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When marketing people start talking about mobile these days, and they’re doing it a lot, they usually default to tactics – mobile ads, SMS, throw in some near field communications and we’re on the mobile track.

photo credit: Drriss via photo pin cc

I’ve been doing this a long time and with every emerging evolution there seems to be an equally reactive rush to embrace the accompanying tactics and it’s what leads people to do things that don’t make sense.

Ten years ago everyone was hiring web designers to create web sites that had nothing to do with the rest of the organization’s marketing or branding – but they had to have a web site.

Then social media came along and everyone rushed to figure out Twitter and how to run a contest on Facebook.

The mobile rush is currently starting to heat up and, once again, I think most people are asking the wrong thing.

Instead of how do wet get into mobile, where can we get our own cool app or how much should we spend on mobile ads, the question is and should be this.

What behaviors are our current customers exhibiting right now when it comes to mobile and how can we tap those behaviors using some combination of existing and emerging tools.

I truly believe that’s the formula for considering any new tactic or tool. When you factor what you’re doing now that works and ask how you can use the tools to do more of that, you’ll rarely get caught up in the rush towards new for new sake.

Below are three mobile behaviors you can no longer ignore as they’ve become universal and cross industries and demographics in undeniable ways.

1) Content is getting consumed on mobile devices on the go.

I have a Nexus7, iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire. I use apps like Reeder and FlipBoard on most of those devices to consume content. And, while I’m not your average online folk, my wife does the same and so do my kids.

Our content must be made to be consumed by people using really small screens riding in a car, at the library and at the conference. Right now, there are very few business that can pull off a generally useful app, but every business should invest in making all of their content pitch perfect for the various ways it’s being consumed.

This means using plugins such as WPTouch Pro, choosing themes and designers that use Responsive Web Design and exploring mobile landing pages and content pages designed to provide very specific content to mobile surfers with tools such as Tekora or GoMobi

2) Mobile is a key element in the buying process

And, here’s the most important aspect of that behavior – mobile shoppers are proving more valuable then traditional shoppers, including demonstrating less price sensitivity according the July Mobile Retail Insights report from Mobile Ad Network Greystripe.

Okay this statement relies on murky research, but think about it – mobile shoppers, people that do research on the fly looking for somewhere to shop, eat, drink, visit, or even hire a service, are more likely to jump on the things they find first, conveniently and seamlessly.

While people are using their mobile devices during the buying or shopping process many are choosing to make actual purchases either offline (see next behavior) or using a laptop, but tablets are going to change this dramatically.

The key is to understand that mobile is a link in the buying chain and proper integration is where conversion comes from.

3) People expect mobile engagement

Once you understand this behavior you’ll stop bad mouthing text message marketing. That’s not to say that there aren’t people doing it poorly or using it to spam, but it is to say there are terribly powerful and valid reasons to use SMS and now is the time to analyze how you can use service such as EXTexting or Trumpia for customer service, flash sales and specials and appointment opening.

I’ve also seen people use SMS short codes to allow people to subscribe to their email newsletter and more and more businesses are offering receipts by way of email and text.

I allow people to download slides from my speaking events, something they would often ask me to do anyway, by sending a short code text to a specific number. This particular process allows them to get what they want when they want it without much work and certainly takes me out of the process as well.

Enabling mobile engagement through tools such a click to call, click to chat or click for driving directions is another way to help people get what they want in the highly impatient, highly motivated world of mobile commerce.

I think the key to understanding any new technology or tactic is pretty simple. First figure out how you can use it to make something your customer is already doing easier and better. If you can do that it doesn’t matter how you see others using it or not.

3 Mobile Behaviors You Must Embrace Right Now is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

If I only had a few more hours… or a couple of more days…

How long does a creative idea take? I was on a very long flight overseas last week and managed to watch a documentary about the rock band Coldplay. The only reason that I mention the flight part is because I can’t – for the life of me – remember the name of the documentary (thank you, jet lag!), but it was about the making of the album X&Y (which was the follow-up to their massively successful release, A Rush Of Blood To The Head). X&Y was a tough album for the band to make. They not only had issues with getting the songs just right, but they struggled with producers. The story goes that in this delay it, it caused their record company’s (EMI) stock price to drop because shareholders were expecting the album to be released in the fiscal year prior to when it actually hit the shelves.

