It's A Mobile, Mobile World - Part 2

Snapchat Valued at $10 Billion After Raising $20 Million From Top VC

Users numbered at 100 million and less than half of Snapchat's users are in the U.S. - But still no advertising on the app—yet - McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Nasty Gal and Manchester United as brands that are nailing it on Snapchat. Manchester United’s use of the social video app is noteworthy in that the sports team gave away tickets through a series of pictures showing the tickets hidden around statues. Once someone found the tickets, a picture was sent out showing the winner.

Anzac Australia - A powerful and simple way to ask Australians to pay for a minute of silence on their phone to support Veterans.  Watch this video!

Nivea Sun Products - The Protection Ad - Watch this Cannes Winner in Mobile it's quite amazing and shows you how to connect all the dots on print and mobile working together.

Waiting in (on) Lines - SXSW

One of the most visible aspects of SXSW was "The Line" or the queue if you're from England or just want to sound fancy ;). There were huge lines for everything. Lines that went for blocks, wrapping around buildings, sidewalks and just taking over the city. There were 30 minute lines to go to the bathroom and two hour lines for pulled pork and brisket! If there is no space mountain at the end of that line than what's the point, right? Well there are tons of research about the psychology of waiting for something and it comes down to a simple formula.

S = P – E.
‘S’ stands for satisfaction,
‘P’ for perception
‘E’ for expectation. 

"If you expect a certain level of service, and perceive the service to be higher, you are a satisfied client. If you perceive the same level as before, but expected higher, you are disappointed and, consequently dissatisfied."

What that means in English is that if you wait and it's not worth it you're obviously disappointed. But if it's worth it than yay! 

The part that is tricky is the "worth it" piece as this is different for everyone, but when 30,000 people get together the perception of worth is skewed by the crowd mentality. The "Scennious" takes over and peoples perception is changed. This is why exclusive access to things is required and brands that innovate their experiences each year and up their game from last year continue to stand out. 

As you look to continue to up your game with clients and create experiences bigger, smarter and better than before, it critical to ensure that you think of the basic principle of the line. People are satisfied with waiting if it's worth the wait, but it's critical to ensure that what they are waiting for is even better than before or something they have never seen before! 

What are you doing for your clients to satisfy this basic principle?

Live Longer Jump From a Moving Car

The story goes like this. There once was a man about to turn 30, when he read some time perception research from Dr. David Eagleman, it went a little something like this...

"When you turn 30 your life starts to speed up and the years go by faster and faster - this is due to the fact that humans strive for comfort, patterns, routine and familiarity. We experience less and many of the things we do are not new to us anymore. The theory is that new experiences actually slow down our brains and we tend to think that time is actually longer when you do something that your brain has never done before."  

So the 29 year old set out to test this theory and created a blog where for one year he tried a new activity that he had never done before. Things like a cooking class, fencing, rock climbing, various random events and even "Jumping Out of a Moving Car" - with pads on of course. He recorded how much time it actually took to do these activities and then he recorded his "perceived" time. In most cases the time that he thought it took was actually ~10-20% higher than the actual time, thus confirming Eagleman's theory that our perception of time slows down with new experiences. 

So as we look towards the future, what can each of us do new ever day and truly innovate while we live longer lives?!?

Power Posing at SXSW

The time spent at SXSW (just call it South By), can be summed up in one important talk I attended called "Power Posing!". The premise of the talk was that our body language shapes who we are and deeply affects our chance of success in pitches, client interactions and life in general. By standing in a power pose for a few minutes (3-5) just before you enter an important meeting, or the start of your day, your levels of confidence will go up significantly and your power will come through to others around you. She also noted that looking at your mobile phone is intrinsically a "low-power" pose and you actually decrease your power by looking at your phone all hunched up over your little black rectangle. So I'm asking everyone to stand up for 3 mins today and before every important meeting and "Strike a Pose" - a Power Pose that is!

(Some Power Pose Examples & TED Talk Video)

31 Flavors of Mayonnaise on THE FIVE

Hi Everyone! I wanted to share my latest post on everyone favorite condiment - mayonnaise! If you haven't heard their is a "Mini-Niche" revolution happening out there and this post on THE FIVE breaks it all down for you.

Money making bloggers have always known that people search for super specific things. If they tailor their blog content to answer the specific need of the searcher, they can ensure that their post will be among the top five search results. This hooks the searcher in and then targeted ads drive them further down the funnel, providing Google with a click and the advertiser with a potential customer or sale. They call these super-focused sites “Mini-Niche” and they are everywhere online. The offline equivalent of this would be walking down the street and on the way you ask someone - “Excuse me? - Where is the nearest  grocery store, I need to buy some mayonnaise?” and they smile and say “You don’t need to go to the grocery store, because there is a mayonnaise store right there and they have every mayonnaise flavor you could dream of!”  Wow! Who knew that mayonnaise came in different flavors? and that there were stores that sold just mayonnaise. For most of you the thought of 31 flavors Baskin Robbins Ice Cream store for mayonnaise may be scary, but for others this would be a dream come true. The truth is that this mayonnaise store is real and is soon opening on Vanderbilt Ave in Brooklyn. Yes, I know that Brooklyn is a “Mini-Niche” lovers paradise, in fact the sign coming over the bridge says “ Welcome to Brooklyn, Name it... We Got It”, but that’s not my point...or is it?

Read the rest of the post on THE FIVE

*Warning - Pinterest is highly addictive and should be taken seriously*

Pinterest is heating up and it’s addicting! The visual bookmarking site or virtual pinboard allows people to “pin”, share and organize digital images (theirs and/or others) in a compelling and interesting way. Think of it as Google Images organized and personalized for the social era. For marketers this may be the next “useful” shiny object to dive into. -Why should you care?- We are all a little bored with the standard way to view an image on Facebook and frankly they can’t organize images very well. Pinterest allows you to build a beautiful, simple and organized visual library that is extremely search friendly. This doesn't mean stop what you’re doing on your existing social channels, but to reconsider how you organize your image based content.

Some of the best uses for Pinterest include: - Know what’s hot! - Stay connected to the latest trends and styles in a myriad of categories - Elevate your brand by connecting all of the visual dots. Your brand imagery is critical to how people perceive your company. Unlike Google Images that provides little or no control, Pinterest allows your to organize the images in a way that is meaningful to you and your brand. - SEO - everyone is raving about how Pinterest is driving qualified traffic to their sites. Etsy claims it’s the number 1 driver of traffic for them. Wow!-While many of the brands that are on Pinterest are home decor, recipes, DIY, fashion, style and fitness related -- the expansion of the site is upon us and you can find almost any category within the “pin-boards.”

According to mashable some of the brands that have already “pinned” a stake in the ground and are doing it well are:-Gilt Home Whole FoodsModClothMartha Stewart Better Homes and GardensReal SimpleBergdorf GoodmanTravel ChannelClub Monaco Rhapsody MusicMashable-Why are they doing it well?According to pinterest they are pinning from various sources across the web and they are engaging with others by repinning (or RTing, liking) from others on the site and as we all know this is key to building relationships and expanding engagement. They also create multiple topic boards to allows people with various interests to connect to them. Mashable has put together a beginners guide for those of you that want to try it!

What are your thoughts on Pinterest? Let us know.

What will the new Facebook News Feed changes mean for Brand Pages?

You may have heard that Facebook recently updated their "News Feed" and to no surprise there has been a backlash from their users. Much of this backlash has been around the removal of the option to choose between "Most Important" and "Most Recent" News and the new creation of one consolidated News Feed that automatically aggregates both most recent posts and most relevant. The most relevant posts are now called "Top Stories" and "Most Recent." Facebook has also added a new feature called "Ticker" and this is a real-time feed that sits on the far right hand side of your screen. The big question for marketers is what does this mean for brand pages?Despite some recent posts that state that the changes will not benefit brands, the more I dig into the changes, the more it looks like the new format could be very beneficial for brands. Here's how:1. Social actions you take on a brand page, "like" a post, comment, etc. pop up in real-time in your friends Ticker. Your friend has the option to roll over the Ticker and expand the conversation seamlessly. The fact that a lot of the social actions that may not be the most important news for everyone (status updates, likes, friending and comments) are now real-time in the Ticker offer instant visibility, where before they were often hidden in the cluttered old feed. It gives most social actions an equal opportunity to be seen. Albeit the opportunity is shorter because the ticker moves quickly, but the new dashboard approach taken by Facebook offers people a "Twitter-like” interface while maintaining the ability to have weighted more relevant conversations bubble up to the surface similar to a Google+. 1a. Since many of the social actions are now in the Ticker, I’m seeing more posts by brand pages in the updated News Feed design then in the previous. Because many of the social actions have been removed from the News feed and into the Ticker highlights the brand page posts more in my feed than in the old feed system.[j1] The new cleaner "News Feed" provides significant exposure to brand page posts and this clears the way for more opportunity to engage. It seems like most of the posts in my "Most Recent" feed are brand page updates.2. How do your brand page posts become "Top Stories?" What happens is that when a post by a friend or a brand page becomes "hot" and people are engaged then it moves up to the top. If you check Facebook a couple of times a day then your "Top Stories" go away and it is replaced by the "Most Recent." If you are like me and check Facebook more that once or twice a day, it quickly switches to "Most Recent" news and "Top Stories" fades away. The goal for brands pages is to create enough engagement and update frequently to ensure that you build a great relationship with your fans and that will get you in their "Top Stories." But don't fret if you miss this opportunity, because you can also reach them by posting consistently, but make sure that the content is exciting and relevant as you don't want them to hide your posts. An ultimate goal would be to get your fans to add you to their "Top Stories." This can be done in the little arrow at the upper right corner of each Top Stories" post. Fans have the option of adding you to their "Top Stories." This is what I call the Pandora "Thumbs up" - the more you add things you like to your top news the more content they will share from those sources. It might be as simple as to ask your fans to do this or to make sure you are providing them with the most relevant content that they don't want to miss so they do it on their own.Overall the new changes will take some time to fully digest and evaluate for brand pages, but for now I think that these exciting new developments will only help your chances to build deeper relationships with your fans.