Is Google Evil?

[Click this link if you are having trouble viewing the video]

I recently stumbled on the video above, which portrays the company as an evil empire that seeks to sell every inch of your privacy to advertisers.  I understand that there are a lot of privacy concerns circling [Google Buzz]. However, it does not mean that Google is out to get you. In fact, Google has been instrumental in improving the way we communicate and live. The company also understands the importance of privacy and choice. That is why they will soon be offering a feature that will allow users to opt-out of google analytics tracking.

What about Facebook?

Last week, Facebook just surpassed Google as the top destination on the internet. With FaceBook set to challenge Google’s Ad Empire, should we be worried about this company too? I don’t think so. FaceBook is one of the companies, if not the one, responsible for taking social media to what it is today.

Conclusion

Since Google and FaceBook use advertising as their main source of revenue, it is only natural that they try to leverage customer information. However, this does not mean that they are out to get us. These companies have actually done a lot to improve our lives over the past few years.

Social Media Bed and Breakfast

Almost half (48%) of the respondents said that they check/update their social media accounts in bed, throughout the night, or as soon as they wake up. As expected, younger social media users tweet more throughout the night.

The early marketer catches the bird

It also appears that Twitter and FaceBook are now a part of social media users’ morning ritual. 42% of the responded said that they check/update Twitter or Facebook first thing in the morning.

With social media users making twitter their primary source of morning news, we might eventually see the death of the morning paper. However, I don’t think that they will give up without a fight. The photo below shows how news papers might fight to stay alive.

Can't beat em join em: twitter box in morning paper

Conclusion

I’m uncertain whether the result of the study means that we are approaching total social media addiction or people just found a more convenient way of doing things (twitter news feeds instead of the morning paper).  However, I am sure that marketers will somehow make the most of this study. Maybe through tweeting morning pancake promotions?

[WARNING: VIDEOS MAY BE DISTURBING FOR SOME PEOPLE]

Greenpeace’s Have a Break

[Greenpeace launched a campaign] that warns consumers that KitKat uses the company Sinar Mas to supply palm oil for the production of chocolate bars. This particular supplier works in areas where rainforest are being replaced by palm tree plantations. As a result, natural habitats are being destroyed. The video demonstrates that consuming KitKat is like eating orang-utans. Nestle, the company behind KitKat, responded within hours stating that they would be changing their palm oil practice and will be switching to certified sustainable versions by 2015.

Hit the B**** (Campaign against domestic violence)

*Website is currently restricted to people living in Denmark [English info about organisation still available online]

Hit the B**** is a social campaign (back in November 2009) from Denmark aimed at eliminating domestic violence. The campaign leads you to an interactive website where you get to hit a girl (the b****). Depending on how hard you hit her, you will be given a score from pussy to 100% gangsta, which later then turns to 100% idiot. The goal of the campaign is to make the player feel bad after committing the act of hitting the b****. It became very popular in Denmark and appeared on several blogs. However, the worldwide effectiveness of the campaign is in question since some visitors are actually enjoying the game (some are actually playing it over and over again)

Thoughts:

Although good in concept, the Hit the B**** campaign fails to give the same experience to every user. The campaign tries to bring people  from one emotion to another (enjoyment to feeling stupid). When doing this, it is important you don’t over encourage the wrong emotion that it overcomes the feeling you are trying to convey.

With online users and advertising communities blogging about him, His self-promotion strategy is truly a success. Below are some lessons I’ve learned from his job search strategy.

Experiment and demonstrate your skills

If you want a career in marketing, you need to put your skills and knowledge to the test. Gone are the days where you only need a degree in marketing. With the amount of information available online, almost everyone can claim to be knowledgeable in Marketing. Today it’s all about tapping to online resources and experimenting.

Integrate different channels (even old school offline promos)

In addition to his website and online video, Tito effectively integrates different social networks (Twitter and Facebook) and offline promotion in his career search. Offline, Tito goes to different advertising offices distributing branded apples to employees.

The apples had stickers on them: “Meet me at www.theappleboy.com”

Consistent and unique branding

One of the oldest principles in marketing is consistency in branding. It’s amazing how Tito leveraged his apple picking experience to uniquely brand himself. From the colour and design of his website to his offline promotions, everything screams apples. Now, everyone knows Tito as the Appleboy! I suggest finding something unique about you or your experiences and try playing with it.

