This post is written by Lauren McCarty, an account executive at Racepoint Group. You can follow Lauren on Twitter at @McLauren84.
The media depicts stereotypical East Coasters as sarcastic, impatient and culturally enlightened. I never endorse stereotypes, but I’m here to tell you one East Coast fable holds some weight: incessant, obsessive smartphone use. And according to a new report from In-Stat, the entire country will soon follow the trend. In-Stat predicts that by 2012, over half the U.S. handset market will be comprised of smartphones. Android is expected to maintain its position as the leading operating system, and somewhat surprisingly, Nokia is predicted to sell more smartphones than Apple.
An Indiana native transplanted in the Racepoint Boston office, I noticed the smartphone divide as soon as I arrived in Boston in 2008. At the time, almost no one in Indianapolis had a smartphone, and if they did, it was a clunky Treo. The deciding factors when choosing a new phone were keyboard size, sleek design and color. Qwerty texting still reigned as the primary required feature, and while some phones offered mobile browsers and primitive apps, users were terrified of the unknown potential costs. In fact, I witnessed friends accidentally open their feature phone mobile browsers and shriek as they tried to exit as quickly as possible, convinced their monthly bill would instantly triple.
I resisted the smartphone peer pressure until last year, when I bought an iPhone 4. Unsurprisingly, it’s rarely left my palm since. I just returned from a vacation in Phoenix, and I noticed a decidedly different phone culture out West. In coffee shops and restaurants people read the paper and chatted with friends, tables unencumbered by the usual pile of black smartphones found in East Coast hang outs. Within my group of Midwestern-born friends, only two of six had smartphones, and no one had an iPhone. I really stuck out like a sore thumb checking Facebook every two hours and constantly complaining about insufficient broadband.
But it appears my initial observations are aging quickly as the smartphone tide begins to crest. Experts were hesitant to confirm the smartphone’s coming domination, with so many rural regions still favoring feature phones, but the new In-Stat report confirms it’s taking over. While some people will continue to resist, the future is clear: Smartphones are unstoppable, and the way we communicate with each other and access information has been forever changed.
Every PR/Marketing person dreams of being the genius mind behind a successful viral video. In 2011 content creation is king and producing an entertaining and informative video to raise brand awareness is a high priority for any PR/Marketing team.
Enter this superb infographic posted by Mashable. Seriously, superb. There are several valuable statistics illustrated here covering everything from the length of the video to the best sites to promote it on. Check it out:
- Videos that clock in at 15 seconds get circulated 37% more than longer clips
- People share video on Facebook 218% more than via email and Twitter combined
- Women account for 57% of social video views
This is a guest post by RJ Bardsley, Vice President, Racepoint Group.
In a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, reporters Scott Thurm and Yukari Iwatani Kane explore the reality of how much data some of the most popular Android and iPhone apps actually share. The article starts off with a quick look at Pandora, the adorable, hugely popular music app. It turns out that Pandora shares demographic, location and personal details to eight different trackers.
I guess it’s naïve to say this is shocking – consumers in the North American market have given up a lot of privacy since the dawn of the Internet age in return for mobile and internet experiences that make our lives easier, more connected, more fun or just a little bit more interesting. The reality of apps sharing data is that it will enable marketers and content publishers to create a more personalized (and ergo a better?) experience for users. What does this mean? Well, basically it means that if you’re downloading and using a lot of apps, you’re choosing your own mobile “adventure” without even knowing it.
Today the “adventure” is still in its early phases. Your phone doesn’t change colors, tones and layouts based on what you chose to listen to on Pandora. But that scenario is not out of the realm of possibility. That’s the cool side of it. The uncool side of it is that you could say marketers are actually spying on consumers – especially when data is collected without notifying the user.
Where is the happy medium? People have been searching for that since machines first started collecting data. The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) offers some guidance in a Code of Conduct. The MMA is a strong advocate of consumer privacy standards, but the organization is strictly voluntary and has no power to enforce anything. As a consumer, you could turn off almost all the applications and features that collect and send data from your phone, but then you’d be left with a pretty boring piece of plastic and glass.
