Social media Archives | Page 2 of 8 | waveSpawn Marketing

December 6, 2011

Quick Response codes and marketing

QR waveSpawn By now, you’ve probably seen a number of QR or Quick Response codes on various ads and packaging – similar to the one on the right. You may have wondered what it does or why it’s there.

QR codes were originally invented in Japan by Denso for industrial bar codes on packaging for warehousing and production purposes. Since it is open source technology, it has gained wide spread, international adoption. QR codes can embed much more information than traditional (linear) barcodes. In fact, they are increasingly being used in retail to quickly send a user from a print ad or sign to a specific URL which has detailed product information.

Used strategically, QR codes can help support a number of marketing objectives. Think in terms of linking customers from an invoice or receipt directly to a customer service survey. We’ve all received receipts that say go to some random URL and enter a number to see if you’ve won something. Now that connection – between print and web – can be one step closer.

Another example – say you are in an electronic store looking at a flat screen TV. If there’s a QR code to scan, you may be able to immediately access customer reviews and ratings to help your purchasing decision.

From a marketing perspective you should always aim to track usage and determine how to best utilize QR codes for your business. With the immeasurable possibilities, businesses large and small can leverage the QR technology in creative ways.

There are a number of free QR generators available online. You can simply enter a URL, video, vCard, text, or any other information to embed. Some allow you to personalize with colors, etc.

Depending on what smart phone you use, there are several QR Readers on the market. Here’s a free QR Reader for the iPhone. Some are free, but include ads, some have more features than others.

October 25, 2011

Marketing to mobile phones

Small businesses these days have a lot of marketing options. Staying focused and under budget can be challenging. Here’s a quick tip for targeted search advertising:

Marketing to mobile phones
If you already use pay per click (PPC) advertising models such as Google AdWords, you may be familiar with ways to reach your target audience. This could include defining the geographical location, specific keywords or phrases, time of day, etc. What you may not be aware of is the ability to create and deliver custom ads for mobile devices. This can be a convenient and effective way to reach new prospects. Since you know they are connected via a mobile device, you can integrate direct calling features to make it easier for them to contact you. You can also modify the text and message so that it’s optimized for mobile display. Consumers are increasingly using their handheld devices as mini laptops and business owners can certainly increase sales by keeping up with mobile technology. Being able to search and contact businesses on a handheld is essential.

Once your mobile or WAP ad has been setup, monitor the activity over a reasonable amount of time and continually refine your message and demographic options to improve performance. These little adjustments can help you maximize your marketing budget!

September 29, 2011

Facebook Timeline

FB Timeline As Facebook continues to roll out new features and functionality, it’s important to be aware of what these changes are and how they may affect your use. While many people have been buzzing about the Facebook Timeline, it is scheduled to roll out over the next several weeks. For those who can’t wait, this article walks you through the 8 steps to activate the Facebook Timeline right now.

So, what is Timeline? Facebook is making sharing even easier by automatically sharing what you’re doing on Facebook-connected apps. Instead of having to “Like” something to share it, you’ll just need to click “Add to Timeline” on any website or app, and that app will have permission to share your activity with your Facebook friends.

For example, you may be listening to a great tune on Pandora; by simply clicking a button, you can let everyone in your network know which artist and song. Facebook calls this auto-sharing “Gestures.”

Caution: if you allow Facebook to access these apps automatically, you may be surprised when unwanted information is exposed.

As Pete Cashmore (Mashable) summed it up:

So right now I can see that someone I know professionally read “Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos” and a male colleague, who will remain anonymous, recently read the following:

“Conan O’Brien Stares At Nicole Scherzinger’s Cleavage”
“Heather Morris On Breast Implants”
“Perrey Reeves Shows Off Bikini Body (PHOTO)”

Yikes, probably not the type of articles that some would care to willingly share.

There appear to be some useful strategies to the personal Timeline. As you reconnect with lost friends, you can quickly fill in the missing pieces chronologically. While it’s not a complete biography, it does add some slick interaction.

Timeline may be a positive addition for brands. In fact, the brand benefits of Timeline could be huge, and will let companies tell a more engaging and authentic story.

As always, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming weeks. I imagine there’ll be some initial resistance before widespread acceptance. Any thoughts?

August 14, 2011

Build a breakthrough brand for the price of a coffee

A good friend and mentor of mine, Barry Silverstein, just published a new eGuide entitled Branding 123, Build a Breakthrough Brand in 3 Proven Steps. In it, Barry shares his knowledge and experience as a marketing and creative professional. The book is “designed around one thing: to help make your brand a breakthrough brand, because that’s what a brand needs to be to succeed today.” Small business owners, in particular, will benefit from the information shared. It’s a quick read and may be the wisest $2.99 you invest in growing your business.

The book gives a thorough background and definition of branding and the influence a brand can have. Many examples are sited which help to simplify the understanding. “If a brand appeals to a consumer on both a rational and emotional level, it has a very strong chance of becoming a memorable, long-lasting brand.”

The book really does a nice job of explaining – in simple terms – the advantages and differences between establishing a company brand and a product brand. Step-by-step advice is shared on how to build your brand position, brand identity, and marketing plan. Since creating brand preference is typically one of your goals, knowing your target audience and their buying patterns is a good place to start.

I would encourage anyone looking for practical tips and strategies on strengthening their brand and/or growing their business to take a closer look at this eGuide. It is written for a wide audience of professionals – not just marketing folks.

August 10, 2011

Small businesses and social media

Marketing tools These days, small business owners have a lot of marketing options to consider. There are a number of traditional marketing platforms including newspaper ads, print ads, billboards, direct mail, and TV commercials. Then combine these with a slew of digital and social media marketing options such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging, a custom mobile application development, Groupon, Places, foursquare, Yelp, PPC advertising, and mobile marketing to smart phones. Now you’ve got an extremely large pool of potential marketing combinations and strategies for small businesses to exploit.

The number of options and evolving technologies can be overwhelming for small businesses. Staying current with various platforms can be a challenge in itself. The amount of time required to simply manage and maintain a handful of online accounts can be daunting. In fact, a recent survey by Hiscox revealed that many small businesses were not using social media channels to promote their products and services. Only 12% of businesses considered social media promotion a necessity, 14% indicated they don’t know enough about it, and nearly 50% of respondents weren’t using social media at all.

Over 40% surveyed said that word-of-mouth was the main way they got business. This is an interesting statistic – as social media is essentially a word-of-mouth advertising vehicle. While offline forms of word-of-mouth remain critical for all brands, and certainly for small, local businesses, social media also plays a valuable role by giving customers a louder voice for their recommendations and helping to amplify that voice beyond their immediate circle of friends, family and colleagues.

So how can a small business focus on what they do best while at the same time take advantage of social media marketing? Easy – you don’t have to go it alone. There are marketing specialists to help sift through all of the social media options and develop a custom marketing strategy that fits your business model and budget. For the same reason you wouldn’t attempt to fill a cavity in your child’s tooth, there’s no need to take on tasks which exceed your limits.

Small businesses need to open their minds and be creative. Innovation is paving new opportunities for businesses to market themselves and secure customers. Integrated marketing campaigns can yield meaningful results. Whatever your objectives are, social media can be a powerful communication tool to help spread your message.

waveSpawn provides a full range of customized marketing solutions for small businesses. Please contact us to discuss your specific goals.

July 26, 2011

Planning for successful mobile application development

As an iPhone user, it’s exciting to be involved in the fastest growing market segment in the world – mobile application development. There are endless opportunities for companies to leverage the reach of smart phones and mobile applications. Custom mobile development can help creatively market your business and distinguish your products/services from competitors. As the number of smart phone users continues to rise, mobile apps can help you reach new audiences, encourage loyalty, and accelerate growth in an innovative format.

As companies assess mobile application development options, there are a few factors to keep in mind. The first step is to do adequate research and find a reputable design and development firm. It’s often convenient to work with a local vendor to be involved throughout the process and create a more efficient timeline. From concept collaboration through testing, you’ll typically find the communication and revision process much more streamlined. Additionally, establishing a trusted rapport will ensure future enhancements and releases can be completed as necessary.

Furthermore, is this really something you want to outsource overseas? I’ve personally heard of several bad experiences from failed attempts at outsourced mobile development. Examples include unstable apps, missed deadlines, wrong image resolutions and format, slow and broken communication channels, failure to deliver source code, as well as additional billing. In many cases, additional expenses combined with the cost of time and personnel involved can ultimately far outweigh a bargain price. If you’re looking for shortcuts or to save money – there may be other business areas to do so.

While today’s web development mantra is “release early, release often,” mobile application development is a bit different. Companies are realizing they can’t launch something quickly with the intention of fixing it later. It’s extremely important to thoroughly test and release new versions only after bugs and issues have been resolved. All app stores, including iTunes, feature user reviews. These reviews are powerful marketing tools and can directly influence the success of the app. An early release of a buggy app is very likely to receive negative reviews. This in turn, can impact the number of downloads and users.

Releasing your app isn’t the end of the process, it’s just a start. To maintain downloads and keep usage levels up, you need to update often, adding new functionality, UI tweaks or data. If you just let your app sit statically on iTunes or on users’ handsets, it will quickly get overtaken by the competition.

An app is a dynamic utility and should constantly develop and change based on user feedback and new developments in your marketplace. Apps can quickly be forgotten, so you need to make sure that you’re constantly giving your users a reason to revisit and re-use your service.

For example, if you’re releasing a shopping app, you need to make sure that you’re adding the latest functionality as soon as it’s available and stable. If all of your competitors enable bar-code or QR scanning, you’d do well to add this functionality or be left behind.

waveSpawn is proud to offer full mobile application development services throughout Western New York and the greater Washington DC area. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like to discuss ideas.

May 18, 2011

Social Trends – Mobile Marketing and Deal Sites

As the social media landscape continues to form, new marketing opportunities and trends are becoming visible. Here are a couple of statistics and trends which are continuing to grow and may be helpful for your business.

Consumers are continuing to go mobile through the increase in smart phone users and tablet device sales (iPad, PlayBook, etc). A recent study showed that almost 50% of mobile subscribers are using smart phones. This means a growing number of consumers have access to browse the Internet, access mobile apps, downloaded content, or text messaging. If the growth rate continues at this pace, it would lead to about 142 million smart phone users by 2012. This is really opening up a whole new opportunity to reach prospects and customers in new ways. Since consumers are taking these smart phones and tablets in place of laptops, companies should make every effort to ensure – at minimum – they have mobile compliant websites.

Many businesses are developing mobile applications. They are leveraging some of the GPS technology that exists through services such as foursquare and Facebook places to implement loyalty programs. It’s a relatively low-cost way to identify and reward good customers – as well as exposing your business to new audiences. There are a number of ways to integrate mobile marketing with traditional and social media marketing to maximize the effectiveness.

Another current trend is with social deal sites. We are seeing an increasing number of daily discount offerings from Groupon, Living Social, Huge Daily Deals, etc. A lot of these present great opportunities to market, especially for small businesses with a regional focus. They can create a significant amount of targeted exposure, but you really need to do a cost analysis to make sure it’s effective for your business model. Even if it’s at a break-even point, you could open up yourself to new customers, new prospects, and more importantly – repeat business. The good news is the ROI, return on investment, is relatively easy to measure because the numbers speak for themselves.

April 20, 2011

Respecting privacy with social media

Online privacy Facebook and social media are great outlets for people to vent with friends. People go online to complain about the weather (especially here in Western New York), sports teams, a bad day, boredom, etc… but what are the rules of the discussion? Are there any topics that are off limits – politics, religion, or personal matters?

A doctor from Rhode Island just found out the hard way that patient privacy is definitely not a topic that should be shared publicly through social media. “Dr. Alexandra Thran, 48, was fired from the hospital last year and reprimanded by the state medical board last week. The hospital took away her privileges to work in the emergency room for posting information online about a trauma patient.” While Dr Thran’s post did not actually include the patient’s name, apparently enough facts were included for others in the community to properly identify the individual.

While this may seem obvious to some, to others discussing their daily grind is a normal routine. There can be a lot of gray area for appropriate content. There comes a time when common sense should prevail. If you are not sure about something you are about to post, you probably shouldn’t be clicking submit. I’ve often thought about launching the social media hall of shame – to showcase social media bloopers and blunders. They are everyday occurrences. Just a few years ago the biggest concern was clicking “reply all” to an email. Now a simple post or tweet has trumped the old school email.

There is a lot to be learned from this Rhode Island case. I’m sure much of the healthcare industry is taking note and working to implement training programs and education for appropriate use of social media. With liability concerns, health privacy issues (HIPAA), and reputation there is a lot at stake for health facilities. It’ll be interesting to see how other healthcare institutions react to this occurrence.

March 24, 2011

Creating customer loyalty and retention with mobile applications

Mobile application development Customer satisfaction and retention is the underlying goal of most businesses. A happy customer that buys repeatedly from you and perhaps even acts as a reference or ambassador on your behalf is invaluable. How do you effectively monitor or stimulate this behavior?

While there are a number of traditional methods to reward and retain customers, new technology is providing a number of innovative formats. Mobile applications and even web compliant websites can be a powerful way of monitoring and rewarding loyal customers. Imagine pushing highly targeted specials or promotions to regional customers based on their location or buying patterns? Companies right here in Buffalo are embracing new technology as effective branding and marketing tools.

This trend is influenced by the escalating statistics of smartphone users who are the target of mobile marketing. Digital advertising is projected to reach the $1.1 billion mark by the end of the year and over $2.5 billion by 2014. This is an opportunity for businesses to reach a much more diverse demographic audience and influence their purchasing decisions, all happening in real time.

According to Gartner, by the end of 2013, 12.5% of all ecommerce transactions will be undertaken from mobile devices and context-aware data based on location or personal user profiles will be used to validate 90% of them.

William Clark, a research vice president at the firm, said: “Enterprises that want to remain competitive in electronic commerce over the next five years should begin exploring context-aware applications by year-end 2011 for both fraud detection and later on for customer acquisition and retention activities afforded by personalized and customized marketing and advertising information.”

For both small and large businesses the challenge is implementing an effective strategy to compete in this mobile space. Since many small businesses rely on regional customers, GPS and other social networking tools are available to help identify and reach prospects. Voice of the customer (VOC) is a powerful vehicle to gain valuable feedback on your products and services which can directly lead to quality improvements and enhanced features. These types of customer satisfaction surveys and suggestion features can all be deployed through a custom mobile application. These are immediate ways to capture and analyze essential information. More importantly this data can be harnessed to better serve and reward customers.

According to the JiWire Mobile Audience Insight Report, location-based ads and marketing are soaring, and it’s also the key factor that’s compelling people to shop online with their mobile phones. This is why many large companies are jumping onboard to take advantage of the trend. Facebook, for example is a recent supporter of location-based mobile marketing. However, a recent Microsoft survey sees that a part of the location-based trend is an opening to several forms of private data exploitation such as identity theft.

Early adopters of mobile technology are seeing immediate results. Furthermore, they are providing convenient methods for customers and prospects to express themselves and stay connected. As companies discover innovative uses of mobile technology, they can help differentiate their services, reinforce corporate culture, and build long-term customer loyalty.

March 15, 2011

Creating your social media strategy

Create your roadmap Is it wise to start a business endeavor without a plan? Most people wouldn’t build an office before they determined what their business would actually do. Without a strategy there is simply no structure, no clear objectives and no real way of determining its success.

The same principles apply to social media. Establishing a roadmap with clear objectives can help you determine the success or failure of your program. For example, what is your business trying to achieve through social media? Is it to:

Interact with customers and prospects
Increase visibility and strengthen your brand
Reach new audiences
Create loyalty
Deal with customer service and support issues
Boost revenue

Regardless of what you decide, you should plan to create measurable metrics for your social media program. These types of statistics, if tracked properly, can help to measure and monetize the results of your social media campaigns. Let’s say, for example, you have a small business and your goal is to interact with customers and prospects. In this case, you’ll want to define what would constitute success. For instance, the number of:

Completed customer satisfaction surveys per month
New features suggested by users (that are implemented)
People who post something about us
Blogs that link to us

There are a variety of criteria which you can use to measure progress. The idea is to define relevant success metrics that translate into meaningful business context for you. For example quantitative metrics may include number of sales, new leads, new qualified subscribers, while qualitative could track satisfaction levels, loyalty, visibility, amount of interaction, feedback. For qualitative goals, don’t get too complex, use simple rules as metrics.

Set your social media campaign goals based on these metrics. Monitor often and course correct as necessary. Don’t expect to get it right the first time, but by establishing benchmarks you can filter out channels and strategies that don’t return good results. Trial and error can be your best ally in discovering where to focus the most energy.

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