Archive for the ‘Mobile applications’ Category

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FaceBook Adds Functionality to Third Party Apps

Monday, May 7th, 2012

As the mobile revolution spreads to new people and becomes more normalized among those with smartphones, FaceBook has increasingly tried to capture them as part of the social network. Foursquare is a great example of this trend. Foursquare now allows its users to check in and then have that check in posted to FaceBook. Twitter is also functional with Foursquare, but FaceBook has just improved third party app interactions with it.

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Normally a third party app would appear in a user’s timeline and like a regular status update friends could comment or like that update. FaceBook is now allowing apps to have added functionality. A check-in on Foursquare will allow users to “save this place” instead of just like or comment. That place would then move onto the other user’s Foursquare app. And there will be other modes of interactions, which are not geography dependent.

This is a huge development for the social media agency. Foursquare, Yelp!, Urban Spoon and any other app that businesses use to attract people will now be able to use FaceBook for more than just information dissemination. By leveraging the world’s largest social network to also create actions on a person’s mobile apps the brands represented on those apps will have an increased ability to drive traffic to their stores.

FaceBook is letting developers add customizable action links to posts that come from apps.

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Posted in Facebook, Mobile applications, social media | No Comments »

Parking Apps Offer A Nice Option for a Platform

Friday, March 16th, 2012

The social media agency often suffers from myopia. While it may be good at local search optimization and where to advertise for maximize exposure, there are still aspects of the customer experience that are often overlooked. Sometimes things beyond the brand’s ability to control intervene between the customer’s decision to visit a merchant and actually making the visit. If the brand is in the city, then transportation is a serious concern and one of the main transportation problems is parking.

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There are now several apps available that help the customers navigate parking issues. Some of them are city specific and some are better than others at dealing with sudden traffic issues or parking meter rates. The social media agency should help customers arrive to a place to purchase products by pointing customers to the appropriate app for navigation assistance.

Some of the apps currently offer advertising and some plan to once their viability is established. Digital advertisers can also use these advertising locations as a viable sounding board. It is also possible that a referral to an app may be compensated by the app. There are several opportunities for a partnership between brands and these parking apps. Even if not a partnership, brands should embrace these apps as a way to help the customer experience. Customers are notoriously fickle and a parking problem is often enough to make them prefer a competitor, even one with an inferior product.

Parking Meets Technology

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Location based, Mobile, Mobile applications | No Comments »

Greystripe Updates Its Mobile Ads To Be More Social

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

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Greystripe, a leading mobile ad network, announced two new advertising units Wednesday which will makes its mobile ads more social and lucrative. These new units are called Ad Boosters. It is not yet known if the boosters can be applied to the same ads or if advertisers must choose between them. The first booster is geared for vertical industries allowing the advertiser to insert buttons for certain actions into the ad. The obvious application is a button within a retailer’s ad that allows the user to locate nearby stores. The button can have any design, usually the company’s brand, and its functions can vary.

The second ad booster allows for integration of the ad with social networking platforms. As of now the supported social networks are Facebook, Google+, Twitter and YouTube. The two new boosters can be applied at the bottom or within the ad itself.

These ad boosters join a lineup of boosters already offered by Greystripe. Advertisers already have the ability to add buttons for other actions, such as call the advertiser, coupons offered, buy or download more information. Greystripe does provide bundles at reduced prices geared for certain industries.

Mobile advertising is what’s hot these days and with the expected surge in mobile devices after this holiday season mobile advertising will become even more lucrative. The digital agency can use Greystripe’s new innovations to improve or even to begin mobile advertising. Greystripe’s advancements will also push other mobile ad networks to make more improvements.

Social Ads

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, Mobile, Mobile applications, advertising | No Comments »

Android Fragmentation Issues Coming Under Control

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

September data about the Android landscape has been released and the news is positive. One of the concerns facing the industry is fragmentation, where there are numerous different versions of an operating system on the market. Apple is barely affected by fragmentation because it retains such tight control over its handsets. Google’s Android, however, is severely afflicted. There are numerous releases of the OS and each handset maker is allowed to make tweaks to the OS. Handset makers are also slow rolling out updates.

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At the end of September 45.3% of Android handsets are operating on version 2.2, also known as Frozen Yogurt (Froyo for short). This is the largest segment represented. The second largest fragment is 3.2.2 – 3.2.7 also known as Gingerbread. As phones are upgraded the Android landscape will become less fragmented and the September numbers show that it is happening, even if at a slower than desired pace.

This is important for the mobile landscape because fragmentation slows down developments. An older OS may be unable to handle newer apps or functions on phones. This inability can chill developments and it can also frustrate user interactions with mobile services. The digital agency needs to encourage developments of more user-friendly apps as well as advertising-friendly apps. A frustrated user is also bad news for a digital agency because he is then less likely to make the transition to a mobile-powered world.

Android Fragmentation

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Posted in Mobile, Mobile applications, Smartphone | No Comments »

Tablets To Dominate E-Commerce

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

There is a slew of new data about tablets and e-commerce. Given how new the tablet is as a genre, it is surprising to have the data speak the way it does: retailers say 21% of their e-commerce comes from tablets and half of tablet owners use their tablet for shopping more than their phones. What is at work is the casual nature of the tablet. While not a mobile device, they provide more functionality than a desktop or laptop. The tablet is well used in the living room or other casual settings. That is precisely it will become the main e-commerce vehicle people turn to.