Windows Mobile’s core customers have always loved the openness and customization capabilities of the platform. Fans create and distribute free third-party applications/modifications through online communities like [XDA Developers]. However, Microsoft’s most recent changes to the new mobile OS (Windows Phone 7 Series) are starting to scare loyal fans away from the brand. Below are the two major changes Microsoft had announced for the system.

No Copy and Paste for Microsoft Word

Over the last few years, there had been little changes made to Microsoft’s mobile productivity software. However, the office suite seems to be getting a complete overhaul for the upcoming OS. One of the major changes is the removal of the copy and paste functionality. Instead, the office software will be focusing on commenting and editing features stating that most consumers don’t use the copy and paste functionality. However, a lot of negative comments have been popping up online regarding the Microsoft’s decision and the importance of this functionality.

*Click here to see an article from xdadevelopers regarding the recent changes (just be sure to check the comments section).

No upgrade support for HTC’s HD2

In addition to the changes being made to the office suite of the new mobile OS, Microsoft also confirmed that they will not be offering WP7S upgrade to HTC’s HD2. Loyal customers of windows mobile bought the HD2 with the expectation of receiving WP7S support from Microsoft. However, it seems that this will not be happening anytime soon.

Below is a funny video from an HD2 user regarding the changes (the ratings and comments should give people an idea on how windows mobile users feel about the announcements)

Conclusion

Microsoft seems to be making dramatic changes to its new mobile OS to the point where it starts to push loyal fans away. Microsoft believes that these changes are what the “mass” consumers want. Although this might be true, I still suggest Microsoft to take things easy and not risk their core customers.

Last September, Allen Hartwig launched a social media experiment called Brand My BMW. This tech consultant from Marysville believes he can make a popular way of earning money through social media by putting his beloved BMW on the line to show it.

His goal is to invite 200 advertisers to put their branded stickers on his car. Each sticker will cost $5 more than the previous one. Therefore, the first sticker costs $5 and the second one would be $10. In return for the stickers, Hartwig promises to promote each brand by creating individual video segments and leveraging the BrandMYBMW campaign. He hopes to earn a total of $100,000 from this social media experiment.

*Click here for see the video interview

Lesson from Brand my BMW

Although most people might doubt the effectiveness of this campaign and whether Allen would actually reach his $100,000 target, there is one important lesson I’ve learned from his campaign. Social Media is about taking risk and trying new things.

In explaining his reasons for the program, Allen mentioned that “too many people are petrified to take chances when it comes to social media. Clueless on how to measure ROI; unwilling to take any risks. So, to prove a point, I’m putting my dream car on the chopping block, sacrificing it for the greater good Internet meme glory.”

Point

No one should be too careful in engaging in social media. Even though some companies might not know how to entirely measure ROI for their particular type of business, the best way to learn is to experiment.

*For more information on BrandMyBMW, Check the links below:

Website: www.brandmybmw.com

Facebook.com/brandmybmw

Twitter: Brand My BMW

Design around usability

Most companies try to fit too much information on their website that they make it difficult for customers to navigate content. Also, some companies try to launch applications that have no clear purpose; visit Sunny’s blog for his take on “what consumers want from retail website”.

By getting outside opinions and listening to customer feedbacks, companies should develop their web experience around accessibility and usability. The video below provides some useful web design tips by, Dr. Dave Chaffey, author of E-consultancy’s Best Practice Guides. He discusses a hybrid approach of balancing usability, accessibility, and visual design.

Be consistent and create expectations

It is important for websites to provide a consistent experience and create expectations. NCIX, an online computer store in Canada, has done a great job of energizing its loyal customers with their weekly online sale. The theme of the sale and discounted items rotate every Wednesday at exactly 6pm. Loyal Customers make it a habit of consistently checking the website and with some items being sold out 2 hours after the ads are shown, it is clear that NCIX successfully created an engaging customer experience.

Microtransaction

Microtransaction is the selling of bits of content to consumers instead of offering traditional bundled products. Examples are online music stores such as iTunes, which allows you to purchase a single track instead of the entire album, and digital video distributors like Netflix. This allows customers to pay only for the content that they want to use.

Microtransaction takes mass customization to a whole new level – Selling content only to people who want them. Before, companies need to create different products to cater to a variety of consumers. Now, they only need to develop a single product and take out features that customers don’t like.

