As an influential celebrity on the go, you've heard about Twitter, and your handlers are always telling you about what it can do for your brand. But what are you supposed to tweet about? And what happens if a normal tweets at you? Enter Engage, a new standalone app for influential Twitter users that takes some of the guesswork out of Twitter.
The app, which is available today on iOS, is designed to help famous people interact with their fans and build a bigger following. The app includes three main tabs. Engage highlights the most important interactions you've had on Twitter, and includes mentions from users who are verified, followed by a lot of your followers, or interact with you a lot. An "understand" tab shows you high-level analytics for your posts, showing you how many impressions you're getting over time. And the "posts" tab shows you detailed performance numbers for individual posts.
One thing Engage doesn't have: a timeline. Engage is for the celebrity who sees the value in tweeting, but would rather not pay attention to the broader conversation in the global town square. If reading Twitter makes you upset, but you still want to be able to broadcast the details of your latest juice cleanse, Engage may be the app for you.
Engage seems to be modeled on Facebook Mentions, a two-year-old app that helps celebrities find posts that are talking about them. It differs from Engage in two significant ways. Mentions requires a verified Facebook account to use, whereas Engage will be available to all Twitter users. And while Facebook's version looks more or less like the flagship app with a special section added for monitoring mentions of your name, Engage is much more focused on analytics.
This story first appeared in The Verge, on June 21, 2016.
June 21, 2016 - Comments Off on How To Brainstorm Like A Googler
This article was written by Veronique Lafargue and was published on Fast Company on June 20, 2016. Veronique Lafargue is the global head of content strategy at Google Apps for Work. Follow her on Twitter at @vlafarg.
Here at Google, we don't have a secret formula for innovation. But that doesn't mean Googlers' best ideas are ineffable mysteries. On the contrary, we've found they can be systematically coaxed into being and steadily improved upon. And so can yours.
BUILDING A BETTER BRAINSTORM
Just about everyone can learn to brainstorm better. After all, it's a process like any other. And the beauty of a process is that it can be taught, learned, and shared. We've distilled our own approach into a set of three basic principles—ideas we believe can be adapted and applied at pretty much any organization, regardless of size or industry.
The way many of us brainstorm often gives the whole experience a bad rap: We typically envision a brainstorming session as an unstructured scene where wild ideas are thrown around in an ad hoc way—where anything goes. But at Google, while we’ve learned that freestyle brainstorming is the basis of innovation, it doesn't turn into substantive action without some structure.
That's why we’ve created a linear process for brainstorming new ideas and turning them into actual products:
Know the user
Think 10x
Prototype
If that looks simple, it is—but you have to execute each step the right way.
1. GET TO KNOW THE USER
To solve a big question, you first have to focus on the user you're solving it for—then everything else will follow. So we go out in the field and talk to people. We collect users' stories, emotions, and ideas. We learn to get comfortable with silence. We watch, listen, and empathize. You can't just understand your users' needs—you need to actually relate to them.
For example, I recently visited our customers in Canada, Brazil, and India. By observing and talking with them, I realized that what we generically call "mobility" means very different things depending on where you are. In Canada, mobility means instant collaboration from your desk, the coffee shop, or your kitchen table. In Brazil, where users spend a lot of time in commute, a great interface and voice control underpin the concept of mobility. In India, where connectivity may be a challenge in some areas, a critical aspect of mobility is working offline.
Obviously, there's no way we could've learned that without making the effort to find it out. And that's something many brainstorming sessions get wrong right off the bat—they get everyone but the user into a room together to start throwing ideas around. But that's actually Step 2, not Step 1.
2. THINK 10X
Being able to describe an idea in less than six words helps you clarify it.
Now that you're armed with information to base your brainstorm around, you can get down to thinking—but not just any thinking. The notion of "10x thinking" is pretty familiar in the business world by now, and it's at the heart of how we innovate at Google. It's about trying to improve something by 10 times rather than by 10%. One example is Project Loon, our initiative for providing internet access to everyone: An incremental solution would be to just install more fibers, whereas a "10x" idea is Project Loon—a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas and help fill the hardest-to-reach gaps in coverage.
Pictures are usually louder than words, and harder to misinterpret.
The next step is to have all participants write down their ideas individually before getting back together as a group and deciding which ones to pursue. Here's the thing to understand before you do that, though: 10x thinking sounds great in theory, but not everyone quite knows how to put it into action. So when team members reconvene with their sticky notes and the most productive part of the brainstorming process kicks into gear, make sure to follow these six guidelines:
Build on each others’ ideas. It's easy to kill an idea, so especially in the early stages, systematically follow up ideas with, "yes, and" instead of shooting them down with "no, but" comments.
