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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Now, carry out Twitter Campaigns for free!

Twitter, the microblogging website has become the destination for running various social media campaigns in order to boost up the image of their brand and catalyse their brand’s sales manifold. Twitter is one of those platforms that has emerged out to be a promising space on the social media domain. This is one of the most important reasons that today SocialAppsHQ.com launches a new product that will allow you to create Twitter Campaigns for free.

Its now time for you to go ahead and create a successful Twitter Campaign. The Twitter Campaign that we offer includes the following characteristics;

1. Viral Twitter Campaigns
Like any other viral campaign this particular campaign will also allow you to create a hype for your brand on the social media. The campaign will be coupon based although we are looking forward to create more types of campaigns for our clients. In here, a brand manager will need to set up a tipping point, say 20, as such only after 20 retweets have been done of your campaign on Twitter will the coupon be accessible to the users. One can also set a starting and an ending date for the campaign. This will be a win-win situation for both, brand gets the publicity and the users get the coupon.

2. Offer Twitter Campaigns
These will also be like the Viral campaigns, the only difference will be that a brand manager does not need to set any tipping points or any other likewise data. Once the the campaign goes live, all users can redeem the coupon and make use of it. Just the starting and ending date of the campaign along with the time needs to be set and the Twitter Campaign will be ready. This will also act as a good image building procedure for the brand.

Its easy and it’s free. You just need to log into socialappshq.com and start creating a twitter campaign. All those social media managers who are looking for a quick way to reach out to their target audiences, this is an easy shot. So improve your brand’s presence in the market, begin a campaign today.

All your feedbacks and comments are welcome. For any kind of suggestions please email us at support@socialappshq.com

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The Landrover #Hibernot

SocialAppsHQ.com, while going through various campaigns found that both small and big companies need to utilise the power of social media campaigns in order to maintain their stand in the market and thereby also keep their target audiences entact. As much as the social media domain is used by the new players of the industry, the old established players all exploit it to its fullest extent. The campaign that we are going to discuss today was launched by Land Rover, the famous brand of the British car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, which specialises in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

A company as this holds a valuable place in the market and is one of the leaders in the automobile industry yet the brand requires a time to time campaigns and other promotional activities in order to keep the brand at par with its counterparts and other competitors.

In January, the brand launched a campaign in UK, the #Hibernot campaign which centred around an online hub for winter trails, walks and activities up and down the UK. They create an official website for the same, launched with more than 80 Land Rover supported activities that are set to take place in Britain this winter, allowing people to get out and enjoy this ‘grey and pleasant land’. Visitors to the Hibernot site are encouraged to add to this bank of activities, which is curated by Land Rover, by posting images of their own outdoor adventures using the hashtag #Hibernot.

The campaign is different and is helped people to explore trails, the site also maps out a range of dynamic winter drives, researched and written by Lonely Planet authors and interviews with Land Rover ambassadors such as British skier Chemmy Alcott, who epitomise the Hibernot way of life. The weather forecast for the user’s location will automatically show as well as those hibernot activities and features, which are trending in that area.

The campaign was successful and garnered many users who participated with full enthusiasm in this particular social media campaign. The #Hibernot campaign has social at its core but is also supported by traditional media with TV and cinema ads promoting its launch. The campaign was able to influence the people and thereby it was able to enhance the social media entity of the brand on Facebook as well as on Twitter with 102,000 Facebook fans and 77,000 Twitter followers respectively.

Social Media is one such domain that can house all types of creativity helping brand managers to make money out of them. This particular campaign has proved to be beneficial for the brand in more than one ways.

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Be a Tourist in Your Own Hometown

The reality is well known to all now, social media campaigns are the key to success on social media. We at SocialAppsHQ.com have been trying to analyse each and every campaign as closely as possible so that we can give our clients what it takes to be at the top of the list. Social Media is one of those domains that houses all brands and services and yet gives each of them a chance to make space for themselves and outshine. Social Media Marketing and Campaigning are the only tools that can help you achieve this parameter.

There was a time when brands like chains of hotels and tourism boards found it difficult to use this platform and reach out to its target market. The social media campaign that we will discuss today will broaden the horizon of many brands and show how easy it is to create a place for the brand in the social media. The New Orleans CVB along with the hotels of the city launched a campaign in February 2014.

