Go Further with Ford

Ford’s new spot in which no brand name appears has attracted top views on youtube. Only Go further & Ecoboost are flashed in the spot. For the first time, Ford has not shown the brand name in the ads. Ford has also setup a site gofurther.com which gives more info about the spot. The website has been neatly done with good visuals and information. Ford has been pioneer in automotive social media with new & innovative concepts. Digital marketing has become an important avenue for brands to engage with customers.

Microsoft launches so.cl

Microsoft has launched So.cl, a social network, which was tested by Univ students in 2011. At the time facebook is going public, so.cl has had a quite launch. Company’s FUSE Labs has developed the site. This helps combine search with social network for the purpose of learning. It uses facebook login or windows login & also takes the name & picture from facebook for so.cl’s profile. Also one can post on so.cl & it won’t be posted on facebook. Share to facebook feature can be used to post to fb. So.cl uses bing search results & also the results are displayed. Recently bing has incorporated new features to search results with social data in the search results. Google has its own social networking site Google+. Facebook is still the king of social networking with more than 900 million members.

Facebook App Center

Facebook’s app center will give its 900 million members a whole new way of experiencing social apps. It is accessible through web & also on iOs & andriod apps. Users can find great apps like Pinterest, Battle Pirates, Viddy & others. Apps will have an apps detail page which will help users to have more info about the apps. User ratings, engagement,app ratings metric will help rank the apps & also helps in its success. Mobile users can also browse the apps from their mobile devices & can install it depending on the mobile device. App developers need to go through the guidelines to get it listed & also if it doesn’t meet the guidelines it will be removed. Apple’s & Google Android app center have become the top app centers. The facebook app center will help facebook reach more users & also provide better engagement to the users. For marketers, it will provide an easier & better route to reach their members.

The New Bing

The new Bing has a three column design with Core Search, Snapshot & Sidebar panes. Core Search contains core web results which will help get results easier without cluttering it with social updates. Snapshot is the center column. It is between the web results on the left and the new sidebar on the right. Snapshot has info and services related to your search along with maps, reviews & others. This helps the users to take the intended actions. Sidebar is all about social information with info from friends, experts & others. Social results which were in core part have been completely moved to sidebar. You can even ask friends, experts and others from sites like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora & others to what they are saying about the search. This is a great search interface which will take search to the next level. With the rise of social media, social results appearing along with main search results has changed search results. More info can be had at Bing Community.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the latest socal media site which has made the marketers buzzing these days. Pinterest has become the talk of blogosphere & social networking. In Pinterest, members can pin images, videos & other objects to their pin board. A large percentage of the users on Pinterest are women. Brands can reach more customers, drive traffic, increase visibility & also sell products. It is already sending more referral traffic to many sites. Along with facebook, twitter, youtube, google+ it has become a major site for brands to reach customers. Many pinterest like clone sites have also been started. As women are majority decision makers, brands are finding it easier to reach them through this site.

2012 Webby Awards Winners

Webby Awards winners for 2012 have been announced & webby person of the year goes to Louis CK. Webby breakout of the year goes to Instagram which has become the talk of the blogosphere after facebook purchased it for $1 Billion. With over 70 categories, the list is a great mix of awards, nominees & others. Categories are spread over Websites, interactive advertising, online film & video, mobile apps. The winners represent best of the web. Webby awards will be held on May 21st & will be hosted by Patton Oswalt. More info about the winners is available at Webby Awards website.

Facebook Purchases Instagram for $1 Billion

Facebook buys Instagram for $1 Billion making it the biggest acquisition of facebook till date. This is a great news for Instagram as it has launched recently on android with millions of downloads in a few days. Blogosphere is agog with the purchase with several speculations about the big deal. MarK zuckerburg has also emphasized that it will continue to operate as an independent company. Instagram has around 30 million members & this provides facebook with access to a great network of photo sharing community. Facebook is planning for an IPO & this purchase would give it more leverage in the social networking space. Also Instagra’s mobile ability gives facebook much needed push to move in the mobile space. Nobody had expected that facebook will purchase Instagram at such a value & for a startup in to have gone from zero to $1 Billion is a great news.

Corporate Blogging & its Uses

Blogs have evolved into a new medium of communication for the companies to communicate with the customers. The way ideas are communicated can have an impact on the company overall. It is very difficult to engage the customers to read the blog. We have to be very creative in writingthe content for corporate blogs.

The factors which should be considered while corporate Blogging are:

The blog should promote the overall Company branding. Just going for a blog is notuseful. Blog is one of the powerful tools for promoting the brand value.There should be a team put in place in the company OR can be handed over to a PR agency to handle the blog.

The content should be checked thoroughly before posting onthe blog.The comments by the customers should be allowed subject to moderation. This is the most important thing in corporate Blogging. There should be guest Blogging by the VP, CEO or any top management frequently. Thiswill allow the customers to develop a good rapport with the company.There should also be a section for the employees to blog like Product Manager Blogginga bout the New product development.

The blog should be promoted through forum signature, email marketing, websites, pinging, company products & wherever possible. This helps know about the company blogWith the rise of Social networking & social media, it should be utilized in the blog properly. Videos of interview with the customers & employees, photos, customer testimonials, RSS feeds, subscribe to blog by email & others can be included in the blog.

This helps to get updates about the blog in real time for the customer.Blog must be updated regularly. This will help develop a confidence in the customer thathe is getting updates about the company & products.The blog can be a powerful tool if used properly. This can be used to take feedback aboutthe products/company/service & the same can be incorporated for improvement

Smoked by Windows Phone – Marketing Campaign

Microsoft’s smoked by windows phone has gone viral across the world after first starting in CES at Las Vegas. In India, Microsoft student partners ran similar events & the prize was flash drives. Nokia is also running an event called Blown Away by Nokia Lumia in India pitching Nokia Lumia against other phones. With the arrival smartphones, marketing & advt activities for phones has taken a big leap with companies devising innovative campaigns to reach out to new markets & consumers. Social media is also playing a big role in virally spreading the information.

Daily Deal Sites in India

Daily deal sites are becoming popular due to the great discounts, offers & special promotions they provide to the consumers. Groupon was one of the first brand to enter this market in US & since then has grown rapidly. Several daily deal sites have opened in India & some of it have also closed down or acquired by others. They find enough buyers to be eligible for discounts. Since many sites are launching regularly, they need to have USP to stand out in the crowd. Some of the sites are doing well & have also become a word of mouth marketing. One can purchase the coupons by paying the money mentioned against the deal through card, net banking & others.

Some of the deaily deal sites in india are Snapdeal, Timesdeal, Dealsandyou, Dealivore, Koovs, mydala, Crazeal, Khojguru & others