One of the most integral aspects of technology, and often the most underappreciated, is the design of the technology itself. User experience design (UX) and user interface design (UI) are the unsung heroes of much of our technological landscape. (Editor’s note: UX and UI are two different things! UX is not UI.) Every gadget encountered on a day-to-day basis has most likely undergone extensive market research informing its very development, a lengthy design phase, rigorous testing, and hours and hours of brain power from numerous teams of very smart people solving complex challenges.

That’s why when you scroll through a menu on your smartphone absentmindedly, you’re not paying attention to the ease at which this happens, you’re focused on executing whatever task just flitted across your internal to-do list. The fact the physical technology operates intuitively and in sync with how we process and sort information is not a coincidence. That’s just intelligent design at work.

So does this essentially mean as we grow more high-tech as a society or culture we are in fact humanizing technology? This is a fascinating and oft discussed arena of dialogue; here are a few interesting examples of technology mimicking human processes to help you make up your mind.

1. Augmented Reality

Attention cyborgs: now is your time. The eerily futuristic Google Glass head-mounted display sounds like something from a William Gibson novel but it’s actually not. It’s a real thing and you can even sign up for priority access although the price point is probably nothing to sneeze at. Wearable technology is not a new concept, but you know when Google decides to do it it’s going to be good. Google Glass allows users to take photos, capture video, retrieve information, communicate, find directions, translate, etc. hands-free. The promotional video features people skydiving, travelling in foreign countries and sharing special moments all facilitated by augmented reality. The less physical capital needed to make these digital transactions, the more “human” the technology becomes. It’s literally one step closer to actually becoming a part of you.

2. Eye-Recognition Technology

When your device can actually tell whether you’re looking at it or not and where your eye is on the screen—weird or awesome? Whatever it is, it’s already happening so buckle up for the next phase of mobile. Iris recognition is a form of biometrics and is clearly useful for security purposes yet equally advantageous for technology development; it is also a potential boon for marketers seeking the next level of how to connect with their customer. LG Optimus G Pro was slated to be the first to launch a smartphone boasting the technology but the company is now embroiled in a patent dispute with Samsung.

3. Conversational UI

Let’s face it, voice commands could use a bit of an overhaul for most interfaces. It can be a little difficult making commander-like requests out loud without other people around you giving you the circumspect side eye. One interesting concept that could be making its way to a device near you is the idea of a conversational user interface. What does that mean? It means being able to speak to your gadgets in a way more akin to how we interact with each other every day. A more natural-sounding conversational UI would continue to modernize our relationship with technology and how we interact with it—without running the risk of sounding like we are a new member of the Starship Enterprise.

Technology is often at its best when it can enhance or leverage natural processes. What new ways do you see technology becoming more human?

The post 3 Ways Technology is Becoming More Human appeared first on engageQ digital.

S – Speak Like a Human

Organizations have a bad habit of communicating with people as if they were, well, organizations. They speak in grand tones of “we” and “us” — trying very hard to avoid admitting that an actual human being (“I” and “me”) wrote the text. Words like “we” and “us” serve only to distance yourself from your correspondent and, in a crisis situation, this is the last thing you want to do. Rather, you want people to identify with you and feel like you’re both “in it together.”

Speaking like a human is all about tone. Remember, these are social networks — so your tone should be social in nature.

Imagine your Twitter monitoring tool (you do have one, right?) picks up someone who tweets this:

What horrible service I just got at Fake Garage Inc. Mechanic totally tried to screw me over and bill me three times what that battery costs!

Before social networks, if you got this in the form of a mailed letter, you might have responded with an organizational voice:

We’re sorry to hear of the issues you’re having. Thank you for letting us know.

It’s sounds trite and one almost expects to see a filename at the bottom, giving away the fact that someone at your firm just copied-and-pasted from a form letter:

C:\TEMPLATES\GOAWAY.DOC

Classy.

Instead, you should speak with your own, human voice. Display the emotions that a normal human would. If instead you didn’t, in fact, work for Fake Garage Inc., and this person was a friend of yours, telling you this story, you certainly wouldn’t say:

Gee David, this is something which is very unfortunate. I trust that the matter will be resolved in an expeditious manner. Thank you for telling me the details of this experience you had.

No, you’d probably express some degree of surprise, empathy, and concern for your friend’s feelings. Just because you work for Fake Tires Inc. doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respond like you would face-to-face.

A good Twitter response might be:

Yikes — I’m so sorry to hear this happened. That certainly isn’t the kind of service we strive for. Pls DM me. I’ll follow up directly. ^Tod

Even though this is only 140 characters (the maximum message length on Twitter), there’s a lot going on here. Let’s break this response down.

• Yikes
  There’s no “yikes” in the corporate dictionary, and that’s precisely why you should use it, or something like it. Think honestly about what your natural reaction was to that tweet. What did your inner voice say? It probably said “Yikes” or “Oh no” or “Eeegads.” Those are the very words you should use. It shows that you’re a real person with real feelings too. In my experience, an honest starter-word like this has been able to de-escalate the issue by itself.
  .
• I’m so sorry to hear this happened.
  It’s okay to apologize. In my own work on client accounts, I make a point to add the word “so” in that sentence. Somehow, it adds an extra layer of honesty. Again, an organization might say “We’re sorry,” but only a human would say “I’m so sorry.” As well, there is a pervasive myth in the corporate world that suggests that if you apologize you are now somehow legally liable. It’s not true. You can feel sorry that someone had a bad experience. That doesn’t mean you have to comp them their entire car repair bill.
  .
• That certainly isn’t the service we strive for.
  Remember that in a public tweet conversation, it’s not just you and the person who’s angry who are seeing these messages — anyone who follows both your account and the angry person’s account will see this. An example: In addition to a bunch of friends, I follow my local cable company’s tech support Twitter account (@shawhelp). At least once or twice a month, I’ll see in my Twitter stream a friend having problems with their account or service. How they treat my friend is important to me and may change my opinion of them when it comes time to renew my service.
  .
• Please DM me.
  In Twitterspeak, this means to send a private message. As we’ll discuss later, you will want to take this discussion offline as fast as you can. Acknowledge the message, thank the person, apologize if necessary, and move the discussion behind closed virtual doors. This will then keep the discussion off the Twitter stream of those who follow both you and your correspondent.
  .
• I’ll follow up directly.
  This might be the most important part of the message — you, personally, are making a direct commitment. This is a much stronger statement than “We will follow up,” which, frankly, nobody believes. Think about it: If you got a letter back from a company saying “We will look into the matter,” do you really expect they will? Probably not. But again, by using first-person pronouns (“I,” in this case), you reinforce the fact that there’s a human being behind your tweet and that you will look into it.
  .
• ^Tod
  This caret symbol (^) is a Twitter convention that identifies the person typing. If you work for a large organization, you might be using this. In most cases I’ve seen, the convention has been to use initials, like ^TM. I strongly recommend you use a real first name since it’s easier for people to identify with a name than a set of initials. This also reinforces the commitment you made earlier. Some organizations set up a Twitter account for each individual person — like Canadian mobile phone provider Fido. In such a case, using the caret convention is unnecessary.

In the early 2000s, tech enthusiast Robert Scoble was a frequent contributor to some online support groups of Microsoft software. During that time, he blogged about Microsoft — sometimes good coverage, sometimes critical. Either way, his contributions proved so valuable, Microsoft hired him to, essentially, continue blogging and producing short video pieces as he ordinarily did. His posts didn’t go through a legal committee or a review board — they went right up on Microsoft’s site.

And he was still occasionally critical of Microsoft. In that way, he had earned the unofficial title of Chief Humanizing Officer. He put a human face on Microsoft because he was allowed to speak as a real person. Bill Gates couldn’t — he had shareholders and regulatory obligations. Scoble could because he was just a regular workerbee.

Speak with a human voice and you’ll be half the way there.

There is actually a second important “S” as well — and that’s to Size Up the commenter. By checking a user’s Klout score or finding out how many Facebook friends they have, you’ll have a rudimentary sense of the impact their words. Someone with a Klout score of 65 or higher could create enough buzz to cause additional damage, as their original post gets amplified by their followers. This isn’t to suggest you should only respond to the high-impact people — far from it — but if you have a number of comments to respond to with limited time, a simple triage like determining their rough influence level might help you prioritize your response.

W – Win/Win

“Stand up!” squealed the leader at the conference I was attending. “And find a partner.”

I cringed. Honestly, as a participant, I prefer zero interaction with others in the room. I’d much rather just absorb information from the speaker than participate in any ice-breaking exercises. It’s not that I’m anti-social; I just learn best on my own. Perhaps it’s my only-child tendencies coming out.

But everyone stood up. An over-caffeinated woman in her 20s bounced up to me. “Hey — You can be my partner! We’ll win this thing, whatever it is.”

The session leader explained the rules. “Hold your palms up against each other.” My partner jabbed her hands at me. I reciprocated. “Now then. I’m going to start a timer for 20 seconds. Whoever can get their partner to move their feet, wins.” His timer beeped, and my perky friend began pushing at my hands, trying to throw me off balance. I tried the same, in some kind of bizarre corporate-approved arm wrestle. Neither of us moved our feet and the timer went off.

“Stop!”

“So, how many of you employed the brute-force method of just pushing as hard as you could?” A few hands raised. “How many of you relaxed your arms, so your partner would fall into you, causing their feet to move?” A few snickers, and more hands.

“And how many of you BOTH won?”

Confused silence filled the room. “Did any of you agree to BOTH move your feet so you would both win?”

A fellow in the back yelled out “You said the first person who moved their feet lost.”

“No I didn’t. I said ‘Whoever can get their partner to move their feet, wins’. There’s no reason why you both couldn’t have won if you’d just agreed to both move your feet.”

Not Everybody Has to Lose

Sometimes we forget that just because one person wins doesn’t mean the other person has to lose. With just a little bit of thought, it’s not difficult to construct a scenario where both people win.

People will complain on your social media channels because they want something to change — better quality service on their next visit, a cheaper rate, and so on. One way to help knock down an angry swarm is to give them something more than just a response.

Give them a “win.”

You don’t need to overthink this. Wins can be simple — a promise to check back with them to see if something they were complaining about has improved.

My company works with a number of shopping centres to help them manage their social media channels. One day, one of the centres’ Facebook Pages we moderate started to blow up. A visitor had posted a complaint about the in-mall kiosk vendors. These vendors sell everything from cell phone covers to makeup to inexpensive jewelry. Apparently, some of the vendors can be quite aggressive in their sales approach — even as far as grabbing passers-by by their arm to try to pull them over to their kiosks.
The visitor complained about the aggressive kiosk people and her comment got an enormous amount of traffic — dozens of comments and Likes a minute in the opening salvos.

My approach to responding was thee-fold: (1) Acknowledge the comments; (2) promise to look into it: and, (3) report back the next morning on what happened.

Of course, the comments kept coming (some people hadn’t seen my post) so every dozen or so comments, I — posting as the shopping centre’s brand — would dive into the comments with, essentially, the same message but worded differently.

I tagged the major combatants so that they’d get notified that a response had been posted. Then I’d wait for another dozen to come in and post essentially the same thing, again, using different phrasing.

As soon as I started with this approach, comments died down almost instantly. People felt they were being listened to which is half the reason they posted. It impressed them even more because this was taking place in the evening, outside of business hours.

The next morning, mall management spoke to the kiosk vendors, gave them another copy of the selling guidelines, and threatened them with fines if more reports of aggressive tactics are reported. Of course, I reported this in the comment stream, to keep people updated:

So the “win” there was that the comments actually resulted in something real happening. Then, I sent a message to about 50 of the most active commenters:

Facebook, unfortunately, lumps all messages from brand pages into a generic “Other Messages” bucket which most people don’t check, so only about 15 people got back to me. Each one was happy to be contacted later. I filed their email addresses away and reached out to them a couple of months later to see if things had gotten any better. Indeed, even just responding generated a wealth of positive sentiment.

Finding the right “win” is critical to a successful negative response. In this case, the “Win” people got was being listened to, kept updated, and had someone follow up with them to see if the situation had improved.

Done right, when they win, you win.

A – Avoid a Public Fight

Perhaps the biggest mistake I see organizations make online is they engage in a conversation about an issue in the public channel — whether that’s a blog, Facebook Page, Twitter account, or somewhere else.

Once you identify an issue and reach out to the combatant (for lack of a better term), you should take the issue “offline.”

There are lots of ways to do this, but the simplest is to ask the person to email you the details.

• If the issue shows up on Twitter, ask them to follow your brand account so you can DM them your direct email address, then continue the conversation there.
• If the issue shows up on Facebook, ask them to send you a private message to your brand page, then continue the conversation there.
• If the issue shoes up on your blog, ask them to send you an email, then continue the conversation there.

Here’s a great example of a tweet that employed the ‘A‘ brilliantly:

This rep used the tweeter’s first name, expressed concern, then moved the conversation offline.

Never, ever have a public fight in full view of the rest of the swarm.

Remember, during an attack (even one which is only a simple complaint) you have TWO audiences — the person who raised the issue, and everyone else who’s reading. Express concern, tell everyone you’re going to work on the issue, and move the combatant offline.

Have you ever had an email or Twitter fight with a friend? The more you go back-and-forth, the more the usually-tiny-issue escalates and before you know it, you’re not speaking to each other for a year. This is the nature of a tit-for-tat discussion — you will never, ever win.

Acknowledge the issue and move it offline.

R – Right the Wrongs

You may find that in the heat of the moment, people exaggerate the issue. Suddenly, a simple dispute over what they were charged becomes, in their mind, a criminal action where they were billed hundreds of thousands of dollars.

One of the peculiarities of “Digital Personality Disorder” is that combatants believe they won’t get attention without a very serious story. So, they might add details that simply aren’t accurate.

Someone posts this on your Facebook wall:

First, try to calm down the instinctive defensive feeling this creates in you. Think — does this person have a real point? Perhaps that elevator really is, in fact, being jammed up by able-bodied people who could easily take the stairs. Always look for a Win/Win. This might be a great one for you.

But, almost certainly your elevator hasn’t been broken for “half the time,” as this person claims.

(And one more important thing — she’s put #fail in a Facebook post, which could indicate she has also posted this message on her Twitter account, reaching even more people.)

It’s important that you correct the record. Remember, Google has an elephant’s memory. If she had posted this in a blog review, you need to have the accurate information attached to this post, so correcting the records right on that page as a comment is critical. If she posted this on a consumer review site like Yelp, there’s nothing you can do to get her comment removed from your listing.

There is nothing wrong with politely correcting the record, and you should absolutely do it if they have claimed something that isn’t true.
In this case, you might respond something like this:

There is nothing wrong with politely correcting inaccuracies. In fact, you should do it. Just do it in a human, polite tone.

M – Make Friends

The final, and perhaps most important, part of the SWARM Methodology is to turn your combatants into advocates.

In the case of the previous section, when a wheelchair-using guest had issues with mobility in the restaurant, a simple way to make friends is to use her as a kind of informal focus group on access. Always ask permission, though, before this kind of move, but done with tact and a genuine desire to improve, almost nobody will turn you down.

