Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

Friday Wrap-Up # 2 – Google Doodle, Apple iPhone, Microsoft & More

There is no lack of both original and rehashed efforts in advertising and marketing. We are back again with all the latest, important marketing news and marketing efforts that made waves this past week.

1. Google Doodles are sure to leave behind a vast legacy, should they ever cease to make new ones in the future. The best part are the Doodle competitions that result in some extremely interesting submissions that pour in from all over the world. This was the fourth consecutive year of the competition and the theme was simple – to illustrate your ‘best day ever’. Shown here is the winning entry by 17-year old Wisconsin resident Sabrina Brady, and it’s easy to see why it touched a cord.

2. Apple new ad for the iPhone breaks away from its usual style to adopt downtempo tunes and grainy, even Instagram-like visuals – establishing itself even more firmly as the hipster’s go-to device. The 60-second spot claims Apple has more music lovers than any other type of smartphone, however the same is based on only iTunes sales data, which seems a bit arbitrary, given the many other popular sources of music available.

3. The new Microsoft ad for Windows 8, though, isn’t chancing any subtlety. The 30-second ad basically takes potshots at 3 things Apple – Siri, the iPad, and Apple’s marketing, and succeeds hilariously.

4. This one is a definite bonus! Kmart’s recent ads have all been able to elicit a laugh or two from everyone who watched them, and their latest ‘Big Gas Savings’ campaign combines toilet humour innuendos with side-splitting, punny sketches for an even better impact. See for yourself:

Did you like one or more these campaigns? We’d love to hear your opinion – let us know in your Comments!

The Tuesday Bite-Sized News Edition

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1) Hackers take over 90,000 WordPress blogs. If you are a WordPress user, Matt Mullenweg (a WordPress Founder) has some security tips for you, just in case.

2) Dove’s latest 3-minute YouTube ad goes viral after addressing the perception vs. reality beauty issue. The ad has a former SJPD forensic artist sketching women’s faces based only on the way they describe themselves, while having no way of seeing them. The results sure are food for thought.

3) Google Glass is finally ready to ship, but only to early adopters and developers. A proper worldwide launch seems closer than previously estimated.

4) How To Monetise Google Hangouts – didn’t think it was possible? Glamour magazine proves otherwise by incorporating product placements in Google Hangouts.

5) Facebook is expanding its ads targeting by allowing advertisers to target 500 specific segments such as ‘Car Buyers’, ‘Luxury Apparel Buyers’ based on user purchases.

6) The hyper-local mobile app Foursquare has launched a major update for its iOS app, and so, Foursquare 6.0 is now in the app store. The primary focus of the app appears to have shifted from discovering what your friends are doing to discovering what you can do.

Friday Wrap Up! #1

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Technology hardly ever has a slow week and the same applies to this one, too. So, we are back with our weekly wrap-up of interesting news to keep you updated – with bite-sized info-nuggets (yes, yes, we can’t believe we said that either.)

For starters, Pew Internet released an extremely illuminating study on the e-book trend, bringing to light the fact that at least 21% American have read an e-book and these digital book versions are definitely, inarguably, here to stay.

CareerBliss, the employer review site also released their findings on the happiest tech companies in America and, don’t we know it, Google came out on top, while Texas Instruments and Avaya rounded off the top three.

A BIA/Kelsey study also shed light on the incredible potential and growth of Social Advertising as it forecasts that U.S. Social Ad Revenues are set to skyrocket to $11Bn in 2017. You can read the study in full here.

Google also added a new tool to its existing plethora of quirky tools called the Inactive Account Manager. It doesn’t matter if you are taking an extended vacation or are planning your digital afterlife – the (unfortunately named) Inactive Account Manager will address your needs.

Speaking of Google, a few days ago, we covered the doom of Google Reader on our Apps Mav blog. On our list of Top 5 suggested alternatives was Pulse Reader and what seems like an extremely promising move, LinkedIn has acquired the company for approximately $90 million.

Last, but definitely not the least, Twitter’s ill-kept secret, the Twitter Music app will be releasing today. The app will focus mainly on music trending on Social Media, quite like Twitter, and have purchase options, as well.

