Qdoba’s Queso Showdown

Though we realise that Facebook marketing has reached its decline stage almost completely, certain brands are still leveraging the potential of the social media giant- Facebook. Various types and genres of brands are nowadays using the social media domain to ensure a wider reach and frequency in the market. Even so, brands are organising ad campaigns, social media campaigns on various social networking websites such that they are able to target the biggest community at once.

Qdoba Mexican Grill is a chain of fast casual Fresh Mex restaurants in the United States and Canada serving Mexican-style cuisine. They on Facebook ran a viral campaign which engaged the fan base and brought much insightful results along with an increased traffic to its facebook page.

The brand organised the, Qdoba’s Queso Showdown, a campaign wherein the fans had to vote between two dishes. the dish that won would be given out by the brand to whomsoever registered for it for free on a single day. The most striking feature of the campaign was the way Qdoba updated the results in real-time over the contest. A regular update of the results made it more exciting and encouraging for fans to participate in the campaign. It showed how fans are still engaged with the effort, and generated more buzz and excitement around the whole endeavor.

A good, old-fashioned vote is one thing and using this particular theme to their benefits is another. after the completion of the campaign, the whole of 28th April Queso DIablo (the winner of the contest) could be added to any entree for free in all participating Queso restaurants as an add on to their order.

The campaign worked out in favour of the brand even when the concept of voting has withered out. Fans of the brand showed keen interest as such the campaign was able to increase user engagement and take it to an entirely new level. A post on the official page of the brand on Facebook read, ‘The votes were closer than anything we’d ever seen – 16,664 for Queso Verde and 16,680 for Diablo – but in the end, Queso Diablo pulled through for the win!’

Qdoba should be happy on this. A thorough increase in the traffic by using a basic concept on facebook is not happening a lot these days.

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Internet Loves Dogs- Pedigree Youtube campaign

After a thorough analysis SocialAppsHQ.com came to a conclusion that internet is a place where certain subjects trend and eventually become the talk of the town. Social Media has been helpful to many brands and products since its inception and has been a successful source of thoughtful and detailed insights as well for brand managers.

Seeking help of the internet, Pedigree, the specialists in the pet food category began a campaign on Youtube. The Internet really is a boon for pet-food marketers clever enough to capitalize on animal-obsessed Web culture without seeming too mercenary. Pedigree New Zealand uploaded a video of cute dogs being even cuter, which attempts to leverage YouTube’s revenue-sharing model to raise money for dog charity. The initiative carries the strapline ‘Every dog matters’, which is intended to fit with the brand’s overarching ‘We’re for dogs’ positioning.

Already people on the social media domain needed no reason to watch cute and appealing videos of cats and dogs and here, pedigree incorporated a social cause to it. So now when seeing this cute video, you are not wasting time but actually you are participating in a charitable task.

Every view will be monitored by YouTube, and Pedigree has pledged to donate £25,000 to the PCT for every 25,000 people who view the channel.

The concept behind such a campaign is that, ads are not very encouraging to watch and people are generally reluctant to share them across their channels. A video involving cute dogs doing mischief is something everybody wants to not only see but also share. Thereby, for its famous ‘Adoption Drive’ campaign, they created this super cute Doggy video, and enabled YouTube’s revenue sharing model, to make every global view earn money for the cause. There have been more than 5 lac views already and the deal is working out to be quite of a success already.

Of Course the social media campaign comes with the risk of the video not going viral, and big $$ values not returning as expected, but as of now the campaign has shaped out well and is being able to fill in the reserves.

This video in particular is a part of Pedigrees ongoing Adoption drive which bases its activities on the fact that an estimated 107,228 stray dogs were taken in by local authorities in 2009. Likewise, the brand aims on saving the lives of at least some dogs and giving them the care that they deserve.

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A Beginners Guide to Pinterest

Pinterest – a social media network for people to upload, save, sort and manage images, known as pins, and other media content through collections known as pinboards was launched in March 2010. Ben Silberman, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp- its founders started with the thought of creating a website that had more to do with the visual content of a conversation. Silbermann and a few programmers operated the site out of a small apartment until the summer of 2011 after he had already approached a magazine company to buy Pinterest from them. Luckily the deal did not work out and slowly yet steadily the website grew. By August 2011 it had become a part of the ‘top 50 websites of 2011’ article.

After brands like PetPlan and Sephora became a part of the platform and benefitted hugely, Pinterest’s credibility began to improve. With its presence on Pinterest, Petplan saw an 87% increase in new site traffic, a 35% increase in page views and a 12.5% increase in insurance quote requests. By using Pinterest Web Analytics to observe the kinds of content that get the most pins and repins, Sephora has come to learn which content will be popular with pinners such as beauty lists, color swatches, and face charts, it was thus able to add a lot of value to its products only to increase its users base further.

The number of users on the website kept on ticking. In January 2012, the website crossed 11.7 million unique users, making it the fastest site in history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark. Today Pinterest is the third largest social media community only after Facebook and Twitter.

