The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Blog

Half of Facebook users use mobile September 5, 2012 – 11:03 am				Damjan Dano

Recently, the social stats platform SocialBackers shared some insights into how many people use Facebook via their mobile version and their mobile apps… the number is (not) suprising at all… it’s 543 million users, almost 57% of the total number of users.

The research shows that the highest number of mobile visits come from an Android based phones, while the iOS based iPhone and iPad make total of 25% (19% iPhone and 6% iPad).

North Americans are the most frequent mobile users on this social network, 161,7 million users from this continent like and share content daily on Facebook through their mobile devices.

On second place is Asia with around 134,2 million users and third in number of visits is Europe with 120,7 million.

So clearly mobile usage and visits from mobile devices on the web are trending….  perfect time to invest in a mobile-friendly website.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Content Marketing (Pillar 1), Interactive Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, Small Business, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6) | No Comments »
Tags: digital marketing agency, facebook mobile, facebook stats, Mobile (Pillar 7), mobile apps, mobile usage, social media agency, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), social networking

Apple worth more then Google, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook combined!? August 28, 2012 – 11:58 am				Damjan Dano

Up until recently, the most valuable company in the history of modern business was Microsoft, with market valuation at $620.58 billion back in the 1999 – when they were doing things the right way… but since the evolution of the iPhone, the iPad and now possibly the Apple TV, the “most valuable company in history” throne has been taken by Apple, valued at approximately $623 billion.

Valued at this amount, Apple is worth more than Google, Amazon, Ebay and Facebook combined! Below are their market evaluations taken from Yahoo! Finance and visualized by the statistics portal Statista:

Even if the numbers are not the exact match to the real world situation and might not be properly adjusted for inflation, they are pretty close to the real value of the companies…

Why is Apple so different and what is the company doing right?

Here are few things out of many that I think Apple is doing JUST right:

1) They do a great market research and know what customers really want – and they know how to present it!
- When Bill Gates introduced the tablet PC, the world didn’t really care, but when Jobs re-introduced the improved “tablet PC” iPad the world went crazy…

2) Understanding marketing and NOT cutting-out of marketing budgets when market goes in downturn
-  Apple understands the marketing industry very good, from guerrilla marketing to social media, they are staying on top of things. They are even controlling brand exposure and marketing efforts internationally – every campaign that goes must follow strict brand standards (like for example> No Flash banners) and must be approved by the corresponding marketing department.

3) Investing into R&D
- Apple set the standards for many things, they created modern products that people adore… in order to do this, a lot of hrs need to go into research and product development and Apple makes sure of that.

4)  Pushing the limits and don’t applying the “regular rules”
- Like Steve Jobs, many people in Apple are visionaries that don’t believe in the regular set of rules and are prepared to shift the market and consumer’s perceptions.

5) Believing in quality over quantity
- Apple believes in quality over quantity, even though they do have huge factories in China and all around the world, they would rather make people wait for their desired Apple product then to go with higher supply.

Ofc, no need to say that many other things make Apple such a great company – from trade operations to  what not… but I outlined my personal favs above.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in Business News, eCommerce, Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Online PR, Public Relations, World | No Comments »
Tags: apple, best companies, best IT companies, ebay, facebook, google, Ipad, iphone, Microsoft, most valuable company, Yahoo

Flash step aside, HTML 5 is taking over August 15, 2012 – 5:17 pm				Damjan Dano

Flash vs. HTML 5

Many of you have heard about HTML 5 as “the future of the internet”, “the most hyped technology update in the past couple years that is yet to come”… but how many of you are aware that HTML 5 is already taking over the game?

As of today, the 15th of August, Adobe is officially abandoning the support of Flash on all Android phones (version 4.0 and up) because of HTML 5… About a month ago in their official announcement, Adobe stated that HTML 5 is the “best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms” and that they will be shifting their Flash support exclusively for the PC platform.