Premium content

This model charges customers for special content that is not normally available to regular users. This monetization model is mostly popular in online gaming communities. Examples are Farmville on Facebook and online games developed by Nexon.net. Gamers are allowed to play the game for free; however, some options/content can only be accessed in exchanged for a small fee.

Drive Offline Sales

Some businesses are not entirely fit for direct online transactions. However, companies can still leverage online content and communities by priming users for offline transactions. Publication companies, such as Time Magazine, provide free content online to drive their offline subscriptions. This is effective for products that provide a different offline experience to customers, even though the same content is available online.

In Australia, Cadbury found an amazing way of using UGC to promote their Picnic Candy Bar brand. Visit the “It’s no picnic” website. In order to raise awareness for Picnic bars, Cadbury challenged Australians to go to their website and create a video of themselves trying to eat a Picnic bar in 30 seconds. In return, participants get a chance to have their ad appear on television.

Below are 2 reasons on how Cadbury effectively organized the campaign:

Ease of Participation

Cadbury makes it easy for people to participate in the program. They only need to eat a candy bar in 30 seconds and say “Picnic. It’s no picnic!” at the end of each ad. Participants then get to choose from 50 pre-made voiceovers to match their ad. Therefore, anyone with a computer and webcam can easily join in the fun.

Online and Offline Integration to Maximize Shareability

Cadbury effectively integrates both online and offline channels to increase the shareability of the campaign. Contestants with chosen ads are notified in advance when their videos will be aired on television. Therefore, the contestants are likely to invite their social network contacts to view their ad on TV. Also, the reward for the contest itself (television appearance) is self-promoting.  People who have never heard of the campaign through online channels are likely to become aware of the contest once they see the commercials on television.

Conclusion

User-generated content campaigns don’t have to offer expensive prices to attract participants. It just has to be simple and something everyone wants –  which is to appear on TV!!!

Geotagging

Geotagging is the process of attaching geographical information (i.e., latitude and longitude coordinates) to various media such as websites, photos, and videos. Geotagging can tell users the location of the content of any media. With the appropriate software application, users can find the location of where a photo was taken.

This process of attaching geographical information to media seems to bring new benefits to businesses. Below are some examples of geotagging enabled mobile apps and how they can be used to drive business goals, especially for local businesses.

Mobile Apps with Geotagging

Twitter 360 is an application specifically made for the iPhone 3GS that allows users to track and visualize their Twitter friends in their nearby location.  It uses Twitter’s geogtagging feature to tag the location of tweets. Users can see the location of their tweeter friends in real-time.  Below is a video of how Twitter 360 works.

A more recent and somehow similar phone application is Google Buzz for mobile. Google Buzz for mobile allows you to post updates to your friends (or even to the general public) and tag the location of your buzz. Since Google Buzz is a browser-based application, it is not limited to iphone and can be used on any most phones. Google Buzz is also integrated to other google services such as gmail and google maps.

Small Businesses and Geotagging

Large companies have already been taking advantage of Twitter, and other similar social media platforms, for different business objectives. [Dell] has a number of Twitter profiles for different types of deals. This allows them. Other companies such as [JetBlue] use twitter as alternative customer support medium.

However, the recently popular geotagging features in social media platforms can provide benefits more advantageous to smaller local businesses. These businesses (cafes and restaurants) usually have one or two locations and heavily rely on store traffic. “Imagine yourself walking around town looking to meet up a friend but when you try using your iPhone to check his/her location; you then realize that the local cafe across the street has a tweet for a 1-day promotion on lattes”.

Here is how it might look like:

These new mobile apps allow small businesses to have location-focused advertising. It can integrate their online and offline marketing efforts by driving online social network users to their physical stores. Also, since local businesses operate on a smaller scale, they usually attract customers by providing quality products and excellent customer service, both of which are common ingredients in effective word-of-mouth marketing. Businesses don’t even have to be social media experts to take advantage of these services. For example, the local bakery owner can trade an extra slice of cake for a geotagged customer “tweet/buzz”.

Conclusion

Geotagging enabled apps can be useful to small and local businesses that would benefit from increased store traffic. If you’re into this type of business, I suggest looking into understanding the mobile apps mentioned above. All it takes is setting up a free account or bribing a well-connected customer in exchange for a free “buzz”. Just make sure that customer has an internet-enabled phone before you hand in that free cake.