HappyMiel – Mobile & Social Marketing

Marketing sunlight

filed in:

Advertising, Gadgetry, Marketing, Mobile, Social

If you like being out and enjoy your time in the sun you’ll agree that there’s more to ‘sitting in the sunlight’ than just finding a good spot. There’s a strategy to picking the right seat on a terrace or in the park. It’s also about keeping track of where the sun is going to be for the rest of the time you’re out. Finding the right sunspot isn’t always easy, especially if you live in a big city where buildings are covering the sun.

What better way to promote your business than selling what’s free? Ray Ban and Coppertone did just that. Both companies released an interactive app to help you find the perfect spot. Sunglasses brand Ray Ban even suggests cafes or restaurants where you and your friends can meet, all with the specific hours of sunlight listed. The social factor: it lets you check in into the sunspots, and you can add new spots that haven’t been listed yet.

Ray Ban’s Bright Light:

What I like the most about Bright Light is that it shows you alternative walking directions which might not always be the shortest, but they will be the sunniest. A bit less social and limited to Newy York, Sunscreen brand Coppertone serves NYC the sunny side up:

All we have to do now is wait for branded apps with air quality stats and the urban locations where it’s the safest to breathe. Might be a good thing for Fébrèze or Breeze. I can already see the free oxygen stands!

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Future travel predictions

By: Miel

filed in:

Advertising, Cases, Marketing, Social

Here’s a little gem from KLM: in exchange for access to your Facebook, they’ll predict for you where you’ll travel to in the future, based on the places you’ve been (and were tagged or checked-in at, I presume). Additionally, they say they’re Googling your name, parse those results, check 7200 travel destinations, check Gowalla and then some other undisclosed things. The undisclosed things could be programmer humor though.

The prediction in my case reads: “In August we predict you will be in the spectacular city of New York
. Your arms are getting a little tired from carrying an obscene amount of shopping bags, but you just happily keep strolling down 5th avenue. Got to love shopping in the big apple! And who knows? You might bump into Paul while you’re there!”

I like the forecast. Good thing about this campaign is that it delivers emotions and dreams. There is something in the human nature about knowing the future… a sort of Thanatos in every one of us who desires to know how much time there’s left and what to expect next. As much as we enjoy the element of surprise and the unexpected in life if it’s a good thing, we want to avoid all the bad and prevent evils from happening. It’s the reason why horoscope predictions are so popular and good fortune tellers make more fortune than ever.

Putting the element of prediction in a campaign is always a good idea. Let’s talk about relevance and execution now. I was really thrilled with my prediction, could already see myself strolling through Battery Park pondering about how the Titanic never made it. But then I notice the button at the bottom of the page and it says: “Not so sure? Try again.” – that’s a disappointment. Every time I hit the button I get a different result. Other random friend, other random destination. The magic is gone.

During the loading sequence, you read: “checking Gowalla” (a mobile check-in social service). I’m not using that service, I’m using FourSquare. If only it was linked to my 4sq account, then it would find the places I’ve visited and predict my future much more precise. Small details, but it narrows down the segment of people who feel ‘talked to’ with every misstep along the way. Either you say you’re checking all of networks (even if it’s fake), or don’t mention it at all. But if you mention just one, the magic’s gone for everybody who’s not on it.

I really like the idea, but I would’ve enjoyed it more if it was executed better. The prediction it makes right now doesn’t really require a Facebook auth to see the campaign. Not if the results are so shallow. Or at least, and excuse me if I’m wrong, that’s the impression you get.

Imagine you’d really launch an app that sources all the data and accurately predicts your destinations based on where you’ve been and where your friends will be, and then imagine the ideal online social network where all of its users share every location they’ve been on vacation to or stayed at during a city trip, and plan/announce all of their future trips as well. That would be great, wouldn’t it?

Unfortunately in this case, not everything contributes to the story. I would never put the ‘try again to break the magic’ button next to a call to action to buy the tickets, and the SQRP (social query results page) would look a lot more attractive. If you’re trying to sell tickets, sell the dream first. It’s not that hard to pull some nice pictures up about the destinations and create a nice template for the results.

I liked it, at first. But I revoke the invitation.
I demand more spectacle in exchange for my personal data!

Travel Predictions website

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Social currency exchange

By: Miel

filed in:

Data, Social

In an interesting infographic from Backupify about the valuation of social data, I’ve found this little bit that shows what it would take to make $10 with social media if the company revenue would be divided by content.

Other interesting bits:

A Facebook user is worth $118.34
A Linkedin user is worth $104.46
A DropBox user is worth $80.00
A Twitter user is worth $71.43
A FourSquare user is worth $40.00
A Pinterest user is worth $28.09
A Yelp user us worth $21.21
An instagram user is worth $18.82
A Path user is worth $12.50

Too bad there are no numbers about Google or Google+ in this infographic because the stats on Technology Review about the revenue per active user are quite promising:

See the full Social Economics infographic here
How much is a user worth?

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Social network stats April 2012

By: Miel

filed in:

Data, Social

Because numbers and stats fade so quickly and have aged by the time they’re published, I thought it might be useful to some people to round up the stats I’m currently using in presentations or keynotes. No fluff or fuzz, just numbers and data. Networks: Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Linkedin, FourSquare, Groupon, Tumblr and Flickr.

10 Social Networks and a bunch of stats

Enjoy!

Image source

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Privacy on social networks

By: Miel

filed in:

Data, Social

With all the fuzz about today being so much different than yesteryear, and how we’ve all had to sacrifice a bit of our personal life so we could enjoy that of others, it might be a good thing to know where you can control most of your privacy settings. During my workshops in companies, it always strikes me how few people actually have a clue about what they are sharing with the world. It’s really important to click things right and to be in control as much as you can. It starts with taking the time to go through settings and permissions, and to understand what you are doing.

Remember: if it’s a free service, YOU are the product. It’s like the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny tray. You want to use the coolness, but in exchange you share bits of your personal life. What is important is that you still have rights. You just have to know where to claim them.

Twitter: Public vs Protected Tweets
Facebook: Safety Center
Google+: Public Profiles
LinkedIn: Settings & Personalization
Foursquare: Privacy on Foursquare
YouTube: Private Videos
Instagram: FAQ
Tumblr: Privacy Policy
Blogger: Controlling who can view your blog
WordPress: Blog Privacy Settings
Last.fm: User account management
Flickr: Public/Private

When it comes to privacy on the internet, as in people around you not knowing where you go and which sites you visit, it starts with your browser’s history and cache. Go in your options menu and set an expiration date for your content or clean your cache automatically when you close your browser. It’ll help a bit to keep things speedy as well. Delete cookies. Use https:// as much as you can.

If you want to experiencing the web pure, you’ll have to make sure you log out of any accounts and delete search history in your user accounts. With Google, you can delete your web history and clear your toolbar search history. If you use other browsers and toolbars, clean those too. If you stay logged out, your search results will be very different. It’s funny, when you think of it, that search engines decide what’s relevant for you, phasing out content around what they’ve selected for you to put into your information bubble.

The browser cache of you mobile phone for that matter, is influencing the type of search results and advertisements you get based on previous searches. As a marketeer, this is something to think about when setting up an ad campaign for mobile search engines. Do serious keyword research, think local. As a consumer: clearing your browser and search history on your mobile phone should at least be a weekly chore.

We’ve come to a time where you have to realize that certain personal data – such as name, e-mail, mobile number, location, gender and a couple of others – is part of the public domain. If you don’t want people to know who you are, where you are and how they can reach you, you have to wonder why you would ever want to be on a social network.

If you want to use the free social service, you pay with data. The more data you provide, the better your online experience will be. Or that’s what we’re being told. In a way it’s true. You can like what your friends like, friend who they friend and read what they read. You find things that are being recommended by people you know, advertising becomes tailored just for you and you are benefiting from websites that recognize you, automatically log you in and service you as personal as possible.

But in another way, it also narrows down your scope a bit. And that’s not always a good thing, especially when ‘discovering the web’ is a passion. The quest for the unknown becomes quite a bummer when you see a dozen of other people you know recommended it already. It extrapolates the peer effect friends have on you, and in a way interferes with the natural process of forming your own opinion. E.g.: this or that person liked this, so it must be good.

That’s why I don’t link all my social networks together. I don’t want all of them in one place. Sometimes, in some cases, it makes sense to connect one or two together to enjoy a specific benefit like statistics, but honestly, there’s no link between my FourSquare, Twitter or YouTube with Facebook. The amount of content I process would drive people crazy. If you keep things separated, sometimes you create more relevance. Content only matters when it’s relevant,
not when it’s abundant.

Image source & list

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QR Ideas

By: Miel

filed in:

Marketing, Mobile

From a post called the 10 superpowers of QR codes, I snatched these 3 ideas: People want to track how popular they are. To do so, they can create a QR code that will make consumers “like” a Facebook URL when scanned. Restaurants use this as a way for people to immediately share their favorite place for dinner with their Facebook friends. Try this one

Get paid. Even super heroes need to get paid these days. QRstuff.com allows the user to create a free QR code that sends a consumer to PayPal to pay for a specific item. QRstuff does the Facebook Like-thing as well. I’ve tried it, and if you scan the code above you’ll be presented with a URL, it takes you to a page with a like button for the Facebook page you’ve entered.

WiFi club house. When a business offers free WiFi, anyone in the vicinity can get onto the network. To keep it exclusive to customers, WiFi access with login name and password can be secretly embedded into a QR code which can be printed on the receipt for customers.

Read: The 10 superpowers of QR codes

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Domino’s AR

By: Miel

filed in:

Marketing, Mobile

Domino’s and Blippar have turned to the hungry Brits with smartphone with a new mobile ordering app that interacts with billboards advertising the pizza chain’s 555 deal. Just point your phone at posters and billboards around the cities, and the app creates an augmented reality experience, allowing you to order a pizza, visit the Facebook page, and then some.

More at PSFK

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Previously on HappyMiel