BLOG

It could be shallow, or it could be successful. Coordinating a charitable campaign for social good can both soften and buoy your business’s public image and also aid your cause, creating a win-win situation for everyone. Here are some tips for launching the perfect social good campaign through your business.

Tip #1: Don’t just build up the company image; build up the people who support your campaign.

In a recent campaign in Portugal, Coca Cola had various individuals drop wallets in a Benfica club store (Benfica is the major soccer team based in Portugal). Inside these wallets was a much-coveted game-ticket. The people who discovered and returned the wallets with the ticket still in them were rewarded by Coca Cola with a game-day ticket and shown on the big screen at the game. Truly you can’t help but be inspired by this feel-good campaign,† and it also reinforces Coca Cola’s image without placing an over-the-top emphasis on the brand. While the average business can’t necessarily coordinate a campaign on this scale, it is still a great example of a feel-good message that builds up not just the company, but individuals as well.

Tip #2: Consider a crowdsourcing technique.

Walmart ran a social media campaign in December‡ asking Facebook users to nominate their favorite non-profit organization for a share of $1.5 million in holiday grants. By allowing individuals to nominate their favorite nonprofits, Walmart gave many little-known causes the chance for some public exposure, even if they didn’t obtain a grant. This sort of crowdsourcing technique empowered Walmart’s fans and Walmart through social good.

Tip #3: Help your fans develop a positive, new habit.

If you are a company that offers a service, such as life-coaching, physical training or something else health-related, use your social media outlets and website to promote good habits. You could encourage fans to check in when they have met a dietary or exercise goal or connect them in a mutually supportive social group.

Tip #4: Offer a green or other socially responsible product.

While this tip may be difficult to put into action, taking the time to develop a socially responsible product or work space is not just good for a few sales and press releases, but is a genuine method of taking responsibility for every aspect of your business. For example, Procter and Gamble has developed a product called Tide Coldwater.§ A laundry detergent that works with cold water, Tide Coldwater can save consumers almost 80 percent of the energy used on a load of wash. In our current economic recession, how is this not a win-win situation?

Tip #5: Donate company time, products or pro-bono work.

Blizzard, a developer and publisher of gaming software, is selling off retired server blades* that are etched with the World of Warcraft logo and the realm they hosted. Since World of Warcraft is such a popular game, Blizzard hopes its fans will buy the server blades as memorabilia and is donating 100 percent of the profits to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This campaign is a great example of both recycling old materials and donating these company resources to a nonprofit.

Each of these tips and examples of social good campaigns show great techniques that will benefit not just your company or business image, but also their participants. Reaching out, as a company, to the community is always a win-win situation for both the company and the cause you aid. Just make sure you create a genuine campaign, and use the resources at your disposal well.

To discover more ideas on how to make your business stand out, see LIME Marketing’s previous posts about marketing strategy.

† http://www.simplyzesty.com/advertising-and-marketing/brilliant-coca-cola-campaign-rewards-honest-football-fans/
‡ http://socialmediainfluence.com/2011/11/16/social-sustainability-walmart-engages-facebook-users-in-the-spirit-of-giving/
§ http://www.tide.com/en-US/article/coldwater-deep-clean.jspx
* http://mashable.com/2012/01/26/wow-servers-charity/

Known as one of the biggest online video competitions for filmmakers, Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl Ad Contest had 6,100 entries this year for a $1 million dollar prize. Even knowing their chances were slim, the LIME Marketing, in-house video and film crew decided to enter not just one, but two short spots (The Little Zombie Chase and Skyler’s Run).

The Contest

Doritos provided the following guidelines for contestants:

• Create and submit a 30-second spot featuring Doritos brand tortilla chips.
• Make it action-packed.
• Make it funny.
• Make it something you’ve never seen before.
• Just make it awesome.

Each entry was judged on originality and creativity, adherence to creative assignment, and overall appeal.

When asked just how they decided on the plot-lines for their entries, the team—Ben, Davi, and the two Dans—said they had zombies on the brain. “It’s definitely a popular theme this year (Dan 1).” And Ben added, “we just thought that boy scouts turning out to be scarier than zombies was funny.”

This was the film team’s first time entering the competition, and they thoroughly enjoyed the challenge. Crash the Super Bowl accepts not just amateur entries but also entries by companies large or small making it a perfect chance for LIME to show off it’s video department.

Production Highlights

As far as the highlights of the experience go, Ben, department manager, said: “Production is always a lot of fun. You see the talent at their best. We got to work with both break dancers and actors. In the end the biggest reward is seeing all your hard work pay off.” Davi agreed, and added: “You always learn things, especially working with production in a group.”

Film production also included work by makeup artist Russ Adams who did eight plus hours of work for the prosthetic zombie makeup: four hours on set and at least four hours preparation (sculpting and mold making). The editing process took approximately one week (40–60 hours) to produce the 26 seconds of commercial to which was added the four-second Doritos logo (as provided by the brand).

Check out more of LIME’s great video projects on the LIME Marketing Vimeo channel. Also view a profile of LIME’s videography department: A Taste of LIME’s Video Talent. LIME’s videography team produces first-rate work, the latest of which includes a TV spot for Shirley J, Whisk Bliss.

Sports-related apps are a huge part of today’s sports fan’s life. In the same way that fans now socialize about their favorite shows on apps like Get Glue or Twitter, sports fans have, of course, their own team-related apps. Since, here at LIME, we enjoy reviewing apps made in or related to Utah, we had to take a look at the new Utah Jazz app (released Jan. 5, 2012), compare it with the Utah Grizzlies app and write a state of the state of Utah sports-apps report.

Features

First, we took a poll to see what users think is the most important feature a sports app should have:

• Stats about players and tournaments
• Easy ticket-buying
• Video stream
• Articles and additional info about the team and players
• Air horn or other novelty feature
• Connections to other fans via Twitter and Facebook
• A gaming feature that lets users predict what plays will be used and what points scored while watching the game

The feature that received the most votes was the stats and statistics feature, but surely there is more to sports than analytics?

Comparison

So, for a more in-depth analysis, we asked three sports fans their opinions about the Utah Jazz and Utah Grizzlies’ apps. The Utah Jazz app received an overwhelmingly positive review on first impression by our sports fans. Alexis wrote: “I LOVE the design of the app, I think it looks really crisp and clean. Even though there are ads, they aren’t taking away from the overall feel of the app.” Matt said: “My initial take is that it has a pretty cool ‘home’ interface design with pretty straightforward options including live game scorecards (player stats during a game) and the scoreboard (the score and up-to-the-minute) plays.”

However, Matt R. did have this to add about the scorecards and scoreboard feature:

…the interface design of these two options is pretty weak. I use the ESPN Mobile App and it integrates player stats and up-to-the-minute scores together; it also has the top player info on the screen too. The interface design is more vertical, so it’s easy to scroll through info on the phone screen rather than across like the scorecard feature of the Jazz app.

Compared to the Utah Grizzlies app, though, the Utah Jazz app did brilliantly as the Utah Grizzlies app force quit on startup for sports fan Matt G. The app also has a clunkier user interface that is dominated by horizontal menus; there are no graphics nicely integrated into its home, news or team stats screen. The best feature the Utah Grizzlies app has is its store section, which has pictures of individual items next to a “Buy” button.

Other features included in the Jazz app are a listing of the team’s Jazz dancers (though Matt R. thought this was “cheesy and a waste of space.”), bios for the coaching staff, a collection of Jazz bear video clips and an air horn feature (my favorite!). And this brings up a question: if an app like this included a gamification feature where you predicted what play would be used and if it would score (like the app PrePlay), would that make the app more engaging? Or is it already packed with enough features?

Improvements

One feature that both apps could improve on is the ticket sales feature. When a user clicks on the “Buy” button, whether for tickets or merchandise, they are taken to the team’s website. This would work well except for the fact that the websites are not the mobile versions, but the full-size sites making it far more difficult to complete an order. Though mobile purchasing is still being standardized, if you, as an app maker, are including links to any websites outside of your app for purchasing transactions, they will be more successful if they match the format of the app: they are optimized to be viewed on a mobile screen.

Wrap-Up

To wrap it up, sports fan Alexis sums it up nicely:

The Utah Jazz have gone so far above and beyond in this app to make it essential for any real Jazz fan. I could see myself using it daily, which is hard to accomplish in the sports world because of the variety of ways you can find the same information…What makes this special is that it has a variety of uses (planning to go to a game, enroute to the game, following stats while at a game and finally reviewing info and highlights after a game).

