What does it mean to be authentic? What does it mean to be truthful? What does it mean to be trustworthy?

The rise of social media over the last decade has kept healthcare at large on its toes. For one stakeholder in particular, doctors, we've seen a slow but constantly evolving level of engagement across a range of forums, social platforms and apps. These were designed specifically for them to communicate with each other and brands, like other health systems, conferences, medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

School's out for summer! This year, as students prepared for their final exams, many turned to study videos to help them cope with long hours and late nights. These videos typically aren't instructional; instead, they're just another way teens connect with others online to form a community and share best practices.

There is one thing every company should do before embarking on marketing and communications initiatives. If you haven't yet pinned down your key marketing messages, stop what you're doing. Stop writing website copy. Stop creating content. Stop putting time into social and traditional media.

Criteo surveyed thousands of members of Gen Z in the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and Japan to understand what they think about shopping, e.g., what motivates them to shop and what they want from the retail experience.

Brand marketers must consider that, while the influencers are better at creating engaging content for today's consumer, their reach continues to decrease, and brands now have to pay both the content creators and the platforms in order to boost and amplify the content to actually reach the intended consumer, which means additional dollars allocated. Brands are still not asking the right questions regarding analytics, causing a gap between value and worth.

Lessons learned at the Culture Marketing Council's inaugural conference

As a marketer, you connect consumers to your brand, so you manage creative and messaging. To reach consumers, you manage different marketing channels. To return your investments, you measure performance by channel. To protect your brand and your consumers, you manage data and privacy. And, to enable it all, you adopt technology. Then, you optimize and prioritize.

In mid-March, Dick's Sporting Goods CEO Edward Stack expressed pessimism about his company's prospects soon after announcing that Dick's would stop selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines after the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Fla.

This is the era of personal brands. From LinkedIn to Twitter to Instagram, you can define your own unique niche and specific value to stakeholders, finding creative ways to deliver on the experiences promised by your brand. To craft just such an experience, you can select which platforms to use and customize the interaction based on the individual nature of each platform.