infomandigger

Not provided keywords

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Light

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 23:49:00 +0000

Light from Sunday Paper on Vimeo.

The Story of Animation

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sun, 26 May 2013 23:47:00 +0000

The Story of Animation from David Tart on Vimeo.

The Can

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 23:46:00 +0000

The Can from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Skoda

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:45:00 +0000

Skoda - Curriculum Vitae from weareflink on Vimeo.

Publicis Roars | Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:43:00 +0000

What Most Schools Do Not Teach

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:42:00 +0000

Wearable Gesture Control | MYO

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:41:00 +0000

Sight

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:40:00 +0000

Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.

Signs | Schweppes

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:39:00 +0000

Origami In Full Perfection | Asics

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 23:37:00 +0000

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

Influencers

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:35:00 +0000

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 23:32:00 +0000

Jory Brigham Design from The Cana Family on Vimeo.

Google Glasses

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 23:28:00 +0000

Truth In Advertising (?)

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:14:00 +0000

The Effects of Humor on the Processing of Word-of-Mouth

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Exploratory qualitative analysis of 127 actual on-line conversations revealed the presence of humor in word-of-mouth (WOM). This use of humor seemed to weaken the impact of the WOM advice. While there is a rich history of research on the impact of humor on advertising, there is no equivalent research in the WOM
literature. Using a 2x2 experimental design, the impact of humorous WOM on behavioral intentions, WOM intentions, evaluations of source credibility and evaluations of message persuasiveness are analyzed. Humor was found to decrease the impact of positive and negative WOM messages.
Read more for word of mouth

Source: Dave Bussiere, University of Windsor, Canada

Easy Payments, the Latest Customer Strategy for E-Commerce Operators

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 05:14:00 +0000

The concept of easy payment was examined in relation to ecommerce discussing how this impacts on customers as well as financial institutions and merchants (E- commerce operators). It was discovered that, despite the fact that easy payment strategy opens up vast opportunities for both customers and operators (merchants) benefit them at both ends, certain issues as regards the security and guarantee of transactions need to be looked into. The author conclude that it is vital for financial institutions as well as operators to try to come up with measures to safeguard their interest in the implementation of the easy payment system so as not to run into a loss.

Read more for e-commerce

Sources: Rashad Yazdanifard , Igbanor Stephenie Esimhenor , Ajibola Olatunde Micheal and Arash pour
Seyedi

Is Social the Future of e-Commerce?

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 11:26:00 +0000

Read more for Facebook commerce

Source: We Are Social

Facebook & Retailers Need To Improve The User Shopping Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 09:32:00 +0000

Over the past year, Nordstrom, Gap, Gamestop, and JC Penny, just to name a few, have made a strategic decision to back out of the storefronts they had implemented on Facebook. Other retailers have joined the list as well, frustrated with the inability to sell on Facebook, and if there isn’t change, others will join in the “F-commerce” abandonment.

It’s too early to tell exactly whether blame should be placed with Facebook or the retailers themselves, but more importantly, there could very well be implications when it comes time for Facebook’s initial public offering of shares. Facebook will be under serious performance pressure to prove to shareholders that it has the ability to grow its impressive revenue base. Facebook based e-commerce storefronts are an example of a perfect opportunity to do just that, however more strategic attention will need to be placed on both Facebook themselves and the retailers to make the experience worthwhile to users

Read more for f commerce

Source: Marketair

QR Codes Connect Art on the Wall With Music on Your iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Portuguese artist Nuno Serrão wants to make art viewing more stimulating by incorporating music through an iPhone app and QR codes.

When a company promotes its brand by investing to social media platforms: tools, data, persuasion factors

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:06:00 +0000

Before start analyzing this concept on whether or not companies are in position to promote their brands by investing time and money on social media marketing it is necessary to pose certain questions.

Is it sure that the company and its products will have ROI using social media platforms (like Twitter, Facebook fan pages etc. )?