Mobile app makers, hope you read that last bit, because apparently the Jazz app has it covered in the land of sports. Do you agree? What do you think would give any sports app an edge?

For a view of the event told via curated tweets, see Blogging for Business on Storify.

“Believe the bloggers!” —Kyle Snarr, Struck Axiom

Last Thursday’s (January 19) event was packed with attendees both frequent and new as well as sizzling content. The topic was blogging for business, and the speaker lineup included individuals from a broad variety of blogging and business backgrounds (disclosure: I did have the opportunity to sit on the Q&A panel, but I was not a presenter, so I should still be able to write a fair summary of events).

In all, the speakers covered two very different approaches to blogging throughout the evening:

1. Blogging as your own brand
2. Using blogs and blogging to support and communicate a business brand in a larger, overall strategy

Each of the presenters provided a wealth of information, and every speaker had vastly different professional responsibilities and experiences in regards to blogging for business. The following is a quick summary of the major points covered in the evening’s presentations.

Blogging and Strategy

“Who is your brand’s editor in chief?” —Kyle Snarr

Kyle Snarr, director of new business for Struck Axiom and first speaker, focused on discussing brand strategy of which blogging is a part. “Your brand strategy is your social strategy…” and ”…brand brings definition.” Any content created for elements of the brand strategy (like a blog), should follow these guidelines:

• Be original
• Focus on quality
• Serve up new information
• Optimize for mobile devices

He also suggested giving exclusive content to brand evangelists, such as bloggers, consider using video, which “is huge,” and target your audience: are they millennials?

Stand out fact: “Millennials are the next largest consumer group, and eighty-three percent of millennials sleep with their devices.”

Blogger as Brand

“Why don’t we create a conversation together?” Allison Czarnecki

Next to present was Allison Czarnecki, founder and blogger of Petit Elefant. She discussed her experience as a lifestyle blogger/brand working with large national and global brands, such as Aveda and Ghirardelli. As such, she partners with new brands every year acting as a brand evangelist for them to her own network. She reported that though ROI is difficult to estimate for this type of strategy, it does exist, and every year more money is set aside by these larger brands in their advertising budgets to pitch and work with bloggers, such as herself.

Finding Bloggers for Your Business

“To tell the whole story of your brand, blogging is an important part.” —Rachel Herrscher

Speaker number three was Rachael Herrscher, founder of TodaysMomma.com and co-founder of Evo Conference. Since TodaysMomma.com is a network of local/regional bloggers covering lifestyle topics for those areas, Rachel outlined what services bloggers like these can provide for a business and/or brand:

• Paid posts
• Posts
• Reviews/giveaways
• Advertising
• Brand evangelists
• Conferences and events
• Referral network
• Consulting

She also gave tips on how to pitch a blogger to write a post about your brand and/or business, which is distinctly different from pitching a traditional news source.

Blogger as Brand Evangelist

“Your customers have an information need.” —Ty Kiisel

The final speaker was in-house blogger and social outreach manager for AtTask and Forbes’ columnist, Ty Kiisel. Ty gave us his recipe for a successful blogger’s secret sauce:

• Share the information you have
• Never blog about the product

As a brand evangelist Ty also recommended that businesses not leave the company blog to the devices of the intern or company newbie. If you want credibility and good content, get someone with experience.

Q&A Panel

Following the presentations, all the speakers and two added experts, Joshua Steimle, CEO of MWI an online marketing firm, and I, (Jen Jenkins) social media manger, SEO and blogger for LIME, formed a Q&A panel. Joshua and I were there to represent blogging for business with the added twist of SEO experience. The questions submitted to the panel ranged from the discussion of blogging for large businesses—how should it be done—to the role of content curation and SEO in blogging (among many others).

As you can see, the amount of information presented was massive, and there were enough different presenters to appeal to a wide variety of professionals from various business sizes. Despite the length of this post I have covered hardly any of the material explored during the evening. This topic, blogging for business, could also easily be carried over into another event as blogging is a pivotal aspect of brand and marketing strategy.

