Apps Archives - Public Relations, Advertising & Social Media

Pokemon Go and marketing

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Taylor Kennedy

Pokemon Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you’ve heard about Pokemon Go, the overnight social media phenomenon.

Just to put this phenomenon into perspective, according to Similar Web, the app has already been installed on more U.S. Android phones than Tinder and has a higher usage time than Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat and Messenger.

The new mobile and augmented reality (AR) game from Niantic Labs and The Pokemon Company uses your phone’s GPS and camera to turn the real world into a massive hunting ground for the iconic creatures. But here’s the interesting part, it also transforms local landmarks and businesses into Pokemon Gyms and PokeStops (in normal speaking terms, places to train your character and collect free accessories) … aka great marketing tactics!

For example, restaurants can lure customers by creating discounts for Pokemon-inspired drink or food options if customers show the game on their phone. This is somewhat similar to marketing tactics employed during the previous craze for location-based apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

Another avenue businesses can take is purchasing “lure modules.” These attract Pokemon players to a Pokestop for 30 min. and will affect the area around that stop up to 500 meter radius. If your business is within these boundaries, it may be another opportunity to increase customers.

It didn’t take long before Pokemon hunts started showing up on Facebook. A NY Times article states that an event in San Francisco State University has more than 18,000 people indicating they’re interested in attending.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this trend will last but in the meantime, I think it’s a great way for companies, especially restaurants and retail, to generate business. Before shaking your head with skepticism, download it and give it a try.

Project management, revisted

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Brian Lee

A year ago I wrote about testing Wrike for project management. My staff and I eventually abandoned it, only to give it a second try a few months later. In the end, we still disliked Wrike for the terrible user interface, useless smartphone app and lack of features. We assume there would be more features with the paid version, but the free version was so bad that we didn’t even bother with any kind of trial.

Now we’re onto Trello, another freemium project management software. After several months, we really like the ability to create client accounts (in this case, boards), project categories (lists) and individual projects (cards). We also can easily assign staff members to the projects, share notes and set deadlines. We also can share boards with people outside our network (e.g. clients).

One missing feature–apparently something many other users want, judging by the forums–is a way to mark a card as complete. Right now, you can either archive it or move it to another list (e.g. “Completed”), but there’s no notification feature.

No expensive video setup, no problem

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Brian Lee

Instagram launched recently a time-lapse app called Hyperlapse. The app, now available for free download in the Apple App Store, speeds up amateur videos and turns them into professional-looking time-lapses.

By providing the same type of quality as a pricey videographer, Hyperlapse could save companies thousands of dollars.

The time-lapse technique captures footage happening at a slow rate, like a sunrise, and speeds it up to show the progress at a much faster time rate. Usually, capturing the footage requires holding the camera very still. But no worries if you don’t have a steady hand, Instagram said in an official blog post. Hyperlapse features built-in stabilization technology that lets you create moving, handheld time lapses that look like they were professionally filmed. Lucky for marketers, this means anyone on the team can create visually appealing videos time or place without the expensive equipment.

All the user has to do after downloading Hyperlapse is tap to record and tap to stop. Then the user can select the playback speed, speeding up footage up to 12 times faster. The only downside is that users don’t have the ability to edit videos. Videos are then saved to the camera roll and can be shared to Instagram or Facebook from there.

Ideas of what to feature on your time-lapse video could include footage of your product or service being used over a prolonged length of time. Event marketers could create a before and after video by recording the progress of an event setup.