Is there a specific methodology that will lead to one of the main objectives (which is the increased number of fans/followers)?

If an agency takes into account certain factors and by taking advantage of the new technologies and carrying out a certain business plan, it is most likely for this campaign (in social media) to be successful.

Before start analyzing it is necessary to establish some certain facts based on solid and concrete evidence, that should be taken into account.

Facts about social media and companies

According to Busby et al “with 94 per cent of marketing executives responding to a 2010 survey indicating that they expect to spend more on social media over the following three years.” Thus companies are determined to spend more regarding their social media marketing policy.

Why is that? According to Facebook:

More than 800 million active users

More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any giv

More than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)

Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events

On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day

On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day

Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience Facebook Platform on other websites

More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook

Twitter has 175 million registered users

100 million are active users , almost 40% log in merely to see what other people are saying.

More than 50 million users log in each day, and the daily average number of tweets is in the realm of 230 million

According to Soboleva “One of the challenges for organisations attempting to develop an effective and efficient Twitter strategy is the lack of theoretical or empirical evidence on use of Twitter” . This means that there is no far an academically evidenced study that can be implemented by other companies for their brands.

36,9% of users follow companies on their Facebook fan pages because these companies offer deals/discount whereas on Twitter it’s 43.5, according to Get Satisfaction.

“60 percent of businesses believe social media content works best when used for communications, whether with customers, prospects or potential employees. Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms allow companies to interact in a more informal manner that makes brands more accessible.”

Psychology. It is undeniable that the psychological factor plays an important role. Implicitly we feel nice when we have the sense that we are a part of a broader group (the case in point a group that is represented by a brand and this brand belongs to a company). We feel important and that our opinion counts for the company and its brands, especially when there is a two-way communication. This two-way communication, can benefit the company in the long run in terms of CRM, customer relationship marketing. The more popular a brand is, the more likely is to get more followers/friends. However this does not necessarily mean that it can keep them, if the company follows a catastrophic social media marketing strategy.

However, despite these facts which are based on solid and concrete evidence, there are tools that can facilitate and organize a social media marketing strategy.

Tools that should be taken into serious consideration before and during the social media campaign are the following.

Facebook Fan pages applications. Without mentioning any third companies that offer applications that can be implemented on Facebook Fan page, a company through its marketing agency can provide vouchers/coupons for users in order to like the specific Fan page. Coupons which are offered to unemployed, students with discounts can allure the potential “friends”/buyers.

Examples are the Starbucks or the House of Fraser. A student who is interested in getting a discount for a certain product should provide his/her unique number to the online coupon that is available through the company’s fan page and in this way the company will be able to verify the student in case of multiple frauds.

Twitter is dynamic tool that social media marketers can use for their benefit. They can have access to accounts that are not protected by putting certain keywords which are related to the brand that they promote. Simply by putting the brand on the search tab of Twitter, marketers can have access on the accounts/users that refer to the product and in this way they can see if the sentiment of the users towards the brand is positive, negative or neutral.

Popular brands can be connected with a catchy hashtag that will connect

Klout is an important tool in order to measure your company influence on others (on Blogger, on Foursquare, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter etc. ). According to Klout : “it provides powerful analysis and tools to help you more clearly understand your own influence, your network's influence, and the topical interests that make each of us special. Using Klout, you can improve your use of social media and better reach your network.”

For example, if a marketing agency implements a social media strategy for a brand, e.g. Lipstic from L’Oreal , then in this case the social media marketers should conduct a thorough research on the search tab to find relevant influencers and topics, by putting terms like “cosmetics” and automatically relevant influencers and topics will be at their disposal. Consecutively the social media marketers should add the influencers (physical or corporate entities) in their list and interact with them .