It’s simple to do — you don’t need special mailing list software or web-based bulletin boards. Just create a folder in your email program for each issue and store your new friends’ emails there.

In the case of a restaurant, your issue-based folders could be:

• Better access for wheelchairs (“accessibility”)
• When are we getting gluten-free bread? (“gluten-free”)
• Patio is too noisy (“patio/outdoor”)
• Web site is too hard to order from (“web site”)

Then, once you’ve made some real improvement in these areas, send a single email back to these people (only if they gave you permission to do so when the issue first came up). Remember to speak like a human — me and I, not us and we.

One example email:

The other advantage to making friends in the social channel is that this kind of direct service engenders more than fans — it can create advocates for your brand as well. If you’re attacked online, these people often will rally to your side.

For this reason, you may want to use Twitter’s “lists” function or Google+’s “circles” function to keep a list of your best supporters, along specific topics. Just be sure, if you use a Twitter list, that you set it to Private so others can’t see the people on that list.

(Facebook doesn’t have an easy way for brand pages to deliniate their fans into different groups.)

Here’s a real-world example.

My company, engageQ digital, works with a number of organizations helping them on their social media channels. One of those groups is a large regional shopping centre. One night at about 8pm, a shopper posted this on the centre’s Facebook wall:

This went viral very, very quickly. Within a couple of hours, hundreds of people weighed in through the comments agreeing with this poster. So, seeing it begin to pick up steam, I posted this — under the shopping centre’s brand:

To help ensure the most vocal of commenters would see our reply, I tagged them in the post. We continued to post essentially similar versions of this message through the night, which was received very warmly by people following the post. They appreciated that the brand was listening and responding.

The next morning, I posted this into the comments section of the original post:

And then sent about 50 of the very vocal commenters this Facebook message (from my own personal account, since Facebook doesn’t permit Pages to send messages:

Since I wasn’t “Facebook-Friends” with any of these 50 people, my message landed in their “Other” inbox, which many people don’t see. About 15 people saw the message and responded with their regular email address (this way, we didn’t need to get blocked by Facebook’s “Other” inbox or ask them to become friends with me).

Three months later, I emailed them this:

About 10 people responded and — yay! — the kiosks were indeed better. This simple rating scale gave a more objective average of opinions for the mall’s management team plus it offered the opportunity for people to add qualitative comments.

The people who responded really appreciate this extra effort:

It doesn’t take much time, but it’s important.

Want More?

This is a small part of engageQ president Tod Maffin’s keynote presentation “The Facts of Strife: A Blueprint to Crisis Management Online.” In the presentation, your group will also learn:

• Tod’s company’s highly effective PEDB (Praise/Escalate/Delete/Ban) flow-strategy for managing your brand’s social media presence
• How to create a Negative Response Strategy for your firm
• The most effective, compliance-safe social media policies for employees
• How one of the most talked-about social media campaigns ended up nearly destroying its brand
• Tod’s model of a “web swarm,” and his five-step methodology for responding to a swarm
• How your legal and marketing teams should deal when your brand falls victim to “Twitterjacking“
• Case studies of instances where organizations in your industry have faced attacks online, how they dealt with them, and the results
• Why your organization’s next hire needs to be a Chief Humanizing Officer and what that role would entail
• How to monitor the state of your brand’s reputation daily, with almost no technical expertise

Here is more information about the presentation or you can inquire about Tod presenting it to your group.

The post Our SWARM Methodology for Negative Feedback Response appeared first on engageQ digital.

Retailers know the drill—January rolls around and so do all those credit card statements from the previous month of spending in the holiday spirit. Months following the holidays can be a notoriously lacklustre time for sales, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re thinking of hosting a contest, January can be a great time to launch it as people tend to stick closer to home during the winter months, especially in places where temperatures drop, and you have a good shot of getting their attention.

Not every contest is built equal. While we enter contests in hopes of “winning” a desirable prize, most people don’t have too much time to spend seeking them or entering them, and there are definitely ways of deterring people from participating altogether.

Here are four ways to ensure your contest meets your end goals, whether it be to grow your followers and/or fanbase, promote a new product or boost your overall visibility online. Keep in mind the examples we use here mostly exemplify all four traits!

1. Make it Fun
Fun = engaging, interesting and compelling. Without these elements, people are not going to participate. Four Seasons had the right idea with their #UncoverToronto Instagram Contest where entrants submitted shots they took from around the city. What could be more fun than playing tourist in one’s own city and capturing what makes it so unique? Including an element that makes the contest inherently fun, people don’t care so much about actually winning, they just want to get involved and spread the good word.

2. Make it Easy
A super long list of rules and regs prominent in one of the main promotional pieces? Fail. Complicated procedure for entering? Confusing rules? Alienating terms and conditions? Fail, fail, fail! Of course, any contest executed via your social channels has to have rules and regulations but you want to tuck that information somewhere that’s not going to kill the mood before the potential entrant has even considered entering, such as a link tidily nestled on your homepage. In other words, the more intimidating copy you have up front and centre, the less likely people will feel comfortable entering.

