Social Media | Indian Social Media Landscape - Part 4 Indian Social Media Landscape

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Supercharge Your Brands With Videos

Friday, October 17th, 2014

We have landed into the generation where everything is transforming into digital; even the experiences! And in this experiential era, videos can do miracles for your inbound marketing. Videos, particularly YouTube provides referral traffic in terms of user engagement, retention and referrals. Videos can be tremendously beneficial for your inbound marketing attempts. In this time of digitalization and experiences, videos certainly dominate the marketing strategies. What you need to know are the steps towards charging all your marketing efforts with videos and connect with your consumers by appealing to their interests.

Videos nowadays are the most powerful tools for any brand. They are, sort of considered to bring along superpowers. Well, let’s check out why so!

There are millions of users who watch online videos everyday. According to a study,

– 45% of internet users view atleast one online video a month
– 90% of online shoppers state that videos on a retailer’s website influence better and quick purchasing decisions
– 75% of executives view work related videos atleast once a week
– 59% of senior executives prefer to watch a video than read text
– Integrating a video in an e-mail can increase the click through rates as well

Now, the question is what makes the videos so powerful? What are the three most important traits of videos?

Well, Videos are said to improve:

Visitor experience – an average user will prefer to spend more time on a web page with a video compared to the one without it
Brand perception – Through body language, expressions, eye contact, voice, tone and appearance more information can be expressed through a video
Search Engine Optimization – Videos are more likely to receive an organic first page ranking than normal text pages

The next question is; how popular are videos?

YouTube, the most popular video sharing and viewing platform reaches more people than the regular television networks. Every minute, millions of videos are uploaded.

With million videos being uploaded everyday, Instagram is next. The engagement level of Instagram videos is also on the rise and surprisingly, it is more viewed than Instagram photos.

Vine is next in the queue with millions of videos being uploaded everyday. Also, it is estimated that every second atleast five Vine videos are tweeted by people.

It is believed that by the year 2017, two-thirds of the World’s mobile data traffic will be video.

Now, you must be wondering how to take that first step towards creating video. Here you go:

Firstly, define your audience & goal, which means define your message and the target audience it should reach

Repurpose a previously successful topic and explain it in a completely new way
Brand your video with your logo and branding
Keep it short; keep it simple & sweet, because most users click away from a video in the first few seconds, if the video is not engaging. Therefore, the optimal length for a video is considered to be 60-90 seconds
Content is key because any video which is just about flash and no message or substance is of no use
Title tips, there has to be something written that makes people watch the videos. proper keywords need to be integrated in the video title to optimize it for search engines.
Optimize your video for search engines. The video has to be uploaded to right platforms, with right keywords and URLs.
Go beyond YouTube. Yes, there’s more to explore, such as Instagram, Facebook, website, blog etc.

Encourage sharing and including an html embed code as embedded video views will be added to your ‘views’ tally on YouTube which is an important metric in Google’s search algorithm.
Source: www.bixamedia.com

So, are you set to integrate videos to your marketing strategy? if yes, then do ensure you make it brief, branded, relevant, targeted and also pay attention on carefully curate the meta data. What are your thoughts on the importance of videos? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.

Tags:Digital, Experiential, Videos, Videos for Brands
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Digital Media, Experiential Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

Mobile Marketing: The Next Big Thing to Capitalize On!

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

As the days are passing by, more and more innovations are happening. And these innovations bring along, an array of opportunities for all the mediums that brands can integrate into their marketing strategy. Among these, one of the most evolving mediums now is ‘Mobile’. Most of you would agree on this as Mobile advertising now, is not only considered as the second screen by most brand evangelists, but is also being looked upon for capitalization.

As mentioned earlier, mobile is one of the fastest growing platforms for commerce and keeps the consumers informed at all times, even when they are on the go. It helps consumers to stay in touch with brands and businesses, informed about purchases and also the deals and offers at that time.

Today, everybody has a mobile device, be it a smartphone or a tablet. And undoubtedly the number of mobile device owners is growing year by year making the brand managers, advertisers and marketers re-think their marketing strategy and see how they can capitalize on this.

Having a mobile enabled and ready site really helps in terms of portability and reach. Hence, marketers should capitalize on these changes in the technology and craft their strategies in a more effective way. Mobile Marketing is here to stay and all set to reach its target audience in the most engaging ways.

Well, its about time too. Considering the way digital innovations are happening, mobile marketing is soon to catch the pace and will not only be a competitive advantage for brands, but a survival strategy too. What do you think?

