Blog : Social Media

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Unleashing the Potential of AI Chatbots for 24/7 Customer Support

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, setting your brand apart from the competition hinges on exceptional customer service. While conventional customer support methods like phone calls and emails are indispensable, they often fall short in meeting the expectations of modern consumers who demand rapid and personalized assistance. This has paved the way for the rise of AI chatbots, a revolutionary solution for offering round-the-clock customer support.

AI chatbots are sophisticated computer programs that simulate human conversations through the fusion of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. These digital assistants possess the remarkable capacity to manage a multitude of queries simultaneously, furnish personalized responses, and operate ceaselessly, every day of the year. As AI technology continues to advance, the capabilities of chatbots are expanding, empowering businesses to optimize customer experiences and augment sales.

The speed and efficiency afforded by AI chatbots are at the heart of their adoption in customer support. These bots excel at handling numerous inquiries concurrently, ensuring customers receive instant resolutions without enduring prolonged wait times. Consequently, businesses can amplify customer satisfaction, cultivate a sterling brand reputation, and foster loyalty by elevating the quality of customer interactions, all while incurring minimal costs.

Personalization has emerged as a cornerstone of contemporary customer service, further fueling the integration of AI chatbots. These intelligent bots adeptly learn customer preferences, purchase histories, and other relevant details, enabling them to deliver tailored recommendations, assistance, and promotions. This personalized approach resonates with customers, engendering brand loyalty. Moreover, chatbots bolster service quality by swiftly accessing real-time data and product information, thereby furnishing accurate responses to customer inquiries.

The utility of chatbots extends to conserving time and resources for businesses. The process of recruiting and training call center agents to provide round-the-clock coverage can be both expensive and time-intensive. Chatbots, on the other hand, can function cost-effectively with minimal oversight, rendering them an appealing alternative.

Finally, the symbiotic relationship between customers and AI chatbots drives continuous improvement in service delivery. As chatbots accumulate insights from their interactions, they incorporate machine learning to enhance accuracy and suggest tailored offerings aligned with customer preferences. This iterative approach optimizes customer satisfaction, accelerates response times, and curtails associated expenditures.

In conclusion, the evolution of AI chatbots into indispensable tools for businesses is undeniable, offering top-tier customer service, improved brand perception, enhanced customer loyalty, and streamlined operations. With their exceptional capability to provide seamless support and personalized interactions, AI chatbots stand as a transformative asset in modern customer engagement strategies. As industries continue to navigate the ever-evolving customer-centric landscape, embracing AI chatbots becomes a strategic imperative that can catalyze success. For comprehensive solutions that span from influencer marketing to digital advertising, reach out to Colure Media today. Let us help you elevate your brand through tailored strategies, including social media marketing campaigns and cutting-edge mobile app projects.

The Art of Hyper-Personalization: How AI Elevates Customer Experience
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The Art of Hyper-Personalization: How AI Elevates Customer Experience

The business landscape is continually evolving, demanding companies to be innovative and customer-centric to maintain a competitive edge. One of the most potent strategies for achieving this is through hyper-personalization, an art that AI has mastered to perfection.

Hyper-personalization involves leveraging customer data to create highly tailored experiences. By mining and analyzing data from various sources, businesses can deliver personalized content, products, and services that resonate with individual customers. AI plays a crucial role in this process, enabling companies to harness vast amounts of customer data effectively.

Understanding Hyper-Personalization

Thanks to advancements in big data and machine learning, companies can now gather and process copious amounts of data, providing valuable insights into their customers’ preferences. When coupled with AI capabilities, businesses can craft hyper-personalized experiences that feel tailor-made for each individual.

The Benefits of Hyper-Personalization

Hyper-personalization goes beyond improving customer experience; it fosters loyalty and trust. By creating an emotional connection through personalized interactions, customers are more likely to remain loyal to the brand. Furthermore, targeted marketing campaigns built on AI predictions can enhance brand awareness through positive word-of-mouth.

The Power of Hyper-Personalization

The potential of hyper-personalization is immense, but it requires businesses to invest in data analytics and AI-powered tools to reap the benefits fully. As AI continues to evolve, its capabilities in delivering hyper-personalization will only grow. Therefore, it is crucial for companies to stay ahead of the curve by embracing AI’s potential and integrating it into their strategies.

