Blog Archives
Don’t be Victim of Walkxting, Type and Walk with Grace
I’m sure it’s happened to all of us at least once, and maybe others a lot more. If it hasn’t happened to you then I’m sure you’ve seen it happen to an unsuspecting stranger. That’s right victims of texting and walking or what I call walkxting, LOL. I can admit I’ve tripped on things replying to a tweet or sending a text to the hub. Since we live in such an instant gratifying and impatient world simply saying stop walking and texting is not going to cut it. So since this still is an issue by seeing this video below, and lol to the girl who fell in the fountain.
$0.99 app uses your iphone camera to display as the background of your text messages, #genius! Well minus a few details that are kind of annoying. In coming messages or tweets don’t get launched within the app, you actually have to open it separately. It also doesn’t display your entire text convo. But nonetheless it allows you to type out a novel while walking through the subway unscathed.The Next Gen Mangers of Tomorrow
I read an interesting blog post written by the General Manager of Wireless Networking for the Cisco Business Unit. He obviously sees all of the insights and trends on how people like to connect. One of the biggest things he points out is that they love to connect. This is especially true in the Gen x and y. But, here’s the catch it’s not about calling people with these devices. It’s all about staying socially connected. 
Cisco backed this up by surveying 2800 young professionals and college in 14 countries. Not surprising that living without the internet for half of the participants couldn’t be an option, but if forced choose two-thirds would give up their cars to have the internet instead! There is definitely an intense desire to be around the clock connected. He says, “This intense desire to be connected leads to a demand for greater flexibility: Two out of five people said they’d accept a lower-paying job if the position offered greater flexibility on access to social media, the ability to work from where they chose, and choice on the mobile devices they could use on the job.”
“Choice on the mobile devices,” this hits home with me and I’m sure to all the digital marketing professionals. With needing to be socially connected in your day to day duties there is no way to efficiently do this without using a smartphone with the most up to date social apps available. Trust me I’ve had to take a break from my iphone and I feel my social world has been crippled. When you’re managing multiple social sites and fan pages you have to have the most sophisticated device to do so.
While on the subject of social media he goes on is his blog about how social media is overtaking phones and email and becoming the dominant form of communication. He says, “Young people are driving this change, with the one-to-one mode of interacting giving way to a one-to-many mind-set.” This is huge because social can be embraced by organizations, for project updates, feedback, and internal communication period. These new age thinkers want their voices heard and want to be able to shape a companies vision and strategy.
Everyday more and more companies are realizing that their old gen customers are going away and they have to discover how to engage this younger savvier market that is taking over. But, the important piece that solves this puzzle is how are they accepting this new generation into their company culture. The reality is, the internet has allowed positions to be more virtual and the old school way of needing to be face to face can still happen, but just in a virtual way. In order for companies to attract this new savvy leader that have got start in house changing their culture and embracing social media to help with recruiting. Old school saying, “fish where the fish are, duh.”
Read more from “the Days of “managers knows best” Is Ending”
~Tanesha White
Typosquatting Don’t Be Victom
It’s funny that I came across Hubze’s blog post about this just days after something like this happened to me. There are so many scammers out there that take advantage of so many people everyday on the internet. Since the rise of spoof emails years back and still today I’m always very wary of the links I click on, and always pay close attention to the URL it actually takes me too.
Well during my speed typing I was planning on visiting Twitter.com but instead I typed Twtter.com. honest mistake, but I saw right away the URL was for a survey site, and these sneaky little programs mirrored Twitter, so I’m sure many people fell for the spoof and ended up paying up from all the text messages racked up because they prompted you to enter a mobile number. 
These Typesquatters take full advantage of popular sites and use similar “typoed” urls to fool you. So be aware of what is displayed in the URL bar not what the site looks like. Just just a word of advice that is valuable to pass onto those that are less internet savvy.
Cheers,
Your Diva:)
Short Link Love your Way to Better Tracking
Short links have been around for some time now and since Twitter, and micro blogging obviously don’t seem to be going anywhere short links are a definite must!
But, have you really taken a look at the real importance of short links? So many different providers out there offer these convenient little tools and the best part is that most of them are free. To help you narrow it down go for the ones that aren’t throwing up advertising. To narrow it down even further go with one that offers tracking and analytic tools.
I have found that if you’ve got event specific banners that you can really zoom in how effective it is and when used simoultaneously with your web analytics you can really trim off the “fat” and know what’s really working. URL shortening services even offer social toolbars to help enhance your business or personal social media efforts. One that I particulary like using is Visibli. Super call and totally customizable with great analytics, well at least for being free. if you want some more advanced tracking simply upgrade to pro.
Well happy marketing!
Ciao,
The A.D
Online Reviews Disclosure Are you Kidding?
Online reviews have definitely changed the way we consumers do business. Now we really don’t have to worry about purchasing products or doing business with a company by taking a shot in the dark. Online reviews has helped us make a more informed buying decision as well as give feedback on our experience with the product or services provided by businesses.
I was listening to talk radio in the car on my way home when a discussion came up about how a dentist was trying to get patients to sign a disclosure saying that they would not be able to post or say anything about him or his practice! I couldn’t believe this guy and listening to the callers who phoned in were with me! It makes you think that, wow is the service really going to be that bad? Not to mention the freedom of speech topic.
Long story short that didn’t fly so well in the legal sense of course. And we all have to face it, no business is 
going to be perfect. But as a consumer if see that a business or product has hundreds of reviews and small number of negatives it makes you think what that customer did differently to have such an off the wall experience. And in most cases it looks more credible anyway, because we all know no one is perfect.
So just keep building your reputation by offering the best customer service ever and just learn and grow from negative reviews to help you become better!
Ciao<3
The A.D
Knowing your Social Sharers.
I came across this article and it sparked some interest to me. It gives some great stats on the usage of cool location based coupon promoting apps such as, Living Social and Groupon. Let’s face it they have cool business models, it gives the opportunity for businesses to be showcased to a large following that probably may not have ever come to their business before. And, the incentive to the consumer….. a sweet deal fom 50%to 75% off!
Here are some of the facts they pointed out below:
Purchasing local deals was more frequent among users under age 45. Those ages 25 to 44 were most likely to purchase a deal overall.
Other research also shows that, while usage of social shopping sites is fairly robust among older internet users, millennials and Gen Xers are more likely to be users.
Research firm Morpace found in February 2011 that 40.2% of 18- to 34-year-old online consumers used Groupon, compared with 34.1% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 23.2% of those 55 and over. Read more
So when thinking of these sources to advertise in are you considering target market? Is that your ideal market, an can your business really craft a message to be appealing to this market? It may seem like big chunk of money to give up, but consider these things first being completely turning away.
Cheers,
Tanesha White
The A.D
Online, Social, and Mobile oh MY!
Digital ad spending is of course on the rise, obviously it certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is just how consumers like to stay engaged. I was reading in eMarketer that they predict online ad spending will reach $28.5 billion this year. Mobile will contribute an additional $1.1 billion to the digital ad market, and social networking sites will increase revenues by 55%.
Looking at this in the auto perspective what will dealers do to engage this generation, but most importantly how are they going to engage the biggest influencers of the Gen Y? Being that segment myself I don’t think that they’ve really taken this into consideration. I just returned from a big conference all about using technology to engage GEN Y, but in all honesty a lot of companies are putting the wrong the message into their heads. We’ll see, this is going to be a continued topic for me to hit on for a while so stay tuned.
Your Diva!
The Digital Diva 