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Call Me Social: Zingaya Hooks Up Twitter To Telephone (Red Herring)
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Posted: 12/01/2010
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Ever get the feeling that there’s more to a post than ‘tweets’ the eye? For those tweets that deserve a little elaboration, UK-based VoIp startup Zingaya recently unveiled a new social media application that allows Twitter followers to call the tweeter to get the inside scoop. The service, called zin.to elevates Twitter feeds to conversation status. The company also offers a VoIP service that enables voice calls through any computer right from a web page via a microphone. “Zin.to can be a very powerful tool for businesses,” the company explains on its website. "For example, company can send promotional offers to its followers asking them to call within a certain time to get an additional discount or to win a prize.” It's only available in the US currently but will likely expand as the company develops this capability. While call forwarding is eventually based on purchased credits, the first 30 minutes of the call forwarding service is free. Those looking for a more cost-effective solution with unlimited options can simply use their Skype user name.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
North America
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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The Ultimate Question: To Optimize For Mobile Or Build An Application? (Marketing Vox)
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Posted: 11/11/2010
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A report by Taptu, “The State of the Mobile Touch Web," compares mobile web and applications and reveals upcoming trends business should keep in mind. These days, with so many vendors offering touchscreen devices, it’s not just a matter of optimizing websites or mobile, but determining if the site should also be optimized for nimble navigation and rapid loading pages on mobile touchscreens. While retail and service oriented sites are the most likely to optimize for the mobile touchscreen (20% compared to 3.6%), many consumers are already demanding the technology from the sites they frequent. The report states, "With support for HTML 5 features already being rolled out in these browsers, it's getting easier and easier to create rich touch screen user experiences with the browser without having to create platform-specific apps." Google has integrated mobile browsing into its service offerings. For instance, consumers that conduct searches will now pull up relevant apps accompanying the typical search results that can be downloaded to an iPhone.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Clearasil’s Secrets & Science Of Looking Awesome (B&T)
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Posted: 11/11/2010
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Achieving clear, radiant skin is the ultimate goal from the onset of adolescence into maturity. Now, Reckitt Benckiser’s Clearasil brand has launched a new website to promote its new ‘Secrets & Science of Looking Awesome’ brand positioning. The Website uses an online magazine to offer practical advice based on user generated content and integrates social media into the campaign by prompting users to share links and “iLike” via Facebook. “The 11 - 24 target market for Clearasil is going through life changing landmarks and with the new online platform we’ve designed and developed for them, Clearasil is acknowledging the journey and forming a deeper bond with the brand’s users,” said Tim O’Neill, joint managing director of Reactive, the digital agency that launched the campaign.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
North America,
Europe
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Stamped And Delivered: Send Gifts And Goods Using E-Mail Addresses (BBC Business News)
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Posted: 11/11/2010
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In an age where security and privacy top the list of priorities for most, a new method of sending mail is likely to garner attention. In order to acquire goods through sites like eBay, individuals are required to provide their physical address to a stranger. Now, there are several companies offering services that depend on e-mail addresses alone to deliver the goods. While most of the companies are primarily U.S.-based, gift-giving site Parcel Genie delivers across 40 countries. To send packages, all the sender needs is a username from Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Going beyond gift-giving, the U.K.’s Send Social enables users to send and receive any type of package with a special label only partner delivery companies are capable of reading. "The only piece of information you see is the information you already know - that might be a Facebook name, a Twitter id or e-mail address," says Jonathan Grubin, head of Send Social. One such partner, Bybox, operates a network of locker boxes around the UK, and deliver box-to-box, rather than door-to-door.