Incorporating AI-powered hyper-personalization can revolutionize the way businesses interact with customers and create long-lasting connections. By utilizing customer data effectively, companies can deliver experiences that stand out in today’s competitive market. Embracing AI-driven hyper-personalization is not just an option; it’s a necessity for businesses looking to thrive in the dynamic world of tomorrow. 

If you’re ready to take your marketing strategies to the next level, contact Colure Media, a leading NYC branding and digital advertising agency. Whether you need assistance with social media marketing, influencer marketing, or building your next mobile app project, our expert marketing consulting services are here to elevate your brand in the bustling landscape of New York.

Elon Musk Completes the Transformation of Twitter Into X
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Elon Musk Completes the Transformation of Twitter Into X

According to one recent study, Twitter had nearly 436 million monthly active users as of January 2023. The only thing more impressive than that is the fact that just one month prior, it only had 366 million – representing a staggering amount of growth in a short amount of time. Twitter, by its nature, has been disruptive since its inception.

But now, thanks to new owner Elon Musk, it is especially so. The tech billionaire has recently changed the name of one of the most popular social networking platforms on the globe to X – a move that is worth examining for a number of key reasons with big implications for the future. Twitter is Dead. Long Live “X” To quickly get caught up to speed, keep in mind that Musk only closed his deal to purchase Twitter on October 27, 2022. He quickly became the company’s CEO, at which point he also dissolved the existing

Twitter board of directors. To say that a lot has happened in that time is a bit of an understatement. He completely changed the way Twitter identity verification works, turning it into a paid subscription service. He laid off nearly 50% of the Twitter workforce. His tenure has been so controversial that it has been said it was the main reason why Mark Zuckerberg and Meta developed the new platform Threads, which has more than a passing resemblance to the way Twitter previously looked and functioned.

The company has also lost roughly 66% of its value during this period by most estimates. Now, the Twitter branding is no more. In addition to a new name and logo, Musk has changed language like “retweet” and removed other references to its past. In its place is “X”, which Musk has said he hopes will become a state of “unlimited interactivity” for people around the world. In other words, he wants it to be something far grander than Twitter was or could ever hope to be. Something he says is centered in “audio, video, messaging, payments, banking,” and more. Disruption is in the Eye of the Beholder If nothing else, Elon Musk’s transformation of social networking giant Twitter into X is nothing if not a lesson on the very nature of disruption.

Even though the word itself often has a negative connotation, the truth is that it is neither inherently good nor bad. The perception has less to do with the act itself and is more about the interpretation of those observing it. When Steve Jobs walked across a stage in 2007 and introduced the iPhone to the world, few could have predicted just how much disruption he would cause. That device changed the way we think about personal computing, standalone GPS units, digital cameras, wireless communication – you name it. But at the time, it was met with a lot of skepticism.

After all, mobile phones had existed for years prior to that. Why should anyone care about this one in particular? Another example would be a group of Reddit users employing the Robinhood app to disrupt the way we think about the Stock Market, possibly forever. They used a mobile app to suddenly shift the balance of power on Wall Street in a way that there may be no going back from. But at the time, it was met with derision and laughter. A bunch of “know-nothing kids” trading stocks and sharing information with each other on a message board? You’ve been able to trade stocks online for years. Why should anyone care about this specific instance? What both those examples have in common is that the disruption they brought with them was simultaneously a positive and a negative depending on your point of view.

They were disruptive not necessarily in ways people wanted or how they expected, but were ultimately what they needed at that moment in history. As the great Henry Ford once said “if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” All this is to say that, while Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter into X is certainly being met with criticism in real-time, will that perception stand the test of time? Will this, too, be something that people one day look back on and think “that’s where it all started” in the same way they do about the iPhone? Does Elon Musk have a grand plan in mind, one that will also give the people not what they want but what they need? Or will this all go down as one of the most clear-cut examples of a brand in decline in the history of not only social media, but of business in general?

A master class in having a brand transition go so poorly that you end up potentially getting charged by the San Francisco authorities as a result of it? Right now, nobody can say for sure. But one thing is certain: X has already managed to be disruptive and will likely remain so for the not-too-distant future.

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What the Latest Google Algorithm Update Means For You

 According to one recent study, the vast majority of all people still find a brand for the first time in the exact same way: via a search engine. A massive 93% of all online experiences still begin that way, which is why concepts like search engine optimization are so important.

More than that, the same resource indicated that about 70% of the links that users click on when they make a search are organic. This means that while PPC (pay-per-click) advertising alongside the search results do make somewhat of an impact, they can’t match the power – or the reach – of ranking organically.

