QR codes take interactivity to the next level

Here at The Urbane Way, we’re always paying attention to the latest and greatest tools that can help our clients become more interactive in the digital space.

One of the newer technologies that individuals and companies alike are starting to explore and find practical uses for are QR codes. You may have seen them on billboards or in print advertising — “QR” stands for quick response, and it’s a type of barcode with an encoded URL. If you have a phone with a camera and Internet access, you should be able to use this technology — simply take a picture of the QR code and you’ll be connected to that specific content or URL.

Granada, Spain-based mobile marketing company Macanudos is now using this technology to allow users to “like” physical objects, according to All Facebook, whether it’s a newspaper article, a performance, or a restaurant.

Gabriel Medina, head of Macanudos, told All Facebook:

“Our business idea is about looking for new concepts and applications that serve as a bridge between the physical and digital — known as the “internet of things” — … using the phone in this process.”

You can imagine how powerful this function could be for businesses trying to pump up their Facebook “fans,” if the user doesn’t even have to log into Facebook to “like something.” The easier it is for the user, the more likely they are to engage with it.

In New York City, the Department of Sanitation sports QR codes on the side of their trucks. Scanning the codes with a mobile phone takes users to a video from the NYC Media Show “The Green Apple: Recycling,” according to Advertising Age.

Other companies that have experimented with QR codes include JC Penney, Allure Magazine, Northwest Airlines, Calvin Klein Jeans, and more. We’re excited to see where this new technology takes us and how it might begin to fit into more companies’ comprehensive marketing strategies.

Already making QR codes work for your business? Share your story with us in the comments.

Post by Erica Finley, senior journalist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?

The Urbane Way talks with Richard Klein about a new social network - dot429

At The Urbane Way we spend our days using, perusing and pondering the world of social media. So when we learned about a new social network designed for business leaders in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community we wanted to hear more about this niche.

Created by Surface magazine founder Richard Klein, dot429 is as sophisticated and sleek as it is social media savvy. I logged in looking for something basic along the lines of LinkedIn and what I found was much more suited to an online magazine style.

We were pleased to have an opportunity to learn more about this endeavor, and all that helped bring it to light. The network is expected to reach 100,000 members nationally by the end of 2010.

UW: Tell me a little of the backstory behind creating dot429. What is the significance of the name of the network and what inspired it?
RK: I felt like there was something missing in the LGBT community. We were all interested in helping each other but there wasn't any good national mechanism. I started talking with my friend Don Spradlin and together we designed a new type of networking community. I named it dot429 because 429 spells G-A-Y if you're texting on an older phone, It's actually an old code word for gay.

Headline How-To, and why it matters

When it comes to writing, a headline might be the most important element. It's your sales pitch. It's first your chance to reel in the reader. If you don't get 'em with a catchy headline, you may not get a second chance.

This was crucial information in my journalism days. It was Journalism 101 in fact. And I was reminded of it again while reading the post How to Write Eye-Catching Headlines that Transform Browsers into Buyers, on Copyblogger.com.

To blog or not to blog (and how often?)

Scott Stratten didn't blog for six weeks. And he doesn't care who knows it.

Ironically, though, he took to his blog to talk about it. He then, of course, used this as a segue to talk about blogging frequency — how often should you blog?

Of course, no one has the “right” answer. But Scott believes that if it’s not impactful, you shouldn’t be blogging about it at all.

“I’m a huge believer of blogging with passion, whenever that strikes. I rather blog once every two weeks and really care about the topic, than put out a post every other day with some of it filler, because I’ve been told it’s ‘better for search engines’ and ‘familiarity creates trust.’”

And I agree with him — to an extent. Here at The Urbane Way, we specialize in crafting well-written, relevant content for our clients, and we like creating it as much as possible. And we do that because our clients have an appetite for it and because there is so much good stuff out there to be shared. Whether it’s an anecdote from a personal experience, a how-to, or some suggestions for executing a particular task, we simply have a lot to say.

And we’re certainly not ignoring the fact that frequent updates and rich content get our blogs noticed by Google. In fact, we emphasize it and embrace it, because it helps push traffic to our clients’ websites, which in turn helps increase their notoriety and prominence in their specific industries. But the focus is always on quality — even if we update a little more frequently than Scott does.

“That’s the goal, blog as frequently as you can that generates quality,” Scott said. “For some, that’s daily, others weekly and for people like me, it’s when life lets you. And I’m OK with that.”

And we’re OK with that, too.

Post by Erica Finley, senior journalist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?

The not-so-fine line between talking and selling

Social Media Explorer blogger and all around good guy Jason Falls recently tackled an issue on his blog that some people, especially companies, struggle with in the digital space: How do I comment on other people’s blogs without selling?

We here at The Urbane Way deal with this on a daily basis. We maintain blogs on behalf of our clients and work hard to craft engaging, relevant content. But that’s only half the battle. The other half is increasing the digital footprints for these clients by going where the readers are — whether it’s social news sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, Facebook and Twitter, or even other blogs.

We do this to find out what makes our readers tick, what inspires them, what they find entertaining. But when you jump into the conversation without doing your homework, you risk alienating or even offending them.

Jason’s response to the question was simple: Don’t sell when you’re commenting.

And as is typical in most blog posts, the comments section is where the conversation really took off. Mack Collier chimed in with a comment that really resonated with me. He said:

“All the company has to do is speak in the voice of the customer. Of course, most companies can't do this, because they have no idea what the customer's voice sounds like, because they never talk to or listen to them.



Which is a far bigger problem, IMO.”

The takeaway here, I think, is that everyone is becoming preoccupied with what to say and how to say it, especially when talking to customers or potential clients, but the primary focus should be on the people you’re talking to and what their needs are.

If you’re commenting on a post just for the sake of commenting on a post, you might be a spammer. If you’re including a link to your product or service, you might be a spammer. If you’re not contributing to the conversation in any way, you might be a spammer.

Most reasonable people are able to distinguish selling from simply talking, and as Mack said, if you make an effort to know your customer well enough, that should really help remove all doubt.

Post by Erica Finley, senior journalist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?

There Is An Order To Effective Social Media Marketing

What Are Your Social Media Marketing Expectations 
From the Social Media Pundits to the Social Media Experts, it seems all will agree that Social Media Marketing takes some time to effectively implement. It is not a quick fix to a broken product, nor is it free. Much has been written about engagement, community, listen to the customer and so on, and while all of that is true, there is a method to the madness of a well executed Social Media Marketing Strategy. There is a clear and concise path and timeline for enhanced success. And, Guess what, It doesn't start with Facebook or Twitter.

The folks over at Social Media Today did a nice job of outlining the various phases of a Digital Marketing Life Cycle, and they cover the specifics of each phase and the sequential path in that blog post.





What Should You Expect
We typically advise our clients that to deliver sustainable results, we need a year. That is a little scary for some businesses, and we understand that. The liner chart above is pretty spot on relative to what to expect regarding phasing. What we felt was missing, are numbers. While it is great to understand the phases, you also have to nail down the numbers, and they need to be numbers that are tied to your business.

Stephen Clark's Backchannel's gets an upgrade

For years as a journalist, I heard metro Detroiter's complain of a lack of "good" news. It didn't matter how many heartwarming feature stories I wrote. The masses only seem to remember the shocking hard news stories, the ones that leave us all forever changed.

Finally, someone has stood up to the challenge to prove that yes, there is good news out there and we are covering it. WXYZ-TV News Anchor Stephen Clark has given us all a chance to be citizen journalists with the creation of Backchannel. In fact, he's already upgraded to Backchannel 2.1. Take that Apple.

Trustworthy Social Marketing is In the Eye of the Beholder

Is Facebook is an Overrated Marketing Venue?

While we love the interaction and social media engagement of facebook, it may not have the all mighty marketing authority you think it does. The folks over at eMarketer had an interesting piece titled  What Makes Social Media Trustworthy, and suggest that blog posts were more likely to be trusted “completely” than posts on Facebook, and trust dropped off sharply when it came to Twitter, even among friends.