If you have been active on your social media in the past months, you may noticed a lot of celebrities has tried an app called ” Face App” that made them look older, younger, or change their genders. The “old” filter is what caused the app to go viral, however the variety effects of the app that made customers attracted.

However, Face app will just be a normal app if one of the Twitter user did not point out Face App’s policies. In the terms and conditions, number 5 in User Content said “You grant Face App a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royal-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-license to use, reproduce, modify, publicity perform and display your users content and any name, user name or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you“

With the strict privacy policy language, it created a controversy and people all over the Internet had been talking about it. The rumors said that Face App was owned by a Russian company and they collected customer’s personal data. Other rumors was the app could possibly hack to your phone because you agree the app to access to your phone photos.

I still remembered it went all over the news within one night by the power of the Internet and WOM. The downloaded went over 50 thousands and still continuing. The rumor can’t deny the fact that it gained way more popularity after the controversy.

Not too long later, the founder of Face App Yaroslav Goncahrov had to released a statement said:

•“We only upload a photo selected by a user for editing. We never transfer any other images from the phone to the cloud.”

•“We might store an uploaded photo in the cloud. The main reason for that is performance and traffic: we want to make sure that the user doesn’t upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation. Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date.“

Until now, we still don’t know if privacy of Face App’s Users has been leaked or what not but the attention that had achieved was very impressive.

References

https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/is-faceapp-dangerous-an-investigation-into-the-viral-apps-privacy-policy

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/07/17/faceapp-is-the-russian-face-aging-app-a-danger-to-your-privacy/#290562d82755

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/07/24/meet-the-face-behind-faceapp-rich-russian-yaroslav-goncharov/#400b6fb255a9

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/faceapp-privacy-concerns-russian-company-behind-it-2019-7?r=US&IR=T

There are so many ways to collect customer’s data that businesses applied in the past years. I’ve read and also heard about how business used customers personal information for different purposes. However, in this modern World, consumers choose to SMART everything from SMART phone, SMART watch, SMART laptop etc, without knowing their data has been collected and being used

One of the article I have read last month about SMART TV was really made me concerned about privacy data. The title was “Your TV is watching you watching TV”, I never thought of it, how does TV collect your information?

According to a new Consumer Report Investigation (2018): “Data of your viewing habits plus your personal information will be collected to sell to other marketers. It happens when you set up a SMART TV, one of the term and condition will ask for your permission to collect your data during initial setup. Consumers will tend to to agree without reading it too carefully.

“The realistic of this data- drenched World raise substantial concerns about privacy, and people’s abilities to control their own life” – This is actually true and scary at the same time. It makes consumers feel like their TV is spying on them but not everyone will know about this function on their TV. For example the elder demographics, who mainly watching TV and may possibility been targeted.

How do you stop it ?

It depends on the brands and models but yes, there is a way to stop it. From your TV

• Click menu on the remote
• Select setting
• Highlight SMART interactivity
• Press right arrow to switch off

Be SMART when you use SMART devices. All of the information maybe benefits for you and businesses to recommend the right channels or videos in the suggestion lists, however, you can also be targeted for marketing purpose.

References

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-keep-your-smart-tv-from-spying-on-you/

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2014/08/smart-tv-spying-are-you-watching-tv-or-is-it-watching-you/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiki8rp0e3kAhWJfysKHdmXDY0Qjhx6BAgBEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.which.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2014%2F08%2Fsmart-tv-spying-are-you-watching-tv-or-is-it-watching-you%2F&psig=AOvVaw0umDJ8FWLYcatlh7c5kDS7&ust=1569558131442598

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwje7aqW0u3kAhXQV30KHea7A6cQjhx6BAgBEAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.franklincountyvapatriots.com%2F2015%2F02%2F10%2Fare-you-watching-tv-or-is-your-smart-tv-watching-you%2F&psig=AOvVaw0umDJ8FWLYcatlh7c5kDS7&ust=1569558131442598

Smartphones become an integral part of everyday life. I personally don’t think I can live without it.  The smart phone is not about messages and phone calls anymore, the quality camera function plays an important part also as the large storage. According to Frontiers statistics, approximately 88% of the population own a smartphone. In the end of 2018, around 9.1 million active iPhone users became the second largest smartphone company after Samsung which got 11 million active users.

While the World is talking about Apple new iPhone 11, Pro, Pro Max which will be launched in the 13^th of September 2019 or iPhone XR the most seller smartphone. Apple is still using “camera” as their key future.

This time, they don’t compare themselves to competitors like Samsung did on their “The Next Big Thing Is Here” campaign or Huawei bring a Truck to advertising their new product in front of Apple stores. Apple just simply focus on their functional, new colours and produced iPhone with highest pixel density of any Apple device.

Apple understands what customer needs and wants to create ad that not only about the features and specifications, but rather show off their high tech products and how to make life so much better.

Apple became #1 on trending in Australia a day before launch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEemOmHw9Y

There are so many pros and cons of Apple devices that everyone has been talking about, but the hype of new iPhone is never going down.

– The battery life improvements

– Triple cameras added telephoto lens

– Denser OLED screen

However, the controversy started when people claimed the idea of triple-lens camera were originally from Huawei Mate 20. Both companies have different designs and functional. There is actually no solid confirmation from Tim Cook (Apple CEO) yet, so everyone still have to wait until the new mobile phone launch to actually judge or take it into matters.

References

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00105/full

https://www.afr.com/technology/apples-iphone-problem-hits-australian-sales-20190130-h1ao7y

https://www.techradar.com/au/news/iphone-11-release-date-price-news-and-features

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/11/20859743/iphone-11-max-pro-features-best-worst-camera-battery-life-colors-price-apple

Last week I logged onto the RMIT Connect website looking for information on elective courses, at first, I wasn’t really sure where to start but then I saw a chatbot at the bottom right corner which said “Ask the RMIT bot”. Out of curiosity I started the conversation with “hey” and surprisingly, it sent me all the information that I needed, including links.

 At one point I questioned myself: am I talking to a human, but then suddenly it said: Sorry – I’m doing my best, but I’m still getting the hang of human-speak. Would you like to talk to a real person instead?

 It had a very fast response, offers 24/7 service, friendly and very human like instead of a robotic response. No wonder why automated virtual-assistant chats became so popular and started trending more in 2019.

According to Grand View Research, 45% of customers prefer chatbots when they are in need of fast responses in customer services. Chatbots interact with their users by scanning keywords in the user’s questions then sends the users options that match the most with the keywords which then lead to a final question. Chatbots will automatically send users directly to FAQ page or other articles.

Some fun facts about chatbots – what made it become a global trend?

– Chatbots have more than 44 thousand unique reading prompts (Chatbot Report 2018)

– Approximately 65% businesses engaged web software by using this technology ( Relay 2019)

– Business Insider’s expect next year, 2020 – that up to 80% of enterprises will be using Chatbots and up to 90% in 2022

How are Chatbots able to replace human’s in customer service?

Well we live in an era (2019) where technology is used day to day and people are expecting fast responses from it, robots not only replaced human’s on online customer services robots have long ago replaced humans from many factories. The generation we are in are filled with people who are very impatient and, in my opinion, Chatbots will definitely increase users, support them and continue to trend in the next few years.

By T Trang

References links:

https://chatbotsmagazine.com/chatbot-report-2019-global-trends-and-analysis-a487afec05b

https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2018/december/10-digital-marketing-trends-for-2019

There are so many interesting facts about live stream that you can be able apply for your business.

• 80% audiences prefer to watch live stream videos instead of reading blogs
• Increase sales can get up to 97% if customers think the videos are exciting
• A high percentages of customers which is 67% will likely to buy your product after watching your videos

Live stream became popular in so many countries, increase from hundreds to millions viewership. In my opinion, this option is only good to apply for small to medium businesses, but if it is a large company, it will be a bit harder to successfully delivering messages to the audience.