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Industry:
Retail & Products
Topic:
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
North America,
Europe
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Filtering The Noise: Discovery Personalizes The Online Experience (Tech News World)
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Posted: 11/11/2010
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The internet abounds with buzzwords. Now, there’s new buzz about “discovery,” the real-time aggregation and personalization of content as it is applied to an online experience. Take Amazon for example, an online retailer that makes purchasing recommendations based on your past buying behavior and others that match your browsing and purchasing habits. True discovery, however, elevates this concept to the next level: It will tie together what you have liked, purchased, viewed, discussed, and browsed, into a real-time aggregator that provides recommendations on any category of your choosing. For discovery to be completely revolutionary, it must have both an online and mobile interface. From websites like Yelp to smartphone applications like mobile GPS, several discovery platforms are in the works, including Ping, a music discovery engine launched by Steve Jobs in September.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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The Virtual Dressing Room (CNET News)
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Posted: 10/27/2010
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Finding the right fit is often one of the most frustrating elements of shopping online. Now, with the help of a new, headless “shape-shifting robot mannequin,” shoppers don’t have to simply leave their purchases to chance. Created by Estonian start-up Fits.me, the virtual fitting room service allows customers to enter their measurements and presto! The “me”-shaped mannequin previews the coveted item in whichever styles and sizes the customer specifies. The service is being tested by retailers across Europe, including Germany's Quelle and U.K.-based Hawes & Curtis. Apparel has potential for huge e-commerce gains. "Only 8 percent of clothing is currently sold online, and Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room is the disruptive technology that will enable online apparel retailers to successfully compete with traditional brick-and-mortar clothing shops," Heikki Haldre, CEO and co-founder of Fits.me said. Initial findings are very positive with a 28 percent reduction in online apparel returns, while sales increased threefold, said Haldre.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global,
Europe
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Group Buying Sites: Strength In Numbers? (Knowledge@Wharton)
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Posted: 10/27/2010
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Harnessing group buying power, e-commerce sites like Taggle, SnapDeal, MyDala, Koovs, Deals and You, and Grabbon are just a few of the group buying websites continuing to pop-up in India. With the middle-class population on the upsurge in India, there is plenty of growth opportunity for e-commerce in a developing market. "Group buying in India as a business development and customer acquisition strategy makes an enormous amount of sense," suggests Eric K. Clemons, professor of operations and information management and management at Wharton. Typical deals include retail services like restaurants, spas and salons, and weekend getaways. "The retail market in India is estimated to be close to US$500 billion, of which 17-18% is services. Even if we can take 0.5% or 1% of that market online, that is a sizeable market," notes Kunal Bahl CEO of SnapDeal parent firm Jasper Infotech. The e-commerce sites are also trying to integrate social networking into the group buying experience.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications
Region:
Asia Pacific
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Motricity Delivers User-Preferred Content On-the-Go (CIO Magazine)
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Posted: 10/27/2010
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Motricity recently launched mCore MobileCast, a service that allows wireless carriers and large companies to define content based on their smartphone users’ preferences. Requiring "zero touch" by the users, the cloud-based service takes a user’s location and prior usage into account before delivering audio, video, text and HTML5 content streamlined to the user’s preferences. For instance, a mobile user purchases tickets to a rock concert via a mobile device. Enter mCore MobileCast: The service ingests the concert data in combination with GPS data to disseminate auxillary information to the user, such as the concert's opening act, parking locations and even places to eat nearby. "All that information is in separate places today, but we aggregate it all up," said Jim Ryan, Motricity’s chief strategy and marketing officer. The company provides mobile infrastructure services to "hundreds of enterprises" and 10 major wireless carries, including the top four in the U.S., Ryan said.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Diaspora Code Released Publicly; May Improve Framework For Businesses (CIO Magazine)
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Posted: 10/27/2010
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A new project, called Diaspora, was recently released to public developers in hopes of bringing the project to fruition as a new social network – defined by community – that promises “the benefits of Facebook without the privacy concerns.” The project’s creators are at a standstill, stating, "We began the summer a list of technologies, and a few bold claims and the goal to make an intrinsically more private social network. The overwhelming response that we elicited made us realize that technology wouldn't be enough." The Diaspora project could prove useful in providing businesses with a framework for implementing proprietary, internal social networks without running the risk of divulging trade secrets or sensitive materials. With the goal to integrate Diaspora into Facebook, businesses also won’t have to sacrifice giving up the social network’s huge audience.
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|
Industry:
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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InterContinental Hotels Group Offers Hospitality With A Technical Twist (InformationWeek)
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Posted: 10/14/2010
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It’s easy to chalk IHG's, InterContinental Hotels Group, ubiquitous success up to one thing: customer loyalty. Tom Conophy, IHG's CIO, said the company’s core focus is on making customers "the center of our universe," and customer loyalty is vital to growth in the hospitality industry. The ever-growing hotel group, which owns seven hotel chains, including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and InterContinental Hotels, keeps its guest doors swinging by making business intelligence one of their core competencies. 200 million guest profiles currently occupy the company’s 25 TB database, with detailed information on 43 million loyalty plan members. The company currently receives 30 million availability requests per day, supported by its own proprietary search technology, the Bottom-Up Optimum Search Strategy(BOSS). "Search is the killer app for us," Conophy says, and with IHG’s iPhone app as the industry’s most downloaded, adding mobility is another success factor with a concept the group has named “Virtually Me.”
