Erik Qualman's Blog, page 622

Infographic: The Mind Bending Future of Computer Science

The following infographic was sent to our team by Bryanna from Topcomputersciencedegrees.com. It includes a visual representation of statistics related to computer science, and below are a few highlighted stats you will find in the infographic.

Greenpeace estimates that global e-waste now amounts to between 20 and 50 million tons a year.
By the year 2018, there will be 1.4 million computer specialist jobs available, but only enough college graduates to fill a fraction of them.
In September 2013, a complete computer made from carbon nanotubes was created.

Did any of the facts or stats included surprise you? If so, which one?

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Source: TopComputerScienceDegrees.com

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5 Best TV Shows That Integrate Social Media

How can producers keep viewers engaged with their programming and excited about the show even during the off-season? The natural answer is social media. Though most shows leverage Facebook and Twitter, some are pulling out all the stops — offering viewers a social media experience beyond the simple “click to Like.” Here are the TV shows that have learned how to milk everything possible out of social media for the ultimate fan experience and true viewer loyalty.

1. The Walking Dead on AMC

The Walking Dead can credit part of its tremendous success to a unique perspective, great writing, and a stellar cast. But some of its fame and glory is directly attributable to the show’s brilliant use of social media. Boasting over 21 million Facebook likes and almost 2 million Twitter followers, the show keeps viewers excited during the off-season by offering them tons of apps to engage with the show. Social media game apps let fans ban together to fight the zombie apocalypse, or even turn photos of themselves into zombies to post on their social media profiles.

2. Bones on FOX

Bones is one of the most popular of FOX’s shows, partly because they’ve used social media to help fans identify with the plot lines and the characters. The show keeps up active conversations via Twitter, and maintains an open dialogue by addressing as many viewer comments as possible on the Twitter feed. Viewers can vote for their favorite moment of each show on social media, and get bonus material not available to non-social media followers, such as translations of the technical jargon of the characters, and even hints on solving the cases.

3. Dancing With the Stars on ABC

Dancing With the Stars uses the voting based nature of the show to engage social media users. Fans can see live tweets after each performance, and even vote for their favorite performers and performances online. The show’s Facebook page shows how dancers are performing in viewer standings, and can even help fans save their favorites from being bumped off the show. When Bill Nye the Science Guy’s performance failed to bring in the votes, viewers were able to find out he was in trouble and saved him from being banished.

4. The Big Bang Theory on CBS

The demographics and subject matter of this show lend easily to social media. Many viewers are in age groups which are into technology, and use bundle services to get TV, Internet, and phone services together. The producers tease viewers with funny pictures on Facebook of an upcoming show several days before it airs, and then reposts the photo along with dialogue from the episode on the day the show airs. Producers also use Connect to keep fans talking about the show, and offer GetGlue checkins so viewers can alert their friends when they’re watching the show. Social media users get stickers and rewards for liking, sharing, and following, so there is a reward attached to helping the show’s social media posts go viral.

5. Person of Interest on CBS

Person of Interest has taken social media to another level, giving fans a chance to get their picture included in an upcoming episode. Fans can submit a photo of themselves via the show’s Facebook app. The fan gets a threat level assigned and a new photo to post on their timeline. Some of the photos are selected for use in future episodes, so fans have extra incentive for participating.

One thing all of the shows do effectively is including photos or videos with almost all of their posts. Visual posts always generate more interest than just a line or two of text. The other thing successful shows do is engage the viewers, by giving them a platform for expressing what they like or dislike about the story, characters, and episodes. Many new viewers often decide to start watching the show because of social media, even when traditional advertising methods failed to capture their interest. Plus, viewers stay as excited about the show during the off-season as they do during a run.

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Customers, Not Marketers, Invent the Best Social Strategy

Social media implementation requires clear strategy paired with customer-driven execution. What that means is that the best companies approach the process with an exploratory, flexible, and collaborative attitude.

When we were working with eBay, we built and managed discussion forums for seller support. This was initially intended to be a place where people who sold on the site could answer other sellers’ support questions, creating a better experience and reducing costs. It was very successful—in fact, so successful that the sellers started using the forums for more than technical eBay support. Over time, it became a social hub, where members were posting about vacations and family and all the kinds of things friends like to talk about in the real world.

