World Social Media Day: Reasons to be Thankful

Today is World Social Media Day! With 3.8 billion global users [1], social media continues to be a huge part of our lives. I was a bit of a late bloomer — I only started using Facebook in 2008 and LinkedIn in 2010. The rest like Whatsapp, Instagram, and Twitter came much later. As you can see below, social media dominates most of my screen time in the morning!

Although social media and other forms of digital marketing have gained popularity over the past few years, email marketing still plays a large role in many B2B and B2C enterprises. Being in tech, I can vouch for this — we still use email marketing as a key part of our integrated marketing efforts.

Research shows that by 2023 there will be 4.3 billion email users in the world [1] Plus a 2019 study conducted by HubSpot [2] showed that 83 percent of B2B companies use e-newsletters as part of their content marketing program and that 99% of consumers check their…

As we marketers are (painfully) aware, our marketing plans didn’t and won’t go as planned for 2020. Budget allocated to marketing is now reprioritized to other areas and we are left scratching our head wondering how to get about our business.

As marketers, most often our biggest worry is marketing spend. We ask the question of how much budget is available, even before we have a clear idea of what to do with it. And in times like this, we put creative ideas on hold, simply because “we don’t have the budget for it”. …

Believing in Open-Source Software for Marketing

The term open source is no longer strange or obscure to anyone anymore. It’s widely used, supported by a global community, and comes highly recommended by enterprises of all sizes. In the current context, many enterprises are opting for open-source software (OSS) as a cost-effective yet reliable means of maintaining business as usual.

Open source is particularly close to home for me since I work in marketing for WSO2, a technology company that provides open-source middleware products. So being familiar with the open-source world is particularly important to my work. …

Open Banking has grown overnight.It started with the PSD2 regulation for Europe in 2018. Open banking is now adopted in Australia, several parts of Asia, Latin America and many other regions.

Here are a few facts to understand what Open Banking is and why you should consider building a strategy around it.

What is open banking and why was it created?

Open Banking requires all financial institutions [deposit taking institutions] to open up customer and/or payment data to third party providers. Open banking breaks up the monopolies of financial services and allow more players to enter the market. …