The Big Sauce Survey!

We are recruiting video research participants with menu creation and/or purchasing decision making responsibilities in commercial kitchens (restaurant, catering, hospital, hotel). Participants will be compensated $100 to film a short video in their work kitchens using a smartphone or other digital video camera.

What you need to do:

1. Set-up a MindSwarms account at www.MindSwarms.com or Download the iPhone app.
2. Click the “Sauce Study for Food Service Operators” and apply,  answering the 5 short text questions. You must add #GigCoin to the first screener response!
3. Wait to be accepted to the Sauce Study.  You’ll receive email notification.
4. Once accepted, go to the kitchen where you work.  Answer the 7 video questions using your iPhone/iPad.
5. Check the upload tabs and make sure all the videos go through.
6. The $100 compensation is sent via PayPal 24 hours after finishing

The research videos are easy and fun to do. It’s a great way to share your opinion and impact a major sauce company’s products.

Your video response will be private, only viewable to the researcher team. You will remain be anonymous, only your first name and initial of last name will show.

Not a good fit for this research project?

Sign-up at GigCoin to get alerts for future gigs! Use Chrome and give Your Profile some LOVE to get more gigs!!

Have friends that might be a good fit for this research project?

Refer them for the chance to win $100: 

Refer a friend

Questions? Reach us at info@gigcoin.com.

National Association of Business Owned Women

• 81% are optimistic about their 2013 business performance
• 81% are more optimistic than they were in 2012
• 85% think more women will become entrepreneurs in 2013

Click here to see the State of Women-Owned Business Infographic.

I participated in the #wgbiz chat around the study’s release, and was impressed by the open sharing and camaraderie. On that note to really make this the year of female entrepreneur, we need to work together. So go open some doors and bring a few gals with you!

Women Grow Business: A great blog and the biweekly #wgbiz twitter chat. Part of the web.com team that sponsored the study.

Women 2.0: A group focused on helping women start-ups. I was at their Women 2.0 conference in San Francisco yesterday. An amazing group of speakers, mentors and attendees participated. They have Founder Fridays around the country.

She’s Geeky: I started a business because of this one. This is more a retreat than a conference. If you get a chance to attend one of these jump on it.

DC Web Women: A group focused on promoting women in technology and all things digital . They have events, but the heart of the group is the list serve. You get flooded by emails but the amount of support and the real gems make it worthwhile. It helps you find high quality local WBOs to support. It’s DC focused, but look for a local equivalent. If there isn’t one locally, it’s time to get one started.

The National Association of Women Business Owners:  The other sponsor of the study. I was impressed with all they are doing to help WBOs build their businesses.

The Digital Sisterhood:  This is my business zen go to source. I have found a lot of community and support through this group. I like how they celebrate diversity and inclusiveness.

Tumblr may never have factored into your consideration before. Over the years, demographics showed that it was mostly used by a younger population. But due to recent growth and the functionality that Tumblr offers, you might want to give it a tumble!

Tumblr, is best described as a microblogging site. Launched in 2007, Tumblr has experienced tremendous growth over the past several years.

Forbes magazine, recently reported,  “In November [Tumblr] shouldered its way into the top ten online destinations, edging out Microsoft’s Bing and drawing nearly 170 million visitors to its galaxy of user-created pages, according to the measurement firm Quantcast. Tumblr’s tens of millions of registered users create 120,000 new blogs every day, for a total of 86 million and counting, which drive some 18 billion page views per month.”

Growth aside, Tumblr may be a perfect solution for you because of its quick and easy interface. “…with the aid of a dashboard, the interface for finding and following other users and keeping track of the feedback their posts receive. Hearts are good; ‘reblogs’ are better, suggesting another user liked your post enough to share it with his or her followers. The tools for creating these multimedia posts are simple: seven buttons that let you add text, photos, hyperlinks, video, music, dialogues or quotes with a click.” (Forbes magazine)

Tumblr’s seven buttons

Tumblr has the ease of use of set-up that many businesses will welcome. Novices can be up and running in no time.  And, there are many great themes to choose from including many free ones, others priced from $9-$49, and ones you can customize for your specific corporate look and feel.