Talking about survival, one has to keep in mind the essentials of creativity in mobile marketing. Creativity is indeed the soul of any type of marketing or advertising as it makes a difference to brands in a lot of ways.

Well, creativity is not the only thing required for fitting everything into a mobile screen. The challenge lies in conveying your brand message in a way that only a mobile phone can, leading to an interactive experience and consumer engagement.

Build a responsive site and benefit from a fully reactive website design. With a responsive site one will not have to create two separate sites. Also, the design adjusts itself to the screen various sizes according to the devices. There is no need to re-direct links to let the mobile users view the correct version of the website. Most importantly, the SEO rankings shoot up

Bill Rogers, Ekton CEO, on these innovations happening said at Internet World, this is “the future of web design.”

One should ensure the images should resize automatically else it can ruin the mobile experience for users. Also there should be n compromise in the quality of images used. Websites, campaigns, e-mails etc. shared by brand should be made mobile friendly.

Using Geo-location and Targeting can be really helpful in delivering a great service. Doing this can help the brands to prompt the closest location of a store etc. to the user. Latest offers, discount coupons and information about deals sent on a mobile device can lead the consumer towards the brand too.

Another method is to use the phone’s information to personalize the complete experience. But this may seem a little tricky due to privacy issues. However, by using the web cookies you can tailor your site or mobile app to be responsive to what customers are searching for.

Check out this image that clearly displays the effectiveness of mobile marketing based on a few important statistical studies:

Source: mobile-marketing-blog.net

The transitions happening in the strategizing by brands are immense. With mobile technology on the rise, disconnect between the brands and consumers is unlikely. Brand managers are gearing up to mobile and bridging the gap between strategy and implementation. Though mobile marketing is comparatively a very new medium, brands that can crack it, stand to gain. Have you ever imagined the profit a brand can gain on reaching out to the target audience through a mobile that he/she carries along all times of the day? One cannot just ignore the real-time connect, context-based advertising and interactions that can be generated from mobile marketing. Do share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tags:Brands & Mobile Marketing, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Revolution
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Digital Media, Mobile Marketing, Online Videos, Social Media | No Comments »

Branding & Marketing: The Online-Offline Blend!

Tuesday, August 5th, 2014

In this constantly changing world of marketing, advertising and branding, a very simple Google search has the potential to reveal all trends that the industry can experience in times ahead. Few trends are already in the process of shaping up the route of marketing & branding and few are emerging gradually. The first quarter of this year has already witnessed few of the major developments in the social and digital landscape; one of these innovations being; the fusion of online and offline techniques. The time is here when businesses are striving to create an integrated marketing strategy because of the rising association between the corporeal and virtual worlds.

Digital Marketing is the leading edge, and everybody knows that. Therefore, with digital marketing or simply calling online marketing, it has become very easy for brands, brand managers and marketers to connect with their target audiences.

Now the question is, do you think this is just enough? The answer is, ‘No’!

Simply because, by just having an online marketing campaign does not mean one can leave offline marketing aside. What one should not do is, having two stand-alone marketing strategies and actually work towards having both the offline and online strategies work in synchronization.

Moving on, this type of marketing blend requires more than just integrating the marketing techniques. It requires integrating the mindsets of the marketers as this online and offline fusion is just like the two sides of the same coin. Consumers and audiences today are already living in this reality.

just think about it, how we print our movie tickets after booking it online, we research things online and pick it up from the related store, we buy something in the store and get information about it online. Still, marketers are not able to make out much on how and when to integrate both the channels.

If you are still wondering on how to begin with bringing your online and offline strategies together, below are a few things you can start with:

– Using Social Media platforms to spread the word about some brand event offline

– Adding a QR Code to a direct mail will lead to users visiting your website, subscribe to your other channels and interact with your brand on social media channels

– Encouraging offline decisions with SEO can provide valuable information about the target audience. Once the keywords that customers are using are understood, what inspires them to buy the product or brand can be defined and further, offline & online strategies can be planned around that

Integrating Offline and Online Marketing into your branding strategies can very much empower your Business. Let us see how:

Having a great user base on social media channels and a considerable amount of traffic is not enough nowadays. As it has now become important to personalize the social media output unique to the brand. This not only helps in distinguishing the brand in the industry but in also evolving as a thought leader. Therefore, it becomes essential to select social media mediums that offer the best access to the target market, while also inculcating the character emotion into the content as a way of engaging an audience in conversation.