Google uses an algorithm – the mechanics of which are a closely guarded secret – to determine which pages rank highly for which terms. If you check enough of the algorithm’s proverbial boxes, your content is deemed both valuable and relevant and you rank highly as a result. If you don’t, you might appear near the bottom of the page or even on page two – which is a location that roughly 95% of all users will never reach.

So if you’re a business that wants to connect with as many new customers as possible, ranking as highly in Google as you can should always be a top priority. It’s also why it’s critical to pay attention to whenever Google updates their algorithm – as they’ve recently done once again.

The Situation With Google’s Algorithm

Again, the precise way that Google’s algorithm works tends to be kept from the public to keep people from gaming the system. It’s a little like how keyword implementation used to work in previous years.

Once people figured out that keywords mattered and that Google used them – and their volume – to determine how a page should rank, everyone began the practice of keyword stuffing. This means that the quality of the content itself didn’t matter – so long as you had the right keywords inserted into the page as many times as possible, you were virtually guaranteed to rank highly.

Once Google tried to put a stop to that practice, people got tricky. They would hide keywords on the page that were the same color as the background. Your average reader wouldn’t ever see this – but Google’s “spiders” would. Once discovered, Google updated their algorithm to put a stop to this as well, penalizing pages that practiced it in a way that saw their average traffic rates eviscerated.

Indeed, that’s why Google updates its search algorithm many times per year – in part to help provide more accurate results, and in part to try to catch people who are “cheating” their way to the top. Remember that Google makes the vast majority of its money via ad revenue, and that number is so high because it has a 90% marketshare on all searches around the world. If Google continually returns low quality or spammy links to searchers, those users will soon look for alternatives. That means ad revenue will drop.

Google doesn’t want that. Which means that you can’t want that, either.

The Recent Update: Breaking Things Down

In September, Google confirmed that it had rolled out an updated specifically related to product reviews. Essentially, Google is now “rewarding” high quality product reviews that “share in-depth research” about a brand’s products and services.

Those product reviews where someone is overwhelmingly positive or overwhelmingly negative? The ones where someone is either so happy you think they must be a bot, or so upset that they clearly aren’t recognizing that they didn’t know how to use the product and made a mistake and should be embarrassed? Those don’t matter as much anymore compared to the ones in the middle.

The product reviews that matter are the ones that include photos and videos. That provide detailed breakdowns about the benefits and disadvantages of a product. The ones that compare how something works with competing products. The kind that you’re most likely to see on a site like Reddit. The list goes on and on.

What you’re thinking is correct – your average customer or user of a mobile app like Robinhood app absolutely does not want to do any of this. They don’t have time. It’s just not a realistic idea. They have lives to lead, mortgages to pay. Kids to feed and play with. But Google, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that all of this is important. Which means that if you’re looking for an opportunity to supplant your larger competitors, you need to encourage your own customers to leave reviews that are as detailed as humanly possible.

Note that you’re also not allowed to offer them anything for free in exchange for them doing so. You need to hope that your average customer is someone with enough time on their hands to want to do this all on their own. Is this a tall order? Sure. But again – if you want to play the game, you have to play by Google’s rules. At least for the foreseeable future. 

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Who is currently winning the battle for web3?

Can you disrupt an industry that’s just begun? Who is currently winning the battle for web3? It’s a complicated question — for end users, the hope is that no one wins. For companies, the hope is that it creates megaliths and monoliths.

Metaverse, Web3 and Blockchain Technology Concepts. Opened Hand Levitating Virtual Objects. Futuristic Tone

Facebook’s Got the Name

Sorry — Meta. Regarding being recognizable, Facebook has worked hard to make itself synonymous with web3. And the work has paid off; most people think of Meta when they think of the “Metaverse.”

The bad news for Meta is that everything published about web3 looks extraordinarily goofy. While people are thinking about the Metaverse when they think about Meta, they aren’t taking it seriously.

The Game Industry Has It Locked

From mobile app to VR space, the game industry is really making advances into web3. It’s understandable. The gaming industry has always been at the forefront of new technology. And society just got out of a few years of staying at home and playing with their computers, consoles, and phones.

If you want an example of what “the Metaverse” and web3 could do, you need only look at… Roblox and Fortnite. There are children already growing up in the Metaverse and living their lives in an overlaid, digital reality. People are holding concerts in Fortnite.