If you have either takeaways from the event you would like to add or questions about blogging for business you need answers for, let us know and we will respond/relay/answer them as best we can. And don’t forget to check out the next Social Commerce Exchange, which will be March 22, 2012, subject: emerging platforms, such as Pinterest. Keep an eye on the Social Commerce Exchange website for more information, and come learn the most cutting-edge techniques and ideas in social commerce today.

“The cloud operates by providing a service simultaneously to millions of customers with very high availability (greater than 99 percent) and at low cost.”†

Though it has been around for awhile, cloud computing is a consistently trending technology topic lately. While the term cloud computing gives you a mental image of what it is, you can find a more in-depth analysis of it in this post.

1. What is it?

Cloud computing is a method of moving all computer-related storage tasks off of your computer. For example, all your documents, videos, pictures and other things you normally store on your desktop or device are moved to a server where you can access them at will via the internet without taking up memory on your computer. This service is offered through either subscription or pay-as-you-go billing.

The best metaphor for cloud computing is the electrical grid: we get our power from an outside source that can give us as much or as little as we need at any time. The expense of generating our own electricity from a unit inside our living space would be phenomenally more than relying on an outside grid. Plus we could have too much or too little for our needs at any time.†

2. Where is it?

As mentioned above, any data you move into the cloud is stored on a server. These server farms can be located anywhere in the world because of the improvements in hi-speed internet services, which is another reason why cloud computing has become far more prominent recently. Businesses that offer cloud computing services can also outsource them very inexpensively to offer lower costs to their subscribers.

3. How does it work?

Any software that you have installed on your computer, you will now be able to access via desktop apps. Good examples of these are Google apps (like Google docs) and Netflix, which streams all the content you watch from a cloud-based subscription service.‡

4. Why is it so great?

• You will never have to buy or update software again (this is done by the service provider).
• You can have automatic backup for all your files.
• You will not spend as much money on IT.
• You can access the info you store from anywhere in the world, including remote locations.
• You can share info, documents and the like with as many users as necessary (the service can replace company intranets).
• You can purchase as much or as little space and/or services as you need instead of set amounts that may be over or under your needs.

There are some disadvantages to this system, of course, including the fact that cloud computing is less affordable for small businesses. You are also dependent on network access, you must carefully negotiate ownership of your data and current services are not standardized. In spite of these things, however, it is still important for small business owners to understand cloud computing and how it is changing the future of the computer industry.

5. When would you want to use it? (And yes, small businesses can.)

If you run a larger business or manage huge amounts of data, cloud computing could be an excellent resource for you. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Starbucks and Citigroup currently use cloud computing services.† As a small or medium-sized business, you can take advantage of cloud-based services offered by Google and Amazon for data storage and sharing as well as online apps for various tasks.

Clearly, cloud computing provides several great services. The idea of access to as much or as little of every service that you could need at any given time incredibly optimizes our digital resources. As we look to the future of the digital industry, expect cloud computing to remain on the front lines.

† http://www.eei.org/magazine/Pages/ElectricPerspectivesArticle.aspx?Article=381
‡ http://www.bobyhermez.com/2011/10/the-growing-popularity-of-cloud-computing/#.TxhDuP58jUI.twitter

If you are interested in creating your own desktop apps, you can let us know on our contact page.

How long has it been since you heard the word curator? Are you picturing dusty museum exhibits and a tottering, myopic guide? Yeah, me neither. The new curators are more along the lines of editors and influencers a la Guy Kawasaki, picking, choosing and recommending bits of media from wherever they find them. This content curation is a trend that is moving from the edges of content marketing into the forefront and has been predicted in the last few years by thought leaders, such as Brian Solis.†

Ann Handley, chief content officer of Marketing Profs, has analyzed the content curation process as one in which the best content that can be found online is shared by the curator to a specific audience to offer them a greater number of resources. Specifically:

“This means a departure from the previous marketing model in which content develops around a product. Instead, content now develops around an experience.”‡

What This Means for Business

Business marketing, which has ventured into social media, content marketing and search engine marketing is now advancing to content curation, which combines the content generated in each of the marketing methods mentioned above. Mark O’Toole, managing director at the HB agency, wrote that content centers curated by businesses on their websites, “will drive search, service as educational portals and fill in gaps between earned media (media coverage), paid media (advertising) and Wikipedia.”§

This means that businesses don’t even necessarily have to create the content themselves, but must be aware of what content their audience is looking for and be able to properly attribute it to its creators. In this sense content curation is used by business marketers as currency, a currency that buys users and eventually brand advocates.