3. Make it Visually Appealing
This might seem like a no-brainer, but trust us, there is a LOT of scary-looking marketing out there! Don’t be a victim. If you don’t have an in-house designer or an agency that handles the design work for you, don’t “DIY” unless you’re an experienced professional! People can tell.

We love these graphics from Project Decor’s Invite a Friend Contest – extra points for putting up a YouTube vid to explain the contest rules! The graphics are snappy, informative and eye-catching. A winning combination!

4. Make it Brand Appropriate
Your contest must take into consideration your existing brand identity and brand ethos. If not, it’s going to look extremely disconnected from your other marketing efforts and not translate properly with your intended audience. Ensure your contest speaks to your main demographic and incorporates what resonates with them. If the contest is “too old”, “too young” or the prizing doesn’t correlate with your audience’s tastes, the contest is not going to be as successful.

Roxy nails it with their current contest, for example. Known for it’s surf and snowboard gear for girls and young women, this contest basically couldn’t be any more perfect. The breezy design speaks to its younger audience and the contest itself is based on an Outdoor Fitness Adventure.

So there you have it! Four ways to help make your social contest a success. Have you ever launched a contest through your social channels? What might you do differently next time?

The post 4 Tips for Running a Successful Contest On Social appeared first on engageQ digital.

The finance industry, while it is a heavily client-based sector, it is also notoriously private, conservative and wary. And for good reason — there’s a lot of confidential information passing through its heavily guarded gateways on a daily basis and no one would be a fan of their bank behaving in an overly flamboyant way on Twitter. It would probably be a bit off-putting, not to mention highly questionable from a business standpoint. While most people enjoy some good lighthearted fun now and again, we do expect the institutions we entrust with our hard-earned cash to err a little more on the side of caution than frivolity. Then how do you do social if you’re in the finance industry? Overly corporate, stuffy and cold generally doesn’t translate in the digital space, which tends to favour openness, accountability and authentic interaction. Putting some fun in the mix while keeping a professional demeanour at the same time can help. Here are some of our favourite examples of financial services firms doing social right.

1. ING DIRECT
From their highly recognizable orange branding to their offbeat yet informative tone, we love what ING is doing with their social and overall branding and communications strategy. ING proves saving doesn’t have to be a yawn-inducing chore…in fact, they make it look like a lot of fun! Here’s where things really get genius — their #orangescarf concept not only combines real-world participation blended with digital engagement, it also incorporates photos directly from customers (Facebook shows photos more than any other type of post on news feeds), and a very clever promotional tie-in that is totally on-brand and useful at the same time — who doesn’t like scarves? Customers can receive one of 365 orange ING scarves produced every year for participating with ING’s social channels. Users then can tweet their photos to ING wearing their scarves which symbolizes not only brand affinity but that ING is building a loyal, engaged community in its own right.

2. TD Canada Trust
On a recent trip to New York, I was surprised to see the familiar green and white TD logo saturating the city in ads on the subway and transit shelters and affixed to buildings just like any major city in Canada. If TD is looking to make their customers feel comfortable in just about every capacity possible, they’re doing a great job, including their approach to digital.

TD’s social channels have fantastic followings and their content is a great mix of fun, branded and informative. Sometimes they’re asking a question related to taste or current events, other times they’re posting about how Canadians are saving for their RSP’s. They are responsive and retweet cute compliments from their customers as well as respond to complaints. Since this is such a big organization, they have a whole team managing their social accounts, which is identified on their Twitter page, although it looks as though recent posts aren’t being initialled by the individual responding/posting:

3. Farmers’
Insurance companies can be hard to humanize in a social context but this is one company that’s literally showing the others who’s boss in this domain. From a straightforward quote generator right on their web site’s splash page to a fantastic app concept, Farmers’ knows what its doing and it shows.

People are into caring and nice gestures. Posts like this are PHENOMENAL when it comes to social! Check out the virality on this post (how shareable its content is) — 108 people shared this to their personal timeline, amplifying Farmers’ marketing message verbatim.

Farmers’ also offers live advice directly through its Facebook page which is strongly beneficial to their customers. It really feels like this company is paying attention to what its customers want and that really pays off.

Have you noticed a financial institution going above and beyond your expectations when it comes to how they are using social media? Does your bank or insurance company measure up?

The post Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Three Great Examples of Finance Doing Social Right appeared first on engageQ digital.

What continues to transgress cultural, linguistic and geographic boundaries in the digital age?

The answer is simple: imagery.

To this day, nothing else generates as powerful a response as the almighty photo and visual imagery in general, including memes. Although technology is constantly changing, our core traits as human beings remain the same. We want to connect with each other, share our experiences, empathize and communicate. We want to laugh, be inspired, encourage one another and know other people might be experiencing the same fears, struggles and disappointments as we are.

In short, we want to relate.

A photo can convey all these sentiments and more in a way words alone are simply unable to do.

Bookmarking in a digital context can be understood as anything that allows a user to quite literally “bookmark” or reference a page for safekeeping and future access. Visual bookmarking, by this definition, is the practice of bookmarking visual content. This is handy for a number of reasons — with the information age well underway, there is more content online than ever before and it can be a lot to sift through, even for the most seasoned surfer. When you do come across something meaningful, relevant, important, inspiring or beneficial online, you might want to keep track of it somehow. It’s a way of keeping something that is essentially intangible.