Tumblr’s Strengths

JD Rucker points out a few of Tumblr’s strengths worth noting:

• A strong built-in community allows for instant visitors to your site through proper tagging.
• Reblogging makes posting content easier than even posting the unique content. Unlike WordPress, Tumblr actually encourages reblogging and tracks it for the source.
• Direct integration with Facebook and Twitter is native to Tumblr; there are WordPress plugins available, but native is always better for integration.
• There is nothing wrong with using a subdomain on Tumblr.com. It’s just as robust as putting it on your own domain, whereas WordPress.com is a symbol of weakness.

How Tumblr Differs from Other Social Networking Sites

GigaOM quoted Tumblr’s founder and CEO, David Karp, as saying, “Tumblr deliberately chose ‘reblogging’ as an alternative to commenting because, at a certain scale, internet forums degenerate into a ‘horrible world of internet anonymousness and awfulness.’”

According to Karp, “…comments are ‘a second class feature’ because a commentator is subsumed to a tiny text stream below the main piece of content. To foster engagement, Tumblr is instead choosing options like ‘Fan mail’ which aspire to create more careful, thoughtful and elegant interactions.”

How Businesses Use Tumblr

Businesses are taking advantage of Tumblr’s multifaceted features and putting them to great use.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker uses a Tumblr theme (one which you can choose to purchase by the way) that looks just like their website.  The New Yorker Tumblr shares paragraphs from articles in current issues and then encourages the user to continue reading by clicking through to their website. It’s a really nice way to engage the microblog reader who is sifting through a lot of content to help them determine if they want to read more.

HuffPostTech

HuffPostTech publishes short updates, many times with a photo and caption, and always a good amount of relevant tags. They also take advantage of the easy way to link to their other social profiles, and the optional “ask” feature which is a great way to have users engage with you.

Target

Target’s Tumblr site, “On the Dot. A Dose of Daily Style” makes good use of the real estate for photos by showcasing styles they’re offering. Other times, they choose to do something instructional that their audience may enjoy, such as “Instant Bangs.”

IBM Global Business Services

There are times when one Tumblr site may not do everything you want. You may be targeting different users, doing a time-limited event, dedicating several months to a particular discussion in your industry. IBM Global Business Services maintains three special purpose Tumblr sites—one which focuses on social business, two others on  smarter planet and smarter cities.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods Market offers an online magazine on Tumblr entitled Dark Rye different from their other online presences that “brings together pioneers of unconventional ideas to explore the edges of the creative life. It’s leisure storytelling steeped in a vision of a sustainable, decadent, and curious life. “

Final Thoughts

All in all, Tumblr provides ways to tie-together your online messaging and also as a way to show an alternate more creative side of your business that you haven’t done elsewhere. Tumblr pulls together many of the features that users have come to depend on from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and more.

Suggested Resources:

Tumblr Starter Kit via Unnecessary Ligatures

Tumblr Guide 101: Tips And Tricks For Building Your Site, Posting And More via Huffington Post

Should You Be On Tumblr: Seven Business Case Examples via Social Media Examiner

Does your business have a Tumblr site? How are you currently using it? Let us know your impressions and experiences with Tumblr in the comments below.

photo credit: Scott Beale via photopin cc

The year will certainly be remembered for many advancements in social media but the four that truly stand out to us at GigCoin are the ways in which:

• Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing reached new heights
• Social Media became more mobile
• The brand’s social media experience moved beyond FaceBook and Twitter
• Infographics became a more adopted and valued way to communicate marketing messages

#1 The Acceleration of Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing

Crowdfunding reaches new heights in 2012

Michael Sullivan first defined crowdfunding in 2006 as “the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money together, usually via the Internet, in order to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns.”

This year, we’ve seen significant activity and discussion around crowdfunding including two major milestones: the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS Act) on March 8^th, and The Crowdfund Act signed into law on April 5^th.

