Emerging social media platforms are sink or swim (this list was supposed to include 11 networks until I learned one of them had already vanished). While these networks are just getting started, it’s important to keep a close eye on these rising platforms so we can be ready to turn them into effective marketing tools. Here are 11 10 emerging social networks to look out for in 2015.

1. Learnist

Learnist is a vast collection of information and expertise that comes straight from its users, or “knowledge leaders.” You can create your own knowledge board and include any web, text, or video content to share with others.

2. Pheed

Pheed is a great multimedia tool for users to broadcast their music, videos, text and voice-notes. It’s a free platform, but channel holders are able to charge a monthly subscription fee .

3. Medium

Medium is a platform for writers and bloggers to come together and share their ideas. They claim that it’s a place where users can tell stories “longer than 140 characters and not just for friends.” (ouch) On Medium, the words are the focus, so there aren’t any sidebars, plug ins or widgets.

4. Cyber Dust

Similar to Snapchat, Cyber Dust is a social network that allows you to send ephemeral messages, GIFS, URLs, and Images to your friends. Unlike Snapchat, Cyber Dust gives you the option of temporarily blasting out your location to your friends.

5. Secret

Secret offers a platform for users to share their feelings and thoughts anonymously. All secrets come from Facebook friends, or people in your contacts, without you knowing who they are.

6. We Heart It

Self deemed as the “hipper version of Pinterest,” We Heart It is a cute platform for collecting images and ideas that fit your interests.

7. Shots

Finally, an app that is dedicated to selfies. Shots is a mobile social network that lets you share your selfies and send private messages with your friends.

8. WeChat

WeChat is a service that allows you to send mobile texts and voice messages while also sharing videos and photos. This app is especially convenient for communicating with people internationally.

9. Bubblews

Much like Facebook, Bubblews allows its users to follow friends and create posts (aka “bubbles”). Unlike Facebook, or any other social network, Bubblews actually pays its users that attract advertisers and traffic.

10. Thumb.it

Thumb.it is the perfect social network for gathering feedback on literally anything. You can ask users their opinion on the outfit you picked out or if they would use a new product you invented. It’s an incredibly useful tool for small businesses who are trying to gain some serious insight on their product or service.

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Social media done the right way has the potential to greatly improve your business, so why not start today? Here are 3 quick tips on transforming employees into brand advocates:

1. Train Your Employees

Take this as an opportunity to better inform your employees. In addition to providing a crash course in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, brands should create a written guidebook for its employees to use.

Employees should be educated on the company’s social media policy and expectations. The policy must clarify what would be considered an infringement on company confidential information and intellectual property rights, as well as explain that certain statements unsupported by evidence are unacceptable and could damage the business.

2. Establish Trust & Open Communication

Encourage associates to give feedback in order to make the policy beneficial for both the brand and its employees. Feedback will help to increase associate trust and engagement, ultimately developing true brand advocates within the company. (E.g. encourage associates to report any notable negative or positive sentiment.) Additionally, your brand can share exciting company news with the employees and encourage posting that content to social media.

3. Become a Social Media Advocate

Ensure that your employees recognize the efforts made to support social media use within the company. Allowing employees to speak about products, services, news or events within the company allows the brand to capture conversations from the individuals that know the company the best. Employee social media accounts provide the brand with another avenue to bring “life and personality” to the company.

Read more here

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Hence, Foursquare is splitting in half in an attempt to revolutionize the local search and personalized discovery. The app is removing the check-in option and moving the function over to an entirely new app called Swarm, where creeping on your contacts current location is its sole ability.

Here’s more from the company’s blog:

“We believe local search should be personalized to your tastes and informed by the people you trust. The opinions of actual experts should matter, not just strangers. An app should be able answer questions like ‘give me a great date dinner spot’ and not just ‘tell me the nearest gas station.’ We’re right now putting the final touches on this new, discovery-focused version of Foursquare. It’ll be polished and ready for you later this summer.”

Tastes

The improved Foursquare is adopting a personalized recommendation format that includes your “tastes.” There are different options such as tacos, mimosas, boutiques, stout beers, chai tea lattes, etc. You can select your personal tastes and Foursquare will generate recommendations of restaurants that fit your preferences along with ratings of similar places. The app aims to reinvent the local search to give users the perfect place that fits their style wherever they are.

Badges of Honor

Users can still gain badges and points, but Foursquare is making you go a step further than just checking in. To score badges, users now have to leave recommendations for other users and show their expertise in certain areas. There are no more mayorships in Foursquare, which were originally awarded based on how many times you checked in at the same place. Now when you choose to check-in with the Foursquare app, it will take you directly to Swarm.

Why the Scission

Reasons behind the split app are two-fold. First, creators of the app are trying to expand the demographic of young, savvy social media users. With new GPS technologies expected to hit the market, like Estimote Beacon, check-ins may become redundant and outdated. Plus, checking in at a restaurant or shop to unlock different levels, win badges and get deals won’t be necessary. With the new bluetooth technologies coming out, smartphone users are offered deals the minute they walk through the door.

Second, the new Foursquare promotes and rewards users for leaving tips and recommendations for different business. This capability allows social users to spread business information through a large social graph. Rather than including check-ins, recommendations and personalized tastes all in one app, the company wanted to make each app hyper-specific.

Personally, I believe Swarm won’t gain nearly as much popularity as Foursquare. With geo-tagging included in most major social networks, having an app dedicated to that sole function seems redundant. Foursquare is interactive and a great way to discover foreign territory as a tourist or to explore a neighborhood you may be unfamiliar with in your own city.

The post The New and Improved Foursquare appeared first on Brickfish.

Optimize Your Website for Mobile Commerce

1. Last year, Cyber Monday drove $2.29 billion in sales. 18.3% of sales were made from a smartphone or tablet.

2. Mobile drove 31.7% of all online traffic: 45% growth YOY

3. 57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.

4. Of the $419 million in mobile sales, 70% came from tablets and 30% came from smartphones.

5. Phones and tablets accounted for nearly 40% of ad spend and 44% of clicks.

Drive Consumers to Your Online Store from Social Media

6. From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, $150 million in revenue came from links posted on social media.

7. Facebook drove $96 million – 64% of all social media driven sales.

8. Shoppers driven to online stores from Facebook spent an average of $97.81 per order.

9. Black Friday saw more social media mentions than Thanksgiving.

10. Cyber Monday sales peaked between 8PM and 9PM EST at $150 million during that hour.

Are You Ready for the Holiday Shopping Season?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be here sooner than you think! Contact our team here to help plan and jump-start your digital marketing strategy.

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In times of extreme tech-stress, it’s always important to remember all the ways that technological advances have made our lives better. One particular ‘life improver’ is the never-ending sea of useful applications. So, in honor of “Simplify Your Life Week,” we’re highlighting the top four apps on the market right now that make our lives beautifully simple.

Cal

If organizing your agenda is the goal, the application Cal is the way to do it. Cal is a simple calendar app that makes it easy to create events and track your tasks. It syncs to all of your existing calendar services so you’re always up to date. Cal is the perfect medium to coordinate work and personal tasks, so your entire day runs smoothly.

The best part: Instead of just reminding you of your friends’ birthdays, it lets you buy gifts, write on their wall, or send a message right within the app.

Uber

Uber is a gift to humanity from the transportation gods. It’s available in more than 40 countries and is exceptionally easy to use. Uber allows to you virtually hail a cab from wherever you want. It can spot your location and show you where and how many cars are available. All you have to do is request an Uber and it tells you the exact time of arrival.

The best part: You can link it to your bank account, so when you arrive at your location, you don’t have to worry about digging around for money to pay your fare.

Todoist

Having a To-Do list is already a step in the right direction towards simplifying your life. Todoist takes it even further with functions that allow you to share projects, assign tasks to other people and get reminders via SMS, email or push notifications. From planning a wedding to writing a grocery list, it’s the ultimate life organizer.

The best part: You can re-order your list whenever you want and everyone you share your list with receives a notification of the change.

Urbanspoon

Deciding where to have dinner can be a truly stressful process. Spending too much time choosing a restaurant can take hours away from the time you could actually spend eating. Urbanspoon is an app that helps you discover and find nearby restaurants with ratings and reviews from actual food critics. You can even browse the menu and make a reservation.

The best part: The shuffle button chooses the restaurant for you. UrbanSpoon, it’s in your hands now.

