In social media, marketers attempt to influence consumers by using directive language, that is, expressions designed to get consumers to take action. While the literature has shown that directive messages in advertising have mixed results for recipients, we know little about the effects of directive brand language on consumers who see brands interacting with other consumers in social media conversations. On the basis of a field study and three online experiments, this study shows that directive language in brand conversation has a detrimental downstream effect on engagement of consumers who observe such exchanges. Specifically, in line with Goffman's facework theory, because a brand that encourages consumers to react could be perceived as face-threatening, consumers who see a brand interacting with others in a directive way may feel vicarious embarrassment and engage less (compared with a conversation without directive language). In addition, we find that when the conversation is nonproduct-centered (vs. product-centered), consumers expect more freedom, as in mundane conversations, even for others; therefore, directive language has a stronger negative effect. However, in this context, the strength of the brand relationship mitigates this effect. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on directive language and brand-consumer interactions by highlighting the importance of context in interactive communication, with direct relevance for social media and brand management.

Ravi Sundararajan is the Chief Operating Officer at Gupshup, the leading conversational engagement platform. Sundararajan heads Product, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and Support for Gupshup. Under his leadership, Gupshup has grown to become the leading Cloud Messaging Platform powering over nine billion messages monthly. Tens of thousands of large and small businesses across industry verticals use Gupshup to build conversational experiences across marketing, sales, and support. Prior to Gupshup, Ravi was the Founder and CEO of a cloud analytics startup and held various senior executive roles for Symantec's cloud data management and information security solutions.

AI, AR, VR, or any form of virtual reality, isn't a new concept within the beauty industry, but it certainly is a remarkable one. Virtual reality has always stirred a web of speculation and curiosity amongst tech-savvy enthusiasts, and whether the enriching digital-based experience was put to the test by mass brands like Nike and IKEA, or luxury fashion houses such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton, augmented reality is the once-niche concept that is turning traditional ways of shopping and experiencing products into a revolutionary trend. It isn't surprising that the pandemic has helped accelerate the digital innovation in the beauty space. With retail shops temporarily closing their doors around the world, consumers have been driven online to fuel their beauty needs. To help make the online shopping experience easier, retailers are using AI technology -- and it's working.

Chatbots are all the rage these days. Kern Elliott, Senior Professional Applications Support, at the National ICT Company Limited, also known as iGovTT, helps to understand the basics of chatbots, along with key considerations when deploying a chatbot, and what might be the future of chatbots. This episode is also available in Apple iTunes and on Stitcher! If you believe all of the hype, and (almost) regardless of the size of your business – be it a one-person affair, to a large corporate – there is a chatbot solution that is right for you. However, it can be difficult to distil fact from fiction, especially when organisations are at the receiving ends of slick marketing campaigns, and as consumers, we may be interacting with chatbots, and not even realise it.

Here's a quick question--what do artificial intelligence, virtual health, digital consumer engagement, and value-based contracting all have in common? The answer--all of them require interoperability for realizing a return-on-investment (ROI). Unfortunately, the state of interoperability in the system serving consumers with complex needs is not great. The gap between where most provider organizations are and where they need to go is still large. So, what exactly is interoperability?

Artificial Intelligence's impact on marketing continues to gain speed. In this article, Shelly Kramer looks at the early steps of Social AI and how it can boost Lead Generation. It is another in our "Great Articles You may have missed" series. Marketers use social in a variety of ways, from searching for social promoters to boost brand awareness to improving and personalizing the customer experience. As investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to boom, marketers are looking for ways to combine the two powerhouses--AI and social--to optimize their reach and bring more value to consumers.

Yesterday morning, Adweek published my piece on the trends that'll propel marketers forward in 2018. You'll often see many articles like this at the beginning of a new year, but some of them read more like imaginative guesses or wishful speculation rather than insights you can walk away with. We're data-driven and insight-focused at Salesforce, so I'd like to share some of the research that informed my recent article and how we see the future of marketing. As you'll come to find out, many of the trends highlighted in Adweek are supported by marketers who contributed to our Fourth Annual State of Marketing released last summer. Similarly, our Digital Advertising 2020 report, unveiled at the AdExchanger Industry Preview earlier this month, reveals this year's big advertising trends as heard directly from advertising leaders around the world.

Once again, Shelly Kramer has written a piece to excite techno-geeks and everyone else who keeps an eye on the future of marketing. This time, she discusses how Social AI can be used to aid lead generation. It is another in our "Great Articles You may have missed" series. Marketers use social in a variety of ways, from searching for social promoters to boost brand awareness to improving and personalizing the customer experience. As investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to boom, marketers are looking for ways to combine the two powerhouses--AI and social--to optimize their reach and bring more value to consumers.

Marketers use social in a variety of ways, from searching for social promoters to boost brand awareness to improving and personalizing the customer experience. As investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to boom, marketers are looking for ways to combine the two powerhouses--AI and social--to optimize their reach and bring more value to consumers. Leveraging AI as part of your social media strategy can bolster your lead generation efforts, too. There are plenty of uses for AI when it comes to lead gen. In a recent article, Prepare for Artificial Intelligence to Power the B2B Sales Process, I predicted we'd see a lot of movement in this market, specifically in the development of AI apps used for enhancing the sales process and in AI acquisitions by SaaS powerhouses.

Ask Elon Musk about the future of artificial intelligence, and he'll likely claim that the robot apocalypse is right around the corner. Fortunately, it's not supported by other tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, both of whom believe that Musk's points are not only overblown, but also destructive. Related: Is Your Startup Ready for Artificial Intelligence? Beyond all this contentious rhetoric, the point is that AI is already here, and it's capable of accelerating the business world. Nearly 60 percent of marketing leaders surveyed by Salesforce believed that AI will play a major role in marketing campaigns.