However, the beneficial of live stream is something that businesses shouldn’t ignore:

• It gains more attention
• Face-to-face interaction
• Can reach max target audience
• Increase brand loyalty

Share Live Events

This is the best way to connect the business to audience when you share live events with them. The purpose is not only let them know about the event. Business needs to make audience to be a part of it by:

• Create an interesting story to them. After a certain of time, audience will get bored of it if the information is repeating and happening at the same location. So, business should try to show the entire event, show them what they want to hear and see.

• Pay attention on the comments section. Try to read and reply what are your audience comment about. I personally love to hear people reply on my comment whenever I watch their live stream. Ask the audience what they want to see then show them or answer their questions.
• New product release. During event, choose a peak time when you get most of viewers to release information about the new product. It’s not only make the customer feel like they are a part of the unique moment it’s also a free advertising for their new product.

There are so many way to live stream a product or services. Nowadays, I don’t think it’s about an influencer tries to sell a single product during live stream anymore, business can use this simple tool to live stream an event, a match, a game or even a business itself with low cost and time efficient.

References links:

https://www.google.com/search?q=live+stream+and+marketing&rlz=1C1GCEA_enAU854AU854&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTiOKM4_XjAhUaOSsKHdZEACwQ_AUIESgC&biw=1366&bih=657#imgrc=JAM4AuH-IlzeoM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=live+stream+and+marketing&rlz=1C1GCEA_enAU854AU854&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTiOKM4_XjAhUaOSsKHdZEACwQ_AUIESgC&biw=1366&bih=657#imgrc=JAM4AuH-IlzeoM:

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enAU854AU854&biw=1366&bih=657&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=v6tLXbHmCJbyrAGhx7rACQ&q=ditital+marketing+trends+2019&oq=ditital+marketing+trends+2019&gs_l=img.3…3198.3198..3430…0.0..0.0.0…….0….1..gws-wiz-img.d9ZUtLTwSpU&ved=&uact=5#imgrc=LQffmbVczuiIKM:

https://hackernoon.com/how-live-video-streaming-can-benefit-different-business-verticals-9dd8bc2ed94b

Digital marketing is always a connection between businesses to the right audience. To find a right right channels to target the right customers you need to go through a lot of researches, try different channels, target different groups of customers to get the best results. So, what are those channels and how do you use it to achieve the best results?

Digital marketing examples

1. Social Media Marketing
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. Affiliate Marketing

*Those are only a few examples of Digital Marketing but also are the most common ways to promote your business.

Social Media Marketing

To increase awareness within a budget for your brand, social media can be a very easy way to gain attention in a short period of time.

There are a lot of channels out there but the most popular social media channels are: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat. By those channels, your business can set a time, budget, geographic, genders, interests,… of your potential customers to target them the products that they can possibly purchase.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO will tell you your ranking between you and your competitors by showing where you at in the search engine result page based on the organic traffic of your page/ website . For example: if you search for “Korean BBQ in Melbourne “, the first restaurant popped up will be the website has the most searched/ clicked, then followed up with a list of Korean restaurant.

To achieve the highest ranking, your business have to make sure you to increase the traffic to your site by promoting in from different channels

Affiliate Marketing

This is a type of marketing that you pay for a third party to promote your business/ links to business by putting/ mention your business to their social media channels or Youtube videos.

Business will be consider and choosing influences (people have a high profiles or high followers) that suitable for their products/services

By T Trang

Reference links

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-digital-marketing?fbclid=IwAR3fAuhuR-aPDz37fM5p-IeUOT_202WrEKLBFMa-2ORz01HgVYkQJYVfaFQ

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHZL_enAU757AU757&biw=1366&bih=608&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=pFlCXZSPO8GGmgeh5K-oBQ&q=social+media+icons&oq=socal+media+ic&gs_l=img.3.0.0i10i24l2.357241.361497..362686…0.0..0.467.3064.0j7j5j1j1……0….1..gws-wiz-img…….35i39j0i67j0j0i10j0i10i30.-US2gYRRCy0#imgrc=MuHEHtja2Cr3DM: