Erik Penn's Emerging Media Digital Digest Blog

5 tips for creating great mobile app user interfaces

When conceptualizing your mobile app’s user interface, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. Some of the basic things such as clarity of interface, consistency from one view to the next, and making sure that tapping on any button or UI element provides feedback to the user are fairly straightforward and are generally, though not universally, followed by most app designers.

There are a few things, however, that are often ignored which can equally impact the user experience.  Below are some of these often-ignored UI design elements:

1 – Expert vs. novice users – the tale of two audiences

Often, we think of our app users as a ubiquitous set of users with similar intentions and expertise.  However, there are often several distinct user groups with different intentions and levels of expertise.

Novice users, for example, tend to move slower throughout the application, are prone to making more touch errors, and are more uncertain about the functionality of each button. Expert users, on the other hand, tend to have the app elements memorized and move quickly and with intent throughout the app.

When creating your app’s user interface, you want to make it efficient enough for your expert users while being informative and simple enough for novice users.

2 – Ideal button size

This is a fairly obvious issue.

Button sizes are generally limited by the size of our fingers, and so if they are too small, users will be unable to touch them accurately.  Button widths below 1cm are harder (and slower) to touch.  Aside from the minimum size, there are some benefits to non-uniform button sizes (they give an indication to novice users as to which button is more important).

 

 

As a general rule of thumb, the size of a button should be proportional to the square root of the likelihood that an expert user would need to select it (there are more scientific reasons behind the size-proportional-to-root-probability rule, but that is a discussion for a different day).

3 – UI location

 

 

Usually, application UI elements are either placed at the bottom of the app (most common) or at the top.

However, the way most users hold their phone is by using their thumb as the primary finger for touching buttons. If the user is right-handed, the thumb will more easily reach the region at the bottom right of the screen (or, for left-handed users, the bottom left).  Reaching the top screen corner that is opposite to the thumb is much more difficult, and more intrusive with the application flow since the user has to reach over the screen.

Generally, it is best to keep the primary application buttons at the bottom of the screen, and ideally, to place the more important and often used buttons at the bottom-right corner of the screen.

4 – Accounting for motion

 

 

The location of buttons is not the only consideration related to how we hold our mobile devices.

We also need to keep in mind that the thumb generally has a specific flow direction.  For example, for a right-handed person, circular flows with a pivot point at the bottom right of the screen are much easier than linear flows (flowing out radially).

So if you have a user interface control that requires motion (i.e. a slider, a selection list, etc.), keep in mind how a user is holding the phone and that certain motions are generally more natural for the user.

5 – How much is too much

Some applications tend to pack quite a few buttons into each of the application views.

Now, even if the buttons are of a decent size so that a user can click on them, there is another issue that app designers should be aware of.  The more buttons presented to the user at one time, the more difficult it is for the user to choose one of them (this is especially true for novice users).  It is interesting to note that as an analogy, a touch screen device can be thought of as a communication channel where the goal is to minimize the entropy of the interface (i.e. require the least information from the users for each touch selection).

Generally, most user-friendly apps tend to have an interface entropy under 3.5 bits (the maximum entropy for an interface is approximately 5.5 bits on an iPhone 5, accounting for average finger size and screen size).  What this essentially means is that you should keep the total number of touchable UI elements to less than 10 per view.

There is a lot more involved in creating great mobile user interfaces.  But hopefully you will find some of the above suggestions of benefit.

 

Story by Parham Aarabi an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he teaches a graduate course on Advanced Mobile User Interfaces and directs the Mobile Applications Lab. 

 

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Pinterest’s Group Boards That Get More Exposure

In case you hadn’t noticed, Pinterest has been in the news a lot recently. In November last year, Pinterest started courting the business community with the creation of its business-specific accounts and a dedicated business support page. Then earlier this month, Pinterest quietly raised a cool $200 million at an astonishing $2.5 billion valuation – not bad for a company that has yet to make a profit! Most intriguing of all though was a study published last week by research center Pew. It suggested that Pinterest has grown so quickly, it’s now on course to catch Twitter in the battle for second place behind Facebook in the US social networking market. These events indicate that Pinterest is quickly evolving from being last year’s hot new upstart to a legitimate social network that should be part of your marketing mix.

