Saturday, April 19, 2014

Two theses for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your community

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Two theses for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your community

Yesterday, Kauffman Foundation released a study that provided empirical support for the Boulder Thesis that I came up with in my book Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.


The study is excellent if you are interested in this topic and can be read at ad “Think Locally, Act Locally: Building a Robust Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.”


Kauffman did a study of 1 Million Cups, a community-building program that was launched at Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and is expanding rapidly around the U.S.. It’s now in 33 communities in 21 states. Colorado has two – a 1 Million Cups in Denver and 1 Million Cups in Fort Collins. 1 Million Cups Denver was also a recipient of one of the first Startup Colorado Community Fund grants.


The study found:


  • Entrepreneurship is a local phenomenon.

  • Entrepreneurs follow local entrepreneurs.

  • Local networks thicken over time.

  • Entrepreneurial demand is high for peer-based learning and networking.

  • Different programs reach different entrepreneurs.

In the report, Kauffman lined this up clearly against the Boulder Thesis, which, if you don’t know it, is:


  1. Entrepreneurs must lead the startup community.

  2. The leaders must have a long-term commitment.

  3. The startup community must be inclusive of anyone who wants to participate in it.

  4. The startup community must have continual activities that engage the entire entrepreneurial stack.

Or, if you are a video person and want to go a little deeper, take a look at the great StartupVille video Kauffman did when I released the book as part of their Sketchbook series.



I gave a 30 minute interview on this and other topics at the Atlanta Tech Village yesterday – nice summary from David Cummings. And there was a good student survey at  showing Chicago and the Midwest as an Evolving Hub for Entrepreneurship.



This story originally appeared on Brad Feld.




VB's working with marketing expert Scott Brinker to understand the new digital marketing organization. Help us out by answering a few questions, and we'll help you out with the data.

Two theses for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your community

Local Search Engine Optimization At The Enterprise Level


Local Search Engine Optimization At The Enterprise Level

Action Movie Kid Goes To School

He'll never need coffee to wake up.
Action Movie Kid Goes To School

An Oral History Of 'Super Troopers'

The Broken Lizard gang remembers the high times and shenanigans involved in making a stoner-comedy classic.



Spain’s Air Force One Keeps Breaking Down, To The Delight And Embarrassment Of Spaniards

Earlier this week, an Airbus A-310 plane landed in Spain 45 minutes behind schedule. Why this otherwise mundane event made news across the country says something about the current mood in Spain.



Check Out These Awesome Miniature Magnetic Swarming Robots

Our new overlords are... kind of cute, actually.
Check Out These Awesome Miniature Magnetic Swarming Robots

Watch This Little Boy With One Leg Grow Into A Soccer Star

Nico Calabria may have been born with one leg, but it didn't stop him from doing what he wanted to do.
Watch This Little Boy With One Leg Grow Into A Soccer Star

The Police Raided My Friend's House Over A Parody Twitter Account

The cops busted down Jon Daniel's door because he ran an account making fun of the mayor of Peoria, Illinois. Now nobody's laughing, though the incident does make the police look like a joke.
The Police Raided My Friend's House Over A Parody Twitter Account

Chinese Twitter clone Weibo makes $285.6M in its U.S. IPO, shares up 19%

Chinese Twitter clone Weibo makes $285.6M in its U.S. IPO, shares up 19%
Image Credit: Flickr

Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service under Chinese online media company Sina, went public on the Nasdaq Capital Market this week under the ticker symbol of “WB.”


The company filed for this long-rumored IPO in March 2014.


The company will issue 16.8 million American depository shares at the bottom of its planned range of $17 each to raise $285.6 million of capital. The company had planned to sell 20 million shares at between $17 and $19 per share.


At the time of this writing, shares are trading at $20.24, up by around 19 percent.


Sina held a 77.6 percent stake in Weibo before the IPO. Another big shareholder of the microblog service is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, which invested $586 million for an 18 percent stake in Weibo one year earlier.


Alibaba, which is also preparing for a U.S. IPO, now holds a 19.3 percent stake in Weibo and it has filed to increase its shares to 32 percent in March, while Sina’s stake is expected to reduce to 56.9 percent.


According to the prospectus, $250 million of the funds raised in the IPO will be used to pay back the loans from Sina, while rest of the capital will be injected in technology and R&D.


This story originally appeared on TechNode.




Chinese Twitter clone Weibo makes $285.6M in its U.S. IPO, shares up 19%

Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia Will Soon Be the World's Tallest Building

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Big things are coming to Saudi Arabia.


