New Technology

            When I consider future technology my mind usually goes to the crazy technology that is almost mind boggling, contacts that update you on everything around you via the internet, self-driving cars, cell phones chips inserted into our skin. Everything I saw growing up on sci-fi shows is coming to fruition. But the technology that I always find interesting is the seemingly simple things that you think have reached their peak and then they find a way to improve them.  One of the things that runs all of the above mentioned technologies but hasn’t really seen much technological advances are batteries. Obviously batteries have gotten smaller and a little more efficient but a charge on my cell phone battery still only last 14 hours. Apparently researchers across the country have had the same question that I have about why batteries aren’t improving when they are what is running all this new exciting technology, because batteries are being researched and improved in a lot of interesting ways.

              According to Pocket Lint “Big technology companies, and now car companies that are making electric vehicles, are all too aware of the limitations of lithium-ion batteries.” They state that these companies are pouring a lot of money into research in improving the batteries for their technology. They had a list of some futuristic sounding batteries that they claim aren’t that far from becoming mainstream.

              They spotlight a lithium-air battery that “uses oxygen as the oxidizer, rather than a material. The result is batteries that can be a fifth of the price and a fifth as light as lithium-ion, plus they could make phones and cars last five times longer.”

              Another the Alfa battery can last up to 14 days and recharges with water. “This battery will be able to recharge by simply being topped up with water, be it salty or normal. It should last a hefty 14 days, according to its creators Fuji Pigment and will be out later this year.”

Other interesting advancements include skin-powered batteries, ultrasound-powered over the air charging, sound powered and even urine powered. This technology might not seem as exciting as other future technology but the truth is that that future technology is pretty worthless without advancements in batteries. When considering how this will effect social media it will allow people to use social media without having to plug in their phone. Think of the times that you are at the very end of your phones battery life so you don’t take a picture to post to Instagram you don’t do a snap or even get on Facebook because you have to get home to a charger. These batteries will eliminate that “battery-saving” habit that we have found ourselves using. Many of the power sources are still being researched but a few of them were rumored to being close to production. I can’t wait until I can charge my phone by dipping it in water. 

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602245/why-we-still-dont-have-better-batteries/

Apps and Mobile Websites

            Apps. I am sure everyone has heard the phrase “There’s an app for that,” but did you know that Apple trademarked the phrase back in 2010. Why? Because it is true and they wanted the rights to its use. When looking up the phrase it also pulled up an app that people share funny phrases or memes about the phrase “There’s an App for that.” Seems a little ridiculous that we need an app that imitates popping bubble wrap or gives us a list of excuses to give to get out of a phone call (those are real apps, people) but our phones have essentially replaced our watches, calendars, calculators, address books, dictionary, pens, remote controls, voice recorders and Walkman or Discman depending on your generation. With the addition of Mobile apps that list could be made infinitely longer. But how important is it for a business to have a stand-alone mobile app vs. a mobile website?

              According to adweek.com “Standalone apps, with their single-minded purity, have the viral edge over apps trying to do too much.” Gone are the days of the days of telling your friend to check out a cool new website, nowadays it is all about the app. People will talk about and encourage one another to download an awesome new app but as the article points out even apps that try to do too much aren’t very successful. It sites apps that have something that makes them totally unique in the market as the apps that really take off. Snapchat for example is not usable on a web browser only in a downloaded app and its unique hook is the photo “self-destruction.”

              Now stand alone apps are obviously not conducive to every business, it is hard to make an app if you are a say a small beekeeping business. But making a mobile friendly website can be equally as important. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website in your mobile device to find that it doesn’t work with mobile devices. Practicalecommerce.com says  “Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t just good practice — it’s a prerequisite. For the first time in history, mobile has exceeded desktop Internet usage.” They have a few easy ways to convert your already existing website into a mobile-friendly website. 1. Use a company to convert to your website for you. 2. Many hosting sites have easy to add plugins to make a mobile friendly site. 3. Design your site with a mobile-first approach.  Just by making some small changes you can make your website mobile friendly and hopefully increase your visits. 