How You Can Use Content Curation Tools

Many content curation tools have been developed over the last year or two. These include platforms that are like digital newspapers Scoop.it and Paper.li, Storify, which allows users to organize tweets to tell a story and others like Pearltrees and Curated.by. For the most effective use of content curation methods, consider what audience you are targeting, and what format the audience might find most user-friendly.

Ways you can put these content curation tools to use for you.

Consider these five ideas of ways to use various content curation tools:

• Replace a newsletter with a digital paper, such as scoop.it or paper.li.
• Generate a daily, weekly or bi-weekly digital paper or story to use as content for your social channels.
• Use a service like Curata where professionals curate the content for your website.
• Use Pinterest to organize images and links in the promotion of design styles or products for your business.
• Post comprehensive lists, or direct users to them, of tools, reviews (such as app reviews; see this example of Utah app design and development reviews), definitions of industry terms and helpful websites.

As you can see, content curation is a part of content marketing and social media management strategy where the focus is guiding the user through an experience whether it be reviewing a digital paper with the most current articles centered around a topic or reading a story through a series of curated tweets. Becoming aware of the available tools and resources now will help you as a business understand their uses and importance in the evolving world of marketing.

† http://www.briansolis.com/2010/12/the-state-of-the-blogosphere-2010/
‡ http://www.cunamarketingcouncil.org/news/4537.html
§ http://www.boston.com/business/blogs/global-business-hub/2012/01/print_lives_and.html

The Future of eTextbooks and Educational Apps

One major trend and another major event might be merging later this month, and if they do, it will change education forever:

• During the 2011 holiday season, the use of downloaded apps overtook the use of mobile browsers;† and,
• Apple will be making a major announcement later this month, January 27, January 19, which, it is rumored, will be focused around the publishing industry—specifically the textbook publishing industry.‡

The speculation surrounding Apple’s event, which will surely include an announcement of some kind influencing Apple’s market and the technology industry, is focused around the publishing industry because of the event’s location in New York (publishing-industry central) and the rumor that Apple had been filming interviews with executives of textbook publishing companies. These speculations and the reference by Walter Isaacson in his book Steve Jobs about Jobs’s intentions to get involved in the textbook publishing business have added fuel to the fire:

“…Jobs had his sights set on textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. He believed it was an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction. He was also struck by the fact that many schools, for security reasons, don’t have lockers, so kids have to lug a heavy backpack around. “The iPad would solve that,” he said. His idea was to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple.”

A Partnership

A partnership between Apple and textbook publishers like Pearson Education would transform the eTextbook industry in the way that the iTunes store and the iPhone disrupted their respective industries. It would bring Apple one step closer to completing Jobs’ dream, the digital hub concept that he began pursuing with the launch of the iTunes store.

The heightened use of apps over mobile browsers during the holiday season is a trend that could be predictive of the future as well. Most likely, this increase happened because of the upward shift in mobile shopping that also occurred during the holidays. It would be logical, then, to guess that an agreement between Apple and the educational publishing industry would result in more apps containing textbooks and other educational material, and that the use of apps would increase even further in comparison to mobile browsers because of the availability of these educational apps.

Print to Digital to App

As far as the overlap of the textbook publishing industry and the app world to date, here are a few more interesting happenings:

• For the 2011/12 school year, each medical student at Yale University was given an iPad2 with an external wireless keyboard and all their course work uploaded.
• Harvard in turn is providing supporting apps for their medical students.*
• Earlier this year the app Inkling was released, which is “gently deconstructing the textbook and rebuilding it” for use on iPads in an interactive manner.§

From this list it’s clear that the world of textbooks is moving towards the digital textbook and/or app. For students, the advantages of the digital textbook include the ability to underline, highlight and otherwise mark important notes in their books (whether they own or rent the text, it will not be permanently affected), obtain textbooks less expensively and encounter a more interactive and engaging experience through them. This new order undoubtedly moves education forward.

