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User-Generated Content Resonates With Consumers

Stock photography has long been a staple on most websites. It’s used to create visual appeal and connect companies and products with website visitors. But the rise of social media and reality TV has created a media-savvy generation that no longer relates to staged, stock imagery. Instead, modern consumers are beginning to lean towards genuine and authentic media. Hence, we’re seeing the increasing use of user-generated content on websites.

Typically these campaigns are featured on the home page or product pages and are feeds from the company’s Facebook or Instagram accounts showing real people using actual products in real life. Some of the content can be quite clever and creative, especially when posts are short video clips or GIF animations (check out Starbuck’s Frappuccino site for examples). And the authenticity apparently creates a much stronger bond with customers.

Content needs to be authentic for marketing campaigns to succeed, which is why user-generated content has emerged as a priceless resource … A Bazaarvoice survey revealed that over half of Americans trust user-generated content more than any other information on a company website. Eighty-four percent of millennials report that user-generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy.

Taking advantage of user-generated content helps brands build trust and creates a stronger connection between the brand and the consumer. When people see images on a website or in an ad campaign that are recognizable, the brand does not seem cold and faceless … It seems like a company that understands them — their life, likes and dislikes, and needs. This sense of understanding leads to engagement and loyal fans.

Incorporating an Instagram or Facebook feed on the website is becoming a powerful tool for companies looking to connect with customers. It’s time to start investigating how to bring user-generated content into the content mix.

Read full article: http://tnw.co/1QjUfEy

Opting Out of Verizon Tracking

Many people don’t mind websites monitoring their online activity to present ads in context that are relevant to their interests. Some people, however, don’t care to be tracked, especially when it’s the device makers who are doing the tracking. Recently it’s been discovered that Verizon has adopted this practice, and enough people have spoken out against it that Verizon has announced a means to opt-out (opted-in is the device default).

Last year, Verizon and AT&T made headlines when researchers discovered they had been engaging in some unsavory customer tracking techniques, using unique identifier numbers or “perma-cookies” to track the websites that customers visited on their cellular devices to deliver targeted advertisements, a practice called “Relevant Advertising.”

The following article details how to opt-out for Verizon users that choose to do so. But it looks like having our every move online tracked is the new normal.

Read full article: http://bit.ly/2mqL7tS

Declining iTunes Sales Points to Increased Acceptance of The Cloud

When we speak of The Cloud, we generally refer to Internet-based data storage and hosting of applications. This contrasts with traditional computing, where applications and data live on a hard drive inside our local machines. The traditional model has worked fine until, that is, the rise of mobile devices. Most of us no longer work or communicate on just a desktop computer. Almost everyone now has a computing combination that includes a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. In this scenario, the problem becomes, how do you work smoothly from device to device? The answer is to have your data and applications stored centrally online. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can work consistently no matter what device you use. And that, for most people, is cloud computing.

But working from the cloud also presents some problems. When data lives in the cloud, how secure is it? How reliable are the connections — both on your end and at the host? Can you always get the Internet when you need it? What about backup? What about cost? And what if your cloud service goes out of business, or changes its terms, procedures, etc.? Concerns like these have caused cloud computing to grow slower than we might expect in a connected world. That’s where the latest developments at iTunes come in.

For the last few years, sales of digital music on iTunes have declined. In defense of Apple’s business model, Steve Jobs once famously said, “we don’t rent music.” But the market is showing that people today are happier renting than owning. Where are people renting their music? From cloud-based streaming services like Pandora, where you can listen to all the music you want for a reasonable monthly fee. Why own a bit of music when all of it is available so cheaply?

Granted that renting music doesn’t present nearly the same risks as trusting your data to a third party. But as more people move to cloud-based services, trust in the cloud will increase. And this means changes and new opportunities will arise for businesses. Software is rapidly moving to subscription models, and services like Box and Dropbox offer large-capacity data storage plans. There are also several services like Crash Plan that offer cloud-based backup. Perhaps it’s time to begin thinking about how your business can leverage the cloud to better serve your customers from any device.

Read more about declining iTunes sales: http://bit.ly/1vw3b4v

The Internet of Things Is Coming

It’s great to be online. Connected, in touch, unlimited information, computers in our pockets. It’s the information age, after all.

Companies are happy that you’re online, too. So much so that efforts are ramping up to put almost every device, motor, gadget, and thing in our lives online. The purpose, of course, is to gather data. It’s not enough that the mother ship (ships) is (are) watching while we use a computer or device. Soon, every time we open a refrigerator, start a car, turn on some music, or presumably sit on the couch, a data stream will be generated.

It’s being called the Internet of Things (IoT). Tiny chips connected to the Internet will soon be embedded in almost everything around us to gather data and send it to whoever the terms of service (that we must agree to before turning on that washing machine or desk lamp) say it can be sent to. If you’re a company, you probably like the idea. You’ll learn much about your customers and the use of your product. If you’re a consumer and you’re concerned at all about privacy, you may begin to feel that this is big data running amuck.

