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Since 2021, the stars of Chinas internet economy including Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan all entered a stagnant stage after a decade of phenomenal growth. In the decade before, we grew used to these giants expanding into new industries and making waves with their capital and technology advantages, but these days we hear more about them laying off employees and cutting non-profitable business units.

Meanwhile, the term Web 3.0 has been gaining traction and has already become the new catchphrase for the crypto movement. Web3 the next generation of the internet disrupting the over-centralized Web 2.0 platforms is a powerful narrative that is capturing the attention of Chinese internet entrepreneurs who are looking for the next big thing.

A16z, one of the most influential crypto VC funds, defines Web2 as social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WeChat where we can only read and write, while Web3 is the blockchain-enabled internet that allows us read, write and own meaning users can own the digital assets they create as well as part of the network infrastructure.

There are now more and more impactful investors and entrepreneurs from Chinas Web2 industry venturing into Web3. They are veterans from the last wave of internet innovation who built fintech, e-commerce or social media applications for tens of millions of users.

Ironically, some new migrants who just moved out of the stymied Web2 businesses in 2021, were again caught in cryptos bear market which already has erased about a trillion dollars in market cap since the beginning of 2022. Will the bear market also end prematurely the migration from Web2 to Web3?

Having talked to many Chinese entrepreneurs in the past several months, my observation is that the Web3 movement is now forced into a sobering reset moment which actually is a good time for Web2 entrepreneurs to enter the playing field and leverage their know-how to help accelerate Web3 applications toward mass adoption and real-world economic activities.

From falling market cap to sizable layoffs, the optimism once surrounding Chinas internet economy has been visibly diminishing over the past year. Chinese internet entrepreneurs have so much anxiety about the fluctuating government regulations and policies that the code is law philosophy held by the blockchain community seems particularly attractive to them.

As they feel that the social contract between government authorities and market players is often getting rewritten, the smart contracts on the blockchain seem transparent and more secure to them.

Chinese internet companies have to stay away from cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi), which the government has outlawed. But they are actively exploring non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which look like a cultural and entertainment business that attracts less regulatory attention.

Bilibili, the video-driven social network, just launched its NFT series Cheers UP in late April and even added an NFT tab to its app (international version), which connects to users Metamask wallets. Even the food delivery platform ele.me has launched an NFT series focusing on Chinese heritage cuisine, with Cod Meat Ball as its first NFT.

Tencent has invested in the NFT platform Immutable X and TikTok collaborated with Immutable X to launch a NFT collection Tiktok Top Moments.

The investment funds that backed the winners of Chinas internet economy are now placing big bets on Web3. Neil Shen, known for being the founder of C-Trip and early investor of Meituan and Pinduoduo, led Sequoia China to invest in blockchain gaming behemoth Animoca Brands.

These are just some examples of publicized investments. There are many more individuals and family offices quietly backing Web3 startups behind the scenes.

The narrative of Web3 indicates that it will bring an internet that serves the interests of users and builders better than Web2. VC investor and thought leader, Chris Dixon, wrote in a widely quoted Twitter thread: Web 3 is the Internet owned by builders and users, orchestrated with tokens. But the recent market turbulence exposed the gap between the narrative and the current reality, which made many Web2 entrepreneurs skeptical.

The Chinese Web2 entrepreneurs are well aware of the problems of over-centralization. The whole internet ecosystem in China is dominated by super apps such as Alipay, WeChat and Meituan, which mediate countless online activities and possess most of the users data. Meanwhile, user acquisition is one of the key business challenges for Chinese internet companies, which routinely burn billions of capital to acquire and retain users in the forms of advertising, giveaways and social marketing.

The concentration of data in the super apps and the skyrocketing cost of user acquisition have made it very difficult for new startups to emerge in the past several years and has also made the super apps into targets of anti-monopoly regulation. That is why many Web2 entrepreneurs are inspired by the idea of building upon a decentralized network and turning users into stakeholders.