There has also been a notable increase in crowdfunding platforms for users to choose from. The Crowdfunding Industry Report stated that as of April 2012, 452 crowdfunded platforms (CFPs) were operating globally. Research firm Massolution estimates “the crowdfunding industry (equity + donation + lending +reward crowdfunding) will grow from $1.5 billion in 2011 to $2.8 billion in 2012.”

#2 The Rise of Mobile Social Media

The impact of smartphones and tablets, 3G and 4G networks, along with increase in public WiFi hot spots and the expanding volume of mobile apps, have dramatically changed the way people browse the Internet. Nielsen reported, “consumers’ time spent with social media on mobile apps and the mobile Web has increased 63 percent in 2012, compared to the same period last year. “

The Pew Research Center’s survey about Social Networking across the globe states that social networking is very popular for smartphone users. “In 12 countries, at least six-in-ten smart phone users access social networks with their phones smartphone users as those who own a cell phone and regularly use it to access the Internet.”

#3 Facebook, Twitter and Beyond

While Facebook and Twitter have continued to be two of the most popular social networks, “Pinterest emerged as one of the breakout stars in social media for 2012, boasting the largest year-over-year increase in both unique audience and time spent of any social network across PC, mobile web and apps.”

Nielsen reports the top social networks in the U.S. — Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, MySpace and Wikia.

#4 The Expanded Use of Infographics

Example of an Infographic posted on Social Lens Research

Infographics are more than a pretty picture, although many are quite visually pleasing! They tell a story with a multitude of  messages, and as Adrienne So suggests, “reduce the time it would take to  wade through a dense, numbers-heavy paragraph.“ Stew Langille, the CEO of data visualization start-up Visual.ly, is quoted as saying “the average pageview for a newspaper infographic is about 30 times that of a text-based article.”

Jeff Bullas discovered that since just prior to the start of 2010 to the beginning of 2012, infographic search volumes have increased by over 800% in just over 2 years. Statistics from the social network Digg reveal that since 2007, infographics on Digg have increased by 250 times!”

What stands out for you about Social Media in 2012? Share your comments in the space below or on GigCoin’s Facebook page.

photo credit: Creativity103 via photopin cc

photo credit: Glenz Collection via photopin cc

Kelly Darmer writes, “The travel industry utilizes five inventive ways to harness the power of social media:”

1. competitions and promotions
2. special offers and group deals
3. SEO and boosting awareness
4. customer reviews
5. engaging with customers on a personal level

On Funsherpa’s widely shared infographic, research shows that 87% of travelers use the Internet for a bulk of their travel planning, 76% post vacation photos to a social network, and 85% of leisure travelers use their smart phone while traveling.

Given these findings, it’s no wonder that travel brands have been creating and employing social campaigns to engage prospective and existing customers.

Social Campaigns and the Travel Industry
When Rich Beattie, the executive director of travelandleisure.com, noticed significant growth in the travel industry’s use of social media he had the idea to hold their first Social Media in Travel & Tourism awards, the Smittys–that were announced in July 2012. As Beattie said, “Social media has become so essential to the travel experience, in everything from trip planning to how you experience a destination, to how you interact with your friends after the trip is done.”

Travelandleisure.com received a wide assortment of entries that included U.S. airports, global hotels, resort chain’s single promotion via social media and promotions of travel deals from an online travel agency. The campaigns used 9 different venues: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foodspotting, Foursquare, Microsites, Custom Apps, YouTube and Blogs.

The winning campaigns consisted of a multitude of creative ideas including:
questions, guest tweets, photographs, custom tabs on Facebook, guides to culinary highlights on Foodspotting, sharing a movie scene, Twitter competition of ordinary citizens, users curated and shared lists of destinations, audio messages and videos and real-time reports, YouTube videos, frequent-flier points and discounts to customers who used Facebook places, custom shareable videos that included music and photos of their friends, virtual buses and dream trips, Facebook app that located friends worldwide and displayed least expensive rates to fly there, plus many more.