 

How can you maximize your time on Pinterest?

But how can you maximize your Pinterest activities without spending a ton of time on it? Well, along with scheduling your pins, one of the most effective but underutilized strategies to get more exposure from Pinterest is by using group boards. Now, if you’re new to Pinterest, you may only know of regular boards that only you can pin to. You may have never have heard of group boards. Or maybe you have but you don’t know how to use them or don’t think they apply to you. I’ve been dabbling with group boards over the past few months and have seen a dramatic increase in followers since I strategically introduced them to my Pinterest marketing.

 

What Are Pinterest’s Group Boards?

A group board works like a regular Pinterest board. The only difference is that along with the board creator, other people are also allowed to pin. Group boards go under many different names – shared boards, contributor boards, community boards and collaborative boards. Regardless the term, they are all exactly the same thing. There is currently no directory of Pinterest group boards. In order to distinguish a group board from a regular one you need to look out for the group icon at the top of a board when you are browsing someone’s page. This snapshot of a personal page of choices shows the group Pinterest page icon with the little people under.

 

 

Key Benefits of Using Group Boards

Group boards are not only a great way to organize ideas and bring people together, but they can also have real tangible benefits for your brand and business.

#1. Dramatically boost your followers

If users select to “follow all” of any contributor’s boards, then they will be added as followers to a group board you are part of. The increased exposure and visibility you get through group boards will increase your follower growth at a faster rate.

#2. Exponentially increase the number of repins

The more followers you have the more likely they (and their followers) are to see your content, repin your pins and click through to your website. This means more traffic to your site and potentially more subscribers, customers and clients.

#3. Put your pinning virtually on autopilot

Implement this strategy correctly and you could get other people creating content for.

Certainly at the start, Pinterest can be time-consuming but managed well, you could soon have a team of people perpetuating your content for you across their networks.

#4. Increase engagement and create brand ambassadors

Your customers may already be “liking”, commenting and sharing your content with their followers on Pinterest. But inviting them to pin to your brand’s group board will get them more engaged and involved in your online conversation. It will also elevate them to the role of brand ambassadors, who their followers are more likely to take note of.

Conclusion

The Pinterest blog recommends that you should only send invitations to Pinterest users who have expressed an interest in your pins and to avoid sending out repeat requests.

One way of encouraging people to join your group boards is to add a line in the board description. You could state that you welcome contributors and that anyone interested in joining the board should add a comment against a pin.

So there you have it, a whirlwind tour of Pinterest’s group boards.

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8 Great Ways to Strengthen Your Branding on YouTube

Branding is Very Important

As a brand marketing yourself online, you understand that branding your messages is very important; how else would someone know they were your messages if they were not branded appropriately?  Branding your messages makes them easy to recognize as belonging to you. Your brand can make sure that each message makes the right impression by making sure that each message you publish carries an easily recognizable, consistent, and appropriate reminder that your brand owns the content. Logos are a very important part of branding – but don’t stop there!

 

Video: Customizing Your YouTube Channel


Make Your Mark on YouTube With These Tips

You might be surprised to learn that there are several different opportunities available to brand your YouTube activities in such a way that they will be quite obviously and unforgettably yours!