However, the majority of the existing Web3 applications have not yet lived up to the vision of benefiting users at scale. Terraform Labs Luna, once one of the most influential crypto projects in Asia and claimed to create decentralized money for a decentralized economy, saw the value of its algorithm-driven stablecoin UST recently drop to zero over just three days. For many in the crypto community who criticize the Fed for printing U.S. dollars out of thin air, it is now hard to argue decentralized money is a better option.

Even blockchain games, which many hope would onboard consumers en masse into Web3, have not proven that people like them for reasons other than token incentives. While we heard quite a lot of news about virtual lands in the metaverse games Sandbox and Decentraland selling for millions of dollars, the daily active users of these two games are only around 1,000 as of this April an embarrassingly low number compared to mainstream Web2 games.

When Web2 entrepreneurs, who are experts in identifying product-market fit, look at the current Web3 applications, they could easily conclude that the current killer application of Web3 is simply speculation.

The recent collapse of many crypto assets exposed the risk of token-facilitated hyper-financialization. It also makes clear the necessity for Web3 applications to find use cases and solve problems in the real-world economy, which happens to be what Web2 entrepreneurs built their success on.

When the tokens were enjoying the incredible bull run between 2020 and 2021, we often saw Web3 advocates assuming with confidence that Web2 applications were just dinosaurs with no future. But thanks to this bear market, many of them should now recognize with humility that Web2 applications like Paypal, YouTube and Tiktok are still better at being widely used in current everyday life.

Despite some skepticism, for Web2 entrepreneurs, there is still no other vision as inspiring as this decentralized internet that aligns the interests of builders and users. For Chinese entrepreneurs in particular, the permissionless and global nature of Web3 also makes it a rare oasis free from the disturbance of geopolitics.

Chinese Web2 entrepreneurs have a good chance to play an important role in the next wave of Web3 innovation. The mass adoption of Web3 will not bypass the booming Asia market. Chinese entrepreneurs have the most experience in Asia when it comes to building internet products at scale, with killer applications that can compete with global giants. Some of the most promising use cases of crypto, such as digital wallets and virtual entertainment, are familiar territories for them.

The Web2 to Web3 migration also presents an important opportunity to the crypto-native teams. Web2 entrepreneurs and investors need partners to master the blockchain infrastructure, the complex tokenomics and the dynamic communities that operate under a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization).

Since 2021, we have already seen Chinas crypto community migrating to Southeast Asia because of the crypto ban, and talents from traditional finance migrating to crypto finance in search of growth. The Web2 to Web3 migration is another important trend. The current bear market only makes it even more impactful, and it is bringing the capital and expertise on mass adoption that Asias Web3 movement needs for the next breakthrough.

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How the bear market could accelerate the Web2 to Web3 migration - Forkast News

Crocs, Inc. (CROX Quick QuoteCROX - Free Report) has been gaining from sturdy consumer demand, brand strength and solid online show. This led to an impressive first-quarter 2022 performance.

The companys top and bottom lines surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the eighth straight quarter in the first quarter. Also, sales and earnings improved year over year. The top line witnessed growth across all regions and channels.

The companys latest buyout of HEYDUDE, which sells lightweight, casual shoes and sandals for men, women and children, is likely to add value to its fast-growing footwear business. This is the second high-growth, highly profitable brand added to the Crocs portfolio.

Crocs believes that HEYDUDEs consumer-insight-driven casual, comfortable and lightweight products perfectly fit its existing portfolio. The acquisition is likely to diversify Crocs brand portfolio and add to its digital penetration, as HEYDUDE has a strong online presence.

The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to Crocs revenues, operating margins and earnings. It expects HEYDUDE to deliver revenues of $620-$670 million on a reported basis, beginning Feb 17, 2022. Management expects the HEYDUDE brand to reach $1 billion in revenues by 2024.

