision you make that truly affects the effectiveness of your website or application beyond the decisions that you make when defining your strategy, the workflow, user experience and structure.

Why it matters:

It takes about 500 milliseconds for a website visitor to form an opinion of your website and that has reflection on your brand, and whether or not a visitor will want to engage with it now or in the future. Truly, you have 50ms to make a good first impression. That sounds aggressive, doesn’t it? However, when you think about how fast things move nowadays, and how used to speed we are. It doesn’t seem outlandish. At issue here is that content appearing on your website is not only reliant on the code your web designer created. It is also reliant on how fast the server (computer) where your website is hosted, replies to the request from the website visitor’s browser. That can vary, depending on your website host, how they configure their servers, and many other characteristics such as whether or not you’re on a shared server, meaning you are on a server with other websites that belong to other people or if you’re on your own. There’s many other factors at play, so let’s discuss some of them.

Origin Server: The origin server is basically a computer which holds the files to your website. Think of a filing cabinet of the old days, Where your website are the folders and files within the cabinet and the cabinet itself is your origin server. Now, think of that server being in California, and there’s a request from Florida. The time it takes for the request to travel from the east coast to the west coast is a factor.

Caching : Continuing on the analogy of the filing cabinet, think about the filing cabinet being full of files that have to be indexed before you can make sense of them. Caching would then be an already indexed file that’s ready to be viewed. Meaning, when you look at files on the internet (websites), you want to view the newest version of that file. Websites are often updated and those updates are tracked in databases. So generating those files require the page to request the latest version from the database. That takes time. However, if you have a cached version of the latest file, then that processing doesn’t need to happen. Less processing = less time.

Another feature of caching is that you can have copies of your website throughout the US, so basically copies of the filing cabinet that keep each other updated. So if there’s a request for a file in Florida, and the server of origin is in California BUT you have a cache of the website on another server in Florida, then the server in California will have updated the one in Florida with the most recent copy. When a file is requested in Florida then, the request does not have to travel all the way to California for a response. Again, less travel for requests = less load time.

Now think if the filing cabinet is used to one to three people coming to it at a time, but all of the sudden 30 people show up with requests that they want answers to immediately, if those files are not cached then the server will have to process each file, per request, one after the other. At a 30 people level, it happens fast, at a 30,000 people level; not so much. And if you think at the 300,000 people requesting it, you might as well set the cabinet on fire.

Server Side Rules: There’s many things that can be setup on the server side to help your website load faster. One of these things, are rules or directives that tell your server when to look for new files and when not to. You can setup your server to know that certain images will never change, or certain files will always be the same. This will allow your server to know that it doesn’t have to add checking for new versions of those files ot it’s checklist. Thus reducing the amount of time to serve your page.

Load Balancing: The last point leads me to load balancing. This is a term that means at its essence that the number of requests being made of the server are balanced amongst several servers to alleviate a load. This is necessary when you expect higher traffic to a website or application. You may think you don’t need this, but think about your stellar day, when you launch your new product line or service, spend your money to makret it, and all of the sudden you get a slew of people coming to your website and it immediately goes down. Well, “that didn’t happen when we tested the website” is not a good answer when you’ve already lost your potential customers to a bad experience. Of course it didn’t happen then when you and your web designer and marketing agency were looking at it, that’s only 3 people making requests. If you have a popular product or are lucky enough to create something viral, then you’ll regret not having been prepared.

File Sizes: One of the most common issues we see with load times is file sizes. When you think about the filing cabinet, if there’s a file in there that weighs a ton, although it looks exactly the same as a file that weighs the weight of a feather. it’s going to take much longer for the file that weighs a ton to come out of that cabinet and arrive at its destination. It’s not uncommon for people to think that all files are the same, just because you saved it as a jpg, that doesn’t mean that it’s not huge or heavy. Especially if it came from a designer. Your web developer should ensure that the files are either of an optimized size or that they implement tools so that the files are resized when you upload the to your website. This will help your website or application load faster.

