Social Media Marketing

Getting It Right

Planned marketing campaigns are a passé. New dimensions are being added to the highly dynamic marketplace and marketing strategy needs to be equally dynamic. The best marketing campaigns are the ones that are formed real time in response to user’s digital behavior.

The market is user driven. Unlike the traditional market place users don’t just buy stuff, they recommend it or criticize it, to their friends, on the Internet, to thousands of them, and to the world on the social media. It like handing over a loud speaker to each person, such that they can express their views to the world and giving them the space where they can be heard too.

“Hey, try out this app, it’s great”, or “I was so turned down by their collection, all hype, not worth it”. People are sharing this stuff. It’s a lot more valuable than just an opinion. In the respective social circles this opinion would determine the fate of the company; these opinions influence thousands in one go. This is changing the sales volumes and marketing dynamics for companies, especially in the direct-to-consumer segment. Companies need to shift their focus from traditional marketing to social media marketing. Even more marketing strategies and promotion campaigns now need to be fluid; need to be formed real-time in response to customer behavior.

It’s a little more complex than what you might think. Social media marketing involves a whole lot of analysis of users’ digital behavior, their social circle, preferences, likes and any personal detail that digital media can make available. To make this simple, here are some quick tips to help you set up your social media campaign.

1. Chalk down the profile of potential customers. This might require creating a certain set of profiles, one or two would be like narrowing it too thin.
2. Study social media profiles (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn…) of the potential customers. What do they do? What are their interests, likings and preferences?
3. Design online and offline campaigns based on the findings of your study.
4. Create social media presence. Upload content that suits the likings of your potential customers.
5. Do acknowledge a comment, like, dislike or criticism put by a customer on the social media. Here is where most companies fail. Having a real person answer to all comments, likes, dislikes or criticisms put by a customer on social media adds credibility to the company, which works wonders in the Internet world.

Social media marketing needs to be handed delicately. Mistakes done on the Internet are never forgotten or forgiven. They are engraved on the digital screens and leave an impression every time someone looks for reviews.

Mobile Moment

Seize The ‘Mobile’ Moment

The term ‘mobile moment’ might be new but the concept isn’t. Google’s success story is a living lesson of seizing the mobile moment. And now, as the retail arena becomes more congested with marketers from across the globe struggling hard for much coveted customer attention, capturing the mobile moment becomes the name of the game.

What exactly is mobile moment?

Mobile moment is the moment when a user needs something, say information or a product, and at that very moment she takes out the mobile and immediately gets what she wants, in context.

Consider this scenario: you are in the train going home from work. You catch up with a friend who mentions he’s transferred to San Marino. Curious, you look up San Marino on your smart phone and in a bit you start looking up hotels and start checking fares to Italy. So a simple piece of information went on to a potential sale in a few seconds. This is mobile moment. What is the weather like in the other part of the country? Is this product cheaper elsewhere? How is the culture of a particular place different? Anything. Absolutely anything.

Seizing the mobile moment is giving the user what she wants, whenever she wants it and where ever she wants it from, and in immediate context.

So the new market is the mobile moment, reaching out to the customer with the exact answer she is seeking in the instant in which she is seeking it. This might sound like the conventional marketing mantra ‘being at the right place at the right time’, but it is a little more complicated. Getting to your customers in their mobile moments would broadly involve:

• Knowing your set of customers – who are they? What do they do? What is their social circle like? All these questions can be answered by tracing digital footprints of your customers from across channels
• Tracking their mobile moments – Again, this is about tracing digital footprints but more focused. What are their likings, interests? Where do they spend? Which information is more likely to convert to sale?
• Serving the user’s mobile moments with real-time, rapid response to mobile behavior
• Designing apt yet concise experiences for shorter moments – do not overwhelm users with too much information, keep it long enough to appease them and short enough to tease them
• Wherever the customer reaches you, be there – this calls for a well-networked omni-channel approach
• Proactively creating mobile moments rather than waiting for the customer to come

Trending Hot

Mobile Marketing Trends to Watch out for in 2016

Mobile continues to be marketing’s blue-eyed-boy; a trend that carries forward from 2015 and before that. Mobile shopping has caught up fast but nevertheless it’s steady. Taking a cue from how mobile commerce has evolved over the years and the latest technology innovations that are coming up every day, here are a few mobile marketing trends that will dominate the market in 2016.

Really Mobile

So, while the trend remains to be “mobile-centric”, shopping would not be restricted to smart phones or tabs only. Mobile commerce will include a whole gamut of mobile devices or personal devices that are with us, on the go. Some gadgets that would contribute significantly to mobile commerce are: smart watches, iBeacons or any other wearables.

Payment Gateways

Payment gateway is the latest trend most retailers are trying to catch on. So if a person surfs some merchandise on her smart phone and then has to go to the desktop computer just to make payment, as a retailer you have most likely lost them.

iBeacons

iBeacon make a great marketing tool when combined with mobile apps. Geofencing, instant notifications of customized offers and discounts, new stocks added intimation and so much more.

Omnicahnnel

As customers find new ways to communicate about their products, they need to understand that this isn’t about just-communication they are talking about. A person might look for a product through one medium and but it on the other. From surfing to purchasing, there are important touch points that connect. This chain of touch points mustn’t be broken. Because much before you loose your customer, competition has her.

Customer Engagement

Whether its mobile retail, information website or social media platform, brands would be required to engage and interact with their customers rather than just do one-way marketing. Brands that engage customers also enjoy a rather loyal customer base as compared to customers that do not connect with the brand.

Busy Moms

Some great apps that cater to the focus group

There're so many roles and tasks a mom has to handle simultaneously that it's only fair to bring in some tools that might help. From shopping to managing finances to doctor's advice, there's an app for everything, and the best part, help is there right in your hands. Here's a list of some great apps that can come in real handy for a busy mom and yes, can bring in some inspiration to app makers who are planning to launch apps in the segment.

WebMD Baby

This free app on Apple store comes in as a breather for new moms. The app helps anxious parents with quick advice from a trusted panel of doctors. It also includes daily tips that come in real handy for mothers of newborns. So if it's the change of weather or some general health advice you seek, the app can really help. But remember to see the doctor if you feel the condition requires a doctor's examination.

Shopping List

Although it's a paid app on Apple Store ($2.99), but is worth every penny. Add items to your shopping list as and when they are finished. The app organizes your shopping list by store isles making your shopping convenient and fast. You can also add notes to your shopping list and share the list with others. Send your husband grocery shopping once in a while!

GoodBudget Planner

Another free app on Apple store. Yes you guessed it right it helps you stay in track with your finances. This app syncs with your GoogleBudget and helps not just you, but also your family to stay in track within the planned budget.

White Noise Lite

This free app on Apple store is a must have for sleep deprived new parents. The app features more than 20 relaxing sounds that can calm your cranky newborn. The best part, the app blocks distractions that cause human brain to stay awake. About time you catch-up on your sleep.

NetNanny

Available for $4.99 on Apple Store, the app is a savior if your children are surfing the internet for their study or entertainment. NetNanny allows parents to keep a check on the content that children access on the internet. Delete the other browsers and NetNanny will take care of your internet settings.

FitBit

FitBit is a free app on Apple store. If you are a fitness enthusiast, the app is perfect for you. FitBit keeps track of day-to-day activities, workout schedules and calories. You can keep track of your fitness for your records or compete with your friends.

How to Cook Everything

There's perhaps nothing more taxing than planning a meal for your kids after a busy day. Get access to 2000 recipes that'll help you find a quick dish with whatever you have in your fridge.

There are hundreds of apps that will ease workload, provide time and bring in more life into your living. We obviously haven't put all of them here. Feel there's something that needs a mention; please share with us in the comments below!

Facebook Marketing

Leveraging Facebook As A Platform To Market Your App

Talking of marketing a product, especially a digital or mobile product, you just cannot ignore Facebook. Facebook is big. If you are figuring out where to find your target audience, chances of finding them on Facebook are more then finding them elsewhere. Facebook is that big. And with the right campaign and advertising you’ll be able to drive really big volumes of quality users in a short period of time.

The starting point of a Facebook campaign is accessing information and utilizing that information. The thing with Facebook is that it has information, a lot of information about people. For instance you can have assess your own profile on Facebook. How much information you have put in there – your name, age, where you live, where you studied, which place you like going out to, what are your interests, your likes, your friends, your social circle and what not. That really is a lot of information. So the first step really is identifying or defining relevant information and accessing it.

Once you have the relevant information in hand, you will see interesting patterns in for of optimization opportunities that exist. Customize your optimization on for say a certain age group in a certain region having certain interests. Now that is really being focused. And the interesting part is that there can be multiple campaigns that can be tailored for each optimization category, and you can now witness numerous new opportunities created for getting to your customers. But before getting all jubilant about your little new discovery, you need to choose your campaigns based ROI. If there’s this great campaign but the turnaround ratio is not good, part with it. So pick and choose your campaigns or optimizations based on value, rather than choosing your campaigns based on creative excellence.

LinkedIn started off as a social network for professionals, allowing them to host their resumes online. These professionals were keen on job opportunities and have professional recommendations from their contacts. But it has eventually evolved as a professional contact relationship management for individuals. This is the mammoth of a change or differential advantage LinkedIn has achieved which makes it the success story it is today.

One thing to be noted here is that as compared to other campaigns on the Internet, Facebook might be the costliest. But when you run your pivot campaigns, you will notice the conversion ratio of Facebook is more than the other campaigns. Hence the overall value will be more. But for some reason, say your target audience or your product, a Facebook campaign does not hold good on the ROI maybe Facebook is not it.

With Facebook and other social media marketing the scale is huge, it’s faster and obviously has lesser costs as compared to the conventional marketing. It’s definitely worth the try.

Learning From LinkedIn

Learning From LinkedIn

Not long ago did this company start off like any other, with bottlenecks and struggle, has today become not just a knockout success but also a global phenomenon in itself. LinkedIn story has of late been a subject of study for business students across the globe and of course the curious entrepreneur who is keen to draw a lesson or two from LinkedIn’s success. Here is an overview of how LinkedIn made it big, that big.

LinkedIn started in 2002, the age of MySpace and Friendster. The next big thing, Facebook had also entered the scene and was making in-roads real quick. Yet another social networking site would have more or less ended as an also-ran. But LinkedIn’s vision was clear, they were looking at being more than just cool-place-to-be, LinkedIn was being launched as the big network for jobs. The vision was huge, being established as the resource hub of years of professional network of working professionals.

In the initial few years, the founders of LinkedIn moved very cautiously to ensure that the system worked. For the system to work, like any other social networking site, ‘critical mass’ was needed. The first million users were the toughest. Until then, LinkedIn was not even working on a revenue model. And once the critical mass was in place, a lot of moneymaking options opened up for LinkedIn. LinkedIn jobs, LinkedInsight, subscription program and of course advertising made for LinkedIn’s revenue stream. A revenue stream, as different and as robust as LinkedIn’s, could only create the history LinkedIn’s created.

LinkedIn started off as a social network for professionals, allowing them to host their resumes online. These professionals were keen on job opportunities and have professional recommendations from their contacts. But it has eventually evolved as a professional contact relationship management for individuals. This is the mammoth of a change or differential advantage LinkedIn has achieved which makes it the success story it is today.

What Constitutes A Good App

Understanding what will make people love your app

With millions of apps on Google Play Store and Apple App Store, how many actually get the much-coveted space in the users' mobile? How many Apps do we download and use on a regular basis? How many apps are uninstalled everyday?

While the exact answer to these questions would be very difficult to put in black and white, the obvious point is, there are successful and unsuccessful apps; apps that people use and apps that they don't. There are good apps and the bad ones.

So what constitutes a good app and how do you know one?

Value: A good app will be based on providing value to the customer. Either it will aim at solving a particular problem like call-a-plumber-or-electrician app, or it will aim at providing convenience to the user like news app or will be simply good for its entertainment value. A good app will always define a take-away for the user; the better the value, better the app.

Engagement: There are apps that we install on our mobile phones and absolutely forget about them and then there are apps that become a part of our daily lives. Good apps are the ones that can productively engage users on a regular basis. There should be notifications, alerts, offers, reminders and other ways to engage the user.

Moderation: Although user engagement is important but it strictly needs to be done in moderation. Too many notification and alerts will eventually turn off the user resulting into un-installation of the app. How many messages are appropriate? The answer to this would be different for very app depending on the nature of your app, type of user base and the scope of engagement.

Personalization: A good app learns from the user's usage habits, timings, spending pattern, likes and dislikes, builds upon that and presents user with personalized content. Though more the personalization, better it is, but then it's important to understand there is a very fine line between personalization and intrusion of privacy. And many a times users are put off by intrusive apps. Asking too much of personal information and taking permission for usage of personal information irrelevant to the app will definitely not qualify as a good-app feature. For instance an app for showing driving directions on the map does not need to get access to contact-list on the phone.

These are a few general traits that constitute a good app. the scope and flexibility of these traits will change from one app to the other depending on the user base, the value deliverance and scope of the app.