Should mobile brands move cautiously where privacy is concerned? A survey of Wall Street Journal readers (an interactive part of the above-mentioned article) reveals that most consumers (66.5 percent) feel that apps should always tell users when they’re collecting data. That seems to indicate that having a privacy-friendly image for your app or device would be beneficial. That said, Pandora doesn’t seem to be suffering.
This morning Leena Rao reported for Tech Crunch that Skype has launched Skype 5.0 with new features, most signifcantly, intergration with Facebook. While Skype has become the standard go-to for video calling, there was no social aspect to the service. Rao described the new integration:
“After logging in via Facebook Connect, you’ll be able to see your Facebook News Feed with the Skype interface, post status updates that can be synced with your Skype mood message and comment and like friends’ updates and wall posts.”
As a Skype user, I am thrilled to know that I can now access my entire Facebook social network and enjoy the free Skype services (phone calls and video calling) with all my Facebook friends. It will be interesting if the two companies collaborate to add new dimensions to this partnership for their joint users.
In addition to integrating with Facebook, the New York Times reported two weeks ago that Skype has also struck a deal with Avaya to intergrate with corporte phone systems. Verne Kopytoff detailed the news:
“Hoping to make inroads into big businesses, Skype joined on Wednesday with Avaya, a major seller of corporate phone systems. As part of the deal, Avaya will integrate Skype into its bundle of products for customers in the United States. . . Skype and Avaya both say that Skype could be used in calls centers and by sales staff. The technology would reduce corporate phone bills and allow consumers who use Skype to call companies free from a computer.“
While the Skype products may seem simple, their strategic decisions to align with the largest social network and a major telecommunications provider for businesses is nothing short of genius.
This week USA Today’s Bruce Horovitz reported that McDonald’s has taken their social media strategy to a new level of engagement by planting their own, branded farm via Facebook’s incredibly popular application, FarmVille.
For the past24 hours, McDonald’s sponsored FarmVille’s first-ever branded farm. For the full day Thursday October 7th, users who interacted with the McDonald’s farm were rewarded with virtual prizes to decorate their personal FarmVille empires. Rewards included items like virtual, McDonald’s branded hot air balloons.
Why FarmVille you may ask? How many FarmVille users could there really be? Answer? 18 million.
McDonald’s director of media, Anja Carroll, told USA Today, “This is all part of a larger social-media strategy. It’s difficult to ignore the sheer volume of the audience that FarmVille brings.”
McDonald’s is a superb example of a company taking their Facebook activity beyond their corporate page and continuing to strategize new and effective ways to target their ideal audience. I’m lovin it.
Early this week Universal Pictures invited RaceTalk to attend a private screening of the documentary “Catfish.” Given our extensive coverage of social media, and particularly Facebook, the studio felt we were the perfect viewers.
The film follows a young, New York City based photographer, Yaniv “Nev” Shulman as he forms relationships with a family in Michigan. After seeing one of Nev’s photographs in the New York Sun, this Michigan family sends him a painting of his photograph, done by their eight year old daughter Abby.
Nev winds up “friending” Abby’s mother, father, sister, brother and more via Facebook and communicates with them regularly. Over the coming months they share countless emails, Facebook messages, phone calls, photos, videos, song recordings, and of course, more paintings. Eventually, Nev begins to form a romantic bond with Abby’s older sister Megan. He talks to her every day on the phone, via text, email and she sends photos and recordings of her singing songs she wrote for him.
One evening Nev discovers via the power of Google and YouTube, that Megan has been sending music recordings that are in fact stolen from an artist named Amy Karney. When he confronts her about it, she becomes frazzled and overly emotional. From this conversation on, things with Megan and the entire family begin to unravel. In an attempt to get some closure on what now feels like a mountain of lies, Nev and the two film makers (his older brother Ariel and their friend Henry) decide to drive to Ipsheming, Michigan to meet the family in person and uncover the truth.
Without spoiling the ending, because if you are an active user of Facebook you must see this movie, I will say that “Catfish” caused me to rethink my personal approach to Facebook. As a PR professional, we counsel our clients on the use of social media and the real-time web, and encourage them to share, share often, and share with complete transparency. We position social media as an easy, low cost way to reach your target audience on the websites and applications they are already using. Personally, we do the same. We use our Facebook profiles to share photos, videos, articles we enjoy, blog posts we write and more. Facebook has become so ubiquitous; we behave this way without question.
