Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category

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Twitter Hits Two Milestones

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

On Tuesday Twitter announced that it is now releasing promoted tweets into user’s timelines on mobile devices. The rollout is only for iOS and Android devices. Twitter is also allowing brands using promoted tweets to target desktops or mobile devices only, as well as specific platforms of the mobile devices.

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Until this announcement promoted tweets were limited to users that followed the brand purchasing the promotion. Twitter says it’s testing has gone very well and now similar interests will be enough to deliver a promoted tweet into a timeline.

Twitter also announced on Wednesday that it now has 140 million active users. 55% of those users log into their Twitter accounts at least once per month from a mobile device. This is a huge base of people that can be reached via Twitter. It is also a very quickly growing base. The 140 million figure represents a 40% growth since September.

Being able to reach people that are not a brand’s followers but that do show similar interests is a huge boon for the social media agency. Given the size of Twitter’s base and the ease of reaching them with promoted tweets, Twitter should be a top social network for brands’ outreach.

Twitter’s Milestone

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Posted in Mobile, Twitter, 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 »

Google Enables Local Search Across Platforms

Friday, March 9th, 2012

Google now allows people to conduct local searches on a PC and access the history of those searches on mobile devices. It is easy to see how this will be useful, a user can do a local search from home on brunches in a certain area and then go out and access those results from his mobile device.

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On the mobile browser a ‘recent’ button on the Google homepage will allow this information to be retrieved. This will be beneficial for those businesses that depend on mobile local searches. Not only will this feature make local searches more prominent by introducing more (some) functionality to a local search on a PC, but it will also make mobile use of local search results easier. Many people may refrain from searching because of the bandwidth issue. This update resolves much of that dilemma.

A second reason this is a useful change for the social media agency is because it promotes better data mining. A user can now move more seamlessly across devices, which will better help Google obtain data about that user on multiple devices. Google will now be better able to see how people use their devices in conjunction with each other and how they are used differently. All in all this will improve the targeting of advertisements to both mobile and non-mobile devices.

Google Enables Local Search

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Posted in Mobile, advertising, google | No Comments »

Mobile Users Are Finicky But That Can Be Managed

Friday, February 24th, 2012

People between 18 and 24 are on their phones an incredible amount. Nine out of ten are on their phones one to five hours each day. But that tenth one is one his phone more than five hours each day. Not only are they on their mobile devices an incredible amount, but they actually like having marketers send them promotions as long as those promotions are capable of being opted-out of. This research was conducted by mBlox with a sample size of 4,000 people, so its results can be considered valid.

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The opt-out provision is not the only concern. Users do have other privacy concerns. They want local offers and promotions but they do not want brands being informed of their whereabouts. There is also concern about credit card theft. These concerns point to more success for promotions informing the user of a nearby brick and mortar vendor rather than an online vendor.

If that is the case, then it makes relevance a harder target for the mobile advertiser. But users might be willing to take lengthy surveys if it increases the relevancy of the promotion. Fortunately, in the survey only 34% of respondents stressed the relevancy issue. Not to mention Groupon’s initial success was founded upon the irrelevant deal, deals for products people didn’t think they wanted. When answering surveys users say that want only relevant advertising, but there is reason to think the actual preference is different than that stated preference.

Not only are promotions a viable way to spread information about a brand, but the infrastructure for those promotions is also a viable place for digital agencies to spread messages. Mobile users are responsive to ads and promotions and if it is done without wide broadcasts, then they would also be enthused by receiving proximity based promotions.

The New Smartphone Advertising

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

Samsung Blurs The Phone Tablet Divide

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Samsung’s new Galaxy Note is a large smartphone, large enough that it blurs the line between smartphone and tablet. Despite appearances it is a phone. It has a 4G connection through AT&T and it accepts data as well. The screen is 5 inches which boosts real estate for a better reading experience and it also comes with a stylus. One of the bloatware apps is Samsung’s AllShare Play which uploads all documents and photos to the cloud for access on any device running AllShare Play, which does not include any Apple device includes Macs. The phone is clearly designed to be a productivity device instead of just a consumption device.

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If the Note sells well it may pave the way for new devices following the format. That would be good news for the digital marketing firm. The problem with tablets has always been that they are portable and not mobile devices. They are too cumbersome to be good for local searches. They are great, however, at display advertising, which mobile devices are not good at. A series of devices following the Note’s lead would change that. These devices are a digital marketer’s dream.

Pushing Tablet Boundaries

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Posted in Mobile | No Comments »

Tablets To Replace Laptops

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

The exploding tablet market has always been entertaining to watch. Not only did the genre explode onto the scene, but it helped reshape the way digital agencies need to approach mobile computing. Although the issue had always been about supplementing computing needs. The thought was that people would have tablets and smartphones and also either a laptop or a desktop. According to a new study by Poll Position that assumption is suspect.

