• Lack of measurement of environmental and energy performance among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) hampering ability to contribute to the energy transition and tackle climate change

• 96% of SMB leaders said they do not measure scope 1-3 carbon emissions and 95% do not have data on the level of renewable energy consumption

• Less than a third of SMBs have dedicated environmental or sustainability skills on their board of directors or in a company leadership position

• YPO will upskill its members on how to measure and report on environmental impact

Most small and medium-sized business (SMB) leaders say their companies do not measure carbon emissions. This could severely hamper their ability to contribute to tackling climate change, according to new research by YPO, sponsored by EY.

The report from YPO, a global leadership community of chief executives, shows that only 4% of its members surveyed were able to provide data on their companies' direct and indirect emissions (scope 1-3). Only 5% of chief executives surveyed measure the level of their businesses' renewable energy use, so they were not able to report progress on their energy transition.

As environmental regulatory requirements intensify, the research in YPO's inaugural Global Impact Report also highlights a potential lack of resources and understanding of how to report on these issues among SMBs. Less than a third (28%) of business leaders indicated that they have a social and environmental committee on their board of directors, while only 27% reported having a full-time sustainability leadership position.

YPO Global Chairman, Raymond Watt, said:

"Our members are at the core of many economies around the world and want to play their part in tackling the environmental emergency, but currently the majority simply don't have the data and support to do so."

"This inaugural report provides an essential baseline for YPO member businesses to begin benchmarking their environmental impact and to make a positive difference. We are committed to supporting them to effectively measure their energy use and carbon emissions, including exploring technological data and reporting solutions."

"As well as taking concerted company action to help to stem climate change, it will only be a matter of time until regulatory and supply chain requirements make environmental reporting a commercial as well as a climate imperative."

"Although it currently focuses on larger organizations, the regulatory pressure to disclose environmental data is intensifying. This year, thousands of multinationals with businesses in Europe must start reporting their climate impact under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to adopt climate disclosure rules."

Orlan Boston, YPO member and Senior Advisory and Global Client Service Partner at EY, said:

"As well as more regulatory requirements, customer pressure on companies to provide environmental, social and governance performance transparency and make progress against it is intensifying."

"Small and medium-business leaders should evaluate the opportunities and risks for their own individual businesses and stakeholders, which will enable them to execute a targeted strategy of improvement."

Inbox.com AS, an email provider based in Norway, is pleased to announce its acquisition of Atmail, a renowned email hosting provider headquartered in Brisbane, Australia. This strategic move represents a significant milestone in Inbox.com's expansion and diversification strategy.

WPBeginner Growth Fund, a leading investment fund specializing in B2B software businesses backed by Awesome Motive is thrilled to announce its recent investment in GrooveHQ, a top-rated customer support help desk software.

GrooveHQ is a trusted customer support platform serving over 2,000 businesses worldwide. It streamlines workflows, boosting efficiency and empowering businesses to deliver best-in-class customer support at scale.

Syed Balkhi, Founder and CEO of WPBeginner & Awesome Motive, expressed his enthusiasm about the investment: "GrooveHQ provides everything small businesses need to offer exceptional customer service at scale without the high costs. We value Groove's commitment to offering a powerful & easy to use customer support software at fair prices, making it an ideal solution for small businesses across various industries, from agencies and eCommerce to SaaS and brick-and-mortar establishments."

With over 25 million websites using Awesome Motive software like WPForms, MonsterInsights, AIOSEO, and others, the WPBeginner Growth Fund's investment in GrooveHQ aims to leverage strategic synergies across its portfolio. This aligns perfectly with Balkhi's mission of helping small businesses grow & compete with the big guys through superior growth tools and services.

Alex Turnbull, Founder and CEO of GrooveHQ, shared, "We're excited to be part of the WPBeginner Growth Fund family. Their extensive experience and proven growth strategies align perfectly with our vision to revolutionize customer service. This partnership will elevate GrooveHQ to new heights and enable us to serve more small businesses worldwide."

Balkhi emphasized the shared mission with GrooveHQ: "Our goal is to eliminate subpar customer service experiences worldwide by offering exceptional customer service tools. This partnership will allow us to combine our expertise and serve the global small business community even better. The collaboration with GrooveHQ aligns perfectly with WPBeginner Growth Fund and Awesome Motive's commitment to empowering businesses with affordable and effective solutions, further solidifying its position as a key player in the WordPress and software business investment landscape."

Through the integration, SOCi will empower regulated, multi-location enterprises with a comprehensive social solution 

SOCi Inc., the leading CoMarketing Cloud Platform for multi-location enterprises, today announced a strategic partnership with Smarsh, a global leader in digital communications compliance and intelligence, which will provide multi-location enterprises with a streamlined end-to-end workflow for social media management. SOCi will integrate with Smarsh to provide a comprehensive social media publishing, compliance, and archiving solution for brands in regulated industries. 