Digital practices known as curation and aggregation have been taking shape for a number of years and are now becoming increasingly de rigeur as new tools keep cropping up to make these practices accessible to mass users. Check out what David Galbraith has to say about visual/social bookmarking; he knows a lot about it as he came up with the concept behind Pinterest.

Social networks are keenly aware of the strong power images hold and most of them have integrated ways to incorporate this content into their very infrastructure in deeper ways.

• Facebook’s revamping in March 2012 which saw a redesign that rendered images and video much more prominent in both timelines and within the site’s overall content hierarchy
• Twitter boasts numerous third party apps that host photos as well as its own native photo hosting
• Instagram is a social network that revolves solely around photo-sharing, we talk about how to incorporate it into your online presence in a previous post
• Pinterest, so far, has been the ultimate visual bookmarking mecca. The fact that photos are the most popular content in 2012 has not gone unnoticed
• Even Microsoft is getting on board with its new network Socl, which has just launched after a year in beta. Socl, pronounced “social”, emphasizes its focus on rich visual collages sorted by interest and is powered by Microsoft search engine Bing.

The internet has proven that not all social networks live forever—ahem, MySpace, Friendster…remember them? But one thing is certain: a photo can last forever, even in cyberspace, not to mention permanently in one’s memory once exposed to it.

Have you started experimenting with visual bookmarking?

The post Take a Picture, it Lasts Longer: The Power of Visual Bookmarking appeared first on engageQ digital.

“Live-tweeting” is a term you may or may not have come into contact with depending on your familiarity with Twitter and the ever-evolving trappings of our digital landscape. It essentially means posting live, on-the-fly Twitter updates during, and pertaining to, a specific event, broadcast, or other instance with a specific duration. This can be a TV show, concert, news event, conference, or ad campaign. Some people live-tweet voluntarily for fun and to participate in a broader dialogue taking place; other times the live-tweeting is orchestrated and moderated by an organization or an agency handling a particular event or campaign.

Of course, with such an unbridled form of communication, the implications can be thought-provoking to say the least; take Israel live-tweeting its own offensive into Gaza for example, or reporter Todd Dybas being reprimanded by University of Washington for live-tweeting during a basketball game.

So what are some key things to keep in mind when plotting on how to incorporate live-tweeting into your particular event or initiative? Read on!

What Do You Want to Achieve?
Are you trying to get a large group of people to participate in using a certain hashtag during a conference? Are you launching a new product and hoping to get the news circulating? Being clear on your objectives for incorporating live-tweeting will help clarify how you go about deploying it.

Be There
If the event in question is a physical happening versus one taking place strictly online, it might seem obvious but actually be there. It is surprising how many people think they can get away with sending a main contact photos and snippets of what’s taking place but the person in charge of live-tweeting is not going to have the same advantage as being physically present no matter what. If your social media person or whoever is usually in charge of tweeting is unable to make it, choose someone else who is actually at the event. This person should be in charge of posting photos, interacting and guiding the online dialogue. Pro tip: Make sure they can spell!

Hashtag it Up
Hashtags are to live-tweeting what bacon is to a BLT. Without them, the experience is just not the same and it certainly won’t be as memorable. Not every single live-tweet has to include a hashtag but deciding on one and employing it frequently throughout the course of your event is key to spreading the message and event happenings via Twitter. If your event is particularly successful, it might even become a trending topic which is a pretty good metric for virality. Keep your hashtags short and simple – if they are long and convoluted, less space is available for copy which will turn people off participating. Acronyms are great, as are salient, clever keywords that synthesize what the event is about; to use our BLT example again, say the event is about a BLT luncheon—#TastyBacon would be a fun hashtag to use. Short, to-the-point and catchy.

Live-tweeting is a great way to build rapport with your Twitter audience, win new followers and connect likeminded people. It’s a great opportunity to drive conversations and get an unfiltered reaction from eventgoers, stakeholders, participants and viewers, many of whom have Twitter accounts and aren’t afraid to use ‘em. Have you integrated or facilitated live-tweeting for your organization? What was successful and what would you do differently next time?

The post Live-Tweeting 101: Using Twitter in Real Time appeared first on engageQ digital.

Community Management is one of the fastest growing roles in digital — most major brands and organizations now have some form of Social Media or Community Manager at least part-time to help build a solid online presence, respond to customer and client inquiries and build relationships. But how do you know if you’re doing it right? Of course, numbers don’t lie, but successful community management is qualitative as much as quantitative and the quality of content, engagement and conversations taking place on your social channels matter as much as the numbers themselves.
Here are some do’s and don’ts to keep in mind when growing your community:

DO Keep it Real
Automated stream of posts with little to no interaction? Unanswered @ replies on Twitter and questions going ignored on your Facebook brand page? This type of social media behaviour is equivalent to being on autopilot — people can sense it and it’s guaranteed to hurt your following and potential growth. It’s better to tweet a few times per day authentically and interact directly with your audience than to hit the “ON” button and not actually ever be there. Which leads us to the next point…

DON’T Abandon Ship
No matter what happens, nothing looks worse than an abandoned channel. If you have external community management for your brand, say through an agency, ensure you have a plan for if and when the contract ends and access to the channels. If the accounts are associated with something time-sensitive, like a film campaign, make sure you know the time-frame for the promotions before leaving it inactive. Deactivating an account altogether is also an option if something has come to a definite end. Leaving a “ghost” account that hasn’t seen any action for months leaves a worse impression than making it disappear altogether.