In David Kirkpatrick’s book “The Facebook Effect” he chronicles the early days of Facebook when a user was required to have a college, .edu email address to join. Mark Zuckerberg felt the university email address provided a level of authenticity that you are who you say you are. Once Facebook was opened broadly, and that requirement disappeared, you could use any email address to sign up, even a fake one.
“Catfish” demonstrates that the internet and in this case Facebook, allows users to not only share content, but to also steal content; to poach photos, videos, music and more and re-purpose it for their own use. The current explosion of content on the internet and social networks provides users with the ability to pluck content off the web and create an entire identity with stolen information.
Nev is still an active user of Facebook. His experiences have not diminished his use of the network. However, “Catfish” will force you to re-think the way you use Facebook and exactly how open you want to be with your personal information and the people you allow into your network. This film is a haunting, brutally real look at the power of social media.
Back in April I wrote about Jeff Pulver’s 140 Character Conference that was taking place in New York City. I praised the conference and its attendees for providing advice on social media best practices live from the event. The live tweeting was so impressive I felt like I was there in the auditorium.
Yesterday, I actually was in the auditorium as Pulver brought his traveling conference to Boston for the first time. The conference began at 9:00 am and went until 6:00 pm with over 61 speakers on the roster. Each group that took the stage had 10 minutes to share how Twitter and/or the real-time web have impacted their goals professionally and personally. Below, a few highlights from the day:
Jeff Pulver, @jeffpulver – Check out Pulver’s opening remarks to kick off the day:
John Daley, @Boston_Police – Daley, deputy superintendent for the Boston Police, shared that the department is using Twitter to broadcast vital, public safety information to the city of Boston and their broader Twitter followers. The police see Twitter as an effective way to disseminate critical information in real-time. Daley also noted that citizens have begun reporting crimes to the police via Twitter. They tweet updates and photos, typically of crimes they consider “too small” to dial 911. Who knew!
C.C. Chapman, @cc_chapman – C.C. is on a mission. A mission to give dads who blog as much power and recognition as the infamous “mommy bloggers.” During what was by far the most animated speech of the day, C.C. shared his personal quest to force consumer brands to recognize fathers as a key sales demographic. Marketers, pay attention. The dads have wallets too.
Patrick Larkin, @bhsprincipal – Larkin is the principal of Burlington High School where he is trying to bring the school into the digital revolution. In addition to teaching a Web 2.0 class to his students, Larkin is working to educate families on the importance of digital education for students. During his panel, Larkin said, “We need to teach our children to use social media. Without that, the diploma doesn’t mean much.”
Amanda Palmer, @amandapalmer – Palmer, best known as part of the musical group the Dresden Dolls, shared with the audience that, “I was able to ditch my management and my record label to launch an album all via the internet.” She went on to say how her Twitter followers have been incredibly supportive and a resource she didn’t realize would be so critical. She said, “Life is becoming easier, faster and cheaper as we harness the power of social media.” Rock on, Amanda!
Georgy Cohen, @radiofreegeorgy – Cohen is the managing editor of web communications for Tufts University and has one of the best understandings of the power of social media that I have encountered. Not only does she see the value in active social media platforms for the university, but she is consistently engaging with students, staff and alumni to build meaningful relationships. Cohen hit the nail on the head when she said, “We have to be in the ‘now’ because our brands already are, whether we are or not.” I was also impressed by Cohen’s decision to harness the strength of content creation and launch a Tufts website called Jumble (their mascot is the Jumbo) to aggregate all of the best content created by students, staff and alumni. For colleges and university seeking social media best practices, look no further than Tufts.
Chris Brogan, @chrisbrogan – Brogan, a high profile social media player, author and the president of New Marketing Labs, spoke to the group about Twitter and other web applications simply serving as a platform for larger goals. In one of the best quotes of the day he quipped, “No one ever asked Hemmingway what kind of pencil he wrote with. Don’t ask me what blog platform I use! That’s not the point.” View Brogan’s entire talk here:
For more information on the speakers at the Boston 140 Characters Conference, check out my live updates @MollyGaller on Twitter or the #140conf hashtag.