Viral Videos

             Viral videos are an interesting topic, just like everything else that has to do with technology and particularly social media they have evolved so much from their beginnings. I am old enough to remember videos that went “viral” before platforms like Facebook or YouTube were mainstream. Videos that had hundreds of thousands of views on humor websites and being passed around via email. The amazing thing about these videos is that they are still widely known today even though they didn’t begin on YouTube. Videos like The Numa Numa Guy and Star Wars Kid were both before Youtube was even created. These videos were organically grown and passed along mostly for their humor content. They were funny home videos that were shared with friends and family and grew from there. There was never a thought when they were filming these videos that they might be viewed worldwide or that the stars would become internationally recognizable. The world of viral videos today is much different.

              Today viral videos are the goal. They are the goal of social media stars, like Youtubers and bloggers, and they are the goal of almost every company that makes video content for their social media platforms. You still get authentic, organic viral videos that get the “star’ their fifteen minutes of fame but so many of the viral videos we see today shared on social media today are planned directed and financed with the sole goal of becoming viral. Because more viral equals more exposure equals more money. This has become such a commonplace business practice that researchers have done studies trying to determine the formula for a viral video. One researcher Dr. Brent Coker has spent a lot of time researching a recipe for viral videos and he came up with four simple ingredients to the recipe.

1.       “Sharability”

2.       Connection – via music or nostalgia

3.       Large emotional range – going from feeling happy to sad to ecstatic

4.       Frission – a thrill or physical response like getting goosdebumps.

              There is even research done on the exact amount of time a video should last for maximum exposure and shares. I know personally that if I open up a video on Youtube and I see that it is longer than 5 minutes (excluding car repair videos) I don’t even waste my time watching it. A great example of a company using viral videos and basically nailing it every time is Buzzfeed with their Tasty videos. They found that food 40 seconds was the sweet spot for more shares and views of their videos. In February of 2017 Tasty videos garnered a total of 1.2 billion views on Facebook alone. Interestingly their videos don’t follow the above “recipe” for viral videos but they do contain actual food which seems to be a huge hit in the video world. They have turned these videos into an entire division of their company complete with cookbook and channels that cover many different cultures. Obviously they have the recipe down (forgive the pun) for viral food videos and it is making them a lot of money.

              Whether it is food or guys crying about Britney Spears viral videos aren’t going to go anywhere, more likely they will turn into their own field of job opportunities. Entire firms exists to make viral videos and that will only continue to grow as long as social media is still widely used. 

Search Engine Optimization

               I use google every day, multiple times a day. Lately I have been working on my car a lot so a lot of my searches have been geared towards car parts and repairs. Have you ever stopped to wonder why when you search say, car parts Auto Zone is higher up on the page then NAPA? Well it is not because AutoZone comes first alphabetically it is because AutoZone is doing a better job with their SEO. Search engine optimization is not a new thing. In an article written in 2010 for Business Insider they break SEO down to its most basic definition, getting more traffic to your webpage thru a search engine. Doesn’t seem very complicated when it is broken down like that and is it really that important?

              According to Business Insider every business that has a website should have SEO as a part of their growth strategy and now in 2017 I think this advice given 7 years ago is probably even more relevant. It is not a coincidence that AutoZone, O’Reily and NAPA are the top three results when I search car parts and it is also not a coincidence that by page three of my google search it is listing companies I have never heard of. There is a very real possibility that these lesser known companies could become more successful if they were higher up in rank in a search engine. For me personally, I open the first couple compare parts and prices and buy from whomever gives me the best quality of the best deal and if that is some no name parts company then the only reason they would get my business is by being higher in my google search.