DO Be Provocative
Don’t be afraid to push the envelope a little. We’ve found the content that gets the most engagement tends to border on slightly controversial or posts that elicit an emotional reaction, whether positive or negative. This doesn’t mean go super left-field and off-brand — it means take some calculated risks and see what works and what doesn’t for your particular community. A little healthy debate can go a long way! Don’t be afraid to stir the pot a little from time to time.

DON’T Ignore Negative Feedback
Pot-stirring is a lot different from ongoing negative feedback from clients and customers or a potentially detrimental threat such as a mismanaged PR crisis. Have a crisis response strategy in place and know when to escalate content to superiors if things start to get out of control. Identify when an issue is isolated or whether it’s part of a larger, overarching problem that goes beyond what a Community Manager is able to resolve. If people post negative comments, by all means moderate them, but you can’t silence the masses forever as many brands have found out the hard way. Whenever possible, it’s best to respond politely and do your best to turn the negative sentiment around by addressing the complaint or concern and attempting to rectify it.

DO Incentivize Engagement and Participation
People are big fans of contests, deals and promotions – reward your community for its engagement and further encourage it by incentivizing interaction. Anything urging fans and followers to “Like”, “Share” or “RT” for a “chance to win” yields good results as long as the contest speaks to your target demo and is relevant to them. If you really want to get creative, you can even incorporate other platforms such as Instagram or Pinterest and include an image component.

These are just a handful of the main do’s and don’ts for managing your online community. What have you learned along the way?

P.S.! We can help you with your online community — from creating content to engaging with your fans to moderating and protecting your page. See our page at http://www.engageq.com/services/moderation for more information.

The post Community Management Do’s & Don’ts appeared first on engageQ digital.

The 2012 U.S. election confirmed Twitter as a key player in both major candidates’ communication strategies as well as a gauge for overall sentiment amongst Americans, and also worldwide. As Twitter gains further traction as a real-time news platform and social thermometer, it’s no surprise this election set some impressive new records. While Facebook also saw a lot of election action, we chose to hone in on Twitter in particular.

People weren’t just passively following election coverage on TV – they were actively participating in the conversation, disseminating content and interacting with coverage in real time across different social channels. In fact, TV ratings were down from the 2008 election, indicating people were looking elsewhere to get their information fix. The experience of this year’s election was enhanced by the unfiltered, multidirectional flow of information; the top-down, unidirectional flow of traditional mass media has quite literally been turned on its head and will most likely never return. Social media’s potential to democratize was exemplified by this election, people were eager to share their own experiences voting; check out these awesome graphs charting voter hashtags. Voters were readily supplying real-time data that can help interpret campaign success as it takes place – this is pretty powerful stuff from an analytics standpoint.

Twitter clearly knew the power it held during this momentous occasion and tracked sentiment directly on its own site, a very wise move most likely informed by the volume of traffic experienced during the 2008 election. Election followers could even search the political engagement map state by state for a detailed overview of what was happening where, a brilliant way to facilitate engagement and keep people on Twitter.

In the case of Obama, voting turned into an active, engaged conversation between the candidate and voters while Mitt Romney’s Twitter feed reveals a surprising stream of automated tweets linking to his website. This was a huge missed opportunity to connect directly with voters and address questions, comments and concerns. Romney didn’t even issue a post-election tweet thanking supporters for their efforts while Obama set a new record with his. If social media is a conversation, Obama surely knew the rules of engagement and the power of authenticity. Coincidence that he won the election?

Twitter highlights of the U.S. 2012 presidential election included the photo tweeted from Barack Obama’s official account thanking voters for his re-election. The tweet became the most viral of all time with over 300,000 retweets in an hour. At the time of writing, the single tweet had received over 787,300 retweets and 279,962 “favourites”.

Obama’s re-election set another Twitter record with 327,000 tweets-per-minute (TPM), far surpassing the two previous records set by the Spice Girls’ reunion concert during the London 2012 Olympics with 116,000 TPM and Usain Bolt’s 100 meter gold medal at the same Olympics with 80,000 TPM.

Both candidates used Twitter to communicate their respective platforms, build relationships and garner support but not both of them used it to its fullest potential. Did you use Twitter to follow election coverage? What were some of your observations?

The post Obama FTW: Twitter’s Role in U.S. 2012 Presidential Election appeared first on engageQ digital.

When crisis or emergency strikes, people flock to social channels to share news, information, seek assistance and their personal experiences with each other. While this is a boon for mass communication, it can also spell disaster in more ways than one.