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46% of adults believe that tablets will replace laptops. This belief is especially true among adults (30-58) and young adults (18-29). This has a couple of meanings for the digital agency. People either think tablets are productive enough or that they are close to productive enough to be productivity devices in the near future. This will open up space for the digital agency to target tablet ads towards productivity devices and not just as consumption machines. The digital agency needs to also recognize this as the beginning of the end for non-mobile marketing. If productivity turns to mobile devices then it makes sense to only specialize in advertisements geared towards mobile devices, which can be displayed on desktops.

Even if the tablet does not replace the laptop, this belief will accelerate tablet sales. Tablets will take a larger share of people’s computing attentions in the future.

Tablet Future

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Posted in Internet News, Mobile, Technology, tablets | No Comments »

Businesses To Increase iPad Purchases

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Among tablets the iPad reigns supreme. That is especially true for business purchases. The only tablet to be of any serious competition is the Kindle Fire and as far as businesses are concerned it is not an option. The Kindle Fire is built for consumers and not for productivity, leaving the iPad as the only real option for businesses interested in a tablet. This is important because more and more businesses are looking to compliment their workflow with tablet devices.

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Even small businesses, those with less than 50 employees, are likely to purchase a tablet in 2012. A new survey by NPD shows that 54% of these small businesses plan to purchase tablets this year. As the size of the business grows so too does the desire for a tablet purchase.

The digital marketing agency needs to keep in mind the growing importance of tablets not only for consumption but also as productivity tools. This mean there needs to be a change in what is advertised on tablets, but there also needs to be a change in how advertising is conducted. The better advertisement on a productivity app, for example, will not require the user to break away from the productivity app.

Because of the iPad’s dominance in the tablet field the digital marketer also needs to step up efforts on those aspects of the iPad that are most popular. Sometimes these apps are also popular on Android based mobile devices, but the digital firm needs to look specifically to the apps most popular on the iPad.

Ipad and Business

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Posted in Mobile, Technology | No Comments »

Businesses Need to Go Mobile First

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

2011 was such a good year for mobile advertising that businesses now need to go mobile first in their digital marketing presence. Smart phones are now so integral to a shopping experience that it often begins on the smartphone and ends if there is no mobile presence. Of smartphone users 79% use the mobile device within the shopping experience: searching, map-searching, price comparison, etc…

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Tablets have also become nearly omnipresent in the shopping experience. It’s now a third screen that all marketers need to address. All of these trends point to not only a need for firms to be online and mobile optimized, but they need to be focused on mobile devices first. That is now the first priority. As more and more people acquire mobile devices over the holiday season 2012 will only have intensified the 2011 trends. Mobile campaigns are also able to drive engagement. Mobile not only brings customers to conversion sites, but it also brings consumers into the brand’s fold for future conversions.

Businesses going mobile

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Mobile | No Comments »

Augmented Reality Apps As Advertising

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

The augmented reality app has been around for a few years now, but until recently mobile devices were not powerful enough to make the most of their potential. There has always been a potential to place businesses inside the frame, so when a user looks through the app at a city scene he could see the businesses that are nearby. Certain layers would also help so a ‘pizza’ layer could be applied and the app would then show what pizza vendors are in the frame.

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Moosejaw, a retailer of outdoors wear, recently deployed another use for these apps. The app, when pointed to a Moosejaw advertisement, would show the models in the ad in just their underwear. The applicable ads could be old media or new media. The app drew a lot of attention, much of it negative. But the numbers show a 37% growth in sales from the same time period the previous year. Esquire and Starbucks have already used augmented reality apps in the past, but they did not report a growth in sales close to the level Moosejaw is reporting.

The internet marketing firm can take note of this creative use of augmented reality. Maybe copying this exact use is not appropriate, but it shows the power of a creative approach to already existing technology.

Moosejaw App

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Posted in Mobile, advertising, digital agency | No Comments »

Tablet Users Watch More Video

Monday, November 14th, 2011

A new report from Ooyala.com offers some interesting data for the digital marketing firm. Comparing tablet viewing to desktop viewing, the tablet viewer watches 30% more videos. Not only is the tablet user watching more videos, but also the user is more likely to watch videos to completion even if they are longer. Of all videos played on tablets, 56% of them were 10 minutes or longer. That is a shocking amount of patience and good news for firms that integrate creative video into advertising campaigns.

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This is significant for the digital agency because it provides clues about video ads and linking ads to videos. If the ad is pushed onto a tablet device, then that user will be more likely to follow an ad into a video playing mode than if the ad is pushed onto a desktop.

Some other data provided by the report is about cord-cutting video devices. Last quarter saw a tripling of the number of video seen by Boxee and video enabled gaming consoles. These devices still only account for a small portion of video consumption, but they are growing. Not only are more people owning the hardware for but those who do own are watching more and more content.

The report is offered as a free download once registered with Ooyala.com.

Video Report

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

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