Smartphone evolution

Technology is bridging the communication gap and getting us to be more social than ever before. Mobile phones became an instant hit with users being able to connect and stay in touch with just anyone they wish to. As technology gets easy and intrusive, (if I can say) the growth rate of mobile phones is enormous. The mobile market in India is the fastest growing with 791 million users with China leading with 900 million users!

If that’s what the market is, the entry of the smartphone is sure changing lives and getting us closer to the digital and social world. The features and the innumerous benefits that the smartphone provides is letting businesses and consumers explore the mobile market with great fervor. Mobile developers are working on applications for smartphones that break the digital divide.

Get your movie tickets, place an order for the book you want to lay your hands on, send that tweet, check-in from any location with Foursquare and make the whole experience as exciting as possible. Though the mobile industry is growing rapidly, the numbers of consumers are few and the question of accessibility and penetration is an issue.

With America catching up with Europe, the number of teens entering the market is pretty interesting. With India, of course we all want to possess a cool smartphone but with 3G just making it here, it will be a long way to go. Internet penetration in India is an issue and this needs to be tackled to reach the smartphone generation.
What are consumers using the smartphone for? There are applications that get you instant information, updates, reviews and entertainment. Marketers do not want to ignore mobile marketing, as the benefits it produces are enormous! Tell us more…

Are you experimenting with QR Codes?

There is no dearth for marketers to get their products/services across to businesses and consumers. In the highly connected world, we are all marketing our ideas to people and ourselves. Just when the smartphone is taking the US market by storm, marketers across the globe are investing in the 2-D dimensional bar code called the QR Codes or the Quick Response code.

It’s a Japanese technology trademark of Denso Wave and has been extensively used. With the evolution of smartphones, and digital content a part of our lives, the QR Codes is being extensively used by businesses and organizations. All you need is a bar code reader on your mobile phone which has a camera of course. Take a picture of the QR Code and get information fed into the code. The digital information here can be a link, a picture, video, website, contact details, customer feedback form, instructions, registration details, social media communities and many more!

They are placed on products, magazines, newspapers, catalogues, event venues, you name it! Be as creative and imaginative as possible when it comes to these as they are inexpensive to implement. The expense factor comes into play when marketers risk playing with these codes in a market that is still unaware about its usage and benefits both as a business and a customer.

In India, QR Codes have been initially used by Ford and Mid-Day. Ralph Lauren introduces QR Codes on its clothing and United Airlines used it as boarding passes! Sky is the limit! Businesses today are using technology like never before to reach specific and niche audiences in a short span of time making it profitable for both. The process is also known as tagging.

Advertisers and mobile services are cashing in on the experience here in India. Catch up on the Blackberry ads and look out for more such marketing around you :)

Get that RSS feed!

RSS or Really Simple Syndication is what most online geeks love to tap! It allows users to share content on blogs, websites and other social networks. RSS is called a ‘feed’. It helps readers access to content that is regularly updated. Many websites and blogs include the RSS icon which lets users read content.

The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking an RSS icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. (Wikipedia)

The biggest advantage of RSS is that it allows users to stay informed about things that they want to. You can subscribe to RSS feeds of my fav blog and read posts and updates when something new comes up. Feed Reader and News Aggregators allow users to use RSS feeds from the sites of their choice whenever they want. Web-based feed readers like Bloglines, Google Reader are quite popular and simple to use. Find sites that allow you to syndicate content.

Viewing content gets easy and controlled. For instance, in my Google Reader I have subscribed to blogs, websites, articles, that I would love to read more about such as Mashable, Social Media Examiner, TechCrunch among others. You could also add keywords that interest you.

Go ahead, and subscribe to the RSS feeds of websites you simple love! Also, make sure to add one on your blog/website.
More at http://www.whatisrss.com/

Social Science & Social Media

An article on Social Media Today, talks about the relevance of social science and its relation with Social Media. Social Science as we know is the study of society and relationships. We are all born into a society and are constantly communicating with people around us. The need to interact and communicate is what keeps a society/community well bound.

Similarly, Social Media is all about communicating and engaging with customers across channels online. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, networking is just a click away. Brands need to engage with customers in a way that allows people to share and exchange information. Social Media is all about gaining visibility by developing human relationships. Posting content or talking to your customers increases loyalty and helps you win new customers in the process. This creates credibility and trust.