So, if your life could use some unscrambling, make sure to try out a few of these apps. They’re all free and easy to use. Happy Simplify Your Life Week, everyone!

The post Celebrate Simplify Your Life Week with Apps! appeared first on Brickfish.

Over the last few years, several attempts have been made to introduce a commerce element to social media. The ventures failed to gain commercial traction, and the concept of social commerce ultimately took a back seat to other innovative additions to social media platforms.

However, as of last week all of that changed. Facebook and Twitter started testing purchase options within their respective platforms, indicating that both social networks are attempting to re-introduce social commerce to the masses.

Last week, Facebook announced that it is testing a Buy button that will appear on certain ads and page posts. This feature will allow Facebook users to make purchases without leaving the network. Shopping within your Twitter Timeline will soon be a reality, as well. The “Buy now” button recently appeared on multiple tweets and included products that link back to a shopping site called Fancy.

Teasing users with Buy buttons indicates an attempt to determine the best method to rollout this functionality to the public. Additionally, Twitter acquired commerce startup CardSpring, which helps merchants connect to publishers to create online-to-offline promotions. Twitter’s plans for CardSpring are unclear, but the platform said the company is a “great fit” for its commerce goals. Facebook and Twitter’s in-platform purchase tests suggest a stronger push for social commerce in the months to come.

Social commerce will benefit businesses and platforms alike in that consumers will have an additional path to purchase, and they will spend more time on each network. If this form of ecommerce takes off, both the social networks and businesses will benefit. The biggest question facing these platforms is how to make this attempt at social commerce more successful than the last. Time will tell whether or not Buy buttons are the solution to the success of social commerce.

Sources
Mashable: “Why Facebook and Twitter are Embracing Ecommerce”
Mashable: “Twitter ‘Buy Now’ Button Appears for First Time”
Mashable: “Twitter Acquires Commerce Startup CardSpring”

The post “Buy” is the New Buzzword on Social appeared first on Brickfish.

Four Takeaways from Twitter’s Study

1) Millennials Use Their Phones to Stay in the Twitter Loop

To put this in perspective, 80% of millennial Twitter users access Twitter on a mobile device. 81% check Twitter at least once a day and 15% do so more than 10 times a day. 60% tweet at least once a day.

2) Millennials Look to Twitter for Entertainment

What do you do when you are waiting in line, in an elevator or on your commute? Most likely, you check your mobile device. Millennials use Twitter for entertainment and 47% say Twitter means a “cure for boredom.” 82% will share a tweet they find amusing.

3) Twitter Makes Live Events Fun for Millennials

71% of millennials say that tweeting about an event they are experiencing makes it more exciting. 70% enjoy reading tweets when tracking a live event (think the Oscars or the Olympics) and 67% say they would follow other users and contribute hashtags related to events they are watching.

4) Twitter is the Mobile Storytelling Medium for Millennials

Twitter allows millennials to share their perspective and document life events in real time. 67% of millennials tweet about random thoughts, 57% tweet about fun activities, 53% tweet about current events and 46% tweet about jokes and humor. 42% also share photos.

What Does This Mean for Your Digital Strategy?

Getting the attention of millennials requires a mobile-first mindset. If the goal is to reach this tech-savvy generation and engage with them, then have a strategy in place that will grab their attention and hold it for more than a glance.

As a millennial, I use Twitter to share my life experiences, share content I find meaningful or humorous and tell my story. Brands focused on storytelling are more likely to see higher engagement with their content. Twitter is a unique platform to leverage this opportunity. Put out creative, engaging content. Use humor. Plan ahead. Be spontaneous. But more than anything, tell a story. If millennials bring meaning to their experiences in 140 characters or less, then so should the brands that want their loyalty.

Check out more tips here:

The post Why Twitter is Becoming Millennials’ Main-Stage for Storytelling appeared first on Brickfish.

This was not the case.

Upon landing in Morocco, I was greeted with free WiFi in almost every hotel, High Definition television that was better than my own at home, and mobile phone users as far as the eye could see. Reception was exceptionally strong in the middle of the Sahara (seriously). It was then that I realized the digital divide in this “developing world” was shrinking by the second. There is untapped potential for mobile marketing in this part of the world, but there are a few things advertisers need to keep in mind while taking on this massive continent.