It’s Not Like Amazon Isn’t Trying

With Amazon’s AWS technology, it may be surprising that Amazon really isn’t breaking out into the web3 space. Why isn’t it selling digital terrain through its online platform?

Actually, Amazon is trying. Just this year, Amazon Studios released an MMO that they had touted to be groundbreaking. It ended up being quite poorly received and almost universally panned. It was just a regular MMO, but it shows that Amazon is trying to get into the digitally interactive space.

Of course, to really disrupt web3, you need to be able to get into the space and be accepted by people and Amazon doesn’t really have an understanding of people, nor does Zuckerberg.

What about the NFTs?

You know, a little while ago we could stay that bitcoin was definitely the winner of web3. But Bitcoin is going the way of the dodo. Even if it’s the de facto standard still for trading and bartering in crypto, it’s not going to be for long. Because it’s being surpassed by other contenders.

NFTs are going to stay but they are going to be very different.

Right now, there’s a battle for the soul of web3. It could be Facebook, Amazon, Google, or any other large company. But it could also become a decentralized service that everyone can take advantage of and enjoy.

There’s something to the dark net. It’s not just a place to buy drugs and hitmen. The dark net has remained entirely uncontrolled and collaborative for years. It’s a space where anyone can throw up a site and everyone has to essentially collaborate for people to get there. Read into the dark net and you’ll find that more things are being traded in the dark net than on the Robinhood app.

So if you want to find out more about the future of web3, why not make it? And if you want to know what people hate about web3, just ask Reddit.

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Snapchat’s Crash Leaves Social Media Disruptors Gasping

Okay, so, the entire stock market is crashing. So this probably isn’t surprising. Open your Robinhood app, and it’s just a crazy sea of red. But there are still some standouts, sometimes for the wrong reasons. Snapchat crashed 43% because it didn’t meet its revenue targets. But that’s actually not altogether surprising.


Why Did Snapchat Crash?

It’s not that extraordinary. Many social media platforms suffer from the same problem. Even if they disrupt the market and get millions or, in Facebook’s case, billions of users, they have no clear path towards monetization. Facebook countered that by getting in good with businesses and starting to develop ads.

Snapchat has creator monetization tools, which makes it fairly unique among “social media first” platforms. But by and large, it’s just not an easily monetized mobile apply.

A lot of social media platforms are on a VC runway. They lose money, but they still get investments because they have such extraordinary engagement and active users. 

The Implications of the Snapchat Crash

But investors are becoming disenchanted with these continuous losses. As the recession pulls investors back from spending, it’s going to pull back on these high-risk, would-be-nice plays. Do you really want to be invested in Snapchat and it’s potential monetization as it bleeds money? Or do you want to pick up some cheap Microsoft stock, knowing that it’s currently at an extraordinary discount?

Social media disruptors tend to concentrate on engagement and hope, very fervently, that they’ll figure out monetization later. But that’s not the strategy. Just ask Reddit, which has had to incorporate pretty aggressive advertising on its platform to stay afloat. Just ask MoviePass, which lost investors millions of dollars on its casual “we’ll figure it out” engagement play.

Monetizing Social Media: Is It the Metaverse?

So, here’s the thing. Anyone who wants to disrupt social media needs to have their monetization baked in. How do you monetize social media?

The best way, quite honestly, is going to have to do with the Metaverse and product placement. Metaverse—purchasing digital items that generate a “lifestyle image,” whether that’s cosmetics for your digital avatar or filters for your digital photos. Produce placement—advertising that’s less obtrusive and more likely to get people to buy, because people are sick of ads.

That being said, social media ads are going to become tremendously more effective shortly because of the death of the third-party cookie. Cookies can’t track you, but your social media account can.
People are focusing more on product placement now. Get creators to highlight your items. Build sponsorships. In fact, that’s actually pulling back to the very early days of the web when everything was directly sponsored. Including the reviews.

But social media is a hard nut to track, because engagement doesn’t necessarily mean monetization. Companies that are poised to disrupt the social media market need to really dig into their monetization and make sure they have a viable strategy. We aren’t in the second DotCom boom anymore; VCs aren’t going to throw money at every mobile app that’s being built. You need an actual business strategy, not just a product.

As for Snapchat, well, the problem with social media platforms is also that they have a shelf-life. Just as the kiddos are moving away from Facebook, they’re moving away from Snapchat, too. Kids aren’t going to use the same platform as their parents—and it shows. So, the time is right for a successor to TikTok. But who will it be? 

Elon Musk takes over Twitter
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Elon Musk takes over Twitter

Can you believe it? It worked. But what does it mean for the media? What does it mean for “free speech” and the market of opinions? Elon Musk has finally bought Twitter — and tanked his own stock doing it. What does that mean for digital disruption?

A Hostile Takeover

Earlier in the month, Elon Musk started a hostile takeover of Twitter by purchasing an immense number of shares. Twitter reacted by enacting a poison pill measure; a poison pill is something a company does specifically to avoid a hostile takeover, making it effectively impossible for a company to be taken over through stock purchases alone.

But despite the board initially saying that Musk would have no control over the company, they quickly introduced him to the board. And when he offered $44 billion for Twitter itself, they rather quickly folded. Musk is known for his capricious but often visionary purchases; he did not build Tesla but rather purchased it.

Interestingly, until the very end, Reddit posts were saying Musk could never take over. But Redditors have a long history of skepticism, going back to the Robinhood App.

Why Does Musk Want Twitter?

Musk has a weird relationship with Twitter. He doesn’t like being censored. So much so that he’s been fined repeatedly by the SEC for saying things that manipulated Tesla’s stock prices. Musk says that he wants transparency on the platform but it’s also likely he wants the freedom to do what he wants.

Whether he’s the proper steward for a channel that has become a leading resource for news and even political change remains to be seen. Musk cut his teeth in digital disruption with PayPal and his forays into Tesla and SpaceX have both been markedly successful. But they are very different technologies.

The Consequences for Tesla

Tesla stock, meanwhile, has been absolutely slaughtered. In part, this is due to the perception that Musk is acting irrationally or emotionally, which he has historically been prone to do. If he’s purchasing Twitter as a means of radically decentralized discourse, that’s one thing. If he’s purchasing it because he wants people to stop saying mean things about him on the internet, that’s a vastly different situation. Regardless, Tesla stockholders got to see the stock plummet.

The Consequences for Twitter

While many users have abandoned Twitter, the reality is that people are mostly meh. As one user stated, “if you’re upset over a billionaire buying Twitter, wait until you find out who owns everything else.” So, a billionaire bought an online platform/mobile app. What else is new?

For many, the reality of the situation is that Twitter is just a social media venue that they can take or leave, and most appear to be waiting to see what happens.

Entrepreneurs, though, will face broader implications. One thing Musk does have a stance on is algorithm transparency.

Algorithm Transparency and Business

No one knows what special sauce Google uses to make sure that results surface. That’s the point. Billions are spent every year trying to figure it out in the form of search engine optimization.

Musk wants to make visible the mechanisms that promote posts on Twitter. And that could be both a problem and an opportunity. It will either radically change the way people are using Twitter or (more likely) destroy it as spam becomes even more aggressive and prevalent.

Companies that lean firmly on Twitter for their advertising campaigns are currently right to be wary.

Note that the Musk deal with Twitter could still fall through. It’s not finalized. He may discover that he didn’t want to buy Twitter after all. He may get butthurt that Bill Gates’ short position against Tesla paid off big. And Twitter itself may decide not to capitulate.  

Still, this gives rise to many thoughts as to how the wealthy can control discourse, how vulnerable the entrepreneurial disruption community is to its tools, and how the internet is evolving today. The Twitter purchase will undoubtedly disrupt business on the platform and mobile app; the question is how much?

Geotargeting & Geofence Marketing: How a small company can disrupt a big market
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Geotargeting & Geofence Marketing: How a small company can disrupt a big market

If you feel like social media and online marketing is shouting into the void, you’re really not alone. Many small, local businesses are told to invest in online advertising and mobile marketing only to discover that it’s really not effective for them.

Imagine if you advertised your company to every 10,000th person on earth. How many of those people would actually be able to use your products or services? Probably none of them. There are a lot of people on earth and there are a lot of people online.

Geotargeting and geofence marketing focus on hyper-local leads — so you can stop shouting and start earning.

Connect to the Customers Closest to You

It’s the customers that are closest to you that you want to connect with. It’s better to connect with 50 people in your neighborhood than 5,000 people across the world. And it’s cheaper, too. When you connect with customers close to you, you greatly enhance the viability and effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. 

How Does Geotargeting/Geofencing Work?

Geotargeting/geo fencing works by identifying where customers are inside of a broader, third-party advertising network. For instance, Google Ads shows throughout the world but can show your ads only to those who are in your vicinity. Geotargeting is broad; it just means that you’re sending your ads to those who are in your country, state, city, or even zip code.

Geo-fencing is a little different. Geo-fencing specifically defines an area, such as an area that is located in a highly-trafficked region around your business. Once individuals are inside this area, they are targeted. Geo-fencing can be used to deliver ads through PoS systems within your neighborhood, for instance, or to send ads to phones and other devices detected in your region.

The Advantages of Geotargeting

Really, the advantages of geotargeting are clear. You can spend $100 to connect with 5,000 people in the world or $10 to connect with 50 people in your area. It’s cost-effective and far more useful.

But it also enhances public perception of your brand, as you’re no longer trying to reach out to individuals who wouldn’t be interested in your advertising to begin with. Geofence marketing creates more relevant, useful advertising, as well as more profitable strategies.

Implementing a Geotargeting Campaign Strategy

To implement a geotargeting campaign strategy, you (obviously) need to know where your customers are. There are third-party ad platforms like Google and Bing, but their usefulness will actually be vanishing shortly; action is being taken to reduce third-party tracking cookies.

There are two better options: social media marketing and third-party behavioral targeting databases. Social media marketing works because individuals already provide where they live to the social media platform. Even better, they provide information such as whether they’re married, whether they have children, and even where they work and where they went to school.

Third-party databases seek to identify consumers based on their behavior and contextual information without the help of cookies or files stored on the user’s device. These third-party geotargeted databases are likely to grow dramatically once cookies become ineffective for geofence marketing.

Summary

With the right geofence marketing, your company can focus all its efforts on advertising directly to the people who are closest to you. When they look at their phone or check their email in your location, they’ll get information that relates to your business. If they’re halfway across the world, they won’t.

But this type of advertising and mobile marketing really does require that you use the right technology. Social media marketing provides some of this targeting, but mobile marketing is about to get a lot more challenging.

Corporate transparency vs. sharing too much information
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Corporate transparency vs. sharing too much information

Consumer access to information has placed the discussion of corporate transparency clearly before our eyes. This debate is about a company’s ability to be as forthcoming about their brand as possible, in order to gain their customers’ trust. An increasing number of companies are adopting a ‘full truth’ method for a few reasons.

In an effort to increase their public persona, several corporations have made efforts to improve their relationship with their customers. Patagonia, a popular outdoor apparel and equipment brand shows how it provides transparency for its customers.

Patagonia provides its customers with its Footprint Chronicles. This feature allows customers to track the environmental impact of each item sold by Patagonia. The brand offers interviews, PowerPoints, and more, which details the people and history behind the products. For those who are consumers of the brand and advocates for the earth, this feature allows them to be conscious about what affects their purchase will have on the planet. However, this is just one such brand going the distance to provide as much information about the product to the people who consume them. Other brands such as Chipotle and BMW also show a level of transparency with their customers.

 “How much information is too much information? At which point is transparency no longer a viable trait?”

How do you differentiate between transparent communications and tossing out a ‘wall of data’ to justify the request for openness? At what point do you defend your ‘corporate life experiences’ to justify the cost of proactive communication? Every person and corporation have a base of life experiences from which each has grown and learned.

If we were to expose all of our past ‘learning steps’ it could be easily argued that no one may find any one person or corporation attractive. Where do you draw the line between protecting critical competitive data and damage control?

With that said, how we communicate as we move forward is critical. This is an ethical question that every person and corporation must address as move forward. How will they communicate with others? It’s a huge “grey zone” with no defined answers.

Several large corporations are making the shift to transparency. As is so often found in communications, differing perspectives may help to provide a broader insight. Articles from Inc. and Forbes provide an interesting perspective that should be explored.

At the end of the day, how you address this quandary may be defined by a balance you discover between objectives. How do you open your business to your consumer, yet protect the company secrets and interests? Where and how do you draw the line?

Forbes writer, Daniel Newman put it this way “Your consumers will find this honesty so much more appealing than the smokescreen you try to hang over your shortcoming. They will not flinch from giving exactly what you are looking for: their trust and loyalty.”

The cost of running your own social media
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The cost of running your own social media

Running your own business is more than a full-time job. If you are like most entrepreneurs, you’re probably already working between 40 to 60+ hours per week handling the day-to-day operations of your company. A huge question that frequently hits the corporate boardroom is “in addition to running my own company, should I also handle my company’s social media?”

First and foremost, we applaud the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s this drive that motivates each business owner to reach for their greatest dreams. Everyone has their own goals and abilities. The drive to “do it all” is often found at the core of success. But everyone has limits on two of their most basic resources – time and ability.

Let’s be frank – You probably would not try to fix your own transmission, perform a medical procedure on yourself or defend yourself in court. If you saw someone else trying to do this, you might be tempted to ask “Is that ego or ability?” The operations of your corporation and managing the corporation’s social media are two separate, full-time jobs. If you can honestly handle both of these corporate tasks, then we tip our hat to both you and your achievements. Not many individuals are able to muster both the time and intellectual resources needed to accomplish this set of tasks. If you cannot perform flawlessly in both arenas simultaneously, it’s only a matter of time before one or both of these two paths will become compromised.

Learning a new skill set, in order to communicate with other professionals, is critical for your growth and survival. However, there’s a huge difference between actually developing a functional skill set and “thinking” that you possess those skills. Understanding the differences between these two positions could be the line between success and failure.

Running a corporate social media mechanism requires time, industry perspective and a refined skill set. The social media manager must possess a social acuity, finesse and the undeniable ability to communicate with others. In most cases, this is NOT a part-time job. Unfortunately, these are not skills you’ll acquire ‘just because you have a Facebook account’.

Corporate owners might consider the actual cost of social media:

  • Do I actually understand what it takes to do the job? The wrong manager will kill a project. It’s that simple. Just because a manager understands some of some of the project parameters, does not guarantee that they possess a broader base of knowledge and experience required to manage the entire project. A solid project manager appreciates when they do not possess the expertise for a given objective. There is a time when knowledgeable experts are needed to facilitate a process or project. 
  • Can I do the job? You need to ask yourself – objectively – “Do I have the ability to dedicate myself full-time to my company’s social media needs?” Can an entrepreneur effectively fulfill the social media needs of their corporation and then spend an additional 60+ hours per week running their company?
  • What is your long-term objective? Do you want to be able to communicate with functioning teams or do you need to be in control of everything? There’s a huge difference between managing teams and trying to micromanage everything and everyone around you. One behavior is healthy. One is not.

A wise choice to consider is hiring a team who can objectively handle your social media needs. Whether this is an internal or an external team is the next question. That answer will be determined by your corporate needs, budget and audience. Knowing the limits of your own skill base is the first step in defining both your corporation and its social footprint.

Colure Media is a New York based advertising and marketing agency. We can help your corporation gain exposure and increase revenue. If you are interested in exploring various social media possibilities for your corporation, Contact us now.

Republishing content extends audience reach
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Republishing content extends audience reach

Social media is arguably the most crucial outlet to market any product or service. Publishing content on the internet is only the first step to market penetration. The re-publishing or re-marketing of that original content allows for a more specific, finite placement in front of the target audience.

When a company publishes a post it might not initially receive the anticipated web traffic. The next step is to re-post that content onto another social media platform to provide exposure to a new audience. When an idea is marketed multiple times, on multiple platforms, that idea will begin to ‘grow legs’. The danger with reposting is that you do not want to earn the title of ‘spammer’ by an email system. If your reposting is qualified as spam, it will go straight into the trash. All of your republishing efforts will be lost.

Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin are all necessary platforms for a company to reach its audience. When you have successfully connected with your audience, you can begin marketing your company with a specific audience penetration. Pcdigitalmarketing.com had a few interesting words on how to republish across various social media platforms.

When republishing your content you need to keep all facets of the process in mind:

  • Understand the correlation between the frequency of your posting and platforms you are using. If you republish a post every hour on two different platforms, the audiences will probably react in different ways. A Twitter audience may not mind the hourly update. A LinkedIn audience may find that tactic annoying.
  • Develop a tactical move to advance your content. What is the specific reason for republishing? Are you going after a unique demographic which the original platform doesn’t engage? Answer the following questions in regards to your next media move – WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, WHEN and HOW?
  • When a company decides to republish, it should not repeat the same exact caption. The content title is used to draw in a reader. It should be written differently to keep the audience alive and excited.
  • If a company decides to repost content, they should know their audience and know how many times a day or week they should republish their post. It is important to republish to increase the audience, but also very important to be considerate of the audience.
  • Republishing is the perfect approach to spreading a message, as long as the person reposting knows when and how to proceed.
  • Most importantly, be sure that you are tracking the progress of your republishing with some format of web analytics. If you are not counting the specific hits – where and when they are falling, you are just shooting into a dark room with no idea as to any progress toward your goal.

Communication is an interactive process. Take the time to map the process of moving your message from you to your audience. To help you move your company’s message, contact Colure’s Project Managers.

Social media provides an opportunity to express your thoughts
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Social media provides an opportunity to express your thoughts

Due to social media, a single person’s comment, tweet or like can be amplified on a global scale. No longer are you speaking into an empty space, that voice can be heard around the world.

Since the dawn of time, the way in which people interact and communicate continues to change. For July 2015, the top three social media outlets are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. People share their thoughts in various social platforms. With each form of social media, there is a different purpose, a separation between audiences.

In the world of business, understanding your company’s audience leads toward building a better business. In 2013, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth released a study evaluating the social media activities of the Fortune 500 list members. The study found that 77% of those companies are tweeting and 70% are on Facebook. There has been a heavy increase in blogging since 2008.

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” – Francis Bacon (1560-1626)

In 2013, Oreo Cookies capitalized on an unscripted moment in life. Over 111 million people were captivated, as they sat watching live TV. During Super Bowl XLVII, the stadium lights at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana went black. The power went out – the game came to a screeching halt. Within moments, a wise advertising professional sent out a tweet that captured that moment for their own corporate gain. Oreo sent out the now infamous “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet.

Social media has allowed customers and companies to communicate to each other, directly through a simple comment. Consumers demand companies be responsive to the concerns of their consumer base. Social media has made it easier for people to express what they like and what they don’t like. Being responsive to their customer base is now the expected norm for any company of any size.

Lingoji – Culturally Based Emojis
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Lingoji – Culturally Based Emojis

Get ready to express yourself with Lingoji – the revolutionary new emoji app dedicated to worldwide, cultural diversity. We’re bringing a shared cultural context to the digital world. Lingoji has opened an entirely new way to communicate to those close to you.

Lingoji’s point of distinction is the engagement of local artists. The development team is integrating artists from cultures all across the globe. Here, they create culturally authentic art, specific to each country and culture. Lingoji is the first of its kind. The app provides a wide array of emoji sets, each custom-tailored to a single country and culture. Users can easily choose the artwork set that best expresses the thoughts and feelings of themselves, their friends, and their families.

Emojis have firmly established themselves in the footprint of digital communication. From quickly expressing brief feelings, to being used to form larger, more complex thoughts, emojis now saturate our media. Historically, emojis have represented a single, broad point of view.

Why settle for a form of communication that can’t adequately express your culture? There are differences between cultures regarding how an emoji may be interpreted.

Lingoji combines lingo and emojis to create culturally-specific, sticker-sized icons. These can be used to convey humor, context, tone, or even complex expressions and emotions. Available for just $1.99, each of these emojis sets can be easily accessed from the keyboard of a mobile device.

Lingoji’s development team has created accurate, culturally-based images that contain both traditional and current idioms. Lingoji currently supports a total of four Caribbean countries: Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. From there, Lingoji will be expanding steadily into other nations. Currently, teams are currently developing artwork from the Philippines!

Lingoji gives users the opportunity to get relevant images on their phones with ease. Rather than getting a large number of emojis to choose from all at once, users can select a tailored, customized emoji set to express specific ideas and emotions.

These culture-based emoji catalogs provide a common language between individuals in distinct cultures and regions, thereby making it easier for them to communicate with their community. Widespread usage of these emojis will eventually highlight a variety of cultures around the world that are not currently represented.

As a Caribbean native, Lingoji’s co-founder Patrice Gervais developed a love of other cultures while working in New York for Colure Media. Patrice and his co-founders David-Georges Renaud, and Gerald Brun have all worked to create a highly unique tool. This visual story-telling palette is designed for our diverse, modern cultures.

First developed and popularized in Japan, emojis have designed to be fairly universal. Traditionally, this limits emojis to fairly general usage, which may not include niche cultures. Foods, animals, and expressions that exist in many cultures are often excluded from the emoji keyboard.

Lingoji is currently available at both the Google Play and Apple iTunes stores. For questions or feedback, the Lingoji team can be reached through their email address at lingojiapps@gmail.com.