Archive - branding

Olapic Proves a Picture is Worth More Than a Thousand Words

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Join us for our latest installment of Behind the Seen featuring Olapic, the premier photo crowdsourcing platform that provides tools to collect, curate and publish photo content from around the web for brands, publishers, e-commerce, sports teams and more. Olapic works with a variety of fashion brands and publications, all of whom have been coming up with really cool ways to promote their products and services through crowdsourced content. They recently partnered with the Urban Outfitter brand, Free People and created an awesome campaign allowing customers to upload pictures of themselves in their favorite Free People Denim utilizing Instagram and have them featured on the Free People website by pulling photos in from consumers who utilized the hashtag #myfpdenim.

We had an opportunity to speak to Campbell Kliefoth, the VP of Awesomeness & Business Development over at Olapic to learn more about how Olapic is proving to brands that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

Africa: Most new businesses come into fruition because there is a gap in the industry that they are delving in, You seem to have found a market that has yet to be tapped within the photo and video sharing/crowdsourcing world. What was that gap and how is Olapic filling it?

Campbell: When we started working with our first client, the New York Daily News, we discovered that the platform they were using to collect user photos was extremely antiquated – it required uploading a single photo from the desktop, then filling out a very long page of user info to be even allowed to submit it. The bounce rate was enormous. So we began developing tools to collect photos from the services that hundreds of millions of people were already using – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I will admit when we first started trying to acquire clients, people didn’t quite get the concept, and it was a hard sell. It seems the market has caught up now, and we are hiring new employees every week to keep up with demand.

Africa: Everyone is familiar with Instagram, YouTube and other digital photo and video sharing companies, and they have been more than fairly successful, I hate to ask the typical questions but people are going to want to know what sets Olapic apart from other platforms? What are you all doing to remain competitive in the space? What is the motivation behind your whole movement?

Campbell: There is an extraordinary amount of photosharing going on these days – over 10% of all of the photos ever taken in the history of the camera were taken in the last year. Obviously the advent of the smartphone and accompanying photo-sharing services (like Instagram) are the primary reason for this – but the majority of the value coming from this sharing is unrealized. Someone might take a photo and post it to Twitter that could be extremely valuable to a particular brand, but that value is lost if they can’t find the photo. We are constantly developing new ways to overcome this problem, always looking for new APIs, trends, and tools to “bubble up” the truly best content.

Africa: How is the Internet changing what you do?

Campbell: We follow the trends in mobile photosharing very closely. Whenever a service pops up as popular, we try to find all the ways to collect great content from it. We actually were around to see the rise of Instagram, and immediately found ways to collect based on #hashtag, @handle, and even geo-location. We are always on the lookout for the newest thing.

Africa: So Fashion week is upon us, any big plans for partnering with any brands?

Campbell: We work with a lot of fashion brands and fashion publications, all of whom have been coming up with really cool ways to promote their initiatives through crowdsourced content. Free People (an Urban Outfitters brand) is doing a really beautifully designed street-style contest that got all of us excited.

Africa: Who are some brands you would love to partner with in the future?

Campbell: The interest in our fashion e-commerce “shop-able Instagram” product has been overwhelming, and we could not be happier for it. Because the interest is so high, we are trying to put together a small group of early-adopters who we think will really be able to run with the product, so to speak. The Urban Outfitter brands have been awesome, because they have such an engaged, fashionable, and social media savvy fanbase. We are looking for brands who will be able to replicate their success.

Africa: Could you talk about any long-term goals you have in mind?

Campbell: We want to revolutionize the connection between user generated content and e-commerce. Amazon grew their conversion rate by double-digits when they introduced the ability for users to upload photos to product pages, and we want to empower any brand to have that functionality.

It was awesome speaking to Campbell about Olapic and their growth, we look forward to their advancement in fashion eCommerce and the possibility of a “shopable Instagram” How cool would that be? To learn more about the Olapic team visit them at Olapic.com, follow them on twitter at @Olapic and liking them on Facebook at Facebook.com/olapic and take a look at their latest campaign with Free People

 

Only It In It for The Perks! Should We Take Klout Scores Seriously?