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Building Best-Run Businesses With SAP’s Targeted Analytic Applications (InformationWeek)
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Posted: 10/14/2010
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The demand for domain-specific business insight led SAP to launch ten SAP BusinessObjects analytic applications. The customer-centric, problem solving apps include Sales Analysis for Retail; and Trade Promotion Effectiveness and On-Shelf Availability apps for consumer products firms, whose very names reveal how the development process was led by insight from key constituencies within SAP’s customer and industry bases. "These apps attach the knowledge workers to the action so they can make better decisions and help their company become a best-run business," said SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott. While designed with the SAP core customer segments in mind, the apps do not depend on pre-existing SAP deployments so that they will reach across to non-SAP customers, as well. Backed by Sybase mobile technologies, the apps promise benefits like reports and metrics; rapid deployment and actionable analytic insights. Plans to support the apps with mobile are expected to be fulfilled by the end of 2011.
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|
Industry:
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer
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Combining Brick With Clicks Proves Profitable Among Retailers (Internet Evolution)
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Posted: 10/14/2010
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Bricks-plus-clicks is an emergent marketing strategy that combines online sales with storefront initiatives to boost sales. National brands including Gap and Nordstrom are using the tactic with success. For instance, Gap recently launched a “Universality” initiative in both Canada and the UK for consumers to simultaneously shop Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic merchandise in a “three-in-one” online store. The universality platform brings brands together online with global navigation and a universal shopping cart while the “bricks” includes new fulfillment centers to save shoppers the expense and hassle of import duties and fees and delays at customs. Showing solid sales improvements, Nordstrom is 11 months in to a fluid inventory plan that uses the Internet to connect its traditional-store inventory to its online sales site to make sure that merchandise is never overlooked on store shelves. The company’s new website also incorporates popular social media features.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction
Region:
Global,
North America,
Europe
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Chatter Mobile: Saleforce.com’s Answer To Enterprise Collaboration (Intelligent Enterprise)
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Posted: 10/14/2010
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Salesforce.com recently announced Chatter Mobile, a smart-phone application designed to bring CRM-centric, social-networking-style collaboration to Smartphones by the end of 2010. The Web 2.0-styled consumer app lets Saleforce’s Chatter users collaborate with people at work while on-the-go and in real-time. Similar to following Facebook friends and interests, Chatter enables users to subscribe to and "follow" feeds related to their business, as well as keep tabs on what customers and prospects are saying on public networks like Facebook and Twitter. Partners and customers can also "Chatterize" vertical and custom applications through the Force.com development platform. The free service is featured within the company’s cloud-based sales and service applications, which could help a mobile salesperson stay on top of what matters most as they are heading to meet with their clients.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Like This: Google Acquires Like.com (InformationWeek)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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In an effort to fortify Google’s search and e-commerce capabilities, the mega-search company recently purchased visual search company Like.com. Like.com’s computer vision and machine learning technology allows users to search and conduct visual comparisons for goods as they shop, making it particularly user friendly for mobile devices. Like.com CEO Munjal Shah confirmed the deal, stating, "We were the first to bring visual search to shopping, the first to build an automated cross-matching system for clothing, and more. We see joining Google as a way to supersize our vision and supercharge our passion." Google’s likely goal in the purchase is to beef up it core search products and image recognition services (Google Goggles), as well as intensify its social capabilities (Jambool and Slide.com) to make search more “social and more deeply integrated with e-commerce.”