The campaign was done in order to instill the people to visit New Orleans and to encouraged the post-Katrina economy to get back on its feet. For this residents were encouraged to post artistic photos of their favorite daily scenes throughout the city by tagging them with #BeATouristNOLA, and they were entered into a competition to win a “Staycation” wherein winners were treated to free meals and hotel stays in their hometown. The competition gave away eight prizes weekly as per the number of votes by the fellow social media users on instagram.

Instagram marketing plays a vital role when campaigns revolve around uploading pictures and voting factors. Pictures are worth a thousand words, especially in the case of hotels and tourism boards. Hotels can easily increase their fan base by uploading more attractive pictures on the platform. Being a photo oriented campaign on instagram, the ‘Be a Tourist in Your Own Hometown’ campaign was a big success, and provides an inspiring model for unconventional tourism marketing.

The New Orleans Staycation went viral, resulting into many entries with all citizens participating wholeheartedly in the competition. The campaign was not only able to increase the number of followers on its Instagram entity but was also able to garner many tourists in New Orleans which was the basic aim behind the campaign.

By working alongside CVBs, hotels can support their industry while giving their cities the economic fuel necessary to maintain a thriving business climate that will endure for years to come. Hotels and local tourism boards can very well function together and create some successful social media campaigns like this one.

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AMC Giveaways Pinterest Contest

We at SocialAppsHQ.com realised that there was a time when social media campaigns were based on contest formats. People lost and won certain prizes that were given out by the organising company. Now referred as giveaway campaigns, these are such that tend to operate and bring in as much audience possible. Owing to the impact of the prize being given out, users of various social media networking sites register with their credentials giving the company a full-proof database to use.

AMC Theatres is an American movie theater chain owned and operated by AMC Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group. This is one company that is famous for its AMC giveaway contest on Pinterest that helped it gain much acceptance in the market and also increase its database manifold. After analysing the fact that social media campaigns work the best for a brand only when some quotient of contest is added to it, the brand organised a competition on Pinterest, simple and common yet it was able to garner much followers for its Pinterest entity.

A user had to follow certain simple steps to be a part of the contest. All they had to do was to follow the pinboard to stay up to date on the latest AMC contests. When they saw a prize that they wanted to win, they could click on the image which took the visitor to a landing page that collected the contestant’s basic information and preferences. They would win if their name was drawn. The contest was another regular one, with no extra factors or points added to it.



Prizes ranged from movie posters to an autographed director’s chair, but the biggest prize was won by AMC. This Pinterest contest setup is a gift that keeps on giving in the form of increased brand engagement and customer data.

Off Late if we gauge there are a lot more giveaway contests being held under the name of sweepstake contests. These have a larger value and are considered to be way better than the others. The biggest advantage if such campaigns is that it is two way beneficial, if the company becomes the holder of various contact details the users also are able to win valuable prizes. It is thus a win-win situation for both.

Especially with brands like AMC, it becomes all the more easy to audiences towards their social pages and eventually engross them to their newly launched campaigns. Yet AMC’s success has been the best when it carried out giveaways as compared to any other type of social media campaign. The brand’s giveaway page on Pinterest currently has 3,398 followers and an active user base as well. As per the comments and the fans on the page, it is valuable and is liked by many.

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Mobile Marketing Strategies for Mobile Apps

Mobile Apps and Mobile Marketing can thoroughly be defined as major activities that are gaining pace in the current scenario. A keen observation on the same reveals that brand managers and market professionals are looking for new and innovative ways and methods to market their products that will bring a change and will eventually help them bring in more profits.

Mobile marketing brings into limelight mobile advertising. In lieu of hordes of app developers struggling in the market, mobile advertising to promote your app is the need of the hour. Mobile advertising has grown worldwide with revenues leaping a massive 82.8% to $8.9 billion last year from $5.3 billion in 2011. So much so that all apps are now planning ways and strategies to properly sell their apps by way of effective advertisements in other applications.

When it comes to mobile advertising, an app only sells when it has certain unique factors, is easy to navigate and is an asset for people who have it in their smartphones. Following are some of the factors that can help an app to position and promote their app in a better way using mobile advertising.