Speaking of its online unit, the company has been witnessing significant progress in expanding digital and omnichannel capabilities. Digital sales advanced 20.3% year over year and accounted for 32.8% of revenues in the first quarter. Increased focus on the Crocs mobile app and global social platforms aided digital sales.

Within digital, India, South Korea and Australia regions witnessed double-digit increases from the year-ago period. Gains from strategic collaborations, influencer campaigns, and digital and social marketing efforts remained upsides.

Driven by these factors, management updated the guidance for 2022 and issued a second-quarter view. For 2022, revenues related to the HEYDUDE buyout are likely to be $750-$800 million on a reported basis, up from $620-$670 stated earlier. The company expects revenue growth (excluding HEYDUDE) of more than 20% for 2022. Consolidated revenues are projected to be $3.5 billion, suggesting year-over-year growth of 52-55%.

Adjusted earnings are envisioned to be $10.05-$10.65, up from the prior stated $9.7-$10.25. The adjusted operating margin is anticipated to be 26-27% compared with the aforementioned 26%.

For second-quarter 2022, revenues are projected to grow 43-49% to $918-$957 million. In the prior-year quarter, it reported revenues of $641 million. The adjusted operating margin is estimated to be 26%, including air freight expenses of $50 million.

However, Crocs is reeling under operational headwinds related to the ongoing supply-chain challenges, high inflation, rising interest rates, adverse impacts of the war in Ukraine and current shutdowns stemming from the zero-COVID policy in China. Supply-chain disruptions have been challenging for manufacturers and have significantly hampered the mobility of products across the globe.

The company notes that global inflation, contributing to incremental freight costs, particularly air freight, will continue in 2022. It expects air freight costs of $75 million to hurt gross margins in the first half of 2022.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

We note that shares of CROX have lost 19.8% in the past three months compared with the industrys decline of 7.5%.

Despite supply-chain headwinds and rising inflation, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock remains well-poised on the back of solid demand, brand strength and robust digital business. Also, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the companys current financial years sales and earnings suggests growth of 53% and 26.6%, respectively, from the year-ago periods reported numbers. Topping it, earnings estimates for 2022 have moved up 3.6% in the past 60 days.

Some better-ranked stocks from the same industry are Delta Apparel (DLA Quick QuoteDLA - Free Report) , Steven Madden (SHOO Quick QuoteSHOO - Free Report) and GIII Apparel Group (GIII Quick QuoteGIII - Free Report) .

Steven Madden is involved in designing, sourcing, marketing and selling private label footwear, handbags and accessories for women, men, and children. It currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). SHOO has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 44%, on average. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Steven Maddens current financial years sales and earnings suggests growth of 15.2% and 19.6%, respectively, from the year-ago period's reported numbers.

Delta Apparel, a manufacturer of knitwear products, currently sports a Zacks Rank #1. DLA has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 95.5%, on average.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Delta Apparel's current financial years sales and earnings per share suggests growth of 11.9% and 10.1%, respectively, from the year-ago period's reported numbers.

GIII Apparel, a manufacturer, designer and distributor of apparel and accessories, presently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). GIL has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 160.6%, on average.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for GIII Apparels current financial-year sales and earnings suggests growth of 8.7% and 5.2% from the year-ago periods reported numbers, respectively.

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Here's Why You Should Hold on to Crocs (CROX) Stock Now - Zacks Investment Research

PHOTO:Sundry Photography

No doubt the Elon Musk acquisition bid for Twitter is unprecedented.

Also unprecedented is division among marketers if they should be concerned about the potential impact of the Musk/Twitter acquisition on their social media strategies.

I tried a poll of my Twitter and LinkedIn audience to see if people were thinking of changing their social media strategy. A small number of people responded just over 50 with half saying no.

But for those saying yes or maybe and for those who share that sentiment being concerned on the deal's impact is warranted. Social media has long been an enabler for a brand to connect with customers. The acquisition is increasingly seen as a disruption among Wall Street analysts. The stock price for Twitter has been somewhat muted since the news. Tesla stock price dropped in value as Musk's financing of the deal using his shares was revealed.