What Should Travel Brands Keep in Mind When they Create a Social Media Campaign?
Shama Ahmed of Thismoment suggests that travel brands use several components as a check-list for creating a solid social media campaign:

• Go visual: Entice customers with appealing visuals on social sites such as Pinterest, Facebook and YouTube.
• Optimize for Mobile Viewing: Consider mobile as a natural extension of your digital marketing strategies.
• Feature coupons, discounts and contests: ROI Research’s survey shows that 53% of social network users liked or followed travel brands because of the coupons and discounts offered. It’s a good ideas for travel marketers to feature those season special offers and attract customers with the ideas of winning a trip to their favorite destination.
• Use Facebook to present an image that reflects what your brand is all about. Users trust recommendations about a particular destination posted by their friends on Facebook; travel brands can use Facebook’s share option to encourage customers to share recommendations and experiences.

Shama Ahmed further suggests that travel brands consider social media to be a vital part of their marketing arsenal. Besides focusing on Facebook, brands should make the most of Pinterest where they can showcase their campaigns and visuals; connect with the ‘on the go’ consumer as they research trips, post reviews and download coupons from their mobile devices.

Final Thoughts
In many respects, the travel industry has made an easier transition to social campaigns than other industries. For one thing, travel lends itself naturally to people’s comments and opinions, and a desire for visuals that show the journey, destination and what to expect once the traveler gets there. Ideas should be creative and offer a desirable and sought-after reward. For inspiration you can read more about the campaigns that were winners in travelandleisure.com’s contest.

Have you participated in or created a social campaign for a business in the travel industry? What features did it include? What made it successful? Share your experiences in the space below.

photo credit: avlxyz via photopin cc

Their advice? Click on their page, hover over where it says “LIKED” and make sure you click on “Show in News Feed” or “Like” us if you love cupcakes. And, then they politely asked for users to share the post with fans and friends.

Like many other businesses with Facebook pages it made us wonder about the best ways to ensure that updates are seen. So, first we went to the source to see what Facebook themselves had to say about the matter.

Facebook writes on their site that people will still see an unpromoted post delivered to the audience you specify but that there may be reasons why users didn’t see it:

• Didn’t check Facebook the day you posted, didn’t scroll down to where your post appeared in their news feed and that the user hadn’t applied their news feed controls
• Clicking on the sort menu in the top right of your news feed to change how stories are sorted from top stories (ordered by how relevant they are e.g. how long it’s been since you’ve visited Facebook, your relationship to the person who posted the story, and how many likes and comments it got) to most recent (stories will appear in the order they were posted).

Facebook goes on to say “Promoting a post simply bumps it higher than it would otherwise appear in your audience’s news feed.”

Okay, so our updates will still get seen? Yes… well, not exactly. We’ll have to work a tad harder for each and every update.

Ways to Make Your Facebook Updates Seen

 Geoffrey Colon makes the following suggestions:

• Post at the optimal time. Only you know what’s right for your business, and you can use your Page Insights to figure out what’s working. User engagement with Facebook Pages is highest from 9:00-10:00 pm, and the 18-24 demographic is the most engaged during this time.
• Post at least two times a day with updates that contain sound, sight or motion (audio, photo, video). Brands doing a text-only post at 10:00 am, and then another text-only post at 1:00 pm are not using the new algorithm to their advantage. Posts in this timeframe and delivery method cannibalize one another by overlapping, and having no visual element to maximize reach.
• To break beyond the new reach limitations on organic posts, certain content should use the sponsored story functionality to highlight the content to a wider audience.

Mari Smith offers ways to take back control of your Facebook News Feed. Her recommendations are to:

• Make use of the interest list  feature by creating or subscribing to your favorite interest lists where you’ll be able to add them to your Favorites at the top left side of your home page so you can browse through the exact content you wish.
• To find where Interest Lists are listed, on your home page, look way down on the left hand column. You may need to click the ‘More’ button, then you’ll see Interests and click the next ‘More’ button. This is the direct link to that page.