We’ll be back next Friday with the next wrap-up. Until then, share your feedback, bouquets, brickbats in the Comments section and stay glued for other social media updates!

The Maverick Mav Friday Wrap-Up

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Technology doesn’t have a slow day any longer, thanks to the ceaseless wonders of social media, and this Friday we bring a wrap up of all the news you may have missed, but shouldn’t have. For starters, the hashtag to create enormous waves on Twitter this week would have made Pinocchio proud – #BestLieEver, a hashtag started by Jai Brooks from right here in Melbourne became popular enough to start a clique of its own. Check out what people had to contribute (and you can bet they had a LOT), here.

Pinterest works like a charm to get exposure for your products if your brand is about fashion, food or design, but not everyone knows how to work it yet (If you need assistance managing your social media presence or only Pinterest? Send us an inquiry today for a customized solution!) However, Mashable has put together a handy little slideshow depicting 10 extremely creative, and innovative uses for Pinterest.

It’s been a good week for art and poetry aficionados, too, with the New York Times’ Poetry Month kicking off with the launch of their haiku Tumblr. The George Eastman House, world’s oldest photography museum also joined the Google Art Project and is now available online for public viewing with a total of more than 40,000 works of art.

We also came to hear of Facebook creating new APIs to track comment threads after launching the ‘Reply’ to Comments feature last week, to help brands identify most popular comments, replies, and threads. Also keeping us occupied was Socialbakers’ fantastic analysis of the Game of Thrones’ fandom on social media, which is now apparently as big as Westeros itself (figuratively speaking, of course). Check out their fantastic infographic here. Additionally, LinkedIn has added a ‘mention’ feature to its platform, Facebook-style.

The biggest, yet the most underwhelming news, however, was the launch of Android: Facebook Home. While many were hoping for it to be the Facebook Phone or a Facebook OS, it is neither. Instead, it is a new home screen and app launcher interface for select Android smartphones. Watch Facebook’s ad for Facebook Home to understand how Facebook thinks it can help you.

Read more about Facebook Home here, and while we bid you adieu and give ourselves unto the weekend, we will be back soonish with more technology news. Have a good one, until then!

Your brand should Graph Search too

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Recently, Mark Zuckerberg introduced Graph Search to the Facebook users. Chances are that if you did not activate your Graph Search feature on 24th January, you will be waiting in the queue for a while to get your hands on this interesting search tool.

Say hello to Graph Search

If you ever wondered what Facebook planned to do with all the data collected over the years Graph Search is the answer. While Google has introduced social angle to search engine, Facebook has now introduced search into social media. So, search Facebook. Find out what your friends are doing, what do they like, people with common interests and more with a general or a more specific search.

How can you use it?

Now, all the personal data of your network is available to help you make faster, better and personalized choices. It’ll help you get references, suggestions or recommendations as well. It makes it easier for you to find things about people you know well, but maybe not well enough. So, you would like to go on an adventure trip, and don’t have company? Do a quick Graph Search to find out friends who might be interested in it, and chances are one, some or all of them might be willing to join you!

Graphs Search for brands

Brands always want to know their audience better, graph search is an answer to them getting to know their fans better. What do their fans like? What are the other likes or dislikes of their fans? Much more specific data will be now available for the brands to connect better with their fans.

Graph search will help brands slice and dice the community into smaller fragmented communities based on their preferences and choices which will help marketers build more relevant campaigns to woo them.

What can we ‘offer’ you today?

What if we knew that a lot of Apple users like to go to Mc Donalds in Sydney? Mc Donald’s would then come up with special offers for Apple users in Sydney, as a result the brand can expect a happier fan base, positive word of mouth, and better sales for Mc Donald’s!

Future of Graph Search

A positive possibility of graph search is instant advertising straight from the search. How would you
feel if the search revealed that 1000 fans of your page like partying. You could throw a party and send instant invites or create an Facebook ad visible to these 1000 fans to start with, your campaign is sure to get a higher response rate. So, more targeted and instant advertising is a possible result of Graph Search.

So, brands – it’s time to get some graph searching done for your pages!