Marketers may soon join that chorus, discovering that the deal will not really move the needle for Twitter to compete with other social media platforms.

Musk's Twitter acquisition deal presents an opportunity for Twitter's business model. When a publicly traded company turns private, its management team gains a capacity to focus on developing new products without distraction from quarterly investor demands for new revenue-generating services and driving the share price higher.

That may be a timely benefit given a current downturn in ad spending that is impacting the revenue for social media platforms. The stock market's response to Snapchat's earning report is an example of marketplace sentiment; CNBC and other finance news sources reported that stock prices for Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media companies tumbled as a result of market fears that Snapchat's losses from advertising reflects the entire social media sector.

But Musk brings no innovative perspectives to Twitter's real challenges. He instead directs attention toward tactics that appear strategic but are shallow in scope. His call to "open the algorithm" during a TED stage discussion following the bid announcement overlooks a key development fact: algorithm models are created from data, a development process radically different from that for software. Open sourcing any algorithm without agreement on what data is used to test and train the algorithm displays a serious omission of insight into how social media feeds operate.

The same kind of overlook applies to Musk's comments about bots. Political bots with false comparisons and bad messaging do play havoc on Twitter's feed. The same can be said for memes and fake video on other social media platforms, for that matter.

But bots, when applied judiciously, do serve a content marketing purpose. Bots allow more people to review tweets, increasing the reach for the associated content. Many subgroups within Twitter use bots to see tweets they missed when the tweet was first sent. This helps with ensure information is not overlooked.

For example, developers view bot retweets to see news on JavaScript Python, R and other programming languages. This helps in everyone seeing information ranging from new techniques to conferences. In addition, Twitter guidelines require bot profiles to indicate themselves as a bot and list the bot creator in their profile description.

The concern Musk raised about bots really must be directed at the type of content being reshared, not just the mechanism. When political organizations started using the same tactics, pundits and experts raised solid concerns raising amplification of misinformation. Bot misuse is a result of human misbehavior, not just bad technology.

CMSWire Managing Editor Dom Nicastro caught up with social media consultant Lauren Kozak on the potential impact of Musk and Twitter on marketers in a LinkedIn Live last month:

Related Article: Evaluating Elon Musk's Plan to Fix Twitter

Musk's comments about Twitter suggest that the issues are unique to Twitter. In fact, the real technical challenges for Twitter are like those for each social media platform.

Every social media platform is struggling to maintain user interest and maintain features that offer a competitive advantage. Platforms can rapid duplicate competitor features as a countermove. Programming frameworks have eased developers creativity so that functions and variants can be quickly deployed.

This means marketing countermoves to new, programmatic features can quickly occur. For example, Clubhouse immediately saw competition in the live chat space from Twitter and Spotify, with LinkedIn soon offering its version of a live chat feature.

Quickly chosen countermoves do not guarantee success. Take Twitter Fleets. Introduced in November 2020, Fleets were meant to compete against Instagram stories. They existed only 24 hours on a Twitter stream. Twitter discontinued Fleets August 2021 less than a year after it debuted.

The technological challenges of social media are also occurring at a challenging time among tech companies that retain audience interest. Overall online usage has piqued. Because people host profiles on several social media platforms, the competition for user attention has intensified, tested further by work-at-home online behavior due to the pandemic.

This makes audience engagement a crucial part of a platform's viability. The audience size of a platform limits the potential reach of content, diminishing strategy and impacting downstream analysis such as share of voice (SOV), a measurement of the amount of advertising presence for a particular brand, product or service.

SOV is an indicator for comparing to how people are responding online to that of competitors. Its strength lies in people discussing content online with positive and negative experiences. Twitter is among the best platforms for this analysis. The frequency of consumer discussions is hindered if the platform is a ghost town as a response to a looming presence.

