A few tools to help you manage your Twitter communication

Twitter gives you access to a large, informal group of potential shoppers and consumers. But it is not an easy media to manage - so, let me present you some tools:

- Commn.it - to manage your community

- inboxQ - what is going on around in Twitter

- Tweriod & Buffer - to understand the best time to tweet

- Brandfluencers - identifies the users who have referred the most visits to a blog via twitter


Read the original article in - http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitter-tools-to-enhance-your-marketing/

One of my number one ads

Many times I am asked what is my most preferred ad. I always answer the same - I don't have only one. But this is a very exclusive club - there are no more than three in it. Today, as the London Olympics are about to start, let me share one of them with you.

Celebrate Humanity was a campaign for the Sydney Olympics of 2000 (if I am not mistaken), that featured incredible quality ads (let me also highlight the one named "Courage", about Derek Redmond Barcelona performance in 1992, one of the most incredible and inspirational of all times). I especially like this one, "Giants". It is incredibly engaging - it draws your attention from the beginning, that voice shuts down any other sound around it and the music just increases your engagement with the ad. Branding is all there - from the second you see the female gymnast running, you know these are the Olympics. And the message is so strong, and inspirational, represented by Olympic heroes everyone knows - Strug, Muhammed Ali, Segey Bubka, Greg Louganis, Jesse Owens.

But, maybe the best way to describe how good I think this is to say that, 12 years after I have seen it for the first time, it still plays in my head! And that, whenever I watch this ad, I am drawn to the Olympics - and they gain relevance to me!

Facebook losing its advantage

It is not that advertisers are stoping investing in Facebook - no way! But, we are seeing a diversification of investment, as new alternatives gain room (like Pinterest) and other companies make a stronger effort to demonstrate their superior ROI (namely Google). In my opinion, Facebook has been having a dismail performance in terms of establishing is ROI credentials, prompting the question if it is really that good of an investment.

Please, see the stats and the original article in http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009184

Consumer Barometer

And welcome to the latest Google tool on explaining and datashowing the importance of search for consumers and shoppers worldwide - welcome to Consumer Barometric! A very graphic tool, developed in partnership with TNS and iabEurope, this tool provides you a lot of answers to your digital questions - especially the ones related to purchase and search behaviours. Please, do look around! 

http://www.consumerbarometer.com/#?app=home&viewMode=0

A quick rule of thumb on point of sale communication

Remember that shopper attention is low and disperse when navigating through aisles, moving from one category and product to the next, going for its next buy, surrounded by different stimulus. Under these conditions, it is proven that only top-notch IQ persons will read 7 or more words. So, as a rule of thumb, remember your in-store communications shouldn't have more than 4 words to convey a message. If you want to explaing anything more than that, you have to think on 2 moments materials - the first one to get attention (a "no more than 4 words headline") and then a second one with the more detailed explanation (but just remember no shopper is actually keen on reading long explanations so, if you really need to do this, keep  it short and visually appealing - simplify, simplify, simplify or nobody will read it...).

Different shoppers, different prices

What was a dream for offline retailers is actually common practice for online ones - to adjust price for each customer. How to do it? Cookies trace each computer's online navigation history - keeping a record of the sites you visited, the words you searched, where have you clicked, what's the computer you are clicking from, where is it located... If consumers don't want this to be known (apart from computer and location, that's unavoidable), they should actually clean their cookies once in a while (a very simple process) - but if they don't do it, then, this information is then used by online stores to actually taylor made their offering to consumers. Retailers may then personalize price, offerings, promotion, communication,... It is an incredible and powerful feature - a marketeer dreamland!

If you want to know some real examples, just follow http://blogs.smartmoney.com/advice/2012/06/26/how-online-retailers-personalize-prices/

Mobile payments

I already hinted at it here and there - I firmly believe mobile payments (the ability to make offline purchases through your cellphone) will strongly lift-off during this decade. I don't think it will be dominant (I think large chunks of population will refrain to use it for some time, because of security concerns, price of using it - especially from business side - or difficulties in adapting to the technology.) but I think it will capture an important chunk of the payment business. And it will do so based primarily on convenience, and then, maybe, on cost (if apps are able to compete with cards on fees levered to businesses). Still, I don't believe that the main drivers will be the individual apps that now thrive (like Starbucks'), but the integrated solutions that will allow multiple usage across multiple businesses and will integrate online purchases with the on the go offline's (solutions like Square, depicted in the video in link below, and PayPal's - and that might be why I just bought some eBay shares...). For some businesses, this represents an opportunity (if they want to be cool and technologically trendy) and a threat (if they don't adapt fast enough and don't bet in the winning solutions). Because, this will also be a battle of industry standards (like VHS vs Beta, or Visa vs Mastercard) - nobody believes there will be room for more than 1 or 2 global integrated mobile payment systems...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-digital-wallet-20120624,0,7698751.story