For those of you who are not familiar with the subject, HTML 5 can be used as an alternative to Adobe Flash. Both of them have functionalities that support playing multimedia files within webages, they both use integrated SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and vector graphics. And even though the two technologies are not in direct competition and both have their own purpose, there are some specific cases that their features overlap, such as the mobile video area.

What Steve Jobs envisioned couple years ago it seems that it came through. He was known as a strong promoter of the HTML 5, same as Google, they made a decision to encode all of the videos on their YouTube platform in HTML 5, which was the right thing to do in order to offer content faster and better. With this, and today’s big news from Adobe, we can freely expect “invasion” of HTML 5 on multiple platforms.

And even though HTML 5 is not 100% ready, but the most popular browsers already support many of the HTML 5 tags and bits, and for those browsers that don’t really support it (yes Internet Explorer, we are looking at you!) HTML 5 functionalities can be easily supported with JavaScript replications…

With today’s announcement, we mark one small step for Adobe, but a giant leap for HTML 5.

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Content Marketing (Pillar 1), Digital Media (Pillar 4), Flash, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, UX & Website Design (Pillar 2), Video Production, web 2.0, web development | No Comments »
Tags: adobe flash, flash vs html5, google, html 5, html5, steve jobs, YouTube

BBC and the digital Olympics August 14, 2012 – 11:55 am				Damjan Dano

The Olympic Games in London are officially over, therefore we can expect all the internet memes about the Olympics and about the athletes like Bolt or McKayla to wrap up pretty soon…  :)

But amongst all the different reviews and comments about the Olympic Games in London that you can find everywhere these days, one research about the viewership and broadcasting of the Olympics really grabbed my attention…

In a recent blog post on their Internet blog, BBC discusses their approach towards the distribution of the Games. From devoting around 24 TV channels, launching mobile apps all the way to live web streams, BBC obviously did a very good job (not like NBC).

In the same time they broadcasted live events and games on 24 different channels – making sure all the official Olympic sports played at the given moment receive their fair share of broadcast. BBC made sure that the Olympics are also streamed online on their website, with data usage going over 2.8 petabytes (in more familiar terms, that’s about 2,936,000 gigabytes!) on their busiest day within a span of 24 hours.

Further, BBC discusses the findings about the mobile viewers – almost 12 million people followed the Olympics on their mobile platforms – 9.2 million on smartphones and 2.3 million on tablet devices.

Sharing the mobile insights, BBC discovers that the peaks for mobile use are morning and evening periods, making an assumption that people used the mobile apps when they were on the move or in their beds (which makes  sense).

Some other peaks in different device usage that BBC outlined are:

• PC usage maxes out during the week at lunchtime and during mid-afternoon peak Team GB moments
• Mobile takes over around 6pm as people leave the office but still want to keep up to date with the latest action
• Tablet usage reaches a peak at around 9pm: people using them as a second screen experience as they watch the Games on their TVs, and also as they continue to watch in bed
• Consumption of video content on mobile has been perhaps the key takeaway from the two weeks: we saw 12 million requests for video on mobile across the whole of the Games.

To seal the deal and to confirm the great job they did, BBC announced that all of their Olympics video content will be accessible online on the BBC Sports website (that also made a record number of visitors) until January, 2013.

As one commenter on the BBC’s blog post says: “…it was a true taste of a multiplatform future.”

Posted by Damjan Dano
Posted in 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing, Content Marketing (Pillar 1), Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6), Video Production, web development, World | No Comments »
Tags: bbc, content distribution, digital olympics, internet memes, london, Mobile Applications, mobile apps, mobile devices, mobile platforms, mobile research, olympic games, Olympics, smartphones, tablet devices, video broadcasting, video production

#FoxAtPlanetaTerra May 21, 2012 – 5:11 pm				Cristiana

Social Media plays an important role in marketing – from outreach and raising a company’s voice, to enhancing the brand and as a CRM tool. Once only a digital marketing experiment, social media has become an integral part of any marketing campaign – both traditional and digital.