To its credit, eBay didn’t try to control or shut down this unexpected user behavior.

Instead we amplified the social aspects of the forum, grew it to a society of well over a half million members in over 20 markets around the world and built a second section dedicated to customer support.

Given that space to connect, the seller’s engagement was incredible. The relationships formed in those forums turned out to be very important to the way the company grew. There were other online selling sites, but no one wanted to leave the close-knit eBay community. This social society had become a competitive asset for eBay that no one else could easily replicate. Both the larger community and the dedicated support forum were still serving the company’s original goal: to enhance the seller’s experience. But it was the unplanned-for social society that became the bigger value-driver.

A few years back, a retail discount store client, saw a great opportunity that was already happening organically: Customers were independently showing off their best bargains from the stores on their MySpace pages. Being a brick-and-mortar retailer, the brand was also interested in a campaign that would directly drive in-store traffic. So we developed a program for them with two central features. First, we built an online community with profiles that allowed people to upload photos of their deals with a scroll-over that revealed the incredible bargain price. This let people re-experience that moment of victory when they flipped the tag, and then share it with fellow treasure-hunters.

Second, since the brand was also looking to do something directly connected to in-store traffic, we created a way for shoppers on the floor to upload a code with their mobile that would email other members in the community site, alerting them to great bargains on goods that they had self-reported interest in. We put a lot of effort into this second piece. It seemed like such a clever way to bring people into the stores. But since mobile technology at the time was still pretty limited the execution was no walk in the park.

The shared deal experience feature of the site took off right away—customers loved it, because it allowed them to do what they were already doing on MySpace with a fun and improved feature set. But the mobile program? It never really got off the ground. Not enough customers were ready to use their cell phones as anything but phones, and many stores neglected to put up the signs that made the whole program work. You could say we were ahead of the times. And because we loved the idea so much, we held on to it longer than we probably should have.

As you implement a social media strategy, shoot for planned flexibility without losing sight of business objectives. Those objectives are the anchor that keeps execution from running amok. Pay close attention as you get to know your followers in the social space, and, even more importantly, as they get to know each other. You never know what unexpected obstacles, assets, and opportunities will emerge.

The real fun of the game in social—and where the biggest wins derive—is in being nimble enough to follow your customers’ lead.

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Infographic: Phone vs. Text vs. Email

The following infographic was shared with our team from Makayla of accredited-online-college.org. Take a look at the different modes of communication and some unique stats about how generations are using each mode. Below are a few of the highlighted stats in the infographic.

43% of 18-24 year old’s think texting is just as meaningful as a face to face conversation
29% of Millennials think in person meetings are effective vs. 45% of Boomers
42% of teenagers say texting is the main reason they own a phone.

Do any of the statistics in the infographic surprise you? Which ones?

Source: Accredited Online Colleges

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Using Instagram for Your Brand: Insider Tips and Useful Examples

If you’ve somehow evaded Instagram up until this point, firstly I applaud you, and secondly, let me provide you with a brief intro. Instagram is that photo app that makes your pictures look all arty and attractive. It’s had enormous popularity since it exploded onto our mobile screens three years ago, notching up over 100 million active monthly users.

As with almost all social media trends, brands were quick to adopt Instagram as another marketing platform. It’s a great way to connect with a younger, more tech-savvy audience and the visual nature of the app increases the likelihood of content being shared. So with that in mind, here are some tips from and examples of brands using Instagram well:

1.) Use in Conjunction with Other Social Media Channels

Your Instagram account is only as powerful as you make it. Not all your fans will have access to the app, so you have to make sure you are grafting hard and spreading those pictures round like nobody’s business. Post the snaps to your Twitter and Facebook pages, use relevant hashtags and attention-grabbing captions.

Ford are a great example of a brand balancing two social media channels. The car manufacturers encouraged users to upload pictures to their Facebook page with the tag ‘#fiestagram’. The best photos were shown on live digital billboards across Europe, as well as in online galleries, and the very best won prizes including a brand new Ford Fiesta as the top prize. More than 16,000 photos were submitted to the contest and Ford’s Facebook community gained 120,000 new fans during the six-week campaign, with hundreds of thousands of visitors viewing the gallery of competition entries. It’s a great example of a brand utilising Facebook and Instagram successfully.

