• An SEO optimization checklist is unavoidable in web publishing.
• Using older posts can breathe new life into rankings
• Don’t fall into the ‘AI’ trap.

One of the realities of website publishing today is that the visibility of your content is determined to a large degree by the algorithms that surface a site in an online search. Optimizing your website for the best results is, therefore, a part of online publishing as integral as good grammar and an attractive writing style. Using an SEO optimization checklist can help you achieve reliable results.

READ NEXT

Google search sucks, thanks SEO

And while it’s true that ‘Google is not the internet,’ SEO has to be embraced if you’re at all interested in as many people as possible reading your content and absorbing your message. Google and many other search engines have their own agenda in terms of what they surface most readily, but among the carefully constructed caveats and provisos designed to shape the modern internet’s content to their own ends, many SEO ‘rules’ comprise aspects of a page that include readability, legibility for assistive web tools, relevancy, popularity and the freshness of information. Taken objectively, these are generally positive influences on websites’ content.

It’s easy to fall too far into the website optimization pit. Sites written primarily with SERP (search engine results pages) in mind are easy to spot – repetitive use of keywords in body text and sub-headings, plus very little interesting content, are key indicators. However, it is possible to strike a balance between the value of your content to actual human readers and its perceived value for search algorithms. One way to help achieve this is to ensure that older content is refreshed.

Source: Fosstodon.org

Refreshing content should not necessarily mean re-spinning it, (that is, rewriting each sentence, swapping out adjectives for synonyms, swapping main and subordinate clauses, and so on).

Content creators should consider refreshing content as a revision process with particular emphasis on bringing the page’s pertinent information up-to-date. In that way, your readers learn from text and media that are more timely, and Google et al. see refreshed content that will, hopefully, be of more interest to readers today.

Finding stagnant pages on websites is a relatively trivial task. Content creation dates supplied by your website’s back end are the obvious metric to begin with, and these can be correlated with analytics from your internal analysis tools.

Most articles receive a spike in interest on publication, then fade away. For news-based content, that’s the natural order of things. Less time-dependent pages could be good targets for a virtual spring clean and spruce-up.

Here’s our search engine optimization checklist for revitalizing the dusty corners of your website.

Updating links and resources

One of the basic tenets of HTML is that text can be represented as hypertext, one aspect of which is that documents are linked. Finding more relevant, up-to-date references and restructuring the sentences around the reference is a great way to bring content forward to the present. Additionally, if what’s being referenced is a field that changes (academic research, for example), readers will appreciate the latest information.

Similarly, it’s worth refreshing your content to reflect changing opinions, either your own or those of the vertical about which you are writing. This type of edit can be made obvious, with clear demarcation, using italics or indented text to tell readers that the article has been updated.

The changing rules

All search engine optimization is guesswork where self-proclaimed experts attempt to backward engineer the closed algorithms used by large search engines. Like any form of guesswork, there are specialists out there whose guesses are better than others, the quality determined by long experience and dedicated testing of changes to content.

But rules of SEO evolve, and it’s worth re-approaching your text and media with a fresh eye that’s informed by some research into what is, as of the present, current practice. It may be that previously optimized web pages need to be changed to reflect current guidelines for best SERP rankings – at which point, you need to update your SEO optimization checklist.

A prime example is readability. Because much web consumption now takes place on mobile devices, ‘readability’ can mean that shorter paragraphs interspersed with carefully chosen media have the advantage over thick walls of text (which are difficult to read on a moving bus, for example). Changing your pages’ structure may be advantageous within the limits of house style.

Here’s one. “Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks” by Fouquier ॐ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Not using large language models

Like any other tool, using a large language model (Copilot, ChatGPT, etc.) can be effective in certain circumstances. LLMs act as relatively useful proxies for web searches, so if you’re looking to find supporting materials for your pages, LLMs can unearth nuggets of information that would otherwise take much longer to find using ‘traditional’ search.

But if we consider the text output of LLMs to be an amalgam of available information online, their output should not be used to create original content. By pulling together many thousands of websites for learning, LLMs produce literally average output. The models are poor at differentiating useful information from third-rate content, and so produce something in the middle: the sum mean.

Given that your content should be unique and informative rather than only readable, using ChatGPT to write for you is wrong on every level.

READ NEXT

Can blockchain-based search engines beat Google?

Journalists and writers are facing redundancy in swathes as short-term profits are prioritized by companies that are happy to embrace second-rate content. If you’re happy with human expression being replaced by algorithms that regurgitate other people’s work (or, more accurately, predict what the next word in a sentence is likely to be, based on other people’s work), then LLMs are a fine choice. You may also want to use the phrase artificial intelligence incorrectly.

Conclusions

Whether your web pages promote a commercial product or express your inner life, it’s worth bearing in mind that the ’web was, and should be, concerned with the dissemination of information. While going through an SEO optimization checklist for best SERP rankings is, in 2024, an undeniable necessity, that fact need not reduce the overall quality of your offerings.

A giant roadside billboard may begin to look dated in terms of its color palette, font choices, strapline, or imagery. Changing those elements to bring a billboard into present relevancy need not change its message. Websites’ pages can be considered similarly.

The post Teaching old dogs new SEO tricks appeared first on TechHQ.

• Google business process optimization has just been made simpler.
• List more detail about your business – especially your USPs.
• Compare your business alongside your competitors and see where you stand.

The minds behind Google’s search algorithm have added new data fields for businesses to supply key information that will aid an organization in its attempts to get seen more often and better known. That should make Google business process optimization significantly more straightforward.

In its developer documentation, Google has added Organization structured data, where businesses add ‘sameas’ (read, same as) records, addresses, number of employees, tax ID, and a half-dozen more. Besides the rich deposits of information Google already has access to, this data will let busy web browsers to locate the business or service they need more quickly. Before the addition of Organization markup, there was only support for companies to upload their logo and data such as their web address. Google business profile optimization is now much more detailed in its execution.

Google business process optimization lets you advertise your super-duper “special” cup cakes if they’re your USP. (Image created by AI).

Appearing in the search knowledge panels, information can be given that will appear at the top of a SERP (search engine results page) to give a better understanding of a business to search users without having to click through to a company’s site to find out more.

READ NEXT

Can blockchain-based search engines beat Google?

Organizations that want to be among the first to optimize their Google profile can now get started. “You can test your organization structured data using the Rich Results Test by submitting the URL of a page or a code snippet. Using the tool, you can confirm whether or not your markup is valid instantly,” Google advises.

Google business profile optimization – from Google (who else?)

This latest iteration of Google’s extensive search portfolio further concentrates the data searched for by users on Google’s own pages, supplying pertinent details to users without them leaving the Google portfolio of sites.