Here are three good lessons Hurricane Sandy taught us about social media and its power:

1. A Photo Says a Thousand Words

We respond strongly to pictures — especially impactful ones that resonate with us on a personal level. Hurricane Sandy provided further evidence of this fact with thousands of images flooding social channels from those in affected areas, providing a staggering real-time play-by-play of events being witnessed firsthand.

As of yesterday, more than 300,000 photos hashtagged #sandy were posted to Instagram; more than 183,000 bore the hashtag #hurricanesandy and 27,500 plus for #frankenstorm. This works out to about 10 images per second with the hashtag #sandy – nothing to sneeze at.

When in doubt, say it with a picture. Increase engagement, communicate key messaging quickly and effectively and create a more lasting impression by incorporating graphics whenever possible.

2. Don’t Believe Everything You See: Set the Story Straight

While gales of wind and stormy downpour walloped the east coast, the rumours and fake Sandy-related imagery began to swirl. Random stories and fabrications began spreading across Twitter and other platforms, gaining momentum due to retweets and the speed of information (or misinformation) online. Even huge media outlets like CNN and Reuters made the gaffe of reporting rumoured information before verifying their sources — a reminder that just because someone says it doesn’t mean it’s true! Reminds you of what mom used to say, right?

Thankfully, those in charge of official corporate and public service channels were quick to quell false information and deliver the facts to a concerned public. Make sure you stay on top of an unfolding emergency or crisis situation; this is hardly the time to abandon your channels and bury one’s head in the proverbial sand. Take the opportunity to address rumours and provide as much accurate information as you can. If you don’t know the answers, use proactive language: we are working to resolve the issue; we are focusing efforts on finding out, etc. As long as people know you’re “on it”, chances are they won’t be so unforgiving.

3. Social Media Moves Fast. Real Fast.

The Internet doesn’t sleep. Social media geeks, tech junkies and stormwatchers alike were riveted by the huge volume of tweets and posts related to the emergency as it unfolded. Digital Trends reports hundreds of thousands of tweets were posted during the storm, peaking at around 10 pm ET at 400,000 Sandy tweets in an hour.

In the midst of the mayhem, a Hurricane Sandy parody account (@AHurricaneSandy) sprouted up, garnering an insane 238,666 followers with just a mere 320 tweets. The snapshot below was taken the night of the storm.

American Apparel is now facing a “hatestorm” after their questionable decision to throw a “Hurricane Sandy Sale” and are currently embroiled in a bit of a PR crisis. What’s really interesting about this is the speed of American Apparel’s decision to leverage an emergency and capitalize on it by shockingly quick execution.

These examples serve as testament to the truly instantaneous immediacy social media can provide. It’s our choice whether to use it or abuse it.

What were your observations regarding how Hurricane Sandy coverage played out via social networks?

The post When it Rains, It Pours: 3 Social Media Lessons from Hurricane Sandy appeared first on engageQ digital.

Engagement is not just about getting people to simply respond and interact with your posts; it’s about connecting through shared values and bringing something to the table. Relationships on and offline are transactional — both parties want to feel like they are getting something out of them.

How do you get more mileage out of your interactions? What do you have to do to remain in-step with your audience? It might be time to consider an online poll or survey — here’s the difference between the two.

Make your conversations more meaningful when drafting a customer poll or survey by keeping the following in mind:

1. What’s important to your clients and customers?
Your aim is to find out what actually matters to them, not just what you think matters or what should matter. Monitor conversations that are already happening. What matters to you personally might not even be on your customer’s radar. There may be a huge difference between what you care about and what your customers care about. Pay attention to your target audience, what they are looking for and what their day-to-day lives consist of. Depending on the products or services you offer, this can mean very different things.

Do people come to you seeking guidance and support in a certain niche area? Are they trying to save money? Are they family-oriented? All these factors and more are important when creating content that will help form deeper relationships with your clients and customers and keep them coming back. Ask specific questions about what they find valuable and what they don’t.

2. Where do they go online?
The other sites and networks your audience frequents and engage with speak volumes about who they are, their lifestyle, and what they hope to get out of their relationship with you. Ask them where they spend their time online. People are increasingly accessing content via mobile device, so make sure your poll or survey is smartphone-friendly.

Understanding your target in a more holistic way rather than just demographically paints a much more candid portrait of your audience and will deepen your understanding of their wants and needs. Consider incentivizing participation — what is going to be worth your customer’s time? Make it beneficial and rewarding for them to share their thoughts. Offering some form of discount on services or products for participation or rewarding them with exclusive content sweetens the deal for people.

3. Speak their language
Your survey needs to be in step with your online presence. We all know words are powerful so choose yours carefully. Tone and manner are the secret sauce of consistently creating contagious engagement with your audience. Are you authoritative? Are you jovial? Are you carefree or slightly more serious? Knowing your brand and clearly communicating your values through the questions you ask and the way you ask them is key to building an authentic presence online and making your poll or survey feel genuine.

These are some of the main things to consider when thinking about how to strengthen relationships with your target audience and online community through polls or surveys. What have you done to learn more about what your customers and clients want from you?

The post Survey Secrets: Three Keys to Soliciting Customer Feedback appeared first on engageQ digital.