Latest Posts »

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

If you still wander if an Internet campaign is suitable for your brand, or if social marketing is a bubble, don’t read this article. For me it’s incredible that there are people that still think that “you have to go to internet”. This article called App Marketing is about using Apps to build upon your brand, not about selling Apps.

Smart phones are very common in our marketplaces with up to 54% penetration in Singapore,  35% in Spain and the US or about 30% in UK. (source: communities-dominate.blogs.com) and NielsenWire shows the correlation between age and income to Smartphone penetration (Younger or Wealthier Population have more Penetration). There are several different brands of Smart Phones including Apple’s, Blackberry’s, Nokia’s & Android’s systems and according to the leading manufacturer (Apple):

15 billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store™ by the more than 200 million iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® users worldwide. The App Store offers more than 425,000 apps and developers have created an incredible array of over 100,000 native iPad apps

Hey, and the above is just statistics from Apple iOS, and Apple is not even the leading OS as Google’s Android holds 50.1% in Feb-12 while Apple holds 30.2% and RIM just 13.4% (source: ComScore).

Is your Brand on your consumer’s SmartPhone? What are you waiting for?

View full article »

I’m planning a holiday in which I will not get a chance to connect frequently to internet (specially to my social networks). So I was looking for some kind of Holiday Auto-Reply service for my social networks (specially twitter – ultimately it affects my Klout Score and my Empire Avenue Price).

View full article »

I’ve worked with people with different backgrounds (Latin Americans *from Mexico to Argentina*, Western Europeans *From Portugal to The Netherlands* and some Americans) and all have shown the same negative reaction towards leadership without background.  According to my observation, people like an expert of a given subject to direct and manage; hence a vertical career is admired.

The negative reactions appear when employees don’t understand decision taken. So the difference between a good leader and lame one is not the former experience she has, but the ability to listen, understand and talk-through her team in the direction of a given goal. And I’m not saying justify. A manager should need not justify to her reports, but help them understand why a certain decision was taken (keeping them in the loop).

  View full article »

I’m not quite sure when, but very recently Facebook announced that from March 30th all Facebook Pages will migrate to Timeline feature. With this announcement some innovation adverse people are blogging about how to stay with the old look, some are focusing on the very basic (such as the Cover Image or how to highlight a post for 7 days or even the best image size for new uploads), but what happens with the old stuff?

Apparently the brands are focusing so much on other things that are wasting precious space and sometimes image (in terms of branding) that to me is very valuable. With Timeline, your tabs can use up to 810px (from 520px) almost 300 extra pixels that even the most innovative companies are filling with white. Here are some examples:

PEPSI
COCA COLA    
WALGREENS

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

View full article »

A lot of guru’s are speaking a about winning in Social Media. They talk about earning fans or followers (which can be bought) or about reaching virality (being a TT on Twitter). But what really matters in social media is engaging with your consumers.

If your brand (or your community manager) is able to find the brand’s Influencers (key people often considered referents in your field [and every field has its distinct influencers] who command the respect of the online community) you should be able to have a conversation with them, building credibility and respect. Who know, if you’re good at it the might become evangelists.

Here’s a great example of Social Marketing. Airlines, Restaurants, Coffee Shops, Any business with passing customers should watch and learn.

And as a Bonus Track, Here’s another great Marketing Stunt, that can go viral and generate a lot of buzz (By KLM), mixing ‘massive’ stunts with one-to-one conversations is definitely the strategy for KLM.

Christmas gifts.

Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps we couldn’t control the timing of the project or something had the project stalled for several weeks and now your window of opportunity is christmas, should you go for it or should you wait?. In this article I write about my experience during Xmas time!.

Since early November (it really doesn’t matter if you’re American or not), consumers are thinking about holidays. In the northern hemisphere because it starts to get really chilly (even snowing) or for the lads down-under really hot as their summer-time break starts; either way, you’re expected to plan some little get-together with the family and exchange presents. Great time to introduce a brand new product, right?

  View full article »

I’ve talked about Facebook (basic), LinkedIn (professional) and YouTube (for video, viral & backlinks) now I will talk about several other Social Networks that can be useful to obtain traffic and hopefully motivate consumption.

Twitter:

Twitter matters to you because:

View full article »

On this article I will focus on the next 2 most important social sites for a big brand and I’m not including Twitter.

LinkedIn:

Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

This is the biggest social-networking site for business professionals. I probably shouldn’t even talk to you about it as more than 85% of my readership comes from LinkedIn. But just to be clear on my point, here are a few tips on corporate linkedin ‘ing’:

  View full article »

Let’s try to understand a little bit more this ‘social’ interaction that’s actually very impersonal. Late 2003 (yes, that far back) Mark Zuckerberg started a very successful website to connect Harvard Students to rate “Hot or Not” pictures of other students as a joke. After the success, early in 2004, TheFacebook was created… a few twitches later the “first” mayor social network Facebook is worth 50+ billion dollars.

Now, internet purist will say I’m wrong, and I am, but If you don’t get Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, it’s going to be a very uphill battle for you!. If you’re interested in the full timeline, below I’ve attached a good one I found in socialcommercetoday.com.

 

   

Back to Facebook: This website is for friends to share what they’re doing, thinking, reading, viewing… Who’s been with whom, how we spent our vacation trips, etc. It became so popular that Brands started to look for opportunities and after Facebook went public, brands got an opportunity late 2007 with the introduction of “pages”.

A lot has changed since 2007, but Facebook’s Social Media Commerce is predicted to go above 30 billion dollars by 2015 (mostly on Ads). Imagine what companies are earning from this investment!!!.

 

Is social good for business?

View full article »

Did you know that according to emarketer.com the second most important marketing tool used after a website is Email marketing? Or that it’s the third most important tactic to finding new consumers? Perhaps that almost half business executives think that integrating email with social media is a most?

My next article is about Social Media, but this one is about the power of email marketing.

View full article »

Marketing Blogs
blog