Adding information like the ‘sameas’ field (the services of company X are similar to those of companies Y and Z) will allow search results to present more accurately-detailed comparisons between competing companies, supplying options to searchers looking for a specific product or service. By registering the fullest possible details into the new Organization schema, companies can gain some advantage over competitors that are slower off the mark.

Fishing for customers – with better optimization, you’re gonna need a bigger boat. (Image generated by AI).

It’s thought the changes will most benefit small to medium-sized businesses with a local presence to the searcher, especially in competitive markets where items have a low-ticket value.

Although many companies have previously resisted giving away their size (as described by the number of employees), it’s thought by many search engine marketing experts that, conversely, consumers will now favor a local, smaller business over the huge multinationals like Amazon, if given enough information to make that choice easy.

Many of the new fields that can be collected are subject to validation – proof by the site owner that the information given is genuine. “The existing logo report in Search Console and validations in the Rich Results Test are now replaced with more extensive organization validations in the Rich Results Test,” Google said.

READ NEXT

Google, Meta under EU/UK antitrust spotlight over online ads deal

Rich Results for searchers usually require relatively recent technology to be consumed, including media like image carousels, video, and animation. Best results are naturally achieved by the latest versions of Google’s own Chrome browser. Users of Safari, Firefox, and other browsers based on earlier Chromium code may not get an optimal experience: the days of websites needing to state the case for a certain web client may be back. “This website is best viewed in Internet Explorer” may be soon replaced in common web parlance with a call for Chrome for the best UX.

The post Google makes it easier for businesses to stand out from the crowd appeared first on TechHQ.

• What use is a QR code scan for menus?
• Sunny Coast Aussies up in arms.
• Implementation at fault.

READ NEXT

A national secure digital ID for every Brit in the UK?

Australians have reacted in droves on social media, protesting the increasingly common use of QR codes in restaurants, according to news.com.au. Using vernacular adhering to local style, the outcry began with one disgruntled Sunshine Coast diner’s post, which read:

“Went to a restaurant earlier in Sunny Coast, asked for a menu […] and was directed to a QR code menu on the table. It’s for this f***ing web app called meandu which proceeded to charge a 6.5 per cent venue surcharge, a 2 per cent payment processing fee, and then had the audacity to ask for a tip (10, 15, 25 per cent) as the cherry on top.”

Concurring responses included, “You’re waiting your own table and paying an extra fee for the privilege. It’s f***ed,” and, “It’s also a big stinking FU to anyone old or not tech savvy. All just to [H]oover up your data.” (N.B. a Hoover is a household name vacuum cleaner in Australia.)

While QR codes became commonplace in the service industry during the Covid pandemic, their continued use is, according to some respondents, not in customers’ interests. The original post on social media summed up the underlying feeling that many are “F***ing tired of ‘tech’ being used to solve an ‘issue’ but [it] only [makes] everything worse and more inconvenient for everybody.”

“QR-Code” by dadevoti is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

What is a QR code scan?

The issue is not, at its heart, the use of QR codes. It’s the mobile apps that diners have to download, register with, use to place their orders and pay, and what doing so costs the diner extra.

Initially, the process typically involves giving an unknown third-party personal details that include (but are not usually limited to) an email address. You also have to accept an app’s Ts & Cs, which usually contain a variation on a clause that states ‘End-users agree to receive spam emails, marketing messages from the restaurant, the app’s developer and well-funded third parties until  the heat death of the universe…’

In some cases, diners may be interested in such messages, and in others, the app’s use has its advantages: “I actually like the QR ordering because I don’t like people,” said one social post, while another enthused: “I love the QR codes – [I] don’t need to leave the table to order another beer.”

But a local restaurateur, speaking to news.com.au saidd that his establishment’s costs had been reduced “by around 25 per cent,” by the use of the QR code plus app combination. “We no longer have to take orders, work out bills and manually take payments. […] We now have very few mistakes, saving us time and waste. We can also mark items that have run out instantly on the app by using stock levels, again avoiding the disappointment of [the] customer,” said Jonathan Holmes-Ross, owner of Adelaide’s The Lost Dice.

Mr Holmes-Ross also reiterated a common trope of technology purveyors; that by automating some more mundane tasks, staff are freed up to concentrate their attentions elsewhere. “[…] Our wait staff [have] more time to look after our customers, and the kitchen has excellent order information as the accuracy of the orders is great,” he said.

Who’s paying the price?

While these are advantages from the point of view of an establishment’s owner, the bigger picture reveals several flaws from the customer’s standpoint.

Surcharges levied by the app and its chosen payment gateway are passed onto the diner, and the rates of “service charge” or tip remain at the same levels as when waiting staff are on-hand to speak directly with customers when they order food and drink. It’s also arguable that an integral part of the dining-out experience is the relationship between server and customer – and the quality of those interactions has traditionally determined the levels at which tips are given.

In the case of the Sunshine Coast’s eateries, it’s not the technology that is to blame for unrest among diners. Rather, it’s the implementation that puts the burden of irksomeness onto the customer, rather than the service provider.

READ NEXT

Payments tech has mass transit appeal

In some fast food chains, on-site ordering and payment can be done at permanent electronic ordering points, so diners receive many of the advantages technology brings (up-to-date menus, no wrong orders reaching the kitchen, speed of ordering, no waiting for staff to attend the customer), but none of the disadvantages (surcharges, automatic service charges, the requirement to give personal data). In these instances, technology’s implementation is, on balance, for the customer’s convenience.

While technology provided a lifeline for the service industry during Covid, enabling a minimum of physical contact with other people and so a limited exposure to infection, in the post-pandemic era, its use requires reassessment. In short, it has to answer the basic question: “What is a QR code for if not for disease prevention?”

The answer should always come back to both solid business practices – making ordering more precise, etc – and enhancing the customer’s experience to boost return custom. If QR codes are driving diners away, or sneaking in extra little price hikes as the cost of eating at a place, then, as one Aussie diner put it, “The surcharges and tipping can f*** off.” And so can the technologies that enable them.

The post Down under, download the app for the lowdown on the specials appeared first on TechHQ.

• AMD said the acquisition, part of its “AI growth strategy,” will boost its open-source AI products.
• The move could shore up its competition against rival chipmaker Nvidia.
• AMD is capitalizing on Nvidia’s chip supply shortage to make headway.

Nvidia Corp. has historically been the undisputed frontrunner in AI GPUs. But since its GPUs have been facing scarcity due to high demand, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the second-largest maker of GPUs, and the only manufacturer within a light year of Nvidia’s dominant position, has positioned itself to seize more of the market share. The chipmaker has, in fact, acquired all the hardware pieces necessary to compete with its rival, but lately, it has been focusing on creating a comprehensive software portfolio.

READ NEXT

Intel to take on Nvidia & AMD with GPUs for AI

The competition between AMD and Nvidia has a history stretching back for decades, even before AMD acquired ATI for its graphics division. Today, they continue to compete as the leading choices for top-notch gaming PC graphics cards, but there’s more to the story. Both companies are increasingly focused on AI, with the rivalry reaching new levels of intensity.

