Mediaboss Marketing

Before a rapidly growing smartphone user base and rising internet connectivity propelled digital advertising and marketing as an effective tool for brand promotion, few had expected online media to take off the way it has over the past few years. Back in the early 2000s, the number of brands trying the effectiveness of digital advertising channels were far and few in between.

So, when Vikas Chawla saw his company a leading bicycle manufacturing company dabbling with digital solutions and social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook for brand awareness, he was surprised to know the insights that were in store for him.

I learnt a lot about how one can leverage these digital platforms and target specific audience groups like teenagers. We also saw that while there were several global agencies, very few Indian companies were offering digital and social media marketing for local brands, recounts Vikas, who has years of experience in the advertising industry. He got together with his brother Sunil to launch Social Beat, an end-to-end digital marketing agency based out of Chennai in 2012.

A consultant who had launched his own e-commerce company, Sunil was the perfect business partner as he had the experience of working in the digital spectrum, he feels.

The two brothers doubled down to build a presence for the company across sectors, but a rude shock awaited them. We had a tough time convincing our clients that the digital medium is here to stay and they need to leverage it. Back then, the digital medium was not seen as important as it is today. During the first 2-3 years, we spent a lot of time not just selling our services, but also convincing clients about the potential of the digital medium, says Vikas.

The nascent stage of digital marketing also made it difficult for them to find the right talent for their company. So, how did they tackle these challenges? With a ROI-driven approach where we focussed only on business outcomes and not on metrics like the number of likes and social media followers our campaigns were garnering, answers Vikas.

In fact, our first client was one where we were to be paid only if we delivered the results. Plus, we diligently followed up on our clients' feedback which helped us refine our own business model,'' he adds. Plus, their focus on leveraging data-driven marketing has been a key growth driver for the company.

The two brothers groomed professionals from the ground up and showed them how digital brands are built and the approaches that work.

We encouraged a culture of experimentation and let your team unlearn and relearn. Today, it's the agility of the team that is the secret sauce behind Social Beats success, says Vikas.

While starting a digital-native brand, both Vikas and Sunil knew that an interactive website could be instrumental in demonstrating the impact Social Beat was trying to create. Going against conventional advice, they opted for a .in domain name that is offered by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).

We wanted a domain name that stressed on our Indian origin while helping us boost business growth and engage with the Indian audience. The other reason behind the team's decision was that they wanted the name 'Social Beat', come what may," says Vishal.

The move helped Social Beat not just ramp up its online presence and audience engagement, but also draw clients from across sectors.

NIXI has helped hundreds of businesses across sectors and sizes distinguish themselves as a brand with its .in or .Bharat domain which is Indias Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). Its among the only internet exchanges in the world to offer a ccTLD in multiple languages.

Recalling his experience with a .in extension, Vikas said, When we registered for a .in domain, we had heard that search engines like Google prefer a .com domain name. But, it turned out to be just a myth as we started getting a lot of organic traffic right from the get go as the domain name made our connection with India very clear, he adds.

Social Beat was among the businesses who were able to find the silver lining in a dark cloud like COVID-19 crisis. He said the pandemic pushed digital mediums to become a mainstay for marketing campaigns. Earlier, digital marketing was usually a part of the overall strategy, he added.

The agency looks forward to developing its influencer platform in the near future and helping more brands scale with the help of digital marketing.

The Shaping India Inc's Online Growth series chronicles the journeys of startups and SMEs in India and how creating an online presence on the .in or .Bharat domain powered their success stories.

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How an early bet on digital marketing is helping Chennai-based agency Social Beat reap rich rewards - YourStory

Prompted by the proliferation of social media advertising that often blurs the line between authentic content and sponsored posts, the Federal Trade Commission last week sent more than 700 companies a Notice of Penalty Offenses warning them against the use of deceptive endorsements in their online advertising. The Notice advises recipient companies that engaging in advertising conduct the FTC has previously determined to be unfair, unlawful or deceptive under Section 5 of the FTC Act can subject them to civil liability of up to $43,792 per violation. As we had previously predicted, these letters may reflect a shift in the FTCs focus towards reliance on 5 of the FTC Act, following last terms Supreme Court opinion in AMG Capital Mgmt. v. FTC which curtailed the FTCs ability to seek monetary relief under 13(b) of the Act.