The partnership will enable organizations using Smarsh for communications archiving and supervision to add SOCi's social media moderation and review capabilities. Organizations can seamlessly review and publish content to their social media channels while meeting regulatory recordkeeping requirements for the capture and retention of social media communications.

"SOCi's social compliance solutions, now bolstered by the Smarsh archiving integration, offer corporate marketers and compliance teams a centralized place to increase local brand visibility, engagements, and customer traffic all while adhering to the regulatory and compliance needs within the industry," said Richard Lumsden, SVP of Business Development at SOCi. "This partnership provides our customers enhanced archiving and compliance abilities built to scale without compromise as their data volume increases."

This integration will provide expanded capabilities to current SOCi customers, especially those in regulated industries, that already leverage the digital marketing platform to maintain positive reputations in their banking, insurance, and other finance and investment businesses, manage crisis situations, and build trust amongst its agents and clients.

"SOCi has helped us streamline our marketing efforts and removed the need for multiple point solutions when it comes to our localized marketing strategy," said Christian Montiel, director of business development, Estrella Insurance. "The platform provides insightful analytics that help us understand how our programs are performing so we can make data-driven decisions on how to improve our strategy. The additional integration with Smarsh and its archiving capabilities can help those in our industry to reduce costs and increase productivity at scale."

Smarsh offers communications oversight and retention solutions for regulated organizations of all sizes. The SOCi integration benefits both customers of the Smarsh Enterprise Platform (large, global firms) and the Smarsh Professional Archive (wealth and asset management firms and government agencies), providing more accessible, streamlined, and automated end-to-end support for social media.

"It's imperative that financial institutions monitor their social content for compliance. For a multi-location enterprise, having to manage hundreds or thousands of local pages becomes extremely time consuming and creates room for error," said Tom Padgett, General Manager of the Smarsh Enterprise business. "With SOCi as a preferred vendor for social media, our customers can simplify the social media workstream from start to finish and have confidence in their abilities to strengthen social media oversight, mitigate compliance risks, and maintain a complete record of social media content at scale." 

In addition to bolstering its partnerships and integrations in 2023, SOCi has also expanded its product line with the launch of Genius Reviews. With additional products planned for the line, SOCi Genius leverages advanced data science, best-in-class generative AI, "on-brand" training models, and leading localization and automation tools to make data-driven decisions that fuel smarter marketing strategies and increase ROI.

BrandMuscle introduces Palette, an easy-to-use design platform that ensures compliant marketing for highly regulated industries

Today, BrandMuscle announces they're stepping into the self-service design space with Palette. This innovative graphic design platform makes print and digital asset creation easy with user-friendly controls, built-in templates, and AI-enhanced functionalities. 

Unlike other self-service design platforms, Palette sets itself apart by conducting comprehensive compliance checks to ensure all artwork and messaging are market-ready. Palette was designed specifically for beverage-alcohol brands and distributors facing complex legal and brand compliance standards across their field marketing. In highly regulated industries, compliant designs aren't just nice to have — they're a necessity.  

With Palette, reps can create on-brand, legally compliant assets in minutes with pre-approved media, fonts, colors, and text styles that comply with brand guidelines. Then, these materials go through an automated compliance review that uses AI to look for trademark and copyright infringement, compliance with state regulations, and Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) compliance standards.

Other notable Palette features include:

• Design versatility: Use AI-supported templates to optimize artwork for digital channels or create print-ready files.
• Simple user interface: Palette offers an accessible and intuitive user experience, enabling anyone to easily create stunning designs with no experience necessary.
• AI-powered tools: With Palette's AI technology, you can generate text in the proper brand voice and produce AI-generated artwork in seconds.
• Compliance without complexity: With a series of compliance safeguards and automated compliance checks, no violations will slip through the cracks.

"Rogue assets are a major risk for bev-alc brands. Reps often use third-party design tools to create marketing materials without realizing these assets don't comply with brand or legal guidelines," said Robert Olivares, BrandMuscle's EVP Bev-Alc. "That's why we created Palette — a solution that puts compliance first while making design easy."

"For too long, reps have had to choose between compliance and speed to market when designing marketing materials. Palette streamlines asset creation with AI and ensures complete compliance every time," said James Morse, Senior Vice President of Product Management at BrandMuscle.

Marketers turn to owned brand communities as social media declines

A new study by TINT, the Community Powered Marketing platform, finds 60% of marketers are concerned about losing access to their brand's fans on social media due to increasing fragmentation, dissatisfaction with platform content, and changes in social algorithms.