Edgerank Checker has this to say:

• One of the key factors in optimization is engagement: the amount of clicks, likes, comments, shares etc. generated by a piece of content
• While overall engagement should remain relatively consistent as a result of our most recent optimization, your organic reach may be impacted
• The more engaging your content, the lower the impact this optimization should have on your reach going forward
• Feed is optimized to show users the posts they are most likely to engage with, where engagement is defined as clicking, liking, commenting, or sharing the post – or in the case of offers, claiming the offer.
• Posts that are more likely to be engaging tend to appear higher in feed. Some of the strongest factors that influence this are how engaging an individual post has been for other users who have seen it, and how engaged a user has historically been with other posts they’ve seen from that page. Feed also takes negative feedback into account, which is the number of people who have hidden a post or reported it as spam.
• Finally, if a page has a piece of content that it feels will be very engaging e.g. A good offer, a great photo, an announcement, etc. then using paid media to “boost” that post to fans in newsfeed can be an effective tool to increase engagement with fans.

What have you been doing to ensure that your Facebook Page updates are seen? Let us know if the comments below.

photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video via photopin cc

Crowdfunding is enabling money to be raised via the Internet, where anyone can view your campaign and give. Hundreds of companies including Kickstarter and Indiegogo have created crowdfunding platforms (see more comprehensive lists below). The Pebble smartwatch campaign on Kickstater raised over $10 million. The Tesla Museum campaign on Indiegogo raised over $1.3 million.

But how does crowdfunding work?

Well, anyone can create a campaign. It’s important to choose the right platform as some are only for specific types of projects and have an application process. For example, Kickstarter focuses on creative projects like films, games, and inventions, and selects projects to post on its site. Other platforms are more general such as Indiegogo who supports a variety of projects with no application process and prides itself on “democratizing funding”.

Many of the most successful campaigns include key pieces: 

1. A video – pitching and personalizing the story

2. A budget – explaining how the money is going to be spent, and

3. Incentives – compelling perks at varying price points

For example, Amanda Palmer who became known through her previous punk band the Dresden Dolls, created a campaign to fund the release of her newest album. As an incentive, she offered anyone who donated $300 the opportunity to write on her naked body with markers.This incentive might not work for everyone, but it’s creative and it was compelling for her audience.

Another key aspect to Palmer’s success was having a fan base. You’ve got to get fans to get funds. But she was fortunate to already have a following. This is similar to the Tesla Museum campaign, which exceeded its target by nearly $500K. The fact that Tesla is famous and the campaign manager – the creator of The Oatmeal – is a popular web comic artist influenced the success of the campaign.

So what does that mean for the rest of us?

Well, we’ve got mom and dad, and “friends” on Facebook. But, you can also try a more targeted approach. Contacting bloggers, associations, local organizations, etc. that are relevant to your project, could pan out. And if you can at least get them to share (or “Like”) your campaign, you may have a good chance of reaching people who want to give.

Additional Information:

This article is primarily focused on rewards crowdfunding. For more information on other types of crowdfunding and the industry overall, see the Crowdfunding Industry Report, May 2012.

*Source for $1.5 Billion raised, 1 Million projects: Massolution, Crowdfunding Industry Report, Crowdsourcing.org.

Sources for more comprehensive lists of platforms:
• Wikipedia – Comparison of Crowdfunding Services
• Crowdfunding Industry Report, May 2012, See pages 6 to 10.

When Twitter announced profile changes back a few weeks ago, a collective grown could be heard across the social-spheres, “Oh, no, not another change.”

In this post we’ll discuss why you may want to consider updating your profile sooner than later.  We’ll also take a look at brands who have already updated to see their approaches.

4 Reasons Why Brands Should Care About Twitter’s New Profiles

#1 Impressions

It’s hard to keep up with the ever-changing social media terrain. Just when you thought you had the hang of a platform they go and change something on you. When consumers follow brands, they tend to notice the companies who have adopted the new look and feel before it becomes the norm. By changing your Twitter profile now you’ll communicate the message that you’re current, a trend-setter/keeper-upper, and that you can adapt to change. All good messages to get out to your customers and followers.

#2 Brand Pizzazz

The new headers will give your brand pizzazz (and conversely, you can see in the example below what happens on iPad for example, when you don’t update.) Compared to the old Twitter look, the new headers can be as designed and colorful as you’d like them to be while maintaining everything you’ve come to love and appreciate about Twitter.