|
|
Industry:
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Shazam! How One Company Plans To Change The Advertising Industry (.net)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher recently sat down with Oliver Lindberg to discuss why the company chose to charge for the popular mobile music discovery app and how the company plans to change the face of advertising as we know it. While Facebook may be the most downloaded iPhone app in the US, Shazam is Europe’s frontrunner. The app, which identifies a piece of recorded music via a mobile’s mic, tallied 50 million users across all platforms in October with the goal to double that number by the end of the year and reach 300 million users by 2015. Users are apparently willing to pay the price: the London-based start-up introduced a paid-for version of its iPhone app – Shazam Encore – with a limited free version offering five tags per month for new users. The service offers unlimited tagging, faster performance and a range of extra features such as music search and geo-location ticketing.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Top Tips To Evaluate Online Ad Value (Internet Evolution)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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When it comes to online adverstising, what is the best way to sift through the massive amounts of quantitative information available (impressions, clicks, repeat visits, context, etc.) to determine if a campaign has made any qualitative progress? According to one author, the best way is to follow six simple steps to gain measurable success: (1) Return on Investment (ROI) which, in essence, measures what you get vs. what you give; (2) Branding/awareness, which focuses on cultivating loyalty from existing clients vs. attracting new ones; (3) Positioning/SOV (share of voice), which focuses on edging out the competition; (4) CTR (click-through rate), although this dominant metric is slightly giving way to Engagement, it remains the best way to measure a campaign’s success; (5) Engagement, which is evidence that “the user did something more meaningful than clicking,” such as leaving a comment or playing a game; and (6) “Learning,” which means paying attention to all the different variables that could eventually play a role in future campaigns.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Marketing Communications
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer
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Video Girl Barbie Goes Viral (Promo Magazine)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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In true Barbie fashion, the social girl charged the virtual social world this July to build the buzz for her latest professional stint: videographer. Mattel tapped into social networks Foursquare and Twitter to launch a campaign that criss-crossed the boundaries of traditional marketing. The campaign celebrated the new Video Girl Barbie with a scavenger hunt that had fans scouring San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York to locate Barbie’s real whereabouts. The first follower to find the fashion-forward doll in each city won a Barbie Video Girl doll. “We really embraced social media as a marketing platform a year ago as part of a major campaign in support of Barbie’s 50th anniversary,” says Lauren Dougherty, director of Barbie marketing at Mattel. Barbie currently has 17,600 Twitter followers and about 440,000 likes on Facebook—more than 200,000 of those added since January. Future plans include a promotion that puts the camera in the consumers’ hands with user-generated video, as well as introducing other members of Barbie’s entourage, including Ken, onto the social platforms.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global,
North America
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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New Tweet Button Simplifies Sharing (Digital Arts)
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Posted: 09/16/2010
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In an effort to simplify sharing and make retweeting one of its core functions, Twitter recently launched a new Tweet Button, which prompts a pop-up box allowing visitors to share a Twitter feed without leaving the site they are visiting. The feature also allows publishers to incorporate custom text into their Tweet Button box, as well as suggest other Twitter accounts to follow. "The Tweet Button will help publishers grow traffic and increase their Twitter following," reads Twitter's announcement. While TweetMeme will be phasing out its popular “retweet” service, the company plans to launch other Twitter-related services. "We have grown to more than 750 million daily retweet button impressions.... That said, the market requires an official solution that can accelerate this growth. So today Twitter is launching its own Tweet Button and we are very pleased to be partnering with them to continue to grow the overall Twitter ecosystem," reads a TweetMeme statement. CNN.com, YouTube, Time.com, Hulu and USA Today have already incorporated the function into their websites.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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The Domino Effect: Popular Pizza Company Taps Into Social Marketing (ClickZ)
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Posted: 09/16/2010
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On the heels of a 61 percent increase in online sales in the UK and Ireland from the same period last year, Domino's is singing the praises of Facebook and Foursquare promotions. The global pizza chain credits growth in web-based sales (jumping from 26 to 33 percent this year) to its social media marketing tactics – which include cultivating a strong presence online with both a global Facebook page and individual local pages, as well as securing 531 Twitter followers and launching Foursquare’s geo-location service. "We've had nearly 10,000 check-ins since it launched from around 3,500 unique visitors," Georgina Wald, spokesperson for the London-based division, said. The company has also enjoyed recent growth in sales by turning their attention to search marketing.
|
|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Europe
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Asian Persuasion – Social Media Marketing In Japan (ClickZ)
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Posted: 09/16/2010
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Before MySpace and Facebook were even a glimmer in the virtual eye, Japan had Mixi – one of the country’s most popular SNS (social networking sites). While businesses in the U.S. are really only just beginning to tap into social media as a viable marketing tool, savvy businesses in Japan have been on the social bandwagon for more than 10 years, using platforms like Mixi, Gree and 2channel. Japan’s preponderance of social media might even prompt some to say that Japan was the genesis for social media marketing. The country’s rich social media platforms include: general social networking sites; video and photo sharing sites, social bookmarking sites; blog network sites, mini-blogging sites and micro social networking (SNS) sites. With most services available for both PC and mobile (unlike the U.S. where mobile is just gaining traction), mobile is already a key part of the countries inhabitants’ online lives.