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Social Media has proven itself to be a great business tool over the past year. The emergence of new tools allows businesses to monitor and track interactions between them and their customers. However, some businesses are still quite skeptical and wonder “what exactly is social media and how the hell can it help me grow my business?” To put it simply: “Social Media is what happens when an idea and its audience collaborate on a shared experience in real-time;” a great definition eloquently tweeted by @TheOnenOnlySAH. These collaborations are real-time interactions that are happening right now as you are reading this. The question has always been, well, how does one go about measuring social media interactions? After it is collected, what do we do with the data?

Klout has found a way to answer this question by measuring an individuals social interactions and influence online. They have created a great platform not only for measuring the data and interactions that are happening in real time but have also found a way to help brands utilize the data to increase their awareness. The way we interact socially has changed substantially over the last decade. Our friendships and professional connections have moved online, making influence measurable for the first time in history. When you recommend, share, and create content you impact others, and Klout assigns you a score to measures that influence on a scale of 1 to 100. The key component here is influence. Klout has taken data gathering to the next level by identifying influential individuals and rewarding them with “Perks”. Perks are gifts and giveaways from various brands in hopes that it will spark conversation and increase their visibility. Are influencers, those with higher Klout scores, only in it for the Perks? Or is Klout really turning tweeters and other social gurus into brand ambassadors?

For the most part when I polled friends, colleagues, business owners and other avid users of social networks about Klout most were not sure or confident about its rankings or exclaimed they did not pay much attention to it. However, a few weeks ago when Klout made changes to their algorithm and individuals scores dropped downwards of 20 points there was a big uproar on twitter. Business owners, professionals and experts who have been working hard to build rapport with consumers, colleagues and followers were at a loss and infuriated at the change because they thought they were finally making some headway with understanding how to increase their score even if many were never quite sure about the algorithm. According to Klout they have made the Klout score more transparent giving users more insight into how they effect/affect their audience. These recent changes made me wonder was Klout really turning users into brand ambassadors or were they just reaping the benefits of the perks but not returning the favor.

Whether the perk of utilizing Klout is building credibility, being labeled an influencer or simply a tool to see what your followers feel are the topics you are the expert on I think Klout has to do more than just provide a more transparent scoring system which is still very ambiguous. In order for Klout to ensure that a brands perk reaches it’s target audience, Klout needs to take into account social factors that may not occur online such as their expertise, fame and the amount of targeted individuals they can reach via other followers in order to increase awareness for a perspective brand. Other then Television I have not seen individuals collaborate on their shared experiences on a social network and increase awareness of a particular brand.  User’s on both Twitter and Facebook seem to watch their favorite television shows as a collective online and have collaborated on a large scale about their experiences, enjoyment or distaste in regards to a specific show, many share similar view points but they have not all shared them with each other.

One way to focus a conversation online is the use of Hashtags. Hashtags serve as a marker used to highlight keywords or topics in a Tweet so tweeters can follow a conversation on a specific topic. Conversations about brands we love happen organically, we update our status with information about our favorite brands daily such as tweeting about what we had breakfast meals, check-ins to Starbucks, pastimes, etc. The same needs to happen for the brands participating in Klout Perks. Klout needs to connect all redeemer’s of perks and facilitate the conversation around the brands in order to influence their following. Since a tangible product cannot be shared socially, Klout needs to ensure that experience is felt and shared among all Perk recipients as well as the people they influence. There is a certain level of abandonment once the perks are received where individuals use them and they are never spoken of again. Once Klout implements a system to keep the brand conversation going it will be a perfect tool for measuring social media influece.

Would you be more inclined to discuss brands if you were aware of the conversations surrounding Klout perks that you have received or are you just in it for the perks?

Google Me: How to Brand Yourself Online & Managing Your Reputation

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Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re either an entrepreneur, freelancer or a professional interested in learning how to present yourself as an expert in your perspective field. Recently I had the opportunity to speak on a social media panel in Connecticut for a young professional organization entitled M.O.D Success and one of the main questions posed was how do I brand myself to get recognition as an expert in my field. Many professionals don’t realize the potential Search Engine Marketing and Social Media have as a branding tool for marketing yourself online and to manage your online reputation. They also do not know how to leverage the many tools to help maximize their online visibility amongst the experts.

The process of branding oneself is much easier than many may think, it takes some strategic effort and planning but once in place is a great asset to you and your brand. Whether you are looking for a new job, starting your own business or consulting one of the first things people do is research you online.   Below are key steps on how to get started.