Google alerts

An efficient way to find out what the users think before launching your campaign and during the social media marketing campaign is to find out what users across the Web think about your brand. For example, if we have a brand which is Next, then it would be necessary to keep track of any terms related to Next (clothes, women clothing, men clothing etc) which are related to our brand; thus with the use of Boolean/proximity operators the result types can come from everything or from selected sources (news, blogs, videos and discussions) to the team’s mail. In this way the social media marketers will be able to handle according every source across the Web that is related to their brand.

Brand Visibility Metrics

Social media marketers before and during their social media marketing campaign can have a daily update on the impact that the brand has across the social web. Indicatively:

“Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.

It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web's social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.”

Also, it provides details regarding the sentiment (negative, positive, neutral), that could be useful for the marketers in order to mitigate any negative sentiment that the brand has.

A similar tool, related to brand visibility metrics is How Sociable.

According to How Sociable “We calculate the magnitude score by taking a sample of one week's activity across the social web and analyzing it to find out what portion of the activity references a brand”

These handy tools, which social media marketers are going to use are sufficient enough to ensure that the brands of the companies will be developed in order to expand their impact on the social web and its users and at the same time brand visibility metrics tools can provide the necessary assurances that any negative impact will be faced effectively in terms of crisis management (if something comes up)

*It should be pointed out that different strategy should be followed for every brand. This passage concerns general practices/rules that should be followed for all brands; however, it is up to the marketers -in conjunction with the company- to create a strategy that matches their needs separately.

Vagelis Varfis

How to Use Yammer to Drive Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:43:00 +0000

Many companies use Yammer to drive innovation and especially idea generation / development within their company. They often learn that it is fairly easy to recruit people for the Yammer platform which lets employees share and connect with coworkers in a private, secure enterprise social network.

It is, however, much more difficult to keep the users engaged over time. So what kind of engagement drivers work for innovation initiatives on Yammer? I am wondering and it would be great to hear your take on this. Here you get my starters.

First, I think we need to divide the approach into three key elements: Awareness, Facilitated content and User-generated content.

SOURCE http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2012/01/02/how-to-use-yammer-to-drive-innovation/

Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts and more test Facebook loyalty scheme

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:26:00 +0000

A loyalty scheme run by start-up Plink will give Facebook Credits to consumers in return for purchases at Taco Bell, Dunkin’ Donuts and others.

This aims to take advantage of the boom in virtual currency, which is currently a $2.1bn industry.

After registering a credit card with Plink, users are rewarded with Facebook Credits each time they make a purchase in participating stores - Plink then takes a percentage of each sale.

Customers can use the virtual credits to buy additional content while playing games like FarmVille and The Sims

House of Fraser targets students with Facebook discounts

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:24:00 +0000

The social media campaign mirrors a discount that is already available in-store as House of Fraser (HoF) tries to bring consistency to its online and offline offerings.

The voucher app on its Facebook page was launched in partnership with the National Union of Students (NUS) last week.

After entering their NUS card number, the student is given a code that gives a 10% discount when entered at HoF's online checkout.

The app, which will also offer 'flash sales' discounts, is aims to use Facebook to attract a younger demographic than those who normally visit the House of Fraser website, while encouraging first time purchases among students.

Read more for Facebook commerce

Source: http://econsultancy.com

7 Ways to Bring Your Community into the Content Creation Process

noreply@blogger.com (Vagelis Varfis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:22:00 +0000

Content is a critical interface between ourselves and our community. It helps us achieve organizational objectives, reinforce our brand, and communicate key messages.

We, as community managers and content marketers, are well-positioned to create relevant, useful, and interesting content that serves both our audience’s needs and our goals. We live and breathe those goals, and we know our brand identity almost as well as we know ourselves.

But just because we can do it all on our own, does that mean we should? The truth is, our brand belongs to our community as much as it belongs to us, if not more so. That identity is not a decree that gets passed down; it is shared and, more to the point, it is co-created. While we shape and communicate it, they are out there living it

Read more for Content marketing

Source: http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com