Nvidia holds a dominant position in the market for high-performance chips used in the development of ChatGPT and the AI services that have surged in popularity across the tech industry in 2023 – and show no signs of stopping any time soon. 

This surge in demand for these services, following ChatGPT’s frenzy, has propelled Nvidia’s market capitalization beyond US$1 trillion. In fact, the surge has been so marked that the need for Nvidia’s AI chips has led to a shortage, which the company has acknowledged and is actively addressing. But ahortage of one manufacturer’s products can only benefit its rivals, and AMD has emerged as a formidable challenger, intensifying the competition even among players like Intel.

This week, AMD announced it had acquired another company to narrow the AI market gap on Nvidia. The chip giant said it is acquiring open-source AI software company Nod.ai in a move to expand its open AI software capabilities. For AMD, the agreement strongly aligns with its AI growth strategy, centered on an open software ecosystem that lowers the barriers of entry for customers through developer tools, libraries, and models.

AMD AI involvement takes a quantum leap as it acquires Nod.AI. Source: X

“The addition of Nod.ai will bring an experienced team that has developed an industry-leading software technology that accelerates the deployment of AI solutions optimized for AMD Instinct data center accelerators, Ryzen AI processors, EPYC processors, Versal SoCs and Radeon GPUs to AMD,” the company explained.

Nod.AI, or Nod Labs, builds open-source technologies “for future AI systems,” according to the startup. It mainly specializes in reinforcement learning, a type of system that “learns” via trial and error. The acquisition is expected to close this quarter, an AMD spokesperson told CNBC.

“At Nod.ai, we are a team of engineers focused on problem-solving — quickly – and moving at pace in an industry of constant change to develop solutions for the next set of problems,” Nod.ai’s co-founder and CEO Anush Elangovan said. “Our journey as a company has cemented our role as the primary maintainer and major contributor to some of the world’s most important AI repositories, including SHARK, Torch-MLIR, and OpenXLA/IREE code generation technology. By joining forces with AMD, we will bring this expertise to a broader range of customers on a global scale.”

Adding to Elangovan’s context, Nod.ai delivers optimized AI solutions to top hyperscalers, enterprises, and startups. The compiler-based automation software capabilities of Nod.ai’s SHARK software reduce the need for manual optimization and the time required to deploy highly performing AI models to run across a broad portfolio of the data center, edge, and client platforms powered by AMD CDNA, XDNA, RDNA and “Zen” architectures.

READ NEXT

Amazon takes on Intel, AMD, & Nvidia with custom computing chips

Meanwhile, AMD believes that acquiring Nod.ai will significantly enhance its ability to provide AI customers with open software to deploy highly performing AI models tuned for AMD hardware quickly. Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD, said, “The addition of the talented Nod.ai team accelerates our ability to advance open-source compiler technology and enable portable, high-performance AI solutions across the AMD product portfolio.”

To top it off, Boppana sees an advantage in the sheer fact that Nod.ai’s technologies are already widely deployed in the cloud, at the edge, and across a broad range of endpoint devices today. The news of AMD acquiring Nod.ai came on the heels of the company’s purchase of French startup Mipsology to strengthen its AI inference software capabilities.

On August 24, the California-based chip giant unveiled the acquisition, saying that Mipsology, “a leader in AI software and long-standing AMD partner,” will help the company “accelerate our customer engagements and expand our AI software development capabilities.” Boppana, in a statement, wrote, “Specifically, the team will help develop our full AI software stack, expanding our open ecosystem of software tools, libraries, and models to pave the way for streamlined deployment of AI models running on AMD hardware.”

Overall, it is pretty apparent that both acquisitions are part of AMD’s larger strategy to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the AI computing space with a broad portfolio of what AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su have called “leadership GPUs, CPUs, and adaptive computing solutions for AI inferencing and training.”

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JANUARY 04: AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su delivering a keynote address at CES 2023 at The Venetian Las Vegas on January 04, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

In fact, since last year, Su and other executives have articulated a comprehensive AI strategy that addresses what she said is a “multibillion-dollar growth opportunity for AMD across cloud, edge, and an increasingly diverse number of intelligent endpoints.”

The post AMD intensifies its rivalry with Nvidia by acquiring Nod.AI appeared first on TechHQ.

• TikTok Shop, which sees Indonesia as its first and biggest market, is at risk of being banned.
• Local ministers see e-commerce on social media platforms as a threat to offline markets in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

It has been a challenging year for TikTok, with governments worldwide scrutinizing the short-form video streaming giant. But it appears like the worst is far from over for the ByteDance-owned platform, with TikTok Shop facing its first regulatory headwinds in Indonesia, its biggest e-commerce market.

READ NEXT

TikTok tries its luck in Europe as Project Clover begins

The biggest economy in Southeast Asia wants to disallow the integration of online shopping into social media platforms, specifically targeting TikTok. The ban, anticipated to be announced this week, will make Indonesia the first Southeast Asian nation to take a stand against TikTok. 

“Social media and social commerce cannot be combined,” the country’s Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga said earlier this month, vowing to ban the mix. For Indonesia, banning the selling of goods on social media under new trade regulations is mainly a move intended to quell threats to offline markets in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

Smbuaga specifically cited TikTok’s “live” features that allow people to sell goods. He and other local ministers have highlighted their concerns over TikTok Shop’s role in the downslide of local Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and traditional markets. Even the country’s President, Joko Widodo, has been voicing his concerns over e-commerce sellers using predatory pricing on social media platforms, threatening offline markets in Indonesia. 

“TikTok is supposed to be a social media, not an ‘economic media,'” he said during a trip last week to East Kalimantan. Current trade regulations in Indonesia do not specifically cover direct transactions on social media. “Revisions to the trade regulations that are currently underway will firmly and explicitly ban this,” Sambuaga told parliament earlier this month. 

On Monday, Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said the move, directed at ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok, would mean companies can only advertise products but not conduct direct transactions. For context, Indonesia is home to 64.2 MSMEs that contribute 61% of its gross domestic product. 

Therefore, the policy seeks to keep those millions of MSMEs from being squeezed out by social commerce companies. To date, TikTok is Indonesia’s only social media company that allows direct e-commerce transactions on its platform. “India and the US dared to reject and ban TikTok from simultaneously running social media and e-commerce businesses. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, TikTok can do both,” Teten Masduki, Indonesia’s minister of cooperatives and SMEs, said in a statement.

Masduki also argued that TikTok could potentially monopolize the market because online shoppers are “influenced by conversations on social media.” During a government meeting earlier this month, he shared concerns about TikTok Shop’s control over payment and logistics systems.