Online platforms such as Twitter put larger brands in direct connection with consumers, and can take advantage of their instantaneousness aspects of that particular network. Granted the content is interesting and original, this can create an almost immediate buzz.

Volkswagon is a used Twitter and Google Maps to market Planeta Terra, a highly popular music festival based in San Paolo, Brazil. As sponsors of the event, it was in Volkswagon’s best interest to garner a large amount of attention for the festival and looked at the cost-effective Social Media as a medium to do so. Volkswagon had high hopes of the younger audience of Pleneta Terra being responsive to their new, Fox car model.

Tickets were spread throughout 10 different locations in Sao Paolo. Volkswagon’s custom platform allowed users to easily see a Google map of the entire city. Users were asked to include #foxatplanetaterra in any tweet they wrote. The more they tweeted, the more the map zoomed in and the closer the user got to the tickets. The first to arrive were given two free tickets. After the prize is claimed, the race started all over again.

The approach can easily be SPAMMY – but nevertheless, the campaign saw a high volume of user partcipation and was considered highly successful. Practically, Volkswagen was able to get the word out on both the festival and the new Fox model. Even those that did not attend the event were curious about the contest and further investigated with enthusiasm.

Posted by Cristiana
Posted in blog, Interactive Marketing, Mobile Applications, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6) | 1 Comment »
Tags: planeta terra, smm, socail media marketing, social media, twitter

iPhone 4GS Arrives October 4, 2011 – 5:41 pm				Riyaad

It’s that time of the year again. Almost like clockwork, Apple has announced the release of the next generation iPhone. While anticipation has been high on the blogosphere for the past few weeks, many were disappointed with the announcement of the iPhone 4GS, leaving them to only dream about the iPhone 5.

Because the announcement of the ‘new’ device was delayed a few weeks (these announcements usually come in the Summer) everyone thought Apple was gearing up for something big. With the exit of Steve Jobs earlier this year, critics claimed that Apple had something to prove at this reveal and that the new product line would be a testament to their ability to survive without him. While this is unfair, the blogosphere none the less went crazy with iPhone frenzy. Expectations were high. Apple instead delivered a faster version of the iPhone 4. The 4GS features voice recognition, an improved antenna setup, and an 8 MP camera among other features.

What were the game changers that everyone was expecting? What would have satisfied even their toughest critics?

4G Technology – A late bloomer in the United States, but much welcomed. It’s important to note that the iPhone at 3G speeds can out-perform some Android devices running on 4G, but is dependent on your network, location, and device. Increased data speeds have opened the market up to watching TV on your phone, an increase in mobile web traffic, and more. The ability to reach higher connection speeds will continuously change the way we use handheld devices. Many would argue it’s the current device speeds that are slowing down the growth potential of the mobile market. We’ve heard it every year, ‘This is the year of Mobile!’ Eh. Not yet. People demand more of their phones, and no significant change will occur until it becomes truly fast and convenient. Will the iPhone 4GS speeds be able to do just this? We’ll find out soon.

NFC Chips – Near Field Communication chips are changing the way we use our phones. It transforms them from communication and entertainment devices, to practical devices. Imagine holding up your phone to a sign, and being able to check into Foursquare automatically, without having to open the Application and search for the venue. Imagine a phone that can be waved at a register to pay for your groceries. Keep losing your discount and reward point cards? Its ok, that information is saved in your phone now. This is the future of your mobile device. Not in 5 years; now. Google Wallet has already introduced the system. While availability is still limited, it won’t be long until its common practice.

However, this is dependent on large segments of smart phone users having the ability to use their devices in this manner. With a large percentage of smartphone owners, iPhone users, its absence not only disables their ability to use their phones in this way, but very possibly holds up the development of the strategies themselves. If iPhone users cannot pay for their goods with their mobile phones, a significant portion of users are left out. This reduces the chances that businesses would invest in near-field-communication strategies.