|
|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Asia Pacific
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Get The Scoop: Ben & Jerry’s Launches Sweet Twitter Campaign (Promo Magazine)
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Posted: 09/16/2010
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This summer there was a new way to get the latest scoop, and this time it wasn’t breaking news – it was free samples of ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s. Led from destination to destination by consumer tweets via Twitter, the “Scoop Truck” went on a sampling tour of New York City in June and July. While the initial campaign plan left one weekday open to a virtual “see-which-way-the-tweets-blow-the-truck” kind of spontaneity, by the end of the nearly two-month tour nearly half of the sweet stops were those requested by the 3,000 local followers the tour handle @benjerrytruck amassed. Responses to outgoing tweets yielded anywhere from five to 100 responses. Although followers will still be able to get the latest scoop through Twitter and view images of the happy samplers on Flickr, the next tour is aimed Boston, where stops will be announced primarily via Facebook.
|
|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
North America
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Voices From The Crowd: Crowdsourcing May Be Ineffective Tool for Government (Fast Company)
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Posted: 09/02/2010
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Can the rise of crowdsourcing sway public policy? According to a Fast Company article, government should stick to the polls rather than relying on crowdsourcing platforms like IdeaScale, which allows the public to raise its collective voice and vote on ideas from state budgets and federal transparency to health care priorities and education. Government 2.0 crowdsourcing is an ineffective tool because it’s not reflective of the entangled way new public policy is brought to fruition – officials can’t simply tap into public opinion and then implement those ideas into law, no matter how popular they are. The article suggests that “what the government needs isn't more lofty suggestions ("End the income tax!"), but grounded ideas on how to actually get things done in Congress.”
|
|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications
Region:
North America
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Social Media Becomes Key Tactic For Strategy Execution (Forbes)
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Posted: 09/02/2010
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Scores of consumers are using social media to connect, express and impact the world around them, and savvy marketers are tapping its power, too, with nearly 80% implementing the medium to bring their customers to the table rather than talk at them from the proverbial soapbox. While much of the literature highlights how companies can implement social media outside of their organizations, there is significant room to use social media as an inside strategy tool, too. Bad communication can freeze any organizational idea, especially if employees feel ostracized from the process. What better way to get the entire organization on board with a branding initiative or new program than using social media as a strategy to help organizations better talk with, rather than talk at their employees. The tool will not only help companies build and execute better strategies but build stronger employee cultures in the process.
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|
Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business
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Online Game Features Upscale Brands To Give Users A Virtual Retail Fix (BrandWeek)
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Posted: 09/02/2010
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Popsugar's new online game, "Retail Therapy", merges social gaming with e-commerce to give users an insanely addictive fashion fix. Available on Facebook and at Playretailtherapy.com, the game can be played for free or users can purchase virtual goods priced from $1 to $100. Here's how the fashion-forward game works: players fill empty store shelves with virtual goodies from premier labels like Banana Republic, Barneys New York, Gap and Juicy Couture. Sponsors like Diane von Furstenberg and Topshop have even opted to launch virtual stores in which users can purchase products. Players can also make the leap into any of the retailers' sites to fill their shopping carts with real merchandise. Friends can visit other friends' shops or create unique looks to share among their networks. By modeling aspects of the game after the wildly popular Farmville, CEO Brian Sugar "believes that Retail Therapy can entice users to open up their wallets . . . to purchase virtual goods by promising competitive advantages and overall better game play."
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications
Topic:
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Kitty Crowdsourcing? New Service Helps Businesses Collect And Rank Innovative Ideas (Fast Company)
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Posted: 09/02/2010
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When Princeton sociology professor Matthew Salganik came across KittenWars.com, he knew he found a valuable model for his own crowdsourcing website, All Our Ideas, which merges sociology and computer science techniques to enable organizations to collect ideas and rank them more effectively. A virtual idea factory, the service allows users to launch their own question and answer websites. If neither answer presented is acceptable to visitors, they can simply add their new ideas to the mix. Those new ideas then get filtered into the voting pool. Salganik explains, “If you ask for suggestions, especially online, you may get thousands of ideas that can take weeks to sort through. On the other hand, if you use a survey with preset questions and answers, you can get lots of data but few new ideas." The service is already gaining traction with organizations like Princeton’s class of 2008 student government, which used the tool to pinpoint the most pressing issues on undergrads minds.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business,
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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We cut through the clutter of the web to highlight innovation and forward-thinking. The best stories from leading publications – hand selected and organized to provide you a single point of access.
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