Posts made in July, 2017

on Jul 25, 2017

By Laurie Fullerton More and more enterprises are seeking the use of application to person (A2P) SMS as a channel for customer engagement, notification and authentication and increasingly embrace chat bots via chat apps or social media and other rich communications services (RCS) messaging. A recent report by Ovum’s Enterprise Messaging Survey canvassed 100 companies in seven countries to investigate their use of messaging as a channel for customer engagement, notification, and authentication and revealed a growing business appetite for more interactive forms of messaging. The use of A2P SMS – which is typically a web app that Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 25, 2017

By Laurie Fullerton With increased awareness that negative publicity can damage a company’s brand, employers find it hits home when it comes to a companies ability to recruit talent. According to the latest CareerBuilder survey, 71% of US workers stated they would not apply to a company experiencing negative press. Further, female workers are much more likely not to apply to a company experiencing negative press than their male counterparts, 79% compared to 61% respectively. The national survey, which was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from May 24 to June 16, 2017, included representative samples Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 25, 2017

By Lisa Lacy Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has invested in trucking network Convoy’s latest round of funding, joining a veritable who’s who of billionaire backers, which also include Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia chairman Barry Diller and Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff. Gates participated in Convoy’s $62m Series B round. Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund led the round. In addition to Gates’ private investment vehicle Cascade Investment, other new investors included Mosaic Ventures and former US Senator Bill Bradley. Existing investors Benioff and Bezos – via Bezos Expeditions – also participated, along with Greylock Partners, Expedia chief executive Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 25, 2017

By Lisa Lacy While search and discovery sound similar – and they are – they are also two distinct concepts in marketing. The first is more established – and more familiar: a consumer uses a search engine like Google, YouTube or Amazon and the platform in question uses indexes of data to retrieve answers. That’s according to Duane Forrester, vice president of industry insights at Yext, who noted discovery, on the other hand, pulls in context. “Search works well when I have a specific keyword and it matches something specific and I get that result back – that’s a well-trodden path,” Forrester said. “Discovery Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Jul 25, 2017

By Laurie Fullerton There is a surge in expectations, particularly among millennials, that a CEO should speak up about social issues. And, millennials will “vote by wallet” for those companies that do have conscientious leadership. A recent study by Weber Shandwick and KRC research found that nearly one-half of millennials (47%) believe CEOs have a responsibility to speak up about issues that are important to society, and 51% said they are more likely to buy from companies led by CEO activists. The numbers are increasingly higher than those same sentiments of GenXers and Baby Boomers (28%) with six out Read full story › Source: The Drum...