2.) Be Audience-Centric

The best thing about any social media channel is that it offers brands the chance to interact with their target audience, to put a persona behind an otherwise faceless name. By simply interacting with users and followers, you can do wonders for your customer service ratings as well as encourage more traffic to your site. As the product is all about the consumer, having them at the heart of your social media strategy is undoubtedly a crucial factor to it’s success.

Clothing brand Free People are very Instagram-heavy in their web presence. The company uses the app to ask customers to model the clothes and post photos of their favorite Free People fashion. These are added to the website, so that customers can see how the product looks in real life in a variety of styles.

3.) Have a Photo Series

Ah the storytelling arc! A long-term favorite of advertising heavyweights (remember the Nescafe couple? Or the BT Broadband family? Exactly) that can easily be adapted for photo sharing. With clever captions and photos that depict an engaging tale, this is a potentially powerful approach that could really help boost your brand’s visibility, particularly if you can come up with a brilliantly absorbing story. This method can take a while to kick off however – you need to give a bit of time for people to become embroiled in your tale.

4.) Be Inspirational

Keeping the content you post informative and inspirational is a great way to connect with a potential audience. If the things you post resonate with your audience, they will be more likely to follow, not wanting to miss out on the content.

Whole Foods Market post representative photos to promote healthy, wholesome food products, store events, sustainability and their active community of customers and employees. They also include delicious meal tips and recipes.

5.)Be Interactive and Have Fun

Ultimately, social media channels are forms of communication and entertainment. Keep it light and fun, and don’t forget to engage with your client! Starbucks’ Instagram page is a great example of a brand showing off their creative, engaging side. The ubiquitous coffee shop use the call to action ‘Tag your coffee photos with #Starbucks!’ to encourage users to take pictures showing how Starbucks fits into their daily lives, generating a vast photo record of fans’ interaction with the brand.

 

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What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube (Video)

Inspired by Erik’s new book What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube, the latest Equalman Studios video ‘Best of YouTube’ is now live. The video is perfect for staff meetings and training programs. Not only will it give your team something to laugh about, but it can be a great conversation starter about digital reputation.

A few other statistics that are great to keep the conversation going:

58% of tweens say they know how to hide what they do from their parents, and this number
Online reputation-monitoring via search engines has increased – 57% of adult internet users now use search engines to find information about themselves online, up from 47% in 2006.
26% (1 in 4) of college admissions officers use Facebook or other social networking pages to research an applicant.

Share the video: http://bit.ly/HBcSY5

Support the book! Back Erik Qualman’s Kickstarter campaign for ‘What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube’ here: http://kck.st/17C6v3j

Video Credits: A compilation of the best YouTube videos produced by international best selling author and keynote speaker Erik Qualman/@equalman (Socialnomics, Digital Leader) and Courtney O’Connell/@courtoconnell (Equalman Studios).

Song Credit: The Golden Age by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

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Trending Social Media Apps to Look Out For

While most people are familiar with the established social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, there are many newcomers making headway on the social media superhighway. Whether your interest is social, professional, or informational, there are new apps available giving the established apps a run for their money, doing more for less.

Here’s a rundown of some trending social media apps coming to a computer, smartphone, or Lenovo portable tablet pc near you.

All for One

Foursquare is a location-based social networking website in which users “check in” according to GPS-based location. Each check-in awards the user points and “badges” and the user who checks in the most becomes the “mayor” of that venue. In short, Foursquare helps you find places to go with friends. And with 20 million users, that’s a lot of new places.

If you want to learn more about all those places, there is Yelp, which provides reviews and recommendations for services ranging from arts and entertainment to food and financial services. Founded in San Francisco in 2004, Yelp may help you decide globally whether you want to visit that new place you found on Foursquare.

If you have no place to go and prefer to stay in and text, Imo Instant Messenger is the app for you. A convenient way to follow all of your instant message conversations, Imo enables you to connect to your many friends on one app, even if your friends are using many different messaging services. With Imo, it’s all-in-one.