At the close of the event, Pulver said, “This conference is not a tech event, it’s a life event.” Thank you, Jeff Pulver, for a superb day that reminds us all that the next big thing could be just a tweet away.
This week Facebook announced the launch of a new feature – Facebook Places. Much like the mobile application Foursquare, Facebook Places will let you “check in” to your current location via Facebook on your smart phone. It will display your location updates to all of your Facebook friends.
You may find yourself asking – doesn’t this same application already exist with Foursquare, Gowalla and others? Why yes, yes it does. However, the Facebook Places application is also going to allow your friends to check you in to places, whether you like it or not.
Of course you can alter your Facebook privacy settings to disable the ability for other users to check you in, but the Facebook default settings will indeed allow your friends to check you in.
Facebook Places does allow businesses to “claim” their venue and provide updates to users who check in via the application (exactly like Foursquare).
While it may seem Facebook is simply duplicating an application that already exists by another provider, what the real concern is here is how Facebook is increasingly making moves to become a one-stop-shop for online and mobile activities.
For example, more people upload photos to Facebook than competing photos services like Kodak Gallery, Snapfish or Shutterfly. Facebook also has the Marketplace application which aims to compete with Craigslist. Businesses now consider their Facebook fan page as vital, if not more, than their company website. The addition of Facebook Places is another intentional move to gobble up competing online players.
Can Facebook extinguish enough competitors to ultimately become the singular destination for online and mobile sharing? What do you think?
If you’re a foodie, you have a login for restaurant reservation website OpenTable. If you’re gadget savvy, you may also have their mobile app on your smartphone. The popular reservation service has seen great success thus far in 2010, confirmed by their recently quarterly earnings announcement.
In a post by Erick Schonfeld of TechCruch, he reports “OpenTable is installed in 14,128 restaurants and seated 15.6 million diners last quarter, up 27 percent and 52 percent, respectively.” Not only is OpenTable becoming the go-to source for reservations, but users are also raising their level of engagement with the site.
Schonfeld wrote, “Those diners have now written more than 7 million restaurant reviews. As a point of comparison, Yelp has a total of 12 million reviews across all local businesses, and CEO Jeremy Stoppleman considers the those reviews to be Yelp’s single most important competitive advantage.”
Digest that for a second. Yelp, which reviews all types of businesses, not just restaurants, has 12 million reviews, and OpenTable, which exclusively provides restaurant information has 7 million?
OpenTable clearly understands the value of creating a site users want to spend time on, not just log in and log out. By allowing customers to write reviews of their dining experiences the site becomes about something more than just reserving your table.
Additionally, OpenTable is hopping on the “group buying” bandwagon and offering a new weekly special they are calling “Spotlight.” This will operate the same way Groupon, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe do, and offer specials like “$25 dollars for $50 dollars worth of food at Grill 23.”
As RaceTalk commented in a post last week, the group buying concept entices customers to try places they normally wouldn’t because they are being offered a discounted price (recession, anyone?). Additionally, the sites incorporate social media channels allowing users to post their purchase on Facebook, Twitter and more. Some sites also offer referral bonuses to customers who bring in new users.
Should OpenTable decide to incorporate social media sharing on their site and explore referral bonuses, the company’s growth potential is exponential. OpenTable is paying attention to emerging trends and adapting quickly.
Social Media Michelin awards OpenTable three stars!
Infographics are quickly becoming a media and public relations industry buzz word / topic. Why you ask? Two major reasons. As corporations continue to shift into their role as media companies and content curators, they’re realizing the opportunity to package interesting data to the media and consumers in new ways. More importantly, media organizations and editors are now focusing on finding new ways to engage their readership. Infographics happen to solve both of these problems by packaging data in a way that makes it both engaging and easy to read.
A few weeks ago I sat down with Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey for Racepoint Group’s video newsletter to discuss how brands and agencies can leverage infographics and why they’re becoming the “new slide shows” for media outlets desperate for engaging content. While Sam cautioned that infographics aren’t B-roll (most media outlets like to play a role in building them), he did pass along some interesting insight into how PR practitioners and marketers can leverage the media’s interest in this new category of content.
For more insight on infographics, along with the latest news and trends in marketing, PR and communications in the technology space subscribe to Racepoint’s “The Point: Tech Edition.