 

  1. Blogging/Podcast – Having a blog or podcast is essential and is one of the best ways to control and manage the content you would like to convey to future employers, colleagues, future customers and others. First step would to be to write a compelling bio stating what your expertise is, your experience as well as where you see yourself in the future. Make sure the content reflects your expertise in your field and your interests.
  2. Join Professional Networks – Linkedin is currently one of the most powerful professional business networks that you can utilize to build yourself as a brand and network with other like minded professionals. LinkedIn allows you to have an online resume displaying your expertise, as well as accomplishments, and Colleagues and Business partners can also write reviews giving testament to your great work. It also has great forums allowing you to answer questions directly correlated to your area of expertise and become known as an expert. But don’t limit yourself to just LinkedIn there are many networks both on and offline that can help you grow your brand.
  3. Branded Pages on Social Networks – Join social networking sites like FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus, Meetup.com and others to stand out among colleagues, experts, and those looking for valuable information that you offer pertaining to your expertise. Using FaceBook and Twitter, you can gain followers and fans. By feeding information via status updates and providing links to your blog you can spread the word about your brand. Utilize Meetup.com to meet with other professionals and colleagues in your field or create your own meetup group that meets regularly.
  4. Emails – Something as simple as an email signature with your title and a link to your social networks and blogs can catch the attention of those that you interact with frequently. Also send out some of your recent blog posts to friends, family and colleagues that you think would be interested in the content and ask them to pass it along to individuals they think would be interested as well. This is an easy way to get referrals and new traffic to your site.
  5. Be Yourself – The most important advice when branding yourself is to be authentic. What differentiates you from others is yourself, no one can bring what you have to the table better than you can. Your uniqueness is what will set you apart from the world. So say what you feel, hold on to your convictions, but at the same time be smart about what you put out there. If you are not sure how a statement will come across to your audience think about another way it can be said or don’t say it all. Not everything you think of needs to be said.

Stop Trying to Reinvent the Wheel………but Why?

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This year we have seen various businesses commit some serious blunders and/or accept ultimate defeat. Blockbuster finally gave in and filed for bankruptcy as their competitor Netflix dominated the market and contributed to the demise of the local video rental service. Then you have the opposite of the spectrum with GAP and the logo catastrophe where literally thinking outside of the box caused a huge commotion amongst its customers causing them to revert back to the original logo.

During my usual tweets and rants I came across this tweet from @ThroatChopU:

thinking outside of the box@ThroatChopU‘s tweet really got me to thinking,  many well established Brands are either too afraid to think outside of the box or are straying so far from it they are losing the identity of the brand in the process. And I thought to myself the perfect equilibrium between the two would be to try to reinvent the wheel. People always say “Stop Trying to Reinvent the Wheel” but why?, updating and reinventing is what makes brands, businesses and products better and takes them to the next level.

The biggest issue is figuring out which route to choose for your business, in some cases all you may need to do is revamp your image by reinventing and for others you may have to go outside of the norm and break barriers to keep your brand relevant. Take Blockbuster as an example, when Netflix came out it was not well known and did not have the brand presence that Blockbuster had also I am sure many individuals were unsure of giving their info online and having a movie mailed to them. Being that Blockbuster had such a strong brand identity, especially in the local community, they could’ve mimicked Netflix business model while maintaining their presence in the community with maybe offering a service for those who have forgotten to return their movie and arrange free pickup for local customers as well as deliver their next movie in the queue.

Now GAP who has maintained its iconic brand for decades decided to revamp their logo and the response of disdain by brand loyalist was overwhelming. Many believed that the new logo cheapened the brand, and though GAP may have thought they were thinking outside of the box both literally and figuratively their marketing and branding team should have known to leave well enough alone. Though the re-branding of the logo warranted a bad response it let GAP know that their brand was not in danger and affirmed customer loyalty.

GAP

Lesson here is “Reinventing the Wheel” and refreshing your brand during times of hardship can be a pro or con depending on the level of customer loyalty during said crisis.  In addition, it is fine to reevaluate how effective/affective your brand is every once and a while but don’t stray away from your original idea and lose  your brand identity in the process and confuse your customers.