  1. Remove any ads from your channel page – Removing the ads from your channel page will help ensure that the focus of your visitors remains on you. Otherwise, when visiting your channel page a visitor might be distracted and/or confused by the presence of unrelated advertisements.
  2. Make sure that you have branded your channel page – You have a limited ability to customize your YouTube channel page; make sure that you have your brand’s logo as a part of your background image. You can also add some of your social media profile links to your channel page’s sidebar area, don’t miss out on that! Last, don’t neglect to add a solid, short-and-sweet description of your brand and what your videos are all about.
  3. “Own” your avatar – As with most social media, almost all of your activity on YouTube will be accompanied by your avatar. Your avatar is an image that you will choose to represent your brand all around the site; from large to pretty darn small, this image should look good and clearly represent your brand. It is an easy to secure opportunity to assert your brand and help people recognize your content.
  4. Brand your video tags – When tagging your video, you cannot forget to add a “brand tag” to the end of your tag list. While the last tag that a video has is not given a great deal of influence, having your brand name as a part of this list will help to ensure that any videos that appear along with yours in the suggested / related videos areas will be more likely to be your videos as opposed to someone else’s.
  5. Watermark your videos – A watermark is a small, unobtrusive reminder that your videos belong to you. It does not have to be large or glaringly obvious, it actually works better if it is not either of these things. Instead, place it in the corner of your video so it does not get in the way of your content, and rest assured that no matter where your video appears, it will be obvious to the viewer who is behind the content they have just consumed.
  6. Introduce your video with a branded segment – Even something as simple as your logo, accompanied by a few special effects and a 5 second sound clip can serve as a great brand awareness reinforcement.
  7. Include the name of your channel in your video – If at all possible, include the name of your YouTube chanel in the introduction of your video. This is a great way to make sure that a viewer can find your channel when they view your video somewhere else, for example on someone’s blog.
  8. Brand your video endings – Send your viewers off in style with a branded ending clip. If you are on a tight budget, you may be able to use the same clip that you used in the introduction of your video. Just a little something to remind people who you are and where they can find you!

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Firefox OS – Partners with Low-End Phones

With most smartphone makers endlessly obsessed with high-end devices sporting bigger and better specs, Mozilla’s has focused on low-end devices with Firefox OS.

Today the browser maker unveiled two developer preview phones for Firefox OS that it’s offering in partnership with the Spanish startup Geeksphone, which is building the phones, and Telefonica.

True to its low-end focus, Mozilla is placing the spotlight mostly on the less-powerful Keon (above). It features a small 3.5-inch screen, a 1 gigahertz processor, 4 gigabytes of storage, and 512 megabytes of RAM. With those specs, the Keon would barely even cut it as a cheap Android phone in the U.S. today. But in Brazil, where Mozilla is debuting Firefox OS phones later this year, it’s representative of devices that many consumers will actually be able to afford.

On the slightly more powerful end, Geeksphone is also working on a developer preview phone called Peak (comparison below). It sports a 4.3-inch screen, 1.2 gigahertz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, and a much better camera than the Keon.

These aren’t phones meant to take on the iPhone — instead, they’re aiming to get developers comfortable with Firefox OS and its complete reliance on open web standards, which is Mozilla’s big selling point for the platform. Apps for Firefox OS are built entirely in HTML 5, but will have the same sort of functionality as native apps on iOS and Android. That means the apps will be easy to build, even for amateur developers.

“Developer preview phones will help make the mobile web more accessible to more people,” said Stormy Peters, director of developer engagement at Mozilla, in a blog post today. “Developers are critical to the web and to Mozilla’s mission to make the web accessible to everyone. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Firefox OS to discover, experience and connect to the Web. A world wide web based on open standards and open technologies. We couldn’t have done this without web developers.”

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Smartphones Wipe Out Sales of MP3 Players

They were at the forefront of the digital revolution when they launched over a decade ago, but UK sales of iPods and other MP3 players slumped by more than fifth in 2012 as consumers turned to smartphones as their gadget of choice.

According to analysis by Mintel, the research company, sales of MP3 players fell by almost £110 million – or 22 per cent – to £381 million this year compared to 2011.

 

Mintel predicts that sales will halve again by 2017. In its “worst case” scenario, the group forecasts that sales of MP3 players could drop to just £25 million within five years.

 

MP3 players – or Portable Media Players (PMP) as they are also known – are rechargeable pocket-sized devices that play digital music and videos. However they have been usurped by smartphones, which carry out the same functions but also allow users to make telephone calls and connect to the internet.

 

When Apple launched its iPod in 2001 it changed the way that people listened to music. Using its own ‘digital jukebox’ software, the device – which was the same size and weight as a packet of playing cards - could hold 1,000 songs in compressed digital files.

 

Prior to the iPod, music fans had to rely on cumbersome portable CD players, short-lived mini-disc players or even cassette players like the Sony Walkman to listen to music on the move.

 

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Within a year of the iPod launching Apple released a version capable of carrying 4,000 songs. By the autumn of 2010, around 275 million iPods had been sold around the world.

However the rise of smartphones – like the Apple iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy - has halted this growth. Ofcom, the regulator, recently found that two-fifths of UK adults now own a smartphone.