Go Social

The impact of social media can be felt everywhere. Even mobile apps provide options of going social, sharing the contents and results of it on various social networking websites. In a recent survey, it found that 67.7 percent of mobile users use Facebook at least once daily compared with 54 percent of Facebook’s overall user base that uses it daily. Mobile ads that incorporate social connectivity options perform better than other ads. Major companies have seen a 75 percent increase in engagement for banner ads by adding a social media component. It is rightly said that no one can negate the impact that social media has apps and app advertising processes.

Full page ads

When using the mobile app, users tend to ignore the small scrippets of advertisements that come and go at regular intervals. In order to gain maximum interest and attention of the users, ads that consume the full screen are apt. Full-screen ads offer 100 percent on-screen share of voice, which greatly reduces the number of false clicks that small banners commonly generate. The full-screen format also allows publishers to show fewer ads and does not take up valuable screen space with a banner.

Use multiple traffic sources

There are several types of traffic sources for mobile apps, ad networks, real-time bidding exchanges, social networks, such as Facebook, and more. Using just one source could restrict the reach causing a major part of the audience to be totally unaware about the app. In fact, working with several traffic sources can improve loyal acquisition results by up to five times.

Personalised deals

One of the most important features of a mobile marketing strategy is the ability to identify targeted customers and to provide them with unique and personalized mobile deals, specially the ones that they cannot refuse. Deals should be redeemable directly from the device and should contain large values for the customers in general.

Contextual Ads

Contextual placement has been shown to drive an increase in click-through rates for online display ads. However, the increase is even greater when ads are delivered contextually in mobile. There is a five times higher click-through rate for mobile ads that were aligned with editorial content than the average click-through rate for mobile display ads.

There are numerous ways and methods to carry out mobile advertising activities. These contain large values for the app and also help the app in growing and deriving impactful insights.

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Grey Poupon: Society of Good Taste

Social Media is the one soul answer for many brands that are trying to make it big and also gain pace with the other players in the market. SocialAppsHQ.com’s vivid analysis reveals that even after a brand is well known in the market, it requires to have a strong social media influence. Even brands like Coke which do not need any kind of promotions strives hard to remain amongst the top rated pages on social networking websites.

If we talk about facebook in particular, this one website is such that houses nearly all brand’s fan pages and incurs many social media promotional activities. At any given time there are hordes of social media campaigns that are being run with the aim of increasing the number of likes that a page has, thereby increasing the number of users of a brand. Be it any brand, all want to have as many followers and likes possible.

In such a scenario, if a brand says, It wasn’t so much about quantity of ‘likes’, but the ‘quality’, referring to itself as the most discerning Page on Facebook,” it is bound to make some news and it is bound to get the attention that it deserves. Grey Poupon, a brand of whole-grain mustard and Dijon mustard which originated in Dijon, France did something similar.

The brand announced that they wanted ‘only sophisticated’ people to be a part of their page on Facebook. Accordingly, the brand began searching a user’s profile and timeline and would deliver a refinement score based on things like number of friends, check-ins, likes, and even their use of grammar. Access was granted only to the top percentile who were given exclusive content and rewards. Those who weren’t deemed to be worthy, had their ‘like’ rescinded and were asked to work on improving their profile before applying again.

It was all very tongue-in-cheek rather than being genuinely elitist, but it was effective nonetheless in setting itself apart from the masses. Whether or not people actually care enough about mustard to jump through hoops to ‘like it’, it helped to show how thinking just a little bit outside the box can work wonders for a campaign, and secured them coverage in the likes of the New York Times.

This alternative approach proved to be extremely successful to the tune of 100 million impressions and fan increase of 3000%. With such results and a full proof plan, the brand benefitted a great deal. It was able to garner noteworthy traffic along with creating an image and position for itself in the market.

The brand has catered to the needs of users since 1776 and has been a personal favourite of many in the US. The brand’s activities on Facebook have only added to its unending effort of being a sought after brand in the future as well.

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Urban Decay Pinterest contest

SocialAppsHQ.com has been constantly analysing the impact social media campaign are generating on the status of brands in the current marketing scenarios. There are all sorts of products and services that are making use of the social media domain to market themselves in a way that helps them in deriving fruitful results other than promoting the brand well.

