Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Outlawed for 2016, is your business ready for Apple Pay & 5 'fringe' social media platforms




Trends in 2016
As we rebuild our world in 2016, it will be all about the “Emotional Web” according to Meabh Quoirin of The Future Foundation who gave an excellent talk at DIT on Tuesday.  “The Warming Web” and channeling people’s moods was just one of the trends she identified.
“Injury Time Appeal” was another – an example of which is a customer in-store getting a brand message telling him/her that they have only 10 minutes to redeem a certain offer.  The importance of “Peer to Peer” enterprises, social entrepreneurship and self-parody (showing that we’re not perfect, we’re human) were also highlighted. One excellent example was cited – Carsberg’s “Beer Body Ready” response to that “Beach Body Ready” ad campaign.  The slide above shows absolute “no-no’s” for brands in 2016.
I’ve only skimmed over the excellent talk that Meabh gave at DIT who, along with The Marketing Institute, ran the seminar to promote their Masters in Digital Marketing & Analytics.

Is your business ready for Apple Pay?
Possibly launching here later this year as Apple apparently contacted Irish banks earlier in the year, is your business ready for Apple Pay?   According to this article Apple Pay is definitely not just for the ‘big boys’ – any company that considers itself premium, tech-driven and user-friendly should be seriously considering enabling their customers to pay them this way.  It cautions that before you invest, you should check who your customers bank with and if they’re interested in using contactless payment services like Apple Pay. It’s a trend that can only increase with 44.8% of all UK online payments last year made with a mobile device.  If you do adopt it, you’re advised to train staff well on how it works and ensure you have an “Apple Pay Champion” on every shift.

Are the 5 ‘fringe’ social media platforms suited to your business?
Well, it all depends on where your target audiences spent time, of course.  This article gives one tip to find out where your audience are – check to see where your website is coming from and which networks they’re on.  They then give a brief description of Snapchat, Vine, Tumblr, Vimeo and Quora. 71% of Snapchat users are under 25, 57% of Vine (the 6 second video platform) users are women and this is ideal for Twitter users, Tumblr is for short blogs, Vimeo for professional video users and those who enjoy a quality experience while Quora boast 2.9m users on its Q&A platform.





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