Companies receiving the Notice include large household names including leading retailers and major advertising agencies. Recipients were also directed to distribute copies of the Notice to each of their subsidiaries engaged in the sale or marketing of products or services to consumers in the United States. While the FTC makes clear that recipients of the Notice are not alleged to have engaged in any wrongdoing, the scope of the Notices sent outand the Commissions 50 vote to authorize the Notice and its distributiondemonstrates that the FTC is highly focused on the use of deceptive endorsements in online advertisements and is willing to aggressively pursue advertisers that flout its directives.

The Notice sent to companies provides a non-exhaustive list of practices the FTC has found to be unlawful in previous FTC administrative orders, including:

Copies of the case decisions discussed in the notice are available on the FTCs website. The Notice also points advertisers to additional resources, including a staff business guidance document The FTCs Endorsement Guides: What People Are Asking and the FTCs Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, 16 C.F.R. Part 255, for further guidance on their responsibilities under the FTC Act.

While navigating the evolving regulatory landscape regarding deceptive online advertising can present challenges for companies and their advertising partners, avoiding the practices outlined above will likely go a long way in mitigating the risk of facing an FTC enforcement action and subsequent liability. Our team continues to monitor these changes and will apprise our readers of any FTC enforcement actions that arise as a result of the Notices issued today. Watch this space for further developments.

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On Notice: FTC Issues Warning to Hundreds of Companies Regarding the Use of Fake Reviews and Other Misleading Endorsements in Online Marketing...

As eCommerce continues to rise, so too do deceptive methods of advertising, including fake reviews, undeclared paid endorsements and other practices that fall foul of federal laws.

And now, the FTC is looking to step up its action on this front, with the Commission this week sending out notices to over 700 businesses, including Facebook, Amazon, and LinkedIn, about their use, or facilitation of false reviews and ads to promote products online.

As explained by the FTC:

The rise of social media has blurred the line between authentic content and advertising, leading to an explosion in deceptive endorsements across the marketplace. Fake online reviews and other deceptive endorsements often tout products throughout the online world. Consequently, the FTC is now using its Penalty Offense Authority to remind advertisers of the law and deter them from breaking it.

The FTC says that by sending its Notice of Penalty Offenses to these organizations, its effectively notifying each of their need to either address these issues, or risk penalties of up to $43,792 per violation.

The Notice of Penalty Offenses allows the agency to seek civil penalties against a company that engages in conduct that it knows has been found unlawful in a previous FTC administrative order, other than a consent order.

So now that the FTC has sent out these warnings, it has a legal basis to implement penalties in future instances, if so detected.

What the specifics are in each case is unclear, but the FTC does explain that the range of violations highlighted in its notifications include:

These violations cover a broad range of practices, which are particularly applicable in social media marketing, and with the use influencers in promotions also on the rise, its worth familiarizing yourself with the latest regulations to ensure that you dont also fall foul of the FTCs rules.

The FTC has also created an overview guide to its endorsement rules to provide more assistance in this respect.

Itll be interesting to see whether this new push from the FTC actually leads to more specific legal action on this front, and what that will mean for the marketing sector. And again, with the use of influencer marketing on the rise, you can imagine that many will fail to meet the specific criteria, leading to further concerns.

As such, it is worth reading up on the latest rules.

The FTC has published a full listing of the 700 companies that its sent out notices to here.

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FTC Sends Out Official Warnings to Over 700 Brands Over the Use of Fake Reviews - Social Media Today

Shares of SEMrush Holdings (NYSE:SEMR) -- the online visibility management tool -- jumped 150% from its March IPO by September, before falling back to 100% appreciation today. Other than IPO hype, there has not been any reason for this jump.

The irrationality of this share-price appreciation has left some investors wondering if this software-as-a-service company still has growth ahead of it. Even though it has a market capitalization of just $3 billion, the valuation of 20 times sales worries investors, but its leading solution could provide plenty of growth for the business in the future.

Image source: Getty Images.

SEMrush's goal is to improve the visibility of its customers online. As people spend more time on their phones and on the internet, they can be overwhelmed with the amount of information and advertising they receive, which can lead to some people blocking this information out. This can lead to difficulties for companies looking to break through the noise and abundance of information online to be visible to their target market.

SEMrush provides an all-in-one solution for companies to find key insights that allow them to advertise their products efficiently. Its comprehensive solution allows for its customers to advertise on social media, but also employs search engine optimization (SEO) to take a long-term approach to their advertising strategies. While SEMrush's competitors like Moz and Similarweb (NYSE:SMWB) focus on one part of a company's advertising strategy, SEMrush offers a broad range of options to its customers.