There have also been reports indicating that the Indonesian government is also considering a ban on selling imported goods priced below US$100 through cross-border services on e-commerce platforms and barring marketplaces from acting as manufacturers.

What will the ban mean for TikTok in Indonesia?

To begin with, it’s been TikTok’s ambition over the last two years to boost its vast audience into a money-making shopping arm, TikTok Shop. Unfortunately, the endeavor has faced obstacles in the US due to fears of a nationwide ban. TikTok also faced setbacks in the UK last year due to unmet goals and managerial issues. But TikTok Shop has rapidly gained ground in Indonesia, the company’s second-largest market after the US. 

So much so that TikTok is betting on Indonesia as a blueprint to expand into other online shopping markets, including the US. It all started in April 2021, when TikTok Shop fully launched in Indonesia, one of the first countries to pilot the feature outside China. Today, the country is home to an estimated 125 million users, according to TikTok, including two million small businesses on TikTok Shop. 

TikTok’s download in Indonesia.

By the end of 2022, TikTok Shop had become the fifth-largest e-commerce platform in Indonesia, according to data from Singapore-based venture outfit Momentum Works. Despite its operations, TikTok has yet to receive an Indonesian payments license and relies on third-party payment service providers within the country. A license would enable TikTok to earn from transaction fees and compete more effectively with other payment services entities. 

YOU MIGHT LIKE

APPS

TikTok bends to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act

But amidst the rave over TikTok Shop in Indonesia, thousands of brick-and-mortar merchants, according to The Jakarta Post, complain about the impact of the app’s booming e-commerce arm on their business. They have urged the government to close or at least regulate TikTok Shop. TikTok has criticized calls for a ban, saying it would harm Indonesian merchants and consumers. 

“Close to two million local businesses in Indonesia use TikTok to grow and thrive through social commerce,” Anggini Setiawan, TikTok Indonesia’s head of communications, told AFP earlier this month. Momentum Works said the country represented 42% of TikTok’s US$4.4 billion regional gross merchandise value (GMV) last year.

In short, managing the conflict with Indonesia will be crucial for TikTok as governments worldwide observe how the largest nation in Southeast Asia responds to the growing e-commerce influence of the social media giant. Moreover, TikTok only recently announced plans to invest billions of dollars into the Southeast Asian region.

So far, TikTok has shown no sign of bowing down. The social platform giant has pushed back against the proposed policy. It argues that separating social media and e-commerce into different platforms hampers innovation and disadvantages millions of Indonesian merchants and consumers. The company says some rely on its platform to make a living.

“Social commerce was born to solve a real-world problem for local traditional small sellers by matching them with local creators who can help drive traffic to their online shops,” a TikTok Indonesia spokesperson said in a statement, according to Bloomberg. “While we respect local laws and regulations, we hope that the regulations take into account its impact on the livelihoods of more than six million sellers and close to seven million affiliate creators who use TikTok Shop.”

Overall, experts reckon the ban, if it comes through, will deal a massive blow to the social media giant. Bloomberg Intelligence’s analyst, Nathan Naidu, considers TikTok’s possible split of e-commerce and social media operations in Indonesia could impede further conversion of its 125 million local monthly active users (MAU) into shoppers, benefiting Sea’s Shopee, which, like TikTok Shop, relies on beauty and personal care for most of its domestic sales.

Source: X.com

“GoTo’s Tokopedia, which had 34 million MAU in August vs. Shopee’s 138 million and Alibaba-owned Lazada’s 37 million, should be better able to defend its GMV share in Indonesia, which drove 90% of the group’s 2022 sales,” Naidu added. Meanwhile, Jianggan Li, CEO of Momentum Works, noted in an e-mail that Shopee has been voicing their support for Indonesian MSME exports yearly.

“Banning TikTok Shop could be operationally very messy (and many of our friends say impractical). There are many different permutations of how things can evolve (e.g., a separate e-commerce app or specific programs for MSMEs). Regardless of how the ban proceeds, TikTok’s vast consumer traffic will continue to be harvested for e-commerce, through TikTok Shop or other means, by TikTok or by other parties,” he noted

Li also believes it is not too late for TikTok “to engage and turn the tide .”He reckons TikTok needs to be bold and local. 

The post The future of TikTok Shop in Indonesia has never been so cloudy appeared first on TechHQ.

The word ‘networking’ has the power to elicit a host of different reactions. While some may feel enthused by the opportunity to make new connections, others groan and shrink away from polite chitchat and tiny sandwiches.

But, love it or hate it, working to expand one’s professional social by reaching out to new people does have its benefits. Ideas, collaborations, and even job opportunities have been known to spring up from casual chats at networking events. Even outside business, bold LinkedIn connections have returned solid new friendships and even the big L-O-V-E.

However, networking is not for everyone, and science backs that up. A study from the London School of Economics found that people who have less appreciation for social involvement experience fewer positive effects of daily networking than those who do, or even no or negative effects.

In fact, another study showed that it is only those who seek ‘relatedness fulfillment’ –  have a need to feel connected to others – or employability-enhancing competencies whose careers benefit from networking. What’s essentially cold calling for professional connections only benefits extroverts; those who are energized by being around other people. One study found that extroverted people had a 25 percent chance of securing a higher-earning job and, while this isn’t necessarily due to them taking more advantage of networking opportunities, it is likely that their affinity for making connections does impact their career success.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Enhance your marketing strategies by uncovering the interests of C-Suite leaders

While, normally, about 50 percent of people in a business self-identify as introverts, in IT departments this is as high as 86 percent. The stereotype of the average tech ‘geek’ does tend to be someone shy, reserved, and more comfortable with computers than with social interactions.

Whether that is necessarily true today – many of the quarter-zip-donning, Silicon Valley start-up tycoons tend to be very comfortable sharing their views – there’s no smoke without fire. This perhaps lends your developers, data scientists, and IT specialists to avoid networking opportunities more so than other professionals. So, when 2020 came around, not many of them may have been too disappointed about the postponement and cancellation of looming networking events.

According to a Yale University study, both our professional and personal networks shrunk by almost 16 percent, or about 200 people, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Naturally, having to remain indoors for months on end would take its toll on our relationships, however, the damage was somewhat mitigated thanks to webcams, microphones, and video conferencing software. Those of us who could work from home did so, which included the vast majority of the IT industry, a large portion of which was already doing so.

“Apollo 11 Video Restoration Press Conference / Newseum” by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

When it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going to be wrapped up anytime soon, those calendared meetings, conferences, and other networking opportunities were moved online rather than canceled. But while the move benefitted workers in many ways – reduced travel costs, time away from home, and carbon footprints – it was not a perfect solution. Research has shown that generating creative ideas is easier when face-to-face because concentrating our vision on our screens narrows our cognitive focus.

“This narrowed focus constrains the associative process underlying idea generation, whereby thoughts ‘branch out’ and activate disparate information that is then combined to form new ideas,” the researchers wrote.