Apple’s lack of inclusion in NFC chips doesn’t just leave iPhone users behind, it stagnates the market until they do. Guess we’ll wait til next year and get excited about the iPhone 5 all over again.

Posted by Riyaad
Posted in blog, Mobile (Pillar 7) | No Comments »
Tags: 7 pillars, Blueliner Marketing, google wallet, internet marketing agency, iphone 4gs nfc chip, iphone 5, Mobile (Pillar 7), mobile strategies, smartphone

Introducing Google Wallet September 21, 2011 – 12:44 pm				Mark

On September 20, Google released a new mobile app for the Sprint Nexus S 4G, the Google Wallet. The new Google app allows you to pay for goods with your mobile. How you may ask? The App virtually stores your plastic card information and releases it when you tap your mobile on the purchasing device. 

For those of you with a CitiBank Mastercard, you are able to directly place your card information into the Google App. For those who arent, youll have to purchase Google Credit points, which you can then spend. As an added incentive our friends at Google have seduced us with ‘recieve the first $10 dollars free’.

Before leaping into this great new invetion, ones finds himself asking, how safe is the mobile wallet? Well the Google Wallet has two layers of security.  The first, is a simple two layer PIN code.  Layer one is the pin code for entering your Anriod phone and layer two is a different access pin for the Google Wallet App. This security system prevents the ordinary theif from picking up your phone and using it to purchase goods. Security layer two is desingned to stop internet thiefs from hacking into your account. Your Google Android phone has a secure element chip in it. That is, another mini computer which stores your cards information. This information is encrypted and can only be accessed through MasterCards contactless reader. Google reassures us that the secure element chip has different layers and levels of security, which cannot be hacked. However, if your phone is stolen, you simply call up your bank and cancel your card like you would if your wallet was stolen. I guess somethings never change…

The verdict is out, and Google awaits to see if the public trusts Google Wallets security – and if so, will the everyday man adapt his life to include the Google Wallet?

I for one, think Google Wallet may not be a instant worldwide success but just wait six months to a year. The mobile phone world is drastically changing and with it so are our lives!

Posted by Mark
Posted in blog, Mobile Applications | No Comments »
Tags: android, citibank, google, google wallet, mastercard, mobile, nfc chip

Microsoft’s New Operating System Windows-8 Developer Preview in both x86 and x64 September 15, 2011 – 2:54 pm				Mohsin Sharief

Microsoft starts to promote its next Windows operating system at the Developer-focused, ‘BUILD’ conference in Los Angeles, CA. The Company is guiding and encouraging software developers to create new applications for the next generation operating system.

Steven Sinofsky, President of Windows says that a device with an old Atom processor and 1GB RAM would be enough to run Windows-8, even Windows-7 can run well on that configuration. Windows-8 has improved on system performance and speed on more powerful devices – tablet computers, Mobile Devices, desktop and laptop PC’s. The operating system which is due to released in 2012, works with ARM low power processors. The company will soon reveal details on the chips that will be integrated into desktop and laptop machines.

Microsoft Corp. is also planning to launch its own marketplace; “Windows Store” for Tablet PC’s as well mobile devices. It is being introduced with number of Metro-style apps. The company is ahead of its growing competition in the mobile device and Tablet sectors.

Microsoft President Steven Sinofsky showcased some of the new changes at BUILD. Internet Explorer’s new version-10 will be able to switch between the standard desktop view and Metro style UI. The design language applications of Windows-7 are now easily compatible to run through Windows-8 devices. Sky-Drive storage supports integrated cloud based applications like Mail, Calendar and apps with the user’s Windows Live ID, which will have the new Metro UI process.

Windows has been controlling its growth due to market competition. The global market for Desktop Systems and laptops are slower than in the past, whereas for tablets – they are expected to reach over 70 million at the end of this year and grow up to 300 million in 2015.