As I sat down to work on this post and since I hadn’t yet updated my own profile, I was curious how my profile appeared on an iPad. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised to see the default black header and since I hadn’t been taking advantage of tweeting photos, only one image showed up. And, as you can see, there was room for five more photos that was going to waste.

Twitter Profile Before Updated (Viewed on iPad)

Twitter Profile After Updated (Viewed on iPad)

# 3 Maximizing Twitter’s Real Estate
Headers give you more real estate to take advantage of—creating brand identity, giving you an opportunity to showcase more about your business in your profile picture, header, background and through the most recent six images you’ve shared. By updating to the new profile headers you get to take advantage of all the precious real estate that can help to visually communicate information and make valuable impressions.

A Look at 4 Brands with New Profiles: Let’s see how they’ve designed their profiles and taken advantage of the space allotted for six photos. Brands have 160 characters to describe themselves within the header which includes location, web URL, and Twitter handle.

Starbucks: Takes advantage of both sides of the background and tied the six images into their brand theme. Their profile photo and header consist of the infamous logo which at this point needs no explanation, along with a good photo of coffee beans.

Ford: The profile is a clean and strong use of the background with the company logo and slogan. All six images are of cars and represent the brand.

Samsung Mobile US: This is a great example of a brand who is showing a bold and creative use of the real estate that Twitter afforded them by using both sides of the background and using six colorful photos. The profile picture is both logo and complimentary image.

SAP: On this Twitter profile, SAP has used both sides of the background and ties their images together in the profile picture and header. They’ve also used the upper left side of the real estate as a way to introduce the contributors who tweet on the company’s behalf.

# 4 Easy to do

Twitter provides a helpful info sheet for what you need to know before attempting to update your profile. There are some other helpful posts you may want to check-out, by Corey Eridon via HubSpot and Amber Mac via Fast Company.

Your business likely has protocols and sign-offs before you can launch online profile/page and this may be the most time-consuming part of the process. The nuts-and-bolts of making the changes will literally take you a few minutes.  And, you may have to resist the urge to keep designing!

Has your business adopted the new Twitter look? Let us know about your experiences in the comments below.

Want to see the magic of hashtags in action? 

On September 12th, seconds after Apple announced the new iPhone 5, due out in stores on September 21^st; Twitter was abuzz with iPhone 5 related hashtags.

But before we dive in, let’s step back for a moment for further introduction or a refresher of hashtags:

A Twitter hashtag is simply a keyword phrase, spelled out without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in from of it…hashtags are used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.

In the case of iPhone 5, it looks like this: #iPhone5

When you search by hashtags you’ll also see the related results e.g. #iphone5livestream, #iphone5price, #iphone5nfc, #iphone5live.  This ensures that you’ll catch conversations also related to your topic.

So let’s say in addition to reading articles about the new iPhone 5 you want to hear what people are saying about it.  You can search by top tweets (tweets that have caught the attention of other Twitter users), all tweets, and tweets by people you follow.

As Twitter states:  “Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets marked with that keyword.”

You can see the trending of a hashtag on Hashtags.org. For example: here’s what #iphone5 looked like on September 12th:

Why Use Hashtags in Your Tweets?

By using hashtags, you can start or become part of a conversation.  If you want to start the conversation do a search on Twitter to make sure no one else has already used that hashtag. But if you want to join in the existing conversation, find hashtags that most relate to your message. That’s what people did with #iphone5 and all of the related hashtags.

Here are some other good resources for researching hashtags.

A few common hashtags for businesses for example, include: #jobs, #business,  #sales, #economy, #marketing, #SocialMedia, #startup.

Hashtag Etiquette & Suggestions

It’s important though not to carried away with hashtags.

1) Twitter’s suggestions about how to use hashtags correctly include the following points:

• If you Tweet with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your Tweet
• Don’t #spam #with #hashtags. Don’t over-tag a single Tweet. (Best practices recommend using no more than 2 hashtags per Tweet.)
• Use hashtags only on Tweets relevant to the topic.