Keeping the brand’s identity alive across all channels is very important. The brand thought needs to be carried across business. So, while integrating the online and offline, one must ensure spreading the brand awareness. One must ensure that a fluid and cohesive brand is established across all outbound materials and publications. A cohesive approach needs to be adopted while marketing any venture.

Marketers and brand managers this year have seen, implemented and come to a conclusion that one of the best ways to market a brand is through an interactive campaign; a campaign that engages consumers through both corporeal and virtual marketing. While technology, social media platforms and mobile media might be used for organizing and facilitating an innovative idea or event, it will also need people to interact with it physically.

Online strategies like: Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Mobile Advertising and Social Media Marketing and Offline strategies like: Corporate Gifts and Promotional Products, Mainstream Media, Business Cards followed by Networking with members of the community are few such techniques to start with and help your brand excel with this fusion!

As they say, with great popularity come great challenges, how do you plan to fuse your next marketing strategies between the offline and online so that the consumer experience is not only good, but an extremely relevant one? How do you think one can leverage their knowledge about each prospect on one channel to turn them into a better customer on the other? Finally, how do you think it can be measured, analyzed and improved? Do share your thoughts with us!

Tags:Blending the online & offline marketing techniques, Branding & Marketing, Digital Experiential Solutions, Digital Marketing, Digital Media Campaign, Online-Offline Blend
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Digital Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | No Comments »

Experiential Marketing – Significance & Benefits!

Monday, July 21st, 2014

In the last blog we threw light upon how Brands & the Rise of Experiential Marketing can lead to a greater and personalized brand awareness and engagement, leading to a much stronger brand loyalty. Experiential marketing, thus, leads to offering positive experiences to people about a product or brand, which of course they find more interesting and memorable than an advertisement that simply says, ‘buy this!’ There lies a huge difference between making noise and making a lasting impact. A brand cannot be there to be just there, it needs to offer the coolest of experiences to its customers. Thus, such impressive experience bring with them great benefits too!

The simple rule of psychology says that we learn from our experience, and hence, the same rule also applies to marketing. The brand experiences that we go through help us form perceptions about the brand, trust and in turn become loyal customers. Experience does matter!

This is where experiential marketing plays the most important role as it triggers emotions, motivation and stimulates the neural region that makes decisions.

Benefits? They are many. By implementing an experiential marketing strategy you invite great benefits. It helps you,

· Create awareness, builds brand image
· Display attributes
· Gain credibility
· Encourage purchase behaviour
· Appeals to consumer sense & develops emotional connection
· Build positive perceptions about the brand
· Builds customer brand loyalty
· Makes the brand stand out compared to the competition

So, when you plan to implement this in your marketing plan, do ask yourself; is my brand fun, exciting, thrilling etc.? What kind of chord do I want to strike into the minds of my consumers? What impact will it have and what will it make them feel? Will they ever use my band?

You must be wondering still, what is the importance of experiential marketing?

Consumers face unique experiences and varied choices which link them directly to the brand. Marketers are ready to invest in innovative technologies, so experiential is the trend. Face to face interaction strengthens the relationships with target audiences. Rising competition in the industry gives way for brands to be more innovative in their marketing approach. Lastly, brand image & customer loyalty essentially convert into sales and experiential marketing does provide measurable results and return on investment (ROI).

Too add to your thinking process and for some instant motivation, here’s a collection of some of the best experiential marketing efforts by top brand across the globe.

MERCEDES-BENZ – “Looks fast. Even in park.”

TROPICANA – “Brighter mornings for brighter days”

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC – Augmented Reality

SPANAIR – “Unexpected luggage”

GRANATA PET STORE – “Snack Check”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dpmX9yfl7no

COCA-COLA – “The Coca-Cola friendship machine”

HARPER COLLINS – “This dark endeavor”

BAR AURORA & BOTECO FERRAZ – “Drunk Valet”

VOLKSWAGEN – “The fun theory”

You would also love to watch these amazing creative works too:

Carlsberg: Happy Beer Time Installation
Scrabble Wi-Fi: Play for Free Wi-Fi Minutes!
Kit Kat: Free No-WiFi Zone
Source: www.digitalbuzzblog.com, morethanbranding

These are indeed some of the great experiences to remember. Do you know or wish to share more such innovations? Have you tried to integrate the element of digital experiential marketing for your brand yet? Do share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments below!