For more discussions and conversations about Windows-8, please head over to the forums: http://win8.ms/forums

Posted by Mohsin Sharief
Posted in Business News, Digital Media (Pillar 4), In The News, Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, News | No Comments »
Tags: Build 2011, build2011, developer conference, IE10, Microsoft Windows 8, operating system, OS, Steven Sinofsky, Win 8, Windows 8 Developer Preview

Google & Local Marketing August 3, 2011 – 11:41 am				Aurélien Uster

Local marketing is most often the life-line of many businesses, and the concept for many business owners exists whether or not they are aware of or acknowledge local marketing in its professional concept. For instance in a village or neighborhood, businesses promote themselves by taping posters to telephone poles, on their windows, or just by chatting with the locals. Millions of small businesses still operate in this fashion, and produce results that carry their businesses throughout the year.

However, technology evolves (especially in the Internet field) and we can easily see that more and more customers are looking for information on the web, even when pertaining to interactions with local businesses. “Where is the nearest hardware store?” “Where can I find someone that will fix my bike?” are questions that you may ask yourself sometimes. Is your first reflex to check the internet? The change in reactionary behavior is an interesting development in the past 20 years and one of the main reasons one must reconsider the manner in which their marketing efforts are directed. Many don’t have enough capital to launch huge marketing campaigns, so how should they begin to approach local marketing?

Google can play a huge role with just 2 of their many tools: Google Adwords and Google Places. Adwords allows businesses to create a PPC (Pay per Click) advertising campaigns. These ads can be found almost anywhere on the web, more than just on Google searches. Depending on your communication needs, you can launch a campaign that would target only the people you want to visit your business, and convert the visit for profit. This works very well when for local campaigns, as you will appear only on the results pages and on websites in your area. Obviously, it makes no sense to display an ad for a hardware store in San Francisco on a New Yorker’s screen, unless the business is virtual.

Less popular but effective is Google Places, a great tool that allows you to add your business address on Google/Google Maps so that you can share your information more easily – location, hours of operation, pictures of your store and deals or discounts you may be offering to entice customers. When someone does a local search, Google provides the information you’ve submitted to let users to find the business most able to suit their needs.

Now with these two tools, let’s imagine a combination of them to create a super efficient PPC campaign. You would be able to appear in the results pages thanks to the Google Adwords campaign, but also in Google Maps when someone is looking for “places near them”. As a result, you gain a better visual impact on Google as the user can see your business twice, and is given relevant information pertaining to their search. You can obtain greater efficiency in your marketing campaign without having to spend a lot of money.

Posted by Aurélien Uster
Posted in blog, Interactive Marketing, Mobile (Pillar 7), Small Business, web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

New Version of iPhone Expected in Quarter 3 July 6, 2011 – 12:16 pm				Mohsin Sharief

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has placed orders for key components to be used in next-generation’s iPhone to prepare for a third quarter launch.

The newer version of iPhone is expected to be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4 and said to have an 8-mega pixel camer. The iPhone will operate with Qualcomm Inc.’s wireless baseband chips, a person familiar with the matter tells the Wall Street Journal.

A source at one of Apple’s suppliers says the company is looking to meet its goal of 25M units by the end of this year-2011. Apple said it sold 18.65 million iPhones in the fiscal second quarter, which ended March 26. Last month after returning from a trip to Taiwan, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said Apple will commence production on the next version of the iPhone this August.

Shipments of the new iPhone could be delayed if Hon Hai can’t improve its yield rate as the new iPhone is “complicated and difficult to assemble, the WSJ says.

Posted by Mohsin Sharief
Posted in Blogs with Videos, Digital Media (Pillar 4), Mobile (Pillar 7), Mobile Applications, News, Social Media Marketing (Pillar 6) | No Comments »
Tags: apple