"2024 is the year of owned brand communities and Zero Party Data," said Sameer Kamat, TINT CEO. "We have seen how quickly social platforms can change and fall out of favor. Brands are taking back their relationships with consumers."

The study finds that 47% of brand marketers surveyed already own or are in the process of building an online brand community distinct from social media.

Consumer participation in online communities is trending upward, increasing 9% year-over-year as people seek more active involvement with the brands and organizations they frequent.  Community-centric marketing builds direct, emotional and engaging relationships, serving as the bond that drives choiceful spending, authentic advocacy, and enduring brand loyalty.

"It is important to own this relationship because we increasingly don't own our brands," said Tiffany Pegues, Head of Social, Search, and CRM at Church & Dwight Co. "Consumers will adapt them as they want to or need to." She adds that communities are part of the omnichannel journey that bridges the gap between digital and physical experiences.

Additional Findings

• 82% of consumers are more likely to purchase new product varieties because of an online brand community.
• 69% of consumers prefer to purchase brands that they interact with in an online community.
• 59% of marketers struggle to get consumers to provide Zero Party Data.

The data for this report was gathered using online surveys between October 25 - November 15, 2023. Data was collected from a peer influencer consumer community, Smiley360, by 2,386 U.S. respondents and from 220 global marketers.

Influencer technology platform announces rapid growth alongside new retail partners and successful holiday sales, paying creators more than $20 million last year, a 5x increase from 2022

Mavely, the Everyday Influencer Platform™ powering partnerships between creators and global retail brands, today announced millions of dollars in creator payouts, new partners to its robust retail network and landmark sales for 2023. Mavely paid out more than $20M in earnings to its creators in 2023, with more than $1M paid to creators for sales made between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The platform recorded more than $300M in sales—representing Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)—for brand partners last year, with $120M in GMV in Q4 alone. Additionally, Mavely achieved $480M in GMV run rate in Q4* and drove $11.3M in GMV between Black Friday and Cyber Monday specifically. This news comes as part of Mavely’s ongoing efforts to empower the growing generation of influencers with the brand network and resources to master commission-driven social selling. 

Mavely is a technology platform that helps enable its more than 70k creators to monetize their social followings. Mavely influencers drive sales for brands and earn commissions by sharing shoppable SmartLinks that track insights including clicks, conversions, sales and more. Prioritizing authenticity over follower count, the company connects these everyday influencers—a term Mavely has trademarked—with a network of more than 1,200 brands and provides influencers with dedicated account managers, educational courses and in-depth analytics tools to help optimize their performance, including product-level data, transactions and commissions made via affiliate links, creator performance history and more.

As a creator-first company, Mavely incentivizes strong performance through influencer tools and benefits such as 10% referral commissions, access to campaigns and exclusive promotions, fast and transparent payouts, and a bonus program with various perks and rewards. One top-performing creator, Keesh Deesh, earned more than $1M via Mavely in 2023.** Keesh Deesh also achieved $2M in sales GMV for retailers in the month of November, selling $160k worth of products on Black Friday.

“At Mavely, we believe that the future of influencer marketing is performance based. In the creator economy as anywhere, influencers and brands want more predictable revenue streams,” said Evan Wray, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Mavely. “Brands rely heavily on performance data when planning their marketing budgets. It’s no longer logical to pay one influencer and hope for the best when, instead, brands can tap an army of creators each incentivized with commission-based earnings. Mavely provides the technology, community and incentives to help drive and track creator performance at scale.”

In 2024, global ad spend on influencer marketing is expected to reach $30.8 billion, according to Demand Sage. Mavely is marrying the evolving influencer space—and the brands trying to keep up—with the empirically robust affiliate marketing industry via its easy-to-use platform and results-driven account management. According to research from Influencer Marketing Hub, 82% of surveyed companies intend to dedicate a specific budget to influencer marketing this year. Brands will inevitably look to prioritize performance and results, a point in which traditional influencer marketing falls short. Mavely allows for both brands and influencers to use performance metrics to test and track the success of their influencer campaigns, bridging the gap between influencer marketing, which often leverages user-generated content for brand awareness, and affiliate marketing, which drives attributable sales. Mavely’s performance-based influencer marketing model is unlocking new revenue streams for major brands by harnessing everyday influencers who can perform in brand campaigns and as affiliate marketers, a more attractive alternative to ‘traditional brand deals’ where brands pay an influencer one lump sum with little insights into conversion.

Mavely has facilitated collaborations with more than 1,200 brands, including Old Navy, QVC and Urban Outfitters, fostering strategic and cost-effective relationships between online creators and the world’s most recognizable brands. In 2023, Mavely added 525 new brand partners to its network for influencers to share, such as Little Sleepies, Woot! and Public Lands. As Mavely grows its network of retail partners, the company continues fostering purposeful connections with brands that align with the Mavely creator community’s goals and values by selecting brands that are dedicated to fair and reliable commissions, accessible pricing and high-quality products that both creators and their audiences can trust.