Its like the new buzz on the social media domain and it is the new platform for many social media campaigns. As addictive as it can be, people and brands are going crazy over the platform. Although a part of the social networking arena, the platform has its own lingo which might seem to be a bit tough for beginners. The lingo used means:

• PIN- A pin refers to an individual image added on Pinterest. These pins can be easily added via a website or by choosing the option of uploading a pin on the platform itself. Each pin added using the “Pin It” button links back to the site it came from.


• BOARD- A board is a collection of many pins together. These boards can be categorised the way one wants to. A board can be created on any topic, such as Recipes, Wedding Ideas, Books to Read, Health & Fitness, or Wish List. You can add as many pins to a board as you want and create as many boards as you want.


• FOLLOWING- The following option makes you follow the boards created by other users on the platform. “Following All” means you’ll have all of a user’s new pins on all their boards shown to you in real-time on your Pinterest Home Page.

As per the Pinterest tagline, “A place to organize and share things you love” the platform allows its users to share all images and gives the freedom to give them catchy phrases and captions that adds on to the image quality and impact. Share and store important links that you wish to remember. Next, let’s begin using Pinterest.

Getting started- Creating an account on Pinterest is easy and simple. All you need is an email id to create an entity on Pinterest. There is a small form that you will need to fill, basically you need to put in your credentials here. After filling the form you will see something like this.

Also, the email id that you have used to register for an account on the platform will receive an email to confirm your registration.



Thereafter you need to tell Pinterest about your interests, follow certain boards that are trending on the platform and you are all set to pin your first image. It is always good to follow some influential and successful boards so that one can take help from them in case you get stuck somewhere. Following boards will give you a better idea of the platform and add to your accounts credibility as well.

Once you are done with the initial setting up of your account, all you need to do is get set to go ahead with your first pin.

You can also find other friends on the platform and begin following them.



Create Boards- As stated above, boards are like categories that you can make on Pinterest. They are a collection of many pins all put together which belong to the same genre and type.

Once your board is created and you have entered its description, given it a name and other details, it will appear like this.

The board is all ready! Now, you need to pin new pictures to the board and begin pinteresting. Also, if one needs they can edit the descriptions and the name of the board by just clicking on the ‘Edit Board’ option. You can also send or rather share your board with friends from Facebook, Google and Yahoo on Pinterest. the red ‘pin’ button on the bottom left corner signifies that the board is all set to take its very first pin.

Pin Images- Pinterest is all about pins. Pinning images means uploading new images and pictures to boards. Pinning of images can be done in more than one ways. Pins can be directly added from different websites, you can create pins from personal photos and Pinterest also allows you to repin pictures that already are a part of the platform.

• Pins from other Websites- When you find something on a website that you’d like to pin to a Pinterest board one can easily follow these steps;

Step 1: You first need to make sure that the Red “Pin It” button is a part of your tool bar of your browser. Once it is there the process becomes very easy. On seeing an image on any other website that you wish to pin you just use the tool from your toolbar.

Step 2: The next thing you see will be a pop up on your screens. This pop up will consist of a selection of images that are visible on the screen, you need to make your selection so as to which image you plan on pinning.

Step3: A screen will pop up with your chosen image. Select the board where you want it to appear and add a tittle. Click the red PIN IT button, and your new pin will appear on your Pinterest board.

• Personal photos as pins- Maybe you’ve got your own ideas to share on your Pinterest board. Take photos of how you’ve organized, decorated, or created something in your home, or share scenic photos from a favorite places. Transfer the photos to your computer and upload them to your Pinterest boards. It is easy to do the same, all you need to do is follow these steps.

Step 1: From the top bar of your Pinterest page you need to click on the plus sign to select from a list of options in the drop down menu. From there you select the ‘ Upload a Pin’ option.

Step 2: On selecting Upload a Pin option a dialog box opens that will help you navigate your computer and search for the image that you wish to pin.

Step3: On selecting the image, Pinterest will ask you for the board (from the list of boards that you have created on your profile) in which you want to upload the picture.

Step 4: After selecting the board all you need to do is Pin the image by clicking on the ‘Pin It’ button. One can also add description and title to the picture and customise it a little.

After the selection the image will be a part of your Pinterest account which can be shared with other friends on Pinterest.

• Repinning Images- Whether you’re viewing new pins from those you follow or pins from browsing the Pinterest network, it’s easy to repin images to your own boards. At times you come across pictures that you wish were a part of your boards as well. By following these simple steps you can easily repin images;

Step 1: Simply hover your mouse over the pin’s image and choose to Pin the image. You can also like and comment on the existing pin.

Step 2: Once you REPIN something, you will be prompted to assign it to one of your boards. After selecting the correct board the image will become a part of your board as well.

Pinterest is not only about creating your own identity on the website. It includes navigating through the Pinterest network and to follow new and unique boards. The platform can be considered to be a one stop destination point for many brands who wish to showcase their products to their users. Pinterest can be easily used to make creative boards as per the product categories. Especially new designers and boutiques are making ample use of the website and have been deriving useful insights. It’s a place to share and obtain new ideas from the growing community of other Pinterest users. Pinterest is both entertaining and useful and suitable for Pinterest marketing.

Be a part of the community and keep Pinteresting.

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Weekly Social Media News Updates for 22th to 28th April

SocialAppsHQ.com believes that social media is one of the fastest changing fields where every second something new and unique conspires. The experts of the domain are constantly updating the regular happenings that have certain impact on people. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter are always doing something that is different from the others and has a direct link with the users of the platform. New launches, social media campaigns, acquisitions and closures, social media is a complete package of all. Not to forget are the latest social media mobile apps, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, all are working on similar lines ready to influence the market as a whole.

In the past one week there have been certain newsworthy updates, projects, controversies and acquirings. Following is a concise version of all the news details that you need to know.

New search features on Pinterest- The company has just announced guided search, a new product that will allow users to better search for some particular pins out of the 30 billion pins on Pinterest. These will be like specific filters relevant to the original search term. The hope is that users will come across more relevant content, as well as discover new content they didn’t even know they were looking for, says Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann. Pinterest also unveiled custom categories, meaning users can now add pins to categories that didn’t previously exist.

New types of ads for Twitter- Twitter announced Website Cards, a new ad-unit that highlights a small photo, a line of text, and a URL to an advertiser’s webpage. These will be a part of their new ads strategy as promised by the company earlier. The new ad units will appear in user Timelines worldwide soon and this new feature has been added just after the announcement regarding the Q1 earnings of the company.

Facebook crosses 1 billion mobile users- Along with the announcement of Q1 earnings Facebook revealed that it had now crossed the 1 billion barrier and the number of active mobile users had exceeded the number. Facebook’s monthly active user total is now at 1.28 billion worldwide, and has increased every quarter since the company went public in 2012.

The Facebook Newswire launched- The social network launched FB Newswire, a Facebook page of hand-selected and journalist-verified news stories from across Facebook’s platform, according to Andy Mitchell, director of news and global media partnerships at Facebook. The Newswire selects stories in partnership with Storyful. The agency will use an algorithm to find popular and breaking news stories on Facebook in categories like sports, entertainment, tech and politics. Storyful will then follow up on these stories using human verification from its journalism team before surfacing that content on FB Newswire. As such the most relevant stories are expected to reach out to its users on Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg at Madame Tussauds- the wax version of Zuckerberg will be spending his days at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco taking pictures with visiting tourists. Madame Tussauds, the world famous London-based wax museum, unveiled a life-size wax figure of Zuckerberg as part of a promotion for the museum’s grand opening in San Francisco in June. The figure was unveiled alongside two other celebrity figures: actor Leonardo DiCaprio, and recording artist Rihanna. As huge as it is Zuckerberg will be available at the museum from June.

For a complete read follow the links. Have a nice week and be socially active!

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SocialAppsHQ launches Mobile and Website Campaigns

SocialAppsHQ.com has been providing an All-in-One Social Media Marketing platform, which includes all Apps you need to Engage and Grow your User base. We have been dealing with facebook apps for quite some time now. After the success of our Facebook marketing software, we have now launched website and mobile campaigns for our clients to grow and engage with their customers.

According to our Founder and CEO, Rajat Garg, “Our apps will help you engage and grow your customer base no matter what channel / device they are on. Based on our years of experience in marketing, we have taken the approaches that work best and modularized them. Whether you are building a website or a mobile app, embedding SocialAppsHQ is now a must have!”

In this era of modularization, websites and mobile apps can embed apps (broad term to cover onsite widgets and in-app SDKs) to make the job of a marketer easier and faster. These apps provide well defined functionality and an intelligence layer on top of your website/mobile apps. You can launch campaigns when you wish thereby providing behavioral and contextual targeting options, that makes your campaigns super targeted.

These apps are of basically three types.

1. Coupon Widget/In App Coupons- This involves setting up coupons that can be integrated to a website or a mobile app. One needs to just add on the details of the deal such that when the coupon is claimed by a customers he can redeem the offer being provided.

2. Notification Widget/ In App Notification- This involves putting up any important newsworthy information that will be highlighted and easily noticed on a website or in a mobile app.

3. Feedback Widget/In App Feedback- Nowadays, getting valuable feedback is like a blessing. This particular app when included to your codes will help you receive opinions from genuine users.

All a user needs to do is register on www.socialappshq.com, navigate to the products section, chose the platform and then the type of campaign that he wishes to use. For the website campaigns, all you need to do is embed the code into your own website and for mobile apps, you need to download the SDK which is then to be included in your mobile app.

These apps will not only help you get some of the most amazing insights but also help you engage your audience in a more integrated manner which will help you increase your website/mobile app’s presence manifold.

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5 Companies that are Marketing with Snapchat in 2014

As smartphones and tablets become a standard, rather than a luxury, thousands of new apps appear every year that are radically changing how we communicate and consume media. Likewise, the world of marketing is rapidly changing. Snapchat is to Instagram what Twitter was to Facebook — it allows users to send pictures and video that only exist for 1 to 10 seconds after they’re opened. These five tech-savvy companies have realized Snapchat’s innovative potential and are applying it to their marketing tactics.

New Orleans Saints

Image via Flickr by Cordey

The New Orleans Saints were the first NFL team to adopt a Snapchat account back in October 2013. They use the app to give their fans extra behind-the-scenes looks at what their favorite team does off the field. The Saints also use Snapchat to release photos of new merchandise, sneak peeks of upcoming uniforms, player antics, and so on. Snapchat allows the team to maintain a direct, intimate line of playful communication with their most loyal fans — especially helpful during the offseason. The Saints marketing team is a social media pioneer and incredibly hard to join. If you want a shot at working for the NFL, you’ll probably want to familiarize yourself with Snapchat while sharpening your business acumen online.

Chat Sports

Chat Sports, a purveyor of tickets to sporting events, used giveaways and classic marketing techniques to expand its brand awareness. For example, it offered Snapchat followers free tickets to a local sporting event of their choice if they convinced five of their friends to follow Chat Sports on Snapchat also. Hundreds of people responded within the first two days of the marketing event, bringing in tons of healthy traffic to Chat Sports.

Audi

German automobile manufacturer Audi began experimenting with Snapchat during the biggest football game of the year in 2014. Instead of spending millions of dollars to vie for coveted commercial airtime, Audi decided to use a Snapchat marketing blitz to focus on “anything and everything happening outside the football bubble on Sunday.” The result was a series of quirky images like an Instagram of nachos that allegedly received zero likes and a jumping turtle in a top-hat. Whether or not the snaps made sense, it certainly got people talking about the company.

Taco Bell

If there’s any company that puts Snapchat’s simple doodle-drawing feature to good use, it’s Taco Bell. The fast food taco company gained notoriety for using the app to reveal new products and menu selections. In April 2014, Taco Bell used Snapchat to reveal its latest Doritos Locos Tacos flavor. When it’s not unveiling new dishes, the chain sends entertaining, colorful snaps to delight its fans.

McDonald’s

Taco Bell wasn’t the only fast food company to get in on the Snapchat bandwagon — McDonald’s launched its first Snapchat campaign in early 2014 by posting what looks like a selfie of basketball star LeBron James. The company then sent fans incremental posts via Snapchat’s “story” feature, all to have James introduce the chain’s new Bacon Clubhouse sandwiches. Their fans were certainly lovin’ it.

Snapchat is just the latest tool that marketing managers use to strengthen customer loyalty and brand awareness for their companies. Have you seen it used by brands in any other way?

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30 shades of Pink

Social Media has of course provided all kinds of brands and services with an all round platform to highlight their USPs and their features in a way that will get them maximum attention from the users and prospective customers. Every now and then important influential brands reach out to the social media domain to use its complete potential in their favour and derive useful insightful and benefits.

The campaign to be discussed today was started in February 2014, by the most premier cosmetic brand, Maybelline. Maybelline New York is the world’s no.1 makeup brand. The brand has created its image for women who are fun, fashionable and up-to-date always, they always create products in line to their brands core values. And they have done it again with the launch of their new products “30 shades of Pink.”

Maybelline India, a part of Maybelline New York started a campaign in order to promote its new products which resemble 30 shades of pink. On February 25th 2014, Maybelline India ran a Twitter Contest, to promote 30 shades of Pink, where they encouraged users to tweet about why they love colour ‘Pink’ with the hashtag #ILovePinkBecause and the winners would stand a chance to win some of their merchandise. It was a fun ride to see those tweets coming in from various users. The hashtag #ILovePinkBecause was trending the entire day on Twitter for solid 24+ hours.

@MaybellineIndia #ILovePinkBecause it is the color which signifies Women Power

— Sneha Sen (@sensneha) February 25, 2014

The hashtag ILovePinkBecause has been one social media campaign that has made a lot of sensation on Twitter. A lot of conversations relating to Maybelline were made on Twitter and the hashtag peaked on twitter the most since the inception of the contest on 25th February 2014. The topics surrounding these conversations on Twitter yielded a lot more discussions around the hashtag #ILovePinkbecause. And these discussions led to multiple treads of topics, apart from talking about Maybelline and the new Pink products line. Followers related this hashtag to the movie Gulab Gang as that movie is about women empowerment and they associated the color pink with that.

Gulaab Gang stands for daring, fierce & powerful. #ILovePinkBecause #GulaabGang #MorePowerToPink #March7 http://ift.tt/1ibqdAS

— Mushtaq Shiekh (@shiekhspear) February 25, 2014

Combining the excitement of the campaign to other big names like Gulab Gang added to the campaigns success rate as well along with more reach. The surrounding topics not only helped Maybelline but other topics and their corresponding brands to gain a lot of perspective. The campaign on Twitter was able to receive a positive feedback with many famous celebrities and personalities becoming a part of the campaign spreading its roots to other social networking sites like Facebook as well.

This campaign succeeded in educating their followers about their new product, as well as created excitement amongst their followers to participate in the contest with the perk to win something it achieved its objective to create awareness and increase engagement. Maybelline has definitely bought pink back with style and options that have made the pink lovers excited.

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Weekly Social Media News Updates for 15th to 21st April

SocialAppsHQ.com believes that social media is one of the fastest changing fields where every second something new and unique conspires. The experts of the domain are constantly updating the regular happenings that have certain impact on people. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter are always doing something that is different from the others and has a direct link with the users of the platform. New launches, social media campaigns, acquisitions and closures, social media is a complete package of all. Not to forget are the latest social media mobile apps, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, all are working on similar lines ready to influence the market as a whole.

In the past one week there have been certain newsworthy updates, projects, controversies and acquirings. Following is a concise version of all the news details that you need to know.

LinkedIn Mobile Traffic Increases- LinkedIn announced on 18th April 2014 that it has reached 300 million registered users, a jump from 277 million members at the beginning of the year. LinkedIn announced the 200 million user milestone in January 2013, which means the company has added an average of 6.6 million new users per month over the past 15 months. LinkedIn and Slideshare, which the company bought in 2012, combined for an average of 187 million unique monthly visitors. LinkedIn expects that 50% of its user traffic will come via mobile by the end of 2014. LinkedIn is growing and the company plans to continue doing so with mobile as a focus.

Facebook’s Exact Locations- There’s a lot that Facebook allows you to share with your friends. On Thursday, the company added “exact location” to that list. Facebook’s new Nearby Friends feature enables you to flip a switch to start broadcasting your location with friends in the area. If you see someone nearby with whom you want to meetup, you can tap a button, and send them your exact location complete with a map detailing where to find you. Now this is something interesting and something that people would be up for. A user can opt out of the service and those who wish to make use of this feature can just switch it on using a button in the chat options.

Reply to comments on Facebook Pages- Facebook has rolled out version 9.0 of its iPhone app, adding the ability to reply to comments on stories on certain Pages. Also, group admins can now easily review and approve pending posts by group members, and posts about trending topics are highlighted in the iPad version of News Feed. Facebook is trying to make using the platform even more easy and a better experience. The 66MB-heavy Facebook 9.0 for the iPhone and iPad is available at Apple’s App Store.

New Features added to the Paper- Facebook Paper, the standalone news reader app the company launched in January, released its first significant app update on 18th April 2014. It added a couple new features to the News Feed section of the app as well as making a few subtle design tweaks. One can now see birthdays and events within Paper by clicking on the notifications tab in the upper righthand corner of the app and scrolling to the bottom. Users can also add a photo to a comment by using the phone’s camera or camera roll.

For a complete read follow the links. Have a nice week and be socially active!

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Shoot the Cookies

Undoubtedly, you open various pages on the internet on a daily basis. They may be anything and everything and none would want someone spying over them and recording every move that they make online. Cookies, the factor that records all the details from your logging into a page/website to your logging out. On social media there is a lot of information shared. Cookies store this information to use at a later stage.

McVitie’s, a famous British snack food who are also a premier biscuit making company have launched a campaign to promote themselves. A new campaign called “Shoot the Cookies” has been launched that targets internet cookies and talks about how bad they are since they spy on a person’s every move online. The brand has created an online website called ShootTheCookies.com to help users destroy all the cookies that spy what one is doing with one simple click. Now this is actually thinking out of the box.

The campaign consists of a pun on the word cookies, and aims to to Shoot the cookies so that one can feel free while browsing on the internet by creating a browser extension that scans for all the cookies on one’s computer and deletes them as well. Its available on the chrome web store and can be easily added to your toolbar on chrome. Once downloaded and installed, people can choose cookies from the list that they want to destroy and enjoy a spy free online experience.

The process of making your computer cookie free requires three simple steps;

1. Install the extension by clicking here.

2. Once the extension is installed, a little icon will appear on a toolbar.Click on it to launch the app.

3. The extension will display a list of all the cookies stored on ones computer. Choose the cookies which are the most annoying and click on the “destroy” button to delete them.

Its simple and its fun, its a one of a kind social media campaign , within seconds one can get rid of all the errors and all those factors that slow down the surfing and reduces the fun quotient from internet. Just out two day ago from when we write this, and the campaign has already done some great work. The creativity of the campaign is outstanding and the comparison that has been done between the edible biscuits and the cookies on the computer disturbing the social media and the internet experience.

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The iPhone powered Virtual Racetrack

Social Media is of course an important field for any brand to market itself. With time and with the advent of smartphones mobile applications have somewhat taken the charge of promoting new and advanced products. Brand managers are looking upto tailor made mobile apps or the ones which incorporate social media within them. Most of the famous brands and specifically websites have now created their apps that are free to download and use.

The brand that we are going to throw light upon today is Kia, a well-known car manufacturer. The brand has recently released their very first sports car called ‘GT RIDE’. To incorporate the game a mobile app that lets you create amazing virtual race tracks in 3D by moving your mobile device around in the real world.

The car racing game easily corresponds to their newly launched product. One of the very solemn features of this app is that firstly you can easily sketch out a 3D path for yourself to drive your car through the various turns and obstacles and secondly once you’ve hand-made your crazy 3D track, you can instantly share that with friends and challenge them to beat you on your own track. Now that adds on the social factor to the app.

Sharing the app features to Facebook and Twitter will only add on to the promotions of not only the app but also the final and eventual product to be marketed. It has not been very long since the app was uploaded on the app store and it has been able to bag a considerate number of downloads. The video uploaded on Youtube has also received respectable downloads to take the brand further.

Nowadays the kind of social media campaigns that are run are far different and unique from the older ones. The use of the new media specifically the social media has grown and brands are giving more importance to the digital PR activities than any other.

This particular campaign has formed the backbone for a product that might just prove to be a great success in the market and KIA might just benefit loads out of it. Its entire promotion and branding will be dependent on the fact that how popular this one app is and how well it does.

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Weekly Social Media News Updates for 7th to 14th April

SocialAppsHQ.com believes that social media is one of the fastest changing fields where every second something new and unique conspires. The experts of the domain are constantly updating the regular happenings that have certain impact on people. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter are always doing something that is different from the others and has a direct link with the users of the platform. New launches, social media campaigns, acquisitions and closures, social media is a complete package of all. Not to forget are the latest social media mobile apps, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, all are working on similar lines ready to influence the market as a whole.

In the past one week there have been certain newsworthy updates, projects, controversies and acquirings. Following is a concise version of all the news details that you need to know.

Facebook now has 100 million active users- Facebook has grown at a faster pace in the Indian subcontinent. In August 2013, the total number of Facebook users in India were 82 million which have now reached the 100 million mark. Javier Olivan, Facebook’s vice-president of growth and analytics, told India’s Economic Times that the landmark number was reached on March 31st. 84 percent of those 100 million Facebook users in India access it via mobile.India is set to hit a quarter of a billion web users sometime this year.

Twitter pop ups for the web- Twitter.com announced the launch of pop up notifications when others on the platform engage with them for example, when a user retweets, mentions or messages them. Something similar to facebook notifications, one can follow someone back or reply to a message directly from the notification.Users who are not interested in receiving the notifications can turn them off under Twitter’s settings.

Facebook’s algorithm change to get rid of spams- Facebook is tweaking its news feed algorithm again, this time to combat posts that contains like-baiting, duplicate content and spammy links. Stories that utilize the like-baiting strategy are ” 15% less relevant” than stories that achieve the same type of engagement organically. Also, another type of content Facebook’s algorithm will now identify are posts that include “spammy links,” or links that bring users to a website full of ads or highly circulated content. This change should not affect many users on the website.

Vine’s Colin Kroll to step down- The Vine cofounder announced that he will be stepping down from his position of the general manager. Although no news says that he will be leaving the company. Hours later Kroll’s twitter account revealed the mystery when he tweeted announcing that he wouldn’t be working there but would still continue his advisory role in the company whenever needed.

Facebook Messenger required to chat via mobile- Facebook will soon force all users to send messages through Messenger by eliminating the chat features from its traditional iOS and Android versions of the app. Those users will have two weeks to download Messenger before the service within the main app disappears. The company will alert users multiple times before the feature disappears, although a timeline hasn’t been set for when messaging within the main app will be gone for good.

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Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut: Late Night Chat Line

No brand wants to be left out, they are all carrying out all possible marketing strategies in order to increase their presence in the market clubbed with a thorough and an influential impact that drives the brand towards improvement and betterment. Social Media is generally the key answer to all marketing related queries and problems.

Kellogg’s, is an American multinational food manufacturing company produces cereal and convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles, and vegetarian foods. It is one of the leaders in the market producing great quality products from times immemorial. The brand has come up with ‘Midnight Spooning’ a campaign that supported the crunchy fans to have a light snack during the late hours while chatting and talking to people using the social media campaigns and smartphone apps.

Phone, text and chat services enable consumers to indulge in a witty, one-on-one conversation with Crunchy Nut, while pre-rolls give users a glimpse into the nutty boudoir. Interactive rich media ads within Facebook allow users to call and text the chat line direct from the ad unit, with different campaign stories served based on gender and time of day.

The disruptive campaign celebrates Crunchy Nut’s quintessentially tongue-in-cheek brand persona in a whole new way, expanding the role of the product to those who aren’t always awake at breakfast time.

Cruchy Nut fans are also able to satisfy their late night cravings by texting or calling the phone lines between 8.30pm and 5am.

During the day the website runs as a teaser telling people they’re too early, but at 8.30pm it transforms promoting visitors to call or text the phone line. A super hit campaign launched by the brand, some people consider it to be a rather wrong move. Kelloggs isn’t a brand that would support a campaign like this.

All in all the campaign was launched and was a success with the youth especially. All we can say is way to go kellogg’s.

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The Google Night Walk

So there is not a single day when Google has failed to surprise its users. Be it with the creative google doodles or with their out of the box social media products, google has given the people various reasons to fall in love with it. We at SocialAppsHQ.com are no exception to this.

Every now and then there comes up something which amuses the audiences and they get busy using the product or are left spellbound by its features and impacts. This time Google has tried to experiment with their already famous Google maps features. It has been trying to find out ways to make Maps more immersive, but no attempt yet may be as successful as its latest ‘Night Walk’, a guided tour through the streets of Marseille on one vibrant and beautiful evening. Night Walk starts you out in a small alley in the neighborhood Cours Julien and works a lot like Street View. One can look around in every direction and click wherever they want to zoom in or move ahead. In this case, a tour guide will introduce them to the city as one moves along, directing them to look at art, landmarks, and gorgeous views, among much more. At the end of the clip, viewers are invited to continue the journey through an immersive digital tour, which is, in fact, the first ever ‘Night Walk’ with Google Maps.

Night Walk’s goal is to make you feel like you’re right there in the city, and it’s fairly successful for an experience on your computer. The world has been photographed far nicer than what you’d find on the average Street View-road, and Night Walk even plays ambient sounds of the city and quiet guitars and jazz to build the mood. Google’s Night Walk through Marseille can be a lot of fun: you can feel the culture of the city, and you actually get to explore not just spend an evening wandering behind a guide.

It provides a pan view around the 360 degrees and gives the experience of actually being there moving around the city.

The product is quite similar to tour projects that have been launched earlier and have provided live tours to the users with two tourists going from place to place as per your selections. The Google Night Walk is somewhat different with regards to its clarity and video quality along with the user interface which is easy to understand and use.

The project, which was adapted from Christophe Perruchi’s Promenade Sonore #16, “Le Souffleur.” The walk itself is augmented via the Google Knowledge Graph, which adds contextual data and information pulled from the vast semantic database at our disposal. This particular project is a part of the Google Stories campaign, which aims to recount inspiring stories about how Google technology can augment our lives. Such social media campaigns have raised the bar of activities that can be carried out here and have laid a strong impact as well.

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Esurance’s Super Bowl Campaign

We at SocialAppsHQ.com realised that there are certain times of the year when social media campaigns have a large impact and users wait for them eagerly. One such time of the year is around the super bowl, the famous annual championship game of the National Football League in America. Super bowl ads, campaigns have always had some kind of x-factor that have the capability of attracting the viewers. taking the advantage of this very factor, global brands have been giving in their best such that they come into the notice of millions of fans of the game.

Owing to the success of marketing strategies at this point of time, thead ad spaces on the various forms of communication are also just the double. Organising a social media campaigns costs more than it would in a normal scenario. In such a case, Esurance, an American auto insurance provider company decided to think out of the box and come up with something more creative and useful.

Instead of spending millions of dollars to create a super bowl moment on the televisions, the company opted out yet managing to become one of the most talked about companies during that time. Instead of creating that advertisement, the insurance broker aired a commercial immediately after the game ended to announce that it was running a lottery to give away $1.5m. All that users had to do to enter the competition was tweet using the hashtag #EsuranceSave30.

In the ad, everyone’s favorite funny-sweet guy, John Krasinski, announces that Esurance will pass on that savings 1.5 million big ones to one person who tweets using the campaign hashtag #EsuranceSave30 which was an added asset for many users of the social media, especially the fans of Krasinski.

In a nutshell, the company invested the same amount of money it earlier did, the only difference this time was, it had no competition, all competitors had already spent their share in super bowl ads, it had full attention of the users and who would ignore a call of $1.5 million. Also, By airing the commercial after the Super Bowl Esurance claimed to be saving $1.5 million, 30% of the estimated cost of airing an ad during the game. Now thats a fair deal and something that Esurance should be proud of.

All depended on the success of the company on social media for people to actually use the given hashtag and be a part of this social media marketing initiative. As per the Topsy ratings, the hashtag had been used more than 3.8m times by February end, becoming one of the most successful social media ventures in and around the super bowl for 2014. According to Leo Burnett, the ad agency for Esurance the campaign received 1 billion impressions.

Not only did it benefit during the super bowl, the American auto insurance provider increased its follower count by 90,000 since the commercial aired. After creating such a sensation in the market and literally ruling Twitter for quite long, Esurance came up with the best strategy this fall and thus benefited largely.

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Happy Hours Installation by Carlsberg

As wide and as strong it can be, the impact of social media has been felt worldwide. The necessity of creating a brand’s own social media space is considered to be the need of the hour. Brand Managers are busy looking out for ways and methods to bring into notice social media campaigns that could benefit the user as well as drive some amount of traffic for them.

All kinds of brands and products are participating in this venture and to follow them next is Carlsberg, a Danish brewing company. The company owns some of the most sold out beers in the world. Tuborg, Kronenbourg, Somersby cider, Russia’s best selling beer Baltika, Grimbergen abbey beers as well more than 500 local beers with the company’s flagship brand being Carlsberg Beer.

In order to create a further hype for its products, Carlsberg took to social media marketing and campaigning. The Happy beer Installation was taken up by almost each pub and was shortly one of the most successful campaigns, of course it involved beer.

According to the company, ‘ the “Happy Hour 2.0” initiative renews the “well-known” on-trade promotion to fit the modern social media mindset.’ Visitors to participating bars are given the opportunity to keep buying Carlsberg and Tuborg beer at half price by uploading pictures to Instagram with the name of the venue and the #HappyBeerTime hashtag.

Carlsberg fitted the bars with a dongle that streams a counter to TV screens updating participants and bar staff in real-time as content is submitted. Now this is a campaign that is beneficial to both, the visitors, they get beers at half the prices and the pubs because they get a number of mentions on Instagram in about an hour or so.

Jens Jermiin, vice president of group digital, media and content production at Carlsberg said, ““We’re extending the time-frame people can drink beer [at a discounted price] so they are not under pressure to drink excessive amounts in a short period. When combined with the social media mechanic, ‘Happy Hour 2.0 is much more about promoting the time people are social and happy together versus drinking.”

Integrating Instagram with the campaign made sure that people update new and friendly pictures with the hashtag # HappyBeerTime along with tagging the pub the person currently is in. Although it must have required the company a lot of resources in order to create a system as this, the installation is worthwhile. Seeing the updated pictures changing every second on the TV screens and the clock ticking added the further urge to upload more pictures on Instagram.

Now this was in all a campaign worth the effort. The brand has been involved in some major campaigns on the social media as well and have derived very useful results.

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BBC uses Instagram

Social Media’s grave impact has been witnessed by each and every brand. All fast moving consumer goods are making an impactful and visible use of the social media domain. Social media campaigns are an essential part of the brand promotions and marketing strategies. Even news providers like Star and others have begun using the various platforms for the promotion of their products or rather channels and newspapers.

The marketing strategy that we are going to discuss today is about one of the most renowned news services in the world, BBC. It is a British public service broadcasting statutory corporation.[2] Its main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man.

The BBC channel has always been one of the premier channels and has given first hand information to all its viewers always. When we are talking about delivering useful content in the places where people are already aggregating, BBC knows how to reach its audience in the modern age. In January of this year, the BBC launched an Instagram video news service, which displays 15-second short news clips.

A news channel as this can benefit largely from such a service. Firstly it will be able to hit the right target audience and increase its rate of frequency along with reaching out to the exactly correct target audiences. This particular service has been referred as instafax. The service began in January 2014 and since then BBC has been a talk of the app.

Each news item which has been uploaded by the brand name has got the necessary recognition.

BBc has been reporting on Instagram earlier also, but the use of video clips to pass on their message is a new trend, a new way to reach out and to cater to the needs of its millions of viewers. By including a brief text summary in the video itself, rather than as an audio voice-over, the videos are likely easier to produce and can be watched and understood even with a phone on silent.

Before the launch, the BBC’s Instagram feed was a mishmash of content delivered in a variety of styles. Now it’s a much more uniformed affair, comprising video or photos with snippets of overlaid text and a soundtrack. Each post is expanded upon with text-based information beneath the imagery, but with hyperlink functionality currently absent from the media-sharing app, Instafax feels rather limited in what it can offer. It may be fine for those with a fleeting interest in what’s happening in the world, but news addicts will have to exit Instagram and hop over to their news app of choice to discover the meat of a story.

This particular step taken by BBC shows its keen interest to be a part of the social media domain and involve its functionalities in its future endeavours as well. BBC has been able to increase its fan following on the platform Instagram and has also been able to revolutionise its own Instagram entity.

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The Playstation shocks travellers

Social Media Marketing is taking a severe turn expressing itself in a quite different and a unique way. Every now and then new innovative ideas are coming up which have made it more easy for the brand managers and social media executives to create a positioning of the product in the social space. Now a days most brands are organising local campaigns and are trying to incorporate the social element in them by uploading its attractive video on Youtube thereby trying to make it famous and in turn lure more and more viewers.

The campaign we shall be discussing today concerns Playstation, a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment with consoles in the fifth to eighth generations. Playstation has though not done many social media campaigns in the past this one was so perfectly conceptualised that it was a success and continues to be one.

Two days ago, on 30th March, Playstation created an installation that challenges people to insert their fingers into a machine that shock them, as a stunt to promote the new ‘inFAMOUS: Second Son’ game. People step right up, insert their fingers into the holes in the machine, before it charges up and starts increasing the shock over 5 long seconds. If you make it all the way, you win the new game!

Keeping up with the theme of the new game, ‘Enjoy your superhuman power in a locked-down Seattle. The choices you make along the way will impact everyone around you,’ playstation’s promotional strategy has been perfect and people are actually surprised to see the installation, especially when it begins to increase the power and an electric shock sensation is felt by the people given out by the installation. Though the social media presence of the game has not been felt enormously, the brand as a whole is quite famous on the social space.

The product in particular has been marketed in a whole different way. Nowadays using such kinds of electronic installations by brands is common. Many have done it in some way or the other and have benefited largely from it.

Second Son has a considerable burden on its shoulders as one of the PS4′s major exclusive launch window titles, but the end result looks to be what we can only assume is an enjoyable game. The same has also been highlighted in the way it is promoted off and on social media.

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