The Middle Eastern country is set to begin visible construction next week on what is expected to be the world's tallest building at 3,280 feet, according to Construction Weekly.



Kingdom Tower will be 568 feet taller than Khalifa Tower, the current Guinness World Record holder in neighboring Dubai, once it is completed. The tower is the first phase of Jeddah Economic Company's approximately $20 billion, 17 million-square-foot Kingdom City project, of which it will be the focal point. Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a nephew of Saudi King Abdullah, is chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company, a partner in JEC. Read more...

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Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia Will Soon Be the World's Tallest Building

The Pokémon Theme, As A Slow Jam

Hold your sweetheart tight, and hope they don’t notice the lyrics.



OnePlus One team reveals a little of the CyanogenMod 11S interface

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In response to some leaked press renders of the upcoming OnePlus One smartphone, Carl Pei took to the company’s official forums to share some official pre-production images of the user interface. Named CyanogenMod 11S, the OnePlus One will be running a customized version of Cyanogen’s latest operating system.


If you are not a fan of the direction OnePlus has gone with the design of the CyanogenMod 11S customizations to the interface, you may note it appears to be a relatively easy step to load an Android Holo based theme.


Check out the images that were released below and let us know what you think in the comments.



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source: OnePlus One



Come comment on this article: OnePlus One team reveals a little of the CyanogenMod 11S interface



OnePlus One team reveals a little of the CyanogenMod 11S interface

Your Remarketing Hit List: 10 Tips Worth Repeating [Webinar Recording]

Remarketing allows you to follow users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse the Web. It continues to be a powerful tool that can help you connect with previous site visitors and drive conversions at low CPAs. However, the …






Read more at PPCHero.com
Your Remarketing Hit List: 10 Tips Worth Repeating [Webinar Recording]

How Big The Dragons Will Get In 'Game Of Thrones'

A recent excerpt from George R.R. Martin's upcoming "Game Of Thrones" encyclopedia comes with an accompanying illustration of just how huge the dragons will eventually become.
How Big The Dragons Will Get In 'Game Of Thrones'

Vinyl's Great. But It's Not Better Than CDs

On a theoretical level, there's just no reason it should be the case that vinyl sounds better. There are built-in problems with using vinyl as a data encoding mechanisms that have no CD equivalent.
Vinyl's Great. But It's Not Better Than CDs

The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out An NYC Skyscraper

When it was built, Citicorp Center was, at 59 stories, the seventh-tallest building in the world. You can pick it out of the New York City skyline by its 45 degree-angled top. But it’s the base of the building that really makes the tower so unique. The bottom nine of its 59 stories are stilts.
The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out An NYC Skyscraper

More than 20,000 major sites remain vulnerable to Heartbleed


While many of the top websites in the world have protected themselves from the Heartbleed security vulnerability, plenty of them still need work — as do several pieces of software from data center technology giant VMware.


Information-security company Sucuri inspected the 1 million Alexa-ranked most popular websites around and found that, while most are fixed, 20,320 remain vulnerable. Sucuri did not identify the sites still at risk.


“We were glad to see that the top 1,000 sites in the world were all properly patched and that just 0.53 percent of the top 10,000 still had issues,” Sucuri chief technology officer Daniel Cid wrote yesterday in a blog post. “However, as we went to less popular [and smaller] sites, the number of unpatched servers grew to 2 percent. That is not surprising, but we expected better.”


Sucuri and his colleagues might well have expected better because Heartbleed has received such attention from media outlets and disclosures from cloud providers like Heroku and Amazon Web Services, networking gear makers like Cisco and Juniper, and other vendors of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet.


Heartbleed arose inside a version of the open-source OpenSSL cryptographic software. Information sitting inside the memory of a server should be encrypted, but because of Heartbleed, an attacker could pull out a little bit of data.


In the past week, Sucuri discovered more than 48,000 attacks designed to take advantage of the Heartbleed flaw. “The bulk of them come from Amazon EC2 instances, likely set up to do these scans,” Cid wrote.


And just as websites are still awaiting patches, VMware, which provides software for running companies’ onsite data center infrastructure, still hasn’t fixed all of its services.


More than 20,000 major sites remain vulnerable to Heartbleed

A marketer’s guide to more effective personalization

GUEST POST

What do rogue animals crossing a chaotic highway and rapid-fire mouse clicks have in common? More than you may think.