2) Chris Messina’s Wiki regarding Hashtags offers a wealth of information and advice:

Used sparingly and respectfully, hashtags can provide useful context and cues for recall, as well as increased utility for the track features…It’s best to use hashtags explicitly when they’re going to add value, rather than on every word in an update.  A good rule of thumb to follow is to focus on your update first, and only if it quantitatively adds value, to append one-three hashtags.

Chris suggests that hashtags should be about answering the simple question: “What are you doing” rather that “What tags apply to what you’re doing?”

3) Examples for When/How to Use Hashtags include:

• Events or conferences
• Brand announcements
• Ways to categorize topic areas of your business

One company who does a very nice job with Twitter and Hashtags is Whole Foods Market.  Here’s an example of some of the hashtags they use: #value, #vegetarian, #MeatlessMonday, #GlutenFree, #WFMdish.

What you’ll notice too in Whole Foods hashtags is the use of the CamelCase format, joining words with each words initial letters capitalized, which helps to maintain readability. See how #MeatlessMonday stands out better than #meatlessmonday.

4) A good Twitter user to follow for interesting news and tips about hashtags is @hashtags

What are your experiences with hashtags?  Do you use them in your tweets? Do you search on them to learn more about a topic? Share your experiences in the comments below.

photo credit: mikecogh via photo pin cc

In this article we’ll take a look at the rationale for branded apps and strategies for making them successful. We’ll also hear first-hand accounts from a number of businesses who have already delved into the world of branded apps and the take-away messages we can glean from their experiences.

What Can a Brand App Do For Your Business?

Kristi Carter offers this perspective: “Branded apps can potentially enhance customer loyalty and their overall opinion of the company. However, you must make it valuable and user friendly, compatible with various platforms, use creative marketing.”

As Todd Wasserman points out, “Consumers download an average of 65 apps on their smartphones, but only use a handful on a daily basis. Marketers have discovered that getting fans to download your branded app is a fairly empty exercise if they never actually use them. But getting your branded app on a consumer’s shortlist is much more valuable.”

Standing Out in a Crowded App Marketplace

So, how then can you make your app stand-out in a crowded marketplace?  Kristi Carter goes on to suggest, “Your app should be high quality, affordable, work with the majority of platforms (iOS or Android depending on your target market), be easy for your targeted demographics to use, enable users to complete tasks that they can’t do online, be entertaining or extremely useful, offer freebies (like upgrades or special offers), use an impressive marketing strategy, and have professional customer service and technical support.”

App Strategies

Apps, like a brand’s online presence on the Internet, require both market research and search engine optimization. Ross Jenkins offers these suggestions: 1) Follow Apple’s and Android’s content and legal guidelines. 2) Do keyword research and give your app a useful name that relates to these keywords. 3) Write an easy-to-understand and search-term-rich description of your app. 4) Do competitor app research to learn from what they’re doing on 1, 2 and 3.

We checked in with four brands who have been engaging with consumers via brand apps to learn from their experiences.

4 Brand Experiences with Apps

Punchh
“Based in Cupertino, Punchh has created branded apps for 260 different restaurant brands.  Punchh technology is social loyalty with a twist–instead of a simple punchh card on a smartphone, the patent-pending technology taps into an individual’s social network so restaurants can drive business through referrals–which they are finding much more beneficial than simply rewarding repeat visits. Restaurant patrons can download the app onto their cell phone or mobile device.

Many of the restaurants use signage and table top displays. Often, waiters and waitresses incentivize to spread the word.

Punchh runs on cloud servers and is built on a stable, cutting-edge web architecture that is scalable, secure and flexible. The Punchh app uses Apple’s push notification service, location awareness toolkit and camera toolkit among various other essential services

Punchh also has a native Android client built using Google’s Android platform which supports phones from different vendors and the latest Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Android Operating System

Punchh interfaces with Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Yelp, MailChimp, SendGrid and Constant Contact among other services for fluid movement of data. Punchh branded apps tie directly into customer service because the app gives customers the tools to communication instantly with restaurant owners as well as post reviews to social networks. This instant communication that incorporates sentiment analysis allows managers to rectify problems before customers post a bad review.

