1. Five learnings for marketers from CES 2016
The Consumer Electronics Show hit Las Vegas last week, and it gave us marketers a chance to search out those innovative ideas for the year ahead. The Global Chief Strategy Officer at Initiative, Sarah Ivey, has managed to see through to the trends behind the tech, to make sense of what it means for marketers.

Machine communications lead the way at CES and are becoming a real force in marketing. We’ve all experienced Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana, and with Ford revealing their plans to explore how a connected car could talk to an Amazon Echo home automation hub to control features in the vehicle and at home without your input, the opportunities for marketers are huge. Virtual Reality, the 4K viewing experience, the human UX and more all promise new and innovative channels for marketers.

Click here to view more learnings from CES 2016.

2. Five things great brands will do differently on social media in 2016

To say that 2015 was a success for social media platforms would be an understatement. Facebook alone generated revenue of £3.1bn. With no signs of social media marketing being on the wane, what will the big brands be doing differently on the platforms in 2016?

Investing more, embracing video even more, thinking differently and more.

To discover what brands will be doing differently for 2016 in more detail, click here.

3. Forget your testimonials page, 2016 is the year of reviews

Are you making the most out of your testimonials page? 2015 was a huge year for local search, with brands increasingly taking an interest in reviews. Reviews have always been important for consumers choosing a product and service, and with brands taking notice of this, 2016 is the year when the importance of reviews gets even greater.

It’s likely that the only traffic going to a business’s testimonials page is from the staff. Customers want to read honest, unbiased reviews on third-party sites. Since consumers are increasingly ignoring testimonials, links to other review sites are increasingly becoming the norm for brands. Is your business taking notice too?

For more information, click here.