Samuel Gee, a technology analyst at Mintel, said that the decline in MP3 sales is “unlikely to reverse”.

“It is impossible to talk about the current PMP market without extensive reference to smartphones. The devices have directly contributed to the sharp decline in the value of PMP sales,” said Mr Gee.

He said that MP3 players are being “steadily outshone” by increasingly affordable new technologies, like smartphones.

Ian Fogg, a technology analyst at IHS, the research company, said smartphones are becoming as ubiquitous as iPods once were.

Mr Fogg said: “The convenience of a smartphone is greater than an MP3 player because it is always with someone. It also provides more choice of mobile music because someone can play back their own music – as they can on a MP3 player – but they can also access other music services like Last FM or Spotify. Therefore there is a greater choice of music available.”

As well as disrupting sales of MP3 players, smartphones have led to a decline in sales of compact cameras due to the phones’ own in-built camera function.

Figures released in October showed that there are more than one billion smartphones in use around the world. Strategy Analytics, a consulting firm, said that growing demand for the devices is likely to push the number to over two billion within the next three years.

Apple recently said that it had sold 5.3 million iPods globally in its most recent financial quarter, a fall of 19 per cent compared to the same period the previous year

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iPhone 5 vs. Galaxy S3 vs. Galaxy Note 2

Size matters to some smartphone consumers. While Apple may have already sold millions of iPhone 5 smartphones since its launch in September, not every iPhone fan is thrilled with the new design of the device. And some say the iPhone 5 falls short of expectations, especially in the size department. You must decide if it's worth the hassle of switching from Apple iOS to Google Android for a bigger smartphone. And I provide some insight into which Samsung Android phone is right for you. Also why the iPhone 4S from Virgin Mobile can't be unlocked or even used internationally.


Samsung Galaxy S3 or Samsung Galaxy Note 2?

When it comes to big phones, Google Android is your best option. And the biggest of them all is the Galaxy Note 2. While Apple has made the iPhone 5 taller, it is nowhere near the size of some of these "big" android phones on the market today. So if screen size is your main criteria, then by all means go with an Android device.



The iPhone 5 is slightly taller than the iPhone 4S, the previous generation of the iPhone. There are perils of switching from the iPhone to an Android phone, but there are apps and other ways to make this transition easier. And in theory we should be able to move most, if not all, of the contacts, music and pictures from the iPhone and iTunes account to the new Samsung smartphone.

Samsung offers some suggestions for making this transition.

Contacts: The best way to move your contacts to a new Samsung device is to save those contacts to the Apple iCloud and then export those contacts from the Internet to Gmail and from Gmail you can populate your phone with all your contact info.

Music: To load your music from iTunes onto a Samsung Android phone you have a few options. Samsung says if you're using a PC it's as easy as creating a new "Music" file for your Galaxy smartphone and dragging and dropping your music into this file. (Since you have a Mac, you'd have to download the Android File Transfer software from android.com/filetransfer.)

The other option is to create a Google Music account. That way you can load all your music to the cloud and play it on any Android device you own. But uploading music to Google Music can take a while. I have about 7GB of music and it took me all day to upload all the music to Google Music. But once the music is there, you'll have lots of flexibility moving the music around to different devices you want to use in the future. But it requires an Internet connection to access your music.

 

The final option is to use syncing software like DoubleTwist. You should be able to download a free version of DoubleTwist that will let you transfer your music via USB cable. The company makes you pay $10 for an app that will allow you to sync your music from iTunes to your Samsung device over Wi-Fi.

Photos: There are also ways to sync your pictures from your iPhone to the Samsung devices. The first thing you'll have to do is transfer your photos from your old phone to your computer. And then you should be able to transfer those photos to your new phone.

 

While there are ways to transfer all this information from one device ecosystem to another, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it's a piece of cake. I have made this transition myself when I moved from an iPhone 3GS to a Samsung Galaxy S3, and even though I had a little cheat sheet from Samsung to walk me through the steps, I still fumbled a bit. For example, the free DoubleTwist software that would have allowed me to sync my iTunes music via a USB cable wasn't working on my four-year-old Macbook, so I had to pay for the app that works over Wi-Fi. 



