Monthly Archives: October 2014

Often when we want to try a new thing, whether it’s a new restaurant, a new product, technology we always seek recommendations from our friends  and value opinions of those whom we find to be trustworthy and unbiased.

But, nowadays we don’t just seek help from our well wishers; we are hungry for knowledge. We are speedily moving towards finding people with common interests online who would give us justified and unbiased opinions and who have a level of expertise in using or dealing with a particular product or set of products. These people online who specialize in certain areas that they are passionate about use or familiarize themselves with the product to the extent that they can provide others with critical and constructive feedback. These people are  called the Influencers: people who influence others of their purchase decisions based on product reviews and opinions.

These group of people are very selective about what they post or endorse. Other people seek advice from these highly influential individuals to make a purchase decision in the market. Just like you would seek a financial advisor before making an investment these people are your “advisors”.

These people often express themselves in online forums and communities related to different fields such as technology, products, company services etc. If they like something they give positive feedback and dislike something they give negative feedback. We can not confuse them for a brand advocate in case they like something because brand advocates depict brand loyalty where as Influences only set standards of performance for evaluating a product.

Influencers drive demand through the online world extensively and these people continue to grow as new innovations continue to develop in different industries across the globe. Be careful about your product performance as these people can either drive demand high or low based on the appeal of your company and its’ products.

How the ‘new influencers’ are changing Online Marketing

We continue to grow and merge our realities with internet these days. Whether it’s the iPhone combined with the Nike app to help you stay fit, doing online banking through your smartphone, figuring out how many eggs remain in your tray at home, or using passcode from your smartphone to scan plu codes of coupons and other perks. We are always looking for alternatives to make our lives easier and faster.

Privacy always remains a major issue when talking about making anything and everything digitally interactive. It’s almost like we want the luxury without payment or sacrificing anything personal at all. “Consumer trust” (Shearman, Sarah 2014) is what companies seek when creating relationships and providing services.

“The availability of cheaper and smaller hardware means that everyday objects can become smart by inserting chips or sensors. Wearable tech is the first iteration of the Internet of Things to reach consumers and it is predicted the smart home will be the next battleground.” (Shearman, Sarah 2014) 

Seems like in spite of all the concerns we are still spearheading to create a world accessible with only a touch of few fingers. Companies and well known brands will have to seek consumer trust mainly through transparency so that people are aware of what they are getting themselves into. Every small connection should make a big difference.

http://www.prweek.com/article/1314363/trusted-brands-hold-key-success-internet-things

In this highly digitization world, every firm is competing to differentiate their brand and create unique customer experiences. Similar is the story of Jetstar Airways, where they decided to differentiate their brand and increase their level of service to existing and potential clients through interaction and consumer engagement.

With Hootsuite managing all of their social media platforms in one way, they were able to monitor their followers, their preferences as to what deals they indulge in, their travel stories and other customer queries.

Hootsuite made their job easier in the sense that they didn’t spend any time troubleshooting management problems or investing in experts to give tech. solutions but instead invested their time in creating and exchanging travel stories, initiating conversations, answering questions, accepting compliments and comments and providing high quality customer service all through one platform.

Online collaboration is so necessary these days to make your brand stick in your target’s mind. If a company has no online presence these days, even though it produces products worthy of your time it is highly unlikely that it will get any attention. With Hootsuite you can create an manage platforms as easy as scrolling your cursor and making a few clicks.

Encourage online engagement, improve online presence, and associate with people and brands that represent you and your company. This is the norm of the digital world today to be a successful business.

http://www.slideshare.net/hootsuite/case-study-jetstar

Coming from not using Twitter at all, to using twitter quite frequently through the course I am learning new things about hashtags, trending news and searching for people to follow etc.

Recently I discovered about the Twitter Stats Dashboard. This analytics tool was previously only available to advertisers and other selective users but now its accessible to all. What is does is, it makes your life easier to track. With the 140 characters limit, it’s hard to keep track of how effective your tweets are by monitoring manually. Now with this tool you can track who follows you, who retweets your messages, favorites you and even track your hashtag clicks. Not only this but it also gives you a month by month timeline as to how your messages are doing over time and helps distinguish any apparent patterns.

This tool helps you create an interactive approach to social media. It’s no longer just banging your head over the wall with no results but actually making the online experience a luxurious one.

The benefit is that you not only get to interact with people through your tweets, but get to know them on a personal level as to what they like, their response to your tweets, what do they like that you write is trending, how many people are following your tweets etc.

Twitter analytics indeed helps you create a two way channel of communication to create and maintain a healthy digital relationship.