You never know when a great song is going to hit you.

What would you do if you were an artist? If you were a songwriter? A painter? an author? Do you wait and wait for inspiration to hit hard? Do you work non-stop to develop your ideas until they are finally ready to be produced? Do you have to be an artist to think like this? What about the work that you do? How do you meet your deadlines? Are they realistic? Is there too much scope-creep? Do you think that the final product would have been that much better if you had just had some more time?

Deadlines… and the finish line.

What surprised me most about this documentary was what lead singer, Chris Martin, had to say about the album and getting things just right. He talked about simply getting it done. It wasn’t about whether or not shareholders were happy. It wasn’t about the problems they had with finding the right producer to help them actualize the songs. In all of that, the band had always set a very firm finish line, and they were constantly working towards that finish line. What was publicly perceived as them just taking their own, sweet time in the creative process could not have been further from the truth. They were writing the album with a finish line set in their mind and they weren’t going to fall short of it.

Creative work is not open-ended.

Staring off into the sky. Taking naps. Going for a long walk. Travelling for inspiration. All of these things may inspire the next creative breakthrough, but unless you are setting up your projects with firm deadlines and a clean finish line, odds are that your best work will never see the light of day. There’s no doubt that Coldplay has unlimited flexibility to do whatever it needs to do to get the best results, but something tells me that if they moved that finish line just a little bit closer, they would still have had the same level of success. Could an extra week of writing and editing have made my first business book, Six Pixels of Separation, sell more copies? Maybe, but the deadline (and the finish line) ensured that it was going to get done, and it ultimately helped me structure the process in a way that made the entire project come together.

Love your deadlines.

Too many people lament the deadline. They see them as evil. As stifling the creative process. As making the work suffer. I don’t. The finish line is a part of the process and, in many cases, this means that the work is going to representative of our best thinking in the framework of when the work is due. Does this mean we can create an opus in twenty-four hours? Some may be able to, but we’re also talking about having realistic deadlines and credible finish lines (fully recognizing that it’s not always possible to even get that). The moral of the story? When there’s a big project that has to get done, always keep that finish line in mind. You’re not just trying to create something magical. You’re trying to create something magical in time for that finish line.

There are too many great things that never get produced because people think that even having a finish line is detrimental to the outcome. How sad.

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Today leaked footage of the Olympic opening ceremony was removed from YouTube in an attempt by the organizers to ensure that Friday’s ceremony will be a surprise.  During the rehearsal the show’s artistic director, Danny Boyle, appealed to spectators to “save the surprise” and not to share footage of the rehearsal before the event, but that didn’t stop some spectators from uploading videos of the rehearsal to YouTube.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

De laatste leuke Easter Egg die gespot werd in Google, en ook binnen de Nederlandse versie werkte was Zerg Rush. Maar er is weer een nieuwe gevonden. Het gaat om de zoekopdracht ‘conway’s game of…

The flight is boarding and you are in a rush. You get on the plane.  At 10,000 feet,  you reach into your bag. Your laptop is not there.

It happens all the time. In fact, according to a new survey, more than 8,000 devices are left at seven of the largest airports in the United States, including: Chicago O’Hare, Denver International, San Francisco International, Charlotte Douglas, Miami International, Orlando International and Minneapolis/St. Paul.

The survey by Credant Technologies reveals some of the downsides of mobile and the security issues raided when the devices get lost.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Smartphones and tablets: 3,444 (43.0%)
• Laptops: 3,576 (44.6%)
• USB drives: 996 (12.4%)

People mostly leave devices at TSA checkpoints and restrooms. All but one of the airports donates the devices to charities. One airport sends the left behind devices to the authorities.

It’s evident then why the enterprise market now has its own category for “mobile device management. (MDM)” CIOs and IT managers are finding an increasing need for technology that protects these devices left in TSA bins, bathroom stalls and any other place you can imagine.

Gartner Research published a report on the topic last year.  The report lists some recommendations:

• Choose MDM offerings that support a lightweight management approach, with mobile agents and server-side platforms, when your security and management requirements are limited and deep control is not accepted by employees using personal devices. Examples include Zenprise, MobileIron, BoxTone, Fiberlink and AirWatch.
• Choose MDM offerings that support a heavyweight approach to deliver secure and manageable corporate email to consumer and personal devices when strict security and compliance requirements apply. Containers can enforce stronger separation among personal and corporate content. Examples include Good Technology, Excitor and Sybase.
• The iPhone 3GS and later hardware platforms ship with always-on hardware encryption. When iOS 4.2 was introduced, it added a new data protection class that allows third-party applications to manage their own encryption keys, reducing the risk of data leakage on a jailbroken device. The new data protection classes are activated upon the full installation of iOS 4 or later.

MDM has steep demand. And it always will as long as we keep forgetting our tablets after we put our shoes back on at TSA security.

‘Social’ has become a leading theme—if not THE leading theme—among marketers. Marketers at major brands, retailers and increasingly, even financial services companies, are dabbling in everything from social promotions tools to drive higher traffic, sales and loyalty.

With all the opportunities that come with social comes the unwelcome challenge of matching technologies to marketing objectives. And even though marketers are getting more analytical, most don’t relish the prospect of evaluating numerous vendors and technologies to get the job done, preferring instead to turn to outside agencies to make crucial technical decisions. This may be expedient in the short term, but an outside agency will never understand your needs as well as your own internal technology experts. An outside agency works well for a quick fix, but using internal resources prepares you for the long haul.

As marketers increasingly graduate from experimenting with point solutions to truly wanting to drive ROI from Social, they will need the help of their own “Chief Innovation Officers” to succeed. Here’s why:

Division of Labor

The rise of social has made it everyone’s job to implement technology. While marketers are being pushed into working at a more technical level, in most cases, it’s not what they’re best at. In fact, a recent IBM study confirmed what we all intuitively know - 65% of CMOs feel unprepared to deal with the growing channel and tech device choices. Even as marketers shift their priorities, they can’t magically shift their skill set and many find themselves in unchartered territory. They know they need help – and they’re jumping to implement outside technologies they believe will provide it.

Fortunately, there’s software for everything — particularly for what they need most — social networking and data-tracking. Unfortunately, while these technologies are helpful to marketers who need a leg up, they’re still more effective when by managed by someone with a technical background and familiarity with a company’s information infrastructure.

That’s where IT comes in. They have a better mastery of technological solutions, how they work at a granular level and how they fit into the organization infrastructure and how they can be developed. Furthermore, your IT staff actually enjoys dealing with vendors, application stacks, and the interoperability of cloud-based tools, whereas most marketers seem them as means to an end. Not only can marketers offload some of this non-core responsibility, but they can focus on their core business imperatives, whether it’s increasing engagement or measuring social ROI.

Seeing the Big Picture

Marketers must be careful to select technologies that can not only help them implement quick changes, but also scale as needs expand and the company grows. Left to their own devices, marketers run the risk of creating a Frankenstein of mismatched technologies that don’t scale.  They need more help than a stand-alone software can provide.

On the other hand, IT is uniquely positioned to help select social platforms that can succeed in this environment. They know to set up systems that unite the different departments of the organization. When they select solutions, they have in mind not just current needs but future potential.

Conclusion: Everybody Wins

No one in any department has yet mastered the best way to cope with changing technological landscape. Getting a handle on it is absolutely going to require collaboration.

IT leaders don’t necessarily have an understanding of how social media and marketing operates, but they are better equipped to process analytics in a meaningful and efficient way. Every department excels at something different, and what makes this such an exciting time is that everyone’s skills are in demand. Devising an infrastructure chock-full of technologies that will benefit the company most requires an “all-hands on deck” philosophy. So marketers,  it’s time to stop fearing your counterparts in IT and go make friends. Only when everybody plays can anybody win.

Nadim Hossain is currently the vice president of marketing at PowerReviews, a social software company that recently acquired by Bazaarvoice and used by leading brands such as Dillards, REI, Toys “R” Us, and Staples. Follow him @nadimhossain.

Filed under: VentureBeat

Here’s a familiar scenario with many companies that have tactically approached social media marketing:  ”Let’s stop wasting time with this social media mumbo jumbo. We need to increase sales, grow revenue and sign up more customers!”.

On the other end of the spectrum you might hear, “Social media marketing is too difficult to measure, it’s early days. So let’s keep investing and eventually we’ll be able to see our return.”  Neither attitude has the best long term interests of the business in mind.

Clearly there are few businesses that don’t want to increase sales and conversions, but is a singular focus on revenue, especially in today’s world of connected consumers, actually helping bottom line business results or creating a longer term disadvantage?  Alternatively, is the absence of focus on revenue with social media marketing a responsible and accountable approach to the investment?

Winning battles without also winning hearts and minds can lose the war.

Increased transactions and revenue alone are not enough to scale competitive advantage. Investment in prospect, community and customer engagement are also essential, even if they don’t directly generate sales.  Investment in digital marketing innovation that keeps pace with shifts in technology and how consumers use digital communication channels to discover, consume and engage with content is essential to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage, especially when both the direct and indirect impact on revenue is being optimized.

Some revenue-only driven marketers will see the progress their social media savvy competitors are making with industry buzz and move towards a social media marketing effort, but it’s often superficial or more mechanical than meaningful. Increasing fans, friends and followers does not automatically equate to more sales or qualitative engagement.

Meaningful social engagement between companies and the communities of prospects, customers, partners, employees and industry media can act as a force multiplier towards gaining market share and improving business outcomes all along the customer lifecycle of engagement from attention to transaction to advocacy.

There are a number of obstacles to qualitative social media adoption within organizations and a recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit and PulsePoint Group reveals the most common barriers include the inability to prove ROI. I think John Bell from Social@Ogilvy offers a great response to that:

“Don’t let ROI hunger kill innovation. ROI and budget are also a leadership issue.  While arriving at ROI measures are important to managing business, they are hard to do in a space where we are all still innovating and proving models valid. Leaders need to guide organizations to be responsible about value without being too ruthless on ROI in the near term lest they kill innovation.”

There is no question marketing needs to be accountable to sales and revenue. At the same time, the direct and indirect impact of effective, meaningful and scalable social media marketing efforts must be considered in that accountability, not just the short term wins.  Limiting investment solely to those activities that directly impact customer acquisition and sales leaves a lot of mindshare, awareness and collective brand equity on the table for competitors to take and turn into scalable revenue in the future.

What are your roadblocks to broader and more meaningful social media adoption within your company?  Which end of the spectrum do you fall? Pure ROI or Pure Engagement? Somewhere in between?

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About 15 months ago, Google introduced a block results feature in the search results user interface. That feature went missing when Google launched Search Plus Your World earlier this year.

Well, it only went missing for those who use Google+ when searching. For those not searching using Google+, the feature remained. I assume that is most of the Google user.

But now, when you block results in Google’s search results, you can’t unblock it. I tried it myself and you cannot unblock results. I blocked a site, went to the manage blocked sites and clicked the “unblock” link and it did not work.

Google has yet to confirm the bug and respond with an estimated time for a fix. I assume they will be in no rush to fix this but we will see how easy it is for them to push out a fix.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

If Appsplit is any indication, either crowdfunding is the future of everything or there’s a crowdfunding gold rush. I’m going to bet it’s a little of both.

This new service allows programmers to crowdfund their projects. Why not use Kickstarter, you ask? Beats me, but here’s what’s up. Appsplit is first and foremost a place to put your app campaigns. You tell folks what you’re building (“An app that tells you what time it is in Fiji.”), how you want to be funded (an “Open” project allows you to keep the money even if the project isn’t funded), and how much you need. You then do a little marketing, tell your friends, and you’ve got an app.

You can also sell the rights to certain apps or even sell shares in a company. Finally, you can find freelancers who might be interested in working with you on your idea.

The site, founded by Hussein Yahfoufi, recently relaunched as a crowdsourcing play and it’s running a handful of campaigns. Originally Yahfoufi planned the site to be a marketplace for app ownership and source code.

“Appsplit is a new platform meant to help those working and developing apps to move their app business forward. Whether they need to raise some cash, find someone to help them or just sell a piece of their app, appsplit can help. We are a new, small and very dedicated to helping each campaign owner succeed,” he said.

The service supports international creators and takes Paypal and Amazon payments.

Now look: I think this is a good idea but is it really necessary? We have plenty of strong crowdfunding platforms already and one more – even one dedicated just to apps – might be overkill. However, you can presumably set up shop at multiple spots and keep raising money ad infinitum. I’ll give Yahfoufi credit for maintaining razor sharp focus on his niche and sometimes niches are the best places to be. I worry, however, if too many things become the Kickstarter of X we’re going to exit the golden age of crowdfunding and enter the bubble age.