Samsung's Galaxy S3. And even though I got it to work, it took some time. If you aren't afraid of putting in a little effort to make the switch from the Apple ecosystem to Google Android world, then go for it.

So which Samsung smartphone should you get?
The Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3 are very similar. In fact, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, with its 5.5 inch screen, looks like it's just the bigger version of the 4.8 inch Galaxy S3. And indeed some of the features are similar, such as the 8 megapixel camera and 4G LTE support. But don't let the looks fool you. There are some real differences in the hardware and software. The Galaxy Note 2 is a newer device, and as such it has a more powerful processor.

The Note 2 has a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and comes with 2GB of RAM. The Samsung Galaxy S3 in the U.S. comes with 2GB of RAM and dual-core process. (The international version of the same device has 1GB of RAM and a quad-core processor.)

 

The Galaxy Note also has a bigger and better battery for longer battery life as compared to the Galaxy S3. The Galaxy Note 2 also comes with the latest Android software Jelly Bean already installed. The Galaxy S3 comes with the previous version of the software Ice Cream Sandwich. S3 users on Sprint and T-Mobile are getting the Jelly Bean update. But AT&T and Verizon S3 customers are still waiting.

 

What does this mean for you? Based on specs and making sure you have the latest and greatest technology, the Galaxy Note 2 has a smidge more to offer you. So based on specs alone, I'd say buy the Galaxy Note 2. But it's a big device. And the size does not appeal to every consumer.

If you are already leaning toward the Galaxy Note 2 based on reviews and other things you've read, and you are satisfied with the size, then I say go for it. I think you will be very happy with your decision. Good luck!


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4 Steps to Achieve Social Media Improvement

In the old days, it was easy to understand the customer experience. You had your manager or salespeople walk around. You asked or incentivized your customers to complete comment cards or surveys. Then you added in mystery shopping. All were good sources of information about the customer experience.

But that won't suffice anymore. Today, you have to think about your online reputation and what your customers are saying about you in social media.

Customer feedback spreads like wildfire: The average online review is read by 150 people.

Comfort with social sites growin: Cumulative reviews on Yelp, for instance, grew 54 percent year over year to more than 30 million, and average monthly unique visitors grew 52 percent year over year to more than 78 million.

Online reviews drive sale: A half-star improvement in online ratings can lead to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a restaurant will be fully booked during peak dining times.

The social world is here to stay. And the best brands in the business use social media, or more specifically the customer intelligence gleaned from these online conversations, to optimize their supply chain, tighten service standards, and generally make their customers happy.

Achieving these goals starts with listening to the feedback -- really listening. And the feedback should be categorized. For example, restaurants would assign feedback to specific categories such as service, food, prices, wait times, and ambiance. Then brands can improve strategically based on this data and communicate to let consumers know they care. The results play out in operational improvements that earn customer loyalty and affinity.

The effectiveness of using data-driven intelligence to drive business strategy depends on a brand's social media maturity. The more mature the company, the better they are able to leverage social market intelligence. There are four stages to social media maturity: read, engage, empower, and optimize.

Stage 1: Read and understand customer sentiment

 

During this stage you will find that you are visiting 15-20 review sites, bookmarking them, and reading every review. In most organizations with less than five locations, it's the owner who does this task. Once the business grows to more than five locations, this usually becomes the responsibility of the marketing and promotions team.

Some reviews can be lengthy and have lots of location-specific data. Some will be mostly positive and others mostly negative, but the majority of the reviews will be nuanced. That is they will contain several insights, positive and negative, and the corresponding star ratings don't give you the full picture.

When it comes to reading online reviews, best practices include:

  • Hire a full time social media manager, especially if you have more than five locations. Minimally, make this the job of your marketing team, as a high priority.
  • Ensure the reader is taking notes. Try to categorize the feedback by what matters to your business.
  • Read everything. Don't skimp. It's important to ensure you understand the entire landscape of reviews.

Reading online reviews comes with challenges, such as handling a large volume of reviews, remembering what was said over time, and staying focused on this task. But if you can overcome those difficulties the results will definitely benefit you as you use the data to make informed, intelligent business decisions.