Related Article: What Happens to Twitter After Elon Musk's Takeover Fails

Musk's acquisition casts an overbearing shadow over Twitter's user base, rather than over a segment in which people can opt out by simply avoiding engagement. One can make a comparison of Musk's Twitter usage to that of Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook. But Zuckerberg, best known for launching Facebook, has a social media usage that is periodic less frequent than that of Musk's interactions on Twitter. Although Twitter was designed for sharing real-time events, the difference in ownership places a new light on how much ownership influences an overall community.

That looming presence can be a significant impact to some analysis that require large audiences to generate statistical sound insights. A campaign using a hashtag will be likely be unaffected by any large shifts in the number of overall platform users. But a platform with a diminishing audience would begin to limit the kinds of nuanced analysis marketers need to validate innovations.

Twitter has been very instrumental in raising marketer sophistication in cultural marketing appeals to diverse segments such as Black, Hispanic and LGBT consumers. That increase in marketing quality and discussion of inclusion would not have happened if Twitter did not index highly for those segment populations, creating a space to measure and respond to true sentiment through sentiment analysis, share of voice and social listening.

So, with all of this in mind, what should marketers do to protect their strategy?

For starters most social media strategy is based on a focused intention in the content. Focusing on the number of people who engage and the people who convert will minimize controversial topics dialog from entering branding discussions online.

Marketers should also pay attention to trending audiences from their social media. Understanding referral traffic from the social media platforms can help organize decisions on whether to invest more into a platform. That understand can help assess if a platform's decline is leading to less conversions. No one wants to market on the next Google Plus.

Related Article: Twitter's Frankenstein Moment

It will be fascinating to see what comes of the Twitter deal. Twitter is a particular precursory platform for interest for Web 3.0. The platform just allowed NFTs to be profile images, while live discussions about cryptocurrency occur frequently in Twitter Spaces.

Social media was meant to be a distributed system, its value linked to being a gateway to substantial benefits for retail and event commerce. For Musk to make the changes he thinks are needed means having a broader viewpoint that incorporates advertising concerns, a deeper perspective of algorithm, and an appreciation for the various groups who use Twitter many of whom are not using it for amplifying ideology.

Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a small business digital analytics consultancy. He reviews data from web analytics and social media dashboard solutions, then provides recommendations and web development action that improves marketing strategy and business profitability.

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The Impact of the Musk Twitter Deal on Social Media Strategies - CMSWire

Brands want to deliver multichannel marketing strategies and personalized content at scale.

By Jo Hamilton Published: June 1, 2022

Marketing automation tools are being embraced by brands to help them deliver the customized and seamless experiences expected by their target audiences.

The global marketing automation market is expected to increase from $2.75 billion last year to hit nearly $4.71 billion in 2028, rising at a compound annual growth rate of 7.9% during that period, according to a report by Valuates.

The report reveals that email marketing automation will take the largest slice of market share at just over 32% and, geographically, North America will dominate with an almost 54% share of the global market.

There are several factors influencing the automation boom, per the report, and these are rising internet penetration, industry digital transformation and increased use of mobile devices.

The digital shift during the pandemic is spurring marketers, both business-to-consumer and business-to-business, to invest in tools to help them deliver multichannel marketing strategies and personalized content at scale, the report states.

Automation can simplify processes across multichannel strategies, such as social media messaging, lead generation and nurturing, customer experience management and email marketing.

Automation is one of the must-have marketing strategies for your business if you want to work smart and grow, advised Attrock founder Gaurav Sharma in a recent SmartBrief article. Automation can not only boost your teams productivity but also supercharge your conversion rate, Sharma wrote.

The report provides a list of the key players in the industry, such as HubSpot, SAP, Salesforce, Marketo, Adobe Systems, LeadSquared, IBM, Oracle and Infusionsoft.

Marketing agency executives offer their tips on useful automation tools in this Forbes article, including Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Bambu for social media automation and LinkedIn automations to drive B2B connections.