A separate study also found that humans find it unnerving to observe a person’s enlarged face, so having a poor camera setup during a virtual meeting can unconsciously trigger the release of stress hormones. Indeed, even a small lag between when a person performs an action and when others can observe it can cause additional mental exertion for meeting participants. So for those introverts who were already reluctant to engage in networking opportunities, this transition did not necessarily make it easier for them to reap the benefits.

Attending networking events has never been the only way an employee can expand their professional circle. Businesses have used customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for decades to help cultivate connections with customers, prospects, clients, and other stakeholders. The software provides a centralized database that stores valuable information about contacts, including their preferences, communication history, and key interactions. This can be used to personalize communication and keep track of the relationship lifecycle, ultimately strengthening it. Even before the pandemic, CRM usage was on the rise, but the industry is expected to grow by another 12 percent in the next seven years. There is also increasing interest in ‘personal’ CRMs that individuals can use to keep track of their relationships with family and friends, like Dex, Clay, and Hippo.

Some businesses also make use of databases of executive profiles, like Boardroom Insiders. These are curated by industry experts and provide valuable insights into key decision-makers within target organizations, including their backgrounds, responsibilities, and strategic initiatives. While the primary intention is for the intelligence to be used for targeted sales pitches or business development, consultants, entrepreneurs, and jobseekers have also been known to utilize them to help them be seen in their professional ecosystem, building awareness and credibility. Usage of relationship intelligence platforms was high during the pandemic, as individuals needed more assistance in making impactful connections remotely.

This shows that, despite the transition to home-working, there is still an appetite for networking. It is certainly a priority for Generation Z, many of whom started their careers during or after this shift and feel bereft of professional connections as a result. Networking remotely has been proven to still be effective, despite the challenges. A study of 1,000 remote employees found that 85 percent of those who made an effort to be noticed by their employer were successful.

The post Has working from home killed the art of networking in tech? appeared first on TechHQ.

The current playbook for how businesses can benefit from generative AI is typically a two-step process. The first part involves feeding company data into a large language model (LLM). And stage two is using the next-word predictive powers of that LLM to surface all kinds of business information – from part numbers to contract pitches – all through a conversational interface. Internally, the view is sharpened, but there’s still something missing. To complete the business picture, companies need to know what’s happening client-side, and that’s where customer AI fits in – as Twilio’s Jeff Lawson explained at SIGNAL 2023.

The firm’s CEO and co-founder took to the stage yesterday – at the customer data platform provider’s annual developer conference – to consider the impact of AI on companies, with the help of some special guests. And Lawson framed the rewards in terms of the flywheel effect of customer signals on digital businesses.

Using customer AI to turn the flywheel

“Every website visit, every mobile app, every click, every scroll, everything they buy, everything they don’t buy – those are all signals about the customer and what they are all about,” he told the SIGNAL 2023 audience. “And then you use all of that data to do a better job of engaging with those customers…and when you do, they are more likely to click the email or open your mobile app, and suddenly you start getting more data about them and the flywheel turns.”

The issue for organizations – and the differentiator that puts great digital businesses ahead of their competitors – is allowing those signals to flow freely and avoiding insights becoming siloed. Companies that get it right can lower their cost of sales and tend to have customers who are more loyal and have greater lifetime value (LTV). But keeping that flywheel spinning isn’t easy and momentum is lost when customer behavior is missed.

READ NEXT

Neuromarketing brainwaves capitalize on sales opportunities

CRM systems and data warehouses are both steps toward making sense of clients campaigns and the wider business implications. But the difficulty is that more customer interactions generate more signals. And the deeper that companies want to dig into that data – to spin that flywheel – the larger the number of analysts that businesses need to employ, which doesn’t scale.

Or at least it didn’t scale until the advent of generative AI. And it’s telling that one of Lawson’s video guests in the opening keynote presentation is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI – a firm that’s shot to fame based on the capabilities of LLMs (GPT-3 and GPT-4, in the case of OpenAI) to summarize vast amounts of data.

What’s also clear is that the benefits of the flywheel effect don’t come by simply retraining, or fine-tuning, AI models with any old company data. Businesses need to be integrating the right information to start reaping the rewards of powerful LLMs. And that gets to the heart of customer AI. “This is something that can truly change the nature of business,” Lawson told SIGNAL 2023 attendees. “Customer AI is a set of capabilities that use predictive and generative AI to perceive your customers, all the signals they are giving you, to form that into an understanding of what [those] customers are about.”

What’s more, customer AI can then activate that understanding across all of the interactions, or touchpoints, that companies have with their clients. And it’s those automated insights that Lawson believes will add up in comparison with previous approaches to keeping that prized flywheel turning.

Altman was candid in his fireside chat with the Twilio CEO about his vision of the future, pointing out that being able to drive the cost of intelligence and energy towards zero will create a massive abundance of resources that place a limit on what’s possible today. From a customer AI perspective, reducing the cost of intelligence by a factor of a million would enable companies to serve clients in a much more personalized way.

Personalization engine

In principle, if LLM solutions deliver as promised, AI-enabled services should have an almost uncanny ability to predict what customers want. And their capacity to do this tracks back to those touchpoints mentioned earlier. Every interaction between a customer or potential customer can provide a signal that helps to shape – in Twilio’s case – a personalization engine, which reduces friction and drives business.

And there’s potential to go further with AI too. As models become more adept at spotting business patterns, users could ask them bigger questions. For example, say a company has a certain amount of inventory that it wants to sell at a given profit margin, generative AI with detailed customer knowledge could provide sales strategies based on that information.

Twilio is by no means the only firm to recognize how AI and reducing the cost of intelligence (to borrow Altman’s way of thinking about the future) could change the economics of understanding customer behavior. For example, Adobe provides an Experience Platfom that lets organizations generate customer predictions, using AI-as-a-service, to help firms personalize customer experiences intelligently.

READ NEXT

Authentic content marketing in an age of AI automation

Users can design campaigns to grow and activate new customers, engage with those clients, and retain and enhance those business relationships using insights that, in the past, may have ended up being siloed or overlooked. And highly-customized scenarios can be explored across a range of verticals where previous one-size-fits-all approaches have failed to deliver.

AWS is another provider facilitating customer AI to improve client acquisition and retention, helping firms optimize their marketing efforts. “It helps you get closer to your customers by providing a more personalized experience to increase value and reduce churn by serving the right recommendations, at the right time, via the right channel,” writes AWS partner Peak.

There are signs that the rise in LLM-based services may already be influencing the economics of attracting and retaining clients. In March 2023, global management consultants McKinsey & Company reported that AI-enabled customer service is now the quickest and most effective route for institutions to deliver personalized, proactive experiences that drive customer engagement. And, in the banking segment alone, AI technology could deliver huge numbers to the bottom line through improved customer service.