Some of the common websites that are used on a wide scale by brand managers are Twitter and Facebook, these two social media giants are being exploited by brands for running various social media campaigns that are giving them insightful results. Some brands are also venturing into not so new platforms like Pinterest.

Urban Decay, an American based cosmetic brand company. The company organised a social media campaign on Pinterest which is still running. In February 2014, the brand started a competition on Pinterest and offered a chance to win tickets to the Coachella music festival. The competition required the followers to create a pinboard called ‘Electric Festival Style with UD’ then pin the looks they would wear at this year’s music festivals. They must also follow Urban Decay on Pinterest and submit their email address via an online entry form.

Participating in the competition is also easy. To participate in Get Electric With Urban Decay- show us your festival style contest, one must have an account with Pinterest . Thereafter the user can easily navigate to the brand’s page on the platform and follow some simple steps to be a part of the competition community.

Being a viral theme in its own, the campaign was able to garner a lot of traffic to the website as well the brand’s Pinterest entity. The brand has almost 50,000 Pinterest followers so its an excellent forum on which to host the competition and it has already received hundreds of entries, which makes it a data capture success if nothing else.

Not only were they able to widen their databases with email ids of various users but they were also able to direct a lot of users to their website thereby increasing the traffic to their website manifold. The campaign is still running full swing and is expected to generate many more followers and help the brand to grow.

Social Media Campaigns that involve competitions have always attracted a larger audience as compared to the other kinds of marketing initiatives.

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ICICI’s conventional pocket app

Social Media by far is one of the most sought after domains and platforms to carry out certain promotional and marketing activities. We at SocialAppsHQ.com analysed the impact social media has had on various brands and services and we were overwhelmed by the outcome of the results. Brands have been using the potential of this domain and have been deriving fruitful results as well. The latest trend is to increase followers and likes by adding substantial value to their facebook and twitter entities.

A similar concept was used by the ICICI brand, not all financial institutions are making an impactful use of the social media strategies but this time ICICI has come out victorious. The bank created an app for Facebook to allow its users to carry out certain non financial transactions via the social networking website. Using the app, ‘Pockets by ICICI Bank‘, customers can carry out wide range of non-financial transactions including viewing a summary as well as a mini statement of savings bank account, knowing credit card details and getting demat holding statements. Also a customer can open fixed or recurring deposit, order a cheque book, stop a cheque payment and upgrade debit card, the lender said in a statement.

Now this app has some very important and essential credentials that can be used by any user. Basically it targets the youth, the app is such that has allowed the users to find easy ways to carry out much of their bank related work on Facebook.

Facebook’s entity of the brand thus saw a rise in the user activities and a direct rise in the number of likes and people talking about. Its essentiality increased on the domain and people resorted to more of ICICI bank accounts. The Bank launched ‘Your Bank’, its app on Facebook that allows customers to their savings account details and statements while on Facebook, as well as to order a cheque book and upgrade debit card.

The app also allowed users to carry out some unique features as well that added to its value manifold. It enabled users to transfer funds and share details easily. Also a part of it enabled the users to book movie tickets easily.

Along with all the added benefits, security concerns were also given a check and were looked after carefully. The app took the bank a way ahead on the social media domain and further added much authenticity to it.

It is one of the most used and liked apps that ICICI has ever come up with. It regulated all the other online payment systems and brought much fame. Although the bank carried out no social media campaign it was still able to install its place in the market using the social media domain by incorporating a very different strategy and process.

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END7- end 7 neglected tropical diseases by 2020

We at SocialAppsHQ.com have been trying to evaluate the social media campaigns that have made a difference on the domain. Not only brands and organisation require effective social media strategies to excel but non profit organisations working for the upliftment of the society as a whole are also making thorough use of the domain to derive useful insights and in turn help their organisation to grow.

END7 is also one such organisation working throughout the world to combat the seven most deadly tropical diseases which have been neglected till now. These diseases have been neglected always until now and have proved to be fatal for many as well. The seven diseases which include Hookworm, trachoma, elephantiasis, snail fever, roundworm, river blindness and whip worm have affected 1 in 6 people worldwide, including over half a billion children. They have these deadly parasitic and bacterial diseases living and breeding in their bodies which is only reducing their number of days on Earth.

The Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute created a video to first make people aware about the existence of such diseases and thereafter recorded their reactions on seeing what they saw. They are working with partners such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization (WHO), and various drug companies, among others, END7 is the first international advocacy campaign that aims to raise awareness of the seven most common NTDs and the resources necessary to eliminate them.



Upon seeing the video all celebrities and other people were left stunned and shocked. This particular video was then uploaded on Youtube, the initiative’s entity was created on as many social media platforms possible and the impact was huge.

The campaign relies heavily on social media, not only to educate the general public about these diseases, but also to provide a two-way platform for engagement, transforming our audience from followers to a constituency that is also part of the solution.

£60,000 of donations were received on the first day after the video was released, 300,000 people watched the clip and it created a wide scale awareness and many more celebrities have now joint in to help the cause. The organisation is accepting donations in cash and kind and is utilising the resources to their maximum potential.

With all the support and care from the pharmaceutical companies and celebrities other than the concerned organisations, the cost of treating a particular disease has reduced. The work is only limited to distributing the pills and setting up treatment programs that communities can run themselves. The task is achievable and eradicating the seven most deadly diseases from the world will automatically reduce the transmission of infections making the planet a healthier place to stay.

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Taco Bell Snapchat Campaign

For sometime now Snapchat has been referred as the most upcoming platform that can be used as the most appropriate source to carry out brand campaigns and brand promotions. As hyped as it is, the social media app now has some of the most famous brands using it to market/launch their products and services to their fans who are a fan of theirs on Snapchat.

Though not very old, Snapchat has been able to build a strong user base for itself in the a limited amount of time. Snapchat’s popularity also increased when the social media giant Facebook approached it with a huge offer and subsequently the offer was denied and put back by the social media app company. Since then Evan Spiegel, CEO, Snapchat and the platform has been making news for some reason or the other. Keeping in mind the campaigns that have been launched on the platform, Taco Bell, an American chain of fast-food restaurants is still making use of the platform to promote its dishes and new launches.

Taco Bell is one of the first major brand to venture into Snapchat marketing. The brand joint Snapchat for the launch of its Beefy Crunchy Burrito, a new addition to the taco bell kitchen. The joining of the brand on Snapchat was publicised on Twitter when they tweeted from their official taco bell account saying;

Taco Bell director of social and digital Tressie Lieberman said, “People are obsessed with Beefy Crunch Burrito so Snapchat seemed like the right platform to make the announcement. Sharing that story on Snapchat is a fun way to connect with the fans that we are thrilled to have. It’s all about treating them like personal friends and not consumers.”

The fans responded to Taco Bell’s post by uploading images which were there for 10 seconds. The platform is suitable to increase fan engagement and encourage the users to actively participate in the brand’s Snapchat entity. Not much has been done as far, but it seems that the app as well as the brand are trying to venture into new details and they might soon come up with something more exciting.

As considered earlier the speculation of Snapchat being a sexting tool will always be there and Taco Bell as a company to hold social media campaigns, had similar doubts. But even though Taco Bell was the first major company to experiment with the medium, New York-based frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles was Snapchatting back in January. Though it did not get a lot of benefits from the platform it was able to create a fan base on Snapchat which is supposedly huge and active.

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Starbucks Mobile Payments

All types of businesses require some amount of social media promotions and strategies that could help shape it in the best possible cast. One of the premier brands of today, Starbucks has used the all new concept of mobile marketing to its full potential and have moved ahead to become the pioneers of using mobile apps, specially made to cater to their unique user base.

Although in the smartphone era, mobile phones have become more than a necessity. Considering the impact and the growing usage of the device, using it for effective promotional strategies and social media campaigns will not be a bad idea. All said and done, the concept of mobile marketing did not hit the market for long until some brands opted to take the risk and eventually came out with flying colors.

One of these bands is Starbucks. Mobile makes up 10 percent of Starbuck’s total U.S. revenue. With about four million customers using their mobile phones to pay for their coffee, which was expected to double by the end of 2013. According to the first quarter reports, 10 million customers are using the mobile payment app to pay for food and coffee purchased from the famous coffee chain in the world.