Generate lots of ideas. At this point quantity is more important than quality, so really let loose. Time to grab a pile of sticky notes or your favorite note-taking app. The best way to have a great idea is to have many ideas.
Write headlines. Being able to describe an idea in less than six words helps you clarify it. Imagine your favorite media outlet or magazine covers your great idea: What would you want the headline to read?
Illustrate. Pictures are usually louder than words and harder to misinterpret.
Think big. Invite bold, intrepid ideas—yes, this is the "10x" part—not incremental solutions. As Frederik Pferdt, Google's head of innovation and creativity, likes to say, "Just beyond crazy is fabulous!"
Defer judgment. Don’t judge ideas in the midst of brainstorming (remember Rule #1) but let them grow so you can build on them and iterate.
Googlers brainstorming during a Creative Skills for Innovation Lab at Google Garage
3. PROTOTYPE
Then it's time to take action. Most brainstorming sessions end with an agreement to have another meeting later, to take those ideas and work them up further. It's a common mistake. You want to strike when the iron is hot—you don't want to walk away or agree to follow talk with more talk.
Here at Google, we like to build a quick prototype pretty much right away. It doesn't have to be perfect, just a physical manifestation of an idea that's designed strictly to answer the most immediate questions and test our first assumptions about an idea that seems promising.
When it comes to details, we've found we can always fake it, so as much as possible, we like to actually make it. When you can hold your ideas in your hands, you can start to test and learn from them.
NOW WATCH THESE GOOGLERS BRAINSTORM
At the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, the Google Garage is a shared space where people can go and experiment, using anything from scrap materials to 3-D printers. We also host some of our Creative Skills for Innovation Labs in this space.
So we decided to offer a virtual-reality glimpse inside our creative process. All you need is your phone and Google Cardboard—or any other VR gear—for this immersive experience. But if you don’t have access to those devices, your desktop and a mouse with YouTube 360 will do just fine.
June 17, 2016 - Comments Off on Return On Experience: The New Acid Test
Come month-end, the minions in ad agencies are busy churning out monthly reports – how much money was spent, how many checked out the website, how many fans were garnered on the Facebook page, how many Instagrammers interacted with the video that was put out, how many came back after a purchase and said “OMG! I really love how comfortable your jeans are,” so on and so forth. This happens in agencies that are blessed with clients who think that there are other things probably as important, if not more, than how much money they made. When speaking to a traditionalist, you will be asked what the expectation is in terms of the actual conversion of investment of marketing dollars. In other words, “How many did we sell?”
In typical MBA lingo, this is the definition of ROI – Return on Investment. Some people still believe that this is the best and the only way to measure the success of their marketing efforts. To those of you who do, well, congratulations on mastering the art of time travel!
But seriously, it’s time we all knew that there is something more than earning back our marketing investment. There are so many intangibles we draw out of a campaign that just looking at the moolah you earn will not cut it. People remember you for how you made them feel, the experience they had while being engaged with you. They might find another store that sells better products, but prefer the way you treated them and ultimately let you have the honor of their purchase. Brands that were focusing on ROI are now realizing the importance of ROE - Return on Experience.
Let’s face it. Consumers are smarter now, thanks to all the social media buzz, the hazaar apps, and the websites that keep them well-informed about everything under the sun and ensure they are not fooled easily. Your one single campaign may or may not push them to go and pick up something that they probably did not need in their closet or kitchen. Think. Every time Paperboat puts up a post which takes me back years and jolts me to tears, I will not be like “Oh! Let me go have a Paperboat now because they do such a good job on social media!” But I might be more inclined towards pushing it up the list in my consideration set when I do feel like having a fruit juice. Checking out the Myntra app has almost become a hobby now; part work, part guilty pleasure. I love the user experience this app provides me with. But I don’t decide to pick something up by just seeing an app notification about a sale. But it still is something that’s become my go-to for queries on fashion and trends, because they take the pain to curate better than most portals do. My top-of-mind recall of Myntra will definitely be better when I have to buy something online and the other sites won’t even feature in my radar!
Coke's fist-bump ad kinda puts the brand smack in the middle of its target demographic.