              SEO can get pretty complicated and there are many business that have a position dedicated completely to it. A person or a whole team of people whose main goal is get their website the number one spot on a search engine in a number of different searches. You can even hire a firm to come in and improve the SEO of your company. For small business it is hard to get into that top spot for generalized searches like “car parts” but a small business can work on targeting a spot for a search for “car parts, logan ut.” Forbes  published a great article on SEO for small local businesses and they make starting the process seem less intimidating. They suggest making accurate places pages on all the major search engines. They also suggest uploading lots of quality content to your webpage as well as simply making sure you have accurate addresses, hours of operation and other information on your page and on searches. One that I found interesting is the suggestion to get good google reviews to bump up your SEO.

              While SEO can seem really complicating it is nice to know that there are little things that you can do as a small business to raise your rank a little.

Social Media Management Tools

            Last week I talked about the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in marketing for small business. After much research I found that social media is a great component to a diversified marketing plan but should not be a small business’ main source for advertising as it can get very expensive. One of the articles I researched last week referenced not only financial expense but the drain on time for a small business owner in having to create content, respond to messages and comments, and maintain consistency across several platforms. Time is a great resource when you are trying to run your own business and having to spend copious amounts of it managing social media is just not a good option.

              So what is a business owner to do? Not surprising there is an app for that, or software in some cases. I was unaware of the tools available for social media management out there. They range from hiring a private firm and paying sizable fees to free apps that do little but can be a good starting point. I chose to dig a little deeper into the management tool called Hootsuite. I would never have a need for this kind of tool for personal platforms but I do run a small business that I can see would benefit from this tool. One of the reasons my partner and I have been so hesitant to start multiple social media pages for our business is because neither of us has the time to dedicate to be consistent so instead we have a rarely updated Facebook page. If we were to purchase a paid business plan on  Hootsuite we could open a business page on Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, Linked In, or any other social platforms up to 50 that we could manage with Hootsuite. I don’t even know if I could name 50 social platforms so it is impressive that they have built an infrastructure that allows business’ to manage all their social media from one place.

              I think the best thing about social media management is that it gives time back to those that are running small businesses, which can be a huge thing. In my case where I also work a full-time job it has just never been a priority to utilize social media but with a social media management tool I can see how it would be not only easier but could really help the business. 

Organizational Uses of Social Media

            When reading up on the idea of social media uses for organizations I recalled a seminar I attended where I asked the speaker, a small business owner, if social media helped him grow his business. To paraphrase, he essentially said that social media is such a buzz word right now in marketing but to use it for organic reach is really difficult because social media platforms are charging for a lot of things that they didn’t use to. He pointed out that many of them are now publicly traded so they are trying to drive up their revenue and one way to do that is to charge for business reach and for many truly small business it is just too much money for not enough results. I found his opinion to be very insightful since I had mainly heard the opposite, that social media was a great way to market a small business and that it gave you visibility that is hard to reach otherwise. In doing a little research I discovered that both sentiments are true.

              The owner of lullubee.com, a website that sells craft making kits wrote a series of articles for Forbes about being a start-up company and the mistakes they made involving social media. He says that his biggest mistake with Facebook was not realizing that what they posted wasn’t even being seen by those how had liked their page. They worked hard to build a Facebook Business page then they noticed that only a small percentage of their followers were seeing their content. They found that you have to pay to reach your own followers, which essentially takes away any organic reach you might have had. They said that they started by paying because they figured that they were working to get leads for their website and my favorite quote “The irony of spending money to promote our Facebook page instead of our site was not lost on us.” Eventually they learned that the traffic they were getting to their website from Facebook meant they were paying anywhere from $6-12 per click which isn’t viable for a small business start-up. So they found that for them having a Facebook page was only as good as having a social media presence but was not a place to spend their advertising money.

              On the flip side there are small businesses that have found great success with social media marketing. According to Susan Friesen, a founder of a digital marketing firm there are benefits to social media marketing that don’t necessarily require you to pay for marketing. She provides some ideas of things that social media can do for a small business that you can’t do anywhere else really. You can build relationships with people in your industry, out of your industry, customers, and potential customers all around the world all for free. You don’t have to pay to interact with prospects and social media provides a great base for that. You can also show your customer service acumen through social media platforms. Quick responses, helpful comments and consistency can all show potential customers your worth. Friesen points out that there is still a cost to this type of exposure through social media, it requires time and a lot of it.