If you appreciate social media but lament losing your privacy, Path is for you. Intended as a companion to existing social media platforms, Path is a social networking-enabled photo sharing and messaging service that allows users to share with up to 150 contacts. In other words, Path is the happy medium between social and private.

Pinterest, on the other hand, is a pinboard-style photo-sharing site that allows users to create and manage image collections including events, interests, and hobbies. Users can browse other pinboards for images, “re-pin” images to their own pinboards, or “like” photos. Pinterest is, essentially, a social scrapbook.

Tumblr is another social scrapbook, but with the added attraction of blogging. Much of the Tumblr’s features are accessed from the “dashboard” interface, where blogs and posts appear.

One for All

If you have all the social media apps you want but can’t keep them straight, fear not. There are managing apps for that too.

An all-in-one solution for social apps, including giants Twitter and Facebook, is HootSuite, which is geared towards business users. With access to click stats and other analytic tools, and offering support for LinkedIn, Foursquare, and others, it’s powerful and as easy to use as a Rolodex.

But if you prefer magazines to Rolodexes, there is Flipboard, which turns your social media into a magazine-style digest. With updates from up to twelve social circles, including Twitter and Facebook, and designed to incorporate your choice of world news. This app is a one-stop shop for what matters most to you.

Social Media Appetite

With so many social media apps, including social media apps to manage social media apps, it’s fair to say there is an app for every appetite. Have fun, and bon appétit!

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Using Social Media to Promote Your Brand

If you have not been using social media to promote your brand, maybe it is time for you to start doing so.

Social media marketing is a free or low-cost marketing strategy that enables you to widen your market reach, target specific groups of consumers and interact on a personal level with your customers.

It is an excellent tool for distributing your marketing message to a large number of people, and it is also very easy to use.

Here are a number of things you should do if you want to use social media to spread your brand.

Planning

Proper planning is essential to the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaign.

First of all, you have to identify your target consumers and join the social media websites that are most favored by them. For instance, if you want to reach out to consumers between the ages of 25 and 34, the best platforms to use are Google+, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest are the preferred websites for people aged 45 to 54.

Then, you need to develop a social media marketing strategy that will appeal to the interests and needs of your target consumers.

Come up with content ideas that will generate a great deal of interest and do some research to find out which keywords you should use to get the best SEO results.

Share Content Regularly

Sharing content on social media websites can help you increase the visibility of your business, improve your relationships with your customers and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

There are many ways you can create content for social media marketing, including blogging, article writing and finding or creating images and videos.

Make sure the content you share is interesting and useful to your target consumers and you have fresh content for them to read or view regularly.

Maintain a Consistent Brand Image

Even though you are promoting your brand on several different social media websites, you have to make a point to project a consistent brand image.

By doing so, you will make your brand more recognizable and give your potential customers a clearer idea of your company’s identity, values and culture.

A consistent brand image can help you gain a reputation as a professional and reliable company.

Keep Track of Your Competitors

Monitoring your competitors constantly is a great way to keep your social media marketing strategy up-to-date.

There are many things you can learn from your competitors, such as the latest marketing trends, sources of industry-related information and keyword selection.

Use Web Analytics

It is essential that you keep good track of the progress of your social media marketing campaign.

By using Google Analytics, you can determine the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts and the measures you can take to achieve better results.

Social media has helped numerous businesses promote their brands successfully, and it can do the same for you.

Photo credit: microdomination.com

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Creative Social Media Campaigns for Christmas

Now that Halloween’s officially over there’s only one direction to go in for your businesses: towards the holiday season. While years ago the ‘holiday’ season didn’t start until Black Friday, it seems like these days, the unofficial start to the madness begins November 1st.

With that in mind, it’s time to consider not only what kind of traditional promotions and campaigns you’ll run, but you also need to think about your social media marketing tactics. Why should consumers do their Christmas shopping with you versus your competitors? Check out the tactics below for a few ideas to help you kick off your Christmas social campaign.

 

Photo Credit: Trip Wire Magazine

Gifts Under the ‘Tree’

Create a virtual Christmas tree on your Facebook page, all of your fans can pick a gift (set a time frame, maybe they can pick once daily, once weekly, etc.) for a chance to win promotions like coupons, discounts – be creative! This is a great opportunity to get your products in front of potential customers.