For clients, this sounds like good news. But whether customer AI is a rising tide that lifts all boats remains to be seen. Timing could be a factor, and judging when to get on board might end up making all the difference.

The post Customer AI: Twilio OpenAI partnership headlines SIGNAL 2023 appeared first on TechHQ.

• Technology content creators should look beyond free stock photos.
• What alternatives are there to stock photography?
• We give viable alternatives to free stock photos for commercial use.

Whether it’s a personal blog post, a corporate homepage, or an off-the-cuff social media posting, imagery is an aspect of online content that can enrich or detract from the message the author is attempting to convey. So why do so many go for (often free) stock photos, or worse?

The choice of an image is hugely important for anyone publishing online. But in areas where there are no tangible, visual elements – like many parts of that catch-all phrase, ‘technology’ – many struggle to find inspiration for their choices.

Why? Just why? Source: Shutterstock

Too often, the resulting pictures and videos accompanying technology companies’ websites, for example, are chosen from a safe visual vocabulary of stock images. These tend to feature too-beautiful human models either engaged in businesslike activities or emoting directly into the camera lens.

In most instances of stock photography, the images are pointless – placeholders around which carefully-chosen text flows. While a hero image (the main picture that greets a site visitor or accompanies a social posting) can set tone and context, a series of ‘Route One’ image choices persist throughout the blog post, article, marketing collateral, etc.

Getting rid of those free stock photos

In these instances, the use of a text-reader plugin extension or plugin in a browser can prove invaluable. Chrome extension Reader View, for example, simply strips away extraneous page elements and turns the content consumer into a simple reader of the text.

That situation has disadvantages: elements considered peripheral by the reader-view ‘filter’ may be essential to fully understanding the content. Additionally, by focusing the consumer of the online content purely on the words, any inherent weakness in the written text is presented front and center. For example, badly-written marketing collateral on a company’s home page no longer has the benefit of distracting eye candy – no spoonful of visual sugar to help the banality go down.

Plenty of sources online for useable and distributable images can give authors and advertising executives at least inspiration to go the extra mile in sourcing photos, art, and illustrations that are thoughtful, quirky, serious, and, most of all, thought-proving.

Leftfield free images for a website

For example, Openverse.org‘s library of Creative Commons content is an assemblage of media that are often available for commercial purposes (check each example’s licensing terms before use – some prohibit commercial use or are for editorial purposes only).

YOU MIGHT LIKE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

4 terrifying dangers lurking in AI

The Creative Commons collection joins several repositories of free-to-use images like Pixabay (2.4 million images and music files), the leftfield Gratisography, the variable quality source that is Unsplash, and the increasingly popular Pexels.

If images are an important part of any content online, they need the type of consideration a copy editor gives to the written word. A journalistic sub-editor employed by any large news site, for instance, will remove repetition, doubled-up meanings, and extraneous strings of similes.

“Once an editor, always an editor. Or is that pedant? Either way, this ironic typo is superb. The Managment need a sub” by Tim Noakes is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

The same expertise is required for visual content: a happy- and efficient-looking construction site worker, for example, may be a great hero image for content offering software for construction firms. But variations on that image may be spurious, especially when their role is just to move other assets, such as informative infographics or key text, into more attractive places.

Content creators should choose further along the spectrum of media choices than “diverse-employees-watching-a-business-presentation.” Finding engaging, informative, and interesting visual content is becoming more challenging, but is surely worthwhile as the audience’s eyes grow more jaded.

Shutterstock and Getty alternatives

The happy fact is that there are many choices out there that will yield images that, in themselves, engage the reader’s mind in ways that help improve the overall understanding of the blog post, website content, or social posting. And those choices need not cost a cent in monetary terms; rather, they come with the overhead of the need to apply a little gray matter (and observe, on occasion, the specifics of an image’s license terms).

British Library digitised image from page 363 of Showell’s Dictionary of Birmingham. A history and guide, arranged alphabetically, etc.

In 2013, the British Library put over a million images into the public domain, courtesy of Microsoft, which had scanned a large number of older texts and gifted their illustrations to the Library. Its statement at the time read:

“The images themselves cover a startling mix of subjects: there are maps, geological diagrams, beautiful illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, colorful illustrations, landscapes, wall-paintings and so much more that even we are not aware of.”

In line with the historic nature of the images released, the Library also produced a Mechanical Curator that (still) posts a random selection of images every hour.

For those looking to use images for commercials, an entire album is dedicated to advertisements from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. While the vast majority represent only a window into the curious world of historic commerce, many give the browsing reader some inspiration for taglines and the sense of purpose necessary to quickly get a message over to an audience: “Cakes are so easily made with Cakeoma,” for example.

British Library digitized image from page 61 of An Artist’s Rambles in Cambridgeshire. A series of sketches [signed: John S. Clarke] with descriptive letterpress reprinted from The Cambridge Express.

The rules of image choices

While there’s little substitute for putting some time and thought into choosing and editing images into online materials, there are a few rules that might make the whole process quicker and more effective in terms of marketing effectiveness, attractiveness and informaion value.

1. Avoid free stock photos

Every industry has its quirks and tendencies in the overall thrust of its image choices. But technology vendors are particularly prone to resort to stock images to illustrate more complex concepts. There’s no simple answer to the problem of visually representing hyperconverged data center infrastructure, for example, but it’s safe to say that models toting clipboards in front of rows of gleaming server cabinets are very common.

Stock photography is developed as a commercial entity, with images designed to be as generic as possible to increase sales for each image. Therefore, they contain very few leftfield or even interesting choices, and even the more bizarre corners of the likes of Shutterstock still possess a generic sheen and photography aesthetics as their stock-in-trade: business people looking at screens. And beyond that, even when you find a bizarre or letfield image, there’s a doubt-spiral within the tech industry, where images could be used effetively, but people ask themselves whether the images really say “hyperconverged data center infrastructure” – and if they don’t (and they usually don’t), people tend to fall back on the clipboard models and their server cabinets.

In all fairness, that’s a VERY different visual take on hyperconverged data center infrastructure…

YOU MIGHT LIKE

OPEN-SOURCE

GIMP: the free, open-source software option for photo editing

2. Think hard about GIFs

Limited to 256 colors and in 2023, most associated with simple, looping video clips, GIFs come with the associative baggage of flippant depictions of some simple emotion.

There is a strong case for presenting certain videos in GIF format when embedding a full HD video may not be possible, but these have to be chosen carefully: no sound, a limited color palette (per frame), and conversion overheads make animated GIFs a niche choice at best.

3. Consider licenses

It’s worth noting where an image’s copyright lies and how it may be licensed. Several sources of images, sound, and video are completely free to use, although there are some pitfalls to be wary of.

Taking snapshots from others’ social media posts is simple and seemingly effective, but Instagram, for example, states that images posted on its platform remain the property of the poster.