And, back to the upcoming Apple event, whatever the outcome, the educational industry is ready for that disruptive makeover that is already transforming the rest of the twenty-first century.

† http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/mobile-app-downloading-surpasses-browser-use-20572/
‡ http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/03/apples-january-media-event-to-involve-digital-textbooks-and-education/
§ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/23/inkling-the-digital-textbook-breakthrough/
* http://www.imedicalapps.com/2011/08/yale-medical-school-ipad-harvard-medical-apps/

What were the highlights of 2011 for you both professionally and personally? For us 2011 brought a lot of change. We doubled in size, created and launched several apps, filmed a reality TV show, worked with a great local sports team, won some design awards, joined the local social commerce exchange and met a lot of cool people! So, to share a few highlights from our year with you, here is our best-of-LIME 2011 blog-posts list.

Case Study: Real Salt Lake, Soccer Is Now

These words describe an awesome client of ours: locally based, nationally ranked. This awesome case study describes one of our more notable marketing campaigns.

Me, A Biker? Of Course! Project Intern

Every company needs interns, but who films a reality TV show where candidates compete to be your intern? (Don’t worry, the contestants all got not just good experience but excellent recommendations as well.) Our prime candidate and first season winner, Kate, wrote a few posts for our blog about her experience.

A Taste of LIME’s Video Talent by Lauren

Among LIME’s departments is an awesome film team. These guys do everything from writing scripts to producing, editing and adding motion graphics to each and every video LIME produces. This blog post is an interview of two members of the team covering their thoughts on being filmmakers for LIME.

5 Things Social TV Can Teach You About Business

This fall was the season of the second screen for TV. An overwhelming number of people now surf the web or do other related things on their tablets or smartphones while they watch TV. So, for the fall TV season numerous companies launched apps to compliment their TV programming and to follow the social chatter. This post covers takeaways the business professional can get from the social TV trend.

Viral Is So 2005 and Other Notes From November’s Social Commerce Exchange

The Social Commerce Exchange is a local organization that sprang up this fall. Since we love social and we are huge believers in using social to compliment commerce, we were immensely interested in checking it out. At the November meeting we heard from companies like Zagg and Orabrush, both of which have used social media as driving factors for their business models. However, you have to be careful what content you use and what reaction you expect ‘cause: “Viral is so 2005.”

The Goal of Google+ Ripples: Experimental Social Data for Marketers

As a walking, talking, breathing individual, we would be shocked if you haven’t heard of Google+ after it’s launch this year. And then there was the wait for brand profiles. Fortunately, the wait is over, and you can visit LIME’s very own Google+ profile. This post explores the analytics feature of Google+: Ripples, and it includes some surprising information about Google’s view of the state of marketing today.

We hope you enjoyed our 2011 round up. And, in case we didn’t say it already, have a happy holiday!

Pantone has released their color of year 2012: tangerine tango, Pantone 17-1463 (so you get the right shade). They describe it as “the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.” That’s quite an optimistic viewpoint and a fantastic motivation for business owners, whether you actually use the shade anywhere or not.

Besides this design declaration, here are seven other marketing trends we predict will define 2012:

1. Bottoms-Up: Customers First

As trendwatching.com reported, 2012 is the year of the red carpet where customers will be showered by perks from the businesses they interact with. Also, consumers will reward brands that show more humanity owning up to mistakes and engaging in a two-way conversation with their customers rather than the traditional one-way monologue from the business spokesperson.

Takeaway: Your brand must rethink their sales, service and marketing strategies.

2. Continued Rise of the Mobile

We’ve explored a great many reasons your business should be thinking about mobile in our previous post: Is Your Business Marketing On The Move? If Not You Better Get Mobile. We should also note here, however, that technology will be pushing mobile one step further into a cash-less ecosystem of payment via that mobile tech.

Takeaway: Get a mobile website for your business and look into other mobile marketing methods.

3. Gamification of Marketing Campaigns

Can you share, get points or unlock badges for it? These and other gamification aspects are the new motivators for customers who are increasingly engaged by interactive campaigns and purchasing models. Zynga is the go-to model for gamification ideas.

Takeaway: Study business models that include gamification, such as Getglue and Foursquare, and consider how these techniques could be applied to your business campaigns.