That’s just some of the basics to consider, or ask your developer about, when deciding where to host your website. Believe it or not, some of the most common places to host your website are also some of the worst places to do so. Make sure you work with a developer that is knowledgeable. There’s parts of the experience of buying your product or service that are under your control like the quality of the product. There’s others that are not so much. Unless you take charge. Think this doesn’t apply to you? now think how many times you’ve left a website or closed an app because it doesn’t load or respond quickly enough.

Want more tips on marketing and strategy? Subscribe to our podcast

 

Use your email marketing lists to generate business with Facebook Ads.

Facebook uses a special algorithm to evaluate whether an advertisement is likely to be clicked by people. The algorithm then selects ads based on how much people who click on them are willing to engage with a particular product or service. Facebook says that this targeting is necessary to “make sure ads reach people in a way that’s meaningful to them” and to prevent people from finding ads that look suspicious or “dislikeable.” Facebook is also working on developing more precise targeting in the future.

What’s more, Facebook says it’s also working to improve how people perceive the ads. Facebook is planning to incorporate the information it’s collecting to make better ads for people, with the hope that it’ll also be able to detect “emotions” and “intent” when people are viewing ads on its platform. Facebook’s goal is to make it easier to understand how an ad is perceived and thus make better ads, for both advertisers and the people who see them.

Leveraging your email lists

One of the big benefits of having a good email list is the ability to generate targeted leads, build a relationship with your subscribers and make a good deal of money with your marketing efforts. For this reason, it’s important to focus on building, growing, nurturing and maintaining your email marketing lists, especially as it pertains to online businesses.

While you can’t rely on Facebook alone to generate leads, you can use Facebook ads to your advantage to attract customers that are actively looking for information about your business. You can also use Facebook ads to build your email list, and in turn, keep it growing. Given the amount of information we’re bombarded with on the internet nowadays, and in particular ads, it’s hard to create the impression that ads used to. By ingesting your email marketing list into facebook, you’re able to ensure that your target repeat customers view your brand, not only when they read your newsletter but while they’re viewing their feed or stories on Facebook.

Even more, by ingesting your email list into Facebook, you’re able to leverage their AI and data to generate “lookalike lists”, which are lists of people who match behaviors related to your current list of clients and are therefore estimated to be a better match for your service or product business.

How do you use Facebook Ads with your email lists?

Facebook has a wide variety of ad formats. You can have different types of ads that appear on your page or page layout. You can use Facebook ads to:

  • Display advertising on the Facebook News Feed and/or stories of your existing customers.
  • Display advertising on the Facebook News Feed and/or Stories of customers matching your prospecting strategy.
  • Display advertising on the Facebook News Feed and/or Stories of customers who look alike your existing customers.
  • Send targeted messages to your audience through Messenger ads
  • Grow your email list by creating lead generating ads

3 Horror Stories of Compromised Corporate IT and What You Can Learn

It’s often said that experience is the best teacher—but we don’t have to have had the experience personally to learn from it. If we can gain insight from someone else’s mistake or failure, we can often keep from repeating those mistakes. In honor of Halloween—the scariest day of the year—let’s talk about three real-life horror stories of compromised corporate IT, what happened, and what you can do to keep it from happening to your business.

1. Sony’s Worst Nightmare

 

Over three years, the Sony Corporation suffered a terrible 1-2 punch affecting two of its biggest divisions. In April 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network gaming service was compromised by hackers who stole and leaked the personal information of 77 million users—not to mention the tens of thousands who also had their bank information compromised. Then, in November 2014, a hacker group called “Guardians of Peace” hacked multiple computers at Sony Pictures Studios, stealing a huge amount of confidential information, which included scripts, employees’ personal data and compromising emails. (The attack was later tied to North Korea, possibly as retaliation for their offense at the depiction of a murder plot against Kim Jong-Un in the film The Interview.)

 

In both cases, the attacks could have been prevented—the first by better data encryption and the second, by more robust firewall protection and a more vigilant IT crew. Between the two breaches, Sony had to pay settlements of more than $25 million combined.

 

What you can learn: Encrypted data is a simple solution that can ward off a large number of cyberattacks. (Just as burglars prefer unlocked homes, hackers look for unguarded systems because they’re easier targets.)