The Internet of Things is made up of IP-enabled, totally embedded applications within devices that connect to the network. This includes sensors, machines, active positioning tags, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers, and building automation equipment, to name but a few. Here there is the potential for trillions of nodes. Imagine every device in your home and workplace, every crucial component in an industrial machine, connected to the Internet. This layer of the Internet is only just emerging and will completely eclipse the Internet as we know it today in terms of scale.

We already see the IoT in items like household thermostats, electric meters, cable TV boxes, and especially wearables like the new watch computers from Samsung, Apple, and others. Maybe some of the data generated will help us save energy, combat diseases, better feed the world, and otherwise improve our lives. The tech companies love the idea, in no small part, because of the money to be made producing all these chips and devices. I’m not sure if it will work, however, at least if home networks remain under our control. But some of the largest tech companies are vigorously lobbying for free nationwide WiFi, which would certainly help make the data collection ubiquitous. It’s the information age, after all. But remember that the information is flowing both ways.

There’s a lot more worth learning about regarding the Internet of Things. The link below provides a good overview of this timely subject.

Read full article: http://linkd.in/X6YDlJ

The Power of Big Data

Tech companies are just scratching the surface of what they can do with Big Data. An enlightening article describes some of the power that comes with recording the daily lives and activities of hundreds of millions of people. In a 2012 experiment, Facebook learned how it could alter its users’ moods. Google routinely runs about 20,000 experiments per year involving users. Facebook even discovered that it could motivate people to get out and vote — not inconsequential given that they can filter out individuals’ political persuasion. That experiment involved over 60 million people! Where else but online can such a large sample size be assembled — and without having to let the subjects know they’re being tested.

Facebook and much of the rest of the web are thriving petri dishes of social contact, and many social science researchers believe that by analyzing our behavior online, they may be able to figure out why and how ideas spread through groups, how we form our political views and what persuades us to act on them, and even why and how people fall in love.

We should expect researchers to start figuring out much more about human behavior, given the magnitude of data available and the power derived from such knowledge. It makes one wonder what interesting things they’re looking at right now that remain undisclosed.

Read full article: http://nyti.ms/1z86m1O

Questioning the Value of Apps

We all know it’s an ‘app world’ now. Users love the simplicity of elegant one-trick apps that can perform a needed function. But the following article sheds some light on why apps aren’t always the answer. It asks why some apps are created in the first place and points out frustrations due to the significantly reduced feature sets and restrictive interfaces that come with mobile devices in general.

Have you ever tried actually using the Amazon app on iOS, Android, and Windows? … the Amazon app is a frustrating morass of missing and incomplete functions from the website. Sure, maybe you don’t need the full breadth of Amazon functions on your phone, though that’s debatable on a tablet. But natural web conveniences like opening links in new tabs, sharing links, the back button, searching within the page, and zooming in and out are available inconsistently, if at all.

There’s also the issue of privacy. What exactly are some of these apps accessing on your device? And how much additional data can they collect when users choose an app over the website?

Ultimately people will choose the best experience. Just because you offer an app doesn’t mean anyone will want it. App strategies must offer something unique or valuable that users can’t live without. Convenience on mobile devices is a good reason for creating an app, but not if it is poorly executed and frustrates users.

I use lots of apps — mostly clever utilities that allow my devices to do useful things like photo editing, FTP, or synchronized note-taking. But I usually reject apps and use websites for research, e-commerce, and search. I even resist mobile versions of websites because many of them are feature-restricted and inconsistent with their full web counterparts. In fact, my favorite link on most mobile websites is the ‘view desktop version’ link, usually found in the footer and only present if the website owner understands that users want to decide for themselves how to interact with the site.

It may be an ‘app world,’ but that doesn’t mean that every app is necessary, or even good. There’s no need to create an app for its own sake. But do create one when you can offer something so good that there’s no better way to deliver it.

Read full article: http://blog.codinghorror.com/app-pocalypse-now/

Content From a Visitor’s Point of View

Website content is the vehicle site visitors take to decide if your offerings meet their needs. Writing web content requires a style fit for the medium. Web users are busy and rely on the Internet for convenient access to information. Effective communication requires understanding what motivates your users, how they use the web, and how to speak to them on their terms.

Web users are primarily online to solve a problem. The sites they visit must quickly and clearly state how they can solve that problem, or the visitor will move on.

Because of the sheer volume of information available, web users initially read as little as possible. They will search, click to a site based on the descriptions in the search results, scan the home page, and then judge whether or not this site can solve their problem. “Scannable” page elements include headings, subheads, photo captions, and bullet lists. These are the first things that visitors use to determine the site’s value to them.

If a visitor finds something of interest, they will click to go deeper and read in more detail. But it cannot be expected that a new visitor will wade through lengthy paragraphs for the information they need when it’s so much easier to click to another site that may be more useful.

Web content also benefits visitors by focusing on information rather than “sales-speak.” Glossy, adjective-laden prose serves the company, not the visitor, and visitors have no patience for it. What visitors want is solid, factual information that helps solve their problem. The sooner their problem is solved, the sooner visitors can stop searching, delve deeper into your site, and become customers.

Brief Is Better

Because reading on computer screens takes energy and visitors are busy to begin with, web content must be brief. Short paragraphs and sentences with plenty of white space make textual content more inviting. Cutting the word count almost always improves the user experience.

But web pages are not only read by people. Search engines read websites to learn what they have to offer and then list them appropriately on search results pages. The content that search engines find is the main factor in determining these rankings. Therefore, web pages should be written for humans but with search engines in mind as well. Placing keywords in a page’s META and TITLE tags, headings, image ALT attributes, and page copy can improve search engine rankings.

Finally, content should motivate visitors to act. “Action” is the natural response of visitors who believe that what they’ve learned on the website is a solution for them. Content can include links that enable visitors to go to the next step towards the desired goal, such as making a phone call, filling in a form, or making a purchase. Giving users the ability to act on information is a key difference between the web and other media and should be fully utilized in any web-based sales scenario.

More …

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Google+ and Facebook Roadmaps

The two most prominent social networks are “embracing opposite strategies, but heading to the same place: To add social intelligence to everything you do.” This is the current state of affairs as FB shrinks and G+ expands. Facebook will create (or buy) more products, like Message, Poke, or Instagram, while Google consolidates its many products around Google+. The idea is to leverage the massive data mills each company owns to serve ads wherever people decide to go next, even if not necessarily their own mega-social network. For example, Facebook’s user data can work to target ads on any of their products without users knowing that FB is at work behind the scenes.

Each company is trying to attract the maximum number of eyeballs and serve up extremely relevant, highly personalized ads on both desktop and mobile. To be all things to all people, each needs lots of services, products, and apps, but tied together with each company’s social signals and identity. To achieve this, Facebook needs many more products and a lot more “artificial intelligence,” which are initiatives the company has explicitly said they’ll take. Google needs to take the many products it already has and make them more connected to its social and identity information. So although the two companies seem headed in opposite directions, they’re actually competing towards the same goal: To add social intelligence to everything you do, plus add identity to everything you do so they know who they’re servicing up ads to, while also enabling purchases.

This interesting article shows how social networks will deepen their understanding of their users and incorporate AI to make online advertising much more effective.

Read full article: http://bit.ly/1mBhwrf

Twitter IPO: Why Social Is the New Low-Fat

Everyone in the tech world wants to come up with the ‘secret sauce,’ the ‘killer app,’ the one ingredient that makes their product or service irresistible and essential. With Twitter’s successful IPO, it’s time to recognize that that ingredient is social media.

The situation was somewhat like several years ago when fat-free foods were the rage. Reducing fat in our diets was believed to be a key factor for health and longevity, and this is probably true. Food producers quickly began touting their low-fat products and low-fat versions of products that were previously ‘full fat,’ including ‘low-fat’ donuts, ice cream, and pizza. It wasn’t long before almost every edible product available had a ‘low-fat’ label on it. And if that were all that was necessary to ensure good health, it would have been a great thing.

With social media, we’re seeing the explosion of something online that’s been arising since its beginning — the power of mass interactivity. Because communication on the Internet is two-way, brands can target ads, gather data, follow users from site to site, and create profiles of their online activity, all towards getting their advertising messages in front of them. But what’s different today is that interactivity is bypassing the brands altogether. Consumers are now talking to each other via social media about brands, products, services, and prices before making buying decisions.

People on social channels are ‘curating’ (gathering things of interest to post online) and ‘recommending’ (sharing things they like with others online). These two activities are what make social so important. Depending on whose statistics you read, 80-95% of consumers prefer a recommendation from someone they know over a search engine result or an advertisement when considering a purchase. In fact, the very sense of what a ‘brand’ is is changing. It’s no longer what you say about yourself that matters but what others say about you.

So, what does this have to do with low-fat? Soon, most websites will need to incorporate social tools for their users. Providing ‘share’ links to social media websites won’t be enough. Social tools will have to allow customers to connect within a site.

Imagine users curating items into a ‘set’ and then sharing their sets with others to solicit opinions and comments. Or tagging, naming, and saving sets, which others can search for, add to their accounts, and edit. Social tools like this could be implemented for everything from clothing and household items, like on Polyvore, to color palettes and swatches like on Adobe Kuler to news, movie, and TV content. Consumers would learn from and be inspired by other consumers and eventually begin to expect these tools, just like they began looking for low-fat foods.

Businesses should consider more involvement with social media and explore how they can use it dynamically. The Twitter IPO, if nothing else, will open the door for investment in sites that offer ‘social commerce’ solutions to attract customers. We’re way past the learning curve, with close to two billion people already using social media. And consumers will only continue to tune out advertising. The only caveat is that you won’t be able to sell potato chips that reduce a portion from 300 calories to 280 and call it ‘low-fat.’ You’ll need to provide quality tools that give customers the ability to learn from others, enlighten others, and obtain recommendations that lead to sales. Consumers are ready for this kind of experience. And unlike ‘low-fat,’ social commerce may be a prescription for business health and longevity that actually delivers.