Feature Phones Still Dominate

My experience in Africa took place nearly one year ago. Since then, mobile web usage on the continent has grown from 18% to 38%. In Kenya alone, 30 million people own a cell phone and it has easily become the fastest growing market for mobile phones.

The mobile possibilities for marketers appear limitless on the surface. This is, until we realize that smartphones make up only 18% of the mobile market in Africa. This is expected to double over the next three years, and others are predicting smartphone usage to increase by even more as they become increasingly affordable. But at the moment, feature phones are still running the show, so marketers may want to hold off on the smartphones apps and focus on less cultivated technologies. Instead of iOS and Android operating systems, mobile marketing efforts are best tailored to Nokia Symbian.

Knowing Your Target Audience is Vital

Mobile usage outweighs that of PCs and tablets in Africa mainly because phones are far more affordable and accessible. This means marketers must be able to target people with a different standard of living and economical background. Many mobile users in Africa use prepaid subscriptions as opposed to data plans, indicating that they may not have the means to afford apps either. At the same time, Africa’s growth of smartphone users is congruent with the rising of the consumer class. This makes for a very wide target demographic that requires a lot of attention in a generally non capitalist society. And since Africans are using their phones the same way we Americans use our laptops, consumer engagement and access to information through mobile is of great importance.

The Market is Still Underpenetrated

One would assume that mobile advertising in Africa has taken off as a result of increased mobile usage, but the market is far from saturation. Mobile users in developing countries are significantly more receptive and welcoming to advertisements on their phones, while we in the West are becoming annoyed by it.

A few digital marketing companies that focus on African market like Twinpine and adsbrook have jumped on the mobile train, but the majority of advertising remains on PCs and laptops. This leaves plenty of room for mobile marketers to explore and experiment with this growing audience.

Sources
TechCrunch: “In 3.5 Years Most Africans Will Have Smartphones”
CNN: “The Real Mobile Revolution: Africa’s Smartphone Future”
Royal Pingdom: “Mobile Web Usage Highest in Asia and Africa”
The Guardian: “Internet Use On Mobile Phones In Africa Predicted To Increase 20-fold”

The post Africa: The Rise Of Mobile In The Mobile Continent appeared first on Brickfish.

And this month, we’re sharing 30 of them with you!

If you’re following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you’ve probably seen us use the hashtag #30daysofsocial. Each day throughout the month of July, we’ve been posting a social media tip to help you spark ideas for your social strategies and optimize your posts to reach your audience in the ever-changing landscape of social media.

The tips are easy to find. Just follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to see the tips we’ve posted and follow us for more!

Join the conversation at #30daysofsocial.

The post Celebrate Summer with 30 Social Media Tips appeared first on Brickfish.

The 2014 World Cup stage had more to offer than just gravity-defying headers by the likes of Robin Van Persie, air-bending corner kicks by Mario Götze, or theatrics by Luis Suarez — it also shattered social media records.

Here are a few social statistics that made this World Cup a truly global phenomenon:

1) A record 618,725 tweets per minute were sent during the #GERvARG match [Tweet this!]

2) One of the biggest hashtags that trended worldwide was #WorldCupFinal, used more than one million times in 24 hours [Tweet this!]

3) There were 280 million interactions across Facebook this #WorldCupFinal [Tweet this!]

4) The Cup’s opening match ignited 12.2 million tweets alone [Tweet this!]

5) Most talked about players included #Neymar followed by #Messi, #Ronaldo, and #Suarez [Tweet this!]

6) 26 percent of World Cup interactions were produced by #Brazil [Tweet this!]

7) #USA accounted for 10 percent of all posts, comments, and likes [Tweet this!]

8) World Cup social media interactions easily surpassed Sochi 2014 (120 million) & London 2012 (150 million) [Tweet this!]

Though World Cup is now over and fans must wait another agonizing four years to cheer on their favorite teams, the global conversation has yet to be silenced.

Sources:
CBS News, “World Cup Final Smashes Social Media Records”
BBC News, “#BBCtrending: Social media reaction to #WorldCupFinal”
CNN, “World Cup becoming biggest social-media event ever
The Morning Call, “Facebook: World Cup was biggest social media event ever”
Fox News, “With More Than 1 Billion Posts, Tweets and Likes, World Cup Scores in Social Media”
Image source: cbsnews.com

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