 

2. Uber’s Wild Ride

 

In 2016, ride sharing platform Uber experienced the data theft of the personal information of 57 million users and 600,000 drivers. What’s worse, they paid the hackers a ransom of $100,000 to destroy the compromised data—without verifying that the hackers actually had it. What’s worse still, Uber waited a whole year to make the breach public, during which time the personal information of those affected could have easily been used fraudulently.

Remarkably, the breach occurred over a simple mistake that any tech company should know better than to do. The hackers were able to infiltrate Uber by obtaining login credentials that had been incorrectly stored on GitHub, a code sharing service for developers.

 

What you can learn: First—human error can be your greatest vulnerability, so train your team to protect their login credentials (and your data). Second—cybersecurity isn’t just about keeping data safe, but also about keeping credentials safe. Don’t store passwords in places where they can be lifted.

 

3. Adobe’s Hidden Flaw

 

Tech giant Adobe first announced in 2013 that a coordinated hacking of its IT infrastructure had exposed the personal and financial information of nearly 3 million users. But new information soon revealed to the company that the breach had gone far deeper, impacting 38 million active users, and additional username/password combinations totaling 150 million. In addition to user data, the company suffered loss of critical product data, including 40 GB of source code. An investigation revealed the breach occurred because a group of passwords had been encrypted but not “chopped,” leaving them vulnerable.

 

To Adobe’s credit, had they not had some robust security in place, the situation could have been far worse. Some banking data was stolen but was unusable due to high-level encrypting.

 

What you can learn: Even if hackers discover a hidden vulnerability, a secured system can keep a bad problem from becoming worse. Some security is always better than no security.

 

Wicked Bionic has partnerships with technology companies that can ensure your safety. Reach out to us if you have concerns that your IT is not secure enough and we can get you an introduction.

5 Ways to Provide Value and Build Trust

Law firms of all sizes are the perfect place to express who you are and the services you offer. Making it personal builds trust and creates accessibility.

1. ‘What to Expect’ Articles

Publish a few articles that inform site visitors and potential clients what happens when they consult with your firm. Some of these include information that explains what they should bring to that first meeting with you and your staff, who they are going to be meeting with, and what they can expect during the meeting. By explaining what takes place during these initial meetings, you can alleviate some of the anxieties and fears potential clients, especially those who have never dealt with an attorney before and allow them to view the process with less trepidation. If you don’t like writing or don’t have the time, our agency can provide content writers.

2. Use Videos to Entertain

Videos are where it’s at in connecting and are a terrific way to market yourself and your firm. Many firms are NOT doing videos (yet) so it’s a fantastic time to jump in. Create videos for legal marketing with your mobile phone which follows you around the office, introducing people to some of the staff members and showing the different areas of the office where clients might go. If you prefer, you can have these videos done by professionals who can make sure that the lighting and sound match what you want your current and future clients to see. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does need to convey your authenticity. If you’re not sure how to do it contact our agency and can help to better understand law firm marketing.

3. ‘Meet the Staff’ Videos

You can also film quick biographies about the main members of your staff that you post on a page of your website’s staff information page or post on social media sites like Facebook. Have each staff member acknowledge the camera and tell a story about themselves or about working at your law firm. Sharing personal details allows site visitors to connect with your staff better, fostering a feeling of comfort and trust.

4. Open House

Hosting an open house is a great way to provide a fun atmosphere and build your law firm marketing. Open up your office as a way to connect with your community and neighbors. You can make it simple by serving light appetizers and soft drinks. Alternatively, you can hold it after-hours and make it more of a cocktail party for adults.

5. Informational Events

Another type of event you can hold at your office is informational seminars related to interesting legal topics and solutions that you may find boring or common knowledge, but your average person doesn’t know anything about. Pick material that is easily understood and that you can make entertaining while also being informational. You want to provide value to those who come by while, at the same time appearing authoritative enough to make guests want to choose you when they need legal services or share you with their friends and colleagues. Market this event online and offline in a way that will make people want to attend and walk away from the gathering with your business in mind.

Wicked Bionic can strategize with you on the various ways to stand out via legal marketing and attract your ideal clients.