The branded app ties directly to sales because the entire premise of the app is to drive business by rewarding referrals. Everything is measurable.”

Ann Dickerson shared information about Punchh branded apps.

Homes.com
“The Homes.com listings app features homes for sale and rent via a GPS driven location finder. The app is a convenient and easy way to find your next home and also includes:

• Financial planning tools via the integrated mortgage calculator.
• Ability to instantly check credit scores and complete pre-loan qualification applications.
• Interactive maps with zoom feature.
• Customized filters to search by home size, number of bedrooms and more.
• Turn by turn driving directions.
• Easy-to-share listings through email.
• Integrated contact links through the local agent search.
• Bookmark and save favorite properties for easy reference.
• Homes.com also offers its mortgage calculator as a separate app. The mortgage calculator is a great starting point for people who are determining if they should rent or buy.

Over the next few months, Homes.com is rolling out several additions to our mobile app lineup. These include current app upgrades, a separate rental app and ‘Lead Viewer,’ an easy way for agents to access lead management tools.

We have promoted our apps through a cross-promotional push via all of our social media platforms, as well as media pitching to increase awareness. We also have a dedicated area on the Homes.com site where consumers can learn more about the apps and see download options. The Homes.com apps are available for iOS, Android and Windows.

The Homes.com mobile apps are intrinsically tied-in to customer service and sales. The apps provide an easy-to-access resource for consumers to use throughout the home buying process. Buyers can easily calculate finances, find an agent and search for a home through a variety of different search options.

The apps are frequently updated in order to continue providing top of the line service to our consumers.”

Sydney Weaver-Bey shared information about Homes.com.

Cycle Trader
“Cycle Trader offers complimentary iPhone and iPad apps to motorcycle buyers. We promote our app through social media and in all of our consumer emails. Push notifications are on an upcoming release.

Consumers can send emails or call dealerships directly from the app. The Wishlist feature helps buyers narrow down their selections and allows them to return to their favorite listings.*

We release updates every 3-6 months. Our goal is to push releases once a month.

Our last update was in June 2012.”

 Nedie Recel shared information about CycleTrader.

CouponCabin
“CouponCabin is unique in that it’s the first all-in-one app that offers
every type of coupon a consumer could ever want. There are many other
coupon apps out there, but none of them offer the sheer breadth of quality
content that CouponCabin does, allowing users to access coupons in every
coupon category, including grocery, printable for in-store use, and online
codes for hundreds of online retailers.

In addition, users of the CouponCabin app will find gas price comparisons, amazing deals on must-have products, free samples and coupons for local stores and restaurants.

Users are also able to:

• Browse or search for favorite stores.
• Redeem coupons immediately right from their device.
• Save coupons for later use.
• Share deals with their networks.
• Locate the best deals near a specific location.

CouponCabin is available on both iOs and Andriod. CouponCabin ties into sales in that it allows our merchant partners to get their coupons in front of even more shoppers, through yet another medium. Mobile coupon use is increasingly popular, and our merchants can now take advantage of that trend.

CouponCabin updates regularly. Since launch in May 2012, we’ve published 3 updates to our iOS app and 5 updates to our Android app. The latest update to iOS includes an iPad specific option.”

Allison Nawoj shared information about CouponCabin.

Thank you to our contributors: Ann Dickerson, Sydney Weaver-Bey, Nedie Recel  and Allison Nawoj.

9 key takeaways about branded mobile apps:

1. Determine the platform(s) for compatibility that make the most sense for your app (e.g. iOS, Android, Blackberry OS).
2. Create multiple user-friendly features.
3. Incentivize to help spread the word about your app.
4. Use push notification and location services (if applicable).
5. Interface app with your presences on social networking platforms.
6. Include app information and download options on your website.
7. Promote your app in email marketing and e-newsletters.
8. Provide frequent updates.
9. Have professional customer service and technical support.

How are you using branded mobile apps for your business? What suggestions do you have for being successful? Let us know in the comments below.

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