Tags:Digital Experiential Solutions, Digital Marketing, Digital Media, Digital Media Campaign, Experiential Marketing, Importance of Experiential Marketing
Posted in Blog Visibility, Blogs, Digital Media, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Brands & the Rise of Experiential Marketing

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

Did you step out of the house lately and bump into some interactive installation by some brand? Well, if so, then this can be nearly called as experiential marketing as this is that type of messaging which you can touch, view or feel in a physical space. Yes, it indeed is on the rise, and marketers of all types of brands and products are trying their best to connect with their consumers in person and also digitally through Tweets, YouTube videos, Instagram etc. Marketers and brand managers seem to have shifted their prime focus on building consumer experiences through their marketing efforts. They are encouraging consumers to share their personal experiences with the brand during certain activities, concerts, speaking sessions, followed by their overall brand experiences.

Engaging with audiences beyond physical experiences is what the marketers of this era are looking at. Therefore, they are, through their experiential marketing efforts, targeting, attracting and leveraging as many consumers as possible.

But then, what a brand does to build excitement, drive eagerness and generate traffic reflects in the experience it gives to its audience in the digital space.

Nowadays, what brands do matters a lot more than what they say. Don’t you agree on that?

We now live in the digital age where we have an immense number of virtual communities, not ignoring the fact that brands do rely on social media for interacting and engaging with their consumers. But with the need of the hour being breaking through the online marketing clutter, brands need to think beyond the social landscape. They now need to create an online-offline connect by providing with memorable experiences to their consumers.

If thoughtfully planned and strategically executed, experiential marketing has a great potential to improve brand performance and value by producing exciting experiences for consumers leading them to share it on social platforms.

So, in order to amplify your brand’s online presence and create a digital impact with experiential marketing make sure your digital strategy ensures these points:

Interaction

Do ensure that the quality of the interaction you do with your consumers is not compromised because an experience has a far greater impact as it motivates people to take action. If the interaction is good, then they build relationship with the brand further sharing it online.

Building Relationships

Experiential marketing not just delivers greater responses or impressions, but leads to building deeper relationships with consumers making them feel the connection with the brands. This relationship building mechanism leads to establishing brand advocacy for the brand through online and word of mouth communication.

Breaking the clutter

As the clutter factor is increasing in the digital marketplace, a lot of consumers are becoming resistant to this clutter and are not ready to take this flood of messages. But with experiential marketing, consumers will not just see, but feel and remember your brand message for a very long time. So, brands can break the clutter by offering an experience to their consumers and increasing awareness for their brand.

Customers – Targeting the right ones!

Targeting the right consumers for experiential marketing is the key. As this marketing technique appeals to those ready to take risks and try out new things and learn too. The right consumer will experience the brand, understand its message and walk away with an intention to purchase or atleast share about it online.

Image Source: majorlittlethings.com

Well, there is no doubt about the impact that experiential marketing can have on consumers and their purchase behaviour. Brands that are ready to take up experiential marketing are sure to increase awareness, build loyalty and boost sales for their brand. What do you think about it? Have you tried to create this digital impact with your experiential marketing efforts? Do share your thoughts with us!

Tags:Brand Experiences, Digital Experiential Solutions, Digital Marketing, Digital Media, Experiential Marketing
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Social Media | 2 Comments »

The Evolution of Augmented Reality & Brands!

Monday, June 16th, 2014

What is Augmented Reality? Augmented Reality is a digital technology that covers images or video over physical objects. AR provides all types of information such as location, visual, audio, heading, and acceleration data, and opens a way for real-time feedback. Augmented Reality bridges the gap between physical or traditional means of advertising and digital experience, in turn empowering brands to engage with their customers and get greater business results in the process. With the active convergence of mobile, social and context, augmented reality can turn out be a great app for sure.

AR lets one use their smartphone or tablet’s camera to see the digital information on top of a physical environment. Hence, it offers digital enhancements to the real world senses of touch, sound, sight, smell and taste. Now let‘s see how augmented reality can be used by businesses. Most brands and businesses can use it for:

· Product demos/manuals
· Multiple product views
· Deals or offers
· Interactive social media
· Real-time information
· Sneak peek beneath the surface
· Pitches & Tenders
· Online campaigns
· Events & Conferences
· Point of Sale
· Tourism & Leisure
You must be wondering that how this augmented reality works? What is found by a basic research is that when compared to traditional marketing, AR marketing works much better. This is because when people touch or interact with a product or a device, they establish an emotional bond with it which makes them more likely to buy it.