According to Gene Signorini, vice president of mobile insights at Mobiquity, “By watching what they get right, and even what they might get wrong, other companies can adapt these lessons to their own specific business requirements and become fast-followers in mobile payments.” Starbucks has definitely set very high standards in front of the many other brands by enabling such a massive hit with their mobile payment app.

Adding to the long list of benefits that a customer may derive by using the app are the reward points that are added to a customers account every time he makes a purchase. During the first-quarter of 2014, Starbucks processed more than 40 million new Starbucks cards, representing $610 million in the United States and Canada.

Although off late the brand has been facing certain errors and issues with its mobile app. With concerns about the registered customers credentials, and Starbucks’ insecure handling of sensitive user information in their iPhone app, there were raised eyebrows on the app. But as it seems and as the reports indicate there has not been much of a difference.

The team is for sure taking the necessary steps to ensure that none of their customers feel cheated and are happy with their association with Starbucks. Keeping aside all other issues and problems, Starbucks has proved to be one of the leading companies that has effectively used mobile marketing as a way to promote their brand as a whole.

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Make a Wish Foundation- the SF Kid Campaign

Some campaigns take place in the real world but generate so many mentions on the social media that they become an integral part of the social ecosystem. The social media domain surely has space for all sorts of activities that people do and provides them with ample amount of space to showcase as well. The social networking platforms are definitely are a boon in this arena.

Campaigns in general have the power of generating awareness and a varied degree of liking for that particular product, service or for that matter an organisation, as is the case with this particular campaign. Make A Wish Foundation, a non-profit organisation that helps to serve the less fortunate children in more than 50 countries.

This particular does not account to a number of children together but to Miles, a five year old child who is suffering with Leukemia and is currently in remission. The organisation wanted his dream of becoming the savior of the Gotham City come true, he wanted to be the Batman who would help people and take away their pain and miseries to come true.

The entire San Francisco became a part of this season’s most heart warming experience, the city was designed as the Gotham city, people cheering for their saviour when he came in his Batmobile.

Ready for action! #sfbatkid http://ift.tt/1lGcc2S

— patricia wilson (@pilarwish) November 15, 2013

Miles left for his voyage to save the city and return victorious to the city hall. That one full day, Miles attended phone calls responding to people who wanted his help. As per the plan he was first called to a busy street in the city where a woman was tied up on the train tracks. After getting her safely off the tracks he went ahead to accomplish his further tasks. After the tough rescue operation the Bat Kid went after the man who was behind the naive device, the Riddler. Catching hold of him he handed the Riddler to the police. Even Barack Obama was found encouraging the little saviour as he kept on moving ahead without any fear.

#FollowFriday RT @SFWish: Here he comes!!!! #SFBatkid http://ift.tt/1g9o7EW — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 15, 2013

After the eventful day and many other tasks completed, the Bat Kid headed to the city hall to collect his key to the city. Even the President recorded a message for him on Twitter.

RT @WhiteHouse: President Obama’s message to #SFBatKid —> https://t.co/0IkcSIrbq8

— Ryan Broderick (@ryanpbroderick) November 15, 2013

The entire campaign was shared online, with lakhs of views and comments flooding in from every corner of the world. As successful it was in San Francisco, so was the social media campaign successful all around the world through the social media. The hashtag #SFBatKid was a trending topic which gained a large momentum all around the globe.

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Share a Coke Campaign

Famous products and services are also making full use of the social media domain. Well established and big players in the market are till date utilising the power of social media to promote and advertise their products and bring about a steady change, pushing them in the forward direction. Social Media Campaigns work in the favour of such brands and help them to prosper even more.

The campaign that we are discussing over here was done for a brand that is amongst the top few ones dominating the market in that particular sector- CocaCola. The Share a Coke Campaign started last year in the month of August in Australia.

Research revealed that even after a strong brand presence, dominance in the market at various geographical locations, there were many teens who hadn’t even tasted Coke. Also, despite healthy brand tracking data, teens and young adults hadn’t enjoyed a COKE in the previous month alone.