4. Social Business

Consumers will look to their social networks first to find out information about products and services. More tools for the measurement of social analytics will be released, and brands must use these tools to better understand their consumers. These insights will lead to the establishment of better connections with customers of all income levels.

Takeaway: Are you on the social networks? Do you know what is being said about your business? Get your social savvy on.

5. Mass Customization

Individuals are choosing their own content on their own terms. They will use technology even more to customize products for themselves and to manage their health and lifestyles. Consumers will also participate in surveys and campaigns as well to offer their own in-put about the direction that businesses take and the products they offer.

Takeaway: Reconsider your products and/or services. What level of customization do they offer? And what can you do to ensure more customized engagement with your clientele?

6. Channel Experimentation

Businesses like retailers will continue to experiment with their format, such as incorporating food trucks, pop-up stores and flash sales. Marketers and social strategists will see what kind of analytics they can collect through their various platforms and what sorts of content generate sales. Competition will encourage businesses to push the boundaries when it comes to promotions and campaigns.

Takeaway: As a business you must think outside the box. Now is the time to embrace new and innovative ideas.

7. Businesses Score Through Co-Promotion

Your business will do best to cultivate the co-promotion model. It’s social business on a business to business level where customers and clients will be influenced by recommendations and referrals.

Takeaway: Begin growing your network now, and support surrounding businesses to encourage overall community success.

Though the challenges to business in 2012 will be daunting, the progressive business will take social objectives mainstream and tie them to their overall business objectives. Engagement will be defined not by facilitated conversation, but the consumer’s overall takeaway value and the actions that result.

Utah ski fanatics brought out their gear early this season when the snow started falling in October. And, as the cliche phrase goes, there’s an app for that. Besides maps, directions and weather reports, however, what else could skiers possibly want in an app? Lots of things it turns out. The perfect app for a ski fanatic can record stats about their ski routes, lift statuses and even geotag their position on the mountain so they can later watch a satellite replay of their run.

But who, besides the skiing obsessed, care about this enough to make an app? It turns out that ski apps are made by six different industries or kinds of people:

1. Ski resorts or outdoor retailers
2. State tourist departments
3. Map makers
4. News stations or reporters
5. Performance fiends gathering statistics
6. Brands showcasing a lifestyle

Each different app-maker develops their app with a focus on how they think their audience will use the app. For example, Skullcandy, an ecommerce company specializing in headphones, has built an app around the lifestyle and culture it embraces in its branding: the laid-back hipster who loves any sort of boarding, skiing or otherwise. The Skullcandy app has a feature focusing on weather reports and maps for skiers and snowboarders alongside music, TV channels, surfing, skating and shopping features.

Ski apps by ski resorts or news/weather stations, on the other hand, tend to focus on a particular location and delivering up-to-the minute news, such as new snow fall, snow depth, number of lifts open, views through close-by webcams and local deals. The most interesting apps by far, though, are those that also include statistical features to record the distance the skier/boarder travels, how fast they go, the angle of the slope, the number of runs along with averages, highs and lows and any other relevant stats. Some of these apps can even be used off season while hiking or mountaineering.

To find apps that local ski hounds like, we asked around and also checked out those with the best reviews. Here is our list of some of the best offering several different features:

Geo-Lives allows you to record your own ski trail, see the average speed and distance you traveled in real time and then add points of interest like pictures and notes along the route. Then you can share it online for friends and family to see.

iTrailMap 3D lets you see the trail you skied on Google earth in 3D along with guides to various resorts.

Mammut Safety is all about avalanche detection. It assesses local avalanche risk using a clinometer to estimate slope angle and a compass to determine slope exposition.

Ski Tips is a ski-instruction app with video, text and audio. The app-makers wanted a skier to be able to listen to an audio loop while skiing after watching the instructional video to make it easier for the learner to remember the instructions.

Ski Tracks GPS records various stats and can geotag your runs allowing 3D playback later on Google earth.

These, of course, are just a few of the many available. We would love to hear about any of your favorite apps as well. What do you think is the most important feature for a ski app?

And if you have time, check out Snow Alert, a ski and snow report app we worked on. With it you can set alarms for your favorite snow conditions and never miss a good day on the slopes. Also, learn more about different apps genres and features in some of our previous posts including other Utah designed and developed apps.