              What I took away from my research into this topic is that having social media platforms as a small business isn’t a bad idea, in fact it can be very helpful, but a small business should not use it as their main source of advertising. A diversified marketing plan is always a better answer and using social media as a part of that plan can reap great benefits. 

Social Media Case Reflection 2

           Viral videos, we can all name a few, or even better reenact some of the most viewed videos of our time. In the beginnings of YouTube and social media the formula for viral videos was elusive, they ranged from a panda sneezing to news interviews gone hilariously wrong. Now we see companies who entire basis is creating viral content and they have a “formula” for what a video should have to make it viral and business can be built in one day with a viral video. One of the first groups to tap into the idea of consistent viral videos was the band OK Go which found YouTube stardom with their first music video, then their second, and then their third. They seemed to tap into the formula that was needed to make a video go viral and they were doing well. They went from a garage band to a household name within a matter of days thanks to YouTube. So when they released a new video in November of 2016 but chose to release it somewhere that was not YouTube, people were confused even a little miffed.

              As a nod to their beginnings shouldn’t OK Go stuck with the platform that started it all for them? The answer is a resounding no. Anyone with any business and marketing acumen can tell you that what worked for you once isn’t going to be the answer forever and the companies that have lasted the test of time have done so because they have been able to adapt to changing technology and marketing strategies. Do you think that Macy’s Department store, founded in 1830, would still be around if they were using the same marketing strategies that worked in 1830 now? A couple well-placed billboards, printed posters in restaurant. Every business has to evolve with technology if they want to survive and in 2017 that means using social media in your marketing and advertising.

              So back to OK Go’s decision to release on Facebook instead of YouTube. Both are influential social media platforms, both have huge following and potential viewership in the millions, so why was Facebook the smart move. According to http://www.epica-awards.com/news/723 Dmitry Tutkov, owner of the Russian Agency who produced the video,

              “Logically we should have released it on YouTube, because that’s what everyone does, but we needed to make it viral. The solution was Facebook, because on YouTube you can’t share very easily – you have to copy a link. On Facebook, you just click ‘share’. So the Facebook model is ideal for viral videos. From this experience we realized that videos get traction much more quickly on social media than on a video hosting website.”

The idea that a video can be shared so easily on Facebook was a huge draw for OK Go and Tutkov’s agency. Tutkov was approached by the Russian Airline S7 to produce a marketing video for them and he presented the idea of doing a music video in one of their planes. They contacted OK Go and the rest you can say is history. S7 Airlines supplied the crew and the airplane for the shoot as well as financial backing for the video in hopes that they would see an increase in sales from the video. Here is where things get a little messy. OK Go made their plans to debut exclusively on Facebook for a 48 hour period and S7 released a copy of the video on their YouTube page before the Facebook debut, quickly the video was removed and viewers were greeted with a copyright message. The video was then released exclusively to Facebook and eventually added to both OK Go’s and S7’s YouTube pages.

              The question remains was S7 outside of their legal and ethical limits posting the video to their YouTube channel. Without knowing what sort of contract was involved I can’t say for sure but according to the US Constitution Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 if OK Go was hired to be in the video for advertising purposes S& Airlines would own the copyright to the video. I am going to assume that this is not the case and that this was merely a sponsorship, not a work for hire. If this is the case according to that same clause in the Constitution OK Go and S7 Airlines produced a joint wok and S7 Airlines would then be “co-owners of a single copyright in the work,” giving them every right to post the video on their own YouTube channel.

              Obviously there is too much information that I couldn’t find to really make an accurate determination. There is a possibility that there was a contract in place giving OK Go sole ownership of the video, or placing sharing restriction on S7 Airlines but if there wasn’t then S7 airlines didn’t do anything wrong legally speaking.

http://www.ibtimes.com/heres-why-ok-go-just-broke-youtube-2305476

http://www.theroguemag.com/features/ok-go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Authorship.2C_Ownership.2C_and_Work_for_Hire