Instagram and the Future of Mobile Social Photo Sharing

At the end of 2011, Instagram, the  mobile social network where you can share edit, share photos and follow friends and brands streams was named the number one application by Apple. With 15 million users, it is set to be the fastest growing social network, surpassing Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. That’s quite the statistic for an app that is just over a year old. Like Foursquare, Instagram is a mobile based network. Using the app means using it solely on your smart phone (and currently, only if you’re an iPhone user. Although, plans to release an Android app are in the works).

With new social networks popping up every few months (didn’t everyone just decide to give Google+ a shot?), it’s hard to wrap your head around joining yet another network. Instagram, however, really is one of the next big things in social sharing. Where Facebook initially began as a network to connect with your friends, Instagram is solely a network about sharing.  Brands should start thinking about how they can build Instagram into their digital marketing campaigns. News agencies like CNN and CBS News, designers and stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Kate Spade and Gucci already have a strong Instagram following. Redbull and Nike have also integrated the network into their strategy and General Electric recently held a contest for the “Next GE Instgrapher.” You can view the photos of the hashtag #GEInspiredMe on Statigr.am.

A photograph has the ability to capture something that words can’t and now brands have the opportunity to take their digital marketing to a more visual level. Giving customers the chance to see an inside look into a brand, such as a typical day inside a business or how a product is made allows customers to feel connected to the brand in a different, more personal way. Allowing the same customers to share their opinions on photos of products, or share them using a company’s product gives customers the chance to express their feelings towards a product through a creative outlet.

Similar to Twitter, Instagram uses hashtags to categorize photographs. Brands can use hashtags in connection to a specific campaign or contest, or Kate Spade uses a hashtag (#popofcolor) regularly to identify posts about their brand. Nike launched a campaign at the start of 2012 asking fans to photograph how they plan on making 2012 count. #MakeItCount has nearly 2,000 photographs in just a couple of weeks. Hashtags are a filter people are already familiar with, and an easy way to track mentions of your brand.

Unsure of how your brand can integrate a photo based program into your digital marketing? Do you have products to sell (like Nike) or an image to build (like President Obama)? Perhaps you want to engage your fans in a different way, or rebuild a loyalty program? Brands can use Instgram to give insight into a company, let users show off how they use a brand’s products, or enhance a loyalty program. Possible aspects of such program could include sending a photograph of a receipt or while inside the store. A campaign giving users a visiual of how a new product is made and allowing them to give their insight along the way would allow customers to feel connected to the brand. For more information on how your brand can begin to implement your brand into Instagram, we welcome you to contact us here at Direct Message Lab.

Learn about how Instagram is changing social mobile sharing, and what brands have already launched Instagram campaigns by downloading our white paper on here. Check out how some of the most prominent brands on this list.

Brands Are Creating Unique Social Media Campaigns this Holiday Season

How are brands using social media to stay relevant this holiday season? Not surprisingly, businesses are doing this in a variety of ways. From holiday apps, Twitter personas and holiday sweepstakes, brands are finding unique ways to keep their customers engaged during the holidays.

Starbucks just launched a free mobile application for iPhone and Android to give users a fun way to interact with their famous red holiday packaging (cups, bags, gift packages, etc.). With the Cup Magic application, users scan their cup and watch the unique scene come to life.  Interact with the scene, discover what other merchandise comes to life and even send the video to a friend or share it on Facebook. Additionally, you can send Starbucks eGift Cards direct from the app, with a personalized message and in any amount you choose. Reviews for the application itself are strong, but the specificity of the app makes it have quite a short shelf life.

Walmart took a more philanthropic approach to its holiday marketing. This past month it launched the “12 Days of Giving” program on Facebook. Customers can nominate charities that help provide basic necessities to communities. In the month of December, Walmart will choose 12 winners from December 12-23^rd to receive a portion of $1.5 million. Using social media to help companies allocate funds to charities isn’t an entirely new concept, but it’s still a great way to get your customers engaging with your company and allowing them to feel like they’re having a say.  Grand Marnier is holding a similar Facebook campaign. For the Grand Giving Tree, users pick an ornament relating to one of three charities and place it on a virtual tree. At the end of the campaign, the cause with the most ornaments will receive a $10,000 donation. Grand Marnier’s Tree of Giving is a unique, interactive way to get users in the holiday and giving spirit.

Target used Twitter to kick off Black Friday and the holiday shopping season. Their persona, the Christmas Champion, could be followed at @ChristmasChamp for updates on the sale, shopping and gift advice. The account had 19,400 followers,  and gives a personal face to the Target brand. RadioShack launched The Great Giftervention, allowing customers to post pictures of the worst gift they’ve ever recieved. Each week, the top worst gifts will receive gift pack from RadioShack.

The holiday season has given brands and social media marketers a great opportunity to create unique and engaging campaigns. Through interactive social apps and mobile apps, brands are not only boosting their digital presence, but reaching their most loyal customers where they spend their time. Through Direct Message Lab’s REACH v4 platform, social media marketers can manage multi-channel campaigns for any holiday or occasion. REACH’s Social Analysis allows brands to collect deep user profiles of customers that engage with their social networks and mobile apps, to target future content and promotions.

Happy Holidays from all at DML!

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.

 

Mobile Commerce: Changing the Way Brands and Customers Interact

With 800 million users on Facebook, 200 million Twitter users and 10 million checking-in on Foursquare  it is easy to understand how social commerce is quickly growing into a massively successful business. Pampers’ Facebook store reports 1,000 transactions per hour. Groupon is one of the fastest growing businesses and social commerce is only expected to become an even larger industry. Similarly, mobile commerce is a business that is quickly being tapped into by brands and advertisers. A huge increase from the expected $6 billion it will bring in by the end of the year, it is estimated to become a $30 billion dollar industry by 2016.

Already brands and customers are utilizing their smart phones to engage with each other and interact in social loyalty programs. Branded applications allow users to track their progress in a loyalty program, as well as participate in games and social sharing. Direct Message Lab’s platform, REACH v4 gives brands the ability to build and launch mobile applications so that brands can deploy information, build loyalty programs. Additionally, REACH complies user data so that the brand is able to receive and analyze information and metrics.

As security, speed and availability increases, customers are looking to their smart phones to get even more done. PBS recently launched their mobile kids product store after seeing that the demand for parents of young kids wanting to do their shopping on-the-go via their phone was high. Lucky magazine, owned by Condé Nast released Lucky Shopper, a mobile application that allows the user to scan any bar or QR codes, Microsoft tags or digital watermarks all from the same app. From there customer is able to compare prices and find out information about the product that exists in an issue of Lucky magazine. Furthermore, advertisers are able to partner with Lucky to offer users to scan their products targeted information, special offers, videos and branded games.

Starbucks' Android App

There are a variety of directions mobile commerce can head. To some extent, businesses are already testing out different ways a mobile device can integrate the entire shopping experience, target customers and make the entire process easier. Starbucks’ Android application allows customers to manage their virtual gift card, check their balance, earn rewards, reload the card, and most importantly pay with it. A bar code allows cashiers at Starbucks to scan the card off the phone and the user’s balance is instantly deducted .

Additionally the realistic possibility of brands and advertisers being able to send
location based offers directly to a users phone might not be too far off. Just by entering a mall with a specific store, or walking through the doors of a business, offers could be instantly sent to your phone, further creating incentive for the customer to make a purchase during the visit.

E-Commerce Guide offers a plethora of statistics that all point to the growing success and possibilities of the mobile commerce business. A few notable points include that over half of those surveyed used a mobile phone during their shopping experience, with almost half (48%) of mobile users having made a purchase on their smart phone.

The scope of mobile commerce is expanding quickly. The industry has the possibility to have a larger impact on how customers make purchases as well as how brands are able to target their customers. As a brand, this is not an industry to ignore.

Google Introduces Google+ Pages and Google+ Direct Connect

“Google+ Pages: Connect with all the things you care about”

That’s the title from Google’s official blog, and seems to be the motto surrounding the bigger picture for Google+. Today, Google introduced Google+ Pages for brands, bands, sports teams, companies and businesses with hopes of making Google+ become a little less boring.

Per Google:

“For you and me, this means we can now hang out live with the local bike shop, or discuss our wardrobe with a favorite clothing line, or follow a band on tour”

“For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you.”

Check out some examples of Google+ Pages for Burberry, Toyota, Dallas Cowboys, and even The Muppets, in which Kermit and Miss Piggy will hold a live hangout with fans today at 4:30p.m.

While Google+ Pages will be helpful to big brands trying to increase their social media reach, it’s tough to see how these pages will catch on with the social, mobile, local trend.

Google is putting its faith on the hopes that customers and brands alike are a) already active on Google+ and b) will want to take part in “Hangouts” with their local bike shop, or add their favorite coffee shops to specific Circles.

Hard to imagine, at least for the short-term, seeing as Google+ has seen its traffic significantly drop since its September 20 public launch.

Additionally, Google has also introduced Google+ Direct Connect. This will allow you to search for a brand on Google, and have it immediately take you to their Google+ Page. For example, if you search +Pepsi in Google, it will automatically connect you to Pepsi’s Google+ Page.

But, why would local businesses want to take the time and resources to create another social channel, with little knowledge of the social ROI? Your Facebook page is going strong with 1500 Likes and you have over 1000 Followers on Twitter; what incentive do you, as a business, have to create another outlet and possibly dilute your brand’s social presence?

It will be interesting to see how Google+ Pages rank in regards to SEO on Google Search. Say for example, you are searching for your favorite local coffee spot or favorite bookstore and the first result, by default, is their Google+ Page — above their website, Facebook page and Twitter account. There’s an incentive to jump on the wagon.

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.

Social Customer Service: Creating Happy and Loyal Customers Through Social Media

Back in August, social media and networking expert Peter Shankman tweeted to Morton’s Steakhouse jokingly requesting a steak to be waiting for him at Newark Airport. Morton’s had seen his request and upon landing, sure enough, there was someone from Morton’s wait for Shankman. Instantly, through Twitter, news of Morton’s attentive online customer service presence spread.

Companies throughout various industries are quickly realizing that they can use not only use social media to promote their brand, but they can also use it to engage in a new form of customer service. By becoming more social with customers, customers are able to see that there is a face behind the brand and that a person is listening to them.  Customers will want to interact with a brand in which they know they can get great customer service. The Social Media for Customer Service Summit last week addressed how brands can leverage their social media presence to improve customer-brand relations.

One key point that was addressed was the necessity to determine the difference between those users who are using social media to complain for the sake of complaining or to gain free stuff versus those who are genuinely looking for answers that they couldn’t get another way. Brands shouldn’t feel obligated to answer every post, but should be reactive to concerns made through social networks.  Additionally, generic responses can appear to be the equivalent of not responding at all or even erode the brand’s credibility.

One unique thing about using social media for customer service is that it ‘s a very open channel. If someone posts a concern, it’s automatically made public to your followers. By ignoring public concern, brands make it very easy to instantly alienate its customers. Respond and you’ve addressed a concern easily, potentially avoiding a future larger issue. More than one customer usually has the same issue so you could be helping a large customer base with each post.

Another way brands can use social media to build effective customer service and maintain loyal customers is to keep their cool when dealing with disgruntled customers. As mentioned above, social media is very an open channel, and everyone will see the entire communication. By deleting negative posts, or responding coldly instead of offering a solution, customers will see that you care more your company than your customers. Kip Wetzel, of Comcast, points out that you can maintain customer relations while defending your brand. Just don’t do it in a way that tells customers they’re always wrong, because they’re generally supposed to be right. If it seems that the discussion might be lengthy, carry the conversation into a direct message or offer that they can contact the respondent via a direct e-mail.

In order to utilize social media as an effective customer service outlet, brands have to be timely and responsive. Essentially, there needs to be people “manning the lines,” just as you would within a phone-based customer service department. DML’s REACH v4 allows brands to manage all social media and application outlets through one platform. Through REACH, brands will be able check all accounts simultaneously and frequently, allowing the brand to share news and post responses in a timely manner.  Additionally, brands will be able to efficiently direct questions and issues to the appropriate departments.  

There are many brands utilizing social networking as a customer service tool, and there are even others who may be hurting themselves by not taking advantage of the customer engagement through these networks. A couple examples of successful customer service within social media include:

KLM Airlines

KLM Airlines is a prime example of how a company is creating an excellent image for themselves through social networks. Last year, when volcanic ash over Iceland interrupted air travel. KLM immediately developed a Facebook app in which people could get up-to-date information and rebook flights. More recently, they launched a 24/7 customer service initiative on Facebook and Twitter. A few minutes spent on their Facebook page makes it evident that they are holding true to their promise. Most questions and concerns were addressed within the hour of being posted, and many included the prompt that KLM would be sending that person a direct message to get further details so they can assist them.

Visit KLM’s Facebook page here.
Zappos

Another example of strong customer service on social media is by Zappos.com. Well regarded for its customer service over all, @Zappo_Service, their customer service specific Twitter account, has 10,500 followers. Each customer service rep introduces themselves, giving a personal face to a general account. Zappos responds to everything ranging from a customer expressing their love for their shoes, to wanting to know how they can track their order and even just responding to a “How are you?” tweet. Reading through the Twitter feed almost reads like a chat room, since the response is so interactive and quick. Zappos response time is extraordinarily quick, and usually resulted in extensive conversation feeds with customers.

Visit Zappos Twitter page here.

Customers don’t want to interact with brands who aren’t focused on their customers.  Too many frustrating experiences may leave customers apprehensive about dealing with traditional customer service departments. By using social media to create a unique, personalized customer service experience, brands can put customers at ease knowing that they can get an answer to a question by simply logging on to Facebook or Twitter.

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.

Social Media in Sports: Tampa Bay Lightning Seat Seaker

In a promotion to gain more followers, and increase engagement with fans on Twitter, the Tampa Bay Lightning have started a social campaign, Seat Seaker.

Per the contest details:

PAIR OF OPENING NIGHT TICKETS ON THE GLASS ARE HIDDEN SOMEWHERE IN TAMPA BAY. WANT THE SEATS? WE NEED THE TWEETS.

Every time a fan tweets with the #BeTheThunder hashtag, the closer we’ll zero in on the location of the tickets. Once the location is revealed, the first person who finds them wins. Start tweeting and sharing, because the more people who tweet, the closer you’ll get to the seats!

 

This is a great example of sports teams marketing with social media, in that there is an incentive “tweets until next zoom,” in which every time someone tweets with the hashtag, #bethethunder, the map will zoom in to focus more closely on the location of the tickets. With #bethethunder, they allowed their fans to follow the contest, and increase engagement across their Twitter page.

With DML’s REACH v4, a sports team could not only increase their number of followers and fan loyalty, they could attain deep user profiles of their fans, and market them in multiple channels, including other social channels, social apps and mobile apps.

DML REACH also provides analytics of of the contest to gauge how many people are participating, which users are the most influential, and with social monitoring, you can search multiple blogs, news portals and forums to see who is talking about your team.

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.

How Facebook’s Timeline Affects DML’s Customers, Partners

Dear Customers, Partners and Friends,

At f8 Facebook announced several major changes which directly affect the visibility of your brand and the engagement users have with your brand within Facebook. Fortunately, many of these are positive. To help you make sense of the changes we have boiled down the list to the key elements that we think you should be focused on. Here they are:

Timeline
Facebook released an entirely new perspective on a user’s social profile call Timeline (https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline). Timeline is fundamentally a catalogue of the user’s whole life (at least as he may have uploaded it to Facebook) curated by the user. Users choose a cover photo and highlight life events (e.g, birth of a child, marriage, etc.) to tell their story. To make the whole timeline manageable, Facebook condenses the information that is displayed in the user’s Timline the further back in time you scroll.

What is most meaningful for marketers is that users can connect applications to their Timelines. Once connected, an app automatically loads information and actions into a user’s Timeline. The actions can be any verb and noun combination – listening to music, cooking a recipe – that the brand establishes for its apps. If it meets relevancy criteria (see GraphRank below) the auto-inserted information appears in the Ticker of the user’s friends. The insertion continues forever or until the user actively stops it – which is great for brands!. Important events also appear in the user’s News Feed. The Ticker drives social discovery of your app, and your brand, by the user’s friends.

GraphRank
For marketers, application and brand discovery have always been a problem on Facebook. To help solve the discovery issue, in addition to the compelling solution of the Timeline and the Ticker, Facebook has built a relevance filter called GraphRank. GraphRank promotes information based on the amount a user and his/her friends interact with an application and its content. More interaction – greater visibility, For marketers, this ups the ante to create and deliver applications and content that users want to, and do, regularly engage.

What You Should Do?
The list is short but simple. First, audit your apps and see where including the “Add to Timeline” functionality would be relevant and add it. Second, continue to create experiences and content that users love – now you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts. And third, design future apps with the Timeline and Ticker in mind.

As you know, the Direct Message Lab platform is based around creating compelling, customized and targeted experiences for users. The new Facebook changes provide a wealth of new information for the REACH platform to target users, build user profiles and understand your customers on a granular level. We would be happy to provide assistance as you think about how the latest Facebook changes can help you connect with customers and build your brand.

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.

The F8 Dust Has Settled, What Does it Mean?

The Interweb was shaken up last week, as Facebook introduced a round of new updates/features at the F8 Developer Conference. By now, you know that the Timeline, Open Graph and integration with music and movie services will all be rolling out to a Facebook page near you in the next coming months. But, what does this mean for Facebook, users and marketers?

Back on May 27, 2011, after learning about how Zuck wanted to integrate music, movies, books etc. into Facbeook, we wrote an article expressing a concern that, while the social world is becoming united and intertwined, this influx of details from people’s lives would eventually become too much for any single user to handle.

As Facebook has grown, it has segmented itself into two user bases; one side is the everyday user, who go on to see what their friends are up to, post a status update, poke, message, Like and comment. On the other side, there are the marketers, who try to get the users to Like their product or service, engage with their brand page and increase awareness for what they are offering.

The F8 announcements were successful because there was something for everyone.

The Timeline is an interesting addition. Quoting Zuck, “”For every major evolution we’ve done at Facebook, the profile is at the center,” he said. ”It’s a really personal product, and our job is to make this product the best way for you to share everything you want.”

Obviously, Facebook believes that your memory is shot, and the only way you can properly talk about “back in the day” is referencing your Timeline. It appears, at first glance, that the Timeline is their way of saying, “Hey, look. We told you we could store everything you ever said, did and thought.” Kind of creepy, but a cool feature for the every day user, nonetheless.

And then the Open Graph API for the devs and marketers. Per a Search Engine Journal article, “Open Graph will allow Facebook users to add activities to their news streams without being bothered by prompts asking for their consent.”

 

The most notable features:

1. Permissions will no longer be needed for Apps every time content is published to Facebook. Instead, there will be a Facebook permissions screen that users will only have to complete one time.
2. The Open Graph updates will only appear in the new ticker. Unless, of course, it holds a higher value of importance, in which case it will show up in the News Feed.
3. The Open Graph will allow users to share what they are watching, listening to, reading etc. in real-time via the Facebook Ticker.

This will allow for seamless integration of third party apps to Facebook’s user base, and will help marketers target a more narrowed audience, based off of users interests and Likes via their Facebook profiles.

As the Internet advances and adapts, Web 2.0  is being augmented by the fabric that Facebook has laid down. It is becoming a world of third party apps and Facebook Connect. The infrastructure of the web will be forever changed, and how people connect and disseminate (un)useful information about themselves, whether it be playing games, watching movies, listening to music, or any other activity you confine yourself to, the new Open Graph just made the web that much more social.

Last day for DML Intern; Steve Jobs Steals Letter of Resignation

DML,

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as DML’s Co-Intern in Chief, I would be the first to let you know.

Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as Intern at DML. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Intern Emeritus, Facebook friend and Twitter follower.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Brendan Dimitri as Intern in Chief at DML.

I believe DML’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at DML, and I thank you all for the many months of being able to work alongside you.

Peter

 

Peter Woods

 

www.directmessagelab.com

peterw@directmessagelab.com

Which Way Will They Go? Klout’s Future Depends on . . . Klout

Klout is rolling along in its quest to become the official social network influence-measurement service. It just added five social networks to its arsenal; Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram and Last.fm. Add this to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare and LinkedIn, and you have well rounded gauge of influence. Or do you?

I’m not here to question the success of Klout’s algorithms, or say that its scores are slightly irrelevant, and they suggest that some people can carry the “Social Media Expert” title. The scores do take in account how good your social voice is, or how much your network following RT’s, Replies, Comments or “Likes” the content you put out there. But, with this influx of new social networks, the big “what if” becomes “What if I’m not on all of these networks?”

Per the Klout Blog  “Connecting an account wil never lower your Score, but it may increase it as we can give you credit for your influence in that network.” – Sidenote: Yes, Klout has a typo - “wil” - on their corporate blog. UH OH

This is where the confusion begins to grow. Is Klout an honest tell-all of your entire social influence across all social channels, or is it an “Are you good at Twitter. . . and maybe decent at a few other social networks, too?”

So, you’re a self-proclaimed guru. And your Klout Score is inching closer to Oprah’s 65 Score. You magically pass her in a rat race, for you have a strong following on 8 out of the 10 networks that Klout currently supports.

That’s not a bad pick up line: “Hey, do you know me? You should. My Klout score is one notch higher than Oprah’s”

But what does your Klout score mean? Is it more of a score of your social influence or your social presence? Is there a difference?

To marketers, this can be all the difference. If you have a client, say Dr. Pepper, and they want to market content to the most influential people to help spread the word of a new flavor, Dr. Pepper X, how can you, as a marketer, differentiate which users to target? Is there a special Klout score that is the cross-over from social media serf to social media prince? And once you’ve located those users, do you target content on the basis of their following on Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare or the amount of “Likes” on Facebook?

Are there layers of “engaged’ users? Is a user who participates in a social survey or sweepstakes on Facebook more important than a user who comments and shares the content? Is an Instagram brand tag as important as a Tumblr blog post mention? This is what, at the moment, Klout cannot take into effect.

I don’t doubt Klout’s ability to be a helpful tool for marketers to figure out who to target, and how to get them to help spread the word. But, just because they keep adding – and will keep adding – a plethora of social networks, it does not give any better indication of how successful every user of a social network can be. To be the true social network influence tool, Klout must adapt and grow to meet marketer’s expectations and solve problems that currently can’t be solved.

For now, it seems your Klout Score is better suited as a pick up line than a marketers dream.

Direct Message Lab provides a central platform , REACH v4,  for brands to effectively build, manage, and analyze their social, mobile and app-based marketing. For more information, check out www.directmessagelab.com, and follow us on Twitter, @dmlinfo.