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To capitalize on this the digital agency needs to keep flashy tablet apps in mind. Firms need to be represented not just by an internet presence, but also by apps. The app is flashy and attractive to the user. The app also locks people into a certain set of products, where web sites are easily navigated away from. The digital firm needs to keep in mind the attractiveness of the tablet not only as a casual device but also as a gorgeous device, with video and bright color capabilities

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Mobile applications, advertising | No Comments »

Mobile Browsing On the Rise

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

More and more the digital agency needs to optimize its advertising for mobile platforms. New research from Google and the Mobile Marketing Association show that among users who have smartphones and computers, the smartphone is becoming a more preferred method of internet browsing. 58% of respondents said they had used their smartphone to go online every day. 78% of respondents had the said the same thing of their computer. That 20 point gap shrinks to 9 points when users are asked about methods for connecting to social networking sites. The nominal numbers will also rise. 2011 sees 31% of mobile users owning a smartphone and by 2015 that number will rise to 43%.

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ElectronSpy.info

The digital agency needs to begin thinking about mobile viewing options, even when the campaign is not geared to mobile users. The easy difference is the differences in web sites when viewed on a mobile site. Usually these sites are optimized, but the digital agency needs to ask what then happens to the advertising. Mobile advertisements need to also be scaled for small resolutions as well as for slower bandwidths. There are also more abstract and theoretical approaches that need to be considered.

E Marketer: Mobile Activities Rival PC for Smartphone Owners

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Posted in Business Social Networking, Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, Mobile, Mobile applications, Smartphone, advertising, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

FaceBook Begins Implementing Comment Advertisements

Monday, June 27th, 2011

FaceBook, the king of affective attachments, is experimenting with a new advertisement type that capitalizes on it as a platform for engagement. The ads are delivered like any other ad but appear like a status update. Viewers are then free to comment on those ads, and others will be able to see those comments.

Social media agencies should take advantage of these types of ads. Engagement has always been the key for brand advertising and FaceBook has been a great platform for creating that engagement. Until now, however, a user had to actively “like” a brand to have a place for engagement. There are a couple of reasons why some people who may actually be fans of a brand would hesitate to “like” the brand. Now, however, those hesitations are bypassed. These ads will probably make several companies a lot of money.

Mashable: Facebook Experiments With Comment Ads

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Posted in Business Social Networking, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Internet Advertising, Mobile, Mobile applications, advertising, google, social media | No Comments »

LinkedIn Offers New Ad Types

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Like FaceBook, LinkedIn is trying to find ways to leverage its social network into its advertising options without compromising privacy. LinkedIn has announced two new types of advertisements to capture this effort. One of these changes is to display within the ad how many of a user’s contacts recommend or follow the advertising company. The other new advertisement shows relevant people from a user’s contacts within the banner ad. It is possible for users to opt out of being featured in these advertisements.

LinkedIn New Advertising

IconSpedia.com

While LinkedIn specializes in type of contacts that may limit its appeal to the digital agency’s client, the digital agency should think about how to incorporate LinkedIn. Because of its business specialization it may never be as successful as FaceBook, but its specialization makes LinkedIn a particularly viable option for advertising solutions. These new social media marketing features will help LinkedIn advertising attain stickiness and a level of affect that makes FaceBook so successful.

Mashable: New LinkedIn Ads Leverage Recommendations & Follows

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Posted in Business Social Networking, Linkedin, Mobile, Mobile applications, Social Harbor News, advertising, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

New Social Network Tools Offer Potential

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

There are two new social networks, Sonar launched in May and Banjo this morning, which may offer the digital agency a new and inventive way to market for clients. Instead of marking friends and then telling you where those people are, these networks treat locations as the friend and then tell you whom else is nearby. Sonar will also flag the other nearby people by how many FaceBook friends you have in common. Both are available for the iPhone, but only Banjo is currently available for Android.

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AllThingsD.com

The verdict is still out on these location friending networks. Effective mobile application development means increasing the apps base usage, so others join up and continue to check in. The other problem plaguing these apps is their counter-intuitiveness. For a brick-and-mortar storefront to appear it would need to be logged into the app and only then would someone else logged in, who also happened to be nearby, see the storefront. Among early adopters, however, that might be precisely why these apps can drive some traffic. If they do take off in popularity then there might be too many nearby contacts to attract much attention, but in the nascent stages it might work very well, especially since the account is free. Digital agency’s using these networks for advertising and social media marketing should wait until there is some growth.

Read Write Web: New Wave of Social Networks Have You “Friending” Your Location

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Posted in Business Social Networking, Facebook, Location based, Mobile, Mobile applications, Social Harbor News, Twitter, advertising, digital agency, google, social media | No Comments »

Google’s Launches Brand Management Application

Friday, June 17th, 2011

Google has launched a new app called “Me On The Web’. It can be found on the Google Dashboard in between Account Information and Analytics. Most of the available tools are available as alerts, which were previously available. Managing the alerts is now easier to set up.

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Google.com

Most digital agencies now incorporate brand management into their products available for clients. This release will make that management easier to do. Of course, that is a potential problem for the digital agency, as now it might be so simple that businesses will not outsource this task. To counter this potentiality, the digital agency needs to differentiate its brand management portfolio by offering a more sophisticated service.

Mashable: Google Launches Tool for Online Reputation Management

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Posted in Mobile, Mobile applications, advertising, google, social media | No Comments »

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