When I was visiting India a couple of years ago, I made sure to keep my wits about me whenever I crossed a street since pedestrians, bicyclists, all kinds of vehicles, and, of course, livestock all share the road. Few traffic laws exist, and even fewer are obeyed. No one on the road is paying attention to anyone other than themselves, much less the color of the nearest traffic signal. It’s chaotic and, yes, a little frightening.


But digital marketers go through something similar every day on the job. The digital signals from our online visitors fly at us from all directions as we do our best to decipher who each visitor is and what they are looking for. We’ve got to keep our eyes wide open and react quickly, lest we become the next roadkill: an irrelevant brand.


The challenge of the digital traffic cop


On average, there are more than 53 million unique monthly visitors to each of the top 10 retail websites in the U.S.. If you’re a marketer at one of these top sites, you’re also challenged to provide a unique and personalized experience to your visitors to drive them to convert and to return again and again. Consider the countless digital signals sent by just one of these visitors to your website, mobile site, or mobile app.


In its State of Mobile Benchmark Report last year, the Adobe Digital Index found that users prefer tablets for browsing and shopping on retail, auto, travel, and hospitality sites. In contrast, smartphone users are more apt to look for quick, on-demand information like price comparisons and nearby store locations. And while current conversion rates on tablets are three times higher than those on smartphones, they still don’t match desktop conversion rates.


Data released late last year by NPD DisplaySearch, a global market supply chain research group, projected that touch-enabled notebook PCs would account for roughly 11 percent of all notebooks shipped in 2013 and are expected to reach 40 percent of all notebook shipments in 2017. What will the continued blending of all of these devices and the resulting complexity mean for marketing personalization?


Not to mention mobile operating systems. Android and iOS are, of course, the most used; but marketers can’t forget about personalizing mobile experiences for consumers using BlackBerry or Windows smartphones. Following the most recent Consumer Electronics Show in January, there are now more than 25 Samsung Android device screen sizes being sold. Talk about the paradox of choice!


How can we efficiently distill this constant barrage of digital signals to return a truly relevant and personalized experience? Wouldn’t it be great to develop a 360-degree view of each individual visitor, however they choose to interact with your brand, regardless of whether it’s the first time they’ve visited or the fifth? Well, the solution to this marketing pain point is now well within reach.


Deciphering digital signals in the blink of an eye


The good news is that digital visitors interact with your brand constantly. they click, swipe, search, browse, pin, Like and tag. And with each of these actions come a trail of digital breadcrumbs for you to devour. Picking up on these signals and taking action on them in real time will ensure you are in lock step with consumers as they continue to interact with you.


The bad news is these same consumers have fleeting attention spans. This means marketers have only about 300 milliseconds, or the time it takes to blink an eye, to understand and analyze the signals visitors are sending and immediately deliver a meaningful and personalized digital experience to drive online conversion. Anything less, and we risk losing a visitor’s interest forever.


Much of the success of your marketing program depends on how well you know and understand your visitors and how quickly you can pull together the right personalized digital experiences for them, regardless of the device type or method they use to interact with you.


The right system sets you up for success


Marketers need an integrated analytics and personalization system that can develop a dynamic master marketing profile based on a global ID unique to each person. Think of this master marketing profile as a digital thumbprint, only this is a thumbprint that evolves and grows with each new signal the visitor sends. This profile can constantly be enriched by anonymous and authenticated customer data such as clickstream data, behavioral information such as past purchases, brand and category affinity, known customer data, and even social signals such as Likes and pins.


Analytics as a core part of a digital marketing system gives marketers the algorithmic capability to derive meaning from all this raw data and take action on it.


For example, you could algorithmically wade through 20 kilobytes of raw clickstream data to quickly classify a particular visitor as a “high net-worth individual who abandoned their shopping cart.” Funneling additional digital touchpoints and interactions into the digital thumbprint creates a richer attribute set for any given user, offering marketers a better understanding of their highest-value segments, those with the highest propensity to visit the site, those least likely to convert, those most receptive to email follow ups, etc.


Marketers can also pull in authenticated customer data from their CRM systems as well as a variety of third-party anonymous data sources such as Bizo, eXelate, Acxiom, and Epsilon with a data management platform (DMP). This brings in anonymous yet key demographic attributes such as gender, education, income level, marital status, etc. to the digital thumbprint or master marketing profile to round out your understanding of each visitor further. Combining first-party data, existing customer data and anonymous third-party data into one shared profile helps build a stronger understanding of a visitor and gives marketers powerful leverage to then deliver a highly personalized experience, across devices, screen sizes, locations and more. Drawing on historical and present data surrounding an individual helps us predict with a very high degree of accuracy what content, products, or offers will be most appealing to any given user combined with what is likely to generate the desired lift in conversion or other marketer-defined performance indicators.


Middle of the road


If asked, most consumers will maintain that they want value and convenience when shopping online, but at the same time, they may be reticent to give up some of their privacy in exchange. We encountered such a situation with the introduction of credit cards in the middle of the twentieth century. Credit cards offered the promise of convenience and increased purchasing power for consumers while requiring some of their personal information in return. Similarly, personalized online ads and offers may at first seem too personal, but this content undeniably drives higher click-throughs and conversion rates. As long as the rules of the road are clearly marked, with brands recognizing consumer privacy expectations and being transparent about how consumer data is used to ultimately create the best experience, the trade-off becomes very achievable.


Each side – marketers and consumers – will need to evolve by meeting in the middle.


Regardless of where you stand, as digital marketers, we have no excuse not to woo an online visitor from their very first click, swipe, or other digital interaction with our brand. The technology already exists, and it’s our job to bring it on board by evangelizing its use within our organizations. In the meantime, stay safe out there on the road – whether it be real or digital.


Aseem Chandra is vice president of Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Target for Adobe’s Digital Marketing business. He has 20 years of general technology management, marketing, partnering, and mergers-and-acquisitions experience. Chandra is on the board of Gaja Capital, a private equity fund based in Mumbai, India, and Hydrocephalus Association, a non-profit organization that advocates and directs research on behalf of those affected by brain injuries. 




VB's working with marketing expert Scott Brinker to understand the new digital marketing organization. Help us out by answering a few questions, and we'll help you out with the data.

A marketer’s guide to more effective personalization

Turn the Family Car Into a Connected Fleet Vehicle

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Drivers often approach the idea of connected cars along the lines of a one-to-one ratio: one driver to one car linked by a data-gathering and reporting interface that opens up new aspects of the operator-vehicle relationship both during and after a drive


But in the rapidly evolving world of connected driving, new approaches to that scenario are also emerging. For instance, what if connected cars allowed an owner to track information generated by multiple vehicles and multiple operators — as in a fleet or a family — in real time and from outside the car?


It's certainly something that large-operation telematics have provided to businesses for years, but what if this were available at the scale of small fleets, or even that of the residential two-car garage for parents and newly driving teens? Read more...

More about App, Driving, Information Sharing, Connected Cars, and Vehicles
Turn the Family Car Into a Connected Fleet Vehicle

Are You an Inbound Marketing Expert? Take the Quiz!


Are You an Inbound Marketing Expert? Take the Quiz!

Travelers Head to Colorado to Celebrate 4/20

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It's a big weekend for Colorado.


Commercial sales of marijuana to all adults over 21 years old have been legal since Jan. 1 with the passing of Colorado Amendment 64. Colorado and Washington are the only states that allow licensed retailers to sell marijuana to anyone of legal age.



Marijuana tour guides and hospitality companies are excited about increased interest. So excited, in fact, that one company is focused solely on travelers looking to smoke marijuanaColorado Green Tours offer private half-day and full-day, in addition to all-inclusive packages for the Cannabis Cup, a weekend celebration of marijuana. Read more...

More about Travel, Marijuana, Tourism, Us, and Lifestyle
Travelers Head to Colorado to Celebrate 4/20

Join the roar of the #NBAPlayoffs crowd

Today, the best basketball players in the world will begin the quest to lead their teams to an @NBA Championship when the #NBAPlayoffs tip off. While they battle for supremacy, you can follow all of the action on and off the court in real time on Twitter.



The best way to stay connected to the playoffs is to follow @NBA for highlights, score updates, analysis and behind-the-scenes photos and videos. Worried about missing a top play, such as an alley-oop from @CP3 to @blakegriffin32? Look out for #NBARapidReplay video highlight Tweets throughout the post-season.



Follow @NBA for highlights and exclusive #NBAPlayoffs photos and video.



No matter who you’re rooting for, all 16 playoff teams are on Twitter.





You can also follow players like @KingJames and @tonyparker by team here.




In addition, you’ll want to follow @NBAonTNT, @ESPNNBA and @NBATV for expert analysis, guest tweeters, score updates and more. This list of ESPN broadcasters and writers and this list of TNT and NBA TV media guarantee you don’t miss anything happening on or off the court.




Will the defending champion @Heat win their third consecutive title in 2014? If it’s up to the crowd on Twitter this season, Miami will defeat the @HoustonRockets for a three-peat. Based on Twitter mentions since the season began October 29, the bracket below shows which #NBAPlayoffs team would win it all:



Click to view larger image


If you don’t like how the Twitter #NBAPlayoffs played out, dive into the conversation, cheer on your favorite @NBA teams and Tweet to @TwitterSports who you think will be the last team standing.


Join the roar of the #NBAPlayoffs crowd

Are You an Inbound Marketing Expert? Take the Quiz!

3 Reasons Your Brand Should Be Using Video On Twitter Right Now

3 Reasons Your Brand Should Be Using Video On Twitter Right Now


A good brand should feel like an indispensable friend or ally. It should feel honest and available – and there’s no better way than using video. Today’s biggest brands from Coke to Oreo put a ton of work into creating fast, effective video that reaches out through their network to say hi to their customers where they live – like a friend.


It follows that your brand should use video – you’ll be able to reach your customers in a way you hadn’t anticipated possible.


continued…


New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.


3 Reasons Your Brand Should Be Using Video On Twitter Right Now

How To Clean Your Bong

Yes, it's a job for denture tablets.
How To Clean Your Bong

The Business Plan Of The Internet Of Things

There’s a tinge of narcissism to the quantified-self movement, but the industry is realizing  there may be more value in the quantified other.
The Business Plan Of The Internet Of Things

Why Ukraine Isn't Just An Extension Of Russia

Dozens of statues of Lenin fell in Ukrainian cities; no one in the opposition asked people to treat them “in a civilized manner,” because in this case a “polite” dismantling could mean only one thing — conserving a potent symbol of Soviet power.
Why Ukraine Isn't Just An Extension Of Russia

Three Ways to Use Videos to Maximize Your LinkedIn Marketing and Lead Generation

If video is good for business (and it is), and if LinkedIn is good for business (and it is), then combining the two makes perfect sense. Here are three ways to make that combo work for your B2B organization. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
Three Ways to Use Videos to Maximize Your LinkedIn Marketing and Lead Generation

Find the Right Imagery for Social Media Branding

Selecting the right images for social media requires some serious thought. Brands that skimp on the quality of their images risk lowering their brand's appeal. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
Find the Right Imagery for Social Media Branding

Artist Captures Spontaneity in Everyday Objects With an iPhone

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Artist Brock Davis doesn't just rely on pen and paper to manifest his wit. From fruits and veggies to googly eyes, the mediums that make up his extensive portfolio are endless


One of his ongoing projects turns everyday objects into mini scenes and concepts. The photos are captured simply with his iPhone




"Most of my friends were sharing photos of their kids and pets, which is cool, but almost immediately I was curious if it would be possible to take conceptual photos with my iPhone while staying true to the immediacy and spontaneity that is inherent with mobile photography," Davis told Mashable. Read more...

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Artist Captures Spontaneity in Everyday Objects With an iPhone

South Korean Ferry Captain Says Frigid Waters Delayed Evacuation

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The captain of the South Korean ferry that sank Wednesday, leaving 300 people missing or dead, said Saturday that he had feared passengers would be swept away in frigid seawater if he had issued an evacuation order too quickly.


Speaking to reporters on live television after his arrest for negligence of duty and other charges, the captain, Lee Joon-seok, apologized to the South Korean public for "causing a disturbance."



"I bow my head in apology to the families of the victims," Lee said, according to a translation by the BBC.


Survivors have said that they were repeatedly told to stay in place over the course of 50 minutes as the ship listed and began to submerge. Many of those who made it off the ferry said they disobeyed those orders and moved to higher decks or jumped into the water. Read more...

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South Korean Ferry Captain Says Frigid Waters Delayed Evacuation

9 Helpful Storage Solutions for Small Spaces

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Life in a small apartment can be overwhelmingly frustrating When you're living in close quarters, you have to make the most of the space you have. But even if you live in a studio, that doesn't have to mean your bed is a dining room table or your bathroom is a home office.


Instead, take full advantage of the space you do have by carefully selecting the items you bring into your home — the more multi-functional, the better. From bedroom furniture to baskets, there are plenty of ways to buy or DIY your way to a neater home.



Check out these useful ways to gain a huge return out of your small space Read more...

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9 Helpful Storage Solutions for Small Spaces

Using the U.S. Census Data to Power Your Social PPC Efforts

Exploring the U.S. Census data can allow you to better target your ads right out of the gate, especially if you are trying to reach people outside of your immediate area.




Using the U.S. Census Data to Power Your Social PPC Efforts

How Dodgeball Became America's Most Demonized Sport

Castigated by school districts and denigrated in the media, dodgeball has been cast as the diabolical bastard of American recreational activities.
How Dodgeball Became America's Most Demonized Sport

American Hero Double-Fists Beer Can, Syrup Bottle At Monster Jam

On Friday, a photo was uploaded to Reddit with the caption "Murica! Monster Jam is worth the admission just for the people you get to see! Yes, that's a syrup bottle." It was perfect.
American Hero Double-Fists Beer Can, Syrup Bottle At Monster Jam

Travel Brands Succeed on Twitter and More Top Social Media Stories

Sprout Social Media News


Hopefully spring is making an appearance wherever you are this weekend. Before you unplug and head for the outdoors, here’s a recap of the social media news you might have missed this week.


Over the past few days, we took a look at how four top brands are using Twitter’s new profiles, as well as how three innovative travel brands found success on the social network. Additionally, we’ve highlighted some of the ways in which brands are shining on Google Helpouts and how your company can boost reach using +Post ads on Google+.


Finally, we checked out this week’s biggest news story: Twitter’s mobile app promotion suite. You can find more information on all of these stories in our recap below.


Need Inspiration? How 4 Top Brands Are Using Twitter’s New Profiles


Need Inspiration? How 4 Top Brands Are Using Twitter’s New Profiles


Last week, Twitter began rolling out a new and improved web profile that  emphasizes your visual content. Some of the businesses that have access to it have done some lovely things we’d like to showcase.


Businesses are understandably eager to gain access to the new look and its accompanying features. But with such significant design changes, sometimes a gradual rollout pays off because it gives you more time to consider how you’ll take advantage of the updated elements of your profile. [Read More...]


Learn How 3 Innovative Travel Brands Found Success on Twitter


Learn How 3 Innovative Travel Brands Found Success on Twitter


From research and mid-travel engagement to post-trip reviews and feedback, social media has become an integral part of the travel experience. Travelers have become increasingly social, forcing brands to get creative with their marketing strategies. We’ve already seen some of the unique ways travel brands have leveraged Facebook to connect with customers; and now we turn our attention to Twitter.


According to a July 2013 study, 33 percent of analyzed tweets directly addressed tourism and travel professionals. The platform is mostly used by travelers to help organize a trip and finalizing the logistics of their travel plans — such as choosing a hotel, finding an activity, and calculating travel costs. Travelers also use Twitter to share check-in activity, find travel deals, and share activity or attraction reviews. [Read More...]


Brands Shine on Google Helpouts and You Can Too, Here’s How


Brands Shine on Google Helpouts


Content is key when creating a successful social media strategy, but there’s more to it than just blogging and tweeting. Podcasts, infographics, and video have increased in popularity among consumers. In fact, video content has become one of the most effective ways to reach and engage audiences.


YouTube and Google+ Hangouts have become integral parts of today’s marketing campaigns. The former currently claims more than one billion unique visitors monthly, second only to Facebook. Google+ Hangouts, which seamlessly integrate with YouTube, have been used for everything from live concerts to customer tutorials. [Read More...]


Now You Can Boost Your Reach With +Post Ads, Here’s Why You Should


Boost Your Reach with +Post Ads


Timing is everything. At any given moment, there is someone interested in your brand, but one of the biggest challenges you face is reaching those people at the right moment. Last December, Google introduced +Post ads to a limited number of advertisers as a way to amplify content. The ad unit turns your Google+ content — such as photos or videos — into display ads that can run across the Google Display Network.


+Post ads were previously only available to a select group of advertisers, but yesterday Google announced that the ad unit is now available to all Google+ Pages with at least 1,000 followers. What sets +Post Ads apart from ad options on other social platforms is that they reach the entire web, not just your network. Before you dive in, let’s take a closer look at Google’s social ads. [Read More...]


Here’s How You Can Prepare for Twitter’s New Promoted Mobile Apps


New Way to Promote Mobile Apps on Twitter


Twitter yesterday announced a brand new mobile app promotion suite that aims to help marketers and developers drive app installs and app engagements both on Twitter and off. The full suite of targeting, creative, and measurement tools are being tested in private beta, but you might have already seen some examples of these app promotions on Twitter.


Because not everyone has access just yet, here’s a bit more information about what you can expect as well as how you can promote your app on Twitter in the meantime. [Read More...]


The post Travel Brands Succeed on Twitter and More Top Social Media Stories appeared first on Sprout Social.





Travel Brands Succeed on Twitter and More Top Social Media Stories