Let’s look at another brand which comes up brilliant campaigns using great insights – Dove. Remember Dove Real Beauty Sketches? Remember how it tugged at our heartstrings and made us think a little more deeply about what the brand has been trying to tell us since the launch of their over-arching campaign Real Beauty? What it ended up doing for the brand was immense. 8 million views from TrueView alone (which lets users choose whether they wish to watch the video or not, thereby ensuring that only engaged users are reached), 4.6 billion PR and blogger media impressions and a reach of 1 in 10 FB users world over – these are numbers that cannot be taken lightly, especially at a time when paid media wasn’t ruling our lives like it is now! As Mike Byrne, founding partner, Anomaly, rightly puts it, “This took a lot of guts. Elegantly crafted. The campaign made so many women feel better about themselves. That’s priceless.”
Well, people had to, in some way become a part of the brand story, and there is evidence to suggest that they bought Dove products not because of a new formula that made the product better, but because they genuinely felt connected with what the brand spoke about and how it made them feel! [source]
So the acid test of a marketing campaign, which most companies have begun to realize, is that not all campaigns will result in sales or ROI. Few of them will help deepen that connect between the customer and the brand and these are the hardest to push for. But going by the recent trends in marketing, as long as the brand is able to occupy a positive association in the customer’s mind by creating a favorable experience, you have understood the new golden rule. Constantly creating such experiences and nurturing this relationship will go a long way in building loyalty as opposed to an “I saw, I bought, I forgot” situation.
June 14, 2016 - Comments Off on What Microsoft’s $26b LinkedIn Purchase Might Mean To You & Me
Okay, so the shock has subsided, and the news has sunk in. Microsoft, under Satya Nadella's seemingly able (albeit radial, in some circles) leadership just went shopping and bought LinkedIn for $26 billion in an all-cash deal.
(L-R) LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Mirosoft CEO Satya Nadella & LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman. Photo Credit: Microsoft
While many may think that this was something expected, others may laugh at this move because Microsoft had an opportunity to buy LinkedIn for way cheaper in the past (Ouch!), a few others may try to convince themselves that this is the beginning of the end for two major brands that may be in the last decades of their lives. Personally, I see this differently. I think it's a wonderful move, and something that's bound to make my life and your life so much cooler in the years to come. If they play this right. After all, this isn't Microsoft's first purchase in the social media space. Microsoft bought enterprise social-networking vendor Yammer for $1.2 billion in 2012, and since then has ended up cribbing a number of Yammer technologies in its own Office 365 service. Yammer is one of a number of overlapping technologies from Microsoft that is part of its social-networking portfolio. [source]
Microsoft is ubiquitous in my life - both personal and professional. Though I only trust Microsoft in their mobility game as far as I can throw a Windows phone, I absolutely love their desktop and cloud game. I may be stirring a hornet's nest here, but I love Windows 10. For someone who's grown up with Windows right from the time I could draw a cloud and an ugly flower on MS Paint running on Win 98, this current version of Windows is the culmination of all those years of pain and frustration. A right-click-and-refresh is still the cheapest, most easily available therapy for a tired brain. Cortana is still growing up, but she's getting there. And she's better than Siri. Period.
The most stable and most aesthetically pleasing version of the most used operating system in the world has now become the one with the most potential. What I see happening with the LinkedIn acquisition is simple: my Windows experience is going to go through the roof. Here are some things I hope will happen, and if the rumors are true, I may be on to something.
A More Powerful Search Bar
The current search on Windows 10 is pretty cool - it lets you search both internally and externally for whatever you're looking for - a feature that's a spillover from Microsoft's tentative foray into mobility and more prominently, Surface. Imagine a version of Windows where this search is merged with LinkedIn's Job Search, Company Search, and People Search features. Even if it's only the Job Search, this may well put job search engines like Naukri and Monster in jeopardy.
Seamless Connectivity
And I don't mean connecting to the internet. You connections on LinkedIn will now be available to you on Outlook, and in your Contacts. Your Outlook calendar will now be seamlessly integrated with your LinkedIn connections, and keeping in touch with them will be that much more easier.
The Rise Of Bing
Bing, which has been struggling to find a reason to exist, may now get resurrected to specialize in professional search than continue to fight a losing battle against Google. This will certainly be good news, especially to SEM advertisers who can now stop pulling their hair out in frustration.
These are the three major upgrades that I am hoping for. There's a lot of discussion online about what direction Microsoft's business is going in after this deal, and what it intends to do with career graphs of a hundred million professionals, but not many people are focusing on the user experience implications of this deal. Nadella has proved in the past that his main job will be to make the Windows experience spectacular, and this may certainly turn out to be a rabbit out of the hat.
What do you think of this deal? Rich people getting richer? Or do you foresee (or hope for) a better version of the internet? Let me know in the comments.