 

Stage 2: Engage and connect with customers to show them you care

 

The next stage in social media maturity is to engage with customers and let them know you're listening. Reaching out can be done for a variety of reasons: to offer an incentive to come back after a bad experience, simply to tell them you're listening, or to actually do something about it.

By engaging with customers you can stop negative reviews in their tracks, and you can take neutral and positive reviews and make them more positive. The result is increased customer loyalty and ultimately increased revenue.

Best practice guidelines for connecting with your customers include:

  • Reply to all types of reviews. Don't just focus on negative ones.
  • If possible, make the conversation private. Some review sites allow this, others do not.
  • Avoid the temptation to fix the customer. Rather, you should fix the experience. Treat this even more sensitively than you would an in-person exchange with an angry customer.

When you engage with reviewers, the results are impressive. Ultimately you are working to increase customer loyalty. Loyal customers talk to friends, bring friends with them, and increase sales. In the meantime though, by engaging with customers you can demonstrate that they matter -- that you are a brand that cares.

 

Stage 3: Empower staff to make the right decisions to fix issues before they damage your brand

 

Brands at this stage empower their general managers, staff, operations team, etc., to use the intelligence gleaned from online reviews to make the right operational changes in order to deliver a consistent high-quality customer experience and earn customer loyalty.

Best practice companies know:

  • When empowering your staff, let the data inspire you. You know your business better than anyone, but sometimes you need that extra bit of information that only the customer can provide. Look at the data with an open mind.
  • You can't just do this once. It's important to make sure you are keeping track of your operations and the customer experience over time.
  • Measuring progress is critical. When you make a change, watch for results.
  • Not to react or overreact to individuals. You don't want to experience a yo-yo effect on your decision. Let the volumes of data be your guide.

When you do all of this, you will deliver on your brand promise, motivate your staff, keep customers coming back, and grow your revenues.

 

Stage 4: Optimize top-of-mind customer feedback to drive strategy improvements to your business

 

This final stage of social media maturity is when you change your business to better serve your customers. Usually regional managers, owners and CEOs, or VPs of operations look at the social intelligence to determine how to optimize the business. The goal is to drive the strategy, make changes that improve the business, and monitor the results.

To change strategy or drive strategic initiatives based on social reviews:

  • Let the data challenge your fundamental beliefs. Sometimes making a change like this can yield dramatic results.
  • Keep tabs on the social market data of your competitors. There is a treasure trove of information on your competition online. Take time to evaluate it.
  • Monitor your progress. Ensure the changes you are making have the desired effects and continuously and dynamically adjust.

Moving through the stages of social media maturity doesn't have to be difficult. You can start by reading, and step through the other stages of maturity over time as it works for your business.


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3 Rules to Make Better Passwords

Ok, so we are all getting our new iPhone 5 in the next day or so, but with all the hype, we might forget the little stuff like a new password.  After all, how many “Get Pharma…” emails do we want to send friends or receive from friends?  Pass this advice around – Think of a word or two words and put caps and numbers within.  That sounds hard, but it’s not! 
 

A few simple rules will help. Like replace your “a” with @ or “i” with ! or “e” with 3, then it becomes much easier.  Don’t be fooled, computer programs love to figure out the easy ones:

 


Now let’s stop sending out spam to each other!

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5 Brands Succeed with Instagram & Pinterest

Visual storytelling is the natural evolution of existing consumer behaviors and helps to humanize brands. Brands can interact with consumers to drive the creation of branded content, which drives additional attention in a user's social activity stream, thus driving additional consideration for the brand. Services like Instagram and Pinterest show their power in their simplicity, ease of publishing pinning and the deep integration of each into users' social graphs. Pinterest has reaffirmed consumer interest in visually searching for information. Meanwhile, Instagram embodies the convergence of mobile and social.

 

Instagram now boasts more than 50 million users, and it is adding new ones at the rate of roughly 5 million per week. More than 1 billion photos have been uploaded on Instagram, with 5 million-plus more photos being added every day. This article highlights five brands that have incorporated visual imagery and social curation via Instagram into their broader digital strategies. Each brand offers a different value proposition to its followers, but there are common themes demonstrated by each example.

 

American Airlines

 

American Airlines' recent "Get Mobile Get Moving" campaign amplified the premise that travel and visual imagery are closely connected. American Airlines published a weekly photo theme and invited users to submit photos via Instagram and other owned social channels with the hashtag #AApic.