Other platforms assume copyright on everything (text included) uploaded to their service. Whether it’s family snapshots or product imagery, uploading to Meta, for example, passes certain rights over content to Mark Zuckerberg. The company’s Terms of Service state:

“Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings), such as service providers that support our service or other Facebook Products you use.”

YOU MIGHT LIKE

How many fingers is this image holding up?

In other words, if images are publicly available, Facebook can reuse them as it sees fit, but copyright stays with the poster.

4. Use Creative Commons images

Some media posted to the internet (such as on a site like openverse.org) is available for commercial use, and some isn’t. Content creators will need permission from the artist to use any media if its use is “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

Each image or audio snippet will be accompanied by its own licensing terms – plus, it may come with one of the following stipulations:

Attribution: The media can be edited and distributed in any way as long as the original author is credited.

Attribution-ShareAlike: The media can be edited and distributed in any way as long as the original author is credited, and the changed or distributed image has to be released under the same terms. If the user’s website, for example, states copyright over all contents, then the image’s use will fall foul of the original’s license terms.

Attribution-ShareAlike No Derivatives: This license prevents any editing at the point of re-publication. Furthermore, the author reusing the media has to release the image or media under the same terms, as above.

The post Going beyond stock photos for tech content appeared first on TechHQ.

• Can AI commit electric plagiarism?
• Can use of generative AI to approximate a writer’s style be considered as plagiarism?
• Would authors prefer to be pirated than plagiarized?

AI plagiarism might be about to take Z library’s place as the plague of the literary world.

Earlier this year, when Z library was still making headlines, authors were united in the battle against piracy. Particularly vocal was the Authors Guild, which recently came to the defence of Professor Jane Friedman, an author who specializes in helping other writers get published.

She took to the-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter to decry Amazon after she discovered that books she didn’t write were being attributed to her.

Friedman’s tweet and article detailing the issue.

Over the last 25 years, Friedman has written or contributed to 10 books on the industry. However, she hasn’t published anything new since 2018. When a reader reached out to her about more recent works, alarm bells rang.

Titles of what Friedman called “garbage books” included Your Guide to Writing a Bestseller eBook on Amazon, Publishing Power: Navigating Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, and Promote to Prosper: Strategies to Skyrocket Your eBook Sales on Amazon.

Friedman’s solid following is based on her work which includes similar titles like The Business of Being a Writer, What Editors Do, and Publishing 101.

When she contacted Amazon to get the faked books removed, the e-commerce giant refused, even though they were being traded on the basis of her name and reputation.

READ NEXT

Forcing shadow libraries out of the darkness

Because Friedman didn’t hold a trademark to her own name, she couldn’t get a straightforward copyright infringement case.  When she filed a report with Amazon, its response was to ask for “any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.”

In an article from Plagiarism Today, which Friedman retweeted, it’s pointed out that historically, authors have had two key battles: piracy and plagiarism. Both of these fall under copyright law – which is why Z library has been involved in legal proceedings.

However, a third issue has arisen out of the advent on generative AI. What Friedman is fighting can be described as “reverse plagiarism.”

Plagiarism? Or identity theft for profit?

Amazon’s stance was that unless the books copy text or other protectable elements from Friedman’s work, copyright doesn’t apply to these cases. Even though the books are likely AI-generated works based on Friedman’s content, there’s nothing to sustain a copyright infringement claim.

“We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised,” Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told Decrypt by email. “We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise, and where we have made an error, we correct it.”

Online, other authors shared similar stories. The Authors Guild also showed support.

The Authors Guild response to Friedman’s original Tweet.

Also speaking to Decrypt, the organization said, “We’ve worked with Amazon on this issue in the past, and we will continue our conversations with it about advancing its efforts to keep up with the technology.”

“Meanwhile, we encourage everyone to report these books that try to profit from your brand through Amazon’s complaint portal.”

The global infatuation with AI has been a sticking point for writers this year already. Film and television productions ground to a halt when the members of the WGA went on strike after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers collapsed in May. When 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA also went on strike, their concerns were similar.

The capabilities of AI have caused many to wonder whether there’ll be jobs available to humans once its full capabilities are harnessed. For writers like Friedman, a future in which AI replaces people is fast becoming a reality.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Can artificial intelligence have ethics?

Friedman wrote that she thinks “her” books were AI generated because “I’ve used these AI tools extensively to test how well they can reproduce my knowledge. I also do a lot of vanity prompting, like “What would Jane Friedman say about building author platform?”

In July, 10,000 members of the Authors Guild co-signed a letter calling on AI industry leaders to obtain consent from, credit, and fairly compensate authors.

The Guild also submitted written testimony to the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee for its July 12 hearing on artificial intelligence, underscoring the threat to “the written profession from unregulated use of generative AI technologies that can produce stories, books, and other text-based works and displace the works of human authors in the marketplace.”

Ironically, given the firm stance that many authors took against Z library’s provision of free books, Friedman’s take is that she “would rather see [her] books get pirated than this.”

Jane Friedman. Source: janefriedman.com

The attention that Friedman’s tweet got meant that Amazon removed the books from its site. They’re now listed as not available to buy.

The fake books are still on Goodreads under Friedman’s name though, increasing her concern that AI generated work is going to ruin the credibility of authors’ real work.

The question of whether use of generative AI to mimic an author’s style counts as plagiarism has been debated by colleges and schools that worried students would use tools like ChatGPT to write assignments.

Further, because the Large Language Models that generative AI bots run on are trained on existing work, there’s an argument to be made that any content created by AI is, on some level, plagiarized. That’s an argument familiar from the world of art, where generative AI programs commonly take elements of human work and repurpose them without credit, premission, or remuneration.

Maya Shanbhag Lang, president of the Authors Guild, said, “The output of AI will always be derivative in nature. AI regurgitates what it takes in, which is the work of human writers. It’s only fair that authors be compensated for having ‘fed’ AI and continuing to inform its evolution. Our work cannot be used without consent, credit, and compensation. All three are a must.”

READ NEXT

What are the risks of artificial intelligence without ethics?

For now, Friedman is focusing on what she can control: her own writing. She said she’s revisiting her book the Business of Being a Writer.

 “At least now I will have a good story to include.”

Plagiarism – it’s not new, but it is getting cleverer.

The post AI plagiarism: Z library no longer the biggest battle authors face appeared first on TechHQ.

• Nestlé is using AI to provide optimized marketing campaigns.
• But the brand remains tainted by the ‘baby milk scandal.’
• AI tools can work to both improve and destroy a brand’s reputation.

Don’t panic, your chocolate isn’t going to be turned into a virtual experience just yet, but Nestlé has officially joined the ranks of companies that are integrating AI into their businesses in one way or another.

In February, the food and drinks titan announced that its 15,000-person-strong marketing division would utilize AI tech to help run campaigns across social platforms while maintaining brand consistency. This meant that creative assets produced for any of its 200 brands must be run through an AI system trained on its strict marketing do’s and don’t’s.

The system, named Cortex, comes from creative consultancy CreativeX, which states on its website that “Brand consistency has been shown time and time again to drive lift across both brand and sales KPIs.” An attractive prospect for Nestlé, which hasn’t had the smoothest ride regarding company reputation. In short, it needs to improve its image, consistently.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

BLOCKCHAIN

Nestlé – why the world’s biggest food company uses blockchain

It took its largest and most notorious blow about 50 years ago when campaign groups started highlighting what’s now known as the ‘Nestlé baby milk scandal’. In the 1960s, many infant formula companies shifted their campaigning to developing countries to depict it as “scientific, modern, prestigious, and (falsely) nutritionally superior to breastmilk.” Nestlé sent salespeople out to countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to promote their products dressed as so-called “milk nurses”.

Nestlé Milk nurses in South Africa. Source: Crowther S M et al. (2009)

They pushed the line that this expensive formula would be more beneficial to children than what their mothers’ bodies produced, which is untrue. Nestlé was later accused of providing incentives to doctors to promote their products.

Many mothers in these developing countries diluted the formula to make it last, often with dirty water, which reduced its nutritional value. As a result, many infants suffered from malnutrition, dehydration, and various illnesses, leading to a higher-than-necessary infant mortality rate.

The aggressive marketing tactics that Nestlé and associated formula companies employed are said to have contributed to a decline in breastfeeding rates in these regions, where it was once the norm and a crucial source of nutrition and protection against diseases.

After health organizations began raising concerns about these unethical marketing practices, Nestlé’s reputation took a turn, and it received significant backlash and boycotts from consumers.

Over time, the company has attempted to address the criticism and improve its image by adopting changes in its marketing strategies. Nestlé now adheres to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, created by the World Health Organization and UNICEF in 1974, but activists and critics continue to closely monitor its practices to ensure compliance.

Nestlé now claims to adhere to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. Source: Shutterstock

The AI tool Nestlé marketers are using does not claim to be a reputational tonic. Aude Gandon, Nestlé’s senior vice-president and global chief marketing and digital officer, hopes instead that it will change the brand’s advertising focus from TV to digital-first.

When CreativeX was first recruited in 2021, its team trained an AI on thousands of previous Nestlé campaigns and their results. This meant it could learn the elements of these ads that drove the best ROI. Once the learning period was over, Cortex was able to analyze any creative asset and give it a ‘Creative Quality Score’ based on how many elements it contains which prove successful on a given social platform, like YouTube or Facebook. These include aspect ratio, video length, subtitles, and calls to action.

Staff must now put any asset through the AI before it goes live to ensure it is optimized for their chosen platform. According to Ms Gandon, this is to stop time-wasting during marketing meetings where attendees may disproportionately fret about whether minute details, like logo placement, impacted the campaign’s failure.

While the AI-determined rules may sound “unsexy”, as CreativeX’s chief executive Anastasia Leng told The Drum, they are not intended to replace the creative input of the marketers. “These are basic things that create the canvas on which an idea can be successful,” she said.

Cortex is not the only way Nestlé has integrated AI into its business. In 2021 it launched a ‘Cookie Coach’ named Ruth, a virtual avatar that could answer basic questions about its Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. Ruth was born from the number of questions on how to recreate these cookies that Nestlé received during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, Nestlé launched a ‘Cookie Coach’ named Ruth, a virtual avatar that could answer basic questions about its Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. Source: Nestlé

Research from Greyb also revealed that the company has filed patents for AI technologies that could recommend personalized dietary requirements. Nestle Health Science offers various nutritional supplements, like Boost Women, and provides data for screening and assessment tools that can recommend these products. These tools currently work simply by making recommendations based on the user’s responses to a questionnaire, but the patents suggest these could soon be further optimized with AI.

But could marketing teams use AI to repair a brand’s reputation? These days, many companies make use of AI-driven sentiment analysis to monitor online discussions, social media platforms, and customer reviews for negative opinions. These ensure that representatives can address any concerns in a timely manner and demonstrate that customer satisfaction is a priority.

Similarly, AI-driven moderation tools can be employed to identify and remove harmful or misleading online content and help preserve company reputation. It can also help prevent future scandals by detecting the initial indicators of an escalating situation, allowing brands to take immediate action. Many PR companies now offer AI tools as part of their packages.

Creatively integrating the latest AI-powered innovations could also provide the opportunity for a reputational clean slate. By introducing a never-before-seen feature or service that genuinely addresses customer needs and enhances their experience, a brand can shift the narrative away from past scandals and redefine the company’s image as an AI trailblazer.

Although AI can help with marketing campaigns and safeguarding brand reputation, it cannot fully replace human judgment and creativity. Source: Shutterstock

An example of this is how OpenAI itself, the creator of ChatGPT, was outed as paying workers in Kenya a maximum of $2 an hour to label violent, sexist, and racist text data as such so that it could be used to train an AI-powered safety mechanism for ChatGPT. Not long after, OpenAI released GPT-4, its most advanced system yet, to the public.

As much as advances in AI can help a brand’s reputation, they can also work against it. An example of this is the Cambridge Analytica scandal from 2018, where the data analytics firm misused advanced AI-driven techniques to harvest and exploit the personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent.

This data mining operation aimed to build detailed psychographic profiles of individuals, which were then used to deliver targeted political advertisements and influence the outcome of elections, including the 2016 US Presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

YOU MIGHT LIKE

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook fined maximum possible in UK over Cambridge Analytica affair

While an increasing number of companies embrace AI to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their products and services, they also open themselves up to a host of potential controversies related to its use. While these may not be as high profile as what happened with Cambridge Analytica, a wayward chatbot or biased algorithm can inflict significant reputational damage.

The majority of AI tools can’t fact-check information, so companies that rely on generated content put themselves at risk of associating inaccurate information with their brand. Gartner predicts that 80 percent of marketers will deal with content authenticity issues by 2027.

What’s more, AI-derived copy can lack originality and personality, as it is produced by an algorithm that only works by re-assembling oft-assembled words and sentences. That tends to produce results that are safely generic. Chatbots are also open to manipulation and to proliferate bias from their training data, so aligning one with a company comes with a certain degree of danger.

As Ms Leng put it, many creatives are concerned that AI tools can only produce “cookie cutter” content. It is true that, although AI can help with marketing campaigns and safeguarding brand reputation, it cannot fully replace human judgment and creativity. Therefore it is crucial for companies like Nestlé to tread carefully, ensuring a balance between harnessing AI’s potential and preserving the essence of the human touch, if it wants to remain a household name.

The post Sweetening things up: Can AI help repair Nestlé’s reputation? appeared first on TechHQ.