Big data is a term that describes the larger volume of data, both structured and unstructured, that floods a business on a day-to-day basis. Overall the concept of big data is generally new but the job of storing and measuring large amounts of information has been around forever. When it comes to Big data, the concept is composed into 3 main subcategories.

The first subcategory is volume. In this subcategory organizations collect data from a variety of sources, including business transactions, social media, and information from sensors. (or machine to machine data) In the past storing these large amounts of data would have been next to impossible, but with the evolution of technology and creating a platform to measure and store this data it now no longer such a hard task to successfully perform.

The next two subcategories essentially go hand in hand because of their relevance toward each other. First off velocity which is when data streams in at an unprecedented speed and must be dealt with in a timely manner. For example RFID (sensors and or smart metering) tags in places like malls and grocery stores are driving the need to deal with torrents of data in near real time. The third subcategory that deals with velocity is variety. This is where data comes in all types of formats, from structured numeric data in traditional databases to unstructured text documents, email, video, audio, stock ticker financial transactions.

As of 2018 Instagram and Pinterest have made tremendous changes to the way marketers able to measure and track things like sales, leads and other important KPI’s that are relevant to the content that has been released by a specific brand or company. Since Instagram and Pinterest are purely visual platforms when it comes to all aspects of both platforms, keeping this in mind both of these platforms create a very captivating tool for marketers to use when making efforts to connect with their customers. Over the course of 2018 both social platforms have made significant changes to benefit marketers.

First off when looking at both platforms , they are becoming a ‘pay to play’ type of platform. One downfall of this change is that Instagram now has had to continuously change their Algorithm, which has been known to negatively affect brands organic reach. Second customers now can buy direct with Instagram shopping features, meaning that instagram provides you to essentially build your own e-commerce store. People can now create “shoppable” posts which are identified on account profiles by a white shopping bag icon at the top right-hand corner of posts. Lastly Instagram has allowed theres users to reach more followers organically with live streaming. Instagram live is a great way to connect with your audience, answer questions on the fly, and solve and problems they might have.

 

According to Youtube, the overview report is a high-level summary of how your content is doing on Youtube. This report is put together so that any content creator is able to quickly and easily view performance metrics. There are five sections that make up the overview report: Performance Metrics, Engagement Metrics, Top 10 Content, Demographics, Discovery.

The first section, Performance Metrics, summarizes watch time, views, and earnings, if applicable by the specific content. The second, Engagement Metrics, displays the most relevant data for different engagement criteria. Such as likes, dislikes, comments, shares, and favorites. Third is the top 10 content, this tool shows the top 10 pieces of content for your channel, such as channels, playlists, and assets, according to watch time. the fourth layer of the overview report are the demographics, which gather location on gender and location of viewers. The fifth and final tool of the overview report is Discovery, this summarizes the metrics for top playback locations and top traffic sources by watch time.

Youtube provides all these different tools within this overview report to allow content creators the ability to easily monitor how well their content is doing on Youtube. These content creators will find this incredibly helpful in that the report gives early insights on a videos performance, and can be used to adjust how that specific video is being promoted.

On September 3^rd Nike debuted their campaign featuring the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who started the wave of NFL national anthem protests against racial inequality last year. This ad is one of the most controversial ads released in the last couple months. Despite the huge outrage upon release of this ad, Nike has seen a 31% increase in online sales, according to one outside estimate.

Nikes ad starts off with a skateboarder falling off a rail, a child with no legs on a wrestling mat, and African-American boy running down a dirt road, a young shadowboxing woman wearing hijab, a surfer, a pop warner football game and a blond girl playing high school football against boys. This was essentially a huge risk for Nike because of the consumers they might lose in their anger over this topic. The main reason that Nike decided to take a risk like this was for their goal of bringing together and entire generation of consumers who are essentially up for grabs at a moment where the lines between culture, politics and activism are as clear as mud. Every one of the images that were included in the ad connects to the overall message of being different, of overcoming some type of obstacle or stereotype, which fits in well with why Kaepernick is here in the first place rather than continuing playing as quarterback in the NFL.

The irony that surrounds this ad is if you completely removed Kaepernick out of the ad, there is absolutely nothing controversial about the images or words that are used or said within the ad. “Don’t ask if your dreams are crazy; ask if they’re crazy enough” is a quote specifically from Kaepernick within the ad, this quote feels like it could apply to any Nike ad campaign, in my opinion which is essentially a direct link to “Just Do It” which is Nike’s original campaign message. Nike will continue to count on this ad reaching this large market of consumers that are growing up in a confusing politically active era.

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Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton