Saturday, June 29, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Thursday, August 18, 2011
FREE MUSIC: For Google Music Beta Users
Saturday, July 2, 2011
iPad to Google+ Test
Testing this by posting to my blog which feeds GReader which in turn, I will share to G+. Whew!!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, February 19, 2011
5 Ways Brands Influence Social Media Strategy
5 Ways Brands Influence Social Media Strategy
There’s a lot of talk of personal branding in social media, but when it comes to commercial brands, many of the questions that you or I might take for granted when setting up a social media presence become dilemmas.
It’s not just the way organizations engage through social media that matters: the portrayal of a business brand in this space is affected by a range of factors.
1. Networks and Tools
Many businesses feel a competitive obligation to set up Facebook pages, but it’s true that your brand’s presence — or absence — from a given social network reflects on your brand as far competitors, clients, and industry watchers are concerned.
If your brand is the first from its category to develop a presence on Facebook, that says something. What it says, and how well that fits with your branding and communications strategies, will likely determine whether you’re the organization that breaks that new ground.
The tools you use to manage your social media accounts may also, perhaps inadvertently, affect your brand. Do your brand values include approachability, friendliness and responsiveness? Then it would be better to manage your account through a tool that alerts you immediately when you receive a direct contact from your network, and allows you to closely monitor what users are saying about your brand.
2. Types of Engagement
Brand personality and positioning will also influence the types of engagement you champion, seek, and try to avoid.
Is your brand the type to initiate engagements with others? What sorts of engagements? And what sorts of contacts? Is it the type to provide resources to followers and fans, or to give advice and help?
Branding can influence the types of campaigns and involvements your organization runs through social media, the frequency of updates and engagements, the methods of brand, product, or service promotion you use, and the degree to which you engage with contacts around issues of corporate and social citizenship, among others.
Finally, these decisions may, of course, influence the choices you make around networks and tools.
3. Who’s Making the Updates?
Whether your organization chooses to centralize or decentralize — or outsource — its social media management may be affected by brand, since brand can imply certain priorities for various social media factors, and those priorities might necessitate a certain type of management.
One consumer-focused technology consultancy I worked with would never dream of outsourcing its social media. This decision was simple: if the company was to position its brand as an experienced social media innovator, it’d have to prove it could walk the talk. Social media expertise was a core value for this brand.
However, the decision to decentralize its social media management was impacted by another aspect of the brand, which championed the employment of skilled, experienced, mature, knowledgeable experts who clients could get to know and rely on, no matter where they fitted in the consultancy process. As a result, every member of this consultancy had access to the organization’s social media accounts, and was expected to engage through them regularly.
4. Degree of Integration With Other Offerings
How, and how seamlessly, your business integrates social media activity with other means of audience communication, research, and engagement can be impacted by brand values, and, in turn, impact your brand.
One of my clients timed tertiary student-focused social media advertising with on-campus orientation week presentations as an experiment with social media. A more experienced, social media-savvy organization might tie those on-campus presentations to, for example, a Facebook competition, the winner of which might have been announced at an industry event the following month.
It’s clear that these two approaches would have achieved different response rates, results and brand resonance within the student segment.
5. People Your Brand Follows, Friends and Fans
On entering the social media space, most organizations are focused wholly and solely on attracting followers, friends and fans: a solid contact base. Yet the amount of attention you pay to customers, competitors, pundits and peers within the social media sphere, and who your organization follows and friends, will reflect strongly on your brand.
Again, the organization can use its brand to direct an approach to these different types of engagement. A conservative organization, or one whose brand is tied to quality, best-practice performance, is unlikely to form social media alliances of any sort with brands that are known or found not to adhere to industry standards, for example.
An Evolving Approach
Whether the branding choices you make for your organization’s social media presence are made by internal brand custodians, your marketing team, advertising creatives, an external social media consultancy, or senior management, be warned: some of those decisions will likely be altered as the organization’s experience with social media, and its online audience relationships, deepen.
Each time the organization faces a new challenge within the realm of social media, an opportunity likely exists for the brand to help influence the response. Ignoring your commercial brand in making decisions for social media is as potentially harmful as an individual ignoring their personal brand in this space. The difference is that the social media audience may be more willing to forgive mistakes made by personal brands, given the innately human, personal nature of the medium. Commercial brands may have more to lose, and may lose it more swiftly, if their activities and interactions jar with the audience’s evolving perceptions of the brand.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Grow Your Sales and Revenue Using 2D Codes
By now, you’re probably already familiar with 2D codes. They’re the square boxes that are showing up on ads, posters and billboards that connect people to mobile sites for more product information. But if that’s the only thing 2D codes can do, then what’s the point?
Businesses that don’t understand how to use 2D codes think that they’re just a way to drive people through to a mobile landing page. But businesses that get it are using them in a variety of new and innovative ways — all of which lead to increased customer loyalty and greater revenue per customer.
Here’s a primer and some key examples of how top companies are using 2D codes to improve business.
How to Use 2D Codes for Business
The term “2D code” is used to describe the category in general, not any specific type of code. Some of the most common types of 2D codes include Datamatrix, EZ Code, Microsoft Tag, QR Code, SPARQCode and ScanLife, among others.
Even though 2D code usage is increasing, the average consumer hasn’t used one yet, so you’ll have to help them get started. Typically, this means putting a short caption underneath the 2D code that tells people where they can download a reader for their phones, and explains the process of scanning the code.
Speaking of which, are you looking for a good 2D Code reader? In my experience, some of the best 2D code readers come from BeeTagg.com, i-nigma.com and ScanLife.com. But don’t just take my advice. A search for “2D Code Reader” will bring up plenty of excellent sites where people can download them into their smartphones.
How the Fortune 500 Use 2D Codes
Companies ranging from American Airlines to Sports Illustrated have used 2D codes to promote their products or services. Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the best examples:
- American Airlines placed 2D codes on outdoor boards in major airports to provide an immediate link to information for travelers on the go. Consumers who scanned the codes got real-time flight status, gate information and access to a reservation portal.
- BestBuy has added QR codes to their in-store fact tags to give consumers the opportunity to review information about their products. Consumers can also save the information to review at home later or to buy the product instantly via smartphone and have it delivered to their homes later.
- Esquire Magazine used 2D codes to give readers more information about fashion items featured in their magazine. Users can scan the code to get more information as well as a link to the designer’s website to place an order.
- Fox Broadcasting Company used QR codes to promote their TV show called Fringe. People who scanned the code were given a top-secret message that was available only to people who engaged with the show using their smartphones.
- O, The Oprah Magazine incorporated ScanLife 2D codes into a feature highlighting multiple products. Readers who were interested in getting more information about the products were able to scan the codes and were driven to mobile web pages.
- Sports Illustrated used a JAGTAG 2D code to allow readers of their annual swimsuit issue to watch bonus videos of some of their models directly on their smartphones.
- The Weather Channel used a QR code on one of their weather reports to drive people through to a page where they could download The Weather Channel smartphone app.
In virtually all of these cases, the 2D codes did something more than just drive people through to a standard mobile webpage. Instead, they gave the user a reason to interact with the mobile site and, in many cases, come back for more.
How Can You Put 2D Codes to Work for Your Business?
There are a lot of innovative ways to use 2D codes for business, and new ones are being added every day. What follows is a list of 10 ways you can easily use 2D codes for your business:
- “Hello, My Name Is” Tags: You know those big red and white tags people wear at events with their names on them? If you put a 2D code in place of your name, you’ll engage people and easily be able to strike up conversations.
- Outdoor Billboards: Be one of the first businesses in your market to run a giant 2D code on a billboard for your business.
- Websites: Add a 2D code to the “Contact Us” page on your website so that visitors can download your contact information to their smartphones.
- Business Cards: Add a 2D code to the front or back of your card so that people can instantly download your contact information.
- Books, Articles and eBooks: I included a 2D code on the back cover of my book that drives people through to a social media glossary. Our intent was to engage people with a social/mobile tool while they were in the bookstore so they’d be more likely to buy the book. So far, it’s worked well.
- Webinars: Ready to make your webinars more engaging and fun? Simply include a 2D code as part of your presentation. It’s a terrific way to keep the audience engaged and involved.
- LinkedIn and Facebook Pages: Adding a 2D code to your LinkedIn and Facebook pages is one of the best ways you can position yourself as a forward, innovative thinker.
- T-Shirts: Ready to promote your product or service in an innovative way? Then add a 2D code to a T-shirt that you give away to customers and prospects.
- In-Store Posters with Coupons: Want to provide instant coupons to people while they’re shopping? Add a 2D code that drives them through to a special discount that can be scanned at the register.
- Dial a Phone Number: Want to encourage people to dial your number so they can order your product? Give them a 2D code to scan. If it’s set up properly, it can instantly dial their phone and connect them with your sales center.
A Final Word on 2D Codes
In the end, there are several things you should know about 2D codes:
- They aren’t going away: In fact, 2D code usage quadrupled last year.
- They aren’t just for landing pages: As you can see above, new and innovative uses of 2D codes are cropping up each day.
- They aren’t just fun and games: The best use of 2D codes is to generate revenue, and that’s what we’re in business to do, right?