As such the brand wanted to increase their consumption rate and thereby increase the number of people who open a coke at every happy occasion. To acheive the same, the company ran a campaign, designed by the creative team at Ogilvy, Australia, wherein the company printed some of the most common first names on the bottles/cans giving them a more personalised approach. The campaign will also allow people to get their customised bottles made. At every centre the crew will be present ready to help the people out and also helping them edge the name of their choice on the bottles/cans.

The idea behind doing so was that in the digital world, the way we connect has changed. We had to jump start some real conversations – with people you may have lost touch with, or were yet to meet. In such a scenario nothing reminds you more of someone than their first name. Hence, the campaign.

The campaign brought great results, in just the first three months of the campaign the young Adult consumption increased and Australians began to drink Coke for the first time, or for the first time in over a year.The brand was able to achieve millions of impressions on Facebook along with more than tens of thousands of virtual Coke cans shared.Tens of thousands custom COKE cans printed at Westfield Shopping Centres and the campaign had gone viral. People of other countries were still wondering about what Coke was up to when it busy implementing one of the most successful campaigns it has ever done.

Seeing the impact of the campaign and the building interest of many people worldwide the campaign has now spread all around the world. The campaign is about to be held in Johannesburg, Mpumalanga in February and March as of now. There is no doubt on the fact that the campaign has been a wonderful experience for the company as well as the people. The personalised coke bottles and cans have substituted many gifts and presents since the time of its inception.

Statistically traffic on the Coke Facebook site increased by 870% and the Facebook page grew 39%. In Australia, Coke is the number one most talked about Facebook page and it is the 23rd globally. Seventy-six thousand virtual Coke cans were shared online and 378,000 custom Coke cans were printed at local Westfield malls across the country. It was one of the most famous and the most successful social media campaigns.

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The Absolut Unique Access

Initially the extent of social media was only limited to social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. With the advent of innovative and user friendly mobile applications that use internet connection to function, things have been changing. Once the space that was dominated by the websites is now being ruled by these mobile apps which are turning out to be as promising as ever.

One of the biggest player in this respect is WhatsApp, a mobile application that has left every other app behind with more than millions of downloads the app has become a sensation. It allows a user to share pictures, audios and videos other than sending the usual texts when connected to an internet providing service. Even after its success in the market brand managers did not resort to the service to carry out campaigns and promotional strategies, totally neglecting the potential that the app carries. Specially the reach and frequency of the app that can do wonders for a brand and this is exactly what Absolut, the premium Vodka brand realised and used.

The very first WhatsApp campaign was done by Absolut with the help of which they were able to launch their new product successfully. By the end of this social media campaign they were able to generate 600 contacts and over 1000 unique images, videos, and audio messages that were created by the people who participated in the campaign.

The new range of 4 million Vodka bottles, each with a design different from the other was to be launched at a party to be hosted by the company at Argentina.

To spice things up, the brand set two passes for the common public that would allow them to enter the party. These two passes were up for grabs and to win them an individual had to please Sven, an imaginary character created by the company. Sven had to be pleased by communicating with him through WhatsApp. Sven had his own Facebook page along with a contact number which was being handled by the community manager.The goal of this campaign was to build awareness and establish a closer line of communication with the brand.

Sven, the so called bouncer of the party received all kinds of messages, videos and creative texts from users that could help them win the passes to the party.

The campaign went viral in no time with hundreds of people trying to persuade Sven to give them the passes. This was the first time any brand had ever used WhatsApp as a medium to promote the launch of a new product and the campaign helped the company achieve its target by effectively engaging customers and building a buzz in the community.

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Managing Media Mayhem with Relationship Marketing Software

In today’s business dynamic, managers are no longer just managers of people; they are managers of brands. While the people you oversee can be valuable assets, they can also represent a potential threat. In your efforts to build and protect your brand image, it is often necessary to delegate production and communication tasks to your subordinates. For many, this can be a daunting proposition. Every publication, every email, every tweet or Facebook share is a reflection of your brand after all. So, how can a manager both protect the integrity of a company’s brand as well as empowering their employees to confidently and competently represent the company to the public?

The answer to this question can be a difficult one. How can you as a manager apply your personal brand to work you are not responsible for? Ultimately, the buck stops with you if things go south. With all of the media channels available and the massive audiences within a keyboard’s reach, managing communications alone seems like an insurmountable challenge. I imagine many of you reading this can attest to the headaches social media can bring to your day to day operations whether in the form of poor company communications, lack of engagement, or employee misuse.