It's important to have friends, to share knowledge and information, to network and make life a bit easier. The same applies when it comes to virtual friends. It's great to see that you got a whole lot of friends out there. (The average number of friends a person has on Facebook is 150.) It overwhelms us when we get so many friend requests, likes and comments. There is a transformation taking place; we are a whole new personality. We love talking to friends via a wall and through pokes. It keeps us going. Social Media is changing the way we maintain relationships.
What we do in life is replicated online. Take for instance, LinkedIn- the fastest growing PNS. We all want to be recognized for our work and our skills and talent. A LinkedIn recommendation is a great way to get noticed for the right reasons. Twitter allows us to share information to a whole lot of people with similar interests.

There many such examples of online activity that is closely related to 'social science'. Social Science is the way forward in Social Media.

Infographics to tell a story!

A picture speaks a thousand words and infographics do just that!
It is nothing but a graphic work that is designed to tell a story in words, pictures and graphics. Also known as Information Graphics it helps tell a story in few words.

Businesses and design professionals make use of this amazing technology to convey ideas in a simpler manner. Infographics appeal to social media marketers. With a vast amount of information to keep up with, it’s easier to reach out to social media experts through infographics which get the message in a clear and concise manner. It not only helps end users grab information but also helps social media marketers to sell what they got. As it is more appealing, users are more likely to bookmark, vote or share it online. Most social media marketers are using infographics to collect data in an image and get it across to users.

Working with design professionals for creating the best infographics is a must. It works when the information said is accurate, has less text, the image has colors that are visually appealing. Most businesses are resorting to infographics to communicate messages both internally and externally. Externally, it helps brands acquire more traffic, and saves time. It is an excellent method to showcase facts and figures.
For more on Infographics, read searchengineland
sociatic

Guide to Twitoaster

Twitoaster threads and archives all your Twitter conversations giving you statistics and ranking. Helps you improve and optimize your conversations with followers and your second followers. It helps in archiving and threading Twitter conversations, managing replies, simple mentions and retweets. Arnaud Meunier is the brain behind this successful application. Five things that make Twitoaster are – The Home page, Profile Page, Conversation Page, Search Page, and the Ranking Page.

Using the Home Page - Managing conversations, replying, tweeting, extracting links and images is a lot easier. You get to see hot users and #tags by the country in the home page. Yellow background next to the profile image means new replies since last visit.

In your Profile Page it will show you your rank and statistics by the day and hours. This is all with regard to replies. You can check your new replies and simple mentions. When it comes to following users, only those on Twitoaster will show up. If the profile name is in blue it shows that the person is using Twitoaster.

In the Conversation page – One can share, retweet, see who has started the conversation and extract the links, images from that conversation. You can reply to the right conversation or the point that you want to make.

The Search Page allows you to filter conversations by user, or titles and date. Also the experts in the conversation are highlighted in yellow. Filtering can be done in the following ways -
All Tweets (default): Whole timeline
With Replies: Only Tweets that received at least 1 reply
With Retweets: Only Tweets that received at least 1 retweet

The Rank Page shows you the ranking by category globally along with distinct users that week and a chart or graphical representation.
Also one can add Twitter conversation widget onto your blog/website and to iGoogle.
Twitoasters therefore is an useful application for brands, organizations, and people who have a large follower base and want to archive their conversations systematically.
Read more on this at twitoaster

Facebook status updates – Do they annoy you?

With Facebook reaching 500 million users worldwide, it is no wonder that its 'status updates' is the most widely used feature with 60 million status updates reported per day! This is in addition to the 700 million pieces of content shared on Facebook each day! Twitter a platform for sharing status updates and Google Buzz joining in to offer the same, it is overwhelming to see how individuals use these channels for updating what they do and think.

Looking into Facebook status updates is a task by itself. Add your friends and you’ll know how daunting it is to read these status updates. For one, it is a great way to share information about yourself and the world around you but seriously how does it matter to me whether you are going shopping alone! (Unless, we are good friends)

The best part about status updates is that you can tag people you want to send these updates to, which make the job easier, especially when updating something that is directed at a particular person or people. Also, Facebook settings allow you to customize who can share information and comment on your wall. In www.jeffbullas.com he talks about five types of Facebook updates to avoid.

It gets really annoying when your status updates show you as being a Facebook wannabe, trying to gain attention of all the Face bookers of the world or those on your list, and then there are some who live in a world of their own thinking people did miss their status updates!

But not all is chaos here, Facebook status updates go beyond what you ate, where you partied and those hate messages you direct to your ex. Using the status updates for sharing news, videos, images, content or your work is great. It shows your true personality rather than pretend to say or like something that you really don't or that which really is not you.

Check your Facebook news feeds and see what gets your attention and what annoys you. I'm sure you will figure out what's the best way to use status updates and how to really win likes and comments that are genuine.