Automated marketing solutions will develop at a fast rate due to the huge demand from marketers, the report predicts.

Chatbots in particular are expected to see a surge in popularity due to their ability to capture customer data and as technological advancements facilitate easier integration.

In addition, marketing campaigns will get a boost from new forms of big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence that will help to forecast trends.

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Read the original here:
Marketing automation to close in on $4.7B globally by 2028 - Smartbrief

There has been a significant shift in how audiences expect to connect with brands online, pivoting away from the traditional model of social media and into the world of digital entertainment.

Dash Hudson's Co-founder and CEO, Thomas Rankin, describes digital entertainment as "the product of the collision of technology and culture". In this new dimension, reach is no longer capped by the size of one's network and is propelled by the strength of the content that's shared. This paradigm grants marketers permission to get back to what they do best: being creative and Dash Hudson is the only solution in market to bridge creativity and data.

"TikTok is entertainment. It has fundamentally transformed how digital marketers engage consumers and is top-of-mind for the CEOs and CMOs we work with. Dash Hudson's sophisticated insights give brands the confidence to continue to increase their investment in short-form video," says Thomas Rankin, Co-founder and CEO, Dash Hudson. "TikTok is an opportunity for brands to get back to their best, be playful and build new communities. We are thrilled to be working alongside the team at TikTok to help top brands and retailers create videos that entertain and bring joy to consumers around the world."

Designed specifically to unlock the magic of the entertainment platform, Dash Hudson has leveraged TikTok's API to launch Insights, Video Publishing and Community Managementfeaturesthat deliver the solutions marketers need to drive performance. Beyond the API, Dash Hudson is also announcing the launch of three revolutionary and proprietary tools for brands to further deepen engagement and discoverability: Entertainment Score, Trending Video Notifications and Trending Sounds.

Entertainment Score

Dash Hudson's exclusive Entertainment Score allows brands to measure how well their TikTok video is entertaining their audience, enabling them to double down on what's working so they can drive the most value for their business.

Trending Video Notifications

Exclusive to Dash Hudson, Trending Video Notifications will enable brands to develop a deep understanding of which TikToks are gaining momentum so they can quickly take action on high-performing content across owned and paid.

Trending Sounds

A game-changing feature that curates the most popular and up-and-coming sound trends on TikTok, Dash Hudson's Trending Sounds empowers brands to get ahead of their competition by sourcing the most relevant and opportunity-packed moments to flex their creativity. In this feature, brands are also provided instant context on how a particular sound is being used by other creators, equipping them with the intelligence required to act quickly.

With the industry's notable shift to video-first feeds and society's increasing preference for short-form, mobile-first video, brands have a rare opportunity to re-think their marketing efforts. Today's announcement of Dash Hudson's partnership with TikTok has enabled the social marketing software leader to build innovation to support the world's largest brands in their transition to entertainment-first content creation.

To learn more about how the globally-leading social marketing software is ushering the world's most important brands into the era of digital entertainment, please click here.

About Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson was founded in 2015 with the mission to empower brands to deepen engagement through photos and videos. Today, the global leader in social marketing software helps companies like Cond Nast, Apple and Unilever unlock their creative superpowers and elevate their strategies at the speed of social. Dash Hudson takes it to the next level by predicting the performance of photos and videos, analyzing trends and accelerating brand growth across social media, entertainment and e-commerce marketing channels.

To learn more about Dash Hudson, please click here.

About the Marketing Partners Program

The TikTok Marketing Partners Program is a community of carefully selected and innovative 3rd party technology and service companies that enable marketers to get started, grow their strategy, and find repeatable success. TikTok badges Partners who have a diverse range of industry expertise and a proven track record of success on TikTok in Creative, Measurement, Campaign Management, Effects, Sound and Commerce categories.

To learn more about the TikTok Marketing Partners Program, click here.

SOURCE Dash Hudson

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Dash Hudson Joins the TikTok Marketing Partners Program - PR Newswire