SEMrush offers an unbiased view of its immense data assets -- which include over 20 million domains, 20 billion keywords, and analysis on 1 billion events each day. Unlike Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) or Facebook (NYSE:FB), which are incentivized to promote their own advertising channels, SEMrush provides an unbiased, customized view on the best advertising options for its customers.

Thanks to this comprehensive analysis solution, combined with its vast data sets and unbiased view, the company has become a market leader in numerous marketing technology categories from search advertising to social media management. This leadership has allowed the company to attract many impressive customers including Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY). These customers have also expressed how valuable SEMrush is to their advertising strategies: In Q2 2021, SEMrsuh's net revenue retention was 121%, and its average revenue per user increased 19% from the year-ago quarter.

SEMrush's 76,000 customers in over 142 countries have helped the company reach impressive financial performance. Even as a top dog in the industry, the company saw 58% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2021, to $45 million. The company has been building on its 50 offering by launching a Keyword Difficulty solution that enables its customers to optimize their SEO marketing efforts.

For the full year, the company expects revenue to reach $183 million, which would mark 47% growth from 2020. The only downside for SEMrush is its profitability. Even after 13 years of operations, the company lost $279,000 in Q2 2021. This was, however, a strong improvement from a net loss of over $2 million one year ago. Free cash flow stands at $9 million so far this year, and with cash balance of over $180 million, a minor net loss is not a dealbreaker for the company.

Aside from valuation risk -- which is higher than Similarweb's valuation of 12 times sales -- the company is facing heavy competition. While its analytics platform isn't as unbiased as SEMrush's, Google and Facebook are heavy hitters in this industry, and companies only looking to advertise on those two sites might overlook SEMrush. There's also plenty of competition from smaller pure plays in each respective marketing technology category, and while SEMrush is a leader in many of those spaces, it could potentially lose out to competitors that focus on one specific advertising category.

What many companies want, however, is an all-in-one solution. Many of SEMrush's enterprise customers are not looking to advertise through one avenue, but through many, and SEMrush provides enterprises with one platform where they can analyze data for all of those advertising strategies.

SEMrush's vast data assets and comprehensive solution -- which has been shown to be very valuable and successful to have -- are unmatched by its competitors. It's also extremely important to its enterprise customers who are looking for actionable data and insight to make effective marketing decisions.

With a current market opportunity of over $13 billion, this company clearly has tons of potential to expand, and with its unique, hard-to-replicate solution, SEMrush is well-positioned to capitalize on it. Because of this, SEMrush is still worth buying today, even though it has already seen strong share-price growth.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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This Company Has Nearly Doubled Since Its March IPO. Is It a Buy? - Motley Fool

Miami, Oct. 11, 2021 Miami Dade Colleges (MDC) North Campus has been awarded a grant for nearly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) for MDCs Miguel B. Fernandez Family School of Global Business, Trade and Transportation. The funds will be used to support projects that teach undergraduate minority students how to develop businesses and commercialize products and services in the domestic and global marketplace. Campus administration will discuss how the grant will be used for the creation of the Business Entrepreneurship Development project during the Hablemos de Negocios (Lets Talk Business) seminar at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12.

As the nations largest open-access college, MDC continues to find innovative ways to expand opportunities for its students to earn practical credentials to impact the local and global marketplace immediately, said Fermin Vazquez, North Campus Interim President. Providing financial support and guidance from business owners and entrepreneurs will play a critical role in breaking barriers to degree completion and accelerate the transition into the workforce.

The three-year Business Entrepreneurship Development project targets minority students at the Hialeah, North, West, and Wolfson Campuses. The grant will be used for student incentives, such as tuition and fees towards a 12-credit College Credit Certificate Business Entrepreneurship Specialist: Start-Up Venture, and micro-credentials, such as Hootsuite Platform and Hootsuite Social Marketing certifications. Students will participate in seminars, entrepreneur-led classroom presentations, group mentoring sessions, one-on-one entrepreneur-business counseling sessions, business headquarters tours, business plan competitions, and more. In addition, MDC faculty will benefit from professional development workshops.

MDC serves a large population of low-income, minority students. This program can create opportunities for students to earn academic degrees while working in partnership with a dynamic, multicultural community of local entrepreneurs and small business owners to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in todays highly competitive business workforce.

For more information, please contact Theodora Laing, tlaing@mdc.edu

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MDC North Campus Awarded Nearly $1 Million for Business Entrepreneurship Development Project - The Reporter