 

Selected images were then featured on American's Facebook brand page and a brand microsite photo gallery. 


Every image submitted also served as an entry to win weekly prizes and a larger grand prize sweepstake.  Ultimately, the American Airlines program netted more than 69,000 total photo submissions.

 

Red Bull

 

Red Bull has taken visual storytelling to new heights with its visually stunning content that reinforces the key attributes of the brand. Their owned social properties are impressive, with more than 315,000 followers via Instagram and more than 600 photos published.

 

Red Bull uses multiple hashtags that represent different types of content, such as #GivesYouWings, #shareyourwings, and #FlyingFridays. Going beyond its content stream and "liking" other images also reinforces engagement by humanizing the brand.



Red Bull has also created a branded hub for sharing images tied to its products. At ShareYourWings.RedBullUSA.com, fans of the brand can share via the #shareyourwings hashtag across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr in exchange for free products.

 

Tiffany & Co.

 

Tiffany & Co. understands how visual storytelling can drive engagement for its brand. For Tiffany's "What Makes Love True" campaign, Instagram played an essential role in creating the mood that ultimately is an extension of the brand.

 

Instagram has iPhone hooks that allow any other iPhone application to interact with the Instagram application. So if a brand wants to create custom filters, it can build the functionality into its branded application and publish into the Instagram photo stream. As a way to provide value and differentiate its iPhone app, Tiffany's incorporated three new Instagram filters. Users were treated with black and white, peach, and Tiffany blue. The images inspired from the campaign are posted to "True Love in Pictures." 



Users simply tag their photos through the Instagram app by including the #TrueLovePictures hashtag in the caption. By leveraging Instagram's built-in hooks, Tiffany's was able to create additional value for the consumer through a complementary extension of its brand.

 

Ford

 

Ford has created something that focuses on visual imagery powering the brand. It is evident in its recently executed "Fiestagram" program rolled out to European markets. The campaign challenged Instagram photography enthusiasts to upload photos in several categories inspired by the technologies and features of the Ford Fiesta. Each week, Ford communicated the weekly challenge as a hashtag associated with technology related to the Ford Fiesta.



Participants could interpret the categories in any way they saw fit and use any of the filters and effects available on Instagram to enhance the mood of their images. Running on the Ford Fiesta Facebook page, contestants could enter simply by uploading photos with the hashtag #Fiestagram and #(weekly challenge) via Instagram captions. All images submitted appeared in online galleries on Facebook, and some of the best submissions also appeared on billboards and in real-world photography galleries across Europe. A total of 16,000 pictures were submitted, with 12,000 new Facebook fans gained during the course of the promotion.

 

Nike

 

Nike's "How will you #MakeItCount in 2012" campaign takes the traditional New Year's resolution and turns it into a rallying cry to motivate and inspire individuals to meet and exceed their goals via visual imagery. Nike has enlisted the help of superstar athletes like Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Dirk Nowitzki as catalysts for sparking the #MakeItCount movement.



Since launching in January, more than 41,000 Instagram images have been tagged with the #MakeItCount hashtag.  By staying true to its core brand attributes, Nike's call to action and the imagery that it evokes become the visual embodiment of the brand. That is carried forward as a virtual representation of both the brand and the individual.

 

Other noteworthy players

 

There are many other brands making an impact with Instagram-generated content, including Pepsi, Starbucks, Burberry, Volkswagen, Warby Parker, Puma, and Maersk. With Facebook's recent purchase of Instagram and the launch of its own photo-based app, no one quite yet knows what the future will hold for Instagram. But with numbers continuing to grow across the board, Instagram is not looking to slow down any time soon.

If you want to hear what I have to say in 140 characters or less, please follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/erikpenn.

The Big Data Landscape

Have you looked at all the options lately?  Probably not, so let’s review just how many options there are to consider:



The moment I found this chart, I knew it was important.  Many of the options I know and some are new. Understand this --> The industry has exploded over the last couple years with tons of options.  This org chart helps categorize my needs and apply the right solutions.  On your next project, this is a great reference!


If you want to hear what I have to say in 140 characters or less, please follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/erikpenn.

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