With mass media there may come massive headaches. However, if managed effectively, these channels can be a tremendously valuable asset. Customers expect engagement, prompt communication and a company community. If you can provide all of that, then you are on your way to effectively setting yourself apart and boosting your business and brand to new heights.

The key to bringing it all together is literally bringing it all together (your communication channels that is). Start working smarter and simpler and consolidate your various outlets in one conveniently accessible platform. This is all made possible by an enterprise marketing tool called a relationship marketing platform. Equipped with this amazing interface, managers can consolidate various communications (both internal and external) in one universally accessible location as well as issues directives, establish constraints and maximize overall efficiency across the board.

Realistically, this increased capacity and optimized operations will free you up from being a micromanager to being a macromanager. Make a big impact on the big picture by establishing intelligent constraints and a system of autonomy and transparency under which your employees can thrive. With the capacity to send relevant information to the right people and equip your brand reps with the right tools, you can take a more hand off approach to management.

With the framework laid, and the platform set (both literally and metaphorically) your people can focus on doing what they do best. Whether that is creating contests and ideas for social media engagement projects, creating quality content for distribution, or maintaining consistent customer communications; self-sufficiency breeds success. With effective direction, collaboration, automation and by utilizing technology to its full potential, your company can establish a brand that lives on the cutting edge and provides real, tangible value in the form of direct, consistent communication. The applications for both internal and external branding here are endless. To read more about the experiences of businesses who have used this interface, and the results they experienced, read more here.

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Medium, the Platform raises $25 million

The blogging platform Medium is more than a year old. It was launched in the beta version in August 2012 and now it has received its first outside funding from a bunch of tech investors. The platform was originally founded by three people, Twitter co founders Biz Stone and Ev Williams and Twitter’s former Vice President of Product Jason Goldman, although Williams wrote in a blog post on the platform that he was the primary funder.

Ev Williams has been more of a blogger himself. He founded the Blogger.com, the first self-serve weblogs. Given a close and keen look, Medium is a better and an advanced version of the same. Medium is more visually aided with backdrops and a sophisticated approach to the entire site. The site also allows networking and collaboration opportunities for writers.

“As CEO, my aim is to maximize Medium’s chances for success. Expanding our network and having partners to lean on is a useful way to do that,” Williams wrote in the post. Greylock Partners are the biggest investors in the platform and they will send two people to be a part of the board of Directors at Medium. David Sze and Josh Elman will help Ev and his team make Medium a better destination point for all bloggers.

Seeing the influence of content marketing and the way people are making use of these platforms, blogger, wordpress, Sze and Elman say that though the ‘content has increased exponentially, but there is still a lot to be done to help people express their ideas and reach the people who would be most interested.’

Giving the chance to create a network of their own, Medium is giving the bloggers of the world an entirely new approach. Specifically marketers who are looking for content marketing will find in Medium a tailor made site that could be used to its full optimum for publishing their content and deriving benefits out of it. Already the site has hired some big names in online journalism, such as Evan Hansen, a former Wired.com editor, and paid others for their posts, including Felix Salmon of Reuters.

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Limits Loosened on Tech Companies

Tech Companies in the US have got a chance to adopt a more transparent approach. After the petition filed by some of the tech companies, the Department of Justice said it will grant the request of top tech companies who had previously petitioned the government for the ability to provide more detailed transparency reports on government-issued national security orders for user data.

The number of national security orders have reduced and Obama has given directions to release the internet and phone companies from certain reforms made by the NSA.Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper talked about the agreement and said, “Through these new reporting methods, communications providers will be permitted to disclose more information than ever before to their customers.”

Top social media companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Linkedin, Microsoft had formed a secretive FISA wherein the petitions were filed for a more transparent approach. The same institutions will also help the Obama administration to implement reforms to government surveillance, which they say are hindering their businesses.

Now with a different approach it is an easy game for the companies as they can present their data in any way they want as and when required by the Government or on their orders.A minimum period of 6 months will be given to each company to produce the data that is required from them. There are many other norms and regulations that are formulated specifically for these companies that can be read here.

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