People love to add a little fun to their holiday shopping, make them enjoy shopping with you! Also – if users share their grab-bag progress, their chances increase for winning a prize…give your customers incentives to share your campaign on social media networks! The more the merrier!

Advent Calendars

Every kid loves to get chocolate from the advent calendar every day, and just because we’re adults doesn’t mean we grow out of it – the prizes just need to change. Similar to the gift under the tree, users get a new promotion for every day of the Christmas season. The advent calendar has proven to be very successful for companies. The average company receives 6,000 new likes on Facebook and the user engagement for your page will be increased by 500%!

This year, try doing your advent on Pinterest by releasing a pin on your advent board. The pin could have a link to a coupon, contest, a funny Christmas card, or a secret one day sale.

Christmas Card Competitions

Christmas photos, videos and card competitions are a great way to engage your audience and reach across multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

Hold a promotion to give a grand prize to the photo that is voted the ‘best’ in each category. You can also pick a winner each week and give them a special promotion code for 15% off their purchase. The goal is to encourage users to draw other users to like your Facebook page to vote for their photo.

Social Media Campaigns From Christmas Past

If you are looking for more inspiration on what kind of social media holiday campaigns work, check out this link. Combine your original ideas with tactics and strategies these companies proved to work. Don’t forget to include relevant hashtags to promote your campaign and spread the spirit of giving.

This is your biggest revenue time of the year – it’s okay to spend a little more on your social media and Internet marketing for the next two months. Think of the revenue that will come out of your tactics. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is by marketing loud for all customers to hear!

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Should you Develop a Mobile App for your Brand?

The mobile app question is becoming an all too frequent one with brands these days. A better question is…”why do you want a mobile app?” Or how about “what will it achieve?” And also, “Is it better than a responsive website?” Yes, it’s true mobile apps are plentiful and more brands are hopping on board, from the useful app to the content distribution app to the game app to the “i am completely useless please don’t bother downloading me” app. What will your mobile app provide to your consumer? Is it worth the download? Let’s break it down with the questions you need to answer before you get started:

1. What is the purpose of the app? It is important to determine if the app will be useful or at minimum entertaining for the audience to use. For example, if it solves a pain point and brings forward a solution, that is great.

2. Will a RWD site be easier and more effective? This doesn’t mean RWD is a shortcut or a simpler solution. RWD may be a better solution for your audience depending upon their habits and your reasoning for wanting an app.

3. Can your brand build the app in-house? If not, it is important to determine if there are additional costs your brand may accrue due to outsourcing the project.

4. Where are your developers located? If they are located abroad, time zone issues may cause delays in efficiency (not always, but sometimes).

5. What platforms will your app be available on? It is valuable to understand where your audience plays – are they iphone or android users? If they lean more one way than another it may help to launch one one first, and then the other. Test and Learn.

6. How will you promote the availability of your app? No one will know your app exists unless there is some budget set aside to promote the existence of the app, not just on your owned sites, but potentially across social, newsletters, and paid search to drive traffic for downloads.

7. Can your team update regularly for bugs and fixes? This is important to ensure people don’t get frustrated and delete your app after a couple tries.

8. Will your app be an investment or accrue revenue? Having a revenue model in place is helpful, but not necessarily the primary reasoning behind an app. It may be to increase engagement and provide another way for consumers to interact with the brand.

9. Do you have a mobile strategy in place? I cannot stress enough that a strategy is helpful before even reaching out to developers. Just like one needs a content strategy or a social media strategy, a mobile strategy is helpful in order to determine the right look/feel, content, promotion, audience, and how to differentiate amongst the competition.

10. Does your idea already exist? If so, how is yours unique? This is always a tough thing, but sometimes if your app is already there, don’t bother. That being said, sometimes there is a way to differentiate and make your app stand out with a feature others have not implemented or don’t have the ability to implement.

This list isn’t exhaustive so if you want to add to this list, feel free to do so in the comments below. And if you want more advice on how to start out on your first mobile app (or your 2nd or 3rd), feel free to reach out as well.

 

 

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