AR leads you from a printed advertisement to an offer, from a booth in an exhibition to a Facebook contest, from a retail shop window to a digital market.

How AR works

· App and smartphone camera sensors combine reality with virtual overlays
· Readers or viewers hold phones in front of a printed area, surface or page
· The AR app searches for images and patterns on a server
· The App validates image and sends back the associated content

Major sectors using AR

· Retail
· E-commerce
· Real Estate
· Industrial Sector
· Education and Training
· Print and publishing
· Location based services

Few brands using AR

Source: www.4imprint.com

Benefits of using Augmented Reality

· Greater interactivity
· Real-time information
· Trackability
· The augmented time of the consumer with the service or the product presented for a prolonged period of time
· The relationship built through this engagement is long lasting
· The efficiency to spread to masses through the digital space
· The ability to build a series of actions, updates and campaigns through various applications

Augmented Reality Statistics:

• The total revenue generated from AR was around $300 million in 2013.
• In 2014, around 30% mobile subscribers will use AR at least once in a week.
• In 2014, more than 864 million smartphones will have AR technology enabled.
• By 2016, AR revenue is expected to cross $600 billion.
• It is expected that by 2017 more than 2.5 billion mobile AR apps will to be downloaded
Source: Trigg-AR.com

Revenue generation through AR seems to be on a positive rise and is being successfully tried by brands. AR till now has evolved to a great extent and continues to account for infinite downloads. If brands can provide an experience to customers in a variety of locations, it is evident that consumer engagement will increase too. Hence, in this age of digital era and programmatic advertising, Augmented Reality is expected to be very attractive. What do you think? Do share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tags:Augmented Reality, Augmented Reality and Brands, Brands and AR, Evolution of Augmented Reality & Brands
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Social Media | No Comments »

Brands and Digital Media Campaign

Monday, June 2nd, 2014

By 2016, it is believed that there will be 10 billion mobile connected devices which will exceed the global population of 7.3 billion people on earth. But, reaching these many number of consumes is convoluted. The reason for this is that 20% of all the web traffic is already on mobile (majorly via iphone, ipad or android). As a result of which, we see a lot of apps being developed by brands for engaging with their consumers.

Even consumers spend more time using apps than mobile web. Flash, another element for video playback compatibility is found only on laptops and desktops, not on mobile devices or iphone and ipad for that matter. A lot of mobile devices infact have HTML5. And if you check out, maximum reach always requires Flash, HTML5, Mobile Web and mobile Apps for android and iOS.

Moving on, what was noticed eventually was that viewing videos on social networks grew. As the reach through these various mediums is increasing, now the time is for brands and businesses to monetize it. Yes, we mean generating revenue. It is expected that the number of users watching pay-per-view video on mobile phones and tablets will increase in the coming years. Even television is estimated to add billions of revenue due to digitalization followed by online video advertising.

What we intend to bring to light is the importance of a digital media campaign for brands. This would prove to be the fuel for brands to drive into the minds of their consumers by engaging them through the right path.

Let us see what a framework of a complete digital media campaign holds:

The Communication Strategy: This is the blue print of a digital media campaign which focuses or brings to light the specifics methods and mediums that can be used to reach a brand’s target demographic.
The Visual Identity: This is the face of any digital campaign, basically it is the visual representation of the campaign message which conveys and also supports that campaign message, visually.
Message: It is the heart of a brand’s digital media campaign. It fuels every interaction throughout the campaign and is at the forefront of any digital media campaign.
Outreach: Reaching out to the target consumers through communication to convey the campaign message.
The next thing is,
Media Buying: This includes getting the best for your marketing budget when it comes to media based ad purchase.
Interactive Media: A successful content management system allows websites to become the centre zone for communications rather than just a static webpage.
Interactive Web Portals would also require unique functionality.
Social Media: Last but not the least, a successful social media presence is that in which all profiles are kept on brand through custom design profiles and messaging.

Hence, the success of your brand’s digital media campaign will depend on all the above factors combined together to communicate a campaign message, advertising, design, videos and publishing that not only reaches the target audience but creates a lasting impression too!

Have you planned a digital media campaign for your brand yet? What were the most important factors that were a part of your campaign? Do share in your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Tags:Brands into Digital Media, Digital, Digital Media, Digital Media Campaign, Digital Media Campaign Structure
Posted in Blog Content, Blog Visibility, Blogs, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments »