Category: Social media

Competitor to Facebook?

Posted on by Brian Lee

Is there a new social network sheriff in town? At one point, creators of the ad-free social network Ello thought it could be the next big thing. However since it launched a few weeeks ago, user numbers have seemed to collapse.

Ello launched in August by invitation-only to roughly 90 users. Creators thought in a few short months its user numbers could reach more than one million with up to 100,000 invite requests a day. However, this lofty goal was never achieved.

As mentioned before, Ello doesn’t use advertising, which has raised some eyebrows as to how it will generate money. According to a release, co-founder Paul Budnitz suggested users could “buy” extra features.

The network was aimed at a group of early Facebook users who left when the network required ‘real name’ logins.

So my Facebook friends, don’t worry about another social network competitor. As they say, another one bites the dust.

Using Social Media for Business

Posted on by Brian Lee

Anyone who has ever written a book knows it’s easier said than done. But a vision came true this month as we published our first e-book, Using Social Media for Business. Here’s a description of it:

Social media is an integral part of marketing your business or organization, but which tools should you choose to reach your customers? This book explains how to use 18 different social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, for acquiring and retaining customers and promoting your company’s products and services. The advice provided can be applied to both for-profit and non-profit businesses, as well as member-based organizations and associations.

You can buy it as a PDF or Amazon Kindle format.

What Snapchat’s geofilters mean for brands

Posted on by Brian Lee

Snapchat announced earlier this month a new feature called Geofilters that will add unique filters to photos based on a user’s location. With a quick swipe to the right, users can unlock these filters depending on their current locations and receive a text or graphic sticker overlaying the photo.

So far the new feature has only been available in New York and Los Angeles for testing purposes. During the World Cup, the app offered geofilters for locations in Rio de Janiero, according to TechCrunch. It’s unclear when the feature will be available for other cities.

While Snapchat has said that it is simply excited for users to explore this fun new feature, there is clearly a marketing opportunity for brands and businesses. Based on the introduction video released by Snapchat showing two women shopping at SoulCycle and a couple taking in Disneyland, the possibilities for companies, national parks and any other operation with a specific location to market its brand are obvious. It would be in a brand’s best interest to target millennials, Snapchat’s target demographic, with this tactic.

In fact, the new version of Snapchat with geofilters could be thought of as the millennial version of a postcard. From a marketing perspective, it would make sense for companies to create their own branded filters to leverage this feature. An example in the video shows a woman taking a photo in front of a coffee shop. As soon as she swipes right, a specific filter for the coffee shop appears in the photo.

Snapchat is not getting paid by businesses to feature their filters, according to a spokesperson for the app. Snapchat also was quick to add in its blog that it doesn’t store users’ locations.