“Mavely has assisted our channel with not only reaching, but surpassing our performance-focused KPIs,” said the Influencer Marketing Team at QVC. “The company introduced us to hundreds of new creators, allowing us to reach new audiences across America and unlock a new vertical of sales via social media.”

"Mavely has been an integral partner within our affiliate program, helping us scale during major moments like our Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale,” said Katie Price Ross, Growth Marketing Director at Little Sleepies. “During the sale, affiliate was one of our core channels and we significantly beat ROAS goals with the help of authentic content from Mavely's influencers. Additionally, over 80% of the traffic driven to our site from affiliates was from new customers."

To celebrate Mavely’s ongoing success and in an effort to give back to the community, the platform donated $10k on behalf of the company, its retail partners and creators to Lawrence Hall, a community-based organization that serves more than 1,400 youth and families in Mavely’s home city of Chicago. As a result of Mavely’s contribution, 200 children received holiday presents and clothes and 60 children will be able to take part in a cultural immersion program. Additionally, the donation will support the construction of a new playground for families to enjoy. This continues a Mavely tradition of giving back to communities, with Watts of Love in 2022 (bringing electricity to villages in Africa) and Women in Tech in 2021 (promoting STEM careers for girls and young women) as causes that Mavely has supported.

New report finds that the world averaged 8.4 new social media users per second over the past year

Meltwater, a global leader in media, social and consumer intelligence, and We Are Social, the socially-led creative agency, have released Digital 2024, their latest annual report on social media and digital trends worldwide.

In a year full of digital milestones, Digital 2024 shows that active social media user identities* have passed the 5 billion mark (5.04 billion), equivalent to 62.3 percent of the world’s population. The global total increased by 266 million over the past year - an annual growth of 5.6 percent.

The typical social media user now spends 2 hours and 23 minutes per day on their social platforms of choice, and uses 6.7 platforms each month. TikTok has the highest average time per Android user of any social platform globally, clocking in at an impressive 34 hours per month - equating to more than an hour per day using the platform. In second place is YouTube, with the average user spending just over 28 hours per month on its Android app.

In terms of the world’s ‘favorite’ social platform, Instagram has taken the crown from last year’s winner, WhatsApp. Digital 2024 shows that 16.5 percent of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64 consider Instagram their most loved platform, pushing WhatsApp into second place with 16.1 percent.

Digital 2024 is a 550+ page report that covers data points from across the entire online ecosystem, from social media to smart devices, gaming to social commerce.

Other key highlights from the report include:

• The typical internet user now spends 6 hours and 40 minutes online each day - up by 3 minutes per day, or 1 percent, year-on-year.
• Facebook - which celebrates its 20th birthday on 4th February - grew its global ad reach by more than 200 million over the past 12 months, delivering year-on-year growth of 10.5 percent.
• LinkedIn, Snapchat, WeChat, and Pinterest all reported strong user growth year-on-year.
• Digital ad spend grew by 10 percent year-on-year, with almost $720 billion spent on digital ads in 2023. Social ad spend increased by 9.3 percent to USD $207 billion, and investment in influencer activities increased by 17 percent.
• The typical internet user now spends 17 minutes per day less watching TV content than they did this time last year - a decline of 8.2 percent year-on-year.
• In a rich analysis of TikTok hashtags, Digital 2024 reports that TikToks tagged with #fyp (for your page) have amassed a total of 55½ trillion views - making it the platform’s top hashtag.

Alexandra Saab Bjertnæs, Chief Strategy Officer at Meltwater, said: “As social media enters its next chapter with five billion-plus users, understanding usage patterns, engagement, and emerging trends is crucial to helping brands find their unique voice amidst all the online chatter. The rise of TikTok, coupled with Instagram’s ‘favorite’ status and the growth of professional networking platforms like LinkedIn, paints a picture of evolving preferences. With so many platform choices, brands need to really understand where their target audience is going for information—and shape compelling narratives that engage them with unparalleled precision and authenticity.”

Nathan McDonald, co-founder and group chief executive at We Are Social, commented: “Social media continues to be a vital part of the way we connect with one another, from building communities to researching purchases and everything in between. TikTok’s continued popularity has changed the way that people behave online - social is not somewhere where a broadcast approach works for brands, and the importance of thinking social first has never been more important. It’s encouraging to see strong growth across multiple social platforms, each offering something different, whether that’s Pinterest for social commerce or Facebook for connecting with communities. For marketers, understanding platform nuances - and how to use social media to connect in culturally relevant ways - will be more crucial than ever.”